Orchard House(Kristin Dockar) Orchard Croft:
Before you start to read, I want you to know that I’m proud that my daughter, Sadie, wants to share her story with you. It hasn’t always been that way. There are parts of this story that I would want hidden forever. It’s been a roller coaster of a journey. But it is a story that should be told.
As Sadie’s parent, I worried and was fearful for her. While she was a child and at school, she was safe. I was lucky that she was able to be in her school until she was 19 years old because she had special educational needs. After that, the next 2 years were spent living in sheltered accommodation to prepare her for living in the real world.
Like all parents, I wanted her to be kept safe forever.
There are many Sadie’s in our society. They have often lived very sheltered lives, then been sprung into the world with a history of learning difficulties or undiagnosed Autism. Many are unsupported and left vulnerable to those who would take advantage. It is no easy thing.
Have you heard of the expression ‘cuckooing?’
It’s where people befriend the vulnerable, move into their homes, use that home for all sorts of illicit purposes, usually drugs, and then force the vulnerable person out of their home.
Before she finally settled down, Sadie had that experience at least four times. The trouble was that each time she was forced out of her home, she went on the run and we couldn’t find her. How scary is that?
She moved so many times before she finally settled in West Sussex.
Sadie likes to talk about her ‘escape’. Chronologically she was a grown woman of 21 years when she first ‘escaped’, as she likes to put it. But she was much younger developmentally, and therefore vulnerable to all those out there who prey on vulnerable people.
But there you are. I will let Sadie tell her story.


1.
Sadie:
I was born addicted to heroin. My birth mother was an addict. So not the best start in life. As soon as she had given birth to me, she left the hospital, just discharged herself, and left.
I started life in an incubator, being weaned off the stuff. Mum Kate came along and found me when I was about three-years old. I know I was lucky, but I only really realise that now.
I have lived most of my life in some form of care. First in foster care as a baby and toddler, then in a special residential school until I was 19, and now I am living in sheltered accommodation while people train me in ‘life skills’ which they hope might lead me to some form of work.
How do I feel about this?
I feel like a prisoner.
I admit that for most of my adult my life I have been lazy, disruptive, and often on the verge of criminality, but, hey, they like to tell me, I’m damaged.
When Mum wanted to adopt me, they told her to send me back. She never did.
Mum always told me that life is like one of the tapestries she is so fond of working on. You stitch together all the parts to make the whole.

We sat together today and tried to write a CV for me. I think Mum thought it was quite funny. She annoyed me. I’m trying to take it seriously. This is what we came up with:
CV
Sadie Moore
DOB: 19.08.1979
‘Please find enclosed my CV and application form for the part-time vacancy in the One Stop Convenience Store. I can only work for 15 hours a week. If I do more my benefits will be stopped.
Place of Birth: Margate, Kent.
Birth Mother Dead: Heroin Overdose.
Birth Father: Barely alive: Drug Dealer, Pimp, last seen some 24 years ago.
Education: Rudolph Steiner Special School, 1989-1998
Qualifications:
NVQ Level 1 Hairdressing
NVQ Level 1 Horse Care
Employment to Date:
Jumping’ Jaks Night Club, Glass Collector (lasted 6 weeks. Sacked for letting friends in through the cloakroom door)
UCG Cinema, Cleaner. (Sacked. Didn’t see why I had to clean. Wanted a job just collecting the tickets).
Interests:
I enjoy meeting people and watching TV. If I was being truthful I would put down that I enjoy smoking dope, organising seances, clubbing and socialising with people who have ASBOs’.

‘Why are you smiling to yourself Mum, you look weird’.
Mum laughed. ‘I was just thinking about your CV Sadie. Look what I’ve typed up. Have a read’.
‘Ha Ha. Very funny. Now let’s get on with it shall we?’ I said crossly.


2.
Just five weeks ago I sat in this meeting where my future was being discussed. Around the table sat Mum, two social workers and the manager of the sheltered accommodation I was living in while I went to college to train for hairdressing. The course that I was on meant I worked two days in a hairdressing salon and went to college for one day. I had been taught to use public transport.
I didn’t want to be at the meeting listening to all the reasons why I couldn’t live independently.
Mum thought I needed to learn more basic skills before I was ready to live unsupported. The social workers said I would be supported. They would visit regularly to see how I was getting on.
Mum said ‘Good luck with that. Sadie will make sure she’s out when you call’.
To be fair that was true. I don’t want to be ‘organised’, not by Mum or anyone else, and I don’t want to listen to social workers. I want to sleep all day and be out all night. I want to go clubbing and drinking.
I listen as they point out my faults. They talk about my vulnerability.
‘You’re mixing with inappropriate people. You make wrong choices Sadie. Look what happened with that cab driver’.
I wish I had never told anybody about that. Mum cried when I told her.
It had been a mistake. A big one. But, hey, you learn from your mistakes.
As I sat there listening to them drone on, I thought about that incident.
I had woken up sitting in a bus shelter. It stank of sick and urine. I was disgusted until I realised it was mine. I checked the time on my phone. 2.37am. As I sat there, I remembered that I had been going to a party but when I wanted to leave, I realised that I had left my purse at home. Happens all the time. I’d walked along the road wondering what to do when an unmarked cab stopped. The driver asked if I needed a cab, but I told him I had no money on me.
‘No worries’ he’d said ‘hop in. We’ll worry about payment when we get you home’.
Did I really fall for that?
All that struggling and noise. Then it was so quiet. After, he kicked me out of the cab, but at least I made it home. My boobs and thighs hurt. I remember thinking that I would have those little bruises all over my legs again.
But here I am in this sodding meeting and I’m not listening. I watch their mouths opening and shutting. They’re just telling me what to do again.
‘I’ve had enough’ I shout. They look at me in alarm.
‘I’m 21 years old. I can live alone. I don’t need any of you watching me’.
Then I slam out of the room. I’m desperate for a fag.


3.
Sadie’s Mum, Kate:
I will take a deep breath and tell you something of my life with Sadie. It can only be described as like living on a ‘roller coaster’. A colleague once said to me ‘you sound like a professional when you talk about your daughter’.
That was true, but I couldn’t tell her that was the only way I could cope.
I will never forget the day I first met Sadie. She was just 3 years old. A social worker had taken me to the foster home Sadie was living in while she waited to be adopted. When she first saw me, she grabbed my hand and held it to her face. I was so terribly moved. This little girl. How could I turn my back on her? She looked so needy but also very strange.
I was naïve. When the social worker asked if I felt I could give her a home, I thought that was all I would need to do. Go home, give her a bath, wash her hair, love her, nurture her, and she would be fine. I had no idea that the three years of terrible neglect she had suffered would never be erased properly. She was damaged and always would be.
Once we got home, I set about trying to redress the balance by providing as stimulating an environment as I could. At that time, I had no idea about things like ‘sensory overload’. She couldn’t cope with the abundance of possessions she suddenly had and she sure as hell couldn’t cope with the emotional deluge that came her way. I remember trying to hug her, and she would just wriggle away.
For years and years, I tried to repair the damage. Sadie was a mess, but I was committed and would not give up, although It was incredibly stressful living with her. I had a deckchair in the garage that I would retreat to when things got too much. I hated myself for that. It seemed so weak. It was totally alien to the person I was. There were many, many times when I nearly gave up. But I never did.
So here I am sitting in another meeting, feeling fearful.
Sadie is always so unpredictable, but she is a grown woman now. I was looking at her and remembering she was such a pretty child. She still looks great now. Well-built, but carries herself with a kind of grace, which is strange because she’s very clumsy. Her hair looks original with those red highlights. She’s got a tiny nose stud.
If you get to know her properly, and don’t box her into a corner, she’s cheerful and quite easy-going.
Today I can see signs of maturity on her face. But I notice also the first lines on her forehead. She’s a very heavy smoker. I’m terrified for her. I understand that she wants to break free, but she is still so very vulnerable.
Sadie is easy-going, cheerful, and incredibly lazy. She almost never cries. I recently caught her spitting at a mirror. When I asked ‘why?’ she had replied ‘Perhaps I don’t like what I see.’
It’s difficult to know what she really thinks because so much of what she says comes from watching TV or surfing the internet. She often starts conversations with ‘I must tell you something interesting…’. The latest snippet was about an item where a hamster appeared to be stuck to the bars of its cage. On investigation as to why this should be, it appeared that the hamster had swallowed a magnet.


