One Lucky Day: Troubled Youth’s Life Transformed by Chance Encounter

Copyright © 2020 Bill Whiting

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To my grandson Jesse

Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Many people experience sudden life-changing events, but perhaps few are as unusual, profound or long-lasting as the one which befell me at the unseasoned age of just eighteen.

My young mind was then troubled and confused. My time since early childhood had been very insecure and unhappy. I was fearful and withdrawn, and rather than being valued my life was simply endured. I had an unfortunate habit of looking back for danger rather than looking ahead for opportunity.

But as my teenage years progressed I reached a stage where I was at least beginning to become more self-aware of my befuddled brain and its many irrational thoughts and uncontrollable anxieties. I didn’t have any answers, but I was beginning to ask myself questions.

Maybe that’s the route many troubled souls take to at least begin to sort things out.

But my progress didn’t spring from searching my inner self. It came when I tried very hard to imagine what it’s like to be a pig.

Of course, this isn’t difficult to do from the outside of such a creature. We can simply watch them and see what they do. But I tried much harder and imagined what it was like to be a pig from the inside – What was it like inside its conscious mind? Could it think? Could it care? Did it have feelings and emotions? Could it be scared like me?

As things transpired, I quickly learned that pigs have to have feelings – happy and sad emotions, keen senses of joy, depression, suffering, love and hate.

They can also be contentedly occupied and morosely bored – and they can be frightened and angry.

They can think and understand and learn, because they are intelligent – as intelligent as a three-year-old human child.

Pigs are like humans in many other ways too – with the same-sized eyes and similar eyelashes. They also have very similar skin. And our human insulin injections are derived from pigs – and oestrogen from pigs is used for our birth control pills; pig fat for our dermal fillers and pig epidermis for human skin grafts.

Little wonder then that pig organs could even be the future for our transplants.

Pigs are surprisingly clean too and, like us humans, they only eat at certain times of the day and they sleep all night.

And yet, for all this, they are held in such low regard by humanity that our language is littered with metaphorical piggy insults – from greedy pig to pig-headed; fat pig to pig sick; thick as pig shit to road hog and rotten swine. Even those who hate policemen conjure up the pig nomenclature.

Nevertheless, we love to eat pigs, especially neatly sliced as ham or bacon or nicely cut up as chops – and all wrapped in tidy plastic packs on supermarket shelves.

Of course, the pretty food labels never show the horrors of factory farms or terrified creatures being lined up to be stunned, have their throats slit and be hung up. And that tasty breakfast isn’t tarnished by the fact that ten million pigs are killed in Britain alone every year – most at just six months old, or five per cent of their lifespan.

But despite the awful life many captive pigs lead, they, like us, are genetically programmed to fear death and injury. They value life.

And it was one such pig, one lost little pig, which proved to be the greatest blessing to come my way.

But if, quite understandably, you now think this is a prelude to a memoir tailored to champion animal rights or veganism, you are wrong.

I have my own opinions, but I have no desire to evangelise and no grand ambition, or even wild hope, to change the wider world.

But back in time I did need to change my own little part of the world – or, to be entirely truthful, I needed a lot of help to do it.

One

Living in a terraced house in a small industrial town back in the 1970s, my younger sister Maisie and myself endured a very difficult childhood. We were badly neglected.

It’s not that I have many particular memories of those times. Mostly they remain shrouded, and sometimes entirely hidden, in a dim and dark cloud somewhere in my head. And the few things I do clearly remember are mostly frightening violent moments or times of hunger and discomfort.

I learned later in life that both my parents were alcoholics. This didn’t mean that they were bad to me and to my sister all of the time. There were moments when they were attentive and even tried to be caring and comforting. But there were also times when they were verbally and physically abusive, most often to themselves but also sometimes to Maisie and me.

The worst aspect of this was the sheer unpredictability of such moods and events. Not knowing when or if such things would happen meant that they could possibly occur at any time – and this created an ever-present sense of insecurity.

I also know that, as a child, I couldn’t and didn’t understand why things happened this way. It made no sense. And this uncertainty produced a constant need for vigilance – and all the anxiety which that can produce.

Amidst this, Maisie and I were also sometimes cold, usually dirty and often hungry – but I think we had grown accustomed to these everyday things and could live with them. The shouting, the angry rows and the violence, however, were another matter.

Maisie and I both slept in bunk beds in the same bedroom, and at bad times we would often cower under our blankets. Usually at such moments, I would lie with Maisie to comfort her and try to keep her quiet. When these things happened, it was not wise to draw attention to ourselves.

These occasions still live with me, partly in a few clear memories but mostly in dreams and nightmares, which even now, decades later, visit me at least once every few months. I wake up sweating and filled with terror, but then lie back, greatly relieved to be back in today’s world.

We did occasionally get visits from local authority people, and I know that some of these related to the fact that I was not attending school regularly. I also know that one such visit concerned my hair being full of lice in the classroom – and I remember that the name-calling I received from classmates about this was just one reason why I was happy whenever I was not made to attend the place.

However, I don’t recall any serious interventions from the authorities being made, or anyone quizzing me or Maisie directly about our lives. Perhaps they did, but anyway, nothing much changed that I was aware of. Perhaps too, my parents were on their best behaviour when these visits occurred.

Maisie was a great comfort to me at these times and I think I was an even greater comfort to her. We were not in a good place, but at least we were not alone. And even at that young age, I felt protective of Maisie. An eight-year-old brother was no father or mother, but I guess I was the next best thing.

In normal circumstances, such children often spend their time ignoring one another or squabbling over things. Not Maisie and me. We were close – no doubt because we had an equal share of insecurity and needed each other.

The best times for Maisie and me were when our parents were out. We spent many hours playing Snakes & Ladders, or watching the old black and white television downstairs. But of course, too often, the worst times arose when our parents returned – no doubt from drinking bouts. They would often come home laughing, but Maisie and I would scuttle upstairs because those happy moods often transformed quickly into angry ones.

But on one occasion, a Sunday afternoon, the anger, shouting and swearing started the moment they walked in. We were taken by surprise when my father suddenly punched and cursed my mother – and then smacked Maisie.

Maisie squealed and ran crying through the open front door and into the street. A screeching car and a thumping sound brought a swift end to Maisie’s short life.

I ran outside and saw Maisie lying on the pavement. I recall the picture to this day – it’s burned into my mind. She was lying completely still on her back on the pavement. There was blood on her clothes and running over the pavement slabs – and her jaw had been smashed and pushed grotesquely far to one side. Her eyes were staring open.

Within moments, people gathered and I was pushed aside, and I really don’t remember all that went on during the rest of that day. It was just a buzz of screaming, shouting and confusion. I retreated to my bedroom and hid – but of course I no longer had Maisie with me. She was gone and gone forever, but at that time I simply didn’t understand it.

Death is quite beyond the understanding of an eight-year-old. I knew it was something to be feared, and yet I was told she had ‘gone to Heaven’. I wondered if that meant she could still talk, play and eat. It certainly seemed unreal that death could be permanent. Perhaps I had watched too many cartoons where death was often temporary and reversible.

But of course, in time, I realised I would never, ever see her again. I have never stopped missing my Maisie, but that tragic event was then so far beyond my comprehension that my inability to understand was a blessing.

That dreadful day was