The Step Child

by Ford, Donna

  Who knows whether Breda was truly a flighty soul, or whether she just decided to live up to the stories which were circulating about her anyway? Whatever the reason, she found herself in a relationship with a man who was not only considerably older, but also married, and a family member – her cousin.

  It doesn’t take psychic powers to work out where Breda was heading. The relationship with Robert Cummings was doomed, due to a lethal combination of his marital status and the disapproval of her family. This same family did not take kindly to their daughter’s pregnancy at the age of 19. Hypocrisy is an emotion of enormous strength. The fact that girls had been messing about with boys and ending up with large bellies and shattered reputations since time immemorial did not stop the family from treating Breda as if she were the first ever to find herself in such a position.

  Only recently has Ireland managed to shake off its reputation as the most sexually repressed country in Europe, where women were second-class citizens and the Catholic Church ruled virtually unchallenged. When Breda Curran was a young woman, the view that sex outside marriage was wrong permeated the society in which she lived – despite the fact that her family actually lived across the water. The Currans had brought their values with them – and Breda would pay the price.

  The child of my mother and Robert Cummings would be my elder half-sister Frances. What happened between the pregnancy being announced, the relationship ending and Frances’s early years has never been explained to me – it all became wrapped up in the package that was my mother’s ‘bad ways’. What is obvious is that the society in which the Currans lived had given them a set of principles which worked only in theory – and rarely for women. Sex for them was permitted only in marriage, and only really supported as part of the ultimate goal of having children. Enjoyment and freedom never came into the picture. Rarely did men feel the same restrictions.

  I don’t know whether my mother considered abortion as an option – if she had, there would have been ways and means of accessing an end to her first pregnancy – but for some reason she decided that her child would be born, despite the environment of disapproval and badmouthing it would inhabit. With all of this baggage, it’s hard to see how Breda could have escaped the destiny hurtling towards her. Before long, she had a child out of wedlock by a married man. How or why she then ended up with Adam Robertson, the groom from the photograph I have, is a mystery to me. For not only did that marriage quickly turn sour, but Adam was also the nephew of Robert Cummings. Having moved to Edinburgh, the two were married on 7 August 1956. In October 1957, their son, Simon, was born. I now had a half-sister and a half-brother waiting for me.

  Adam left, leaving Breda with both Frances and Simon. The family picture was becoming increasingly complicated. Due to the familial relationship between Robert and Adam, their two children with Breda were not only half-siblings, but also second cousins. My mother didn’t take long to find someone else.

  No one has ever really told me anything that I can hold on to as ‘fact’ about my conception. The only thing I know for sure is that my mother met Don Ford at a party. From all accounts, she ‘took up’ with him immediately. Is that because she found it so hard to imagine herself without a man? Was she actively looking for someone to step in and help her look after her two small children? Did she set out to get someone without any emotional attachment? Or is there a chance, just a chance, that my mother and father actually fell head over heels at that party? Perhaps it was passion at first sight; perhaps he was the one she felt a connection with; and perhaps I was conceived out of love.

  I can cling to this latter story if I want to, because Breda wasn’t as badly off as you might expect a single mother to be at that time. There seemed to have still been some sort of affection between her and Robert Cummings, the father of her first daughter, because it is alleged that he actually bought her the flat she was living in, at 31 Easter Road, Edinburgh. There is no doubt that he was financially comfortably off. I have been able to piece together parts of a story which suggest he bought the property both as a means of helping the mother of his child, and as an investment to leave to the daughter he could never fully recognise due to his other family.

  The arrival of Don Ford on the scene did nothing to placate the Currans. Their daughter was an embarrassment to them – two children to two different men, and another soon on the way. There was some contact between the two families, but by the time I was born in June 1959, the damage was irreparable.

  I have very few memories of our time as a family. They have been formed from what others have told me and, I suppose, what I would expect families to be like. My half-brother has told me that he remembers a day when we were all in the garden together and our mother was making daisy chains. I was sitting up in one of those old-fashioned coach-built prams, and he tells me that the scene was a happy one, that Breda was a warm, laughing woman. I can picture it – but I don’t really remember it. Like many things, images such as this one have turned into what I want them to be, rather than what they were.

  Happy family situations were not the norm, however. Simon also remembers another time, with me still in the pram, and the air loud with shouting. My father was yelling and screaming at my mother, eventually slapping and pushing her. My brother was hanging on to her leg, and both of them fell against the side of my pram as Don Ford’s temper got the better of him.

  So, what is the truth? Were we a happy family, with a pretty, laughing mother making daisy chains? Or did we all live in fear of the latest man on the list, the one who happened to be my Dad, the one whose temper and anger laid the foundations of violence to come? Surely, like most families, there would be a combination of good and bad – but I can’t remember. I have no memories of my mother at all. I know only the few snippets that others have told me, most of which are unreliable. I don’t know when exactly, but I recall my Auntie Madge (my father’s younger sister) telling me a bit about Breda – how she’d abandoned us, how I had pneumonia and malnutrition and was taken into care. On another occasion she changed her story to declare that we had all run away from our terrible Mum (conveniently forgetting that I was just a baby at the time), and it was only through the incredibly lucky coincidence of a group of friendly nuns finding us that we survived! It was all doom and gloom. Auntie Madge spoke in hushed tones so I worked out that the subject of my mother was not to be raised. Breda was a taboo subject. I do know from letters that there was little warmth between her and her own parents, and this extended to us. My maternal grandmother made it clear that she was only interested in Frances, the daughter of Robert Cummings, and wanted nothing to do with the rest of us.

  Whatever the truth, the cards were marked for my parents.

  Breda left Don.

  She left Edinburgh.

  She left her babies.

  My mother was a product of her times. My half-siblings and I may have been growing up at the beginning of the 1960s, when women were told their worlds were changing, but for many of them, change was just a word. The sexual freedom and liberation which would come to characterise the period meant little to the girls and women who were still defined in terms of how their communities and families judged them.

  I don’t know why Breda finally disappeared. I only know the consequences of her actions.

  Don Ford was left alone with three little children in an Edinburgh flat bought by another man. I would soon leave that flat – that inconsequential address – but I would never forget it. I would return to 31 Easter Road, and the next time I lived there, there would not even be the possibility of a happy memory. The daisy chain days were gone. And the nightmare for the little girl in the coach-built pram was only just beginning.

  Chapter Two

  THIS LITTLE FAMILY

  January 1961–July 1964

  HALDANE HOUSE IS THE first home I can remember. The irony is that it was a Barnardo’s children’s residence, not some warm family two-up-two-down. In January 1961, I became one of Haldane House’s ‘inmates’,
and I remained there for three-and-a-half years. My mother had left us in October 1960, and for a few months my father had tried to look after me, his only biological child, and the two others he had found himself landed with. Myself, Simon and Frances were all still so young: Frances was five when Breda left, Simon three, while I had just turned one.

  I have pieced together what happened to the three of us once our mother left from files, letters and documents. Throughout the pages of notes accumulated by Barnardo’s, what strikes me are the condemnations of Breda. Under the heading ‘Parents’ Religion’ are clear black capitals stating that my mother was a lapsed Roman Catholic. Another section outlines the fathers of each of her three children – alongside my name only is one word suffused with judgement and assumption: putative. The words continue – Breda bore a very bad character and associated with many men. Frances was her first illegitimate child and there were subsequent disquieting reports of my mother’s conduct.

  In black and white, the story of my mother’s life and of our early years feels paltry. Everything is either sanitised or disapproving. Among these comments come fragments which do help to build the picture for me, but I can only guess at the full narrative.

  It takes just one page of typed notes to cover our lives. My mother’s early years in Edinburgh are glossed over quickly and disparagingly. ‘Before her marriage, the mother gave birth to her first illegitimate child by a man … who is uncle to her husband. Subsequently the mother was married … in August 1956 and gave birth to one child in 1957.’ This I know – these are the beginnings of Frances and Simon. But then I read something new. ‘At about this time, the case became known to the RSSPCC [Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children] for the mother bore a very bad character. The mother’s husband worked and lived in Stirling, but his employer, a farmer, refused to have the mother near the place.’ These are ‘facts’ I have no knowledge of. The involvement of the RSSPCC was a significant matter. The organisation was often referred to as ‘the cruelty’, and in the days before ChildLine, threats of ‘I’ll be getting the cruelty in’ could often be heard. So, who had ‘reported’ my mother to ‘the cruelty’? What, if anything, had she done? Was there physical abuse? Neglect? Were my siblings dirty or ill-clothed, hungry or beaten? Had neighbours heard something to make them concerned? Or had the Stirling farmer, who for some reason wouldn’t let my mother near her husband’s workplace, initiated RSSPCC involvement?

  The report continues: ‘The mother’s husband had to be warned to provide for the mother, but he would maintain only his own child. Over the next few years, the mother moved to many addresses and was suspected of associating with many men. While at a party, three years ago, she met a man called Donald Ford, with whom she later cohabited, hoping to be married to him when she could obtain a divorce.’ My mother’s character was being blackened even further with each sentence – described as moving on from man to man, from one relationship to another, she was now picking men up at parties and ‘cohabiting’.

