Daddy’s Little Earner: A heartbreaking true story of a brave little girl's escape from violence

I guess he was joking, but not many fathers would make any sort of joke about raping their three-year-old daughter and it was just one more comment that sowed a seed of concern in Mum’s mind. She could never be sure what he was capable of or where he would draw the line of acceptable behaviour. Dad saw life differently to most decent people.

Occasionally Dad would come into a lump sum of money, mainly when he’d had a win on the horses, but also later when he bullied Mum into going on the game, and then he would really flash it around. No one could ever have accused him of being mean – quite the opposite. Even though he couldn’t drive he bought himself a Mark 10 Jaguar one time and hired a friend called Eric to be our chauffeur. He took particular pleasure in being driven to the dole office to sign on each week, smartly suited and smoking a big cigar, thinking he was the cleverest man in the world because he was getting the better of the system. I don’t know how he got away with it except that he was always so plausible people tended to believe whatever he told them.

His friends in the pubs loved him for these sorts of shows of bravado, and so did I. To me he was a hero. I remember sometimes when he was in the money he would actually light his cigars from the fire with ten or twenty pound notes. I thought that was the most brilliant thing imaginable, to have a father who was actually willing to burn money. How many little girls like me ever got to see such a shockingly extravagant sight?

Dad kept ferrets and he liked to put them into the inside pocket of his suit jacket when he went out to drink. It was like his little party piece in the pub to get them out and make all the women scream.

‘Oh, Terry, Terry! You are a one!’

They all thought he was such a card. He always managed to collect a little mob of admirers around him wherever he drank; he was a born crowd puller.

Whether they had money or not Dad was always immaculately turned out with smart suits and ties and a clean shirt every day, even though he only ever went drinking in scruffy city pubs or into the bookies, never to anywhere where he needed to be dressed up. He would polish his shoes every night till he could see his face in them, wash his hair and shave every morning, preparing to put on another show for his public.

When he had cash he was always happy to spend it on things for the family, as long as they were things that would impress other people as well. We were the first people in our road to have a colour television and an automatic washing machine, for instance. Despite these flamboyant displays during the boom times, most of the time, of course, we didn’t even have any food in the house or a change of clothes for either Terry or me. There was actually no spare money at all.

Dad loved his dogs and mostly had corgis, just to be unusual I think and because it meant he could boast that he had the same dogs as the Queen. Her Majesty is the only other person I’ve ever heard of who likes the breed so Dad could be fairly sure he wouldn’t bump into anyone else with one down the pub. When I was little we had a standard poodle called Gina and a St Bernard, both far too big for our house but perfect props for Dad as he swaggered around town or welcomed friends into his little kingdom to drink, play cards and whatever else they got up to.

When he was a teenager, Dad’s nickname had been Pussy because he used to wear a long pointed pair of winkle-picker boots and everyone started calling him ‘Puss in Boots’, so he called the first corgi Pussy too, making it an extension of his own ego. That dog used to follow him everywhere he went in the city, waddling along on its short little legs, panting eagerly, never wearing a collar or lead. Dad would have loved the idea that the dog was so fond of him and so well controlled it would never wander off; having it on a lead would have created completely the wrong image for him. Whenever Dad ended a day out by getting arrested for being drunk or for causing a fight, which was quite often, Pussy the corgi would be sent home on his own in a police car or a taxi. Everyone knew who he belonged to and it all added to the image Dad cultivated for himself of being a lovable local rogue and ‘a bit of a character’.

Even when he had no money to feed or clothe his children, Dad thought it was perfectly normal for a man to go out drinking from the moment the pubs opened at ten thirty in the morning. As far as he was concerned it was his right to do whatever he wanted in life and he wouldn’t tolerate anyone telling him any different.

One of the rights he insisted on was to do as he pleased with his children, and part of this meant beating us whenever the urge took him. We were as much his property as Pussy the corgi or his well-shone boots. We trotted eagerly around behind him on our short little legs just like the dog, desperate to please him and avoid punishments.