4.
Sadie:
Whoo hooo. My passport to freedom has arrived. My social worker finally made a decision. After talking to the legal team, she changed her tune and told Mum that she had no right to try and stop me living my life. I was an adult now. Poor Mum. She has spent a lifetime protecting me and was still trying to do so. But no matter how vulnerable I have been, I’m moving forward, and so finally I escape. I’m told I will get a small flat, but it will be close to Mum, no more than 10 minutes’ drive.
The flat was a bedsit with kitchen and bathroom. It was heaven to me. It was situated close to a shopping precinct, a pub, and a health centre. All the amenities the social services felt necessary for independent community living. They appeared not to consider that the area was one of the most deprived in the town. Two murders had taken place there in recent years, and I’m not kidding.
The flat that the council provided was close to this small shopping centre, notorious in the town for the clientele that hung out there. It was these individuals who quickly became my friends. The fact that I was 21 years old, and they were in their teens didn’t matter to me. I invited them round to my new home. It was somewhere for them to hang out that was a million times better than sitting outside the local convenience store.
In those first weeks of freedom, my new friends trashed my place, quickly turning it into a drug den. I wasn’t into keeping house, so didn’t care. I drank, I smoked whatever was available, and I partied.
The day I moved into 12 Orchard Croft I experienced a ‘rush’ unlike anything I had ever experienced from my regular use of drugs and alcohol. It was the feeling of freedom. I finally had my own place, my own key, and my own front door to unlock.
I had just had my 21st birthday.
The flat was on the ground floor with a large window opening straight out onto the street. The local convenience store was right nearby, which was handy but, like I said, notorious for kids hanging out, doing what teen age kids do when they have no place else to go.


5.
I’ll tell you a bit more about me. Most people I meet say I’m strange but I’m just me. I do find some things difficult. I’m not great at reading people’s intentions, so I’m always being taken for a mug. I trust too quickly and I’m far too generous. I know that I look great. People are attracted to me.
I’m quite a chunky build and I like to dress in sports clothes. I have the weirdest habit. I will never buy new trainers until my old pair have dropped to bits. This habit does my feet no favours. I have great hair which I’ve done myself. It’s basically black but I’ve put red highlights in. People say I have lovely eyes and I do. They are a deep blue.
I soon made friends round the local area. I know I’m too generous, some would say gullible, but I like to be with people and please them. I will tell you now, the day I met Freda was to be one of the most dangerous times of my life.


6.
Bridie:
I first met Sadie when I noticed her hanging out with all the kids outside the local convenience store. I kind of rule this patch. Yes, I deal drugs to the kids but what else have they got to do?
But here’s this new girl. Looks ripe for the picking to me. Something weird about her. Looks like a woman but behaves much younger. Fits in with the kids who hang around here. I start to watch her. She could be useful. I see that she invites the kids round to her flat. She’s just moved in. I make an effort and start to chat to her.
‘Hiya, I’ve seen you around. Just moved here, have you?’
I’m hooking her in. She’s far too keen to make friends.
‘Yeah, end flat on the corner. Pop round why don’t you? Have a cuppa with me’.
‘What do you do?’
‘Not much, I’m on benefits. But I wouldn’t mind working’.
‘Might be able to help you there. I’m looking for someone to help out with my kids after school. Mum’s disabled, and I could do with a bit of help there too. Cash in hand of course’.
There was no hesitation. She didn’t even ask how much an hour or anything like that. She didn’t even ask where I lived. What a complete mug. But useful.
But she did interest me when I asked her where she had been living before coming to Orchard Croft. I said to her ‘Let’s go to the pub and you can tell me your life story, ha ha.'
‘Well, that will be a tale’ she said ‘I’ve been moving around a lot over the last couple of years. Been living in at least three different places. Had to do a runner every time. Always getting mixed up with the wrong crowd’.
This is the tale she told me.


7.
The Rye House:
Mum told me this about the day I contacted her after nearly 2 years. I had tried unsupported living, but it lasted just 6 weeks, and I was kicked out, back into sheltered accommodation. I was furious, hit walls with my bare hands, head butted doors. I was so angry. Just to have had that bit of freedom and then it was taken away. Anyway, this is what Mum told me:

