The Betrayal
In 2018 I started volunteering at TGP in Edinburgh. It had been mentioned to me by my doctor of the time, Dr. Blaikie, as somewhere I could get away from the flat and my problems. However temporary.
I didn't know how to go about that and was nervous/anxious without an introduction. Shortly afterwards I was referred by a Mental Health practitioner to Caledonian Woodland, a referral-only unit that did daily outdoor therapy sessions involving woodcraft and volunteering at other sites and learning the kinds of skills that were primarily about relaxing and gaining confidence. It was mainly taking part with those who knew better without any pressure.
One of the volunteer site visits turned out to be TGP. I did what the others did that day and we were looked after by the woman running the project, L. When I got a chance I mentioned that the place had been recommended to me by my doctor and I'd be interested in volunteering. She was happy to get a new regular assistant and accepted my offer to help out.
Back then there were occasional other volunteers. I imagined they were regular; they weren't. It soon became obvious that I was the only regular and long-term assistant.
For those first two years I was there almost full-time. I worked very hard. often starting before L and leaving after. I did twelve days straight, through one Christmas/New Year, whilst she was on holiday. Gruelling physical labour to keep the four acre site prepped for the next big project, which I was heavily involved in..
For about a year I was the only other person there apart from L.
I came in to do extra work when no-one else could be trusted.
I was told if ever the circumstances changed and a second paid job was budgeted it was mine.
During the 1st lockdown, being an asthmatic, I stayed mostly away to protect myself. The site had officially closed anyway. However, during this time a lot of bored, white, middle-class types turned up and volunteered and L had a whole new menagerie of willing sinners to play with. Did I mention she was a Christian? The site was on Church Of Scotland land.
When I returned, the place was cosmetically very different. All those new paws with their couple of hours a week dillying & dallying meant lots of allocated new bits and pieces. There were notices everywhere about following COVID distancing protocols. Not one single person there was wearing a mask when in the sheds and polytunnel, and they huddled in tight little groups (in more ways than one). Lip-service.
I met one of the other old guard, a guy called Ian. A professional gardener - often working abroad - who volunteered for his mental health; like me. Also, like me, he was less than impressed with the new crop of faces and their attitudes. "Too many cooks." He said to me one day, putting his thoughts politely, whilst we both worked on separate things, far from the huddle centred around L, holding court, at the other end of the site.
It was galling. When she moved house we were her movers, me and Ian. Now it was like we didn't exist, or at least like I didn't.
About eighteen months later Ian died. Overdose. Deliberate or accidental is ambiguous as his body wasn't discovered for two weeks; a toxicology screening was difficult. The general consensus seemed to be accidental prescription overdose rather than deliberate recreational.
It didn't matter. He was dead. I missed him terribly. I had also lost my only buddy there and, pragmatically, my only ally on what was now known as JTG. Website and all. The official one linked mainly to Facebook... Which L knew I wouldn't touch with a bargepole. The 'right-on' 'community' charity was happy, like so many others with selective blindness, to put convenience before principle.
The place where I used to be a significant participant, I was now largely ignored. And certainly not appreciated. If anything I could feel the resentment. My long term efforts and commitment now being having wrought the familiarity of contempt.
There is a lot more to this, but I'm trying to be be circumspect. Essentially, JTG would not be what it is without all my absolutely fucking exhaustive efforts earlier on. And it counted for nothing.
On September the 25th last year I went in after another short break - illness, physical and mental - when it was, ironically, just me and L again. During the day I told L I didn't feel appreciated anymore and she denied that was the case. So I pointed at the workbench I'd built from scratch over a weekend a month or so back, from heavy scrap wood and fitted with a vice so that, for one, she wouldn't saw the end off a table again when cutting wood across it.
I'd built in it the main tool shed and she'd had it removed when I wasn't around and left outside in the mud and rain to rot. Last I saw, it was a stand for stacking plastic plant pots on. In its place was a rickety table covered in shite.
At the same time I'd repaired and reinforced a chest of draws used for storing hand tools. Somehow they had managed to ruin it. Again. Practically in pieces, the drawers wouldn't shut. The tools? Strewn everywhere, mostly on the floor around it. Zero organisation.
Everything was *now.* No thought for five minutes later. No consideration of what consequences of actions would have.
No consideration, full-stop.
During that day L dropped a few bombs; made a point of using very specific language when talking about people. In particular specific distinction was made between everyone else and one guy. A guy who'd started about two years before. Someone I liked and whose work I admired, especially his signwriting skills. She said 'work' not 'volunteer.' She made this distinction several times.
At one point she said something and I stopped dead whilst she kept walking. She hadn't noticed.
At the end of the day she offered me a lift partway home and I accepted monosyllabically. She asked me what was wrong as I sat in the front passenger seat. I demurred. She persisted.
I said. "You gave someone else the job."
At which point the excuses started. NOT, I stress, an apology, at no point did I get that. Just self-justifications and the classic "I had no choice."
At no point had she bothered to tell me directly. She had prevaricated and dropped hints and left me to work it out for myself.
But the worst part - the part which came out during this litany of self-justification - was that SHE'D KNOWN FOR TWO YEARS that he was going to be given the job and not me, since he started; it was part of a deal with another not-for-profit.
She didn't tell me because free labour is free labour.
The only crumb I got thrown my way was that she admitted she should have told me earlier. No fucking shit.
What a fucking coward.
I was very distraught and said outloud what a complete fool I'd been; five years of my life for nothing, got out of the car and walked home. She didn't say a word or ever contact me since, by phone, text or e-mail. Clearly wholly relieved to be shot of me.
I was removed from the e-mail notification list and, crucially, when I went back to manage my cats' graves on a Sunday (they're buried by the bee hives in one corner) found a padlock had been put on the apiary that wasn't there before. I had to climb over the fence to de-weed their graves.
Today whilst doing a job for someone who knows L, he mentioned he'd been talking about me with her. This coming exactly a year since the betrayal I was less than impressed. He reported how she'd been saying how I always came in and did lots of work when no-one else was around and so on. I wasn't even sure this counted as acknowledgment, and in passing, to a third party...
I just looked at him. He was aware of my feelings concerning L. As he continued, he was talking to himself as I'd left the room and was busy elsewhere.
Ten years ago I came to Scotland hoping for a fresh start and hoping to find humans. Not the things in human skins I'd left behind in London.
I found that things that look human rarely are, anywhere. And betrayal of this scale in not just specific to that diseased midden of a city. This was most definitely of a magnitude of the horrors visited on me by those I'd trusted back then & there. And having experienced those betrayals this was so devastating because I really didn't see it coming. I should have. But I've always believed that one who trusts is never wrong, merely mistaken. It didn't help.
My suicidal ideation was off the charts right through the end of that year. No-one connected with that alleged charity checked up on me even once. No-one.
I will NEVER forgive this. I will never forgive L.
