10% OF ROYALTIES
I’m a very lucky woman. Sometimes I wallow in self-pity and forget it, but mostly I know how lucky I am. I have work, a home, a loving relationship and cats who are loving when it’s feeding time. I’ve been sober for 18 years, although it was a close call in lockdown.
We’re all lucky. If you’re reading this on a computer, living in a First World country, despite the hellish years many people have endured thanks to COVID, despite our personal tragedies, we are all blessed to have so much more than MOST people on this planet.
I’m a survivor and I’m lucky.
I’ve supported Action for Children – formerly the National Children’s Home – since I worked at TV-am. I was a researcher on an item talking about child abuse. Daft as it sounds, it hadn’t really sunk in until that point that I’d been abused as a kid – both physically and sexually by several people. Until that moment, talking privately to the charity’s spokesman after the show, I’d brushed it all under the subconscious carpet.
I’d always blamed myself as many abused kids do. I’d done my damnedest to numb it out. As a child I sniffed solvents and used alcohol on a regular basis. But I didn’t know any different or any better.
I told no one.
Some of my friends were also battered when they were little— different time. Several of us encountered the kiddie fiddler when we went swimming at Coalville baths. Bad things happened in parks and in the backs of cars. Worse things happened as I got older and made bad choices with some truly horrible men.
I told no one.
I felt it was all my fault. I felt I’d brought it on myself. Binge drinking and drug taking led me into dangerous situations. Self-worth wasn’t even a concept back then.
I’d said to myself, but that’s not rape rape. I’d told myself she can’t help it; he didn’t mean it.
Becoming consciously aware of those dark times changed everything. I wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t got help. I already had one suicide bid under my belt by the time I blurted out some of the stuff to a kind stranger after a telly programme.
Many kids don’t get help, either when they’re young, or as I did, as an adult. I’m lucky because I did.
I fictionalise my experiences to be able to deal with the feelings thinking about this stuff, let alone trying to talk about it, brings up. It’s all there in my novels. I still can’t haul it out in everyday conversations.
I will always owe a debt of gratitude to Action for Children. Even in my darkest days I know things might have been so much worse. I know it is worse for many.
So, the donation of royalties from Call Me Mummy is for other kids who need help.
You can make a donation here: