A Borrowed Anorak-
(Dad I’m on the run)
A True Story
Françoise Jewell
Published by Jackpot Jewell Publications at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Françoise Jewell
Discover other titles by Jackpot Jewell Publications
This book is also available in print.
ISBN 978-0-9807943-3-5 eBook edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Chapter 7 Duncroft Approved School- the appeal
Chapter 8 A Difficult Decision
Chapter 10 First Night of Freedom
Chapter 12 Waiting for the Vendage
Chapter 13Grape Picking at La Bouscat
Chapter 14Bordeaux & the Pavement Artists
Chapter 15 On the Road at last
Chapter 17Stuttgart to Antwerp
Chapter 19Saving for the Passport
Chapter 22Rape, Saviours & the Pied Piper
Chapter 23Dominic & Scandinavia
Hitching to Paris
Cherie sat in the passenger seat nibbling one of her thumb nails watching the small slightly balding man who had driven her from Cherbourg, struggling to get out of his Citroen van. The traffic was heavy. His hand gripped the handle but his small dark eyes continuously darted between the mirror to watch the traffic, and then back towards Cherie’s chest.
His smile, she observed was sickeningly covetous and was accompanied by some, perhaps involuntary, lip licking that made her stomach churn. His stated mission, at this point, was to cross over to the shops on the opposite side of a wide boulevard located somewhere in the outskirts of the northern suburbs of Paris. After that he had suggested finding a quiet spot for refreshments before he drove her to central Paris.
Cherie knew that his lip licking was not connected to his suggestion of food and wine. Trapped for hours in the small dark van alone with this strange man, Cherie’s relief was palpable when dawn finally cast its welcome light into the interior of the front seat of the van. In the shelter of the darkness, the apparently innocuous and friendly driver had slowly but surely begun his accidental sexual manoeuvres; gear changes that brushed her thighs and knees no matter how she rearranged her legs; elbows that brushed by coincidence against her chest; intrusive questioning about her love life.
Cherie was no novice to hitch-hiking and knew these were the troublesome behaviours of a man who anticipated sex in return for his lift. Welcome though the dawn light had been in easing the unwanted intimacy cast by the black night, it had revealed too many of his leering smiles and too much of how physically ugly and old the man really was. Not that Cherie would have traded sex for a lift – she was still a virgin and that virginity was not going to be wasted on some ugly stranger, nor was it available for a trade.
Finally the man opened the van door having found a break in the flow of traffic that enabled him to get out and begin zigzagging his way to the other side. He turned to wave at Cherie once he was safely across. Cherie did not wave back - though out of polite habit- a facade of a smile appeared on her face, which he probably could not see anyway. There was nothing to smile about. This was decision time.
Cherie slid the window of the passenger door open and began to peer around hoping to see some landmark, like the Eiffel Tower perhaps, suddenly hove into view. But it was just a very busy road somewhere unknown to her, although they had passed a metro station just a few moments before the van had parked. Cherie knew the Parisian underground system went for miles so it could still be quite a long way to the Left bank of Paris and the suburb of St Michel. Her dilemma revolved around the convenience of getting nearer versus the implicit difficulty of extricating herself from the man’s inevitable amorous advances. He didn’t act like someone who would try and force her. They, in her experience, didn’t bother with any seduction moves – just pulled up and tried to take their ‘payment’. She’d already been through one very nasty rape attempt – luckily he gave up – but that had been in England and maybe French men were different?
With her hand on the door handle Cherie noticed that the driver, who was still on the other side of the avenue was raising his arm to show her that he had a couple of bottles of wine in his hand before pointing towards a boulangerie. Hesitation, doubt and false optimism were no longer useful. She would be much better off catching a metro or getting another lift then going through all the ghastly fumbling sex demands that would follow. Cherie reached into the back of the van and dragged out her rolled up sleeping bag and her cylindrical army kit bag containing her few possessions, backed out of the van, slung the straps on her shoulder and walked briskly back towards the metro station they had passed.
Her footsteps faltered a little as she heard a shout that might have come from the driver. Without stopping she glanced back across the road and saw the driver with baguettes under one arm and bottles in his free hand staring at Cherie mouthing something at her. Despite a nervous twinge Cherie knew there were far too many people around for him to do anything so she just raised a hand and shook her head and kept going. In less than five minutes she had reached the sturdy iron railings of the metro station. Looking up at the sign she saw it was called, 'Chateau Rouge'.
‘Red Castle’ -she translated to herself, ‘Ah well castles are quite useful chess pieces – wouldn’t it be great if it was a direct line to St Michel!’
Pausing at the strong iron railing Cherie looked back just to be double sure the man had not pursued her. With relief she realised the man and his van had disappeared, swallowed up into the traffic that roared and beeped impatiently carrying, she supposed, the Parisians to work. Cherie looked around suddenly realising that she was in Paris – something that had only been a desperate dream less than twenty-four hours before was now as real as the dirty pavement beneath her feet. The opening lines of Dickens ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ popped in to her mind.
‘So will it be the best of times or the worst of times? Yet another unanswerable question - all I do know is that it is the start of my new life for better or worse – it’s me Cherie Todd against the world!’
Scary and elated thoughts, feelings and memories competed crazily in her mind for her attention. Claiming supremacy from the melange of musings was the realisation that she was now officially a person on the run from the law! Surely they would never dream of tracing her to France?
