A Good Little Church Boy

Having been depressed again recently, I thought I would get some more down on the Blog. I stopped having counselling a few months a go, but I found that getting it off my chest did help It's taken me a while to want to do this so here goes.

Church On Sunday

My Father always insisted that we attend Church on Sunday, unless we were away such as the holidays already mentioned. If I was at camp we had a service anyway and if it was Remembrance Sunday or St Georges day, I would attend Church with my Scout troop.

Our local Church was a fairly modern C of E building.. My Father despite his ideas was in no way a Catholic, despite his beliefs about 'sin', but every Sunday, come rain or shine, my Brother and I would put on a tie, sometimes our school uniform, but always in a shirt and trousers and walk to Church. The only time I ever remember being driven was when my mother was alive.

Our Vicar throughout my childhood years was a man called Mr Vincent. He was probably in his late forties as I remember him, dark, greying hair with quite a long-ish bushy beard which could vary in length. Sometimes it was quite long and halfway down his chest. He wasn't fat but more expanded in the waist and when he wasn't wearing his dog collar, he would wear a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows.

The other thing I recall about him was he had terrible dandruff and when he wore his black shirt it would be covered in flakes from his scalp and from his beard. He was never married that I knew of but lived on his own in a large old Vicarage behind overgrown shrubs and trees.

We would usually sit as a family when I was younger, presumably so my Father could keep an eye on us, but later on after my Brother had left home, I would usually be allowed to sit wherever I wanted, with Nathan as his parents went to the same Church, and we would try for the back pews, or at least as far back as decency permitted.

Unless my Father was angry with me or building up to one of his explosions, Nathan and I would meet inside the Church and take a pew together.

I remember nothing of Mr Vincent's sermons, I probably wasn't listening as Nathan and I would whisper to each other and muck about as quietly as possible, always standing when a hymn was called, although perhaps not singing and trying to avoid the gaze of the Vicar as he stood elevated by his pulpit.

Again if my Father was in a good mood, Nathan and I would walk back together, sometimes to his house, sometimes to mine through the park. If his parents were going somewhere without him, there would be opportunity for us to masturbate together in his room.

Masturbation was my  main 'sin' in my teens.

None of this would be possible if my Father was in a bad mood. I would have to sit next to him and make it look like I was paying attention. Of course he knew Mr Vincent quite well. It was he who had performed my Mother's funeral and must have watched us two boys growing up in front of him every Sunday. However until I was 14, my Father had never approached Mr Vincent about my upbringing before.

I think the reason was that my Father's temper and his view that I was becoming uncontrollable were snowballing into something bigger than it actually was. I was usually in fear of my Father and would try to be on my best behaviour most of the time, but this was no good if he was approaching one of his explosions. Whatever I did, he would find fault, eventually culminating in me getting a good hiding!

One Sunday he stayed behind to talk with Mr Vincent and I went off with Nathan as usual. There was nothing unusual about that as he often exchanged pleasantries with him and discussed the wrongs of the world and the youth of that day.

A couple of days afterwards when I arrived home from school, Mr Vincent was in the living room talking with my Father. I greeted him as my manners had taught me to do and I was asked to go to my room whilst they talked some more. I knew then that they were talking about me.

This set me into a panic as I knew my Father was up to something.

After some time there was a knock at my bedroom door and Mr Vincent came in.

He asked me to sit down and as there was only my desk chair, he had to sit on my bed which I recall I wasn't very happy about. It made me feel uncomfortable.

My Father had indeed told him all about how 'sinful' I was and when Mr Vincent mentioned the 'M' word I wanted to curl up and die with embarrassment. He also mentioned about evil forces at work and I wonder now if my Father had referred to the strange goings on in the house at the time.

Boys Brigade was suggested by Mr Vincent

He suggested two things. Firstly that I join the Boys Brigade which was run by himself and a couple of other people in association with the Church. In fact, they were always present at Remembrance Sunday marches and such and I knew a couple of boys within the BB who went to my school.

