Return to the Derelict Barn 31 Years Later: 8 May 2018

The secret messages of my landscape settings become clear to me 32 years after I uncover horrific truths about my toddlerhood. In the summer of 1985, I would place a dead tree near the mouth of a railway tunnel. I would then produce alfresco oil paintings there for my degree show.

A year later, I would apply the same treatment to a derelict barn, placing a large plank over the doorway. I would then produce alfresco oil paintings of the barn.

My paintings of the barn with plank completed summer 1986

During both times, I would suffer bouts of depression and intrusive thoughts as a man called Aidan haunted my brain. I believed he was a fictional character or a childhood familiar as I knew no one of that description. I would later learn that a half-uncle had lived in the cottage with us when I was 3 and that he had raped and brutalized me on the sly. My novel has shown to possess secret messages to my toddlerhood.

29 July 1986 I'm suffering stomach cramps, vivid fantasies & depression

The horrors within my subconscious would also seep into my landscape paintings in the form of rape symbols that I would fail to see until I was 51 years old.

PTSD Symptoms caused by Landscape Settings

Whilst I was painting the railway tunnel, I was on the pill, known to curb period pains.

However, whilst I was painting the derelict barn, I wasn’t. For 3 months on the trot, I suffered agonizing period pains with unexplained abdominal cramps in between. It seemed I had created a rape symbol in the landscape where I would frequent. This seemed to trigger physical symptoms of PTSD due to being raped as a toddler.

I also experience crippling grief whilst painting a representation of loss of childhood. I am dismayed when Nan moves out as she formed a link to my lost toddlerhood. My fear of losing my identity seems to  reflect how an unheard 3-year old must have felt.

And finally, I am troubled by triggering films such as Aliens, Psycho II and The Thornbirds.

My disturbed drawings of the railway tunnel in 1986

Eighteen months after I learn the truth about my toddlerhood, I decide to visit both painting sites. The prospect is daunting but something inside me won’t settle unless I go.

On 5 May 2018, I trek to the railway tunnel. Thirty-two years have passed since the troubled student in me had painted there in 1985. What I would find was a desolate spot. The gate and dead tree are gone. I leave the location grief-stricken. A separate article has been dedicated to the day I visited the railway tunnel.

A few days later I would visit the derelict barn. I expected to find cairn-like structures or a few turrets, but what I would find surprised me.

Photos I took of the barn in 1987. I had placed a plank at the doorway

On 8 May 2018, I walk to the Stables Farm after requesting permission to trek over the fields there. The farmer’s mother is happy for me to traverse the property once I show her photos of my paintings. Of course, I don’t tell her that I had used her barn to create a rape symbol in the landscape.

The day is beautiful and hot. The farmer is muck-spreading. The whir of his tractor recedes as I follow the hedge-line to a large oak where he directs me to the barn.

After climbing over a few fences, I am at a loss. I can’t find it. The barn was a brooding bulwark of walls. Surely it couldn’t have vanished like that. And then I see a pile of rubble bordering the next field.

My approach to the barn. A lamb emerging from a pen is the 1st thing I see

I approach the fence and spot a sheep pen before a lamb emerges. I then spot a cluster of sheep standing on a mound nearby.

Could that be it? A few piles of bricks give the game away. This is the barn. What was once a brooding dereliction has become a nice spot for sheep grazing.

  

Life Cycle at the Barn

The lamb continues to gaze at me. The close-up in the photo above shows the lamb within the pen before it emerges. I am astonished to realize the lamb is standing at the doorway of where I had placed the plank.

Position of sheep in relation to where the barn once stood

I am numb-struck but climb over the fence and get on with taking pictures of the barn site. It is a lovely spot and the sheep stare curiously. I don’t want to disturb them and keep my distance. As though owning the place, they stand on a mound of bricks where the barn once stood. The meek surely do inherit the earth!

Barn reduced to rubble leaving only life.

After experiencing the desolation and grief of the railway tunnel a few days ago, I encounter life at the barn site. A lamb emerges from a pen near where the doorway and plank had been, as though being given birth to. The other sheep stand on a mound of bricks as though they own the place.

