Reflections Of A Cowboy (A piece of #life writing containing potentially upsetting material) I've always liked cowboys. I glanced at the three inch square photograph from nearly forty years ago. The crinkled, time stained picture, along with another of me dressed in beige flares and a brown tank-top, has sat in the hallway of my home staring at the comings and goings of my busy #life for the past three or four years. Today it catches my eye for some reason, maybe because it's my youngest son's birthday and the boy in the picture looks just like him, I don't know. I look closely for probably the first time ever at the little boy that I once was. The felt crimson coloured, ten gallon hat, with shimmering silver trim covers my curly blonde hair(and most of my face). The hat is a slightly darker shade of red than my waistcoat and lacks the embroidered orange images of lassos and six barrelled guns. The cheap, white plastic holder hangs from my side, empty as I've obviously been instructed to point the silver gun at the camera to 'capture the moment'. The photographer - my mum -manages to break the illusion (if there ever was one) of me being a real cowboy by including my Rupert the Bear Space Hopper in the picture. My left hand gripping his outstretched rubber arm, my eyes looking down to ensure that he is still there and ready for the next bouncing session. Whatever happened to that outfit and my Rupert Space Hopper? Where did my blonde hair go, and where did the look of innocence disappear to from my eyes? Looking in the mirror I hardly recognise the boy. I know I'm the same person, I still have the same eyes but they have lost the sparkle that they possessed when I was a cowboy. Turning forty I realise that I am now middle aged. If I get past eighty I will consider myself extremely fortunate. Arthur, my Grandad, made it to seventy seven. Greta, his wife of fifty six years (and my Grandma of thirty nine) survived until the impressive age of eighty eight. Somewhere in between will suit me just fine. Dad left (not that he was ever there) when I was just eight and I never really knew him. I have been told that he was an electrician, a sailor in the Royal Navy, an off shore oil rig worker and a Glaswegian alcoholic that bore an uncanny resemblance to Billy Connolly. I have seen a photo and the only resemblance is the beard. Perhaps he was different in real #life. He died on the Queensland coast in the city of Bundaberg, aged fifty one. I can't say that I've ever missed him. 'You can't miss what you don't know,' my Grandma once said when we were talking about him and she was right, as she always seemed to be. I think that it's fair to say that Dad leaving made no difference to my #life whatsoever...Mum's new boyfriend did though. I don't exactly recall when or even how it began. What I do remember is the searing pain that I felt as he assured me that 'it hurts more as a grown up so best to get it out of the way while you're still young'. My face buried into the soft white pillow, my cries muffled, my eyes closed but still leaking. Clinging onto the heavy brown and beige woollen blanket with my fingers and toes. Gripping it like a baby chimp clinging to its mother, until it was over and my neck was released from his rough, nicotine stained fingers. I don't remember ever feeling important despite his whisperings that it was our 'special secret'. The scratching of his rough sandpaper stubble against my soft freckle-spattered cheeks and the stench of stale beer and Park Drive cigarettes on his hot, desperate breath suggested to me that these were not special moments. At the time I wasn't sure what they were or why I was being hushed out of bed in the middle of the night. My eyes stuck together with sleep. So tired that I bumped my way through the house, scraping my arms on the sharp swirls of Artex that had been used on virtually every wall. I just knew that I could tell nobody or 'something bad would happen'. He totally destroyed my childhood and extinguished the spark of innocence that I desperately wanted back. His crushing of me coincided with Margaret Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister. Her destruction of the country was the backdrop to my abuse. Bobby Sands died in the Maze prison, starving himself to death in a bid to get his plea noticed. Maybe this could have been an option for me too! The Falkland's War began when I was ten years old. The Battle of Goose Green started the day before my eleventh birthday and ended a day later. The British winning the battle and, a few weeks later, the War. That day I sat cross legged on my bedroom floor. My favourite coach, horses and cowboy figures by my side. I was playing with my new Matchbox Race and Chase Scalextric set. A controller in both hands, my brain split between catching the criminal and escaping the blue and white American police car. Although my eyes were focused on the track, my ears were trained to listen for every creak on the stairs. 'Please not today'. I hoped to avoid my own battle, one that I knew I could never win. Even on my birthday there was no escape. My toys lay silent as he satisfied his needs. The abuse continued and a couple of years later whilst my coal mining uncles were fighting for their rights on the picket lines, I was still feeling as lonely and as scared as I did on that first time that he invaded me. The pain was still intense. At least I had the weekends to look forward to. Saturday afternoons were spent with my Grandad and Dickie Davies' World Of Sport. The coal fire was always crackling away and Grandma seemed to have an endless supply of Viscount biscuits and two fingered Kit Kats. Grandad would sit in his favourite armchair wearing his best tie and braces, reading the Daily Mirror's racing pages. I would always watch On the Ball presented by Brian Moore until the horse racing came on. That was my cue to go outside and inspect Grandad's giant leeks and check on the chickens in the warm and smelly coop at the end of the garden until it was time for the likes of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and Kendo Nagasaki to do battle in the wrestling ring. I felt safe and loved. There was nothing to fear there. No creaking stairs and hushed threats. No nicotine stained fingers and evil, piercing eyes. My Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends were all unaware of the ordeal that my #life had become. I wish that my mum had also been unaware. After years of silence I finally found the courage to tell her what had been happening. Her response still shocks me to this day, especially so since I became a parent. She did nothing, in fact she turned a blind eye and allowed him to continue physically, mentally and sexually abusing her child. This confirmed to me that he had been right all along when he had said ' Don't tell anybody or something bad will happen.' I now knew that I was alone. If my mother, the person who gave birth to me, who is supposed to protect me, was willing to allow this to happen then there was nobody to turn to. I would just have to put up with the abuse until I could leave. I was too scared, too tired and too drained to do anything else. Two years later he left. I didn't know why, I didn't care. I couldn't see the point in asking. All that mattered to me was that I was fifteen years old and for the first time that I could remember I didn't go to bed worried that I may be woken up with a slap across the head, a punch in the small of the back or something worse. The knot in my stomach that had been wound so tightly over that last six years remained for the next fifteen. It wasn't until I met my now wife that my confidence began to grow again and the knot of fear and mistrust began to untangle. I am still in contact with my mum. I don't know why, she brings nothing to my #life and our relationship was irreparably damaged when she betrayed my trust. I suppose that I have learnt to rise above the feelings of hatred and anger. My innocence was taken away and my childhood ruined but I have learnt that there is no good in looking back. We must always look to the future. In fact, as I look again in the mirror, I'm sure that there is a little sparkle appearing...that little cowboy is still in there, somewhere. Steve Nestor