by Caryn Walker
The only good advice my dad ever gave me was never to have an argument with Mum. ‘You’ll never win,’ he said, and he was absolutely right. From her, there was only ever one piece of advice: ‘Go out with a man until a better one comes along.’ That was, presumably, what she had always done, but I hate to think what the rest must have been like if Norman Yeo ended up looking like a good opportunity. I guess she must have gone for what other people saw – I’m not saying she fell for it, but she maybe wanted the superficiality of it looking like she had a ‘respectable’ family life, at least while it suited her.
There were two boys born after me. Both of them had Dad’s characteristics and they were certainly treated better than me, Ian or Jenny. Andrew looked like my Grandma Molly, and Kevin looked like Granddad Harry – maybe that’s why he took to them more. Maybe Mum liked them because they were boys, and they weren’t from a man who she thought had deserted her when she had done all she could to get him.
She certainly treated them very differently from how she treated Jenny. She hated my sister from the day she was born, according to everyone who has told me stories over the years. Nanny Ivy always said that Jenny was just a quiet child, who would sit in the corner on her own, but I know why – she was trying to avoid her own mother. The mother who would tell people that Jenny pretended she couldn’t walk, even though it was a barefaced lie. It was yet another way of making Jenny feel backward from an early age. She would also rub her soiled nappy in her face, something I remember so clearly and which was such a heartless thing to do to any child.
I remember seeing Mum do those things to Jenny from when I was tiny and I thought it was horrible. Why would a mummy behave like that? Why would a mummy be so mean to her little girl?
It seemed to just come naturally to her. The way she was coloured my life, coloured Jenny’s life and made my childhood one of horror. It wasn’t just her alone who did that but, my God, she laid the foundations, she truly did.
This is the story I have managed to pull together, Jenny, from the scraps of memories, the comments from family, the huge number of folders and files that I told you were scattered around me. It’s the jigsaw of our lives, and I’ve barely got the corners in place, the edges sorted.
It’s a strange thing to do, because I feel that I have to get this right, I have to give you a voice as much as I have to give me a voice, and I’ll only get this one chance. I remember things that were said about our family, insults that were thrown at us, constant complaints from neighbours, but no one really knew what was going on. Those two tiny little girls, neither of them truly wanted, deserve everything to be out in the open now. My memories have to be bigger than the ones I actually own – they have to include yours, the things you told me in later life, the things other people told me, the things that were written down. I’m trying to put it all in one place, but it’s overwhelming, Jenny. Every time I open those files, or open the memory box in my head, I feel as if the stories are desperate to be told, they’re screaming at me. They have been kept locked up for so long, and now … now, they have a chance to be heard. Now we have a chance to be heard. It’s an enormous responsibility, but I owe it to you, I owe it to us.
I only hope that other people can see the picture I’m trying to paint, because I need this story to give you a voice – and, by doing that, I want to give hope to all the other little girls and boys out there who never had a chance to tell their story either. We all deserve the opportunity to be heard, to write our own lines. When others do that for us, when they label us, it can chip away at our self-esteem so effectively that we end up blaming ourselves for the bad things – when we are told it is our fault, when we are told we brought it on ourselves, eventually we start to wonder if it’s the truth. Maybe we did. Maybe we are weak or pathetic. In my dark moments, I have wondered about all of that, but I know it’s just part of the psychological control I was subjected to. If I start to think – if any survivor starts to think – that they were responsible for their own abuse, the perpetrator has won. I won’t let that happen. I’ll remember, and I’ll shout from the rooftops – we matter, all of us survivors matter. These are the things we have to remember – we need to tell ourselves, you are good enough. You matter. You are special and you can overcome what was done to you. But there is so much to overcome, Jenny, so very much.
CHAPTER 2
FOUNDATIONS
1970–1974
As a little girl, I believed everything Mum said to me. When you’re small, you do – you do think that your mummy is telling the truth, that every word that comes from her mouth can’t be challenged. Now though, when I look back, I can see that my childhood was littered with lies.
‘Your granddad’s a proper bastard,’ she told me one time. ‘He battered a pregnancy out of me once.’
It was a lie. She would often admit later that she had made things up once she’d seen the impact they’d had. I’d sit there, wide-eyed, far too young to really understand, and just react to the few words I could comprehend, trying to make sense of the other ones that were new and hard for me.
‘I raised your nanny’s bloody kids for her,’ she’d sneer. ‘I brought up my own brothers and sister from when I was six years old, and all that cow ever does is tell everyone that I’m a waste of space.’
Another lie. Another lie that was blown apart by her own siblings, who used to tell me how awful Mum had been as a child, and how they always tiptoed around her, wondering what she would do next. She constantly accused men of all being ‘after her’, and if they couldn’t get her, she would say they’d raped her. She accused her own father-in-law of this, all the other men in our family, Jenny and Ian’s dad, almost every man she met, and it was a pattern of behaviour she kept going for decades.
