Part Eleven – Take These Broken Wings And Learn To Fly…

So. There I was.

Sat in a public toilet staring in disbelief at a pregnancy test with 2 very obvious blue lines on it. I slumped to the floor as my legs couldn’t keep me upright anymore.

Very much aware of my current situation. I was living back in the belly of the beast with my mother, my boyfriend who only seemed to treat me like I was human if he was stoned, and me trying to survive and feed us both on £7.50 a week.

I let the news settle in my bones for a good few days before I dared to even speak the words out loud.

Pregnant. 16. Homeless pretty much.

Scared, because I’d been here twice before, it never ended well. I didn’t have spare money to test again, so I took another test from a chemist, just to see if it still said the same thing.

Still there. 2 solid blue lines.

I thought about telling him, I thought about telling my mother, but I needed the time to let it process into my mind.

Only hormones caught me out this time. I felt sick from the moment I was upright in the morning till the moment I went to sleep. He noticed. My mother noticed too.

We were on our way to go hang out at a friends place, and he stopped me.

You’re pregnant aren’t you? he asked.

‘Yes’ I replied.

Not knowing which way the weather would carry his response.

‘Well, you can’t be thinking of actually keeping it?! we have nowhere to live, no money! How the hell are we going to look after a child?! he shouted.

Not the reaction I was hoping for. It was just sinking in for me, I just couldn’t process his feelings too.

Then he told my mother.

She was less than impressed. She had been drilling into me every time I happened to see her how I wasn’t going to be like my brothers girlfriend, another teenage pregnancy.

I happened to think my nephew was actually, adorable. This tiny perfectly formed human made of my brother and his girlfriend, he was cute, with an adorable lil face. My brother was making a go of things, starting his family. would it really be so bad?

Time passed and Social Services were informed, I continued to stay at my mothers, not ideal. But I really didn’t have much of a choice.

She had this weird thing with her mind where she believed people were coming into her flat when she wasn’t there, claiming they’d come in, make toast, make a mess and leave. Or they’d use her computer and games would be out for it that she was sure she had put away, it was bad enough she put wrapping paper on the front door to stop people spying on her.

I could never work out just what it was she was so afraid of.

My sister took the news a bit better. I knew for her this came as a heavy kind of happiness, she had hoped she would be the first one to have a child out of me and her, but we grew quite close over the course of my pregnancy.

She wanted me to have nice things, She didn’t want my situation to be made worse by having nothing for my baby, so she took me into Mothercare and we browsed prams and cots and all this stuff that was designed for mothers to be, grown women with big bumps browsed the shop with us, I felt ever so slightly uncomfortable and the looks felt like sabres of judgement and disapproval.

But my sister said she wanted to help me, So we picked out a brand new pram. It was ridiculously expensive, I looked at the price tag and swallowed hard. £500. That was not including any extras, but my sister insisted.

‘In the very least, have something nice to take my niece or nephew out in? I can’t see you have some second hand pram from out the paper, you have to let me help you to get this. Please?’

I relented. ‘okay’.

It was really beautiful.

So she grabbed the pram, the matching bits and pieces to go with it and a rain cover, She also had me fitted for a maternity bra and bought me a maternity dress. It was the closest we had been since I was tiny.

She knew I had very little money, she said if I could put a fiver a week to it for the remainder of my pregnancy she would pay the rest. I was awe struck, but very grateful.

Then things started to get worse at my mother’s, she would do really random things like walking into our bedroom with just a T-shirt and badly fitting knickers on leaving very little to the imagination, it was creepy, it was weird.

Then came the garlic.

See she found out really quickly that certain smells would have me wretching and heaving, Garlic was one of those things. She would buy chicken kievs or garlic bread, cooking them first thing in the morning then sitting back all smug with herself as I struggled to keep even fluid down. She actually found it funny.

You see I also didn’t look pregnant for quite some time. Rumours went around like wildfire, The stories I heard were quite wild, I was in my last trimester before you could look at me and see I was visibly pregnant.

