I waited for the teacher to come along, so then I made the man drop his trousers and wave his thingy at her. His thingy was all stiff and pointy, and I made him shout, “Look at this! Wouldn’t you all like it?”
The teacher went pale and shooed us all inside. I stopped the man’s legs from working, so he couldn’t run away.
His brain wanted to run, but I stopped him. I made him keep shouting rude words, so he was still there, still shouting and waving his thingy when the police arrived. I watched as he was dragged away to the black van.
I put the suggestion to the nearest policeman to go and search his house, and if he looked under a floorboard in his bedroom he would find photographs and ropes.
A little later on, the police came to the school, and all those of us who had seen him were spoken to by a nice police woman. She had a very smart uniform, so I immediately wanted to be a police woman when I grew up.
When I told her that I had seen his thingy all stiff and pointy and that he had said those words, she took a statement from me with a teacher sitting with me. Miss Welch called Mummy and told her about the incident, so she came and took me home early. I told her my side of the story and she nodded.
“You did the right thing,” she told me and I smiled with pleasure.
There was a big fuss with all the parents getting cross with the man, so some went to the police station by the bridge to make sure he wasn’t released.
Gareth popped in when he came home at about seven o’clock, and Charlie couldn’t tell him quick enough.
“Daddy, Daddy, this man showed us his thingy, and me and Amber saw it all!”
Needless to say, Gareth was hardly pleased by this news, and Mummy had to laugh.
“It really isn’t as bad as it sounds,” she told him.
Mummy explained and he looked quite grave for a moment. Mummy then explained that the man had been arrested, so no one was hurt.
I saw in the newspapers a day or so later, that he had been charged with several ‘sexual assaults’, some dating back several years. The police had found damning evidence at his house, so he was ‘remanded in custody’, I suppose that meant he was going to prison. He’d meet lots of people like himself in prison!
He was the first nasty man I managed to help catch. It was fun and I felt very pleased with myself. After that, as we walked through crowds of people, I would try to tune into anyone that was bad.
It was hard, as I had to learn how to skip in and out of everyone’s mind, and just look at those parts that told me what they had done. It took me ages before I found another one.
July 1961.
Holiday time is here again, super!
Charlie’s Gran has gone to Wales to stay with her sister. Gareth and Mummy are now almost always together, and I know they are sleeping together.
Or rather, they go to bed with each other, and eventually go to sleep!
Mummy is so happy, so I can’t help but be happy too.
It was a relief to me when they finally told us.
It was suppertime, and Mummy had made a snake and pigmy pie (Steak & Kidney). We had just all sat down, and I was grinning, as I knew what was coming. Mummy stared at me and made her eyes go all ‘Don’t you dare say anything!’ at me.
Gareth took hold of Mummy’s hand and smiled at her.
“Girls, Jenny and I want you to know that you’re going to be sisters! Jenny has agreed to marry me, so we’ll be getting married before the end of the holidays. So, we also want you both to be bridesmaids,” Gareth told us.
Charlie was really surprised. How stupid could you get?
I kissed Gareth on the cheek, and gave Mummy a hug.
“About time,” I whispered.
“I need to ask you about your name, Amber. If your Mummy marries me, then she will become Jenny Lowe. Now, I’d like to ask you if you mind being Amber Lowe?”
I smiled, as if it mattered what I was called, as long as I was a girl!
“No, I don’t mind. Does this mean I have to call you Daddy and do what you say?”
He laughed.
“You can call me what you like and, yes, I’d like to think you will do what I say, some of the time.”
I pretended to think about it, and then smiled.
“I might,” I said.
He opened a bottle of white wine, and even Charlie and I were allowed half a glass.
He lifted his glass.
“To the Lowe family, to us,” he said.
“To us.”
“I’m so glad, I didn’t like not having a mummy,” said Charlie, so Mummy gave her a hug.
We were just like a normal family from then on. Gareth and Mummy were careful about who they let know, as people still disapproved of unmarried people sleeping together. I thought it was silly, it was the sex they should have been upset about.
A few days after that, I met my second nasty person.
Charlie and I would cycle into the town and go to the footpath by the river Thames. The old prison and police station was on one side of the river, and then there was open country on the other side.
It was a lovely sunny day, so we had our swimming costumes on, with our pinafore dresses over the top. Our towels were in our bikes’ baskets, and we had some lemonade and a doughnut each fresh from the bakers in Stert Street.
There were a few other children already swimming, so we left our bikes under the trees, slipped our dresses over our heads and jumped in the river.
We had great fun. One boy, who was called Nobby by the others, was seeing how far he could swing across the river on an old tyre on a rope tied onto an overhanging branch.
He’d swing back and forth until the rope was almost parallel to the water, and then let go.
With a Tarzan-like yell he’d fly through the air and land with a resounding ‘splat’ in the water over half way across.
A couple of the other boys tried it, but never got half as far as him.
Suddenly he was on the bank above me. He was looking down at us.
“Do you wanna go?” he asked.
“No thanks,” said Charlie, rather primly.
“Okay,” I said, and he looked surprised.
He showed me where to sit and how to rock back and forwards to get speed up. Then with a mighty shove, he pushed me off into space.
I did what he told me, and eventually, I felt I could not get any higher, so I just let go at the extreme end of the arc.
I landed on my bottom and there was a huge splash, and I went under the water.
I came up spluttering and swam back to the bank.
Nobby looked at me with something like respect in his cynical eyes.
He was about twelve or thirteen and was already starting to look well muscled.
“That wasn’t bad. Wot’s yer name?”
“Amber.”
“How old are you Amber?”
“Nine.”
He grinned.
“You got guts, Amber,” he said, and went and tried again.
I must have done it about ten or twelve times after that, and nearly everyone else got bored until there was just Nobby, Charlie and me left.
Charlie got her towel and changed, while Nobby was trying to throw me as far across the river as he could.
“Amber. We have to be home soon,” Charlie shouted.
I walked over and got my towel. I dried myself off, and stripped my suit off.
“Amber. He can see!” Charlie hissed, as I stood naked and unselfconsciously drying myself.
“So?”
Charlie had a problem, so I slipped my panties on, and then my dress over my head.
Nobby came over and sat on the grass.
“You ain’t ashamed, is yer?” he said to me, as he sucked on a long stem of grass.
“Why should I be?”
“No reason. You’ll be cracking in a few years. Both of you,” he said, and then with a grin, he was off, jogging gently down the towpath.
“You are such a flirt,” Charlie said.
“What did I do?”
“You embarrassed me so much,” she said and giggled.
I was about to say something, when I saw a man on a bicycle ride past. He was heading towards the town.