Tuesday 16 August 2016

THE DAY I POOED MYSELF ON PURPOSE

In my first post, Why I Pooed My Pants, I stated that I didn’t deliberately go in my pants.  For the most part this is quite true, but there was one occasion when I did poo myself on purpose, although, as you will see, I was not soiling a pair of clean pants.
                    
I was 8 when this happened and it took place at the home of my maternal grandmother, the only grandparent I ever knew.  She lived in a Victorian terraced house, which has since been converted.  There was no bathroom and only an outside toilet.  The fairly small back garden had no grass, few flowers and mostly consisted of paths leading to the toilet and the outside gate, and areas of soil and rock.  I was playing alone in this garden when I got the familiar feeling in my underwear that told me that my pants were messy.  I ignored it and carried on playing.  Even if I had wanted to go back inside the house where my mother and grandmother were talking I would not now do so, as this would result in my accident being quickly discovered.

I was able to play happily on my own
for hours - which was a good thing
when I was messy and smelly!
Fortunately, I could always entertain myself, and did not need toys or other children or adults to have a fun time playing.  I had a good imagination and don’t ever remember being bored during the whole of my childhood, I could always find something to do.  I loved the long summer holiday from school and did not need my parents to spend large amounts of time or money to keep me entertained.

While I was playing I felt the need to poo again.  I was only a few metres from the toilet, but did not think for one second of using it.  I was already in a crouching position when I felt it, but this time I didn’t withhold, as I still often did when I was away from home.  Instead I pushed and, for the first time in my life, I pooed in my pants on purpose.  It was a good thing there was no-one in the next garden looking over, or they would have seen a strange sight, an 8 year old boy crouching down and deliberately messing himself. For the first time ever I actually felt the poo leaving my bottom and entering my underwear.  I must have known that I was being very naughty doing this, but I did it anyway.  When I had finished I resumed playing in my freshly soiled pants.

It must have been a few days since I had used the toilet because shortly afterwards I felt that I had to go again.  I crouched down and added to the waste in my underwear.  In the same way that you may say that a baby has filled his nappy, some parents refer to a child who has soiled himself as having ‘filled his pants’.  It was not a phrase that was usually used in my house, but it would have been particularly apt on this day.  Indeed, I was treating my underwear like it was a nappy.  It was a good job that I did not also need a wee that afternoon or I probably would have just done that in my pants as well and created an even more horrendous mess.

Not surprisingly, when I was called into the house my mother was quickly alerted to what I had done.  She was used to discovering that her son had pooed himself, but even she was shocked by how badly I stank.  When she looked inside my pants and found out how much I'd pooed in them and how messy I was she was furious with me.

With no bathroom, no hot running water and no spare pants, changing me at my grandmother’s home would have been nearly impossible.  Instead I had to endure an humiliating half-hour bus ride home in my soiled pants, absolutely reeking of poo.  Looking back, I’m surprised the driver allowed such a stinky child on his bus.  We sat near the front, which meant that everyone who got on smelt me, and my mother reprimanded me throughout the journey.

Aged 8, I deliberately pooed my pants
for the first time in my life, behaving
as if I was wearing a nappy.
Cleaning me up that day was going to be no easy task and my mother decided that I would need a bath.  ‘How do you expect me to get these clean?’ she asked me, holding up my pants in front of me.  We were not a rich family and supermarkets did not sell cheap underwear in those days, so throwing out my pants everytime I soiled them was not an option.  Seeing my underwear caked in my poo really brought home to me just what I had done.  I sat in the tub feeling ashamed of myself.

I know I behaved badly that day, and I thoroughly deserved the scolding I received.  Why did I do it?  One mother on Mumsnet whose 9 year old son always withheld his poo at school said that if he came home in dirty underwear he would sometimes just do the rest in his pants.  He knew he would be moaned at for soiling himself anyway, so it was a case of ‘in for the penny, in for the pound.’  Maybe that was the way I was thinking that afternoon.  Or perhaps I disliked the thought of using the toilet when I already had a pooey bottom, and of pulling down my messy pants and pulling them back up again.  But I suspect that the real reason was that it just seemed the easy thing to do at the time.  Once again, I did not think of the consequences of my actions.

It has not been easy to write about this, as it is one of my most painful memories of my childhood, certainly the worst that was a result of my soiling habit.  The only good thing that came out of it was that I was never tempted to do it again.

84 comments:

  1. Interesting.. I too could be happy playing alone with nothing. I also had an amazing imagination. I think kids with encopresis often have great imaginations maybe connected.

    I read a great book called ADD The Edison Gene. Many of the kids that have had Encopresis also have ADD or ADHD. This book talks about instead of it being a disorder it's a smart gene. I totally agree with what was said in this book. We were made to feel disordered when maybe we are not at all disordered. Are we really the ones that are the thinkers in society?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I had a vivid imagination as a child and could turn any space into a ship, a castle, a rocket or an alien planet, for example, and enjoy an exciting adventure! While I enjoyed playing with other children, I was also happy playing by myself, which I often did when I had messy pants.

      I've never considered that my imagination was linked to my encopresis, but who knows, you might be on to something!

      Delete
    2. James did ever get your nose rubbed in it

      Delete
    3. No, I'm glad to say that I did not, and I hope that doesn't happen to any child. You can psychologically harm a child by doing something like that.

      Delete
  2. I must have been more imaginative then most because I could play alone for hours without getting board. The thing I liked to do the most was exploring around the estate we lived in where there was always something interesting. That usually meant being a far distance from my house so when it came to doing number 2 I would just do it in my underwear rather that stop exploring or doing whatever I was doing. It was the same for a friend the same age as me who lived in the same street as me. We would usually tell each other if we needed to go but neither of us ever wanted to go home because that usually meant the end of exploring. Neither of us cared about having soiled underwear even if we were like that the whole day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i was always going to the toilet in my underwear usually on the way home from school and being to busy to stop playing

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've heard of quite a few children who don't like using school toilets for a poo and try to hold on, sometimes letting it out in their pants on the way home when their body is more relaxed. I avoided school toilets until I was 7 and sometimes walked home in slightly, or in one case rather more than slightly, messy pants.

      Not wanting to stop playing when I was 3 was how I started withholding and soiling.

