Life. Plans. future. – Page 15

Trying to clear my head.

Throughout my life, when I have been worried, happy, sad or confused, I always put pen to paper. In this case, a computer as my handwriting is illegible now. During my life as a psychotherapist/Counsellor, I encourage clients to write things down. To write their innermost thoughts if they can’t express them. To write letters to those they have lost, through death, separation or estrangement. We then, in session work with these literary aids and the client begins to see things more clearly. In the case of losing someone to death, this often helps with saying goodbye and gradually allows the bereaved to move on and accept.

As I said, I use this way of expression and find it helps clarify things for me. I keep a diary, make notes, I write books. During the writing of my autobiography I had to work through some horrific memories, the very worst of times. I was taken back to some sad times and eventually helped to remember some good ones. It was a cathartic experience and one I pass on to those I try and help.

So, today, here I am again, trying to make sense of the past few years and put those nasties into perspective with the fears of today. Those of you who follow my blog will know how I have been bullied and libeled on social media. How I have lost a great deal. You will have read my own side, the truth of what has been happening. I am very grateful to everyone who has commented, emailed or pm’d me re all nasty family stuff. Many times in the past 3 years I have felt as though I was in a nightmare and couldn’t wake up. Because of my childhood, when I am scared, the fear and terror of those times, not always the memories, but the emotions come flooding back and leave me very low. For the last few months, particularly since Mother’s day, I have only just been able to hold on.

It couldn’t get any worse, I thought. Nothing can feel worse than this and nothing can hurt the way I was hurting and so I made every attempt to stop it.

Well do you know what? There is something worse and that happened Wednesday. My wonderful husband, who has never been ill, had a blood test as a routine and was sent for a biopsy because of the results. Wednesday just gone we had the results and they are not good. He has cancer. It was like a huge blackness suddenly descending on us in the consulting room. The nurse was talking, then the consultant was talking but I didn’t and couldn’t hear them. I have been told by patients when they hear the ‘c’ word, they fall apart. Are terrified. That was me. David seemed not to be surprised. I was the one who had done all the reading and had come to the conclusion that he would be okay, he had no symptoms, wasn’t unwell and only had the blood test as a precaution. I was so sure the biopsy would be negative but here we were being given options of choice for treatment.

He has to go for an MRI, to see if the cancer has spread. This will determine the treatment if he chooses that route. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur.

We came out and went into town. He still wanted to go and do the week’s shopping, saying it was Bank Holiday weekend. I was in a daze. I didn’t know what to say or do and followed him like a little lost sheep.

Coming over a bit faint I made my way to the toilets and sat for a while. Trying to get a grip, make sense of what had just happened. Once home we went about our daily tasks and said nothing. We fell asleep in each other’s arms Wednesday night.

The following day we told our daughter and said how we needed her help over the next few months, going to appointments etc. with the animals. I know she will be there for us as we will be for each other.

Today, I went to my GP for my routine blood test and also down to the sea. Sitting at the water’s edge, the words of my best friend came into my mind. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer and I was the first person she came to. Sadly after a brave fight, the cancer won. ‘You can let it beat you and go down, or you fight like hell and beat it. If you then go down at least you have tried. Always smile, always kiss each other goodnight and don’t let anything or anyone steal a moment of your time together.’

So, that’s what I am going to do. She was a brave little lady, Mo, and I miss her wisdom and her love. I will be strong, I will fight whatever comes, with every ounce of my being and so will David.

The past few years, the ‘nasties’ have stolen my time, my peace of mind and my energy. No more. I have what is important, here ‘on the farm’, and will concentrate on that. We share a love of animals and live in an amazingly beautiful place. We have a lot to be thankful for.

Every day is a day nearer my David getting better, a day nearer to normality returning, ’here on the farm’. Bring it on.

Thank you for reading. x

Changing life’s patterns ….or not.

On clearing the clutter in my study, I came across my Learning Journal that I wrote whilst in my early training to become a Counsellor. It was quite revealing and somewhat alarming.

1998, I was on my 2^nd year of a 3 year Diploma and was combining this with being a Mum, a Grandmother and a wife. Not easy. I had also begun writing my life story but had placed this on hold to allow me to concentrate on the course. We had moved to Wales in the previous year, not a willing move as I was leaving family in Hampshire, but had no choice. My husband was relocating to Bristol and I didn’t want to be a weekend wife, so my youngest daughter Marie and I went with him. A new adventure although my health at that time was not good.I had been registered disabled and felt at the lowest I had felt when this happened. But then decided, it was sink or swim. I swam.