My sister wanted to help as much as she could, she asked if id be okay to house sit whilst she went on holiday and I agreed, She went to Social Services and a plan was made that she would foster me for a few weeks, to have someone look after me and give me some actual food, now this being in 1998, My sister was being paid around £275 a week to have me sofa surf, this meant that she could help me finish buying the things I needed for my baby.

Only he wasn’t welcome.

She left me to flat sit whilst she was away, I had her flat to myself and it was so good to have some real actual food for once, a bath I could soak in and a front door to shut the world outside out.

I’d sit there quietly in the evenings, watching tv, stroking my tummy and marvelling at the way this tiny human inside of me was growing. See I’d seen plenty of pregnant women in my time, but being one? was a whole new experience. I vowed I’d do my very best for the little person growing inside my womb.

He wasn’t allowed to stay at my sister’s she made that very clear, so he ended up sleeping on the sofa of this woman who lived across from the Kids Home, she was a bit weird. A rather grossly overweight woman who captured the attention of the boys at the kids home, not for her looks, nothing like that. She had prescription drugs, heavy duty stuff that the teenage lads seemed only to eager to try.

I heard a rumour at the time, that whilst I’d been staying at my sisters place, he had been taken in by her. I was grateful at first that he found somewhere to go but then I was told by a friend of ours from the home, that one night, whilst the friend had also stayed over, that he went to go to the toilet in the night and as he went to go in, my boyfriend had come out of the bathroom, fully naked, drying his tackle off on a towel like he’d just been having sex.

My stomach lurched. Surely he wouldn’t be burning his ass on the lightbulb by mounting that, that, whale?!

I confronted him about it at the time and he assured me that he didn’t, said our friend was lying and trying to stir up trouble between us, naively I believed him. It would be a good five years later that id discover the truth. It made me feel sick to my very stomach.

Especially when she tried to make out like she had chosen the name of our baby like she was proud of sleeping with a kid who was only 3 years older than her son. I just thought she was vile.

My sister returned from her holiday and I wasn’t able to stay much longer, so social services helped me fill in some forms so I could go on the housing register, the plan was I’d be there till I was almost ready to have my child, then I’d go into a mother and baby unit until a place more permanent was found.

I arrived at the bed and breakfast. There was a family sharing each room, some had one child, some had two or three, and the main cooking area was taken over by an older mother with several kids. There was no provision of food of any kind, despite the name of the place.

He came with me and we settled in as best as we could. Only we also fought more often than not leading to physical fighting, it seemed to be a regular occurrence.

See I was back to a familiar place in our relationship. My £15 went nowhere. It didn’t seem to matter that I was pregnant either, if he didn’t get his weed he took it out on me and our unborn baby. The break at my sister’s a distant memory already, but it was nice whilst it had lasted.

Social Services for some reason were still paying half the rent at my mother’s so that took £20 before I even got my cheque to cash, to get it would be a 7 mile round trip, walking all the way there in the heat of the summer, for £15. It didn’t matter that the countless times he put me in hospital or the amount of times the hospital tried to keep me in for my own protection, Social Services refused to assist, and each week that trek grew harder and harder.

He was still taking his weed money from me, I was paying a fiver a week to my sister to help pay for my pram and it left me with the odd pound or two if I was lucky. We had no choice but to turn to shoplifting to try and help us get by. We learned tricks to help us, including stealing items and returning them for gift vouchers saying they’d been bought as baby gifts and they were things that I didn’t need.

I’d collect gift vouchers and then use them to buy 10p items, so they’d give me the rest in actual coins, it was a lot of effort to make not even £10 as a result, and the stores cottoned on very quickly to the dangerous game we were playing. But at the time I was desperate. I had no money for food, and even a tenner scraped together still largely was reduced to just a couple of quid once he had taken what he needed for his weed.

See when you are in the thick of a situation like that, you can’t see it even though those red flags couldn’t have been more obvious, but at 16 and the first person to show me what I thought was love? well. When you’ve been rejected over and over and over again, a little affection lights up the brain like Christmas and is just as addictive as any drug, even if the only way to keep that love from beating the living daylights out of you, is to make sure he didn’t run out of that thing he needed. The drugs.

