MEMOIRS OF A NOBODY (CHAPTER 10)

In spite of my desire to stop drinking and the increasing amount of alcohol going into my system, I was on a downhill spiral. I had no control whatsoever and will-power was non-existent. Day after day, I spent more and more time up in my attic room with my little cat, Sasha; drinking, watching TV, listening to sad sentimental ballads (usually by Barbra Steisand) and surfing the net. I was in a complete fantasy world of my own and I likened myself to a tortured damsel locked in a tower with no escape. I was the frustrated closet heroine in a blockbusting novel who had been deprived of her true destiny! My ego was out of control!

Meanwhile, my poor mother was getting more and more stressed out by my condition, and I was making her life pure hell. She was 82 years old and had hoped that by David and me moving in, it would be a fun, carefree time for her to enjoy her remaining years. Not the case!  I had promised her that we would take leisurely trips to the country in my car for picnics and "Magical Mystery Tours"; heading out without knowing where we would end up. I was always too drunk to go anywhere.

Over the next few months, I attempted unsuccessfully, various recovery programmes, counselling, psychiatrists, group therapies, detoxes and other weird unconventionbal methods to give up the drink. Nothing seemed to be working.  My health was deteriorating rapidly, as was my mother's. Her only comfort was David, who was her confident, and together they clung to each other while they watched me killing myself.

The emergency visits to A & E were becoming more frequent and I was beginning to lose my mind. Sudden outbursts of anger and hysteria followed by endless bouts of silence and isolation became a daily occurance. On one occasion, when I was in a full blown argument with my poor mother, I went out into the garden screaming at the top of my voice that I wish she had died instead of my father. She was mortified and feared every neighbour would hear it, which of course they did. This outburst very nearly killed her then and there but I was totally oblivious to her feelings at the time. It is something that haunts me to this day.

My eldest brother, Wyatt, came over from New York for a visit and was shocked to see the state I was in. He and I had similar problems with excessive drinking and smoking, although he was a funtioning alcoholic and never drank during the day. One evening, during dinner, he started to cough violently and we went outside to get some air and have a chat once he had gained back his breath. He told me that he had been having these coughing fits for some time and would get it checked out on his return to New York. A few months later we were told he had the late stage of esophycus cancer and would have to start treatment immediately.

By this time, my mother had had enough. Her health was beginning to fail and her nerves were in shreds. She decided to sell her house and move to a smaller flat. David and I had to move back to my home and my daughter had to move into another flat with her boyfriend.

A few weeks after we moved back home, my son came over for a visit. On arriving, he found me lying on the floor of the living room, screaming and thrashing my arms and legs about like a beached octypus. I was so drunk and dilerious that I had no idea where I was and kept repeating that I just wanted to die. Once again, the ambulance was called and I was carted away to Charing Cross Hospital.  I do remember crawling around on the floor and under chairs in the "quiet room/padded cell" of the A & E screaming and wailing. They put me at high risk of suicide that night.

Recovering temporarily from that event, I was eventually put on the waiting list for a day rehab in Central London which I would start the following month. This was to be the beginning of the end of my old life.

MEMOIRS OF A NOBODY (CHAPTER 9)

A year passed and my finances were absolutely dire. The only choice I had was to either sell my house or rent it out to get an income. Luckily I had a very rich Godmother who had helped me in the past, financially. She had a second charge on my house and therefore would not allow me to sell the property as it was my only asset. So we agreed that she would give me my inheritance before her death to enable me to “do up” the house and get it rented.

This was to prove a difficult task as Finian, David and Chloe had nowhere to live if I were to rent the house out. My daughter, Alex, had moved out to live with her boyfriend in Barcelona.

Finian and Chloe had no job, not because they hadn’t been trying, but because they literally could not find anyone to employ them even after endless interviews. Unemployment was at an all time high and even people with degrees coming out of their ears had to work in fast food chains and sweep the streets! I don't belittle working in places like that when you need to eat as I actually graced McDonalds with my presence  when my son was 3 and my husband was studying for a law degree. It kept us fed daily on the finest hamburgers for 3 months!

David and I did move into my mother’s house, when the decorators came to gut my place and get it into shape.  Finian and Chloe were still without a place to live and I was glad in a way that they had to remain in my house to deal with the decorators for the next few months.  After the work had been done, my daughter moved back to England from Barcelona with her Spanish boyfriend. They saw the house and decided they would rent it for a year at the full price. The only stipulation was that I should pay £125 per week for Finian and Chloe to share the house with them. I agreed that I would knock off £500 per month until Finian and Chloe were gone. At least I could get some money coming in to pay for my basics and solve the problem of making my entire family homeless. After a month, Finian and Chloe decided to brave it and move to New York where Chloe could get her old job back and Finian could a) get away from me and his old life and b) try and work out a way of getting a job as a Real Estate Agent in New York. They went to live with my brother and his wife for the following 3 months, rent free, which enabled them to hopefully get on their feet. My family and I were like a band of travelling gypsys at this point!

After I moved to my mother’s house, I decided to make an attempt to get myself together physically and emotionally. I went to my doctor and explained that I was an alcoholic, an X cocaine addict (I had given that up by now and have never touched it again), chronically depressed, and clinically obese. The doctor did tests and discovered that I had extremely high blood pressure, my cholesterol was off the scales, I had an irregular heartbeat caused by my cocaine abuse, and my liver was showing signs of severe strain. So I went onto about 6 different pills to rectify the problems and set up counselling for alcohol and depression.

Pausing a moment to get a grip on what had gone wrong with my life, I am, and always will be, perplexed as to what can happen to people that determines what happens to them despite their upbringing.

I started life, as I first said, with a silver spoon in my mouth. My life was interesting and varied. I had good parents who loved me and brothers who helped me out at times when I couldn’t go to anyone else. There is no explanation other than the fact that I am an adrenaline junky and was born with the addiction gene.  Stress, fun, exhilaration, poverty, excitement, drama; it is all the same. When you feel that you have none of the above, (speaking purely from my point of view), life feels empty and you long for something to be different. That gaping, empty hole inside oneself is floundering for something to grab onto, to either get out of it or fill it. Self-pity is rampant and the ego is totally obsessed with ME, ME, ME. Alcohol and drugs were a means to anesthetise these feelings.  But they were no longer working. They only made things worse.

I have never been one to ignore what is important in life. It is just that I was distracted for a few decades and could not see the wood for the trees.  Our lives have highs and lows, depending on our choices and of course life’s plan itself. I had chosen to go for the highs, however and whenever possible since I was unable to cope with the lows.  At this point I was only interested in staying alive which was proving more and more of a challenge.

