In domestic situations, spilling the beans is by no means easy, always a messy business.
And letting the cat out the bag means someone gets the nine tails and the boot. I’ll take it.
Pulling the plug means the baby goes out with the bath water.
So I’m keeping it under wraps behind closed doors.

Spilling the beans is by no means easy.
“Do I look alright?” Brigadier Debonair-Wordsmith asks the mirror. That is a rhetorical question.
Kettle always full and all is squared away.
Spit and polished and spurs jingling, medals swinging, I adore him.
The Ward Room waits and The Mess will follow.
“Sir! Ma’am! (All to attention) Punch Sir?”
(No that’s for me, my Just Desserts.)
“Whore!” “Bitch!” “Disgusting human being!”
But spilling the beans is by no means easy.

Letting the cat out the bag means the boot after all those years of service.
The few friends are invited round but the grief, oh the grief… Is it worth it?
“Can’t you do anything right?”
“Just do as I tell you”
(I do, I really do but tip-toeing on eggshells does take its toll you know, this my Testament of Duty.)
Already tanked up and ready to impress and charm the guests with insight and then when alone bear the brunt of his excess; always the upper hand.
And I will keep the cat in again tonight.

I cannot pull the plug; he said “they’d never believe me…
“You see, if I wanted to kill you, I really would kill you”
Green-faced, bruised and wrists Chinese-burnt
I sit in a hot bath (the hotter the better), burning to know… to melt the numbness, the nothingness that I am, to revive sensation.
Talking to myself, talking to myself
Girlfriends long-gone given up the ghost
When at most I text ‘love to catch-up soon x’
I am in hot water. No Plan A, no Plan B or C or D.
For he is my Baby, my foot-stamping all-controlling Baby
And they would believe me if I pulled the plug and the Baby went out with the bath water.

Behind closed doors and all under wraps
Sit Silence, Assault and Battery while the vile smell of Threat and Control hangs in the air.
“Your word against mine” People listen to me; they love me.”
(Do I care? That is a rhetorical question.)
A shadow of a former self, I sit in view of the garden, looking out for a focal point that never appears.
Staring, waiting, not actually caring about anything now; just waiting for the stumbling drunken entry and unwelcome encore of more fork-tongued abuse to be kept behind closed doors of this, my prison.

Happy Hour Cocktails of Back-Flips, Bites and Punches diluted with the usual seducing Hug Tonic
“Come on…Come on” as he pats my back, “Let’s have a cuddle”
Abusing the punch bag, Abusing the privilege of a wife who at times can just about see the faint outline of her Man’s former self.

Abusing the Privilege, Abusing the concerns of those Brothers in Arms who remain faithful.
Eyes blind-folded, mouths gagged
And hands, trying hard to keep the sound down and the lid on the well known tin of Domestic Silence and Abuse.

I’d had the authority to call the Authorities but had declined the privilege
For fear of the inevitable Messy Business
Of the spilt beans and ensuing insane anger and denial
And the fear of ultimate loss of my lover, my husband.

It was the nth Threat cubed to Life which triggered the chain of events which severed the cycle
And put pay to Hope upon Hope squared that the angry eye of the storm would one day cease and that the New Dawn would welcome Peace, a stranger into our home.

Bruised but not alone in the kitchen and they do follow me, they wrap themselves around me to the point of strangulation Guilt, Loss and Isolation.
“Oh Lord, have I done wrong?..”

Sandy Noble

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The last time I wrote a blog was in March, it’s now November and the months have flown past in a busy haze, we are a week or so into the second lockdown and as the first lockdown saw 16 women murdered by men in the first 3 weeks, we are desperately worried about what this means for the many victims and survivors isolated by perpetrators. It’s Saturday morning and I am sat at my desk at home, the light is dull and the rain is relentless, I would usually be watching my daughter’s football match, but lockdown has stopped those too, so I have unplanned time on my hands. I am avoiding working on my thesis (understandable), so I thought I would indulge myself a little and allow myself a moment to reflect the last few months on the frontline in the male violence against women sector.

Every week either myself, the Community project manager (Lyn) or Operations manager (Zoe), take it in turns to provide the on call management for the staff who are womaning the phones on our 24/7 domestic abuse helpline (our main service response to the COVID19 pandemic). Being on call to them is both a privilege and a pleasure, I love chatting to the staff and one of the greatest things about the pandemic is that it has allowed me to do this much more often. The women I work with are funny, and kind, and fierce, and passionately angry about the injustices of the victims they seek to support. Bookending my day with a call in the morning to them and a call at night (with intermittent calls about survivors needs over the 24/7 period) has led me back to where I belong.

