Lisahammond

Life is a roller coaster and you never know when it’s going to take a turn.

A two week wait for results seemed like a long time but as it turned out I didn’t have to wait as long as that. I got a call on Tuesday 7th December 2021 asking me if I could attend my appointment the next day rather than the following week as they’d ‘had a cancellation’. I accepted the appointment but my reaction to the ‘cancellation’ was “but have they really?” I tried to tell myself that lots of people were still contracting Covid-19 and that was probably the case while simultaneously battling with thoughts that the news wasn’t good and they didn’t want to delay seeing me. This was the moment that I realised I had stepped on to that roller coaster and the ride was already getting bumpy.

The thing with this sort of situation is you just have to get on with it. Yes you have a choice but the only sensible choice is to trust the medics and deal with it in the best way you can. That way will inevitably include tears, anger, fear, shock, insomnia….but you find a way to cope. It’s a bit like labour, it’s a daunting prospect but you can’t stop it happening, the baby has to make it into the world and that’s that! If you do have a serious health issue that’s not going to go away without medical intervention you have to surrender to the inevitable.

My husband runs his own business and is constantly chasing his tail to keep his clients happy. I was told I could bring someone with me to this particular meeting as I would be receiving results. Unfortunately though he stated categorically that it would be very detrimental for him to cancel his meetings that day to go with me. I understand the pressure he’s under but I was upset. There’s no way I would have not gone with him to such a major appointment. However, we did not need to be facing financial issues on top of everything else and that’s pretty much how our life together has always been so I just had to accept it. My daughter changed her work shifts to come with me and I felt better later when she told me that secretly she was hoping her dad couldn’t take me as she really wanted to be there.

The appointments were running behind a bit that day so we had a bit of time in the waiting room. We were both really nervous but had also convinced ourselves that it was going to be good news. It was difficult seeing people leave their appointments though, some looking very worried and one or two actually in tears. We barely spoke to each other before going in.

Finally we were called in to see a doctor. We both said later that as soon as we walked in the room we knew…..we both felt that the first thing she would have said would be that there’s nothing to worry about. She didn’t. Instead she stated that the biopsy confirmed the presence of DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma in Situ) which is a non-invasive breast cancer – a very small, early breast cancer that can be treated successfully. She went on to say that I would need surgery for a lumpectomy. Lumpectomy is also called breast-conserving surgery and is a procedure that removes the breast cancer along with a small amount of the healthy tissue surrounding it. She explained that she would be submitting the referral to my local hospital, The Conquest Hospital in Hastings where my care would be taken over. She was already completing the form and said she would be sending it straightaway. She reassured me that they are all breast surgeons at the same level and I would be looked after well. She asked if I had any questions but because I had been more prepared to be told everything was ok my head was too fuzzy to think straight.

Before leaving the centre, we were handed over to a nurse who I think was partly there to offer a bit more reassurance and also to provide me with some leaflets explaining a bit more about DCIS. This was the start of a collection of a considerable pile of booklets over the next few months!

When we got outside my daughter said “Well I don’t think either of us was expecting that, were we?” I think we were both a bit in shock. There were no tears, just a sort of numbness.

It was then just a case of waiting for an appointment at the Conquest. I received a copy of the letter which was sent from Brighton to my Consultant in Hastings. The letter summarised the findings of the biopsy and the recommendation to undertake a lumpectomy. I waited quite a long while for the appointment to come through but eventually it was booked for Monday 20th December.

My husband took me up to Kew Gardens the day before the appointment. He’s an architectural interior designer and had redesigned The Botanical Restaurant there. I hadn’t seen it since the refurbishment so we went up to the ‘Christmas at Kew’ event and saw all the beautiful light displays then he showed me round the restaurant. It is exquisite and decadent, a huge improvement on how it looked before which was more like a modern canteen. It was a good distraction for me, not to mention a very proud moment.

On the car on the way up to Richmond we were chatting about the appointment and I said that the letter I received stated that the area of concern was 37mm. He said that seemed quite big and I remember saying “oh you know me, it’s probably 3.7mm!” However I checked the letter when I got home and it did indeed say 37mm.

It was really important to me that he came with me to the first appointment with the consultant, not just to support me on the day but so that he could be my back-up to digesting all of the information.

When we met the consultant I was really surprised she said she recognised me (despite me wearing a mask). I had remembered that she had carried out my microdochetomy 13 years previously but I certainly wouldn’t have imagined she remembered my face after all that time!

We got down to business and it wasn’t quite as straightforward as we had expected. Interestingly she mentioned the referral letter that I had been copied into which stipulated an area of 37 mm. However, when she’d received supporting paperwork from Brighton there appeared to be a number of discrepancies. She said that there were a number of areas showing and they had sought clarification on those before proceeding with any treatment. She added that she had wanted to get me in much earlier but wanted to make sure they had all the correct information before seeing me. She works as part of a multi-disciplinary team with other specialists such as radiologists, oncologists and breast care nurses who meet weekly to discuss every patient until they are discharged from their care. The radiologists had apparently made contact several times with Brighton to get a definitive answer regarding the results and we’re eventually told that there was an additional area behind my nipple but they had not been concerned about that. My consultant definitely didn’t seem entirely satisfied with this rather vague explanation and in a very professional and resolute manner told us this. However, she said that she wouldn’t want to do a mastectomy if it turned out not to be necessary so she advised us that instead they could remove the area that was initially identified along with a wide margin in order to determine any extension or spread beyond that area. We were happy with this plan and put our trust in her experience and reputation.

We discussed potential dates for surgery and decided on Wednesday 5th January 2022. She booked me in and I signed the consent forms there and then. There was a nurse present for additional support but I was subsequently assigned a Macmillan Nurse who contacted me by phone later on.

At this point I was feeling as ok as I could be about the situation. I believed I was in excellent hands and just had to get through the next couple of weeks. I had several more appointments to attend before the surgery date. The first was my pre-op appointment. My friend took me and waited in the car as she wasn’t allowed to come in. I was fine with that as I wasn’t nervous. It was just a few assessments and questions.

I was first seen by a nurse who weighed and measured me and did MRSA swabs. Then the first of many trials of extracting blood from my invisible veins! Unfortunately I have inherited this annoying trait from my mum. Out of sheer desperation she once had blood taken from her toes! Put it this way, I am a nurse’s worst nightmare! I remember during my pregnancies the midwives would look at one arm, then the other, before letting out huge sighs of dismay when realising the options were limited! True to form that day my veins would not play the game. She finally managed to get a flow going then about halfway through it just all slowed up and stopped! We did get there eventually. I think it was as much of an ordeal for the poor nurse as it was for me, bruises and all….!

I then had a short wait before seeing another nurse who went through a whole tree of paperwork with questions and advice! She also booked me in for my Covid test which had to be done by the hospital three days before surgery.

I was contacted by my lovely Macmillan nurse who was really helpful and supportive. Genuinely just knowing she (or if not her then a colleague) would be on the end of a phone whenever I needed her was so reassuring. Throughout my cancer journey I would have personally really struggled without access to the service they provide. They are kind, committed and compassionate. It’s an invaluable asset for anyone who has had a cancer diagnosis.

Christmas was okay but inevitably I was anxious. I also had to be very careful about not catching Covid so we limited how many people we socialised with and everyone we did see was kind enough to do lateral flow tests beforehand.

On Thursday 30th December I had an appointment at the X-Ray department. To be honest I didn’t really know what it was for! Initially I thought they were just going to double-check my lymph nodes. Anyway, it wasn’t that at all! I had an ultrasound to check the placement of the marker/clip that had been inserted in Brighton, making sure it matched the previous images. It didn’t take too long and the Sonographer was very gentle and respectful. I would say he was in his early thirties and appeared to be of middle-eastern heritage. He spoke very softly and ensured that I was covered up throughout the process, protecting my modesty in the areas that didn’t need to be examined and he repeatedly checked that I was ok and explained what he was doing. He pointed out on the screen where the marker was so I could see for myself. It makes all the difference when you are treated with respect and humanity, not just another patient on the never ending list.

My final pre-op appointment was a Covid test on Sunday 2nd January 2022 after which I had to self-isolate for three days until being admitted for surgery.

I received a call the day before my operation from a nurse to inform me that my Covid test was negative and I was all set to go.

“Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!” Charles Dickens (David Copperfield).

To be continued….

Make your health a priority. ‘Woman up’ and get your Mammogram!

My mum was 45 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer.

I’d like to say I was only subconsciously aware of this as I approached the same age. On the contrary I was completely aware and it was often very clearly on my mind. I was 40 when I had a microdochetomy of my right breast (surgery for total duct excision) which was a bit of a scare. I was just over 40 when my mum got her diagnosis of secondary bone cancer. This was after my scare which is probably just as well as I think it would have been far more traumatic for us both if it had been later.

I was 43 when my mum passed away. She was 64 (secondary bone cancer diagnosed at aged 60), and I was two years younger than her initial diagnosis of primary breast cancer. Approaching the same age was like a milestone for me. I felt that if I could get past that age it would’ve already put me in a more favourable position than she had been and was a big sigh of relief. However, once into my fifties my thoughts turned to “my mum only had 14…13…12” years left of her life when she was ‘my age’. It was a difficult prospect to think about but, despite usually being a very positive and optimistic person, it hung around in a little pocket of my mind, occasionally giving me a prod.

My first routine mammogram just after I turned 50 was all fine. I can honestly say I didn’t give it much thought for the next three years as there were lots of distractions in that time, one being a worldwide pandemic. As we went into the autumn of 2021 I realised I was probably due my next screening but I hadn’t heard anything. I contacted my GP surgery and asked them if they were able to tell me when it was due. Unable to give me that information the receptionist gave me a contact number for the Breast Screening Service. I called them and they advised that my screening had been due in June 2021 but, due to Covid-19, they were running behind with appointments and I would be contacted soon. True to her word, I received an invitation a couple of weeks later to attend a screening in a mobile unit at my local leisure centre.

On 19th November 2021 I had my routine mammogram then got on with my busy life without too much concern. That is until I got the dreaded letter. I was being called back for further tests. The letter said that 4 in 100 women are called back for further tests and it doesn’t mean they definitely have breast cancer. Fewer than 1 in 10 women called back for more tests are found to have cancer. Often, it just means more mammograms or other tests (such as an ultrasound) need to be done to get a closer look at an area of concern. I tried to focus on that information but I also kept thinking “someone is the 1 in 10 and it could be me”. Who wouldn’t?

My appointment was on Thursday 2nd December at The Park Centre in Brighton. It was an afternoon appointment so I worked in the morning to take my mind off it. I got a call that morning, while I was working, from one of the nurses. She said it was to save a bit of time by completing some of the forms. First though she asked if I knew why I’d been called back then went on to explain that the mammogram had showed some calcifications.

Breast calcifications are small spots (deposits) of calcium in the breast – they are usually harmless. They don’t cause any symptoms and you can’t feel them. There are two types:

Macrocalcifications are sometimes called benign coarse calcifications. They can develop naturally as breast tissue gets older and are harmless. They are not linked with cancer and do not need treatment or monitoring. Macrocalcifications can develop in women of any age. But they are more common in women who have been through their menopause. They may be caused by calcium deposits in a cyst or in milk ducts as women get older, previous injuries to the breast or inflammation. Calcium in the diet does not cause calcifications.

Microcalcifications are tiny calcium deposits that show up as small white specks on a mammogram. They are usually found in an area of the breast where cells are being replaced more quickly than normal. They are not usually linked with cancer. But a group of them in one area of the breast (a cluster) may be a sign of pre-cancerous changes or early breast cancer.

The nurse explained that I would be having further tests including a biopsy. I became very emotional during the call as I hadn’t had a chance to prepare myself and it was a bit of a shock.

My daughter and her friend accompanied me for the journey to Brighton and they went off to spend a bit of time at the shops while I was at the centre as I wasn’t allowed to take anyone in with me (Covid restrictions). On the drive over I wasn’t concentrating properly and missed a turning which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we went over a by-pass which showed that our original route was gridlocked! If we’d gone that way we never would have made the appointment time. At the time this felt like a sign that fate was on my side (trying to hold on to some hope). Parking was tricky but we managed to park in a residential street about a ten minute walk from the centre. The girls caught a train from Preston Park station into the city centre.

My first stress was locating the entrance of the building! Sounds simple but when your tummy is churning and your head is thumping with anxiety the panic sets in and everything suddenly becomes difficult. I eventually found the reception and walked up a couple of flights of stairs to a landing where there were some chairs. I sat for a while thinking someone would come and get me at some point then began to wonder if I was in the right place. I wasn’t of course! Having arrived a few minutes early I was now 15 minutes late! Nerves can do terrible things to your head! It was ok though. I was checked in and waited to be taken for what turned out to be quite a few tests!

Initially I had another mammogram and waited outside for the next bit. The apologetic mammographer came out shortly after and took me back in as she needed to do another one.

Next I met a sonographer for my ultrasound. For suspicious calcifications, a focused ultrasound is used to evaluate for an abnormality such as a mass. She was a lovely lady who explained that sometimes it is obvious whether the images are showing a benign or malignant presentation but there are also times when it is not so clear and a biopsy is needed to look deeper at the cells. In my case it was the latter. The area of concern was on the inside of my breast (between my nipple and my cleavage area). She also scanned my armpits and said they looked clear.

In order to carry out the biopsy they first had to do ANOTHER mammogram! A biopsy is when doctors remove a small piece of tissue or a sample of cells from an area of the body. This is then sent to a lab to be checked under a microscope. The sample can also be used to get more information about the type of cell the cancer started from. They can do different tests on the sample.

In my case it was a core needle biopsy where a hollow needle was used to take out pieces of breast tissue from the suspicious area. The needle was attached to a spring-loaded tool that moves the needle in and out of the tissue quickly. A thin needle was used first to put local anesthetic into the area to be biopsied and a small cut was then made in my breast. The biopsy needle is put into the breast tissue through this cut to remove the tissue sample.

I had to lie on my left side with my arm straight up above my head while my breast was clamped very tightly in the mammogram machine. Unlike the routine screening where it is relatively painless and over very quickly, I was in that position for around 20 minutes! I have a high pain threshold but I’ll be honest, it wasn’t pleasant. Surprisingly the small cut produced a lot of blood which the nurse had to continuously mop up and when the biopsy needle went in the retraction was like a staple gun! There was a loud click and a jolt within my breast. They took about 12 samples and said they had to go very deep, hence why it was so painful.

After they’d finished removing the tissue, they put a dressing over the cut. However, they realised that they had forgotten to do one more procedure and had to remove the dressing to do it. Again, they were very apologetic.

A tiny tissue marker (also called a clip) is put into the area where the biopsy is done. This marker will show up on mammograms or other imaging tests so the exact area can be located for further treatment (if needed) or follow up. You can’t feel or see the marker. It can stay in place and is safe during MRIs, and it will not set off metal detectors. This was inserted and again a dressing was applied. I then had to have YET ANOTHER mammogram to check the placement of the marker!

That was the end of my ordeal for that day. I was given an appointment to return for the results in two weeks – 15th December.

I was a bit tender but felt ok. I drove to The North Lanes and parked up to meet the girls. We had a little mooch in a few of my favourite shops which turned out to be lucky for me, not so lucky for my husband! One of my favourite shops is called ‘Collectif London’ who sell new vintage-style clothing. I had been in the shop just a few weeks earlier and fallen in love with a beautiful long black velvet coat. It was way above my budget at £160 so at that point it was just a dream! Well, would you believe it, that day the shop were selling ALL THEIR STOCK at 50% off! Pretty much a no-brainer but I still didn’t want to assume it was okay to spend that amount. I tried it on and my daughter said I had to get it! With that she FaceTimed my husband and said “Dad, look how beautiful this coat looks on mum! She’s had a horrible day and I think she should get it!” When it comes to fashion she’s definitely my closest ally! Of course he said yes! Believe me, it was money well spent! The coat is absolutely exquisite and timeless in its style. Convinced yet?! Well, I had been quite brave….

