New posts

A little forum update...We're planning an upgrade.

Find out more about what's planned and how you can help support the forum
Click here for the details

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 118812" data-attributes="member: 22">Kat to Little Mo: Do you remember when she [Big Mo] took us to Southend on our own?Big Mo: I never took you to Southend on your own.Little Mo: It was only for the day and it was a treat.Kat: Yeah and I was coach sick. You [Little Mo] cried the whole time for Mum.Little Mo: Yeah. And you [Big Mo] gave us some sweets out of your cardy pocket - magic sweeties, you said. Mine had a fly in it.Kat: Mine had a hair on it.Little Mo: Yeah, I remember now. Big black hair it was and all.Big Mo: You was always picky kids.Little Mo: Do you remember the top board when we used to go swimming?Kat: Yeah.Little Mo: You and Belinda used to go haring off it, hand in hand.Kat: She landed on me head once!Little Mo: Me and Lynne, we used to stand at the back — you know, talking about doing it. Talking and talking until we were bone dry and went home.Roxy: My mum always said I never learnt to swim because I never kept it shut long enough.Ian: I used to play badminton.Sharon: I used to [forge Den's signature] to get out of PE.Little Mo: That time in Moredale when we all got held behind for fighting in the school playground.Lynne: Oh yeah, that was [Kat's] fault.Kat: No, it weren't.Lynne: Yes, it was. Jenny Cole — you tied her to the fence on the netball court.Kat: Because she grassed me up for smoking.Lynne: And then her sister turned up and it all kicked off.Kat: Didn't Bel hit one of the teachers?Lynne and Little Mo in unison: Miss Richards!Lynne: Yeah, kicked her in the shin.Little Mo: And we all had to sit in the hall until Mum come and got us.Kat: We didn't half get a wallop, didn't we?Lynne: Yeah, and I got the worst because I was the eldest.Kat: Too right.Lynne: I hadn't done anything!Kat: Well, you should have been looking after us.Lynne: Yeah right, like you'd have listened to anything I've got to say.Kat: Remember waiting for Dad to get home?Lynne: That was the worst part.Little Mo: Yeah, but Mum never told on us, did she?Kat: Yeah, because she wanted to hang it over us. It was good for weeks.Belinda Peacock (née Slater) on Viv: She was good to us.Kat: Always shouting at us.Belinda: She was always there.Kat: And criticising us.Belinda: And looking after us.Kat: Telling us what to do and what to think.Belinda: At least she was strong.Kat: Strong — or a bully?Belinda: Mum wasn't a bully.Kat: No? What about the time you wanted to grow your hair long, but Mum took the kitchen scissors to it anyway?Belinda: I had nits, Kathleen.Kat: So did everyone else in your class, but they didn't have all their hair cut off.Little Mo: You think the world revolves around you, don't you, Kat? You always have. Ever since we were kids, we've always had to accommodate what Kat wants. "Lost your swimsuit? Oh, Little Mo will go and find it for you." "Nicked a magazine? Oh that's Kat for you — she's a character, she's a free spirit!" She's a spoilt brat.Kat: I've always looked out for you.Little Mo: You and Belinda, you fought like cat and dog. And you and Lynne. You've always been selfish, Kat.Little Mo: All my life I have been scared of looking after myself, of being alone, of just about everything. All my life I’ve been happy or unhappy because of [other people’s] choices.Little Mo: Remember what Mum used to call us? Her special girls. I loved that — her special girls.Kat: You used to call me your special little girl, do you remember?Charlie: How could I forget?Kat: And then Zoe come along. Everything was all right till she come along.Kat: I know what it’s like to be a little girl, to think like a little girl — big dreams, having fun with your mates — and then a man, a grown man comes into your room and you’re so sleepy, you don’t know who it is and then he shuts the door and he sits on your bed and he’s stroking your hair and he’s telling you that you’re sweet and you’re pretty and you’re special, and even though you’re so scared and you feel sick and you’re totally paralysed, you think, “Is this normal? Do I deserve this?” And then your childhood is snatched away in an instant.Little Mo: You always think, when you're little and don't know nothing, that all babies are born out of something that's perfect and magical. It's not like that, is it? My darling Zoe, look how she was made.Zoe Slater: What was your first time like?Kat: You don't want to know, believe me. He was older than me. It wasn't my fault.Harry Slater: You loved me