One woman’s story. Of misplaced trust. Of ineffectual bureaucracy & cover-up. Of a social care system paying lip service to the needs of Scotland’s most vulnerable.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou

“They would pull my nipples and laugh!” I was sitting at the kitchen table in my son’s flat. “They thought it amusing!” My son stared at the newspaper in front of him and said nothing. But, despite his clear discomfort, I couldn’t bring myself to stop: “They would pull them right out to here!” And I stretched out my hands in front of me, gauging from memory the extent of the affront.

My son looked up and stared at my hands. There was no point in looking into my eyes or searching my face for he knew what he was hearing was true … he’d had sufficient doubts about the competence of the care provider and the current manager of the privately-owned care home in Scotland where I’d paid a king’s ransom to live for over three years to know he needed to “rescue” me, as I describe it, just days after my 99th birthday. Now, as I spoke, he was reliving all those times over the past three years when, on visits, I would tell him I was frightened but clam up when he asked me why. Out of fear, I dared not tell him. And, I’d raised him to know when not to ask!

Now I am in safe hands.

I had survived the ignominy of being bathed by gauche girls, completely unprepared for the task, who covered their embarrassment by pulling my nipples and laughing uproariously. I do not blame them. And I had survived without a cup of tea for comfort whenever I couldn’t sleep for I took seriously the hardened night carer’s threat to “pee” in it as punishment for being a nuisance. I needed no second warning. I had survived being strapped to the bed to stop me reaching for the panic button and disturbing the night staff and had banished my teddy bear to the back of the wardrobe after they said it would bite me if I didn’t do what I was told, striking up an unlikely friendship instead with a large seven-legged spider who lived under the sink in the loo and emerged every morning without fail to look at this strange sobbing creature towering above it.

I had recovered from the fractured pelvis I sustained from rough handling, shall we say, and the consequent weeks of painful physiotherapy all of which went undocumented and, I believe, unreported by the care provider to Social Care or to Scotland’s Care Inspectorate and had sat without company for days on end whenever fellow residents chose to sit alone and depressed in their rooms nursing their own unexplained bruises and fractures. I had even survived the physical consequences of the powerful chemical cosh they administered daily to keep me sedated. And, after my escape at the age of 99, I quickly regained my mobility, was no longer daytime incontinent nor, after some TLC, any longer “prone” to urine infections.

I survived for I did not give in, did not abandon hope, nor react like the kicked dog who cowers from her abusers. I refused to relinquish my pride despite knowing that this would likely do me no favours. Instead, I took comfort in things that reminded me of the life I’d led … pieces of studio pottery and paintings my son had brought … and I developed coping mechanisms, refusing to let my abusers win. But, I did not survive unscathed. I am damaged goods and I have come to trust no-one for I dare not drop my guard.

I’ve been told that the routine chemical cosh is likely to have long lasting psychological effects from which I may never recover and to take things one day at a time and not to worry that I may not be as genial as I used to be. And, I think of the thousands of others in my position – elderly and no longer self-reliant – and how they are being treated in the time left to them in privately-owned care homes in Scotland by owners who are motivated by profit.

I did not assume that life in a care home for older people would be as meaningful as the life I’d led or that giving up my independence would be without its issues. But, when taking my lead from Diana Athill, a contemporary who had thrown caution to the wind and taken up residence in a care home in 2010, I had expectations of a place befitting the price I was asked to pay and not the squalid, poorly-resourced, and (latterly) badly-managed place where I found myself. I could not have imagined that, in modern Scotland, a regulated care provider, with no demonstrable interest in care provision, would be able to preside over my neglect and abuse and have me declared insane like some latter-day Victorian husband. This in an age when, in wider society, a man who leverages power over women would be condemned rightly as predatory.

But, dreadful though my treatment was at the hands of that care provider, my story is prompted by the response of the local Council which acted to enable the care provider to evade scrutiny by Police Scotland officers (who were non-judgemental and treated me with humanity and respect and for which I thank them), then added insult to injury by going out of its way to launder the care provider’s reputation and, by impute, to denigrate me. And so, at the great age of 100 ‘plus’ … the rationale for the title of my website … I find myself marvelling at the extent of the efforts of the Scottish social care system to silence and further abuse a woman for standing up and speaking out.

As I tell my story, I think of those others whose degrading abuse and neglect in care homes for older people went undiscovered as would have mine had I left the care home in the manner expected by the care provider rather than sentient and in a wheelchair. For, this is an industry that can bury its mistakes! And, I hope that, by lifting the lid on my own experiences, I can help to ensure that those who are motivated to abuse people in care homes for older people and those Council officials who turn their backs when people reach out will be denied the opportunity to imagine that their crimes will go undiscovered.

Of course, the Council’s crime is greater than that of the desperado to whose care home it was wrong of the Council to direct me in the first place. For, while my abuse was occasioned by the care provider, it was possible only by being facilitated and then covered-up by the Council executive. The Council’s response so far has been superficial and bureaucratic as they cover their own backs. In desperation they point the finger of blame at me but I refuse to let them silence me as they cover up the flaws in the system and their own poor judgement and I will continue to demand that they account for their actions and address the risks to which they are exposing other vulnerable people in Scotland. The nature of the Council’s response to my disclosures of abuse has led me to question the values of those with a duty to respect human rights in modern Scotland.

An entire year has passed since I asked the Council respectfully to account for their role in the cover-up of my disclosures of abuse and, with the Council executive persisting in doing all in their power to shake me off, the time feels right – in my 103rd year, on International Women’s Day, 2022- to raise my voice and, in the coming days, weeks and months, to tell my story for those who have ears for “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”