Please Let It Stop Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  1. Little girl lost

  2. Breaking free

  3. Yes, women do like sex

  4. My sister, my friend

  5. Dancing with drugs

  6. Too close for comfort

  7. Concrete shoes and the nearest river

  8. Irish eyes not smiling

  9. Minding my business

  10. Dad and I: a perfect team

  11. Dates and disasters

  12. The real thing at last?

  13. Vanessa hitched, Tracy ditched

  14. Nowhere left to turn

  15. Putting the government on trial

  16. Anita: a tragic life

  17. The roller coaster continues

  18. Oxford University requests

  19. She who shouts the softest wins

  20. You’re never too old

  21. The Golden Girls

  Postscript

  Copyright

  Please Let It Stop

  The true story of my abused childhood

  Jacqueline Gold

  I dedicate this book to my beautiful sister, Vanessa.

  Thank you for being my sister and my best friend and for always being there for me.

  Thank you most especially for your unconditional love.

  I am so very proud of you.

  My love for you is endless.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Lena Semaan who helped me to tell my story. It is a vulnerable feeling to open your heart and soul to a stranger, especially about something you have never shared with someone so intimately before. With your help I found the courage and a friend. Thank you also to Fiona, Hannah, Miranda and Charlotte and all at Ebury Press for your hard work and support.

  There are too many members of my team to mention by name but I would like to thank all my staff for making Ann Summers possible. I would especially like to thank my immediate team; my amazing MD, Julie Harris, for your exceptional dedication and loyalty, my PA, Julia Tobias, for your relentless support, my publicist and agent, Ghislain Pascal, for your outstanding efficiency and professionalism, my make-up artist, Virginia, for making me look and feel fabulous, my driver, Brian Collins, for all your hard work and my housekeeper, Linda Walshe, for being one in a million.

  Thank you also to my wonderful friends, I love you all so very much; Dorothy for being my surrogate mum and always listening, Carole darling for your unwavering support and the way you always bring sunshine into my life, Sandie for unleashing the outrageous in me and for always making me laugh even when things have got me down, Val for allowing me to misbehave and also for the way you always drop everything to be there for me and Joanna – I am so sorry we didn’t know each other for longer but you will always be my lucky star!

  And finally, my deepest gratitude belongs to my family. Dad, I admire you and love you very much and Grandma, I will miss our girlie chats, your lovely warm smile and your zest for life. You are my inspiration!

  Author’s note

  In some limited cases names of people, places, sequences or the detail of events have been changed solely to protect the privacy of others. For that same reason, they are omitted from the photo section.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Little girl lost

  In retrospect, I can see I was the perfect candidate for child abuse. My mother didn’t show me much love and her own self-imposed isolation effectively kept me away from other children; my sister was seven years younger which meant I had no one close to talk to and, since my parents had divorced, there was little contact with my father while I was growing up.

  My abuser therefore had nobody in his way. My mother had not only made him part of our family; she had allowed him to take over and was herself helpless to resist him. He didn’t just have the run of the house: he ran the house and everybody in it. From the age of twelve to fifteen he terrified me. I can’t forget those years. And yet, the funny thing is, I can’t remember very much of what happened before the abuse began. Perhaps the trauma of what followed has destroyed better memories. I really don’t know.

  *

  My father, David Gold, grew up in serious poverty in the East End of London during the war. His childhood was about little more than survival. The conditions of the houses where the poor like him lived were cold and damp and his family had very little money, which meant food was scarce. Dad’s father, Godfrey ‘Goddy’ Gold, was one of those East End wheeler-dealers who was always looking for a chance. He was married to the most wonderful woman, my grandma Rosie, who worked very hard to bring up her children single-handedly, as Goddy was either off womanising or in prison. She started by selling buttons and Christmas decorations at the front of her house and the young Gold brothers would help her out after school and at weekends. Her front room was later converted into a shop, called Rosie’s Book Shop. The shop, which was located on Green Street in Upton Park, opposite West Ham Football Club, later went on to sell gifts, cards, sweets and football souvenirs.

  My father began his working life as a bricklayer. At one point, he may have been on the verge of a career as a professional footballer. His father refused to give permission for him to sign up for West Ham, deciding instead that he should serve out his apprenticeship. So for four unhappy years Dad laid bricks and dreamed of football. He still managed to get on the pitch by playing football for ‘boot money’ (unofficial payments that players received in their boots) for West Ham, Fulham, Leyton and Barking. A premiership star Dad might not have been, but he was definitely a handy player: playing for London Youth against Glasgow Youth at Crystal Palace, he scored the winning goal, ten minutes before time. Dad never lost his love for football and, today, with his brother Ralph and their partner David Sullivan, owns Birmingham City Football Club.

