Febulous February 2024: To my childhood self

Meeting myself 

Picture this:

A soggy Saturday afternoon, October, 

A child, my younger self, so young, 

in tortured ratty plaits,

Patched jeans tucked into muddy wellingtons 

Framed in a doorway like an advert for Persil

Smiling your delight

Cherish that

Back from a clay happy morning in the fields

Following the grumbling plough

Along arrow straight furrows

Teams of children and mothers – not yours!

Digging in the wet heavy Earth,

Gathering caked potatoes into dirty baskets.

Tattie picking we called it –

Savour the joy of small things child,

Remember that

Enjoy the mucky everydayness of 

Of working in the mud

with your village pals

calling and teasing, competing – 

The companionship of hard work

enjoy the dirty smear on your nose

And the mud on your hands

And the dampness of the Autumn air on your skin

Treasure that.

Enjoy what came before your world

Exploded into chaos

And your family split apart

Into separate tiny atoms

Never to be whole again

You will despair, and lose each other in the debris

But time will teach you how to find 

Each other once again

Remember that.

You were bold and brave

And troublesome

In those younger days 

It had to be you, they’d say,

And that is who you’ll stay

Fighting for what you care about,

Marching chanting singing your protest

Shoulder to shoulder –

There’s family in that

You’ll grieve and hold yourself tight inside

You’ll bury your face in many pillows

The terror of trusting will haunt your days

But you will rise again

I promise you…

You’ll be bold and brave

And troublesome again

And your chosen family 

Will love you for that

Just remember that alone 

Can be a healing place

A place to watch sparrows

And breathe the creamy scent

Of February blackthorn blossom

Alone can bring the quiet

That will give you back 

To yourself again

Hold onto that

Val Johnson                      Feb 2024

Herne Bay

TOMBOY – By Jacqui Soo, a proud Scouser.

“You’ll never make a lady out of that one” uttered my paternal grandmother to my Mother when I was aged about 3.

How right she was. I am the only girl with four brothers. Second born and teacher to the younger three lads (and subsequently, most of their mates). It was I – not the eldest – who took them for their first pint, to the match for the first time and educated them on how to treat a girl when taking her on a date. And it was me, not the boys, who was the best footballer, so said my Dad.

I was his chippy’s mate and hod carrier and I loved mixing cement with my Dad. The viscosity was mesmerising. So much better than making batter for Yorkshire puddings. “Please Mum, don’t make me make the gravy” I pleaded on a Sunday. It is a sacrilege to make lumpy gravy and I couldn’t quite understand the alchemy involved in producing a smooth gravy from meat drippings and Burdall’s gravy salt.

They are all jealous of my footballer’s legs with chunky calves and thick, muscular thighs. But that wasn’t an accident either. From the Summer I left junior school in 1973, I started work on a milk round. 7 days a week for thirty bob. Carrying a full crate of milk from the 14th floor of a tower block down to each level gave me forearms like hams. Then there was the swimming and the hockey, netball, rounders and athletics. I was the typical all rounder. I insisted on wearing shorts. No skirts even on the sports field. My Mum even wrote me a note to excuse me from wearing a skirt to school. I hated them with a vengeance.

My Mum refused to buy me monkey boots as an 11 year old so with my wages from the milk, I bought my own. Maroon with yellow stitching. I loved them. A forerunner to my love affair with DM’s. I kept the receipt from my first pair of branded jeans. Wranglers costing £6.99 from All Mankind when I was 13. Then came the denim jacket. All that was missing from my life was a motorbike. I’m saving that for my mid-life crisis!

I love being a tomboy. It liberated me. I didn’t care if people thought I was a lad. I never wanted to be one though, I liked being a girl.

But then I grew my hair. It was after a kd lang concert where every dyke had the same haircut! This was before the variety of styles a la Beckham. So now, it’s down to my waist. I love it. It’s wild and wavy and full of all of the colours of my varied ancestry. I am a Mermaid.

I shocked my Mum in 2005 when out shopping with her. I bought a pink dress. A tomboy dress though. “I have great legs Mum and this will show them off.” Short sleeves to display my firm biceps and forearms and short enough to see the thunder thighs. Full length zipper to reveal a lovely cleavage (good bras are essential). And, to compliment the look, steel toe capped DM boots.

Butch Barbie was born.

To My Childhood Self

You remember the Russian Dolls don’t you? You played with them often when you were little, opening them, lining them up, then putting them all back one inside the other, the tiny baby, the small girl, the teenager, the woman. It was just a game then, one you played alongside climbing trees, playing cricket with the boys, walking along the tops of high walls. You were brave, you were strong, you were a warrior.

Although you didn’t know it you would change the world, not single handed but collectively with your tribe. You would learn to stand up for what is right; to refuse to conform to what was expected of a young ‘lady’, to find your own path. There would be many twists and turns on that path, many dead ends. There will be battles to fight and wrongs to overcome, never shirk them, never turn your back and walk away. Be brave, be strong, be the warrior.

You’ll love learning and will absorb information like a sponge but nothing intellectual can prepare you for the rejection by your first love that will cut you to the quick. She was older and you worshipped her but she moved on. Others would take her place and you will break hearts yourself, until one day the love of your life will shatter yours into a million pieces. The pain will stay with you forever but eventually you’ll forgive her and yourself. For you are brave, you are strong, you are a warrior.