She hoped her father was okay – the authorities must have contacted him by now and the other girls who were still locked up – they would know she was missing – the wardens had probably put her name on the absconders list already. God she’d done it – she had made her dash for freedom while also fulfilling her dream of being ‘on the road’! She was going to live her own life from now on, as a beatnik, free of all the constraints society and the law had attempted to impose on her. Sixteen years old and free – ‘yea yea yea’ - she chanted inwardly in imitation of the Beatles hit song.
Amidst this euphoria, some unexpected claws of fear snatched at her stomach. Forcing herself to take slow deep breaths as she had learned to do in Yoga classes Cherie become attuned to her external surroundings again. She heard the lovely lilting French language; the roar of engines and impatient car horns; she smelled the benzene and black tobacco in the air; she observed the gesticulating hands of the people as they spoke; the subtle but distinctive differences in the way people dressed in Paris - the cut of their clothes, the angles of their hats and the casualness of scarves or coats draped on Gallic shoulders setting them apart from the drab conservative English she had left behind less than 24 hours before. Reaching into her kitbag Cherie pulled out a ‘Parisienne’ cigarette from the packet she had purchased at Cherbourg and lit one. Cherie had been smoking since she was 12 going from one or two a week underneath the pier with her school friend Suzy, to smoking on a daily basis until she had been ‘locked up’ by the authorities a few months earlier.
Taking a final drag Cherie resolutely rearranged her bags on her shoulder, patted her jeans pocket to ensure her passport and money were still there and descended the metro stairs where she made her way to the large metro map board and began searching for St Michel.
Cherie did not know anyone in St Michel, nor did she have a place to stay when she got there but she had read in the underground press and beat poetry books that there was a café in St Michel which beatniks used. The café was called Chez Popov. She also knew that St Michel was on the left bank of Paris where the artists and beatniks hung out and slept under the bridges. In Cherie’s mind, beatniks were philosophical, artistic people who rejected society’s traditions, inequities and constraints to live a life of enlightenment and travel. It was imperative to her that she meet and travel with them so she too could belong somewhere in a way she did not feel able to with ‘ordinary’ people.
Luckily, her earlier castle chess analogy was working in her favour! She could ‘castle’ it to St Michel as it was on the same direct line as Chateau Rouge. She bought her ticket at the ‘guichet’ and made her way through the automatic gates to the platform already crowded with sombre looking commuters. The large clock showed it was now 7.45 am which was coincidentally exactly 13 hours since she had been expected to return to the euphemistically titled ‘approved school’, after a few days leave with her father.
‘Thirteen hours? – hmm lucky for some,’ she thought.
With a noisy whoosh the train arrived through the darkness of the tunnel and onto the brightly lit station. Cherie pushed her way into the crowded compartment where she found a seat between two business men reading ‘Le Monde’. Placing her two bags between her legs, Cherie glanced around as the train picked up speed. The carriage was crowded with some people standing while holding on to the leather straps dangling from the domed ceiling of the carriage. Typically these strangers crowded too closely together for their personal comfort, ignored each other and Cherie, with just a few exceptions. A few were staring at her blatantly with facial expressions that Cherie interpreted, as disgust rather than curiosity!
Cherie felt pleased because real Beatniks were supposed to inspire disgust from the public! She imagined the picture she was presenting to them with her dusty feet encased in worn leather sandals, her sleeping bag and kit bag resting against her faded blue denim jeans and her long home-made blue velvet cloak draped over her body. To complete their picture Cherie knew they would also take in her un-brushed mess of curly blonde hair tumbling to her shoulders. Cherie desperately hoped they were thinking ‘Aha un beatnik!’
Mutual disinterest soon resumed though and Cherie’s thoughts were free to roll rhythmically with the gentle swaying of the train back to what she thought of as ‘her great escape’! Thirteen hours ago she had been due back at Duncroft Approved School where she was supposed to stay locked up until she was nineteen years old. She knew that the other girls would be abuzz, full of chatter and speculation as they sat down to their breakfast, knowing that she, Cherie Todd, was missing!
Although the wardens would have tried to keep it quiet last night, by now they would have had to make the announcement that Cherie Todd had absconded. The girls would cheer as they always did when someone did ‘a runner’ and the wardens would say in loud menacing voices, ‘She will be caught soon and placed in solitary.’
Cherie had heard it all before during her three months incarceration there, as 5 girls had absconded during that time. None had lasted longer than a week though before they were returned by the police. Excursions were the most common ‘escape’ route – the wardens who accompanied them had to keep a close eye on them all but there were so many distractions on the outings that a girl sometimes managed to disappear into a crowd.
Cherie would be the first girl, as far as she knew, to have not returned from leave mainly because leave was never granted to girls considered to be a risk. It had been uncomfortable for Cherie to betray their trust in her even in these circumstances for Cherie was basically a decent girl, but this had been her one opportunity to get a good head start and minimise the risk of a quick re-capture. Cherie was free now and that’s how she intended to stay.
Freedom was an important value for Cherie. It was 1965 and protests about discrimination, injustice, nuclear war and inequality were mounting in their intensity. Cherie wasn’t merely concerned about her own literal freedom, but more so by the lack of freedom of all those who were oppressed. As a little girl she had been appalled by the way cowboys treated the Indians in the films at the cinema.
An avid reader of Dickens novels she had been disgusted by the injustice and inequity of nineteenth century England and she had no reason to believe that much had changed between rich and poor – powerful and powerless. She abhorred the class divisions that still favoured the rich, titled and wealthy. When, at thirteen she had discovered blues and gospel music she was moved to anger and tears as she listened to the words of the songs about the slavery, poverty and discrimination that robbed people of their dignity.