Secondly, that I come over to his house on Saturday mornings for some personal tuition and Bible study with him. He would set me some reading and perhaps an essay each week and then we would discuss various aspects of the passages included.

At this, my heart just sank as I thought my Father had done this to prevent me from going to Football practice on Saturday mornings. I felt he was just trying to get back at me and stop me from having a life. On top of all that, I had a lot of homework to do most evenings and I couldn't see how on earth I was going to have time to write essays on the Bible as well.

After he had gone I stayed in my room sulking until my Father came in and said that he had agreed with Mr Vincent's ideas all except the Boys Brigade and the only reason for that was that he would have to fork out for a whole new uniform and there was no way he was going to do that!

It was just as well as I was happy in the Scouts and all my mates were there and I didn't want to leave. In fact I had always thought that I would stay on into the Venture Scouts and beyond and maybe even become a leader myself.

I sulked in my room.......

When the next Sunday came round, Mr Vincent asked to to come into the vestry with him and gave me some reading to do and some questions to answer. The following Saturday, I was to go to the Vicarage at 9:30 with my work and we would see how it went from there.

I hated reading the Bible and the passages I was given were uninteresting and dull. However I duly did the work set and turned up on time. It was a huge old house that smelt very musty and was very untidy. Maybe he didn't have a housekeeper? I never knew.

In actual fact, he came over as kindly and understanding. I think my Father must have painted a picture of me being unruly, wilful and disobedient, which I wasn't and when Mr Vincent realise this, he was well disposed towards me. He embarrassed me by talking about onanism and how I felt about it. I think he understood all boys did it, but of course, I was doing it with Nathan as well which was a definite no, no!

What actually happened was that after a few months, the Saturday sessions got further apart as he realised he couldn't do anything for me until they eventually stopped altogether. Nothing was ever said about not coming. He had better things to do with his time and so did I.

I only ever went to one Boys Brigade meeting, in my School uniform, before that idea was dropped on it's head as well. I stayed with the Scouts until I was nearly 17.

The Perils of Masturbation

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Carry On Camping

Apart from those two Summer holidays, the only other times I was able to go away was at Scout camp for a week in the Summer Holidays. I have already related an experience at one of these camps when I was fifteen. I can't remember when the first time I went away was. We were not allowed to stay at camp overnight before the age of about 11 anyway so if it was very far, I probably wouldn't have gone but for the first couple of  Camps I attended, Luke was there as well.

The only problem was with money so tight, my Father wouldn't pay unless we could afford it ourselves with what money we had saved. That was fine for Luke as he had a paper round in the mornings. I didn't get one myself until I was thirteen. Even on this meagre sum, my Father insisted that some of the money, a third, went towards the housekeeping. As I recall that meant about a pound a week was lost.

In order for me to go to camp one year, which I was desperate to do, I had to get some money together. I resorted to lies and deception for which I still feel guilty.

 Bob-A-Job week, cleaning shoes!

It was the usual thing for Scouts to do jobs for money in the 70's. They would call this 'Bob-A-Job' week in which the money paid for the service would be collected by the troop and given to charity.

One year, although it was not the set week, I went out in my uniform knocking on doors and asking if they had any jobs that needed doing. My plan was to keep the money that I had earned and put it towards the cost of the summer camp, which was wicked of me.

All went well, until I unfortunately got an elderly man who it seemed, was wise to exactly when the allotted week would be and asked some awkward questions about why I was doing it now. My quick thinking saved me as I told him that I would be unable to do the actual week as I was on holiday so I was doing my share now. I am not sure if he was convinced as he handed me the fork to dig his garden and I kept seeing him eyeing me suspiciously from his kitchen window. However, when the job was done, which took a couple of hours, he duly paid the money and offered to show me his collection of football programmes!

