The Nipper: The heartbreaking true story of a little boy and his violent childhood in working-class Dundee

‘Yi fuckin’ bitch, yi think yi can pull the wool over my eyes?’ He’s dragging my mum across the room by her hair, kicking her in the ribs and stomach. He’s pulling all her hair out and she’s screaming and whimpering, bent over in agony, desperately trying to defend herself.

I want to look away but I can’t and the scene is branded in my memory forever.

‘Please stop it, Jock, let me go. I hav’na done anything.’

‘I hav’na done anything. I hav’na done anything,’ he mocks. ‘Yir just the innocent victim, eh?’

‘Yi ken I am, Jock.’

‘Yir a fuckin’ liar, that’s what yi are.’

He punches her in the face and I can’t bear to hear her screams.

‘Now are yi gonna start tellin’ me what’s really going on, yi fuckin’ slut!’

‘Nothing, Jock, nothing’s going on.’

‘Nothing, eh? So who wiz that fella eyein’ ye up yesterday – Mr Fuckin’ Nobody I suppose, or scotch mist maybe?’

He’s now in such a rage that I put my hands over my ears. I want it all to stop.

‘It’s all right, Charlie,’ says Tommy, who’s crouched next to me. ‘It’s all right,’ he says comforting me. ‘Go back to sleep.’

That’s when I wake up…

* * *

As I’ve said, living in Dundee it was the norm for men to be fighting every night. Women were used to seeing men beating each other up. But Dad had never given Mum the impression that he’d do that to her from the bond they’d had with each other. So when he started viciously beating her up and trying to take control of every part of her life, it took her completely by surprise. What’s more, she never knew how and when nasty Jock would appear, as there were never any warning signs. He would suddenly just switch.

It was really hard for women back in those days in Scotland: the men had control over them and everyone seemed to accept that if a man battered a woman, it was none of their business. It was a domestic and that made it acceptable. When I was a little older it turned my stomach to think of the many nights of torture Mum had gone through alone, and it infuriated me that no one ever helped her.

He’d go to the pub, she’d be in with the kids, he’d come home, beat her up and say she’d been trying to sleep with the neighbour, or the postman, or any man within a two-mile radius. At first it was more verbal bullying and mental torture, and then it got worse with beatings and thrashings. She couldn’t even go to the shops for a pint of milk without being questioned for hours on her return – he battered her so badly that he broke her teeth and nose.

Over the next few months Mum started to become numb to the mental and physical torture she had to endure at the hands of Dad, but was becoming seriously worried about us kids, and the fact that one night he might throw one of us out of the window, as he threatened he would do on quite a few occasions if she left. That was another thing about Jock – he was a very clever man. He knew exactly what to say to get inside your head and make you so scared and confused that you couldn’t think for yourself. Mum was now waiting for the chance to leave; she had been trying to hatch a plan for a while, but was too afraid of the consequences if he caught her sneaking out.

Finally Mum decided she’d had enough. Dad regularly went down to the benefits office to claim dole as he was officially unemployed, although everyone knew he worked as a roofer and chimney sweep. One night while he was at work, Mum seized her chance. A few nights previously he had broken her ribs and she had to go to hospital – and that was the last straw for her.

She grabbed a few nappies, and things that were close to hand, and managed to sneak out. Standing in a bus shelter on Hilltown that night, cradling us from the pouring rain, with tears and mascara running down her face, she swore to herself she would never go back to him. But there was still the problem of us kids. Dad was never going to let her leave and take his kids as well – no chance!

Even though he didn’t want us, he would still not let her have us. As it turned out, he was at least partly successful, as within a short while he managed to get me back.

And whatever inner turmoil, despair and anger he was going through, he would make me pay for it for many years to come.

Chapter Three Tug of War (#ulink_dffa9110-0900-51f4-8632-eb61afac14b4)

In 1976 after the breakup Mum and Dad started a three-year tug of war over us kids. There were doors kicked in, fights between uncles and aunts. One incident in particular stuck in my mind and later on in life made me realise that he never just flipped overnight but that he had always been an evil bastard.

