My stepmother nailed my feet to the floor because I dared to call her 'Mummy'

Gloucestershire, UK: A toddler had his feet nailed to the floor by his own stepmother - because he dared to call her 'Mummy'.

Peter Kilby was burned, hit, force fed mustard and even held face-down in a trough of ice cold water by his stepmother Flossie while his father Harold watched.

Decades after the abuse, Peter, now 73, has revealed the horrific abuse in a new book.

With both his father and step-mother dead, he wants other abused children to know they were not alone.

Peter, from Gloucestershire, said: “So many children today are being hurt.

“I really want the younger generation to read it just to show that you don’t have to lie down and die, you can take control of your own life.

“If it helps just a few people to do that then it will have been worthwhile.”

Mr Kilby, who is now married to Anne, was two years old when his mother died.

Weeks later his father introduced him to Flossie, who became his step-mother.

It was then that her reign of terror began.

He said: “I was only a toddler when one day I made the mistake of calling Flossie 'Mummy'.

"She dragged me across the kitchen floor, hurled me out the front door and she wiped her feet on my back. She shouted ‘Never call me Mummy again, imbecile’.

“I was utterly terrified. She never needed a reason to hurt me. I think she just enjoyed it.”

She fed Peter mustard by the spoonful, burned his hands on a fire guard and often left him bound and gagged alone in a room for hours.

But the worst attack came when he was four.

“By now, I used to run away a lot,” he explained. “When I came home, she got dad to hold me while she got two long nails and hammered them into the skin between my big toe and the one next to it on each foot.

“I was nearly unconscious when one of her two sons pulled them out. I don't think she cared if I died or not.

“When she fed me spoonfuls of mustard my lips and the inside of my mouth felt like they were on fire. I remember tears streaming down my face.”

He continued to run away and eventually was put into the care system by the police.

But, although he was away from one set of monsters, he soon met another.

“I was 14 when the master at one home told me I'd been chosen for a special treat,” Peter said.

“A local businessman was taking me on a day out and then we'd be staying in a hotel. I was so excited.

“But that night, I woke to the man sitting on my bed.

“He said: ‘Just lie there quietly and be a good boy. I'm going to make a man of you tonight.’

“Then he held me down and raped me.

“I wondered what on earth I had done to deserve all this.”

As an adult, My Kilby joined the Navy and later met and married his wife, Anne, who had two daughters, Martine and Michelle, from a previous relationship.

Yet the horrors of his past were never very far away.

When his father and then Flossie died, Peter refused to go to either funeral.

He said: “Even though they were both dead, I never felt really safe. Then my family suggested writing it all down. It helped me realise that all those violent beatings were not my fault.”

The book, Never Call Me Mummy Again, has now been published by Penguin and Peter hopes other abuse victims will find some solace from it.

He said: “I hope it helps other victims of abuse realise they’re not alone and shows them it is possible to find love and happiness in the end.”