When I was eight, my dad took me to France to stay with friends for the summer holidays. I remember chocolate in bread and warm cocoa and getting by with smiles and pointing. When it was time to return, my dad had arranged for me to fly alone.

At Orly Airport they hung a huge sign around my neck — UNACCOMPANIED MINOR — and waved me off. Two gendarmes marched me into a side room and told me to sit and wait for collection. I was buzzing, watching people dash past, the Tannoy barking in French and English, echoing off the glass. It took too long. So, I stood up, my sign swinging on its string, and walked out to find someone myself.

I wandered the airport, curious. I saw a British Caledonian plane and thought, “British—that must be mine.” So, I joined the queue. A young couple behind me started chatting. After I explained my solo adventure, they kindly offered to let me sit with them. I was thrilled. She had a beehive hairstyle; he wore a silly hat. I trusted them instantly.

We boarded and were already seated when everything lit up. The gendarmes had lost me. A child was missing. Tannoy alerts blared. Someone reported a lone boy boarding a plane, and suddenly all departing flights were grounded. I remember gazing out the window, wondering what was happening, when two gendarmes strode down the aisle and stopped beside me.

“Are you Kevin?” one asked. I was taken off the plane and questioned. Scared, confused. Where was I? Where was my mother? I was held in another room, this time with a policeman for company, and eventually escorted on to the next flight to London.

My mum, convinced I’d been kidnapped, broke into tears when airport police marched me into Arrivals. I felt strangely triumphant: eight years old and already a survivor.

By the late ’60s, my parents split up. My dad moved to Holland, chasing a better life, and left four kids and a wife behind. He didn’t come back. Meanwhile, I was introduced to a new stepfather—Tom. Six-foot-six, built like a brick shithouse, violent and abusive. I fought him from the start. My dad didn’t waste time either. He married a Dutch woman named Riet, whom I’d only met once or twice. He brought her to England to meet his kids—his ‘Dutch treat’. I am sure she was thrilled.

By age twelve, I was out of control. I had no role model. I missed my dad. I was regularly beaten by a man I was told was now my father. Nobody asked if I wanted a new dad; it was just imposed. After three years of physical and mental torture, he beat me out of my own home—and out of my family.

I remember my thirteenth birthday clearly. I was put on a train to Liverpool to meet my dad, who was visiting family. My mum had arranged for me to live with him and Riet in Holland. I was over the moon.

On the train, I met a young American girl who thought I looked like Jack Wild. She asked to take a photo. I hadn’t received many compliments in years—it felt incredible.

When I arrived in Liverpool, my dad was waiting. I ran into his arms. We stayed with his sister, Auntie Joan, for a couple of days. I remember sitting in her living room, listening to the adults laugh and chat, feeling like I’d won the lottery.