Please Let It Stop (4 page)

Mum had been free of John for a year but rather than move on in life she had been paralysed by her loneliness. Of course, we all have moments of weakness when the familiar is tempting but I would never get into a relationship with anyone, old or new, simply because I couldn’t bear to be alone. My life is so full of other things – friends, family, work, new challenges and so on – that I don’t have a huge void to fill. I think this is largely a generation issue, though, as more and more women today give themselves permission to live the life they want, on their terms. Mum eventually married John on 3 July 1989. Apparently she told my auntie just before the wedding but only two people were invited. They were John’s friend, Mac, and his wife, Vera. Mac was a friend of John’s so Mum was able to have Vera as a friend. Despite the fact that Mum and John were now lawfully joined I have never called him my step-father. I cannot and will not do it. He is not a ‘father’ of any sort. He was and will always be my abuser.

In my mid-teens I was still very young for my age, and my reserve and quietness didn’t help. I don’t think it was my natural personality but more likely the outcome of having
led such a repressed life. For that reason it was perhaps far more difficult for me than it was for my peers to contemplate such a major step as moving out. However, while I didn’t possess the self-awareness of a typical girl of my age, I had ambition and was very driven. I was a hard worker and more than anything I wanted financial independence. Money was tight at home, and although my father was fairly well off I would never have asked him for money. During the year in which John had left us, Mum had finally allowed me to leave the confines of the house so I could get a part-time job after school. I worked at the Beauty Box, a hairdressers in Biggin Hill, where I washed hair and swept the floors. The customers were mainly the ‘blue-rinse’ set and I didn’t really enjoy the atmosphere. I especially disliked the woman who ran it. The only reason I’d got the job there was because she knew my dad so it was a bit of a double-edged sword. After my stint in hair-dressing, I worked as a waitress at the Spinning Wheel restaurant in Westerham, where, although I worked hard, I was quite useless and finally left before I could be fired. I then briefly worked at the Flying Club at Biggin Hill, making sandwiches.

Work, however humble, presented an opportunity to be part of the world, something that had been closed off to me for so long. It not only gave me a taste of financial independence but also a chance at self-expression. I know that many people would not associate a job with
freedom
but for me that’s exactly what it represented. Later on I went to work for Royal Doulton in their concession at what is now the Primark store in Bromley. I worked on Saturdays and during the school holidays, joining them full-time after I left school. I knew it wasn’t going to be something I would do for ever, but it was a start. I’d always enjoyed art at school and for a while I toyed with the idea of being a window dresser, but it didn’t really fit my vision of total independence and ambition. I’d read about all sorts of successful people and was determined to make something of my life. Staying at school was not an option, not because I wasn’t intelligent enough – I believe I was – but because the environment at home made me far too unsettled to make a go of it.

Of course, one of the bonuses of going out to work was meeting people. A girl called Rachel, who I knew through the Beauty Box, introduced me to my first real boyfriend, Adam. He really was a teenage girl’s delight: 6 feet 2 inches tall, blond hair and bright blue eyes. He worked at the local airfield as a lathe operator and seemed very grown-up to me. Well, he
was
seventeen! It was all terribly coy at first, with Rachel telling him how much I fancied him, then setting up a date for us at the Flying Club in Biggin Hill which my father owned. I wore a blue corduroy skirt and white halter-neck top with red and blue stripes – which sounds a bit like some small-town cheerleader’s outfit, but at the time I reckoned I’d got it right! He danced me off my
feet at the disco and I thought I was in love. Thinking back, I have to wonder what he saw in me. I had no confidence, no personality and definitely no style.

We ended up dating for almost a year, if you can call it that, since Mum said he could come to the house but I was rarely allowed to go anywhere with him. One day we fell asleep on my bed and my mother accused me of having sex. She didn’t even wait to hear what I had to say but just started screaming at me. This was someone who, in all likelihood, knew that her partner had sexually abused me so her attitude really puzzled me. But then most things were a puzzle to me. I knew about things that no child should know about, and didn’t know about things I should have been aware of.

Eventually I did have sex with Adam but it was anal sex. He explained that we had to do it that way because he had been cautioned by the police for having underage sex with his previous girlfriend who was only fifteen. (We’d been together several months when it happened and I was then sixteen, over the age of consent.) I realise that anal sex is not everyone’s idea of a first sexual experience and it probably would have shocked me completely if I’d known more about sex. I’m also pretty sure I would have refused or been scared if I hadn’t been abused as a child, but as it was I had no idea of what I was doing, or what was normal and what wasn’t. Adam eventually found more excitement in the arms of an older woman and unceremoniously dumped me.
My mother immediately came over all protective, was very angry with him and demanded that I return his Christmas present – a splendid bottle of Tramp perfume!

