So I Hit Him by Mick Whatham: book review

So I Hit Him: Surviving life as an institutionalised alien (2013) is a powerful memoir of growing up in foster care and institutions. Whatham is writing at the age of 60, reflecting on his journey through life.

Whatham begins in Manchester, England, on the day of his birth in June 1952. He was told that his mother died during childbirth – with him and his twin brother – and that his father walked out of the hospital, never to be seen again. ‘I know now this to be a lie.’

His parents had other children: Joyce (1948) – still living, Jeanette (1950) who died just before her third birthday, Kenneth (1951) who died a month after birth, and the twins (1952). He learned that his mother, Evelyn, died in 1953 when she was 28 years old. And he learned that he had a twin later in life.

Mick (Michael) was born with Ausperger’s syndrome and cerebral palsy, having to wear calipers on his legs to enable him to walk. By the age of 17 he had been placed in more than 30 institutions. But it was his foster family, the Daintys, that he thinks of most, especially Mrs. Dainty: ‘her knowledge, care, love, and common sense were to shape my life in many ways.’

He recounts his years of frustration and rage – against those who bullied him, against his own inadequacies, and against the system. But this is not a memoir seeking sympathy, nor is it recounted with bitterness.

Writing from Australia, where he now lives, he was involved in the 2001 Australian Senate Hearing into Child Migration, and was conducting his doctoral research into Youth-at-Risk at the time of writing the memoir. This is a book about persistence, determination, and resilience. Presenting a factual account – with dates and footnotes – he shines a light on the effects of institutionalisation, the cruelty of parents, school children, and strangers, and the love and understanding of those that nurtured him. He regards himself as lucky – for if he had been reared by his birth parents, he believes he would surely have led a disadvantaged life – or a short one.

MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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