There’s a pretty village a few miles north of Hastings called Westfield and it is locally renowned for its impressive display of Christmas lights. Every year a lot of money is raised for a local hospice by people visiting and enjoying the festive atmosphere. The majority of the villagers take part and some go to tremendous efforts, adding to their lights and decorations year after year.

With all the stress and anxiety of my appointment I had forgotten that we had arranged our annual family outing to visit Westfield that evening. It meant it was a bit of a rush but we still went ahead and it was nice to do something fun with all of us. I was already learning to enjoy the good moments…..

I was pre-warned that the biopsy was likely to result in some pretty heavy bruising. Despite the warning though, I wasn’t prepared for how spectacular that bruising was! It was black, green, yellow, blue, purple….and needless to say quite painful for a few days before eventually disappearing after a good couple of weeks. It had been a brutal but necessary procedure.

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters” – Epictetus (a stoic Greek philosopher).

To be continued…..

Giving is not just about making a donation. It is about making a difference.

I’d call myself a born organiser. On job applications I always describe myself as ‘efficient’ and ‘methodical’. I have a magnetic notepad on my fridge that was a gift from my niece. It’s by ‘Rosie Made a Thing’ and says on the front “I bloody love a good list” Well, that’s totally me! One of my most used apps on my mobile phone is ‘Notes’ and guess what? It’s full of lists!

I always used to be the organiser of work Christmas parties, booking venues, taking deposits, collecting menu choices and paying balances. That extended to nights out for groups of friends, parties and exciting trips and nights or weekends away. I can’t lie though, every now and then I found myself wishing that someone else would do it or would be pleasantly surprised and relieved when someone did offer to give me a break.

They say “If you want something done ask a busy person” and there’s a lot of truth in that. Even with four children I seemed to either volunteer or get roped into helping out somewhere or another! After years of playgroup, PTA and dance school committees I think I’ve done more begging for raffle prizes than I can count! Quiz nights, race nights, barn dances, summer fetes, jumble sales – I could add them all to my resumé! Sometimes I asked myself why I was doing so much but it’s very rewarding to help make a difference and I have to admit there was also a lot of fun amongst the stress!

The same year we got our beach hut I saw a lot of adverts for the Macmillan Coffee Morning and rather spontaneously requested a free kit! I’d been to a few and, ironically, the last one I could remember going to was with my mum at my children’s primary school. Macmillan were a brilliant support to my Mum when she was diagnosed with cancer and it felt fitting to hold my own event in her memory.

I sprung the idea on my best friend and she was as excited about it as I was. Both being slightly unhinged, we decided to hold it at my little beach hut with no running water or electricity! How hard could it be? Well, I say only as hard as you make it!

The first year our cake selection was ample but modest compared to recent times. That same year we were due to move out of our house for a complete renovation. I had a kitchen that I didn’t find particularly practical (trying saying that after a few drinks….!) and over the years had not been inspired to bake. Growing up, my parents ran a guest house and had an amazing industrial kitchen and in my early teens I used to love churning out batches of scones and rock cakes! My Nan was very traditional and loved to pass on her ‘old school’ baking skills. Later came children, three under the age of four and the youngest four years later. It was difficult enough organising their meals let alone baking for pleasure! So for the first cake sale it was an effort as I didn’t have a lot of baking accessories and had to get all the ingredients. I managed okay though. My friend, on the other hand, was much more of an accomplished cook and a great inspiration!

We very proudly displayed our wares on a camping table with all the Macmillan regalia and tied balloons to the railings behind the hut. We put as many chairs as we could outside the hut and started boiling our one and only kettle on the little gas camping stove! We had taken plenty of water down with us plus tea, coffee etc. Luckily I had lots and lots of mugs in my little cupboards!

We placed another small and lower table in the middle of the chairs then sat down and waited….

It was a slow start and I can’t recall how much we had advertised the event at that time as we didn’t intend for it to be too big and unmanageable. However we had spread the word amongst our friends and family. The official day for the national event is always a Friday so a lot of people had said they would come after work or when they had collected children from school. We did have a steady stream of visitors through the day with the odd little break when we sat on our own. Surprisingly to us we had quite a few members of the public who were just passing and decided to pop down to support us. The first year two older gentlemen friends sat with us for a couple of hours regaling us with all sorts of interesting stories and, in subsequent years, one of them regularly checked in with us about when we would be holding the next one! He would call down from the prom when I was at the hut to get my attention and find out when it was going to be! Over the years we’ve had quite a few ‘regulars’ who we hadn’t met prior to our events. One couple always came with their beautiful black Labrador who behaved impeccably despite being surrounded by the temptation of yummy cakes. We were so delighted to have their support and, on the flip side, were proud to afford them an opportunity to get together for a cuppa and a natter.

I remember how excited we were to have raised £352.12! We went to the bank together to pay in the money and we were so chuffed!

“Charity is not a duty but a joy”

Of course, we couldn’t not do another one, we now had the incentive, knowing it had been worth the effort. We continued to do it on a Friday from the beach hut for a few years and made ourselves more noticeable with the decorations and signs pinned to the back of the hut. It’s a unique venue but logistically a bit difficult for some people. We endeavoured to be as inclusive as we could be by passing up drinks and cakes to people who were in wheelchairs or had limitations in terms of getting down on to the beach. A mutual friend of ours has twins with special needs and somehow we managed to get both girls and their wheelchairs down to the beach once to join us.

I remember one time the two of us setting up inside my little hut with the threat of rain looming and then sitting inside in the tiny bit of space that was left in half darkness with one door closed to keep the rain out. It was past the scheduled start time and we weren’t at all optimistic that anyone would be out on the seafront, let alone looking for a beach hut selling cakes! We were just wondering whether we should admit defeat when two lovely ladies popped their heads through the door and asked if they could get some cakes. That’s all it takes, a little bit of faith that our efforts had not been in vain.

September can be a very unpredictable month and we’ve learned many strategies on how we can prepare ourselves for dodgy weather. One year we put up my friend’s gazebo, bearing in mind we’re talking about a pebbly beach which is not the easiest place to secure anything down. It had served us really well for the best part of the day and had saved quite a few people from getting wet. However, later in the afternoon it didn’t fare so well. The wind had whipped up and, in one strong gust it was lifted up, moved along in one piece then crashed to the floor! Seeing was believing in the way that it seemed to float sideways in its entirety before landing. Thank goodness it was only the two of us there so nobody got hurt. Unfortunately though it was damaged and potential repair was dubious. RIP gazebo….

In the Spring of 2017 I saw an advert for ‘National Cupcake Day’, an event endorsed by one of The Great British Bake Off’s judges, Paul Hollywood, who is a supporter of the Alzheimer’s Society. Again, I don’t know what I was thinking with it being just three months before the Macmillan one! I received the pack and set up a JustGiving page and spread the word on Facebook. My best friend wasn’t available to help out and I started to have doubts about whether I’d taken too much on when my phone ‘pinged’. I got an email to say I’d received my first donation! Well that was it, there was no backing out now. So I decided any amount I could raise, however small, would be better than nothing.

Signing up to raise money for Alzheimer’s wasn’t entirely random. Sadly, like millions of others, our family has been directly affected by the terrible disease. My aunt (dad’s sister) had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few years earlier. Tragically, a couple of years after that, her eldest daughter, my cousin, also had a diagnosis of Frontal Lobe (frontotemporal) dementia. It is an early-onset disorder which mostly occurs between the age of 45 and 65. Common signs and symptoms include significant changes in social and personal behaviour, apathy, blunting of emotions, and deficits in both expressive and receptive language, compulsive behaviours, binge-eating, deficiencies in executive functioning and working memory. Currently, there is no cure but there are treatments that help alleviate symptoms.

My lovely cousin passed away in 2018 at age 54 and left behind four children who were young adults. They had already ‘lost’ the mum they knew and loved well before that time due to the cruel and debilitating symptoms of her condition which eventually took away not just her cognitive functioning but, in time, restricted her physical ability. The symptoms of this condition progress at a rapid, steady pace and eventually sufferers need 24-hour care for daily function. By the time my cousin died, my aunt had also deteriorated and was unaware of her daughter’s illness and passing. Some might say it was a blessing that she would never know that her beautiful, bright and outgoing daughter had endured such heartbreaking final years of her life. The family felt it would be kinder for her to remain oblivious as attending the funeral would be too confusing and distressing for her. Two years later in 2020 my aunt also passed away.

Like the Macmillan events, the first ‘Cupcake Day’ was a modest affair at the beach hut but the outcome was over £300! Definitely not a sum to be sniffed at and enough inspiration to do it again.

After holding a few events at the actual hut, one time we thought it might help to have a small table at the top on the promenade too to try to attract more people. The first time we did it was for one of the Alzheimer’s ones and, being June, we did have to attach a large beach parasol to the railings to protect the cakes from melting. It definitely worked well in terms of our presence though. This got us thinking about other ways we could improve the event and the obvious way would be to hold the event on a weekend. It meant that we wouldn’t be holding it on the official days in terms of the National events but we might gain people who would otherwise have been attending a Friday event. So we changed both events to Saturdays in the future.

One September the weather started off atrocious. We had to load our cars in torrential rain and it hadn’t stopped when we arrived at the seafront. At that time you could get a car on the seafront and, as it was seemingly deserted, my husband drove at a snail’s pace up to one of the wooden shelters purely for the purpose of unloading. We saw just one completely drenched couple on the promenade who felt it necessary to remain directly in the path of our car despite there being plenty of space to safely avoid us. As soon as we had unloaded our packed car my husband drove it back to the road to park. Any other time we would not have done this but the rain was exceptional and no-one wants to stand serving cakes all day soaked from head to toe.

Eventually the rain began to ease off and we were able to get cracking. We hadn’t been setting up for long when we were approached by a young man holding a clipboard. He was from the local council. He asked what we had planned and said the council had not been notified of any public events happening there that day. We apologised and explained that we normally operate from the beach hut but the weather had made that impossible. He asked what we were selling and we said we weren’t selling anything, just asking for donations for the charity. He said “Oh that’s fine, no worries! Good luck!” Now, I may be wrong and we’ll never know but I think the awkward couple we had seen that morning may have reported us. It seems odd that everywhere was so quiet, barely a soul in sight, yet the council had had a report of us being there. Whoever it was, I hope they were pleased with themselves. If the council representative had put a stop to our plans we almost certainly would not have made hundreds of pounds for a good cause that day.

A lot of people are very opposed to social media but, despite the negatives, it can be an amazing outlet for awareness of events. We use Facebook to advertise our events and to share our online donation pages. There are various local community groups where we share posts and of course our own Facebook friends are invited and also share our posts amongst their own friends. Without that publicity I truly believe we wouldn’t make as much money.

We’ve got to the point now where we need a lot more help either in terms of people actually helping on the day or loans of tables, cake contributions or just helping to set up or clear up at the end of the day. When we were using the hut as our sole venue we once had three kettles on the go which were loaned to us by neighbouring beach huts. If you don’t already know this, a kettle on a camping stove really takes its time to boil! More recently we have borrowed two large urns (hot water dispensers) from my workplace. We each fill one with boiled water before we leave home and then top them up through the day from the beach hut kettle. As you can imagine, we get through quite a few of the 5L bottles of mineral water and quite a few butane gas canisters!

We’ve got a reliable group of regulars who volunteer their help in advance then, on the day, friends sometimes do random shifts to give others a break.

We have also been very fortunate over the last couple of years to receive incredible contributions to the cakes. These are not just from friends and family but also from members of the public. There are some very talented bakers in our little town!

Prior to any of our events we now approach local businesses to ask if they would be willing to donate ingredients for our baking or tea/coffee. We didn’t do that for the first few years and one of our friends suggested we give it a try as most supermarkets have a ‘charity/community champion’ who has a budget for helping their local community. Before we did that, my friend and I would spend anything between £60 and £100 each on buying ingredients and other items needed for the day. Neither of us has ever taken from the money raised as we see that as our contribution and we hate meddling with the total but it can get very expensive when you do it twice a year. The donations vary from store to store. Some shops are impressively generous whereas others make a much smaller contribution. Sometimes we get a gift voucher which is handy as we can top up our basic items with some of the more luxury ingredients. One year I made a tower of my ingredients which I had worked out precisely by adding everything up that I needed for the cakes I was planning on making. My butter tower alone contained 21 x 250g packs! That was just me, my friend would equal that. As for eggs….!

In 2021 we had a very kind benefactor who accounted for around 20% of our final total that year. My friend works for an independent estate agency and her boss donated £1000 which was incredibly generous and very well received.

The pair of us generally start our baking on the Wednesday and Thursday evenings (as we both work) for the less perishable cakes and all day on the Friday, most times starting around 9.30/10.00 am and not finishing til we’ve cleaned up ten to twelve hours later. Believe me, that is no exaggeration. It is quite a bakeathon! Life is like a picnic for the ‘Great British Bake-Off’ contestants in comparison….even though Paul and Prue may not be quite so impressed by the standard of our cakes!

With a lot more people attending it became totally impractical to use mugs so we started to use disposable cups. The first time, a kind friend donated a box. The following year a friend in the catering business got us some from a wholesaler and last year we were given some by the local leisure centre.

Another thing we now do regularly is collect containers for people to take the cakes away in. We put out an appeal on Facebook for people to save their Christmas family-size chocolate containers, biscuit tins, margarine and ice cream tubs. We were inundated with them, so much so that I ran out of room in my loft to store them! It was so worth it though, they were an absolute game changer! No more sticky icing attaching itself to napkins or paper plates collapsing under the weight of cakes!

As much as we get incredible support we are sometimes a little bemused by the expectations of some people. Right from the beginning, bearing in mind how limited our resources were we would get requests for speciality teas, special milk, specific dietary requirements etc and whilst many accepted that we couldn’t provide those things, we had the occasional tutting or moaning. At that time it was only the two of us doing the baking and we didn’t have the capacity to extend to free-from foods. As time went on we had some kind donations of gluten-free and vegan cakes. We were already spending a lot on ingredients without having to buy the additional ingredients for such items. Sometimes I think people forget that we are voluntarily holding these events to raise money for a charity, not running a for-profit coffee shop or bakery!

“Don’t be upset with the results you didn’t get from the work you didn’t do….”

We hadn’t been able to hold our Alzheimer’s fundraiser in June 2020 due to the lockdown restrictions. By September 2020 we felt we could hold our Macmillan one safely albeit relying on the public to do their bit to help protect each other. We had good attendance as always and, of course, the odd complaint! One lady made a comment that she didn’t think it was appropriate to hold the event during the pandemic then proceeded to not only buy cakes but also a coffee. Not entirely sure she was that worried….

On the flip side, we have received many thanks and compliments for our efforts. One year a very frail looking lady wearing a head scarf said to us that she was just coming to the end of her chemotherapy and she wanted to thank us both. She was weeping as she spoke to us. It’s moments like that which we will never forget and remind us why we do it.

In January 2021 during one of the pandemic lockdowns I taught myself to crochet using YouTube tutorials. By the time held our Alzheimer’s event in June 2021 I had become much more proficient and confident at my new skill and made a variety of goods to sell. I made coasters, keyrings, bunting, headbands. The emblem for The Alzheimer’s Society is a forget-me-not flower and I crocheted some to make keyrings. A friend who also crochets made some lovely hats. We did really well and some people requested smaller items after the event which I made on demand to add a bit more to the pot. The octopus and bumble bee keyrings proved to be the most popular. Another friend had made some beautiful and very clever needle felting items such as little figures and fridge magnets and another donated some homemade greetings cards. It was wonderful to have those to offer, especially with families passing by with their children. We were also gifted some sunflower plants to sell and gladly accepted. The children in particular loved these.