I took myself off to college to take up a hobby and found myself signing up for the 3 year Counselling course, which lead on to a Masters in CBT that I gained in 2003. Having had a tough childhood and a difficult early adult hood, I decided to try and be, the person I would like to have been there, for young Carol Ann.

Reading the Journal, took me back to happy times, scary and traumatic times, but all done with a lovely group of men and women who were interested in helping others. We learned a lot, we laughed a lot and sometimes, some cried a lot. Not me.

Part of the learning was to discover our ‘inner child’, the child who is still in us today, but to look back and see how she or he found herself reacting in the family set up. We learned about relationships mother to child being the most important. I hedged away from this many times but eventually after a grueling weekend residential, had to confront my demons. Throughout the training we were to take on Personal Therapy, to allow us to work through our own issues and worries, so being able to ‘hold’ clients during theirs. At this stage I had avoided doing this, having securely locked all of my demons away in boxes whose lids were well and truly locked. I always avoided childhood stuff until that residential.

We were almost at the end of time and I stood well back, hoping we would run out of time. We didn’t. I was placed in the centre of the circle of students and told I was 7 years old. With all the emotions of the previous students ‘acting out’ their memories still in play, I found myself a child again. The frightened, vulnerable, scared child who was me.

The idea was to place other members of the group, as our own family and name them as such. My 2 eldest sisters were easy, I had some lovely friends in the group and they played those parts. A special closer relationship I had formed, was with a lady who had been a nurse and had a quirky sense of fun, like me, I placed her as my best friend Carol. One of the male lecturers, John, I put right next to me, he was Tony, my beloved brother. Another gentle kind student was standing the other side of me as my dad, William. That’s when I became a bit scared. That left my abuser and the woman they called my mother.The emotion in the room was highly charged, the air seemed thick with something that resembled the fear I had during a lot of my childhood. What should I do? I was becoming emotional and couldn’t allow that to happen, I was prompted to continue. When I chose a man who I always felt was a bit aggressive, cold and who I didn’t like, to be the man who destroyed so much of me. I couldn’t speak I just pointed to him to stay way outside of the group and couldn’t look at him. On reaching this point, my chief lecturer and head of the course asked where my ‘mother’ was. I said she wasn’t there,that if she had been in the room, I would not have been able to say how it felt to have been the child I was. So I left her out.

It was hugely significant, how I placed family and told the groups and therapist so much about me. Later,during processing the things that happened, which I found very hard, I discovered that it was my fear as a child that kept me unwilling to process events. Having been cruelly singled out by the woman who was supposed to have loved me, I became reticent, scared, took on self-blame, became a rescuer, the scapegoat of the family. I could place all of the family in the Schema table and knew exactly where I stood. My pattern as a little girl had been to always help when I could, never to show I was hurt or upset, never to show anger and certainly never to cry. I would never question a decision, never answer back, never defend myself if wrongly accused and always explain or try and justify my actions. I also always felt responsible for another’s pain.

I noticed in group work when we began with silence and the topic was given, I would be the first to speak, helping others to open up. If we had presentations and students were reluctant to take tasks on, I would volunteer. If there were awkward silences I would be the first to break the silence.

If I wanted to become a good counsellor,I had to work through these feelings to be able to help clients. I knew this was going to be very difficult.

As I said before,I didn’t show anger, not as a little girl or even as a young woman. Did I feel it? I don’t know but never showed it. This was also a legacy from childhood. Gerry, my personal supervisor and lead lecturer, did some work with me and we identified, that the anger I had suppressed for many years, was because, having taken fear and anger to my ‘mother’ as a child, when I had been badly hurt and scared, and to have her show anger towards me, I stopped letting it show. Just took was dealt to me. The thing that I believe damaged me the most, was losing trust. From the time I went to her for help and was not listened to or believed, I stopped trusting.

Throughout my life,if I saw someone in difficulty, having a hard time etc. I rushed in to help. Whether this help was wanted, I didn’t always know but rushed in anyway. If someone was upset and crying, I would try and show my concern and comfort them, try and put things right if I could. Always wanting to be loved. But I never cried. Didn’t mean I didn’t feel but that I had lost the ability to cry. When anger, pain, fear and sadness, is not acknowledged and worked through, the person will internalise these emotions and thus become ill, depressed or repressed. I know that now and have seen it over and over in my work but hadn’t acknowledged it for myself.