MEMOIRS OF A NOBODY (CHAPTER 8)

A couple of years passed and life was non-eventful apart from the seizures that Finian was having. By that time, I was afraid to do anything out of the ordinary in case I had to be on-call in case Finian needed an alert mother to help him with his fits. Quite honestly, I was so neurotic by that stage about Finian’s condition that I started to get panic attacks on a regular basis. I tried to go to the cinema to see “Mrs. Doubt fire” but had to leave after a minute or two because of an anxiety attack. (That was the last time I went to the cinema for the next 10 years!)

By 1999, my finances were again diabolical. So I had to sell my house and get another one on the same Estate for a lot less money to pay off my debts.

The day we moved proved to be a complete nightmare. Finian had an epileptic fit that very morning, and the removal men had to pack up his room while he was lying in his bed, thrashing about. We had to be out of our house by 12:00 midday and Finian was not in any condition to be moved. The poor removal men had to pack his room up with him still lying in his bed. So when he regained consciousness, he had to go and stay with his girlfriend for a few days to recover. As you can imagine, that day was incredibly stressful for all concerned.

Two weeks later, with packing cases still piled high in my new home, I had a call from David, my boyfriend, to say that his eldest son, James was dead! David was devastated, obviously, but could not tell me anything about what had happened until he came to my house. It was Easter Monday. Apparently, James had been with David and the rest of his family on Easter Sunday. He had cooked a really amazing Sunday lunch for his girlfriend, brothers, sister and father and they all went out afterwards to finish off the idyllic day. By the evening, everyone was comfortably happy, having downed a few beers. David was at that time, living in a bed and breakfast near their house in Knightsbridge, within walking distance of Harrods. He had no money or job because things had gone wrong for him throughout the previous year and he was at rock bottom. But that particular day had been very uplifting as he had spent a fantastic day with all of his children. David said goodbye to James and his girlfriend at midnight and they went their separate ways. The next morning, David had a call from his second son, Charles, who relayed the most horrific news any parent could ever wish to hear.

James had gone back to his girlfriend’s flat in Pall Mall to stay the night. They apparently had a minor row and James decided to go home. The front door was locked from the inside and his girlfriend had the key so he decided to climb out of the kitchen window and climb down the drainpipe. He had done this many times before as he was quite the climber urban mountaineer! However, on that dreaded night, there was a drizzling of rain and so the drainpipes were rather slippery. Not only that, but he had had a few too many beers. He slipped and fell 5 stories onto the ground below, unfortunately landing on his head, and died instantly. He was 24 years old.

It was in all the papers over the next few weeks. The reason he was in all the papers was the fact that his Grandmother was the Duchess of St. Albans and his girlfriend’s father was the former Editor of “The Times”. To me it was sad that his death was only worthy for publication because of those reasons.

David and the rest of his family were obviously in complete shock, quite apart from me and my two children. On my 49th birthday, I went to see James’ body at the morgue a week after his death. On that day, driven by shock and grief, I had laced myself with a whole bottle of rum and 2 grammes of cocaine so my emotions were somewhat numbed. Despite of the state I was in, I had to keep my cool for his family’s sake and from then on decided to support them emotionally to the best of my ability. David moved in with me the morning James died. His remaining children have become very close to me, in particular, Charles, the second son. A few weeks later, David’s best friend, Charlie, who was unable to attend James’s funeral paid for the both of us to visit him in California for 2 weeks in order to try and get over the immense sadness. It helped a little bit but was short-lived. David has never gotten over James’s death until this day.

In September 2001, the Twin Towers fell. I had been watching TV that morning with my rum and coke in one hand and a straw for my nose in the other hand. By that time, I had succumbed to my addictions big time and things were getting out of control. Because I was born in New York, and still after 37 years felt like an American, I decided then and there that I should go over to see the carnage for myself. Not only that, but my oldest brother lived there and knew people who worked in the Trade Centre so I wanted to feel part of it. Being high on cocaine and alcohol, I borrowed some money and flew over 3 days after the attack. My friends thought I was crazy, as at that time no one wanted to fly. But once I get an idea in my mind, there is nothing that can stop me. Obviously, I had to stop my cocaine use for the trip which was pretty easy as I had enough natural adrenaline in me to stoke a locomotive. I wrote a piece about my first day at the devastated site of the World Trade Centre to give you an idea of what it was like. It was published on the internet. Submitted by: vicky lacy
From: London, England

It is mid September and I have just returned from New York to London, having spent a week or so with my brother in Brooklyn. I’d had a strong compulsion to go and see for myself the utter destruction at Ground Zero - not for any sick, voyeuristic reasons, but because I wanted to experience and grieve with fellow Americans and feel part of it. Over here in England (where I have lived for the past 30 years) I had watched the atrocities live on TV, and having been born in New York, I felt a strong compulsion to get there as quickly as possible. So I booked the first flight I could get, much to the amazement of friends and family who thought I was “taking a chance” by flying so soon after the hijacks.

Anyway, my adventures in Manhattan were, to say the least, worth it to me if not to anyone else. My brother and sister-in-law and all of their friends who live in New York could not bring themselves to go down to Lower Manhattan which I fully understand. It is their territory and they know it so well, so the thought of seeing it as it is today is quite honestly too painful. I, on the other hand, am not very familiar with downtown Manhattan and so there was less nostalgia involved. It does not mean I was not affected, quite the contrary. It made an enormous impact on me and strengthened my feelings about the city I was born in. It also made me even more aware of the delicate line we all face between life and death. If a strong city like New York can be reduced to rubble, it makes it even more likely that other cities could experience the same fate. London is possibly the next sitting target for terrorism in whatever form it may come.

For many years, I had suffered from panic attacks. My journey down to Ground Zero completely by myself was a major accomplishment for me - considering that not long ago I couldn't even sit through Mrs. Doubt fire in the cinema for more than 2 minutes, or wait in a supermarket queue.

Here is the description of my journey down to Ground Zero
(or "The Pit" as New Yorkers now call it)

The day was hot and sticky - around 88 degrees, with a pure blue sky. I wandered down to

Canal Street

which was the furthest point which the general public was allowed to venture in Lower Manhattan. It is about 8 blocks from Ground Zero - far enough away for safety. For some reason, I have always had the knack of persuading people to let me do what I want and this was no exception. I befriended a "Cop" who escorted me through the metal barricade and endless groups of soldiers and police, saying I was "OK for entry". Why he let me through and no one else, I will never know, but I am grateful to him nonetheless.

When I approached the first sight of the disaster site, my heart skipped a beat and for a second or two had warning signs of one of my panic attacks. But the horrific sight was so much more important than thoughts of my stupid panic attacks that I carried on regardless. With each step I took, the more visible was the carnage. Acrid smoke was still thick in the air even after 8 days, and occasionally when the wind shifted I got a whiff of decomposing flesh.

