The 16th August 1968 is a day that the Day family will never forget.
Why it had to happen to them no one will ever know, maybe they were just unlucky or maybe it was retribution for a dastardly dead a distant relative had done in the past. What we do know is it did happen and there was little anyone could do about it.
Some ask, why didn’t they just give him up for adoption, others wonder why he wasn’t driven in to the middle of a dark woods and left there. Only Mrs. Day can answer this, but it is a subject no one has dare raised with her since the incident in Winter 1971.
The early years were not too bad, since the birth Jez had been kept hidden away in the coal house and only allowed out at night to crawl in the garden and on special occasions in the house.
Then it happened, It was early winter 1971, Jez was curled up on his blanket in the coal house, drinking and playing with his favourite toy as usual, when suddenly the gates flung open and there stood a short, tubby, white haired man in red overalls with a large sack on his back.
Was this the mysterious man that Jez had heard his “normal siblings” talking about so excitedly whilst he as listening through the cracks in the floorboards? was this the man who was kind to all children (even ones like Jez), was this the man who sat children on his knees and talked about their favourite toys, was this the man with the stockings, was this the man Jez had been dreaming about ever since hearing his name?
Jez was so excited, he let go of his favourite toy, spilt his drink all down him and crawled towards the man, slurring incomprehensible, with his hands outstretched.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the man Jez thought it was, but was instead Bob Bolden the local coal merchant who was delivering coal to the Day family for the first time. Looking back, it should never have happened, Bob had clear instructions to just leave the sack by the door, he should never have entered the coal house on that fateful day, but he did.
The sight Bob Bolden saw on that fateful day was something he would never forget, his family say he was never the same afterwards and that it was the experience of seing Jezthat caused the bouts of insanity that would stay with him until the grave.
What actually happened, he never said, all we do know is that Jez reached him before he knew much about it and that Jez’s hands were on Bobs sack within seconds. Bob was pinned to the floor, jez had heard he had to sit on this mans lap and that’s exactly what he was doing, unfortunately the combined weight of Jez (who was already 8 stone despite only being 3) and the shackles that he was kept in, was too much fo Bob, he was trapped!
As Jez’s hands delved deeper in to Bobs sack coal dust was flying everywhere and lumps of coal were hurling though the air as Jez was frantically trying to locate his nuts. Mrs. Day heard the commotion, picked up the pick axe handle used to control Jez and ran to the coal house to be greeted by a site unfit for human eyes.
Now that Jez had been discovered the Day family had to make a decision, should they continue protecting the public at large by keeping Jez hidden away, or was it time he was made known about? As it happened, the decision was taken away from them, when journalistd from The Sunday Sport arrived at the home informing the Day family that Bob Bolden had told them everything.
Knowing the story was to be the front page news in the following weeks Sunday Sport and that now the whole world would know aout Jez, the Day family felt they had no alternative now, they had to reveal everything.
To be continued……
Jez Day is 40
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