Lost In Care 04

There was a member of staff at the nursery whom I liked a lot; let’s call her Jules. I liked Jules immensely and felt very possessive over her. Unfortunately, inexplicably, Jules had a boyfriend – and it wasn’t me!

Jules's Oaf-Boyfriend was constantly smoking cigarettes, consequently his breath smelled like a hobbit’s foot with gangrene. He was built like a freakishly tall giraffe with spindly, unbalanced legs to match. His pale, freckled face was hidden beneath a black beard that might as well have been a farm hedge.

From neck to toe Oaf-Boyfriend wore only black. I never saw him without a full set of enormous fingers rings  that were always catching on the insides of his pockets. 

The first time Jules introduced me to her boyfriend she:  A) Broke my heart. B) Gave me the fright of my life. C) Provided me with the source of recurring nightmare for years. 

During our first meeting Oaf-Boyfriend (it turns out he was a policeman) picked me up in his arms, carried me towards his scary black car and told me - since I was his girlfriend’s favourite - that we were also going to be best friends. I hated Oaf-Boyfriend with a passion and his beard petrified me. Whenever Oaf-Boyfriend rocked up to the nursery to collect Jules and take her away to their life outside the building I would run away and hide behind a chair and cower until I was sure he was gone.

Looking back on the small but crucial part Oaf-Boyfriend came to play in my life, I can only conclude that I must have had some sort of premonition about him, for Oaf-Boyfriend would eventually drive my brother away from the nursery to Beechhome Children’s Village. Beechhome was a large collection of children’s home run by Wandsworth council. At that time Beechhome was regarded as a visionary model of best practice care for vulnerable children in need of supervised care. Today, Beechhome has become an industry by word for systemic abuse and mistreatment of children by staff. If I had known then what I know now when Of-Boyfriend approached me I would have run as hard and as fast as I could from him and kept on running.