Jim's Story

I was born in Bootle, in 1957, when the Docks were alive with ships from all over the world, and jobs were plentiful. I can still remember the Docker's riding past our house on their push bike with their Woodbines hanging from their mouths as they peddled along Hawthorne Road puffing and panting to catch their breath, and I used to say to myself, one day I will be a Docker and own my own push bike, go to work and earn lots of money, I was a child and I had my whole life to look forward too.

Many things happened to me during my childhood, and there are lots of memories for me to look back on, some good and some so bad it caused me to put pen to paper.

While I sit writing this story, I think to myself “Why am I doing this, why do I want to tell people about my private life?” “Why will anyone want to read about my life?”

“What’s so interesting about his life?” “Will anyone ever read this story?”

“But most of all, will they believe me?

While you read this book, I would like you to put yourself in my shoes. Let your mind wonder, try to imagine what I went through and at the end, ask yourself two questions,

1) Why was this allowed to happen to him?

2) Why did they not believe him?

This story will take you into the care system that myself and other survivors of abuse suffered for many years. As at 2001 there were some 98 police investigations going on in to abuse in care homes in England and Wales, and when you consider that Operation Care for example, is just one police
investigation, it gives an idea of the scale of the problem, 66 homes in Greater Manchester, 84 in Merseyside have been under investigation and we still wait for the figures from Cheshire. I was in this so-called care system from late 1971 till 1973. I spent time in 3 of those homes.

Many children in the 60’s and 70’s went through the care system for one reason or another, we were there to be cared for and looked after by our new carers, this was not to be. The care system turned some of us into bad adults; some killed themselves later in life because of the ‘Knock on the door’ many years later.

Some of us are still here today, we struggled and fought the system during our young adult lives, we passed through the court system, prisons, borstals and detention centres, but we are still alive to tell our story to the world, or to anyone who has the time to listen to us.

We are not looking for sympathy from people, because at the end of the day we were put in these places for punishment for crimes we committed during our childhood. We are still told to this day that we were not put there for punishment but for help and education.

Some of us are still serving a life sentence for what those carer’s did to us all those painful years ago, and our families also suffer and serve that sentence with us.

Strange may it sound, but I feel that I have had two lives, my first life full of pain and anguish then years later my second life were I became a person once again, not many people can say that can they.

Many people have helped me get over my past and to talk to the inner child that most of still have, to tell that child that it was not the one to blame for the past and most of us have now put that inner child to rest, the people who have helped me over the years have been good, but the main helper was myself and the other survivors of abuse whom I still see today and are very good friends, we are now our own little family, a family of Survivors.