Blood on the Corn: Uncovering the Assault Sites of My Toddlerhood

By Madeleine Watson

On 26 October 2016, a horrific memory came up. I was fifty-one years old and living with my partner and two children.
Throughout my life, I suffered depression, I couldn’t forge relationships and found life difficult. My childhood home was a cramped cottage with warring parents and little money coming in. I naturally explained my problems to this.
Only this.
What I didn’t realise was that an uncle lived in my toddlerhood home. His mention was scarce and I kept gleaning over this detail, thinking it irrelevant. It was his face I had seen in this memory. I have now come to realise I was raped at the age of three.
I am horrified to think he had lived with us for so long. What else has he done to me? No wonder I constantly sought diversion. No wonder I suffered depression. I was trying to run away from myself.
One diversion was a diary. A detailed one.
My diary has enabled me to establish assault sites in the village, for Uncle Dan took me out in the pushchair. He then committed acts of rape on deserted roadsides.
With my diaries, I have been able to journey into a past I didn’t know existed.
The journey begins here.
With illustrations and photographs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Madeleine Watson
• Release date: Oct 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005790288

Madeleine Watson

Madeleine Watson lives in the UK and writes under a pseudonym.At the age of 51, she discovered she had been repeatedly raped at the age of 3 by an uncle who shared her toddlerhood home.During oblivion, she kept a diary, wrote children’s mysteries, novels and short stories. She also went to art school for 5 years. Unbeknown to her, clues to her horrific toddlerhood had seeped into her creations.How she finally learned the truth is described in her books along with further revelations. Having lived through this experience, she is able to describe what life has been like for someone whose toddlerhood has been brutalised prior to the dawning of her conscious awareness.

Book preview

Blood on the Corn

Uncovering the Assault Sites

of my Toddlerhood

Madeleine Watson

To Sam

This edition 26 October 2020. All rights reserved. The Right of Madeleine Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 Section 77 and 78.

Contents

Introduction

1: The Journey Begins

Map of Raventree and Surrounding Villages

2: Jaunts Instigated by Others

3: Jaunts Instigated by Me

4: Jaunts and Boyfriends

5: Driving Lessons

6: Conclusion

Other Books by the Author

Introduction

The following story is true.

On 26 October 2016, a horrific memory surfaced. I was fifty-one years old and gleaning through one of my novels. I had begun to realise my novels weren’t what I thought they were and I was asking questions about my past. I have been writing stories since I was about six and producing copious artwork too. I spent five years at art school and by the age of twenty-one, had attained a Fine Art degree. Creativity runs in the family and I thought nothing of it. But at times, mine runs into another realm. I would get odd notions and a project would take a hold on me. Often I would keep my diversions secret from family and friends.

What I didn’t realise was that clues to my horrific toddlerhood were leaking into my creations.

Yes, my toddlerhood.

I have come to learn I was raped at the age of three.

Something Wrong

Throughout my life, I felt something was wrong with me. At infant school a school psychologist was called in for my disruptive behaviour. I couldn’t bond in groups and would retreat into a shell. I often zoned-out in class, losing track of what was going on and struggled with comprehension. Worst of all, I suffered inexplicable intrusive thoughts – things like a face ablaze in a cave to ominous drumbeats and falling into a coma. I got this notion of bodies walled up or catatonic in beds. This vile imagery made no sense and I couldn’t bear to contemplate where they came, nor even acknowledge their existence. Gradually, I got this strange notion of something to the northeast of me. It wasn’t horrible. In fact, this presence reassured. I wanted to go over there but I didn’t know what it was or where this place was. Inexplicable grief would crash into me without warning and I’d feel like crying for no apparent reason.

When I was eleven, Mum took me to the doctors for depression. For years, I had avoided my bed and kept wanting the lights on. Without knowing what was wrong with me, the doctor could only conclude I was suffering routine night terrors and that I would grow out of them.

His words gave comfort. Perhaps he was right. I live in a rundown cottage with four siblings at the time, including my identical twin, Eve. The place was old with shadowy corners and creaky floorboards. Small wonder a young child with a feverish imagination would get unsettling notions. Dad was mentally ill, too. He’d been out of work since I was four after suffering a nervous breakdown. He was prescribed all sorts of anti-psychotics to curb his tempers. My parents had an appalling marriage and bad atmospheres were the norm. A few times, he’d come out of nowhere and vent his rage if I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. At his worst, he terrified me.

And so I attributed my problems to this.

Nothing but this.

Rendered invisible was my uncle’s stay at the cottage throughout my toddlerhood.

The Truth Hidden

Mum’s half-brother, Uncle Dan, lived with us for most of 1968. He slept in a guestroom to the north of the cottage. His stay was seldom mentioned and I kept gleaning over this detail, assuming he had nothing to do with me whatsoever. He was forty-seven at the time, so why should he? A mechanism in my head kept making small of it. He ‘stopped briefly’ or ‘not at all’. Uncle Dan was in the Metropolitan Police for ten years. He served time in the army, prison and a mental hospital. He had travelled the world, got into trouble and had affairs. His gallivanting reinforced the notion he was a distant uncle and that he lived far away – far, far away from me. In fact, he lived in my childhood cottage throughout the third year of my life and I had failed to grasp the implications.

For sensitive reasons, I have changed his name and I am writing under a pseudonym.

The Memory

The memory was of being suffocated by Uncle Dan.

One cloudy afternoon, he entered my bedroom half-stripped and mounted my bed. He sat on my chest and grunting something. Not understanding, I complied. He then locked my head between his legs and applied such pressure, my face felt ablaze. Within seconds, I blacked out before rousing with something horrible on my face. Being only three, I didn’t understand the concept of abuse. He was like a parent-figure and I assumed he was doing something as his right. My intrusive thoughts of a face ablaze within caves now make sense. I was suffering flashbacks to being suffocated and orally raped by Uncle Dan.

When the horrific memory came up, the life I had believed in was destroyed. I didn’t know who I was anymore and the family I grew up with suddenly seemed like strangers. To exacerbate matters, Mum passed away six weeks after I had seen this memory. As she had been ill for over a year by then, I never got the chance to tell her what her half-brother had done to me. Uncle Dan had been dead sixteen years by then.

For months afterwards, my life fell apart, while everything carried on as normal. I had worked hard to get where I am today. I live with my partner, Paul and two children in a semi, and I worked in Land Law and Education. Somehow, I have to continue being a mum and partner; somehow I have to continue being the person I believed I was. Meanwhile, a part of me is slowly dying. I cannot look upon the past in the same way again.

Since the horrific memory surfaced, I have discovered clues to my toddlerhood stowed within my creations. Double-meaning and hidden plotlines are encoded in my stories; symbolism in my art. These clues don’t feel mine. It’s as though someone else had put them there, not me and I am trying to understand what these clues are.

False Belief