This was another occasion, when I lay awake wondering if he had contacted my Troop to confirm my story and if I would be taken to task the following Wednesday when I got to Scouts.

My Father hated a thieving and lying and several times I had been punished for doing both. I am sure he couldn't really tell if I was lying to him or not as he would always disbelieve me even when I was telling the truth! Perhaps that was just his excuse to give me a whipping anyway?

 I was not a good liar, my Father always knew.

When the camp week came, I would organise all my kit into an orange rucksack. There was no light weight camping in those days. My rolled up brown sleeping bag weighed a ton and I would go plodding off down the road in my uniform with my patterned socks and sandals on my feet.

The Scout hut, tents, camping gear and boys all had a very distinctive smell. I am not sure what it was but if I smell it now, it takes me right back to those times.

It may have been the canvas or just the unwashed youth themselves but once smelt, it is never forgotten, a kind of musty smell.

Usually, the tents we had were of varying sizes sleeping two or four scouts. The leaders in their own tents. At my very first camp, I shared with my Brother but after that, it could be anyone although you would try to get in with your friends.

Sometimes we would be split up by the Leaders in order to avoid too much larking about.

Once I remember being in a tent with three other lads, one of whom was a boy called Andrew. We had the usual laughs and conversations that lads do when freed from the restraints of the Family well into the night. We must have made so much noise that one of the Leaders, Mr Shirfield, angrily burst into our tent and told Andrew to get his stuff as he would be spending the night with him. The rest of us were told to get to sleep without another sound or else which we did. Andrew had apparently been singled out because it was his voice that Mr Shirfield could hear above all others. He came back the following morning having spent the night on the floor next to Mr Shirfield's camp bed not daring to even breath to heavily!

 The best camp site we went to was in the New Forest which had purpose built toilets and showers so at least you could keep yourself clean and showering was encouraged in my Baptist run troop as 'cleanliness is next to Godliness' we were told.

The showers were, however invariably cold and not very inviting standing on wet concrete trying to dry yourself.

There were many different troops at that particular campsite which was very large and probably full to capacity on the two occasions I was there.

There were also Sea Scouts and Air Cadets as I recall and on Sunday morning the whole camp would get together for an open air Church service in the centre of the camp around the flag pole. The sound of a couple of hundred boys all trying to sing a hymn, all out of time and mostly out of tune was not pleasing. One of the attending leaders, probably a Minister of some denomination would conduct the service which would have a message of goodwill and friendship mixed in somewhere.

Scouts just wanna  have fun.

We did feel like we were one unit as well. If ever I have felt the presecence of God or whatever God means, it was probably one of those Sunday mornings at camp and not in a drafty church pew where I spent most of my Sunday mornings.

However,all we wanted to do as boys was to get it over with and get on with that days planned activities. More often than not these would be 'home grown' such a s nature rambles, night hikes and building camps as there was a lot of acreage surrounding the campsite in the New Forest and of course much of the woods to explore. Occasionally we would be treated to something really exciting such as canoeing.

The most frightening activity for me was the 'Hare and Hounds' a kind of paper chase where one lad would have to run off with some minutes in advance and leaving some sort of clue, usually in the form of paper or rice to indicate his trail.

The other Scouts would chase after, the 'Hounds' as they were known and try to catch up with the lead boy. I say this was frightening for me because once I was chosen as the Hare which seemed like a good idea at the time, but I soon realised that keeping ahead was not as easy as it seemed. Having recently read 'Lord of the Flies' at school all I could picture was the pig hunt leading to the death of one of the boys and soon I was beginning to panic and the fear adrenalin was rushing through my body! To make matters worse, I tripped and fell, tearing the knee out of my Scout uniform trousers and badly scraping myself. That made me even slower and when I arrived back at the camp, I practically collapsed in front of Mr Shirfield like a gibbering wreck, hotly followed by the rest of my troop.