I’m aged about three and Mum is at the social security sorting out her family allowance when out of the corner of her eye she spots Dad. Unfortunately they have both been booked for appointments in the same building at the same time. Mum’s heart sinks at the sight of him but there’s no place to run. Then Dad looks right at her and walks towards her with that evil smirk that she knows so well by now. As he approaches he doesn’t do much at first, just asks how she is and how we are.

After a short conversation Dad asks if he can hold me, as Tommy’s now hiding behind Mum’s leg with a plastic gun pointed at Dad, saying. ‘No Dad, go away.’

I can see in an instant the look of fear and hesitation in Mum’s face and then she’s handing me over to Dad and he’s grabbing me like I’m a rag doll. I’m scared, but mainly because I can see that Mum’s starting to cry and it’s making me cry too and I try to reach out to Mum, but Dad’s now holding me in a tight grip and won’t let go, even though he has sworn on us boys’ lives that he’ll give me back to her. Then that look comes back on his face and the voice she’s been so scared of reappears.

‘Do yi really think yir getting the nipper back, you bitch?’

Mum now realises that he’s again managed to twist her mind and sneak under her guard, this time bargaining with our lives.

He’s far too strong for Mum as he’s a big lump of a man and she is small and petite. Mum is now screaming at the top of her lungs, pleading and begging Dad to give me back to her, but Dad just stands there laughing at her, as he gets off on things like this – you know, watching people beg.

‘Please, Jock, geeze um back.’

‘If yi come back ti the hoose now, y’ill git yir bairn back.’

‘Kin yi jist hand ’im back in case yi drap um.’

‘Fuck off yi cow! If yi want um, come and git um.’

He pretends to drop me.

‘Oh, do yi want yir bairn?’

By now he’s taken me out of the social security office and we’re on the street. He carries me into the middle of the road and then puts me down between the two lanes of traffic, as cars swerve to miss me. I’m lying there, petrified, listening to the screeching of brakes and car horns hooting at me but I’m unable to move, confused about what’s happening.

‘Mum…Dad!’ I start to wail and scream.

‘Help!’ Mum screams. ‘Somebody please help! Look what he’s dain ti mi bairn!’

Everyone just walks past, not batting an eyelid. It’s in the middle of town first thing in the morning and not one person even stops to ask her what is going on.

Dad picks me back up off the road and points at Tommy.

‘I’ll be back fir him the morin tae, yi fucking bint.’

He’s holding me in one hand and has a cigarette in the other. Mum stands there screaming and begging passers-by to help, but her pleas fall on deaf ears.

Dad is now turning to walk away, throwing his Regal King Size towards her. Mum has no choice but to go back with him. Even though she knows he might kill her this time, the thought of leaving me with him is too much to take.

‘Jock, wait, I’m coming!’

He turns around with that evil smirk on his face. ‘I thought yi might.’

She walks up towards the house behind him, and is now trying to devise a plan. She will go back, take a beating, then earn his trust. That way she can wait until he’s at the pub and move us somewhere far away from there before he gets home.

As for me, I’m getting used to this constant snatching of me by one or other of my parents. It’s like they’re using me as a toy, a possession that both of them want. When you’re growing up, you’re learning to talk, learning to walk. I’m not – I’m just getting dragged around all over the place, listening to women getting beaten up.

I’m almost expecting Dad to snatch me away from Mum or Mum to grab me again. There is no such thing as routine in my life, as I never know whose house I might wake up in, who will be feeding me or putting me to bed, or whether I’ll get a bedtime story, although on the whole I’m spending more time with Dad than Mum so bedtime stories are definitely out of the question, apart from stories that begin with a clip round the head and end in being kicked around the house.

Apparently at one point when I’m just one year old my dad even holds me out of a window in an apartment seventeen storeys up – it’s my Michael Jackson moment – and says: