A Haunted House?

The house we lived in whilst my Father was in the Army was married accommodation rented from the Forces. This was a two bedroom semi and it was while living here that I first saw 'the ghost' or whatever it was.

I remember I was seven years old and sharing a bedroom with my brother. Our two beds were on either side of the room with mine facing the door about 3 foot from the bottom end of my bed. The door onto the landing was slightly open as was usual. This allowed some light to shine through from the hallway at night. My Father usually turned the landing light off when he retired to bed.

On this particular night I was awakened suddenly and on looking around, I noticed that the door was wide open and framed in the doorway was a dark human shape. My first thought was that it was my Father standing there, but there was something about the shape that told me it wasn't him. It just didn't have his outline. When I realised this I began to feel afraid, thinking it might be a burglar and not being able to take my eyes off it. I just stood there and although I could see no face, I felt it was looking right at me and barely six foot from my head.

I don't know how long this went on for, but it seemed a long time, when slowly, it started to move into the room. I didn't walk, it just sort of moved and I knew at that point it was supernatural.

I was paralysed with fear and wanted to call to my Brother who I could hear breathing in the next bed, but something stopped me from using my voice. As it drew closer, I thought the best thing to do was pray and I started saying the Lord's Prayer over in my head. All at once, I found the strength to move and hid back down under my sheets, still saying the Lord's Prayer and still terrified that it would grab me. Nothing happened!

After about half an hour or so, I peeped out from underneath and could see nothing at all. On looking further, I could see that the door was still open, but the room was empty so I knew I hadn't been dreaming. I leapt out of bed and pushed the door closed as quickly as I could, lest the 'thing' was still on the landing and meant to grab me.

Eventually my fear subsided and I fell asleep.

When I told my Brother about it the next morning, he didn't laugh but said he too had seen the shape before and suspected it had been our Mother, who died less that 18 months before that incident. I wasn't so sure as the shape didn't resemble her either. Why would she come and give me a fright like that if it was her?

After that, strange things began to happen, usually minor, except that my Father would blame us for them.

Objects would go 'missing' in that they were not where they had been left and could not be located when required. I remember a small china cat that stood on the mantle piece undisturbed for years went missing at one point. No one had been near it as far as I knew but it was special because it had belonged to my Mother. One day it was simply not there anymore.

I asked Luke who denied all knowledge of its whereabouts, but I had to be more careful of enquiring to my Father as I knew he would suspect we had broken it. It took him about 3 days to realise it was gone and sure enough we were interrogated by him. I knew then it was not him as he was a very moral person who would have been angry with himself if he had broken it. We got the usual line “If I find out you two are lying to me........” as a warning. The cat was never found.

We moved out of the married accomodation within a couple of years of the strange figure appearing and my Father rented a bungalow with two bedrooms. Luke and I had a bedroom at the back of the house whilst my Father slept at the front. The bathroom was between these two bedrooms. Down the side of the house was a path that led from the front garden to the back. This side of the house was where the two bedrooms were located.

I don't know if ghosts can move house with a person, but the strange things seemed to follow us there.

Often at night I would hear footsteps walking down the paved path that ran along the side of the bungalow. There was no window on that wall in either room but I had two, one of which was just after the corner of the building and anyone coming into the back garden would have to pass this. I never saw anyone coming round the corner although the footsteps would continue until it seemed they reached the lawn. I remember the step was purposeful and heavy enough to be a man in shoes and I would hear them at least once a month if not more.

Another incident I wrote about in my diary occurred one Saturday evening. My Brother, who was about 14 at the time and I were watching the 'Generation Game' on TV. My Father came in and told Luke to go and do the washing up (my Father made sure we each had our chores to do) and Luke asked if he could see the end of the programme. My Father being who he was told him he had go and do it straight away and started to walk out of the living room.

Suddenly a smooth round stone shot across the room and struck my Father on the shoulder from behind with quite a force!

I don't know where it had come from, but it was the corner of the room where the TV stood. I didn't see it start but Luke could certainly not have thrown it as he was sitting on the other side of the room, near the door and it was travelling towards him. I distinctly saw it whizz past me before hitting my Father, who assumed it had been Luke. He flew back into the room and belted him round the head a few times. Even me telling him it couldn't have been Luke earned me a back hander as well! Luke was carted off to the bedroom and thrashed for something he didn't do that night. I know because I saw it!

On walking into the kitchen one day, I discovered the room was filled with a smoke-like substance. My first thought was that there was a fire, but the oven and cooker were not on. We didn't have the kind of electrical appliances that you do now, so no toaster, nor even an electric kettle. I stupidly opened the window to let the smoke out, which could have been very dangerous allowing air to get to the source of heat. I never discovered what had caused the smoke. Nothing was ever found that was burnt.

Most disturbing of all was after my Brother had left home and I slept alone in the back bedroom. I used to hear a 'shuffling' sound outside my door as if someone in slippers were pacing about. The footsteps were slow and heavy like they had difficulty in walking or were elderly. The house had previously belonged to an elderly man who had died. I was too scared to open my door and look out and I never did. This went on for some years and seemed to increase in intensity at certain times of the month. I would hear it two or even three times a week at its peak.

Even worse was a distinct 'mumbling' that began to accompany the footsteps. I could never make out any words as they were too 'distant' even if I listened at the door. It was like someone had the radio on in another room.

Also surprising was that my Father, who was asleep only at the other end of the corridor, never heard, or never mentioned the noises to me. If I was awoken by them, why wasn't he?

I woke up one night, freezing because my sheets and blanket had all been pulled off the bed and were lying on the floor. This was at the foot of the bed and they had been securely tucked under the matress when I went to sleep, so I don't see how my movements could have caused me to kick them off. Afterwards this began to happen on a regular basis, but never on the same nights as the shuffling man noises.

Once whilst lying in in bed at night, I started to feel horny, getting an erection, I began to rub my pyjamas over my cock. I knew it would be difficult to cum but I was enjoying the sensation anyway. As I played, I gradually became aware of a noise that sounded like breathing from somewhere in the room. At first I thought it was the sound of me moving my hand but when I stopped, the sound continued. It was the distinct sound of someone breathing through their nose from somewhere in the room, but I could see nothing.

I lost my erection pretty quickly after that as I was petrified!

On at least 3 occasions over the later years I lived there, I distinctly heard a man's voice call my name. Twice this occurred in the early hours of the morning and woke me up. It could have been a dream but I also heard the same voice whilst I was in the kitchen one afternoon. It was the sort of voice that was summoning me to come to another room, an inquiry for my attention. I was quite alone in the house that day and it definitely was not my Father's voice calling.

Once I discovered a ball of screwed up paper alight in the middle of the bathroom floor! I had just entered the room to use the toilet and there it was, almost as if someone had just put a match to it that second. One side if it was burning and as I watched in astonishment, the flame spread all over it. Fortunately being in the bathroom I was able to tip water on it and douse the flame. My Father was in his bedroom at the time and as far as I know, he had not been to the bathroom for some time before then.

I had been bought a dark brown nylon shirt one Christmas by my Father (he always gave us clothes, socks or pyjamas). I didn't like this particular shirt as it was quite 'see through' and I was very self conscious and used to wear a vest underneath. I was made to wear this shirt for Church quite a lot.

One day, whilst going through my wardrobe, I discovered that this shirt had a hole about the size of a golf ball burnt into the tail. I knew it was burnt and not just torn as the nylon was melted at the edges. How this could possibly have happened I do not know as the tail would have been tucked into my trousers when I last wore it. We didn't have any radiators that I could have burnt it on and No one was living in the house except me and my Father at the time.

I knew he would kill me if he found out. The shirt was only a few months old at the time. As the tail was always in my trousers, he wouldn't know if I was wearing it, but hanging on the line he would have seen it. He also used to go through my clothes and pockets so I had to keep it well hidden from him. I tried sewing it but of course it never looked the same and eventually he found out. He went mad accusing me of smoking and punished me, again for something I didn't do deliberately!

One more thing I have just remembered whilst writing this blog. One day whilst my Brother was still at home, my Father having just been in his bedroom came flying out in a rage and dragged both of us in there. On the ceiling, up in the corner of the chimney breast was some tiny writing. It looked as if it had been written in a red biro and consisted, I later found out, of language my Brother and I would not have used in front on my Father. It was situated in a place where you would have had to move his dressing table and stand on a chair to get to it and was in a childish hand.

He, of course demanded to know which of us had done it and as usual, denying any involvement did us no good. We were both soundly beaten and made to clean it off.

Imagine my horror then when a week or so later, being in my Father's room when he was out, I noticed more writing behind his dressing table mirror on the chimney breast wall. I was sure that it had not been there previously and I was also sure that Luke had not done it. I cleaned it off before my Father came home and fortunately it didn't happen again to my knowledge.

It was almost as if the ghost was trying to get me into trouble by burning things or leaving things that my Father would find and blame me for it. I don't know how much stuff my Father saw when I wasn't around but he would go mad at us if he thought we had done something like moved his keys when they couldn't be found. Then there was the stone throwing incident.

It was deliberately thrown to hit my Father which it did and of course Luke was punished for it, but neither of us threw it at him, or indeed would have dared because of the consequences.

After I left home, I did see and hear strange things whilst I was living at the hotel and also in my various bedsits and other accommodations. As time went on, they became less frequent until they virtually stopped altogether when I was about 30 years old.  I still see people from time to time.

The Perils of Masturbation

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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.

In The Navy

My Father had always wanted his sons to go into the Army on leaving school as he and his Father had done. He was there fore appalled when my Brother, Luke announced that he had signed up for the Navy.

My Brother Luke joined the Royal Navy

Relations between them had not been good for years and although my brother was always more of a rebel than me, we had always been under my Father's thumb. The moments of rebellion were easily sorted with a thrashing, so it surprised me as well to learn of his career choice especially as he had not told me about it before hand.

My brother and I were close as children and into adulthood as our Mother had died when we were young. I think we took comfort in each other as we had an uncaring, unloving Father and there was no one else to turn to. Luke was always very protective of me as a boy and on more than one occasion he tried to intervene to prevent me from getting a thrashing. This had resulted in him experiencing my Father's stick as well as me.

When we were younger he would often get into my bed and cuddle into my back during the night, especially if it was a cold winter as we had no central heating in the 1960's and 70's. Later in life after he had joined up, my Father had got rid of his bed from our shared room, and when coming home on leave he would have to sleep on the sofa for a few nights. Quite often he would get into my single bed during the night, saying he was cold and remain there until the early hours. There was not a lot of room with two lads in a single bed but I didn't mind as I found it a comfort and I was still living with my Father's regimes. Luke had at least escaped that tyranny in part.

When I visited Luke in his bedsits and flats, we used to sleep together in his single bed as he had no mattress to put me up on and no chair big enough to stretch out.

The problem with My Father was that he in the Army and saw the Navy as being the poor cousin to the other Services and a bit 'gay'. Whether this was true of not I don't know. I asked my Brother if he was gay at once. He had told me of some of the things he had got up to in the Navy and I thought they were a bit suspect myself. His reply was to laugh and then he went to fetch his kit bag. It was then that he produced a copy of 'Blue Climax' magazine which he gave to me. I took this to mean that he wasn't and that he still loved straight sex. My eye widened when I saw the pictures of men and women having intercourse. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. He warned me that I must keep it well hidden because if my Father found it.......!

I managed this successfully for the next few years until it was discovered. I refused to tell my Father where I had got it from although he must have suspected Luke having been to many foreign countries by this time. He gave me several back handers whilst he was questioning me. I was told I had a dirty disgusting mind and with that he went to fetch his stick.

My Father would cane us over the slightest mistake

I never saw the magazine again although I have many fond memories of its contents and I was lucky enough to find some scans of the pages on the internet.

