Oi by Snowball

I was fully booked for blog tours for this month when I heard about Oi. But as soon as I read the information about the book I knew it was one I needed to read and talk about. You'll see why below. Thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me onto the tour and to the author for my review copy.

The Blurb:

This is a harrowing personal voyage into the 1960-80s childcare system as experienced first-hand by the author and many like him.

It was a brutally horrific system that made countless victims of the very children it was designed to protect. These brutally horrific regimes, founded upon extraordinary levels of inhumanity, cruelty, violence, fear, and intimidation brought children to their knees, brutalised, cowed and often in fear for their very existence. It was a stark, depressive, and oppressively dysfunctional system, that imposed perpetual physical suffering and mental hardship, upon its most vulnerable charges. It was a pernicious cycle of ritualised systematic abuse, inflicted on some of the most vulnerable children society could offer up.This was the environment that the ‘Unfortunates’ found themselves embedded in during the 1960s.

It was a system that lacked care, thought, and all things humane. A system where the imposition of brutal physical and sexual abuse had become normalised, legitimised, embraced and ultimately, forcefully accepted. This was life in a local authority home. These were the homes of ‘the Damned’, where a catalogue of daily horrors were inflicted for the personal pleasure of those charged with the care of this hidden, and often forgotten, sub-culture of children who, through no fault of their own, were forced to embrace these traumas, and endure a fight for their very survival.

Oi was published on 18th November 2018 and you can by it from Waterstones and Amazon.


My Review:

Oh my goodness. I'm really not sure I can do this incredible book justice. I am fortunate to have no experience of the British childcare system past or present, and so Oi was a real eye opener for me. It has stuck with me, and tears fill my eyes every time I talk to someone about it.

Oi tells the true story of one young boy's journey through the childcare system from the end of the 60s through to the 80s. And it's absolutely heartbreaking. And harrowing. But it's also a tale of that young man's resilience in the face of the most awful circumstances. There are so many things I want to say about this book - the picture below will give you an idea - but I will try to keep it focused.

The story opens when Snowball is about six years old. He is part of a large foster family and feels secure, happy and loved. His walk home from school is described so vividly. He's the only black face in the community, but experiences no hostility because of it, just a kindly curiosity. This happy existence follows his hugely traumatic first year of life when he was abused, burned and scalded by his drunken mother. He was lucky to survive and I think this was an early show of the resilience and strength that would mark his survival in later years.

Everything changes when he is suddenly ripped from his foster home and taken to a care home, never to see any of his foster family again. On his first night in his new home he needs the loo, and ignoring the warnings from the boys in his room, heads off to the toilet. On the way back, a cuff across the head from the home manager sends him flying into the wall opposite. And that's just the beginning.

Oi catalogues abuse upon abuse - mental, physical and sexual. This abuse was carried out by those tasked with caring for these kids, who had all arrived damaged. One young boy walking around with blood dripping from his arms from self harming. A bright young girl whose light is dimmed by systematic sexual abuse. Care workers using food deprivation as a punishment. There is story after story, and they are all heartbreaking. I cried so much reading this book.

These children were let down, and let down repeatedly by everybody who should have been caring for them - the staff in the homes, social workers, teachers, police, pretty much everyone. Traumatised kids pushed into a brutalized regime.

In one of the homes in which Snowball lived 'everything and anything was either controlled, abused or simply broken. Property and children alike.' The same home 'operated on the core principle of institutionalised abuse. Whether it was mental, physical or sexual, the entire operation was predicated on the belief that control could be maintained by violating children.' Snowball refers to it as a home for 'the unwanted and the wretched.' And this home was in no way unique.

There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. The occasional kindly care worker, who wouldn't beat the kids, a nice policeman and the one decent home where Snowball lived, and had possessions he could call his own. Tears filled my eyes as Snowball is completely overwhelmed at the thought of writing a letter to Santa, hardly daring to hope that he might actually get a gift.

