I was the biggest baby in the ward when I was born,10 lbs 2 oz. I know, it’s hard to believe isn’t it. All 5ft 10.5 inches of me. I was whipped away from my mum and paraded around the ward, biggest baby in the world! I have a few early memories. I tried to escape out of the front door on many occasions when I was very young, usually with one or two teddies in tow. My brother used to sit on the top of the pram when we went out, I used to kick and shout at him to get out of the way, he was blocking my view of the big wide world.
I remember sitting on the top of the stairs, defiantly refusing to go to sleep. I can’t remember exactly how old I was? I never wanted to go to bed, I was scared of missing something. That continued until I was about thirty-three, I am lucky if I make 9:00pm these days. I remember talking to my teddy bears a lot. I didn’t like dolls, I dragged most of them around by their hair or gauged the eyes out. I did have a Cindy doll, the one with the yellow and blue tracksuit but even she met her fate by being drowned in the bath. Mum stopped buying them for me. I never had Girls World, I would have probably chopped all her hair off!
I loved my teddies. My favourites Boris and Norris have since entered the afterlife, with each of nan’s when they passed. I knew they would be safe and happy. At least my brother wouldn’t be able to terrorise them anymore. He jammed Boris’s head in the car window when Dad was driving once, he nearly fell out. I was beside myself. He also tied my teddies to my bedpost and hid them and told me they left because they didn’t love me. I retaliated by breaking anything of his I could get my hands on.
I had a little plastic wallet that was stuck to my wardrobe with blue tac. It had a card with a prayer written inside it and a tiny little cross. I’m not religious but I used to touch that many times before I went to sleep and bless myself just in case I didn’t wake up. I was convinced I was going to die by the time I was 18. I remember telling my friend it was going to happen when were were skating around one day with our roller boots on, (I had the blue ones with the white zig zag). I was quite good actually considering I was tall and awkward. I think she thought I was weird.
This is the same girl who forced me to stand on the street corner next to the pub and shout a swear word really loudly. Bad move since I only lived three doors away from the pub and she pretended to do it by mouthing the word. I just yelled it out loud. I think I was ten or eleven. I was so worried thinking someone would tell my parents but I got away with that one. We were friends for years and then we fell out and ended up fighting in the street once, hair flying everywhere!
I got into a few scrapes when I was younger, not always girls. I stabbed a boy in the head with a pencil when I was in junior school and all hell broke loose. This was delayed retaliation. The same boy had pulled me off my chair a week earlier and I banged my head. I vowed to get him back, so I waited and one day, walked passed him with my chosen weapon and dealt the blow! I could tell it hurt and I was pleased. He was a bully and I wasn’t standing for that.
I have respect for people but I don’t allow people to intimidate me. Treat people how you want to be treated, that has been instilled in me from young age and I have carried that through my life. I might have been fearful at times but I never showed it. I had some tough times in school and life but have I always fought back. Don’t get me wrong, I can be difficult, a right cow at times and downright nasty, if I am pushed into a corner. People don’t often see that side of me but those closest have witnessed and probably been on the receiving end of it.
I went to Sunday School when I was growing up, I don’t remember much about it really. I do still have the little Blue bible that they gave me and I actually read quite a lot of the bible when I was younger. I hate Sundays, always have. I never wanted to go to school on a Monday. Dad also used to make us watch World at War on a Sunday night, god that was depressing. I remember watching it one night, I had my head on a cushion and I started getting palpitations. Great, I’m going to die again. I woke up the next day, grateful that World at War hadn’t caused my death. Sad things used to scare me. I suffered with panic attacks a lot but learned how to hide and control it.
Out of my group of friends that I hung around with, they were all Catholic, like me. My mum was Protestant and my dad Catholic. The priest in my mums local Catholic church, St Johns, would only marry them if any future children they had must be christened in the church. Crazy? Held to ransom by a priest but they kind of ruled the world then. They did get married in the church, he was conveniently off that day. We were christened Catholic but not confirmed and we didn’t take communion. My dad was forced into religion when he was younger and detested it and wasn’t going to inflict that on us.
We were not forced to go to church but I went along a lot with my friends. I was part of the group and didn’t want to be different. I couldn’t go to a Catholic school because of this but I wasn’t really that bothered. Sometimes they would be talking about school and what they had done and I felt a bit left out. I had my own school friends too but they lived in a different area. I remember standing in St Johns church and feeling very resentful and not really understanding what it was all about. It is such a beautiful church, it still stands in amongst streets that I grew up in. I went to confession once, never again. What a horrible experience. Talking to a complete stranger through a wall. I didn’t do anything that bad that I would be burning in hell for. Well, not at that point anyway?
I stared junior school a year early, when I had turned four. I should have stayed in nursery for another year but I wasn’t having that. I was always the youngest in the class because of my birth date. My brother had moved into big school just across the yard and I had decided I was going there too. I think they were so fed up with my tantrums, twirling around defiantly swinging my arms, and ignoring the teachers so they let me go. How pleased was I! How annoyed was my brother?
I loved my junior school,(except for the outside toilets in the playground). We had one at home when I was really young and my Nan had one at the end of her yard. Always so cold and full of spiders. I swallowed a spider in the school toilets once, walked right into a web and off it went on its journey to my belly. I was convinced a spider tree would grow inside me. I actually remember swallowing it, a little money spider. Didn’t help me much!! Damn spider.
I grew up in the same street as my maternal nan. My paternal nan lived a bit further away. My paternal Grandad died before I was born. Such a shame as I think I would have like him. I heard that he was a lovely man and he loved my Mum because he had a smoking partner. My maternal Grandad was a bit of a closed book. He wasn’t your typical grandad, I don’t remember sitting on his knee hearing stories about his days in the navy. I remember being resentful that he never gave us pocket money. All of the sweets I could be buying in Jim’s corner shop. He used to sit at his sandstone step and had a suntan all year round. He had that dark skin that looked weather beaten and dark brooding eyes that didn’t tell you much about him, just that he maybe had some hidden secrets.
I remember walking on the other side of the road and he was sat on the step, like he always was, I waved and then walked straight into the lamp post, (I still do things like this a lot). I carried on walking, he didn’t run over to see if I was okay. I consoled myself with my ten pence I had to spend in Jim’s shop. I spent ages picking out twenty half penny sweets. I thought about it years later of how annoying that must have been to have a gang of kids taking half the day to decide how to spend ten pence. Money was precious then and went so much further.
I have always had my own mind from a very early age and been very strong willed. My parents will vouch for this. My Dad is still shocked as to how I completely wrecked my bedroom at the age of three because I didn’t want to go to sleep. I had a furious temper when I was younger. I managed to pull my mattress off the bed, pull the curtains down, empty drawers out. Apparently, the noise was horrendous. I was such an easy child.
My temper used to rear it’s head between me and my brother. I think it is safe to say that me and my brother hated each other growing up. He still moans that I ferociously burst his football with a dart, this is the same dart that 5 minutes earlier he aimed at me and it landed in my arm. I’d say he got off light. The punches were real and hurt but I never showed it, I used to punch back just as hard (I think). I threw a milk bottle at his head once,(yes a glass one), he threw a bread knife at me and stabbed me in the backside. I think the kitchen door got damaged (again)that day. This was a daily occurrence. We just clashed.
My next chapter is more about my many animated fights with my brother, life growing up in the area of Kirkdale and how looking back and writing this is helping me understand how those early years formed who I am today. Hope you enjoy reading.
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