Everyone knew I was upset about Adam so Dad stepped in to organise a blind date for me with a boy called Martin Thomas who worked as a petrol-pump attendant. We were to go to the Biggin Hill Flying Club dinner dance and I was so excited because this really was a big occasion. I wore a pretty white dress, and Martin, who I thought looked like John Travolta, did not disappoint me. After the dinner dance we saw each other regularly and I often stayed at his house, which was not far away in Biggin Hill Valley. My mother didn’t like him, though, and she made it very clear how she felt about us being together. One day as I was strolling up to the airfield where Martin worked part-time behind the bar at one of the flying clubs, a car pulled up beside me. Inside were Mum, my grandma Hunt – my mum’s mum, and Vanessa. Mum jumped out and just started screaming at me. Apparently my grandma had picked up a pair of my jeans and some condoms had fallen out of the pocket. Mum didn’t stop to think that they might be a good thing – she just went ballistic then drove off again at great speed.

Martin and I had a good relationship and we connected with each other in every way. After my strange sexual experience with Adam I was at last in a secure relationship where I could enjoy sex, and I made sure I did.

When we first had sex I remember it wasn’t a conscious decision but the time just felt right. We were babysitting at the time for my younger cousins. I remember feeling a bit nervous although Martin didn’t seem to be. He was very considerate and there were lots of cuddles afterwards.

Since finding out about the abuse, close friends have asked why it didn’t affect my attitude towards sex and my response is simply that I wasn’t going to be a victim: the abuse was not going to affect my life in any way. In any case, I did not view what John had done to me as sex in the same way as what I did with my boyfriend. Perhaps it was my ability to distance myself and even to pretend that I had left that person behind but I did not equate the loving, fun, enjoyable moments with Martin as being on a par with the cruelty and abuse that John inflicted upon me as a young girl.

Eighteen months into our relationship Martin and I were engaged. The interesting thing here is that there wasn’t really any discussion about what it meant. It just seemed like the logical next thing to do. If I am being truthful, I probably wasn’t thinking beyond having a big party at the Biggin Hill Flying Club. By this point, Mum seemed fine with it all but Dad was busy trying to persuade me not to get married. He thought that marriage at such a young age would be a disaster and that I would finish up stuck in the suburbs with five children and no life. Ultimately his intervention was not required because our
cards were already stacked. Martin’s mother was an alcoholic, who was often beaten up by her husband. One night we were walking home to Martin’s house after a party and we had a huge row. He punched me in the face and I landed in the bushes in someone’s garden. I ended the relationship then and there, a move which I now think shows that I was growing in confidence. Sure I’ve had my dramas but there are things that I will not accept at any cost and physical violence is one of them. Nobody should have to put up with it or excuse it.

I was now eighteen and getting more confident about meeting men. One night at the Sport Air Club in Biggin Hill I spotted this very handsome man so I went over to talk to him. I was still at school and he was older than me, very charismatic and good-looking. His name was Tony. He was ambitious, hard-working and already doing very well for himself. He worked for De Beers as a diamond buyer and had his own house in Rochester. He was definitely in the ‘good catch’ category and a complete contrast to either Adam or Martin. We immediately hit it off; in fact, he introduced me to his parents not long after we’d met. Tony’s mum turned out to be Dorothy, the warm, caring dinner lady from Biggin Hill Primary School. I have to say it was very strange to see her again and we were both taken aback by the moment. Thankfully we didn’t discuss my awkward schooldays although Dorothy and I did get around to it much later. I also got on well with Tony’s father,
Derek. He was Anglo-Indian and reminded me of Omar Sharif and was the very model of a charming gentleman.

It was 1979. I wasn’t interested in taking up the trainee manager position they’d just offered me at Royal Doulton. Instead I decided to ask my father if I could gain some work experience in his business, then known as Gold Star Publications. Dad’s voice said yes but his body language suggested he wasn’t too sure.