  When Dad finished his apprenticeship, his brother Ralph, who sold books and magazines, announced that he knew of a shop going under that they could take over. Dad saw an opportunity to start something, moved in and began selling books and magazines. As time went on, Dad, Uncle Ralph and Goddy set up several shops and businesses. I suppose you could call them diversified – basically they sold anything that turned a profit. Along with his two sons, Goddy began to do very well indeed, with the boys proving themselves to be natural business partners. This, however, was not to last. Dad fell out with his father in the late 1960s and the rift never healed. Apparently, my father did not agree with Goddy’s strategic direction (if you can call it that), which largely meant that Goddy thought he could run the business on his own. Their business, which had just been named Gold Star Publications, was structured with nine shares – three for each of them. Goddy managed to trick Ralph into signing papers that effectively signed two of his own shares over to Goddy, making him the majority holder. Luckily, Dad and Ralph found out that the transfer was not legal; nonetheless Goddy’s lack of principle upset Dad and they broke away from him.

  Dad had met my mother, Beryl, through Mum’s sister, Heather, and her boyfriend, now husband, Terry Green. They married and had me in July 1960. It wasn’t until seven years later that my sister Vanessa arrived so I was on my own for quite a while. I now understand that my parents had problems in their marriage from very early on. I remember my mother was the dominant one in the relationship and generally got her way. She was a very beautiful woman, tall, slim and very flirtatious. She was also extremely insecure, nervous around people and, like her own father, frightened of her own shadow. In short, she was a mass of contradictions which, as you can imagine, did not make for domestic harmony. For example, if you saw her with my father, she was quite dominant: yet if she was unhappy, say, with the builders,
she would go on and on at him but she wouldn’t talk to the builders herself. Mum had no appetite for confrontation. And in complete contrast to the way in which she imposed limits on her children, she did things to excess. She smoked and drank heavily.

  As for me, well, I was a funny little child – small, accident-prone, fussy about what I ate and very quiet. In those early years my mother was overprotective to the point of being dangerously stifling. Looking back now, her behaviour could well be described as paranoia. It really was completely over the top, with Mum becoming anxious whenever I went out the front door. I wasn’t allowed in the front garden, let alone out in the street in case I got run over or kidnapped. Sometimes she would let me have friends back to tea but I was rarely allowed to go to their houses. That meant I virtually had no friends since they got fed up with me not being able to come over. I actually stopped asking Mum if I could go places. It just seemed to me that she would say no anyway and then I would have to bear even more disappointment. So I just internalised it all.

  My mother was very distant. She cared for us and was concerned for our well-being and future as any mother would. She dressed me in lovely clothes and always made a big effort dressing me up for school fancy-dress competitions (which I usually won), but in emotional terms, I don’t remember feeling any warmth from her and if she had any in her, it never showed. I don’t recall any cuddles and I didn’t feel loved but I am in no doubt she did love us, she just didn’t know how to show it.

  I was never allowed to go on school trips and even our family holidays were an ordeal. On the beach in Cornwall Mum made a point of drawing a fifteen-foot line in the sand around me – I wasn’t allowed beyond that. Once again, I wasn’t allowed to go and find other children to play with, but they could come to me. I can’t remember if there were too many takers but I don’t expect there were. After all, if you were a child and you saw this funny little girl sitting, looking lost, in a circle of sand next to her mother, would you want to come and play with her? Not likely.

  We lived at Biggin Hill. It was a comfortable existence in a lovely house called Pine Crest which was located at the very end of an unmade private cul-de-sac. Biggin Hill is located at the highest point in Kent and our detached house sat on the edge of the hill looking over a large valley. At one time the views of rolling fields were spectacular. Over the years the valley has been built up by property developers and all you can see now are rows and rows of houses. The house I grew up in had lots of character and a pretty garden with several cherry trees, silver birches and climbing roses. Later on my father had a swimming pool put in.

  The house was split-level so the front door was on a middle level along with three bedrooms. You would take another flight of steep stairs from the main landing down to the lower level and the kitchen, which was usually piled high with dirty dishes – that I suspect my mother might well have wished would magically disappear.

  The lounge was decorated in Tudor style with oak beams, an impressive fireplace and a well-stocked bar. Materially, we were not short of anything. My father’s hard work and business success meant we could afford to go abroad, but we didn’t because Mum was scared of flying. We did manage one trip to America – by boat, which my father wasn’t too happy about. It took five days each way and we all became very seasick. I doubt if he ever forgave her for putting everybody through it, but he was a gentle man and avoided arguing with her. I think he just wanted to keep the peace.

  I am now convinced that my mother wasn’t actually concerned on my behalf. Hers was neither a rational fear, nor was it just about my safety; it was more about her personal fear of life. I believe it was an unconscious concern about what would happen to her if anything happened to me. How would she feel? She seemed to have no relationship with the outside world – something that was to get worse as time went on. I think she would have been happy if she’d never had to leave the house. In fact, I vaguely recall her saying something to that effect at one point.

