Charlie Snape

Sybil had left school at fifteen. She was employed in a shoe factory office at the other end of her town. She hadn't mixed that well with the other girls in the office but would listen to as the rest of the staff discussed their week-end.

How could she share with them the sights she had seen and the feelings she managed to somehow contain as her stepfather delivered his cruelty. She wasn't the only one in their cold house who was told they were thick and useless; there wasn't a yardstick there to tell her if he was right or wrong on the matter.

It was like they lived in another world as the sixties/mod's and rockers and then maxi-skirts came and went. Of course she had wanted to talk about how he beat his guide dog on practically a daily basis with the lead used to guide him. Who then would want to hear how she diluted his whisky or beer but would have to wait and judge the right moment before she tipped most of it down the sink then diluted it with water.

Even after all these years she still saw his diminutive grey haired figure who wore shabby clothes and in colder months a silk scarf wrapped around his throat as he sat bolt upright in his chair listening to radio four. She still felt guilty for wanting him dead and desperately wanted to understand why he was as cruel as he was to them all. If there was a good time it was mid-day when he had dispersed anxieties and jealousy that they had eyes whilst he didn't.

She couldn't shake from her head how he beat his guide dog out on their cinder path each evening as he foamed from the mouth and how his gentle animal would look up and back at him with never a snarl or a bite for the cruelty he administered.

She had wondered if her own dad, who had died when she was eight, was looking down on him and would somehow pass gentle loving words his way which would make the pain go away. Sadly there were no fairies in her house nor a knight in shining armour or even a sign of any god as the cruelty continued.

Now a grandmother/wife/mother/friend Sybil was certain she would turn the anger around and not carry it through to the next generation. She didn't live in poverty anymore. Their house wasn't tainted with alchol nor vomit or stale urine and she went to shop at Waitrose or Asda the same as everyone else.

Sybil is able also to laugh and have fun the same as everyone else....these were the reasons she understood Charlie as she did as he built up all around him the things that other folk threw out.