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    Grandad's Funeral: A Heartbreaking True Story of Child Abuse, Betrayal and Revenge: Skylark Child Abuse True Stories, #4
    Grandad's Funeral: A Heartbreaking True Story of Child Abuse, Betrayal and Revenge: Skylark Child Abuse True Stories, #4
    Grandad's Funeral: A Heartbreaking True Story of Child Abuse, Betrayal and Revenge: Skylark Child Abuse True Stories, #4
    Ebook88 pages1 hour

    Grandad's Funeral: A Heartbreaking True Story of Child Abuse, Betrayal and Revenge: Skylark Child Abuse True Stories, #4

    By Kate Skylark and Emily Wilkins

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    When eleven-year-old Emily is sent to stay with her grandparents in Wales for the summer holidays, she thinks it's all going to be one big adventure. 

    But Emily's grandad, the undisputed head of the family, the most respected man in town, has a dark and wicked side. And her life is about to take a terrifying turn.

    When she returns home, Emily is too afraid to tell her parents the truth about her Grandad. And not wanting to upset her family, she carries with her the secret of what happened that summer for many years. 

    But finally, Emily gets the chance to take her revenge…


    Kate Skylark is an author and abuse survivor. She is commited to helping other victims to lead successful and happy lives, despite their unhappy childhoods. In this book series, Kate helps others find the strength to tell their own stories, to find comfort and resolution, to be heard and believed, sometimes for the first time ever.

    WARNING: This book is based upon a true account of child abuse, and as such contains passages that some readers may find disturbing.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKate Skylark
    Release dateMay 8, 2017
    ISBN9781386785460
    Grandad's Funeral: A Heartbreaking True Story of Child Abuse, Betrayal and Revenge: Skylark Child Abuse True Stories, #4

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    • 3/5
      Poorly written, but it's a story that should be heard.

    Book preview

    Grandad's Funeral - Kate Skylark

    PROLOGUE

    I’m going to do it. I’m going to tell them all. I’m going to stand here, at my grandad’s funeral and tell everyone the truth.

    The church is full of people. I walk from my seat at the front of the church to the lectern. I am shaking from head to foot. I have a piece of paper in my hand with a speech, telling a story of a kindly grandfather, a man I respected and looked up to, a man who taught me maths, read me Dickens and told me about politics. But I’m not going to read that. No, I’m finally going to tell the truth.

    Because you see, I have a Secret. It’s a Secret I’ve been carrying with me for years. A Secret that has messed with my head for long enough. It’s caused me to feel unspeakable shame, given me panic attacks and nightmares, and has led to my suffering with a serious eating disorder. My physical health, my mental health and my relationship with my family have all suffered because of this Secret. And it’s time the Secret was told.

    I’m going to tell them all that Len Wilkins, my grandfather, was not the wonderful, clever exceptional man they all think he is. He was not a ‘pillar of society’. He was not a great, or even a respectable man. I’m going to tell them that he sexually abused me in the vilest way when I was only eleven years old. I’m going to tell them what he really was. He was evil, and I’m going to tell them all.

    I climb the stairs of the lectern. Four steps. Only four. I actually count them as I go up and wish there were more. At the top I stop and look at the faces of the congregation.

    Finally, I’m going to tell them all...

    ...and I open my mouth to speak.

    ONE

    It all began when my baby brother, Marcus, was born. I remember distinctly the night that Mum was rushed to hospital, in an ambulance, blood pouring down her legs. It was the most terrifying night of my eleven-year-old life. The sight I remember the most was of Mum being helped into the back of the ambulance, still in her nightie. Her big pregnant tummy was sticking out, making the nightie stretch tight, and her belly button was poking out through the thin material. The bottom of the pink nightie was drenched red with blood. It was like something out of a horror film.

    The baby wasn’t due yet, I knew that. And although Dad told me not to worry, even at that age I realised something was very wrong, that something very serious was happening.

    My sister, Pauline, and I sat up almost all night, waiting for news. We watched television until late, trying not to think of the horror we had just seen, trying not to think the awful thought that was going through both our heads. Was Mum going to be okay? It’s a terrible thought for any child, to imagine their mother dying. Eventually, I know I fell asleep because the next thing I remember was the phone ringing and Pauline answering it because she was the older sister.

    I don’t know exactly what Dad said to her but I could tell it was good news. Pauline just kept saying, ‘Thank God! Oh, thank God!’

    ‘Emily, Mum’s okay and the baby’s out,’ Pauline said as soon as she put the phone down. ‘It’s a little boy. We’ve got a brother!’ I remember starting to cry, without knowing why.

    No one told me at the time, but apparently my mum needed four pints of blood to save her life. She had had a severe placental abruption and that had caused the bleeding. The doctors told her not to try to get pregnant again. My little brother was born by emergency caesarean section, two months premature. Tiny baby Marcus went straight into an incubator in the special care baby unit to help his little lungs to breathe. He only weighed three and a half pounds.

    When Mum was better and came home from hospital, she didn’t bring the new baby. He was too small and weak to leave special care. It must have been a tough and terrible time for Mum and Dad in the weeks after Marcus was born. The baby was going to have to live in the incubator for many weeks or even months. The doctors told Mum and Dad it would be some time before he would be strong enough to be able to breathe on his own and come home. I suppose there must have been a danger that he would never come home at all. But that fact was never mentioned to us girls.

    Pauline and I only went in to the hospital to see him a couple of times while he was there. We could look through the see-through sides of the incubator. He looked like a scrunched up caterpillar with his little knees folded up under him, and his skin looked a bit like a newborn baby bird, all red and wrinkly. But we couldn’t hold him or even touch him, in case we made him ill. His immune system was so weak there was a big risk of infection. Even a little bit of dirt or a normal common cold would have made Marcus terribly ill and might even have killed him. Only Mum and the nursery nurses were allowed to touch Marcus, and only after sterilising their hands over and over. So we didn’t hold or touch or play with our baby brother for a long time. He couldn’t even have a teddy bear in the incubator to keep him company.

    As you probably know, it’s not good for newborn babies to be separated from their mums because they need to bond with their mothers from the moment they are born. This meant Mum almost had to live in the hospital with baby Marcus. I suppose it must have been really difficult. But if you think about it, she was still weak herself from the operation and from the traumatic birth, so maybe hospital was the best place for her.

    Dad went to see the baby in hospital almost every day too. Sometimes we had a babysitter or went to a friend’s house after school. But most of the time it was down to my thirteen-year-old sister, Pauline, to look after eleven-year-old me, all by herself and for long periods of time.

    Mum and Dad didn’t think this was fair on either of us. Pauline had often babysat me in the evening for a few hours if Mum and Dad had gone out. But

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