Wales 1966 – 1967

Summer 1966, age 14

The world reassembled as my eyes opened. I was looking up at a plain white ceiling, smooth with no cracks. It was not my bedroom ceiling. My gangly 14-year-old body was lying on a bed covered by a sheet and thin blanket, dressed in baggy blue-striped pajamas—definitely not my pajamas. The room had a faint disinfectant smell and it was empty except for the bed and a bedside table. Like the room, my head was empty—blank. [Read more…] about Chapter 1: An Encounter with Death

Summer 1966, age 14

We sat in the back of the rattling ambulance on our way back to Cardiff from the hospital—a journey of ten miles. The nurse had hustled us off, dressed in borrowed pajamas, dressing gowns and cheap slippers.

Across from me, Toody clung close to Dad, quiet and subdued. He looked smaller than usual in his drooping pajamas as though shrunk in the wash. Not quite 13, he was still a child: round baby face, big sad green eyes and shrill voice. We shared a bedroom but since the move to Cardiff 18 months ago, we’d grown apart—or maybe I’d stopped caring. His chirpy manner got on my nerves, so I tuned him out, like other things that bothered me. A lot of things bothered me. [Read more…] about Chapter 2: The Unconscious Family

Late summer, 1966, age 14

I lugged the clothes in two overstuffed duffle bags out of the launderette and up the street. We had no washing machine at home; it was my turn to sit with the rumbling tumble-dryers, nursing my mortification, fearful of being seen. On the walk home I was on edge: What if I meet someone from school? What do I say?

At our front door, I yelled through the letterbox for someone to open up. I had no key and the doorbell was broken. Instead of Dilly muttering irritably, the door jerked open and my brother John stood smiling up at me, a mop of blond hair hanging over one eye, his short compact body radiating impatience. [Read more…] about Chapter 3: Dancing with the Shadow

Autumn 1966, age 15

John’s presence reverberated throughout the household, ramping up the tension. I did my best not to notice; there were too many things on my mind. School was starting and I would be in the Fifth Form, the year we had to prepare for the dreaded national ‘O Level’ exams. Worse than that, sometime recently I’d lost my faith: I no longer felt connected to the Catholic Church.

When we lived in Brecon, the years before we moved to Cardiff, life was simple. I went to school, played in the woods and gardens of Ffrwd and attended Mass at St. Michael’s Catholic church. One thing I knew for certain, I was going to become a real Catholic and probably a saint. Of course, I wasn’t a Catholic yet. I’d have to be re-baptized when I was 15—but in the meantime I was working on saintliness. [Read more…] about Chapter 4: Mother Church

Winter 1966, age 15

Freed from the shackles of Catholicism, I could do anything I wanted; if only that were true! My inner prison—restrictions and hesitations—was as confining as ever and I was locked in a tiny cell with my omnipresent obsession: sex.

Other than feeling miserably self-conscious, the worse thing about being 15 was sexual urgency. A hormonal switch had flipped and now it was permanently stuck in the on position: a constant prickling in my genitals and a preoccupation with the rounded parts of female anatomy. Sexual fantasies invaded my waking thoughts and nightly dreams. Each morning my erection had to be carefully camouflaged as I hobbled to the bathroom. [Read more…] about Chapter 5: Shame about Sex