I was recently at a small gathering with friends and I met a lady around my mother’s age from Saint Helena. We began to have a long chat and I told her about my family. I was quite surprised when she told me that she had come from the same part of the island as my mother and had grown up with my mother. She remembered my mother quite clearly in fact they both attended school together.
It was quite sad and amusing as this lady had known my mother a lot longer than I had. I told her that I didn’t know the true identity of my father. She replied “That she wasn’t surprised.” She wasn’t sure who her oldest child’s father was as she had been dragged and raped by several young men.
She went on to say that my mother, in her mind, probably suffered the same fate as her. She told me that once she had been raped in front of her seven-year-old screaming sister. This story did not surprise me. It just made me very angry.
I told her that my grandfather had always hated me but she explained to me that my grandfather hated me long before I was born. Apparently, he was so ashamed that his daughter, my mother, had been pregnant that he had been badly hoping that she would lose the baby. I was a bit upset before, but it made me even sadder now that I knew the reason why he always hated me and was always calling me a bastard.
This lady also had left her daughter with her parents but went back to Saint Helena and brought her back to England with her. I realize that there was no birth control back then and many of the girls couldn’t wait to get it, as they knew then they would not fall pregnant from all of the horrible rape.
I was once asked whether parents, mainly many mothers were supposed to leave their children to pursue work to support the family. I suppose I was the best person to ask really as my own mother left Saint Helena when I was 18 months old to work abroad. I was left with her parents, aunties and uncles. In some ways it was probably better for her. If my mother had stayed on the island to look after me then in my honest opinion we would both have suffered from the same rape culture that was existent. Thank God said she did get away from it all.
I had heard terrible stories but I will save my mother’s dignity. If she stayed she would have gone out to have even more illegitimate children. At the time there wasn’t any birth control, but there were lots of mouths to feed. It was quite common for single mothers to have up to 8 to 9 children all gathered and made by different men.
Most of the men didn’t take fatherhood very seriously and many would never know the true identity of their fathers. So I think yes, mothers should be able to leave their children with responsible or caring family members, but now the other half of me thinks not.
My grandmother looked after me very well and I couldn’t ask for more. My uncles were lovely and kind to me. My aunties on the other hand were cruel heartless women who left me with their spiteful crow of a grandfather. I now think that my grandfather had mental health problems as he would quote verses from the Bible and pray all the while telling me how much he hated me. I did think that it was a strange situation for a child to listen to.
If I ever left my baby girl then I would have gone back to get her and I would never turn my back on my children like my mother had done to me. My foster mother had offered to have my baby daughter but she was getting on in years at the time. I certainly wasn’t going to leave her with her biological father, no not with a man who would rape his sister.