Smiling Ernest - The first day in the home from hell

Hub 3

I could hear stones popping as the tyres on the car crushed them. I was half-awake and had a stiff neck after sleeping with my head against the passenger window. The journey from the city had only been around 50 minutes, but it had felt like hours. ‘Wake up Nigel, we are here.’ said Ken. He was the social worker who had collected me earlier that day. I could smell crisp clean air as I wound the window down. The view came into focus as I rubbed my sleepy eyes and I sat up quickly with great expectation. ‘This is it Nigel, Bryn Alyn Hall! you are going to have a great time here.' I was excited and did not care that I had left my old life behind. I was just happy to be on a new adventure and away from my mothers life. I was just eleven years old and had spent that unhappy birthday alone in a children’s hospital a few weeks earlier. In the distance I could see a farmhouse. It looked huge to me, surrounded by lush countryside and the quietness of its isolation. As the car pulled into the courtyard, a boy appeared from the front doorway. He was tall and skinny and ran up to the car window. ‘Are you the new boy?’ he shouted through the window. I had not had chance to get out of the car and he was asking me question after question. ‘Why are you here, what did you do, where are you from?’ Ken grabbed my bag and box of toys from the back seat. I was nervous and excited at the same time. ‘My names Mike, what’s yours?’ the boy asked, ‘I’m Nigel’. Ken and Mike escorted me into the big house and through a corridor to a small office. Ken dropped my box on a desk and told me to sit down as he walked away saying that he would find someone in charge. ‘How many fags do you smoke?’ Mike asked as he nervously looked around the room, ‘Tell them it’s ten a day and they will give you five in a box with your name on.’ he whispered cautiously. ‘I don’t smoke, it’s bad for you!’ I replied. ‘Well just tell them that you do and I will have your fags. I will look after you in here mate, it’s a shit place!.' Mike then shot out of the room as we both heard footsteps. I sat perfectly still, allowing my surroundings to come into focus. This was a strange place and I was struggling to contain my fear and apprehension of the unknown. It all seemed so far away from the life I had experienced. Only that morning I had been collected from hospital and promised a holiday with other boys in a nice country cottage. As young as I was, I was aware that this place was not nice, and I was not on a holiday. The office walls had charts and notes pinned to them and a filing cabinet in the corner with draws open and papers sticking out. I could see clutter strewn over the floor that included sleeping bags and boys boots. The desk was old fashioned and a cup was standing in the middle of it. I could see the steam rising from it and a half-eaten biscuit with crumbs next to it. I could see dust on everything and finger marks on the walls. I noticed snot smeared on the wired safety glass window in the door and the lock looked like it had been repaired many times. I was motionless, stuck in a moment of time with no sound, when suddenly the room burst into to life again. ‘Well then, you must be Nigel, sorry I was not here, I just had to deal with that little sod’. He was pointing to the doorway where a boy was standing. He sat down at the desk and picked up his cup. ‘Well say hello, its no good being shy here. My names Russell, and that little git is Alan, say hello Alan’. The boy looked at me and then looked to the floor in silence. Russell started passing me bits of paper ‘Read this lot before bedtime’ he demanded. Ken came back and said goodbye to me, he assured me I would be happy. Ken passed Russell an envelope with my name on and left. Russell told me that Bill would be in soon to get me sorted out. Russell took Alan away, marching him in a rough manner while tugging his collar. The room fell silent again as I listened to the sounds coming from outside. I did not know who Bill was but I waited in the office for him to arrive.

Ernest startled me as he walked confidently into to the room. Smiling, and touching me on the shoulder as he took his coat off, he said ‘Well, well, this must be Nigel. My name is Ernest, are you settling in alright?’ I felt relieved that he was being friendly towards me. ‘Yes thank you’ I replied. ‘Manners as well as good looks, a good sign Nigel, a good sign, you will do well here’. He gave me a sweet and helped me fill in my name on a behaviour chart. Bill arrived and introduced himself. He looked familiar to me. Bill was a very short man with a baldhead and a friendly face. He snorted every time he finished a sentence. It was a nervous twitch of some sort. Ernest was taller than Bill and they both dressed in suits. They looked like executives. I recall now that Ernest was always telling Bill what to do and that Bill was always willing to help Ernest, even with things like making him a cup of tea or fetching things he needed. I later noticed that they had a closeness and understanding that other adults in the home did not have. They told me to call them by their first names and said they would be like ‘dads’ to me. I remember thinking that things would be better than I imagined.

Later that day, after a tour around the home, Bill took me back to the office. ‘Right then Nigel lets get your stuff sorted out’ he said with a snort. He told me to share my toys so everyone could play with them. My toys left the office one a time in the hands of other boys who Bill had invited into the room. I watched the only possessions I had disappear in a matter of seconds. Those few items had been with me for a long time, they where the remnants of happy days spent with my mother and little brother.

As I look back at this moment in time, returning in my mind to a place I prefer not go to, I feel emotional and vulnerable. My arrival at Bryn Alyn Hall was to become a marker in my life history, a day when my childhood innocence was destroyed, and the day that one form of abuse ended and another commenced.