I had borrowed a camera and found that it was broken so I went into a Photo shop to buy a disposable camera. The shop was directly across the street from the disaster site and the display window was broken and covered in dust. That did not stop them from opening their shop to the public (most of whom were press, public officials and local residents) I later found out that the owner of the shop had been killed by flying debris and his employees were trying to raise money for his family by selling what they could from the shop.

Block after block I saw damaged buildings, covered in thick dust and broken windows. Once upon a time, these buildings were shiny and majestic, reaching for the sky. Now they looked like abandoned warehouses in a diabolical slum area. One building which must have been about 70 stories high had an enormous chunk taken out of its side, like a giant had taken a bite out of it. Another building had about 10 of its top stories hanging down like Spanish moss on a willow tree. Shops still had their merchandise laid out neatly ready to be bought by the public, only everything was covered in about 5 inches of white dust and would never be sold to a soul. It was eerie beyond belief. These shops were like ghost houses.

The actual epicentre of where the World Trade Centre had been was so much larger than the TV and photographs could show. It was never-ending, block after block after block after block. The rubble was almost as high as an average sized building, and smoke was still escaping out of scattered pockets. Fire engines, cranes, police cars, Red Cross vans, heavy duty transport lorries, ambulances and army vehicles filled the streets. It truly had the look of a war zone. Tired and dusty rescuers consisting of firemen (first and foremost), police, and medics came and went constantly from the recovery site. Many were being interviewed by the press as they left the area to go home, having worked for up to 20 hours at a stretch. But in spite of their exhaustion and sadness, they had incredible spirits. In fact, I was surprised at the almost happy-go-lucky comradery of all these brave heroes. It is true that at times like this (and during the Blitz in London for example), that people get certain strength from sticking together in the most horrific circumstances. It is almost as if each individual heart and soul of these people melts into one enormous heart and soul and they become as one. I definitely felt it myself.

Within half a block of where the Trade Centre once stood is the oldest church in New York. There is a peaceful graveyard surrounding it with beautiful trees and singing birds. It is only one storey high with a steeple and it used to look totally out of place with its backdrop of modern skyscrapers. There is a space behind it where the Towers used to be which stares out at you like a sore thumb. Now the church somehow is not out of place. In fact, it looks like it was meant to be there all along - to remind us that there are more important things on earth for us to think about apart from war and destruction.

I think everyone in the civilized world has shed a tear over the atrocities of September 11 and whether they have had personal experiences or not, their hearts have gone out to everyone who has.

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Two years passed and life went on. Finian was working as an estate agent, and my daughter, Alexandra, was in PR. David got a job delivering cars for Saab which was pretty much all he could cope with at that point. It was low paid but basic and paid for my mortgage, at least. However, we no longer lived as an item, as things on the physical side broke down. He was still my best friend and I loved him dearly, but only platonically. So we agreed to have separate bedrooms. I shared a bedroom with Alexandra, David had the spare room, and Finian lived on a sofa bed in the living room. It was a tight squeeze but seemed to work.

One night at about 3:00 am, there was a phone call from the police. Finian had been in a near fatal car accident. He had taken my car out the previous evening to go to a job interview for a commercial estate agent in the City. Apparently it had gone very well indeed, and to celebrate, Finian met up with some friends for a few drinks. Several hours later, we got the phone call. Alexandra was the one to answer the phone and because she has always been the only one in the family to be calm in the face of disaster, she passed on the message to me. Luckily she did not impart the news that Finian may not survive the night. Early the next morning, we both went to the hospital only to find that Finian was in a critical state. His right arm had been crushed; he had a chunk out of his hip, his right ear was literally hanging off and he had head injuries. The car had apparently turned over several times and landed upside down. The paramedics and fire department spent about 45 minutes cutting him out of the wreckage. If he hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt, he would surely have died instantly.

For the next couple of months, he underwent several operations to put him back together. His ear was sewn back on without much trouble but the worst and most complicated operation was on his right arm which was so badly broken in so many places, that they had to put metal rods and screws into the bones to hold them together. If he were to go through an airport security scanner, all the bells would go off with the amount of metal he had in him! Not only were the bones smashed to smithereens, but all the nerves just below the shoulder were severed and they had to try and join each and every one; very difficult to do as you can imagine! The doctors were doubtful that he could ever write, play tennis, swim, or even throw a cricket ball again. What worried us most, however, was the fact that his head injuries had made his epilepsy much more frequent than ever before.

Once he came home, all of the problems were not over by any means. He was in such pain and on so much medication, that he was physically sick most days. It took about 3 months for him to be relatively comfortable. I had a job nearby working in the local hospital as a secretary and on a few occasions, I had to rush back home because he had called saying he thought he was going to have a seizure, which he always did. One time, I got home to find him turning blue because he had fallen off the bed during the seizure and wedged his neck in an open bedside table drawer which was pressing on his jugular vein. If I hadn’t gone home immediately and pulled him out of this vice he would have died. This made me totally paranoid as you can imagine. So every time I heard a bang or a strange sound in the house, my stomach would hit the ground and I would rush up the stairs, three at a time. Also, we were still not sure if he could ever use his right arm again which was vital for his future, quite apart from his epilepsy.

As the months went by, with the help of physiotherapy and altered medications for his seizures, he gradually got better. It was a miracle that his arm was improving as much as it did. As far as the epilepsy was concerned, we got that down to a dull roar. He went a whole year without a single fit. But of course, they eventually started happening again later on.

So two and a half years later, he was pretty much mended physically. Mentally, is another question. He had lost his confidence and feared he might have a fit at work so he basically ground to a halt as far as looking for work. I, in the meantime, had started drinking even more heavily and although I never appeared fall down drunk, I was in fact pickled every single day. It had become a habit and a crutch.

To veer away from me for the moment, I must just digress for one moment.

Finian has always been lucky with his girlfriends and they have all been really stunning looking and very intelligent. Along came Chloe, who was a New Yorker who had been to Vassar, one of the best Ivy League Universities in America. They met at a party one night and from that moment onward, she and Finian became an item. Within a few weeks, she moved into our house.

I adored Chloe and Visa Versa. She was so kind, intelligent and affectionate that no one on this earth could not help but love her. She was dedicated to Finian who was obviously a liability to anyone, but nonetheless, she adored him. Her mother and step father lived in Notting Hill Gate having moved to England 2 years before and Chloe was trying to set up a new life in London after living in New York her whole life. She was a textile designer by trade but was finding it extremely difficult to get a job in London doing what she knew best. So basically I was now supporting David, Finian, Chloe and myself on next to nothing.

MEMOIRS OF A NOBODY (CHAPTER 7)

By 1987, when I was nearly 37, the children and I were forced to leave our lovely Kensington home where we had lived for 9 years. My ex husband had asked me to sign an agreement for him to have a £10,000 overdraft the year before, using the house as collateral. As the children and I were the only occupants, but the legal stuff was in my x husband’s name, it was necessary to have my written blessing. Little did I realize that this loan was open-ended. He built up debts which far exceeded the initial £10,000, and therefore his bank called in the loan and the house had to be sold to pay for it.

A developer who saw a great deal, offered to buy the house in order to make a major profit by spending £100,000 on it for renovations and selling it for £3 million. I had no say in the matter, and my ex husband agreed to the offer as he had to pay his bank of as soon as possible. Bear in mind that we did not own the house. We were sitting tenants and paid rent. The Prudential who were our landlords, offered to sell us the freehold at a reduced price and so we made a “back to back deal” with the future owners. On the same day that we sold the house to the developers, we bought the house. The profit we made was approximately £100,000; (£50,000 to my “ex” and £50,000 to me and the children).

The children, my dog and cat had to leave the house within 10 days. We packed up, put everything into storage, and had nowhere to live as there wasn’t enough time to find anything. Not only that, but there was no £50,000 house in London waiting for me to move into and I was unemployed so could not get a mortgage. I had no help from my “ex” and in desperation; we had to move in with my mother. Alexandra was 9 years old and Finian was 12.

This was not a good time for my mother as my father had been diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer’s and had only just moved to a nursing home about 3 weeks prior to our onslaught. My poor mother!

We literally crammed into my mothers’ house with little room to move, and I had to get a job in order to obtain some kind of mortgage so that I could afford to buy a house for us to live in.

I found a menial job for the purpose of getting a mortgage which was only for that purpose. Once I got the mortgage, I lost the job, but at least I was in a position to actually get the mortgage.

I found an ex council house on an estate in Putney. It had 3 bedrooms, a front and back garden and was surrounded by large trees. Perfect for a dog, a cat, and 2 growing children. I feel very blessed that this house came to us, because if the truth be known, I think my mother was being driven crazy by the chaos my family bestowed upon her. We weren’t exactly relaxing to have around!

After being at my mothers’ for 7 months, we finally moved out and into our new home. It was great at first, but Finian was feeling very unsettled from the vast change in our lifestyle since Kensington. He was at an impressionable age and was feeling the pressure of kids in the new neighbourhood who resented his public school accent. Not only that, but the school fees where the kids had been going to for the last 5 years were not being paid for by their father. I had paid several terms when necessary when I had been working, but now; even I could not pay the fees. Hence, even though Finian was just starting to take his pre GCSE’s, the school contacted me to say that neither child could continue to attend the school. I was devastated as were the children.

Alexandra was less affected by this catastrophe as she was only 9, but Finian was at a critical stage in his school career. So my mother came to the rescue and paid for him to at least stay long enough to take his exams.

I had to send Alexandra to the local State school in the middle of a term which was, at first glance, quite sufficient. But after only a few months, it proved to be unbearable for her. She has always been a loving, affectionate child with no affectations whatsoever, but because she had a public school accent, she was teased no end by her piers. There was a rather vindictive kid, who obviously had a chip on her shoulder, who threatened to beat her to a pulp on a daily basis for being a “snob”. Alexandra was so traumatized that she refused to go back. She had never had dealings with violent children who threatened physical torture. I went to the school to try and sort the whole thing out, but the headmaster was so unhelpful and ineffectual and unsympathetic that I decided then and there to take her out of the school immediately. It was not fair on Alexandra to suffer because I could not give her a stable life that she was used to. So I borrowed money from my bank in an overdraft form, to put her into the local private school which was the cheapest one I could find. I actually got a bursary which saved our lives and I cannot be more grateful to them. Thank goodness there are decent people in this world. They completely understood my predicament. When children go to state schools from an early age, they are fine and become successful if they persevere with their studies, but if you are yanked out of a certain environment and put into an alien one, life can be very traumatic. I have nothing against State Schools whatsoever, but it depends on the individual’s circumstances and in Alexandra’s case, this was evident.

Finian at 13, took his exams, and then was asked to leave the school he had been to since he was 10 years old. Soon after he left, he threatened to kill himself so I took him to my doctor. The doctor gave me some sleeping pills to give to him and accused me of being a neurotic American mother. Within a few days, Finian found the bottle of pills and took the entire lot (22 pills in all)! I had to walk him around for about 9 hours to keep him from falling asleep and really feared for his life. My doctor could not have been more wrong about his perception of the severity of the situation.

Anyway, my mother, once again, paid for Finian to go to a “Crammer” school in South Kensington, to complete his education. This made life a lot easier for everyone.

I decided that it was time for me to take a slower attitude to life and stop acting like a crazed adolescent who acted on impulse and I wanted to lead a healthy, homey sort of life as depicted in Norman Rockwell paintings. The epitome of an ideal family in 50’s America, but in England!

I met up with my old friend, David. He had four children who I had known since each of their births and I adored them all. By this time, David had divorced and he was very keen to have a wholesome family holiday with his kids who were suffering from the recent divorce. We decided to drive to the South of France to camp in two tents.

We headed off in two cars with our tents and cooking utensils clanging away on the roof racks. Between us, we had 6 children, from 4 to 14 years old. I felt absolutely glorious as I had always wanted a large family and this certainly was! David and I at this point were just platonic friends and got on like a house on fire, with the same dreams and feelings of family life as it should be.

His children were absolutely fantastic characters. He had 3 sons aged 12, 10, and 9. His youngest, a daughter, was the sweetest little character and at the age of 4, was hysterically funny and self-sufficient. Having 3 older brothers, made her very self-confident and she was the most eccentric and original little girl I had ever met. The oldest son, James, was the leader of the pack and kept his younger siblings on the straight and narrow. He was the one I knew the best as I had known him since he was 2 days old. He and Finian had grown up together and were like brothers, so in a way, he was like a son to me. I loved him dearly; he was kind, good-looking, and very thoughtful to others. He and I were very close and it wasn’t until a few years later that I realized just how much he meant to me and visa-versa, but it was to prove too late as you will hear later in the story.

The holiday was a major success, and it led to many other camping trips, not only in England but in the South of France the following year. David and I, as expected, became an item after the second year.

His children and mine became even closer and it was as if I had finally got the large family I had always wished for. The same went for David. We were very happy indeed until things started going wrong for David.

He basically, lost everything he owned to his divorce and was suddenly unemployed with very little prospects. He had been trained to take over his fathers’ jewellery shop chain, but it was not to be, as he had been cut out of the will, due to a rather vindictive, conniving mistress of his fathers’ who, on his deathbed, got his father to sign everything over to her. The company was later taken over by someone else and David didn’t have a chance to prove himself. So he attempted other jobs which were not well paid but easy to get in the circumstance. The carpet had been pulled out from under his feet, and he lacked self-confidence as well. As he had no degrees and only knew about jewellery, he felt at a loss and hadn’t a clue about what else he could do. Many people are quite versatile but unfortunately, because of his particular past, he was not. So he did the best he could by getting driving jobs, delivering parcels, doing various courses, and looking for a totally different career. Because of his age, and the competition with other young people, he could not get an equally prestigious job that he had been used to. That is the story for so many people in this country who have been made redundant at his age and who are not qualified as Lawyers, Doctors or Dentists. Nevertheless, we stayed together through the following years despite our lack of money.

The year after we went camping in the South France, my father died. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for the past 10 years and in a way it was a blessing when he died. But he was still my father whom I adored. In the two years leading up to his death, he was like a child, unable to feed himself, unable to communicate, unable to recognize his family except for split seconds, and he was basically not the man I had looked to for advice and comfort my whole life. Here was this man who had been so intelligent, loving, responsible, and talented. At the time of his death, he was a little child once again. I fed him his last meal the day before he died, and for a short moment, when I was spoon feeding him strawberry ice cream, he looked at me intensively and stroked my hand saying, I love you baby. It broke my heart. The next day, my mother and I had a call from the home to say he was dying. We rushed over by taxi and made it just in time to be with him at his deathbed. He was in a coma so didn’t know we were there, but for us it was comforting to be with him when he died. In a way my mother and I were relieved that he was suffering no longer, but at the same time, it was the end of an era. He had been the solid earth beneath our lives and now he was gone. Life has to go on and we were luckily both philosophical about his death but still felt the emptiness in our hearts.

When Finian was 17 years old, he became epileptic in a major way. He started to have “Grande Mal seizures” which are the most violent of all fits. Once he had been tested for the cause, the doctors told us that it was most likely caused by the serious health problems he had when he was a baby. He had a heart operation when he was 14 months old, and had to be resuscitated twice during the operation. Also, when he was 11 months old, he contracted a serious case of Measles and had to be put into an isolation hospital because they could not get his temperature down below 106 degrees Fahrenheit for 4 or 5 days. He had to be wrapped in ice, have hourly muscular injections, and be blown to bits by a fan. For both of these horrific incidents, he had several febrile convulsions which are normal under the circumstances, but something lay dormant in his brain which didn’t come to the fore until puberty; my poor son. It wasn’t his fault.

This catastrophic malady was to be an immense thorn in Finian’s side until this day. I felt helpless and terrified like never before and the whole issue of Epilepsy has made me a nervous wreck. But even worse, it has affected Finian’s entire life and future.

This is how I see it. You have a baby and he develops into a living, breathing person with a personality, intellect and emotions. Your child is an extension of your own soul and life blood at the beginning, but as they grow, they are no longer “yours”. They grow up, and they are still your baby, no matter what age they are. Even though they are adults, when something life threatening happens, you still think of them as your “baby”. When someone has an epileptic fit, they are helpless and rely on other people to help them avoid accidents during the seizure, and to console them when they come around from unconsciousness. It is very frightening to them and they are indisposed for at least 24 hours. But you, as a parent, look down and see your child who is suffering. They are no longer an adult in this state and you revert to motherhood in order to comfort them. No one can imagine the pain and suffering that a mother feels when her grown child is completely vulnerable and helpless having had an epileptic fit unless you have experienced it first-hand.

Well, he had many fits over the next few years, too many to mention, but it made his and my life a misery. Every time I heard a bang, I jumped out of my skin. Every time he went out, I was on tender hooks, fearing I would get a call from the police or a hospital saying he had had a fit somewhere and had been hit by a car in the middle of the street. It made me quite neurotic and I lived the next few years as a nervous wreck. I cannot imagine what Finian felt because it was his life that was ruined, but as a mother it was also disastrous.

1993 was probably one of the worst years I had ever had to deal with emotionally, apart from when my father died. Duncan Browne, as I mentioned earlier on, who had been the love of my life, died of Colon Cancer. He was 46 years old and in the prime of his musical career. I had been totally and completely in love with him since the day I met him at the tender age of 19, however as I mentioned before, I felt I was not pretty enough or interesting enough to win his heart over. Two years after I got divorced from my husband, I had a “one night stand” with Duncan after a dinner party I gave at my house. It was 1982, eleven years before his death. As far as I was concerned, it was the best sex I had ever had in my entire life, but I expect I was just yet another conquest that Duncan had. He was such a womanizer that he had probably been to bed with more models, pop singers or actresses than I had hot dinners. This didn’t matter to me at the time because my dreams had come true and at least I had experienced in real life, my 13 years of fantasies. I know he really liked me as an old friend, and I know he had a great time that night, but I also know he was not in love with me like I was with him. After that, I only saw him once more and eleven years later, I heard he had died. From that day on, I drank like a fish, ate to comfort myself and over the next 8 years, put on 5 stone in weight. There was no reason for me to look good or care for myself as far as I was concerned. My desire to get him to fall in love with me was finally over and there was no point in looking good any more just in case I were to run into him on the street and start a full blown love affair. He was gone. So I had to get on with my life regardless but with a hole in my heart as big as the Grand Canyon.

In 1994, I got a fabulous job as a PA secretary at the Coca-Cola Headquarters in London. I thought my life was finally taking a turn for the better. It lasted 4 years and proved to me that I was really worth something in the working world.
However, at that time, I had acquired the taste for Bacardi and Coke. For the first time, I started to drink alcohol with a vengeance. I wish to God that I hadn’t even started down that road!

Remember I had never been into alcohol until the age of 43. Why I started to drink at this age, I haven’t a clue, other than the fact that I had no other means of pure escapism from reality which I found more and more painful to endure. Drugs were out of the question as far as I was concerned, and yet I still felt a void in my heart. I felt that I could not be happy unless I received some sort of outside stimulant and instant gratification at the click of a finger. My life had been so eventful before and now I felt that nothing exciting was ever going to happen again. I realized at this stage that I was a junky for excitement, drama and fantasy. There had been a flood of dramas up until this point; and then there was a lull.  Hence I became a Rum and coke alcoholic.

MEMOIRS OF A NOBODY (CHAPTER 6)

Between the first time that Josh set me up with these cocaine dealers and what happened to me later, was like something out of a Quinton Tarantino film.

Picture this. A well brought up tea-totalling, naïve woman with two young children in a private Central London school, living in a prestigious house in Kensington. That was me on the outside, but not behind closed doors.  Life has a way of surprising the best of us, as I soon found out.

Josh introduced me first to a budding actor, Mark, who had been to Eaton. He was totally endearing with a great sense of humour, and incredibly well spoken. I thought he was really something. The second person who I met for this purpose was a tough East ender called Johnny. He was very suspicious of me because he sensed that I was not only a beginner in this low life, but also really naïve, which was true. Unbeknownst to me at the time, he was near to the top of the cocaine ladder and was possibly one of the one most wanted by the drug squad. Within a week, Josh had to convince Johnny that I was no threat to his business, as Johnny felt I was a potential threat to his anonymity (which is so true), but Josh’s loyalty to me would prove very dangerous to Josh in the future. Josh was determined beyond his own safety to protect me and my children. He regretted introducing me to Johnny, and decided it was best not to let me have any dealings with him in the future. Thank God for me!

To cut a very long story short, I was set up to sell the retched drug, through Mark, to only six people who had enough money to buy my house ten times over. They shall remain nameless but are well known to almost everyone in Britain. They would come to my house, have tea and cakes with me and the kids, come over for dinner, and purchase their pleasure upon leaving. I didn’t even have to go out of my front door to make enough money to live on. From a healthy 8 stone woman of 32, I quickly became a 5 stone weakling with dark circles under my eyes. How could I have been so stupid? That is what cocaine does to people who don’t use cocaine wisely.

One day, I went to my doctor and told him what I had been up to because I was having terrifying side effects and feared for my life. He said that if I did not stop by the end of the week that I would be dead. So, taking a deep breath, I rang up my brother and told him what was going on. He came down from Manchester the next day to see me. As I was telling him in my kitchen, that the doctor said XYZ could happen to me if I didn’t stop, I suddenly lost my sight and hearing. I felt the equivalent of a 10,000 volt electric shock going from the middle of my brain, down my neck and through my arms. I managed to stagger over to the sofa in the adjoining playroom to lie down.

From that point onward, I suffered repeated muscle spasms, and went in and out of consciousness for approximately 12 hours. During that time, I left my body and floated up to the ceiling over and over again. I felt that if I went higher than the ceiling, I would never get back into my body. So I strained and strained by doing a mental breast stroke through the air from the ceiling to get back into my lifeless body lying on the sofa. I wasn’t ready to die and had my children, who I loved more than my own life to think about. That is what gave me the will to live.

During this whole episode, my brother rang up “Release”, a drug related chat line to get advice. He also rang up my best friend (the same one I had spent my holiday with in the South of France), to come over, interrupting the dinner party she was at in Battersea. She didn’t even have time to eat her dessert and came over within 15 minutes. She and my brother stayed with me for 12 hours until the ordeal was over. They had to slap me on the face each time I became unconscious, shout at me, talk to me, hug me and basically make me aware that someone was with me the whole time until the overdose had subsided. If it hadn’t been for them, I would surely have died. I slept for 3 days and my brother took the kids to school, fed them and cared for them. He told them I had very bad flu. I love him so much, you cannot imagine.

One night a few months later, I got a phone call from Huntingdon police station, saying they had someone in their custody who was suffering from a heroin overdose. All they could find on him was a piece of paper with my telephone number, so they were calling me to find out who he could possibly be. From their description, it was Josh. This was the first time I realized he was a heroin addict. I told them to bring him to my home where I promised to look after him and that I would call my doctor. They brought him home and for the next 8 hours, I nursed him through the most horrifying experience I had ever seen in my life. The doctor told me he could not come over for moral reasons but that I should just stay with him and make sure he did not choke on his own vomit etc... I had to cool him down with wet flannels, stop him from running away, cuddle him when he was screaming out in pain, and talk calmly all night long. The next morning when Josh was finally asleep, I rang his sister who was a nurse. She arranged to have her brother-in-law and a friend come around to pick Josh up to take him home to her so that she could continue looking after him.

They arrived at the house; one at the front door, the other at the back door. I told Josh that they were here to take him home to his sister, and he totally freaked out and tried to run. He couldn’t bear the humility of his family knowing about his predicament. However, the two chaps were big and strong so Josh hadn’t a chance to dodge them. They managed to get him in the car and whisk him away to the safety of his loving sister. Somehow, this reminded me of the love my brother had given me only a short time ago. God bless siblings.

A month later, I had a call from his sister saying he was completely recovered. In honour of my saving his life, his entire family including those who came over from Ireland, were giving me a party to celebrate their appreciation to me. Josh had been working out in a gym, eating well, staying off drugs and trying to make himself a reformed human being. He had been so insistent that I would be proud of him that his family said he was really nervous to see me. I arrived at their house to be greeted by about 50 smiling Irish people, with hugs and kisses for me as if they had known me their whole life. This was so touching but it makes it seem even more poignant when you hear what is to come. Josh came out last of all and just held onto me as if he was afraid to let go. He looked absolutely fantastic and glowed from ear to ear. I was so proud of him.

Two weeks later, Josh went to stay in a temporary flat in Paddington where he was arranging to set up a legitimate business with his brother in Ireland.

Within a week, Josh was found dead, having been injected with a fatal dose of cyanide and heroin. He had been murdered as there was sign of a major struggle. The only thing missing was his address book.

The police came to my house asking if I knew of anyone who would want Josh dead. I explained that the only person who I personally felt could have been responsible was a man called Johnny who lived in the East End. I didn’t go into any details of how I knew him but explained that Josh had often mentioned him and how he was terrified of this chap. As far as I know, nothing has become of the visit from the police because I could not honestly give them any addresses or a telephone number for Johnny. I have never heard anything since then.

About this time, I met an amazing character called Stuart Cornock. He was an ex guardsman who had been court-marshalled from the cavalry for housing a horse in his 17th floor apartment in the Knightsbridge barracks. He was only trying to save this horse from going to the glue factory where he was destined to go because of a leg injury. Anyway, Stuart was like a character out of a 19th century novel. He had been born as the illegitimate son of a Duke in Scotland. His mother was the housekeeper and because this Duke had scruples, he sent Stuart to the finest schools in England. Stuart was a talented horseman and apart from being in the Cavalry, he was also a stuntman for such films as Excalibur and any other film that required dangerous horse stunts. He acquired a 15th Century leather jacket, from the film Excalibur, which he wore all the time. It had puffy shoulders with burlap slits and was waist length. He wore his jeans and cavalry boots with it. Also, he had long wavy hair with an ear-ring in one lobe. His voice was so deep and booming with an incredibly posh accent that one could not help but jump to his commands. Quite honestly, I had never met someone quite like him.

Stuart would stay at my house in Kensington on a number of occasions because he actually lived in Dorset, caring for the thoroughbred horses belonging to a very rich woman who bred them.

One night, as I was asleep in my comfy bed, I was woken up to hear Stuart talking to someone in my adjoining bathroom. Apparently, he was talking to a ghost, dressed in a dark green velvet frock coat, who had lived in my house at the turn of the century. This ghost had been a doctor and he was telling Stuart that my children were in danger because the rafters in the roof loft over the kids bedroom were rotten and in danger of collapsing. So he was warning Stuart that he should draw this to my attention. I could not really believe that this was true as I was very sceptical about such things as ghosts, in spite of the fact that I had seen one when I was 8 years old.