Yes, I took on blame freely, always felt responsible for everything. If a family member were in trouble and I was told, I would make the effort to help. If someone didn’t ring me, or make time for me etc. I would always think I was to blame. Once when my daughter and husband were watching the news, showing a war torn country, Marie asked her Dad why there was a war. David very quickly replied, ‘I don’t know, but I expect it was your Mum’s fault, she seems to think everything else is’. Yes I took on the blame, it wasn’t always given to me, and I just took it on. A childhood of being told that all troubles in life were my fault, paid its price.

During training we looked at every feeling, emotion and one of the worst for me was shame. We were asked to talk of an occasion where we felt shame. I could think of so many. Childhood abuse, left me feeling shame. As an adult, finding out things about my parenting and parentage, left me with shame. It is easy now, to recognize these feelings as somewhat transferred from others to being my shame, when they weren’t.

There came a point during my training, that going into therapy, opening what Gerry called ‘Carol’s bloody boxes’ was essential and had to be done soon. How could I help others if my own issues around self-worth, self-esteem, shame, and fear had not been processed and dealt with. So off I went. I never actually worked with my own CSA in therapy but did work with my low self esteem and lack of self love; acknowledging that if I wasn’t loved, for whatever reason,that would prevent me from loving myself and having self respect. I was brought to accept, that not being shown love wasn’t my fault but that of my ‘mother’. It did help me, opening some of the boxes and I would always recommend personal therapy, counselling in all kinds of situations.

The purpose of this blog is to let those who know me, understand me a bit better and those who don’t, maybe to understand themselves. As children, we form patterns of behavior. We learn when and what we can say and to whom. If we are told we are worthless, if we are shown we are unloved and if we are given the responsibility for the feelings of others, we all grow up with these beliefs firmly in place. The patterns we form to cope with these beliefs, stay with us into adulthood. Sometimes our patterns keep us safe, sometimes they help but more than often, they hinder.I have seen clients who have presented with emotions carried over from the child they were and whose patterns of behavior have stopped them from moving forward, have often got in the way. The way we are as children, the way we are bought up, disciplined, cared for, taught and most of all loved, determine the person we become. Sometimes the patterns have to be changed.

With all of that in mind, I recognized, working through the journal, that yes my way of being changed a lot but when stressed or in times of doubt or fear, the old patterns that have been often lurking in the background, come in without us realising it and off we go with the behavior that was us. We become our inner child.

Over the past few weeks, last blog included, I have regressed to childhood habits of explaining myself, in defence. Not exactly as I would have as a child, but still feeling I need to justify what I had said and done. I shouldn’t always do that. But habits are hard to break and when they are our childhood patterns, formed when we are most vulnerable, they are never very far away. The past 6 months at least, little Carol Ann has been present where the adult Carol Ann should have been.

My training was valuable in many ways. I understood myself so much more but had forgotten whom I had become during this past stressful upsetting time. De cluttering my study was hard and painful but necessary and productive. I am back now and will use the new me on Social media at least.

Thank you for reading x

The Truth about ‘Family’

This blog is the only way I can put my side of a horrible vendetta against me by ‘family’. It is this or another visit to the lawyer and then the police. I just want my family and friends, in Hampshire, Canada and the rest of the world, to hear how it has been for me these passed 3 years. I would never have made any of this public before now but my family have done and although I don’t find it easy writing this, I have no choice. Feel free to scroll passed if you are neither family or friend, but I think it only fair, that I take this one chance to tell the truth. There is a blog going around that I have read, that malign and libel me to the extreme, so I have to do this.

A few years ago, seeing a mother write a blog like this, showing her own daughter in a bad light, would have made me cross, I would have seen it as a betrayal. But not now. Not today. We take so much from ‘family’, we allow them so many chances and give much too much leeway, just because they are family. We put up with so much more from them ,than we would from anyone else but sometimes, enough is enough. I have taken flack from people, some who I have not seen for more than 40 years, who know nothing about me but are suddenly attacking me on Facebook, by email and in blogs. They have lied about me, called me names, written cruel nasty comments on my everyday posts that I then delete, sometimes because the language is so awful. So today I have decided to fight fire with fire. No more Mrs nice guy, I will tell the truth of why this all began and how it might end. It doesn’t make me feel good, I am not finding this easy but every-time I am shown or sent something they have done or said, I say ‘the next time I will do something’. It was said on the blog I mentioned, that I bully my family, bad mouth them, cause them worry and trouble. I have done none of this. My Nan used to say, ‘Evil doers, evil thinkers’. Maybe she was right.Up until today, apart from the occasional quip and reply to a couple of emails, I have done nothing. That stops here.

