Copyright

Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect privacy.

HarperElement

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperElement 2020

FIRST EDITION

© Jade Kelly and Douglas Wright 2020

Cover design Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover photographs © Nelly Yotova/Arcangel Images (girl, posed by a model); Silke Kemmer/Arcangel Images (background)

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Jade Kelly and Douglas Wight assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Source ISBN: 9780008388959

Ebook Edition © June 2020 ISBN: 9780008388966

Version: 2020-06-05

Dedication

‘Take me back to where the sky and sea collide,

where I knew in that moment we were infinite’

Contents

1  Cover

2  Title Page

3  Copyright

4  Dedication

5  Contents

6  Prologue

7  Chapter 1

8 Chapter 2

9 Chapter 3

10 Chapter 4

11 Chapter 5

12  Chapter 6

13  Chapter 7

14  Chapter 8

15  Chapter 9

16  Chapter 10

17  Chapter 11

18  Chapter 12

19  Chapter 13

20  Chapter 14

21  Chapter 15

22  Chapter 16

23  Chapter 17

24  Chapter 18

25  Chapter 19

26  Chapter 20

27  Chapter 21

28  Chapter 22

29  Chapter 23

30  Chapter 24

31  Epilogue

32  Acknowledgements

33  Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

34  About the Publisher

LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

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Prologue

‘Ssh!’

‘What?’

‘I think I can hear something.’

‘You’re imagining it.’

‘I said, “Shh.” I can’t hear over you two talking.’

I cocked my ear towards the door. There was sometimes a telltale sign – the squeak of the living-room door hinge, the creak of the bottom stair, a squelch of a leather boot that might give some indication that she was approaching. If we all heard it at the same time we’d each be under the duvet without anyone having to sound the warning. It offered little to no protection, of course, but nevertheless we’d try to cover the most vulnerable parts of our bodies, the areas she always went for – the hair, stomach, legs. If one of us clocked something there might only be time to sound the alarm and duck for cover, leaving the others to fend for themselves. Not being quick enough to get under the duvet could be fatal. As would being caught sitting up or, worse, out of bed. Even being caught before you could feign sleep, just lying there with one eye open, meant punishment. Who was I kidding? Like she needed an excuse. When someone metes out beatings for fun they’ll come up with any reason to satisfy their lust.

We’d been silent for nearly a minute. Still nothing.

Just because I hadn’t heard another sound meant little. She could still be waiting right outside the door, ready to pounce. She’d been known to wait several minutes just to catch us out. Tonight was a tricky one, though. She had guests in – her older children – who didn’t know anything of what went on upstairs, just like Terry, her ever-trusting hubby. They’d never believe what she got up to. Not that sweet old lady. The one who wanted us to call her Granny. She wasn’t capable of anything like that. They’d be like everyone else who didn’t believe us. ‘Nasty girls,’ they’d think. ‘Say anything for a bit of attention, they will. After all we do for the little wretches.’

But just because she was entertaining didn’t mean she’d take her eye off the ball. There were no nights off. No respite. No easy rides in the Bad Room.

‘Well?’ Sara said. She always found it hardest to keep quiet. That was my fault. I’d brought her out of her shell a little. Before I was condemned to the Bad Room she was a little church mouse. She wasn’t much older than me but you’d never tell from looking at us. Such a skinny thing, like her big sister, Arlene. Now she was a funny one; given how old she was – two years older than Sara – and that she towered over everyone in his house, including her sister, you’d think she might put up more of a fight. But she was like the dogs you saw on those animal cruelty adverts on TV, the ones with the haunted eyes that gave a glimpse of the terror they’d faced.

‘Maybe nothing,’ I said. I’d been in this place so long my mind played tricks on me.

‘As I was saying,’ Sara went on from where she was sitting on the top bunk above me, her bare legs swinging down, atop a duvet that was half pulled back for ease of entry. ‘If this goes on we’ll have to steal food from school tomorrow.’

‘Me steal, more like,’ I said, recalling the last time I’d swiped some muffins when we’d gone without food for a day. The mention of food brought on a pang of nausea, the memories of sweet choc-chip muffins made my mouth water. Today hadn’t been too bad; we’d actually had breakfast. Nothing for lunch and she had played her game with dinner again; leaving a ham sandwich – if you could call it that – at the bottom of the stairs but neglecting to call us to get it, then making a big deal of punishing us for being ungrateful. ‘If you lot don’t want your dinner, that suits me fine. You can starve.’

Boy, did we starve. I couldn’t tell you how much my stomach had shrunk since I’d moved here but it still hurt to go without. Gulping mouthfuls of water from the bathroom tap wasn’t the same. Even if the sandwich was one sliver of wafer-thin ham on two tea biscuits it was like a royal banquet to us.

‘I could steal too, you know.’ Sara’s soft voice came from above. I could picture her indignant frown. The legs stopped swinging.

‘Yeah, right. You’d brick yourself.’ I liked taking the mick out of her but the truth was I didn’t want her to get into trouble. If I got caught it would only be me getting the flak. Like last time. I wouldn’t want Sara to go through what I did when I got home and she had been waiting for me.

‘Bloody could you know,’ Sara had raised her voice above the acceptable level. I caught Arlene’s eye. She knew we were taking a big risk talking this loudly. Sara carried on regardless: ‘I’d bring back food for all …’

CRASH!

The door swung open so violently I thought it would break off its hinges.

Oh hell!

‘Who’s talking?!’

For a small lady she sure filled the doorway. I only caught a glimpse of black – the knee-high boots and that hair – before I dived undercover.

‘You!’

Even under the duvet, my eyes were tight shut. I heard the scream over the smack on flesh. Sara. She’d never have made it under in time. Another scream, the shaking of the bunk beds, a yelp and a bang and scream combined. I didn’t need to be watching to tell the nature of the violence. I knew well enough by the reaction. A slap to the thigh, a fistful of hair and a wrench that would have hauled Sara off her bunk down onto the floor. Definitely a sore one.

‘I’ll ask again. Who was talking?’

Don’t say a word, Sara. Don’t say a word. There was strength in numbers. We had to stick together. Pitting us against each other was the way she wanted it. I could hear whimpering. I imagined Sara’s lip quivering. Another slap. The yell.

‘You!’ The sound of another smack on cotton. Most likely Arlene this time. Maybe a boot to her stomach or back, depending on how she was lying.

‘So it’s like that, is it?’

I pulled the duvet a little tighter around my head. My whole body was rigid. Sara was still whimpering, probably on the floor where she fell.

‘I’ve told you to be quiet. Do you think I was born yesterday?’

Apart from the whimpering there was silence. Good girl, Sara.

‘This isn’t over.’

A shuffle towards the door, a pause, and then the door quietly closed shut.

It was done, for now. By her standards that was light. Perhaps it was a warning – just because she had family round we shouldn’t think she wasn’t still monitoring us.

I peeked out in time to see Sara, her face stained with tears, climbing unsteadily back to the top bunk.

‘You okay?’ I whispered.

She nodded. She’d done well. Months ago she would have blabbed, dobbed me in, even if it wasn’t me doing the talking. But we’d turned a corner. They were all right really, these two. Not like it had been when I first came to the house. Back then I thought them weird. Sitting on the floor in their room with their nightdresses on, even though it was four o’clock in the afternoon. What was that all about? Not saying a word, at opposite ends of the room, either playing with a little bit of Lego or drawing shapes in a notepad. Other times when I went in – quickly, mind you, just to get some clothes out of the wardrobe – they’d be in bed. No wonder they were so pasty white.

‘Thank God I’m not in there,’ I’d thought at the time.

Back then, in 2001, I was only ten. I didn’t know many things. But I knew you did not want to go in that room. You did not want to be a child in that room.

It was a Bad Room.

Then, without warning, I was in it too.

And I realised that I didn’t have a clue. Life inside the Bad Room was way worse than even I had imagined. I needed to draw on all my strength just to get through every spirit-sapping day. I had to use all my wiles to survive.

Luckily, I had years of practice in that matter.

Violence, persecution and neglect were pretty much all I knew.

