Jenny was visiting us quite regularly at this time. The social workers were keeping an eye on the whole family situation, but they were also hoping that she could be returned to us. From what I read, they were wishing for a fairytale ending as much as I was. Also, from what I have discovered reading round this issue in later years, the idea of ‘restoration’, or making sure families were united again even if a child or children had been taken into care, was a very popular one. So, Jenny would sometimes be at home, or sometimes not – but, when she was back with us, my parents didn’t even try to hide some of the appalling ways they treated her.

Jenny was still in bed at 11:15am when the health visitor arrived. Jenny was restrained in the bed with her outspread hands and arms tied down. The child had had nothing to eat since midday the previous day. Her body was marked at that stage. Jenny was ravenously hungry. (The HV took her to nursery and informed the Social Services Department). (11 February 1974)

While a new potential foster-parent was found – a Mrs Powell, who was ‘very willing … it is hoped that Jennifer will be moved there towards the end of the month’ – ‘Concern was expressed that Mrs Yeo was verbalising her feelings that Karen is beginning to behave as Jennifer behaved. It was therefore decided that a careful watch should be kept on the situation.’ This was in March 1974, while Mum was seeing Jenny every month. Dad was usually fishing and I really don’t think he had much of a relationship with her at all. When Jenny did come back, she was treated so cruelly. I knew that she would turn up at the door with her little bag, packed with the few things she owned, and Mum would say, ‘Piss off – no one wants you here,’ and slam the door in her face. I don’t know what happened. I think she just sat and cried there until Mum changed her mind, but I do know she did that quite a few times – when Jenny got older, Mum often didn’t let her in, telling her that her siblings hated her and she was to leave, and she always called her ‘the pig’. It was Jenny herself who told me this when we were older and we used to reflect back on our lives, how we were separated so often but also going through so much that was similar.

Thankfully, the placement with Mrs Powell went ahead.

I was amazed at the difference in her. She has put on quite a lot of weight and seemed very relaxed. During her first two days with Mrs Powell, Jenny was very suspicious and nervous. Since then, she has become gradually more relaxed. She is obviously very much loved by the whole family. The GP thinks Jenny might be deaf in one ear.

(2 April 1974)

Jenny was indeed deaf in one ear, and it would be noted in later reports that this was from the physical abuse she had suffered when she was little more than a baby. She had been hit so hard that it affected her hearing for ever.

Mum was always shouting and always swearing. I can hardly think of a time she spoke to me without including some profanities – and my memories were starting to come through by this stage. For a child of three, four years of age to have that sort of nastiness being spewed at them constantly is awful, but it also becomes their normality. ‘She was shouting at Karen when I arrived and was very offhand with her. Karen was very tense and eyed her mother continuously. Mrs Yeo threatened her several times. Mrs Yeo was verbally very aggressive. (3 April 1974)’ The notes state that bruises were noticed on me the next day, so I wonder if there were follow-up visits when things looked particularly bad. They weren’t looking good for Jenny either, as the foster-family was starting to report problems.

J is causing tension between Mrs Powell and her daughter. She is with Mrs Powell all day and resents the rest of the family when they come home in the evening. Mrs Powell is very protective towards Jenny and takes her side against her daughter. Jenny realises this and uses it. Mrs Powell requests Jenny’s removal.

(9 May 1974)

The permanent return of Jenny to the family home (such as it was) seemed to be out of the question, perhaps because the social workers could see that Mum was doing the same to me, and telling them that I was turning out like my big sister, so a request was made to transfer her to a ‘residential establishment’. The passing of Jenny from pillar to post had begun in earnest – and it would go on for the rest of her life. A heartbreaking letter from a consultant psychiatrist in June 1974 says that she was sent to him for ‘disturbed emotions’ and in that letter is a tear-jerking summary of everything that has already gone wrong in her life.

I examined the above-named child at this clinic this afternoon. Jennifer was four on 27th February. She belongs to that small unhappy band of children labelled by the sensational press ‘the battered babies’. Twice in the first three years of her life she has had to be rescued from the vicious assaults of her mother. She was first taken into care briefly three years ago but returned to the care of her parents after a matter of months. She came into care again last September. Since then there have been three or four failed fosterings.

Jennifer is a bright, chatty, disinhibited little girl. So long as she is getting all of her own way she can be of sunny disposition. However, she is unable to tolerate frustration of any kind and quickly becomes fractious if any of her self-indulgent behaviour is checked.

