For most of my fifty-five years I kept silent, like a mauled animal too scared to go searching for food. For half a century I forced the memories down deep inside me where they festered unseen erupting only to crucify what little happiness came my way.

My “female parent” being so screwed up in her own Pain had severed any connections to real feelings long ago. Now when my sister and I dared to show any feelings of our own she overloaded and went berserk. Out came the bamboo canes and the thrashings that ensued ceased only when physical exhaustion drained the last dregs of anger from the drunken bitch.

When did I get the first hint that: “Something isn’t quite right,”?

Maybe at three years old? “Come to Mummy!” She called to me in the crib as she stood half way across the room, her arms outstretched but at a distance too far away for me to reach her.    
Is my earliest childhood memory and classifies as a major “Traumatic Learning” incident.           
It is also my first memory of rational problem solving.

1. Too Far away,
2. Need to get out of crib,
3. Have seen Mummy undo latches to drop the front of the Crib,
4. Must do the same,
5. I reach out and start to release the right hand latch, “@#%$#@     @#$%#@    $%%^&^^#^&*&”
6.  Ahhhhhhhhh!  I’m under attack for touching the Latch on the Crib.
7. Confusion: You said, ‘Come to Mommy’ – I’m doing what's necessary to comply.   
   SO WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY WHEN I’M TRYING TO DO WHAT YOU TOLD ME TO?          
    

Or then again:

Maybe it was a couple of years later at almost 5-years old on my first day at school.        
The school was only 600 yards from home.      
Our next-door neighbor’s son: Peter was a year older than I and already attended the school.   
Our parents walked us to school as my mother was required to take me to see the headmistress on the first day. Before leaving she reminded me “Make sure you wait for Peter and come home with him! I don’t want you coming home by your self. If you get lost, I haven’t got time to waste looking for you! ...etc…etc…etc……’       

Dutifully, at 5:00 pm, I found Peter and we started home. We passed through the school gate and started up the road.
Half way to the crossroads he hung a left turn saying, ‘Let’s go this way, it’s just the same.’            
I didn’t argue, after all, Mum had been quite clear.        
‘You’re to come home with Peter. He knows the way. Don’t come home by yourself. You’ll get lost!’  

The short detour took us behind a row of houses to open parkland of mowed grass with only mud footpaths. Less than two hundred yards later we re-emerged onto the original Street.  Our parents had come to collect us. ‘Hi Mom!’ Peter called and walked over to his mother. She greeted him affectionately.
My reception was a different matter completely!           

‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE? YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO WALK ON THE GRASS. LOOK AT YOUR SHOES! THEY’RE ALL WET. I CAN’T AFFORD TO BUY NEW SHOES ALL THE TIME. WHERE’S THE MONEY GOING TO COME FROM? I HAVEN’T GOT IT. YOU’LL HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL BAREFOOT. THEN THEY’LL THROW YOU OUT OF SCHOOL. WHAT’LL YOU DO THEN?            

Being a fool – I tried to pointed out,     
‘You said to come home with Peter, Mummy. You said: “Don’t come home by yourself!.=”.’         
Mrs. Sparrage tried to intervene, ‘Peter often comes home that way!’ – bad mistake… … …   
‘I  DIDN’T BRING MY CHILDREN UP THAT WAY – HE KNOWS BETTER THAN THAT!'        
Then to me, ‘YOU’LL BE IN TROUBLE WHEN YOUR DAD GETS HOME AND I TELL HIM WHAT A NAUGHTY BOY YOU’VE BEEN. HE’LL GIVE YOU A HIDING TOO!” I knew then I’d be going to bed sore that night. And as soon as she had opened the bungalow door. “GO AND GET THE CANE – YOU KNOW WHAT I’M HITTING YOU FOR. IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, YOU’VE GOT TO LEARN TO BEHAVE.’ Terrified, but too scared to resist, I fetched the bamboo cane. It was a brutal instrument: half an inch thick and two feet long, with the last six inches of the business end split along it’s length a dozen times from so much use. When it struck bare skin the splits opened for a split second then snapped shut pinching tight on the top two or three layers of skin. After a frenzied fifteen minutes beating, for it took my mother that long time to exhaust her ‘nervous energy’, my body would be aching and sore. Within minutes the bruises began to appear. Literally dozens of four-inch crimson and black-blue welts swathed my legs and arms. When I undressed at night, there was only slightly lesser scaring on my torso where the shirt and shorts had offered some little protection.