We picked up other ways to get food, one of the other families was a couple addicted to Heroin, who had 2 children, a toddler and a baby. They showed me how to find food if I was desperate, the mum took me with her a few times, showing me how a local supermarket would triple bag rotisserie chicken before tossing them in the bin at the end of the day, and if we were really lucky, we would find one or two and share them, you’d think I’d never seen food before, but desperate times caused for very desperate measures.

My sister would still come and visit any time she could, she would often ask where our food was and I’d have to lie and tell her it was in the kitchen or it was going to be collected later, she cottoned on very quickly to the fact that I was lying, especially when she took me out for a treat to get me out of the bedroom and away from him for a little while.

We went to a local cafe, she asked me what I wanted to eat and in my mind it was like the times when I was little, where she would find me all alone without a friend to play with, but she would use her money to buy little packs of chocolate chip cookies and she would sit with me and share them, she was more like a mother to me than our own mother ever was.

Only one minute I was upright, the next minute? Floor.

Without any warning I’d passed out, toppling backwards onto some poor unsuspecting elderly gentleman who had the misfortune of being behind me.

I got my bearings and got into a seat and practically inhaled the food she bought for me.

‘How long has it been since you last ate?’ she asked.

Four days was my reply.

She was utterly horrified. She was also a bit cross that I didn’t tell her or ask for her help, to be honest, I’d didn’t know how to ask her, how to explain where my money went, and there was no way I could tell her I was shoplifting and eating food out of supermarket bins to survive.

She took me to get some food that I could keep in my room, nothing huge as I confessed I didn’t have any way to store food, except for one drawer in a freezer where I could fit 2 bags of chips, I’d have to ask the mother downstairs if it was okay to use her chip fryer, which was always filled with lard and leftover food. But there really wasn’t anything else if I wanted to try and cook what little food I had.

But it still didn’t make that much of a difference, any food my sister would buy to help feed me and my unborn child, would get eaten by him and his mates if they stopped round, I got stuck in a revolving door of being hungry, no money, him getting violent with his weed, and landing me in hospital, where I’d stay a few nights, and again, get released only to not get the bed rest I was told to have, and exhausting myself every week for that £15 life line.

Then one night, when I was about 7 months pregnant, I’d been asleep whilst he was out with his friends, he’d been drinking, I could smell it. He got undressed and into bed beside me, One minute I was resisting his advances, the next were minutes I never did account for, but I knew from the feeling between my legs and the sight of him stood up, that he had taken something without my permission.

The next day, back in hospital I went, they asked me what I’d done to be bleeding again, and I told them the truth as I knew it, that I had no memory of what had occurred.

Social Services decided I needed some time away from him, a chance to try and keep my unborn child inside of me for as long as possible, but because I hadn’t had my child yet I was put into a hostel for homeless women, I would be in there with many drug users, many women with equally as bad if not worse situations in their lives but this was my last stop before I had my baby, I just needed to keep him inside of me for as many days as I could.

only a few weeks later, another beating because he didn’t get his own way and back to hospital I went.

Only this time, one of my foster sisters was there. She had just given birth that very night, and she proudly showed me her newborn daughter. She was beautiful, all scrunched up and new, with a big mass of dark brown hair. I held her and that moment was so very special. We had both lived in the kids home at the same time, we both just wanted a life that was ours, we both had so much pitted against us.

I quizzed her about how the birth had gone, what did it all feel like? I wanted every detail of the experience that would soon be coming my way, she described in great detail what happened, and then I asked her, how do you know when your waters have gone? she shrugged and told me I’d just know, she said imagine peeing but you are peeing its just fluid that won’t stop.

Moments later, 9 weeks early, I suddenly felt warmth, water, what on earth???

Just like that I knew.

My waters had just broken.

Part Ten – Girl, Interrupted….

We continued to be together, though cracks were very much visible to the outside world. But in true lovesick teenager form, I didn’t see them. Maybe I was in too deep? Totally.

I noticed that a new thing seemed to rise up in me now and then. Firey Rage.

We started to argue, to fight. I discovered anger inside that I couldn’t release in any way but to be destructive.