But these moments of kindness are far too few in a very bleak landscape. The abuse continued and I was horrified to read about it being ignored by everyone, even when evidence is presented.

Oi is a difficult read that took me a while to finish but it's a book that should be widely read. It talks about all kinds of abuse in detail so it might not be for everyone, but it is a story that needs to be heard. It has been written with an adult take on childhood memories of hugely traumatic events, but what shines through is Snowball's  refusal to bow down or be silenced, and his strong sense of right and wrong. It will stay with me for a long time.

I have no idea how Snowball survived those first sixteen years but I'm delighted that he did and made a success of his life. I can't help but wonder about the other children mentioned in the book. Of course, such abuse should never ever have happened, and the awful thing is that it still goes on in our care system. We need to be aware, we need to talk about this. We need to be shocked, we need to be angry. Those responsible must be held accountable.

There is so much more I could say, but I'm going to finish here. Thank you David for telling your story. It was a privilege to read it.


The Author:

The author, David Lee Jackson (1964 – Present) was born in Withington, Manchester in England, into an impoverished black family.  Within months of being born, he found himself on the wrong end of abusive parenting, being hospitalised and close to death.

Eventually recovering and well enough to be treated as an out-patient, he was placed into foster care, where he was loved and he began to thrive. Unforeseen circumstances forced him from this loving home, and he found himself at the brutal and often criminal mercies of an abusive and violent childcare system.

The 1960s and 1970s British Childcare System cared little for the children under its control.  It was a brutal, degrading, violent and occasionally deadly environment, into which children were not only thrown like lambs to the slaughter, but were then expected to emerge as competent, capable, contributing members of the society that had so shamelessly failed them at every juncture.

He survived by navigating his course through one violent and abusive encounter after another. Living on his wits, and his fists where necessary, and longing for the day he would finally be freed from this physical and psychological turmoil. David survived, educated himself, obtaining an Honours Degree in Psychology and a Master's Degree in International Business. He has been an elected public official, served on a number of charity boards and forums, and is an active campaigner on social justice and equality issues. David has worked in the criminal justice system, working with drug-addicted offenders, many with shared or similar backgrounds to his own, and he is a well-travelled and widely respected project management consultant.

In 2018, David (under the name Snowball) published the widely praised and much talked about book, 'Oi' through the Amazon network, in which he detailed in all its brutally cold and horrifically ignoble glory, the horrifying levels of abuse, brutality and criminality that he encountered, while being raised in the British Childcare System throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The book itself is a testament to the enduring resilience of all children living through adversity and both physical and psychological hardship, and an indictment of the casually brutal and often criminal systems, that inflict relentless brutality upon children it has been charged with caring for.

Reviews included:
…..Harrowing, brutal and truthful!  Buckle up and read Snowball's heart wrenching account of a life that no child should ever experience- prepare to be shocked to the core, be ready to feel every emotion…..(Brenda Lee)
……one of the most emotional journeys you will ever take with a child who survives unbelievable childhood adversity. At times it is almost too painful to witness, it truly is a tribute to the child and the man who wrote it……Amanda Knowles (MBE)
…..this book is as epic as it is painful read at times and extremely sad!  It illustrates a time when Victorian child care was still in evidence even in the 60s, 70s & 80s and children were definitely to be seen and not heard……...this book will educate……Anon

David is currently resident in the United Kingdom, where amongst other professional endeavours, he has embarked on a blossoming career as a Keynote Speaker and Motivational Presenter. He has an adult son and enjoys the comfort of a vast extended family, that is spread across the entirety of the United kingdom.

To quote David in words he would choose himself:
………….Life has been a tough ride at times. It would have been easy, and acceptable to simply give up, to shrink, to fade away as expected.  However, there is an irrepressible force inside all of us called the Human Spirit, and it constantly screams at me, 'David, you may not be responsible for being down, but you are responsible for getting back up again' …………………and so I get up.