The lies kept on coming but I believed them all for years. Even when I started to question the things she had told me, I couldn’t work out why she would have said them in the first place. Someone said to me recently that, to this day, she can’t stop lying. She’s rewritten her own past as one full of cruelty and misery, with hateful parents who never lifted a finger to help and a childhood in which she was expected to run around after everyone else; a good girl who was exploited by those who should have loved her. Lies, lies and more lies. My Auntie Jeanette once said to me, ‘Your mum wakes up in the morning and all the stories she told the day before are the truth. It’s as simple as that.’ There are some people who tell lies even when the truth is easier – I sometimes wonder if that’s what Mum does. It certainly often seemed that way.
My big sister Jennifer was born on 27 February 1970 in Wallasey. There are no happy stories of her birth, no staccato home movies or boxes of baby paraphernalia. It’s not surprising really, given that she wasn’t wanted. Mum, pregnant and unable to get the man she had set her sights on, was very open about how she felt from the start. Jennifer had been taken into care at eighteen months because she was bruised and undernourished, but I don’t have all of those files as I wasn’t yet born, so they are deemed ‘not relevant’ to me. However, later social work records show that not only was Mum open about not caring about her first daughter, she was violent towards her too. The foundations of her relationship with Jenny – and with me, as it would transpire – were not love and caring, but bitterness and cruelty.
On 16 August 1971 Mrs Yeo requested the reception into care of her children because of her pending admission into hospital for a minor operation. After this, no further contact was made for approximately one year when our current involvement began. On 10 August 1972, the Health Visitor discovered during a visit to the home that Jennifer was badly bruised – there was severe bruising on her forehead, arms, across her shoulder blades and extending down the lumbar-sacral region of her back. The department counselled with Mrs Yeo to allow her daughter to come into voluntary care. This was refused and a 28-day Place of Safety Order was taken.
Mrs Yeo states that she did not want Jennifer but she became pregnant to spite her parents. She married h
er husband very much against his mother’s wishes. He is an only son. The marriage does not appear to be a harmonious one. The children are well clothed and well nourished. She states that when Jennifer is very naughty she slaps her around the eyes. (5 April 1972)
I find this entry strange for two reasons – we were most certainly not well-clothed and well-nourished, and there seems to be no criticism of Mum slapping a two-year-old. Jenny was only a toddler, barely more than a baby. Some people will say those were different times, but you would think that, when a family was already on the radar, any hint of violence would be picked up on. It seems that Mum didn’t even bother trying to hide it, and I wonder why that is – did she feel she was untouchable, or was she admitting to ‘slaps’ rather than being open about the extent of what was happening? In fact, even Dad could see how bad things were as, at one point, he asked for Jenny to be taken into care as he ‘feared his wife would kill her.’
Things certainly got worse, and, by August 1972, Jenny’s poor little body was showing evidence of the terrible life she led.
Health visitor found Jennifer badly bruised – when examined, she was found to have sustained injury to cause severe bruising on the forehead, arms and across the shoulder blades extending to lumbar-sacral region of the back. She was weighed and found to be 12lbs 2oz in weight. After the doctor’s visit that afternoon it was felt that Jennifer should be taken into care under Section 1 of the Children Act 1948. (10 August 1972)
Weighing only 12lbs at the age of almost two-and-a-half years; covered in bruises and injuries. This was too much even for those days, when children were often believed to need a good slap to keep them in line, and it was thought that they should be seen and not heard. The professionals who were involved tried to get Mum to admit Jenny into voluntary care and, quite openly, she told them that my sister had been a problem since the moment of conception. ‘Throughout her pregnancy, Mrs Yeo did not want the child as the relationship between herself and the natural father was completely finished.’ Maybe this was just Mum being the person that Nanny had always said she was, thinking that she could do nothing wrong or believing that she could always get out of trouble, but it seems a very bald, uncaring statement to make to those who were involved in checking whether even more severe intervention was needed for our family.
Mum was unwilling to agree to anything until Dad got back later that day and, while they waited for him, the social workers decided that Jenny’s injuries were consistent with a beating or several beatings very recently. When they went back to Mum at 4:30pm, she refused to let them take Jenny away, so a ‘Place of Safety’ action was deemed appropriate. Mum denied everything to do with Jenny’s ‘present state’. On that same day, there is a question in the file that asks, ‘Do you consider any other members of the household at risk?’ The reply, in capital letters, is: NO. Whether that’s wishful thinking or a complete ignorance of the facts, I have no idea – but it was a million miles from the truth.
The next month, a letter was sent by the police to the Senior Children’s Officer of the Region. It makes for heartbreakingly stark reading – I do understand that the clinical way in which Jenny and her injuries are described is how these things have to be recorded, but I just want to reach out to that little girl and hold her tight.
To the Senior Children’s Officer of the Cheshire Constabulary
From the Chief Superintendent of the County Borough of Wallasey
Dear Sir –
Complaint of assault on Jennifer Marie Yeo, 2 years.
