Mornington 19.09.1964
Without Prejudice
There comes a time in a girls life when she finds out that perverts exist in the world.I was an innocent little girl of 12 before I found out and in the most ugly, sick way.
The day 19.09. 1964, two days after my 12th Birthday. I was living at Helena Road, Mount Martha at the time, attending Darcy State School, which had about 20 pupils, all horsy kids coming from big properties all around. As per usual I was " the new kid ". My parents nomads, loving to move, everywhere a new beginning. No wonder I used to love to move so much. Towns, cities, the country.
The Headmaster conveniently named Mr Darcy. I will always associate him with poetry which was his passion and I received an A on my recitation of "Mulga Bills Bicycle", by Banjo Patterson, standing in the front of the class, hands clasped together in front of me, and Banana Passionfruit which grew in the grounds of his "Manse" and he would allow us to strip the vine and eat as many as we wanted.
As I said I was a child that had no knowledge of the "bad world" before 12. My brothers could be crude at times, but Dad was never crude and he was my main guide through childhood, a mild mannered Scotsman that thought all girls should be ladies, just like his lady like Mother, granny Bruckshaw.
So I was protected and cossetted and petted. One time he caught me using a word all the time, Bab, which in Scotland meant shit and he ticked me off royally as it had become a trendy word to use when you are 11, all the girls at school saying it and we thought we were real daring!
Anyway my Dad was not impressed at my potty mouth and said so. he had lately taken to brushing my hair, untangling it, saying.
"You are too pretty a girl to have messy hair", so he would brush it. I never thought I was a pretty girl, Jackie was the pretty one and I was the tomboy.
I was amazed he thought I was pretty. I was skinny and sunburned, covered in freckles, with a "Roman Soldier" helmet haircut and a squint. No one realised I was short sighted until I was 11 and even when it was discovered there was no way I was wearing glasses.
I just tricked my way around it in devious ways, but to tell the truth I was as blind as a bat.
That Saturday 19.09. 1964, I was allowed for my birthday to go into Mornington on my own, on the bus, no less.
I wore a little brown and white Gingham check dress with frills at the hem, it was to my knee and Mum had bought me my first high heels, tiny heels but none the less they were high to me and she had let me wear stockings for the first time.
Tan coloured stockings held up by the old fashioned garter belt with long dangly stretch elastics with ends you fastened to the stockings So feeling very grown up I went into Mornington,going to the dentist first for a checkup, very brave of me, and then shopping like a lady with my basket in Woolies.
I noticed a man seemed to be following me. I meandered in Woolies for at least an hour, trying to shake him off from my tail, but wherever I went he went too.
I went in another store and still he followed me, and I started to feel panicky, just a little.
I went back to Woolworths, examining toys, balls, cut out dolls were still my innocent passion and I loved to buy them for a few pennies and "Scraps" which were paper cut outs of elegant ladies in dresses of old, sometimes, covered in glitter.
Jackie and I would press them between pages of books. ( I have a photo of Lauren in one of the dresses, we were at a photographers at Grundy's on the Gold Coast and you could dress up in costume and that was the one Lauren chose, the old fashioned dress and bonnet and parasol.) love it !
And still he came, this Man, no matter where I went and no matter what I did.
I cursed the fact that George wasn't with me or Dave but what did they like about shopping? And Jackie was at work on a Saturday, every one worked Saturday mornings then, it was a given.
And I wanted to feel grown up and this man following me, was ruining it.
I would have let him follow me for about an hour, and then I decided I had enough. I had gone back out into the main street and had stopped in front of a toy store window, hoping he would pass on by me.
"If you get in the car with me, little girl, I will buy you some of those toys,", he said just like a cliche from a perverts handbook, but I didn't realise that till years later.
He indicated the car, pale blue, a sedan, parked right outside of the toy shop. It was very clean, I remember and gleamed in the hot sun. Spring had arrived and it was a beautiful day.
"If you don't go away, I will call the Police", I replied,
My voice high piping with anxiety
and I turned and walked firmly across the road towards the Mornington Police Station, head held high, although I was terrifed, my heart beating a slow thump,
Adrenalin kicking in, cheeks burning, terrified ( and as i write this I still burn, but now with hatred for that man. stealing a little girls innocence ) and marking my 12 th Birthday with a full stop.