For the past 3 years, I have been told what I can and can’t post of social media. If I put a photo of my grandsons or my daughters I am told to take them down. If I share a memory that involves them, I am ‘told’ to take it off. One comment was made on a post where I wrote I had hurt my head in a silly incident in my home, I made a joke of it, straight away a silly but nasty comment from a young woman who has since played a huge part in this vendetta, Sophie Blake who must have been watching my page. They have been allowed to lie about me, insult me, make libelous comments and ruin or try to ruin, my writing career and now my professional career. From today, I will post what I want, write what I choose as I never write untruths or try to hurt anyone.

Some on here will have seen the post on Mother’s day from my daughter Lisa Pond, swearing and calling me names. She didn’t end there. She also wrote the same nasty things on my author page. As you know, writing on Facebook, shows your real name and your profile photo, so everyone knew who she was. Apart from the cruelty of this, she knew only too well that identifying me on my author page, as I write under a pseudonym for legal reason, would cause me trouble. I deleted the posts, after copying them. The following day I wrote an apology on both pages, for the bad language and the nasty comments, mentioning her and my ‘sister’ Trisha-anne Hopkins by name, as they had already identified themselves. They copied this post, in isolation and sent it to my publisher, both Lisa Pond and Trisha Hopkins rang my publisher, threatening legal action because I had identified them. The fact was they did this themselves the previous day. As I had then been identified by association, my book, which is a bestseller, was taken off the market. Not content with that, Lisa Pond then rang the publisher again a few days later, re a blog where I had explained, to my readers, why the book was unavailable. They terminated my publishing contract, after 7 years. When I wrote my story, the first time, it was very hard, revisiting the horrors of my childhood. Lisa sent me a card congratulating me and saying how proud she was of the fact I had been strong enough to tell my life-story. Telling me, as she had done many times before, what a great Mum I was and that she loved me.I still have this card and anything she ever sent me.Mums do that don’t they. It hadn’t been easy writing of the abuse and cruelty of my ‘mother’,but I wanted to help others who had lived similar lives and have succeeded in that. I have since, had to go through my book once again, and add a new part to explain what had happened and then have it published again. Causing me pain and upset to say the least but I wasn’t going to be bullied into allowing my book to be out of circulation.

Why had she done that? Back in 2012, she was a foster-mother with a child in her care who came from a sexually abusive home, a little girl who was a bit difficult, as children who have been traumatised often are. My daughter was paid very well for children like this child because of the extra demands made. Then she was asked to foster a new baby, we talked of the dangers of this, falling in love with a baby was easy, parting with her may not have been. She fell in love and decided to adopt this baby, this was early 2013. I was fully supportive and did all the paperwork as she found it hard, travelled 2 and half hours, each way, rented and paid for a room to meet with the Adoption social worker. All willingly. Lisa had done some very dubious things in her adult life but I really believed she had changed. Things that we had fallen out because of. Selling furniture that she was looking after for me was one. Many others, I always forgave her. At this time, Lisa would ring me sometimes 3 times a day and send me photos of my soon to be grand-daughter. My kitchen and study were full of baby photographs. A happy time.

After my interview, Lisa often told me, by phone or email, how she disliked the older child she was fostering, how she didn’t even like having her in the house. I would hear her when on the phone to me, tell this little girl to go to her room, that she couldn’t stand the sight of her, in a really nasty tone. Yes, she was difficult and did some things that were hard to understand but she had been through so much and my daughter was aware of this. As an abused child myself, the subject of my book, I knew how hearing things like Lisa was saying, making it clear how she didn’t care about this child, felt. She often sounded like my ‘mother’ and I knew , first hand the damage this could do. I told her many times how this could affect her foster child but my worries fell on deaf ears. I suggested that she asked for this little girl to be taken away and placed with someone who could love her, care for her. My daughter, I am ashamed to say, told me that she couldn’t do that because if she didn’t have the income from this child, she would not meet the criteria that enabled her to adopt. I was appalled, I told her that no child should be a meal ticket and no reason to keep a little girl she just didn’t like. We agreed to disagree, I thought, but I was wrong. The next day, without saying anything, she blocked me on social media, unfriended me and shut me out of her life. She told me I was no part of her or my grandson’s lives. My husband believes she thought the Statement I made to the SW had been signed and sent off. It hadn’t. The following day it arrived and this put me in a very difficult position. It read that we were very close, that I would be her Pivotal support where the children were concerned, that she would come to me in a crisis etc. That I would be her first port of call. How could she do that if she had shut me out? I wrote to Lisa, saying she had put me in an impossible position but just had abuse back. I wrote to the Social worker, Nicola and asked if I didn’t sign the statement, would it affect the adoption as I didn’t want that. She assured me that it wouldn’t and understood how I felt if I had fallen out with Lisa. I didn’t sign it. I have the emails to this day along with the nasty emails from my daughter during this time.