At 6pm on Thursday 10th August 1972, a complaint was received at the Criminal Investigation Department, Wallasey, from Mr Surridge of your Department to the effect that the above-named girl had been assaulted and the child had been removed from the parental home and placed in the care of the Local Authority under a Place of Safety Order for 28 days.
I have considered all the facts of this case which was fully investigated [ … ] and have decided not to take any further Police action in this matter.
Thanking you for your valuable assistance.
Yours faithfully – Chief Superintendent
13 September 1972
So, that was that – no further action taken. The police might not have been interested, but the Yeo family file was getting bigger every day. By this stage, there were three of us kids (Ian, Jenny and me), and the social workers were obviously keen to keep an eye on what was going on. A picture emerges of my mother and father in which much more attention is paid to her than to him. While that does reflect some of our family dynamic – Dad was always fishing, and too lazy to do much, while Mum was at home pretty much constantly – I think it also indicates the bias that made them feel that the home environment was very much the woman’s domain. Anything Dad did around the home or with us was seen as ‘helping’ Mum, and the fact that they concentrated on her meant that he could get away with staying pretty inconspicuous.
Mr Yeo was not very communicative during our brief visit, he kept his head buried in the newspaper, which was scattered over the dining room table. His wife, who appears to be a boisterous personality, informed us that the children were keeping well. (23 January 1973)
The children looked fit and well. Mr Yeo is unemployed and he appears to give his wife a good deal of support in the home. Mr and Mrs Yeo are still suspicious of the Department because of what happened to Jennifer who was taken into care on a Place of Safety order. I feel it may be some time before I am accepted and they see me in a helpful capacity. Mr Yeo and his wife stated that they are subjected to a degree of hostility by their neighbours because of the incident concerning Jennifer. (25 January 1973)
Mr Yeo is still unemployed. He finds that from a financial point of view he is better off on state benefits than if he were in regular employment. During the interview, one had the impression that there is still a degree of rejection of Jennifer by her mother … she stated that she had perhaps been a little heavy-handed with the children, particularly Jennifer, on past occasions, but [ …] she now counts to ten before she decides to discipline the children. In this family, it would seem that Mrs Yeo has a rather boisterous personality as a dominant partner but as the interview progresses it would seem that Mr Yeo, who has not been very communicative on past interviews, may be the dominant partner in the marriage and it is he who may hold the unit together. (1 February 1973)
As I was only around two years old, I have no memory of any of this and it’s as if I’m seeing a picture painted of our family by outside observers. I want to scream at them, ‘Take Jenny away again – save her!’, but there is also a part of me that feels like I’m watching a film that doesn’t feature me, and I hope against hope that the mummy will turn out to be a nicer person, that the daddy will make it all better. I wonder if the social workers felt like that too? Did they hope that one day they would turn up and everything would be fine? That Mum would open the door and exclaim, ‘It’s fine – I love them all!’ Dad would be striding out, in a suit, off to work, the perfect little family playing happily in the background. Life doesn’t work that way though, does it? Even the authorities could see that Dad was bone idle, and that Mum wanted all of the attention on her. The way in which she is described as ‘boisterous’ hides so much and I wish that the people writing these reports would just come out and say what they really mean.
As the interview progressed, Mrs Yeo clearly rejected Jennifer but her husband appears totake a more positive interest so he more or less compensates for her mother’s lack of interest…. one would probably describe Mrs Yeo’s relationship with her daughter as one of love and hate … If visitors or social workers are too attentive towards Jennifer, Mrs Yeo becomes easily upset, she becomes irritable. Mr Yeo is a butcher by trade … he agrees that to some extent he is basically a lazy man – his only interest appears to be in fishing. (22 February 1973)
Mr Yeo was on a fishing trip and Mrs Yeo opened up a bit. She told me that she hadn’t been talking to her husband. In life, she has rushed from one male relatio
nship to another. She stated that her husband was very sexually demanding of her – I suggested she should discuss this rather delicate area with her husband. (19 March 1973)
This ‘delicate area’ was one that would colour much of what went on in our childhood. I would find out in later years that my parents had a sex life that involved lots of other people, but there would be no way of the social workers discovering this. I think the records probably show things that they saw frequently rather than one-offs, as there is a lot of repetition; so, Dad’s fishing trips no doubt infuriated them as they were his way of getting out of the house and avoiding gainful employment, and Mum’s complaints about being ‘hard done by’ all her life seem to have registered too. They also noted, on many occasions, the way in which Mum was always irritated if Jenny’s behaviour took the attention from her. Even when she was only three years old, it was as if a competition had been set up between the two of them, and Mum appeared desperate to win.
Jennifer was very attention seeking; right through the interview she continually played around my feet, brought many of her toys to me to see, climbed up on my knee. On several occasions, Mrs Yeo reprimanded her verbally for annoying me. It was interesting to see that as soon as anyone displays any affection for Jennifer, Mrs Yeo gets very upset about this. (29 March 1973)
