What Daddy Did: The Shocking True Story of a Little Girl Betrayed

by Donna Ford

  Those first few months after Helen left were confusing. I was still sleeping in the boxroom, but now I kept the door ajar and the light on all the time. I still got very scared – how could I forget all that had happened, all that had been done to me? When things got too bad, I would sneak through to the living room and try to sleep on the sofa. Even if the nightmares were too much for me, or if sleep kept itself out of my grasp, I felt better away from where the worst abuses had happened to me.

  I wanted Helen to be gone permanently but I was terrified that she might return at any moment. I was given so many responsibilities but didn't really have the physical or emotional capacity to deal with all of them. This might all have been bearable if my father had been more of a man – more like the man I wanted him to be, needed him to be. Helen had gone and my Dad needed to step into the breach. Instead, I was faced with a shadow of a father – drinking, smoking, barely having enough money to keep us all together. This was not the fairy-tale hero Daddy whom I had prayed would rescue me – and it wouldn't be long before I discovered, to my cost, just how useless he was at keeping me safe.

  We five children were victims – victims of a relationship between two adults – and we were all suffering to varying degrees. The shocking thing is we were still being visited by social workers on a regular basis. They saw the squalor we were living in; they saw that my Dad couldn't cope physically, financially or emotionally; yet we were all left there. Our home help, Nora, left after a little while because she couldn't cope. We once had our walls painted by a group of students, and we received a charity parcel at Christmas time, which was very welcome given that there was little in the way of extra money at that time of year.

  I was 12 and a half when I had my first Christmas without Helen (I couldn't remember the ones in Barnardo's). My Dad came home from the pub one night with a book of Provident cheques. These were prepaid savings certificates, almost like gift tokens, which could be exchanged for goods displaying the Provident sign. 'Take these,' he told me. 'Get yourself to the shops and get a few wee things for the bairns.' I looked at him, waiting to see what he would say about me. He didn't offer anything else. 'Something for Karen?' I asked, as she was always my priority. 'Aye, a dolly maybe,' he answered.

  I felt something pull at my heart at those words when I remembered the Christmases I had spent wishing for a Tiny Tears dolly. It was all I wanted, all I thought about. Although Helen had started beating me by that stage, she hadn't begun her worst cruelties. She kept asking me what I wanted from Santa. I should have realised there was something amiss as, in truth, she couldn't have cared less. In my innocence, however, every time she asked, I answered, 'A Tiny Tears baby, please,' and she'd laugh as if it was the most hilarious thing she'd ever heard.

  On Christmas morning, I could hardly believe my eyes when I walked into the living room and saw a wrapped present with my name on a little tag. I walked over, mesmerised, as Helen and my Dad watched. I picked it up, hardly daring to believe it might be what I wanted so much, but, as I tore the paper off, I had to accept the wonder of Christmas. It was! It was a Tiny Tears dolly box! By this stage, Helen and my Dad were beside themselves with laughter. I opened the box carefully – Tiny Tears must be so precious and delicate, I thought, because it hardly weighed anything. It took a few moments for the reality to sink in. There was no escaping the fact that my Christmas present was an empty Tiny Tears box. What hurt even more than Helen's nastiness was the fact that my Dad was joining in – he must have known what she had planned, and he must have thought it was a good idea. Now, he casually mentioned getting a baby dolly for Karen as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  I held back the tears that pricked at my eyes and asked, 'Gordon? Andrew? Adrian? Shall I get something for all of them, Dad?' He didn't even glance up from his newspaper crossword, 'Aye, something for them all.' I walked away, holding the cheques, but he called out to me, 'Donna?' 'Yes, Dad?' I answered – maybe this would be a good Christmas after all. 'If there's anything else, get yourself a wee thing. Only if all the bairns are sorted though.' I thought I might get a Christmas that year, but it didn't look like it – I was bottom of the list, as always, and my Dad hadn't even seen fit to recognise that I was one of the 'bairns' too.

  I had to be Santa.

  We had chicken on Christmas Day and we were given selection boxes from our social worker. I will always remember that Christmas because there was no tormenting or abuse, but there was precious little happiness or joy either.

  By the time I went to high school, I was completely disillusioned with the education process. Since I'd started school, teachers had never really noticed anything was wrong with me – apart from when I was caught stealing food – and I saw no reason to believe this would change. From about the age of 13, I began truanting a lot. The only subjects that interested me were art and science. I liked art because even I could see that I had some talent there, and science was enjoyable because of my wonderful teacher, Mr Ritchie.

  Sometimes it was absolutely unbearable going into school because of the constant teasing and ridicule, and I was confused by the adolescent changes in my body and feelings. Very rarely was there anything in my day to look forward to. On a typical day I would drop Karen off at nursery school then just go off for the rest of the time she was there, usually up to the art galleries or museum in town where I would wander around and look at everything while keeping warm. Although we got 'free dinners' at school (something Helen had stopped while she was around), I preferred not to be at school to get them, taking a jam sandwich with me for my jaunt instead. I would always leave in plenty of time to go and pick up Karen from nursery.

