The Psychopath: A True Story(26)

Over the years I had taken taekwondo gradings at every opportunity and was now a black stripe belt (one stage from black belt). Then one day, my physical confidence was tested as I walked the dog with my two eldest children in tow.

It was a sunny Friday afternoon and school was finished for the day. My young son was still at nursery so I was walking the dog in a city park, with my now ten-year-old Robyn and seven-year-old Eilidh. We noticed a group of eight teenagers, between fifteen and eighteen years old, mostly boys, smoking and talking as they leaned against the wall of a primary school.

I noticed a small stack of leaves and sticks burning up against the wall of the school some yards away from them and asked if it was theirs, thinking the fire might have been started by a discarded cigarette butt by accident. There had been a spate of ‘fire-starting’ in Edinburgh recently and I was aware it was something to be careful of. The teenagers all shook their heads, so I went and stamped it out.

As soon as I had finished and started to walk away one of the teenagers started walking over, striking at a box of matches as they went back to the site of the now dead bonfire.

‘Oh, so it is your bonfire,’ I said, taking out my mobile phone to call the police as I continued to walk away.

‘She’s gonnae call the polis!’ said one of the teenagers.

I had a better thought though, and turned towards them pretending to take photos. (Funnily enough, my phone didn’t have that facility!) It was like I had dropped a grenade on the group. Five out of the eight teenagers ran away. Honey, my now one-year-old cockapoo, thinking it a great game, barked in a frenzy and ran with them. The runners screamed and ran faster, thinking they were being chased. The other three pulled up their hoodies and squared up.

The leader of the gang started to yell threats at me. He made the shape of a gun with both hands and gestured one point up and the other down. I had only ever seen something like it on TV. He was obviously trying to look like a ‘hard man’ as he growled, ‘I’m going to MESS you UP!’

I felt remarkably calm. I regularly had to defend myself against four other black belts (all at the same time) whilst we trained, and I could easily hold my own. I also knew that I would never let a man, let alone a teenager, try to intimidate me mentally or physically again.

‘Oh,’ I said, unconcerned, ‘really?’, making sure my daughters were behind me. I wasn’t going to let them be scared.

‘Aye,’ he added, ‘I’m gonnae f*ck you up!’

I started casually walking towards him and his two friends who were now standing behind him.

‘Well,’ I said, taking a step forward, ‘you have to consider two things.’

‘What’s that then?’ he said, slightly nonplussed that I wasn’t scared.

‘Firstly, how big are you going to look, trying to beat up a forty-year-old woman? And secondly . . .’ I took another couple of steps forward so that I was standing right in front of him, nose to nose. ‘You have to consider that you MIGHT . . . NOT . . . WIN!’

At this point the teenager looked scared and shrank away. I can’t take all the credit though because as all this was going on, Robyn, my eldest daughter, was tugging at my jacket loudly and frantically repeating, ‘Mum, Mum! Don’t hurt him, Mum! Don’t hurt him.’

I love the fact that my daughter had so much faith in my ability not only to defend us but also to do damage. I think it was as much her confidence in me rather than my own that made him back down.

My dog returned, wagging her tail and we walked away from that scenario, hopefully having made those teenagers think twice about their actions, but probably not. However, my daughters learnt not to be scared and that physical confidence matters.

I trained hard at taekwondo and was very focused on getting my black belt. It’s not an easy thing to do but it helped me focus on not just surviving but building up my confidence again. Each grading challenged me and pushed me forward, step by step. Yellow belt, green belt, blue belt, red belt with striped belts in between. Each grade meaning more skill, more strength, more power and more control. I had to study to learn Korean terms and commands as well as the history and meaning of each pattern. It is not just a physical sport, it is mental training as well. There are five tenets to live by – courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit. I believed in them all and taught them to my children. As well as that, the people I trained with had now become like family, all of them younger than me and mostly men.

The black belt exam was extraordinary. Not only did I have to demonstrate all the patterns and sit a written exam but I also had to spar one-on-one with another black belt. Then I had to spar against two black belts, and then three. Finally I had to demonstrate that I could defend myself from an attack by four other black belts. You can see why a group of three unskilled teenagers seemed like a fairly easy option!

The children had all started doing taekwondo as well and were showing great promise. It was great we could all do a sport together rather than with the other clubs they did such as dancing or football where I had to just stand and watch, or wait outside until they’d finished. It was also proving useful to them all in life. It helped Robyn with her separation anxiety. Eilidh had several occasions where she had stopped incidences of children bullying others in the playground simply by walking up to the aggressors – who were often much older than her – and telling them to stop. And Zach had already been doing taekwondo for a couple of years by the time he started school. There was a boy in his class who used to physically bully the other boys but he gave Zach and his friends a wide berth. Zach was even given a commendation by the school for sticking up for a little girl his peers were upsetting.