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

He was a strong, handsome lad, of average height and powerfully built. He also had blue eyes, dark curly hair and tanned skin from time spent outdoors. He was a promising footballer – his father had played for Dundee United – and he had three sisters and one brother.

They had been introduced to each other by mutual friends at a house party and hit it off straight away. He was a live wire, always cracking jokes, never serious for a minute. He was instantly drawn to her: she was very pretty, warm and bubbly – she loved to laugh and to make other people laugh. They were quite similar people back then, and at first they looked like a match made in heaven.

In the late Sixties, early Seventies, Dundee was a very poor city. Everyone seemed to be unemployed and there wasn’t a lot of things to do. Money was scarce. But they never thought about problems like that as they had found true love. They dated for a couple of years and things were going fantastically. He was always the life and soul of the party, and she loved her life with him, as he always had her in fits of laughter with his childish antics.

They decided to move in together as they were both happy and life was a breeze. They got married quite quickly and moved to a derelict flat up a back alley off Hilltown, a big road that goes right through Dundee. The street – Arkly Street – was a row of terraced houses like Coronation Street, with a welder’s yard and scrapyard at the end. The roofs were crooked and had sunk over the years.

They stayed there for twelve months. The odd argument occurred, but as my Uncle Danny used to say (that’s my dad’s younger brother), ‘Show me a couple that doesn’t argue and I’ll buy you a pint – and that’s a lot coming from a Scotsman.’

Then Mum fell pregnant in March 1973 with her first child, Tommy, born in December 1973, and again two years later in late January 1975 with her second, Charlie – that’s me. I was born in November of that year.

In between those two years Mum started to notice a big change in Dad. He was getting more aggressive and argumentative towards her. He would get jealous for no reason at all, and had even taken to locking her in when he went out to the pub. She had seen him fighting with men in town some nights, but that was normal in Dundee at this time. Men sorted everything out with a punch-up at the end of the night if they had a grievance. That’s just the way it was.

But Mum never thought that Dad would ever turn his anger on her, as they were meant to love each other. And people that are in love don’t lift their hands to each other. Dad obviously had a different view of love, as he was now coming home drunk and beating her and accusing her of having an affair with anyone who looked at her. He was gradually turning into a possessive, aggressive control freak who needed professional help.

The level of the beatings and mental torture he was giving Mum was beyond belief. He would keep her up for hours, snapping questions at her like an interrogation agent, then kick and punch and sometimes bite her.

* * *

I have a recurring nightmare right through my early childhood. I’m hiding in the corner, crouched under a table, terrified. I see what he’s doing to her and I can see clumps of her hair on the floor.

‘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

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:

‘Do yi want me to let your fuckin’ son go?’

I later find out that from the age of six or seven months if Mum left the room, I’d start to cry. She’d come back in and say to Dad, ‘What are yi doing to him?’

So at that early age I must have been very attached to Mum – and also aware of what Dad was capable of doing to me.

* * *

About a week after Dad snatched me from Mum in the social security office, he decided to go out with one of his mates, as Mum had lured him into a false sense of security – a trick that she’d picked up from years of living with him.

I was in bed, but not asleep, listening to the sound of the evening traffic, when I heard her jewellery clanging and footsteps approaching the bedroom door. I knew it was her, I knew the sound of her heels on the creaky floorboards.

‘Wake up, Charlie,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll be goin’ to meh hoose. Wir goin’ on an adventure. But we’ll have to hurry up so come on – get your coat on, pal.’

She helped me dress and then packed a few clothes and I picked up Boris, my old one-eyed bear, and we walked out of Arkly Street, ready for a new life, a fresh start. Anywhere would do, as long as she never had to see his evil, scarred face again.

What Mum hadn’t counted on, though, was just how selfish and unsupportive the people around her could be: nobody wanted to get involved in this nightmare in which she was now living. There she was – two kids, no house, and no money for food in the freezing cold winter with a paranoid schizo wanting her dead.

My Aunty Molly (Dad’s sister) took Mum in for a while and a little later she met a man called Blake. He was a quiet, introverted man with a moustache and glasses, but he was actually very tough, an ex-soldier. You wouldn’t want to meet him up a dark alley. But at the same time he was very gentle and protective towards women.

