There was nothing unusual about me when I was born, I wasn't an alien or anything, suppose it would have been more understandable if I had been!!, but I wasn't born in the most suitable circumstances. I don't think I was genuinly planned either. I doubt neither my mum or dad would say that to me, but there are sources out there that know the truth. To me it seems they certainly didn't need or want a baby at the particular time, which would provoke further troubles that they were already having. My mum as she has always admitted to me, was never maternal and just didn't seem to have that motherly instinct, my dad on the other hand was very pleased I'd arrived, despite the problems they were having. At times I have felt that really nothing much has gone on in my life, everybody has a story to tell, but has that story, that experience, the same meaning and affect to each individual person?, how can it, we are all too different.

My childhood was very mixed up, I was mixed up, everybody else was too though!. Life never made sense. My earliest recollection of life was when I was about three, I don't know how events made me feel before that time. My parents were born in Edinburgh, I was born in Doncaster. My dad had been married before but didn't have any children with the women he'd married. I came to be born in Doncaster because not long after my mum and dad married (April 1969, in Edinburgh), dad was promoted at his work and they moved to a village called Tickhill in Yorkshire. The marriage was too unstable for it to last, but, not long after they moved mum became pregnant (1970), I don't think it had been planned by either of them, but dad did want children at some point. When I was born (January 1971), the situation between my parents was the same, mum was very tearful after having me, she went home and a lady came in to look after me, mum went back to work. When I had just turned a year old mum left us, I stayed with my dad and we went away to Spain for a holiday, we stayed longer than planned and dad met someone, a German woman living there with her two young sons. They started going out with each other while they were over there and we stayed on longer. Then, we all came back to live in London, I now had two step-brothers and a step-mother. Not long after we then moved back to Tickhill, meanwhile mum went back to Edinburgh, she ran away with me a few times, and the police had to take me back to dads, she was allowed to see me but it was so far away. In 1973 custody proceedings started at Doncaster High Court, my mum still has all the details about what happened there, but she will not share them with me, so I have no idea exactly what happened. The end result was my dad was awarded custody, I think on the grounds that he had a more stable environment in which to bring me up having met my step-mother and being a family unit.

Having gained contact with my 'old' step-mother, I have since found out many different perspectives to the lives we lead, not only about myself, but how she saw the life with my dad. She admitted to me that the insight she could give me would be "one-sided" and therefore, my own perspective of how I remember the situation could be very different from hers and indeed it turned out to be that way. Having healed my own demons inside my head regarding this part of my life, it is not hard for me to read and understand the information I have been given, and to add to this part of my autobiography. From my dads point of view, he will not discuss with me the 'bad' side and has told me to remember the good - easier said than done when a child cannot differentiate between the two and naturally will focus on very upsetting and disturbing incidents. The 2 year old my step-mum took on - I did not play, it seems I didn't want to. I also couldn't speak much. I hardly had any toys, so she started to buy some for me and I would sit and watch her showing me what I could do (she had me alone in the house from 9am-4pm, until the time came to collect my step-brothers from school). It seems I didn't want to do anything with these toys myself, preferring to just 'watch'. When in a pushchair, I never turned my head to look around and see what was going on, I constantly faced her. Later when I did 'play' (although it wasn't normal play) I would sit my dolls on the carpet and put books round them, like a wall, and another open book on top, for a roof. To my step-mum it looked like I was building a prison for them, and it frightened her because she felt too, that I wanted her 'behind my walls'. Her task, she felt, was to give me a 'normal' life. Picking me up and putting me on her lap, I would stand for long periods and use her chest to sit on triumphantly look at my step-brothers who could not be on her lap. This, she felt, had to stop, as it gave her constant nightmares.........she told my dad, but he was busy building his life. She surmised that I should really have had somebody all of my own, as competing with 2 other siblings was proving to be destructive. Successful step-parenting is never easy, more so, when there are other children involved. Subsequently it turned out to be a complete nightmare for both sides. I asked my step-mother why she stayed, as to me it seemed that before the relationship had even started, back in the UK it was all falling apart anyway! The answer to that is, she just about did! - 3 weeks after arriving back in the UK, when she'd found out he'd already been married twice. Leaving was not an easy matter though, with her own children to think about, she had brought them into this relationship and had to live with it. With a new school, a different language and having to make new friends by the time they were settled it felt criminal to take them back to Germany. And so, she felt she would leave when she felt she could build them a new life in Germany and work to feed them.