Then the worst thing happened, my sister ,Trisha-anne Hopkins,who had not been in my daughter’s lives for almost 40 years, heard of our ‘falling out’ and went in for the kill so to speak. Something she had always done in the first few years of Lisa’s life. Belittled me in front of her, tried to come between my daughter and I. Now she has succeeded. I know of old, falling out with Lisa would always be made right. It happened often. She would either phone or email and ask if we could be in touch again. I knew as soon as I realised that Trisha was in her life, I had lost her forever. This woman is the nastiest cruelest person I know, very much like my own mother was to me. She has done some wicked things in the past not only to me. In childhood, if ‘Mum’ had stopped talking to me as she did often, the rest of my family wouldn’t or couldn’t talk to me either. Isolating me and as a child that is hard to bear.

In the past year at every opportunity as some of you will have seen, both my daughter and sister come on here, or my Facebook page and my author page and make derogatory comments, out of the blue. A few weeks ago, as I do, I posted re my telephone call with my brother Tony, on Facebook. I have friends on here from Hampshire, who knew Tony and I when we were small, this is a way of keeping them in touch. In this call, I joked how Tony seemed to know more about my life here than I did. He had asked how Marie and her husband were getting on in their new house on the ‘farm’. I didn’t know what he was talking about and he said he had been told that they had moved into a house on our property. I laughed and told him that they were renovating a static on our ‘farm’ to live in, while they saved for their own home. That was what the post meant. The following day he rang me very upset. He had been told that I had written on Facebook, that he, Tony, was telling me things about what was happening in the family, and then posting that on Facebook, using him to find things out. I didn’t know what he was talking about. When asked, he said that was what his daughter Tina Phillips had told him. She was there when he phoned me, she had been very angry and I believe told him to ring me and break off contact.He hadn’t seen my post, he doesn’t have a computer and so doesn’t have access to social media. I asked him to look at her Facebook and se what I had actually written. I had never written anything bad about my brother. Why would I? He said the only thing he could do was to ask me to stop contact with him. I was mortified. Tony and I have never fallen out, we are very close. I had always thought highly of Tina but I also knew she was in touch with my evil sister. I told him what I had said and asked if he believed what he had been told by others. He said he didn’t but he couldn’t take the stress from his daughter. The next day, after a sleepless night of tears,I wrote to Tony,sending him a copy of my Facebook post but heard nothing back. That evening, Tina Phillips wrote a nasty post on her Facebook, telling lies and bad mouthing me to all and sundry. I was made aware of this by someone who thought I should know what was being said. I wrote asking her to take it down as she had put both my name and my author name on open Facebook and that was not allowed. She took it down. This was followed by many nasty, emails from someone called Zi Zi Mavindidze, someone who doesn’t even know me but is a friend of Trisha and my grandson. Then followed by emails and messages from Sophie Blake, Tina’s daughter. Someone who in the past, I had tried to help when she was in trouble.I am heartbroken that Tony is now without my telephone calls, letters, presents etc.and that I have lost contact with someone I love.

New Years day this year, I rang my middle sister to wish her happy new year as always, only to be met with abuse and orders that I don’t contact her again. When asked why, she said she seen nasty wicked things written about Tony and my dad William on ‘that Facebook’. June, my sister is a vulnerable adult who can’t read and does not have a computer. This had been told to her and for some reason she had believed the lies. All of these people are now in touch and have isolated me from the rest of my family. Just as happened many times in my childhood. I wrote on my page that I would have to take family members off my page which I did and blocked those causing me trouble and pain, thus missing seeing nieces, nephews etc and having posts and messages from extended family, all to keep myself safe. It didn’t work.

