Have you met your Parents?

29th July - I can't get no sleep.....

Mum……..Mum, I took an overdose.

I am so so sorry Mum.

I wanted to sleep, not die. I know Mum...

What had happened to me?

2021 - Orphan Annie

Mum, Dad I have thought and now that you are not here and living your next life, I want to tell this story.

I am getting my head together a bit more, but PTSD has ripped through me, my career and my health, but I need to work which I why I am going to write instead, just like I used to write for you as a kid to keep me occupied or the letter I wrote when I run away the second time.

Anyways, sit back, light the fire up there or wherever you are and please meet a Tomboy girl called Wendy. I think you will like her. Here goes………….

May 28th, 1973 – I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky

Hello, my name is Wendy, and I am a Gemini. Born the same day as Kylie Minogue, but I can assure you my arse is a lot different.

I am the youngest of four children.

My Sister is ten years older than me.

A Rainbow Baby (9-month-old stillborn)

My Brother is some five years older.

But in the spring of 1973 I ‘nearly broke my mother’s back’ as I came roaring into the world at 10.40 pm.

My Mum wasn’t a natural mother and her motto was’ all you need in life is a good friend’ strangely much the same as my Fathers. They didn’t trust family or the church, it is as if they had both been burned and was a foreign language that we would rely on family or think of praying to God.

Yet all the family are christened, But when I became an orphan, I didn’t realise how much I relied on my parents or how much I needed prayers.

I was often told that I was going to be aborted and that I was lucky to be alive and ‘if it wasn’t for your Great Aunty Laura, who said you would be a blessing’ I wouldn’t have been born. Again, I never thought this was an issue, until later times when trying to work out why I was so fearful of the world?. Why was it okay then but now I didn’t feel like it is okay?

But my fate was to be sealed and my position was cemented in our family. I was ‘lucky to be alive’ or ‘too much and often described as Animal the drummer of the Muppets.

My sibling's only interest in me was to use it as a living crash test dummy. Isn’t that every baby of the family’s role? I don’t remember days of playing together as some siblings can do, but my memories are of fighting. Being swung on a tree so high it went into the holly bushes, but me being me I loved it because it was high and dangerous, or being hung out the landing window over TV programmes or being shot with my brother's pellet gun, or trying to keep up with my Sister and all her teenage mates in the dark as they played knock down ginger around the village. It was bloody scary, but I didn’t think twice about any of it. I was growing up and that was the way our family communicated. But through my therapy, I wondered if my other sibling had been born, would they have played with me and not found me ‘too much’

My Mum smoked sixty cigarettes a day when pregnant with me. Yes, I did say 60. Rothmans too. Following Mum's death, one neighbour said and we both chuckled, ‘I never know how you were born Wendy your mother always had a fag in her mouth. Is it wrong that I genuinely found it funny? I had a great time in the ’70s and early ’80s, playing down the woods, nattering to the neighbours, searching for newts, Playing catch with my Mum, and hanging out with my dad. Especially when he got his new motor. Everybody used to sing to him and so did I….

‘Hello, John, got a new motor’ Yeah he would say, it’s a Peugeot’. Not knowing it was a top ten hit. But did he, either way, he would give me that cheeky wink and I would never actually know.

But looking back, it was tough, it was the 1970s, We lived in Rural Sussex on a council estate, and my Dad had an awful temper which ripped through my sibling’s life as well as my own. His drinking as did my mother’s fags had a priority in their life. Yet, my family had ethics, and pride in their home and their work and they were good people. They helped another, They volunteered in the community, but they did get things wrong, as we all do. Mainly I guess because they too were a product of their upbringing.

Our home always seemed to have the door open and the friends filled our kitchen at varying times. I remember, Bryan, Dad’s deaf mate who he shouted at when he popped in. They would laugh together but god knows what about.

Is this why I need therapy again? because of childhood trauma and not because life dealt me some shit hands, and I didn’t listen at times.

I am bloody lucky, I thought life was great growing up in Allington Crescent.

Summer of 1977 – I Feel Love

My first memory of my mum, I was about 4 years old and I was standing on a chair trying to reach something on the top of the fridge. My Mum came into the kitchen and shouted at me to GET DOWN I responded as quick as a flash.