It's at this time that I remember snippets of my childhood, most of which were not happy..........

I was 5 I think, I don't remember precisely, but I developed a problem with eating (which I now realise is called Emetophobia), I just couldn't eat or swallow properly and I can now see I was suffering intense anxiety which materialised into a phobia of 'being sick'. I had already had bad experiences of 'sickness' and it could have been a phobial of anything, but as it turned out it tuned into that specific thing. The anxieties I suffered were as a result of my fear of my step-mum, I don't know how that came about, I envisaged her to be very domineering and strong, I thought she had a bad temper a lot of the time. Each time I put food in my mouth I could feel myself unable to swallow, I would spend hours over meals, even a simple breakfast cereal became a real problem for me, I would chew and chew and try to swallow, when I eventually did I would feel myself choking and feeling very sick. I was scared of vomiting and used to try and avoid all foods associated with it. It became a very serious family problem and one which no-one was willing to even investigate or find out why this was happening. I remember once having a chart in the kitchen with our names on it, my two step-brothers and myself, each time I was last to finish I would get a coloured star beside my name and how long I took to eat my meal. The plan was that if I came first with a gold star for a week I would get a present, once I got a bottle of perfume, I think I managed this only once up till the age of 11. The problem was never as serious when I was away from home, at school for example, I was still slow but I ate ok. One very awful incident happened in relation to this, it was at breakfast, I had already spent 2 hours trying to eat some cereal, my step-mum wanted to go out, I was supposed to be at school by this time. She left me in the kitchen and said if I hadn't eaten it by the time she would leave me there. I think I did finish it, and we got to school very late that day. At dinner time our house-keeper used hit me when I didn't finish my tea........I look back now and feel it was a very deep psychological problem stemming from me being very unhappy at home.

I remember getting chickenpox after a birthday party, I was about 6 , it was winter, I wore an emerald green dress with a bow at the back! I had lots of friends round, I was very happy at my primary school in Tickhill, I never wanted to come home, I knew that happy feeling would disappear. My brother came into my room once with some snow from the garden, I had my lamp on, he then put the snow on the light bulb and it blew up! My brothers on the whole were fine...........but a lot I don't remember. The younger of my 2 brothers (he was 2 yrs older me), Alex, was someone I pestered a lot for company, the other, Mathias, who was 4 yrs older was quieter and less gregarious. Alex was a monster, very cheeky and at times good fun.

In June 1978 we moved to Derby, I was 7 1/2. Mum had been coming to pick me up regularly at Tickhill and each time she dropped me off back at home I cried for days, I longed for a happier life, I longed to be loved and cared for and I thought that could come about by going to live with my mum. Dad was doing really well at his work now and was away long hours by this time. I used to sit at the top of the stairs near my bedroom and wait hours for him to come home, I would run down and greet him, sometimes though he didn't come back till I was in my bed and I would wait for him to come to my door and check on me. The arguments between my dad and step-mum were at times awful, I was always brought into the row. Again I would sit at the top of the stairs listening to all this going on, I wanted to know what they were saying about me. I desperately wanted to get back at at my step-mum, but I was too weak, too shy, too scared and probably most of all too young. I cried with misery most nights, fearful of each coming day, I liked the peace and quiet of the nights, time to think, reflect and plan. I made runaway plans regulary in my head, but they never came to anything, I planned in my head what I could say, how could I stick up for myself? Who could I speak to about all this......no one :-( It was all so emotional, although I was hit a few times, the abuse was clearly all emotional with both of them. I went through a period where I was too scared to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, I hallunicated at night, shadows on the wall, darkness, the embossed wallpaper, images on the walls, spinning, swirling. I'd fall asleep and wake up screaming.

I still very much enjoyed my primary school and had some very good friends, I was a very practical pupil, not much good at taking in facts but good with my hands and I got on well at sport, I was head at netball and in my last year was head girl of the Blue team (there were 4 in the school). Home got worse, it seems I put all my energy into school, but life was isolated, I was too scared to bring friends home, I remember one time we were being sent home at lunchtime as an experiment, but I was too scared to go home, so I walked out of the school gates and went for a walk every lunchtime, I never told them. I came home from school every day and went to my bedroom, I stayed in there a lot....in my own world, playing with my toys. We got in a housekeeper about a year after we moved in, I must have been about 9/10, and I felt like a lost soul.

