Memoirs of a Failure

By Darcy Godfrey

Tormented by an impoverished childhood, plagued by incessant bullying, and damaged by an abusive and violent relationship. Homelessness and broke, following failure after, failure, how does someone find the strength to keep coming back?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398499751

Darcy Godfrey

Darcy is a 57 year old mother of two and grandmother, this being her first novel.

Book preview

About the Author

Darcy is a 57 year old mother of two and grandmother, this being her first novel.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my mother for showing me how to be strong and brave every single day.

Copyright Information ©

Darcy Godfrey 2023

The right of Darcy Godfrey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398499737 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398499751 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Chapter 1

This isn’t a book of blame or to justify the multitude of poor decisions I have made for most of my existence. No, this is my only legacy to my two children and so far, one grandson. There is no mass of fortunes or portfolios of property, nor is there even a suitcase of belongings to pass on to my family; only words, words of apology and remorse that success isn’t linked to my name in history and besides my beautiful amazing children, failure is one title that can truly reflect my life.

December 4th 1964 should never have allowed this soul to suffer such a bleak future. Why didn’t I get to be blessed with an easier path, a path I could turn around at 56, and be able to be proud, and able to stand before my peers and deserve respect. But I can’t stand before my family and friends and hold my head high, as shame is all I see and feel, and certainly know I have no respect for myself. It’s been five years since I escaped the hell that was my marriage. With just the shirt on my back, I had one opportunity to run for my life and run I did. It was in Hervey Bay that I found my new life, my sanctuary to heal, my place of realization of my true self. With a grey plastic grocery bag containing a second hand shirt, which was given to me at a women’s refuge, and a toothbrush, I met up with my daughter at a caravan park, in Shelly Beach. Through flooding tears, I knew my life was going to be horrendously difficult and already the prospect of starting over again was too great to bear. Knowing from past faults and failures, the light at the end of the tunnel is a beacon to find your way back after and through the darkness. This time I don’t see the light, this time the part that wasn’t destroyed, that was supposed to make me stronger, really was obliterated.

When your downfalls and your mistakes have the ripple effect, inevitably people get hurt. In my case, through failed marriages, poor, very poor judgement on my part, my precious family have felt the brunt and have had to support and nurture me back to normality. When your failures have culminated into monthly events where my parents have and still are there for me, I wonder at times if they too wish I wasn’t born, to spare me anymore despair. Never feeling complete or spiritually whole, it’s like the billions of atoms holding me together are never in sync and never contained. I feel like the embers dancing out of the fire, bright, full of light, glowing for mere seconds and then fading to ash—miniscule moments in time where I got to shine and be the person I wanted to be, then only to make decisions that, in hindsight, don’t even make sense. For there is not a lack of intelligence to blame for these poor decisions made, but obviously a void that exists with rationale leaving a target on your back ready to be primed. I didn’t witness all the tactics, sharing common passions, slithering his way to your children and indecently preying on my compassion and heart to aid anyone I possibly can, for caring and being compassionate for the vulnerable are part of my strong character, which had me weeded out of the flock and set upon by a wolf. Sly, cunning, watching every move, calculating the seconds, moments you let your guard down, and by the time you turned around you were staring down the barrel of your own gun, with no one around to hear you scream. Morality was now a thing of the past. So now at 56, I have a depth of shame that consumes every part of my being that will never be reversed nor justifiable to what I have inflicted on my family. The rotting inside is excruciating, for I feel like I will never heal. Is it a long road ahead, is it going to be exhausting, of course, but the alternative which is what I am living now is failure, which is a bitter pill to swallow? But If I don’t prove unwittingly that I have changed then I have no grounds for self-respect. For this was the catalyst and pinnacle of my escape, whereby I felt the urgency to pen this nightmare replaying through my thoughts each and every day.

Cathryn and Melvin met briefly in the’60s, while she was going to work and he was working at the Sydney Morning Herald, and they both commuted on the same steam train that left Blacktown. After only a few dates at the movies, they were engaged and set to marry in July 1962, with their first born due in’63. Was this to be wedded bliss, the perfect marriage, that’s what Cath really longed after years of torture and abuse from her father.

Growing up in the 60s as Darcy, in a small country town on the outskirts of Sydney nestled at the foot of the Blue Mountains, I learnt at a young age when bordering on poverty and the harsh reality of no support networks, that it wasn’t even worth turning on the fridge, as there was nothing to put in it. I witnessed that alcohol consumed by my father was more of a necessity than food, electricity and hot water. No, he wasn’t violent or abusive, which can be the case with some alcoholics, just very selfish in that being a parent wasn’t a priority. Forever the social butterfly of Windsor in New South Wales with being a member of Civil Defence, Buffalo lodge, Hash House Harriers, the fire brigade and a very large group of friends that did nothing but party, my father was fortunate enough to be born into a period of time when men were lords over everything. Women didn’t speak up and it was a time when it wasn’t illegal to hit your wife. Men were entitled to do whatever they wanted and the wife just had to put up with it. Mum was so young like all brides, and at eighteen, as soon as she was married, had to leave work and become the domestic goddess. Having your first child as a teenager sounds so frightening. You aren’t armed with much knowledge of labour nor on child rearing, only the information from your mother. My grandmother was born on the kitchen table and she wasn’t open enough to have conversations on child birth. So Mum, So Mum, whether she knew it or not, was really a single Mum in a world of no support, not even from her family.

As a child, I couldn’t feel the