About

I was born in 1967, a decade of emancipation and blossoming sexual independence for women. Conceived out of marriage, I was given up for adoption. Women's emancipation had only got so far. 

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Adopted into a military family, my father, a major in the British army was killed on exercise in 1971, in West Germany as it was then. After a few unsettled years my mother, older brother and I moved to Surrey. My 97 year old mother still lives independently in my childhood home, down the road from where I live now. This speaks of stability and permanence, but  throughout my childhood  I remained unsettled.

 

Aged twelve I was the victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of my father's brother. The world continued to show me it was unpredictable, unsafe and unfair. I found solace and safety at school where I was bright and sporty. Taking 'O' levels and 'A' levels at the height of Thatcherism sent me down a science path. Women could do anything, they said. History and English were for unambitious girls.

 

So I took, biology, chemistry and physics and in 1986 left for Cardiff to study medicine. I had to resit an 'A' level to get there, and my entire second year once I'd arrived, warning signs that maybe medicine wasn't for me, that went unheeded. But I loved listening to and understanding my patient's stories. Psychiatry seemed to be the answer. Yet just as my career was taking off I became pregnant. After my child was born I went part time. Worried endlessly about being a good mother and a good doctor, a good wife and a good daughter. I was trying so hard to be good for others, I forgot to be good to myself.

 

In 2005 I jacked it all in to became a stay-at-home mum for a while. I embarked on a creative writing course which engrossed me, but didn't pay the bills. In 2007 with all three children now in school, I trained to be a Pilates teacher, after positive experiences of classes for my own chronic bad back. I ran my own business for fifteen years and didn't write another thing. Life carried on, the way it does.

 

Then on 26th May 2022 my youngest child took her own life. I closed my business. When an opportunity arose, I wrote about my child, born with another name, in another gender. I let it all come pouring out. Her Name is Alice is the result. I am incredibly proud of it. I hate that I was ever in a position to write it.