  I doubt if she ever stopped to consider the effect her behaviour was having on me; frankly, I don’t think she was capable of thinking beyond her own strange fears. Given the generally odd way in which my mother approached the world, I don’t believe she meant anything malicious: I just think she didn’t know any different. At the same time, I grew up in an era where the focus that exists today on nurturing children and promoting their self-esteem did not exist. In those days people seemed to be a lot more vocal with negative thoughts. I suspect that the members of that post-war generation probably thought they were being realistic and honest, and that there was absolutely nothing wrong with telling it how they saw it.

  School was also problematic for me and I often faked illness to avoid going. Maybe it had something to do with my mother’s bizarre protectiveness that meant, on some level, like her, I could not cope in the outside world. I was also painfully shy which naturally put me on the periphery of things. It’s hardly surprising then that I was picked on by the other children who quickly saw me for the outsider that I was. I had very long hair pulled back tight into a ponytail that the other children used to pull. Mum never allowed me to wear my hair loose. I tried to draw it over my face because I was very conscious of my high forehead and my widow’s peak. I desperately begged my mother to let me have a fringe which she finally let me try when I was nine. We went to the hairdresser’s in Beckenham but the hairdresser told my mother that a fringe was impossible because of my hairline. I left without one. I also wore glasses, really ugly ones. To make matters worse, I had an eye patch over one lens to strengthen my weaker eye, which made me even more of a misfit. We used to play kiss-chase but nobody chased me.

  School dinners were also a nightmare. I hate to admit it but I am very picky about my food. That’s not because of any body disorder or anything; I’m just really wary of what’s on my plate. One of the dinner ladies used to try and force-feed me vegetables which I then used to spit out. There was another one, a lovely lady called Dorothy, who tried to look after me. She was delightful and I felt very safe with her. Many years later fate would bring us back together when I married her son, Tony. Today, despite being divorced from Tony, my relationship with Dorothy continues, as does my uneasy relationship with food. Friends often laugh at me when a waiter puts something in front of me, because apparently I tend to look at it very suspiciously, as though it might come alive or something. Now I tend to avoid overly fussy food and the restaurants that serve it.

  What little respite I had from this lonely life came in the form of my cousins, Stephanie and Russell. Every Wednesday they would come to our house for dinner with my lovely Auntie Heather and Uncle Terry. That was the highlight of my week. While the grown-ups ate downstairs we’d be upstairs messing around like normal kids do. It was one of the only times I could really express myself and be the little girl I was supposed to be. Unfortunately, my aunt and uncle moved away when I was twelve, a move that was to coincide with the worst period in my life.

  I don’t remember much about my father at this time, apart from him being, as he still is, a softly spoken man. He was always working really hard so we didn’t see much of him. He never raised a hand to me or Vanessa. I don’t recall many arguments between my parents but there was definitely a lot of tension. As with all marriages, the reasons are not always clear-cut but apparently they didn’t have much of a sex life, an inevitable result of not being able to communicate. Mum was often suspicious about Dad having affairs and I remember her checking his mileage on more than one occasion. Another time I remember being bundled into the car as she tried to follow him.

  Mum didn’t like doing things around the house and I’m quite sure that’s one of the reasons I am an absolute stickler for a clean and tidy home. Cleaning was not one of her priorities and if it were left up to her, the house would have been a tip. So she employed a cleaner called Bobby who, as it turned out, happened to be rather light-fingered. Bobby was one of those people who would steal things almost without knowing it. She wasn’t very sec
retive about it, either. One time she took one of Mum’s coats from the cupboard in the hallway, put it on and left. She came back wearing it the next day and continued to do so after that. Mum didn’t say anything about it and neither did she. Later on Mum and Bobby became close friends and set up an antiques stall together, selling all sorts of knick-knacks. She seemed to be one of the few people with whom Mum developed a friendship. Bobby had a son called John who had wanted to be a musician, but had never really made it and spent his time working in computers for a central London college. It wasn’t long before Bobby introduced John and his wife Sue to my parents. They all used to have dinner together and seemed to get on very well. For a time John became Dad’s best friend.

  Life soon began to get very complicated. I’m not sure exactly when I became aware that Mum was having an affair with John but I must have been about twelve years old. Mum would pick me and Vanessa up from school in Hayes. On the way home, we would stop at John’s place. He lived at Biggin Hill, in a bungalow on the main road with a back garden that had a very fierce slope. The garden itself was treacherous: from a concrete terrace there was a sheer drop of about ten feet. Beneath that, there was a mixture of broken bricks, glass, other rubble and stinging nettles. It was here that Mum would leave us, locked out of the house, while she and John got on with their affair for a few hours. With a front garden that led straight to the main road and a back garden in which two little girls could easily have come to serious harm, there was now absolutely no thought for our safety – a complete contrast to the way in which she used to watch over us. Mum was pleasing herself and that was all that mattered. We never went into the house and it was clear that we weren’t allowed to. I was confused and lonely. Although my sister Vanessa was with me, our seven-year age gap meant that I very quickly got bored with her. After all, there are only so many mudpies you can make. I remember being so cold sometimes but I didn’t complain.