 Did my father know what was going on?  Yes he must have.

When I was only four years old he had taken me one evening to visit the family doctor: Dr. Marshall at the Dallor Road Medical Centre. That was unusual for he attended another medical practitioner himself – but had taken me to the center used by mother for herself and the children. At the time I did not know why. I waited outside the doctor’s surgery while dad went the consulting room and spoke to him. A few minutes later he called me in and told me to take off my shirt. I was covered with welt marks barely two inches apart. Dr. Marshall asked me, ‘Who did this?”  I was too scared to answer. “Was it your mother?’ he continued. I was so terrified I turned to dad for safety. “You can answer.’ he said, “Its OK.”         
I managed to force out the word, “Yes,” then added defensively “but only when I’m naughty.” Subconsciously I knew I was not supposed to tell anyone about the beatings and was frightened I would get another canning for admitting the truth.

Dad turned to the doctor, “Can’t you see – he’s terrified of her.”

The doctor told me to go outside and wait outside.

 There was no follow up to the incident.

 Decades years later my mother would curse dad because: ‘He tried to have me put away!’

She was screaming at me, upset because dad had walked out in the middle of an argument.

‘He said I was insane! – There’s nothing wrong with me is there!'
‘You know I’ve been a good mother don’t you?’
‘It’s all in his mind. He only wants me put away so he can carry on with that Nancy Kench woman he goes dancing with every week!’  

By then I’d learned to when to keep quiet.

How could I say to the woman who put “medicinal” brandy into almost every cup of tea she drank, and she drank a cup of tea nearly every hour,        

‘If you weren’t too drunk every night – maybe he’d take you dancing!’

 I survived the beatings for being “naughty” – not realizing how pathetic her definition of naughty really was.

The thrashings continued into my mid teens and only stopped when I took up Judo and was strong enough to physically resist her.

 Let me list some of her “best excuses” for the beatings.

1. Why did you do that’
   ‘Everybody else was doing it, Mummy’,
   ‘You don’t do things just because everyone else is doing them.
   You can think for your self can’t you?
   Would you jump of a cliff just because everybody else is doing it.’
   Taking more than fifteen minutes to get home from school was also NAUGHTY and a canable offence.
                                         - v -

2. ‘Why didn’t you do that?’
   ‘Everyone else was doing it!’
   ‘Why do you have to be NAUGHTY and be different to everyone else all the time.’
    

3. Taking more than fifteen minutes to get home from school was also NAUGHTY and a canable offence.

True the School gate was only 600 yards from home but it was on a plot 250 yards deep and the Junior School across the road on the opposite side stretched for another 600 yards to the 3^rd grade rooms.         
When the school bell rang, assuming the teachers let us leave immediately, we would crowd into the cloakrooms to grab our coats and satchels before rushing out of school. The older and bigger 4^th, 5^th & 6^th graders who’s classrooms were nearer the main road would then be first to the school gate leading the crowd of 700 children oozing through two small gateways specifically designed to stop children rushing across the road.

1          minute to file in an orderly manner out of the classroom,
1-2       minutes in the cloakroom, queuing and getting dressed,
4-5       minutes in the queue at the Junior School gate, then through the Infants School, 
1          minutes at the back of the queue at the Infants School Gate,      
            (Not allowed to use the open park-land as a short cut to save time – shoes might get splashed) 
1          minutes waiting to cross the main road if heavy traffic.   
12        minutes – for the 1450 yard fast walk home,     
            (Mustn’t run, Sweating makes extra work for mum washing the clothes and that’s Naughty too)            

That makes between 19 and 22 minutes on a good run and in bad weather the queues at the gates get out of control.     
Many years later, after leaving the army, a fit and healthy 22-year old, I timed the walk doing a standard REME marching pace of 120 paces per minute. It took me fourteen minutes with the long-legged 30-inch soldier’s stride.           