“No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted”

We had a very junior member on the team in June and September 2021. My friend’s 10 year old grandson had started making lemonade to sell for good causes and she asked if we would like him to do some for us. He was a little trooper and, on both occasions, made a tidy little sum to add to the pots. He sat there all day, refused any offers for people to give him a break and had his photo taken with the Mayor! The homemade lemonade was unsurprisingly very popular as it was absolutely delicious.

For the 2021 Macmillan event I made a selection of crocheted Christmas decorations that I had been making through the summer. It felt very strange sitting on the beach in the summer heat crocheting snowflakes and Christmas trees!

The same year a member of the public gifted us an enormous box of chocolates but it was towards the end of the day so we weren’t quite sure what to do with it. In the end we organised a small sweepstake between a group of friends where they paid £1 per number. They could choose their number and at the end we used an online computer-generator to pick the winner. That made an extra £26 for the pot and a lovely lady enjoyed some delicious chocolates!

A few years ago we were contacted via Facebook by a member of the local Macmillan committee. He had a proposal for us. He said that if we passed on the money we had raised to him he could ensure it would remain local. At first it was a bit of a dilemma as we received online donations from people much further afield. However, the online donations go directly into a central pot so it seemed fair that a proportion of the money covered both local and national funds. We agreed to work with him in this way and since then have been well supported by the committee. We count up and bag the cash and take it round to him. He recounts it which is just as well because I literally can’t count! I don’t think I’ve ever got the total bang on! It’s usually only a few pennies out and thankfully the time it was a few pounds it was over rather than under what I had calculated! He gives us a receipt and it saves us walking through town to the bank with a bucket containing a shed load of notes and coins!

In addition to sorting out the cash for us the representative offers the help of other volunteers. We are grateful for the offer but we enjoy the role we both play in our own event so we generally don’t accept too much input. The volunteers usually help with the completion of the GiftAid forms as we are often too busy serving a big queue and forget to ask people to do this. Initially I don’t think we recognised what a difference it makes to our total sum though so it is very important to have that information. It gives us an additional 25% of every donation made by a tax payer so that’s quite a difference. In fact, our past totals were actually more than we announced as we never thought to calculate that element and add it to the total until recently. The Committee is also helpful for getting bits and pieces, like collecting tins and merchandise. I have said I might get involved with the committee at some point in the future when I’ve recovered from my own cancer journey but I have said I’d be more of a ‘thinker’ than a ‘doer’! My days of running around like a headless chicken for one event after another are done I’m afraid!

In the last few years we have been honoured by local dignitaries attending our events. As well as county councillors, two of the town’s mayors have come along and made short speeches. In 2021 we even managed to set up a ceremonial ribbon for the mayor to cut!

I wouldn’t say I look for ways to help more charities but I have enjoyed using a few skills to raise smaller amounts. They are more spontaneous and take a lot less organising. In April 2020 the London Marathon had to be cancelled due to Covid-19 and the nation was encouraged to take part in the ‘2.6 Challenge’ to help save the UK’s charities. General fundraising had been hit very hard by the pandemic and thousands of fundraising events had to be cancelled and many charities, particularly smaller ones, were struggling to maintain services because of this huge reduction in income, impacting all sectors of society. The 2.6 was to represent the 26 miles of a marathon and could be interpreted in whatever creative way you pleased! My oldest son is rather partial to Gü desserts and we had amassed quite a collection of little glass ramekin dishes. I decided to make 26 mini cheesecakes of varying flavours to donate to key workers. My neighbour was a police officer at the time and he took them to work to share with his colleagues. My chosen charity on this occasion was for CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably), a cause close to my heart, and I raised £115 from kind online donations.

Later in the year I purchased red, black and green wool and got to work on crocheting poppies for Remembrance Day. I ended up making 62 poppy brooches in a few different styles and made £220.60 for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal. I genuinely thought I might raise about £25 so I was absolutely delighted when the requests kept on coming. If I’m honest I can’t say I wasn’t sorry once I’d finished the last poppy!

We were informed by our Macmillan representative that in 2020 our event was accountable for around 70% of the local area’s fundraising that year! This was of course due to the pandemic restricting many charity events but we were proud to have been able to help during difficult times.

We can’t thank our supporters enough for their part in all of this – the bakers, creators, helpers and, of course, donators. We couldn’t have done any of it without them all.

So far, we have made around £11,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support since 2014, 8 years of coffee mornings and around £3,500 for Alzheimer’s Society holding 4 events since 2017.

Although I am writing for my own personal blog, I have to emphasise that this is something I share with my best friend and we are equally involved in holding these events. I couldn’t do them without her and the pride and memories we share seals a very special bond between us. 2022 is particularly poignant for both of us as I have been on my own cancer journey for the past nine months and my friend is now five years clear of cancer. Somewhat ironically we have both now benefitted from the amazing service provided by Macmillan and what other reason could we need to carry on the support….?

“We make a living by what we get….But we make a life by what we give” – Sir Winston Churchill.

Find your Happy Place and go there often

I have always loved the beach but for the first 11 years of my life we lived in the Bedfordshire countryside and the nearest beach was over 50 miles away in Essex. As children we enjoyed wonderful holidays in Norfolk and the West Country, usually in caravans or chalets. In 1979 we moved to Eastbourne. My parents bought a guest house which they ran for three years. It was only one street from the seafront, back-to-back with one of the big hotels. My brother and I used to leave the house in just our swimming clothes and would walk barefoot to the beach! We’d come home soaking wet with my mum standing at the front door and stopping us from going inside until we’d dried ourselves off! We had no fear of the cold water and, it appeared, no feeling in our feet either as I clearly remember us running on the pebbles right from the top of the beach into the sea! These days I can just about manage half a dozen steps without anything on my feet!

“If you’re not barefoot then you’re overdressed”

Since the move to Eastbourne I just couldn’t live anywhere inland! I went to Bournemouth University and after graduating we bought our first house in Bexhill. My first full-time job was in central London and I hated the commute. It was so refreshing to soak up the sea air when I wasn’t in the ‘big smoke’.

“Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.” Herman Broch

Our four kids were also brought up to naturally love the beach. Some people think that you’d take it all for granted when it’s on your doorstep but I’ve never stopped appreciating how lucky I am to see those beautiful views just a short walk from home. When the children were little we used to fill up one of those enormous plastic laundry bags with inflatables, oars, buckets, spades, wet suits….you name it! It was like Mary Poppins’ bag, the contents just kept coming and coming! They would all help carry, even the smallest ones, and we would set ourselves up for the day. Like all siblings they wound each other up constantly at home and there was always at least two of them bickering at any one time but when we spent time on the beach they seemed to get on really well (hence the effort to go there regularly!). To be fair they have always been good at amusing themselves and, when they weren’t fighting, they played really well. I never felt the need to continually provide days out and entertainment (for one thing I couldn’t afford it!) but I guess despite their ‘moments’ they always had each other as ‘playmates’.

When our youngest was just a toddler three of my friends asked me if I would like to join them in renting a beach hut. Unfortunately my husband had very little work at that time and, although it wasn’t a huge cost, I just couldn’t justify doing it. I ended up returning to work part-time to help keep us afloat. However, they were all happy for us to join them at their hut and we had many happy days with all our children playing together – we had 13 between the four of us!

As our finances improved a little I made enquiries about renting a hut but to no avail. Then one day in 2014, completely out of the blue, my dad received a phone call from Rother District Council to say that a beach hut was available and would he still like it. Hell yeah!! We’d completely forgotten that my mum had put her name on the list nine years earlier! Sadly by this time she had passed away. There was no question though, we were having that plot, nothing could have stopped me from snapping it up! I’m sure mum would have been delighted, it’s just a shame she never got to share our hours of pleasure.

The offer came in April but it took us until June to get a hut. The shed companies were so busy and there were long waiting times. Initially they said August but we managed to move it along. I can’t describe how excited I was! It took a bit of time to get it all painted and ready to use but it was fun just being there and watching the progress. I’ve got photos of our youngest son when he was about ten kitted out in overalls, wielding a paintbrush and sitting on the ‘Workmate’ bench to steady it when my husband was sawing! Precious memories!

My husband is a perfectionist and put his interior design skills to good use to make it a practical space. He reused lots of old timber that he’d been storing in our garage to make cupboards and a worktop. Very cleverly he constructed the front with six doors in such a way that the whole thing can be removed as one section, just adding the worktop when putting it back in. He used old shelving from home and he put in some longer shelves for all my ‘tat’ as he likes to call it! Along one side he put in some bench seating with piano hinges and lots of hooks and hangers for tea lights, pictures, wetsuits etc. We chose a big hut with the maximum dimensions allowed so it has a high roof and one of his most genius ideas was to suspend a large shelf on a chain from the ceiling, as there was a good sized space within the roof area, to store a surf board, bodyboards and oars. My dad gave us a fabric hanging shoe holder that he used to have in his caravan which we use to store all the beach towels. I bought a big laundry basket to hold inflatable and beach toys, baskets for toys and flip flops and became one of Poundland’s most regular customers for plates, mugs, cutlery, decorative features, strings of lights, candles and much more! We recycled tea light lanterns and kitchen bits from home. Over the years I’ve built up quite a collection of contents and people joke that I have ‘everything’ in there! Almost always if anyone asks for something I do have it!

Life is better in flip flops….

On the counter top we have a portable gas cooker and everything we need for making drinks. We also have a frying pan and saucepan and often make egg and bacon butties. There’s nothing like the smell of bacon frying in an outdoor area…..the same goes for eating fish and chips on the beach. I’m salivating just thinking about it! We have all the condiments there – salt, vinegar, ketchup!

There are chairs, sun loungers, cushions, tables, rugs, mats, you name it! Honestly it’s like a tardis! I don’t even know myself how we fit it all in but somehow it seems to work out okay!

So many friends and family have given me kind gifts and I never tire of all my little trinkets, postcards and all sorts of beach and seaside regalia. Let’s just say I’m easy to buy for!

Despite our children now being adults I also can’t help fill up the toy box for little visitors! Almost every trip to Poundland results in more games, colouring items, chalkboards, water pistols, fishing nets and lots of bottles of bubbles! We’ve got a giant ‘Snakes and Ladders’ game with a big inflatable dice, a Dodgeball game with Velcro vests, bats and balls, mini paddling pools and a mini table football!

It was really important to me to acknowledge my mum’s connection to the hut. I had a lovely sign made from driftwood which simply says ‘Cherished Forever! Sally 1947 – 2011’ with a line drawing of an angel. It’s not fixed because I worry about it being damaged so I have a nail on the front which I hang it off when I’m there. I know this might sound ridiculous to some people but I’ve got a theory that my mum visits us there. Almost without fail when any of our family are at the beach hut we are visited by a large bumble bee. We are convinced it’s my mum checking up on us and we say “Here comes Sally-bee” or “Nanny-bee”! Even friends say it now! Silly or not, it brings us some comfort and makes us smile.

Sadly some people can’t help putting a downer on other people’s pleasures and in seven years we’ve had two break-ins. Fortunately both times we were lucky that the loss was minimal. The first time, they took an odd range of items – tea towels, a pack of wipes, a frying pan, a mini speaker and a pair of mini binoculars! We could only think that it was someone sleeping rough or, at the time, there were a few camper vans parking overnight nearby. I guess we’ll never know. I remember I had just bought two really nice blankets (albeit cheap ones from B&M) and my cousin had bought me a lovely light-up beach sign which I had intended on taking home but thankfully they didn’t take anything nice or precious to us. The police did actually send a forensics officer down and she was helpful but all she could really do was take a few fingerprints. They didn’t lead to anything. The second time was only last year and the doors were very badly damaged. My husband had to virtually rebuild them and reinforce them as much as he could. On that occasion all they did was eat the biscuits that were in the biscuit tin! Whoever did it would have had to have used a crowbar or something equally strong to have got in. Others weren’t so lucky – one person lost a kayak and another their fishing gear. Despite buying a heavy duty hasp and staple to secure the doors, there has already been another attempt to get in since then. We noticed that the hinge had become loose and could be wiggled up and down. On closer inspection it looks like someone has tried to put some sort of tool, maybe a chisel or similar, into a narrow gap and there is an area where the wood on the door has been ‘shredded’. There’s only so much you can do. We’ve got two heavy duty clasps and combination padlocks on both. We have a lot in the hut but we don’t leave anything valuable or precious in it when we’re not there. Obviously chairs and sun loungers aren’t cheap but if you can’t leave those there what’s the point of having the hut? That said, we should be able to keep what we like in it without the fear of it being taken. We believe that the most recent attempt was following lots of busy beach days and the beaches were full of paddle boards and kayaks. Someone may have wandered along taking a note of who had them. Ours are all inflatable and portable and are never left there. However, around the same time three other huts on the beach next to us were interfered with and one did have a paddle board taken.

We have also had other unwelcome visitors but not the human kind! I once went down to the hut to find something very small had had a lot of fun in there! A mouse! They can get in through some very small spaces you know! I had made the mistake of leaving some snacks in there that were not in secured containers. Not only had it (or maybe they?) nibbled on the unopened packets of biscuits they had performed some teeth origami on the serviettes and turned them into confetti! On further inspection I discovered they had also put holes in some clothing (jogging bottoms and tops that we leave in there for cooler evenings) and a couple of towels. They had also defecated throughout! Fortunately mouse poo is not too difficult to clear up but it did take me a few hours to remove it all and clean the areas. I got to work with my little dustpan and brush and brought anything fabric home to wash. I no longer leave any food there and always empty the bin, however much is in it, just in case! We’ve had one or two little visits since then but they didn’t leave a great deal of evidence! As annoying as it was it did make me laugh at the thought of a gang of mice having a bit of a party in there….

In 2016 one of my Facebook friends sent me a link about a competition for ‘Beach Hut of the Year’ which is run by Towergate Insurance. My initial reaction was that our hut wasn’t special enough for such an accolade. However, my friend replied that it’s not just about the hut itself but the story behind it and how we have used it as a venue for our fundraising. I gave it some thought and decided I had nothing to lose by entering. I wrote a few paragraphs about my mum and how the beach hut had been her dream and how we have raised money for Macmillan Cancer Support in her memory (more on that in a future story) and sent it in with a few photos.

I then received the following email:

Thank you for entering this year’s Beach Hut of the Year!

2016’s entries have been of the highest quality and it’s been an extremely tough task to choose this year’s finalists. Thank you so much for sharing your hut with us – the beach hut community has done itself proud.

After much deliberation, ten of the best have now been selected – and they will be exclusively revealed in The Sunday Times this weekend. Get your copy on Sunday to see who’s in the running to be crowned Britain’s best beach hut.

Voting will also open on Sunday, and if you’ve made the shortlist you’ll want all of your friends and family to help nudge you closer to being crowned Beach Hut of the Year 2016.

Thank you very much once again for entering the competition, and good luck!

The Towergate Beach Hut of the Year team.

On the day of the announcement I was due to travel up to London with my best friend to see ‘Coldplay’ in concert. We caught the train on the Sunday and before getting on I bought a copy of the paper. Well, being a Sunday broadsheet it had a gazillion supplements to go through. We sat on the train wading through the pile of papers and dropping half of it on the floor! We had come to the conclusion that we’d bought the wrong newspaper but decided to look one more time. I thought the saying was “Nothing is lost until your mum can’t find it”…..well these two mums were making a good go of disproving that theory! So, we tried one more time and there it was, a double page spread full of beach hut photos and in an instant I spotted ours! I almost screamed! Despite optimistically searching for the results we were both shocked that the photo was actually there! Our beach hut was one of the ten finalists for Britain’s ‘Beach Hut of the Year 2016’. Absolutely gobsmacked! It was all a bit surreal to be honest but we were both so excited!

