by Ford, Donna
Music was really important to all of us. Joan was Donny Osmond mad. She’d play his album over and over, and spoke about him all the time. Teenage pop star obsession is fickle, and although we were all sure we would absolutely die for love, it didn’t take much more than a new face on the scene to convince us that things needed to change. I took my cue from Joan. Donny and the rest of the Osmonds were soon ousted when the Bay City Rollers arrived. Not only did they seem impossibly gorgeous to us, they were from Edinburgh too! Joan got all their records and was even allowed to dress like them, with extra bits of tartan added to the bottom of her cropped trousers. Tootie was always more fashionable, more popular and much happier than I was. I felt so dull next to her, but I also felt that was what I deserved.
The other friend I had at that time was Sandra Dunlop. Sandra was also a different type of person from me entirely. She seemed so much more mature than me. Even though I had been through unthinkable things from such a young age, it didn’t make me precocious or mature for my years. Instead, I looked to these other girls for clues as to how should I act. What would look normal? Joan and Sandra gave off very different messages.
Sandra’s family felt different to Joan’s. Sandra had more freedom of an adult sort, in that she went to parties and had a harder confidence to that of Tootie, but I didn’t envy her in the same way. Sandra lived in Easter Road too. Her first-floor flat was the cleanest place I had ever seen. At that time, I used to marvel at how house-proud her mother was – she’d get up at the crack of dawn every day and start to scrub. Mrs Dunlop didn’t put down her duster, her bleach, her scrubbing brush or her vinegar until she went to bed. Sandra’s father had some connection with the whaling industry, which wasn’t unusual in that part of Edinburgh at the time, and Mrs Dunlop was always fussing about all the pieces of carved whalebone on their mantelpiece. In those days, all that struck me as remarkable was the fact that I got lamb chops when I once went for my tea. Lamb chops! It was like another world.
Our definition of ‘party’ may seem a bit pathetic – some of us going round to someone else’s house and sitting about – but these get-togethers were infinitely better than anything I associated with the word when Helen was in my life. Sandra would arrange for four or five of us to go over to a boy’s house while his parents were out. We’d listen to David Bowie’s Spiders from Mars album over and over, and all share a bottle of cheap Pomagne. Quite the high life when you’re 15! Once or twice a boy called Graham Forrest would be there, and he was really the only one I ever had any ‘action’ with at the time. Graham and I would snog and he’d ‘try it on’, but frankly I was so petrified of any intimate contact that I’d spurn him as soon as he started. At one point he got really annoyed with me, jumped up from the sofa, and informed the entire room that I was ‘tighter than a duck’s arse’. I could deal with it. I’d dealt with worse. If people wanted to see me as a virginal type who barely knew how to deal with boys, that was preferable to them knowing the truth or even uncovering my terror of them.
One day, Sandra wasn’t around. I didn’t bother to ask where she was as we all came and went without any promises to each other. But, as the days stretched into weeks, Sandra’s absence became more and more marked. Eventually, someone told me she had gone to live with her Auntie. Now, that was one of the great euphemisms of our day. ‘Going to live with your Auntie’ could mean only one thing – Sandra was pregnant.
Nothing had changed much since my mother’s time. Fifteen-year-old girls like Sandra could still be playing hopscotch in the street one day, and then whisked off to an anonymous family member with their bellies full the next. Despite having her marked down as a general ‘friend’, Sandra and I hadn’t really spoken of anything important. I didn’t even know she’d been having sex. I’m not sure whether the gravity of the girl’s situation hit me at that time. Pregnant, unmarried teenagers were still considered bad girls, with little said about the men who had got them into that condition. Even with my own experiences, I had no idea what Sandra’s story was.