She has a remarkably good use of language. She constantly importunes for attention. I am afraid it is unlikely that an ordinary fostering would be successful at this stage unless one were lucky enough to find a dedicated set of foster-parents endowed with unlimited patience.

Oh, Jenny – in that one letter you’re being written off already, aren’t you? You’re the child from a media headline; you’re a little girl whose only hope is to be ‘lucky enough’ to find foster-parents with unlimited patience. I wonder what you would have become if you had found those perfect foster-parents? I really do feel that many of those who tried were good people, but there were circumstances they couldn’t control, or their own family demands got in the way of helping you. The awful thing is, you were one of so many – and so many children are still in exactly the same position. So much effort is put into keeping families together when the truth is, some homes are just toxic. Some people should never have children.

With a lack of suitable foster-parents, Jenny was moved into residential accommodation in a place called Newton Hall. By April 1975, it was being noted that she wasn’t that bothered when our parents left if they ever did make the effort to see her in the first place – she thought of them as Norman and Lesley, and staff had to remind her of their relationship. Mum wasn’t happy with this and I’m sure it led to her deciding that she didn’t want her eldest daughter back at all – for the moment. ‘This is the first time that Mrs Yeo has made any suggestion that she does not want Jennifer home. Mr Yeo’s remarks were rather insignificant and insipid. I am beginning to wonder if they are really interested in Jennifer’s future.’ (19 June 1975)

Looking at the files, it seems to me that something has obviously been very badly fractured; maybe, as Jenny was getting older, she had more of an awareness of how badly she had been treated, and of how she continued to be seen as just an awkward part of our parents’ lives. By June that year, even the social worker was finally beginning to recognise the lies and manipulation and broken promises. Mum was saying that she didn’t see any point in making the effort to visit Jenny if she would be in care until she was eighteen, or that she had no money – even though she was told she could apply for travelling expenses – or no one to look after us, and that we couldn’t go as we got travel-sick. All lies. Letters constantly repeat that they showed ‘no initiative’ while she was at Newton Hall. Mum always made excuses about visiting her there, plans never came to anything and she would always suggest that Jenny came home, which was not something that was supported when she and Dad made no effort to see her elsewhere.

There was a new baby in our family by this point, which must have been so unsettling for Jenny. I can’t help but think she must have wondered why Mum and Dad had another baby – and kept it at home – when she was unloved and unwanted, now in a residential home in Frodsham. In April 1976, Jenny visited to see baby Kevin and was left for an hour by the social worker. While she was away, my sister visited the bathroom, which obviously triggered memories of when Mum used to flush her head down the loo as punishment; there was an awful scene, which was still going on when the social worker returned. She rightly noted: ‘I don’t honestly know if these two could ever live together – I doubt it.’

With Jenny at Frodsham, there should have been more of a settled sense to everything, but Mum was still up to her tricks of claiming that she wanted her back, then she didn’t want her. She wanted to see her, then she didn’t want to see her. Everything had to be on Mum’s terms, and sometimes it’s beyond belief to think that these power games were with a six-year-old child. While it didn’t escape the eyes of the social work team, they could only express their frustration rather than put an end to it, given that parental rights were always to be considered.

They may have been right about some things but, while they were starting in many ways to get a clear view of what my parents were like, in others they were wrong to think there was no cause for concern. My life was still one of shouting and emotional abuse. I was never shown any love, never cuddled, never made to think I was anything other than an inconvenience. Mum never spoke to me without calling me names, and my normality was one of coldness at best. She was doing to me what it seemed she had done to Jenny.

My first day at school was a happy time. It’s not that anything was made of it before I started – there was no happy build-up or excitement as we chose my uniform and bag – but I did look forward to finally being a big girl, and escaping home every weekday. The classroom seemed huge after our crowded, messy house. There was a massive – or so it seemed – plastic Wendy house, with pots and pans, which was my favourite thing of all. I adored playing in there, making my own little world, and pretending that I was the mummy. The good mummy who made lovely food for her kiddies and ensured everything was spotless. Despite the happiness there, though, there was always the worry in the back of my mind that I was doing something wrong. I hadn’t really been socialised and my sense of normality was totally skewed.

We were all isolated from our neighbours and were never taken anywhere really; it was certainly a very rare occasion when we went to someone else’s house. I had no friends. My world was my siblings, my family, anyone who came to our house to have sex with my parents – and social workers. And from that came worry. Once I was out in the world, I didn’t really know what to do. I always thought I was stupid because that was all I had ever been told. I still think that way to this day, and suspect I always will. There was always a little voice inside my head that did me down. ‘You’re dilatory,’ Mum would scream. ‘Fucking dilatory.’ That was her favourite word for me, and I must have heard it thousands of times over the years, even though I didn’t really even know what it meant. One year, I even got a card from my brothers that said, ‘Happy Birthday – we love you even though you are a bit slow.’

