Author who was ‘sexually abused by father and raped by his friend in childhood’ campaigns to protect lives of children

An 84-year-old author who claims she was sexually abused by her father and raped by his friend when she was two and a half and did not discover the extent of the “horrendous” trauma until her 50s, during therapy, has said she is now devoted to protecting the lives of children with her campaign, after finally “accepting” herself at 79.

Helene Pascal-Thomas, a retired teacher and counsellor who lives in London, grew up in a small provincial town in post-war France, describing her upbringing as “conventional”.

She said her parents, who she does not wish to name, had an unhappy marriage, her mother being both “needy and controlling” and her father “solemn and severe”, and she found escapism through reading books, where she learned of adventures, relationships and survival.

In her teenage years, as her curiosity about sex and relationships grew, she asked her parents “what f****** meant” one day, and she was subsequently sent to a convent school aged 14.

There she found “there was something underneath that was boiling up, that (she) did not understand” – but she did not discover the cause of this until her 50s.

After horrifying flashbacks, including seeing visions of her father performing sexual acts, and through therapy, Helene said she was able to slowly retrieve the events of the past.

“You go from horror, to deeper horror, to deeper horror, until you are capable of saying it to yourself and accepting it,” she told PA Real Life.

“It was only when I was 79 that I felt fully complete, that’s how long it took me, working on myself and accepting myself. Eventually you have to accept what has happened to you.”

Conversations with her relatives uncovered a history of abuse within the family, including collusion and betrayals, which brought back haunting memories of the alleged sexual abuse during her childhood, as she discovered her father “lent” her to his friend to be raped as a toddler.

Helene has since released her second book, The Price of Silence, which took a “lifetime to write” because it was “so challenging emotionally”, and now she is committed to sharing her campaign, The Promise, which pledges to provide every child with the care, respect and protection they deserve.

“When you learn about your life, that you’ve had so little to say and such damage has been done, and such vile things have been done, you want to put the world to rights,” she said.

“My life story is as it is, in many ways it’s a disaster, but I’m damned if I’m going to let it be just that without trying to fight for children, to plead the cause of the child.

“I have an idea, which is so simple, and we can all adopt it in our hearts immediately – to make an official and spoken promise to the child to respect and protect it.”

Helene described her childhood in France as “full of mysteries” but also confusing, sad and isolating.

She said the war turned everything upside down and, although reading books “opened doors to worlds that were fascinating”, life was “a landscape of hardship for many years”.

The author Jack London had a strong influence on her as “a surrogate father”, teaching her that “life is harsh but we have to conquer our fears in order to learn and survive”.

Helene moved schools regularly, never quite finding her place, clashed with her parents and later went to university, taking all opportunities to be away from the family home.

However, after splitting up with her first boyfriend at university, who told her he would like her “to stop being so passive”, Helene started to question her past.

“You try and remember the past and you find that it’s not available. There are years and years that you have no memories of, especially when you’re little,” she said.

“That felt odd, and then finding myself despising father, not being able to bear him coming near me.

“We had to kiss each other good night, every night – that was the deal, that’s what you do, that’s family life, maybe it is normal, I suppose it is, but it didn’t feel right.”

Helene later experienced “profound depression” and said she felt “empty” – as though she did not exist.

After marrying and divorcing an artist, Helene started teaching and later met the man who would become the father of her child, who she does not wish to name.

She had “always felt that something was wrong”, but it was not until after she started experiencing flashbacks that she decided to have therapy again to allow her to explain the past.

Recalling one particular vision, she said: “I had my daughter on my lap and we were having a cuddle, and then suddenly, I see this terrible image, which was almost real in front of me, of a man, dishevelled, who looked like her father in that instance and who was using her to masturbate.

“I was horrified and thought, ‘What’s going on? This is terrible, this is horrible’, and I blamed myself for having a dirty mind.”

Another “horrendous” memory was triggered later+, which revealed the mental and sexual abuse she said she experienced during her childhood.

“It was my father’s friend who raped me when I was about two and a half, my father lent me to him,” Helene said.

“I know this as my father made a joke to me when I was 11 years old, which I could never forget but I had to put it aside until I was capable of remembering it.

“He said his friend used to bounce me on his lap when I was little during the war, and he would ask me to give his friend a kiss as they went purple in the face with laughter.

“It is still a shock to be able to say these words because it is so horrendous. It feels horrible and vile and dirty, but it’s not my dirt.”

Given this was “the hidden secret”, even after her father had died, she said the sexual abuse was never disclosed, however, she feels it is important to break the “chain of suffering”.

Although it took Helene until the age of 79 to find her true self, which was mostly thanks to therapy and her “pitiless work on herself”, her latest memoir The Price of Silence, which she started writing after her mother’s death in 2003, has helped her uncover the truth of her past and make sense of her life.

Through experiencing and processing her own trauma, she said she knew she had to fight for children and justice, and this led to the idea for her campaign called The Promise.

She feels that for every child born, parents, carers, and guardians should solemnly swear to respect and protect them.

“The amount of child abuse and resistance to improvements of the life of children is enormous in this country,” she said.

“When a child is born, families gather themselves and people wish them and the baby well, when people get married, they make vows to each other, and I thought, why don’t we make a vow to the child when he or she is born? Why don’t we promise to respect and protect him or her?

“I thought it would be a simple way of making every person, every parent, aware and emotionally conscious of the responsibility and power they have, the power to do good.”

To find out more about Helene, The Price of Silence, and The Promise, visit her website here: helenepascal-thomas.co.uk