      Delete
    2. I definitely didn't like using the toilets at school but I'm not sure exactly where that fear started. Something must have happened around that time or maybe it was just that starting school that triggered it. Either way it slowly got worse and by the time I was in my teens it was a full-blown phobia. If I couldn’t find somewhere private to go I just held it in even when I knew what was probably going to happen. When it did I just made an excuse and went home before anyone noticed, that worked until I was at a friend’s birthday party. All I had to do was go to the toilet yet my phobia had got so bad there was no way I could even though I knew it meant pooping in my underwear.

      Delete
  4. hi james the blog is soo useful! when u were discovered after having an accident was there a sense of relief because you found it uncomfortable to be in pooey pants and being discovered would mean u were to be changed?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did not find pooey pants particularly uncomfortable physically as I got used to the feeling of them, and being discovered brought a sense of dread more than relief, as I knew that I was about to be told off and suffer the humiliation of being changed like a toddler. However, after I had been changed it was nice to be back in clean pants and to be able to put my latest accident behind me.

      Delete
  5. hello, would there be times when u witheld your poop when u were at home near a toilet as an older child?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I can remember withholding once when I was right outside the bathroom because I did not want to stop what I was doing.

      Delete
  6. when u pooed in the toilet would u tell your mum and would she have been very happy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, I did not tell my Mum when I pooed in the toilet, and I do not think she would have celebrated the fact if I had. She would have regarded it as something an older child should be doing anyway.

      Delete
  7. i know that most of the time you didnt feel the poo leaving your bum and going in your pants but would you soil standing up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My final accident occurred while walking around a park, so I guess that I must have been standing up when it happened.

      Delete
  8. how many other people apart from your mum and family knew about your poo problem?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure that anyone outside my family knew that I had frequent poo accidents. Of course, the whole world knows now!

      Delete
  9. I pooped in my pants frequently from age 5 all the way up to 14. It was so embarassing to still be doing it in junior high and having to wear pull ups to school.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i was the same as you, but i didn't get to wear pull ups to school only wore them to bed

      Delete
    2. I'm sorry to hear that. pull ups can be a relief and a god send for a kid who poops himself! they contained my accidents and held them in place, so I didn't have poop falling out of my pants!

      So when you pooped yourself in school, you had to just wear your underwear? were you changed in school?

      Delete
    3. I understand how embarrassing this must have been for both of you, particularly if you were still having accidents when you were teenagers, and messing yourself at school, which I largely avoided.

      Pull-ups weren't invented when I was a child, but I doubt that my mother would have let me wear "protection" in any case. I'm not sure how I would have felt if I had worn them. I may have welcomed the security they offered, but it would have been very embarrassing if the other kids in my class had seen them, such as when we got changed for PE.

      Delete
    4. Yeah. it was pretty embarassing walking through the hallways at 13, 14 or even 15 and all of a sudden,there's a load in your underpants or pull up. Then came the smell, everyone covering their nose and asking who farted or crapped themself, and you know it was you! I remember some girl loudly saying; "who shat themselves?" I almost died of embarrassment.

      Delete
    5. It really is a horrible moment you know that you've pooed yourself in the company of others, when you know that you're the one who's the cause of the terrible smell and you just have to hope that no-one finds out that it's you.

      I also remember the girl sitting next to me in class accusing me of having farted, when I'd actually had a small accident in my pants. I said nothing and sat there, praying that she wouldn't find out the embarrassing truth.

      Delete
  10. yes a member of staff would help to clean me up afterwards

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A member of staff would clean you as a ten anger ?

      Delete
  11. I was almost 13 by the time I finally stopped pooping my pants. I was always extremally constipated and avoided using the toilets at school or when I was out somewhere. When I tried to go at home nothing happened, or it hurt too much, so I usually just ignored what my body was telling me. If I didn’t take the opportunity to go to the toilet it seemed like my body worked against me. The problem with that was those opportunities almost always seemed to be during class or while I was out doing something on the weekend. I was also extremely shy so putting my hand up and asking to go to the toilet was far to embarrassing. Letting it come out in my underwear when it wanted to worked because it didn’t hurt, so that became normal. The anxiety of starting high school seemed to make my constipation even worse and I spent most of the first day with a load in my underwear. That just increased my believe my body was different and doing it in my underwear was normal for me.

    My parents thought I was lazy or doing it on purpose and going to great lengths to hide it only confirmed their belief. I got quite good at keeping it secret and that became a challenge for me, rather than admitting there was a problem. Going unnoticed at school or out places on the weekend made me feel like I was in control of my situation, but it also made it a lot worse. By the time I started high school I was doing it almost daily. My logs were always big and very firm and without much odor, so I usually just kept wearing my underwear until I got home. It also meant there was only one a day to deal with. The only time I changed was if a teacher or someone said something but that hardly ever happened. All that made my parents and teachers sure I was doing it on purpose. It wasn’t until a teacher decided to make me her challenge that I finally began to change.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jason, thanks for sharing your story. I think that we were very similar, as I also always avoided using the toilets at school or as a child when I was younger and often ended up with soiled pants as a result. In fact, I hardly ever used the toilets at school, even to pee. Fortunately, I had a strong bladder for a child and never wet myself.

      Apart from the one time outlined in the post above, I didn't deliberately poo in my underwear, but I can certainly understand why you chose to do this. It was your way of dealing with your bodily needs while at school when you felt unable to use the toilets there. I can also understand how doing it in your pants came to seem normal to you, in the same way that doing it in the toilet was normal for other kids. You had found a solution to your problem which made sense to you, even if other people would probably find it disgusting. And I certainly got used to wearing messy underwear for long periods without it feeling particularly uncomfortable, and carried on acting normally with a load in my pants. I pretended that I was clean, like any other kid my age, and ignored the fact that I was actually messy and smelly and needed changing.

      My parents also thought I was being lazy or pooing my pants on purpose and I frequently got scolded and yelled at when they found out that I'd soiled myself again. This was the 1970 and 80s and very few people had heard of encopresis.

      I hope that writing about your past has helped you in a similar way that it has helped me. Can I ask what this teacher did who decided to make you her "challenge"?

      Delete
    2. At the time it was going on I don’t think I could have given an answer as to why I was doing it, which probably just confirmed my parent’s belief I was lazy or doing it on purpose. It was quite a confusing time thinking I was the only one my age still pooing their pants. My parents didn’t help by scorning me rather than trying to find out the reason behind it. That just made me find way of hiding my problem and I became quite good at that. By the time I started high school I was doing it almost daily, yet I don’t think my parents had any idea. I did try to explain it to my parents but nothing I said seemed to change their minds.

      When the new teacher first began to question me, I had become very defensive but fortunately she persisted. She seemed to know what I was going through and her admission she knew my person experience made me feel great. Not only was someone finally listening to me I wasn’t the only one and made me feel amazing. She tried to explain it to my mother, but she quickly realized that was a waste of time. Fortunately for me she was very persistent and determined my underwear were going to stay clean all day. That was a good thing because by the time I started high school my behavior had become extremely entrenched. I still clearly remember the I got through a week without soiling my underwear. Her rewards were questionable, but one thing is for sure I was determined my underwear were going to stay clean.

      Delete
    3. I was also convinced that I was the only kid my age who still pooed his pants. It came as quite a shock many years later to find out that I wasn't.

      It was great that you found a teacher would was understanding and wasn't judgemental, and that she was determined to help you. When you say "she knew my person experience", do you mean that she also had soiling problems at some time?

      Delete
  12. Hi James,

    I meant to say she knew by personal experience. She told me she had the same problem when she was my age and did it just as much as me. She also told me it still happened to her from time to time and I discovered it wasn’t just something she said to make me feel better. Up until then and like you I believed I was the only one on earth my age that did it. Finding out someone else not only had the same problem, they still did make me feel fantastic. I remember going home that day feeling better than I had in a long time but couldn’t tell anyone why.

    Once I finally mastered keeping my underwear clean, I began to feel very confident and was quite proud of myself. That was great but I also later discovered I wasn’t as good as I thought. It didn’t take much for my body to get out sink, like going on holidays or something that disrupted my routine. That came during a holiday with a friend and his family.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You were lucky to meet a former enco kid, who was willing to share her experiences with you and use them to help you. I am sure that this must have made you feel less alone with your problem. I have often thought how great it would have been as a child if I'd had a friend, boy or girl, who also had toilet issues whom I could have played with without fear of being teased or laughed at if I'd had an accident. Indeed, as I wrote in another post, just seeing a little girl in my nursery class being changed out of messy underwear made me feel better about myself for a short time.

      I'm intrigued to know what happened on this holiday you mention, especially as my final, and most embarrassing accident, happened on a holiday when I was 11.

      Delete
    2. Everything was ok for the first couple of day until I realized I was very constipated and no matter how hard I tried nothing came out. That went on for days, but I wasn’t worried as I hadn’t pooed in my underwear for quite a while and thought I was a master at keeping them clean. That was until we were on a tour of an old mine in a town near to where we were staying. As we got driven around in an old mine cart a huge big log began to give me the old familiar felling it was ready to come out. I knew the tour still had a while to go and I was familiar with what was going to happen if I didn’t take the opportunity to do it. I thought about telling the driver to stop but that was a terrifying. Every seat in the cart had someone sitting in it so everyone would have heard me ask and that was far to confronting for me. Instead I decided to push the extremely big hard logs into my underwear. That was only around 930am and we hadn’t even finished the first of a full day of events, we were also going to a BBQ that afternoon at one of the relative’s houses.

      I hadn’t been constipated for quite a while and knew medication would have resolved my situation, but I didn’t have the courage to tell anyone. Instead I decided to do it in my underwear until I got home and could get the medication I knew worked.

      Delete
    3. It seems that old habits die hard when it comes to bowel movements. Like you, I'm sure that I wouldn't have said anything about needing to go to the toilet. Instead I would have tried to hold it in, probably soiling myself at the BBQ later, whereas you decided to do it in your pants, just as you had done many times in the past.

      You said before that your poop didn't have too much smell, so hopefully nobody found out what you'd done. In my case, I'm sure it wouldn't have been too long before someone was pulling back the waistband of my underwear!

      Delete
  13. On the way home back to the place we were staying my friend’s sister made comments about a strange smell in the car but no one else seemed to suspect anything. It was the same a few days later when we went to a zoo, where we spent most of the day. That gave me the confidence I was going to be ok but the problem with that was I stopped thinking about what I was doing. About halfway through our holiday we went to an island and while we were there my friend and I decided to walk up the steps around a lighthouse. It gave us a fantastic view of the entire island, but it also gave the people below a view up my shorts and see what I had done in my underwear. Unfortunately, that was most of his relations that had gone with us.

    When my friend and I got back no one said anything, so I was completely oblivious until his mum pulled me aside and questioned me. that wasn’t until quite a while after, so I supposed she was waiting to see what I did to resolve my situation, which was nothing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I imagine that was a difficult and embarrassing conversation. When I was a child, I could never explain why I had pooed in my underwear instead of using the toilet.

      Delete
  14. When she first asked me, I acted like I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she then told me how she knew. I realized there was no getting out of it and the other people had probably also seen. That was quite a while later and she questioned me why I hadn’t bothers going to the toilet after and why it looked like I had done the entire load in my underwear. I don’t remember what I said to her, but it couldn’t have been very convincing because she said something like. “Well I supposed I’m just going to have to believe you and your old enough to deal with your situation yourself”. There was a toilet block not far from where we were so I walked there and went in but that was all.

    Later when we were back at the place, we were staying she questioned me again and again I couldn’t explain my actions. At the end of the conversation she said something like, “ok, well at your age you should know better, so I supposed we are just going to have leave it at that”. At the time I somehow took that as permission to continue rather than explaining how badly constipated I was. It hadn’t been a problem for me for a while, so I didn’t consider taking medication with me. All I had to do was explain myself better and she would have probably got me some medication. Instead I thought she wasn’t going to understand and continued to do it the rest of our holiday.

    That way of thinking was probably a lot to do with my parents. Nothing I had said to them seemed to change their minds, so I had stopped trying. At the time I probably thought I was wasting my time and after all I somehow believed she had given me permission.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really think I'd have wanted a hole in the ground to open beneath me if a friend's mother had questioned me about why I had soiled myself and why I hadn't gone to the toilet.

      Delete
    2. It was embarrassing but had become so accustom to my situation and the negative attention I was used to it. The answers to the questions my friends mother asked probably made no sense and I had developed the habit of lying by making an excuse that in my mind justified what I had done. I couldn’t explain how constipated I was so creating a story was the next best thing, so that’s exactly what I did. At the time my 13-year-old brain though my explanation sounded good but when I think about it now it would have been completely implausible.

      Delete
  15. hello james. i soiled until the age of 14. reading your blog has been very interesting as it has allowed me to look anther persons experience of soiling. however, when i did poo in my pants i always felt the poo leaving my bum and going in my pants/nappy. like you i would always withhold until i was very desperate. but i had strong bowels so the poo would never come out without me pushing it out. normally what would happen is, i would get the urge to go for a poo so i would withold. i would repeat the process until i was very desperate. then i would put my hands in my pants to feel if there was any poo there. most of the time there were smears of poo often known as skid marks. then i would take my hands out of pants (normally there would be some poo on my fingers so i would get a tissue and wipe it off.)it might seem very disgusting that i would put my hands down my pants but it was perfectly normal to me. you might be wondering why i did this but it was because i wanted to check if my pants already had some poo in them. then i would carry on playing untill i got another urge to poo. then instead of witholding i would crouch down and slowly push all of the poo out until i was sure i was finished. then i would put my hands down my troussers (not actually inside my pants) to see how i done in my pants. i did see by feeling the bump of poo which was sticking out of my pants. sometimes the bump was quite small meaning there wasnt much poo in my pants and sometimes it was very big meaning i had done lots of poo. then i would carry on playing. then i would carry on playing. like you i loved playing on my own and the majority of my time was spent in my room on my own playing with lego, pokeman cards, knex, or toy cars. even as an older child i was still interested in things which might seem below my age. so most of my poo accidents happened in my room which might seem silly as most children with encopresis would soil them selves out and about because they didnt want to use public toilets. this wasnt the case for me. even though i did have my fair share of accidents outside of the house most of my accidents happened at home. the reason i pooed my pants was very naughty. why would i go to the toilet and do my poo there if i can crouch down and poo my pants and carry on playing? that was the type of thing which went through my head.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, thanks for telling your story. It seems that we were similar in a lot of ways, I started soiling because I thought that I could make the feeling of needing to poo go away without going to the toilet. But, apart from the day recounted above, I wouldn't deliberately poo in my pants, to my younger self this would have been just too naughty and I hated the moment when I knew that I had pooed myself, I wouldn't make it happen on purpose. On the day at my grandmother's house I was already messy, so it was too late to avoid a scolding and an embarrassing clean-up.

      Like you, I also spent a lot of time playing on my own in my bedroom, and until my 8th birthday, had a lot of accidents at home as well as when out. The bathroom was next door to my bedroom, but I still avoided using it if I didn't want to stop playing or reading to do a poo.

      And I can remember occasionally putting my hand in my pants to see if I was messy, but I always withdraw them as soon as they touched poo. As you say, it didn't feel disgusting at the time, just a natural way to see if I had pooed my pants.

      Delete
    2. Hi Anonymous,

      When you say “the reason I pooed my pants was very naughty. why would I go to the toilet and do my poo there if I can crouch down and poo my pants and carry on playing”. Did you like how it felt once it was finally in your underwear?. Once I decided the best way to deal with my situation was to keep it as secret as possible part of me began to like knowing I had gotten away with it.

      Delete
    3. Hi jason. I never liked the feeling of having messy underwear. Nor did I dislike it. It felt normal to me. However sometimes when I was desperate for a poo and I finally decided to crouch down and pushed the poo out in my underwear it felt nice. Just like how sometimes when you hold in a wee for a long time and you finally make it to the toilet it feels good. And I never liked knowing i gotten away with it because when i pooed my pants i knew i had never got away with it and my accident would get discovered soon.

      Delete
    4. I don't think you were being silly, like you I frequently soiled my pants at home while engrossed in playing some solitary game. It tended to happen a little bit at a time over the course of a few hours as with each wave of needing a poo I would be unable to fully hold it back. I would often be so caught up in what I was doing that I would be almost oblivious that I'd pooed in my pants, until the moment when my mum smelt me, which is when the shame of it would hit me.

      Delete
  16. Hi Anonymous,

    That’s a feeling I can I understand.

    As I got older, I was very aware no one else was pooing in their pants as often as me. Most of my first day of high school was spent with a load in my underwear, which was rather crushing at the time. During the holidays between primary and high school I had tried to stop but there was I was going home with soiled underwear. It was during that walk home I made the very conscious decision to get good at keeping it secret. No one seemed to realize and keeping it that way was my new challenge. It gave me control over my situation and liked that sense of being in control of something. The medication my mother gave eliminated most of the odor and wash my own underwear made keeping it secret a lot easier. The more I got away with it the more in control I felt.

    ReplyDelete
  17. On average, how much poo was in your pants?

    ReplyDelete
  18. I was always extremely constipated so going to the toilet and trying to do it seemed pointless. That meant they would start to come out by themselves and it also didn’t hurt. That was usually during class or while I was doing something interesting. Holding it back or stopping it part way made my constipation a lot worse, so I didn’t. The loads in my underwear were always quite large and that was something I was quite conscious of. Starting high school definitely exacerbate my constipation, but I had made my decision to get good at keeping it secret and that became my primary focus. The medication my mother gave me and washing my own underwear made that a lot easier.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Like you James I soiled my pants regularly as a boy (at school and at home). One of the curious aspects of my soiling problem was the fact that whenever my mum realised what I'd done, it wouldn't necessarily mean that I would then be cleaned up, in fact it was the norm for me to remain in my dirty pants for the rest of the day. I think my mum hoped that this would encourage me to stop soiling. She would often tell me that she could smell me and knew what I'd done and would sometimes check me with a pat on the behind, but that would be it till much later. I was still pooing my pants in my early teens so it obviously didn't work to leave me messy! Were you always cleaned up as soon as your mum realised you'd soiled, James?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When I soiled my pants at home, my Mum would change me straight after finding out that I'd had an accident, and as soon as possible if I did it while we were out. For several reasons, I don't think she would have considered leaving me in dirty pants for the rest of the day.

      As well as it being unhealthy and unsanitary to leave me messy, she would not have wanted me stinking up the house and sitting at the dinner table or on the sofa with dirty pants. Also it would have been really embarrassing for all concerned if neighbours or friends had turned up unexpectedly and discovered that I'd pooed my pants when I was well past potty training age.

      I have heard of parents being advised to leave their children in soiled pants as a deterrent against having future accidents, and even an advice column advocating making a child wear the same soiled pants day after day. I do not agree with such advice.

      You say that leaving you messy did not encourage you to stop soiling, and I don't think it would in my case either. As I have said in another post, I did not find the physical feeling of soiled pants particularly uncomfortable; the worst thing was the shame I felt and the scolding I received when my Mum looked in my pants and saw what I'd done. Once this was out of the way, I don't think it would have bothered me unduly to have to wear them for the rest of the day, at least not while I was at home and playing by myself.

      Thank you for sharing your story. Can I ask what happened when you soiled your pants at school, and if you had accidents when away from home, eg in shops or places of interest? Just wondering if your Mum took you from shop to shop in dirty pants.

      Delete
    2. Hi James

      I was probably quite fortunate in that I never filled my pants at school to such an extent that the school intervened, it was almost invariably a gradual process that occurred throughout the day, and I never alerted a teacher but tried my best to hide it. Some days it would be worse than others but either way I would just stay like that till hometime, praying that no-one would say anything!

      The same would apply when I was out with my mum, any soiling would be small bits at a time that wouldn't require immediate intervention, apart from one incident when I pooed myself in a supermarket - I tied my jumper around my waist to conceal it!

      Delete
  20. Hi Anonymous,

    Did your mum discipline you for doing it in your underwear or try and encourage you to stop? Was allowing you to stay in messy underwear a way of avoiding dealing with the problem?

    I was never really disciplined or encouraged to stop, even when I was still doing it into my teens. Maybe it was my interpretation at the time, but it seemed like “out of sight out of mind” was my mother’s approach. I started washing my own clothes quite young and also used cologne long before any of my friends or classmates. They were both instigated by my mother, so it seemed like she didn’t want to deal with the situation. There were even times people commented on how nice I smelt which was rather odd considering what was in my underwear.

    ReplyDelete
  21. She didn't discipline me as such but would certainly try and discourage me verbally. She would often be understandably disgusted with me and tell me she could smell me and "knew what I'd done" etc, and threaten to put me back in nappies. I think she was often too busy to clean me up and I agree with you there was an element of 'out of sight out of mind'. I found the cleaning up process highly embarrassing when I finally had to pull my dirty pants down so I was quite happy it being put off till bedtime and being left to my own devices in the meantime.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hi Anonymous,

    Cleaning up was my responsibility and that also applied to washing my underwear. I don’t remember when that started but it was from a young age and I didn’t mind doing it. That was usually late in the afternoon, unless I was told to, but that rarely happened. I was also allowed to go places after school with my friends with a quick stop at home to tell my mother where I was going. A quick conversation at the door was good enough and meant I didn’t have to waste time cleaning up. Like me my friends were impatient, so taking too long meant catching up with them, wherever we were going. Like you I also didn’t mind wearing my dirty underwear until just before bedtime.
    Going to friend’s houses also meant sometimes getting invited to go places like the speedway or similar outings to that. Going home to change usually meant a denial to go, so I virtually never did. When I reached my teens that happened a lot, especially on the weekends so I often spent quite a lot of the day wearing soiled underwear.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I had this problem for most of Junior high to high school. When most of the other boys were wearing boxers,i still wore briefs. I just couldn't risk pooping myself in boxers and having it fall out. At least brifs contain the feces almost like a diaper.sometimes I wore two pairs.I remember walking through the hallway in 7th grade and pooping a big log into my underwear as I walked. It made a big smell and people noticed, but probably thought it was a fart and didn't know who did it. Another time, I actually pooped in front of one of my teachers. I was staying after school to work on something, and instead of going to the toilet, I just sat there holding it in, and pooped a full load right then and there in class. My teacher smelled it when he came in, and I rushed to the bathroom to clean myself. As I was walking down the hall, I heard him say "phew!"in a loud voice. It was so embaraasing! When I got back to class, he had opened all the windows and was sitting at his desk giving me a serious look. He basically told me that he knew I had pooped, and that I should just admit it and not try to lie. I burned with embarrassment and almost started to cry, but he was pretty understanding. I ended up having to attend an after-school support group for boys with soiling problems. There were 3 other guys from my grade in there. At first we all kind of acted awkward around each other because each one of us now knew that the other had pooped in his pants at some point. But it turned out to be a really good group that taught us coping techniques and strategies to keep our underwear and pants clean. We developed a sense of humor about our problem. I remember one guy talking about the time he pooped in his snow pants on a ski trip. Another guy told about how he pooped himself three times when he was at the arcade, and made a big stink in the whole place! Some guys even admitted to occasionally wearing diapers and pull ups to control their soiling.it felt good to know I wasn't the only one with this problem.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hi Anonymous,

    Being part of a support group and knowing you were not the only one with the problem must have been great. Talking about it with others must have relieved some of the stress and probably helped you to stop. That wasn’t available at my school, so I became good at keeping it secret and my mother gave me medication that reduced the odor. I was still doing it when I started high school so rather than try to stop, I made a very conscious decision to hide my problem.

    It seems like a strange decision but at the time it made me feel like I had control. That became my challenge, but it also meant I started doing it intentionally. Trying to stop wasn’t working at all but hiding it did and that made me feel better about myself. Within a few months of starting high school, I was doing it just about every day. Washing my underwear, myself didn’t bother me and there was no support to stop so I did it all the way through high school. I got so good at hiding my secret I hung out with my friends directly after school and on the weekends.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jason,

      Yeah the support group was definitely a relief! It was like an equalizer between all of us. No one was better than anyone. We were just some young guys united by the fact that we pooped our pants. There was a guy in the group who was kind of a tough guy and somewhat of a bully. He admitted that he frequently pooped in his shorts during gym class. It completely changed my image of him. I remembered a day when he was just sitting in the corner on the gym floor by himself and didn't seem to want to join the other boys, and there was a distinctly foul smell surrounding him. Now I know that it wasn't just a fart!

      Just like you, I still had accidents in high-school, but was really good at hiding it. Hiding your poopy mess becomes a talent and a skill.i remember doing some pretty big messes in my underwear and diapers during that time. But I always managed to successfully hide them from being detected. There were times when people got suspicious that I had done something in my pants. One time, I pooped in my underwear during gym class, and left them in a bag in the locker room and forgot to dispose of them. My gym teacher found them and boy was he mad! He lined all the boys up and asked who had pooped, but none of us confessed. I had never felt so scared and humiliated in my life. I was a teen and would have rather died than had people know about my pants pooping secret.


      Then another time, I pooped massively in my pull up while walking to my class. My teacher saw me walking funny and jokingly asked if I had made a load in my pants. My cheeks burned and I sweated with embarrassment, but I said no. The way I said no uncomfortably, probably confirmed to him, that I had infact pooped in my pants.

      Delete
  25. Hi again Anonymous,

    How did you find out about the support group, were you told to attend, or did you find out yourself? I am fairly sure nothing like that existed at my school and if there was, I didn’t know about it. Being good at keeping it secret probably would have excluded me from discovering it anyway. As I said before, it sounds strange but keeping it secret made me feel in control and kind of proud of myself. I also had a phobia with the toilet cubicles, which didn’t help.

    Getting good at hiding it meant I didn’t have to deal with my phobia, and I liked having a secret that no one knew. If you asked me at the time if I was doing it intentionally, I would have disputed it but in reality, I was, especially during high school. There were times teachers or other people suspected someone had done it, but it was rare and never directed at me. One of them was during a Christmas party at a local park. I had gone there with a friend and his extended family. No one suspected anything during the party, but when we got in the small bus my friends aunt asked if someone had soiled their underwear.

    She must have had an acute sense of smell because no one else seemed to agree. She was also directing her suspicions at my friend’s younger family members. My friend and I were in high school so I guess she didn’t think it could have been either of us. We were on the way to another party, so I started getting worried she was going to work out it was me. That fear soon disappeared after we got there, when no one suspected anything, and his aunt went home. Later that night we spent hours driving around in the same bus looking and stopping at Christmas lights.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Hey Jason,

    I found out about the support group through the teacher, whose class I had an accident in. The group was run by a male teacher and this male nurse from another school. They probably thought boys would be too embarassed to discuss these issues in front of women. There was a separate group for girls.

    The rule in the school was that if you had several pooping accidents, you were encouraged to attend. They claimed they didn't force anyone, but I knew one guy who was really upset that he had to attend, because he swore he only had one accident and it would never happen again.

    I kind of get what you mean by feeling like you have a secret no one knows, and sort of enjoying this feeling. I felt that way too.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Also Jason,

    What was your worst incident where you thought you'd be found out? Did your parents ever impose any rules on you? Like diapers or pants checks? This happened to me.

    ReplyDelete
  28. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hi Anonymous,

    There were quite a few times, but the worst was probably during an excursion in my second year of high school. We didn’t get to go on many, so I was excited from the moment I woke up that morning. As we sat on the grass waiting for the bus, I realized I had forgotten to go to the toilet and my underwear were already a little dirty. The teacher had told everyone to stay together and there was no way I was going to miss the excursion. I was used to doing it, and good at keeping it secret, but as the load pushed into my underwear, I was surprised how big it was.

    Instead of excusing myself and going to the toilet I decided to risk it. When we got in the bus and I sat on my seat it was instantly clear how big the load was. Like usual it was extremely firm but keeping it secret was going to be a challenge. The first part of that was not being discovered during the bus ride to our destination, but no one seemed to notice. Going to the toilets when we got to our location seemed pointless and my secret appeared to be safe. My phobia with public toilets was also part of my decision not to go, but the main reason was the challenge to keep my secret.

    I was very aware that was going to be difficult, but I had no idea just how much of a challenge it was going to be. Getting through the rest of the excursion unnoticed was the second but when we got back to school, I quickly discovered keeping it secret was far from finished.

    My dad was always working, and I think my mother’s attitude was, “out of site out of mind”. She made me do my own washing, well before starting high school, claiming it was to give me independence. That may have been true, but I am sure there were other reasons. Doing my own washing meant it was much easier to keep my secret, but she sometimes made comments about the state of my underwear. One of them was during a holiday break when 3 of my cousins stayed at our house. We all wore similar underwear, but it was extremely evident which ones were mine.

    It seemed like the only time she ever really made an issue out of it was when it was going to affect her directly. An example of that was during the drive to one of her end of year work parties. Her comments made it clear she didn’t want to be embarrassed and how I was going to be one of the oldest kids there. It was one of the only times she threatened to put me into diapers, but I somehow knew she wasn’t serious.

    ReplyDelete
  30. good blog james

    ReplyDelete
  31. Thank you for this blog and others who have commented. I’m ashamed to say that I had this problem from age 6 to 19 and still now occasionally have accidents in my pants

    I came across your blog because my 14 year old nephew has the same issue. I really wanted to help him, but I’ve been too embarrassed to tell him I had (have) the same issue

    My sister (his Mum) isn’t handling it particularly well. She’s older than I am and was unkind to me growing up because of this issue

    I was potty trained by 18 months, but in year 1 at primary I began to be embarrassed about the toilet and withhold until it was too late. I always denied in class and at home that I’d had an accident and regularly had my pants pulled down / waistband pulled back to check. At primary school it wasn’t too much of an issue as there was a really kind assistant and dinner lady who would change me with spares from the box in reception. Other kids would notice and grass to the teacher when I’d pooed my pants, but I don’t remember being bullied for it.

    Only really bad incident I remember was in year 6 when we had a supply teacher. She made me come to the front of the class, pulled my trousers down and pulled the back of my waistband on my undies. Then made some awful comments about me being too old and doing it on purpose, so I would have to sit and suffer in pooed pants all day. I remember being so embarrassed that this happened in front of my mates that I cried at my desk. Luckily a dinner lady changed me at lunchtime.

    High school was a very different story. The humiliation of being found out because I’d pooed my pants still sits with me today. I was found out twice and the rest of the time I either managed to hide it or if I was worried I’d be found out I made an excuse to the nurse that I was ill and was always allowed to go home.

    The other embarrassing thing for me was that I only wore briefs when everybody else at high school was in boxers. My Mum did it as a kind of punishment. I basically wasn’t allowed boxers until I stopped pooing my pants. At 13 she stopped changing me, but had this embarrassing ritual whereby I had to wash my underpants in the bathroom sink whilst she watched.

    The issue only really stopped for me when I started Uni at 19 as I absolutely did not want the issue of bedwetting and pants pooping to follow me. I made new friends and managed to move on from my previous experiences. 6 years on and I only now have accidents if there’s a change of circumstances such as holidays or house move as for some reason my body automatically withholds

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, thank you for sharing your story, and I'm sorry you had such a hard time with soiling as a child and teenager. Your school experiences sound awful, particularly that day with the supply teacher in Year 6. I know that I was really lucky in avoiding major accidents at school and never having my pants checked by a teacher. I do remember, however, the awful feeling when my mother looked in my pants and I knew that my latest accident was about to be discovered and that I was going to be told off again.

      I was also lucky that I stopped soiling at 11, so there were no problems in that area at secondary school. I am curious that your mother carried on changing you until you were 13. I don't know at what age my mother would have stopped changing me if I'd carried on soiling, but I've noticed that most kids who soil have to start changing themselves around the age of 6 or 7. I'm also certain that no member of staff at my school would have changed me if I'd had an accident in Year 6 or, indeed, in any year later than Year 2.

      I never had to wash my own underwear, and the issue with boxer shorts never came up as I have never liked these garments and have carried on wearing briefs to this day.

      I hope you are able to help your nephew and can use your own story and mine to help. Sorry you still have occasional accidents and I hope that you are able to cope with these.

      Delete
  32. Thank you for your kindness James.

    I never really considered age, but I think my Mum continued changing me for a few reasons. I can recall at home and school various occasions when I was encouraged to change myself, but these weren’t particularly successful as I didn’t clean properly. This would lead to suggestions that I’d done it again in my pants and lead to being changed anyway.

    Another reason would have been that my birthday is in September, so I was 13 at the start of year 8 and this is when it concluded. I was small for my age and a ‘late bloomer’ which probably contributed to this. Additionally I’d had issues throughout year 7 with pooping my bedtime nappy and, again, out of ease (and frustration) in a morning my Mum would change me.

    There are so many similarities with yourself and others. I too had hard poos in my undies, I was never bothered by it and would play for hours until I was detected. From the age of 14 though I was deeply bothered by it. I would always try to change quickly and hide my pooed undies - which would regularly be discovered and lead to huge humiliation.

    I tried to blank it out of my mind and almost pretended it wasn’t happening to normalise it if that makes sense. The medical side of it was never discussed or explored by my family as it was always just assumed I was being naughty or lazy - to the point where I actually begin to wonder this myself

    One other thing I recall is that when I’d done it it would smell for a few seconds and then the smell would disappear. I would assume that because I couldn’t smell it, nobody else could. Obviously this wasn’t the case.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I can understand how not cleaning yourself properly could lead to a fresh pair of pants becoming messy and being mistaken for a second accident, or your Mum deciding that she may as well have changed you in the first place.

      I know how humiliating it felt to have to stand lower half naked in front of my mother as she cleaned poo off of me when I was 11, and I'm sure it must have been worse for you as you were still being changed by your Mum until your were 13, as well as by school staff, and then as a teenager having to wash your soiled underwear while your Mum watched you doing it.

      I never wore nappies at night, but if I had then my child's brain would probably not be too upset if they were soiled in the morning as it was better than having an accident in my pants during the day. Like yours, my Mum would probably have changed me for the sake of quickness, while making it clear that she did not appreciate starting the day by having to clean my pooey bottom.

      We definitely seem alike in many ways. The medical side of my soiling was never discussed and it was assumed that I was being lazy or doing it on purpose, and eventually I started to think of myself as being babyish and disgusting.

      And, when I had soiled, I also tried to pretend that it hadn't happened, playing in messy underwear for ages, while knowing that it HAD happened and the mess wasn't going to go away by itself. I could never smell it on myself, but I could feel the mess in my pants and knew that discovery and another telling off, as well as an embarrassing clean-up, were somewhere around the corner.

      Delete
  33. Hi anonymous,

    have you worked out why you did it for so long?

    For me there were several reasons, some of which are,

    • Extreme constipation.
    • Fear of using the toilets at school, or virtually anywhere else except home.
    • Being easily distracted.
    • Not wanting to stop what I was doing.
    • Lack of understanding from my mother.

    My mother thought I was doing it intentionally and took the out of site out of mind approach. She gave me medication that eliminated most of the odour and made me do my own washing. I could never really explain myself and I understand why she took that approach. I got very good at keeping it secret and like you did it until my late teens. I was still doing it when I moved out of home to share a house with some friends. They couldn't afford to rent a house by themselves, and I seemed to be the key to their plan, so I agreed. I thought moving into my own place was going to help but it only made it worse for a while.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Hi James,
    I think your experiences and story probably resonate with a lot of people that struggled with soiling when they were young. They do for me, as well as some of the other comments and experiences. Similar to the time you did it on purpose, so did I but not just once. I got away with it without being discovered and started doing it more and more often. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had been discovered early, before it became a habit. Like most habits they become very hard to break. I also did it when I felt upset or embarrassed about something that had happened. I have never worked out the reasoning behind it and was wondering if you had any thoughts?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, thanks for your comment. I agree, habits can be very hard to break. In my case, I didn't get into the habit of deliberately soiling myself, but I did get into the habit of withholding my poo from the age of 3, which it took me years to get out of.

      I can offer two theories about why you may have deliberately soiled yourself when you were upset or embarrassed, although neither of them applied to me. One is that is was about control. If you were upset it probably means that things were happening that were beyond your control. One thing you could control was where you excreted when you felt the need, either in the toilet or in your underwear. As your parents and society at large expected you to use the toilet, you chose to go in your pants instead.

      The other theory I have heard of is the idea of comfort soiling. This basically means when a child feels things are getting too much for them to handle, they seek solace by trying to recreate their baby or toddler years when life was simpler. It's a bit like an older child sucking their thumb, but rather more extreme.