The next stage of the competition was down to public votes to narrow the finalists down to five. I posted regularly on Facebook encouraging our family and friends to vote. There were feature articles in various local newspapers including the Brighton Argus, The Sussex Express and the Bexhill Observer.

We weren’t the only hut in Bexhill to make it into the top ten. There was one other on the east side of Bexhill, an area called Glyne Gap, owned by a train driver who used his job as inspiration for his beach hut as it is decorated in the style of a Southern Region train station or signal box and features train memorabilia. He did a wonderful job, it looked fantastic!

We were delighted to be informed that we had made it as a Top 5 finalist and so had the other Bexhill hut! A representative from Towergate Insurance called me just after the announcement and asked if I’d be happy to be interviewed by BBC Radio Sussex. They were coming to interview the other finalist from Bexhill and were hoping to speak to me on the same day. They initially offered me the 7.30 am slot but I politely declined! I managed to agree to a slightly later time but not much! My friend came down to support me and we took some bits to make bacon sandwiches as it was an early start. The presenter arrived promptly and I offered him a cup of tea. My friend had me in stitches when she whispered to me “Don’t mention the bacon sandwiches, we’ve only got enough for us!” He chatted casually to us and explained how the interview would be carried out. However, he seemed to be in no hurry as he stood looking out at sea with his cuppa, marvelling at what a beautiful spot we had! Eventually he took us up to his little van parked on the seafront and opened up the back to reveal a mini recording studio! He introduced us and gave a little blurb then proceeded to ask us questions. He hadn’t warned us what he was going to ask and it was going out live so we were feeling quite nervous. There we were, standing in the street wearing professional headphones and holding microphones! A lot of it is rather a blur to me now but I do remember a very funny moment when he asked my friend “So, have you always been Lisa’s friend or are you only her friend because she has a beach hut?!” He was obviously pulling her leg but her response was very serious and in her ‘radio voice’ she replied “Oh no, we’ve been friends for years”!! Even though I don’t really like doing anything like that (I hate hearing my own voice played back) it was a lot of fun and we will always remember it. A few people did contact me and say “I just heard you on the radio” which I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting.

A few days later the winner was announced. Seeing the competition I didn’t expect it to be us but we really enjoyed the whole process. It would have been exciting to meet Phil Spencer (Location Location Location) who judged the competition and presented the winner with a commemorative plaque and prize money but we were happy with our achievement. A couple of weeks later I received a framed certificate of congratulations for being ‘Top Ten’ (although we were actually in the top five) containing the photos I had sent in. It’s a precious keepsake which we proudly have on display in the hut. The hut which won was a beautiful one in Essex which is larger than the average beach hut and has a full-size sofa and dining furniture in it. I can’t argue that it’s not a worthy winner.

I was contacted by the insurance company later that year asking if they could do a Christmas feature with festive decorations etc. Unfortunately I had to decline as our huts only have temporary planning permission for six months of the year. It’s a historic licence and was initially temporary planning as the original seaside beach huts were made from canvas so deemed in the same category as tents! We our allowed to put our hut up from 1st April and have to take it all apart and store it by 1st October of every year. I pack all the internal contents into plastic storage containers and bags and we hold it all in our loft. The actual hut is basically 4 sides, the roof in two parts and a wooden platform. We store all of that plus the cupboards, bench and shelving in a garage through the winter. We have considered applying to extend the planning permission but, having thought about it and seen how high the tide can come up during those winter months, we decided it was better to stick to the six month agreement. It means that nothing gets damp or is vulnerable to stormy weather and it reduces the chance of break-ins when the evenings are darker and there are less people around. It always gives me something to look forward and it’s quite an occasion when it’s time to put it up again. Obviously I am more of an observer/supervisor on the day it goes up or comes down, providing tea and cakes as a thank you to all my boys and other helpers!

We’ve got lovely neighbours on our particular beach and we’ve all created quite a community. We all look out for each other’s huts and enjoy socialising when we are there. This year some of us celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with ‘Union Jack’ bunting and lots of other regalia. We even had a full size cardboard cutout of the Queen and her corgis which my husband’s staff made for us at the office! I bought a huge Union Jack flag which we attached to the hut on a large pole. We’ve celebrated many other occasions at our little hut, such as a pirates and mermaids birthday party for our young great-niece and nephew. It’s the ideal place to gather with friends and family with minimal fuss. Any excuse or no excuse at all to have a social gathering, it’s always good to chill out in the sea air.

B.E.A.C.H.: Best Escape Anyone Can Have

Talking of the ‘sea air’ I genuinely believe in its therapeutic benefits. Whatever else is going on, as soon as I sit down at that little haven I’m convinced my blood pressure is lowered and my worries disappear for a while. It might not be the Mediterranean but we get our fair share of sunshine here in the South East and, personally I feel like I’m on holiday every time I’m on that beach.

“Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly” – Van Morrison (Into the Mystic 1970)

Sometimes a Workout is all the Therapy you Need

For most of my life I’ve liked to keep fit. At school I enjoyed a mixture of sports, gymnastics and netball being my preferred choices. I wasn’t amazing at either but I wasn’t bad either. Hockey scared me, I generally made up the numbers when it came to athletics and I am utterly hopeless at racket sports! Even my ‘tennis elbow’ didn’t involve the use of a tennis racket. Unsurprisingly to people who know me well, it was actually caused by using a mallet to hammer the windbreak poles into a pebbly beach! Consequently, even when it’s not causing me too much trouble, it’s usually lurking in the background due to the many days I spend at my beach hut during the spring and summer months!

Something I have always enjoyed though is fitness classes, from traditional aerobics ‘back in the day’ to toning classes, circuits and Pilates. I jumped straight on the ‘Zumba’ bandwagon when it became the latest fitness craze. I love the mix of fitness and dance and enjoyed bringing out my inner ‘Shakira’ with a lot of hip wiggling and booty shaking! It’s very effective for toning but unfortunately it wasn’t great for my knees. All that twisting and turning took its toll so I had to take a break from it.

Throughout my 20s, 30s and 40s I always did some form of regular exercise. I’m not really a gym bunny and rarely found myself doing a traditional gym workout but I love fitness classes. I feel much more motivated when I’m in a group and being instructed. Because I love music so much I also enjoy routines to feel good tunes, pumping up the endorphin levels so that it never feels like an effort.

When my children were young I used to pay for them to go in the crèche at the local leisure centre. They loved it because it was in a soft play area. After my youngest was born, as soon as I’d had my six week check-up I decided to renew my membership and get back into it. The day I joined I just opted to do the next available class and booked myself in. Not really paying attention I found myself in a Pilates class. It has never really appealed to me and, if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have chosen that as my reintroduction to fitness and first post natal class. However, it turned out to be a blessing because I absolutely loved it and haven’t looked back since. I can’t recommend pilates enough. The beauty of it is that it’s a form of exercise that you can do even if you have health issues as it is so adaptable. If you have a bad back, neck, knees, arms and so on there is always an alternative exercise you can do so rather than just opting out you can do an exercise that is not detrimental to your specific problem.

Not long after I first moved to Bexhill (aged about 22/23) I joined a netball group who met at the leisure centre. I really enjoyed meeting new people and playing for fun. Most of the women were still playing in leagues and were a much higher standard to me but I was welcomed by everyone. I remember one time being asked if I would take part in a tournament and said “Only if you can’t find anyone else to do it!” I ended up going and I’m not gonna lie, I was terrified! I couldn’t believe how ‘in your face’ the opposing players got! I was never an aggressive player and I’m not overly tall so when some of the larger players were defending I felt really intimidated! Although it took me completely out of my comfort zone I was proud of myself for rising, albeit reluctantly, to the challenge. I didn’t do another one….!

A few years later some of the mums at my children’s little church playgroup decided to book a court to play netball once a week. We didn’t exactly play by the traditional rules and it was a bit of a ‘free for all’ but we laughed a lot! Combining physical activity, time out from being mums and a good old natter, it was what I call quality ‘me time’. There were a few injuries over the time we met up, mostly due to the fact that we were all a little bit over-excited and sometimes a bit too competitive! I can’t really remember why but for a period we switched over to badminton. Now, as I mentioned before, racket sports are not my thing. I’m also short-sighted but generally have never needed to wear my glasses to exercise. However, try looking for a shuttlecock with a net in the background when your long distance vision is blurry! Needless to say, I was neither a good partner nor a good opponent!

Moving on to another few years later I joined a different set of friends for netball at the local college. It was more organised and was a mix of women who were still playing or had played competitively for many years and school mums/friends. Anyone was welcome and we played ‘properly’ with a referee and wearing bibs! I loved that time and feel like it’s the fittest I’ve been since I was a teenager. At school I always played either ‘Centre’ or ‘Wing Attack’ which involved a lot of running about. I love those positions and, even though I say so myself, I was quite a grafter! However, we switched it up quite a bit at these sessions to make it fair for everyone. I have never been confident at playing ‘Goal Attack’ and ‘Goal Shooter’ because it always seemed like a job for the taller girls! That is so not the case though! One of my 5’ 1” friends is phenomenal at shooting. She can get the ball in from a huge distance (when messing about as it would be against the rules to do that in a game!). When she shoots, the ball always goes straight through the middle without touching the hoop. I was in awe of her. Anyway, bizarrely I discovered I was also quite good at scoring goals (not as prolific as my friend I might add)! Who knew?! I guess you don’t know until you try. I was continually surprised when I got the ball on target! I would encourage anyone to take up a team sport for fun if you get the chance. It really does get the endorphins working and you might be surprised at how good your fitness levels become.

In around 2001 (I can’t recall exactly) the group of mums I had met at playgroup decided it would be fun to go on a ‘fitness weekend’ at a ‘Pontins’ site about 45 minutes away in Camber Sands. These were initially run by the YMCA but later a fitness events company called ‘Fitness Fiesta’ took over. The events were held twice a year, usually March and October, at various venues around the country. We were a large group and varied from one chalet to four on one occasion. Chalets could accommodate up to six people. We generally had five in ours. We went for many years and have amazing memories. As it wasn’t far to travel we would go Friday afternoon/evening and return on Sunday afternoon. Some of us worked and some worked part-time or, like me at the time, were still stay-at-home mums. I had three children under 6 the first time we went.

Those who weren’t working usually did the food shopping. We had a ‘kitty’ and bought essentials and the ingredients for at least one meal which was usually pizza, fajitas or someone would make a lasagne or casserole to bring. One time my friend and I did the shopping and the supermarket cashier asked if we were going anywhere nice. We said we were going on a fitness weekend at which point she checked out the contents of our shopping….wine, chocolate, cheese, pizza, cakes…..(some token items of fruit!)….and raised an eyebrow! We said “It’s okay, we’ll be burning it off!” True of course….!

The weekends were so much fun. As for the accommodation, we’ll let’s just say it was far from five star! In fact, I’m not sure it deserved any stars but part of the fun was slumming it! We didn’t always just accept our fate though. One time we arrived to a very smelly chalet with damp carpets and we complained. They moved us to a better one thankfully. In complete contrast, another year they’d had a bit of a refit and our chalet had brand new appliances still with the plastic covers on – a step closer to getting a star rating! Sadly the rest of the holiday park did not reflect this refurbishment! The ‘ballroom’, where the evening entertainment took place and there were HUGE classes during the day, with upwards of 200 people doing routines together, was pretty grim….nasty sticky carpets and shabby furniture. Fortunately it was always poorly lit with very little natural light which hid all the signs of drunken nights!

It’s fair to say this was not a glamorous weekend away but what we lacked in luxury we more than made up for in laughter (til our sides hurt!). The instructors were amazing and the classes gave us such a buzz. You could do all sorts – high impact aerobics, Step, Zumba, toning, combat, circuits, as well as team sports, Aqua, events off the camp like walking/running. There was something for everyone. We had favourite instructors, one of which was ‘Kardy’ a part-time DJ who engaged huge crowds all synchronised, sometimes singing along or repeating Kardy’s mantras! He was so funny and made everyone feel included. Not surprisingly his classes were extremely popular, year after year.

One year they introduced ‘Spinning’. It was a very new concept at that time and we naively thought “Exercise bikes – how hard can it be?” We soon found out! So many risk factors and rules to follow regarding safety using the high tech ‘Schwinn’ bikes – specialised indoor bikes manufactured using a weighted flywheel at the front. It was brutal! That was the year that my sister came with us. She could never be described as quiet or shy and she had us in stitches. Bellini’s ‘Samba De Janeiro’ (which later became the 2014 FIFA World Cup anthem in Brazil) was pumping out of the stereo and the instructor was shouting for everyone to ‘sing’ really loud otherwise he’d make us go faster and up a bigger incline! My sister was literally belting out the tune and we all struggled to keep up because we were laughing so much. I can’t hear that tune now without thinking of our introduction to Spinning!

Another time we fancied a class that was described as a military style boot camp and was taking place on the beach. I’d be lying if I said the thought of a fit soldier taking us through our paces wasn’t the top reason for our enthusiasm so imagine our surprise when a tall, skinny instructor wearing skin tight cycling shorts ‘minced’ over to us all and welcomed us to the session! He was as camp as a row of tents! Far from being disappointing though, it was absolutely hilarious! He had us skipping along on the sand like a vision of carefree mythical creatures dancing in the sea breeze! He was no Sergeant Major and we were no Special Forces! Realistically, who did we think we were signing up for Commando training anyway?!

The first couple of times we went we signed up for four or five classes a day, sometimes back-to-back, but as the years went on our focus changed from getting fit to doing as little as possible whilst eating our body weight in chocolate and cakes! Also, in the beginning, our evening entertainment was watching tribute bands and holiday camp style shenanigans to the later years when we left the site and had nice meals in neighbouring Rye, a beautiful harbour town. One night we went to an Italian restaurant for a delicious meal and enjoyed lots of banter with the staff. At the end of the evening, rather than chucking us out at closing time, they invited us to stay for a lock-in and we all had a bit of a dance! The funniest thing was, the waiters all demonstrated strong Italian accents and had names like ‘Roberto’ and ‘Gianni’ throughout the evening while they were working but, when the door was shut, half of them dropped the accent and reverted to their real names like ‘Dave’ and ‘John’! They had us fooled anyway!

One significant factor of those weekends became a bit of a standing joke. All of us had relatively young children at that time, the majority no older than primary school age. The friends in our particular chalet, whether we knew it or not, clearly hadn’t completed our families at that point though because after the first year of attending the event at least one of us was either pregnant or had just had a baby! Four out of the five of us produced an additional child! Two of us did the weekend while we were pregnant and two took their young babies with them, on four separate occasions! We joked that it was catching but the fifth friend who had the oldest children amongst us escaped the bug, much to her relief!

This baby boom amongst us led to a new tradition! One evening when we were all in a daft mood we decided to perform the ‘ring gender test’. The ring gender test is one of the many ways people have tried to predict the sex of their unborn baby and it can be performed in two ways, both of which involve threading a string (or equivalent) through a ring. The mum-to-be lies on her back and someone hangs the threaded ring over their tummy. The ring should generally be the mum-to-be’s wedding ring or another of comparable importance. Alternatively you can hold the ring above their left hand. Then you should wait for it to move on its own. The idea is that it should either swing back and forth in a straight line (boy) or a circle (girl). This was always correct of course because we all believed in the magic. Then again…..! We got very carried away at times extending the game to asking it questions for ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers or attempting to predict the future! Did I say there was usually alcohol involved? Hmmm…!