The brooding bulwark that was once my symbol of rape is no more. What is left is life.

The barn in 1987 and in 2018. Only life remains.

My initial visit to the barn in the summer of 1986
My initial visit to the railway tunnel summer 1985
Visit to the railway tunnel 32 years later
Decoding secret messages in my landscape paintings

About this blog

The moment I learned the truth

How I learned about my toddlerhood

My book Mirror Image Shattered

About my diaries

Links to my other articles

Return to the Railway Tunnel 32 Years Later: 5 May 2018

It is 5 May 2018. Eighteen months have passed since I uncovered the horrific truth of my toddlerhood. I continue to struggle to come to terms with what I have found.

Secret messages to my rape emerged from the manner in which I composed two landscape settings for alfresco painting. The first one was a railway tunnel and and gate, where I produced paintings in the summer of 1985. Feeling that something was amiss, I placed a dead tree against the gate at the mouth of the railway bridge.

My paintings and drawings of the dead tree and tunnel

Messages within the Landscape

The second setting was a tumbledown barn in a field in the summer of 1986. Again, feeling that something was amiss, I placed a plank across the doorway.

My barn sketch with plank at doorway

During this time, I suffered horrific intrusive thoughts, grief and depression. I was also struggling with my novel, TheLessons, expressing an intense inner world that burned within my head. A man whom I believed to be a childhood familiar called Aidan fueled the storyline.

Thirty years later, I would uncover the truth about my toddlerhood and would examine my diaries, novels and artwork. Despair washes over me when I finally see the secret messages beneath my landscape settings.

I make the decision to visit both sites. The prospect unsettles me, yet I can’t leave it alone.

I decide to trek to the railway bridge first.

Walk to the Tunnel

I had not been to the railway tunnel since the summer of 1985 except for a couple of days in February 1986 to produce snow sketches from life. It was exceedingly cold and it was madness. But that’s another story.

One day in April 2018, I visit the village where I grew up. Several building developments have sprouted up since my parents sold the cottage in 1996 and things have changed. At first, I cannot locate the thoroughfare that led to the fields fringing the railway bridge.

Later, I locate a small opening between two houses. I return to the village on the 5 May 2018.

My walk towards the railway bridge. It's a lovely day

Landscape in Time Lapse

It is a sunny day but I feel haunted by the troubled twenty-year old within me as I walk in her shoes. There isn’t a soul in sight.

I see the distant pylons and know I am near. A train roars ahead and I keep moving towards the sound.

My first view of the railway tunnel in 3 decades

And then I see it: the railway tunnel. It looks desolate, derelict and forgotten. The bridge and gate are gone. Only a fence post remains. The cracked brickwork at the top had been bolstered and thick hedges had been removed. But the essence of the place is the same.

I walk beneath the tunnel. It had been overgrown with no way through. Now a large footpath has been leveled. The view from beneath the tunnel is the same except for the missing gate and tree.

View  beneath the  tunnel. The gate is gone but the post remains

Whilst I was painting the railway tunnel, I was writing my novel, The Lessons originally titled, The Upstairs Room.

The climax of my novel describes an assault at the mouth of a railway tunnel. An enraged psychopath hurls a plank of wood into the tunnel because Aidan intends to leave the clique. The nastiness of the novel had been crime and drug abuse, not rape – or so I had thought.

View beneath the tunnel. with the insertion of my dead tree painting

I have inserted my dead tree painting into the photo above to give an idea of how the location used to look in the summer of 1985.

I leave the site feeling sad for the twenty-year old who didn’t understand herself as she produced oil paintings at the foot of a railway tunnel. My paintings would be used as source material for my degree show in the summer of 1986. I would suffer intrusive thoughts, grief and horrific depression. Not understanding where these feeling came from, I never told anyone but my twin Eve.

A few days later, I would visit the derelict barn. What I found surprised me.

My first visit to the railway tunnel in summer 1985
My first visit to the derelict barn
Revisit to the derelict barn
Decoding secret messages in my landscape paintings

About this blog
The moment I learned the truth

How I learned about my toddlerhood

My book Mirror Image Shattered

About my diaries

Links to my other articles