Right at that moment though, Cherie also allowed herself to think that she too had been oppressed by a society that had determined she should be locked up because she had borrowed an anorak. They had called it larceny but no-one ever spoke about it being wrong to steal. They appeared to be more interested in her family and ideas than anything else. When Cherie had complained to one of the many professionals who ‘assessed’ her, he had told Cherie that she was locked up for her own ‘care and protection’
‘Care and protection from what?’ she had asked desperate to understand the bizarre chain of events that had seen her removed from her home, her studies and her life. But no answer had been forthcoming. Contemplating the irony of the phrase, Cherie sniffed contemptuously about the law’s decision to lock her up which had resulted in her being alone, with no supports in a foreign country at the grand old age of 16.
Having spent the last five months locked up in a variety of detention homes Cherie was still at a loss to understand how and why it had all eventuated. As the train continued to chug and roll its way through the underbelly of Paris, she allowed herself to mull over the events that had led to this day – her first day alone on the road and on the run.
First Love
It was hard to pinpoint where all this trouble had started but it seemed to Cherie that it must be linked to meeting Jim. Cherie had just turned 13 when she met him. Jim was a 19 year old artist, with long dark hair, deep brown eyes and golden skin. The shawl of childhood had slipped effortlessly from her shoulders the moment she saw him; heard his voice and intuitively understood her life had changed, as he gazed shyly into her eyes while gently strumming his acoustic guitar. From that day on she always stopped off after school with her friend Suzy at the Bluebird café, which Suzy’s parents owned. Whenever Jim happened to be in the Bluebird, drawing or strumming his guitar, strange and delicious feelings filled her heart, mind and body.
Within a few weeks, he was always there when she arrived after school and he always invited her to talk to him. One day he gave her some drawings of dogs, after she had mentioned that she yearned to own a pet dog, but her mother wouldn’t agree. His kindness in thinking of ways to please her filled her with happiness.
Jim usually dismissed the pop music that pumped out from the juke box in the cafe, but before long he began playing ‘Venus in Blue Jeans’ on the juke box whenever she came in. Soon after that Jim asked if he could walk Cherie home. It was almost a mile walk along the beach but Jim was never short of conversation as he told her about art, blues music, philosophy and anti nuclear demonstrations. The walk soon became their daily routine. Sometimes Jim would stop and sit with Cherie on the large boulders under the cliff where he read poems to her and showed her books by Jack Kerouac, Walt Whitman and Alex Ginsberg.
One special day, when it was quite cold on the beach, he took off his well worn brown corduroy jacket and placed it tenderly around her shoulders before taking her hand in his. Cherie felt delirious with joyful sensations that she could not describe or understand. To walk side by side holding hands with this lovely gentle boy was evoking strange sensations that she had no words for.
On this particular day as they neared her home, having climbed exactly half way up a steep road called Monkey Hill, he turned to face her, tilted her chin up and kissed her on the lips. Even now, three years later it was easy for her to recall the wonder of that first sweet grown-up kiss. She recalled how her knees seemed to collapse, how her heart had pounded and how emotion of the most pure and passionate nature had seemed to consume her being.
‘I feel ten feet tall to think a girl like you would let me kiss her.’ Jim had said to her enraptured face. They kissed once more before walking shyly on to her house hand in hand cocooned in a calm but inexplicable silence.
Her father was outside watering the garden and saw them approaching. John Todd moved quickly towards them saying rather sharply, ‘Who’s this Cherie?’
‘This is my friend Jim, dad; he walked me home from school.’ Cherie answered happily.
Her normally amiable father looked at Jim and spoke to him in a very firm voice, ‘She’s 13 years old - are you aware of that young man?’
Jim let go of Cherie’s hand and replied, ‘Yes sir - I know she’s 13. I want you to know that I would never hurt her.’
A look that Cherie did not understand passed between them. ‘Of course Jim wouldn’t hurt me’ she thought to herself, ‘What a strange thing to say.’
‘You certainly won’t because I don’t want you to see her again. Is that clear?’ her father replied using the same unfamiliar somewhat angry tone in his voice.
Cherie looked in confusion at the two men she loved most in the whole world. She could not understand why her dad was being so grumpy and unpleasant to dear Jim, or why her age was relevant.
‘Dad,’ she interrupted grabbing his arm, ‘Jim is really nice – he’s teaching me lots of stuff and he’s an artist and I like seeing him. Please don’t say we can’t see each other – he’s my friend dad ....’
John Todd looked at his daughter’s face for a few moments, as though seeing her with different eyes. He sighed before stroking her on the hand and saying, ‘That’s OK Cherie. Go inside now so I can talk to your young man.’
Cherie hesitated briefly until Jim nodded at her saying, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow Cherie – do as your Dad says.’ Biting her lip she went inside and watched them talk for about 5 minutes before her father joined her inside.
‘What did you say Dad? You do like him don’t you?’ she asked clutching her father’s arm again.
‘He seems like a nice young man, Cherie but I think you should spend more time with boys your own age,’ he paused before adding, ‘Did you know that Jim has already fathered two children?’
‘Yes dad, he told me that. Is that what you’re worried about?’
Her father didn’t really answer the question but he began to tell Cherie that ‘rubber Johnny’s’ weren’t reliable. He told her that he had worked in a condom factory and that by the time they had finished testing them they were no good any more. Cherie was never to trust a man who said she wouldn’t get pregnant because he was using a condom.
That night Cherie’s older brother Antony, who went to the same Grammar school, was told he had to bring Cherie straight home after school on the bus. No reason was given but it was made very clear that there would be no stops at the Bluebird Cafe from that moment on.