After many consecutive years of attending Fitness Fiesta our numbers gradually dwindled and busy lives got in the way until we stopped altogether. We occasionally discuss revisiting the experience and maybe we will one day although I think it would take a lot of persuasion to get any of us to that particular holiday park these days. I’ve read many reviews and heard stories about it and, if we thought it was bad then, it sounds like it was a palace compared to how it is these days. We made incredible memories over those few years though and it will always hold a place in our hearts for the friendship bond and hours of laughter that we will treasure forever.

“Laughter is a bodily exercise, precious to health” – Aristotle.

One thing I’ve never had the desire to do is any form of running. It’s just not something I enjoy. I do like walking though and I did regular power walking for a couple of years with a friend. While our children were at swimming lessons, rather than sit poolside in tropical temperatures, we decided to make better use of the time and literally walk as far as we could within that hour or so. Bexhill is quite hilly and we pushed ourselves to do the most taxing routes we could find. We both really enjoyed the regular exercise and time spent together. Walking can be totally underestimated if you are doing more than a gentle stroll and putting challenges into it. Once our youngest children gave up swimming we stopped doing it at that particular time but I walk at least once a week with another friend and we usually do 5K.

In 2016, a group of friends and I decided to enter the ‘Night to Remember’ midnight walk in aid of Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice Care. It was a ladies only event and there were two options, 4 miles or 10 miles. It took place in Eastbourne, starting with a walk around the harbour then, for those who opted for the 10 miles, continuing to the far end of the seafront and back. We had entered to do the longer route. A few days before the event I fell a few steps down our stairs and broke my big toe! I thought it might have prevented me from taking part but I strapped it up with the neighbouring toe and once my trainers were on it was ok. I got a few twinges but nothing so debilitating that I couldn’t still do the walk. Another friend had a fragile hip so we had no intention of ‘racing’ round the course. I think one of the hardest bits was waiting until midnight to kick off! Psychologically that was a challenge in itself for me! However, the holding/waiting area was in a large marquee and it was very lively! Some of the ladies were wearing bits of fancy dress and there was lots of singing along to the DJ’s tunes! We remained in our group and all managed to complete the route, encouraging each other and taking short breaks when one of us needed a quick breather. It was a very pleasant Spring evening and the moon was shining brightly. What could be more pleasant than walking along a peaceful promenade with the moon reflecting off the sea, with a lovely group of friends, whilst also raising money for a worthwhile cause? We raised our funds collectively and finished up with a very respectable amount for the charity.

I’ve also completed the ‘Race for Life’ on a few occasions. One time I only planned on walking it with a handful of friends and me and one of the friends got fed up with the slow pace of the big crowds at the beginning and decided to try jogging round. We went round the outside of the people in front to get past then got into a bit of a momentum and surprised ourselves by how quickly we got round! I can’t lie, that was a one-off! On another occasion my daughter, about 7 or 8 years old at the time, insisted she wanted to do it with me, my mum and my mum’s friend and I ended up doing at least half of the course carrying her on my hip! Good thing she was very light and petite for her age! The last time I took part was 2014. The main reason was that I’d taken on a different annual fundraising venture (more on that to come….) and didn’t want to continually ask friends for sponsorship. I also found that so many people I knew took part in it that it was difficult to raise the money. Instead of taking part now, I sponsor a handful of people for their efforts.

I continued my gym membership, attending anything between two and four classes each week for many years, as well as trying out a few new ones in other venues from time to time. In 2012 I has to take a break after fracturing my spine following a fall on a skating rink but I did get back into it once I could. However, over the next few years I gradually seemed to get more problems with my ageing body! One time I was doing an aerobics class and I felt something snap in my calf and had to stop there and then. I had torn the muscle that connects to the Achilles’ tendon. I also had ‘Frozen Shoulder’ for a couple of years which restricted my movement and, as mentioned previously, I’ve had ‘Tennis Elbow’ on and off since 2014. I also developed weak knees and regularly have to wear a support. I ended up cancelling my full gym membership as I had to take a break from everything for a while, apart from walks with friends.

Eventually I started to build my fitness back up. I started going to a Pilates class in a wellness studio very close to where I live. The instructor is a lady who I did years of classes alongside and who had decided to qualify as an instructor. Her classes are excellent and I went regularly until the start of the pandemic.

I have also done a few Aqua classes over the years with varying experiences! The evening ones tended to have slightly younger participants and were more difficult compared to the morning classes which were more of a sing-a-long and a lot of giggles due to the ‘more senior’ members! It was both hilarious at times and humbling, as some clearly just attended for the company and fun, barely moving throughout the sessions! Few people took the sessions very seriously and most people were very friendly. Despite being in the ‘less senior’ category my best friend was often the biggest source of amusement, even to the instructor. She always seemed to be either going in the wrong direction or round in circles. My stomach used to hurt from laughing! We always felt like the naughty children in the class! I have to say though, when we did the more serious and arduous classes we felt like we had worked really hard and definitely noticed the benefits. I’m not a big fan of swimming up and down a pool purely for fitness but the Aqua classes are far from an easy option in terms of being challenging and energetic.

Like the majority of our country and beyond, the Covid-19 lockdowns encouraged the whole nation to remain active, despite the restrictions. In fact some people did more exercise than they’ve done in years or, in some cases, their entire lives! Being one of the millions working from home I took the opportunity to walk most work days with a colleague who lives only a few minutes away, as well as other regular walks with family and friends.

In addition to the walking, I did ‘Zoom’ classes that were organised by a friend. It was so efficient and she did one or two classes every day. If you couldn’t make the class you could request a recording and do it later on. Those classes became a huge part of my daily routine throughout the week and did more than keep me fit. They gave me a purpose, a goal and revved up my endorphins in an otherwise miserable situation. I did toning, aerobics, Pilates and ballet fit. My lounge became my studio and I played my Spotify tunes through the TV. Sometimes the dog tried to get involved but he’s not very flexible to be honest! I think he just thought it was a new game! Even on my work days, if I didn’t have a meeting I would join live. It actually became very important to my physical well-being too because I sat for hours at my computer causing neck and backache and the 45 minute classes made a huge difference to what had become a sedentary lifestyle. I had been based at home for some time prior to the pandemic. The county council call it ‘agile’ working and provided all the necessary technology so it wasn’t a new thing for our team. However, my job is school based and I would attend several meetings each week either in schools or offices so there was always a good balance of driving, face-to-face meetings and working at home on my laptop. Like a lot of people, the sudden shift to working from home 100% of the time soon lost its appeal. Initially it was nice not to rush about and only having to get dressed and walk downstairs for my start time but it’s very isolating and so terrible for your physical health. So the ‘Zoom’ classes were a life-saver and I will always be grateful for that opportunity. In the first few weeks I was doing between 7 and 10 classes a week! Obviously that is difficult to sustain and as life gradually returned to ‘normal’ it wasn’t so practical for me.

My current fitness plan is on hold due to my health but I will definitely be resuming as soon as I’m ‘allowed’. I have no intention of using age as an excuse not to put effort into my physical health and I will always endeavour to look my best, however wrinkly I become! You don’t get anything for nothing and staying fit and able can only be achieved if you work at it. Remember, it’s not just your body you are looking after but also your mind.

“You have a choice. You can throw in the towel or you can use it to wipe the sweat off your face”

Music is a piece of art that goes in the ears straight to the heart

I have a very good friend who I met at college when I was studying for my A’Levels. We shared a passion for live concerts and chasing autographs! I don’t think there were too many acts we didn’t see during the 80s! We didn’t see all of them together but certainly quite a few. It was a lovely bond as our excitement at seeing our favourite bands was always at the same level. She seemed to always know a lot about who was in the local area and how we might be able to stalk them!

In 1985 we went camping with my parents in Woolacombe, Devon. The first Saturday we were there it was the ‘Live Aid’ concert at Wembley. We spent the day watching it on a big TV at the campsite clubhouse! Not as glamorous as being there but a very special memory of a historic event and one I will never forget.

One time when we must have only been about 17, the same friend led me astray by taking me on an adventure! She had heard that a band called ‘King’ who had a number 2 hit in 1985 called “Love and Pride” were at a local recording studio called Parkgate Studios in Catsfield. Just to put you in the picture, I had led a very sheltered life compared to my friend in that she lived with her grandad and had a lot of independence compared to me. My parents were strict but fair. They were also quite protective of me in terms of boundaries so they often picked me up after a night out or I had a curfew if I was getting a taxi home. So when I got the invite from my friend I naively thought we were just getting the train to Battle. However, the studio was actually in a rural village approximately three miles from the station and via a number of country lanes which we navigated on foot. We managed to find the studio and quite brazenly knocked on the door!

I’m not sure how realistic our expectations were at the time in terms of how we would be received so we were astonished and delighted when we were actually invited in to the studio! The band were so friendly and took the time to personally show us round. We were in awe of the place. As well as the recording studios there was a games room with a full size snooker table and other activities. They offered us drinks and posed with us for photos.

We were also in a state of amazement by previous artists who had made recordings at the studio. They included the likes of Paul McCartney, Def Leppard, Blur, Paul Weller, Robert Smith (The Cure) to name just a few.

The most shocking thing though was our journey back home. We were walking back down the same country lanes that we’d used to get to the studio when a works van with three men in it stopped to offer us a lift and we (rather stupidly) got in the van! What were we thinking?! The answer is we were wide-eyed teenagers and far too trusting. Nevertheless we got a lift safely back to Battle Station without incident. To this day I have never told either of my parents this story! As a parent myself now I can’t imagine how horrified I would be if I found out my own daughter had done the same thing!

Those teenage years were the start of a forever love of live music. For me nothing beats the buzz of hearing the musicians and singers performing live, soaking up the charged atmosphere of eager fans and singing alongside a massive crowd to your favourite tunes.

At an even younger age, my friends and I used to avidly look forward to the ‘Radio 1 Roadshow’ which was an annual summer event hosted and broadcast by BBC Radio 1 from the 1970s through to the 1990s. In Eastbourne it was held every year on the Wishtower Slopes.

Various disc jockeys from the station would travel round mainly seaside towns to play a live set, meeting local people and playing their requests and games with give away “goodie bags” of Radio 1 gifts. The DJs were joined by the support crew, led by Tony Miles, nicknamed “Smiley Miley”. A few of the DJs I can remember from that time were Simon Mayo, Gary Davies, Mike Read, Mike Smith and Simon Bates.

There were a few regular games that some of you might remember – ‘Bits and Pieces’ where contestants from the crowd were selected to name a series of pop hits after hearing a tape containing a number of brief clips, the winner being the one who accurately identified the most. Another was ‘Smiley Miley’s Mileage Game’ where the contestants had to guess how many miles the Roadshow truck had travelled from the previous venue.

Music is personally my most powerful ‘muscle memory’. There’s nothing like a song to take you back in time. Some memories are bittersweet like memories of a good time with someone who is no longer with us. But even then, the memories are precious and as long as we still hear those songs we will always remember those good times fondly.

I would say that a large percentage of songs I hear regularly evoke memories but I’d just like to mention the ones that influenced specific eras of my life. A marketing executive, Don Draper, once described nostalgia as “a twinge in your heart is far more powerful than memory alone”.

I was brought up on a mixture of Elvis Presley, Billy Fury, the Mamas & the Papas, the Beach Boys, the Carpenters, Elton John and a bit of Country, such as Patsy Cline, Slim Whitman and Jim Reeves. My parents were very young when they had us and they are the reason my brother and I love our music so much. I can still remember my dad coming home every Thursday evening – which was weekly payday – with a comic each for me and my brother and a 45” vinyl single from the charts. He did that for years and consequently we had a pretty good family collection along with all the records my parents had also bought in the sixties. I also remember listening to Ed Stewart (Stewpot) with his Saturday morning radio show ‘Junior Choice ‘ which featured lots of silly gimmicky songs like ‘My Brother’, ‘Nellie the Elephant’ and ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’. The show was broadcast in more recent times on every Christmas Day morning between 2007 and 2015 with Ed presenting but he sadly passed away in 2016. Other presenters still play those songs at Christmas but it was never quite the same without the little boy who had belted out “Allo darling!” (with a cheeky chuckle) for almost 50 years! Another household regular on the radio on a Sunday morning was ‘Family Favourites’. I expect there were a lot of presenters but I only remember Michael Aspel and Pete Murray. When I think of that show I can almost smell the Sunday roast cooking.

Sometimes it only takes one song to bring back a thousand memories….

When I started working part-time as a teenager I also spent a lot of my own wages on records and built up my own impressive collection. I still have them all neatly stored in several carry cases, both singles and albums. In 2013 I decided to hold a party for my birthday. We’d had a rough couple of years since losing my mum and I thought it would be fun to celebrate with friends and family. I bought a new but retro style turntable and retrieved my record collection from the loft. I did try to get hold of an original ‘Dansette’ record player where the records are stacked up and drop down one at a time but unfortunately didn’t manage to get one. My dad dug out his even older collection and we organised a 45s (for my 45th) party. Only vinyl allowed, strictly no CDs! Some of the guests also bought a few of their old records to the party too. It was so much fun! My husband played DJ and we danced all night to classic tracks by Dexys Midnight Runners, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Wham, Earth Wind & Fire, Boney M, Blondie, MJ….as well as a few sixties numbers. Everyone said afterwards how much they’d enjoyed the party.

My next era of music, as a primary school child, was the Abba and glam rock phase! I had the striped knee-length Bay City Rollers socks and a tartan scarf. I also particularly loved the Rubettes ‘Sugar Baby Love’ which may just be one of the most nostalgiac songs on my list.

My parents had friends in Germany who my dad had met when he was stationed at an RAF base there before they were married. The German couple had three children, all slightly older than me and my brother, and we have many wonderful and funny memories of our visits. Sometimes we would all go on camping holidays together to Austria or Italy. They had a classic VW Campervan which we were always in awe of. My dad spoke (and can still speak) fluent German and the German children spoke very good English so we were all able to get along without too much trouble. Like many European countries, the British pop charts were very popular with the Germans and my most vivid memories are Rod Stewart’s ‘Sailing’ (partly because we always took the ferry over to France as part of our journey) and Showaddywaddy’s ‘Under the Moon of Love’ which we had all learnt the words to and made up our own dance! I also think of them all if I ever hear any traditional German music or the Bavarian Oompah bands! My brother had his own set of lederhosen but I don’t expect he will thank me for sharing that…! I also have a very funny memory of us singing Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Lost in France’ to my very frustrated and entirely unamused dad because basically we were, at that moment…..lost in France!

I can also remember vividly the night it was announced that Elvis Presley had died in 1977. I was 9 years old. My mum listened to the footage and tributes on the radio all through the night. She cried buckets but, sadly, it was only a few weeks after her own dad, my grandad, had passed away so she was already in a state of shock and grief.

The early eighties gave us more disco tracks and I remember having some school friends over after school and us all sitting in a row ‘dancing’ to the Gap Band’s ‘Oops Upside Your Head’ in our front room and my parents laughing at us! We also tried teaching my dad a dance to Lips Inc’s ‘Funky Town’. He wasn’t very good!

As the eighties moved on, the new romantic scene moved in. It was all velvet, britches, flouncy shirts and guy-liner! My first ever concert without adults, at the age of 15, was Duran Duran at the Brighton Centre with my two closest school friends. We had standing tickets and had pushed our way right to the front. One of the friends ended up passing out and she was lifted over the crowd by the security crew! She was mortified but we found it highly amusing! We said she only did it to get closer to the sexy bassist John Taylor! Many more gigs followed over the next few years – the likes of Spandau Ballet, Depeche Mode, OMD, Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones, Paul Young, Deacon Blue, A Flock of Seagulls, A-Ha, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Cult…..the list goes on! I turned it up a notch once I was at college and starting attending much bigger events at Wembley Arena or Stadium and the Milton Keynes Bowl, to see acts like U2, Simple Minds, Texas, Bobby Brown, INXS and Pet Shop Boys.