  I don’t know why she finally left my father. According to the Barnardo’s reports, after settling in the basement flat at 31 Easter Road, and having me, there was an incident which may have precipitated the split. At one point, ‘Ford, with the mother and three children, went to visit the maternal grandparents in Chatham. Ford had been unemployed, but obtained work at Rochester. He remained at Chatham when the mother and children returned to Edinburgh.’ From this, it seems clear that our family had money difficulties, which must have placed a huge strain on a relationship already beset by problems. At this chance of work in Kent, my mother had even been willing to return to a world in which she would face her condemnatory parents, but clearly she couldn’t bear it for long. I can imagine that my father would have chosen to stay with secure employment (making engine pumps), sending his money back to Breda; and that my mother would have returned to Edinburgh with us, away from the family which had never supported her, with vague plans to return once Don had settled in. However, this long-distance relationship was doomed. My mother was not a woman to sit at home quietly waiting for a man – a man who was only one in a long list.

  Don Ford got himself a flat in Chatham which Breda did visit once, but arguments and ‘misunderstandings’ led to a less than idyllic reunion. Different reports show that the flat my Dad had secured came with a condition – he had to look after the ill old man who also lived there. Apparently, he sent a telegram to my mother in which he outlined the old man’s state of health, and she arrived soon after. It would appear that there was some confusion and she thought Don had been talking about her father, my grandfather, John (although he was only 49 at the time). Breda accused my Dad of worrying her without reason and deliberately misleading her. Whatever the final words were, she headed back to Edinburgh and things went from bad to worse. ‘Subsequently, Ford received disquieting reports of her conduct.’ What had he been told? By whom? My mother’s story always seems to have voices in the background – ‘people’ determining how she should be portrayed, ‘people’ calling in the RSSPCC, ‘people’ passing on ‘disquieting’ reports. Gossips? Busybodies? Bored neighbours? Or people genuinely concerned for the three children at the centre of all this? Given what was to happen to me in later years, and the amazing ability of all adults around me to turn a blind eye, I am more open to the explanation of a meddlesome community whose involvement went no further than telling tales and messing up lives, but that is something I’ll never truly know. Whatever the reason, my father ‘made a surprise visit to her house in Edinburgh, and found several women occupying the premises as well as the mother – who was drunk. After a hysterical scene, the mother walked out with her women friends and was not seen again.’

  Added to this was the fact that all three of us children were in the City Hospital with whooping cough (which, in my case, turned into pneumonia). I can’t imagine what it was like for us or how we dealt with the fact that we had no idea what was going on. What must it have been like for us to come out of hospital to find our father at home ready to care for us but no sign of our mother?

  But why did she finally go? Why that time rather than any of the others? Was it because of the violence I have been told about in snippets? Was it because she could finally take no more whispering and name-calling? Was it because she had a dream to follow which didn’t involve us? One thing is clear – they fought, she left, I never saw my mother again and my life would change forever.

  Frances, Simon and I were ‘duly returned’ to my Dad, who must have specifically requested this, given that I was the only one biologically linked to him. Frances went to school; Simon and I went to a day nursery. It all seems relatively straightforward.

  Then comes the line that chills me to the bone.

  In the middle of a page, in the middle of our story, come 12 words that I know alter everything.

  ‘Ford engaged a young girl, aged 17, to look after the home.’

  That’s her.

  That’s Helen.

  She’s in my life. She’s sneaked in without me noticing.

  I want to scream at those words as soon as I read them. Get out! Get her out now and maybe, just maybe, it can all work out fine. They’re just words, but they are condemning me as I read them. I know what’s going to come. I know what’s going to happen. Where was I when my father asked a teenage neighbour to help out? Was I playing at nursery? Was I in his arms? Did she see me? Did she hate me straight away?

  Whatever my Dad asked her to do didn’t really work out. He tried for a few months to raise us all before deciding it was too much. I can’t help thinking that a woman on her own in those days, without the same ability to work and earn, would have struggled on for longer, so why couldn’t a man keep trying, keep the family together, such as it was? When did my Dad decide the cutoff point had been reached? Maybe he had a date in mind, maybe we pushed him to breaking point. Whatever happened, whatever prompted him, we were going to be packed off to a home.

  Haldane House
had opened in 1946 as a home for boys of school age, and by 1957 it was a mixed home. It finally closed its doors 23 years later when children were moved to The Tower in Edinburgh. The notion of a children’s home probably conjures up particular images for people, images of cruelty and neglect, or of orphans desperately seeking a family. My experience was a quite different matter. My time at Haldane House was happy, and I was never mistreated or ill-used. The place was quite anonymous – it didn’t necessarily indulge children or treat them as precious little individuals – but I was safe. Soon I would have changed my life for the one I had at Haldane House at any price.

  The very fact that I was taken in by Barnardo’s may confuse some people – I wasn’t an orphan, I wasn’t destitute, but my father clearly felt he could no longer cope. I have often wondered how things would have turned out if only one part of the jigsaw had been put in a different place. What if Don Ford had just been looking after me, not my half-siblings? What if he had moved from Edinburgh to start afresh when Breda left? What if he had never asked Helen to ‘help’? What if Barnardo’s had refused to take us, or refused to accept me, and encouraged my father to keep trying, to keep plodding along and doing the best he could?