Cherie became desperate to see Jim again. She had previously enjoyed her school work with straight ‘A’s in all subjects. She had even had crushes on a couple of other boys in her brother’s class but now she could only think of Jim. In class, her mind always strayed to thoughts of him as she passed the time writing his name all over her ruler, her desk, and her school books and finally one night at home, scratched his name into her arm with one of her father’s razor blades.
Her best friend Suzy told Cherie that Jim rarely came to the cafe any more except at the weekends. Although it was obvious that Cherie’s dad had scared him off Cherie did not think any the less of either of them. It was what Dads’ had to do she thought and what young men were obliged to respect. None the less the more time that went by the more desperate Cherie became to see Jim again.
After a couple of months of agony Cherie’s anguish was softened when her parents agreed that she could sleep over with Suzy to celebrate Suzy’s birthday. Probably they assumed enough time had passed for Cherie to have forgotten about Jim. Of course she had not forgotten, rather she had become totally obsessed with him and Suzy being a good & sympathetic friend had let Jim know that Cherie was coming to stay with her at the flat above the Cafe, that weekend.
The man who changed the records on the juke box arrived on Saturday afternoon and as usual he gave Suzy and Cherie their pick of the records he was taking off. Cherie was thrilled that ‘Venus in Blue Jeans’ was coming off having slipped below the top fifty, and she would now be able to play it on her little record player at home. Holding the record close to her, she heard Jim’s voice ordering a coffee at the counter. She turned to see him – he smiled – she smiled and soon they were snuggled together in a little booth with the unspoken but very present ‘frisson’ between them.
Cherie was thrilled to see Jim again. Jim said he understood why her father had told him to stay away but added that he had really missed her and to prove it he showed her sketches he had drawn of her in the weeks of absence.
‘I can’t forget you Cherie – no matter how hard I try,’ he told her. Cherie showed him the scar proclaiming his name on her left arm.
From then they devised every opportunity they could to be together. For Cherie this meant devising all kinds of stories to cover her absence from home or school. Her brother, Antony knew and gave her advice, but he agreed not to tell their parents.
Within a few weeks, Cherie started to appreciate the full force of the magical feelings that had overtaken her since kissing Jim. They freely and frequently explored and delighted in each other’s bodies. However, her virginity remained intact due to the social constraints that hung over her, like an executioner’s triple headed axe made up of a fear of pregnancy, of him not respecting her afterwards, or of catching a Venereal Disease. All the dire warnings her brother had spoken to her of. Other than that final act of penetration, there was nothing much left out of sexuality’s rich bag of pleasures.
Eventually though, Jim was becoming more insistent about ‘going all the way’ so when her parents announced that they were separating Cherie opted to go and live with her father who was moving three hours drive away to the City of Bath. She knew she would miss Jim but as she was too fearful to ‘go all the way’ it seemed like a sensible solution.
Neither she nor Antony felt upset about their parents’ separation. Antony preferred his mother, she preferred her father, so everything worked out satisfactorily from their point of view. In fact life without her mother’s constant criticism and rules was a very pleasant prospect indeed.
Cherie’s new school was ‘girls only’ and very conservative. Although Cherie had always been considered bright, she tended towards independent thoughts that questioned the established traditions and thinking. In her new school these characteristics were frowned upon.
She was also told that only the really gifted girls were allowed to study mathematics and science and as her report from her old school reflected the fact that Cherie’s studies had suffered as she became interested in boys and Jim, they were not willing to treat her as a ‘mathematically bright girl’. The school appeared to reason that as girls would be - not might be - wives and mothers, higher education was a non essential factor in their lives, though the domestic sciences were considered critical! Cherie began to resent school.
Now aged fourteen, life with her father settled into an easy and pleasant routine. He gave Cherie some money each week from which she did all their shopping. They shared the cooking and housework and in their leisure both pursued their own interests.
Cherie loved reading and listening to music, particularly the Blues music Jim had introduced her to. Her father also a keen reader was spending long hours trying to set up his own business involving permutations that would improve the odds of winning a prize on the Pools.
A woman friend called Donna stayed overnight with her father from time to time. In one of the regular letters she received from her brother Antony he told her that their mother Annette believed that their Dad had been involved with Donna before the separation. According to their mother it was the affair with Donna and her father’s gambling habits that had caused the marriage to break down.
Cherie had asked her father about it, but he assured her that he had only befriended Donna, who worked in his department, when she was having marital problems of her own. He said he sometimes gave her lifts home while she recounted her tales of woe. Cherie’s mum had apparently discovered a scented lipstick stained handkerchief in the car and had come to the wrong conclusion. John had told Cherie with tears in his eyes, ‘I love your mother. I would never have deceived her.’ Cherie believed him.
Cherie’s reading taste included all the ‘beat’ poets; Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’; Dostoevsky’s nineteenth century works based on Russia’s social inequities and lifestyles; Bertrand Russel’s philosophies and occasionally comics or magazines for young women her age! She wanted more than anything to be a travelling philosopher. She dismissed the social ‘morals, values and attitudes’ that she was being taught at school that seemed based on the day to day life of middle class England and Royal traditions.
In part, Cherie’s tendency to question traditional values had probably resulted from contact with her mother’s family who were of Greek and French origin. When these relatives visited she was exposed to and noticed that they had many different cultural values and beliefs. As a consequence Cherie concluded that all the rules and beliefs she was being taught at school were ‘man made’ and not divine immutable truths.
She longed to understand how and why people believed the things they believed, why they behaved in certain ways rather than others, why they could be both so cruel and so compassionate to other humans and to the animal world. She was a thinker but felt devoid of any satisfactory answers to the questions she raised. School was ridiculous she deduced and as she could leave school at 15, she happily did so!