Chapter 1

Most children, I imagine, when they look back on their early childhood might remember a birthday party, a special Christmas or a fun-filled family holiday. Thinking back might conjure memories of Mum’s warm cuddles, playing games with Dad and getting up to mischief with siblings.

I have tried to avoid delving too deeply into my childhood, because when I do it’s not the fun times I focus on, as these were few and far between. Mostly I remember the violence, the neglect and the times spent living in fear. Then there are the feelings of wanting to be as far away as possible from my mum.

I was born in 1988 to Mandy Gallagher and James Matthews, two teenage sweethearts from a town in Greater Manchester who were far too young to be parents. Mum was only 17 and Dad just two years older. I have only the faintest recollections of them being together, as they split when I was 18 months old. It was like there was a brief moment when he was there and we were all together, then he wasn’t and I had to go to a different house to see him.

If it was tough enough for two teenagers to adjust to being parents so young, they had the added torment of having to deal with the loss of a baby. That’s because I was a twin. My sibling didn’t make it. Mum didn’t know she was expecting more than one. When she suffered a miscarriage, they were devastated. They hadn’t detected me at the time. It was only when she went into hospital to get checked out that they told her, ‘There’s another one here.’

They had found a new heartbeat – mine.

For any young woman it would have been quite an ordeal, but she was still a child herself and had to deal with that loss and the turmoil of emotions it caused her. What made it doubly difficult for Mum was that there was no support from her own parents.

Mum had never known her own father. Her mother was originally from Ireland and when she fell pregnant it might as well have been to a man with no name. Mum had two brothers and a sister and their father was never spoken about. What made things even worse was that she endured a toxic relationship with her mum, my grandma.

Mum doted on her mum, craved her love and approval. Every piece of jewellery that my grandma had was from my mum. She spoiled her. Over the years she gave her new pieces each birthday, Mother’s Day and Christmas, kitted out her whole house with stuff, but still my grandma seemed to favour the other children over her. Nothing she ever did was good enough. I know this, because she told me constantly, like she told me about my tragic twin. Mum had a habit of sharing this type of detail. She almost forgot that I was the child and spoke to me as an adult; she didn’t treat me like a normal mum should. Sometimes I felt she didn’t love me or that she wished my twin had survived. After all, she wasn’t even aware I existed until she went to the hospital with complications. She’d had to overcome feelings of despair and then had to deal with being told there was another heartbeat. Perhaps she didn’t bond with me properly, felt disconnected, and that affected our whole future relationship? We had conversations about stuff and I heard things that a child should never have heard. For instance, she told me that one time when she and her mother were arguing, Grandma held a razorblade to my mum’s eyes. After that, Mum couldn’t stand anything being held near her face.

Despite their volatile relationship, Grandma lived nearby and was always at our house. Four or five times a week we saw her. It was constant.

In contrast, my dad’s side of the family was fantastic. He was a painter-decorator and worked hard. My grandad was called Richard and he ran a few convenience stores. In the early years after Mum and Dad split, Dad would pick me up every week and take me to one of the shops. I helped Grandad by putting the sweets out on the shelves, or he let me go behind the till and play shops for real. He had broken up with Dad’s real mum when he was young as well and he lived with his wife, Heather. I never knew her as Grandma because Dad took me to visit his mum as well. She was my other Grandma. Dad had met a new woman shortly after splitting from my mum and they would take me out and make a fuss of me. They were a nice family.

My mum had two older brothers, William and Andrew. William lived locally and we saw a fair bit of him, but Andrew had left home at a young age and wasn’t in our lives. Mum’s younger sister was my Auntie Marie. She was the fun one, always hanging around our house and wanting to have a laugh. She couldn’t have been prouder to be an auntie and always wanted to take me out in the pram or pushchair to show her friends. She was full of mischief. If Marie took me out on the bus she’d lead me to the back seat, and as Mum waved us off Marie would say things like, ‘Stick your finger up at her.’

When we got home Mum would be furious and tell her off, but Marie just laughed. She once turned up with thirteen kittens she’d rescued from somewhere. They were so cute. I wanted to keep them all. Mum went ballistic, though, and said there was no way we were keeping all those cats. We had to give them all away.

At night sometimes, after she’d played with me all day, Marie climbed into bed with me. I loved it when she was around.

There were some nice qualities that Mum shared with her sister. Mum was house-proud and I remember our home was filled with photos, some professionally taken. She was a talented artist, too, and she sketched famous faces with ease. When it was my birthday she threw a party in McDonald’s and there were other times when she liked to surprise me in the morning by laying a Kinder chocolate egg with the toys inside next to my bed. I was into the little porcelain green frogs that were popular at the time and I remember collecting them for my grandma’s kitchen worktop.

So, even though Mum and Dad were not together, it wasn’t all bad.

The trouble was, Mum never got over my dad leaving her, so there was always an atmosphere between them. I was a daddy’s girl when I was little and I loved it when he came to pick me up. He had a lovely house and even at a young age I felt he had a better set-up than Mum. And when I went to Dad’s I was always playing, going shopping, getting treats. That’s often just how it is when two parents split up. Sometimes I couldn’t help myself and would come home from a visit announcing that I wanted to go and live with him.

Mum was, perhaps understandably, bitter and jealous. Whenever I came back she interrogated me. ‘What is his new woman like, what’s the house like, what did they say about me?’

She was always very anxious, there was always an issue, always something she was kicking off about. That created a negative atmosphere and for as long as I can remember I could sense it was toxic.

Home for Mum and I was, for the most part, a first-floor council flat in an estate that’s been much maligned in the media since it was built in the seventies. It’s been called a ‘welfare ghetto’ because of the higher-than-average number of people living there on benefits.

Mum might have been one of the people trying to get by on benefits but to us it was home for a number of years. Our entire world was close at hand. Grandma lived on the next street; she ran a pub up the road, where Mum sometimes helped out. My Auntie Marie wasn’t far away.

After my dad left, that was our set-up. I lived with Mum and got to see him at weekends. If the situation had remained like that maybe things would have been all right. But things rarely do stay the same.

Aside from these early details, I can’t really remember any other significant good times with my mum. I don’t know if I’ve blocked them out. I have memories of her being in a good mood, when there would be new clothes and presents, but I can’t remember a load of affection.

Much of this was because by the time I was three Mum got involved with a new boyfriend. Paul Harries was 6ft 4in tall with a thick, dark moustache. From the moment he appeared on the scene he had an intimidating presence. Everyone wanted to please him because they were scared of him. They wanted to stay on his good side.

Everyone, except my mum, could see he was toxic. He was possessive and controlling but she worshipped the ground he walked on. What I didn’t know at the time was that he was one of the town’s biggest drug dealers.

I knew enough to know he was trouble, though. They might have loved each other, but when Mum and Paul kicked off it was chaos. And they kicked off a lot.

That’s when the trouble started with my mum. Mentally, she began to fall apart.

And when the trouble started, I was caught in the middle of it all.

Chapter 2

‘Come on,’ Paul said, when he was looking after me one day, ‘we’re going to a friend’s house.’

When we got there he left me to play with the other children while he and the two adults huddled in the kitchen around the cooker. I could see spoons, tin foil and little bags of sand. I might only have been four, and just a little child, but I observed everything and absorbed what was happening. I spent nearly all of my time around adults and I knew enough about their behaviour, the noises they made and the way they spoke to know when they were doing something wrong. Mum openly spoke about drugs and how much she was against Paul taking them. I saw one of the men hand Paul a bag of the sand. Was that the drugs she had been going on about?

We were in the house for quite a while. All the time I was playing with the other kids I kept an eye on Paul to see what he was up to. On the way home we stopped off at a shop and he bought me a teddy bear and an ice-lolly.

‘If your mum asks us where we went, just say we went to my friend’s and then to the park, okay?’ he said, patting me on the head.

I nodded.

Later on when I was alone with my mum she sat me down and started firing questions at me.

‘Where were you today? What did you get up to?’

I did what Paul said and told her we went to the park, but it was like she didn’t believe me. She kept quizzing me over and over. Remembering what Paul said, I stayed quiet. Then she went in a mood with me. I hated it when she did that as all I wanted was for her to pay me attention and like me. The longer I kept quiet the angrier she became until she started yelling at me. I didn’t think I had a choice so I told her what I’d seen at the house.