As an added covenant – Mother insists that both the School Clock and the Giant Clock at the front of the shopping centre (the one she checks me by) match each other as they must be synchronized to GMT, even though, in those days, they were independently & manually adjusted for daylight saving twice a year.      

And of course – If in Doubt – Mother is Right, Richard is Wrong, He’s been Naughty, He’s got to be taught to “Do as he’s Told”, - - - - Get the Cane.    

Once I dared to ask, ‘But Jacky’s always late, why do I get hit and not her?’    
I should have known the answer by then, the inevitable:            
‘THAT’S DIFFERENT, SHE’S A GIRL! She’s got friends to talk to, she can’t ignore them, that’s bad manners. She’s got to stop and talk to them.’ 
‘But what about my friends?’    (A silly and potentially dangerous question)       
‘WHAT FRIENDS. YOU DON’T HAVE ANY FRIENDS, NOBODY LIKES YOU AT SCHOOL.’  ‘JACKY TOLD ME, NO ONE WANTS TO PLAY WITH YOU.’   
’I would have friends – If I could talk to them on the way home like Jacky does.’          
‘YOU HAVN’T GOT TIME – I NEED YOU BACK HERE WITH ME!’
‘I’VE BEEN ALONE ALL DAY! YOU WANT ME TO BE BY MYSELF ALL THE TIME? DON’T YOU WANT TO BE WITH ME? DON’T YOU LIKE TO SPEND TIME WITH YOUR MUMMY? AFTER ALL THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU – YOU’RE A SELFISH LITTLE BUGGER. YOU ONLY EVER THINK OF YOURSELF. IF YOU DON’T START THINKING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE SOON NO ONE WILL WANT YOU.’

She did ‘explain’ how to handle the situation at the congested gates.

‘Just tell them you have to get home on time, they’ll let you go first. You’ve just got to ask them nicely.’

The fact that I had no way to get to the front of the queue to ask was “my problem”.

‘You’ve got to sort it out for yourself – you know what you’re going to get if you late home again!’ 

And after I was home – within the critical fifteen minute period - …. ….. …….

‘I haven’t got time to talk to you now, I’m busy getting your father’s dinner ready. Go in the other room and keep quiet!’

And if I dared to ask for even a cup of water after several hours at school on a hot summers day,

out came her most frequently used excuse for every mistake she made through drunken incompetence…..

‘Now look what you’ve made me do! It’s all your fault! You’ll be in trouble when your dad gets home.’

Yes my friends: “School days are the happiest time of your life!”

The unhappiness starts when you get home!

Time passed – and at seventeen I was in the Senior grade with five O-Level GCE’s and half way through the 2-year course studying for the four A-Level GCEs that would get me into college. My sister Jacky was in the Army as a Signaler and came home on leave.

“Richard,” she called me, “I’ve got to go to the Army Recruitment Office today – Why don’t you join me and we can go to the cinema afterwards?”

I declined – I had a backlog of homework to finish. But as usual Mum was on the side of her daughter, or in hindsight – in collusion with her. Mother virtually ordered me to go with Jacky and there would be no denying THAT request. Years later it would be obvious that the visit had been orchestrated and the recruiting sergeant had been primed for my arrival with all the ammo he needed for success. The moment we entered the office, Jacky disappeared into a back room with his assistant on the pretext of filling out some forms. I was left alone with a trained and experienced recruiter who clearly already knew most of my life history. For over an hour he had me as a captive audience and not surprisingly persuaded me to drop out of school a year before matriculation and enlist. WHAT A SURPRISE: Mum was not surprised when we arrived home and I asked her to sign my enlistment forms. Dad was however. He was upset that I had joined the army when he had wanted me to be a Pilot Officer in the RAF.

 Five years later I was made redundant from the Service and took a pre-release course in Computing at a College in Camden Town, North London. I was top of the course by a large margin and was the first of the top five to be offered an exceptional job by Plessey at West Drayton in London. It was the British sector of the Cold War 3‑Minute Nuclear Warning System.

They were recruiting only Military and Ex-Military personnel with full security clearance and good military records.

They offered to match my military salary, put me through an 8-month training course, start with 6-weeks paid leave, full medical cover, and full non-contributory government pension. I verbally accepted and they said to expect a letter in the post within a couple of days after the course.

I was happy. A new Job, A salary that would support a mortgage, and I wouldn’t even need to touch my discharge bonus that was twice what I would need for a house deposit. I would be set for life.

But the Job Offer Never Reached Me.

Mum persuaded me that I had misunderstood them, that they “probable say that to every one but don’t mean it”.

I wanted to contact them again to chase up the job, but all my documentation from the course had disappeared.

When I asked her if she had seen it, she hit the roof. “I DON’T TOUCH YOUR THINGS! YOU MUST HAVE THROWN IT OUT YOURSELF! WHY WOULD I WANT IT! YOU’VE GOT TO LEARN TO LOOK AFTER THINGS FOR YOURSELF!”

Knowing I hadn’t disposed of any of the paperwork I told her so. She went berserk, “YOU MUST HAVE! NO ONE ELSE GOES TO YOUR ROOM! I DON’T TOUCH YOUR THINGS!”

In frustration I could only cringe – how little I knew.

I ended up finding a low paid operations job with a salary that forced me to live at home.

 Years later other incidents occurred.

After successful interview with Marconi Instruments in St. Albans a letter arrived in the morning post.

(In England the post is delivered through the letterbox in the front door of the house.)

I saw it as I was leaving for work, it was addressed to me. I was unable to carry the letter out of the house. When I tried to I froze. When I got home mother denied there was any mail at all that day. I told her I had seen the letter. She changed her story and said it was for dad. He backed her up but could not remember what the letter was about. My frustration was immense. Marconi does not deal with the public. I knew my initials were on the letter – NOT DAD’s. But I was not strong enough to argue with both of them. Too much early conditioning, too much screwed-up brainwashing, and as I would find out much latter – to much deep planted post-hypnotic suggestion my mother had used on me since I was first able to understand words.

 I applied for another operations job in Harpendon only ten miles from Home – commuting distance and shift work.

The interview went so well they offered me the position on the spot. They wanted me so much (exceptional results on their aptitude tests) they said, “You can start Monday. The letter will be in the post by the end of the day – you’ll get it in tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) mail. EVEN IF YOU DON’T GET THE JOB OFFER LETTER – COME IN ON MONDAY – WE REALLY WANT YOU”.

Thursday came and went, no letter.

Friday came and went, no letter.

Saturday came and went, still no letter.

But they had said to Start on Monday regardless, so on Monday morning I was up and dressed early for the new job. Unusual for her, “Lady Muck” (mother) was up before me. She asked where I was going and when I said – to start the new job, she went into terror mode:

“YOU CAN’T GO – YOU HAVEN’T HAS THEIR JOB OFFER YET!”

I told her they said to start even if the letter hadn’t arrived – to her that was irrelevant,

“THEY DIDN’T MEAN THAT – YOU MUSTN’T GO UNTIL YOU GET THEIR LETTER”

“YOU’LL BE IN ALL SORTS OF TROUBLE”

“THEY’LL CALL THE POLICE”

“YOU’LL BE THROWN IN JAIL”

“YOU’LL NEVER GET A JOB AFTER THAT”

With definite instructions to the contrary I was able to resist her bullying,

“If they don’t want me – they’ll just tell me to go home.” I insisted, “Why are you so upset about?”

 A week later I found out, but still unwilling and unable to face the truth my mind refused to see it.

The manager came to see me in the ops room. He asked why he hadn’t received my job acceptance form.

I told him I was still waiting for his letter. After confirming he had the correct address he advised me that it had been sent by registered mail, fully monitored and signed for on delivery. I told him that it didn’t make sense, if it had been signed for I would have received it. After a second registered mail failed to reach me I had him get head-office to send the documents to his office and signed them there.

 It is only after therapy that my mind is finally accepting the truth.