Cherie aged 15 and 3 days had begun to take charge of her own independence. She took a job as a mother’s help in a small town an hour from London. She had her own room and meals and some days off in return for looking after Gerald, a two and a half year old boy. She was also responsible for doing some light housework, which she enjoyed somewhat less than caring for Gerald. Cherie was naturally kind and maternal and she enjoyed playing with and looking after the little boy.
Little Gerald slept in the room next to hers and it was she who tended to him if he woke in the night. She was the first person he saw in the morning and she gave him his bath and breakfast before she took him to see his mother. Cherie felt as though she was his real mother as she spent more time with him than either of his parents did. When she went to town with Gerald in his push chair, she imagined that people thought of her as his young single mother. She liked the idea of ‘shocking people’ and felt happy for the public to have this erroneous perspective. She also believed that they would be equally astonished about the ‘good mothering’ she was demonstrating, as it would not fit their tightly knit image of ‘young single mothers’!
On her days off from work Cherie got dressed in her ‘beatnik’ clothes consisting of jeans or tight hipster trousers, long sweaters and sandals before hitching down to Portsmouth to see Jim and her brother, or to Bath to see her friends. Jim had become a father for the third time and he had several other girl friends on the go. Cherie still considered Jim the love of her life but she also felt very relieved that she wasn’t one of those three young women who had given birth to Jim’s children!
Slightly ahead of the fashion of the time Cherie wore white face make-up, thick mascara and heavy Kohl around her eyelids. She dyed her light brown hair to a peroxide blonde which caused her natural curls to become a frizzy halo radiating down to her shoulders. Much to her disappointment she had the sort of hair that just didn’t seem to grow much past her shoulders. She yearned to have long straight hair like Joan Baez who was considered so cool and groovy, but even ironing hers didn’t help.
Cherie often wore thin silk scarves tied around her head in imitation of the Red Indians she had seen at the movies. In an era of stockings and suspender belts, Cherie had also discovered that ballerina tights were available from specialist ballet shops. She teamed these with her baggy sweaters thus inventing a ‘mini’ dress before Carnaby Street, Mary Quant and Jean Shrimpton made them fashionable!
Cherie always dressed ‘safely’ when she was hitching and minimised the make-up as she knew that there was a chance of an assault. Mostly she got lifts from single, travelling sales men who were glad of the company or sometimes, annoyingly concerned about her safety. The latter group made grave accusations about her parents’ slackness in allowing her to hitch. Cherie tried to explain that she was independent and that it was her right to choose, but when they pursued questions about her age and discovered she was 15, they would not accept her argument at all. It was not uncommon for them to offer her money so she could catch a bus or train instead. Cherie always refused such offers.
In reality, her father John would have been equally horrified if he knew she was hitch hiking, but Cherie believed that there are certain things that wise teenagers do not share with their parents, however close they are.
Sometimes pop groups were travelling to concerts and stopped to give her lifts. That was always fun. Cherie travelled with the Kinks, the Rockin’ Berries, the Rolling Stones and the Hollies. There was always lots of flirting but Cherie never followed up with any of the young stars she met as none pursued her with anything other than sexual intentions.
Cherie wanted them to be interested in her as a person, not her as a body! Many of these band members had also discovered blues music but they found it hard to believe that Cherie, a girl, was a Blues music fan too! She loved to see the astonishment on their faces when she reeled off some of her favourite artists and tunes.
Hitch hiking wasn’t always safe though. When a man seemed to be getting a little sexual in his talk Cherie would quickly come up with a reason to get out of the car. One day she had accepted a lift from a truck driver, who was certainly being suggestive in his talk, but seemed to settle down again when Cherie didn’t respond.
Quite unexpectedly he pulled off the main road into a lay by that was heavily wooded and shielded from the main road. Cherie froze slightly but the man told her, ‘Just having a piss love,’ before getting out of the lorry. She lost sight of him as he went around to the back but suddenly the door on her side of the truck was swung open and he started to drag her out of the cabin by her arms.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked fearfully yet somehow aware of a powerful determination that she would not allow herself to be raped.
‘Just getting my payment for the ride you stupid little tart,’ he snarled as he dragged her away from the truck and threw her on the ground.
He sat astride her on the ground and began trying to pull off her jeans but as they were very tight and Cherie did not stop wriggling, pushing and turning her body, he couldn’t get them undone. Cherie fought him saying, ‘Stop don’t do this- please stop.’
Somehow despite his strength she continued to evade his attempts to pull her jeans off. She was determined not to lose her virginity in such a horrible way. The struggle seemed to go on forever. He hit her once or twice across the face with his open hand but she continued struggling. She did not scream but kept repeating, ‘No, No, please stop.’ Finally the man stood up, kicked her in the thighs and spat at her face as she lay on the ground.
‘You’re no bloody fun,’ he yelled, ‘Go home to your mummy – you fucking little cock tease.’
With that he stormed off, revving up the truck loudly as he drove away. Initially Cherie felt so energised that he hadn’t succeeded in raping her that she stood up and began walking steadily and briskly out of the lay by towards the road as though she had just been in a good hockey game instead of a fight for her life.
However seconds later as she began to feel the soreness from the vicious kick to her upper leg; as she stared down at her broken zipper; as she felt again the sensation of his rough hands on her arms and breasts; his stubbly chin against her face; the pain in her cheeks from the slaps he had given her and the horrible weight of his body pinning her to the ground she felt her legs giving way and she sank to the ground in tears. She began to cry and sob gently until anger rose within her.