This was continued through to the very end of the eighties when I was a student at Bournemouth University and the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) was the go-to for concerts. I went with uni friends to see Terence Trent D’Arby, Wet Wet Wet, Alison Moyet, Fairground Attraction, Deacon Blue, Simply Red and, again, many more.

My brother had very different tastes in music to me during our teenage years and sported an impressive Mohican during the eighties (he used to leave the house with flat hair and find somewhere to style it while he was out, then flatten it back down before going home!). At Christmas my poor mum had the unenviable task of going into ‘Our Price’ records shop (remember those?) and having to ask for albums by ‘The Dead Kennedys’ and ‘Peter and the Test Tube Babies’ – reading them off from a piece of paper so she’d get it right! Bless her! She also got me an album by ‘Garbage’ one year and the shop assistant told her that’s exactly what it was – garbage! Rude! Nowadays we have a few more artists that we both like and often share ‘Spotify’ tunes that we think the other might like.

A mortgage and the responsibilities of being a ‘grown up’, including having children, as well as tickets becoming much more expensive, naturally slowed down the opportunities to go to concerts but I didn’t go completely ‘cold turkey’ still managing a few here and there while the children were little.

The nineties was probably the least significant era for me in terms of music, perhaps because it’s the time I became a busy mum and parenthood took over. Having said that, my love of ‘Take That’ began during that decade and I have remained a loyal fan ever since. It was certainly a good time for music particularly dance, garage, drum and bass, grunge and alternative rock. Hugely successful bands such as Oasis, Foo Fighters, Blur, Pulp, Faithless, Massive Attack, Portishead, The Prodigy, Radiohead and Moby all churned out one big hit after another. The Latin scene introduced us to J-Lo, Shakira and Ricky Martin, while hip hop and rap was reinvented to another level across the globe with artists like Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, Lauren Hill and even Will Smith, who had a music career which some may think was borne out of his ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ character. Conversely he was actually part of the duo ‘DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’ before that and had had some success in the eighties already. The TV show was actually created as a fictionalised version of Will. Finally, the nineties saw the arrival and ‘rivalry’ of boy bands galore! Among others, Take That, Boyzone, Westlife, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and Boyz II Men claimed their places in the battle of the male harmony vocals. The Spice Girls kicked off ‘girlpower’ around the same time but there was a bit more variety in the genres of the girl bands. B*witched, All Saints, Atomic Kitten and the Sugababes all enjoyed chart successes for a good period, with the latter two changing band members more than once. In fact Heidi Range was once a member of both Atomic Kitten and Sugababes and Jenny Frost was formerly a member of Precious who represented the UK in the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest.

On to the millennial years and a whole new era of greatness! Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Keane, Muse, Turin Brakes, Travis, Elbow, Starsailor, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Adele – just too many to name! Some of these have never stopped producing hits and others have returned after a break.

Our little hometown of Bexhill has a somewhat acclaimed reputation for its unique Grade 1 listed Art Deco building, the first major welded steel-frame building in Britain constructed in 1935. As one of the UK’s most iconic buildings the Dela Warr Pavilion is the source of much curiosity and attracts a lot of people with an interest in architecture, art and design. Art exhibitions are held throughout the year and it is the hub of many other community events. Best of all though, it’s also a music venue, holding performances from current and mainstream to quirky and obscure! We are often quite smug when artists play there who have ‘skipped’ some of the larger, more popular venues in bigger towns. Maybe they just think it’s cool to say they’ve played there. Or perhaps they’ve heard about the 29 charity shops and come looking for a bargain! It has a very modest auditorium which makes the gigs feel very personal and intimate. No need for any big screens because you’re never far from the stage. There used to be a shop in the town centre called ‘Music’s Not Dead’ and they would hold promotions for bands who would play a short set then hang around for autographs. The owners were ardent music fans and supported local artists, new up and coming acts and blasts from the past. After getting in the queue nice and early I was lucky enough to share the room with Keane and Turin Brakes, on separate occasions, listening to fantastic live performances and having my photo taken with them. I remember going in the shop once to see if they had an album by a band called ‘The Head and the Heart’ as I’d heard quite a bit of their stuff on films and TV dramas. I was taking a conscientious break from buying music online at the time and wanted to support a local business. To be honest I didn’t think they would be stocking the album. I’m not sure who was more delighted, the guy who served me and seemed surprised and thrilled to be asked for an album by an American indie folk band or me that they had the one I wanted! Sadly the shop didn’t survive but the owners took the opportunity to collaborate with the Dela Warr Pavilion and reopened as a pop-up store, also arranging promotional events from time to time.

I think it’s fun (oh and definitely trivial!) to find out which song was number one the day you were born or other significant life events. I always thought mine was ‘Lady Madonna’ by the Beatles but you have to be careful how you Google it because I now know that was number one but only in Australia. The UK number one the day I was born was Cliff Richard’s ‘Congratulations’. In America it was Otis Redding’s ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’ – a timeless track for sure.

Similarly, to my delight I found out the number one single the day I gave birth to my first born was Take That’s ‘Back for Good’ and always thought that. However, it was actually only number one until the day before and I gave birth at 2.14 am on the day Oasis knocked them off the top slot with ‘Some Might Say’. It goes rather downhill after that. In my second son’s case, REALLY downhill! Teletubbies were at number one with ‘Eh-oh’ the day he was born! It’s actually quite apt though because he is a ‘middle-ish’ child and has all the traits of one! If you could knock it over, trip up it, break it or fall in it, he did! “Eh-oh” indeed! My daughter’s birthday song was Shanks and Bigfoot with ‘Sweet like Chocolate’ and last, but not least, our youngest son’s was Will Young with ‘Leave Right Now’. He was born during the time when the TV reality talent shows such as Pop Idol (shortly before X Factor) had become regular Saturday night viewing and for many years after there was always a fight to beat the winner’s song to the top of the charts for the Christmas number one slot.

This blog is so much longer than I intended but I can’t help getting carried away when I talk about my biggest passion. My taste is very eclectic and I can’t imagine only enjoying one genre or style of music. I mean there are some genres I’m not the biggest fan of, such as heavy metal and punk, but I did grow up with my brother blasting out Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and the Sex Pistols so I can’t help tapping my foot or nodding my head to some ‘heavier’ tracks!

Finally, I’m just going to leave you with a list of some of my all-time favourite songs. Some I love because of a particular memory and others just because…..

Red Light Spells Danger – Billy Ocean

Politik – Coldplay

Zombie – The Cranberries

Dream a little Dream – The Mamas & the Papas

Disco 2000 – Pulp

What’s up? – 4 Non Blondes

Endlessly – Muse

Autumnsong – Manic Street Preachers

Starry Eyed Surprise – Paul Oakenfold

Absolute Beginners – David Bowie

Love Generation – Bob Sinclair

Sunshine on Leith – The Proclaimers

Waiting on the World to Change – John Mayer

Border Song – Tom McRae

Luv – Travis

The Promise – Tracy Chapman

Slight Return – The Bluetones

Torn – Natalie Imbruglia

Holes – Mercury Rev

I’ll Find My Way Home – Jon and Vangelis

Extreme Ways – Moby

Forever – Turin Brakes

Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley

Together in Electric Dreams – Giorgio Moroder

Moment of Surrender – U2

Abraham, Martin & John – Marvin Gay

Return to Innocence – Enigma

Glory Box – Portishead

Creep – Radiohead

Sound of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel

Run – Snow Patrol

Dakota – Stereophonics

Rule the World – Take That

Drive – The Cars

Somewhere Over the Rainbow – Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

This Pretty Face – Amy Macdonald

Altogether Now – The Farm

Better – Tom Baxter

Big Sur – The Thrills

Fisherman’s Blues – The Waterboys

Each memory has a soundtrack of its own

Golden Moments

Continuing on from my last post about my job in Children’s Services…..

Local government services are continually evolving and expanding according to demand although, sadly, in some instances, a lack of funding leads to services being severely reduced or even disbanded.

The Education Support Team is one service which has gone through some significant changes. The first big change was the way in which the service supported the children and young people. Instead of providing 1:1 support with a very small percentage of children, caseworkers are now allocated a full caseload so that every individual child has a caseworker overseeing their education. The way the cases are allocated is that every caseworker is assigned to specific schools in East Sussex and consequently any East Sussex looked after children (LAC) in those schools are automatically the responsibility of that caseworker. This could be a child who already attends the school at the time of being taken into care or if a child is moved there from another school. So some children will not have had a change in their education and will already have been identified as a child in need and case conferences and strategy meetings will have taken place prior to any decisions to remove them from their families.

The other notable change is that the service was renamed and is now called The Virtual School for Children in Care (VSCIC) in line with new legislation which required every local authority in England to appoint a Virtual School Head. In addition to this, maintained schools and academies are required to have a designated teacher for looked after children. They must be a qualified teacher who is working as a teacher at the school or a head teacher/acting head teacher of the school.

The Virtual School has a statutory duty to work together with children and young people, schools, social workers, carers and other professionals to ensure that looked after children and young people do as well as possible at school by monitoring their progress, championing their educational needs and providing or commissioning additional support.

The name of the service can be quite confusing and we are often mistaken for being an online service. The best way to describe the service is that all of the children we support are on roll at a ‘regular’ school and, if you like, we act as an ‘umbrella’ school for all of them. As stated previously there is a head teacher and there is also a governing body made up of a head teacher, foster carer and/or adoptive parent, a designated teacher of an independent school, a county councillor and other appropriate professionals. The chairperson of the governing body is the Head of Looked After Children’s Services.

Pupil Premium Plus is additional educational funding provided by the Department of Education and is held and managed by virtual schools for children who are in care, plus those children previously looked after. The East Sussex Virtual School pools the money and allocates it on a needs basis. This does mean that some children are supported by the funding and others may never need to access any. As well as support being directly for individuals, the funding may be used for training in schools, specific projects and regular schemes. One example is that all primary school aged children who are looked after by East Sussex receive a parcel of books several times a year to promote literacy. Many of the children have never owned a book, let alone a bundle of smart brand new ones, and they arrive in the post in a parcel personally addressed to them. This scheme has been running for several years and has been very well received. The books are not distributed by age but rather by the child’s reading ability. This information is provided by the school or carers to ensure the choices are appropriate and do not result in disappointment.

You may be wondering about the nature of the service’s support. Well there are a number of elements to the role. One of the most crucial factors is having good relationships with the schools, social workers, carers and a range of professionals. Having specific school allocations allows caseworkers to build up relationships with key members of school staff. We ensure that the schools are doing all they can to support the needs of the young people, at the same time offering them advice and guidance when young people become hard to manage in school. While maintaining this working collaboration there are times when it is necessary to challenge decisions, such as exclusions, if we believe there is a better alternative to resolve an issue. Personally I feel that exclusions are never an effective way of managing a situation especially as some of the children do not want to be in school and may deliberately look for ways to avoid attending. It’s probably best I don’t go too deep into my views on that subject….!

In some ways I guess you could say we are like a consultancy. We have ‘champions’ in other services such as the East Sussex Behaviour and Attendance Service (ESBAS), Communication Learning and Autism Support Service (CLASS), Educational Psychology (EP) service, School Admissions, Occupational Therapists (OT), Speech and Language Therapy (SALT), Children’s Mental Health Service (CAMHS), the Adoption team, Youth Employability Service (YES) alternative providers and tutor agencies to mention a few!

As all of these children will have experienced some level of trauma, whether that’s in the form of abuse, neglect or loss, they will undoubtedly struggle emotionally and this is likely, if not certainly, to impact on their learning. They may have gaps in their education where they either had poor attendance or were unable to focus at school during a period of extreme difficulty in their home lives. Many of the children spend a considerable amount, if not all, of their education playing ‘catch up’. Even though they have become ‘safe’ from the dangers they have been exposed to they continue to live in a world of fear and uncertainty.

Of course any sustained absence from school is likely to impact on a child’s academic performance, regardless of their cognitive ability. So in addition to these gaps and disruption in their learning, the vast majority will have experienced some level of developmental trauma due to their early experiences. The theory of attachment suggests that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. Without this significant bond the brain misses vital parts of its development. The human cerebral cortex adds 70 percent of its mass after birth and grows to 90% of its adult size in the first three years of life. If this growth is disrupted, it will hinder the child’s ability to regulate, relate and reason (known as the three R’s). Statistical analysis of the brains of Romanians who were institutionalised as children during the communist regime showed that they were around 8.6% smaller than other adoptees and those changes in brain volume that were related to deprivation were also associated with lower IQ and more ADHD symptoms implying that changes in brain structure could play a mediating role between the experience of deprivation and levels of cognitive performance and mental health. Therefore, as well as building up a knowledge of education systems and tracking academic progress and performance, much of our focus is on the child’s ability to access their learning.

One concept that it is essential for staff in school to always bear in mind is that behaviour is a form of communication. In most cases, behaviour is a sign a child may not have the skills to tell you what they need. Sometimes, children may not even know what they need. This is when schools should think about what the child may be trying to communicate. What do they need, and what could the teachers do to help?

Because they may be excellent at ‘masking’ their difficulties (these children are very good at finding survival strategies for many situations) some children may get to secondary school before being screened for potential communication difficulties. They may have good expressive language but poor receptive language, giving them the ability to talk articulately and therefore giving the impression they are not struggling to understand. I have worked with young people who have managed to get to year 8/9 or sometimes even key stage 4 before it is discovered that their communication is so poor that professionals are utterly astounded at how they have got that far without being detected. One of my year 8 girls was screened using a standardised assessment which is used universally to screen language comprehension. It is called ‘Language Link’ and is available in infant, junior and secondary versions.

The content reflects the daily demands faced by young people to understand language both in the classroom and in conversation with peers. The assessment covers:

• following classroom instructions

• understanding complex sentences

• concept vocabulary

• processing information

• social understanding

My particular student, age 13, scored an overall percentile of 2, which translates to ‘2 children in 100’ (or 2%) of the same age having that level of comprehension. As you can imagine, this was incredibly significant to, not only her learning, but also to her ability to socially interact with her peers.

A few years ago, having completed an accredited level 4 qualification in ‘Working with Children with Complex Speech, Language and Communication Needs’ I led on a project on behalf of the Virtual School monitoring the way in which our schools identified and acknowledged the links between behaviour and communication difficulties. I requested that the school carry out a speech and language assessment as soon as they became aware that a child in their school had become looked after. In all instances I stressed the importance of this being an essential element to the whole baseline assessment process. At the same time I asked caseworkers in our team to request this screening of their young people. This was regardless of progress and perceived ability and sometimes a teacher would say “oh no, they don’t need that. They don’t have any difficulties” and I would politely ask them to do it anyway so that the study would reflect a realistic overview. In some cases, there were gaps identified and some profiles were very spiky, i.e. areas of good outcomes alongside much weaker areas. This then provided a reliable tool to consider the appropriate interventions to strengthen those areas or to refer to an external service such as the NHS Speech and Language Therapy service. If the scores are all within the average range there is no need for further involvement but if there are recommendations within the report a review should be carried out after a period of intervention.

If I am ever in a meeting or a discussion about a young person and there is a suggestion that they might be dyslexic I will always ask first if a speech and language assessment has been carried out as, if there are unidentified difficulties, this is likely to affect the results of a Dyslexia Screening Test (DST). Having speech and language difficulties does not necessarily mean that a young person is dyslexic.

Of course, many of our young people have no difficulties with communication but it is helpful to confirm this as there can often be an assumption that the reasons for poor behaviour are due to social, emotional and mental health (SEMH), based on the fact that they are a looked after child. If this conclusion is incorrect, then the ensuing support may also not resolve the issues. However, as I mentioned previously, emotional trauma can, and often does, have a significant impact on the young person’s ability to learn.

