The Step Child Read online

  But Haldane House did take me and my story went on.

  My mother was gone but she had left debts of hundreds of pounds, which Don Ford was paying off on her behalf. He paid £2.12s.6d for a fireplace, sink unit and other furniture, with a total of £300 still to clear. She had also managed to run up debts with five different clothing clubs, with about £120 of arrears. On top of that, my father also had outstanding gas, electricity, plumbing and tradesmen’s bills to pay – and everything had to come from the £8.9s he made each week as a bus driver, and the 18s of family allowance for all three children.

  Barnardo’s records show that officials thought well of my father trying to cope with such a financial and familial burden. Haldane House representatives contacted members of my family when they could, but Breda’s mother, Mary, made it clear that she was unwilling to help, given that she believed her own daughter to be a lost cause – ‘beyond redemption’ as the records state. Clearly, if the mother was such a loss, the children were believed to be tainted as well.

  From what I can gather, the decision to place us in Haldane House was a joint one between my father and the RSSPCC, represented by a Mr Smith. On the original application, it is emphasised that, although Breda was a lapsed Catholic, none of her three children had been baptised. Rectifying that became a condition of our acceptance.

  Before we were finally accepted into the home, officials interviewed the matron at Pilrig Nursery to determine what sort of children Simon and myself were. The report glows with references to my father. ‘Miss Robertson has a great admiration for the father whom she has watched rushing home in between shifts, doing without breakfast sometimes to take the children to the nursery, and who seems devoted to the children.’ Miss Robertson clearly approved of my father and his efforts – and she was the only person who noticed that things were not quite right. Helen – the girl who was ‘helping out’ – was not to her liking. ‘The girl who sometimes brings them does not appeal to Miss Robertson who thought her unsuitable and rather unstable. On one occasion, the girl brought the children to the Nursery at 7.30am and left them in the charge of the cleaners until the opening time of 8.50am.’ But Miss Robertson’s words would never be heard, and it would be a long time before anyone would ever pay any heed to the ‘instability’ of the 17-year-old girl who was to become so trusted with our little lives.

  By the beginning of January 1961, everything was in place for our move to Haldane House. I was 18 months old and, apparently, a responsive child ‘with a happy smile’, placid, able to get on with everyone. In other words, I was normal.

  Certainly, I was acceptable to Dr Barnardo’s Homes, and on 3 January 1961, they wrote: ‘We feel that we would be justified in taking over the care of these three children.’ For their help, my father would have to pay eight shillings per week each for Frances and Simon, ten shillings per week for me, and agree to our immediate baptism. He signed a contract to say that we would be raised Protestant, that Barnardo’s could place us in any occupation it deemed proper, and that he would take us back at any time if asked to do so. The Scottish Chief Executive Officer then wrote to a Mr Roberts at Haldane House. The letter reads like a formal note of introduction, and the details provided are scant – our names and dates of birth are virtually all that identify us. Mr Roberts is told that my mother has ‘deserted’ and that Don Ford cannot – ‘of course’ – care for us. ‘This little family’, as he calls us in his communications, will be arriving within two days.

  My life then continues within pages and pages of documentation. Rarely is my middle name spelled correctly; never is my mother referred to as Breda. But the same words are always applied to me: good; happy; affectionate; warm; normal; friendly; plays well with her dolly; steady in her mood; lovable child; very popular. These are words I would soon have difficulty applying to my life – and to read them, even now, feels alien. Was that really me? In some ways, it would be easier to see me marked by records from the past. If the foolscap sheets said I was ugly; miserable; awkward; difficult then I could at least understand, partially, what Helen would soon see to hate in me. But a happy, affectionate toddler? Why did she want to break that child? When did she decide that was going to be her project?

  It is clear that while we were in Haldane House, my father’s relationship with Helen went from strength to strength. No longer did he have three young children to worry about, nor the daily logistics of ferrying them to and from school and nursery. Helen, who had been asked to help out while we were all living at Easter Road, soon became part of his life, even without us. By November 1961, she was writing to Barnardo’s on my father’s behalf when there were queries about maintenance payments. Notes from ‘Miss Helen Gourlay of 31 Easter Road’ made it clear that she was my Dad’s new co-habitee. One month later, on 11 December 1961, they were married. One letter from my files states that my father and new stepmother were visited by a Barnardo’s representative. She was pregnant by that time with their first child, and it is clear that financial problems were already causing trouble between them.

  Over the next year or so, many letters and reports showed that money was tight, even more so after my father became unwell. At one point, Barnardo’s grew concerned that my father had not been visiting us in Haldane House. The Chief Executive Officer then asked a caseworker to go to the Easter Road flat where my father lived and see ‘if there was any trouble’. The follow-up letter from this visit states: ‘Father was ill and had a major operation when he was off work for three months. This, together with much debt left by the children’s mother, caused him to fall behind with his payments to us.’ The report goes on: ‘He apologised for causing us trouble and was sorry not to have visited the children and hopes to do so again. Although he is happily married, he is rather disappointed that his wife has never suggested having the three children home for good.’