To cap it all my Father was not pleased at me wrecking my trousers which had to be darned as a new pair could not be afforded, but I paid in full for that! Even now I have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach if I see a man hunt of the television and I can't watch the film version of 'Lord of the Flies'!

 However, the best time of all was when we had our free time just to go off and do whatever we wanted, within reason, for an hour or two. We were free from the restrictions of home and for me at least, I didn't have to ask permission before heading off into the woods.

Freetime!

At a later camp when I was fifteen, I shared at tent with Andrew alone and it has to be said, he was responsible for leading me astray and teaching me bad habits during that week.

He had brought with him some 'nude' playing cards which was somewhat risky. He would go through the whole pack telling me about which girls he fancied and ranking them in order of preference, size of tits etc. and then I would do my comparison on who I fancied and why, not unlike 'Top Trumps' with marks out of ten.

Andrew swore he had had a hand job from a girl at school but as he was a bit of a bragger, I didn't believe him. However his stories about spying on his step sister whilst she was in the shower were more likely knowing him. All these things used to fuel my bate and give me lusty thoughts of a girl I had never met, soaping herself. The kind of illicit thoughts my Father was trying to prevent..

Spying on Sister in the shower.









He was the one that also told me how to masturbate without detection in bed.

That old phrase 'hands off cocks and n with socks' has never seemed more apt when he revealed to me that when he felt like a wank, he would put a sock over his dick and continue to masturbate, eventually ejaculating inside it. The job done, there would be no mess on the bedsheets and the sock could easily be put out to wash with the semen securely inside. There was no worry about being found out..

Of course I put this to good use at home and found it worked very well provided it was me that took the washing to the laundrette as the socks tended to go hard with the semen when dried out and I am sure my Father would have been wise to it.

 Hands off cocks and on with socks!

He was responsible for a lot of young squaddies who were probably all as horny as me. If he was aware of this trick, and Army Sergeants usually are wise to a thing or two, I am sure he would have caught me out.

I remember Andrew having a wank in his sleeping bag one night when he thought I was asleep, presumably with sock in place. We all wore pyjamas when camping in those days! The unmistakable sound of gentle rubbing and breathing getting slightly heavier cannot be mistaken. I have done it myself in a hostel dormitory full of other  lads. You are desperate for a wank but are just as desperate not to be heard for the sake of embarrassing yourself!

I wasn't going to have a wank in front of Andrew. He was far too straight to suggest mutual masturbation and so I resorted to the toilet block and as I have already told, I was caught out by one of the scout leaders.

He also told me he could make himself cum just by squeezing his dick between his legs and this was a trick he used when he was at school in a boring lesson. I had my doubts. Not about the trick, but about doing it at school as I couldn't imagine his cum filled underpants soaking through to his trousers would go un-noticed for long. This was how he assured me, he had had his hand job. It was under the desk from a girl in his class who sat next to him. I can't see that he would get away with cumming all over his shoes without being noticed either. What a liar he was.

Nylon Pyjamas, great for life saving!

Talking of pyjamas, we would sometimes get taken to the swimming pool on a Wednesday night and one of our badges involved life saving techniques. For this you needed your pyjamas which acted as clothing and you had to take them off whilst in the water. Then, try and fill  them with air and tie up the  leg ends to use as a floatation device. Nylon pyjamas were the best for this sort of thing as they were practically dry by the time you got home, so I was  ahead of the rest in that respect, especially as I probably had to wear them that night.

That was to be my last Scout camp. By the following Autumn I would be sixteen and my Father had told me I was to spend the Summer working to pay my way before I was old enough to go into the army. I had already worked extremely hard to pass my examinations and was looking forward to a little break but it was not to be whilst I was living under his roof.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

I sometimes think when I am particularly depressed that the incident of December 1976 and the severe thrashings my Father used to give me were all due to my sexual activities.

My punishments were frequent when I was in my teens.