Sometimes I would cry and then get on with things – sometimes I still do that – but mostly I assumed that anything that went wrong was my fault. I felt there was a blackness inside me that other people could see; I could be chatty and friendly, but I felt that once people got to know me, they’d see it. At school, I was quiet, I always sat at the back and I was no trouble; I never acted out. But, the truth was, I had no chance to ever be what I could have been. There was no one to do homework with me, no one to check it, no one to encourage me. I never had anyone say, ‘Well done’ as I learned my ABC, or take my hand as I went down steps, counting as we went. No one sang songs that taught me the colours of the rainbow, no one made animal noises as they pretended we were in a farmyard. There was no colour, no joy in my childhood.

From as far back as I can remember, we all had chores. We cleaned for Mum – she would never lift a finger to do that – and it always took priority over schoolwork. From the records, I can see that the social workers did sometimes come out of the blue rather than making an appointment, so they must have suspected more than they let on in the reports. I assume that they were trying to see our family as it really was, but on those occasions Mum just wouldn’t let them in.

Even when my sister was removed from the situation, Mum’s power was still strong. ‘It is interesting to note – and I told Mrs Yeo – whenever she tells Jennifer she can come home if she stops wetting the bed, this in fact increases Jennifer’s enuresis. (20 October 1976)’

She was getting better at school by this point, and upset when she didn’t do well in tests, which was progress as, previously, she hadn’t cared. She was even Mary in the nativity play – although no one was there to see her. She was benefitting from the stability of residential care, but, from the records, everything seems very fragile.

Jenny’s case was reviewed in the middle of February 1977, and five months later a letter was sent to a Mr Carpenter at the National Children’s Home in Frodsham, from a Mr H.J. Surridge, who was the Area Social Services Officer. They noted that during the February review it had been decided that efforts would be made to ‘find suitable contacts for Jennifer with a view to fostering in the long term.’ A young couple in Wallasey were then contacted – Mr and Mrs Bill and Linda Jones – who were approved foster-parents. Linda is described in the letter as ‘a very calm, sensible girl … an ex-nursery nurse’, and the note coolly states that the couple ‘are willing to participate in the experiment’. My sister – the experiment. Jenny was taken to meet them and they were ‘anxious to commence the experiment’ with a view to a week’s trial during the summer holidays. Next step would be to get our mother to agree, which they expected would be difficult. Actually, she did agree.

By September 1977, Dad was making his dislike of the suggestions clear – records say that the social workers ‘sense obstruction’ and ‘instances of non-cooperation’. The record then goes on to say that ‘Mr Yeo eventually suggested we should not proceed with the foster-parent arrangement – although this had been their suggestion – and that we should arrange for Jennifer to have weekend visits home. The situation will be carefully monitored.’

Except it wasn’t, was it? Jenny was staying at Newton Hall by this time, and there was some stability, but the fact that there were still attempts at restoration and she was still going back home, I feel, made things harder. It was one step forward, two steps back – any progress that was made, whether on bed-wetting or behaviour, was always negated once the horror of home was inflicted on her once again. Naturally, Mum managed to swing between one thing and another, acting happy and then changing her mind, saying getting Jenny back was all she wanted, only to then, when she needed attention, claim she couldn’t deal with it. ‘I later called to tell Mrs Yeo of the arrangement – she appeared delighted. Mrs Yeo stated to me that should she feel at any time that she cannot cope with Jennifer, she will tell me and we will revert to day visits.’ (25 September 1977)

At the start of October 1977 Jenny was picked up by her social worker, a Miss Williams, and brought to see us all in Abbotsford Street – Mum was warned not to say anything ‘derisory’ about Jenny’s bed-wetting, as she was very sensitive about it. After the weekend at home, Williams noted that the bed-wetting ‘wasn’t too bad and Mrs Yeo had coped nobly!!’ She did seem to realise that this was unlikely to be the way things would be if Jenny stayed more often – ‘I know this is a “honeymoon” and no way reflects the future, but it is a start. The children get on very well together and there were protestations all round when we left. Her first comment to the nun in charge was, “My mummy wants me to go home for Christmas.”’

