Personal Details
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Details
Experience
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Employment History
Strengths and Weaknesses
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Purgatory
Paradise
Paradise Lost
Paradise Regained
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Part I - Purgatory
1923 to 1956 and August 1956 to July 1997 |
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- 1964-1967 - Ages 8..10
- My dad hits me a lot now. He doesn't hit my sister. He hugs her a lot. When
I think about what I should say I'm ok, but if I make a mistake and say or do
something that's not being a boy, my dad hits me. It's very hard. I have to be
so careful. I cry a lot.
- We have moved to a big town near the sea. We live in a very small house
right next to lots of other houses. The front door opens right onto the street.
We are right next to a Schweppes factory. Most of the boys in our street make
fun of me and call me names, but if I fight back and shout at them and do bad
things, they let me be with them. Sometimes we go to the co-op at the end of the
street and sit eating ice creams. There are girls in the street and they get ice
creams too, but the boys get very rough with each other then and call the girls
names. I don't like that and watch them sitting and wish I could be with them.
- I get so angry at everything now. I have become very mean and nasty. I try
really hard to be that way, but I have to be so much worse than the other boys
or they will see that I'm not really. I argue with my teachers a lot and get
sent to the headmaster for the cane. I wait to be called in and hold my hand
out. He whacks my hand six times with the cane, but I don't cry. I just say
"Thankyou sir" and walk out.
- I can see that the boys that are liked best are the ones do who do things
that are wrong like stealing. I have decided to be like them. I have talked some
boys into breaking into the factory.
- We went into the factory by climbing up to the roof and breaking a window on
the roof. Inside it was dark, but I found some light switches. There is an
office high up above all the bottles with a safe in it. One of the boys said he
saw a movie once about a man who breaks into safes and started to try. First he
used a piece of sandpaper on his fingers. I thought that was silly, but I
watched for a while and said it would never work. I told them to push the safe
to the edge and let it drop to the ground where it might break open. They pushed
and shoved, but could only move it off the big metal thing on the floor. When it
rested on the wooden floorboards, they cracked and the safe fell partway through
them. It was stuck so much we couldn't move it.
- We went downstairs to the bottles then. One boy had found a forklift and was
trying to get it started. I found a big box near the front rolling doors filled
with little plastic lemons and oranges and things with smiling faces on them.
They looked so cute I tipped them out and started to arrange them around the
rolling door in an arc. By the time I had used all the plastic fruit, there were
hundreds of them lined up smiling at the front door. I thought that when the men
opened the door they would see a sea of smiling faces and laugh. The boy who had
found the forklift had managed to get it started, but couldn't steer it and
crashed the forks into a huge crate of bottles. Fizzy lemonade went all over the
floor and we scarpered because we could hear the police bells.
- Once we sat near the railway tracks and they all wanted to see each others
dicks. I thought that was very strange, but they all wanted to do it so I
thought that's what boys do. They all pulled down their pants and started
showing off their dicks and saying how big they were and I felt really strange
and didn't want to be with them. I didn't want to take off my pants, but they
jumped on me and made me do it. I hated that. I don't go around with them
anymore. Boys are dumb.
- My sister hurt herself twice in that house. Once I had been told to keep an
eye on her but forgot and went into the back yard to play. Mum and dad came home
and dad ran out into the yard and started hitting me and saying I should never
do those things to my sister. I didn't know what he meant, but my mum said that
sharp objects should never be put into girls insides. I still didn't know what
was going on. I was sent to my room with no dinner and they took my sister to
the hospital. I got blamed for things I didn't do a lot, so I was used to it,
but I don't know what she did.
- I have a lot of small cars and lorries. I get them out of the box and play
with them in the front room. I put them into a long line and move the first one
forward a bit, then move the second one to be behind the first and the same with
all the others. Then I start again with the first and move them round the living
room, into the hall and back into the living room. I do this for ages because it
makes me feel safe and not angry. My dad says there is something wrong with the
way I do that, but I do it anyway.
- Once when the line of cars got into the hallway, my sister came running down
the hall and stood on one of the cars and crashed straight into the glass door.
She was covered in cuts and glass. My dad hit me again, but I knew I had been
bad so I didn't fight back. I just make my cars go round and round the living
room now.
- I found that my parents loved my sister a lot and would do things for her
and be nice to her. My dad hugged her a lot and I got very jealous. He never
hugs me.
- We have moved to a another house. We move a lot. I never get to make any
friends because I only stay in one school for part of a year before we move to
another. I have got used to it anyway and like to keep by myself at school. Then
my little brother was born. My dad was so happy and kept playing with him all
the time. I just sat and watched.
- We now live in a very big house called "Brigmerston" that used to belong to
an old lady. She lives in some rooms at the front of the big house. She has two
very big shaggy dogs that are really scary and jump and growl when you get near
to them. Our part is partially underground and my mum said it used to be the
servants quarters. There is a big lawn and a tennis court but it has all its
fences broken and hanging down. The tarmac is all covered in weeds and is
cracked. It all looks very sad and I want to help sometimes to make it nice.
There is a gardener there called Mr Penny. He is very old and takes a long time
to do things, but I help him sometimes to do weeding and fill the lawn mower
with petrol.
- There is a big pool that is very deep but only has a some dirty water at the
deep end. I sometimes climb into the pool and sit close to the water and watch
the frogs for a long time till it gets dark.
- There is a diving board. It is very high and has barbed wire all around it
and a sign that says 'Danger'. I still climb it though. I sit at the top and it
feels like I'm really safe. I can almost see over the trees to the little church
and the village.
- We don't have separate rooms. My sister and I share a room with some wire
with curtains on it to keep us separate. I have my little bed and can stand on
it and look out of the window onto the lawn. In winter the glass gets covered
with frost and I tell my sister that Jack Frost came in the night. In summer I
take my sister onto the lawn and we make daisy chains and put them on our heads
and around our necks. We hold buttercups under our chins to see if we like
butter or not.
- My dad makes me read a lot. He has a big set of books called "The Childrens
Encyclopaedia". He makes me read it to him. There are lots of bits about
building bridges and houses and it has puzzles, but the best stories I like are
the ones fairies and castles and kings and princesses. He doesn't let me read
those to him. I get the books down and lay in bed with a torch and look at the
pictures of knights and princesses and the nice dresses they wear and wish I
could have lived then and been a princess.
- One day we were in the village and I saw a remote control toy ambulance. I
liked it a lot and my Dad and Mum bought it for me for my birthday. It has a
little wire coming out of the back and a little box that you put batteries in
and has a little steering wheel. It even has a little flashing light and the
back door opens and a has a stretcher. I was so excited I took it outside and
drove it around. I drove it up the lane to show the boys at the next house. One
of them is very rough and he came out and jumped up and down on it until it was
smashed to pieces. He laughed when I cried as I picked up the bits and went
home. My dad got very angry with me and said that he wouldn't buy me things in
future because I couldn't take care of them.
- One Christmas my dad got me an action man. My sister got a Barbie. She also
got one of those little stoves and it had a light that came on in the oven. We
sat on the floor and played at cooking. My action man and my sisters Barbie made
dinner and hugged and kissed a lot. My dad hit me again. I sat under the sink
and waited until everybody was in the front room and went back to see my sister.
She had gone to sleep so I quietly played with the stove and her Barbie.
- I like to help my mum in the kitchen. But just before my dad gets home from
the army she tells me to go and play outside. I know he gets angry with me so
much, so I climb a tree and watch him come home. I wait until my Mum comes out
and calls me for dinner.
- Once when I was in the forest waiting, I found a little blackbird and it was
hurt. It was just sitting and shivering. I felt so sad and picked it up and took
it home. My mum and dad fed it bread soaked in milk. We decided to call it
Blackie and I made a bed for it out of a shoebox and cotton wool. We all have
turns feeding it and when it got better we wtached it fly away. I think about
Blackie sometimes I liked helping it get better.
- I get so angry a lot now. I fight with the other boys. I don't want to, they
just get me so mad. I have found that if I am really bad they like me and so
does my dad. I once went to this old house that no-one lived in with two other
boys and we broke all the windows. I smashed all the inside walls in. I was
crying and shouting but I just couldn't stop. The grounds keeper came in and
dragged me out, but I was so angry I kicked him and went back in. I had a big
stick and smashed all the walls. Then the police came. When they took me home,
my dad hit me again and sent me to my room. But it was different. He didn't hit
me very hard and was smiling. Is this being a boy?
- I went to to the tank track with some other boys. The tanks were driving
around and shooting at targets. They are very noisy and make clanking noises as
they drive down the roads. We hid and waited until they stopped. The other boys
started to get scared when the guns fired. I hit them and told them to stop
acting like girls. I ran out and hid behind a tank. When it fired, the ground
shook so much I nearly fell over. There was dust and the smell of burning. I
looked at this huge metal thing with the big sweaty soldiers on it pushing the
big brass shells into the turret and hid next to the tracks.
- After each time it fired, I tried to get a tool-box open. When it opened,
all the tools fell out. One landed on my foot and it hurt a lot. I looked at the
track links and at the tools. There was one that looked like it fitted the bolts
on the track. I picked it up and started to undo the bolt. It was quite easy,
but covered in oil. Suddenly, the track fell down with a huge thud on the
ground. I had undone the track. I dropped the tool and ran back to the bushes.
The other boys were shaking and kept talking to me, but I couldn't hear because
my ears were ringing. When the tanks finished firing, they started to drive
away. The one I had undone the track on swung around in a big circle and crashed
into another tank. The soldiers came out and started shouting at each other. The
RedCaps came over in a jeep and one saw us. He ran over. The other boys ran
away, but I shouted that they were cowards and should act like big boys. It felt
really funny shouting and not being able to hear my own voice.
- When the RedCap grabbed me, I just looked at him. He shouted at me but I
said nothing. He had a very red face. He was trying to be angry and scary to me,
but he couldn't do it like my dad. I smiled at him. They took me home and my dad
gave me the strap. I lay there and didn't cry.
- Once I went to the tank track with my Grandad. We stood on the big bridge
over the river and watched the soldiers trying to get a tank out of the water.
He said that one day I might grow up to be a soldier like my dad. I said I
didn't want to do that, and that I'd rather grow up to be a girl and get married
and have kids and live in a nice house with cats. He looked at me for a while,
but didn't say anything. I like my Grandad.
- I used to dare the other boys to do things and called them girls when they
didn't do bad things. We go to the tank track and steal shells and bullets from
the soldiers when they aren't looking. I made a linked belt of big machine gun
shells and showed my dad. I wanted to show him I could be good. He got very mad
and took them off me. I am very confused. I thought this was being a boy.
- I saw a magazine with pictures of a flying fox and decided to build one to
show my dad how I could do things just like a real boy. I stole some thick steel
wire from the tank track and spent ages tying one end to the base of a tree. I
then dragged the other end to another tree and climbed up it. I could see how I
was going to make things that stuck out of the tree and the wire would go
through them and right through the forest. Then the other kids would like me
because they could rush through the forest. My dad would be proud of me. I
climbed quite high in the tree and pulled and pulled and tied the wire until it
was very tight. It was really high. I put both hands on the wire and pushed away
from the tree. The wire burnt my hands and I had to let go. I lay on the ground
out of breath and hurting for a long time. Then I went inside the house and got
two pairs of gloves. I climbed up, put both pairs of gloves on and tried again.
I got a bit further, but the wire still burnt through the gloves and I fell
down. I decided I needed something that wouldn't burn through. Mr Penny has a
shed filled with things, so I broke in and found a short piece of lead pipe. I
put it in a vice and got a hacksaw. It took ages but I cut the pipe length-ways
so I could slot it over the wire. After climbing the tree I was just about to
put the pipe over the wire, when my dad arrived home. He watched me and started
to come forward. I shouted "Watch this!" and slipped the pipe over the wire. I
gripped the pipe with both hands and launched myself into space. I have never
moved so fast! I didn't have time to cry out before I hit the tree at the other
end of the wire with such force I fell down panting. I lay there on my back
hurting all over and couldn't breathe. My dad came over and he was laughing so
much he was nearly crying. He shook his head sadly and said "So. This is my
son." and walked away still laughing. I couldn't speak. I was still out of
breath. I lay there until it started to get dark and then cried. My mum came out
and we went inside. I went straight to my room and went to bed.
- I tried to build a tree house once. My dad watched me and climbed up and
said I had no idea and just get down and wait. I sat at the bottom of the tree.
He kept going up and down with stuff and then he said "There. I know you
couldn't do it, so I've done it properly for you." I climbed up and looked at
it. I looked down at him and said "Thank-you". When he had gone, I climbed down
and went deep into the forest and found a nice tree with forked branches. I
stole planks and made a house for myself. I got some canvas and pulled it over a
branch like a tent to keep out the rain. I take flowers and pictures to it and
sit with my legs over the edge and watch the squirrels. I keep my secret things
there. I made a cut-out cat and sat it next to the trunk. I like my tree house.
- I read about dinosaurs in school and started to get a dream about them. I am
walking in the forest and trip over a log. I look up and see a T-Rex and it
reaches down to bite me. But I dodge and run. I can hear it running after me and
I run and run but can't get away. I get this dream a lot now.
- At school I found that I don't fit in at all. I want to play with the girls
at hopscotch and skip rope, but they shoo me away. The boys all want to fight
and run and punch each other. I hate that. One day one boy was jeering at me
calling me girlie and I got so mad I kept hitting him with a stick. I then
pushed him into the pool and tried to push him under the water. The teachers
jumped in as well and dragged me away. He got taken to hospital and I got the
cane.
- One teacher kept getting me to come out to the front of the class and read
things. She said I had a beautiful speaking voice. I liked that and I liked her.
But afterwards the boys would throw stones at me and get me so angry. They kept
running around and hitting me so I could never get any of them. Then my voice
broke. I hated the sound of my voice and wished for my old voice, but at least I
didn't get asked up the front again. I speak softly now because I don't like the
sound.
- I came home from school one day and was hiding from some bullies by going
into the woods. I sat on a log and saw a little bit of rope stuck in the mud. I
pulled a it but it was stuck on something. I dug it out and it was a army
pistol. I scraped the mud off and took it home. When nobody was around, I took
it out and started to clean it. It took a long time, but it was shiny and had
little bullets in it that I took out and cleaned. I stole my dads gun oil from
his pack and used that to make it work. I didn't put the bullets in it because I
didn't want to make it go off. Then my dad found me playing with it. He gave me
the strap and didn't believe I had found it. He took it away and I never saw it
again.
- We often go to see my cousins in Crawley. K and A. We have great fun
together and spend hours playing in the woods and just talking. I want to be
like them so much. I feel so stupid being a boy with them. I wish I could be a
girl like them. I always hate leaving. Auntie B and and Uncle S are such nice
people and they hug and kiss all of us so much I think I'm in heaven.
- My father gets so mad with me. He says nasty things about the way I talk or
do things. He makes me to do things like fishing, woodwork, soldering and what
not. Each time he says "Oh god! What now? Here, look you have no clue at all.
Let me show you. There! Easy isn't it? Well go on! Do it! Or are you going to be
a little girl and cry?"
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