once.Kat: I loved Father Christmas and all, but he didn't touch me up.Harry: It wasn't just me. You were always going around in that little mini skirt.Kat: That was my school uniform.Harry: And the make up?Kat: I used to walk around in Mum's high heels when I was three. Up for it then, was I?Kat: Harry used to say to me, "It's only because I love you."Kat on Harry: He came in my room and violated me. He told me I was his special girl. It started off just touching. I didn't know what to do. He made it feel normal, but I knew it wasn't. I was thirteen years old and I had my uncle coming into my room at night and putting his hand under my covers.Zoe: Why didn't you tell anyone?Kat: He said it was our little secret and that no one would understand and everyone would think I was bad. And then one day, he came into my room. Everyone was out. I don't know where they were. He kept saying it's going to be all right, that he loved me. I just lay there, terrified. Then when he finished, he cried.Kat on her bedroom curtains: They were open the night Harry come into my room and I turned the other way because I couldn't believe what was happening to me and I see the moon and I knew that [Charlie] lied to me [about the man in the moon protecting her].Kat: Harry just took it all away from me — you know, that feeling of being safe and loved and special. I never felt like that again.Zoe: Were you raped?Kat: Did he put his hand over me mouth and hold me down? No. Did I tell him to stop and scream for help? No. But was I raped? I was thirteen years old. I was thirteen years old. What do you think?Zoe: If you didn't want it to happen, why didn't you stop him?Kat: Don't you think I've lived with that all my life since? Don't you think I've asked myself the same question every night? Well, there's only one answer, isn't there? I must be the slapper everyone says I am. "Good old Kat. Right laugh, isn't she? Always up for it and all." No one does it like me.Zoe: You said it.Kat: No. Everyone else said it so it must be true. You ever been scared, Zoe? You ever been so scared you open your mouth to scream and nothing comes out? When you see something so horrible, all you can do is turn your head away and pretend it ain't happening?Kat: And I'm turning me head away pretending it ain't happening, clearing my mind to think of something else. Do you know what? I did me nine times table.Kat: I was raped when I was thirteen years old. I couldn't tell anyone. A dirty little secret I had to keep to meself and I kept it so long, it turned into a cancer eating away at me till I was dirty. Do you know how many years I've laid awake at night and I can still feel the weight of him on top of me? Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is his face, finger at his lips.Kat on Harry: He didn’t leave any marks on me, at least none you can see, but he left plenty of other ones though.Kat on Harry: He made me think it was my fault.Harry, speaking in 2001: For what it's worth, my life ended that night. I've had eighteen years of misery. I don't want you to think this hasn't haunted me every day since. I couldn't get married, couldn't have a decent relationship, lost the chance of having any kids.Kat: The next day, he just carried on like nothing had happened — making everyone laugh, good old Harry.Kat on a pair of hoop earrings: They were my mum’s. And do you know who bought them for her? Harry. Yeah, paid for them with his own money, wrapped them up with his fat hands and gave them to her, wishing her happy birthday and giving her a peck on the cheek and then looking over at me and giving me a little wink. She had no idea. She thought the world of Harry.Kat on Harry: After a couple of weeks, he tried to do it again to me, but I knew it was wrong. I knew that if I let him do it again, he would never stop. So I told Mum. I had to. She was washing up and I told her that he'd been touching me and he kept coming into my room. She got angry with me. She said I was imagining things and I should stop lying like I always do and I was never to talk about it again and what would happen if I let Dad hear them things?Kat on Viv: She didn’t believe me and she called me a liar so I stayed quiet for years. I was worried that she’d be disappointed and she’d hate me, but if only I’d have tried harder and I’d made her believe me ... She was my mum and I could never tell her what he did to me and how he made me feel.Kat: It’s your biggest fear, being called a liar on top of everything else, so you don’t say anything for years and the poison just jumps round and round. Feel like you’re going crazy.Trevor Morgan on Charlie: [He was] so busy trying to be everybody else's friend he didn't see his big brother going into his daughter's bedroom.Charlie to Kat: I let you down all those years ago. I should have been looking out for you and I wasn't.Charlie: Kat was thirteen — a baby — and did I help her? Was I a good dad in her hour of hell?Big Mo: You didn't know.Charlie: Why didn't you tell me [about Harry]?Kat: I didn't think you'd believe me. Mum didn't. I told her he was touching me. She didn't believe me.Charlie: You're telling me your mum stood by and let that happen?Kat: I don't know. All I know is I told her and she said I was imagining it.Charlie: She wouldn't have kept something like that to herself. She worshipped you girls.Charlie: Did Viv know?Harry on Viv: She warned me off. That's why I went to Spain.Kat on Harry: Two weeks later, he left for Spain. Next time I saw him, I was eighteen.Charlie to Belinda: Your mum never once talked about Kat and Uncle Harry. She had her reasons. All right, they may have been the wrong reasons, but she thought she was acting for the best.Charlie to Little Mo: Your mother lied. She lied to us. She was covering up a dirty secret. That's why she sent Harry away instead of calling the police — because she didn't want no one to find out and to hell with the rest of us and to hell with her special girl. Kat had to deal with it all on her own. She let that pervert get away with it.Charlie on Viv: She had to make a lot of hard decisions, but she made them without me. I had a right to be able to decide what was the best thing to do, but she took that away from me. She let me down.Big Mo: It was for your own good. She was trying to protect you. She didn't want to hurt you.Charlie: So she lied about my own brother interfering with my daughter.Charlie on Viv: She made a mistake, a huge mistake. She thought what she was doing was for the best, but it wasn't for the best, it was for the worst — but she didn't know that.Big Mo on Kat: We didn't find out she was pregnant until a long time after [Harry] had gone.Kat: I was thirteen. I didn't know what was happening to me at first. I knew I felt funny, but I just ignored it.Jack Branning: I expect you forgot about the Summer of Death.Max Branning: No, 1983. Still got the scars. What was that one about? Oh that’s it yeah — you wanted my BMX.Suzy Branning to Max: Bikes, hand-me-downs — Jack always did get your leftovers.Max to Jack. Toys, cars, bikes, women — you always want what you can’t have.Max: I remember Jack cracked me one when I was a kid. I pushed him off his bike. He got up, took a swing at me. He caught me right there [points to his right eye]. We used to fight all the time, but you weren’t allowed to punch each other in the face. So that was it, you know — I had him. Ran in, showed my dad, told him what had happened, and I won because Jack got a right thrashing. Mind you, I think I knew as soon as I told my dad, the rules would change. Me and Jack,it weren’t just about us anymore. It was like we weren’t brothers [anymore].Jack: You never could resist running and telling tales, could you? Always trying to shift the blame, always looking for the easy way out of trouble. I mean, far be it from you to let a small thing like family get in the way of you getting what you wanted.Max: That’s easy for you to say, isn’t it? Because you, you always got what you wanted.Jack: What’s the matter, Mum and Dad didn’t love you enough?Max: Are you saying you weren’t their favourite?Jack: No, I was — and that always hacked you off, didn’t it? Always got under your skin. I often wonder if that’s why you turned out to be such a lousy dad yourself.Max to Jack: All my life, all you’ve ever done to me is take things. Anything I had, you had to take it. No matter what I done, I always ended up looking like the bad boy whereas you, you always got away with it.Max: Story of my childhood, isn’t it? Couldn’t have nothing without him [Jack] muscling in. Got the battle scars to prove it.Ronnie Mitchell: That’s just brothers and sisters, isn’t it? It’s what they do.Max: It’s more than that. Honestly, I’d have a bike or a mate or a comic he didn’t have — it weren’t like normal jealousy. He’d treat it like an insult, couldn’t let it pass. Had to get back at me every time.Ronnie: I bet you used to steal [Max’s] toys when you were a kid.Jack: No, I just used to kidnap them and hold them for ransom. Much more fun. Did you used to steal anything from Roxy?Ronnie: No, I don’t like playing games. Besides, cast offs aren’t really my style.Kat: I was nearly four months gone before I realised I was