Peter Punches a Pedo

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8 min read

This story from my archives carries a genuine trigger warning for those who have experience of SA. Whilst nothing of that nature happens here, this covers an attempt to groom me^†.

Hope you like the title, I love a good alliteration. Throw your mind back to summer 1989. Like many of us, I remember my childhood as always being hot and sunny days. In the UK. Rose tinted spec syndrome in full force, although this one isn’t so rosy despite being set in the beautiful village of Edlesborough.

It’s the summer break, I’ve finished middle school, will turn 13 during the summer, and then start high school. Me and my schoolfriend Michael (he was cool af btw) spent a Saturday walking around the village with 2 buckets, looking to wash cars for money in probably the worst conditions for the job. Not a cloud in the sky and absolutely scorching. People were busy enjoying the sun and nobody wanted their car washed. It felt like we’d walked around the village at least twice.

Around midday we enter a cul-de-sac and spot a wiry, older looking man who is up a ladder painting the window frames of his house. On his driveway sits a red Mini Metro that looks in need of a wash. I spotted it and gave Michael a nudge and motion towards the Metro.

Michael sort of shakes his head and is reluctant, which confused me.

Why the hell not? We’ve seen no one. Michael reluctantly agrees and I approach the man.

‘’Scuse me sir, would you like your car washed.’ He turned and looked at us. He shouted down.

‘If the price is right, a pound?’ He looked weird and had a soft irish accent. The parting in his hair appeared to start on the side of his head, I remember that much.

A fucking pound?

I thought, but we were desperate, and stupid. And stupidly desperate.

‘Okay.’ The man made his way down the ladder. His name was Richard Dale^‡. I normally change or redact names to protect the innocent, but he does not fit that category.

He showed us into his open garage and to the sink to fill our buckets. We set to work in the sweltering heat. At some point during the wash he disappears inside for a bit. We carry on. Then he comes out to the driveway.

‘Come on inside for some squash.’ Note, he doesn’t ask us, he tells us. Me and Michael duly go inside for some watery squash. The house, while dated, was very clean, neat and tidy. Richard starts regaling us in stories from his past. I can’t remember the story he was telling, but part of it involved him having to demonstrate something that happened to him by touching Michael on his arm. The next story was about him going skiing on a dry slope and how he fell, trapped his fingers and it pulled his arm. He demonstrated the arm pull using mine. Michael had a funny stare in his eyes at this point. I felt sort of sorry for the strange looking old man. I say old, I think he was perhaps in his late forties, but he looked like Gollum.

The next thing I know, his stories have moved on to travel stories, and he wants to show me and Michael some Indian clothing upstairs. This felt odd, but we went anyway. I remember the carpet being an awful early 80s kind of blue, a bit like Barclays branding colours. Anyway, we’re now in the very clean spare bedroom. Richard is telling us about smocks. Before we know it he’s put one over Michael and tightened it around his waist with the cord that is part of it. Then I have one on.

Michael is staring at me
with eyes like fucking saucers.

Just as I start to get a sinking feeling Richard says ‘right, enough of that, you boys need to finish the car’ and with that he whips off the smocks swiftly and smoothly. We’re back at the car, finishing it off.

I’ve told this story many times and I enjoy asking the following questions to help people identify red flag moments, even though we’ve already passed about 6 so far.

The job was done; it was time for payment. How much had we agreed?

That’s correct, £1

Does he give us a £1?

You lose a point for saying yes, well done to those of you who said no and know where this is going.

He gives us a £5 note, which means what? bearing in mind we hadn’t washed a single car all day.

It means we have to give him change, which means what?

That one of us will have to go get change and come back. Guess who agrees?

Yep, me! Because Michael is already petrified and I am a good girl scout. Richard had also been talking about one of us coming and helping him to fix the chicken wire fence in his back garden the next week. Guess who volunteered for that? Me again, cos money and I felt sorry for him.

Parents and survivors, strap in for this next bit.

Me and Michael set off, said our goodbyes to each other and say we’ll see each other later at the school disco. He goes home, I go home.

I may get some flak here because it does not show my mum in a good light, however, this is my fucking truth and I am telling it, largely because it is a good lesson.

I tell my mum how uncomfortable I feel and the kind of strange things that happened. My mother, at this point in her life, is a sexual abuse counsellor.

My mother gives me the £4 change and lets me go back to the man’s house,

alone.

I get there. Question time again folks:

Is he still outside painting the window frames of his house?

Again, you lose points if you say yes, for those who say no, well done.

No, he was no longer outside his house painting. Which means what?

That’s right, I must go in the house.

Do I feel comfortable going in the house?

Yes, because I’d been in there just earlier. I go through the garage calling for him. No answer. I go into the kitchen, no answer. I’m feeling uneasy at this point. I go up the stairs because I HAD BEEN UP THERE BEFORE.

I get to the top of the stairs, and he suddenly appeared from one of the bedrooms. I shit myself but tried to hide it.

‘I knew I could trust you,’ he said. ‘Now, about that chicken wire.’

‘Yes, that will be fine, I’ll ask my parents.’

That night at the disco me and Michael made jokes to our friends about what had happened. And the joke was on us, or rather me. It seems all the parents and the kids understood that his was the token village paedophile, and no one had told my parents. We’d been living in the village for 2 years at this point.

The very next weekend, my dad was at work. Me, Mum and my sister were just chilling at home. The doorbell went. IT WAS HIM. I don’t know how he found me, I hadn’t told him where in the village I lived.

Mum went to get the door.

Mum, it’s him!

She froze.

‘Okay, come away from the window.’

We all backed further into the house. He rang again. Then he made his way around the house (detached cottage) down the side and started trying to look over the sidewall, calling for me.

He left after a while.

Later that evening I was in bed struggling to get to sleep. I heard my dad come home. The front door shut. I could hear my mum and dad talking, muffled, not clear, but you could hear the different pitches and tones.

She was telling him. Some back and forth, my dad’s voice becoming raised. Oh dear.

The front door went again, I heard my dad speed off. Hmm.

The next day my mum explained she’d asked dad to go and warn him off and that she had to be careful with dad because he was sort of a rottweiler. She said she gently spoke to dad, told him what to do, how to do it and how certainly not to do it.

It’s a village for village people, we’ll have no trouble here!

So, in her mind, my dad goes to the pedo’s house, is firm with the pedo and warns him not to come near his family.

Now, this next bit I don’t know if it’s true. But years later I asked my dad what happened when he went round.

‘Oh he was a rude cunt of a man, sort of laughing it off.’

‘Oh right.’

‘So…’

‘Oh there’s more’

‘This sort of got my back up’

‘Go on?’

Well I lost control really, I punched him in the face and he fell back on the floor.

‘Right’

‘Then I stepped into the house and closed the door as I didn’t want the neighbours to see.’

‘What?’

‘Mmm then I just kept kicking him between the legs for a bit and then I opened the door and left.’

I really do hope this bit is true Dad. He does have form.

More on this later

Thanks for reading.

— B

† If reading this has triggered something from your past that you’ve not yet come to terms with, you can find help here.

‡ Note: Richard Dale was a maths teacher at Henry Floyd Grammar School in the 1980s. He was convicted of his offences and sacked, obvs. In later years it was revealed to my mother that her colleague had become a counsellor following the revelation that Richard Dale had abused her son from the age of 12 to 19, years before I met him. Some years later my stepfather, Ray Wyre, through his police contacts discovered an offence sheet an inch thick. Rest easy villagers, Richard long left the village and is probably dead somewhere, hopefully.

If you enjoyed this, buy me a coffee.