Thankfully schools nowadays are much more ‘attachment and trauma aware’ and undergo much more training on how to support this. They run various nurture groups and classes and specific programmes such as ‘Zones of Regulation’ (a social emotional learning framework and pathway to regulation). They may also use a school-led embedded ethos called ‘Therapeutic Thinking’, a philosophy which focuses on how all children and young people are supported, particularly in terms of their emotional wellbeing and mental health. The approach also helps to develop an understanding of how to respond to those who may be communicating through inappropriate behaviours. They might carry out a Boxall Profile, an assessment tool for social, emotional and behavioural difficulties or a Thrive assessment, a neuroscience and psychology-based approach to helping children and young people thrive. Lots of these tools can help schools to put together a ‘pupil passport’ or ‘student snapshot’ which is a very concise document that can be shared with all school staff to help them to have a better understanding of the young person and may include strategies, dos and don’ts and any other information that can be used to avoid incidents due to the young person’s fears and anxiety about being in school. These are just a couple of examples of ways in which schools can support young people with SEMH difficulties.

Sometimes a young person is not managing school at all and becomes at risk of permanent exclusion. Caseworkers will be part of a network doing all they can to prevent that from happening. I won’t go into all the details but we may advise alternative provision and agree to fund this, such as forest schools and art therapy. Alternatively we may encourage schools to refer to the behaviour and attendance service for assessment and intervention which we can also fund using pupil premium plus. In some instances it may be necessary to agree a reduced timetable.

We are occasionally invited to attend network therapy meetings with LACMHS (Looked After Children’s Mental Health Service) when a child has reached a crisis point and we need to consult with psychologists and other professionals to ensure we are all meeting the young person’s needs as best we can. These meetings are very interesting and informative but they can also be emotionally draining when the background/history of a young person is discussed in detail to help everyone to understand the significance of their earlier experiences.

By law every looked after child should have a Personal Education Plan’ (PEP) meeting three times in an academic year. Attending these meetings and ensuring the completed paperwork is satisfactory is our main focus. If the young person is below age related expectations (ARE) or is not making progress according to their individual targets we look at the potential reasons for this. A large percentage of the Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) is used to provide additional 1:1 tuition which can be arranged through the Virtual School. The impact of the tuition is measured and has resulted in improved progress for many. Often it’s not just the extra teaching but an increase in confidence which makes the difference.

If a young person is really struggling and it is not possible to sustain the level of funding to meet the needs, we would request that the school starts the process of applying for an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP). Some of you may know this as a statement of educational need, as it was previously called. This is a gathering of evidence to support the decision that a child cannot manage without additional help and, if successful, additional funding is granted to the school for that specific young person. If, even with the extra funding, it is agreed that the young person still cannot cope in a mainstream environment then an emergency review can be held to consider a special school/provision. It does not however guarantee a place for that child due to numbers being kept low.

Last year I applied for and successfully secured a position as an Education Support Worker (ESO) within the team. A chunk of that role is the same as a caseworker and I still hold a substantial caseload. I also supervise a caseworker and she asks me for advice and guidance when she needs it. However, the role is also a strategic one. I am one of five ESOs and we each have specific areas of responsibility. I am the Communications and Media lead, representing the team on any online issues, websites, projects and information sharing. It’s a nice balance of maintaining the core work of the team and branching out to wider areas of interest. All five of us also have regular commitments such as auditing of paperwork, sitting on the funding panel and extended duties which is mainly supporting children who are on the edge of care.

I have given you just a flavour of the purpose of the Virtual School as there are so many other ways in which we support these children with their individual needs. I appreciate this is very factual so I thought it would be interesting to share some anecdotal examples of my time with the Virtual School.

In every caseload we all have a small number of high profile and very challenging children. I had a boy at secondary school who had experienced severe trauma at home. He was the middle child of three siblings who were all placed in separate foster homes. His cognition was rather enigmatic but he had seemingly managed to get the whole way through primary school with his poor cognisance going unnoticed. His profile was very spiky as some assessments still put him in the average ranges. If you had a conversation with him though you could clearly see that there was something preventing him from having a grasp of reality. He had no friends to speak of and spent more time out of class than in. We funded a ‘Thrive’ practitioner to work with him but it was obvious it was going to be a slow process. LACMHS network consultations were held and the information shared by the social worker was incredibly distressing. I’m usually pretty good at keeping my emotions in check but I struggled in those meetings and could often feel the threat of tears. The situation was unimaginable. This boy seemed to have never known love. Unfortunately one day he had a colossal meltdown in school. Luckily both myself and his social worker happened to be in school for a meeting about another child so we were able to get involved. We went to the class where he was and he looked like a caged animal. This boy’s regular expression was one of ‘a rabbit in headlights’ but this time he was in a completely different zone to everyone else. There were members of staff at every exit of the classroom to prevent his ‘escape’, upturned furniture and ripped-up work spread around the room. He looked absolutely terrified and it was really disturbing for everyone to see. The social worker had an excellent relationship with him albeit dialogue between them could be quite limited. However, he was in such a state of hyper-arousal that she couldn’t get him to recognise who she was at first. She then proceeded to calmly and politely ask everyone else to leave the room and eventually he ‘came back down’ and collapsed in a curled up ball. Staff were concerned about how they were going to get him out of school and talked about calling the police. The social worker was indignant that it would be a bad idea. This child had witnessed many incidents involving the police and was ultimately removed from his parents’ care by police officers. The social worker spoke to the police and persuaded them to arrive without wearing uniforms. She was also adamant that he would not be able to reflect on what had happened and should not be questioned by anyone. Eventually the boy went willingly with two non-uniformed officers to their marked car. By then he was able to trust them to take him back to his foster placement. Despite my best efforts to persuade him otherwise the head teacher insisted on permanently excluding the student. I argued that he would never have to return to the school site and we would make alternative arrangements for his education but, sadly,he had made up his mind. An appeal to the academy trust also failed. I’m not going to dwell on the misgivings of this situation as it isn’t reflective of my respect for that school as a whole. It was the beginning of a situation that went on for well over a year. Fortunately he was able to attend a small provision targeted at young people with SEMH and the teacher of the provision was able, with the help of myself and others in the network, to apply for and secure an EHCP after which time we called a review to name a special school. He missed a whole year group of mainstream education and I’m very happy to say was ultimately given a place in a local special school where he also boarded, only spending every other weekend at his foster placement. I’ll never forget his first PEP meeting at the school with feedback of how settled he was. He had loads of friends, was taking part in activities and was one of the brightest students in his class! Finally I could see a future for this poor boy who had been let down by his parents and subsequently the school system. For the second time of working with him I could barely speak as I had a huge lump in my throat. All he needed was to be understood.

“Students who are loved at home come to school to learn, and students who aren’t, come to school to be loved”

On the planning paperwork there are sections to gather the pupil voice. These questions have changed over time and younger children often needed them to be rephrased. For example, one question was “what are your aspirations for the future?” For younger children we would say “what would you like to do when you grow up?” One of my little girls who had a diagnosis of autism replied “I want to be a shark or a crocodile so I can be like my brother and swim underwater!” Another time the same little girl was asked “What would you like to do after school?”. It had been snowing that day and she replied “I want to go sledging!” Well, we did ask…!

The Virtual School measures success in very different ways and often not in the conventional sense. Qualifications are of course important but some children take a longer path to academic achievement. Our measure of success comes in smaller steps. For example, where a child has been a school refuser and after a long period of non-attendance manages to step over the threshold of the school and attend just one lesson, that is something to celebrate. Similarly if a child has struggled throughout their time in school but manages to sit one exam, that is a success. Better still if that child achieves a grade 1 in just one of their GCSE exams, it is indeed an accomplishment. There are 9 grades for a reason. Success is being able to sit on the mat at carpet time, accepting support from an adult, joining in a PE lesson, remembering equipment, not shouting out in class….

We have a very special custom in our team. Team meetings are held every two weeks and a regular item in the agenda is ‘Golden Moments’. Every member of the team has an opportunity to share their golden moments. These can be work-related or personal, sometimes both. This is where we often acknowledge those small steps and occasionally a HUGE step that deserves to be heard! It’s a wonderful exercise that is guaranteed to make everyone smile and reminds us that we are making a difference, however big or small.

We should always bear in mind the struggles these children have to deal with on a daily basis. Constant fear, who to trust, will they be hungry later, where will they be staying tonight, are they going to be moving again, is their mummy ok, when will they see their brother or sister again, are they safe from harm now, is it their fault they were taken away….? It’s hard to imagine living with those thoughts and fears everyday.

These children are not “choosing” those behaviours as some may suggest. They are just trying to survive…..

“Beneath every behaviour is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need rather than focus on the behaviour, we begin to deal with the cause not the symptom.”

“Fair doesn’t mean giving every child the same thing, it means giving every child what they need”

Eight years is a substantial time to be out of the workforce, particularly with such a fast evolution of technology and systems. In 2005 when our youngest son was about 14 months old, my husband’s freelance design work almost dried up unexpectedly and we were very worried about our financial situation. I suggested that I could return to work part-time and he could take on the childcare whilst still being able to work on any projects he had. The oldest three children were all at school full-time.

I hadn’t applied for a job for about 14 years so it was a very daunting prospect. Completing the application and CV wasn’t too bad but the thought of an interview terrified me. I went for a couple of interviews, both for jobs in the public sector. One of them was a ten minute walk from home. I was interviewed by a panel of three managers and I was so flustered. Whenever I’m nervous I always get really flushed and blotchy around my neck. I remember by the end of the interview my neck

And upper chest were bright red! I had asked my previous boss if she would be happy for me to state her name as a referee and she gave me one of the best tips I’ve ever had for an interview. I said I was worried about questions relating to hypothetical scenarios, such as “what would you do if this happened?” and she said to me there’s always a way to draw on previous experiences so, instead of saying “I would do this”, say “I had a situation once where this happened….” and give an actual example. I must have performed okay in the interview as I was offered that particular post which was in, what was then called, the 16 Plus Team, a service supporting care leavers. Unfortunately they were unable to offer me the position part-time so I had to decline. I just couldn’t manage full-time with four children and any additional child care costs would have rendered it financially unviable.

However, a few days later I got a phone call from one of the managers who had interviewed me. He said that they had all been very disappointed that I’d been unable to accept the job and wanted to know if I’d be interested in an alternative position which was part-time but based in Hailsham (about 12 miles from home). I gave it some thought and decided it wouldn’t hurt to go along for the chat with the manager of the service. It was a specialist team which straddled both Children’s Services and Education – The Education Support Team – ‘TEST’ for short. The aim of the service was to promote the education of looked after children (LAC) and previously looked after children (PLAC), e.g. children who were adopted from care or subject to a Spacial Guardianship Order (SGO) and to raise their aspirations to achieve in further and higher education. Specific support for looked after children is essential if they are to thrive.

As much as I don’t want to turn this into a dull account, I think it’s relevant to give it some perspective. With so many barriers to face in their lives already, children in care perform well below their peers in education. Although some do well, looked after children as a group have poor experiences of education and very low educational attainment. Their educational outcomes, in terms of the proportion who reach the average levels of attainment expected of seven, eleven, fourteen and sixteen year olds, are significantly lower than for all children.

A relatively small number of looked after children progress to higher education but this is an area which is definitely developing. When I first worked for the service there were more discussions around how many young people had received prison sentences than had gone to university. 17 years on it is a much more positive picture with some wonderful success stories of young people gaining high level degrees, even Masters degrees, or having big accomplishments in their careers.

The main reasons for the significant gaps in achievement are that their lives are characterised by instability, they spend too much time out of school, they don’t have sufficient help with their education if they fall behind, their primary carers are not equipped to provide efficient support and encouragement for their learning and development and they have unmet emotional, mental and physical health needs that impact on their education.

I don’t want to bombard you too much with boring statistics so here’s just a glimpse of the picture. In 2019, 37% of looked after children in key stage 2 reached the expected standard for reading, writing and maths compared to the national average of 65% for non-looked after children. At key stage 4, in the same year, looked after children had an attainment 8 score of 19.1 compared to 44.6 for all children.

Also highly significant is that looked after children are almost four times more likely to have a special educational need and almost nine times more likely to have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) than all children. In 2019, 55.9% of looked after children had a special educational need compared to 14.1% of all children and, unsurprisingly, the most common primary type of special educational need for these children is social, emotional and mental health.

When I first joined the team, individual children were referred to the service by their schools and caseworkers were assigned to work 1:1 with those children/young people. The amount of support varied depending on the circumstances but as a small team there was a limit to how many could be supported at one time. It was very different to how we work now and there were highs and lows but it was anything but boring! I’ve got a few stories to share which I believe will stay in my memory forever.

My very first 1:1 support was with a year 3 child. He was the middle child of three siblings and the only one of the three who did not have a learning disability. He used to disappear under the classroom desks when he was anxious and the class teacher struggled to engage him. His background was as horrendous as it gets and it was no wonder he couldn’t engage in his learning. He hated it if I paid attention to any of the other children in the class and used to say “Mrs Hammond is mine”! I used to take a lot of resources with me, including a laptop, and I ended up buying a shopping trolley bag to transport everything. As they got to know me better the friendly ladies on reception used to call out “Here comes the trolley dolly!”. It can be strange working in a school when you’re not one of their own staff as you are an outsider. The key staff such as the SENCO or the designated LAC teachers would be very personable but, to most people, you were always just a visitor. There were occasions when I’d have to bite my tongue. I was once sitting in a staff room and a lady said to me “How are you finding working with X?” and I replied “Great! He’s lovely”. She then said “Don’t you find him rude? He’s always saying I don’t care” What I really wanted to say was “Do you know what that little boy has been through in his short life? What hasn’t happened to him isn’t worth talking about” but of course I had to remain professional and respect confidentiality so I just said something along the lines of he’s okay with me. Aside of confidentiality I truly believe that we should work on a ‘need to know’ basis. Of course some information has to be shared if it involves a high level of risk but still only to a select number of people. As far as I’m concerned all anyone else needs to know is that a child has been taken into care for a reason. Whatever that reason is and to whatever extent they may be emotionally impacted by their experiences, they have been removed from their families to live with strangers (in most cases) and surely that’s enough to have some understanding of how anxious and frightened they must feel. So I’m not ashamed to admit that my tolerance levels are put to the test by anyone who appears to completely lack compassion and who is seemingly offended by the nonchalant response of a vulnerable child.