I know my Father was punishing me for wrong doing, although sometimes it was in no way justified, what I mean is some sort of divine punishment. If God was looking down on me, was he trying to get his message across by showing me that I would come to physical pain, a hell on earth, if I didn't stop my personal self abuse?

It is these sort of thought that can lead me onto a downward spiral and I start to think that it may be to late to absolve myself.
Some time has passed now since I told my secret and the world has not ended. I feel better for getting it off my chest!

If I try and think of a time when I was happy during my childhood, it would certainly be when I was away from my Father, at Scout camp. It may have only been for a week in the Summer but it gave me a sense of freedom. A weight was definitely lifted from my shoulders during those times.

I was happy in the scouts.






We had few holidays when I was a child. I can recall going away twice.

The first time was before my Mother passed away. My Father had rented a static caravan in Devon near Oakhampton. This was in about 1967.

It was very basic with no running water and was situated in a meadow behind a large old Farmhouse with the pig sty at one end and trees and fields at the other.

I was about six at the time and my Brother and I would roam the fields and woods exploring together. Occasional family trips to the beach at Bude would occur and if lucky we would have an Ice cream.

I have mixed memories of that that holiday, some good ones because of the happy time I spent with my Brother, of sunny beaches and salt water. My Mother was still well as far as I could remember but it was to be our last holiday as a family.

I have a distinct memory of being chased around the field by my Father because I had angered him over something. Being small, he easily caught me and I was dragged screaming back to the caravan for punishment. I also remember standing outside a supermarket and a man came out and asked me, politely, not to lean against the glass window. As soon as he was gone, I received a swift back hander from my Father which took me by surprise and knocked me to the floor, presumably because he had been embarrassed in front of the store manager.

Even in those days I would masturbate and I would go off alone and swing in a gate or other convenient post, rubbing my groin up against the wood for pleasure.

Once, my Brother coming across me suddenly asked me what I was doing and I embarrassedly told him I was just 'swinging'. A few days later I found him doing exactly the same thing in the same spot. Whether it worked for him of not I don't know, he didn't tell me for sure, but I suspect he knew there was something more to my 'swinging'.

Aside from my Scout camps, which I was not allowed to go to every year for lack of funds, that was our last Holiday, until I was in my mid teens.

My Father had decided that he wanted to go away for a week. My Brother by that time was in the Navy and as there was no way I would be left alone at home, I had to go with him, much to my reluctance as we were not getting on at all by this stage.

Surprisingly, he left me to my own devices for the whole week whilst he did his thing. Again, he had hired a caravan for the week near Tintagel in Cornwall. This one was on an actual campsite of about fifty static vans and there was a shop and social club along with toilet and shower blocks.

The only rules were I had to be in bed for ten o clock at night and I was not to get into any trouble. However, trouble has seemed to follow me throughout my life whatever I do!

My Father even gave me some money to buy some food and I lived for the week on Cornish pasties and orangeade with a box of rice crispies for breakfast.

My Father's aim for that week was to chat up as many women as he could and spend his evenings with them in the social club. I don't know if he ever got his leg over, hopefully not as he was very strict about matters like sex before marriage and was always trying to catch me out for masturbating, so it would have made him something of a hypocrite!

I spent most of my time walking into Tintagel or exploring the beach and the cliffs

It was on one of my rambles that I found a small cave in a secluded cove. There at the back was the first condom I had ever seen, used of course, but I picked it up and examined it closely. The thought of some young couple coming there specifically to have sex was a big turn on and I ended up having a wank alone there several times that week.

I went back to the cave almost every day and sometimes later in the evening to see if I could catch anyone at it.

One time the cave was filled with some lads, older than me having a lark. I was very wary of groups of youths in those days, not having a great deal of self confidence as I was regularly bullied at school and something of a loner, so I crept away silently. They emerged from the cave as I was walking back up the path and on seeing me, started calling. I don’t know if they wanted me to come back or if they were jeering at me. I must have looked very un-cool in my nylon shirt, shorts and sandals anyway. I just looked back and didn't respond. Fortunately they didn't follow me.