I knew what was all around me. I had lived it. And yet the community was still incredibly prudish and judgemental. Within parochial areas like Easter Road, men seemed to get off scot-free. It was the girls and the women who carried the shame and the guilt; they were the ones who were called names and whose families disowned them. It never ceased to amaze me that this charade continued so effectively. I sometimes felt as though all the grown-ups must have sat down together and worked out a plan. If that had happened, what were women getting out of it? There was still an over-riding notion that women should ‘save’ themselves for marriage, and yet men were allowed – encouraged – to sow their wild oats and be one of the lads. When Sandra arrived back from her Auntie’s with a baby boy in tow, she was the only one who had to face up to the consequences, the whispers behind her back, and the harsh appraisals of the women who seemed to put so much energy and vitriol into keeping other women in their ‘place’.
Looking at Sandra with a baby at 15, and seeing how hard she was working, made me swear I would never be in her shoes. I would live some before I brought new life into this world, and I’d find myself before finding a baby at my side. Although there were teenage hormones all around me, to some extent I was safe. No one had ever had the slightest idea about my abuse while it was going on, which meant that, in the little world of those around, I was a ‘good girl’. I did have one or two boyfriends in my early teenage years, but I felt so soiled by what had been done to me that I probably had much less experience with them than other girls my age. I always felt that they would know what had gone on in my past if we ever got to a sexual relationship, so I avoided that sort of development at all costs.
I took what lessons I could from my relationship with these girlfriends. From Joan’s family, there was such basic goodness; from Sandra, a warning that things were still very different for girls and hypocritical. Put together with what Auntie Nellie had given me, I looked forward. I really, really wanted to leave Edina Place. Despite everything that had happened to me, I could build on the good parts of life I had glimpsed – I truly felt I could achieve something. Mostly, books had taught me that there was a very different world out there. I just had to go and find it.
I harboured wild dreams at that time of becoming a famous artist and returning to Edinburgh in splendour, to show that I was something or somebody. If it didn’t quite happen like that, it would be enough for me just to say: ‘You didn’t keep me here. I got away.’ I didn’t want to stay in that tiny little world, and just end up with someone for the sake of it. I needed to avoid that, to avoid falling into a relationship which would simply perpetuate my unhappiness and prevent me from finding out who I really was. I had to get away from what I saw as my prison.
When I look back on the time I left the family home to set out on my adult path, I am shocked by just how naïve and unprepared I was. I’d had so many experiences and seen so many things a child should never go through, yet I was lacking in many vital skills that any young person needs when they are starting out. The list was endless. I didn’t have any basic social skills at all. I didn’t know how to form relationships. Amazingly, I was undeterred. It’s only now that I realise what I didn’t have and what I didn’t know. Back then, I just went for it. I didn’t feel at all sad or sorry for myself; instead I was filled with a quiet excitement about what was in store for me in my life. And the prospect that I was – finally – getting away.
At 17, I ended up almost 200 miles away in the Highlands of Scotland. In Inverness, I finally settled in a job as an auxiliary nurse at a rest and rehabilitation centre for geriatrics. I didn’t have a particular penchant for this sort of work – I took it because it came with accommodation. At last, I had my own place, or the nearest I had ever come to it – a room in nurses’ quarters on the top floor of the residence building alongside other hospital staff. There were quite a few young women my age living there, and although I did go out with them at times, I was never really that
close to them. They all seemed to manage some easy bond, sitting in each other’s rooms swapping clothes, makeup, stories about boys, tales about their families. They seemed different. They seemed normal. I wanted to be part of it all, but I spent a lot of time on my own through choice. I was too embarrassed to ask if I could join in. I’m sure, looking back, that if I’d asked to join in they would have been more than happy to let me, but I still had a fear of being let down or turned away when I tried to enter ‘normal’ worlds.
Instead, I bought a bike and would cycle anywhere and everywhere. It was the summer of 1976 and it was incredibly hot, giving me the chance to be outdoors most of the time. I made the most of my freedom, which was always what had mattered most to me, and I had other things that brought me such joy too. I loved dressing up, and would scour antique and charity shops for wonderful things to wrap myself in. I went on my own to local discos and pubs, knowing that the other nurses and auxiliaries tended to hang out there. I felt more confident that they would talk to me, include me, if I was there ‘by chance’ than if I had deliberately made myself vulnerable by asking to go along with them in the first place.