‘Paul got some tiny bags of sand and I was not allowed to tell you.’

‘Is that right?’

That night when Paul came home they had an almighty row. In my room I could hear them screaming at each other and the sounds of objects being thrown. When they had one of their arguments you did not want to be in the firing line. In the morning not a lot was being said between them. Paul got me ready to walk to the shops. On the way he held my hand.

‘Why did you tell your mum what we got up to yesterday when I told you not to?’ He spoke quietly but menacingly. He had my hand clasped between his thick fingers.

‘Mum kept asking what we’d done. She didn’t believe me.’

Paul began squeezing my fingers.

‘The next time I tell you not to do something you’d better not do it.’

I tried to pull my hand away but he was gripping it too firmly. It tightened even more.

‘Ow, you’re hurting me!’

My hand felt like it was being crushed. I started to cry and finally he released his grip. We carried on to the shops in silence, apart from my sniffs and sobs, and all the time I was terrified he would do something else to hurt me. From that day on crushing my hand became a regular punishment; as well as slaps to my legs that stung so hot even thinking about it today brings back the burning sensation. Often he’d hit me so hard an imprint of his hand would remain on my leg. The slaps came without warning and I lived in a state of fear that at any moment he might erupt and another one would be heading my way.

Mum then told me that Paul took and sold drugs. She explained that the sand I had seen was actually heroin and the spoons and foil were used to cook the drugs before they took them. It wasn’t the type of conversation a mum should be having with a four-year-old child, but she had no filter. At the time I didn’t fully understand what she was saying but I knew it was something I wasn’t to discuss with anyone else. At least Mum, to her credit, was very anti-drugs and most of their arguments were about whether he was still using.

I had always had the impression that Paul didn’t like me because I was James’s daughter, but after that incident he had a reason to dislike me even more. Even though he was cruel to me and he and Mum were constantly rowing, if anything, when he wasn’t around life was worse. Often he would leave, go AWOL, or Mum would throw him out. But then, whenever that happened, Mum missed him and cried a lot. It felt like she was angry all the time and took her fury out on me. She’d hit me for no reason, scream at me over the tiniest thing and I’d never know what would set her off next time.

It got so unbearable that I often begged Mum to take him back because the beatings and the shouting at me were horrible. Paul was always persistent and he would show up claiming to have cleaned up his act and promising to be better. Mum, because she loved him, took him back every time.

Whenever Paul moved back in life would be calm for a little while. We’d sit and watch television together like a normal family, have Sunday lunch. The only thing I noticed was that Grandma would never come round to the house while Paul was there. She didn’t like him at all. My dad didn’t like him either. I still saw Dad every week and on those days it was a welcome contrast to the chaos with my mum. He wasn’t happy leaving me at the mercy of Mum and her boyfriend but he was in a difficult situation, being in a new relationship and trying to keep contact with me.

Just when we were starting to think Paul had changed his ways, though, his old life came back with a vengeance.

Paul was in the house when there was a knock at the door down on the street below. We had a main door on ground level but all our rooms were up the stairs on the first floor. Mum looked out of the window.

A man called up: ‘Is Paul there?’

Mum looked to Paul, who shook his head.

‘He’s not here,’ Mum shouted down.

The man said something else but Mum couldn’t make out what. She went down to tell him she didn’t know when he’d be back. When she opened the door about twenty men carrying crowbars and other weapons barged past her. I was sitting at the top of the stairs and I screamed as they bulldozed their way up. They rushed into the flat and although Paul was hiding they found him instantly. From the noises coming from the bedroom they absolutely battered him. Mum ran up and I could hear her trying to pull them off her boyfriend, yelling at them to stop. I sat rooted to the spot, crying and shaking with fear, just wishing it would stop. Almost as fast as they arrived they were gone, piling down the stairs and into the street.

As the last man left, he turned to my mum, who was standing at the top of the stairs, and said: ‘Sorry, Mandy.’

Mum took Paul to hospital. He had wounds all over his body. I heard Mum say it was a drug gang, obviously unhappy at something he had done. They were here to teach him a lesson. Thankfully they didn’t hurt Mum. Paul’s injuries were so severe he was in hospital for days.

That incident seemed to be a wake-up call for Paul, because when he came home things calmed down for a bit. They had the occasional row but it wasn’t as bad as before. They actually seemed to be getting on, so much in fact that Mum told me that she and Paul were going to get married. Mum said it would be a chance for us to be a proper family. And as I was going to be her bridesmaid, it was an excuse to dress up. I could see in Mum’s face that she was really excited. She and my dad hadn’t married. She’d fallen pregnant after they’d been together for a year and having a baby had changed everything for them.

In the build-up to the big day, Mum showed me the pink dress she was going to wear. Despite all her problems, Mum was a beautiful woman, petite and curvy. She had dyed her natural fair hair black and styled it short and slick, like one of her idols, Lisa Stansfield. She even had the singer’s black beauty spot on her cheek. My dress was also pink and matched hers. Paul had a new suit for the occasion. It was funny seeing us all dressed up.

They tied the knot in the local registry office. My grandma wasn’t there, as she still couldn’t stand Paul, but Auntie Marie and Uncle William came, along with Paul’s brother and a couple of their friends.

It was all over quickly and when we came outside Marie threw confetti over us all. We went to a pub for a little celebration. It was a fun day. I don’t think I’d ever seen my mum look so happy. If this was a sign of things to come, I liked the fact they got married.

My name changed to Jade Harries. Maybe Mum was right. We could be a proper, normal family.

Mum shouted less and didn’t hit me as much and Paul didn’t feel the need to hurt me either. In quieter moments Mum showed me how to draw. She took her time to teach me how to draw eyes and explained the distance between them and the nose and mouth. For birthdays and Christmas all I wanted was art supplies. Dad used to take me to Woolworths and spend £30 on paper, pens, charcoal pencils and stationery, and I couldn’t wait to try them out. Mum could turn her hand to drawing anyone, like Elvis and Alanis Morissette, and her black-and-white sketches of the singers she really loved, like Madonna and Lisa Stansfield, were on display around the house. She loved listening to music and I got my taste from her. I was into Texas and Gabrielle and more mature artists rather than a lot of the young poppy stuff that most children of my age liked. For the first time it felt like we were forming a bond.

Paul even managed to get in Grandma’s good books. A film crew had turned up in our town to film an episode of A Touch of Frost, the drama series starring David Jason. They were looking for extras so Paul went along and landed a part as a policeman, ironically. When the episode aired we all sat down to watch it. It was funny seeing him on the small screen. Grandma was a huge fan of the programme so she was thrilled that she could go around telling people her son-in-law was in it. She was even happier when Paul used the money he got from it to paint her kitchen and kit it out with a new microwave and toaster. She softened her opinion of him, for a little while at least.

There were times when Paul did try to be a normal dad. He taught me to ride a bike that my real dad had got me. He also came home one day with a little Labrador puppy. Someone had rescued it and he thought I would like it. He was right. I loved it. We only had it for a week, though. I was out with it on my bike when it got caught under the wheels. It was yelping and although I tried to help it and it was okay, Mum wasn’t happy and took it as a sign we shouldn’t have a pet. We had to take it to the animal rescue centre. I was heartbroken. On the whole, though, we were getting on okay as a family.

But just when things were looking up, it all kicked off again – and this time it was worse than ever.

Chapter 3

‘Come on,’ Mum said. ‘Quickly, it’ll be fun. But you need to come now.’

Why was she whispering when we were the only people in the house? That’s what I didn’t understand. I followed her lead, though. She’d taken the quilt from my bed and laid it on the floor of the Wendy house in my room.

‘Come on. Now!’

I climbed in to find her curled on the floor. I lay down next to her and she wrapped an arm around me and pulled the quilt over.

‘Now stay quiet. Whatever happens. Not a sound, eh?’

I nodded and cuddled tightly into her. Although I was only four years old, it was so rare to have cuddle time with Mum I would gladly stay like this all night. Whatever game she was playing, it was a nice one.

