I was not a little relieved when at six years old I was allowed to travel to and from school by myself.
This went without a hitch until one afternoon in year six, my final year at the school. I was with my two best friends and the little sister of one of them. We had been waiting for the number 9 bus and, feeling a bit bored, we decided to play in the huge overgrown front garden of an enormous empty house that was next to the bus stop. All the houses along this stretch of road were massive and had been converted into either hotels or offices. After some time we heard a man’s voice shouting at us and coming towards us, through the bushes, from the direction of the house.
‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’
We decided to run for it and scampered out of the garden, a way down the road, into the front garden of another huge house and there we hid in the bushes. We crouched down, hoping the man had gone, but a few minutes later he reappeared. He was tall and thin, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a grubby-looking mac.
‘What do you think you were doing in that garden?’
I don’t know who said what, but I think we probably all spoke at once.
‘We were just playing.’
‘We’re really sorry.’
He told us to stand up and proceeded to put a clammy hand up each of our skirts in turn and to feel the tops of our thighs. Whilst doing this he asked us what school we went to, this simple question striking more fear into our hearts than the molestation that was taking place. Suddenly he said that he was going but that he would be back in a couple of minutes and then, jabbing his forefinger at us, he told us we were to stay put until he came back or else. We stood there for several minutes in silence, precious minutes during which we could easily have escaped, but we were doing as we were told out of total fear. I can still smell the damp earth and the rotting leaves around our feet, and I can recall wanting this man to be harmless and telling the others in a frightened whisper that I believed his touching us up was simply him working out our age!
‘What would the nuns say if they knew what you’d been up to?’ He was back again and strangely breathless.
‘Oh, please don’t report us! We won’t do it again.’
‘Well, you’d better come with me.’
And dutifully with hearts racing, we followed. He took us back the way we had come, past the disused house and garden where we had been playing and where several people were now waiting for the bus. We then went round the corner into a much quieter road. He took us a little way down it and then instructed us to stand against the wall and lift our dresses up. I can still see his face as he stared at us and my recollecting with horror that not only was I not wearing my school beret, a reportable offence, but that I was also not wearing my regulation navy-blue interlock-weave school knickers. Instead I had on a pair of shameful, pink nylon frilly ones that my mother had bought off the market. After several seconds of staring, he was clearly becoming agitated and took us back the way we had come, up the road and round the corner, where now there was quite a queue at the bus stop. On seeing these people, one of my friends, God bless her presence of mind, suddenly proclaimed, ‘Oh! I’ve got to go and get my bus now.’ And she ran off at top speed in the opposite direction.
This of course attracted the attention of the people in the queue. The man, then clearly panicking, said, ‘Yes . . . yes . . . off you go and don’t let me catch you playing in that garden again or I’ll smack yer bums.’ And with that he scuttled off.
We never used that bus stop again, preferring to walk a quarter of a mile to the next one; nor did we ever speak of the incident. I never told my parents. I didn’t want them to worry and I felt them to be powerless. The next day at school the girl who had run off didn’t turn up. I was in a complete haze of fear the whole morning until her
This went without a hitch until one afternoon in year six, my final year at the school. I was with my two best friends and the little sister of one of them. We had been waiting for the number 9 bus and, feeling a bit bored, we decided to play in the huge overgrown front garden of an enormous empty house that was next to the bus stop. All the houses along this stretch of road were massive and had been converted into either hotels or offices. After some time we heard a man’s voice shouting at us and coming towards us, through the bushes, from the direction of the house.
‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’
We decided to run for it and scampered out of the garden, a way down the road, into the front garden of another huge house and there we hid in the bushes. We crouched down, hoping the man had gone, but a few minutes later he reappeared. He was tall and thin, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a grubby-looking mac.
‘What do you think you were doing in that garden?’
I don’t know who said what, but I think we probably all spoke at once.
‘We were just playing.’
‘We’re really sorry.’
He told us to stand up and proceeded to put a clammy hand up each of our skirts in turn and to feel the tops of our thighs. Whilst doing this he asked us what school we went to, this simple question striking more fear into our hearts than the molestation that was taking place. Suddenly he said that he was going but that he would be back in a couple of minutes and then, jabbing his forefinger at us, he told us we were to stay put until he came back or else. We stood there for several minutes in silence, precious minutes during which we could easily have escaped, but we were doing as we were told out of total fear. I can still smell the damp earth and the rotting leaves around our feet, and I can recall wanting this man to be harmless and telling the others in a frightened whisper that I believed his touching us up was simply him working out our age!
‘What would the nuns say if they knew what you’d been up to?’ He was back again and strangely breathless.
‘Oh, please don’t report us! We won’t do it again.’
‘Well, you’d better come with me.’
And dutifully with hearts racing, we followed. He took us back the way we had come, past the disused house and garden where we had been playing and where several people were now waiting for the bus. We then went round the corner into a much quieter road. He took us a little way down it and then instructed us to stand against the wall and lift our dresses up. I can still see his face as he stared at us and my recollecting with horror that not only was I not wearing my school beret, a reportable offence, but that I was also not wearing my regulation navy-blue interlock-weave school knickers. Instead I had on a pair of shameful, pink nylon frilly ones that my mother had bought off the market. After several seconds of staring, he was clearly becoming agitated and took us back the way we had come, up the road and round the corner, where now there was quite a queue at the bus stop. On seeing these people, one of my friends, God bless her presence of mind, suddenly proclaimed, ‘Oh! I’ve got to go and get my bus now.’ And she ran off at top speed in the opposite direction.
This of course attracted the attention of the people in the queue. The man, then clearly panicking, said, ‘Yes . . . yes . . . off you go and don’t let me catch you playing in that garden again or I’ll smack yer bums.’ And with that he scuttled off.
We never used that bus stop again, preferring to walk a quarter of a mile to the next one; nor did we ever speak of the incident. I never told my parents. I didn’t want them to worry and I felt them to be powerless. The next day at school the girl who had run off didn’t turn up. I was in a complete haze of fear the whole morning until her
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