Street Boys: 7 Kids. 1 Estate. No Way Out. The True Story of a Lost Childhood. Tim Pritchard
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music of choice, but lately as his absences became more frequent it was Roberta Flack or Marvin Gaye who greeted him. That was the music his mother liked. One day, out of the blue, his mum told him that his dad had gone to work in Africa, in Ghana, labouring on a building site or some sort of construction project. JaJa had the feeling that there was more to it than that but he didn’t know what it was. But the longer his father stayed away, the more it became some sort of family secret that no one mentioned.
Anyway, his dad never wrote to him and soon it was as though he had been away forever. From then on Elijah didn’t even miss him that much. He was close to his mum, though. His mum was like a sister to him. She’d got pregnant with him when she was only 14 years old and the bond was tight. From a young age he recognized how difficult it was for her to bring up four kids alone. He did his best to help out by giving the younger kids their cornflakes in the morning, getting them ready for school and packing their lunch boxes with sandwiches, crisps and chocolate bars.
Then, one morning, when he was eight years old, his dad suddenly reappeared. JaJa woke up and there he was, standing at the foot of the bed. He recognized him straight away even though the long dreadlocks he’d had before he went away were now cut short. He ruffled their hair and gave them each a hug.
‘You grown big, you’re getting big now.’
He started to tell them a story about being in Africa and that he was on a construction project building a house. He said how he was on the beach and how he got his leg caught in seaweed and how it pulled him under and he nearly drowned. The best bit though was when he gave them presents: T-shirts, ornaments and African wooden carvings. The carvings were of ugly faces. They laughed and joked over the funny wooden faces. They each got a sugarcane stick to suck on. It was a laugh having his dad back.
The good times didn’t last. His dad became moody. Then the beatings started. It was true that JaJa was the sort of kid who often got up to mischief. He was always out and about and things would sometimes just happen. Things would get broken. People would get upset with him. It started with a few lashes of his dad’s belt. But one day his father really lost it. He ran upstairs to JaJa’s bedroom and started hitting him with anything he could lay his hands on.
He gave me a beating that has always stuck in my head. Not because of the beating itself but because he beat me for so long. He spent an hour beating me. He hit me all over with his hand, belt and slipper in my bedroom. It happened again after a couple of weeks. I started to think, that’s just what dads do.
His father’s moods darkened. They moved out of Crompton Road to a new house in Birchfield Road, Perry Bar, just outside Birmingham. A few weeks later his mum and dad started rowing even more frequently. JaJa didn’t know what the arguments were about but they were pretty ferocious. He stood, unseen, at the top of the stairs and listened as the voices of his parents got louder and more strained. He was too young to care what they were talking about. Instead he just focused on the terrible shouts that escalated into screaming and clattering. It was terrifying. He knew something bad was happening but didn’t know what it was. One day, without warning, his mum took him and his brother and sisters back to Crompton Road. JaJa wanted to know why they moved but his mum wouldn’t tell him.
The truth was that, for Sharon Kerr, life had never been the same since Delroy had gone to live in Ghana. For two years she hadn’t heard a word from him. Not a word. No phone call. No letter. Nothing. She’d tried to find out from his friends what had happened but nobody would tell her. When he finally did come back she found it difficult to regain what they’d once had. That’s why she’d decided to take the kids and move out. Sharon thought that after the temporary separation they might be able to rebuild a life together. Instead it got worse. Much worse.
Even though they weren’t living together, Delroy kept turning up at the house ready for a fight. Sharon felt he was bullying her, implying that she wasn’t a good mother.
His complaints came thick and fast.
‘Why are you putting the kids in playschool? The staff will feed them the wrong food.’
He tried to make them wear African clothes that he’d brought back with him from Ghana.
‘They should be wearing clothes that reflect where they are from.’
The rows exasperated Sharon Kerr and she hit back.
‘It’s cold. Why are they going to wear African clothes in this weather? You can’t be telling them what clothes to wear.’
The kids had grown up and formed their own opinions while he was away. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t take me backing the kids. I was brought up to be seen not heard and as far as I was concerned my kids were going to be heard. No one was going to come between me and my kids.
Delroy kept turning up at Crompton Road. Sharon tried to keep him out. But one day he just kicked the door down. This time JaJa wasn’t in bed. He saw it all from the hallway. His father walked in and punched his mum. She came running out of the kitchen with a black eye. JaJa stood staring at her, tears forming in his eyes.
His mum tried to reassure him.
‘Don’t be crying. Please don’t cry.’
Then she ran upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom.
When he hit my mum that’s when it changed. When you are young your mum is everything in the world. And this guy hasn’t been around very much and he comes back and punches her in the face, you think, what the hell?
JaJa was nine years old. He ran into the kitchen and got hold of a kitchen knife. When he came out his dad had already slammed the door and gone. Under his breath, though, he made a vow: Just wait till I’m older.
It never reached that point.
JaJa didn’t know it, but his mum had already decided to act. She was going to take things into her own hands. She was finally sick of all the fighting, all the punch-ups. One evening, after months of abuse, the violence came to an abrupt conclusion.
Sharon had gone to play netball. It was the one activity that took her out of the home and gave her the chance to meet up with other women. She played on a team and had made some good friends. It was what she enjoyed doing. That evening, she’d taken the kids with her. She’d learned to drive some weeks before and she used to ferry herself and the kids to and from netball practice. She could tell that it had become an issue for Delroy. He resented the fact that Sharon was now independent and could drive herself around without his help. In spite of everything that had happened, JaJa’s dad still liked to be the man of the house. He still turned up when he wanted and expected to find the family waiting. He expected everybody to ask his permission if they wanted something. Sharon had felt for some days that it was going to explode. So when Delroy turned up unexpectedly at the house after netball practice she almost knew what was going to happen.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’
His face was pinched, his lips tight. He was a dense ball of festering rage.
‘Tell me. Where the fuck were you?’
It was like a red rag to a bull. Sharon had grown up with a father who used to bully and intimidate both her and her mother. Her childhood had been miserable. Life had only got better when her parents had separated and her father had moved back to Jamaica. She had sworn then that she wouldn’t let a man push her around again.
‘You’ve got no fucking right to talk to me like that.’
She told him that she was allowed to do what she wanted and that they were separated and he couldn’t just keep coming back into her life and ordering her around.
Delroy locked JaJa and the other kids upstairs in their bedrooms, and put their German shepherd dog Sam in the kitchen.
Sharon knew what was going to happen. Whenever Delroy was going to hit her he would lock the dog away so the dog wouldn’t attack him.
She