Gold Star was the publishing arm of the family business which also comprised Ann Summers, then just a couple of shops. Part of Gold Star’s business was in top-shelf adult magazines, a business we have recently sold. I have never had a problem with them: my attitude is if you want it, buy it; if you don’t, then don’t buy it. There is absolutely no point wasting energy complaining about things you can avoid, whether it’s magazines or television shows, something that some people seem to do. The late 1970s and early 1980s were interesting times at Gold Star because we were raided by police on average every eighteen months. Forget those dramatic sweeps you see on
The Bill
– these were distinctly less glamorous. In fact, they were rather pedestrian and boring, with our warehouse staff routinely helping the police load the magazines into the lorries. The expectation that these raids would happen meant that their cost to the business was actually factored into the budget.

When I joined Gold Star there were no privileges. I spent my days entering data on the computer for which I was paid £45 a week, less than the tea lady. It was evident that my father had not gone out of his way to make it easy for me. I didn’t see him much either – perhaps once a week – and since we didn’t really know each other it was very strained. I also recognised that he saw the job as a stop-gap for me. The environment felt cold, not just because I was new but there seemed to be no camaraderie or team spirit. In any case, I lacked the social skills to be able to integrate properly. One thing that did amuse me when I started working at Gold Star was the way in which outsiders regarded our companies. You would see people standing at the bus stop outside the head office at Whyteleafe, staring in as if they were expecting something seriously erotic to take place. We still get that at our Ann Summers headquarters in Whyteleafe today. There’ll be a telephone engineer furtively looking around, hoping (and I’m sure he is) that a scantily clad woman will waft past (in his dreams). More than likely he’ll walk past boxes of our products or busy staff inputting orders.

Tony and I were still going out and I’d known him six months when he suggested I move in with him. I had no hesitation in saying yes. I loved him and I hated living at home so in my mind there was no question as to what I should do. When I announced my plans to Mum, she was
not too receptive but that would soon change. While she would never have accepted me living with girlfriends or on my own, she somehow felt that living with a man was more valid than either of those options. I was so excited at the thought of creating my own little nest. My considerable collection of Royal Doulton china was just waiting for a good home. Tony’s house had been furnished with random pieces of furniture from a house clearance. I didn’t like it so we gathered it up and sold it at Rochester Market. It went so well that we took a stall for a few more weeks, stocking it with bric-a-brac from our respective parents’ houses. It was my first experience of direct selling and I revelled in it.

As soon as I moved in I swung into full homemaking mode: I believe I even made curtains. I also discovered how women can easily make a rod for their own backs because I did it myself. I decorated the house, cooked lovely dinners, and when Tony asked if he could help I said no. Of course, if you keep doing that then after a while the offers of help tend to diminish, something I learnt the hard way. But I was young, still a teenager and out on my own in the world for the first time. And let’s face it: my mother was not exactly the best role model when it came to carrying a flag for independence.

Having left home, I no longer had to see John, but in order to see my mother I would go to the house when he was at work. I would arrive and she would open the front door. She looked pleased to see me and had this innocent
look on her face which made me want to hug her, but when I did her arms would just hang limply by her side as she was unable to show affection. We would go inside and downstairs to the lounge where we would sit. Mum would then make tea. I often visited her in my lunch hour and usually the phone would ring dead on 1pm while I was there. It was John. Instead of telling him she had her daughter with her and did not have much time with me, she would take the call from him while I sat there. Mum knew I didn’t like John but she would inevitably use the entire hour to talk about him saying, ‘I know you don’t like John but…’ It was almost as if the more she talked about him, the more chance she had of changing my mind. I was forever attempting to change the subject but it was impossible. On the way to her house I would try and think of what to chat about: because she cocooned herself in the house and had few friends, she had very little to converse about. Occasionally she’d come out with something about a neighbour, usually something tragic that had befallen them. John made it difficult for Mum to have friends; I remember that she did know two women, Valerie and Jasmine, whom she befriended when she worked as a receptionist at one of the flying clubs for a short while. She saw them a few times with John but he didn’t seem to encourage it. At Mum’s funeral Valerie was upset that he never told her Mum was ill. Mum couldn’t even talk to Auntie Heather or Vanessa or I on the phone if she thought John was about to walk in. She would quickly
hang up as he would go into a bad mood if he thought she wasn’t giving him all of her attention. Christmas visits presented problems, especially for me, since I now spent most of the time avoiding him. Vanessa and I would go to see her and I would naturally want to leave before John turned up. Mum would beg me to stay. ‘Don’t go yet,’ she’d say in a pleading voice, ‘John will be home soon.’ I used to have panic attacks about going there and was so happy to get back to my little haven with Tony.