ChChChCh Changes…….

When I was about 7 or 8 my parents separated, my mother my sisters and I remained in the house I remember most from those early years, it was in South Ockendon, Essex. My father had moved in with his mistress, a fact I learned of late in my eighth year. The house was on a council estate, so everyone knew each other’s business and close neighbours rallied round when times were tough. My mother was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital and I remember her smelling of urine and bleach, she found some solace in the fact that the universe had given her a talent for singing, which she used to alleviate some of her pain, by singing at the local “social club”, council estates in the seventies had these at their heart, where the good the bad and the ugly whiled away their wages and lives each weekend.

By now my memories are of wanting to be free, because I was the odd kid at school, were starting to take shape, we had free school meals, because of my parents breakup, and the other kids knew and made us feel dirty and poor because of it, this is where I think my relationship with food started its unhealthy demise, I didn’t like to line up for my food because I had to have a special ticket that said “I come from a broken home, and we are poor can you give me some food please”, the ticket had to be given to the dinner lady before I could get my lunch, so I opted to wait until last so no one could observe this, which meant having cold food that I would eat as fast as possible or worse I would skip lunch all together just to forgo the humiliation of it all, this meant that I was starving by home time and eat as much as I could when I got there. Living here with my mother was OK, a lot of the motherly duties were heaped on my oldest sisters shoulders, the rest of us disliked her for bring the “boss of us”, something she didn’t want or ask for but was made to do, she didn’t do a great job, why should she, she was 12 years old. I played out a lot; near to where we lived was a youth club, a large hut in a concreted area where the kids hung out during school holidays and most weekends. I was an awkward kid didn’t fit in, not because I didn’t want to I just felt different from the others, the boys played football or rounders or anything with a ball and the need to run about, I didn’t, because in the hut was an upright piano, a few of the keys were missing and some of the others stuck down when you played them so you had to lift them back up so you could play them again, which to any buddy Bach just won’t do. I think all of us kids, my sisters and I, I mean, get our love of music from our mother, her being a singer and all. I sat at that piano, not wanting to join in with the “sports” as this usually meant me getting my head bashed in by the other kids, for hours and hours, I taught myself to play by ear, picking out the tunes of the day on it key by key, note by note.

When the day was over it was back to our house to listen to more music and wait for the return of my mother, she was out working or in the evening singing at the social. She usually brought back people with her on a Saturday night and the party would go on. Here is where I think my first feelings of not liking my body started, men and women who were drunk would dance and strip and be overtly sexual and we (my sisters and I) would see all of this. I thought I don’t want to be doing this when I’m older so I would stay upstairs out of the way, hiding myself from the display down there.