My job title for the last 9 years has been CEO, for a small charity it is a role that requires flexibility and I just approach it as a roll your sleeves up and get stuck in kind of job… but my heart is never too far away from the frontline. It is easy to drift away from frontline provision when you work in senior management, especially when you have the awesome team of staff that I do, but my passion still lies in the real work. It’s the simple stuff that makes me tick, the phone calls late at night the messages I get on social media of women asking for help, the calls with my colleagues about cases they are working on, the angry rants between us as team members about survivors being systematically let down or not believed. I love to approach our work with a sense of tenacious defiance and that keeps me going.

Do I get tired? Yes of course, we all do. Working in the male violence against women sector feels like a relentless marathon sometimes and it is exhausting (Shout out to all the other sisters in the sector working all hours!). But it isn’t the victims and survivors who exhaust me. Quite the contrary, speaking to them or supporting the staff to support them is the antithesis of exhaustion it relights the fire in my belly every time I have the privilege to do it.

Apart from the endless funding bids I write, the exhaustion for me is the feeling that women are still not being heard. Although a great deal of strides have been made to improve things, as a sex class, we as women* still face the global reality of male violence against us. Having had the honour of working in this movement for a long time, I have listened and born witness to hundreds of singular stories from women about the torture that men have subjected their bodies and minds to. Each story makes up a collective narrative of the reality of male violence and the abuse against them is not abating (our helpline has dealt with over 1,500 calls since March 30th).

Opening our services 24/7 was a risky idea, both financially and resource wise, but it has worked and we will continue for as long as we can. For me it paid off in a personal way that cannot be quantified financially. It reminded me of my roots, of where I started, and of the simplicity of provision that survivors want and need. It really is as basic as an empathetic voice, a listening ear and the beginning of empowering survivors to start to believe that they can trust us. Most importantly, as with all specialist service provision, it is the starting point of being the voice in opposition to the perpetrators narrative.

Our helpline is not part of our usual service provision outside of COVID19 and usual service will resume after the pandemic. But the experience has offered me, as the CEO, the opportunity to reflect on the simplicity of accessibility that survivors want and need.

The last six months reminds me I need to work hard to ensure the access points for all survivors should never be complicated. Of course all charities like Aurora are bound by resources and we can only work to levels we are funded for, which means for some services we only have one advocate, for a vast area. That means in order to offer a safe service for our existing clients we sometimes have to close our books on our referral pathways, we always do this with a heavy heart, but until I win the lottery or services like ours are funded in full response to capacity needs, it is a reality we have to work with.

But we can learn from our helpline provision, which is never closed! The service has evidenced that 44% of victims and survivors called the helpline for information and advice only, they didn’t want or, at that time, need an onward referral for a case working service. To that end, and in keeping with our ethos of victims and survivors as our central priority, I am going to work on dedicating a page on our website for simple guidance and advice for all service provision. On a selfish level it means I get the excuse to keep the connection with the women* I care so deeply about.

I want to apologise to the survivors Aurora was set up to serve, that I didn’t think to do this sooner. I guess sometimes it takes a crisis to remind us what the basic simple things are and then use it as a catalyst to reflect and build back up from there.

It might take me a few months past the pandemic to do this but I pledge to make it happen, although right now, I really should stop avoiding my bloody thesis…

Shonagh Dillon

CEO – Aurora New Dawn

If you are in Hampshire our domestic abuse helpline is open 24/7 – call us on 02394 216 816 #WeBelieveYou.

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* Rather than waste my time answering the trolls on social media, I thought it best to write an addendum to this post:

In anticipation of the ‘what about the men’ questions – all our one to one services are open to men, including the helpline. I do not deny that men can be victims too and when they access our services, we treat them with empathy, care and respect they all deserve. But as is statistically evidenced men don’t experience intimate partner violence to the same levels that women do. That doesn’t mean I don’t think they don’t deserve services it just means there aren’t as many of them which is why I centre women in my work.

My career has been informed by feminist practice and it is on that basis that I will not appease men’s rights activists by denying the material reality of male violence and the oppression of women as a sex class. If you disagree with my stance, I can only apologise that you had to get to the end of this blog to find that out.

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