  This letter tells me a lot. I’m not sure exactly how the authorities worked out that Don and Helen were ‘happily married’ – they probably simply assumed that a recently-wed couple expecting their first baby fell into that category – but there is obviously tension building up, even at this early stage. As far back as I can remember, Helen always complained about money. Given how much she would prove to hate my mother, the continuing existence of debts left behind by my father’s ex-partner would have, no doubt, enraged her. I wonder whether my father’s decreased visits to see us all were truly down to his unspecified illness, or whether Helen was already applying pressure for him to cut back on contact with me and my two half-siblings. It was a strange and complicated setup from the outset. I’m sure she wanted nothing to do with us, no reminders of our mother, yet she was living in a flat which, technically, belonged to her now-departed rival. My father must have said something, on the quiet, to the Barnardo’s representative when they visited Easter Road. He must have found the space, the privacy, to mention that his new 19-year-old wife wasn’t quite so forthcoming about restoring the whole family as he had hoped.

  A hand-scrawled note from the caseworker on a Barnardo’s letter in November 1962 says: ‘I think we should keep in touch in the hope that restoration might follow, although one can understand a wife not being anxious to take on 3 children all by different fathers and she only 19. I wonder if she knows the real facts.’ Again, Helen is being given the benefit of the doubt – good, kind, teenage Helen who is having to take on so much. Perhaps Barnardo’s were more suspicious of my father – by asking whether Helen knew ‘the real facts’, maybe they are referring to the different paternity of each of us. Perhaps they thought Don hadn’t told Helen he was not the father of Frances and Simon because, by keeping quiet, he would have more chance of getting her to take us all back. That, in turn, makes sense only if he actively wanted all three of us, a scenario that seems valid only if it was the flat Frances’s father had left which was the real object of his intentions. It is all very confusing, and so long ago that I will never know the truth. Even now, even after years of trying to pick it all apart, I ha
ven’t uncovered everything.

  The people at Barnardo’s were good to me while I lived there. I visited other families and played with their children at weekends. I always had enough to eat and was kept safe and well. I was not one of those children who now claim that their years in a children’s home were marked by abuse and terror. That would not come to me until I left institutional care – until I was in the heart of a family unit.

  I don’t remember very much about the home – partly because I was so young, but also because very little happened. We weren’t treated badly, but there was no affection, no softness. I do recall one worker, though. I’m not sure whether she lived in or not. I called her Scratchy Morag. I have memories of climbing up on her, curling up on her lap, and getting a cuddle every so often. She always wore these big, fluffy mohair sweaters, and as a little girl, the scratchiness stayed in my mind. I always felt itchy after Morag had cuddled me, and she is the only one I remember giving a name to, much less an affectionate nickname.

  There was little love at Haldane House, only practicality. However, I now know that there was some contact from my family, about which I knew nothing at the time. It was from my maternal grandmother, who had only ever shown interest in my elder half-sister Frances. Maybe the fact that Frances had a more ‘respectable’ father appealed to my Granny (ignoring the fact that he was so much older than Breda and a family member who chose to do a runner after his daughter was born). Whatever the reason, Granny Curran contacted Barnardo’s in March 1963, just a few months before I was returned to my father.

  The handwritten letter from her home in Chatham reads:

  Dear Sir –

  I am writing on the interest of my daughters children as I have never heard or seen my daughter since you called on me during February 1961. I would like to know if they are still in the home. I would like you to let me know as for some time before they were put in the home Frances who is now seven year’s old was staying with me for some time. I would like a welfare officer to call and let me know something about her.

  Sincerely your’s –

  Mrs J. Curran

  A letter was then sent from the Regional Executive Officer of Barnardo’s to our caseworker, in which news of us all is requested. It is from this point that our ‘little family’, with its complicated history, generates a lot of correspondence. The Regional Executive Officer believed that ‘it would be helpful if we could have a little more news to send on to Mrs Curran … We should also be interested to know whether Mr Ford has continued to keep in touch with the children, and if so, whether his wife has shown any interest.’

  Within two days, there is an answer from the Chief Executive Officer.

  Re: Frances Cummings, Simon Robertson and Donna Ford – at Haldane House

  Thank you for your letter … concerning these children.

  All the children are well and attractive little people, especially small Donna.

  The father is not keeping much in touch these days, and now that he is married to a very young wife, and they have a newly born baby of their own, I think it is really expecting rather too much to expect him to continue to take responsibility for these three.

  I am, therefore, proposing to board them out as soon as we can find a suitable home.

  Another letter, almost two weeks later tells her:

  They say that little Donna is especially charming. Unfortunately, neither of their parents seems able to keep in very close touch with the children and we are therefore planning to find a suitable home where they can be fostered, so that this will give them the opportunity of growing up in the environment of a normal happy home, where they will receive every loving care and attention.

  My Granny was then sent a letter giving her the information that we were all at Haldane House and ‘quite settled’. She was also asked if she could write to us ‘as they would be delighted to have news from their own grannie’. To my knowledge, I never received any such letter or any cheery granny-news. In some ways, that doesn’t bother me – it seems unlikely that the woman who was so cold to Breda would have been much of a force for good in my life, and she was obviously only bothered about Frances. There is, however, a tiny voice which asks whether she would have seen through Helen if she had met her. Would she have stood up for me? Would she have prevented Helen from plunging me into hell? But that is all wishful thinking. No, I am much more drawn to the few phrases which give me the colour of my own being at that time.

  The quotes which tell me that I was ‘attractive’ and ‘charming’ knock me for six. Who is this child? Who is this normal toddler? To have such phrases, such images, compounded by the never-realised promise of a foster home where I would receive ‘every loving care and attention’ is nothing short of fantasy. What would have become of me? Would I have fulfilled the promise implicit in those early Barnardo’s reports? Medical reports confirm the normality – I get measles, I get colds. I develop ‘normally’, I act ‘normally’, I am ‘normal for age’. I am a ‘likeable child developing well’.

  Donna is the youngest and has not yet started school but is a bright wee girl.

  Her habits are clean.

  The health of the children has given no cause for concern.

  The children mix well with the staff and other members of our family and are well behaved. They are polite and very anxious to please.

  They are affectionate children.

  Within a few months of my grandmother’s enquiries, and the Barnardo’s reports that Helen was not showing much – if any – interest in us, things changed for some reason. By September 1963, Helen had become ‘very anxious’ to have us restored to her care. ‘She and Mr Ford have been visiting regularly and hope to visit every third Sunday which is Mr Ford’s Sunday off.’ By this time, Gordon had been born (in November 1962), and was a ‘great success with the children’. In retrospect, this seems perfectly natural. Children tend to like babies, and, on top of that, we were seeing the woman who would be our eventual ‘carer’ in a maternal role. As she sat there with a baby, dandling him on her lap, cuddling and kissing him, who could blame me – and presumably my two half-siblings – from dreaming that one day soon we would receive the same care, the same delayed surrogate mother’s attentions?

  This image of Helen Gourlay, now Helen Ford, was attractive not just to me – to us – but to the authorities as well. The reports speak admiringly of the small basement flat in which she and my father lived, and the fact that some internal renovations and decorating were ongoing, as well as the way in which she was the one dealing with my mother’s debts. And, I admit, on paper it does look good.

  Although she is only 20, she seems quite a remarkable girl – determined to keep a good home and make a happy home for the whole family. She has done wonders with the various debts and keeps her ‘books’ most methodically so that she knows exactly how she stands financially. She says she could not be happier and she and her husband get on well together.

  I wish that the Helen who seems so together in those reports had stayed. I wonder what happened? Knowing what was to become of me, what she was going to turn my life into – I think about whether she changed or whether she was putting on an act for the authorities. It seems fanciful that she would make such an effort just to get me back, but what other options are there? Did it all get too much once I was there? Did she regret having us ‘restored’? Did something resurface from her past which made her – or turned her back into – the monster who ruined my childhood?

  I don’t have the answers to these questions and I never will. However, that Helen is the one I was given to just a few months later. The reports stand – but so do the earlier ones in which concerns were raised about her lack of responsibility when we still lived with my father.

  I was to be the first of my mother’s three children to return to Don and Helen Ford – naturally enough, given that I was the only one who had a blood link to the man taking us in. In preparation for this restoration, the official visits to, and reports about,
the flat in Easter Road intensified. The request for restoration was made in March 1964, and the paper trail multiplies from that point. The same facts come out time and time again – the flat is tiny; there is a lot of debt; the authorities wish to keep a close eye on the situation. In one letter, of 12 March 1964, it is stated that:

  The mother has been seen in Edinburgh on two occasions, but Mr Ford does not think she is still here. Since she left the children she has been sought by Family Allowance because she took the book. The RSSPCC tried to find her – also without success.

  Mr Ford is to consult X – a friend of the mother – either to ask X to see us, or to try and get word to the mother that we would like to see her.

  The thought that my mother might have been in Edinburgh twice, so close, chills me. Did she come back to try and find out what had happened to us, or was she just back to see friends without any thought for the children she left behind? The fact that she kept the Family Allowance book also bothers me – it didn’t matter in terms of the money because another document confirms that my father was receiving the allowance (in fact, it paid for Frances, Simon and me to be kept by Barnardo’s). What bothers me is whether she kept it because it was one of the few official documents she had which may have allowed her to prove her claim to us if she did intend to come back. The elusive ‘X’ never did come through, as far as I know, and Breda never reappeared.

  With no Breda, and no reason to keep us away from Easter Road, meetings and visits continued. On 19 June, our caseworker made a final trip to Edinburgh to see where I would be living. It had been agreed that all the stops would be pulled out to get me there before August when the Scottish school year starts. I was to begin school for the very first time – from my home. Barnardo’s had a few more requests – as well as trying to trace my mother, they were concerned about who owned the Easter Road property. Don Ford said that he would attempt to contact Frances’s father – Robert Cummings – to have the bond transferred to him as guardian. He doesn’t seem to have been traced at that point – and I have no idea how that ended.