Someone to Love Us: The shocking true story of two brothers fostered into brutality and neglect. Terence O’Neill

my case to go, but he didn’t kick off too much because he was already getting quite fond of Mrs Pickering. Besides, Dennis and I had promised we’d come back and visit him most days.

      Mr Gough carried my case for me as we climbed up the path to the road.

      ‘We’re supposed to send our empty cases back to the Connops,’ I told him. ‘They’re just on loan.’

      ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we fill them full of frogs then send them back?’

      I couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of Mrs Connop opening a suitcase full of frogs in that grand, oak-panelled hallway and them leaping out all over the place.

      ‘That’s what we’ll do then,’ he said, chuckling. ‘I’ll see to it later.’

      When we arrived, Mrs Gough came rushing out to welcome me and she put her arms round me and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Welcome to Bank Farm, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy here.’

      Dennis gave me a wink. I blushed and mumbled ‘Thanks’ as I pulled away from her embrace. I wasn’t at all keen on people hugging me. It was something girls did, something cissy. I was tough now, I thought. I wasn’t a kid any more.

       Chapter Six

      The farm buildings at Bank Farm were all in a row: the two-storey house, with a vegetable garden right in front of it, then the stables, a milking shed and a chicken shed. As well as keeping animals, Mr Gough had six fields where he grew corn and hay.

      ‘Seventy-two acres,’ he told me when I asked him how big it was. ‘Only small, but we get by.’ He looked at me. ‘You interested in farming then?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said keenly. ‘We used to help round the farm at the Connops’.’

      ‘You can help here as well. I’ll give you some jobs to see how you get on.’

      ‘What kind of jobs?’

      ‘Depends whether you’re good at getting up in the morning. I need someone to feed the animals – but I warn you, they get hungry at the crack of dawn.’

      ‘I can do that,’ I said immediately. ‘Denny and I will do it.’

      He explained the job. First we had to go all the way out to the horses’ field, which was on a hillside thick with bracken, and persuade them to come down to the stables for their hay. He told us to stand on orange boxes and climb up to slip a collar over each horse’s head so we could lead them down towards the house. As we were to find out, some days it was easy and other days those horses seemed determined to make our lives difficult and they’d canter off across the field at breakneck pace. We’d tear after them, our bare legs, clad only in shorts, getting scratched and scraped on the bracken.