Then I heard it. The noise from downstairs. Someone was entering the house. Mum moved her hand up to my mouth. I could feel my heart thumping as I heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps climbing the stairs. They could only belong to one person.

Paul had gone back to his old ways and when Mum found out he was back on drugs, she told him to leave. He hadn’t taken it well. He kept trying to get back into the house to convince her to take him back – and worse, we suspected he was stealing things.

Obviously Mum didn’t want to talk to him and didn’t want him to know she was even in the house. Was she scared what he might do? I became scared too. Now I knew what was happening. He was coming for us. And Mum did not want him to find us.

He was taking his time, pausing every couple of steps. I concentrated really hard on not making a sound. But the more I concentrated the more scared I was that something would come out. Could he hear me breathing? Could he hear my heart beating? I could feel Mum’s heart pounding against my back. Her breathing was quick, and in my ear it sounded like the wind blowing. Was it so loud he could hear?

He was at the top of the stairs now and I heard the creak of the kitchen door. There were a few steps and then I heard him entering the living room. Then it was Mum’s room. It would be my room next.

Even though I was expecting it, my heart jumped when I realised he was in my room. I closed my eyes tight shut. Mum’s grip hardened around me.

Please don’t look inside, please don’t look inside.

He seemed to stand there for an age. Was he even there at all? Had I imagined the whole thing?

Then I heard a floorboard creak and I wanted to scream with fear. This was real, very real.

More footsteps. They were quicker this time – and louder. They were going down the stairs, with no attempt to be quiet. The door opened and shut. We were alone again. He hadn’t found what he was looking for.

I felt Mum’s embrace loosen. I tried to turn and was about to say something when she whispered: ‘Shhh! Not yet.’

We lay there for while longer. I was itching to get up. He was gone, surely we could move now? Mum wanted to make sure. For what seemed like twenty minutes we lay there before she climbed out of the Wendy house slowly and tiptoed to the door. I peeked out and saw her tentatively look out onto the landing. She held out a hand. Wait there. I heard her retrace the steps I’d just heard, flitting from room to room. Then she was back in the doorway.

‘You can come out now.’

We’d got away with it … but it was only temporary respite and it wasn’t long before Paul was back and causing more mayhem. Sometimes I witnessed the violence. All I could do was find somewhere to cower until it was over. There were other times when the only signs that trouble had started again were the repercussions and how they affected our lives.

The police had got involved and they believed Mum was in such danger from Paul they installed an alarm in the house. At night, when Mum set the alarm it meant no doors or windows could be opened. We just sat in the living room and had to be quiet. The TV was on mute with the subtitles on. One night Mum was too scared to go to bed so she said I could stay up late with her. At first it was exciting and it felt special to be getting quality time with my mum, but after a little while my eyes started to get heavy and all I wanted was my bed.

‘Not yet,’ Mum whispered. ‘Stay awake a little longer.’

I must have dozed off because it was 2 a.m. and we still hadn’t gone to bed. I was about to ask Mum again but suddenly there was a bang. Someone was trying to get in the kitchen window. A split second later the alarm went off. I jumped out of my skin. It was so loud I was sure it must have burst my eardrum.

Mum grabbed me and we ran down the stairs to the front door and straight out into the street. I was in my bare feet and Mum picked me up and started running. The screeching of the alarm rang in my ears. In the quiet of the night it seemed ten times louder than any car or house alarm. I was so scared I just clung on to her and she ran, heaving for breath. I knew something bad was going to happen if he caught us.

We must have run for about twenty minutes. Mum couldn’t carry me anymore so she put me down and I had to run with her. My feet hardly touched the ground as we raced through the streets. Eventually Mum saw a phone box and pushed me inside. She called the police and we waited there until they came to get us.

We didn’t speak much. Mum kept looking out the windows, on all sides. It was the first time I’d seen her scared. Paul must have threatened her and the threats must have been serious enough for the police to be involved. It was only then my feet started to hurt and I realised how cold I was. I was so grateful to see the police car. They told us they’d searched for Paul and had found him in a shed in a neighbouring back garden. As they had him in custody it was safe for us to go back to the house. There were people at their windows and out on the street to see what the fuss was about.

Given how scared my mum was that night she must have realised that their relationship was toxic but she just couldn’t help herself. There were times she wanted to be away from him and there were times she wanted him back.

When I next saw my dad I came back and told Mum I wanted to move in with him.

‘He has just got you to say that,’ she said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I just want to be with my dad.’ It was true. I liked being with him. It was a nicer experience, without the constant threat of violence or fear.

My mum was adamant I could not go to my dad. I had no choice. I had to live with her – whatever the consequences. And for me, those consequences were brutal. Not being with Paul brought out the worst in Mum.

Rarely did I know what would set her off. One minute she’d be okay and the next she was screaming. So even though Paul had hurt me and we’d had to hide and flee from the house to get away from him, I begged Mum to take him back. I clung to the memories of the times when things were calmer.

Before too long she did take him back and, just like before when they first got married, everything was rosy. Mum told me she was expecting a baby. We’d be a proper little family. In August 1993, nearly two months after my fifth birthday and shortly before I started school, she gave birth to a boy, Jack. It was exciting to have a baby brother. Everyone doted on him, including me. Mum encouraged me to call Paul ‘Dad’, so I did, but he would never replace my real dad.

In just a few short months, though, all thoughts that we could be a normal family went out the window. Mum and Paul started fighting again and now when they rowed it turned violent. When I heard them screaming at each other I went to my room and put my hands over my ears, but it was no use. I could still hear them. I crawled into my Wendy house, pulled my duvet in with me and curled up, wrapping the quilt over my head in a bid to block it out. Still I could hear them yelling. It was often like this. Mum would kick off about something and Paul would yell back at her. That was my cue to take myself off until it eventually calmed down.

I was getting good at spotting the signs that it was about to kick off. Maybe Paul hadn’t been home for a couple of days, or maybe when he did show up he looked and smelled funny. Mum would then accuse him of being up to his old tricks again.

When I felt the house shake I knew Paul had stormed out. I wouldn’t see him for a few weeks. It was obvious then that my mother had broken up with him. After a few weeks Paul would come around being all nice and winning over my mother. She was always glad to see him back. I could tell she loved him. Often when Paul returned he’d have a load of presents, like a new DVD player or a stereo or a bike for me. He’d make lots of promises about changing and how he meant it this time.

Sometimes I would be glad to see him back because although they shouted at each other a lot and threw things at each other, when he wasn’t here it was worse. Mum missed him and cried a lot. On top of that she was struggling with being a single parent and trying to raise two young children. She was angry all the time and took her fury out on me. She’d hit me for nothing, scream at me over the tiniest thing and I’d never know what would set her off next time.

We never seemed to have enough money for even the basics, like food, and everything was a struggle. So many times everything got too much for her and she would erupt.

One day she came at me, seemingly for no reason. Before I could react she grabbed me by the hair and yanked me across the floor. She lashed out, catching me on the eye. I screamed in pain and cried for her to stop. It was only then she calmed down and burst into tears.

Then one morning I woke up and went to go out of my bedroom. The door was locked from the outside. I banged the door to get out and called: ‘Mum!’

After a moment, Mum let me out. She didn’t say a word. I didn’t know what I had done to upset her but she seemed in a mood. I went into the living room and heard Mum going into the kitchen. The next thing she came into the room wielding a wooden mop handle and started hitting me with it. I screamed. She caught me on the shin and I’ve never felt pain like it. It felt like the bottom of my leg had been split open. I was bleeding and it was only then I saw there was a nail at the bottom of the handle. It had gone straight into my leg.

I was so shocked at the sudden violence, I could barely even cry. I was gulping a huge lungful of air with each breath. Only when Mum saw how badly she’d hurt me did she calm down and act all apologetic. She took me to hospital to get the wound seen to. I couldn’t believe she had come at me like that. It was like she was possessed.

Mum had been known to social services ever since she was younger and now they became involved. A social worker came round and spoke to her about her behaviour but, despite what she’d put me through, when they spoke to me I clammed up. Mum might have been horrible to me but I didn’t want anything to happen to her. I didn’t know what to say. I just wanted her to be happy.

Going to school should have been an exciting time for me, a chance to make new friends and leave the troubles of home behind for a few hours a day, but it just wasn’t like that at all. The school was very much involved with Mum and me and social services. From as far back as I can remember the teachers always wanted to know what was going on at home. I just wanted to fit in and not have anyone make a fuss, but they used to take me into a different room and question me. I wouldn’t speak because I knew what they were trying to do. There were so many questions: ‘Have you eaten today?’ ‘What’s your mum made you?’ ‘Is your dad at home just now?’

I knew not to speak to anyone because I thought it would get my mum into trouble. I just used to mumble some answers or try to tell them what I thought they wanted to hear. I had to protect my mum, everyone was questioning me and I was defensive all the time. Every time I was asked a question I thought, ‘What are you asking me that for?’ I was guarded and the teachers probably thought I was an angry little child.

When I got home Mum would hit me with even more questions: ‘What’s happened? What were they asking you? What did you tell them?’

Or she’d send me to school in the morning, saying, ‘Don’t tell them that Paul is here.’

I felt loyalty to my mum and I was desperate to please her so I did what she said. It was just very stressful. Everywhere I turned there were adults involved in my life. School wasn’t pleasurable. There were no fun times that I can remember.

I didn’t feel like a normal child. I looked at everyone else playing in the playground, looking as though they didn’t have a care in the world, and I wondered why I couldn’t be like that. Why did I have to be the one with the parents who fought all the time?

I was always aware that I couldn’t relax and just be a child. There was constant embarrassment as well. Children know when someone is being treated differently so they eyed me suspiciously. Parents gossip among themselves and to their children, and one or two kids said things about my mum. As a result I didn’t form the same friendships with other children that normal kids do. I just remember feeling embarrassment from a young age. I saw some classmates being friendly with the teacher but I never had a normal relationship with any of the adults. It was like everyone interrogated me. They all wanted to know something.

The only friend I had at school was a girl called Ellie. She was the daughter of one of Mum’s friends who lived nearby. We got up to mischief together. We found some black shoe polish and wrote our full names on the toilet door. The teachers called us out of class and asked why we’d done it. We swore blind it wasn’t us, even when they pointed out we’d written our own names. They made us wipe it off. We got into trouble but it was about the best fun I had at school.

I had a better time playing in the street near our house. I used to play with a boy called Luke, the son of another of Mum’s friends. We hung out in each other’s houses and watched Batman together. I was a tomboy and preferred hanging out with Luke to the girls that lived locally. I was obsessed with Bruce Lee as a child. I watched all his films and ran around doing his moves and fighting with the boys on the street. At five and six I never wanted to wear a top and preferred to run around like the boys. My mum was always telling me to put some clothes on. She tried to make me more demure by enrolling me in ballet lessons. I loved it, but after watching Dirty Dancing with my mum I was more interested in learning Latin dance. I was captivated by the close, sultry, provocative form of dancing in the movie, especially during the ‘Love Man’ scene, and I said to Mum, ‘I want to do that.’

She said, ‘Absolutely not.’

Aside from Bruce Lee and Batman, I also loved Knight Rider. That was a Sunday night thing in our house and one of my fondest memories – when they weren’t kicking off – was having Sunday dinner, which Mum would prepare, and then sitting down to watch it with Mum and Paul. These were rare moments of joy.

Largely, though, I just felt like I was treated differently at home, as well as at school. My brother had grown into boisterous toddler. He was hyperactive but he was a mummy’s boy. He’d get into trouble for being hyper but Mum never hit him like she hit me. She might tap his legs or lightly scold him if he misbehaved, the normal reprimanding of a child. It wasn’t over the top. She would sit him on the stairs until he calmed down.

With me, though, she continued to lash out. It wasn’t fair.

Our home situation became an even greater challenge for Mum when, out of the blue, in August 1995, when I was seven, she discovered she was pregnant again. She didn’t even know she was expecting. She hadn’t put on any weight and two weeks after Jack’s second birthday she ended up in hospital and gave birth to a little girl. It was a shock to everyone.

Mum said I could choose what to call her so I said I wanted to name her after my best friend Ellie.

‘How about we call her Ellen but you can call her Ellie if you like?’

That’s what happened. When Mum came home with her it was quickly apparent that she hadn’t bonded with Ellie in the same way she had with Jack or me. Not knowing she was pregnant meant she hadn’t had time to get used to the idea. Now Mum, who was still only 24 and hadn’t been coping for years, had three young children to look after.

Ellie was just a baby, so Mum wouldn’t take her anger out on her, but I could see there wasn’t much affection. I felt the need to mother Ellie myself, to make up for it. I knew I had to look out for my brother and sister. The trouble was, who was looking out for me?

Chapter 4

I was in the house playing when I realised there was banging coming from outside. It was December 1995, four months after Ellen was born. Mum had gone out, leaving the three of us in the house with Paul. I could hear her shouting outside. What was going on? Why wasn’t she in the house?

‘Jade!’ Paul shouted. ‘Get Jack and Ellen. Come into the living room.’

There was a lot of banging and movement of furniture coming from inside. I did as I was told, got my siblings and we made our way tentatively into the living room. The room was in semi-darkness because the curtains were drawn but we could still see the place was a mess. Paul had moved furniture about. There were chairs overturned, ornaments knocked over and stuff everywhere. Paul looked mad, like his face was about to burst. He was jumping about frantically and kept going to the window, pulling back the curtains and shouting down to the street. I could hear my mum screaming, ‘Don’t hurt the kids!’

Once we were inside he shut the door and moved the sofa and other bits and pieces over to barricade us in. He hauled the table nearer to the window. A picture frame got knocked off the wall and smashed on the floor.

My brother and sister were scared, their lips trembling. I tried to reassure them but I was frightened too.

‘What’s going on?’ I said, my voice shaking.

‘Come here!’ He grabbed me hard by the wrist and hauled me to the window. He was hurting me so I tried to do what he wanted, whatever that was. He pulled me up and made me sit on the table. He pulled back the curtains and I blinked at the sudden exposure to the light. When my eyes adjusted I looked below and could see Mum there on the street. She was banging on the door. The neighbours were out watching the unfolding drama.

‘Here’s Jade! She’s fine.’ Paul was manic. Now there was light in the room I could see his eyes were like pinpricks. I knew what that meant. He was back on drugs. ‘Tell your mum you’re fine.’

‘I’m okay, Mum,’ I called. ‘So are Jack and Ellen.’

‘Let me in, Paul, for God’s sake! What are you doing?’

‘Just go and get the bloody money!’ Paul shouted, still gripping me by the wrist so tightly I could feel my skin burn.

I didn’t know how we’d got to this situation but it was obvious he wanted Mum to get him money for drugs. They shouted at each other, Jack and Ellen started crying. It was chaos. I wanted to go and cuddle them but I couldn’t move.

‘Please let me check they’re okay,’ I said, starting to well up.

Without warning he yanked the curtains shut again and pushed me down from the table. He shoved me onto the carpet and I screamed in agony. I could feel my face being cut to shreds. I couldn’t work out what was happening. Then I realised. My head had gone right into the broken picture frame. I got up from the floor and put my hands to my face. They were covered in blood that was now pouring down my face. Paul was still shouting. Amid the chaos I could hear Mum yell that she was away to get the money. She was saying something about the police. Were they outside or on their way? We were still barricaded in the darkness. I was crying, trying to stem the bleeding. Paul shouted at us all to stop crying, which only made us sob even more.

It must only have been a few minutes but it seemed like an eternity that we were trapped in there, Paul screaming out the window to anyone who would listen. Mum then came back. I could hear her shouting that she’d got the money.

‘Put it through the letterbox,’ Paul yelled.

Mum did so. Paul moved the furniture away from the door and ran downstairs. I heard the back door open and he must have fled, as I didn’t hear him anymore.

‘Jade, you need to let me in,’ Mum shouted.

