May 1996

In May 1996 I was 11 years old. I was a tall child - 5'3", the same as today - and puberty had already given me full hips and C-cup breasts, which made me feel awkward and fat. I dressed in jeans and t-shirts, and I loved reading science fiction and listening to indie music. I was starting to look like a woman, but I was still a tree-climbing, football-kicking tomboy. 

Along with around 50 classmates, I went on a five day school trip to Beaulieu, in the New Forest national park, staying in a residential centre on a working farm. The staff accompanying us on the trip included Mr Holmes (a pseudonym) who had been my class teacher (meaning he taught me for most subjects) the previous year.

Shortly after we arrived, we were given a brief tour of the farm by a middle aged man we understood to be The Farmer. Trailing along behind the school party was a young man, maybe 19 years old, who also worked on the farm. I'm going to call him Mark. None of my close friends had come to Beaulieu, and I tended be more comfortable with boys; it made perfect sense to chat to Mark. It didn't occur to me for a second that the dynamic would (even could) be any different to that between me and my friends or brothers. 

On the second day, we were taken to get a proper look at some of the animals, and again, Mark tagged along. I spent the whole time talking and laughing with Mark. Because it was muddy, we had been wearing our wellies, and borrowed boiler suits, so when we got back to the centre, we entered by a back door, onto a hallway with shoe racks and coat hooks. I was still chattering away, and clambering out of my boiler suit when everyone else was turning the corner of the L-shaped corridor, filtering past the doors to the girls' bedrooms, and passing through the double doors into the centre's communal area, where we ate our meals. 

It was then, with the rest of the group gone, that Mark suddenly and roughly shoved his hand into my scoop-neck t-shirt, and groped my breast. I had no idea how this had happened, how to react, or what had caused it. I had no context for this. Mark stared at me hard, as if trying to judge my reaction. Tears filled my eyes, and a cry rose in my throat. I turned and ran, round the corner, past the bedrooms, and through the double doors. As I flew into the communal area, panting, tears running down my face, my eyes met those of Mr Holmes. He looked at me, a crying child, and turned to another teacher, "Looks like someone got turned down."

Looks like someone got turned down. Looks like someone got turned down. Looks like someone got turned down. Looks like someone got turned down.

I didn't even really understand what those words meant. But I knew how they made me feel: guilty, ashamed, caught out, dirty.

Instead of any of the words that I could have said, words that could have explained, words that could have told the truth, words that could have put things right, I said nothing. 

I said nothing. I said nothing. I said nothing. I said nothing. 

These moments still spin around in my mind. As though by replaying them, maybe they'll turn out differently. But of course they can't. 

I was so full of emotion, I couldn't speak. Perhaps most of all, I was shocked. I had fallen down a rabbit hole into another world, and I didn't understand anything that was happening there. The way that he looked at me, Mr Holmes' face said "I know you. I know things about you that you don't know." I was confused and scared, and I spent the rest of the day in silence. Mark kept away.

The rest of the trip is fairly blurry in my memory. But I do remember one occasion when Mark somehow isolated me from the rest of the group, and forced me to repeatedly touch an electric fence. I remember being so scared. But I didn't challenge him, and again I didn't tell anyone.

The best thing about the trip was receiving a short letter from my mum, which she'd "dashed off" while breastfeeding my baby brother. This little snippet of familiarity and safety kept me going until I got home.

I didn't tell my mum about what happened in Beaulieu for ten years.

The confused, shameful feelings about what happened, and a certainty that it had been my fault, grew in me over time. It felt so important to keep that secret.

...

Three months after this sexual assault, I was raped. Read about it here.

All posts about my experiences are collated here.