‘It’s not fair. I’m not a ‘cock tease’ – all I wanted was a lift – I didn’t do anything to make him think I was interested – just the opposite in fact – it’s just not fair – why can’t girls hitchhike without being attacked and raped – it’s not fair at all.’
Cherie felt very angry and suddenly yelled down the empty road he had taken, ‘You dirty smelly bastard!’ Still shaking Cherie walked all the way to the next small town and got a bus back to Gerald’s home, where she managed to sneak quietly to her room without being seen. Cherie didn’t take any lifts from lorry drivers for ages after that.
In November 1963, while Cherie was dressing Gerald in his pyjamas after his bath, an urgent news flash came on her television announcing that President Kennedy had been shot. Cherie, like millions around the world was stunned and shocked by the news. ‘Kennedy – shot?’ The very words felt like a bullet had lodged in her instead. Almost staggering with shock she grabbed Gerald and went to his parents’ bedroom along the corridor. She stood hesitating briefly but then knocked on the door, desperate to share the news with someone as the assassination didn’t seem real or believable until she shared it.
‘Enter,’ boomed a male voice.
As she entered she noticed that Gerald’s mother, Mrs Braithwaite, was still in her bra and knickers, while Mr Braithwaite had little garter things round his calves holding up his socks. They must have sensed the urgency in her knock to let her in while they were dressing.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ she said, ‘but did you know that John Kennedy has been shot?’
Looks of amazement and disbelief crossed both their faces as Mr Braithwaite rushed to turn on the television. The news had dominated both channels and they sat together in silence listening to all the details and watching the footage. Even Gerald, usually such a chatterbox, sat quietly on Cherie’s knee.
This had been a life changing moment for many, including Cherie. She didn’t know much about politics and some of her reactions were understandably naïve, such as later thinking that the incoming President Johnson seeming so ugly and old compared to the handsome charismatic John Kennedy, but she did know that Kennedy spoke of peace and racial harmony, that he was a friend of Martin Luther King and that he had seemed to promise a more peaceful and optimistic view of the world. With his death she believed the world was less peaceful and less committed to social equality and once again she began to re-question her own place in it.
‘I want to go on the road like Kerouac, so I can write and be at one with nature and think about all these confusing and contradictory things about life,’ she said to herself, ‘I wish I was 16, then I could legally leave home and go travelling.’
She wrote her weekly letter to her father and expressed all her pain and confusion and her desire to travel. John Todd was not a ‘careless’ parent. He loved his daughter very much and had the normal paternal concerns about her youth and vulnerability, even though he could recognise in his daughter her courage, maturity and conviction. He wrote back to her suggesting that there was still a lot Cherie could learn from books about the issues and questions that plagued her.
‘I can’t agree to you travelling on your own at 16,’ he wrote, ‘why don’t you go back to studying – maybe at the College of Advanced education instead of school? That way you wouldn’t have to put up with all the school rules you hated. You could do some of your O levels in subjects you like and study philosophy.’
Cherie respected her father’s advice and decided to return to her father’s home and enrol at the local college. After Christmas, Cherie left her position bidding a sad farewell to the little boy she had looked after for 6 months. She got a part time job at a small grocery shop where within two weeks she was promoted with additional responsibilities such as ordering and pricing. Looking at the difference between wholesale and retail prices, Cherie began to think that the profit margins were too high particularly as the shop had a number of poor and elderly customers. Cherie developed the habit of undercharging them.
At college Cherie was studying economics and politics and came across Marxism and Communism. She felt very attracted to the arguments and solutions they offered. Most of the other subjects still bored her intensely, but going to college was definitely better than going to school. Her father had been right – no school uniform and self directed learning was a much better match for her perspectives on freedom and independence.
After her 16th birthday Cherie merged her life to include some of her beatnik interests such as hitching to visit friends or to listen to bands she liked such as The Rolling Stones. She had been back stage to meet them a few times and they generally recognised her and let her in through the growing crowds of screaming girls around the stage door. She was besotted by Mick Jagger who she loved with the same intensity that she had once felt for Jim, but it was not his fame she liked. In fact she wished he wasn’t famous so they could go on the road together.
Her new friends at College saw her as very groovy – a really ‘cool chick’! She was now dressing in a weird mix of clothing that she made or put together from Charity shops. She ‘knew’ famous people and she had travelled on her own. She didn’t ‘date’ anyone though, mainly because if she fancied a boy it was a dead certainty that he would not fancy her!
But in part it was also an almost sub-conscious desire to enable her to retain her own identity. Too many girls were known only as So & So’s girlfriend rather than as individuals. When she went to parties, she went as a curious observer sitting cross legged in a corner, rolling joints for the others but not smoking or drinking herself. When other tried to get her to smoke and drink, Cherie would reply, ‘I have a natural high, just from being alive!’
The only downside was that her dear old dad seemed to have a lot of worries on his mind. One day John Todd sat his daughter down saying he needed to have a serious talk with her.
‘Cherie darling,’ he began with an uncomfortable look on his face, ‘I’ve got some very bad news. You know that I have been trying to start my own business don’t you?’
Cherie nodded ‘Yes dad – how is it going?’ she asked sensing that it was probably not doing well.
‘I’m in a lot of trouble Cherie, financially. I’m afraid it means that I will have to sell the house and I may have to declare bankruptcy.’
His kind blue eyes began to fill with tears as he continued, ‘Cherie my future is certainly looking quite rocky – it may be a good time for you to consider moving back with your mother and Antony.’