The campsite toilets were clean enough, but that didn't stop the walls being written on with lewd comments  and usually drawings of some large penis or female genitalia. There would be suggestions of wanting to meet at a a certain time for sex and whole paragraphs of dirty stories. Some of this was quite a turn on for me and I would lock the cubicle door and stand reading then with my penis in my hand, wanking.

Most of this graffitti was cleaned away soon after it was written, but one afternoon I visited the toilets and walked into a cubicle where someone had had a wank and cum all over the toilet seat and floor. I quickly relieved myself and on leaving the cubicle, practically bumped into the man who was coming in to clean. As I was walking back up the roadway, I looked back to see him standing in the doorway scowling at me. I assume he thought it had been me that had made such a mess, but it wasn't. I just got the blame!

This kind of toilet literature has been a fascination for me ever since and as I have spent quite a lot of time hanging around public toilets. I have had plenty of opportunity to read it. I have even added to it sometimes with suggestions of my own and it has been a great source of stimulus for me as well.

That week I met a girl on the beach one day, her name was Natalie and we got chatting about things. She was on holiday with her parents and younger sister and staying in the same campsite. We spent sometime chatting about this and that under the watchful gaze of her Father as she was about the same age as me and had a very developed chest as I recall!

We became friends for a few days and I even took her to see the cave I had found where she kissed me full on the mouth which was quite a surprise!

She made no judgements about my clothes or hair and when I told her about the regimes I was living under with my Father, she was even sympathetic and understanding.

I thought she may be up for it, especially as she told me I was to come to her caravan in the evening as her Parents would be going to the social club and leaving her and her sister in to go to bed by themselves.

I still had a couple of hours before I was supposed to be in bed as It was only eight o clock when I made my over to her caravan.

She said her sister was in bed and we sat down and chatted for a bit, keeping quiet so as not to disturb the sleeper. She had a bottle of lemonade into which she had tipped some of her Father’s whiskey and topped his bottle up with some water so he wouldn’t notice.

Even now I am never sure how someone who drinks whiskey cannot notice when it has been watered down!

This was not the best combination of drinks to be sure, but it was alcohol and we didn’t care!

After lots of chatting she got back into kissing me and I spent a lot of time feeling under her top. This snogging went on for some time and developed further into some heavy petting. The whole thing came to a head when her little sister appeared on the scene and wanted to know what we were doing. She insisted Natalie was not allowed to have boys in the caravan and that if she didn't get rid of me straight away, she would tell her Dad.

Of course Natalie protested and tried to get her to go back to bed but she was having none of it. When little sis also saw we were drinking alcohol she went into a right strop and Natalie suggested I leave as she was making so much noise, it would surely get someone who was passing to knock on the door.

I left with a boner straining to get out of my trousers and fearing the Natalie's Dad would surely be round as soon as he was told of the situation. After all he had seen me at the beach for the last couple of days, so I would be the main culprit.

As I lay in bed I could think of nothing else but that knock at the door, but it never came, so whether she managed to clam her sister, I never found out as I spent the next day avoiding the beach and Natalie and the following day was Saturday and my Father and I went home. I never saw her again but have often wondered what my first time with her would have been like.

My First Seduction

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Spare The Rod

Punishments

I have kept diaries on and off throughout my life. From about the age of eight, I had those small 'Letts' pocket ones with the pencil in the spine. I never threw any of them away, but some of them were torn up by my Father! This was because I used to write my most intimate secrets in them which was innocent enough at the age of eight, but by the time I was in my teens and feeling sexual urges, these things had to be kept hidden from him.

I knew my Father 'searched' my bedroom regularly. He was looking for anything that he thought wrong for me to own or read. By that I mean he was dead against me looking at things like pornography as he thought it would lead me to masturbation and other vices and he considered onanism a sinful thing. He would check my bed sheets for any signs of wrong doing after I had gone to school, but in later years, he didn't even wait until then and would go in whilst I was in the bathroom in the mornings!

