The Horrors of Slumhome - just a glimpse of the shadows behind me - part 5

I've previously written about the miserable building my siblings, mother and I were force to reside in when dad went to prison in 1971. I've written of the cold nights, the rats and mice and some of the up-sides of having nothing - fewer fights, fewer wantings, less jealousy and all consuming appreciation of the good stuff when it happens.

Today I'm going to write about the cruel, depraved actions of some of the local residents.

Being poor changes a person. Being very poor means that life is so bad, care is lost and a person does what they please, regardless of societies expectations of behaviour. There's a different code that poor people live by. After all, they've nothing to lose so they take gambles and risks others wouldn't dream of.

Along our street there was a multitude of types. One house next door was empty. The other side of us however was occupied by an African - Kenyan - as black as I ever saw. He lived there with his son who was a couple of years older than I. Keyo was beautiful. That's not so horrific I hear you think. No, except... at least once a week, sometimes more, Keyo would be heard to scream and scream as his dad brutally beat him. One time after the screams silenced I had to pee and decided to use the loo (outside and round back if you recall). As I podded out in the late evening gloom I heard stifled sobs. Curious I looked over the wall and saw Keyo, crying as he was sat in a tin bath full of water in the yard. I asked him if he was alright and he shushed me with panicked urgency. I went back inside.
The next time we spoke he told me he'd not done well at school and his dad beat him. I asked about the bath outside and he said his dad always sat him in a cold bath after a beating as it stopped the bruises. I felt so sorry for him but he said it was his own fault. I was too young and had too many issues of my own to be able to see it any other way.
I heard the screams often - poor Keyo.

Three doors beyond Keyo's house was the house of a prostitute. Most nights she'd be on the doorstep for an hour before walking into town. I didn't understand what she did, but she was pretty and wore sparkly clothes with the highest heeled shoes I'd ever seen. She often had a cigarette in her mouth and a ready smile and sometimes would give me and my brother a 5 pence piece to get some sweets. She called Chris her cherub. He didn't like that.
The lady and my mum were sort of friends and my mum explained that the lady had a daughter and that she was at boarding school. After explaining boarding school we didn't ask any more questions. In later years I learned that the woman worked the streets to pay for her daughter to have a high education and a better chance at life. Commendable albeit not the best way to proceed.
6 doors down the other way lived another lady of the night with a man, perhaps her husband. The difference between the two women was enormous. This lady was unkempt and more often than not had a black eye or visible bruises. She was fat, I mean really , really overweight, untidy and dry bleached hair, terrible makeup, obviously not covering the bruising so well and a mouth like I'd never heard. Mum didn't swear, dad never had at home, so these words were new - but they sounded horrible. She would spit out venom along with choice words and us kids would run just far enough away, out of reach, and laugh at her. Cruel I know but she kind of asked for it. Thinking back, she was probably on drugs too. I have to feel sad for people who have got themselves into such a pickle, and who can't find their way out - or won't.

Whilst these households posed no threat to us they were of interest. No, the threat was from 'over the back'.

Our yard backed on to the yard of the houses in the next street as is the case with all inner city terraces of the 1900's. The house almost directly opposite had a family with 5 or 6 children that ran amok most days. We didn't like them. They were noisy and rude, something we'd been brought up not to be.
One particular boy was probably around 17 was depraved in many ways.
Some days I would look out of our bedroom window and he would be naked at the window of his. Upon seeing me he would masturbate, obviously until satisfied. Being a young girl whose life had been carved in abuse, rather than being afraid or horrified, I was fascinated and would watch.
But he was nasty too. If I didn't stay and watch it was obviously upsetting to him and he'd shoot an airgun at our windows, blasting out the only thing we had between protecting us at night changing cool air to darn right cold. Cardboard went up, mum reported it to the police but nothing happened. We all got told to stay away from the windows.
He got angry once, not at us I'm sure, but he took it out on us and shot his air gun several times until the cardboard was peppered with holes. More cardboard. How on earth he never injured or killed one of us I'll never know. The angels looked after us those times.

During our stay in that place we got a dog. A Labrador cross. Black and called Lucky. He wasn't. The boy over the wall would shoot at him when he was in the yard. He was never hit, and I'm sure the boy meant it to be that way, but it turned Lucky into an aggressive dog. He was so nervous. One day my little sister went to use the toilet and Lucky pinned her to the wall, growling and slobbering in her face. She screamed, I went running and Lucky ran to the bottom of the garden cowering under a bush. When mum got home we told her and were then instructed to take Lucky to the RSPCA for re-homing. My brother and I walked Lucky the 5 miles there and left the poor hound shaking and bewildered, terrified of bangs and confused as to why he'd been dumped. I cried all the way home.
Mum had contacted the police again and they were there when we arrived home and we had to tell them all about the shooting, the nasty boy, the masturbating at the window.
All was quiet over the wall after that, but it was a long few months we'd endured it.

So with brutal parents, prostitutes, battering husbands, and anti-social teens with a penchant for guns and and exhibitionist tendencies, life wasn't all that nice. It was never dull, but it wasn't that nice. Certainly not the place any self respecting, Christian, well mannered family should be.

We endured it for just over 2 years. In that time my dad came out of prison, committed his crimes again and left again. Mum was in bits, we just battled through and eventually the chance to have a nice house in a nice area came up and we moved... but history drags a person down. I was to learn that the hard way.

...next time... moving house, moving school, same shit different environment.

Prostitute waiting for work ... 1970's

The kind of view we had out the back

I would cry at Keyo's screams, then I'd see him cry too.

This is a stock photo - not actual.

yesterday's writing in here