I checked Jack and Ellen were okay and then ran downstairs and opened the front door. Mum was horrified at the cuts to my face. She comforted my brother and sister and they eventually calmed down. We went to hospital and although I didn’t need stitches, I had several bad scars.

It was December 1995 and Paul went missing for a few days after that. Mum said that was the final straw. In the weeks leading up to him effectively holding us hostage Paul had been taking heroin again. That had led to them rowing once more, and their arguments often turning violent. It was when Mum refused to cash in her benefit money to get him more drugs that he’d barricaded us in. In the aftermath of that day Paul was still in and out of our lives until eventually, after Mum spoke to social workers, it was decided that, for all of our safety, we move temporarily to a women’s refuge.

‘We’ll be safe there,’ Mum said.

I had no choice but to go along with it. I thought if it made Mum a little happier then it could be a good thing. I honestly think at times Mum wanted away from Paul and away from the drugs, the violence. She despised drugs and had never even smoked a cigarette at this stage of her life. I think she really believed this was a fresh start for her and her children. The refuge was not far from where we lived. We had a self-contained apartment with a kitchenette and bathroom, and there was a communal living room. Other children were staying there at the same time, who were, like us, fleeing their mothers’ violent partners. There was a manager who also lived in the quarters and no one was allowed in who wasn’t authorised. Mum could go out as normal but you weren’t allowed friends over and we couldn’t have family visit. It was all about our protection.

We were to be there for a few weeks, which meant we’d be spending Christmas in there. Mum told us not to worry, that Father Christmas would know where to find us. I felt sad because it wasn’t going to be the same. Like all kids I looked forward to Christmas. Mum always made a big deal of it and it was one of the few days a year when nice things happened. We would go to the pub where Mum worked, which opened for a few hours in the afternoon. Grandma would be there, and Marie and William and the regulars made a fuss of us and gave us money. There was always a lovely atmosphere. At our house, normally I would be the one to get up at 5 a.m. One year I was convinced I looked out of the window and saw Father Christmas leaving on his sleigh. Dad would give his gifts to Mum beforehand so we had them to open as well. Previously, even though Jack was not his child, he made sure he always put a gift in for him. Now Ellie was here too I was sure he’d do the same but I wouldn’t see him until after Christmas.

Dad was always buying me a new bike because although Paul had taught me how to ride it he used to steal them to sell for drugs. The bikes were usually kept in a laundry room off the kitchen and one time we came home from shopping and my bike was gone. The small window in the room was open. Paul claimed someone must have opened the window, climbed in and taken the bike, but there was no way the bike would have fitted through the window. Mum shouted at him to get the bike back. He never did, so Dad would have to buy a new one. He said to Mum that if he bought a new one it would stay at his house because he didn’t trust Paul.

That was the legacy of living with a lying, thieving drug dealer. And now another consequence was that we were spending Christmas in a refuge. It was like we were being punished for something, yet we had done nothing wrong.

Throughout this time I had more meetings with social workers and an educational psychologist. My school said I had a lot of problems. Once again, though, I refused to cooperate with an adult asking me questions. I couldn’t see how any good would come of it. I had bruises on my face, not just caused by the scarring from Paul’s violence. Mum was still hitting me when she became angry, which was a lot.

I never knew what would set her off. And it was terrifying how violent she became. Once when she was yelling at me I ran out of the room. She was still screaming so I stuck my head back around the door. Something hit me full in the face. It was a jug Mum had thrown.

On another occasion she came into my bedroom and pounced on me, pinning me down on the bed. I tried to shout and scream but the air was knocked out of me. I was struggling to find my breath. She grabbed my pillow and put it over my face. I panicked even more, flaying my arms and legs, trying to do anything to get her off. What was happening? Was she actually trying to kill me? What had I done?

Suddenly she let go and lifted the pillow off my face. I gasped for breath and leapt to my feet, in case she came for me again. She just put the pillow down and without saying a word walked out of the room like nothing had happened. I sat on the floor, my heart thumping, racing, trying to work out what had just happened – and why.

Even thinking about that incident now upsets me because the only question that runs through my head is: how could someone hurt a child that way? Her own child. How could a mother have that much hate in her body?

Life was pretty miserable in the women’s refuge. Mum was in such a foul mood a lot of the time that I tried to keep out of her way as much as possible. Sometimes I used to go downstairs and sit in the manager’s office and watch soaps with her on TV because I didn’t want to be with my mum. Anything was better than being in our apartment, not knowing when she was going to kick off.

She promised the social workers that she had split from Paul for good, but he still had control over her, even when they weren’t physically together. Mum told me Paul was in prison – for what I didn’t know, but most likely it was for drug offences. He was in Strangeways Prison, in Manchester, which wasn’t that far away from us.

When we moved out of the refuge into another flat, Mum made plans to go and see him. It wasn’t enough to just go and visit him, however. He made specific demands of her – and even though she was anti-drugs, and even though she knew how violent he had been towards us, it was like she couldn’t say no. She was completely under his control.

Jack was then two and still in nappies. The prison guards patted me down but they never used to search small children so Mum hid drugs inside Jack’s nappies. Even though there were cameras everywhere, Paul was allowed to have Jack on his lap. Mum had cut the lining of the nappy and stuffed the drugs into where the soft filling of the nappy would be. Paul would discreetly work his fingers inside and fiddle around until he had removed the package.

Another ruse she employed was to cut holes inside her pockets and secure wraps to her knickers and once she was inside the visiting hall she’d work the packet loose and give it to him. I knew all this because Mum did it in front of me before we went to see him. One of the neighbours came over and helped her. Paul was ordering her to do it and she was unable to say no. She was completely at his mercy.

Throughout this time I wasn’t at school and it was hard to stay in touch with the few friends I had made. From the moment we had entered the women’s refuge it was the beginning of a period where we seemed to be constantly on the move. We moved from temporary flats to another refuge to homeless hostels and other properties in Greater Manchester and the surrounding area.

We spent a second Christmas in a women’s refuge. This time was even bleaker than the last. Mum was in a foul mood. As usual, we had no idea what had set her off but she was determined to punish us for something. On Christmas morning she tried to say Father Christmas hadn’t been but I saw the curtains in the communal living area were bulging out and spied some bags of presents behind them. I don’t know what we’d done wrong but she refused to give them to us until much later that night. By then the fun times we’d had on Christmas Days in the past were distant memories.

It was a chaotic way to live. We only had a few belongings so life was a regular change of clothes, beds and other furniture. I soon learned not to become attached to my belongings as, almost without warning, we would be moving again and I’d never see certain things again.

Social services gave Mum grants to kit us out in new clothes. She started to order through catalogues. Sometimes a package of new clothes arrived. Mum would then get on the phone and say it hadn’t been delivered. They’d send out the same again and Mum sold the extra clothes on. They just used to leave the parcels outside the door so there was no way of them knowing if we’d received them or not. She did this with trainers, coats, everything.

Occasionally I would start at a new school but in a matter of weeks we’d move again and I’d have to begin all over again. I missed out on a lot of education. And at each school the process was the same. Teachers would interrogate me about my home life and I would clam up. I went to at least five or six schools over two years and as a result not only was it impossible to make lasting friendships but I felt victimised and bullied, forever the new girl with no fixed abode. Despite the challenging circumstances I tried to work hard in class, but just when I’d feel I was catching up we’d move once more and I had to start from scratch.

When Paul was nearing his release, social workers were asking Mum what she intended to do. They knew she was writing to him in prison and they were warning her not to get back together with him or she might risk losing her children. There were times during this period when we were put into respite care. It was obvious to everyone that she wasn’t coping but temporary care seemed to be the best they could come up with. I have vague memories of being placed with a kind older woman for a week. It was bliss to be out of the chaos with Mum. Jack and Ellen were put somewhere else. Despite Mum’s anger towards me she missed me when I wasn’t there and always wanted me back – even before she got Jack and Ellen. I remember there was one time when Jack spent a short time in a seaside town, perhaps to give Mum some respite. We had to visit social services there but for whatever reason Mum was not happy and started kicking off.

‘Well, keep Jack then,’ she said, leaving him on a desk in social services and taking me with her. I was thinking, ‘You can’t leave him there.’