Smashing windows, wrecking doors, taking out banisters, furniture — it was like nothing was safe. It was especially worse on the days when I couldn’t access the crutch I used to keep everything suppressed.

Then I noticed that drinking even more kind of numbed things for a while, but it was an unpredictable addition to an already turbulent situation.

I was arrested several times. Mostly for being drunk and disorderly. My name is easily mispronounced, and when they would call me by a slightly different variation of my name, it just made me see red. I’d shout and scream and be wild, they would just handcuff me, put me in a car, take me to the station, and put me in a holding cell to calm down till the morning.

Then came the day I dreaded. The day he was moved out to a shared house on the other side of the city.

It was a small room. He had a leaving care grant of £100 to cover the cost of basic things he would need. Which really only covered some kitchen items and some basic bedding.

It wasn’t long before my time came.

I was moved to a small flat. Fifth floor of the house, only stairs, no lift, my main living area in the attic, and down two flights of stairs to pee. I didn’t think this would be a problem until I needed to pee at 2 a.m, dashing down in the wee small hours hoping I didn’t wake anyone else up.

But I had a place that I could call mine. It was a bit nicer than his place. As I understand it, we had slightly different provision because he was classed as “accommodated” and I was a Ward of Court. I didn’t really understand how the two were different, but apparently, it meant I got slightly longer under their wings, and as I wasn’t able to sign for benefits, I’d get a cheque I could cash for around £35 a week to cover anything I might need — my rent etc was covered by Social Services.

He would often stay at mine. There was a strict no-smoking policy which we tried to get around by putting a sock over the fire alarm. It seemed to work and meant no one knew we were smoking up there — until the day my landlord did an unannounced visit while I was out. He found the cannabis smoking paraphernalia and the covered fire alarm and terminated my tenancy immediately.

So I stayed with him for a few nights, then was told my stuff had been bagged up and moved to a room in a shared house. The keys were dropped to me, and I was told I’d have to go and collect my money each week — a good 7 miles walking round trip. But I didn’t have a choice.

He didn’t seem to have an income at the time. I can’t recall why, but later understood that he simply couldn’t be bothered to sign on to get a giro. But then why would he, when he had me and my regular supply of funds?

I foolishly chose to support the two of us, but he had stolen something off a housemate where he lived. He arrived home one day to a threatening letter pinned to his door, telling him in no uncertain terms if he returned, there would be consequences.

It turns out he was funding his habit any way he could, stealing from housemates and selling what he could to make sure he always had access to the drug that seemed to be the only thing that kept him sedated enough day to day not to be aggressive or abusive.

Only with the letter pinned to the door, and me being really quite worried about it, the only option left was to go to the place where all my stuff had been moved to. I had the keys. It was super late at night, but we arrived quietly. I tried the lock on my door with the key I was given.

To my utter horror, there was a stranger asleep in the bed that was supposed to be mine. Which meant we had nowhere to go. Officially homeless, we stayed overnight in the local train station waiting room. It was the only place that felt safe. But just one night of that, and it was clear we couldn’t do this for very long, so I contacted the one person who might help.

My mother.

We arrived at hers and she was welcoming enough. She had a spare room in her flat and was happy to let me use it on one condition: Social Services paid her £20 a week to contribute to rent. This was taken from the money they provided me with. So I’d gone from having £35 a week to £15. £15 a week to find food, supply his habit a tiny bit, and there was nothing left. It wasn’t even a choice as to whether I gave him half of the remaining money I had — if I didn’t, he would become violent and abusive. I’d believe it was my fault, and my mind just went for the easiest option that kept me somehow safe-ish.

But it wasn’t enough to live on. Trying to feed two people on £7.50 a week meant getting creative or starving. My mother didn’t provide anything to eat, and the freezer was bare except for bags of frozen peas and sweetcorn. I went hungry a great deal of the time.

There was also no point buying anything to last because any food I bought, my mother felt was her right to eat. So many days I’d drink water to fill my stomach, tricks I’d learned from being younger. And just like when I was younger, there was usually only pet food, coffee granules, and occasionally milk — but my mother made it very clear this was hers. Though in desperation, I’d sneak a black cup of coffee so there was some different taste in my system.

