Ann Takes the lead!

I read Ann's blog today and it gave an interesting history of her life, Jill did the same thing and i found it useful to see the background that people have had, i think we make suppositions about people and have new insight when they reveal more of themselves so to that end a potted history will follow..... i expect my boys to see this one day too and a history of my life so far might interest them one day.

Me a year old

Me and Jayne my mum and two of my cousins one french one english.

In singapore

With one of the nurses on leaving hospital

Dad and me when he was ill

So Born 25th October 1962 a year and one month after my parents married both for the first time Dad at 34 mum at 39 she had me at 40 so a much older mother than a lot of people may have had in those days. Only one of my grandparents was alive at the time my Dad's dad and he died when i was 6 months old. Around the same time my dad was diagnosed with prostrate cancer and i was given 50 50 after dehydrating and having febrile fits....my mother miscarried before having me so i made it by the skin of my teeth. They couldn't have more children but dad at least after radiotherapy got the all clear, it is only now that i really have thought about what he and mum must have gone through at the time.Dad was in the army the Royal Army Medical Cour so we moved around a lot from Hounslow, to Singapore, colchester, Mill Hill, and Aldershot which i loved. I met my friend Jayne there at age 5 and we are still in touch, whilst living in Aldershot  dad decided to leave the army after 22 years and secured a job as head of haematology at a hospital in Gt Yarmouth Norfolk. Mum never worked but before marrying had worked in labs too doing research and taking bloods. They both met at night school in London.
We moved to Gt Yarmouth when i was 8 our house wasn't ready to move into so we rented holiday homes until it was. I just remember going to one school for a short while and then moving to another.

Singapore with Dad

I had the great misfortune of joining a class in my new school once we got to our own home, with the worst teacher i have ever known....Mrs Peek! Her son was later to be knighted and be responsible for all the beacons lit across the land for the millennium and most recently the diamond jubilee. I digress she was awful had favourite pupils and treated me appallingly as i wasn't one of them, i had glue ear too and was significantly deaf before i had an op to have grommets later in the year, i used to suddenly find her shouting at me, as i obviously hadn't heard her, she was awful awful treated me so badly. It wasn't the best way to start a new life and i wished that dad hadn't left the army as i enjoyed that life much more.
I lasted a year in her class and then moved to Junior school, i hadn't made friends yet and finally met a girl called Debbie who lived in the next road and we became firm friends. Debbie and i drifted once we reached Grammar school as we were in different classes. I saw her later on after we both left as i had been told that she had suffered a brain tumour. She looked well and happy and we reminisced and that was the last i saw of her, a couple of years ago at a school reunion i was told that she had died about 10 years ago.
My parents always encouraged me to have friends as i didn't have siblings and i started having parties at home initially tame affairs with a few girls and a token boy but they developed into bigger dos and as my mum was responsible for booking the local village hall they expanded and we had them there. Any excuse for a party!!! They did become the stuff of legend and people still remember them.
As kids we just think that everyone lives like you i think, since leaving school and recently catching up with old school friends i have discovered things about them that i never knew at school. That Caroline after going on holiday with me arrived back home to be told be her dad that he was divorcing her mum, and how they both moved her between each other......that Elaine's dad who was my form tutor in 6th form had a drink problem and was a tough father. I never knew this but then they weren't aware it seems that my mother suffered from Manic Depression and would sometimes be sectioned or i would have days and weeks of her ups and downs to deal with. I remember coming home from school one day to find a hole in the glass panel of the front door when i went in i found a policeman, doctor and social worker i guess and dad with mum as she had blacked out apparently and put her head through the door. They were in the process of sectioning her, that was out of the ordinary but i obviously never told anyone, that was my life. What must all of us have been going through as kids and never telling our friends. My mum's depression lasted the rest of her life and became worse after dad died, it was certainly never dull especially when she was on her highs!
in 1979 i read a magazine called FAB 208 linked to radio Luxembourg which i used to listen to at night under the covers with the signal waxing and waning, it was the only late night popular radio station to listen to. In the magazine was an article about gateway clubs for as it was termed in those days the mentally handicapped, now people with a learning disability. I decided i could volunteer and without telling anyone went along to the local club and helped out, which i did for the next two years until i left home.

My first job was in Regent road in Gt Yarmouth in a restaurant making desserts and teas and coffees i then secured a weekend job in Woolworths i loved it there and towards the end of my time in 1981 was working nearly full-time, i also got an evening job in Tiffanys nightclub doing the food, chicken in a basket etc in the oasis tower on the seafront, i never did bar work as i couldn't add up!. That was a great summer of radio 1 dj's and various bands coming to play, beach barbeque's and discoing after the club had shut.
In 1981 after finishing my A levels i came to London after a meeting with a careers adviser who told me about CSV an organisation that places people in a social care setting anywhere in the country. I ended up at Holmbury Dene a home for people with learning disabilities in South east London where i worked for a year as a volunteer and then got a permanent job with them.

dad and Adam 2 months before he died

In 1983 i worked in a home in Bromley, then for Greenwich Mencap moved to A home in Lewisham in1987 as assistant officer in charge and after that to Southwark as a deputy in 1993. In 2004 i applied for a managers post and was successful then later in 2007 whilst i was still off after my op i was offered a service manager post temporarily which i did for the next 2 years. We then had redundancy looming and i applied for the area managers post which i got which entailed managing two homes instead of one for no more money...recession. In April 2012 i retired due to ill health.

Joe cuddling Adam

One of the last pics of Mum

Zak

Rachid

In 1982 i went on holiday with a friend to tangier in Morocco, where i met Rachid who later on would come to the uk to visit and whom i would eventually marry on 23rd Sept 1988, the same date that my parents were married in 1961. We had Joe in on 8.2.92 then Adam 16.4.96 and finally Zaki 22.11.99. Unfortunately a couple of years later we drifted and he ended up living in a room downstairs which he still does. We have had difficult and bitter times in this situation but presently we get on and he is being a bit more helpful than he has been. Dad died of cancer in 1996 and mum ten years later in 2006 nine months before my diagnosis, of cancer too.
So there are obviously loads more things i could tell you but i think this is enough.