Kruella A Daughters Tale
/Sharron tells her harrowing story of her childhood growing up disadvantaged, severely neglected
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I started shoplifting at around seven years old for food from the corner shop through sheer destitution, hunger, and survival. On a Sunday I’d run up to Londis on the high road and get us a roast dinner, an oven pie, some tin vegetables, frozen roast potatoes with some Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire puddings. And if it worked out right, I even would manage to get a dessert, apple pie with custard.
Everything non-perishable I stole I kept in my room and accumulated a nice stash. If I needed something that is how I got. I was tired, fed up and was determined to elevate the suffering.
I committed my first burglary when I was still at Junior School. I must have been between eight and ten at the time. I roped in some kids from Alma road; my target was St Matthews Primary on South Street. It was during the summer holidays and we broke in but it was so we could colour and draw, we never broke or damaged anything but just played and drawed most of the time we were there.
The thing is Yvonne wasn’t one for toys or books; not really, it was my grandmother that taught me how to read, count and do my timetables.
It was my grandmother who would get us black dolls from the USA, nice dresses and treated us like she cared and loved us. She would always let me stay for a night or two when I ran away, having a heart to heart and explaining why I had to go home. It was always temporary with tears when it was time to leave and go back to that hellhole.
Always wanted my own Cindy and Barbie dolls with the clothes and fancy plastic shoes, I was exhausted of second hand shit, and there’s no better feeling when unwrapping a new present, a gift, that fresh smell, something mine and new.
My next big plan was to get some new toys, stationary and some smelly erasers. These were rubbers that were in at the time the latest craze, which looked and smelled like a strawberry, apple, banana and even a hamburger!!!
There was only one place I could get the things I wanted along with some Christmas presents for the family, I know it sounds mad but come Christmas and birthdays we were sometimes kind of like every other family celebrating.
I first saw the big department store “Pearson’s“ in Enfield town, where I experienced my first burger and fries bought by my older sister’s social worker called June. She was real nice. It was opposite the Mac Donald’s and sold everything you could think of from furniture, confectionary, clothes, toys, loads, and loads of different toys.
I wanted to test my theory initially by myself first and then let the others know but I could not forget entering the store overwhelmed with all the hustle and bustle of shoppers, the bright lights, twinkling of tinsel and the coloured kaleidoscope of Christmas wrapping papers.
I found the toy section and it was busy with nice parents and their children excited about the prospect of what they might find under their Christmas tree if they had been good, and then there was me in the store on my own, having seen the dolls, clothes accessories and stationery I required. It was time to make my next move, I never had any real fear other than Yvonne but even then, I did not care, all the licks and beatings I encountered it never made me a better person in fact I would say it made me mad, detached, angry, resentful and hateful.
“Excuse me madam, Excuse me miss, my mums done some shopping and the bags broke please could I have another carrier bag please?” a quick look I point out to the far end of the store, signaling my mother who is lost amongst the busy shoppers “here you are love take these “. I responded with a smile “thank you“ and then I’m gone consumed by the stores bustling waves of Christmas shoppers. I head off to fill up my lovely big carrier bags with new goodies.
I went back again this time taking some of the street from Alma road, filling them in on my plan before heading in the store repeating the same scenario this time resulting in a disastrous cost, which I would later come to find out.
I soon learnt that it’s not good to have a joint enterprise as someone eventually squealed and I found myself down the cop shop in Enfield town, being seen by a police sergeant. I look back going into his office and not a cell with Yvonne and him agreeing, saying “I never want to see you here again young lady “.
And as for all the lovely proceeds of crime I had obtained they were confiscated and thrown in the bin, apart from the purse Yvonne kept and some of the presents I had got for the family.
That night I ran away, jumped out of my top bedroom window into the unknown, lonely, and dark night.
I think we both knew that this would not be the last time and Yvonne got used to collecting me from police stations, either as a thief or as a runaway.
Yvonne disappeared for weeks and my best friend's mum took us in regularly and we just stayed there and then I just stayed there, until they forced their way in her flat one night and found me hiding. I got a beating that night and was told not to frequent that block or house again. I always went back so appreciative to be taken in fed, clothes washed with a longing of normal family life.
In the coming years, I ran away several times with the longest being over three weeks, I ended up in Holloway, Finsbury park with an old male friend of Yvonne’s who we had stayed with sometimes in the school holidays. He was a gentle kind old man who was glad for the company with me needing some respite, a person to notice I was gone crying out for help.
But yet, again no one heard me or came to rescue me. The police found me in the end, took me to the station and Yvonne came and picked me up.
I had no voice.
By Sharron K Hope
From: United Kingdom
Website: https://msharronspice.wixsite.com/actress
Twitter: kruellaadaught1
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