I’d scour for anything, pennies, anything to try and add something to the amount I was to live on. But there still remained more days than not where I didn’t eat.

We had been there for a few months, not really having a plan past the next day, when something changed everything.

I discovered I was pregnant. With our son.

Missed a bit?

←Part Nine – Her Name Is India

Ready for more?

→ Part Eleven – Take These Broken Wings And Learn To Fly…

A Brief Interlude

So, in the present day, I’ve just finished writing Part Nine.

I knew this was coming. I knew it was going to be hard to do, and hard to edit — and even harder to read from the outside, I apprieciate that.

But it was always my story to tell, in the way my mind translates the images to words, you get to see it from my view, almost as co pilot in a way.

It’s the darkest part so far. I’d love to say it’s the darkest it gets, but… it’s not.

But there is good to come. The curveballs that the universe throws me when I think I’m done? Sometimes unbelievable. but I assure you, all true.

The memories needed justice, that the events never got to have.

So this… this is just me saying, before you read on about the many questionable choices I made, which hands up I made plenty, I just wanted to ease you in gently.

My story isn’t told to shock or upset, it’s me documenting what came before the life I have today, which is far from perfect, but real life?

Real life isn’t instagram perfect, it’s messy, it’s raw, it cuts and it bleeds.

But there is beauty in it all.

Just, grab a drink and snacks and I shall continue…❤️

Missed a bit?

← Part Seven – Finally Reunited With My Brothers

Ready for more?

→ Part Nine – Her Name Is India.

Part Eight – Toasted Lizards and Brand New Kitchens

So, following the exit of my brothers into the big wide world, the choice was made to go and see if I could live in foster care again, at the age of 14, still searching for a place to feel like home.

I didn’t move far, you could see my old bedroom window from my new one and that was a comfort, I wasn’t far away if I needed anything, and I could still visit, right?

They seemed nice enough. My foster mother worked as a teaching assistant in a local school, (not one I attended thankfully) She was a small lady, but plump and cuddly too, My foster father worked as a fabricator welder and was tall and thin in comparison.

He was really proud of his work though, and every time we went past the local sporting arena he would retell the tale of how he made the gates and how he had engraved his name on them somewhere.

They had 3 grown-up children, a daughter who worked in the local toy shop but who had left home, She had moved out to buy a house with her partner, a little fixer-upper, which she loved. Their house was a little bare but they were looking forward to building the dream together.

The eldest son worked for Sainsbury’s and his bedroom was opposite mine, he was rarely home though, he had a busy social life too. He would sometimes let me in to see his cherished pets, his 2 lizards.

The youngest was ever so clever. He’d show me a calculator that seemed to speak another language and he understood it perfectly. He was most certainly going places, he was easy to speak to, we got on okay, no issues with him at all.

To cement my place in the house I was allowed to pick out new decor for my bedroom and furniture to go in it, I remember going to the local mfi store and looking at all the options, I chose matching furniture, I had a pale grey midi sleeper with a little desk that pulled out from underneath, a matching wardrobe too, I picked out wallpaper to compliment it and pale greyish lilac paint to finish it off. I even got to help my foster father put it all together. It was perfect.

I was still at the mainstream high school at this point, I don’t mind the trek, I handled bus travel just fine and I enjoyed my freedom greatly. In earned my pocket money doing an early morning paper round, but I really didn’t enjoy the early 5am starts before school so the younger foster brother talked me into taking over his round, it was about 400 papers, and what felt like 15 miles of walking, but it only meant delivering for one day of the week so that was much better.

There was just one problem. I had to run past the house of one of my brother’s mates. He was about 17 at the time, really into motorbikes and always had a gaggle of mates hanging around with him, all fiddling about with their machines and trying to look cool, and then there was me. Flushing crimson from embarrassment and laden for my maiden voyage, a day glow trolley filled to the brim with papers and two day glo sacks I had to carry slung over each side of me with the straps crossing over my chest, I looked like a psychedelic donkey.