I met a few of the other boys who were watching TV. They all asked the same questions, ‘what is your name, what have you done, where are you from, have you been in detention, did the pigs bring you here?’ I did not know what detention was and I struggled to understand some of them. I was handed a cigarette by Alan, the boy I had met earlier, I held it in my hand, unsure what to do with it, and Mike reached over and grabbed it. He said it was his for looking after me earlier. They started shouting at each other and telling each other to ‘fuck off’. It was an aggressive and strange environment. I was like a fish out of water, struggling to comprehend what had happened to me and why I was there.

Teatime had come and passed and I had been shown a room where I would sleep. I met the cook and a woman named Norma who was the Matron. She had taken me into a washing room that had shelving from the floor to the ceiling. I remember her looking me up and down and while handing me various items of clothing that she said would fit me. ‘I have my own clothes’ I said to her, ‘those are being washed Nigel, these are your clothes now so shut up and put them in your locker’. She was always matter of fact and unfriendly in her manner.

I smoked my first cigarette that day, behind a fallen tree in the front of the farmhouse. I did not smoke, but I wanted to be accepted by the other boys and smoking seemed to be something they all did. I tried my best not to cough but I did and they laughed at me. That tree became a favourite place to be, it was just out of sight of the staff. Smoking was not against the rules, in fact, it was actively encouraged, but standing behind the fallen tree gave us a little privacy and it was the location for swapping stolen goods, usually food from the kitchen, and a good place for a fight between enemies.

The evening was drawing close and the home became surrounded by a black darkness that I was not used to. I was watching two boys play a game of snooker when I heard my name being called out. ‘He wants you Nigel’ said one of the boys, ‘the bummer wants you’ and he laughed. I did not know what a bummer was.

I had never been publically naked. Bill had directed me to the bathroom. It was not like a bathroom in a normal house. This one was big and had five or six washbasins, three baths, and four toilet cubicles. The bath area was open plan and gave no privacy. The floor was cobbled stone and cold on your feet. The room was smelly and noise echoed up against the high ceiling. ‘Get yourself undressed Nigel and in that bath’ said Bill. I was nervous and holding a towel and stripped pyjamas, that Norma had given me. Other boys were in and out, some shouting at each other and others laughing at me. I was looking for a place to undress. ‘Come on Nigel, no need to be shy here, we are all boys together’ Bill shouted impatiently. He ushered me into the open cubicle and swished his hand in the water. ‘That’s just right, get in now’. Bill dried his hand on my towel and patted me gently on the head as he left the room. I was starting to shiver. I was not cold, just nervous. Taking my clothes off seemed an impossible task. I was aware of every noise, stopping to listen in case someone was coming back in. The water was not very hot and the soap was dirty. I tried to wash myself, mindful of Bill’s earlier emphasis on washing behind my ears. A boy came in the bathroom and asked me my name. He asked me for a cigarette, which I did not have, and then he ran out. Bill returned and sat on a chair next to the bath. I was embarrassed. I could see him looking between my legs and he was snorting and twitching his face. He lifted up my towel and told me to stand up. He pulled the plug and told me to dry myself and get dressed for supper. I noticed a label on the towe written in biro pen, it read 'Brayn Alyn'.

That room was later avoided whenever possible. I would go for a wee in the woods near by whenever I could and hold on for days before choosing the right moment to use the toilet cubicle. I hated the smell of those toilets boys were often bullied in there.

After eating supper I was taken to my dormitory, this was my new bedroom. It had a slight smell of damp, and the floorboards creaked. The faded wallpaper was from a previous era.The other lads where jumping on the beds and throwing towels around the room when Russell, the man I first met, came into the room ‘lights out, get into your beds now or you will be in trouble.’ He shouted. I was quick to get into my bed and the others soon did the same. After a period of talking in the dark, and boys making stupid noises, the room became quiet. The curtains hung short of the windowsill allowing light from the moon to creep across the four other single beds, creating silhouettes in the dark.  It was the first time that day that I could not hear shouting and arguing. I lay in silent fear, listening one of the other boys snoring and I could smell urine lingering in the air. The black stillness of the dormitory felt evil to me. I could hear my heart beating and the occasional rustling of a bed cover in the next bed just inches away and separated only by an old bedside cabinet. I was cold and frightened. I had been abandoned by people who I loved and was alone in this new strange and unfriendly world. The day had passed very quickly and I was wishing that I was back at the hospital, with familiar faces and surroundings. Outside the dormitory window, I could hear the night sounds of trees fighting with the wind and strange noises of animals and birds that occasionally made me jump. The countryside was very different to the hustle and bustle of the large city that I was used to. I was buried under a heavy bed cover that smelt old and felt silky against my cold face. I lay like a corpse with just my nose and eyes uncovered waiting for the night to end. I was exhausted and fighting tiredness and heavy eyelids, unable to trust my new environment, unable to give myself relief from the fear of the next days events.

Ken had left almost immediately after I arrived and I was now without a friend or anyone who I could trust. I was frozen to my bones, hiding under my cover in that very dark room called dorm six.