Shanelle Dawson, daughter of convicted killer Chris Dawson, recalls the trauma of her childhood in My Mother’s Eyes
The daughter of convicted killer Chris Dawson recalls the cruelty of her childhood in the memoir, My Mother’s Eyes.
When our Mother went missing, we had no idea what was going on. One day our Mum was there, the next she wasn’t. Our dad told us Mum had left because she didn’t love us any more. It was a viciously cruel thing to say to us, although I don’t consciously remember my father saying the words out loud.
It’s difficult to measure how damaging that sentiment would have been to my young psyche. The abandonment issues ran deep within me. There was an undercurrent of adult conversations that we weren’t privy to. I would have been confused that it was now J picking us up from school, not our Mother, with our dad. She just slotted right in, didn’t she?
Seven months after Mum disappeared, dad applied for a divorce. He got a court order for the dissolution of his marriage to our Mother on the basis of abandonment. He claimed to be a “forlorn, abandoned husband”. The divorce was granted and dad was awarded all marital assets, including our home in Bayview – and custody of my sister and me.
The divorce made way for a new marriage. A year after my Mother ceased to exist, J and my dad married at our home in Bayview on January 15, 1984. I find it curious that for a supposedly close family there were very few Dawsons at the wedding. It makes me wonder if they possibly didn’t approve. Or if any of them knew, or suspected, the truth about what had happened to my Mother. J was now adorned in my Mother’s wedding rings, as well as her clothes. Surely my Mother would have been wearing her rings? Why would she have taken them off?
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My father told my grandmother that Mum still had her rings, so Nanna Simms held on to the reassurance that Mum could always sell her rings if she needed money. Yet another lie my father shovelled. Did it not occur to my father to keep them to give to my sister and me? It has been suggested I reclaim them back from J’s daughter, who apparently has them, but I don’t want them. What they represent to me is no longer purity, trust, love, commitment but instead selfish betrayal, brutal dishonouring and doom.
At some point we started calling J “Mum”. We are quoted by our Nanna Simms as saying some horrible, brainwashed things, such as: Mummy wasn’t our real Mother, J’s our Mother now. That must have been a dagger to Nanna Simms’ heart. Not only had her daughter been taken away, now the memory of her daughter and all respect owed to her was being erased. On a cold winter’s day in July, Nanna Simms came to our primary school to bring my sister and me birthday presents and J wouldn’t let her talk to or see us for some reason. We didn’t understand why our beloved Nanna had suddenly become an enemy and I’ll never comprehend why on earth my father and J (obviously under my father’s instructions) treated her as such. My beautiful Nanna, she endured so much heartache and certainly did nothing to deserve this abuse.
When J hauled us away from our grandmother, I heard Nanna call J a “slut”. As we drove away, I remember asking J what a slut was, but there was no reply. I know my Nanna never spoke like that and that she prided herself on “being a lady”, so she must’ve been extremely upset to say such a word, especially in front of her grandchildren. It breaks my heart.
I remember getting into trouble at kindy and then school around this time for being naughty, for biting, hitting and kicking other children. (Twin brother of Chris Dawson) Paul’s youngest daughter and I were dubbed “Salt and Pepper” because we were always getting into conflict together, as well as for our blonde and fair versus olive and brunette complexions. I can understand now, though, the effect that trauma has and that it was the only way I had to communicate my big feelings at the time.
I’m not sure exactly when J’s attitude toward us changed – whether it was when she went from babysitter to stepmother almost overnight or if it was more gradual. I know she says things changed for her once she had her own child, but I believe she started treating us more distantly before that. We were still in Sydney – before K was born – when we were told we had to call our father “dad” now, not “daddy”, and that J was no longer to be called “mummy” but was to be called by her name.
There’s this misconception that women in abusive relationships are weak. My Mother may have spoken softly at times, but her voice and spirit were also strong and determined. I’ve been told it was also my Mother who stood up to her own father when he was being a “bit of a bully” toward her mother. It was only a few months after getting married that J became pregnant and, around this time, we packed up and moved to Queensland, along with Paul and his family, and our Nandi and Pop Dawson. It must’ve been very difficult for them to leave their other children and grandchildren behind. But as it was when they were kids, the “twinnies” came first. Where Chris and Paul went, Nandi and Pop followed.
While my father kept his parents close, he shut Nanna Simms out. He didn’t even tell her we were moving to Queensland; she found out through family friends. My poor Nanna, it must have been heartbreaking for her, yet again.
