A sample chapter from: “Cupboard Boy” A truly disturbing story of child abuse. A gripping and emotional page turner, you won't be able to put down.

New Year’s Eve 1964

A few months after Caren’s departure, things started to get back to normal again. Life didn’t seem too bad, and I was getting used to living at 62 and with Roy and my mum. I even got used the parties they often threw. Our house always seemed to be full of people playing loud music and drinking well into the early hours.

It was on one such night; New Year’s Eve 1964, after the party guests had gone, that I was woken up by the sound of my mother and Roy screaming at each other. Roy was accusing my mother of flirting with one of the party goers and threatening to kill her if she ever dared to cheat on him. Then I heard my mum scream out even louder as he started to beat her up on the staircase. I could hear the dull thud of each thump as Roy’s fist connected to my mum’s face. I was a sound I will never forget;

My mother was begging him to stop hitting her, and the more she pleaded it sounded like the more the blows came. Until finally the house went scarily silent. At first, I thought the silence was an indication that he had killed her.

I was so scared that he would turn his anger on me. I was hiding under the bed when my mother came into my room a few minutes later, whimpering and with tears running down her battered, bruised and bloodied face. It was horrible and I felt dreadfully sick at the sight of her battered face.

She got me dressed, took me downstairs and put in my pushchair. Then once again, my mum and I were walking the dark, cold and foggy streets of Cheshire, her still whimpering.

After walking the streets for what seemed like hours, we eventually arrived at my Nan’s house. My nan didn’t seem too pleased to see us in the early hours of the morning and made that very clear. At first, she seemed quite reluctant to let us in, she did though. I think she probably felt sorrier for me than my poor battered mother.

After a quick glass of milk, my Nan laid me on her sofa in the front room and covered me with a blanket. There was no kiss on the cheek though, just a simple ‘go to sleep now’. She and my mum then went into the back room to talk. Actually, they argued rather than talked. I Heard my nan telling my mum that she knew it would come to this, she also reminded her that my mum had made her bed despite being warned, and she should now lay in it!

I didn’t sleep well that night, the sofa was uncomfortable and I couldn’t get the sound of Roy beating my mother up, and her begging him to stop, out of my head. Nor could I get the image of my mum’s wrecked face out of there either.

The following day I woke up feeling relieved to be at my Nan’s and that I no longer had to live with Roy, the man who beat my mum and scared the crap out of me. My Nan’s was a safe place, a happy place, and it felt good seeing my lovely Grandad again. I had missed him;

Later on, that day, whilst I was drawing with my Grandad, Roy came knocking at the front door. My Nan answered the door. I, my grandad and my mum heard my nan giving him what for. Telling him to go back to the hole he had crawled from. She was having a right go at him.

Eventually, my mum joined my Nan at the front door, and after a few minutes, I heard my nan shout a few expletives before banging the door shut.

When my nan came back into the back room she was furious and shaking with anger and her face was the colour of beetroot. She was angry that my mum had decided to join Roy outside for a “private chat”. Roy wasn’t allowed in my Nan’s house ever, she and my grandad didn’t like black people, especially ones’ who beat their daughter to a pulp.

After about fifteen minutes or so, my mum came back in and informed my Nan that she was giving Roy one more chance and that we were going back to No 62. My heart sank at the news and I instantly began to panic. I could feel my little heart beating rapidly and I started to sweat. I didn’t know it then, but now I’m sure I had a panic attack.

 My Nan wasn’t very happy about it either, I remember her yelling at my Mum, not to come back to her house, as long as she was with him. Actually, I think it went more like ‘Don’t even think about coming back as long as you’re with that black B……’ as Roy drove off.

By teatime that evening I was back at No 62 and in my dingy and cold bedroom. I remember looking at the sky and watching clouds as they passed by so slowly, wishing I could be somewhere else. Anywhere else but here!

That New Year’s Eve in 1964 would not be the last time that Roy would beat my mother over the next 20 years that they were together. In fact, she got a good kicking every New Year’s Eve that I can remember!

On 23rd December 1965, whilst I was at Chester Zoo with a friend of my mum’s. My mum gave birth in our front room to my first half-sister Jane.

It was funny seeing her for the first time. She was still quite wrinkly and her head was a funny shape. She was also neither white or black, she was more light brown.  I remember asking my mum why she was a different colour from her and Roy. She simply said because she has a bit of Roy and herself in Jane, smiling as if she were proud of the fact she had created a new life with a horrible woman beater.

Having said that, it was nice having a baby sister around the house. I enjoyed helping my mum look after her. I still have fond memories of rocking her to sleep in her big silver cross pram in the dining room. I was allowed to feed her sometimes too.

Life continued to be relatively normal for a while. I started primary school and really enjoyed mixing and playing with the other kids. What I liked most of all though was the school dinners, the food always tasted fab. I especially loved the jam and cornflake tart with custard.

However, my time at primary school was also the time when I first became aware of real ignorant racial prejudice. I was in the playground at the end of the day waiting for my mum to pick me up when I overheard a couple of the other mums talking to each other. One of them said… ‘Here comes the one with the chocolate kid’. As she pointed in the direction of my approaching mother and half-sister Jane.

Even though I was only four coming on five years of age, I knew she was being negative and disrespectful. I remember that was the first time that I felt embarrassed about having a mixed-race sister and a black Step-dad. That feeling of embarrassment stayed with me for the whole of my childhood.

Cupboard Boy is available to buy on Kindle and in paperback format on Amazon, Apple and B&N: