In the beginning…

This is a story about the death on a martyr called Heather; born in 1943, orphaned in 1947, and raised by strict Methodist parents. She was actually quite bright, but shy, unworldly and unable to communicate the smothering sense of frustration as her parents grew stricter with age, so that Heather was conventional in manner, yet yearning to escape her foster parents’ increasingly watchful eye. So, she often day-dreamed of a better life, out there, in the real world.    

Running away…

After years of stifling control and continuous rebuke, she finally turned seventeen, and against the backdrop of her concerned parents, got emotionally involved with a man called John, almost twice her age and at least thirty. Actually, he already had a family of three and another on the way with his wife of eight years. But John was fed up with his wife, who fought back and whose brothers, often remind him they’d beat him if he hurt her. John also resented his twenties being wasted on the family he felt he’d rushed in to having and couldn’t discipline properly. John concocted a plan; he’d run away with the shy and easily manipulated Heather and start all over again. For Heather, who could have gone on to university and obtained some academic success, there was no question of not running away; she yearned change and was falling short of her adoptive parent’s expectations already. So, with what belongings she had, and the money and jewellery John had taken from his family, they fled to start a fairy-tale family of their own. Many miles later, they found a small stone farm, with a bit of land and a few outer buildings where they could build that fairy-tale family, miles away from prying eyes, and take on the world together.    

Life as a breeding sow…

John unsuccessfully asked for money from Heather’s foster parents, who then disowned her, but John found a way to make more money; children. They could be a free source of labour on the farm while bringing in a weekly wage form the welfare state. Initially, Heather believed in the dream of isolated self-sufficiency, but it didn’t take long for John’s bulling and manipulating behaviour to dominate the way the farm was run and her every movement. Because those first few years were in defiance of everyone they knew, the first few children were showered in pride as a new-born to the great new family, but by the fourth child, John had openly started sexually abusing them. He was now able to discipline as he always wanted, while Heather turned a blind eye; having turned her back on her family for him. As time went on, John grew less grateful of her sacrifice and more resentful, so made sure Heather spent the next twenty years being pregnant, getting over being pregnant and then pregnant again. In all, she had fifteen children that survived child birth.

Social workers take an interest…

As the children started attended school, soon their erratic behaviour was noticed; sleeping under desks, stealing food, always covered in bruises and unable to stay seated to concentrate in class. Some of the children were sent to special schools and here the social workers starting asking questions. Heather didn’t abuse the children like John; she lashed out in frustration. Neither was she malicious, but knew she was in it with John all the same, playing happy families in front of inquisitive social workers, incriminating herself bit-by-bit. And much to John’s frustration, he now had to put on an act when the social workers made monthly visits to inspect the home surrounds the children were sent back to at weekends. Even though John charmed every one of them and was able to account for the bruising, he blamed on other siblings, he knew the game was up at some point. Meanwhile, one-by-one, the children said enough to authorities for them to covertly watch the family and start making plans to act.

John finally goes to jail…

And so, one morning, social services and police swooped on the farm and stumbled in to the morning prayers to arrest John. The children cried in grief as they watched their father hand-cuffed, cautioned and lead away. They’d lived years of forced labour, sexual and physical abuse, emotional manipulation and fear, they only knew one Dad and whaled as though the world had fallen in. Heather wasn’t arrested. She promised to help John by delivering his letters to the children, asking for their support in the upcoming trial and keeping John’s spirits up through the lengthy process of justice. But Heather didn’t pass on the letters for long, as the euphoria of the situation dawned on her and her children. She soon turned witness against, with the support of many of her brood, she started to stand up to John.

Laying in the bed she has made…

Without the strict, terrorising, regime of John, the children soon became totally unruly and unmanageable, but fate had offered Heather the path of redemption and she had to try and become the mother she had failed to be so far, having been pushed to the background as John bellowed at and abused her children. It’s all the children saw of her and for many it was the basis of their resentment; some never forgave her. Some of her children thought she was as guilty and let it be known, but some quietly resented her and tried to love her in equal measure. She couldn’t really win; did she know what she wanted to win? She’d never really had a plan in life and here she was, almost forty-five, with fifteen, mostly dysfunctional kids to try and please and mother.

The stannic abuse scandal arrives…

A couple of years later, the police and social workers conducted a dawn raid on the farm, demanding to take the children in to a place of safety. Social workers had always been watching, and some had taken some interesting new courses on satanic ritual abuse, which originated in America, and believed they might have found a case with Heather’s family. The irony was, the time to take the kids to a place of safety, or look for satanic ritual abuse, was when John was arrested. But the social workers had a working theory that satanic abuse was taking place on remote places in the UK and this lack of evidence needed to be made up for in other ways. Heather was truly devastated, yet she needed to muster all her strength to fight for her children. She had her older daughters by her side, who informed as many of the press as they could about the unfair accusations thrown their mother. Heather attended many a laborious meeting where she was unable to touch and hug her child on the other side of the table. For all the years she neglected her brood, out of fear, she was making up for in fortitude, and a single-minded determination to prove her innocence and get her children home.

Meanwhile, through a series of interview techniques and loaded questioning, the social workers managed to get enough, vaguely spread information about parties taking place in a quarry somewhere near the farm, or someone’s farm nearby, to act further. And, through co-ordinated mass dawn raids, they wrenched several more family’s children. But this was social workers biggest mistake to proving the existence of satanic abuse and now Heather was joined with all the forces of the local community. Everyone was galvanised in to fighting the social workers and this group of determined people managed to force the matter through the courts and once the judge saw the ridiculous accusations, he demanded the complete return of the children and rebuked all social workers and police involved. And all the children were immediately sent home by chartered plane. When I say all, I mean all except Heather’s.