The social workers were yelling at her to come back but it looked like she was being serious. Eventually she calmed down enough to see sense and went back to get him. I think her point was that she didn’t have the money to look after all three of us and unless they helped her she had no option but to leave one of us with them.

There was another time when we were in Blackpool because Mum took Ellen to see social services. My real dad had family nearby and we saw them at the same time. I remember being in the arcades, playing the 2p machines and the coin fountains.

Maybe Mum’s antics with social services had some effect because when I was around eight years old we moved to a new home in a neighbouring county. Paul was still not around. From what I could gather he was in prison and had moved from Strangeways to another one in Lancaster, prior to his release.

For a brief period we had some sort of stability. Uncle William lived with us and Mum took on a couple of jobs in pubs to earn some extra money. Grandma visited us and on some level it felt a little like it had been in the very early days. However, being with Mum meant there was always some sense of disruption. She spent so much time at one of the pubs we often stayed there with her and divided our time between there and the house.

The sad thing for me was that since our life had become nomadic, contact with my real dad had become less frequent. By the time we moved, that contact was in danger of completely breaking down. Mum was being difficult and not making it easy for us to see each other. It didn’t help when I was put into respite care, like I was when Mum decided to go on holiday with William and a man from the pub. They were going to Tenerife. We might not have been going with her but at least we got a holiday from Mum’s erratic behaviour. Even with the holiday she managed to create drama because she lost her passport in the run-up.

She had not been back long when, in March 1996, while I was still seven, there was yet another emergency when Mum put the chip pan on but then nipped next door to a neighbour’s house. She hadn’t taken a key and when the door closed behind her she was locked out. I was outside playing but Ellen was trapped inside in her bedroom. While one neighbour called the fire brigade a couple of others attempted to climb up a pipe to get into the top bedroom window. They didn’t manage it and it took the firefighters to break into the house to make sure Ellen was okay. She wasn’t hurt, and apart from some smoke the house wasn’t damaged, but it was a close call.

Once again, no sooner had we started to get used to our new surroundings than we were on the move again, this time to an old mill town not far from our first home.

Social services resumed contact with my dad, which I was extremely pleased about but Mum wasn’t happy. We met in a contact centre in the town and Mum started screaming at me to tell her where my dad lived – as she wanted money from him. It spilled out into the street and she was still yelling at me in front of stunned passers-by. Social workers were very much involved in our lives and they warned Mum again about resuming contact with Paul. He was now out of prison and if he tried to come back and live with us they believed we were in grave danger of further assaults. Mum told them what they wanted to hear. I didn’t know what to think. All I wanted was my old mum back, the one who used to show me how to draw and sang with me to her favourite music. But that mum was just a distant memory – and in her place was a troubled soul who was losing what last grip she had on reality.

And I would be the one to suffer most as a consequence.

Chapter 5

My heart thumped as I handed over the book. I was sure my face screamed guilty. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me.

‘You’ll be fine, Jade. Just act natural,’ Mum had said. This was important to her. I couldn’t let her down. I wanted to please her, wanted her to be proud of me. But if this was such a good idea – why did it feel so wrong?

The woman behind the post office counter took the giro book. She glanced at the page and then at me. I tried to smile, hoping my face said, ‘Nothing to see here. Just go about your business and process it as normal.’

She looked again at the book. She must know. This was a stupid idea. I was going to get caught.

‘Mum not with you today?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not feeling well.’

‘That’s a shame. Lot of bugs about.’

I nodded and had a glance around to see if anyone was coming towards me, like a guard of some kind. It looked fairly normal. I turned back to the woman who had a stamp out, thumped it on the book and counted out the cash. She handed it to me. I stuffed it into a pocket and got out of there as fast as I could to where Mum was waiting outside.

‘Okay?’

I showed her the bundle.

‘That’s my girl.’

She was happy. I’d done well. That was the best I could hope for. After that success, she tried it more often. Mum and a neighbour had worked out the way to defraud the benefits system. Using her skills as an artist she meticulously cut out tiny bits of paper and using a fountain pen wrote a date and carefully stuck it into the giro book. On Tuesdays she got her money as usual, then she sent me in with the doctored book to make her claim again. Both she and the neighbour were at it.

After the success of that first time they were keen to keep trying. When I went back the following week I felt more confident. Mum was right. It was easy. I took in the book, handed it over, the teller made a cursory glance at the book and the date, stamped it and handed over the cash. Looking back, it was quite entrepreneurial but there was also something very wrong about getting an eight-year-old girl to carry out your benefit fraud.

For several weeks we tried it and every time it worked. I started to get a bit bolder and thought nothing of going into the post office and queuing with all the adults. That was until the time when the woman paused longer than normal over the book. She studied the slip.

‘Who are you here with?’ she said. There was no smile. No small talk. She looked at me with a deadly serious expression on her face. I started to burn up. She shook her head. ‘No.’

I turned and ran out of the post office. Mum was outside as normal and now I was scared to tell her I’d got turned away. I was relieved that at least we only got told no. It could have been much worse. Mum was cross though. She was relying on that money. She never seemed to have enough. It would take me some time to work out why.

Early on in our new home it was clear we faced a new type of threat. We were living in quite a large house, over three levels. The first inkling I got was when someone smashed a downstairs window. A couple of days later another was put in. Mum got anxious. She couldn’t settle and at night, once she’d put Jack and Ellen to bed, she begged me to stay up with her.

‘Just sit with me, Jade. It will be fun, just me and you.’

It was like the times when she was worried Paul was going to hurt us. Just as then, I wanted to be with her, because at night-time she wasn’t as angry, just agitated. I stayed up as late as I could but I got so tired. She put the telly on but got up constantly to see if someone was coming to the house. She was living on her nerves.

‘I think people are looking for your dad,’ she said, referring to Paul. He hadn’t been at the house but when they found out who my mum was they took an interest in her. They didn’t know that she hadn’t seen him for years but they knew he had the name Harries and put two and two together. Jack and Ellen were his kids. If Paul was in hiding from the drug gangs he used to associate with, or if rivals were out for revenge over some dodgy deal and if they couldn’t get Paul, then we were the next best thing. Whatever Paul had done to make someone that angry we could only guess, but they were taking it out on us.

I don’t think Mum really knew who was targeting us. We had seen a gang exact its violent revenge on Paul before when men attacked him with crowbars so she knew what this type of people were capable of. As the weeks dragged on she got increasingly agitated. She was getting thinner as well. She stopped eating and wasn’t cooking proper meals for us. Still she sat up late but sometimes, even though she stopped me from falling asleep, she’d nod off on the sofa. She then woke up angry that she’d dozed off. She vowed to do something about it and started taking speed to keep her awake. She’d go for days without sleeping and it made her irritable and spaced out.

Then I began noticing the telltale signs I’d seen in Paul when he was on drugs. Her pupils went really small and the weight fell off her. No longer was she the curvy, vivacious mother I once knew, but a gaunt, skinny figure whose clothes hung off her and skin sagged. I suspected she was taking heroin – the same drug Paul was addicted to – to help her sleep after being strung out for several days on the trot.

That’s when things really unravelled.

Mum just wasn’t looking after us. She was paranoid someone was going to turn up – whether it was Paul or someone out to get him. She had social services in the background warning her not to make contact with Paul or she’d lose us for good. She was running out of money and was so strung out she failed in her duties as a mother.

None of us were going to school or nursery. We didn’t have proper bedding, our clothes were filthy and there was no food in the house. When I think back to the times when social workers quizzed me in the past about whether I was eating properly, at that point it was fine. Mum would prepare breakfast for us, mostly cornflakes, we’d get dinners at school and she’d cook a tea for us. Social workers used to give her food vouchers. Now, though, we had nothing – or if Mum was getting money or vouchers they weren’t being used to feed us. Often I was starving but I felt my priority was to feed my brother and sister. Mum simply wasn’t eating, but we had to.

