Annabelle's Early Years: Trauma and Despair

Annabelle’s

Early Years

Trauma and Despair

JANET AND ANTON TRIGS

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© 2011 by Janet and Anton Trigs. All rights reserved.

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First published by AuthorHouse 06/28/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-7938-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-7939-9 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

To all the children in Britain and around the world who suffer physically or emotionally as a result of actions or treatment by relatives and friends, people who should protect rather than abuse a child.

This story is about a small girl who lived with her family in a small town called Crampton in Gloucestershire.

During her life, this girl was destined to suffer many traumas at the hands of a number of people. She would suffer treatment that no child should have to endure.

This book tells of how she tried to cope in a very often brutal environment and her determination to secure for herself a normal life.

Chapter 1

It was a beautiful summer day when I was born, my mother giving birth to me at the local maternity hospital in Crampton.

After a two-day stay in hospital, my mother was discharged and allowed to take me home. Here, I was welcomed into my family by my father and elder siblings.

At that time, our home housed just a normal family living on a normal street enjoying a normal existence. My brothers, sister, and I were well cared for, being given the start in life that is the right of any child anywhere in the world. But sadly, our happiness was to be shattered.

After a short illness, my father died. I was only two years old. When he died, he left my mum with four small children and another baby on the way.

My father had joined the Royal Air Force as soon as he was old enough and had spent seven years serving his country. His speciality was the electronics on fighter planes, and he spent the last three years in the RAF working in a secret establishment where new innovations were installed on fighter planes. He left after his seven-year stint, choosing to return to civilian life; his time in the RAF was very difficult for him and my mother, as he spent weeks at a time away from the family.

With the size of the family, mother found it increasingly difficult to cope and my father left the RAF. My father found work in a local factory as an electrician working on new machines that were being installed as a large expansion plan was being introduced by the company in the production department due to a high level of new contracts.

My father was a very tall elegant man who, sadly, I was never destined to know well. In later life, I would learn that he was a really nice man to know, a decent man who was always smart in his appearance and was well spoken and clean-shaven. He worked very hard to support Mum and the four small children that they had brought into the world. He was always impeccably dressed and looked very grand in his uniform. A picture of him was always on the mantelpiece in the front room.

My mother was six months pregnant when my father died, and she showed little emotion at his passing. By the time she gave birth to my brother, Bobby, making us five children in number, Mum had met another man who was to become our stepfather. He had already moved in. My mother had wasted little time finding someone else.

Everything seemed to go pretty well for her. Her husband had died, but in no time at all, she had a new man in her life, a man who didn’t seem very concerned that she was pregnant and already had four young children.

Seven months later, my mother and stepfather organised their marriage to each other but decided to keep this to themselves.

Even at our young age, what we noticed and found strange was that we never saw our Mum and Step-dad kiss or cuddle. It seemed odd to us, I suppose, as we had been used to seeing Mum and our real Dad all over each other, especially when he came home on leave from the RAF. This had also been the case on weekends when he wasn’t working overtime at the factory, which he sometimes had to do in order to finish a job.

When the wedding day arrived, Mum and her new husband had decided that they didn’t want any of us children at the ceremony. They had decided to send all five of us to the pictures to watch a matinee with a young neighbour called Sheila. Bobby, the youngest, was but about five months old at the time. He was silent throughout the film screening, choosing to sleep right through the whole performance. It was an animated film, which prompted the children there to shout, scream, and laugh out loud. We all enjoyed the film, but none of this seemed to disturb Bobby, who just lay in Sheila’s arms enjoying a sound afternoon nap.

When the film had finished, we went back to Sheila’s house until Mum and our new dad picked us up. None of us knew what was happening, and I suppose that if the situation had been explained to us, we probably wouldn’t have understood what it was all about, as we were all still very young.

A year and a half passed when Mum found out that she was pregnant again. That was to be her sixth child, and it appeared that both our parents wanted a girl. When the baby was born around June, it was a girl, and they named her Helen.

Life at this time seemed normal. We seemed well cared for, fed, and clothed as one would expect, living in a nice warm, tidy, and clean house.

After another year went past, Mum became pregnant for the seventh time. She had yet another girl, so the family now consisted of four girls and three boys. Phoebe, the latest addition to our family, had arrived on a very cold and icy day. When Dad left us to go to the hospital, we played in the front room in front of a roaring fire to keep warm whilst being looked after by a neighbour.

Three years later, Mum had yet another baby. I liked having brothers and sisters but wondered when Mum was going to call it a day because it wasn’t a big house, and we were beginning to trip over each other.

Whilst Mum was in hospital having Percy (number eight), our Aunty Betty looked after us. She was Dad’s younger sister, a thin lady with very long hair done up in a bun on the top of her head. She was a very chirpy lady, who loved kids and always had a hug or smile for any of us. Every morning before our new dad left the house to visit Mum, Aunty Betty would always make sure that she arrived at our home in plenty of time. She made sure after Dad had left that we had clean clothes and ensured that the house was clean and tidy.

Over the last couple of years, Mum had seemed to do less and less housework, and, as a result, the house was beginning to resemble a rubbish tip. While Auntie Betty was there, she did all she could to improve the interior of the house and probably did more in a couple of hours than Mum did in a fortnight.