In my memories of this time, J looks sour and unhappy, but for photos her scowl was dropped. I have photos of our drive to Queensland, though I don’t remember it. Most photos show us all with our arms by our sides, though any feigned smiles from J, in posed photos taken over the years, was not carried on beyond that moment. I felt no love, warmth or kindness directed at me from the woman who wore my Mother’s weddings rings.
When we first arrived in Queensland, we rented a house in Helensvale on the Gold Coast for six months while our house at Coomera was being built. We were excited to learn that at our new school we were allowed to wear sandals. At home, things were less free. Life was ruled by order, control and fear. Everything had its place, and you didn’t dare move things. There were no toys in the living room; they were strictly kept in our bedroom/s. During the week, we weren’t allowed out of our room/s until after 7am (unless we needed to use the bathroom), and on weekends it was 8am. Everything we did in the house was highly regulated and enforced by J.
When we brushed our teeth or washed our hands, we had to wipe the water off the basin so it was completely dry. I had to stay completely still while I was having my hair brushed or there would be a consequence. Food was tightly controlled. We had to eat everything we were given and we couldn’t ask for more. I remember being locked in the laundry back in Bayview for not eating my dinner. We were taught to politely decline food if we were offered any at someone else’s house. My sister and I weren’t allowed to roam and play freely around the house; we played only in our rooms or outside. On weekends we were pushed out of the house.
Sometimes we’d be dropped off at our “babysitter” – the theme park Dreamworld – and left there all day. It might seem spoilt and ungrateful, but we would get bored. We’d have to stand out the front on our own and wait to be picked up. We were left at home alone when J and Dad went grocery shopping, and we’d raid the Coco Pops, peanut butter, vitamin C and fluoride tablets. We became masters at not taking too much and putting things back exactly like they were because we were afraid of J finding out.
My sister and I spent a lot of time together, and we were trauma bonded, so we were close in that regard. Our play fights almost always turned to real ones, though we’d hide the fact from “the parents”, bribing each other so we wouldn’t get in trouble. I recall a moment at our primary school after a school camp, looking for one of my lost items with J in the lost property and running into my teacher at the time. Mrs Jessop relayed to J that we all “had a wonderful time at camp, swapping clothes and …”. I didn’t hear the rest; I froze as I knew I wasn’t allowed to do that and I’d be getting into trouble for it.
in 1980
Sherry and I were good kids; we did well at school and in sport. We were polite and obedient. Every week, we did our paid chores: weeding the pavement and top garden, as well as doing dishes, emptying the dishwasher, helping carry in the groceries, keeping our rooms immaculate. We were not “princesses”, as J claims, we were kids who didn’t deserve to feel separate from our dad and our sister, and to feel so isolated in our own home. We were kids who had lost our Mum, but we felt little kindness from J.
Nanna Simms used to call us her sunshine girls. When Sherry and I visited her in Sydney, she’d open the door and rub her hands together in excitement, exclaiming, “Oh, my sunshine girls.” She was so gorgeous; we really loved our Nanna and staying with her in the school holidays. We used to catch a bus from the Gold Coast to Casino and then the train down to Sydney on our own. Looking back, it was a pretty long way for two little girls to travel by themselves. But back then it was all an adventure, and an escape from a tense home life.
A couple of times our Mum’s brother Greg and his wife Merilyn picked us up from the train station in Sydney and took us to Nanna’s house in Clovelly. Nanna made a point of making us something from scratch each time we visited: lemon butter, butterfly cakes with thick cream, or biscuits with cornflakes and chocolate chips, Nanna’s “chock rocks”. It made us feel special that she’d made something just for us. Her pantry was always stocked with chocolates and sweets – and things we didn’t have much access to at home in Coomera; it was heaven. “Oh no, you’ll make yourself sick eating all those sweets, and then your dad won’t let you visit me any more,” Nanna used to say. She was only half-joking. I think the fear of being cut off from us was very real for her.
I can’t help but smile when I think of Nanna Simms. She had a big veggie garden out the back where she grew her own produce, which she’d pick and cook for dinner. She would let us dress up in her clothes and put on shows, and any time we saw a busker playing music on the street she would give us coins to tip them. I still do that today.
While Nanna was a light in my childhood, we were Nanna’s last living connection to her daughter. She was always scared my father wouldn’t allow us to visit her any more. Nanna Simms never got to hear a judge declare that my Mother never willingly left her family. And like my Nanna, there is never a day where I don’t feel my Mother’s absence.
This is an edited extract from My Mother’s Eyes by Shanelle Dawson.
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