Running the gauntlet past my brother’s friends was something that always made me flush bright red, they took the mick every single time and the only time I ever got by unscathed was on the odd time it was raining, but I’d rather the taunts to the rain if I was completely honest.

Around this time I was still attending youth club, my best friend and I also hung out with another lad that I briefly dated but he was a little bit weird. He was really into his tarot cards and looked like he wouldn’t be out of place on the film set of the vampire film The Lost Boys.

He kept going on about this dead person he was claiming to speak to as if he had conjured up some ancient soul, till the day I pointed out that Leo Sayers was still very much alive and kicking and he must have gotten his psychic connections in a twist!

Life had a familiar routine to it though, school in the week, my delivery round, dodging the gauntlet of my brothers mates and youth club to hang out with my 2 best friends of the time, Saturdays would be the day my foster mother would take me into town, it had the same flavour every week, we would walk down to the local bus stop, catch the bus into town, get something to eat and look at the shops, and then down to Sainsbury’s to do a massive food shop and then my foster father would pick us up like clockwork every time, it was familiar. Predictable. Safe.

Only the older I got the more freedom I wanted, I may have been around 13/14 at the time but I felt so much older, wiser, and street smart than my years and I started to rebel against the tightening of rules that seemed to only serve to contain me and keep me locked in a cage, not literally, but I really felt like I was being kept in against my will. So I started staying out long after curfew, coming home when they were at work, it just seemed the easiest way to dodge yet another argument about my schooling and my general life and what I was doing with it.

On one of these particular days I was home in the daytime, all by myself, imagining this was my own home and just enjoying the peace and enjoying the freedom to be by myself, it was midweek and my favourite time to be there because weekends also meant family tv night, and I really didn’t want to sit and watch animal porn with two people in their fifties.

This day in particular the sun was shining, the patio doors open to let the sunshine radiate through the house, welcoming the summer in. I decided I’d get some lunch and have a lazy afternoon, I grabbed some noodles and cooked them just the way I liked them, just the toast to go.

Then came the noise of the cat. See my foster parents had the biggest arsehole of a cat I’ve ever met. It looked all cute and fluffy, it would stretch out as if to invite you to go give it some fuss and tickle its tummy, but the dam thing was part cat, part wolverine I’m sure, because it would entice you in with cute and fluff and if you even dared reach towards it it would swipe at you and hiss, the thing left many a battle mark in me from my few attempts at trying to befriend it.

So there it was, meowing at the front door to go out, I didn’t want it to pee on the floor or worse, so I let the cat out, still a lovely sunny day, I stepped outside for a moment to soak it in and then next thing I heard was the sound of the front door slamming immediately behind me.

I panicked. My front door key was in the house, no way to get round the back, this was when mobiles were very much in their infancy and I didn’t have one, the local phone box was some distance from the house and I had no change, but worst of all, it was mid day. I was supposed to be at school. So I sat on the wall debating what to do next when I was suddenly shaken from my daydream.

Through the kitchen window all of a sudden I just seen yellow and orange flames licking at the kitchen window and engulfing the window in seconds, before I knew it the fire had spread to the rest of the kitchen and black smoke started to force its way out of the venting and in sheer panic I ran down to the kids home to get them to ring the fire brigade, who swiftly arrived to put the inferno out.

I felt so bad about it. There I was at home when I was meant to be at school, and I thought I was grown up enough to handle making a meal by myself, I really didn’t understand why they were so upset, see they were always talking about how they’d like to rip the kitchen out and get a new one, this gave them the perfect opportunity to do just that!

Only they absolutely didn’t see it the same way, they packed my stuff and said I was never to come back, I handed in my key and I left. I never spoke to any of them again.

All I knew is that it just didn’t matter. Whether I tried my hardest or not, I felt like nothing I did was ever right. Clearly they weren’t going to make me into another carbon copy of their creation, I’d never be as good as their kids. They were more worried about 2 stupid lizards to care if I was okay.

See I’d spent a lifetime feeling like I was the embodiment of the scene in The Muppet’s Christmas Carol, the one where he’s outside the house in the cold snow in the dark, watching the family all happily enjoying their meal together all laughing and happy, but I always seemed to end up the one left out in the cold.