  My Dad never once asked me about school or whether or not I went. The truant officer became a regular visitor to our house, concerning myself. It was purely this intervention that made my father insist that I was to attend school. The very thought of going to school was awful for me. I felt stupid. I know that people thought I was stupid too, because I was different, I was scruffy and unkempt. I knew that I had a decent brain because I had devoured all of Auntie Nellie's books; I had helped Adrian learn to read; I could draw and there was a part of me that had the desire to make something of myself. But I didn't fit in. I had no friends at school. No-one wanted to know me. My friend, Elaine, went to a different school.

  The only time I really enjoyed school was in my final year, thanks purely to the two new art teachers, Mr Slater and Mr Dalgleish. They were young, fresh out of college and enthusiastic, but most important of all, they encouraged me. I have met both of them in recent years. Mr Slater came along to an exhibition I held in Edinburgh during the Festival in 2007, and I visited my old school in 2006 and spoke to Mr Dalgleish. Both of them taught my niece, Hannah, who is now a very accomplished artist herself. They looked beyond the exterior of the person I was and saw who I was inside. Small details like these allow us to grow. They were good teachers because they did not discriminate. I still treasure a school magazine that features some illustrations I did back then.

  I did well at art and managed to pass my Ordinary Grade, but that was the only qualification I achieved. I know I wasn't stupid because I'd read voraciously ever since my Auntie Nellie left all of her library to my Dad, and I had accessed it through the horror of those years in Edina Place. In fact, I was better read than most people I knew, but I just didn't have the support at home to allow me to achieve. I was going back there from school to cooking and cleaning and caring for a little girl. In some ways, I knew that all of these things were wrong but I wasn't really too bothered because I always had a plan to get out of that house and that street.

  I knew there was another world out there and I was determined to find it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ONLY AFTER ONE THING . . .

  HOME LIFE IN MY TEENAGE years was better than it had been when Helen was there – but it was still terrible. I was growing up, even though I'd had no childhood to speak of. I had so much responsibility – cooking a
nd cleaning for six people, and looking after the younger children – yet not one of my needs was being met.

  When I was about 14, my Dad came through to my room one day. 'We need to have a wee talk, Donna,' he said, pretty much always his opening gambit when we spoke about anything he decided was important. I wondered what other task or responsibility he had thought of to give me this time. 'It's . . . well . . . it's stuff that you need to know,' he stuttered. 'Life . . . things . . .' I looked at him blankly; I had no idea what he was fumbling around trying to say. 'The birds and the bees!' he quickly said. 'The birds and the bees, Donna!' Saying this, he shoved a paper bag with the local chemist logo on it into my hands. I looked into it gingerly – inside were the biggest sanitary towels imaginable. I was embarrassed and so was he. I had started my period before this time but I was too ashamed to tell anyone, so I would use rolled-up toilet paper stuffed in my pants. I wonder now if he knew that I had started?

  'You'll need these, Donna, when you become a woman,' he told me, not looking at my face at all. 'You'll know what to do, but there's something else . . .' I wondered what else he could possibly say that could be any more embarrassing. 'Boys. Watch out for them, Donna. They only want one thing.' With that, he almost ran out of my room, no doubt proud of himself for doing his fatherly duty.

  That was it. That was all he offered. I couldn't even look him in the eye. He'd had men staying over in this house who had abused me – friends of his – and here he was trying to be a Dad? The fact was that I had been sexually abused again in the years after Helen left. In some ways, these later attacks were more awful for me because, for a long time, I felt I was responsible for much of what went on. I don't in any way feel that now because I know I was a child and that these things were done to me without my permission or encouragement. However, I felt guilty and responsible then, and at some points afterwards, because of the way a lot of it happened.

  One of the things that used to confuse me was that these men were often nice to me. They engaged me in conversation and gave me attention – things which my Dad rarely did. They flattered me and listened to me. My Dad was always too tired, too distracted or too drunk to actually notice that I was carrying so much and yet being deprived of even basic interaction. It was always just assumed that I would cook and clean and look after everyone. But these men, these men he brought to our home and trusted, they knew how to be nice – and I'm sure that they saw it as an investment worth their time given what their ultimate aim was.

  I'm not exactly sure when the abuse started up again after Helen left, but I know there was a fair bit of time when there was no abuse going on. My days then were all about making sure Karen was all right and that the housework was done. I know that when I was 13 and truanting, I was being sexually abused by a man who was sleeping on the settee. I'm vague about when it first happened and who perpetrated it. What I remember most is that, when it happened, it was almost as if I expected it. It was the same pattern repeating itself. I just used to freeze and let it run its course. I had been there so many times in the past that I felt powerless, that there was nothing else to do. I think I was so conditioned to accept sexual abuse that it was almost as if it was a normal part of my life.

  There were some specifics I remember though.

  There was Doggie, whom I mentioned in The Step Child, and who had the audacity to talk to me at my Dad's funeral as if we were old friends, and there were a couple of others.