Maybe it was the help they got from their parents that meant they were able to cope with looking after Terry and me when we were babies, or maybe it was just the energy and enthusiasm of youth that carried them through. But by the time my little brothers Christian and Glen came along Mum and Dad were no longer coping as parents. For some reason Dad just couldn’t bear having them around. Chris annoyed him so much that once he crammed him into the washing machine and threatened to switch it on while Mum was screaming hysterically at him to let him out. Not surprisingly Chris was absolutely terrified of Dad, cringing and shaking like a puppy expecting a beating whenever Dad was around, and clinging on to Mum’s skirts for protection.

Mum’s solution was to keep Chris and Glen locked in their bedroom together whenever Dad was in the house. I hardly remember seeing them at all, even though I was four when Glen was born. Mum would bring them downstairs to feed and bath them when Dad was safely out of the way but the rest of the time they were locked up. Normal babies would shout and scream for attention but they didn’t. It was probably fear that kept them so quiet, making it easier for our parents to gradually forget that their two youngest children existed at all. Chris wouldn’t have wanted to cry out for fear of attracting Dad’s wrath and Glen probably started by following his brother’s example and then eventually didn’t have the strength to cry anyway. I suppose they must have given up hope of anyone responding to their needs and just fallen into a hopeless, fatalistic silence.

Chris and Glen’s silent room really frightened Terry and me. We hated the terrible smells that it emitted, of faeces and stale urine, and we didn’t dare to open the door or go in on our own, never knowing if we went in there whether we would find them dead or alive. I can still remember those smells and I will never forget the squalor of the room on the few occasions when I did go in there with a grown-up, but I don’t remember ever hearing either of them cry.

I wish I could have done something to help them but I was only tiny myself. Besides, by this stage everyone in the house knew better than to defy Dad and risk his temper igniting. I was desperate to please him and to be in his good books, but more and more I seemed to get things wrong. One day when I was about four, we had been playing Ludo as a family and I must have got overexcited and rolled too violently, accidentally losing the dice.

‘Find it immediately,’ Dad ordered, his voice steely, but I just couldn’t; however hard I searched through the carpet and under the furniture it remained stubbornly gone. Looking back now, I wonder if perhaps he secretly slipped it into his pocket to ensure that its discovery wouldn’t spoil his fun. Once he had set his heart on beating one of us nothing was allowed to get in the way of his gratification.

Mum says he went out into the garden that day and cut a stick from a bush, choosing a particularly strong and bendy specimen. While the rest of us continued searching frantically for the dice he took a knife and methodically cut away all the leaves and twigs, leaving himself with a vicious-looking weapon which he swished through the air menacingly as if testing its suppleness. Mum knew what he was planning to do with it and pleaded with him not to but he took no notice. Dad never allowed anyone to talk him out of doing anything he had decided on.

When he was finally ready he ordered me to take down my knickers and laid me across his lap, holding me tightly and whipping me until I bled. I screamed with utter shock, completely devastated that my adored Dad could turn against me like this. The emotional betrayal was worse than the pain, although that was excruciating. I couldn’t sit down for a week afterwards. That was the first time he ever beat me, but from then on the stick stayed on display in the sitting room, ready to be used whenever he lost his temper.

The blows themselves hurt badly enough, but it was the expectation of them that became the real torture. He would always tell us in advance that he was going to beat us, leaving the stick standing by the fireplace, just glancing at it now and again, reminding us what was coming, prolonging the dread and making me cry before he had even struck a single blow. He would tease us with it. ‘Do you want some of this?’ he would ask as he tested it against his own palm.

He didn’t always use the stick – sometimes he would use a slipper – and he didn’t need to be drunk in order to decide to grab hold of one of us, wrench down our pants and put us over his knee. Sometimes he was stone cold sober, feeling pissed off with life and wanting to take it out on someone smaller than himself.

‘It’s about time you had ten of these,’ he would announce and we would know there was no getting out of it.

One day I remember in particular Dad issued one of his usual orders for me to go over to him to take a beating with his slipper. ‘Take your knickers down,’ he commanded and I was so frightened I stayed rooted to the spot and started to cry and plead with him even though I knew it was hopeless.

‘Stop crying,’ he ordered, ‘or you’ll get twenty hits instead of ten.’

The short walk across the sitting room towards him seemed impossible and I stayed rooted to the spot, out of his reach. I knew what would happen if I defied him but my legs just wouldn’t move, like in a nightmare.

‘Get here now!’ he bellowed, furious at being disobeyed, and I jerked into life, lurching forward.

The nearer I got to him the more he smiled and for a split second I thought he had changed his mind, that he was just teasing me, having a bit of fun. Although my whole body was trembling with fear I forced my mouth to smile back at him, trying to make him love me enough not to want to hurt me. The moment I was within reach he grabbed me and threw me across his long legs. As he raised the slipper in the air I let out an almighty scream, which made him laugh.

‘I haven’t even touched you yet!’

I couldn’t stop the crying and it made him angrier still so he doubled the number of hits to teach me a lesson, to teach me to be brave and strong, to teach me to obey his orders the moment they were issued. His lessons worked because I soon learnt to stifle my screams and take my punishments in silence. I always concentrated hard on counting each stroke to try to distract my mind from the pain and to keep myself from crying and angering him more.

Once he had finished he would throw me to the floor and I would scrabble to pull up my knickers, the tears silently streaking my cheeks, a wave of relief sweeping through me at the thought that it was over and that I had survived an ordeal that I had thought a few minutes earlier was going to kill me. Why had I made such a fuss? I would ask myself. It wasn’t so bad. I was still alive even if my bottom did hurt. Maybe Dad was right and I was making a fuss about nothing. I would then crawl into a chair and try to sit down, but it would hurt too much and I would have to lean on my side. My punishment was over, but however hard I tried I wouldn’t always be able to stop the tears. I would try to sniff them back up before he saw them.

‘Stop snivelling,’ he would bark, ‘or you’ll get another lot and this time it will be the stick!’

Him shouting would just make me want to cry more. I wanted to run over to him and tell him I was sorry for whatever I had done and that I still loved him. I wanted to ask him to hold me and cuddle me, but I knew better than to do that because such weakness would only aggravate him. So instead I would desperately fight to swallow my sobs and stop the tears from flowing.

I remember witnessing him beating up Terry really badly one day, punching him with his fists. I watched Terry sliding down the wall, the wallpaper behind him smeared with his blood. I couldn’t intervene because I would have received the same treatment for daring to go against him, so I just had to watch and wait for it to be over. If you tried to ask why he was angry or to argue with him you would merely make the ordeal last longer and give him an excuse to become more vicious.

Mum was useless at protecting us because by this stage she was utterly terrified of him as well. He wasn’t the kind of man that many people found the courage to resist. Gradually he undermined Mum’s confidence, telling her she was ugly and useless. He used to beat her about as well, kicking her in the mouth once and knocking out some of her teeth so she had to get false ones. She still has a prominent scar on her chin from that attack.

Things must have been volatile between her and Dad right from the moment they met but it was when she fell pregnant with Glen that she says it all started to go badly wrong. Dad was drinking a lot by then and when she was a few months pregnant they passed a Chinaman in the street on their way home from the pub. Maybe it started as a joke and then got out of hand, but Dad accused her of having an affair with him and then became convinced that Glen really was the Chinaman’s baby. The whole idea was patently ridiculous since Mum had never set eyes on the man either before or after that chance passing in the street but Dad seemed to have convinced himself until he became so incensed by her imagined treachery that he threw Mum down the stairs with Glen inside her, sending her into premature labour. She had to have an emergency caesarean and, as they prepared her for the operation, the doctors discovered that she was suffering from anaemia and malnutrition. She was kept in hospital for a while receiving treatment for all her ailments.

Dad’s theory about Glen having been fathered by a Chinaman was shown to be ridiculous once Glen was born because he looked more like Dad than any of us, but that didn’t stop him from continuing with his delusion. He started claiming that he couldn’t go out to work for fear that he would find Mum in bed with another man when he got back. I don’t believe this for a moment, but he repeated it time and time again over the years to get sympathy, and I’m sure his cronies in the pub took him at his word. Poor old Terry, with a wife he couldn’t trust.