My ‘sister’ Patricia(Trisha Hopkins) said I am no part of her family. Well I am grateful for that.My eldest sister Georgina died 2 years ago and would be horrified at my treatment. June would rather believe lies and I can’t get down to her to talk to her and tell her the truth. Tony? Well he has little choice as he depend on Tina to look after him. So are they any loss to me , I don’t think they are. I am better than this a bigger person than them. I have family here and some back in Hampshire who love me. Who know me. I have friends I have had for all of my life. All built on honesty trust and love. I don’t need this nasty rubbish in my life any longer.So Thankyou Patricia for excluding me from your family. I do however, feel sorry for my daughter and her family having you in their lives.

A few weeks ago, I began these blogs. From the very first one, I have been plagued my comments etc. by someone who goes under the name of Romeo Harte, Romieweb, rosieweb, roseyhardy. I believe this to be Sophie Blake, who uses the name Amanda, who had already been abusive to me in emails. This ‘roseiweb’ began a blog that bad-mouthed someone who has written a book, whose daughter is a foster-mother etc, meaning me, and who is bullying her family. This blog is full of libel, lies, defamation and worse. It states that the author named everyone in her book and that having it published with the additions, could ruin her daughter’s life. I wrote to this blogger, when they put emails, comments etc from both of my Facebook pages on the blog, thus identifying me as the subject of the lies on their blog. I wrote saying I have never named anyone in their real names, that I had to keep everyone’s identity safe. I had written as suggested by my solicitor, asking to take the blog down but nothing happened. It has now become much more serious. It is threatening, malicious libel and has copies of my private emails , only my replies, not the nasty things sent to me, comments I have written on my pages and posts . The email replies have been posted with both of my names, side by side, on this blog along with my telephone number and credentials. Unforgivable and maybe illegal.

So you can see from this that I have had enough. Can’t and won’t sit back and let the lies continue without my telling my truth. I know it was a long blog but it covers only some of what I have had to endure. This blog is not for sympathy, not for concern, purely to tell my extended family Simon Slaymaker, Samantha Simpson, June’s daughters etc. and anyone else who has been told the lies from these nasty people, the truth and what ‘family’ have done to me. I have kept copies of everything that has happened, as suggested by my solicitor, all the emails, the screenshots, Facebook, WordPress comments everything. I have evidence if needed, to back up my truth. Shouldn’t need it but after the past few years, who knows to what depths some people will go.

I blocked all of these people from my social media but they have come on in different names. Sophie has many. Lisa has used Bonnie Bon, Willow Pond and her own name. I have always written on my pages in my own name and on my author page in my author name. I don’t have anything to hide. I have been accused on the mentioned blog, of writing under the name of Valerie C Wright. I haven’t and don’t know who she is.

Just to end, I am scared for my daughter, the person she is now calling Mum, her words, the person who calls my grandchildren her grandchildren, is a horrible excuse for a woman. I have an email that she sent me ‘from…. (adopted baby’s name)…….Nan’. Cruel to say the least. I never in my whole life envisaged the scenario where I would tell all of this on social media or anywhere, about my own daughter. How can I do this now? I am left with no other choice. Lisa stated for everyone to see, on Mother’s Day this year. ‘I am not your daughter, you are not my mother, you are nothing to me. Trisha is the only mum I want’. So that makes writing this easier for me. Of course it all hurts and I will always hurt but can’t allow this to continue any longer.

Thank you for reading . x

To bring some magic

As a child, I was unhappy and unloved. I didn’t understand, as we don’t as children, why I was treated differently from my siblings. I felt different, that I didn’t really belong but was not sure why.I suffered horrendous sexual abuse by a family ‘friend’ and often felt my life to be unbearable. There were happy times, days spent with my ‘bestie’ Carol 1 and her family. The days I spent at weddings as a member of the church choir. School was also a friend where I was treated the same as anyone else. But home was not like that.

Every child needs and deserves the love of their mother and when that doesn’t happen, they may create a ‘mother’ in their minds to help them through the loneliness and pain. Carol’s parents were like a mum and dad to me. My own ‘Dad’, William, was a lovely gentle man, but was never allowed to show his feelings to me, at least not when ‘Mum’ was around but I knew he loved me.