So a few more temporary placements later, the decision was made. Back into a Children’s Home.

Only this one was different.

This one was in preparation to start life post-16.. Out there on my own.

Missed a bit?

← Part Seven – Finally Reunited With My Brothers

Hungry for more?

→ A Brief Interlude

Part Five – The Children’s Home

After bouncing around a few temporary placements, I ended up in The Children’s Home.

I really didn’t know what to expect, other than it was likely I wouldn’t have my own room. I’d probably be forced to share with other kids, and having my own space wasn’t going to happen. So many ideas swam in my mind as images from films floated in and out. It really couldn’t be any worse than my current situation, though… could it?

I arrived with my belongings, and as we pulled into a small gate with a sign hiding the name of the place, as if it was trying to fit in with the road and not draw attention to itself. It was a huge box of a building, painted pale yellow with a flat roof — the kind of place that looked like it could have been a school or an office block. There were gardens on either side and from the outside, it really didn’t look like the grim place I had been warned about.

Inside, I was led to a kitchen first, where a cook was making some food. She greeted me warmly before I was taken on a tour. There was a dining room, a games/TV room, a staff room for their meetings, and a lounge that didn’t seem to get used much. There were no other children around because it was mid-morning and they were all off at school. I’d meet them later in the day.

I was told the next stop would be upstairs, so I was led up a flight of stairs to the bedrooms. At the top, a hallway stretched left and right. To the left were some of the other children’s rooms and a cosy upstairs TV room. I was shown a room that had just one bed in it, freshly made with clean furniture and the best view of the viaduct and beach at the bottom of the hill. A beach? I’d never lived near one before.

I was left to it, and I took it all in. It wasn’t as bad as the films made out. In fact, compared to what I’d seen before, this was really quite nice. I unpacked and took in my new surroundings, allowing my brain to breathe — a rare moment. Were there really other children here? I couldn’t wait to meet them after so long being ignored in my previous placement.

It wasn’t long before the sound of other kids broke the silence. I nervously went to meet them. There was a girl, slightly older than me, and another girl and her brothers who had been placed together. It felt kind of warm that they were allowed to stay together. I didn’t even realise that was an option — it made me think of my brothers, who were now in a different children’s home.

The other kids were actually really nice. We all had our moments, of course, but no one was treated differently. We were all ‘foster kids’ — and for once, we were all treated the same.

We had trips to the beach on sunny weekends, sometimes with pocket money to spend. As long as our rooms were in some kind of order. We could watch Sky TV (which was a big deal then — no more just four channels and waiting for kids’ shows at 3.30pm). It felt like freedom.

I started school nearby and liked it, though I still struggled with behaviour. I really tried to keep my head down and do well, but that streak of mischief always crept in. I didn’t understand why school couldn’t meet me halfway — why being ‘clever’ only seemed to earn me more work instead of support. After a while, it wore me down.

But I liked this place. The routine helped. Staff changed throughout the day and night, but no one was treated better than anyone else. For once, it felt like I belonged.

We even went on a real holiday — to Butlins in Minehead. It was my first proper holiday. We were given rucksacks with goodies inside: a towel, sweets, and toys for the journey. They’d been donated by a charity that supported kids like us. It was the sort of thing you never forget.

Back home, I enjoyed the rest of the summer holiday. We built dens, had freedom to swim, went to youth club and the tiny public library at the top of the hill. I’d learn anything I could in that little building. It was the most settled I’d ever felt.

I’d not really enjoyed living away from home until this point, this place would be my first taste of exploring what it was to be me, but sadly

Sadly, school was still hard. I worked quickly and got bored. I wasn’t being difficult — I just needed something different. It wasn’t long before I was told I’d be going to a new school — a ‘Boarding School’. I wouldn’t live there full-time, just during the week. I’d return to the children’s home at weekends.

I didn’t know how to feel about it. I was glad I wasn’t being pushed into another foster home, but also unsure what to expect. At least this new school might help me with my learning struggles. I hoped so.

It wasn’t long before I found out.

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