Caravan of Love
Sorry - it’s a bit long…

Like many here, I was unbelievably naive as an adolescent. Easy to laugh about much of it but there's one that still haunts me a little.

In the late 70s I worked in Southampton, after I fled the loveless family home at the opposite end of the country. Why Southampton? Well, firstly it was difficult to get any further away - but more than that they offered accommodation, a godsend for a penniless Manc. Didn't mind the place too much, worked with a good crowd - one of whom collared me one day, saying that a couple of them were getting a holiday apartment on the coast. Did I fancy going?

I did, but by the time we actually went, several weeks later, the holiday apartment on the coast had mutated into a six-berth caravan on a campsite at a place called Selsey Bill, just down the coast from Portsmouth. I'd seen too many of these shitholes in Wales to think they could ever be really enjoyable and, having spent my first night out on what we (over-expectantly) referred to as 'the pull', soon found that things were no better at the other end of the country. It was fucking dismal.

We spent a couple of boring days looking out of the window at the rain and the nights wandering round the various on-site bars. None of them were up to much - pool tables, arcade machines, shit lager... until I came back from the bar and found Kenny the Glaswegian (the only one who had any real chat) deep in conversation with a very attractive blonde girl, really pretty with a great arse, who looked about my age.

Then, from behind them, up pops her companion - her mother. Frizzy hair, skinny rather than trim, certainly battered round the edges. Probably literally, given where we were. There was a little girl, too, aged about six, really sweet-natured and very pretty with long blonde hair, who was playing with other children in the bar.

It turned out they were staying in a neighbour's caravan and were from one of Portsmouth's roughest council estates - can't now remember which one (I think it was the one famous for paedo marches a decade or so ago) but I came from a fairly rough council estate and even I recoiled slightly when she mentioned it.

To cut a short story shorter we all ended up back at ours. There were no social niceties to be observed - Kenny immediately disappeared with the blonde in the master bedroom (anyone who's ever been in one of these will know exactly what I mean) - and somehow I ended up in the middle bed with the mother (I think the others went for a resentful stroll for a while).

Now in theory I'd have dipped my wick in any woman who offered but I'm afraid this was beyond me. It was only when we were in bed I realised that I really, really wasn't up for it. At all. We fumbled for a while but Mr Floppy was completely living down to his soubriquet. She finally made some inane remark about me having had too much to drink, I eagerly agreed that must have been the case and so we got up and sat on the couches, waiting for her daughter to emerge from the back bedroom, where she was presumably being rogered senseless by the Glasgow Ram.

The others came back and as we sat there, she talked about their life in the most casual fashion - beaten by this guy, raped by that, her daughter raped as a child - it was a true catalogue of horrors.

I was glazing over and, to be honest, wondering if all this was just designed to elicit sympathy when I had the weirdest sensation of movement. It was a strange rocking motion, as if we were on the sea. I looked at the others - they looked back at me.. it took a few seconds to realise that Kenny and the blonde were now really getting down to it and the four of us were noticeably bouncing up and down on the couches as they approached the vinegar stroke. Surreal doesn’t cover it.

And while this happened the mother turned not a hair - not even a pause in conversation. Probably the most natural thing in the world to her.

But what still bothers me is when she told me about the old man who owned the caravan, who they’d come away with. I asked where the little girl had gone - he was looking after her, she said. And then she mentioned that they didn't pay for the stay. Like an idiot I said that must be nice of him. And she said, totally matter-of-factly: "Oh, no - he likes looking after X (the little girl). She shows him her knickers."

I had no idea what to say - or even what to think. This was so far outside my realm of experience that I just did not know how to react, as much as I thought it wrong. Plus, this was the child's mother talking - surely I must have got it wrong, somehow. I hadn't, though.

Even now I feel really guilty that I was told this and I didn't do anything. Do what, though? Take her away? That wouldn't happen. Tell the police or social services? At that time that sort of behaviour was more likely to be ignored than acted upon. There were no graphic depictions of the consequences - people like the old man were the ones you were severely warned to stay away from, with no-one ever wanting to say why. It just left you with the impression that while it’s bad, it can’t be that bad.

Presumably this was how the mother grew up and thought nothing of it. I wonder what happened to them all – did they grow up to be battered and abused in their turn? Was sex as casual an event for the youngest as it was for the other two? Did they end up on the game? Possibly – looking back I think that might not have been an unfamiliar scenario for the mother. What an awful thing to even contemplate – let alone experience.

ps: During the days we remained there, the blonde shagged everyone except me - presumably I got a bad review from the mother. Think I'll live with that, though.
(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Thu 26 Mar 2015, 1:35, 3 replies)

I've called child protective services myself. You can imagine the pariah I became as a result, but it was the right thing to do.
( tromboner cherophobia is my kind of fun, Thu 26 Mar 2015, 1:44, closed)

Yep, I wish I had. Too late now, though.

(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Thu 26 Mar 2015, 1:50, closed)

I like this but don't really like it if you know what I mean.

(McChinaman banned, Thu 26 Mar 2015, 10:02, closed)