The Park part 2

Most days I can look in the mirror and like what and who I see. Most days my family, my wife, my kids and all the friends I've made and all the good times I've had put a smile on my face and it holds. Some days though, some days it's tough. The mirror doesn't lie apparently and if that's the case then some days (and sometimes) I'm a complete tosser! I have a little self destruct button and with the right (wrong!) circumstances and right (wrong!) amount of alcohol I just lose myself and head into the zone of selfishness and self destruction. I guess we all do. I think I'm only trying to hurt myself though, trying to find a part of me that was taken years ago. The caring part. Caring is not easy, it's not something I do well and there's reasons for that. To care is to invest emotion and to invest emotion is, in my experience, to get hurt. Sure, people die and people leave and people argue and people let you down. That's what we do, but the hardest part, the part that I really try to achieve is the caring again. Every time I care and it doesn't work out, well i care a little less. And occasionally I try to prove to myself that i don't care and what kind of logic is that? The part that cares just gets shat on and the part of me that is trying to stop the chances of getting hurt says "there, told ya so" even though it's creating an ever decreasing circle of care. I just looked in the mirror and got that distinctive "tosser" feeling...



Jeez, that's a cheery start to a blog! It's been a while in coming this one because it's a tough tale to write, going back into my history I think this was one period of time that hit me badly and hit me sideways but it's better down on paper or virtual paper according to my thinking anyhow! Right i do believe i was up a tree....

I once met a hippie in my tree, he was wandering through my park and seemed a lot more interesting than the occaisional lunching couple or scumbag local kids that made there way into my territory. His name was John and i gave him a shout as he strolled under the tree. Rather than freaking out, which was the common reaction, he just gazed up and said hi. He climbed up to meet me and we shared a roll up and a chat. He was looking for somewhere to camp and ended up staying in my park for a couple of weeks. He showed me how to make a 'bender' (not that type..) tent with young bendy branches from the tees and a tartpaulin, and also how to carve wood. We would chat and prat about about and i even took him home once. This elicited a "i don't know where you found him but put him back" from my Dad! He still talks about me bringing home a hippie as if i'd found a stray dog! He made friends with John too though and it was only when the local lads trashed his tent and ramsacked his few possesions that he moved on. Wonder what became of John...

She didn't come back but i saw her again. My Dad had to drive me up the old A470 and into the town of Colwyn Bay to leave me at the childrens home there. I don't know how he did this but it must of hurt pretty bad. How can you take your only son somewhere and leave him because you've been told you are not good enough at the job. He's a proud man, a stubbhorn man and regardless of his faults, a good man. He was and is pretty good at everything he does and did but right now the system had him screwed over, taking away his son and deeming him an unworthy parent. He was losing his son, and in more ways than one he lost a lot of me that day. I can't remember the conversation on the way up but i do remember being told that it wasn't for long. Well, obviously, an 11 year olds version of a long time is a whole world apart from an adults.

This old antiquated and creaky victorian house was home to about 25 tearaway youngsters. We all had our reasons for being there and in my room were 3 other kids who were equally as devastated. It's weird though, the way kids react, the way they laugh at signs of weakness and bully just to make sure someone is feeling worse than them. There was one little lad, and he must have been little because i was a scrawny 11 and he was smaller than me. He was tough as nails, all day long deflecting, fighting, shouting the odds. He swore like a trooper and smoked like a chimney this kid and yet when the lights went out and he drifted off to sleep he sobbed, sobbed his little heart out into the early hours of every single night.

They tried to school us. There was a little hut built in the gardens that served as a school. I used to win Mars bars for my effort in class. I didn't really try but was miles ahead of 90% of the other kids. I used to trade the Mars bars for smokes and me and my mate would go and hide in an old roundabout on the dilappidated playground. It was a big solid built wooden thing that had enough clearance to climb under and sit inside. We thought we were invisible in there and stayed for hours, smoking and talking shite. It was about a month before i saw the cloud of smoke emanating from it with some other kids inside... great hiding!

I didn't learn anything good there at all. I learnt about cutting myself from a girl whose arms were shredded to peices. She was so sweet and had such a pretty face. Every time she was let outside though she'd find a shard of broken glass and start mutilating her arms. She'd slashed so much flesh once that she had to start on her legs. I was duly impressed at her lack of feeling and tried it myself, cutting my wrists on the top side and quite enjoyed the sensation of watching the blood ooze and no-one care. She was asking for help of course, I know now. We all were in our own way. There was a bolemic girl there too who either wouldn't eat or would run to the toilet to puke whatever she did ingest but she was taken to hospital pretty soon after my arrival.

Another girl, tall and confident, was the self designated top dog and would organise "escapes" during the night. We'd clamber out of the windows and shin down the drainpipes into the grounds. then there was a tree near the wall that if you were any good at climbing (and I was a master!) you could get yourself onto the 6 foot high wall. From here it was just a matter of lowering yourself down into the street and running off into the town. I think there were two escapes during my time and both were great fun until the police were called and came out to round us up and take us back 'home'!

It felt like prison and we reacted to being imprisoned. We were kids, the victims, and yet it was us that were punished. Us that were taken from home and us that had to deal with all the shit and all the aggression that results from confining 25 neglected tearaway kids under the same roof and making the kids realise that if we were neglected before, now we were abandoned, neglected further and alone. The staff tried, I mean they really did. Perm and Glasses came and went, wrote and assessed. Various other members of staff tried to bond, tried to help and tried to improve us but all they did was combine 25 varieties of naughtiness and let us all learn from each other. Drugs, sex, crime and violence were all pretty new to me but what i learnt and experienced in the home was way more than an 11 year old should ever have to.

Eventually my Dad did come and collect me. I really don't know how long i was there but it must have been around 3 months. I was driven home to our new house, yes house! We were now in the town of Bethesda and away from the caravan, my tree, my park and my world. I don't think much changed for Dad, he'd obviously been given a set of criteria to meet and had met them to get me back, but things changed for me. Things changed me. Nothing serious enough or as bad as what came out in the news about kids homes in Colwyn Bay in the 80's but it was enough to turn me from an innocently bad 11 year old to a knowledgable and streetwise bad 11 year old!