A brief insight into the people that you will meet along the way.
–My Mother
My mother is someone I actually no longer have a relationship with in real life, I don’t want to make her sound like the villain because she has her own history and reasons for why she is the way she is?
I also see how being left to care for 4 children alone, following the untimely death of my dad in 1985, changed a lot of things for her. She has lived with some form of mental illness for many years, which appears to have gone unmanaged for many years.
–My Father
He died in 1985 when I was just 3. I don’t have living memory of him, but I have images that I cherish.
His parents worked at the Manor in the village, his mother was allowed to bring him to work and he was looked after with the manor children’s nanny, this is where he became best friends with my godmother.
He is very much a missing part of my soul and I wish I had more memories of him.
-My Big Sister ‘Mia’
Not her actual name but my way or honouring her in part. I don’t currently have a relationship with her. We grew up to be two very different people.
I refuse to say anything bad about her because she had a very difficult childhood at the hands of our mother, she actually begged social services to take her away but ultimately was told that aged 12 she was too old to be fostered at that time.
Trapped at home with our mother she was at the receiving end of mothers wrath her entire childhood. She deserved so much better.
To this day she has very strong relationships with our wider family, originally told she wouldn’t have children of her own, her boys are her life miracle and I’m so happy she got her dream. I love her from a distance, wish nothing but good luck, love and happiness in her life always.
–My Big Brothers
My brothers are like a double act. Born 17 months apart, they have been very close their entire lives. Fostered together growing up, I speak of them as the younger brother and older brother.
My older brother was the closest to our dad and the one who was most devastated by his early death. I would say he never got over it. I feel it is linked to the darker side of his personality, etched in pain he couldn’t fully process.
I do not currently have a relationship with my older brother, but I do have a relationship with the younger brother. He is father to 2 awesome boys and 2 beautiful little girls, he took the piss out of me mercilessly growing up, but in my current era, I value his orbit in my life hugely.
–My Nan. (My Mother’s Mother)
My Nan. Gosh. Where do I start? She was warm and funny, mischievous and with a glint in her eye that just made her one of my favourite people growing up.
She was a strict Walt Disney fan and she didn’t tolerate swearing well, so the day her friend bought a Jethro video round to watch I’m sure her friend did it for the jaw drops of dissaproval and sharp intakes of breath!
We would visit when we could, you couldn’t ever visit without being treated to at least one feast, then a trip round ‘town’ (essentially this was a circle of shops) then back for tea.
You couldn’t visit Nan without being sent off with food for later, something she won at bingo, and all the love and cuddles she could squeeze into your time.
Amazing woman.
Died in 2009 following a stroke on a bank holiday weekend, she held on and just about he entire family was there with her when she died.
The world lost a bit of it’s true magic when she left it.
Unwearing the Mercury 