Read Four Waifs on Our Doorstep Online
Authors: Trisha Merry
Four Waifs on Our Doorstep
Our Doorstep
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS company
Copyright © 2015 by Trisha Merry and Jacquie Buttriss
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Trisha Merry and Jacquie Buttriss to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
While this book gives a faithful account of the author’s experiences, some names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. Trisha
Merry is a pseudonym.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-3845-4
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-3846-1
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Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
To my amazing family. Every day I thank my lucky stars that I have you in my life. I love you all very much.
14. A Dry Place on the Mattress
1
‘6 March 1997 – Children taken into police protection.
7 March 1997 – Emergency Protection Order made in respect of all four children, who are taken to foster carers.’
Social worker’s case notes
I
t was eleven o’clock at night when we heard a vehicle pull up outside our house. I peeked out through the curtains and saw a white minibus
parked under the street lamp. Two women got out and came up the path.
‘They’re here!’ I called to Mike, and he joined me in the hallway as they knocked on the door. I immediately opened it.
‘Hello,’ said one of the women. ‘Mr and Mrs Merry?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
They introduced themselves – a social worker and a support worker. ‘I believe you are expecting us?’
‘Yes, do you have the children with you?’
‘We do. We’ve just woken them up, so they’re still a bit sleepy I’m afraid,’ said one.
‘They’ve had a difficult day and a long journey, but they slept most of the way,’ added the other.
We stood out on the doorstep, ready to welcome them, as the support worker carried the youngest and the social worker ushered the other three up our path towards us. I can remember my shock,
even after all those years, and the hundreds of children we’d cared for.
As the eldest, a boy with a shaven head, approached, I noticed the big wet patch down the front of his light-coloured trousers. He looked petrified. They all did. In all my years of fostering, I
had never seen children look more frightened than these four. If I could have taken a photo of them that evening, it would have been just like those sepia prints I’d seen of Dr
Barnardo’s urchins, taken off the streets of London in Victorian times.
They trembled in their thin, shabby clothes, much too light for the cold of the night, the younger two in T-shirts and nappies, the elder boy’s jumper torn and half unravelled up one
sleeve. Then there was the obvious bruising on their pinched faces and bony hands . . . I dreaded to think what other unseen injuries they might have.
Both the boys’ heads were shaved; the older girl’s hair looked as if it had been badly cut with blunt scissors, all jagged and tufty, and the younger girl had bald patches where her
hair had apparently been pulled out in clumps. This child also had her arm plastered and in a sling, a swollen lip and a black eye. She looked very frail. The other girl had a black eye too. The
baby was lethargic and seemed to have some sort of skin condition. He turned his head away when I looked at his face.
The eldest of the four was almost rigid with anxiety, his expression darting from one sibling to another, as if checking they were all right.
We were experienced – we knew we had to keep our faces right, our expressions smiling, but in that brief moment when I took in that sight of the four of them, I thought:
Oh my
God!
Then my brain went into overdrive, imagining the lives these poor waifs must have led, and wondering how we were going to cope with their various needs.
As the children came nearer, we could smell them. When you look at a healthy baby’s skin it has a bloom on it – a shine, doesn’t it? But when you see children that aren’t
washed, their skin is dull and textured, like suede. These four were grubby all right, very grubby, and all scratching their heads and bodies like crazy.
Steeling ourselves and still smiling, we took a few steps towards them and gave them all hugs. That was the most important thing. I remember the three older children’s faces, their looks
of astonishment, mixed with acute apprehension.
‘Welcome to our home. Come on in – we’ve got hot chocolate and bickies for you,’ I said as I ushered them into the hall. ‘This will be your home too for as long as
you stay. We’ve been really looking forward to seeing you.’
As Mike took the two social workers and the children into the sitting room, I dashed upstairs and found a pair of my grandson Brett’s trousers for the elder boy to change into. Fortunately
they fitted well enough, with a belt round the waist and the bottoms turned up. He looked relieved to get rid of his wet trousers, out in the hallway, though he trembled with fear.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ he wailed, unable to stop the tears. ‘I told them I needed to go. I asked them to stop, but they wouldn’t. I knew you would be very cross with
me.’
‘No, I’m not. It wasn’t your fault, so there’s no reason for me to be cross.’ I gave his unyielding body another hug. ‘You don’t need to be worried
about anything in this house,’ I tried to reassure him.
‘But I do. I have to worry about the others,’ he replied with a quiver in his voice, as he wiped away his tears with his shabby sleeve, leaving a smear across his cheek.