pregnant. I've never been so scared in all me life. I thought if I ignored it, it might go away. Pretended it wasn't happening, but then I started getting bigger, couldn't do the zips up on me skirt. I had to start using safety pins, baggy jumpers, padded coats. PE was a nightmare. I didn't know where to go or who to talk to. Every night Lynne was going out, Dad was telling her to be careful with the boys and not get in trouble and there was me sitting next to him, four months pregnant.Lynne: Some of us stopped at snogging behind the bike sheds.Alfie: Your Uncle Harry, what did he say when you told him you were pregnant?Kat: I never did, not at the time. It was none of his business.Alfie: But didn't you want to shout at him and yell and get angry and scream and throw bricks and stuff?Kat: I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to walk away from it.Kat: That fear is like an electric shock when you can't breathe properly and your heart is pounding so hard you think everyone in the room can hear it. I didn't really have any mates, not that I could tell something like this to anyway, so I decided to run away. It was the only thing I could think of doing. See, I was getting bigger. It was only a matter of time before people started noticing.Zoe, looking at an old photograph of Kat: Weren't you fat! How old were you here, about fourteen? Right little porker you look!Kat: Don't think I ever felt so alone — not lonely, because I was surrounded by people, but on me own, like I couldn't have a conversation with anyone without thinking, "If only you knew," and what they'd say if they did. So one night I nicked twenty quid out of Dad's money bag, packed everything that still fit me in a bag, and waited. I don't think I'll ever forget that night — what I thought was going to be my last night. I sat on the settee with my feet curled underneath me watching everyone — Little Mo and Belinda fighting over something in the corner, Dad telling them to shush while he was trying to watch telly and Lynne sitting by Mum's chair rubbing her feet. And then Nan coming in with fish and chips. Everyone arguing over who ordered what. And then us sitting there eating them out of the paper and that warm feeling you get in your lap from the chips. It was the best place to be in the world and I was leaving. So I went to bed. Didn't bother getting undressed, there was no point, was there? Pulled the covers over me and waited and listened and everyone went to bed, one by one. I remember muffled voices coming from Mum and Dad's room. Couldn't make out what they were saying. I remember Mum laughing. Remember that laugh? Ale house laugh, Granddad used to call it. And then she stopped and it all went quiet. We was on our own then, just you [Zoe] and me.Zoe: Did you go?Kat: I waited another hour, just to make sure everyone was asleep, and then I went downstairs. I had the door half open when Mum came down and caught me. She was in the kitchen. She went downstairs to get a glass of milk because her stomach was playing her up again and there was me, bag in hand, halfway out the door. Anyway, it all come out, all the weeks of worrying all washed away by Mum spitting on her hanky. I was still scared. At least I weren't on me own anymore. Anyway, the next day Belinda and Little Mo were packed off somewhere.Trevor Morgan: Why did [Viv] send you away when you were nine?Little Mo: She was just protecting me. Kat was pregnant.Trevor: Protecting you? Protecting you from what?Little Mo: She just didn't want me upset. I know that now.Trevor: Aye, but you didn't know then, did you?Little Mo: Me and Belinda, we never knew why we were sent away. I thought it was my fault. I thought I'd done something terrible. I used to lie awake at nights and wonder what it was.Trevor to Little Mo: You thought they [the family] didn't want you so you've been following them around [ever since] like a sick puppy trying to make them love you.Kat: The worst part of it all was the look on Dad's face when Mum told him. I thought he'd hit the roof, but he didn't. He just looked at me with contempt.Kat to Charlie: Filthy. That's how you see me, isn't it? I can see it in your eyes. It's always been there ever since you found out I was pregnant. You've tried to hide it, pretended it wasn't happening, but it's never gone away.Kat on Charlie: Do you know what he said? He said he was disappointed in me. Thirteen years old and I hadn't lived up to his expectations. I'll never forget that look. I just wanted to be dead. I didn't want to be here anymore. Nothing he said or did after that could ever take it away. He hated