This was downright manipulation in my eyes – how could a little girl fail to want to be home for Christmas? I know that, by this stage, I was being told that Jenny didn’t want to stay with us, that she hated us and thought she was better than us. Mum tried to create barriers and to set us against each other, and, to a large extent, she succeeded. Jenny, as I later found out, was being told that we didn’t want her, that we had a lovely time without her, and that we all would be happier if we never saw her again. Such cruelty. Such lies.

Jenny stayed at Frodsham for some time, and all I remember was that she continued to be in and out of our lives. I don’t really have memories of what she liked or disliked, and when I read of these things in the files, they open up to me as a surprise – the elements of a sister I wasn’t really allowed to know.

The need for attention and the extroverted behaviour must all have come from the battles she had with Mum over the years, and the way in which attention was never given to her unless it was negative or attached to conditions; I can’t help but cheer little Jenny on when I read of anything in those files that shows a spark.

My own spark was something rarely ignited. As well as the cruelty over bringing animals in and out of our lives, food was another way in which power was exercised. I was always told, when we were fed, that we were very lucky and that the things we were given for dinner were absolute luxury. This would mean tinned spaghetti, but, as part of the mind games Mum revelled in, black was white, cheap was luxury and our broken little lives were charmed beyond belief when she said so. They both gave us horrible food, it was always the cheapest of the cheap, but they ate well.

As we got older, I became aware that Jenny was often sent to her room while the rest of the family ate. My brothers and I would have junk, Mum and Dad would have a different meal, but Jenny would get nothing. She was starved, literally starved. Sometimes I would sneak food to her, but I knew there would be hell to pay when I was caught. I wish I had done it more; I wish I had stood up to them and taken the repercussions. Living with it day to day was hard though. I was only a little girl and my world was toxic. Mum still barely spoke without swearing, and when Jenny was there she bore the brunt of it. ‘If that bitch thinks she’s getting fed tonight, she’ll have a long wait,’ she’d say. ‘She’s getting fuck all. She can lie in her own piss for all I care.’

This was a seven-year-old, a child. When Jenny lived with us, she was treated worse than an animal (although there was no kindness for any of those brought into our lives either). Mum never said a kind word to me or my big sister; I genuinely have no recollection of her ever being gentle or even neutral. It was all nasty. There were no hugs in my childhood. I have never sat in anyone’s lap while they read me a story, I have never had my hair stroked as I fell asleep, I was never told I was loved or that I was special – I was just another part of their broken, twisted world. There was no softness to Mum at all; she was always barking out insults and cursing, while Dad… well, Dad was just ‘there’. He had very little personality and there was no drive to him. At this point he was just a lazy, forgettable sort of man.

At the most, he would only spring into action when Mum told him to. When he came back from fishing trips, she would tell him how awful we’d been and that he would need to discipline us for our terrible behaviour. We’d be threatened all day with his return, but being alone with Mum was a whole lot worse than Dad coming back and hitting us. ‘If you cry, I’ll give you something to really cry about,’ she’d warn us.

She had quite a few favourite ways to make us feel terrified, but her preferred one was when she made us choose.

‘Stand there,’ she’d snap. ‘In a line. Against the wall. Don’t make a fucking sound.’ We knew better than to make any noise, but we also knew what was coming. ‘Right – who’s getting it tonight? Which one of you little bastards is going to be first when your dad gets through the door?’ It wasn’t a rhetorical question; she was actually asking us, asking us to choose which one of us should be battered. Sometimes she would decide that I or one of my brothers or Jenny should get to make the choice alone – they could pick which one of the others would be hit; at other times she would let us all argue about it, until the weakest, or the one who had no one on their side that day, was left isolated. All the time, she would sit or stand watching us, smirking, creating her own little Lord of the Flies scenario where she turned child against child, waiting for us to work out who was strong, who was vulnerable, who would turn against the rest to protect themselves.

Often, when Dad got back, she’d change her mind anyway. After the horror of making us choose, she’d select another child for him to focus his violence on, or tell him that we’d all been little shits so we all deserved a good hiding. It was completely warped that we actually thought this part was unfair – after all the decision-making, after all the pitting of one sibling against the others, it just seemed so wrong that we all got beaten anyway. It was just a power trip for her. Four or five children, all so little, all fighting for their survival.

I would tend to sit in the corner of the living room, quietly hoping no one would notice me. It rarely made a difference. Dad hated noise, and it affected a lot of things – not only did we have to shut up, or be threatened by Mum that she would tell him if we’d been noisy, but other parts of family life that could have brought some normality were twisted by what he wanted, or she wanted, which always took priority over us. My mind seems to keep going back to the dogs that came and went. They would be there one day, then the next, they were gone. Dad threw a puppy into the road one day to punish us and we watched as it was run over, a gorgeous Labrador. It seemed that as soon as we fell in love with a puppy or dog – especially me or Ian – they would get rid of it. You learn not to love; you learn to close yourself off when you’re brought up that way.

It was clear that Dad, generally, thought we were in the way, as he was permanently annoyed by us. He’d fish and come home, and we’d be in line, waiting for the violence. You could see in his face that he saw it as an imposition on his time; it was just bloody annoying to have to batter these kids after a nice, peaceful day of fishing. But Mum would be waiting: ‘She’s fucking done this, she’s fucking done that,’ would be rattled off and, if we hadn’t been forced to choose who was to be hit, she’d do the choosing, taking her time, making us sweat.

We sometimes had to choose who wouldn’t face the hands or the bat. Ian would protect me when he could. In Jenny’s absence he was the eldest, and on the rare occasions when he could wield any power he would try to look out for me, save me from it. If I was allowed to step out of line while the boys were beaten, I had to watch. I wasn’t allowed to avert my eyes, and I wasn’t allowed to say anything. It was a particularly effective form of torment. Those who were hit naturally felt awful, but the one who wasn’t felt guilty that they were escaping it on that occasion, and there was also an odd sense of not being part of the gang. All of this meant that we were constantly trying to please; but the truth was, we couldn’t – we didn’t clean properly, or we made too much noise, or she’d make up something else.

The setting us against each other was relentless. When Jenny came home, she would be told what a lovely time we all had when she wasn’t there – it was all lies of course, but it must have had an impact on her. To us, when Jenny was away, Mum would say that our big sister was living the high life, delighted to be away from us and pampered beyond belief where she was staying. More lies. I didn’t really have any concept of where she was at any particular time, whether it was in foster care or in other accommodation, partly because I was too young to comprehend the differences, partly because of Mum painting this picture of a fabulous mansion where Jenny was treated like a princess, only deigning to come back when she felt like it. Then, on her return, she would weave a web of lies about the wonderful life the four of us had with her and Dad, and I would see such a sad look in Jenny’s eyes.

I remember one time when Jenny was home from wherever she was staying, and Mum was furious for the entire visit. She had been shouting and swearing constantly, threatening Jenny the whole time, slapping her, telling her that she was nothing and that we all hated it when she was back. One day I was in the living room, trying to avoid it all, trying to make myself as invisible as possible, when I heard a commotion from the hallway. Peeking round the door so I could see what was happening on the stairs, but terrified to get involved, I saw Jenny at the top with Mum a few steps below. She was pulling one of Jenny’s arms, trying to drag her down, trying to unbalance her so that she would fall down the stairs, but Dad was holding Jenny’s other arm, trying to pull her back.

‘I’m going to kill that little fucking bitch!’ Mum was screaming. Dad, as usual, wasn’t really saying much, just a vague, ‘Now, now’, but at least he was trying to stop her from dragging my sister down to injury, possibly even broken bones. ‘Get your fucking hands off her!’ Mum ranted. She was always saying Jenny was ‘dirty’ or ‘smelly’ and I know that there were constant issues with bed-wetting. The social work reports do say it was a problem, but those who cared for her when she wasn’t at home did make progress. It all just regressed when she was back with us. Living in terror, constantly belittled, battered every day: is it any wonder she couldn’t control the bed-wetting? I get snatches of memories flooding through from those years when I was too young to make sense of it, but already knew it wasn’t right. Flashes, images that jump into my mind when I try to make sense of what Jenny’s life must have been like: a snapshot of Jenny in a kitchen chair with Mum’s hands round her throat, trying to choke her. Sometimes, the memories are more detailed and I recall the words as if there is a taped conversation in my head, imprinted from those awful days.

One day I heard a commotion coming from the bathroom and Dad shouting something about not going ‘too far’.

‘She put that radio in the fucking bath to break it on purpose,’ Mum yelled back.

‘But don’t go too far, Lesley,’ Dad repeated.

‘Too fucking far? I’ll drown the little bitch!’ she shrieked.

And that was Jenny’s life when she was with us. In later years, she told me her first memory was Mum forcing her to eat her own poo. Who knows what those three years were like before a neighbour reported Mum for beating her? Who knows what that tiny little girl suffered, what hell she went through? There are pictures of her around that age, standing on a chair, and her body is black and blue; but she’s still smiling. I guess that was all she knew, just as it became all I knew.