Incidentally that was the very last time my Father ever beat me. Soon after, I had left home for good.

'Pool Party Pranks' was one of my favourite photo stories from the magazine.

   

  I love the way the women chow down on those big cocks and one guy is sucked off on the edge of the pool. The fashion now is for shaved cunts, but I prefer them natural, less artificial. One of the most horny things about this type of magazine, 'Colour Climax' especially, is the language and the stories. I love the way they convey the characters lust and the dirty talk. It really gets me going and that is something you don't see with modern pornography.

I of course never went into the Army either. My Father took me for an interview and medical when I was 16 with a view to me signing up.

 

My Army medical was not quite like this!

 I also went for a kind of trial weekend trial in Windsor at the barracks there to see how I got on working with the horses. I think my Father wangled it as a kind of favour to him and I spent the weekend mucking out and polishing tack! The thing was I had to sleep in a dormitory on my own with the door locked on the outside so the squaddies couldn't interfere with me during the night!

 

I had to be locked into my dormitory in case of molestation.

I tried to be enthusiastic but I knew I didn't want to do this. I had had enough of regimes, being told what to do and when to do it. I was told when to have my haircut and when to go to bed, when to do my homework and whether I could go out or not.
When my Father received the letter saying they didn't think I was the right material they were looking for, he was not pleased and made my life hell for the next few weeks.

I was keen on sport at school and particularly football. I was considered good enough to play for the school team. This meant going to practice and matches out of school hours which I was keen to do. However, my Father had other ideas and would prevent me from doing this whenever possible, insisting that I came home after school to do my homework and sometimes forbidding me to go out on Saturday mornings to practice depending on his mood. Consequently I was dropped from the first team.

This is where he was full of contradictions. He wanted me to go into the Army for which an interest in sport would have been useful, but he insisted on me studying just to spite me. He wouldn't have ever considered letting me stay at school for A levels, yet he got me to study instead of letting me play football.

I don't think my PE teacher Mr Griffin understood there was a conflict at home. In fact he was a bit of a sadist to some boys. If he had understood and seen my problems, he might have supported me more, even spoken to my Father about my sport, but he didn't.

Once, after I had been beaten I was changing after a games lesson. The red welts were still visible across my backside and I was trying to avoid taking a shower. I didn't want the other boys to see. Mr Griffin realised I hadn't showered and insisted that I get my kit off. When the other boys saw my discomfort it caused much hilarity and great fun was made of my situation. None of this was helped by Mr Griffin who threatened to thrash me himself if I didn't get in those showers pronto!

This was no idle threat as I had in the past been slippered by him for forgetting my PE kit I had to use a spare pair of shorts from a box in his office and do the lesson in my school shirt and shoes.

On another occasion, I was unfairly tackled in a game by one of the boys who constantly made my life a misery, Andrew Hedges. The game was stopped and Mr Griffin having seen what had happened, sent Andrew off to the showers. He complained and called me several names to which I told him to go and multiply! I was also unfairly sent to the showers.

Alone in the changing rooms and amid more abuse from this boy, he went into the showers first and I hung back a bit. When I came out after him he was already partially dressed and as I was drying myself, he flicked my backside with his towel. I saw red and bollock naked, flew at him knocking him to the floor. It was at this point that Mr Griffin arrived and separated us, but it was me that was sent to the Headmaster's office for fighting. If anyone was sent there at all, it usually resulted in a caning but first he had to speak to my Father. This meant phoning him at work and after that had been achieved, I received six strokes. Of course my Father was livid and I received a more severe thrashing when I got home.

I was caned by the Headmaster for fighting

More Than Military!

STRICT REGIME:

I have already mentioned my Father was an Army Sergeant and had been when he met my Mother. He remained in the Army until the mid 1970's when he started working for the Prison Service.
My Father's idea of bringing up two boys was to run each day as if his home were an army camp where his word was law.

Part of his regime was to make sure my Brother and I had a haircut every 3-4 weeks. On the face of it, that might not seem too bad, and in the 1960's, short hair could still be tolerated in young boys as I was then. However, by the time the 70's had begun, long hair was very much in fashion and it was devastating to be dragged to the Barbers to have a 'short back and sides'. This is somewhat an understatement as my hair was often shaved at the back and sides upon the instruction of my Father, on the face of it because he wanted to treat us like his squaddies. Looking back now, I can see that this was just another form of his control.

The haircutting regime, plus other factors such as my clothes, (more of which later) had a devastating effect on me. When I started Secondary school in 1972, long hair was very much in vogue and when I came along, despite being a First Former, I stuck out like a sore thumb. For the next three years I was almost constantly bullied for the way I looked, sometimes getting in fights and trouble at the school. My main nemesis was a boy called Andrew Hedges who was bigger, tougher and probably had problems of his own to contend with. Not that that excuses his behaviour. I believe that the way you bring up your children is very important and if you bully them and beat them, that is how they behave in kind. This was certainly the case with my Father and very probably with Andrew Hedges too.

If there was to be a haircut, my Father would meet me from school in the car, a white Viva estate. I remember it had blue plastic seats which were unbearably hot in summer, especially if you were wearing shorts! There would be no prior warning such as ‘I will take you for a haircut tonight’, he would just arrive and be waiting for me after school. This happened regularly every 4-5 weeks at the outside.

Apart from my problems with the haircut regime, I had worse with the Barber himself.
For some reason I was bullied and intimidated by the man from the time I started going there at about the age of six, until I was about 15 or 16.

His shop was at the end of a little row with what must have been a Victorian frontage, a door on the right and a large window on the left as you faced it. The chairs and mirrors were down the left hand side of the shop with bench seats around the back wall and right hand side of the room. There were magazines and comics to read, some of which were ‘Playboy’ and ‘Mayfair’.

I think this guy must have been ex-military, because my Father seemed to know him, although they were not friends as such and a lot of squaddies from the camp would go there for their haircuts. I would see them sitting around waiting on the benches.

The Barber wore the typical purple nylon coat with a black collar, white shirt and knitted tie and his hair was always ‘slicked’ down which gave him a sort of Italian look. I would think when I was going there he would have been in about his early to mid 40’s.

When I had got into the chair and was gowned-up, he would either ask, or my Father would tell him ‘the usual please’, meaning the short cut. I was never spoken to directly or treated with any dignity at all. He would begin cutting my hair with clippers and shove my head back and forth as required, sometimes quite roughly. If I didn’t keep my head as still as he wanted, he would tell me so.

“Keep your head still son!” and a bit later, “If you cant keep your head still I am going to have to get cross with you in a minute!”

He would say such things as if he despised me and loud enough so that the customers and my Father could all hear. These were not silent threats.

He would scrape the back of my neck with the clippers until it was sore and drew blood on more than one occasion I recall. Once, he even gave my ear a vicious pinch for not keeping still which brought tears to my eyes.

The odd thing was, I was always tried my hardest to keep my head still and I am sure I succeeded because I knew what would follow if I didn’t. It used to make my physically sick when I knew we were going there and I had that ‘butterfly’ stomach feeling throughout the ordeal. If I thought about it when I knew that time of the month was coming, I would physically wretch with anxiety.

I have no idea why this man treated me so. I didn’t do anything to him and I never spoke back to him. Usually my Father was in earshot and would have killed me if I had done so.

I recently spoke to my Brother, Luke about this man to see if he could remember anything about him. Although we were taken there together in the late 60’s, early 70’s, I never saw Luke or anyone else treated so harshly. Without giving too much away about my reasons, Luke could add very little to the story.

By the time I was 15 or 16 my Father trusted me enough to go by myself after school and didn’t come to get me. I was ‘told’ when I was to go and get my haircut. I think I went once or twice by myself with the same treatment and then I discovered another barber a short bus ride away and never went back. I didn’t tell my Father that I had changed establishments and I was never questioned about it. As long as I came back with the required cut, there were no inquisitions. However, it still fills me with a certain dread when I think of it now.