I would make up stories in my head, stories about people who came for me to take me away from the horrors of my early life. A story that I was adopted and my real parents had come to take me back. They had been very young when I was born and couldn’t cope but had come back for me. That, in my child’s mind, explained why I was so different from my brother Tony and my sisters Georgina, June and Patricia. I also made up fairy stories, anything to focus on at the worst of times. Closing my eyes during the abuse and going to a place where I was safe, happy and unafraid.

When my own children were small, I noticed a lack of books for the very young that were magical, funny and educational. Not heavy stuff but a way of teaching children good old-fashioned values. How to be kind, how to be generous and unselfish and how to help others.

On a caravanning holiday with my small daughters Lisa and Marie, I invented a hedgerow character, a little furry animal who would rush around the long grass at the edge of the road. He was a kind and helped other little animals if they were in trouble. To keep the girls occupied on long journeys, we would look for this little creature. I described him and was shocked and surprised when my eldest daughter shrieked that she had seen one! I had to go along with, the fact that she did, as she had told us, but I knew of course, the little furry never existed but she maybe used her imagination and believed she had seen him.

Years later I wrote a children’s book. 10 stories of this little creation and for reasons I will say later, I called him Wozwell. I tested the stories in local schools and to local children and was pleased that they went down very well. I sent them off to a publisher and they were very interested. Then my brother was diagnosed with a terminal illness and wanted to see my book in print. I felt I didn’t have the time to wait, so taking the bull by the horns, and with the encouragement and support of my daughters and David my husband, I produced The Adventures of Wozwell the Womas. Local shops took them, libraries in schools asked for them but the most amazing thing was when W.H.Smiths took them! I was over the moon. My brother and his wife Lin, came over to see us, as they did regularly and we went into our local town, Fareham and there, on the shelf between Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton was Carol Ann Wright!! Tony rushed out of the shop smiling and jumping in the air with a star jump. He was so excited and proud. A lovely memory of an amazing day.

The Sunday Times reviewed my book and said it could be the beginning of a cult. That the world needed some magic for young children and it began to sell well. I did book signings, school readings and many magazine and news items. All of which I have in my own memory box.

A few years before, someone I was very close to, left a tatty old teddy bear on my desk where we both worked. I picked him and saw how worn and sad he looked and thought, ‘I can’t thrown him out, he wasn’t always so poorly, he was well once.’ Hence Wozell’s name was born. I still have this teddy.

This was my first book. I have since written a further 10 stories which will be going off to a publisher soon.

I have written my own life story but for legal reasons and because of the sensitivity of the contents, I wrote the other book and it’s sequel, under a pseudonym. The first is a Sunday Times bestseller and still selling well.

Writing Wozwell was and is a joy. I would write in my garden in Catisfield and now write in the garden ‘here on the farm’ or in my lovely study over looking the Welsh hills. The stories still make me smile and the memories of that first day in Smiths will stay with me forever. Tony is still around, we were told 2 years was all he had but that was back in 1989 and he is still here, so the medics don’t always get it right.

The Adventures of Wozwell the Womas are still on sale and maybe soon there will be another book. On a good day, I write my serious true stories and on a bad day, I write Wozwell. Always cheers e up.

My life here is good. Of course I get bad days, some brought in from the outside but not enough to spoil my happy. I won’t let it or them.

Childhood memories are hard and I try not to go there. My life as a Mum was always good, hard at times but good and I have wonderful funny, silly and poignant memories to call upon when needed.

I believe we can push the bad away with the good and that is what I do from today. Whenever a bad memory rears its ugly head, we need to close our eyes and recall a good one. It is a technique I teach clients and a very useful one I use myself.

Thankyou for reading.

Memories and Fairytales

35 years ago today, the whole world was witnessing a beautiful young woman, marry her prince. She looked every bit the part in her wonderful designer wedding dress and the stately carriage to and from her wedding. Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and we all shared their happiness for that moment and for their future together. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance, something we do well here in the UK. Some of us thought we were watching our future King and Queen marry. A fairytale come true. As the whole world watched in wonder and joy.

Along with the rest of Britain, I watched the whole amazing spectacle on the television, with my daughter Lisa and her best friend Jayne. We sat, glued to the television, sweets and popcorn at the ready enjoying something that would never be seen again.

I can still remember the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’, especially from my daughter and the looks on the girls faces as Diana came down onto the steps, in that amazing gown. Everything about that day was beautiful. The build-up, the ceremony and the procession after, a wonderful royal wedding that, as I said, only us Brits can do that well. I remember Jayne’s mum had been at work but joined us at one point during the day and enjoyed what she saw along with us.

