Punished: A mother’s cruelty. A daughter’s survival. A secret that couldn’t be told.

This is the first real punishment I remember Mum inflicting on me. Far from being a one-off, confinement in the spider cupboard became an almost daily occurrence. Young children don’t have much of a sense of time but I know that sometimes it was broad daylight when I was thrown in there and dark when I came out. I frequently missed meals and had to push my fists into my stomach to combat the rumblings of hunger. If he was feeling brave, Nigel would come and whisper to me through the crack of the door: ‘It’s all right, Nessa, I’m here – don’t be scared.’ But as soon as Mum heard him he would be dragged away.

It was hard to predict the crimes for which I would be locked in the cupboard. Picking flowers, scribbling in my Noddy book, spilling a little talcum powder on the bathroom rug, squealing, asking for a drink, not finishing my supper – any of these could result in a period in captivity.

Nigel and I had the natural liveliness you’d expect of any toddlers and we could be naughty with the best of them. One day we shook the petals off the rose bushes and laid them out all over the garden path in wavy patterns. Mum went absolutely berserk when she saw them because, she said, we had ‘stolen’ Dad’s flowers.

Another time a painter had left a ladder leaning against the wall at the back of the house and Nigel and I decided to climb it to see how high we could get. He went first and had almost reached the bedroom window when he fell to the ground below and his screams brought Mum rushing out. I remember that I was the one who was punished for that escapade, despite the fact that he was older and had been the ringleader.

‘I’m going to give you away to the ragamuffin man next time he comes,’ she’d taunt, a prospect I found very scary, although I didn’t have a clue what a ragamuffin man was.

‘No, Mummy, please,’ I’d beg tearfully, but she would maintain that next time he came she was definitely going to hand me over.

* * *

There were some mornings when Mum woke up in a foul mood with the world and couldn’t stand the sight of me so I’d be locked in the cupboard from breakfast onwards. My only respite was at weekends when Dad was around, or on the two mornings a week when Mrs Plant, our cleaner, came over.

Mrs Plant was a lovely, dark-haired lady with a lively imagination. She would lift me up to sit beside the sink while she washed dishes or peeled potatoes and made up lots of stories to tell me. She couldn’t understand why I started crying when she told me about Little Miss Muffet who sat on a tuffet. I was too young and too inarticulate to be able to put into words the chronic fear of spiders that had taken hold of me, so that even a mention of one in a nursery rhyme was distressing.

I wonder if she ever suspected what was going on in that household when she wasn’t around. Once, when she was cleaning the cupboard under the stairs, I said to her, ‘That’s my place for when I’m naughty.’

She looked aghast and turned to Mum, who had emerged from the kitchen.

‘What an imagination the child has!’ Mum smirked. ‘Have you ever heard the like?’

‘Mummy put me there,’ I protested.

She raised her eyebrows at Mrs Plant and winked. ‘Was that in one of your story-books, darling?’ she asked me.

Mrs Plant looked relieved and went back to work, obviously content with Mum’s explanation. I was to learn that this would always happen when I tried to tell other adults the truth about what went on in our house. Mum was the mistress of keeping up appearances and from the outside, we looked like a typical, middle-class family: two happily married, prosperous parents and their well-turned-out son and daughter. Neighbours in Bentley Road undoubtedly saw us as completely normal, if a little insular.

What they didn’t realize was that our father increasingly spent as much time as he could out of the house, leaving us at the mercy of a mother whose resentment of her two young children was growing, and with it, her desire to punish them.

Chapter 3

One sunny afternoon when I was outside with Nigel in the garden, something terrifying happened. One moment we were playing happily, and the next he fell down and started rolling around on the patio. At first I thought it was a silly game and giggled, but then I saw that his face looked twisted and he was jerking and throwing his arms about in a very odd way.

‘Nigel?’ I tried to get his attention by pushing his shoulder but his writhing knocked me over on to my bottom. He was making an odd moaning sound as well and I got scared and called Mum. ‘Mummy, Nigel’s hurt!’