  One man was a regular in Middleton's pub, and became a frequent visitor to our house after the pub closed for the night. He was a bit older than my Dad and very smarmy. Like many of my Dad's drinking friends, he was nice to me. This man (whom I'll call Peter) was married and lived not too far away from us with his wife and young family. He always had a mouth organ in his jacket pocket and he'd bring it out and give everybody a tune. He looked a bit like Hughie Green and he was keen on singing when he wasn't playing the mouthie, even although he wasn't too good. If I was ever there when Peter sang, he sang to me directly.

  It took a long time for him to get what he wanted from me.

  I thought he was just being nice, and I so desperately wanted someone to be nice to me and give me attention. Peter did just that. He would bring me little gifts, pay me compliments and sometimes give me a hug just like I thought a Dad would. It all changed one night when he asked me to meet him outside at his van. I did, thinking nothing of it, and then he asked me if I wanted to go for a drive. I jumped at the chance; I always welcomed any opportunity to get away from where I lived.

  We went for a drive down to Portobello and then up to Holyrood Park – and at some point we stopped. I can't remember where now, but it was a quiet place. Peter was a great joker and a charmer, and he always kept me talking and laughing. He'd often given us some out-of-date food as he worked for a grocer. He knew we had very little, and the tins he gave were always welcome. On this occasion, he said he had some in the back of the van and asked if I'd tell him what I wanted. 'Take your pick,' he said to me. So, I did. I went into the back of the van to see what charity I could get this time from this nice man who wanted to help out.

  I don't know how it all happened, but he started kissing me and kissing me. I was really uncomfortable and scared and kept saying that I needed to get home. I was so unprepared for this change of direction from this man I had begun to trust. I tried to push him off and get away from him but I couldn't.

  Before I knew it, I wasn't with a man I could trust any more. It felt as if I was back in my boxroom and it was all happening again. So, I did what I had learned to do, what I had been groomed to do – I just froze and let it happen.

  Peter successfully raped me and, as he did, I wondered what had happened to the sanitary towel I was wearing. I also wondered whether this was just what all men do, and what I had done to deserve this.

  Afterwards I was too embarrassed to think about anything except getting away from him. On the way home he tried to talk like he did before but I couldn't hear him; I couldn't hear the words or the lies. When he dropped me off, he complimented me, but it sounded pathetic now. I ran into the house, scrubbed myself in the bath and went to bed where I hugged my knees and cried and cried. My face was stinging from his stubble, I was very sore and I was mortally embarrassed because I had my period.

  Most of all, I was hurting inside. What was wrong with me that men wanted to do this to me?

  Helen was right – I was evil.

  Chapter Twenty

  MY WORLD

  I HAD ONLY TWO FRIENDS IN my teenage years and a bit of a social life via the local youth club. However, I did manage to persuade my Dad to allow me to go on two weekend trips with this youth club – one to Iona and one to Eddleston in Peeblesshire. How I treasure the memories of those times! The youth club gave me a little outlet from my home life, which was almost unbearable.

  Karen was the only good thing about life at home. I would read to her, play with her and bathe her. I would take her to the park and the nursery. She needed me and I loved being with her, but I was sad and moody a lot of the time. I was always frightened because I never knew when I would next be asked to do something I didn't want to; I never knew who my Dad would ask to stay over and what they would do to me.

  My Dad never noticed anything was wrong with me. He just put my moods down to my age, but the truth was I was angry with him. I was angry with him because he hadn't seen what was happening to me when Helen was there. I was angry because the very people he called friends were abusing me. I was angry because he was always at the pub, and when he wasn't he just sat in his chair feeling sorry for himself.

  I was still a child but I would soon be a woman, and I was beginning to see that I could get away from all of this. My only concern was little Karen. My Dad was incapable of looking after himself, let alone being responsible for a little girl, and I was filled with horror thinking that she might end up being abused if I left. Looking back, I can't believe what possessed the Social Work Department to allow this vu
lnerable little girl to remain in the house. By the time I was 15, she had started primary school and, up until this point, had been my main focus because she needed me so much. I really was her mother from the moment Helen Ford left. Her brothers had been seeing quite a lot of Helen, and Karen had been to see her a few times too, but she was always unhappy when she returned. It was a terrible environment for a little girl in both places but Karen was happier at my Dad's as it was all she knew.

  I knew that, as far as I was able, I'd never let any harm come to Karen. I loved her so much, and I think Karen felt that, but I knew that I was going to have to leave at some point. Karen loved my Dad too, and he loved her back. I remember her climbing onto his lap and hugging him. She was such a lovely, happy, cherubic little girl that it would have been hard not to love her. She was the only pure thing in that whole house, in my whole life, and it breaks my heart even now to realise what she had to put up with unnecessarily, because it was Karen who was left to care for Don Ford when everyone else had flown the nest. She wasn't abused in the way I had been but she was neglected. The house was a mess, my Dad was crippled and she was still just a little girl in the middle of it all. For many years I felt wretched and guilty for leaving her. I had mothered this baby and done my best, but I just couldn't live in that environment any longer. I was dying from it all and had to get away.