However, the next morning, Stuart told me that he had been exorcised by an eminent priest several years before because he had been possessed by the spirit of a girlfriend who had died. She had been very bitter about the fact that Stuart was two-timing her with the ex wife of Corin Redgrave and apparently her spirit was making his and everyone else’s life a misery. Stuart would be sitting in a room with them and tables would lift up in the air, cutlery drawer’s would open and all the contents shoot around the room, garden doors would open unexpectedly, and Stuart would be thrown against walls, unable to move. It got so bad that they had to contact The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith, the most renowned priest in the world for such jobs to perform an exorcism on Stuart to rid him of this problem. Apparently, the exorcism was quite difficult because when they brought Stuart to the church, he was spouting Latin incantations and struggling to avoid reaching the altar. After great perseverance from the priest and all those around, they managed to exorcise Stuart.

Because of this new-found knowledge, I located the Reverend’s phone number through direct inquiries. I called him because I was afraid that my kids’ lives were at risk. The phone was answered by his wife who told me that he was recovering from having had a stroke and was rather weak at the age of 75. However, when I told her it was about Stuart Cornock, she went away for a minute and brought the Reverend back to the phone to speak to me. I told him about my reason for ringing and he said that I should listen to what Stuart was saying to me and to get my roof fixed immediately. He confided in me by saying that he had never met anyone like Stuart who had more perception to the mysteries of the “other side” than anyone he had ever met before.

Well, needless to say, it took me a while to take this in. Less than 2 weeks later, the ceiling of my children’s room caved in before I had seen to the loft, but luckily, they were not in the room at the time. This made me think long and hard about the occult and of Stuart!

A few weeks later, Stuart was yet again, visiting us. He invited the children and me to visit the Horse guards Barracks in Whitehall to see his old friend and cavalry comrade “Waspy” who was in charge there at the time.

We trundled up to Whitehall and went into the stables where the Queen’s horse and the famous “drum horse” for formal events were kept. Stuart put each of my kids onto the Queen’s horse just for some fun. Then he put me on it. All that the Queen’s horse had on it was a saddle draped with sheepskin with a dagger under it, with had no bridle or halter. They were getting ready for a practice for the “Trouping of the Colour”.

Stuart suddenly left me sitting on the Queen’ s horse in the open-door stall and took my children to see the weapon room which housed swords and cannons and paraphernalia from earlier wars. For some reason, the horse decided to go walk-about and left the safety of the stall. He walked out into the main courtyard where Japanese, Danish and other tourists were poised with cameras. Bearing in mind I had no means to guide or control him, things go a little out of hand. He tried to make a break for the main gates out into Whitehall, leading down to the Houses of Parliament with me still sitting on it, looking like a complete idiot! The cavalry who were putting on their boots at the time, were alerted and rushed out to make a human fence in front of the main gates; some with only one boot on. Sensing hysteria from me, the horse lost his cool and reared, nostrils flaring, scared beyond belief. Horses sense panic in their mounts.

Stuart in the meantime had heard the kafuffle and ran out brandishing a sword from the Battle of Waterloo which he had been showing the children. Dressed in his usual medieval jacket, riding boots, and earrings, he managed to grab my horse and calm it down as he had a way with horses. The tourists had taken so many photos at this point that I would love it if they could send me some of them as a memory of this day. Needless to say, Stuart’s friend “Waspy” was not at all pleased and could have lost his job for allowing us to even be there. But luckily there were no repercussions.

One summer soon after that, Alexandra, my daughter, (who was seven at the time) and I were invited to go to stay with my French friend in the South of France (where you will recall, my problems had originally started). This time, it was to be a healthy family holiday and her two sons were there as well. They had a private tutor to help them with their studies as they would be there for about 3 months. It would be helpful for them to have Alexandra study with them as they had all grown up together and got on so well. So we trundled off for a lovely month’s holiday.

Whilst there, we met Laura Ashley and her husband, Bernard, who lived nearby and were old friends with my friends’ parents. We went over for tea a few times and had dinner with them in the local town. Laura’s house was like something out of a Devonshire holiday catalogue with a rose garden, vegetable patch, and purple wisteria hanging down the walls of the house. It was hard to believe that it was surrounded by parched stony mountains in the middle of the French countryside.

Well, things did not go very well soon after that. Alexandra had somehow caught Glandular fever (Mononucleosis) from someone at her school before leaving for France. After a couple of weeks, she was so ill that we had to call for the doctor who immediately said she was so ill that she had acquired serious complications affecting her liver. He felt it was best for her to go to hospital in Paris where they could deal with it properly. So Laura and her husband kindly offered to fly us both up to Paris in their private airplane as that was the quickest and most comfortable way to get there.

We were picked up by a chauffeur and taken to the local private aerodrome to meet them at their plane. Bernard, who was a qualified pilot and would be flying us to Paris, was checking the route at the small office there and his co pilot, Malcolm, was revving up the plane’s engine in the tiny cockpit. Laura had kindly made up a bed for Alexandra in the plane (which of course was totally decorated in Laura Ashley wallpaper and furnishings) and I settled her down in comfort.

I was so nervous about flying in such a small plane, knowing I would not be able to smoke during the flight, and being very nervous about the state of Alexandra, that I unwittingly lit a cigarette whilst standing on the top of the
steps to the plane. I was standing there puffing away like a chimney with my elbows resting on the roof of the plane when I suddenly heard Bernard shouting at me from the control tower far away. He was waving frantically and I just looked at him and started to wave back still puffing on my cigarette. I was THAT nervous! Of course, he was waving because I was risking everyone’s lives with my stupidity. The plane had a petrol engine and obviously was at great risk of exploding with a lit cigarette so near. Anyway, when he got to the plane, didn’t he give me an earful! I felt like a complete idiot and could not apologize enough. Anyway, we all calmed down and set off for Paris.

When we arrived, Alexandra and I were picked up by another chauffeur and taken straight to my old school friends’ flat where we were to stay a few days until Alexandra had been seen at the hospital and become well enough to fly back to England.

Weeks later, when the whole drama was over and Alexandra was on the mend, I wrote to the Ashley’s to thank them profusely for the fact that I’d nearly killed everyone and for going to so much trouble to fly us up to Paris. They had totally forgiven me, thank God, and I heard through the grapevine, that they often told the story at dinner parties but with a great deal of humour, not anger.

It was only a few months later that Laura Ashley sadly died.

Life after that carried on despite my nine lives being exhausted.

MEMOIRS OF A NOBODY (CHAPTER 5)

When I was in the 6th form, I got German measles and was put into sick room. An old girl came back to the school for a visit and happened to come to see me in the infirmary. She offered me a cigarette which I promptly took, having never smoked before but I wanted to feel cool in front of her. After a few puffs, the Matron came into the room and I swiftly put the lit cigarette under my bed linen. Needless to say, smoke started to billow out and my sheet caught on fire. There was no way I could get out of this mess. Once I was better, I was rusticated for 3 weeks as an example of what could happen if anyone dared break the rules. My parents were not at all pleased!