      Delete
    2. Hi James,
      I think your first theory has some relevance as it made me feel in control. I lacked confidence and was often anxious but doing it in my underwear gave me comfort. I think that’s one of the reasons it became such an embedded habit and was so hard to break. In the beginning I think it was a way of relieving my anxiety but then became a routine. It took me a long time to break it and not without some regressions. It wasn’t until I became interested in girls that I got more determined. Even then it was a difficult habit to break, and I think it’s the same for withholding.

      I don’t think the second theory fits, but oddly enough I did suck my thumb when I was asleep. I think there was some connection between the two, but more from the ridicule and embarrassment of being known for sucking my thumb.

      Delete
    3. Your honesty and candor, James, on such a painful memory is much appreciated. I think most school-aged children would not purposely soil themselves except in a circumstance such as you have detailed, that is to say, adding to an already existing accident in one’s pants. The only time I was tempted to intentionally wet myself was the one time that I accidentally had a full bowel movement in my pants at school. It was on the walk home over a few blocks from school when I felt the extreme discomfort of my full bladder. Since my pants were already a mess, I thought, why not just finish the job? Why suffer the strain of trying to hold it in? Being unaccustomed to having poo in my pants, and thoroughly disgusted by the sticky feeling of it shifting back and forth against my buttocks as I walked along, I even pondered if the addition of moisture would alleviate that awful feeling. As you are not exactly certain as to why you purposely did it, I am not exactly certain as to why I did not. Was I able to make some moral distinction between an accident and a sin? Perhaps I was desperately hanging onto one last shred of dignity by not completely letting myself go. However, it might have just come down to the simple fact that I had reached the front steps to my house before succumbing to this temptation, and had I lived a little further away, I would have done the shameful deed. A few months later, I saw for the first time a classmate wet herself with a huge puddle loudly splashing on the floor, and it was only then that I truly realized how much worse I would have made my already bad situation.

      Delete
    4. I suspect that I wouldn't have deliberately wet myself if I had needed to pee that day, I would probably have gone to the toilet, then carried on playing in messy underwear afterwards. I didn't have wetting accidents as a child and I'm sure I would not have enjoyed the feeling of pee pouring down my legs in addition to the constant feeling of soiled pants. And my mother's rage would probably have been even worse than it was.

      I definitely think you made the right decision that day. Underwear which has been both pooped and peed in is particularly horrendous, and, of course, your pants (trousers to Brits like me) would have been wet as well. Walking home from school with a full-on poop accident in your underwear is bad enough without adding urine to the mix!

      Delete
    5. I agree. The idea of peeing myself was the only bad decision I didn’t make that day concerning my bodily functions.

      Delete
  35. Hi James

    Thank you for your bravery and openness in talking about this both online and in your books.

    I remember reading your story many years ago and came back as I heard about the son of a family friend who was going through a difficult period, messing his pants several times a week. He is terrified about going to a new secondary school this coming week and his mum said his accidents have escalated to almost every day and he's now hiding dirty underwear. I plucked up the courage confide in her that I had similar issues as a young teenager, frequently pooing or getting 'skidmarks' in my pants. I urged her not to punish him, but she says that he has been marking his pants most days for several years and she now blames herself for not dealing with that, other than continually telling him to wipe better. At the risk of her reading this, I think I'll send her a link in the hope that she will be more likely to help him rather than adding to his worry, shame and embarrassment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi immp,

      Thank you for spreading the word about my blog, and for being brave enough to tell this mother about your own problems as a teenager. If she does decide to look at my blog, then I really hope it helps her to help her son.

      Delete
  36. Dear James, I found your blog very intriguing. I read your blog because at school a classmate of mine would often come to school with a foul smell. I suspected that he did not have good hygiene, but one of my friends suggested that he had a poo accident. When I heard this, I began to wonder if that was the case. His odour smelled like poo, and he would deny it every time he was asked about that. I read this blog to see if he actually pooed his pants every time he had that stinky smell. But after reading this I still have a few questions. Did you and your mum ever talk about your soiling as an adult and reflect how far you have come? And may I ask if you know where Dimity Telfer's new blog is? It is because I couldn't see
    her blog anymore and there was a message on the site that her blog was being rebranded.

    I hope you are doing well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, I am glad you found my blog interesting. I didn't talk with my mother, who has now died, about my childhood soiling when I was an adult. Indeed, it was something we didn't really talk about as a child unless I'd had an accident, so it was a topic we hadn't really spoken about together since I was 11. She did know about the books I have written for children who soil, and she read one of them, but we didn't really discuss my childhood toilet problems.

      I'm afraid I have been unable to contact Dimity, so I cannot tell you if she has a new blog or where you can find it.

      Delete
  37. Hi James, I am so sorry your mother died. I see she was the biggest supporting figure in your childhood soiling because she cleaned up for you every time you had an accident. I still have a few more questions.

    1. Did you have a good diet as a child because that would definitely affect how many accidents you has a child

    As for the scenario listed in my first post, do you think my classmate soiled himself or it was a bad bout of body odor.

    P.S. I would never accuse your mother of giving you a bad diet but i was just wondering what diet you had as a child because diet would have affected your soiling accidents.

    I hope you are doing well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had, and still have, selective eating disorder, which means I had a fairly simple diet of plain foods, and never ate junk food or takeaways. When I was 7 my teacher said I was the first kid he had ever come across who didn't like chips (fries). I am reluctant to attribute my soiling problems to my diet as I have a similar diet today without having soiling problems.

      From what you have said, it sounds like your classmate also suffered from soiling problems. The odour of poo is hard to mistake, and if it doesn't go away fairly quickly it is likely to be the result of soiling rather than farting. It does not surprise me that he denied this to others in his class as I would have done the same thing.

      Delete
  38. Dear James, I think a good diet might have been a factor in making your soiling problems because if a person soiled himself and also had a bad diet, then that person would become constipated.

    I still have one more question. This may be a bit personal, but what job do you have in life besides your books?


    I hope you are doing well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I worked in the retail sector, as did both my parents. I now do voluntary work for two British charities, ERIC, the children's continence charity, and the NSPCC, which is concerned with preventing child abuse.

      Delete
  39. Oh i see. One last question, why is your website for the books named big red sock?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's no great significance to the name. When I was setting up the website I was looking for a name that was flexible, quirky, easy to remember and easy to illustrate (I'm hopeless at drawing.) After trying various combinations of words that I found had already been registered, I discovered that bigredsock.com was still available, so I went for it!

      Delete