1. I knew mum & dad had stolen the Marconi letter,
2. I knew some of my colleagues and friends had sent birthday cards and invites that I never received,
3. I knew dating agencies would not set me up with an acclaimed 280-pound date when I put myself on record as a sporting guy: badminton, squash, diving, swimming etc…..
4. I knew colleagues had called at the house when I was at home, but had been told I was out by my mother.
5. I knew mother steamed open dad’s letters, she had showed me how she did it (bragging?) and withheld them from him with the excuse, “It’ll only upset him if he reads it.”
6. When she was drunker than usual one day, she admitted getting a letter from my first fiancée after we had broken up and she wanted to get back together.   
   She admitted withholding it with the excuse. “I knew it would only upset you!”
7. I had found a 2-year old postcard from a friend in Mauritius that I had met in the army. He was in the Royal Navy and wanted to meet up when his ship docked in Portsmouth that year. Mum insisted that she had shown it to me but that was a lie. I would have remembered it and arranged to meet him.

 Now at fifty-five I can face the awful truth. I was being kept incommunicado from the world outside the home.

In the seventies all job applications were answered by the HR department as a matter of common courtesy. Dozens of my job applications went unanswered, and after interviews, when I was able to make the arrangements by phone, I frequently had no follow-up response.

My mother was deliberately stopping me from getting a job out of town so that I was trapped at home where she could continue to steal my social mail and interfere with any girlfriends I might find.

 But the most crucifying memory is after I attended a five month course in London in 1974. I suspect mother “allowed” me to take the course as it was expensive. I would use up all my savings during the course and have a hefty loan around my neck for the next five years.

 The course finished the first week in May, but I had to pay for the bed-sitter by the month so decided to stay there in London until the end of the month. Once again I was top of the course and expected to get a job offer from several of the companies that were recruiting directly at the college. If a job offer for the London area came through in that time I would already have somewhere to live, so I took the chance living off my credit card for a few more weeks.

Mum was very angry that I wasn’t coming home immediately the course finished and tried to insist:

“Have your job offers sent home, I can forward them to you.”

“That doesn’t make sense mum. They can come straight here.”

“Yes, but it will be safer if they come to me first – they may get lost in the post going to your bed-sitter.”

“That’s less likely to happen if they come straight here instead of going to Luton first.”

“There’s twice as much risk if they do two trips.”

“WHAT’S THE MATTER? – DON’T YOU TRUST ME? – DON’T YOU TRUST YOUR MOTHER”

“WHAT SORT OF BOY DOESN’T TRUST HIS MOTHER?”

“JUST DO IT FOR ME – IT’S THE BEST WAY.”

“It’s nothing to do with trust Mum, it’s just easier if it comes straight here. It’ll take two days longer if it goes home first and you’ve got to re-direct it.”

This was the sickest exchange we ever had. The only reason she wanted the job offers to go home to her first was so she could steal them. Then she tried to make me feel guilty of mistrusting her – so that she would be in a position to betray that very trust.

 A job offer did arrive mid-month and I retained my freedom.

Had I gone home – she would doubtless have stolen every job offer that came and without funds and a growing credit-card debt I would have been at her mercy. As it was she had already sabotaged the best job I could ever have found with Plessey. That drained my savings and I incur a five year debt that put me a decade behind the financial position I could have been in.

But worse still was the side effect from not responding to the job offers she had intercepted.

 Many years later I was sharing a house in London and chasing jobs. One of my house mates was in Human Resources at the local hospital. After applying for a position that I was more than qualified for I received a “Not Interested” response. Pam, my flat mate, unofficially looked into the matter. It seems I had been “Black-Listed” by the medical fraternity (all government run) because of: “A record of unprofessional conduct”. It seems I had failed to reply, neither accepting or declining, to a job offer several years earlier when I had been living with my parents. I remembered the interview. I had traveled by train to London and the interview had gone well, but I had never heard from the hospital again.

One guess as to what happened to their job offer.

 With the new job in London I was able to socialize more than before. I was still inept and clumsy – but at least I had the beginnings of a life. I joined several clubs and one chapter had a psychic subgroup. At one subgroup meeting the topic of hypnosis arose. This I was very familiar with as my mother had introduced me to the subject shortly after I joined the army. A few weeks later I was holding open-house for a discussion evening on the subject. Several members were interested in using hypnosis to delve into their past, including myself. So began a regular two-weekly ‘meeting’. Since there is only Self-Hypnosis, a fact most stage hypnotists will do anything to hide, I taught all the interested members some basic techniques and insisted that at the end of the sessions every subject brought themselves out of the ‘trance’ and back to normal consciousness to show themselves were in full control.