There was a sense of loneliness and not belonging, but I had at least achieved my main goal – I wasn’t living back there any more. Surely now, I would be free of my past?
Chapter Fifteen
… AND CATCHING UP
THE MOVE FROM EDINBURGH, the cutting of links, wasn’t entirely successful. My past wasn’t quite ready to let go of me.
Before I left for Inverness, I had been seeing a man called Martin. I wouldn’t have said Martin was my boyfriend – but he was one of the first men I had an adult sexual relationship with. The rapes and abuses I suffered as a child never struck me as part of my sex life, not the one I had as a consenting adult. Sadly, compartmentalising life isn’t quite that easy. Martin may not have been my boyfriend, and I may not have been that child of my past, but I still found myself in a situation where I felt I was being used for sex. The relationship I had with him is difficult to unpick now, even in retrospect, but I do know that I almost expected to be degraded and objectified. I still found it hard to believe that anyone could love me, that anyone could treat me with respect. I just thought bad relationships were what I deserved.
All this meant that Inverness was becoming an option I liked more and more. But there were other ties I had to deal with. I still wrote to my Dad and Karen, and sent some of my wages back, but my letters never received any replies. After six months in the job, I was ready for my first Christmas away from home. Although I had never spent the festive period in a particularly traditional setting, even for me this was to be an especially empty time. Most people were fighting to get home, back to their families, but I chose to work through to stop myself thinking about the fact that, again, I didn’t have all I really wanted.
Christmas morning for me wasn’t quite what dreams are made of. I spent it cleaning out bedpans, changing beds and serving dinner to the residents before going off duty in the afternoon and heading back to empty staff quarters. I had forgotten to get myself any food in, and it had also slipped my mind that the staff canteen wouldn’t be open that day. I ended up with some savoury rice quickly heated up, and a session in front of the telly watching Charlie’s Angels. I have to admit that I did feel a bit sorry for myself that day. I didn’t have a single card or letter or present from home. When all of the girls were showing off their gifts or talking about the traditions they were going home to, I felt embarrassed. Again. How could I talk about the memories of Christmas for me? Should I tell them about the empty ‘Tiny Tears’ box? Should I make them feel bad by informing them of how even the smells of Christmas cooking could take me back to days of starvation and torture? Any time they asked what I was getting or where my family was, I felt worse. It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that I couldn’t rely on what was left of my family for anything. I had to fight the guilt I felt about leaving Karen behind and try to move forward myself.
I can’t explain exactly why, but I stayed in Inverness for only a year before moving back to Edinburgh. I had enjoyed my work in the geriatric home, but there was still too much unfinished business in Edinburgh, too many ghosts to lay to rest. I still enjoyed drawing whenever I could, but my dream of becoming an artist seemed out of reach. I knew I needed to concentrate on getting a decent job, a recognised profession, to prevent me slipping back into dependency. Being secure, being settled, was all I wanted. Once I had that, perhaps I could look towards what my heart really desired.
When I arrived back in Edinburgh, I got a job similar to that in Inverness, as an auxiliary nurse in the City Hospital, again living in nurses’ quarters. One day I bumped into Martin again, and before long had started back in a relationship with him. Nothing had changed but I was so grateful that someone would even consider taking on me, with all my baggage, that I accepted it as part of the deal.
Before long, Martin had persuaded me to move out of the residences at the City Hospital and to stay in a flat with him and one of his friends. Going ‘home’ was again becoming something to endure. Work was no better. From enjoying nursing and planning to take it further as a career option, I was becoming thoroughly disillusioned. The care of geriatrics at that point wasn’t just archaic – it was cruel. I could barely stand to be around daily instances of people being treated so badly, so inhumanely. Was this the end of the cycle which would wait for me as I became old? Would I end as I had started? Was age – at either end of the spectrum – simply an excuse for people to debase others for their own convenience? Again, I saw the hypocrisy and the charades that went on. Old people, who were treated like dirt for the entire week, would be wheeled out, infantilised and made to put on a show when their relatives arrived for a 30-minute weekend visit. These people, who were often quite deliberately left in their own shit and piss for hours on end, were suddenly patronised for the benefit of other adults who needed lies spun for them so that they could continue their lives, unfettered, for the rest of the time. It was too familiar for me to bear. I honestly felt that my conscience couldn’t stand it a moment longer. Again, my guilt kicked in. I knew that by leaving, I couldn’t possibly make their lives any better – but I had to balance fighting a system with saving myself.
At that point, Martin knew someone who was working at a children’s home in the Morningside area of the city. I’d been along there on a few occasions to run classes for some of the kids, where we would have whole afternoons painting and making things with craft materials. I absolutely loved it. I was never prouder than when I was helping those kids see what they could achieve artistically. When the home began recruiting new members of staff, the officer-in-charge suggested that I apply for a position. I had no idea where my life was going, and this seemed as good an avenue to wander down as any other. I was offered a post almost immediately, and my career in social work began.
Martin and I were continuing what I now know was a really unhappy relationship. I was so very needy because of what happened to me as a child, and had no other experience to go on. I didn’t honestly know what other people expected or accepted in their private lives – all my experiences had been mucked up since the start, so what could I compare things with? If I had been blessed with the knowledge I have now, I wouldn’t ever have gone out with Martin. However, as in my childhood, there were times when I could take something from what I was going through. I learned much more from the everyday world he introduced me to – the world which was perfectly normal to him. Martin’s middle-class upbringing in a well-to-do area had given him an education which went way beyond school. He and his friends knew about life in ways I couldn’t imagine. They knew how to talk freely, how not to be embarrassed by their accents or grammar, how to eat in restaurants without feeling ill or stupid, how to be just an average person. The time I spent in the company of Martin and his circle was of great value to me personally. I could soak up their conversation or even just wallow in the carefree fun they could enter into wi
thout even thinking. The more I saw of this, the more I wanted. The 1970s for me were a time when I was still trying to come to terms with my past and dealing with the fact that it still allowed me to suffer abusive personal relationships – but I was also just a teenager. I went to Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Alex Harvey concerts. I read The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and The L-Shaped Room. I joined in their discussions about Marxism, existentialism, and Communism. We carelessly discussed classical versus abstract art. Often I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, but I joined in anyway. I was part of it all.
The most important aspect of that time in my life was not just that I was free, but that I was being accepted as a person by people I felt were so much better than me. They never asked about my background, so I didn’t have to lie or avoid the issue. Perhaps I was finally becoming someone I could be comfortable around, someone I could love. Yet while the real Donna was perhaps finally coming through, I was still haunted by thoughts of the past and the unanswered questions for the parent who should have answered them.
Chapter Sixteen
MY HERO
MY FATHER, DONALD CHALMERS FORD, was the first person I ever pinned any hopes on. I remember the Sunday visits from him at the Barnardo’s home. He’d come with a rolled-up bundle of comics – The Beano and The Dandy for Simon, Jackie for Frances and Twinkle for me. Helen would be with him, but all I remember is her holding the baby – Gordon – and bouncing him on her knee. We’d all be brimming with happiness and chattering. Frances always sat beside him, and even though he was only my Dad, not theirs, he was the only father figure they knew, so we all looked to him for that support, that security. I was holding on to him for dear life the day we made the momentous journey home to Easter Road for good. I remember looking at him constantly and chattering, and he answered all my questions. So how did he become the man who allowed Helen to do what she did? As I’ve said before, she made her choices – as did all of her ‘friends’, as did all of the men who abused me – but my father wasn’t innocent. As the only blood parent I knew, I had so many expectations pinned on him. He never really delivered, and I’m now left with such a mixed bag of memories that I hardly know what to think of him, the man who should have been my hero.
