Painful Memories

As a girl I lived in a three bedroom flat above a shop on a main road.

There were five of us kids, my parents and my grandmother.

It was my grandmother’s house.

She had lived there for years, since my mother was sixteen.

My mother left home, got married and moved away, but came back while we were all still young.

It was the easiest way to get back into London as even in the sixties London was an ever growing over populated city.

She also liked the fact she could keep an eye on her mother as she was ageing.

It was a big flat and because it was on the main road there was always something happening.We had a pub across the road that would have a live jazz band every Sunday.I love those memories.The pub has been demolished now and turned into flats.

The shop we lived above was an out-sized specialist for ladies dresses.A Jewish man named Joshua owned it.He always made me feel a bit nervous as he never smiled and was very attentive to his ‘shop window’ and our bikes.As an adult I completely understand, but when young he just bought me fear.

There was a book shop, a newsagent, a cobblers and hardware shop on our street.It’s all very different now.

The flat downstairs was mainly empty.Occasionally Joshua (the shop owner) would rent it out to single guys.It wasn't as big as ours.It only had one bedroom.

One day a family moved in.An educated middle class family.Mum (Ingrid) and two children, both boys.She had another on the way.

The boys were very well spoken.

I was seven years old.I wanted to play with them but was shy.All my siblings were like adults as far as I was concerned.There was a six year gap between me and the next one in line and my eldest brother was nearly twelve years older than me.I don’t have many memories of him living at home.

This was exciting, having these two boisterous children living downstairs especially me being a tomboy.

One afternoon my mother invited them for tea.I remember it well.The eldest one, Jack who was a year older than me was frightening my big sister.I can’t remember what with now.I think it must have been a spider.She has a terrible phobia to this day.I remember lots of screaming and laughter.The youngest boy Adam was quiet.He was a year younger than me.

This became a habit, going to each others house for tea.I remember their flat looked cold and unwelcoming.It had slug trails on the floor.

That was the first time I recognised the differences in family units.Little things like they would have butter and we had margarine.

All sounds good you may think.But no.All in the garden was not rosy and it wasn't happy ever after.Their mother Ingrid had problems.She suffered with severe depression and schizophrenia.This was very sad as she was a loving, cultured, sensitive artistic person who wrote poetry.She was a beautiful lady with brown eyes and long thick jet black hair.This illness would overtake all of that.This illness would make her sad.She would get depressed.Then she would drink.She would have men come to stay.

She had her baby.It was another boy.Alastair.

The two boys would often still be outside in the evening.If she went out she would lock them out.My mother would invite them up.

One evening they were out there until late.Ten, eleven, twelve, Mother watched the clock.She invited them up.It was then that they told her that the baby was in the flat alone.The new born.Looking back Ingrid was probably suffering with post natal depression on top of everything else.

Mother had to do something.She couldn't leave the child locked in.She couldn't break the door down.She would have to call the authorities.This is something she must have found very hard to do.

A lady from social services came.They got the baby.They asked my mother if the boys could stay with us that night as it was so late and they would be back in the morning to find foster care and try and contact the mother.

I was happy.

It was a sleep over.

The next day they were taken to a children’s home.It was local.Some of the kids that lived there went to my school.

My mother had lots of meetings with the social worker.

They stayed in care for one week and then they came back to us.Social services asked mother if she would like to foster them.I'm not sure if that would happen nowadays.

I’m sure they must have vetted us.

So there you have it.My family grew.I now had six brothers and one sister.

The baby was so cute.I loved him.He had blond curly hair.He looked a bit like Oliver Twist.

We were happy.

The social services eventually tracked down mum.She became friends with my Mother recognising that she just couldn't deal with a family at that point in her life.

She would visit and the boys understood what was happening. As the years went by the baby Alastair thought my mum was his.We didn't try to make it that way, it just sort of happened.

The middle boy Adam was an ill child.He had one of his lungs removed as a baby.I never found out why?Mother would give him therapy as though he had cystic fibrosis.He was so thin and had such a bad chest on arrival but Mother would feed him up and get him strong.Sometimes she would feed both the boys secretly worrying that I would grow fat trying to compete.

The eldest boy Jack was very much like his mother, sensitive and artistic.He again would write beautiful essays and poetry which was pleasing to Mother as writing was her passion.

As time went on Ingrid began to get well.She met a man and got married.She then started to have her boys to stay once a month for the weekend.

Something troubled my mother.

The baby who was now about five didn't like to go.He told us that his mother would shake him and say “you’re my son, you’re my son”.This seemed so out of character as she had always been so amicable, pleased that her boys were safe.

She wanted them back.

Mother had a chat with the bigger two.

They wanted to stay with us.

There was nothing she could do.It had to be left in the hands of God and the authorities.They were Ingrid’s children after all, not Mother’s.

Ingrid’s marriage seemed strong and she got pregnant again, this time she had a little girl. She was so big. So unlike the boys. She took after her dad.

There was no post natal depression to interrupt her life this time it seemed and both families ended up before a judge.

Lots of meetings and questions.

Interrogation of the boys.

Where do they want to live?

As an adult I think that’s an awful question for a child to have to answer.

The judge said that the baby would have to go back with his mum, but as the boys were old enough to know their own minds they could stay with us as requested.

Then Mother had to do the hardest thing she has probably ever had to do.

She asked the boys to go too.She wanted them all to be together.They were thirteen and fifteen by this point.She wanted them to look after the baby.I say baby but he was about seven by now.

My heart was ripped in two they day they went.They were closer to me than my blood siblings.

We didn’t see them for six months, until Ingrid called one day letting us know that she was going to emigrate to Australia.Could it get any worse?

We visited them before they went.

Alastair had developed a stutter.He was wetting the bed.“Why did you give me away, why?He cried to Mother as he punched her.

Ingrid said he could come and stay with us for the weekend before they left.

That was my first ever experience of the same kind of pain one experiences with a death.As his step father was approaching our house my older brother called from the window that he was on his way up the street.Alastair’s lips quivered “I don’t want to go”

My father bought me a new coat that night to try and ease the pain.I tried to be grateful and happy.I just wanted to cry.

When they got to Australia we only ever heard from them twice.

One was a card for me from Alastair telling me that I was lovleeee.(his spelling)

The other was a letter saying that Adam had been killed.

Can you believe that?

He was knocked down by a car.

He was sixteen years old.

All the therapy Mother had given him, building his strength for his adulthood had all been wiped out in that moment.

I was devastated.

The eldest boy had left home and was in the army.

Alastair was alone after all.

One thing we can be sure of in this world and that is the emotion of pain can hit us so young.

Names have been changed

Copyright © 2011 Lesley Sherwood