So, by the time my mum had finished breeding, she had eight children in all. The last child Mum had was a boy, so everything was nicely balanced, as the family consisted of four boys and four girls.

The house where we all lived had only three bedrooms, so Mum and our new dad had to sleep downstairs. This did, in a way, suit our new dad. He was partially disabled and had great difficulty managing the stairs, so he made a point to avoid them wherever necessary. At that time, we all thought that it would be great to be upstairs on our own, as we could get away with a lot without Mum or Dad knowing what we were getting up to.

Jenny and I had the back bedroom, which was the middle in size. It wasn’t a big bedroom and only had room for two single beds with the headboards on either side of the window, which overlooked the field that ran across the back of the house. In between the beds, we had a big old chest of drawers, which we had to share, along with a single wardrobe, which was along the far wall from the window and behind the door. We had some horrible woodchip paper, which had been painted an awful pinkish/orange colour and bright orange curtains that were very thin. The only carpet in our room was a brown square piece in the centre of the bedroom.

Helen and Phoebe had the middle bedroom, which was no bigger than a matchbox really, and it was a struggle to get any furniture in their room. Two single beds were installed, but the room was so small that there was virtually no space between them, and it was difficult to walk along the sides of the beds.

The four boys had to share the front bedroom, which was by far the largest. It was a big room. There was plenty of room for four beds. They had a chest of drawers each and three wardrobes. It was, though, quite a dark room. Old houses didn’t always have large windows, and this was no exception. For the size of the room, the window was far too small, letting in very little light. The street we lived on was very narrow with another row of terraced houses across the road, and this helped to restrict the natural light.

When I was five years old, it was announced, just before Christmas, that our new Dad had decided to adopt us first five children because things got a little embarrassing with us having different surnames. Our new dad explained that it was because the first five children’s surnames were, of course, different from his, Mum’s and their children, and that it would be better for us all if we were all known by the same family name. He had said that the confusion was too much when it came to school trip forms and benefit documents; he’d have to write down one surname for five of us and a different surname on the forms for the younger ones. Mum told us that, if we didn’t agree to our new dad adopting us, she would smack us. It wasn’t going to happen immediately but first thing in the New Year.

By the time Christmas was over, all of us had to agree that we wanted our new dad to legally become our new father.

After several months had passed, the relevant forms completed and submitted to the authorities, the day arrived for us to be legally adopted and for us all to be one big family. We all said that we wanted our new dad to be our lawful one instead of just our guardian. Many months passed until the legalities were completed. This seemed to go by far too quickly. All of us children thought that it was great because we would all have the same surname as our other siblings.

We all got along quite well at first, leading a normal family life. Both Mum and Dad spent time with us all, playing and watching television together. But of course, no one knew what lay ahead for us or what we would become.

Things would start to change rapidly in the near future, and after that, nothing would be the same any more. As time went on, our family would sink to terrible and unbelievable depths, where incest, rape, assault, lawbreaking, and general abuse would become the norm. This family would sink to a level where no one cared about breaking the law, outside or inside the house, a place where anything could and did happen, and where the parents didn’t care what was going on with their children. In fact, the whole family would become a complete shambles; the people who once had lived a happy normal life would experience little or nothing but heartache.

And so it would be for me; my life was destined to be a continuous progression of heartaches, disappointments, and continuous mistreatment. I would have nothing but bad luck.

Chapter 2

Even at the age of eight, I would dream that I might have a fairy-tale wedding one day and live happily ever after with a decent man who would take care of me, love me, and be supportive. I looked forward to the rest of my childhood, thinking that it would be the same as it had been so far. By the age of nine, I was to realise how wrong I had been about my life.

My misfortunes started on a Christmas Day. I was so excited about the presents I was getting from Father Christmas that I jumped out of bed as soon as I awoke and ran down the stairs. As I entered the front room, I realised that I had forgotten to get dressed and had, in fact, rushed down to the front room without any clothes on. When I got there, ready to start Christmas Day with my brothers, sisters, and parents, I was, of course, told to get some clothes on.

Horrified that I had been so silly, I ran back up upstairs and put on my dressing gown, not bothering to get fully dressed as I was eager to open my presents, and returned to the front room.

One thing bothered me, though, among all the jollities of presents and laughter—I would never forget the look on my brother Ben’s face when he saw me with no clothes on. And when I came back downstairs, he continued to look at me in a very strange way.

This continued for some weeks. Every time I entered a room, he would gaze at me for some time, and it made me feel uneasy. I had no idea what was beyond the funny looks he gave me.

February was a very mild month, dry and sunny, and on a Saturday afternoon, my brothers, sisters, some neighbours, and I went to a field to play hide-and-seek. One of my sisters, Jenny, started to count to one hundred, and we all went to hide. My brother, Ben, said I could hide with him, so I said I would. We hid under a big bush some way down the field, feeling that Jenny would never find us.

Ben told me that he was going to touch me. I didn’t know what he meant. He said that it wouldn’t do any good trying to stop him, as he was much stronger than I was. He also said that crying out wouldn’t help me either. After he said that, he held me down and undid my trousers. He tried to