Amelia's story Read Online Free PDF Page A

and drinking heavily throughout her pregnancy, yet again, the further her pregnancy advanced, the more bad tempered she became . A couple of months before Jenny was born , we were told that we would have to go into care for a while as she needed some space.

Shortly after this, she voluntarily placed both Jake and I into care. She once again could not cope with the responsibility of Jake and I while she was expecting her third child. We were sent to Colton Hall Children’s Nursery Home in Shropshire. I remember it very well. I cried , believing she was unable to cope because Jake and I were naughty. She drank all through out her third pregnancy, ate very little , and smoked in a man ne r that made you wonder if cigarettes were going to become extinct soon. Unfortunately, Jenny was born physically disabled and with cer e b ral palsy.

Jake and I spent the Christmas holiday in Colton Hall with no visitors. I remember waking up on Christmas day in strange , somber surroundings . As I looked around , I could see we were in a dormitory with at least ten other children who were already awake and huddled together laughing at us. Then one child pointed our beds, and Jake shouted , “ Look, Amelia, your bed.” I looked down at my bed and the bottom half was soiled. Jake ’ s was just the same too .

We climbed out of our beds and just sat on the floor close to each other until a member of staff came into the dormitory. We were to discover a little later that all new kids got this treatment on their arrival at Colton Hall. Tha t same morning we noticed there was a plastic see- through bag at the end of our beds this contained fruit and a few little pleasures such as a coloring book and a bar of chocolate. A ll the other children were hurriedly searching through their bags to see what Father Christmas had b r ought for them.

Some of the more fortunate children were blessed with visits from their parents on this special day and some were not so fortunate. I remember that during our time at Colton Hall, I felt lonely and I wanted to go home. I did not understand why we were there, where our mother was, and why had she not stop ped by to see us over Christmas. To a seven-year-old child this was a very emotional thing to deal with, and to even try and make sense of it all was a sheer impossibility. I just know that I felt like Jake and I were to blame for everything. W e really believed that everything was our fault because we had been naughty. We did not take well to Colton Hall and spent most of our time crying or sitting together and not saying much to anyone from one day to the next.

Eventually we were allowed home , and we were greete d with smiles and pleasantries. O ur mother made an effort for a while with promises that everything was going to be much better from now on and that we all had to stick together. However , this didn’t last very long before M other fell foul to her usual and cruel ways.

Soon after our half - sister was born , it became apparent that the rest of the world was to blame for Jenny’s disab ilities. M other was struggling to cope with Jenny , as she was born disabled and one leg was a little shorter than the other, so hospital visits and the frequent journeys were becoming too much for her to be ar . Jenny was unable to walk by herself for a very long time. Jenny was beautiful despite her obvious disability. S he w as always smiling and laughing. I n fact , she was so unaware of her surroundings , it ’ s fair to say she was the happiest of us all and thank God for that small mercy. Jake and I loved her instantly. Jenny had a shock of beautiful, yellow hair and bright , blue eyes, and her smile reached from on e end of her face to the other. S he was a true blessing for Jake and I . I loved her with all of my being and was amazed with this tiny new addition to our family. Jenny was a good few months old when we arrived home.

A short wh ile later, and totally out of the blue, Jenny, Jake, and