Lisa James - Mummy Knew - A terrifying step-father. A mother who refused to listen. A little girl desperate to escape.

Uncle Jimmy, who was busy stuffing a cigarette paper with tobacco, said ‘That’s because it’s like Piccadilly bleedin’ Circus in here, what with all her kids in and out all the time. Bloody disgrace she is, that Donna. Always has been.’ He bent down to me and added, ‘You’re a bleedin’ nuisance, aren’t you?’ His face loomed large above mine and I immediately burst into tears.

Nanny quickly stepped forward to scoop me up in her soft comforting arms. ‘He doesn’t mean it, pet. He’s only playing with you.’

I knew that Mummy, the lady with long black hair, lived somewhere nearby with my two sisters and my brother. They popped in and out regularly because Nanny looked after them while Mummy was at work, but I was much younger than them and they didn’t pay any attention to me. By the time I was born on Nanny’s kitchen floor in December 1966, Diane was eleven, Cheryl was nine, and my brother Davie was six. Their father had gone for a quick pint at the pub a few weeks before Davie was born and had never come back. Instead he got the boat back to Ireland and was never heard from again. After waiting years in the hope he would return, my mother was granted a divorce on the grounds of his desertion.

Six years later, at the age of thirty-four, she found herself in another unfortunate situation with my arrival on the scene. I never found out who my father was–my birth certificate lists him as ‘Unknown’–although I did once overhear Nanny and Jenny saying I came from a quick five minutes round the back of a pub rather than an actual relationship. The arrival of a fourth baby must have made life very difficult for my mother at a time when divorce itself carried a huge stigma. Now she had an illegitimate child on her hands as well. Perhaps this is why I was left in the care of Nanny. Quite simply I was an accident–unplanned and definitely unwanted.

My Durham-born Nanny, on the other hand, adored me. I was her ‘bonny lass’. Uncle Jimmy may have seen me as a bit of a nuisance, but he was largely indifferent–unless, that is, I got my toddler hands on his precious tobacco tin and emptied the contents down the loo, as was my habit for a time, and then he would get a bit cross. My aunts Jenny and Freda also made a huge fuss of me, as did my numerous other aunties and uncles. I couldn’t have been in better hands. These early years were my best, a time when I was safe, loved and protected.

Jenny, Freda and Uncle Jimmy were out at work during the day, so it was just Nanny and me. In the mornings we’d sometimes get the bus along to Peckham High Street and do the rounds at the greengrocer’s, the butcher’s and the baker’s, or else we’d walk to the park and I’d go on the swings. But these trips became less frequent because Nanny wasn’t in the best of health. She was overweight and found it difficult to walk very far. Her thighs were covered in bulging purple veins, while her calves and ankles were swollen with open ulcers. Walking was painful, and she rocked from side to side with an exaggerated limp. It was Jenny’s job to bathe the crusty red and yellow sores with warm salty water every evening, applying cream and a stretchy bandage to the wounds.

Most of the time Nanny and I stayed at home. I would ride my red tricycle up and down on the balcony that ran the length of our block while Nanny sat in a deckchair and dozed, with a scarf covering her white curls. She gave me a little silver Noddy bell for my trike and I used to drive the neighbours crazy, ringing it continuously until someone leaned out of a window and yelled at me to ‘Pack it in!’

Another of my favourite games was ‘fly away Peter, fly away Paul’. I’d sit on Nanny’s lap as she fluttered torn strips of newspaper on her index fingers, making Peter fly away as Paul came back, over and over again, until I decided I wanted her to play ‘little piggies’ on my toes instead.

Despite Nanny’s problems with her legs, she always kept the flat spick and span. Every day she tied an apron over her clothes and pottered about dusting and polishing with an old rag. She cleaned the kitchen window with newspaper and a bottle of vinegar so the room smelled like a fish and chip shop. She liked to keep the front step polished with red lacquer but one day, after getting down on all fours, she couldn’t get up again. I had to knock on a neighbour’s door, and between him and the man who came to read the electric meter, they managed to pull Nanny back to her feet. After that she didn’t do the front step herself any more.

Every day after lunch, Nanny and I had a nap, but first we had to make sure I had a dummy and a ‘picky bit’, two items I was unable to sleep without. I liked to unpick anything woolly, and run the fibres through my fingers. After Jenny and Freda got fed up with finding several of their best jumpers ruined, Nanny had knitted me a drawer full of special multicoloured woollen squares, and these became my picky bits. She had broken my round-the-clock dummy habit with dire warnings of growing up with buck teeth, but I took to hiding dummies for safe-keeping, just in case she was ever tempted to take Uncle Jimmy’s advice and ‘chuck the filthy things away’. The problem was, I could never remember where I’d put them, so before our nap we’d have to go on a dummy hunt. Usually I’d give up after the first minute or so, full of tears and convinced we’d never find one. Nanny would continue the search accompanied by my background wailing until she finally caught a glimpse of pink plastic peeping up from the bottom of the coal bucket or somewhere obscure like that. The only time she’d get exasperated would be when, after searching for a good ten minutes, I’d realise I’d had one in my pocket all along.

‘Oh dear, pet, I’m getting too old for this,’ she’d say, shaking her head.

Once we were both snuggled down in Nanny’s soft bed, she’d tell me a story. I’d lie there, inhaling the sweet scent of her face cream, and listen transfixed. She would tell me about growing up in a little village near Durham where the fields were full of schoolbook-eating goats, and elves and fairies too. I can’t remember the end of any of these stories because what with the comforts of my dummy, picky bit and Nanny’s soft lilting voice, it wouldn’t be long before I was in the land of nod.

When I was three and a half, I started going to the local nursery school every morning. Nanny would walk me there, waddling from side to side. We’d often have to stop for a few minutes because her legs were aching but she was always cheerful and we’d sing a song or two on the way. I didn’t like nursery at first and would sob and cling to Nanny, at which point she’d let out a little cry and say ‘Mind me legs, pet.’ But it didn’t take long before I started to enjoy it. There were so many toys to play with, so many things to do. I was in my element–up to my elbows in the sandpit or water-play tank, painting, drawing, gluing, sticking, and making friends. Just before home time we’d sing songs such as ‘I’m a little teapot’ and ‘If you’re happy and you know it’. The teacher, Mrs Paterson, would stand in front of us doing the actions. Then we’d gather up our things and spill out into the little playground to wait for whoever was collecting us.

Normally Nanny was one of the first to arrive. I’d often spot her from quite a way off as I recognised the way she walked. I’d jump up and down and wave, and when she managed to pick me out from all the other children, she’d wave back. We had a ritual in which once she reached the diamond-wire fence I’d run up to her and she’d bend down positioning her cheek for a kiss through the wire. I’d rush out through the school gate and thrust a painting or maybe a glitter-studded egg box at her. No matter how awful my offerings, Nanny always lavished praise on my artistic talents before reaching into her pocket and producing a little packet of my favourite Love Hearts sweeties.