The Nipper: The heartbreaking true story of a little boy and his violent childhood in working-class Dundee. Charlie Mitchell
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retaliation for Dad’s attempt on Mum’s life when she was pregnant with Bobby, there was an attempt on Dad’s life, when he was run over by a car as he walked out of a local pub. Dad got off lightly – just a few bruised ribs and minor injuries to the hip and shoulder which soon healed. He also had a twelve-inch gash to his leg which scarred it for life. He always claimed that Blake had something to do with this, but I think he just wanted to have another excuse to bully Mum.
He managed to snatch me again when I was approaching my third birthday and this time he headed over to the Isle of Man on the ferry, with me in tow…
I’m standing on the boat with him and it’s cold and windy and I don’t know whether I’ll see Mum or Tommy again. I’m fishing off the side of the boat and catch a conger eel with this orange rope handline, given to me by Dad to keep me amused. It nearly pulls me into the water and the rope cuts through my hand…It’s amazing that all of these fishermen have the best rods, reels and bait but catch nothing, and I have this silly little handline and I hook a thirty-pound conger.
But maybe it would have been better if the captain had never saved me from being dragged overboard – or maybe drowning me is Dad’s plan…
His new life in the Isle of Man was cut short and he had to come back. I don’t know why we only spent a few months there. I think he got kicked off the island for some reason, but he never told me why we came back.
Finally, when I was around three and a half years old and my big brother Tommy was five, they settled the custody battle in court.
Tommy and I are sitting there between Mum and Dad in a big, gloomy wood-panelled courtroom in Dundee. There’s this musty smell of ancient wax polish, disinfectant and broken lives. I don’t really know what’s going on but a man in a wig who I learn later is the judge seems to be in a hurry for us to leave, as he keeps snapping questions at Mum and Dad. Maybe he wants his lunch. Then suddenly he’s asking me who I want to live with, Mum or Dad.
By this time I’ve spent more of my life with Dad than I have with my mum and there doesn’t seem to be any choice. Besides I’m too frightened to say anything else.
‘Dad,’ I mumble nervously.
‘What’s he saying?’ says the judge.
‘He wants to be with me, Yi Honour,’ replies Dad, quickly and smartly.
Tommy has chosen Mum and in the next few minutes my childhood fate is sealed. The judge rules that I should live with Dad and Tommy should live with Mum. After all, it seems fair for both parents to have one kid each.
Mum’s crying and calling Dad a bastard and shouting something about access but Dad just says, ‘Yi can fuck off!’ and walks out of the courtroom, taking me with him.
‘Come with me, son. Come with me, son,’ Mum’s begging me as I follow my dad out. I feel stunned and miserable, and I’m trying not to listen too closely to her begging as it hurts too much. And even though I haven’t spent much time with my mum over the last few years and I don’t even feel I know her that well – she has already become a shadowy, distant figure in my life – I know I’m feeling that stab of pain in the pit of my tummy, a sense of isolation and terror, the same feeling I had when Dad snatched me from the social security office and lay me in the middle of the traffic.
Only this time, I’m the one who’s chosen not to be with my mum and I don’t even know why, except that I’m too frightened of my monster-like dad to do anything else. And I’m worried that by choosing Dad over Mum, I’ve let her down. I’m thinking that the breakup of my parents’ marriage must be my fault. I was the one who told the judge that I didn’t want to go with my mum and so I must be the one who’s to blame for her going out of my life.
I have been stolen back and forwards five times before by Dad and Mum, but this time Dad’s stolen me for good. And this time I’ve let him steal me. I’ve chosen to live with him so I’m also to blame. But it’s Dad who’s won the tug of war – not me or Mum. Dad is an animal that Mum just can’t handle. With him, it’s like banging your head against a brick wall. No matter how hard you try, you can never win, and Mum has had the last bit of fight knocked out of her. She has her consolation prize: at least she’s got Tommy, her first born.
As for me, now that I’m with Dad full-time I keep trying to imagine what it would have been like if I had replied ‘Mum’ to the judge not ‘Dad’, and if I had managed to escape along with Tommy that time he wriggled free of Dad in town. It’s a hard thing to say but I’ve wished so many times that I had been the one to go with Mum, not Tommy.
I’m not yet four years old and I won’t see my mother and brother again for most of my childhood. Instead my consolation prize is to look forward to years and years of physical and mental torture from my dad.
And my prison sentence has only just begun. The minimum term of my sentence is the whole of my childhood – though it may last much longer and could even be for life.
Chapter Four The Woman in the Bath
After Dad takes me away from that horrible courtroom and now that he has complete custody over me, I know that I won’t see my mum again. I know this because Dad keeps telling me.
‘She’s washed her hands of yir for good this time, the fuckin’ bitch,’ he smirks and of course I believe him. How can I not believe him? How can I know that she’s crying for me every day? How am I to know that losing me is the worst thing that has ever happened to her and that she will spend the rest of my childhood years trying to get me back? I only find this out years later and by then the damage of our being torn apart has well and truly been done.
But for me, as a boy of less than four years old, out of sight means out of mind. Besides, Dad has told me that if Mum gets her hands on me again she’ll try to kill me. She must be worse than Dad, I tell myself. After all, how can I know otherwise? And very soon I simply stop thinking about her.
After Dad and Mum broke up when I was ten months old, Dad had a short stint at the single life before he met a woman named Mandy. She’s a really pretty woman from a big, well-known family in Dundee. By well known I mean that where we live in St Mary’s, Dundee, everyone seems to know everyone else, especially when people come from big families. Mandy has three kids from her previous unhappy marriage, one girl and two boys, Julie, Paul and Peter. We all live together when I’m young.
Paul, who’s the middle child and a year older than me, soon becomes my best friend, and our friendship continues for many years into adult life. And Julie and Peter will always be like a brother and sister to me.
By the time I’m five I’m already living in fear of what my dad will do to me. The first time he battered me was the night before what should have been my first day at school. I now look forward to the rare occasions when he leaves me with someone else when he goes off somewhere, and for a brief time I’m free from him, off the hook. Like the time he takes Mandy and her three kids to Blackpool and leaves me behind with one of the neighbours, so I can go and pick berries to make money over the holidays.
Although my memories of my mother are already growing hazy I remember how Dad used to beat her up and mentally torture her, so in a way I’m not surprised when he carries on doing this in his relationship with Mandy.
Night after night I’m forced to listen to the thuds and moans coming through the wall, until I fall asleep. I have a good idea what’s going on, but I put the pillow over my head and cover my ears with my hands to block the noise out. I realise when I’m older that Mandy could have had anyone back then, as she was really good looking, but she ended up choosing a crazy aggressive thug with no morals or remorse for anything he did.
It’s hard to explain how this could come about but I know people think that Dad has a really funny personality when they first meet him – and when he’s sober. And the women he dates are led into a false sense of security by his happy-go-lucky