Moore Kate - The girl in the shadows: my life in a cult: held captive and brainwashed for thirty years, I never gave up hope

I carefully finished shaping the curve of the a, my three-year-old hand clasped tightly around the pencil, and sat back on the cushion on my chair. These were the first words I had ever written.

Although, secretly, I was pleased with myself, I didnt glance up at the comrade teaching me for praise: the achievement wasnt mine, it was thanks to Comrade Bala, and it would be self-love to think otherwise.

Bala was the star of our lives; the only person in the world who could be praised. That was why the comrades were teaching me to write, so I could celebrate him using the written word. I would no more have written my own name Prem Maopinduzi on the paper than I would a swear word; the actions were comparable.

Writing was a way of life in our house people wrote reports and rotas all the time, and comrades often had to write things down rather than saying them aloud, in case fascist agents were listening so it was a thrill for me to learn, especially because Id always loved words; I felt as if Id been born reading. Yet Comrade Josie soon corrected the angle of my letters. My words sloped backwards, which meant I was backwards too. My handwriting had to be just like Balas: anything else was a sign of revolt.

Beloved Comrade Balas full name was Aravindan Balakrishnan; we also called him AB. He lived with me and six adult comrades Josie, Sian, Aisha, Leanne, Cindy and Oh leading our Communist Collective (CC) in south London, which at that time was called the Workers Institute of Marxism Leninism Mao Zedong Thought. ABs wife, Comrade Chanda, and her disabled sister Shobha also shared our home, but as a small child I saw very little of them. Cindy and Leanne were marginal figures in my life too because they went Outside to work, earning Big Units for ABs CC. The rest of us, me included, spent our time working for AB: our lives were dedicated to his service.

His standing could be gauged in our united deference to him. We stood up when he entered a room; always said hello if we passed him in the corridor; offered him the first helping of whatever food was being served. We could not enter his room without knocking and awaiting a response, and were required to face him when in his presence, making continuous, unbroken eye contact as a sign of our respect. Comrade Bala was a very important man. He may have looked rather ordinary 5 foot 3, black curly hair and brown skin, his dark eyes framed by thick square glasses but that was an illusion.

Comrade Bala was the future leader of the world.

Presently, he was in a kind of exile, with just us comrades as acolytes, but his was the new world in the making. One day, when his covert leadership became Overt, he would overthrow all governments and assume his rightful role.

Every day I was told how lucky I was to be the first child of ABs new world. The comrades would exclaim how jealous they were because I had none of the disadvantages of the old world such as family or friends. Unlike the comrades, I had no parents. I was told that, on 7 January 1983, I had jumped on to Comrade Balas hand, and ever since then experienced the benefits of his sole influence. Although all members of the Collective participated in my controlled development, it was AB to whom I was promised; AB for whom I had to build a temple inside myself: my self was ABs. The nature of my upbringing was dubbed Project Prem: a blueprint for how all children would be raised in future.

Yet for all the advantages of my pioneering life in fact, because of them I was also in great danger.

Comrade Prem! I heard time and again, as a comrade hissed or shouted at me in alarm. Dont look out of the window!

For if I looked out of the window, someone Outside might see me. The current governments, I was told, would stop at nothing to prevent AB from overthrowing them. The evil British Fascist State (BFS) was obsessed with finding him and preventing his leadership from becoming Overt, and kidnapping and killing me would strike a blow at the heart of ABs new world. So, in our terraced house on a tree-lined street in suburban south London, we operated in a constant state of war.