Kate’s story:
Me and Steve sat by the roaring fire enjoying a glass of wine. It was the 23rd of December and we were congratulating ourselves on finishing all the Christmas shopping, both food and present shopping. We felt peaceful and relaxed, chatting contentedly, just happy to be together. My mobile lay on the table and when it vibrated, I picked it up reluctantly.
‘Can’t think who that can be’ I said as I squinted at a text message:
‘Hi Mum.
I’ve moved again.
I really don’t like it.
My Social Worker says it’s the best they can do just before Christmas.
Can you call me?’
My hand trembled as I read the text message from Sadie. I put the phone down carefully. It was nearly two years since we had heard from our daughter. I looked at Steve. He saw the look on my face.
‘What is it?’
‘That was a text from Sadie. She’s moved again’.
Our faces registered alarm. I picked up my drink and took a long swig.
‘I can’t go through it all again Steve’.
We reached out to each other and held hands as we remembered the constant disappearing, how we had spent hours trying to find her and when we did, all we got was a load of abuse. But there was something in Sadie’s message that worried me. I felt uneasy but also angry. It was so hard not to care, to pretend that it didn’t matter, that it was all done with.
Thinking back to her leaving school, being given the chance of supported living in a nice house with 3 other girls. The chance to begin to live in the outside world, and what did she do but trash her room, run away every time the social worker tried to meet with her, finally having to leave, going back into sheltered living, refusing to be with us and then just disappearing.
Steve looked at me ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I suppose I’ll call her in a bit. I’m too worried to settle’.
But almost immediately I called the number registered on my mobile. Sadie answered on the second ring, almost as if she had waiting for me to call back.
‘Where are you Sadie?’
Sadie gave an address that was no more than 10 minutes’ drive away. I was shocked that she was so close. The last we’d heard, Sadie was living in Reading, a good two hours’ drive away.
Sadie was straight in:
‘I don’t like it Mum. It’s creepy. There’s no curtains or blinds. Everyone can look in’.
I paused. Sadie hardly ever showed any emotion. She never let on that she felt scared. She liked to give the appearance of being a hard case. The strange thing was that we started talking as if we had had seen each other yesterday, I wanted to say: ‘Why have you moved again? What happened to Reading?’
But what I did say was, ‘I’ll come over tomorrow with Dad. It’s too late to turn out now’.
Sadie gave me rough directions but seemed to want to say more.
Instead, she said ‘OK, see you tomorrow. Don’t be too shocked at the place’.
After finishing the call, I sat thinking. There was something in Sadie’s voice which continued to concern me. ‘I’ll go over now’ I thought and called Sadie back.
‘Hi, I’ve changed my mind. I’m coming over right away. Meet me by the chip shop by the Willow Pub. You know that one, don’t you?’

It was just after 10 o’ clock when I arrived to find Sadie waiting outside the chip shop. She was with a group of teenagers who were hanging about and Sadie seemed to be chatting and laughing with them. When she saw me, she sauntered over to the car and got in. She directed me to a big, detached house. I could see that it had once been painted white. Now it was shabby, grubby, and derelict looking. There was a large, dreary willow tree in the front garden. The tree made the house seem sad.
Sadie hardly said a word, just led the way up a path where every paving stone appeared broken. The front lawn was unkempt, but the house had a name plate ‘The Rye House’. She unlocked the front door and led the way inside. The floor was covered in vinyl which felt sticky, and the house echoed with emptiness. As we walked through the house I noticed every door was numbered and had a Yale lock. I knew at once that it was a multi occupancy house, a ‘halfway way’ house. My heart sank because I knew Sadie would never keep the door to her room locked.
We climbed the uncarpeted stairs to a top floor room, number 6, and again my heart sank. The sight that met my eyes was a real shock, and I was battle hardened where Sadie was concerned. A large room, empty except for some black bin bags containing Sadie’s clothes, an old TV, one of those chairs that fold out into a sort of bed, no curtains on the windows, a bare light bulb swinging from the ceiling. There was a sink in one corner, and I noticed a radiator under the window, so at least there was heating.
It was truly horrible. I felt distraught.
‘Words fail me. I just don’t know what to say to you Sadie. Have you got any food?’
‘I don’t have any money. My benefits haven’t kicked in yet’.
When I’m emotionally upset I tend to go into practical overdrive. I started to rush round the room unfolding the chair into a bed to see if it was possible to sleep on it. Then I rushed into the bathroom and turned on the taps to check they worked, flushed the toilet, and then ran back down the stairs. Sadie followed, and together we tried to open doors. We discovered a kitchen, a living room, dining room, and downstairs shower room with disability features. I realised this was for communal living. All the other rooms were locked. At least the kitchen was well equipped with cooker, fridge and washing machine.
‘Do you have any crockery or cutlery, Sadie? Any sheets, bedding, towels?’
‘No Mum, it was all stolen at my last place’.
I sighed. That would be the third time then. Every time I thought Sadie had settled, she made the wrong friends and was hounded out of her home. She had lived in three places over the last few years.
‘Right, come on, we’ll pop up to Tesco’s and get you sorted’.
I bought food, toiletries and put £20 on the electric meter.
‘We’ll come back in the morning and sort this out properly’.
Sadie looked alarmed. She hadn’t been home for nearly two years. Is that what her mum was suggesting?
But she shrugged and followed me out of that awful room, locking the bedroom door and then locking the front door.
That night we hardly slept. Sadie seemed to have passed out as soon as her head touched the pillow. She didn’t shower or clean her teeth. Just shrugged out of most of her clothes and fell into what had been her childhood bed.