Both Jack and Ellen were fairly easy to cater for. He was obsessed with jam on toast so I kept making that for him, or I made sure he had rusks so he could eat them as a biscuit or I poured milk on them to make porridge. I bought Smarties but Jack didn’t like the orange ones so I used to pick them out before giving them to him. Ellen was still on a bottle of milk so I just had to make sure I had enough to keep her filled up. I felt an enormous amount of pressure as the eldest to look after them, especially Ellen, as I knew Mum had never bonded with her.

Mum received milk tokens with her giro, which you could exchange in the local store for bread and milk up to that value. I would go to get it but sometimes didn’t have enough tokens to make up the full amount. I said to the shopkeeper Mum would drop the rest off when she got her giro.

Previously Mum paid that bill, as it was our local shop, but he said, ‘Your mum hasn’t been in. Is she avoiding me? She needs to settle up.’

I just shrugged and said I’d tell her. What else could I do? I felt like I was the adult in our house. If the milk tokens were no longer an option I had to find other ways to feed us.

Our local doctor’s surgery had a coffee vending machine that served hot chocolate. I went in and told the receptionists we were hungry. They gave me hot chocolates and lollies. That prompted some action because a health visitor came to the house to check on our wellbeing. She was shocked to see us eating the last of some Weetabix out of one dirty saucepan. It was the only food we had left. The milk in the fridge had long since gone off, curdled and separated. It was another example of someone in a position of responsibility seeing for themselves the conditions we had to put up with.

Social workers also came to the house to check up on Mum and seemed shocked by what they found. I wasn’t sure if they believed me when I said there was no food in the house. They arranged for us to be given a food parcel.

The social workers did at least make some headway with the local school. They had expressed their dismay that none of us were going to school and one asked me when was the last time I had actually been. A meeting was arranged at the local school but Mum kept falling asleep in the headteacher’s office, complaining that she hadn’t slept for two weeks. I started school again but Mum hadn’t sorted dinners so often I went hungry during the day until the arrangements had been made for me to eat. Mum had the food vouchers but hadn’t given them to the school.

It was just a never-ending state of neglect, of which social services were routinely made aware. Neighbours complained when Mum locked us out of the house and they saw us stuck outside for hours. A bus driver got involved when he saw Ellen, who was then just turning three, wandering the streets. He kindly took her home and made sure she was okay.

Grandma rang them about her own daughter’s negligence or cruelty. Amid everything else that was going on, Mum still routinely lost her rag with me. A couple of days before my tenth birthday, in June 1998, she came at me with a mad look in her eye. I was eating a Toffee Crisp chocolate bar and I got such a fright I nearly choked. She slapped me around the face and to avoid being hit further I jumped around a camp bed but smashed my eye on the metal frame. My eye immediately swelled and turned black and purple.

Mum panicked. ‘Social services are going to take you off me and accuse me of hitting you when they see that.’

By the day of my birthday I was sporting a large, shining black eye. In previous years, Mum had made a big fuss of my special day, often taking us to McDonald’s as a treat. I would remember this one, but for much different reasons. She didn’t think she was responsible because technically she hadn’t caused the bruise and the swollen eye, even though I had been running away from her initial slap.

An official from the council’s housing department paid a visit the next day but Mum wouldn’t let him in. He called through the letterbox and saw me. He asked how I got the black eye.

‘I fell and hit my head on the bed,’ I said.

I don’t think he believed me. Mum was in the background, listening and passing messages to me. He couldn’t see her but I suspected he knew what was going on.

A council joiner then came to do some repairs and noticed Mum had locked Jack in the top bedroom. The door was shut and he was crying to get out. Neighbours complained again when they saw Jack running around outside without shoes on when Mum was supposed to be looking after him.

Social workers were now paying regular visits to the house, almost on a daily basis. One day we had been outside at a neighbour’s house. It was the end of June and still warm but Jack just had a t-shirt on and boxer shorts and Ellen was in a pyjama top with no underwear. When they asked why we were outside dressed like that, Mum got really defensive and started shouting. One of the social workers mentioned that several neighbours had reported seeing us outside, unsupervised. Mum kicked off, yelling about ‘interfering neighbours’ and would get so angry the social workers cut short their meeting and left.

Mum’s doctor prescribed her methadone to try to wean her off heroin and that brought about a change in her appearance, if not her attitude. Despite the lack of proper nutrition her weight ballooned and her skin became puffy. Being on methadone, however, was another accident waiting to happen. When next a social worker called – and Mum actually let her in the house – she found the methadone prescription sitting on top of the television in easy of reach of us children. She told Mum about the potential dangers but, as serious as it was, it was just another example of where Mum’s priorities lay. She was more interested in drugs by then than our wellbeing.

In the weeks before the end of the school term, I did not attend school. Mum was just out of it for large parts of the day, after being up most of the night. I was exhausted too, through lack of food and running around after my brother and sister. I never saw caring for them as a chore. I doted on them and was only concerned about making sure they ate something, but it was extremely tiring. It was also near impossible to keep on top of everything.

I tried to get help by ringing the social services’ emergency number, telling the person on the other end of the line that once again we had no food. A day later they delivered a food parcel. At last we were able to eat but all semblance of order had disappeared in the house. Mum was at the end of her tether and at times pleaded for Jack, who was still boisterous and difficult to discipline, to be taken into care. I couldn’t watch over them all hours of the day and night, and for that reason it was almost inevitable when a neighbour saw Ellen outside the house, on a warm July night, at 3 a.m. wandering around with no clothes on. No harm came to her but if that wasn’t a sign that Mum was completely failing in her duties I didn’t know what was.

The reports were so frequent social workers did drive-bys of the house to see what was happening. I got to know their cars. The same two social workers regularly checked up on us. Only one of them I found warm. She was called Shona and she seemed to really sympathise with my situation. She visited sometime after my birthday when Mum was again giving me a hard time. Dad had given me a present for my birthday and had tried to help out the rest of the family by handing over a food hamper. Mum saw this as an opportunity and told me to ask my dad for money. Shona intervened and said it wasn’t appropriate to ask me to do this. She gave Mum food vouchers instead, which seemed to calm her down.

The vouchers only provided temporary reprieve from our neglect, though. Before long the food would run out, there would be no money and once again we were at the mercy of social services. Their task was made doubly difficult when they asked to check what food we had and Mum once again refused to let them in the house. As they were leaving Mum rushed out with Ellen and left her on the doorstep, asking them to take her off her. When they refused and continued to their car, Mum picked Ellen up and lifted her onto the bonnet. They said they would look at a temporary solution.

Not long after, when Mum was kicking off at me again, I saw Shona’s car drive by. I approached the car and asked her if I could be put into foster care.

‘No, I can’t do that. I’m sorry,’ Shona said and drove off.

I was exhausted and heartbroken. I had always tried to protect Mum but now I was tired of her constant apologies for her violence. I was drained from trying to please her all the time, trying to win her love. I wanted my brother and sister to be looked after properly, bathed regularly and for them to sleep in a comfortable bed. I wanted them to be loved. I wanted someone to rescue us and I knew I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to be given away. I didn’t understand why social services wouldn’t help. What was the point of them receiving all these reports and having meetings with us when they didn’t seem to do anything? They just seemed to take notes and arrange countless visits.

Would anything be done?

I had no idea, but in the meantime I had no option but to go along with it. I tried to make the best of the situation, but just when I thought it could not get any worse I got a new shock.

I was in Mum’s room, jumping on her bed, listening to Alanis Morissette, when the cupboard door clicked open. I jumped off and went to close it. Spying something inside, my nosiness got the better of me and I saw a blue and white sports bag. I knelt down and began to unzip it. Inside were several large shotguns and one small handgun. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Whose were they? Why were they in our house?

Just then the bedroom door flung open and Mum was standing there.

‘Don’t go in there!’ she yelled. Then she softened her tone and crouched down to hug me. She zipped up the bag and closed the door. I was almost as shocked by her change of attitude as I was to seeing the firearms. Was she relieved that there hadn’t been an accident? We went downstairs and she immediately called someone on the phone.

I heard her tell whomever she was speaking to, ‘Pick the bag up now. I can’t have them around the children.’

The next time I was brave enough to peek inside the cupboard the bag was gone.

Mum might have had a narrow escape on that occasion. Next time she would not be so lucky.

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