I hid for a while sheltering behind the stone post of the Police Station until I saw his car pull away, parked right outside the Toy Shop, sick man.
He was small and fine boned, sharp featured.
He was young, maybe 30, fair with a fair beard and was dressed neatly and he had a soft British accent, A very soft voice, almost a whisper. Not someone you would recognise as a creepy paedophile.
I waited hiding and then the bus pulled up outside and I was on it in a flash and went home and told no one, frightened they would never let me out again.
I am angry at myself for not reporting him. I should have, I could have easily recognised him,
identified him, but I didn't.
And I know he would have gone on to do it again and may have hurt a young girl, badly and that hurts me, but I was a child and thought as a child, and in the pool of my memory I took a bath and tried to stop trembling, filling the bath to the brim with hot water and still I shook and climbing out realised my first period had started and that day marks my passage from Girl to WOMAN, achingly lovely in one way and dirtied forever in another,
My Son in laws let their grown girls go nowhere with out them, or someone they trust and that is as itshould be till you are about 16 and for me it pretty much was,
I didn't like the dark world of Men and kept company with only boys from then on or girlfriends, never going anywhere on my own, non trusting of the dark, and avoiding strangers.
I can't imagine what sexual abuse does to children, the innocence gone when all you want is to be a kid. Marks them for life I should imagine. I hope some braver girl dobbed him in because it won't have been his first attempt nor last. I can't believe how normal he looked.
Quiet, neat, young and a dirty dirty old man at the same time. I can't remember what made me say the words, I was a shy child. Painfully so. God was obviously watching over me that day or perhaps even Granny Bruckshaw but thank God I escaped.
I will never forget the creeping feeling of revulsion that came over me and also the contempt I felt at the same time. As if at 12 I would be interested in "toys" or that I was a" little girl". According to me I was almost a grown up. I never wore the heels, the stockings or the brown and white check gingham dress again.
Love Janette
There comes a time in a girls life when she finds out that perverts exist in the world.I was an innocent little girl of 12 before I found out and in the most ugly, sick way.
The day 19.09. 1964, two days after my 12th Birthday. I was living at Helena Road, Mount Martha at the time, attending Darcy State School, which had about 20 pupils, all horsy kids coming from big properties all around. As per usual I was " the new kid ". My parents nomads, loving to move, everywhere a new beginning. No wonder I used to love to move so much. Towns, cities, the country.
The Headmaster conveniently named Mr Darcy. I will always associate him with poetry which was his passion and I received an A on my recitation of "Mulga Bills Bicycle", by Banjo Patterson, standing in the front of the class, hands clasped together in front of me, and Banana Passionfruit which grew in the grounds of his "Manse" and he would allow us to strip the vine and eat as many as we wanted.
As I said I was a child that had no knowledge of the "bad world" before 12. My brothers could be crude at times, but Dad was never crude and he was my main guide through childhood, a mild mannered Scotsman that thought all girls should be ladies, just like his lady like Mother, granny Bruckshaw.
So I was protected and cossetted and petted. One time he caught me using a word all the time, Bab, which in Scotland meant shit and he ticked me off royally as it had become a trendy word to use when you are 11, all the girls at school saying it and we thought we were real daring!
Anyway my Dad was not impressed at my potty mouth and said so. he had lately taken to brushing my hair, untangling it, saying.
"You are too pretty a girl to have messy hair", so he would brush it. I never thought I was a pretty girl, Jackie was the pretty one and I was the tomboy.
I was amazed he thought I was pretty. I was skinny and sunburned, covered in freckles, with a "Roman Soldier" helmet haircut and a squint. No one realised I was short sighted until I was 11 and even when it was discovered there was no way I was wearing glasses.
I just tricked my way around it in devious ways, but to tell the truth I was as blind as a bat.
That Saturday 19.09. 1964, I was allowed for my birthday to go into Mornington on my own, on the bus, no less.