Maybe out of face-saving, or spite, the social workers hung on to Heather’s children for as long as they could, forcing her through several more years of attending laborious children’s hearings, the many miles apart her children were scattered. Most of whom endured a string of unwelcoming foster homes, and a couple went straight in to care centres, where they learned to steal, lie, fight, became increasingly emotionally damaged.

The forgotten scapegoat…

As the media interest in her plight dwindled, so did the good will of many in her local community, blaming her and her children for the bad name the community now had, due to the allegations. After many a laborious and farcical hearing, Heather was continually deemed unsuitable to take her children home, while allowing planned and heavily supervised visits home. Throughout all this, she suffered cancer and lost a breast in the process, yet still attended the meetings, that were often heart-breaking and emotionally confusing for the children. Some began to reject her and went through the foster system hoping to find a new identity for themselves. Some endured the meetings and slowly took to her and eventually came home, asked awkward questions about the past, and tried to love her as best as their confused minds could. Over the course of the next several years, one-by-one, her children could go home to a destroyed shell of a woman their mother once was. The process was so slow, it did not feel like a victory when, eventually most of her children back. Their returns were mostly brief, choosing to move on from an unwelcoming community, while only one or two would stay in her life. Some never spoke to her again, rare, torturous visits to ask many unanswered questions. What could she say but sorry?

Trying to live with guilt…

For the next twenty years, Heather drank, racked with guilt and a sense of loss, increasingly overwhelmed with the enormity of her suffering. What could she have done? Should she have acted earlier with John? Should she have stayed in that night, when her foster father told her to, and not met John in the shop? When he first inappropriately touched her second born, should she have said something? He did look at her, unsure of how she would react; he would have stopped it then, maybe. Should she have told the teacher, the many times they voiced concerns about the children’s erratic behaviour in class? What about the countless times social workers were there, before they came back with accusations of satanic ritual abuse? Should she had asked for help then? In the courting process, when John kicked that cat out the way, she knew he was bad tempered. She saw many a red flag, but he was exiting and home was stifling. How could she have made such a short-term decision like that? When she found out about the other family he’d already had, something in her died. Did she stop caring enough then?

In her last several years, she lived in a small semi-detached cottage in the country, and there she was regularly visited by the few who could understand her love. Mainly her visits were from two of her eldest as remote support. Here, she was seemed relatively happy and managed to stop drinking. She enjoyed the company of two pet dogs and was able to read avidly; gaining a first-class degree from the open university and using her naturally fertile intelligence. Still guilt-ridden, and then in her late seventies, she was enjoying some form of peace and commitment to learning.  

Back in the hands of suffering…

Maybe it was fate, maybe it was poor judgement, but almost inevitably, Heather found herself suffering. Some of her children had carried much of the pain and anger John had tortured them with, struggling with anger management, while some ended up with criminal records. One, oddly enough the second youngest male, who suffered the least at the hands of John, was particularly unhinged, and had a reputation for being manipulative, untrustworthy and violent when he didn’t get his way. After many years of drug addition, alcohol dependency and a number spells in psychiatric institutions, he had found Heather’s address and talked Heather in to letting him stay with her as a live-in carer. She consulted one of her eldest sons, who told her it would be a good idea. She didn’t know that the same son had already been involved with the psychotic son, in an attempt to help, but had ended up calling the police to free himself of the burden. So, her psychopathic son moved in and for the first week or two, he was aware of the visits form his sisters, so put on as much of an act as he could. But, in between visits form her daughters, he soon began to incrementally intimidate Heather in to staying in the front room, only allowed out for the toilet, twice a day. As for her two little dogs, who were strangled to death over a few weeks of intermittent misery. Her daughters visited less, and the police visited more, yet not because of the abuse Heather was keeping quiet about, but the neighbours complaining about the shouting, random fires in the back garden and the cries of pain coming from Heather. Yet, out of guilt, she wouldn’t admit what her son was doing and two of the eldest sons conspired to keep her trapped and tormented daily with their younger psychopathic, brother, for their own vindictive reasons. Heather martyred herself to her son, begging her forgiveness as her son forced vodka down her throat, holding her by her matted, emaciated scalp, just before he washed his teeth and went to bed.

Peace at last…

It came when cancer spread and she got to hospital. Here, attended by two of her compassionate daughters, she was cared for. She had battled cancer for some years before and won in the end by contracting Coronavirus. And her suffering came to an end, surrounded by just a few of her family, partly because of coronavirus restrictions, but mainly because most of her children had their own reasons not to be there. The same daughters organised the funeral, the cleaning of the house, and the probate process. She didn’t have much of an estate to share amongst fifteen children and her will was so illegible that her eldest son decided to take advantage and steel most of her chattels anyway.

For the five of her brood that attended the funeral, they came together and ensured that she was peacefully laid to rest. The wind went down, the sun came through the clouds, while her  favourite music was played, a eulogy was read out by a close friend, many of the same neighbours - who had reported her son to the police - came to share the experience. Her two dotting daughters read a passage from Ecclesiastes and one of her son’s read two very poignant poems, even though he had mixed feelings about painting over the cracks of her character with eloquent words. He loved and forgave her, like everyone there that day.

When the coffin was placed in the ground, something beautiful happened; any resentment between the five attending, was buried with her. Now those five keep in touch and have forgiven each other, make the effort and build loving families of their won. For Heather, she was buried by people who loved her and that’s all anyone can ask in this fleeting existence.