‘No Dad,’ Cherie responded immediately, ‘I’m working too and I’m sure we’ll manage somehow. Don’t worry Dad, we’ll be okay.’
Cherie moved to her father’s side and kissed him on the forehead stroking his remaining grey hair. His head dropped down and his shoulders began to shake as he attempted to stifle his tears.
‘I feel as though I’ve let you down so badly Cherie. Not much of a father at all, I’m afraid. I was so worried,’ he sniffed and gulped for air before continuing, ‘about telling you – we may not have much more than our basic furniture left darling but I’ll find us somewhere else to live I promise.’
‘It’s OK dad. It’s not your fault and you’ve been a terrific father to me. Remember all the wonderful stories you’ve told me and how you made me believe in fairies and magic by leaving little sweets in my school coat pocket when I was little? Why do you think I live with you and not mum? I love you Dad and we’ll be fine.’
They spoke a while longer and before long they had resumed laughter and optimism. Two of the qualities father and daughter shared were eternal optimism and resilience in the face of crises.
The house was put on the market and Cherie continued her life of studying and working and listening to live music. The local town hall often had good bands including great Blues stars such as Sonny Boy Williamson 11. Sonny Boy dressed in two coloured suits and played great blues harmonica in between singing the blues.
Cherie had discovered how to climb the drain pipes up to the first floor where she could get into the dressing room where the bands and artists got ready. Just after the house sold, but before they moved out, she met Sonny Boy and brought him home to meet her father. It was great to see how easily and readily her father interacted with Sonny Boy despite the fact that she arrived unexpectedly with him and his road manager late at night!
John Todd and Sonny Boy were of a similar age, both in their early fifties and both with interesting lives developed out of very humble beginnings. They spoke for hours before Sonny Boy headed back to London. The next week Cherie received a letter from Sonny Boy, which also contained a note from his road manager saying it had taken Sonny Boy nearly the whole day to write the letter to her as he was not very literate.
Cherie felt thrilled and humbled to receive this letter of love from Sonny Boy who had invited her to travel with him and be his baby. Cherie wrote back pointing out that she was only 16. She didn’t hear from him again but his presence and interest lived in her heart and fantasy. She heard a song that she had not heard before called ‘Good Morning Little School Girl’ and became convinced that he had written it for her. Imagine her embarrassment when she put that rather self important thought to one of her college friends, also a Blues lover, and was told the song had first been sung in 1935!
Downhearted blues were affecting Cherie and her Dad in reality now that the day to move out of the house was almost on them. Her father had tried everything to rent them a flat but because he was a bankrupt, he did not have enough rent in advance and had no credit options. Another difficulty was Cherie’s beautiful Old English sheepdog called Muffin, whom had been her 14th birthday present from her father. Finding somewhere to stay with a dog was making things even more difficult. Finally John told his daughter, ‘Cherie we may be able to get lodgings at a farm a few miles out of town – Muffin will have to sleep in the barn but they have two rooms we could lodge in’.
He noticed Cherie’s bottom lip was pouting.
‘Muffin will be OK – it is spring and the weather is beginning to get warmer.’
‘It’s not that Dad, I just hate the idea of living in someone else’s house. Will we have to eat with them and everything?’
John nodded, ‘Yes all the meals are included in the rent. I’m sorry darling but this may be our only option for now. Let’s go and have a look shall we?’
The car had already been sold so they went on the bus. Cherie’s heartfelt heavy but she knew that it wouldn’t be for long. The farm house was not far from the bus stop and the farmer seemed friendly enough. He showed them 2 small rooms, sparsely furnished with ugly old wooden furniture. Cherie’s bottom lip appeared again but she had tried to look brave for her father.
‘Where will my dog sleep?’ she asked.
The farmer pointed to a barn located about thirty yards from the farm house. It was a double storey barn with the bottom section filled with bales of straw. Some steps located at one side led up to a little door on the next floor.
‘Your dog can sleep there,’ the farmer, said pointing at the lower level of straw bales.
‘He’ll be fine as long as my dogs take to him. They sleep there too.’
‘Well I guess I should bring her to meet them - she’s a girl not a boy by the way…,’ Cherie started to say but was interrupted by the farmer’s voice, ‘Dogs or Bitches, lass – not boys and girls – they’re not humans don’t you know?’’.
Cherie looked at him, thinking about what else he’d be correcting or saying if she lived with him.
‘Mmm,’ she replied in a non committal way, ‘What’s up the stairs?’
‘That’s a little flat – used to have a couple of workers living there but it’s not used now, replied the farmer.’
Cherie felt a moment of hope rush through her.
‘A little flat? Do you think it might be suitable for Dad and me? Could we have a look?’
‘You can have a look if you like sir,’ he replied turning to look at John, ‘but it’s only a bed sitter – no use for you both I’m afraid, though you’re welcome to look.’
He led the way up the stairs and Cherie gasped when she saw a snug open area, with a bed, table and chairs, two small windows looking over the farm land and distant hills and a small area in a corner that had been made into a kitchenette.
‘There’s no toilet or bath here,’ the farmer explained, ‘they used the toilet at the back of the barn and came in the house for a bath once a week.
Cherie turned to her father her eyes dancing with joy, ‘Could I stay in here Dad, then Muffin could stay with me, that would be alright wouldn’t it?’ she asked anxiously looking at the farmer. Although John was concerned about Cherie living in the barn on her own, he could see that she was very unhappy with the idea of living in the farmhouse. That coupled with his feelings of guilt at placing them both in this precarious and humiliating situation finally culminated in a very welcome -‘Yes’.
Cherie moved happily into her barn-home surrounding herself with her cushions, books, posters, records and record player and felt a step closer to the ‘bohemian’ life she aspired to. With her earnings from her job she abstained from the meals at the farm house and was to all intent and purpose living independently. Even though she had a three mile walk if she missed the bus home, nothing could dampen her excitement at having her own pad!
The Crime
Cherie was at college one Friday night when her friend Dave mentioned a dance that was on with a band called the ‘Sweet Nothings’ playing. Cherie had seen them once before and thought their drummer Harry was really attractive. She decided to go. It was quite late when she finished the essay she had been writing in the library so the college was almost deserted. She went to the ‘ladies’ and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She wanted to look her best if Harry was there but wearing the veil of self criticism common to 16 year old girls, she concluded that her jeans made her look a bit too chubby. In reality Cherie had a nice figure with just a trace of puppy fat, but this was more than a trace to her especially if a boy was going to fancy her.
‘I wish I’d brought a jacket or something to tie round my waist’ she thought.
Cherie walked down the empty hall and noticed a solitary blue anorak hanging on one of the communal coat pegs. Cherie assumed the owner had left it behind and wouldn’t need it till Monday, so Cherie felt quite comfortable about ‘borrowing’ it for the night, even though she didn’t like anoraks, which were mainly worn by young people known as ‘mods’. Cherie took it off the peg, returned to the Ladies, tied the sleeves around her waist and examined herself. Finally confident that her hips and bottom were covered and that it wasn’t easy to recognise as an anorak, Cherie set off for the dance.
As it turned out the band was great but Cherie couldn’t keep the anorak around her waist as she danced so frenetically to the music. Much to her surprise Harry, apparently not put off by her bottom after all, chatted her up anyway.
On Monday Cherie held the anorak in her arms as she made her way back to the coat pegs to replace it, when to her surprise she was grabbed on the shoulder by a tall boy she didn’t know.
‘That’s my girlfriend’s coat,’ he said, ‘What the hell are you doing with it?’
Cherie was startled by his aggressive tone and immediately slid into a defensive denial.
‘Let go of me please - It’s not your girlfriends,’ she replied, ‘It’s mine.’
‘See that torn pocket,’ he replied, ‘It’s hers alright. I’ll get the police on to you.’
A few of the students had stopped to stare and listen and Cherie felt embarrassed and confused. She shrugged her shoulders and reverted to being ‘cool’.
‘Hey man,’ she drawled, ‘you’ve made a mistake – Ok - let me go.’
She walked away, outwardly calm, but very shakily inside, wondering what the hell she could do.
‘I’ll have to get rid of it somehow’ she thought, ‘especially if he does tell the police.’
She left the college and began walking through the city, full of nervous anxiety and turbulent thoughts about this unexpected problem. Cherie crossed a bridge and stood by the parapet dangling the anorak over the edge, willing herself to let it go. But there were so many other people on the bridge – what if someone identified her or thinking it was an accident, rushed down to the bank to get it back for her?
She passed a Laundromat and thought about putting in a wash cycle and never going back but what if she was recognised? Everything she passed seemed to offer a possible solution but each was dismissed by the thought of being identified. For once she wished she was not such a noticeable figure with her unusual outfits. Putting it back on the peg later that night seemed like the best option if she couldn’t get rid of it any other way so she caught the bus back to her barn and left it there.
That night ‘The Pretty Things’ group were playing at the local pavilion. As usual she climbed the drain pipe and ‘popped in’ through the dressing room window to say ‘Hi’ to them. They were ‘cool’ and showed no amazement or even interest at her sudden appearance other than replying ‘hi there’, while they continued chattering and dressing. Cherie loved to watch and be with the bands. The Pretty Things had really long hair and wore very groovy colourful clothes. She loved hearing them talk about their journey or the tunes they would play that night. Sometimes, though, they spoke about very ordinary things like having a cold or a headache.
A couple of the young men were smoking ‘pot’ and passed the joint to Cherie but she declined as usual. She spoke to them about blues music and boasted a bit about her letter from Sonny Boy. The room suddenly became very quiet as the door opened and a couple of uniformed police entered the dressing room. Somebody rushed to the toilet to flush the joint away. The police were clearly looking for someone and as they spotted Cherie they made their way straight towards her.
‘Cherie Todd?’ one asked.
She nodded wondering what on earth they were doing looking for her – had something happened to her father or was it this anorak thing? Surely not? The older one approached her and put his hand on her arm, ‘You need to come with us Miss. We want to talk to you about some stolen property.’
‘So it was the anorak,’ she thought relieved that her father was OK, but angry that this stupid business had become so messy.
She followed the police men out of the dressing room. Part of her was aware of the impact this apparent arrest was having on the band members and she hoped they would be really intrigued by her! If she ever saw them again, after this stupid anorak business! A police car was parked by the group’s van.
‘Hop in Miss,’ the older policeman said, ‘We’re taking you to the station for questioning.’
He indicated she should sit in the back seat while the younger policemen got in next to her. They did not speak on the short trip and Cherie decided that she would deny taking the stupid anorak on the grounds that they couldn’t prove it. She felt quite nervous though.
At the station she was escorted into a small interview room by the younger policeman, who nodded at a wooden chair indicating, she guessed, that she should sit on it. He stood at the door until a man in plain clothes entered and introduced himself as Detective Inspector Hawkins. He sat opposite her with a small well-worn wooden table between them.
‘So Miss Todd – why did you steal the anorak?’
‘I didn’t,’ retorted Cherie, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’