When I left boarding school at the age of 18, I had my whole life ahead of me. Whether I took the right road or not, events certainly made my life interesting. I did a cultural course for "young ladies" as my parents wanted me to gain a bit of finesse as they felt I needed to saw off the edges of my hick life in a small town in the Midwest of America. There I met various girls who would change my life forever. One of them was the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. She was hysterically funny and we got on like a house on fire. She was just about to start her "Debutante season" to meet eligible young men, worthy of her parents’ admiration. She invited me to a tea party which was the first of the events introducing young women to society. I went as her "American cousin" in order to validate my presence. From that tea party, I was invited to endless other parties which actually not only gave me a year of unadulterated fun but changed my life. I flew to house parties and dances in Scotland and castles all around England. I danced with Prince Charles and the Queen in an eight some reel at one private party but completely botched it up because I had never done it before and made a complete fool of myself. At the same party, I sat next to Princess Anne, who was snogging an underage Etonian in the disco tent.

I met my future husband, Patrick in a roundabout way through all of this.

Not long after dating him, I moved in with my future husband in a flat in Knightsbridge for 6 months before we married. We shared this flat with Colin Blunstone of the Zombies and Duncan Browne who was a budding pop star.

I got married, and a year later gave birth to Finian when I was 22, followed by my daughter, Alexandra, when I was 27. My husband managed Duncan Browne, a pop singer (who is not very well known today but who has a cult following). Patrick also had his own music publishing company in the 70's.  Although I am ashamed to mention this, I must be honest and tell you that I fell in love with Duncan from the day I met him when I was 19. However, I didn't have enough ego to feel I was worthy of him and so for the next 24 years, I suffered because I never stopped loving him. There will be more about Duncan later on in this story.

During my marriage, I met loads of pop singers and celebrities including Elton John, Brian Ferry, Morecombe and Wise, Cilla Black, Suzie Quatro, Elvis Costello, Sid Vicious, to name but a few. It was a fun time but rather superficial.

I got divorced in 1980 and since then my “ex” became the 6th baronet of Ampton when his brother died and Finian is now the heir to the 7th Baronetcy of Ampton. This is irrelevant to my life as it stands but I just thought I would mention it in case you are interested. I felt my life was at an end. But it was only the beginning.

The first person I had an affair with after the divorce was James Hunt, the World Champion Racing Driver. I know he is well known for his insatiable appetite for women, but at the time I needed some sort of ego boost after years of feeling empty and unattractive. He is now dead which I am so sad about, but at the time he was very much alive. It lasted about 4 months and to save embarrassment, I won’t go into some of the ridiculous situations we got into. But they were likened to a French farce! He was a kind and giggly little boy in an Adonis – like body who was a joy to be with at that time. Life was beginning to take a major turn for me.

I was living in the most fabulous 5-storey house in Kensington which is a Grade 1 listed house for historical reasons. I hired a nanny for the kids and had to work for the first time in my life as the breadwinner. This was not easy, I can assure you. I had to bluff my way into endless jobs in order to maintain the kids, food, and bills. This was the first time in my life that everything was up to me as well as the future of my children, who I loved more than anything else before. I say that, but if the truth be known, I made a lot of mistakes in the coming years.

When I was 32 years old, I was shocked to learn that I had Cervical Cancer which had spread to a dangerous level. Being an optimist, I carried on with my life as if nothing was wrong but to put my mind at rest, I immediately had a hysterectomy to solve the problem once and for all.

Once over the trauma, I went on holiday by myself to the South of France. My best friend was French and she invited me to her parents’ villa in La Garde Finetre, near St. Tropez. It was the best 2 weeks of my life up to that point. But little did I know it started something I would never wish upon anyone. A tax inspector from Paris, who was also a cocaine dealer, came down to stay with us at my friends’ villa (her parents were away at the time) and he brought with him on his motorbike, 52 grammes of cocaine.

He was a glamorous type of chap, good looking and trendy. On the first night after dinner, he spread out cocaine on a mirror the size of a Picasso painting and for the first time in my life, I sniffed up about the equivalent of 1/4 gramme of cocaine into my nose just to save face and looking like a nerd. I felt absolutely fantastic for the first time in my life; Confident, a winner, cool, and full of energy. We then went to a nightclub in St. Tropez where we were joined by Bridget Bardot and Tony Fransiscus. They had been my idols since I was 14 years old and I could not believe that they were actually talking to us.
I felt like a million dollars. I had the darkest all-over tan, was thin, young and free without a problem in the world. I felt like I was part of the “jet set”, although, in fact, I wasn’t really. I was just a barnacle on the side of a ship. Then, after two idyllic weeks of partying, sunbathing, and snorting, I went home.

There is always a downside to feeling “Great” under the influence of cocaine. When you get back to real life, responsibilities, poverty and the end of a perfect holiday, one has to struggle on with natural adrenaline, which was hard to come by under my circumstances. I had totally forgotten about cocaine on my return.

Several months went by with the usual hard slog of trying to make ends meet. Then I rented out my basement flat to a charming young chap called Josh, who I thought was as pure as the driven snow. Months later I found out that he was a heroin addict and also sold cocaine to feed his habit. On first meeting him, I had no knowledge of his drug problem whatsoever; I did not drink alcohol and apart from my short stint on cocaine in the south of France, was quite honestly very innocent in comparison with the rest of the people of my age living in London.

My children loved Josh and visa versa; he glowed in the presence of my kids. They would draw pictures, talk about airplanes, make up funny stories and basically have a great time. He was such a lovely, kind guy and obviously adored children, especially mine.

I was still struggling with the lack of money to make ends meet as a single parent and had tried several jobs to pay for the upkeep of my family, but things were not working out. A bailiff would come to my door on a regular basis to demand items of value to pay off bills. But nothing was really worth anything. He was an ex policeman and because he felt sorry for me, became a friend rather than an enemy. He would come over regularly to take possession of anything that would help pay for the debts but ended up just having a cup of tea and a chat.

One day, the subject of cocaine came up whilst I was having a cup of coffee with Josh in my kitchen. At that time, I still didn’t know about his serious drug problem. I told him about the great time I’d had in the South of France and that for the first and supposedly last time, had tried cocaine. He said that he knew a few people who were public school educated and very discreet, who could provide me with cocaine to sell to a few elite celebrities. He said they would help me to pay the bills which were obviously becoming a very serious problem. I would never have to leave my house to sell the retched stuff on the streets like a common drug dealer. At the time, I was so desperate for money to live on, and had no luck with trying to bluff my way into legitimate jobs, that I simply could not think of another way to survive. My husband was not giving me any money for the children, and quite honestly felt I had no other choice. Subsequently, after I was introduced to these dodgy people, I wish I had never agreed. It was to be the biggest mistake of my life.