Mum stayed at Blake’s mum’s house for two weeks while waiting on the council to give her a flat. But three weeks after Mum had escaped from Arkly Street Dad snatched us back. Blake was out in town somewhere with his mates and Mum was working that night, waitressing at a café up the road. Dad simply walked through the back door of Blake’s mum’s house and crept upstairs to the bedroom where we were asleep.

We woke up, dazed and confused about what was happening, until we felt Dad’s clawlike nails digging into our arms as he dragged us out of bed. We both of us cried and whimpered as we realised who it was, but he ignored us and hurried down the stairs past Blake’s mum who tried to stop him in the hall, but he grabbed her hair and shoved her out of the way and walked off with us into the dark, cold night.

Over the next two years Tommy and I were stolen back and forward at least five times. Every time Dad or Mum spotted the other one out in town, they tried to steal us back. Sometimes it was when Dad was working, or when we had babysitters looking after us.

On one occasion in town Dad saw Mum with us, pushing the buggy, and grabbed both of us but Tommy managed to wriggle free and ran through town, finding his way back to Mum.

Most of Mum’s time was spent trying to think of ways to get us back without getting her face smashed in by Dad. She had been trying to get her life back on track and now had a flat of her own. She lived with Blake in a council flat in Princess Street on Hilltown. In 1979 she married Blake and had his baby, my half brother Bobby. Years later I discovered that Dad had tried to run Mum over when she was seven months pregnant with Bobby.

At that stage Mum hadn’t been seeing Blake that long and didn’t really know that much about him – only that he was a nice, well-spoken man, really easy-going, totally the opposite of Dad.

Mum never mentioned her troubles to Blake, as she was scared what Dad might do to him if he got involved. What none of us – Mum, Tommy and me – knew until later was that Blake might be nice and polite to women and kids, but with fully grown men it was a different story. He could handle himself.

Blake walks into the bathroom one night, as he can hear Mum crying.

‘What’s up love?’

‘I’m worried aboot mi bairns, that bastard is probably hit-tin thum.’

‘Wha’s hittin yir bairns?’

‘My ex-husband, Jock.’

‘Put yir coat on and wi’ll go an git thum.’

‘Are you aff yir hade?’

‘What are yi on aboot, if yi want them back, lets git thum.’

‘It’s Jock Mitchell, yi maniac, ir you mad?’

‘Jock Shmock – come on, git yir coat on.’

Mum is now petrified. Even saying his name sends shivers down her spine. Blake walks back in with her coat as Mum looks at him in amazement.

‘If we go up there, promise me you winna let him hit me.’

‘He winna go near yi, come on.’

All Mum can think is that Dad will batter Blake, just like he’s battered her. And as no one has ever helped her before, she is now brainwashed into thinking he is more powerful than the devil. Even so, this is too good an opportunity to let pass, so she jumps in the car and heads off on her latest mission to get Tommy and me back. All the way up there in the car she keeps asking Blake, ‘Are yi sure yi kin fight now? What if he hits me? What if he’s got a gun?’

Blake just turns and smiles. ‘He winna lay a finger on yi, trust me.’

They stop outside the house, get out of the car, then open the front door and walk in. Mum is now digging her nails into Blake’s arm and shaking uncontrollably with fear, as Dad walks out of the kitchen and sees them standing there.

‘What the fuck ir you dain’ in meh hoose, and wah the fuck is he?’

‘Never mind wah eh am,’ says Blake. ‘Get yir bairns, Sarah.’

Mum is now trembling with fear at the sight of Dad. ‘I canna, he’s gonna hit me.’

‘You go near they bairns and I will hit yi,’ Dad snaps.

‘Do ya think so?’ Blake snaps back.

Dad has walked back into the kitchen and comes out again holding a knife.

‘What di yi think yir awa ti dae we that?’

‘Fuck all, I’m fixin’ a plug.’

The next minute Dad is sat back in the armchair with a broken jaw; Blake never gives him the chance to use the knife. As Dad has looked down, probably preparing one of his fly moves, Blake has booted him in the chin.

‘If you ever pull a knife on me again, ya prick, I’ll kill ya,’ says Blake.

‘The bairns are in the room. Eh dinna want this gittin’ oot o’ hand,’ says Mum, who’s starting to panic.

Tommy and I are upstairs asleep but the commotion wakes us up and we hear everything that’s going on.

Mum is now confused at the situation, as she has never seen this side of Dad. He is now on the receiving end for a change. But she’s still watching him like a hawk as this could be one of his tricks. And he still has the knife in his hand.