‘Mum, I love you, but you are boring me. Can I go to school?’

All at the same time as I was stretching to reach for something I shouldn’t, I wanted adventure, risk and learn.

I was often told, as was anyone we met. ‘You don’t want one like Wendy’. As I never slept and always seemed to be ill. Many years later I obtained a copy of my medical file from birth as I was investigating why I had such severe digestion issues and no answers.

Alarmingly at six months old my doctor at the time, wrote in scrawling capital ‘THIS CHILD IS ALWAYS ILL’ but there were no investigations. I often wonder if those tears and sleepless nights were of pain, discomfort or unhappiness and why I didn’t sleep. Keeping everyone up night after night, plus to be fair to all my family, I don’t think I would want one like Wendy I would have been as grumpy as hell with no sleep.

Remember though it was the 70s and fighting their way through the system, which in itself was exhausted. Much like I was at 46 in a global pandemic.

After giving Mum my lip at the age of 4, I believe she then grabbed hold of me, flung me OUT of the house and locked the door. I think this was the only time our front door was ever locked. We lived in a rural Sussex village with a small community and everyone knew everyone.

However, I was one of those children that didn’t mind the outdoors. As this to me was then the ideal opportunity to explore. I took myself off on my very first adventure. I ran away to primary school. If Mum wasn’t going to take me, I would take myself.

I ran down the road, across the road, some 400 yards up the road and into the local primary school, turn left past the secretary’s office, The cloakroom, then the first door on the right, into Mrs Skans class.

All which I knew and had learnt somehow, and no one stopped me on my adventure which is just as fascinating. I opened the door, (without knocking I imagine) and introduced myself.

Hello, my name is Wendy Turner

I said with a big grin, full of pride and my big 70s home cut fringe.

When I was returned Mum never knew I had even run away and some ten years later my parents still didn’t react when I ran away again as a teenager. In many ways, they were the most relaxed of parents when you are the youngest.

Mum never knew her father and had fourteen homes by the time she was fourteen and thrown into the social system in and around Newark, Nottinghamshire. Her mother had mum out of wedlock. It was 1942 and the middle of World War II and mum was fostered out when her Mum, Lillian couldn’t afford to care for her, or she had to work away to earn money.

When the time comes to clean out all of Mum's belongings I found six bibles along with my school Bible which is given to each child leaving Primary School. But why keep these books? She was never religious. I can understand keeping Heidi, Black Beauty and Little Women. these are classics and bring back fond childhood memories, but six bibles. As I thought about this more and more it started to make some sense. Mum has 14 homes and in many ways was a child in the system shoved from pillar to post. Church or Sunday schools were the only consistent thing in her life.

These were her treasured possessions, safely wrapped in brown paper. Among the first few pages, her name was also carefully written and the varying addresses where she lived. These words of prayer were important to her. They meant something.

If anyone deserved the label of PTSD from child trauma it must have been my Mum, 14 homes by the time she was 14. I had one, in rural Sussex and the door was always open and the radio was always on.

How could that have been traumatic?

November 1977 – Daddy Cool

My first memories of Dad are not conversations, but the smell of Bonfire, shouting the bonfire prayer, but not like the Church prayers. This is different I was told. Something about Remember the 5th November and that Guy Fawkes had blown up parliament. This to me was the most exciting piece of history. I was loving all the stories that my Dad told me.

You can smell Bonfire Season in Sussex, The crispness of the air with a cool breeze that blows across your skin like the sweetest of kisses, making the skin tingle and feel alive. Mother Nature is close, and she is sending a reminder. Autumn is coming and it is time for Bonfires.

Bonfire night is a long-standing tradition in Sussex and within the village, I grew up. It is the one time that our family never argued on a day of celebration and fun. We all seemed to get on together, maybe because it was all a bit feral and wild full of pagan rituals. I am not sure, maybe because it was outdoors in the crispness of Autumn.

Dad would be part of the fireworks team; Mum would knit the Jumpers either by hand or with a knitting machine. Costumes were steeped in tradition across families but also, but it was a time of friendships across generations. A time for celebrations, noise, fire, the sound of children’s laughter with faces full of joy and the generosity of a community coming together in a united effort to celebrate.

