The division of the government known as Social Services was created to help children and their families. It is usually for those families that are in dire need. Most children that are known by social services are from dysfunctional families. Sometimes the parents can’t provide for them and give their children the love and attention they need.
I became known to the St. Helena social services before I started school at the age of five. At the time I didn’t understand why I had a Social Services representative regularly visit me. His name was Mr. Sonny Ward and he was a kind man. He would regularly make stops at our home on a daily basis. Eventually, after I moved to Jamestown, I met up with Mr. Sonny Ward and he explained to me why he used to come. He explained to me that there were concerns about my grandmother’s daughter Lilly who mysteriously died after a good hiding from my grandfather. He explained that Social Services was involved to help keep an eye on me and make sure that everything was going smoothly at home.
When my teenage mother left home and moved to England to support her family, I was left in the care of my grandparents Dolly and Freddy Henry. I lived in a small neat two-bedroom cottage with beautiful sea views to the front and the back. We had a large garden where we grew vegetables and flowers. Mum would sell these to help make ends meet. We had chickens walking freely around the garden and mum would sell their eggs or use them for making cakes. We would never use eggs for cooking and I never had a poached or fried egg as a child.
My grandmother Dorothy was the Mother Teresa of St. Helena she was kind, loving, generous and loved by everyone who knew her. Most people would call her Mama Dolly.
My grandfather was known as Poppa Freddy but what a contrast to my grandmother. He was truly a vicious brute and a bully. He was full of astounding hatred for me. Most people including my grandmother would tell stories of him beating my grandmother and her children until they were double incontinent. My grandfather had very poor eyesight so he never really had seen my face but the sheer sound of my voice would make him rage and he would shout out “Shut that bastards mouth up!” and my poor mama would tell me to hush up. If I didn’t Poppa would throw something at me to shut me up. Poppa once said that he would rather starve to death than eat anything that I touched. If he even saw me in the kitchen he would throw his dinner away. Poppa loved the Bible and was always quoting verses from it. In the same breath as the bible verses he would say that he hated that bastard child (referring to me).
To get away from his abuse I would take myself in the woods to play just to get away from Poppa’s dastardly ways. I loved playing in the woods, climbing, looking into birds nests, gathering wild flowers and chasing the butterflies. I distinctively remember the smell of the big yellow flowers it was wonderful and magical. While in the woods I would gather firewood as we used solid fuel for cooking and heating waters. Mama would always praise me for carrying a large bundle of firewood and Poppa would say that I should be carrying more from my age.
I loved exploring Littlewood so very much but one day evil came into the woods in the form of a much older teenage boy. For the next five years until I was 15 years old he would knock me to the ground and sexually abuse me. He ignored my screaming and my cousin who was also his niece came to my rescue one day. It was an 11-year-old child watching another 11-year-old child being raped. There is no word that I can find to describe it.
I will never forget the look on my cousin’s face. Many years later while having tea with my cousin she said to me that I was very lucky to have moved away from the Deadwood area where we lived as the young man was still dragging young girls into the woods to rape them.
I did try to refuse to collect firewood but my grandparents would call me lazy. I was very frightened and worried as I was 12 years old and my body was changing into a young woman. The girls at school told me how babies were made so now I was petrified of becoming pregnant. No child should ever be thinking “Please God don’t let me get pregnant at 12 years old.” but I am afraid that is what life was like for some children especially if you lived in the country part of the island.
Those evil young men were family friends and knew that my grandfather hated me. My grandfather was always telling parents not to let their children play with me. He said I was a bad influence in fact he tried to turn everyone who listened to him against me.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had told those evil boys to rape me.