me. He hated me. It wasn't my fault.Charlie to Kat: Yes, I was disappointed in you. You were pregnant at thirteen.Kat: Dad kept asking me, "Who is it?" His face — he hated me. He kept on — who is it, what he was going to do to him. I wanted to tell him, I wanted to tell him so badly, but I couldn't because it was his brother. It was Harry.Charlie to Kat: Some kid from school [was the father], that's what you said.Kat: I wanted you to cuddle me. Where were you, Dad?Charlie: I was there.Kat: No, you weren't. I needed you so badly then. All I wanted was for you to sit me on your lap and say it didn't matter and that you still loved me and everything was going to be all right, but you didn't, did you, Dad? You just looked at me with disgust. Disgust and contempt.Kat: It weren't my fault, Dad.Charlie: I know, I know.Kat: Then why did you both blame me?Charlie: We didn't.Kat: You could hardly look at me. Lynne was the only one that cared. She used to ask me how I felt. She made me feel better. I was only fourteen.Lynne: All I ever wanted was to hold my newborn baby in my arms. Every time I've heard somebody's pregnant, it's been like a knife in my heart. I've been so jealous. I was even jealous when Kat was carrying Zoe.Zoe on Kat: What she went through with me was the bravest thing ever.Charlie: You were so brave.Kat: How would you know? You wouldn't even talk to me.Charlie: Your mum dealt with all that.Kat: You reckon? I didn't even know what was happening to me. You just pushed me aside.Charlie: I didn't realise.Kat: Every time I walked into a room, you would walk out of it.Charlie: It wasn't like that.Kat: Yes it was, Dad.Charlie: You locked yourself in the bedroom most of the day.Kat: Because you made me feel so dirty.Kat: You did hate me for a long time. Charlie: I never — I didn't understand.Kat: All that time, you looked at me with such disappointment, like I meant nothing to you. In the end, I told meself I didn't need you to love me no more.Kat: Seemed I spent me whole life sitting on the stairs listening to people in the front room arguing about what to do with me. Sometimes they wouldn't shut the door properly and I could see them through the little gap — my life being decided through a letterbox. Mum would be sitting in the gap, crying. Dad would appear next to her and start cuddling her. Then he'd disappear, then Nan would come into the gap. No one ever asked me what I wanted.Charlie to Kat: You're so much like your mum and that's why I think I took it so badly.Charlie: I didn’t face up to it, did I? I didn’t go on the rampage, searching for Zoe’s father. I just shut up shop and pretended it never happened.Big Mo: How does anyone know what to do?Kat: Do you know the worst thing, shall I tell you? You never once asked me what I wanted to do.Charlie: You were just a child, Kat.Kat: You still should have asked me. Why didn't you talk to me?Kat: I wanted Mum and Dad to talk to me, to tell me what to do.Zoe: Did you want to keep me?Kat: I didn't have a choice. Nan said I was too far gone to have an abortion.Zoe: But you talked about it.Kat: No, they talked. I just listened.Zoe: Mum, Dad, Nan — they all talked about you having an abortion.Kat: They talked about it, yes.Zoe: So they didn't want me either.Kat: Having an abortion was never an option so when it was talked about it, they just ruled it out.Zoe: Because you wanted me or because it was too late?Kat: I didn't have the choice.Zoe: What if it weren't too late — would you have wanted to keep me then?Kat: I don't know. I was thirteen years old. It wasn't about you. You didn't have a name then. You wasn't even a person. You were just a thing growing inside me. A thing that was making everyone hate me and keeping me on the wrong side of a closed door listening to Mum crying. I was so scared. All that time, I was so scared.Kat to Lynne: One night, Mum come into our room. You weren't there for some reason. It was just after I told her about the baby. She tiptoed in, came and sat at the bottom of the bed. I turned the bedside lamp on, but she said, "No, no, turn it off." She sat at the bottom of the bed, not near me face but down near me feet and she said, "Me and Dad have been talking and we've decided to raise this baby as ours." It wasn't "your baby", it was "this baby," she said. Zoe was in my belly, she was part of me and even then she wasn't allowed to be mine.Kat: They took me out of school. Mum took me away to Aunt Vi's. I stayed there until you were born.Zoe: And you just went along with it?Kat: What else could I do? It wasn't my decision, any of it. The truth is, if I could have cut you