I wanted to take him out of all his clothes and put on clean ones, but realised that would be too traumatic for him so soon.
‘Simon needs to have his nappies changed,’ he said as he zipped up his trousers. I remember being quite surprised by this remark. Young children don’t usually notice such
things.
‘Do you know when he was last changed?’ I asked him.
‘When the social workers came this morning. One of them did it.’ That would have been more than twelve hours before. ‘I usually have to try to do it,’ he added.
‘Well, I have lots of nappies, so I’ll change him straight away.’
‘Caroline too?’
‘Yes, Caroline too.’ I grabbed the nappy bag from the downstairs cloakroom and we went back to join the others.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked him.
‘Hamish,’ he said.
‘And how old are you, Hamish?’
‘Seven.’
I had to pick up my jaw. He didn’t look any older than four or five, his body so bony and his face very thin. To be honest, I thought he looked half starved, so perhaps that was why he was
so small for his age.
‘Can you introduce me to your sisters and brother?’
‘Yes, this is Anita,’ he said, pointing at the girl with tufty hair. Then he turned to the younger girl. ‘Caroline has a broken arm.’ Finally he pointed at the baby, now
plonked onto the floor and making no effort to move. ‘And this is Simon.’ As he spoke, I noticed there was something odd about Hamish’s speech. Perhaps a slight impediment of some
kind.
‘I’m Trisha and this is Mike.’ I smiled my warmest smile to them all.
‘What does it say on your top?’ asked Anita with a cheeky grin.
‘I straightened my T-shirt and pointed out the words to her, one at a time. ‘“I’m the boss.”’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked, tilting her head to one side.
‘It means I’m the one that organises things in the house. Like cooking, for instance.’ The three older children’s faces lit up. ‘Now, I expect you’re tired,
after your long journey.’
I could not fail to notice the girls’ dismay, and Hamish’s look of alarm. Panic more like. His eyes darted to the hallway. Did he want to leave? Was it something I’d said? . .
. or maybe something I hadn’t said? At that moment, I realised.
‘. . . and I expect you’re hungry. Let’s get you something to eat.’ As I said this, his expression immediately switched to one of immense relief.
‘For all of us?’ asked Hamish. ‘We’re all very hungry.’
‘Yes, for all of you. What would you like?’
‘Can we have pasta?’ asked Anita.
‘Yes, of course you can.’
Just then, the two women stood up.
‘I’m afraid we have to leave now, if that’s all right with you,’ said the social worker. ‘We have a long drive back.’
I showed them out to the front door. ‘Did the children bring anything with them, any clothes or wash things, or anything?’
‘No,’ answered the social worker. ‘Nothing but what they are wearing.’
It must have been an urgent case then, I thought, as most children bring something with them, whatever their circumstances. I remembered Caroline’s arm being in a sling when I opened the
door.
‘The agency told me Caroline was in hospital,’ I said. ‘Was that because of her arm . . . or something else?’
‘Yes, she has a broken arm,’ said the support worker. ‘She’s had the injury for several days, but it’s only been treated today.’
I shuddered at the thought of the pain she must have been in.
‘Can you tell me anything else about the children?’
‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Merry.’
As I closed the door, I knew these women weren’t allowed to say anything. After all, it was an emergency care order and we would probably only have the children with us for a week or two,
so what did we need to know? As usual, we foster parents were left in the dark, to work things out for ourselves.
Of course, to be fair, it was sometimes possible that a family had not been known to the authorities until something traumatic happened, such as a parent’s serious injury or death.
But I had developed an instinct over the years, and straight away, looking at these children, there was no way they wouldn’t have been known to Social Services. Absolutely no way. For a
start, we only had to look at them to see how underfed they were, not to mention the injuries, or anything unseen.
‘Come on, kids,’ I called. ‘Come to the kitchen and tell me what you want to eat.’
Well, it was a stampede!
I opened the fridge door. We had a big, American-style fridge, packed from top to bottom with food.
They were transfixed. Caroline was actually trembling when she looked at all the food.
‘You can have cereals, or fruit, or eggs, or baked beans on toast . . .’ Usually, newly arrived foster children would happily choose something from what I had suggested. But I felt
as if I was going about it all wrong with these four, as the older three all rushed at the fridge, with Hamish pulling things out and handing them to his siblings. The girls fought to grab their
own food too. Meanwhile, Simon, the placid baby, seemed almost unaware of what was going on.