I continued right through until I went away to boarding school to be a difficult child, carrying great fear day in day out, rituals, phobias, anxieties that never left my side. I hid it well and had many friends and got on well at school until my dad asked me if I'd like to go away to school. I vaguely remember taking my time over the decision, but it was an opportunity to get away. The downside was that I'd leave my friends behind, but to get away was a chance to be free and I could still keep in touch with my friends. I finally decided that this was what I wanted to do just before my last year at Primary school and I went for entrance exams to schools both in Edinburgh and nearer home. Meanwhile.....my last year at Primary was probably one of the best times I had at school, despite home being a nightmare, I had somewhere I felt comfortable.

An incident happened to my step-mother and brother just before my 10th birthday (December 1980). Dad had a driver and he was going from Derby to London to collect my step-mother's sister and husband from the airport to stay with us for Christmas. My step-mother and youngest brother went along too. My dad, oldest brother and myself waited for their return........it got late.....and no sign of them, they were due at dinner time. It came to near 12 at night and there was a knock at the door, the police were standing there. I think we all knew at that moment that something had happened. I don't remember much about what was said but I think the police spoke to my dad. The situation was that a reckless drunk driver had left a pub in Derby and driven down the wrong way of the M1 at high speed for a good number of miles and head on into my dad's car, driven by George, our driver. The impact was great.....the whole front of the car had been pushed to the middle. George and my step-mothers sisters husband were killed instantly. My step-mother, her sister and my brother were taken to hospital. It was touch and go whether my step-mother would live, she had extensive injuries to both legs, arms, face and many other areas and spent a fair time in hospital. Her sister was not too bad and my brother had a dislocated hip and broken shoulder, cuts and bruises. I can't deny that I didn't wish for my step-mother never to recover, I felt such hate for her and I had no compassion in my heart to feel sorry for her, but of course I never ever said this to anyone. The next morning the national papers were covered in photos and descriptions of the accident.

Sept 1982, aged 11, I went away to boarding school called St. Elphin's in Derbyshire, an all girls school set in the countryside. I think my step-mum was home by this time and the situation was worse than ever so getting away couldn't have come at a better time. I was very nervous about going away, but at the same time excited, looking back I had good times and bad. Emotionally I had been damaged though just through having such a mixed up life with no stability and the misery continued despite being away from what was making me so unhappy. In some ways I was still trying to deal with it, because in the holidays I was going home to a situation that I could not cope with. I enjoyed school, some of the staff were pretty insensitive, but on the whole it was ok. I think if I did it all over again I'd not board, but at the time I had no choice. I was a terrible academic pupil though, I failed to concentrate and substituted studying for mucking around and chatting incessantly, in the later years I suffered incredible fatigue and tiredness, poor concentration, lack of interest. I did enjoy sports immensly, I played all sports, took part in Sports Day, Swimming Gala, hockey and tennis matches, went riding on Sundays. I was also in the school Choir and loved Drama and singing at the Buxton Fesitival.

Memories are vague, but when I was about 14, my dad took me out one day from school to tell me we were leaving my Step-mother and step-brothers.....it didn't come as any great surprise really. I came home from school one holiday to find the car packed with our belongings.......just clothes and some small items...that's all we took and went to live in a rented flat in Nottingham. It was a great relief and during this time I got on very well with my dad until he brought home someone. He'd known her for sometime, even while he was with my step-mother, but I gather now that he was free he could pursue this relationship. At first it went well......she used to take me shopping and come and stay in our flat and we'd go to her house, then gradually for no reason things just changed, I don't know whether it was me or her, but she became very nasty and we've had no contact for over 15 years. I can now look back and surmise that as a 14 year old teenager and she being barely 10 years older she was in no position to take on someone like me and all my problems. That of course it no excuse, but it certainly makes sense to me. I have no idea what her thoughts are on that.

When I was 15 dad and his new girlfriend bought a new house and moved in together, I was still at boarding school, so really not much changed, I came home in the holidays, stayed with mum in Edinburgh sometimes, but my misery was the same. I did poorly in my mock O'levels and studying was still a nightmare for me. At 16, during my last year I decided I needed a change, I no longer enjoyed school although I had some great friends, and I thought that by moving to Edinburgh I could get on with my life. It took some persauding to get my dad to agree to what I wanted and I think he regretted it to this day, but I moved to a new school, St. George's to board and take my Highers. This is when things went badly wrong :-(