She came running out of the kitchen and when she saw Nigel, she exclaimed, ‘Oh my God, not again!’ She picked him up and carried him indoors to the sitting room.

I followed, very alarmed. ‘Is he all right? What’s the matter?’

She ignored me, kneeling on the floor beside him and doing something funny to his mouth.

‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’ I persisted.

‘Just shut up and go back out to the garden,’ she snapped. I obeyed, scared enough of her by now that I didn’t take any risks when she used that sharp tone of voice.

A few hours later, Nigel seemed better again, though he was pale and tired.

When I next saw Daddy, I told him what I’d witnessed and he listened gravely, then explained to me: ‘Your brother has an illness called epilepsy. Sometimes it makes him get funny turns called fits that make him roll around on the ground like you saw. If that ever happens again, you just have to run and get Mummy or me or any other grown-up so they can look after him.’

‘Will he get better?’ I asked.

He looked sad. ‘The doctors are trying to find some medicine that will help him. It’s nothing for you to worry about.’

I was still three and Nigel was four when his diagnosis was confirmed, and the fits started happening quite frequently. It must have been a huge strain on Mum, who had to make sure his airway was clear, that he wasn’t choking on his tongue, and that there was nothing nearby he could hurt himself on as he flailed around. It always made her very grumpy with me when he had a fit, and more than once she told me it was my fault, that I had made him ill. I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong, but I felt guilty all the same.

* * *

On top of looking after us and keeping up with the housework, Mum had started dress-making for private clients. She worked on a treadle-operated Singer sewing machine in the corner of the family room, sitting there for hours on end with her foot pumping up and down as she guided fabric smoothly under the needle. I would have loved to watch as she hand-sewed tiny pearls on elaborate wedding dresses or ran contrasting piping round the lapels of jackets, but it seemed to irritate her if I hung around nearby and she’d jab me with the pins or needles she was holding.

She made many of her own clothes and ours as well. I had exquisite, hand-smocked dresses and little matching coats, but I didn’t feel any excitement when Mum announced she was making a new garment for me because while she did the fitting, she would tie my legs to the metal supports around the machine table, next to the treadle, and she’d jab me like a pincushion as she turned up the hem or adjusted the armpit darts.

‘See what it’s like when a pin goes into you?’ she’d say. ‘It hurts, doesn’t it? That’s what your life is going to be like – full of hurt and pain. It hurts me just to look at you.’

Sore as the pin-pricks were, her words were more devastating to me. I adored her and yearned desperately for her to love me and not be angry. She just seemed to get more and more irritated with me, especially after Nigel’s illness was diagnosed. He couldn’t be punished any more for fear of bringing on a fit, so I bore the brunt of her frustration.

* * *

One day we were having breakfast when Mum spotted a solitary cornflake on the kitchen floor. In a terrifying voice, she demanded, ‘Who dropped that? Own up right now!’

Nigel and I looked at each other. We genuinely didn’t know which of us was responsible. What three-and four-year-olds would?

‘Tell me or it will be worse for you,’ she shouted, making us gulp with fear. We said nothing, but bowed our heads. ‘All right,’ she snapped, grabbing me by the arm and wrenching me to my feet. ‘I want you to stand right here.’ She grabbed Nigel and lined him up beside me. ‘Don’t move a muscle.’

She reached round and got her Mrs Beeton cookery book from the shelf and placed it on the floor, lined up with our feet. ‘I will be able to tell if you move because you won’t be in line with the book any more. No talking, no moving, while I go and ask God who was responsible for dropping that cornflake.’

She stormed out of the room and into the dining room, slamming the door shut behind her. Nigel and I stayed where we were, staring down at the floor. What was Mum doing in the dining room all on her own? Perhaps we reached out our fingers to hold hands, or maybe we were too scared that first time. I could hear a clock ticking somewhere. My throat was dry and my heart was beating hard in my chest. What was going to happen next? I racked my brains to think if it had been me who dropped the cornflake but I really had no idea. Time seemed to stand still as we waited for the verdict.

The dining room door burst open. Mum came dashing out and back to us.

‘You evil child!’ She grabbed my hair and pulled my head back. ‘God says it was you and that I have to teach you a lesson.’ I started crying and she pushed me away in disgust. ‘Snivelling brat. Just you wait.’

She went out the back door and returned a few seconds later holding one of the canes Dad used to train his runner beans around in the vegetable patch.

‘Pull down your pants,’ she ordered.

‘N…n…n…o, please,’ I sobbed.

She grabbed me and pulled my pants down herself, then pushed me so that I was bent over a kitchen chair.

‘Mummy, don’t! Stop!’ I heard Nigel yell, but she ignored him. I felt a sharp thwack on my bottom as the cane came down and I screamed at the top of my voice and tried to wriggle away. Mum placed one hand on the small of my back to stop me escaping as she administered blow after stinging blow to my bottom.

My normal fear response set in and I wet myself, making her beat me with increased vigour.

‘You dirty, disgusting child! Why should I clean up after a brat like you?’

She stopped beating me, grabbed my hair again and forced me to the floor where she rubbed my nose in the puddle of urine, backwards and forwards, as some people do when trying to house-train a dog. I was gasping and gulping, finding it hard to breathe as my nose was squashed against the floor. I could vaguely hear Nigel still calling her to stop in the background, sounding hysterical, and then I think I passed out.

When I woke up I was outside on the patio and Nigel was leaning over me whispering, ‘Wake up, Nessa, wake up.’

My bottom and nose were so sore that I started to cry. Nigel tried to get me to stand up but Mum saw him out the window and came charging out, bean cane in hand.

‘Go to your room!’ she ordered Nigel.

‘No, you have to leave Nessa alone,’ he yelled. Then he picked up a small stone and threw it at her.

She was absolutely livid. ‘Look what you’ve done, you devil child,’ she told me. ‘You’re making your brother evil as well.’

She pushed Nigel out of the way and whacked the backs of my legs with the bean cane. Nigel started to scream and then he collapsed on the grass, jerking and writhing with an epileptic fit.

‘Help Nigel,’ I pleaded with Mum as she continued to hit me with the cane. ‘God, please help me!’

‘How dare you talk to God!’ Mum screamed at me. ‘God is not your friend. He won’t listen to you. I’m the only one who talks to God, do you understand?’

She threw down the cane, lifted Nigel in her arms and carried him into the family room to rest on the settee. I crawled up to the French windows to look in, and she glared out at me. Once she had settled Nigel and he’d stopped fitting, she came out to where I sat whimpering with fear.

‘You will never drop anything on the floor again. You will never talk to God directly again. And you will stop this disgusting habit of wetting yourself, so help me …’ She shook me by the shoulders then pushed me away harshly so I banged my head on the cold stone patio.

I was sent to my room and I wet myself again with fear and distress. Dad came up to see me when he got home and found me lying snivelling in urine-soaked sheets. He sniffed the air and realized what had happened.

‘Lady Jane, you have to stop wetting yourself,’ he said sadly. ‘You’re nearly four, old enough to know better. Poor Mummy has to do lots and lots of extra washing because of you.’

I tried to explain that I wet myself because I was scared of Mummy but I don’t know how much sense it made to him. I probably wasn’t expressing myself very clearly at such a young age.

‘Why is Mummy always cross with me?’ I asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked worried for a moment, then said, ‘It’s because you keep wetting yourself. Just try not to do it and everything will be fine. Try to be a good girl.’

* * *

Why didn’t Dad see what was happening and try to protect me? I kept hoping he would step in and tell her to stop, but my parents seemed to have a classic 1950s marriage where childcare was her domain and wage-earning was his. Mum ruled the roost at home and Dad generally toed the line, trying to keep everyone happy and avoid conflict. I adored my father, but I soon learned that my mother would always be believed over me. Her stories sounded so reasonable and so plausible that I almost believed them myself. I began to think that I really was a stupidly clumsy child who kept having accidents and being naughty. I was the black sheep, the cause of all the trouble, although I couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong.

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