When Mum was rushed into hospital for the caesarean, Terry Junior, Chris and I were placed with a foster family. I suppose Dad didn’t think he could cope with us on his own or maybe Mum had told social services that he couldn’t and that we needed to be protected from him. By that time I think the authorities were becoming aware of his violence. We must have been considered to be at risk.

One of the few memories I have of that period is of coming downstairs the first morning that I was in the foster home.

‘Good morning,’ one of the family said when they saw me appearing in the doorway and I froze, my face turning the colour of beetroot, totally unable to find the words to reply. The greeting must have taken me by surprise because people didn’t exchange those sorts of simple pleasantries in our house; they just grunted and shouted at one another if they needed to communicate. From then on the foster family all called me ‘dummy’. They may only have said it a few times, and they might just have been gently teasing me, but I was still mortified enough for the word to be burned indelibly into my memory. I knew it was my own fault for not speaking up as soon as I was spoken to, and it convinced me that I was inferior to the other children there, a worthless creature who had no right to be in their home at all but wasn’t wanted by anyone else, least of all her parents.

When Mum had recovered from her operation we were allowed to go home again. The doctors said it could be dangerous for her to have another pregnancy and prescribed her with the contraceptive Pill. Once there was no danger of her falling pregnant again, Dad decided the time was ripe to put her on the game. He’d talked about it before, apparently, never seeing anything wrong with the idea. In fact it was a bit of a mystery to him why all women didn’t do it.

‘Every woman’s sitting on a goldmine,’ he would say. ‘Pity I haven’t had four girls because then I could run a proper little brothel and I’d never have to work again.’

It might seem ironic that he beat Mum up because he suspected she’d been unfaithful to him yet he was prepared for her to be a prostitute, sleeping with any man who could pay the going rate – but that would be entirely consistent with his warped kind of logic.

‘If you’re going to do it, you should get paid for it instead of giving it away for free,’ he’d always say.

Chapter Three

putting mum on the game

Mum had never really taken him seriously in the early days of their relationship when he talked about her going on the game, assuming he was just joking. Who would imagine that any man would want to do that to the woman he loved? Why would he want to share her with any old Tom, Dick or Harry? But Dad wasn’t like most men, and as the years passed Mum came to realize that. The comments that had started out sounding like a rather tasteless kind of banter between lovers grew to seem more real and threatening. And once she was on the Pill, Mum soon realized that he had become deadly serious with his plans and expected her to start excavating the ‘goldmine’ she was ‘sitting on’ and become the family breadwinner.

They probably already knew people who worked in the business because of the kind of places where they went to drink; Dad socialized with prostitutes all the time when I was a bit older. Selling your body simply didn’t seem like a big deal to him; it was just another easy way to make good money for very little effort – well, very little effort by him.

It’s hard to imagine how most men would have persuaded their wives to actually go out the first time and do it, but Dad had a way of making people do what he wanted with a mixture of charm, violent bullying and manipulation. Although he worshipped Mum, he constantly strove to control her in every way possible. He dominated and terrorized her almost as completely as he dominated and terrorized his children. When he wanted something, he would go on and on, like a terrier with a bone, never stopping until he got his own way, and I imagine that’s how it was back then. He probably flattered her, telling her how gorgeous she was, then told her she was useless and how much she needed him, then he would nag her constantly that her family needed her to earn money, that it wasn’t a lot to ask after all. I can imagine him doing it, and although it might be hard for other people to understand I know just how persuasive he could be when he set his mind to something.

And so Mum agreed. She says she allowed him to kid her that she was only going to have to do it once or twice, that he was just asking her to do him a favour because he was skint and this was the only way he could think of to make a bit of drinking money for them both quickly. The first time, he took her up to the block in Norwich where all the streetwalkers worked and explained to her what to say to the drivers of the cars that crawled along the kerbs and what to do once she was in the cars with them. I know exactly how he would have done that because a few years later he was making the same trip with me.

It wasn’t long before Mum realized how naïve she was being. Easy money is as addictive as any drug, particularly if you don’t have to do anything for it yourself. Once the cash started rolling in he was hardly going to put a stop to it; he probably wasn’t capable of it, any more than he was capable of giving up his drinking or his gambling. The more she earned for him the more he wanted and the harder he made her work.