I don’t remember any food .. I was so hungry I ate grass
Man tells child abuse probe he was starved and scared at nun-run care institution
A MAN told yesterday how constant hunger forced him to eat grass during four years of hell as a child at a care institution in the 60s.
The witness told Scotland’s Child Abuse Inquiry that he was “never happy” during his time at Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark and was frightened of almost all the nuns in charge.
Punishments he faced at the Lanarkshire home – run by the nuns of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul – included being locked in a fire escape and pushed into a toilet, the hearing was told.
He told the probe: “I don’t believe I was looked after. The word ‘looked after’ is meaningless to me.”
The public inquiry sitting in Edinburgh is continuing to hear evidence about people’s experiences of living at Smyllum Park, which closed in the 80s.
The latest witness, who can’t be identified, was admitted to the home in the early 60s, aged two.
He told how he finds it hard to eradicate certain “horrible” memories, telling the hearing: “I just remember that I was never happy.”
Asked about food at Smyllum, he said: “I just remember I was always hungry. I don’t remember food.”
He added: “I do remember eating grass because I was hungry.”
The witness said he was frightened of all of the nuns except one and branded one as “evil”.
“She was always shouting and screaming, she was a horrible person,” he said in a written statement submitted to the probe.
He told Colin MacAulay QC, counsel to the inquiry: “I remember just being treated like a non-entity. I don’t have any recollection of any kind of positive interaction, any kind of love and affection.”
He recounted one incident, when he was three or four, in which he said a female staff member pushed him “into the toilet”, adding: “I was hysterical, I thought I was going to disappear into the toilet.”
He also told how he became fearful of the dark after being left in a fire escape as a punishment following a pillow fight.
He said: “I just remember being there for what seemed like forever. It was awful, just awful.”
The inquiry heard the witness was later moved out of Smyllum into foster care and other homes.
I don’t have any memory of any kind of positive relations – any kind of love WITNESS