 In 1976 a linguistic misunderstanding resulted in an unexpected reply, equivalent perhaps to a “Freudian Slip”.

I was the subject. Moving into uncharted waters – I risked an attempt at Age Regression to get below a powerful mental block. The Cryptic reply had implied going to age three. We did so. The results were staggering, and fortunately I had it all recorded on tape.

 At four years old it appears my mother had instructed me “not to go out with girls and things like that”, but more perversely, “you’ll not be able to tell anyone about this.”  The ‘this’ being  her implanted suggestion.

In another drunken stupor mother had once informed me how she was able to influence her children so much.

Apparently she had been taught hypnosis back in the 1920s when she had trained for missionary work just after WW1. When Jacky and I were children she would wait until we were asleep then gently take our hands and stroke them while she spoke to us until we began to reply. She would then talk us down to a deeper state and indoctrinate us as to how to behave. It seems I was more receptive than Jacky and mum boasted how easy it was for her to control me.

 Did she actually saturate me with controlling Post Hypnotic Suggestions? As always the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Three days after discovery of that first mental block and a counter suggestion to neutralize it – I was able to cold call a young woman and ask her out. She declined, but it was the first time I had ever been able to ask someone for a date without physically freezing/locking up.

 Since then whenever the freeze response hits me I have attempted to locate a controlling PHS and cancel it.

Thus far it has always been successful.

So what is the legacy from my mother:   that alcoholic, sadistic, perverted, selfish, insidious pedophile?

1. Her incestuous jealousy drove her to keep me prisoner at home,
2. She destroy any chance of a job that paid enough for me to become independent,
3. She sabotaged and prevented friendships and relationships with anyone but her,
4. She cripple my mind with Post Hypnotic Suggestions to inhibit normal and natural behavior,
5. She destroyed my spontaneity of body language, and any visible expression of emotion,
6. She drove me to Zen Enlightenment, always searching below the surface,          
   a condition that forever isolates me from normal people,
7. She destroyed a gifted child’s ability by denigrating every success he managed to achieve,
8. As a battered baby/child, knowing 98% of battered babies inflict the same treatment on their own offspring, I determined to forgo marrying and the joys of raising a family.

To quote from McBeth, a novel by the great bard William Shakespeare:

            “Tis I who should against the terrors of the night bar the door – not bear the knife myself.”

My mother bore the knife.

Against her will she gave me life and thereafter punished me for all the consequences of her own ineptitude.

 All this came from the one person who should have nurtured and protected me.

 When a man is betrayed by his own mother – how can he ever trust another human being?

And without trust – how can he fall in love?

 It frightens me how easily I could have become a real danger to those around me.

At work when colleagues talk about the latest bad news and ask, “How can he do that to his own family?”

I keep silent, knowing and feeling the reasons.

When I watch the TV dramas and the captive or victim gets helped by the police and authorities I begin to cry.

It’s a mixture of happiness for them and an overwhelming !!!!! RAGE !!!!!

 RAGE! – RAGE!       THAT THERE WAS NEVER ANYONE THERE TO HELP ME!!!!!

RAGE! – RAGE!       THAT MY PLEAS TO GOD WENT UNANSWERED!!!!!

RAGE! – RAGE!       THAT I MISSED OUT ON THE SIMPLEST PLEASURES OF LIFE!!!!!

RAGE! – RAGE!       THAT NO ONE CARED A DAMN WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!!!!

RAGE! – RAGE!       THAT I SUFFERED BUT MY SISTER WAS GIVEN HER EVERY WISH!!!!

RAGE! – RAGE!       THAT WHEN SHE WANTED WHAT I HAD, IT WAS GIVEN TO HER!!!!

RAGE! – RAGE!       THAT WHEN SHE MADE A MISTAKE –           
                        I WAS  PUNISHED TO SAVE THEIR EMBARRESMENT!!!!

___________________________________________________

COULD I KILL IN ANGER?                      YES,                EASILY!

 But no one is in danger…………THE BITCH IS ALREADY  DEAD!