As a mum of daughters, both of us spoke of the day when our girls would marry. When we would experience our own Fairy tales. The huge hats we intended to wear and the men yet to meet, the ‘princes’ our girls would fall in love with. They were around 13 at that time, Lisa and Jayne and my other daughter Marie was 8 years old, so along way ahead. But we could dream couldn’t we.

Life had been quite hard for a year or so for me and I was so happy the girls were settled and had close friends. We were very close and I had always thought that nothing could spoil that. Days like these were special and some of the best in our little family.

Today as I watched TV ‘memories’ and read news-paper articles; and seen things on Social media about how heartbreaking it is that this fairytale did not have a happy ending, I thought back to what had happened in my own life and that of my children.

Life is never at any-time, what we envisaged it would be. At the time of Diana’s wedding, I was working 3 jobs to keep a roof over the heads of my daughters and myself. It was tough: I also had an illness that I had been coping with for few years. Some of you know about this. The relationship I had with my daughters was close and we were happy. We all had close and good friends, mine in the guise of Jayne’s mum Mary. I lived in a Georgian terraced house in the city and had a little dog and three cats, guinea pigs etc. all of whom were ‘family. I had contact with my eldest sisters, Georgina and June and my brother Tony. Although the relationship with my ‘mother’ was never good and always strained, I still saw her so that I could stay in touch with my beloved Dad William. The friends I had were true friends, we all helped with childcare or babysitting, I helped at the local school where my children were educated and at the local Brownie group. Life was good most of the time.

So looking back the news broadcasts are true. Diana and her prince did not live happily ever after but I sincerely hope she found, love in the years after her marriage to Charles ended. Diana as we know is no longer living and her prince has a new life with a new or old love. She told the world in an interview that today would have gone viral, that the ‘family’ made her life difficult. That she wasn’t accepted because she was different, because she wanted to make a difference. She also knew she would never be queen. How sad she was, how much pain she had suffered at the hands of ‘family’.

I didn’t have the fairy tale wedding for my eldest daughter that Mary and I spoke of as being our ‘one day’. For her own reasons my Lisa decided to marry, then tell me. We have had a volatile relationship over the years, since she ‘grew up’. Jayne made a beautiful bride and is still married to her ‘prince’. I did however, have a wonderful wedding with my youngest daughter, Marie not long ago.

So 35 years on and life is so different. Sometimes I wander back to those days, in my mind, the days of Carol and her girls and can now smile at the memories. Life has not worked out as I thought but no one can change what happened. No one can steal away our memories can they? The good times with my little family, were good. Yes there were times a few years after this wonderful day, when life was harder but we pulled together and go through and then I met my husband David and I have written all about this in an earlier blog. My happiness is blighted by people intent on causing me harm and pain but I am the bigger person and will rise above that. I feel proud to say, like Diana, I am not accepted because I am different, because in my case I am honest. Yes, I am proud of that although it cost me dear.

My Dad and my ‘mother’ are both long dead, so is my eldest sister Georgina. June and Tony are still alive but for reasons again written in earlier blogs, I have no contact but aim to put that right very soon. Yes life goes on and sometimes not as you planned but you can plan what is still to come. The past few months, I have reason to reflect, to endeavor to put right what I can and let go of what I can’t. Life is so short in the scheme of things, we shouldn’t put things off but do them when we feel we need to. That is something I intend to do.

I have a hugely different life now. I live on a smallholding with ponies, cats and dogs, hundreds of ducks and in the spring, Geese. No longer city traffic, noise or pollution, just beautiful peaceful countryside and the most amazing views.

Tonight I will raise a glass to Diana and the memories of that wonderful magical day, to the happiness she brought people, for the good she did for all kinds of diverse good causes and for her being different. I thank her for the memories I will treasure, of days like her wedding that I watched with my daughters. A memory that brought my own dreams. That they didn’t come true, is unimportant now, because back then I needed the hopes and dreams. Today I don’t need them, I have my memories to call upon when-ever I want.

So fairytales don’t often come true but if I look at my childhood which was horrid, look to my middle years some of which are hard to think about, and the last 3 years which have brought me pain, sadness and tears at the hands of family, my life here is indeed a fairytale. Long may it last.

Thank you for reading. x

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