I wore a little brown and white Gingham check dress with frills at the hem, it was to my knee and Mum had bought me my first high heels, tiny heels but none the less they were high to me and she had let me wear stockings for the first time.
Tan coloured stockings held up by the old fashioned garter belt with long dangly stretch elastics with ends you fastened to the stockings So feeling very grown up I went into Mornington,going to the dentist first for a checkup, very brave of me, and then shopping like a lady with my basket in Woolies.
I noticed a man seemed to be following me. I meandered in Woolies for at least an hour, trying to shake him off from my tail, but wherever I went he went too.
I went in another store and still he followed me, and I started to feel panicky, just a little.
I went back to Woolworths, examining toys, balls, cut out dolls were still my innocent passion and I loved to buy them for a few pennies and "Scraps" which were paper cut outs of elegant ladies in dresses of old, sometimes, covered in glitter.
Jackie and I would press them between pages of books. ( I have a photo of Lauren in one of the dresses, we were at a photographers at Grundy's on the Gold Coast and you could dress up in costume and that was the one Lauren chose, the old fashioned dress and bonnet and parasol.) love it !
And still he came, this Man, no matter where I went and no matter what I did.
I cursed the fact that George wasn't with me or Dave but what did they like about shopping? And Jackie was at work on a Saturday, every one worked Saturday mornings then, it was a given.
And I wanted to feel grown up and this man following me, was ruining it.
I would have let him follow me for about an hour, and then I decided I had enough. I had gone back out into the main street and had stopped in front of a toy store window, hoping he would pass on by me.
"If you get in the car with me, little girl, I will buy you some of those toys,", he said just like a cliche from a perverts handbook, but I didn't realise that till years later.
He indicated the car, pale blue, a sedan, parked right outside of the toy shop. It was very clean, I remember and gleamed in the hot sun. Spring had arrived and it was a beautiful day.
"If you don't go away, I will call the Police", I replied,
My voice high piping with anxiety
and I turned and walked firmly across the road towards the Mornington Police Station, head held high, although I was terrifed, my heart beating a slow thump,
Adrenalin kicking in, cheeks burning, terrified ( and as i write this I still burn, but now with hatred for that man. stealing a little girls innocence ) and marking my 12 th Birthday with a full stop.
I hid for a while sheltering behind the stone post of the Police Station until I saw his car pull away, parked right outside the Toy Shop, sick man.
He was small and fine boned, sharp featured.
He was young, maybe 30, fair with a fair beard and was dressed neatly and he had a soft British accent, A very soft voice, almost a whisper. Not someone you would recognise as a creepy paedophile.
I waited hiding and then the bus pulled up outside and I was on it in a flash and went home and told no one, frightened they would never let me out again.
I am angry at myself for not reporting him. I should have, I could have easily recognised him,
identified him, but I didn't.
And I know he would have gone on to do it again and may have hurt a young girl, badly and that hurts me, but I was a child and thought as a child, and in the pool of my memory I took a bath and tried to stop trembling, filling the bath to the brim with hot water and still I shook and climbing out realised my first period had started and that day marks my passage from Girl to WOMAN, achingly lovely in one way and dirtied forever in another,
My Son in laws let their grown girls go nowhere with out them, or someone they trust and that is as itshould be till you are about 16 and for me it pretty much was,
I didn't like the dark world of Men and kept company with only boys from then on or girlfriends, never going anywhere on my own, non trusting of the dark, and avoiding strangers.
I can't imagine what sexual abuse does to children, the innocence gone when all you want is to be a kid. Marks them for life I should imagine. I hope some braver girl dobbed him in because it won't have been his first attempt nor last. I can't believe how normal he looked.
Quiet, neat, young and a dirty dirty old man at the same time. I can't remember what made me say the words, I was a shy child. Painfully so. God was obviously watching over me that day or perhaps even Granny Bruckshaw but thank God I escaped.
I will never forget the creeping feeling of revulsion that came over me and also the contempt I felt at the same time. As if at 12 I would be interested in "toys" or that I was a" little girl". According to me I was almost a grown up. I never wore the heels, the stockings or the brown and white check gingham dress again.
Love Janette
