Herewith the second extract from the autobiography of a remarkable man. Click the links for other parts.

Part 2

My recollection of the children's home, which was in Consett, County Durham, was that it catered almost exclusively for girls and that I was the only boy there. If there were other boys, I just don't remember them. We all shared the same dormitory. I knew the girls were different because at bath time we were all bathed together, more often than not in the yard. There was always the smell of sulphur in the air; it was only later that I realised that Consett was an industrial town with an iron foundry and coalmines. More often than not we were washed with this grey soap that had grit in it and had the most terrible smell. I hated that smell. I used to dread it when Friday came round, for Friday was wash day, or bath day would be nearer the truth. I would be lined up with the others and my head would be shaved; I would have this gluey stuff put on my scalp which I was told was for my own good. I would have bright purple liquid painted around the sores on my head and ears and the most vile-smelling talcum powder puffed all over me. The reader may well have realised that I was lousy, but I had no conception of lousiness; I had no conception of being infested, or of being dirty. I did however have a very real conception of what happened when I was the last to go into a tub of cold water full of grease and scum to be washed and scrubbed with bars of soap and scrubbing brushes that made you bleed. I can also remember the food, and to this day certain smells and foods throw me back into such trauma and pain that I want to be sick.

However, there were a few rays of sunshine in this darkness that I can remember. One is that there was a goat nearby and an old man with a very funny smell. He used to suck fire and I was absolutely certain he was the devil. He would come and talk to this goat and give me nice things to eat, like carrots and sweet things. After a while this man didn't seem so frightening and every now and again I would find that there was something left for me as well as for the goat. The goat and I became firm friends. I used to talk to this goat about many things. I asked the goat, did he have a father, did he have a mother? He was always on his own tied up and chained on a piece of scrubland. He became very important to me, this goat, but then one day he was gone. I remember my terror and horror, for my friend had gone. I cried hot liquid tears that were like acid, burning as I ran searching for my friend. I never found him. I have never forgotten him.

There are many events that shape a human soul on its journey. Many of them are tough times, but there are also events that are so special and so wonderful that when you look back you feel special and wonderful all over again. These are days when I take a picture with my heart, and when I'm up to my ass in alligators I can go to my heart and look at the photo album of my pictures, and my internal world becomes OK again.

I can remember one such day.

I remember very vividly being ill, lying in bed, and feeling very unhappy and very sad. I couldn't understand what the priests were saying and what the nuns were saying. I couldn't understand what the sisters meant when they said that I was full of sin and I was a product of sin, and I had to be grateful for the things that God had given to me. I couldn't understand why with one breath the words were about love and with the next came a whip or a cuff or a slap. I couldn't understand. God was important to me when I was a child, and still is today, but I couldn't understand why this man who was so full of love was hanging from a tree. I couldn't understand why they made me go to a service where they ate his body and drank his blood. I felt absolute terror that these people who were hitting me would drink my blood and eat my body, because they kept telling me that the body was of Christ.

So I was confused and I lay in my bed crying, but I wouldn't let them see me cry; and then I looked out of the window, watching the clouds paint pictures, and then, as God is my witness, I swear I saw this figure appear in the window. The strange thing about it was that I was lying on my left side looking out of the window and this figure appeared in the horizontal. I remember distinctly that there were six panes of glass in that window and the figure went up through the middle panes of glass and I swear in my truth that that moment was the first time I saw Christ.

You may find throughout this narrative that my uses of the word Christ, and God, may differ, but one thing never will change and that is my belief that in that moment I knew that I had somebody special who cared for me. I was filled with a warmth and a nurturing and I felt that I had been wrapped up in blankets and, more importantly, I wasn't hungry any more. Imagine that in my excitement my sore throat and illness, or whatever it was I was lying in bed with, were forgotten and I rushed downstairs to see the sister and said, "Sister, sister, please come, come, come and see what I can see". They couldn't see. I was so upset and I told them what I'd seen. Big mistake. One of the things I learned at three-and-a-half years old was that you don't speak your truth, for your truth may not be received by those you tell it to with anything like the innocence from which you tell it.

When we transgressed, which we always seemed to be doing, we were punished; the girls would get something done to them but if we were really naughty we were locked up in the coal bunker and left there in darkness. A friend of mine, a girl called Joy, and I were locked in this coal bunker quite often. It was a huge place to which you opened a big door and then the coal was put behind big slats of wood. Joy was hysterical, for she couldn't stand spiders, and of course the hole, as we called it, was full of spiders. I think one of my proudest moments was when I sneaked in a battery and a bulb and two pieces of wire, and I hid them inside the coal bunker for I knew that we would soon be put back in there again. The next time that Joy and I were thrown in the coal bunker was really quite wonderful because we had the light.

I have no wish to bore whoever reads this narrative, but those were desperately unhappy days. They were grey days, dark days, we were always hungry, our shoes, well they weren't shoes they were boots, always hurt and pinched the feet. We never seemed to be warm and the violence was quite extraordinary.

© J K Adler-Collins 2008