One of my most challenging assignments was a six year old girl who attended a catholic primary school. The first day I met her, the taxi transporting her from her foster placement was late so I was already there when she arrived. I’ll always remember how this tiny little human being with a larger than life personality barged through the entrance doors and literally marched past me as I attempted to introduce myself. I said “Hi! My name’s Mrs Hammond and I’m going to be working with you” with which she replied, without stopping, “Well, f*** off! I hate you!” Hmmmm….not the best start! Anyway, I said “I tell you what, I’ll just follow you to your classroom shall I?” and, relatively composed, that’s exactly what I did! It didn’t take too long after that to engage with her but, like with all children with a background of trauma, building up a trusting relationship would be a very gradual process. Why should she trust me when so many of the adults in her life had let her down in one way or another? Although academically behind, she was as sharp as a tack and you definitely couldn’t pull the wool over her eyes about many things. She could be affectionate and tactile but also complex and unpredictable. It was really difficult to identify her triggers. If she wasn’t subtly moving in for a little snuggle she was kicking me in the shins. I think she liked me more often than she didn’t so that was good enough for me! She certainly didn’t like sharing me with any of her classmates. Her peers really seemed to accept that she needed support and they were generally very kind. I don’t know if that’s just because children of that age tend to be quite egotistical and concentrate more on their own needs or maybe that the cohort had a high level of need across the school and she didn’t always stand out from the other pupils. However not everyone appeared to be quite so inclusive. At ‘carpet time’ she was allowed to sit on a chair because she simply couldn’t manage to sit still on the floor. There was an older teaching assistant who surely must have had some idea of this little girl’s sad circumstances but she said to me “there shouldn’t be exceptions” to which I replied “on the contrary, for some children there have to be exceptions”. I felt very sad that anyone could be so lacking in compassion that they could not see past the disruptive behaviour of a small child. One morning, as soon as I arrived, the class teacher said to me “We are taking the class to church this morning and we thought you could bring X”. I almost laughed in her face! This is a child who tries to get out of moving vehicles and you want me to walk down the road with her! To be fair the church was literally at the bottom of the road. Even so, I thought “they’re not daft!” – well and truly stitched up! I bet they wouldn’t have taken her if I hadn’t been there that day. But I was there and she deserved to be included in every activity and outing. So, deep breath and….I’m not religious….but a quick prayer that (a) we would both make it there in one piece and (b) she wouldn’t demonstrate her colourful range of expletives in front of the clergy! As it turned out she was as good as gold and I was so happy that she’d had that opportunity and experience. Sadly, despite the highest levels of support she was ultimately permanently excluded from the school. Yes, you did read that correctly, not only exclusion of a six year old but one that was in care. Discussions and meetings ensued in an effort to overturn the decision but to no avail – it’s one thing being up against a board of governors but when they also bring in the Diocese you are doomed to fail. I’d love to tell you that there was a happy ending for this little girl but she was very let down by systems and a lack of understanding of so much disruption and stability at such an early stage that unfortunately she continued to vote with her feet and never managed to settle in any education setting, including alternative provisions.

I also worked with a little boy in a rural school who I nicknamed ‘Forrest Gump’ as he used to literally run all round the school and rarely wore his shoes! He was 8 years old and was well behind his peers academically. He also had a very noticeable speech impediment which must have been very frustrating for him but he was actually very patient when anyone struggled to understand him. I remember one time when I thought he was talking about a train. I kept repeating ‘train’ as I thought that was what he was saying. In the end he just said to me “No! One of those tall things up in the sky that picks things up!” and I said “Oh crane!” He just shrugged it off and carried on with his story! Similarly to my previous anecdote, the school had planned to take the children to their allotment down the road from the school and asked if I could accompany the child. Now it’s one thing keeping a child safe a few metres down a quiet school road in a residential street but this particular school was on a main A-road and this boy liked to run! Can you imagine the risk assessment?! He was fine, but me? It’s a wonder I didn’t break any bones in his little hand I was holding on so tightly! On another occasion the class had a trip to the ‘Gray-Nichols Cricket Bat Factory’ in the local town. It was very interesting and I felt privileged to have been asked to go with them. It was followed by a walk around the town and my little ‘charge’ wanted to chat to all the shopkeepers and was delighted when they paid him the appropriate attention. As he got to secondary school age his behaviour became unmanageable for mainstream and he completed his schooling in a specialist provision.

I have too many stories from that time to include them all but I do have one more that happened at a later time when we were no longer working 1:1 with the children. It was just a coincidence that it happened while I was there. I had a meeting about a different child at the primary school and, on arrival, I spotted a member of staff frantically rushing around the staff carpark in a panic. They couldn’t find one of their pupils who happened to also be one of ‘my’ looked after children. She was as bright as a button and quite a character. What she did that day proved exactly how clever she was. After literally searching high and low they finally found her. She hadn’t left the school premises after all. She was sitting motionless in one of the cloakrooms with her back tucked neatly against the wall and was wearing a coat, including the hood, back to front! Absolute genius! I mean, it’s not funny when you think a child may have absconded from school but how can you not admire the ingenuity and resourcefulness of one so young?! Whatever obstacles life might throw at her, I couldn’t help thinking that she would find ways to overcome them.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein.

To be continued….

“There’s no such thing as a perfect parent so just be a real one”

I won’t list my whole career history but let’s just say I did a bit of a slalom to eventually get to the job I love most! Apparently the average number of jobs a person has in their lifetime is 12. This has changed from years ago. Young people are expected to have changed job several more times than their parents. When comparing generations, millennials change jobs an average of four times in their first decade out of college, compared to the two job changes by generation Xers in their first ten years out of college. Technically if you don’t include a period of temping, my current job is my sixth. However, in one place I had a secondment so I had two different positions and I am in my third position of my current employer.

Before I got married I worked for the Child Protection Team of Social Services in Eastbourne (nowadays known as Children’s Services). We were situated in the same building as the Adult Services team of the same geographic area. It was the sharp end of the service where the toughest aspects of social work are carried out, resulting in the ongoing monitoring of children in their family environments, removal of children to the care of the local authority and court cases determining the future of those children. The social workers are frontline practitioners who see firsthand situations where children and young people have been subject to different forms of abuse or are simply not having their needs met by their parents or carers and are deemed high risk. I regularly took the minutes in case conferences and the atmosphere could be very intense as the birth families would be present in most cases. This was not a job for the faint-hearted and the notes had to be unfailingly accurate so, whatever was going on, I had to remain completely focused throughout those meetings. Of course it could be distressing and terribly sad but was also very interesting and rewarding.

After about three years my Team Manager approached me and encouraged me to apply for a secondment. I thought my chances of success were slim as the job was in adult services not child protection and I had no experience of that service. The role was ‘Community Care Information Officer’. It was a completely new role created due to the implementation of community care reforms in 1993, chiefly intended to formalise the rights of individuals to choose where they received residential care under the new community care arrangements. The job involved answering queries on a helpline, designing and producing leaflets which explained the eligibility criteria for the service users and managing a team of clerical staff.

This role was continually developed and, ultimately, I ended up doing something which took me completely out of my comfort zone. Myself and a colleague were invited on a regular basis to deliver presentations to a range of groups, such as GPs, voluntary organisations and other departments within the county council, explaining the changes in the legislation as well as promoting the helpline service. I really hate speaking to large groups and used to have sleepless nights whenever I had to do any presentations for my degree so it was something I didn’t do willingly! However, after the first couple I didn’t dread it quite so much. Although the audience was often quite large (anything up to about 100 people). I didn’t know any of them and but I knew my subject well so my nerves improved as time went on. Often if we were presenting to the service users, primarily older people, they were not a difficult crowd! I mean, there was often one or two ‘reading the back of their eyelids’ and others who simply couldn’t hear a word we were saying, so we could have been speaking in a different language for all they knew! If they weren’t asleep or hard of hearing they often had completely the wrong idea about who we were! In those days we were still known as the DSS (Department of Social Services) as opposed to the DHSS (Department of Health and Social Security). One dealt with social care and the other with financial benefits such as income support and pensions. Understandably the two were often confused! So having spent a couple of hours talking about residential care in some detail, it was no surprise that there were always a few questions at the end from people asking why they hadn’t received their pension and could we look into it?! Mostly we were able to explain that that was not our department but we occasionally had to appease someone who was annoyed and frustrated with us (but not us)!

I took maternity leave during the period of that role for my first baby and returned on a part-time basis while he went to a childminder, but when baby number two was on his way I gave up work altogether. It was neither practical nor financially viable. I went on to have two more children, the first three within four years and the fourth came along after a four year gap. Consequently I ended up being a stay-at-home mum for over eight years. If anyone thinks it’s an easy option, believe me it’s not! Some say they go to work just for a rest! Having said that I don’t regret a single minute of it. It’s a big sacrifice financially and meant we really struggled at times but I’d still do it all again. I loved my time with my children and I always appreciated that I was lucky to be able to do that as I know not everyone can. It’s such a precious time, although I also know it’s not for everyone and I believe it’s ok to work when you have small children too. As far as I’m concerned there’s no right or wrong. I was just fortunate to be able to choose.

Over the years, as a mother of four children, I made a lot of friends. There were the playgroup and school parents as well as people I met through clubs and activities – football, karate, dancing, swimming…..my children often say to me “you know everyone mum!” Not quite everyone but, yes, I know many! Clearly raising children didn’t stretch me enough as I joined the playgroup committee, the school PTA, got involved at dancing and, after my youngest son started primary school, became a parent governor. It all helped to keep my brain active as my role was often secretary/minute taker and I produced various newsletters during that time. I made some lifelong friends from those voluntary roles and had a lot of fun. I even found a teeny-weeny creative side of myself when we made craft items for the school Christmas bazaar. My mum was into scrapbooking and had all the gear so we once spent hours making laminated bookmarks. The bazaar was lovely because the majority of the goods were homemade. To make it fair for everyone the pupils would have a maximum spend limit and would come into the hall one year group at a time, starting with the youngest. It was a cashless event so they would come in with a piece of paper starting with their total and we would reduce the amount as they spent it. My mental arithmetic was always put to the test which is rather awkward when dealing with an eight year old who could subtract in a fraction of the time that I could! As you can imagine it could be rather manic at times and when I first did the minutes, which included the Christmas preparations, I mistakenly misspelt ‘bazaar’ and instead typed ‘bizarre’ (meaning comical and outlandish)! To be fair, on the whole I feel my version of the word was more appropriate than the correct one!

My mum used to help on the day of the bazaar too. It was wonderful having her on our ‘team’ and she absolutely loved getting involved. Years later my old PTA ‘partners-in-crime’ still reminisce with me about those days and how much we used to laugh.

I’ve always loved being part of a team, in whatever situation, and it was good for me to have the opportunities to balance the tough job of raising four young children with some socialising with adults, both responsible and irresponsible!

“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” —C.S. Lewis

When a Job and a Passion Collide

After graduating from uni with an honours degree I really didn’t know what I wanted to do for a job. Although I’d majored in Law I’d already decided it wasn’t a career I wanted to pursue. Having learned to touch type at college I was in a good position to apply for administrative jobs in London where employers appreciate graduates and don’t dismiss them as being over qualified as they seemed to do locally at that time. I felt it would be a good experience to work in a busy city office while I worked out what I eventually wanted to do. Journalism was something I had considered but it’s very difficult to get into without any background in the field. My typing speed was around 85 words per minute at that time and most offices had moved over from traditional typewriters to word processors so it was easier to maintain that speed. I went to an employment agency and had six interviews in one day. I was offered all six positions in a variety of settings and eventually decided on a publishing company. I have always been an avid reader and I basically just love books! There’s not much money in publishing but the salary wasn’t bad and I loved my time there. It was a very laidback environment and they all took me under their wing as, at 21, I was the baby of the team. However they were a fun-loving bunch mostly in their late twenties to thirties. My job was PA to the Director of one of several divisions which all had a specialism. Macdonald & Co was part of the Daily Mirror Group which was owned by British media proprietor, suspected spy and fraudster Robert Maxwell. He died two years after I started working there after falling overboard from his luxury yacht. Despite his humble beginnings as one of only a handful of Holocaust survivors in his immediate family, he was not known for his humility or kindness.

In a very short space of time we moved offices from Shoe Lane, then New Fetter Lane and eventually to the large and busy Mirror office building in High Holborn. I never saw or met Maxwell but we often heard his helicopter landing on the roof of the building! In contrast to her brother’s lavish and decadent existence his sister Sylvia was a modest and unpretentious lady who worked in the same company. She was saved by the Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, who rescued her from a Budapest station as she was about to be sent to Auschwitz. He gave her Swedish citizenship and she later came to England. She was, amongst other roles, chiefly responsible for editing the ‘Noddy’ collection of books.

As first ‘proper’ jobs go, it was very interesting, learning about the commissioning of authors, the role of editors, graphic designers and the printing process. The division I worked for was called ‘Queen Anne Press’ specialising in sports books and autobiographies/human interest stories. While I was there we published a book about David Lopez who became known as ‘The Boy David’. He was a Peruvian boy born with severe facial deformity and abandoned as an infant and became the subject of a documentary which captivated viewers across the country. During my time working there I met a handful of celebrities such as Paula Yates, racing commentator Julian Wilson and various sports personalities. I also occasionally spoke to authors or sports people on the telephone such as Catherine Cookson, Peter Shilton and Kenny Dalglish. There were lots of others but not being an avid sports fan at the time I can’t remember most of them!

One of my roles was to edit ‘The Rothmans Football Year Book’ 1990 edition. The book contains statistical information on the previous season in English football, including all results, appearances, goalscorers and transfers for the various leagues, as well as selected historical records for each club and all major competitions. Definitely a book for die-hard football fans, otherwise deadly boring if I’m honest! My job involved contacting all the football clubs and editing photo captions, names etc to ensure their accuracy. My name was included in the credits which I was very excited about! Small things and all that….

As much as I loved the job, the daily commute was gruelling. I left the house at 5.30 am every day and didn’t get home til at least 8.00 pm most evenings. It was exhausting. The Hastings to Charing Cross line is so slow and, at that time, the carriages were the old style where you had to open the window to get to the handle and you couldn’t move between carriages. It always made me nervous as the carriages emptied out and there might only be one other person in that section. After Tunbridge Wells it was all the little rural stops and went from people standing due to a lack of seating to very quiet and a bit spooky! My mind used to launch into overdrive, like the time I was alone in a carriage with a heavily tattooed man, who looked like someone you wouldn’t mess with and had a huge holdall which, in my overactive imagination, contained knives and a chainsaw! Poor man, it could have contained his Sunday best suit for all I knew!

In the mornings I used to snooze most of the way up to London and I always feared waking up to find I’d been leaning on a stranger’s shoulder if I fell into a deep sleep! For those who are old enough to remember, I had a Sony ‘Walkman’ that could turn over the cassette when it ended (very posh I thought at the time!). I used to record a lot of albums onto blank cassettes with a different album each side. My music taste has always been eclectic so there was often quite a diverse range of music on the tapes. Also some albums seemed to record at different volume levels so one could be at a gentle level whereas others would be very loud. One time I was listening to Supertramp’s album ‘Breakfast in America’, an easy listening, chilled out choice and when it ended there was a few minutes’ gap of silence before it turned over. Imagine my horror when Black Uhuru blasting out it’s Jamaican Reggae beat caused me to jump and kick the poor man seated across from me! Mortified! I also used to listen to a lot of Pink Floyd, in particular my favourite album ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’. Parts of it have some quite spooky sounds on it and bits of talking, shouting, laughing and babies crying! I remember walking home from Bexhill train station in the dark with my headphones on getting paranoid and constantly checking if there was anyone walking too close behind me! What an album though!

One of the perks of working at the publishers was an entitlement to order six free new paperbacks a month and a copy of the Daily Mirror newspaper each day. On my journeys home I barely looked up from a book and lost count of how many I got through. I read some of the best books I’ve ever read – ‘Wild Swans’, by Jung Chang, ‘Angela’s Ashes’ by Frank McCourt and ‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison, to name a few. Although I hated that tiring commute I do actually miss having the opportunity to just retreat into my reading adventures for a couple of hours every day.

One of the most frustrating things about working so far from home was the restrictions to my social life. The only way I could go out with my colleagues was to sofa surf or get a very late train. The former was far more preferable and I did crash at different people’s pads here and there. The times I did get the train back I would generally leave London around 9.30 pm which tends to be a very quiet time on the underground and somehow feels less safe than the hustle and bustle of bar closing times when there are more people using the tube. At the same time I had very few opportunities to socialise locally. I’d moved to Bexhill straight after university and had started work in London shortly after so I only knew a handful of people in my home town. It was ok for a while but the commuting eventually got the better of me and I left to work closer to home. It was fun while it lasted and I gained some valuable skills but, just as importantly, I have great memories and a full bookshelf!

“Books are the plane and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” – Anna Quindlen.