‘Come back the mornin’ and yi’ll git thum back. Dinna wake thum up now.’

‘Smack his puss, Sarah, fir a’ the hidings he gave you. It’s aright, he winna touch yi.’

‘No let’s get oot o’ here in case the police ’ave been phoned.’ She just wants out of there now, as she still doesn’t think Dad’s going to take what has just happened quietly.

They head off in the car and wait till the next morning to go back, but by that time Dad’s long gone. He has taken us to Aunt Helen’s house at the bottom of Lawhill (I play there with her kids, my cousins) and has then driven to hospital to get his jaw wired up. Mum only finds this out when she goes to my Nan’s house looking for us, as she’s greeted with a mouthful for what Blake did to Dad. I find that a bit weird as Nan knows what Dad’s like from past experience. I suppose blood is thicker than water.

Mum split up with Blake a couple of years later but as the tug of war between her and Dad continued, with Tommy and me being the rope they were pulling on, I never really got to know him.

In retaliation for Dad’s attempt on Mum’s life when she was pregnant with Bobby, there was an attempt on Dad’s life, when he was run over by a car as he walked out of a local pub. Dad got off lightly – just a few bruised ribs and minor injuries to the hip and shoulder which soon healed. He also had a twelve-inch gash to his leg which scarred it for life. He always claimed that Blake had something to do with this, but I think he just wanted to have another excuse to bully Mum.

He managed to snatch me again when I was approaching my third birthday and this time he headed over to the Isle of Man on the ferry, with me in tow…

I’m standing on the boat with him and it’s cold and windy and I don’t know whether I’ll see Mum or Tommy again. I’m fishing off the side of the boat and catch a conger eel with this orange rope handline, given to me by Dad to keep me amused. It nearly pulls me into the water and the rope cuts through my hand…It’s amazing that all of these fishermen have the best rods, reels and bait but catch nothing, and I have this silly little handline and I hook a thirty-pound conger.

But maybe it would have been better if the captain had never saved me from being dragged overboard – or maybe drowning me is Dad’s plan…

His new life in the Isle of Man was cut short and he had to come back. I don’t know why we only spent a few months there. I think he got kicked off the island for some reason, but he never told me why we came back.

Finally, when I was around three and a half years old and my big brother Tommy was five, they settled the custody battle in court.

Tommy and I are sitting there between Mum and Dad in a big, gloomy wood-panelled courtroom in Dundee. There’s this musty smell of ancient wax polish, disinfectant and broken lives. I don’t really know what’s going on but a man in a wig who I learn later is the judge seems to be in a hurry for us to leave, as he keeps snapping questions at Mum and Dad. Maybe he wants his lunch. Then suddenly he’s asking me who I want to live with, Mum or Dad.

By this time I’ve spent more of my life with Dad than I have with my mum and there doesn’t seem to be any choice. Besides I’m too frightened to say anything else.

‘Dad,’ I mumble nervously.

‘What’s he saying?’ says the judge.

‘He wants to be with me, Yi Honour,’ replies Dad, quickly and smartly.

Tommy has chosen Mum and in the next few minutes my childhood fate is sealed. The judge rules that I should live with Dad and Tommy should live with Mum. After all, it seems fair for both parents to have one kid each.

Mum’s crying and calling Dad a bastard and shouting something about access but Dad just says, ‘Yi can fuck off!’ and walks out of the courtroom, taking me with him.

‘Come with me, son. Come with me, son,’ Mum’s begging me as I follow my dad out. I feel stunned and miserable, and I’m trying not to listen too closely to her begging as it hurts too much. And even though I haven’t spent much time with my mum over the last few years and I don’t even feel I know her that well – she has already become a shadowy, distant figure in my life – I know I’m feeling that stab of pain in the pit of my tummy, a sense of isolation and terror, the same feeling I had when Dad snatched me from the social security office and lay me in the middle of the traffic.

Only this time, I’m the one who’s chosen not to be with my mum and I don’t even know why, except that I’m too frightened of my monster-like dad to do anything else. And I’m worried that by choosing Dad over Mum, I’ve let her down. I’m thinking that the breakup of my parents’ marriage must be my fault. I was the one who told the judge that I didn’t want to go with my mum and so I must be the one who’s to blame for her going out of my life.