8.
We were up early the next morning. Steve said he’d come and look, maybe bring some paint, spruce the room up a bit. Sadie looked at him fondly when he said that. ‘Still into the DIY dad’ she grinned.
Armed with boxes of stuff, we went back to the Rye House. I had gathered bedding, towels, a pair of curtains, a lampshade. Once back, we unlocked the doors and I made Sadie help me clean the room and organise the stuff. Steve set to and painted all four walls in a couple of hours. By the time they had finished the room was no better or worse than student accommodation. At least it was clean and bright. Simple touches like a pair of curtains, a lampshade and a large floor rug made it at least comfortable.
We sat down on the floor with our backs against a radiator and shared a can of coke. I asked Sadie what it was about the house she didn’t like? Really, I wanted to ask where Sadie had been for almost two years.
‘I’m going to be here all on my own and I’ll hear spooky noises’.
I smiled at that. Sadie had always had a thing about the occult and seances which was unfortunate as one of her greatest difficulties was understanding the difference between fact and fiction.
‘There’s supposed to be someone moving in after Christmas, a young girl with a baby I think. Either that or a family. That’s what the social worker said anyway’.
While they sat there, I noticed Sadie could do with a bath. She’d never been great with personal hygiene.
‘Go and have a bath’.
‘I don’t like to. It echoes in there’.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll sit here and wait. Go on’ and I handed Sadie the shampoo and shower gel we had bought.
‘You’ll feel better for a good hair wash’.
Steve said he’d nip to the nearest charity shop and see if he could pick up a chair for the room or maybe one of those bistro sets. Then at least she would have a table to eat on. Sadie looked at him as if he was mad and wandered reluctantly off to the bathroom.
I looked around. A cardboard box with some of Sadie’s bits and pieces lay nearby. Idly glancing through it, I found a pile of cards lying just underneath some magazines. Feeling a little guilty and sneaky, I moved the magazines and picked the cards up.
I physically recoiled at what I found. It was a pile of Mother’s Day cards. Sadie had never, ever sent me one. I opened the top card and read ‘Dear Mum, Help me’. I felt the prickle of tears. What was going on?
Then the sudden realisation hit. Those cards were not meant for me. They were meant for Sadie’s dead birth mother. I felt as if someone had hit me in the heart with a hammer. Sadie’s birth mother had been dead for 18 years.
I heard the water gurgling down the plug hole. Quickly replacing the cards, I picked up the coke bottle and took a long swig. Breathing carefully, I tried to regain my composure. Sadie came into the room wrapped in towels. She noticed at once that I had found the cards.
‘Talk to me Sadie. How can I help you?’
Sadie shifted about uncomfortably. She looked embarrassed. ‘I don’t want to upset you’.
‘You won’t upset me. Tell me’.
So, Sadie told me how she had never really believed her birth mother was dead and how she believed social services had just made it up because her mother had been a heroin addict. ‘Will you help me find her grave? If I saw that I might finally believe she’s dead’.
‘I’ll try but it might take some time. It’s not something I’ve ever tried to do before. I’m just not sure how to go about it. I do know that your mother was buried in Southend somewhere. So, I’ll start making enquiries.
Kate looked around the room at the freshly painted walls, the cheerful yellow curtains. It was at least clean.
‘You know it’s Christmas Eve, Sadie’.
‘Of course I do’.
‘So, what do you want to do?’
‘I’m going clubbing, always go clubbing on Christmas Eve’.
‘Right, I’ll be off then’.
‘Ok. Thank dad for the home improvements’.
‘I will do. Keep safe Sadie’.
As I let myself out of the Rye House, I looked back and saw the glow from an upstairs window. I sighed.

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