There were times there with my battle with Sunak and Boris for their horrendous decision making I wished that Guy Fawkes would return and have a word with the behaviours in the Houses of Parliament. MPs asleep on the benches, Men blaming Women for why they couldn’t concentrate, Millions of pounds lost on medical mistakes and fraud. No one seemed to be upping their work ethic in a time of crisis. Was I experiencing such medieval times or was imperialism galloping its privileged horse through my life as if I was poor, lazy and of bad work ethics.

I never really ran to my Dad in times of trouble, but at this time I did want to but he wasn't here. I wanted his passion for doing the right thing for humanity. To find some type of positive male influence and moral compass within my life. I wanted the wildness of bonfire night but to go home to the safety of the sequins of his Mexican outfit on my cheek as I nestled exhausted against his chest. My feet throbbed from walking the procession with Mum. As I lay listening to the chatter and excitement of our friends at the after-party. Or the safety of his hand when I looked down at my red wellies up on that scaffolding and fireworks being thrown at my feet.

My father for all his faults made me who I was today, did I pick up his worst bits or the best bits? I was and am opinionated, I love a good debate over a pint, I do have a temper but I do have patience which he didn't have. I loved dark humour thanks to Dave Allen, Spitting Image, Mash, or St Elsewhere all programmes we loved to watch when I was often sent to him punishment, but it didn’t often feel like punishment because I also got a hug and a rational explanation, albeit it was his rationality.

As a child, Dad always interested me and the way he lived life at pace and with opinion. He was always doing something or had something to talk about. I would wake up when he woke, be it for work or fishing. Normally about 5 or 6 am, I would sit at the kitchen table watching him while he had a cuppa and made his flask. I would natter away and no doubt winds him up, but I was always so excited to know what he was up to and be near him.

I remember cleaning that flask and feeling so pleased with myself. I had dragged a chair to the sink and washed it up all on my own. Little did I know that I had nearly killed him some 40 years previously, as I had used bleach, and it had not been washed out properly before he made his morning tea. He said he spat it out all over the workshop. Whoops.

1980 – Songs on the Radio

I loved my life at the age of 7. Life was outdoors, vibrant, and passionate and not once did I think I was a traumatized child until I was 46. But was I? I was always wetting the bed and I was starting to become a bit of a bully too and falling out with friends from school.

School holidays were filled with water fights in the street; doors were always open. Mums bellowing out 'tea is ready'.

People were always popping around our house. Sitting on the boot of my Dad's car smoking their fags and the Mums outside on a summer night as the wind would carry their voices blowing through the landing window.

The house flowed with friendship and music. The radio was always on. 'Our tune' and Dave Lee Travis was a favourite of mums as we used to listen to it together as we hung out in the kitchen. We sometimes would dance to the Motown classic or our Friends would sit at our table and play cards on Christmas Day. Every year we would save for Christmas Day Cards. My brother or Mum won. They were brilliant at cards. Mum was a local pub Crib champion and was called Hurricane Hazel.

I took great comfort in these everyday life memories when Mum passed as I look back with a nostalgia that I was the happiest kid. Looking back, as I reluctantly had to. I had been in therapy for 25 years, but all because of the events that had happened after I left my parents’ home and went to live in America.

I had discussed rape, abuse, narcissism, coercive behaviour, and gaslighting to death. I was bored of this story, I know there are a string of people who have taken from me without asking, especially those in authority. But now I was being asked to go back to my childhood after taking 14 tablets, why we're these two linked? My brain was so confused and my body didn't like it.

In many ways, I was like an only child. I learnt very quickly that my siblings put me in the firing line, literally at times and my parents had heard it all before. I was full of energy and on the go. I wanted to learn words, work out sums, and create dance routines on the melamine coffee table in my socks, as I could move better then. All while my family desperately tried to ignore me.

I do remember the noise of shouting the ripples of energy so heavy that I used to hide, again no bruise, but you know something is up. Trying to sleep under the big black dog my dad had brought me back from a stint of working in Germany to raise some money as we couldn’t pay the water bills. I would be rocking my head to try to get to sleep. I liked the noise in my ears as then I cannot hear any arguing. Again, I wasn’t sleeping but whose fault was it this time? I was wetting my bed until I was 11 years old, again when I was bullied at work at the age of 26 and now again at 46.