Memories of Childhood Part 2

A whiter shade of pale

[via FoxyTunes / Joe Cocker]

After my bungled suicide attempt it was even worse at home my stepfather never spoke to me, never looked at me. I would sit on the dog shelf like a good girl and not look him in the eyes. I decided I needed to get a job to maybe stay out of the way of everyone. Mums and dads arguments got worse I remember the screaming shouting he wore glasses and one day I saw a fight where mum grabbed his glasses off his face and scratched all his face. I didn't know what the arguments were about but it could have been me. We used to have an old bendix washing machine in the kitchen one of those ones you used to see in a laundrette it was concreted onto the floor so it didn't move when it spun. We also had another machine with an electric mangle and above that machine was a serving hatch I remember one-day mum must have leaned over the hatch with the mangle going and her hair got caught in the mangle. She was screaming because she couldn't reach the button to switch it off her hair was long and she always used nice and easy blonde on it I think it was mousy naturally so she died it. I remember running into the kitchen the machine was reeling her hair in and nearly up to her head. I pressed the button as she screamed and it was the most massive bald patch I had ever seen it had dragged her hair right to the scalp.

I managed to get a job I was too young for a paper round so I got a job as a baby sitter. I baby sat for a little girl whose parents were chefs in an Italian restaurant all I can remember is they were Scottish or he was! It was great it was a sleep in job Monday to Friday for £25 a week that meant I slept there instead of home and only stayed at home weekends. This was great for me and I suppose great for them too I was out of the way.

I opened a post office account and was going to save up and run away when I was 16 I had a plan. But things got worse at home they were still fighting even when I was gone. So it couldn't have been my fault or was it? Then my by this time I had another brother so there was five of us me being the eldest. Weekends were good my sister and I used to go to Grandma and Granddads house occasionally on Sundays. It was hard there too because my younger sister looked different she had dark hair, hazel eyes and didn't look anything like me. Mum used to say to me that my dad's family never believed I was even his but when I was born with strawberry blonde hair and looking exactly like my granddad they couldn't deny it anymore. But my sister didn't look like me or any of the family.

My dad had moved to Germany not long after my mum divorced him. He used to work as an engineer and had immigrated to Germany. He always came home in September for my Birthday and for Christmas. The arguments, there were he never came home for my sisters birthday in May why? My Grandparents lived in Burmantoffs near where Quarry Hill flats were where we had once lived and I can't remember. We used to have a ritual we would get there be made a fuss of then Grandma would make the dinner she would put the joint in the oven on a low light, make the Yorkshire pudding batter and then we would all go down to the club. Yes club Beer and Bingo typical lower class, as the upper class would say. I remember pop and crisps and running round the chairs tables and having fun. I loved my Granddad he was my hero. I remember Gran and Granddad used to argue all the time but it was fun they always ended up laughing Gran was bossy and told Granddad what to do and how to do it. But in a funny way

I loved hearing the sound of the ice cream van and would shout gran can I have an ice cream? It's here I would peer out of the flat window five floors up and say hurry hell leave before I get down the lift. Gran would say no Granddad would whisper come here give me the money and say shhhhhhhhh don't tell your Gran. But that was impossible coming back up with a giant Cornett and ice cream all over my lips. This would cause another row, which was so funny I loved him to bits. The only time I hated going to Gran and Granddads was when my mum used to make me ring them to find out if my dad was coming home. Apparently with him moving to Germany he never paid maintenance and every time he arrived on British soil she would have him banged up in the cells in Leeds under the Town Hall he would pay a lump sum then he would leave for Germany again. I remember mum instructing me on the phone ask them when he's coming I hated it. I felt like I was betraying him and I had to carry the guilt again I thought I must have been a bad person.

My dad was an alcoholic. There I have said it, admitted it and he was. I have memories of him shaking and shaking when I would see him. He always smelt of alcohol and always wore loads of after-shave to disguise it. I sometimes used to wonder why? He did it. Drink I mean the after shave just used to make the smell worse and I would feel sick sometimes when I was up close to him. But he was MY daddy and I loved him and he loved me. Every time he came home he would bring me a present I remember one year I got a German costume another year a German Doll that was nearly as big as me. My sister was left out and I couldn't make him treat her as he treated me. Mum again used to go mad I remember one year he bought me a record player and my sister didn't get anything. My mum screamed at him down the phone and eventually we went on a shopping trip, Lewis's on Briggate up stairs and she chose a drowsy doll. I suppose it was the same with him he maybe thought and the rest of the family, that my sister wasn't his. She looks like my aunty Sheila my mum's sister though we all look different and are different but adults do discriminate. I was hated by my step father because I wasn't his and I was the eldest and most alienated and my sister was sort of rejected by my real family. But it wasn't that bad she was loved and cared for by them I know she was. Although sometimes I did go alone they would tell mum they didn't have enough dinner for her and again I would be alienated and hated because I had a bit more love from my dads family.

Later that year I decided I needed to get another job so on a Friday Night I got a job working at Bryans chip shop in Headingley I loved it yes I know daft me I used to come home stinking of chip fat and loved it. I would start work at 5pm and work till finish at 10pm Brian actually owned it back then a big stocky man and he was lovely to work for you had a break in the canteen and could have fish and chips and a cup of tea for free. Then when you had finished you could take home any fish that was left over for your supper and they provided a staff taxi to make sure you got home safe.

I loved Friday nights I used to bring home a special that was the size of a whale and lovely I would get in the taxi arrive home and everyone was in bed sit on the sofa in the best room where I wasn't aloud to sit and watch my favourite movie Appointment with fear. I remember all these faces used to come .. the film to scare you then the movie Dracula or Wear Wolves or Mummies and a special from Bryans was my heaven.