Saturday, August 1, 1992

in iv
Our person
for
Our People

Glen Freeman
365-7266

BIG IN
JAPAN

The 22 Japanese
members of
Selkirk College's
Aoyama tour
have now been
reading, writing
and relaxing in
Castlegar for 13
days. This
weekend they
are enjoying the
view ina
photographers
Mecca,
otherwise known
as Banff. The
students are in
Canada to learn
English and
experience the
true north strong
and free, and
they will be

OurPEOPL

Living

IN

By Karen Kersey
CASTLEGAR NEWS SERVICE

4 dward can’t visit his
7 4 mother’s grave without
4 id being reminded of the
man who sexually assaulted
him in 1951 when the cemetery
was just a blueberry patch on
the edge of town.

He can’t watch a stranger
touch his little daughter
without lashing out with
behavior that upsets the child
and scares the innocent
stranger.

He can’t keep a marriage
together because of the control
factor — control he feels is
necessary to protect the people
he loves from being harmed.

THE SHADOW

of sexual abuse

B.C. Pen, where he was
assigned to the unit where
Charles Head and Clifford
Robert Olson were housed.

Edward quit after the
daughter of a fellow guard
was killed by Head.

“Emotionally, I went into
the tank,” Edward says
about the experience which
made him even more
concerned about his own
daughters.

He wanted to know
where they were, who they
were with, when they’d be
home and every detail
possible about their
activities.

@ Saturday, August 1, 1992

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fitness buff, he
jogged with one of
is wives until a
broken ankle forced him to
switch to cycling alongside
— leading to arguments

about his constant presence
in her life.

And while his heart weeps for
women victims, Edward is
desperate for the public to
understand that men also suffer
lifelong trauma from childhood
sexual assaults.

At 50, he’s been through

returning home
next week.

PAT ON

THE BACK

You never know
who your friends
are until you
need them. Well,
I needed them
on Wednesday
night. That's
when | got a call
saying Donna,
my wife, had a
bit of an
accident. | got to
the hospital — in
world record time
— only to find
that Donna was
in the good
hands of RCMP
Const. Russell
Sangster, Dr.
Keith Merritt and
the emergency
nurses. Special
thanks to all of
them for going
above and
beyond the call
of duty and
making Donna
and | feel at
ease. And yes,
Donna is
recovering
nicely.

three marriages with wives who
couldn’t understand his need to
control, his quiet periods and
moody times. Both his
daughters have gone — left
home without a word, as they
were unable to comprehend his
desperate need to protect them
from life’s experiences.
orn in England during
Bie War II, Edward’s
natural father was
killed while serving in Sicily.
Even so, he recalls his
mother cuddling him and their
cat under thekitchen table as
the bombs fell. t
She eventually married a
Canadian soldier and the

News service photo by Ron West
Edward is coming to grips with his painful, sexually abusive past.

He liked to drive her to
and from night school
psychology classes, but
even that activity seemed
overbearing for her.

When his wife moved out
last April, a minister
listened to Edward’s
outpourings and then
referred him to a
psychologist. +

Both suggested that
Edward write a letter to his
astranged wife, explaining
why he had acted in such a
controlling fashion.

But that backfired.

“It was too hard to write,
so I took my tape recorder,”

threesome moved to Vancouver,
then to Aldergrove.

Edward was treated lovingly by his
mother and step-father. Then they moved
to a northern community, where both
Edward and his mother “trooped along”
with his stepdad on his trapline.

One summer, when Edward was 10, a
young man of 25 to 26 years old invited
individual children to steer his car while
he took them for a drive out of town.

Edward was one of the youngster who
leaped at the chance — but who found to
their horror that the favor was not without
its price.-

The children were sexually assaulted
and told not to tell anyone or they couldn't
drive again.

Edward kept the secret, standing

silently by as the green car drove out of
town, its youthful passenger propped on
the lap of the driver.

dward was riding his bike out to

the blueberry patch on the edge of

town one summer day, pails
rattling from the handlebars, when the
green car appeared. The driver gave chase
and overcame the youngster, sexually
assaulting him once again.

“Nobody in that town pegged him,”
Edward says. “I tried to tell my mom, but
you know, the English try to put aside
problems.

“T finally just took it on myself. I
couldn’t protect those other kids.”

As a teen, Edward was sent off to a
nearby community to attend high school
and then began work as a guard at the

and detailed his childhood
sexual assaults.

She took the tape to the police. He
became suicidal and was about to take his
life when a friend phoned.

“Believe it or not, what saved my bacon
_.. this whole thing over my head for 39
years, three marriages, two kids,
responsibilities . . . was the sister of
someone I had worked with.

“She asked if I was having a difficult
time. I told her I was on the verge of losing
my mind.”

He’s on medication now, and feeling
better about himself.

He counts this reporter as being “only
the fifth person” he’s told about his
trauma.

It doesn’t get easier, but he’s beginning
to let go of the need to control.

50-year-old recalls painful past o sexual abuse

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