I often think of that expression “Hands off cocks and on with socks” which I think is an old Army thing, meaning that the squaddies should stop masturbating and start getting dressed. Maybe my Father saw a lot of masturbation during his time in the Army. I don’t know. I did find this advice quite useful and adapted it for my own benefit, more of which later!

He knew or at least discovered all my hiding places that I used. I only ever owned one Porn magazine, a copy of 'Blue Climax' which was given to me by my Brother who was in the Navy and was more likely to get hold of these things from foreign shores. This I managed to keep from my Father for over two years until it was finally found! I have since found some scans from the very same magazine I had.

It's a really horny story about a guy fucking two sisters and even gets me going today! I love the text of these magazines.

I also used to keep those pages from catalogues from the women’s underwear section and anything I found arousing from other magazines. I would cut out the bit I wanted and keep them between the pages of my ‘Look and Learn’ annual or one of my school books. Blue Climax was harder to hide and that ended up under the carpet in a corner of my bedroom.

If my Father found one of these stimulants, he would confront me with it, shouting about filth and such like. I would be struck about the head with the back of his hand and then be given a thrashing.

My Father spanked us from an early age. One of my first memories was of being slapped by him. I must have been about 3 or 4 years at the time. He was very quick to anger and would go from apparently calm to raging temper in about two seconds.

Things got steadily worse after my Mother had died and we got older and into our teens. After my brother had left, he would use any reason going to punish me if he could. Over the space of about 4-5 weeks, his temper would gradually increase and if he hadn’t found an excuse in the meantime, he would boil over and I would be soundly whipped.

His favourite weapon of choice was a cut down piece of garden cane, about half a meter long. He kept this in the cupboard under the stairs and later by the hall table (we moved to a bungalow). I would be sent to the bedroom, knowing what was coming as he went to get his cane. I would be told to take down my trousers and pants and bend over, either holding our ankles or over the back of a chair. There was little formality to it and he would hit in quick succession, no counting or pausing, just blow after blow until he had got his anger out of his system.

Holding my ankles, I quite often lost balance, despite the fact he would be holding me by the neck in a tight grip! He would pick me up by the arm and throw me onto the bed and continue the punishment.

Twice he beat me in front of my school friend Nathan. Once when I was about 7, we had been playing in the garden and cracked a window with a small rubber ball. I was taken over his knee and thrashed whilst Nathan stood and watched!

Later at about 15, we were both in the kitchen and my Father called me to my room. He had found some 'marks' on my bed sheets and demanded to know what it was, shouting at the top of his voice. I don't know whether I was guilty or not but he whipped me there and then with Nathan still standing in the kitchen!

I can't describe the humiliation I felt and being beaten in front of a friend. Nathan knew what my Father was like. He himself was thrashed at home, his Father was a German man, but with nothing like the frequency, lack of justification, or rage that my Father gave it to me and my Brother. Incidentally, I saw Luke get a thrashing in several occasions in front of me!

On one occasion when I was quite young, I was lying in bed and heard him come home. I think I had played my Mother up or something and she had threatened to tell him when he came home, which she did. I knew as his footsteps came up the stairs that he was coming for me and as the door opened and I saw his silhouette in the light from the hall, I was absolutely terrified! He said nothing but dragged me from the bed, bent me over the side and thrashed me severely. Looking back, I wonder why on earth he paused to take down my pyjama trousers. These were very flimsy nylon and offered absolutely no protection whatsoever to me!

A friend of mine asked “When was the last time he beat you?” and I replied I was actually 17! He expressed surprise that I hadn't fought back at that by that age and I told him that was because my Father would have KILLED me! I was that brow beaten living under his regime, and really scared of making him angry, I would never have dared. I left home not long after that incident.