out myself, I would have done. I felt nothing for you. In fact I hated you. "This thing growing inside of me is stealing my life" — but it wasn't always like that. I remember the day it changed. I was lying in the bath and you moved. I saw something poke out, like an elbow or something, just for a second, and then it disappeared. From that second, you stopped being a thing and you was my baby. And from that second, I've loved you more than anything else in this world. I even went and asked Mum if I could keep you. She said that everyone had worked so hard to sort things out, I wasn't to ruin anything. She said I could pick your name, but that was to be an end to it.Frank Butcher: I had another little girl.Pat Wicks: Left it a bit late, didn't you?Lydia Simmonds on her granddaughter Janine’s conception: Accidents will happen.Frank: We should have done something about it, but [June] wouldn't. She was in labour for hours. I was by her side for the first two or three, but when she started to yell and scream I had to leave her. I couldn't take it anymore and after a little while, nor could she. They performed a caesarian.Janine Butcher D/O/B: 28/10/83Ricky Butcher: All your life, you’ve just been nothing but trouble, Janine.Lydia Simmonds to Janine on a gold locket and chain: I gave it to your mother the day you were born.Frank: Baby was fine, seven pounds four ounces, but June was — it really took it out of her. Never really was the same.Janine Butcher on June: She was never the same after she had me. That’s when all the problems started with her health. I’m just bad news. It started with being born.Ricky: Her heart must have been weak to start with.Janine: She had you lot all right, didn’t she?Frank on June: She got home and her heart conked out. Strain, the doctor said. I mean, even when we got home from the hospital, she'd never let up.Pat: You can't when there's a baby around.Extracts from a letter from Lydia dated November1983: “My dearest June, Thank you so much for the photos of the baby. She looks a beautiful little child and I think Janine is a lovely name. I can see now what you mean when you say that just looking at her gives you the courage to carry on. She reminds me of you when you were a baby, and I hope she is as good as you were. You didn’t give me much trouble. A few sleepless nights of course, but you have to expect that. I am thinking of you and would of course love to see you and little Janine, but don’t know how possible that is at the moment."You are being very strong. I know that the illness must mean that you are getting very tired. Try not to push yourself too hard or expect too much of yourself. You and Janine are what is important right now. Think of yourself, rest as much as possible and take ...“All marriages experience difficulties and there’s no more difficult time than when you’ve just had a baby. What you call indifference could just be tiredness onhis part. Breaks my heart to think of you being unhappy, darling, especially when you’re so ill, but I’m glad you find comfort in the baby. Now she really is the most delightful child. In so many ways, she reminds me of you.”Lydia to Janine: You may not have been planned, but you were loved. Your mother adored you, doted on you, too much perhaps, and all she wanted was for you to make your mark in life.Frank: I did what I could, weekends and after work, but it was never enough.Diane Butcher: I used to cook with my mum, help out with Sunday lunch and things like that.Tina Stewart: Sundays was always cleaning day in our house. Only day I'd get off work, you see. Little brother and sister under me feet, Mum filling me in on all the local gossip. Favourite day of the week, it was — roast for tea, all of us together. Always thought it would be good practice for when I had my own family.Lydia Simmonds, looking at old holiday snaps: There’s another one of you and your mother in Scarborough.Ricky Butcher: I remember that. That was when I cut me foot on the shell, weren’t it?Ricky: [I was a] right stroppy so and so [to June]. But I was sorry after.Diane: Once I designed and knitted this jumper. You should have seen my mum. She couldn't stop laughing at it. She wasn't being nasty. She was just like that. My dad was always more serious, you know, "Try harder, Diane. Knitting can come in very handy one day."Heather Trott: I saw Wham! October ’83, Hammersmith Odeon. That’s when George and Andrew popped my cherry, concert-wise. I’ll never forget it, riding on the top deck of the bus through the West End, getting more and more excited.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?