Amelia's story (22 page)

There was a café across the road and we hurried toward
it as our empty stomachs were crying out for food.
We all took a seat and w
aited for the lady to come over.
S
he was very chirpy and waited patiently whil
e we counted our money and decided on our order. W
e all chose a sausage and egg sandwich accompanied by a mug of tea. The
lady smiled and took our order. S
he said
,
“
T
here’s no need to pay until afterwards
.
”

W
e were to make our way up to the till and pay once we had all finished. Liam suggested we make a run for it,
“This would be so easy
,
let’s just run.”
I was not so keen;
however
,
I understood that this would save us at least £3, so that was that
,
decision made
.

A
fter we had finished our breakfast we waited for the lady to go out back into the kitchen
, and
then we made a run for it. I felt very bad about not paying because the lady was so nice to us, but our need to eat and survive while we were all on the run was tantamount
to us getting through each day.
W
e needed to be frugal with what little money we had left
,
and we needed to
seize
every opportunity that arose. There was nothing worse than being hungry, and I had experienced this feeling on several occasions.
Now ou
r bellies were full to the brim!
W
e knew we would be able
to walk for miles quite happily.
A
s we were leaving Shrewsbury Town near the Sears Hall
building
, we noticed a car slowing down up a
head.
I
t was not a police a car
,
so we carried on walking toward
it
.
A
s we approach
ed,
two men got out
.
T
hey called out our names
,
and it was then that we realized th
ey were plain-clothed policeman.
W
e j
ust turned on our heels and ran;
Paul tripped over and only just escaped the long arm of the law!
We had no idea where we were when we f
inally stopped.
W
e looked around and could not see any signs
,
j
ust fields everywhere we looked. It was a very beautiful sight;
they were like green and brown blankets covering the earth all laid out in neat squares like a
patchwork
quilt. We all sat down
for a while to catch our breath.

“Amelia, do you have any idea where we are?”
Liam asked.

“I have no idea
, Liam.
I suggest we pop into that little shop and ask them,” I replied.
We headed over to the shop, and I took it up on myself to ask for di
rections to Shropshire.
T
he lady advised me we were already in Shropshire and asked where specifically we were
headed. I told her Iron Bridge.
“Ahh
,
that’s not too far
.
I’d say about ten miles from here.”
We were all so happy;
w
e had nearly made it to
I
ron Bridge
.
I could not believe it, we had walked all the way from Wales
and
we were on the
homestretch
now
. T
his information boosted our
morale and we picked up our pace.
W
e bounced along with a kick in our step
,
singing songs along the way. We were on home territory now and it felt good to be in familiar surroundings.

Eventually, after three hours or so, we reached our destination and made our way to the estate
we were all too familiar with. We
decided
to squat in one of the boarded-
up council houses (and there were many). We were
c
areful not to be seen by someone who
might
recognize us
.
W
e we
nt in search for an empty house.
A
fter what seemed like an eternity we found one
just beyond the community center
and it was just perfect for now. T
he important thing for all of us was having somewhere to stay, somewhere we could hide out, and somewhere we felt safe.
We pulled back one of
the boards on the d
ownstairs window and climbed in. Surprisingly, it was quite clean.
T
here was an old settee sitting in the middle of the living room, the floors still had carpets on them albeit old and a bit musty, but it was more than we had hoped for. There could be any number of reason
s why this house was unoccupied. H
owever
, that was not our concern.
W
e had a place to stay
,
and that was all that mattered. We put our bags down and Liam volunteered to fetch us all a bag of chips, which would keep us going until the morning. Then we hatched a plan to wake up with the larks and do a doorstep sweep after the milkman had delivered his goods to all the tenants.
The following morning Paul and I were up first
,
so we got dressed and slipped out of the
window leaving Liam fast asleep.
W
e headed to the row of houses opposite and ran from door to door
,
lowering our heads when we went past the kitchen windows. We were loaded with goods on the run back to the house with lots of bread, milk, yogurts
,
and cheese, just enough food and milk for t
he next couple of days at least.
As far as cash went,
we were left with a grand total of £3
,
which was enough for another round of chips if we got desperate during the week.
We were all sitting
on the floor in the house talking about our hopes and dreams for the future
.
Liam was
the older one at just fifteen, whereas Paul and I were fourteen
years old. Liam was pretty quie
t.
H
e smiled a lot and did
not say much, he was a thinker.
Paul was a comedian and was always joking, and me, well, I was just in a hurry to be an adult, as being a child was far too hard.

I talked about my brother and sisters and how we were a
ll separated several years back.
Liam talked about how his father used to beat him badly, and Paul didn’t talk about his past at all, only that he could not wait to officially leave Bryn Tyn. We were all in ag
reement with Paul on that score.
W
e all h
ated it for the most part;
however
,
strangely enough
there were some good times too.
Josie and I had a great time getting up to mischief all the time, but when things were bad they could be intolerable in a place like that.
Unknown to us while we were
having o
ur heart-to-
heart over our sumptuous b
reakfast,
we had been spotted by one of the tenants f
rom over the road, one of the people we had stolen the bread from.
S
he had watched us climb into the house
,
then went and called the police. Before we knew it or could act accordingly
,
there were two
police cars outside shouting for
us to com
e out. We could not believe it;
after everything we had been through the last couple of days
,
not to mention the marathon walk we accomplished without thumbing a lift once. We knew we were done for
,
s
o we climbed out of the window.
T
he policeman was
very nice
and asked us to get in the car.
W
e told them our names and once they had checked them a red flag came up
,
and they looked at us saying that there were police all over Shropshire looking for us. Again we were told how lucky we were as there are a lot of unsavory people about and we could have land
ed ourselves in serious trouble.
W
e admitted to taking the bread and milk and explained we only did this because we were hungry and did not have enough money to purchase the goods.
We were taken direct
ly to the local police station
and p
ut in a holding cell until our Social W
orkers arrived. They gave us dinner and even let the two boys smoke. Because we were listed as runaways
,
we had to answer a few questions about the last two
days:
where we had been, had anything happened to us
,
and were we all in good health as far as we knew.

One o
f the policemen was really nice;
he sympathized with us and seemed to understand why we h
ad runaway.
H
e
gave us a few pearls of wisdom
and said
,
“You don’t have too long left in care now,
so
why don’t you just try and keep your heads down and get through it?”

We all looked at him and said nothing. Only someone who was not subjected to our life in care could suggest such a thing. Times just got to
o
hard to
bear
, we were children, and we felt like we had no one or nothing.
My Social Worker arrived first, and then the other
two arrived shortly afterward.
I
t was decided that my Social Worker would drive us all back to Wales. After a briefing at the station
,
we all left and started the long journey back to Wales
. I was scared,
as I knew we were
really in for it on our return. T
hey would be pleasant enough in front of my Social Worker
,
but once she had left it would be scrubs for us three
once
again.
Non
e of us spoke a word during the whole journey.
M
y Social Worker put on an old radio station that was cranking out country and western songs, and I don’t think any of us heard the songs really. We also knew that we would all be separated on our arrival and that wa
s also part of the punishment—
being kept away from your friends. I had that awful sinking feeling again that I
had felt so many times before.
I dreaded the thought of scrubs and not being able to mix with everyone else. I knew I would have all my privileges stripped once more, but this time I had my bedroom to lo
se as well.
I knew I would probably be put back in
a
dorm or at the very least a shared room.
One thing I did know for sure my “t
rust” status
would have been removed
.
That I
did
deserve to lo
s
e, but if only they had listened to me more often then maybe, just maybe, I could have coped better and not runaway so often. You had to be quite tough to survive in care, and I was just not feeling tough enough. I
now hated everything that “t
rust” represented
.
T
his meant we were given a tad
more freedom, and I mean a tad.
U
nlike most teenagers of the same age on the outside
,
we were hidden away from society under
the blanket of the care system. W
e were unable to roam freely on a Saturday around town with our friends,
and
we were not allowed outside of the premises unaccompanied by
a member of staff. If we had “trust” status this just
allowed us an hour of freedom in the small town of Wrexham on a Saturday morning and not totally out of sight from the member of staff in charge. “Trust” to me felt like something a prisoner earned for good behavio
u
r
while
doing the
ir
time to make life a little easier. Not for children in care who were not at fault for the circumstances they were placed in by the
ir
parents. “Trust” was just a permanent reminder that we were not free; we were all just caged birds.
On my return to
Bryn Tyn I was punished far harder than before.
I had my single room tak
en from me, which I had expected.
I was placed in a room with Josie,
and this I did not mind at all.
I
n fact
,
I was so surprised that they actually considered this a good idea because now we were even closer day and night, which meant more mischief! I was yet again on scrubs for the umpteenth time, and it had become such a regular part of my life it no long
er bothered me.
I
worked my punishment and
heeded the advice given to me and kept my head down. I finally came to the conclusion that running away was doing me no good whatsoever
.
N
o one listened to my complaints, and no one much cared either. I decided to make the most of a bad situation and finally try to settle down.
Over the next coupl
e of months I was well behaved.
I took part in weekend activities once more and started doing extra chores to earn some money. We all had to do daily cho
res to keep our units clean. T
his was unpaid; however
,
you could volunteer to do special chores which could earn you up to £5.00 per week. More new children were admitted into Bryn Tyn
,
and older children were released from the care system once they came of age
.
Bryn Tyn was part of a community of children’s homes
,
and once a year a sports day was organized between the homes and this would usually take place within the Bryn Tyn grounds as this was the largest of all the homes. This was quite a spectacular event and
every one took part.
T
he local news station was invited to cover the event
. T
his was a big show to the outside world to give the impr
ession that all was well within
these homes. All the children l
oved sports day;
there was so much going on, a pop group was hired to sing for a couple of hours, a lot of local people were invited
,
and some of the kid’s parents were also invited. A great day would be had by all and no expense
was
spared. This would appear in the local paper the next day and mentioned on the local news station. The food was always great on sports day, and we all let our hair down and enjoyed a great feast.