Look at your hands, though you don’t know it yet they will hold babies whom you will nurture. Those hands will help the passage out of this life of two close friends and they will bring your granddaughter into the world. They will comfort friends who in turn will comfort you. They will build and they will create. You will save a life and in turn your life will be saved, people will depend on you and you will not let them down because you are brave, you are strong and you are a warrior.

As you grow watch your body change, be proud of it but don’t worry what others think. Your body is built to carry you through your journey. Yes it needs nurture, yes it will need repair sometimes, but it doesn’t need adornment it is perfect as it is. Learn to love yourself, not in an arrogant way but in knowing that you are important, your presence was meant to be. Stand tall and look ahead but be aware of each moment, life will pass by in a heartbeat.

One day you will be me, the Babushka, the grandmother, the biggest of all the dolls and inside you will be all the others. You will contain them and help the next young lives to grow. If you look behind you will see the footprints in the wet sand where you have walked, just waiting for the next incoming tide to wash them away. Hold my hand little warrior and be brave.

Kate Field

Come, sit by the fire 

It’s only me. 

Others said to say sorry but 

they had to leave. 

They made a good 

fire though. 

And in the morning, 

We’ll grab some breakfast, 

Maybe we’ll go for a swim. 

The water is cold

 around here. 

You won’t like it. 

But once you are in, it’s fine.

I just run straight in sometimes. 

Make sure you live by 

the sea. 

I miss it. 

You will.

…

Anyway, see how you feel in 

the morning. 

Whatever we do, we’ll enjoy 

our time together. 

I like you. 

I mean, I don’t like 

everything you do 

but, on the whole, I like you. 

Very much. 

… 

The others? 

They will come back. 

Well, some will. 

So will some new ones. 

Ah, they come and go. 

And that’s fine. 

It’s alright when there is no one. 

You can be with your self. 

Be. 

Once you are, it’s fine. 

And now that we met, 

When the being gets

 too much, 

We’ll find each other again, 

and, if you want, the others 

will find us, too. 

… 

Marshmallow? 

Ece Ozdemiroglu

London

‘There’s a right and a wrong way to do everything  and you’ll always do it the wrong way’

Thanks hen for drawing attention to yourself and standing out in a crowd your glow in all your glory has speckled my glittery path to now.

Thanks hen for sticking your neck out paving my way to circle the base…take the toys from the boys…and reclaim the night. 

Thanks hen for not ‘hauding your wheest’ as your voice has helped me connect with my tribe speak out for injustice, heal in talking therapy.

Thanks hen for not always pulling your socks up. Your socks are fine, just fine, round your ankles. You’ve been having fun knocking doors and running away, racing others round the block on your bike. Your socks are fine, just fine, one up, one down

Climbing trees and the primary school wall where you invented walking the plank all along its narrow, nobbly stretch  forming the firm stepping stones  to my fun-filled life to the courageous steps I’ve taken and to the leading roles I’ve comfortably adopted.

And they did give you something to cry about, hen.   More than they ever knew.

Thanks hen for keeping the ember of resistance glowing in your depths. 

Thanks hen for keeping your fire of rage burning in your heart.

Your defiant agency has brought me to the water’s edge to shed my sea of tears  to shed my layers of fear to dive in and swim towards the shiny new day dawning on the horizon.

Thanks hen.

Fiona Thomson, Westgate 

Part 2 (c) – Extract

I left broken and returned grown. My journey home.

And that was it. 

I was on Clapham manor street. 

I have walked down that street a million times. 

At every stage of my life until the age of 28. 

I have walked down it happy, sad, crying, drunk, angry, scared, excited. 

I have run down it…. rode down it…. driven down it. 

I have chased people down it…been chased. Had fights on that road. 

Pushed my babies along it. 

I have walked with people I loved down it, been in love as I walked down it. 

This road is my road. 

It is where the best and the worst thing happened to me and everything in between, and suddenly….it was very real and very scary and then I did cry, 

A real cry. With snot.

Then the sun started shining. 

I kid you not, it had been overcast the entire time and now the sun came through. 

And it was beautiful. 

I don’t know what I was expecting. 

When I left, Clapham manor street was dark and empty. 

I walked behind my mother’s coffin down that road and remember thinking how grey the road was. 

Sad.

Not now. Not today. There are flowers everywhere. 

There are splashes of colour everywhere. 

Flowers planted around streetlights, flower boxes overflowing. 

I was truly taken back but how stunning it was. 

There were people outside pruning flowers and just chatting. 

And I was outside my flat.

The flat. 

With a bunch of flowers for my mum. 

And I cried. Not a lot. But I let it hurt for a moment. 

I know every part of that block of flats. Every inch. 

I have jumped out of every window of that flat. And climbed in. 

I have played dolls outside, slept on the grass when I couldn’t get in. My children played here. My pets are buried here.

No one answered my buzzer, so I pressed trade…and it opened.

“Don’t bloody slam the block doors” I can almost hear my mum shout.

I sat on the stairs outside my old front door like I had done a thousand times. 

I would sit here when they rowed. 

When she was mad at me. 

When I needed to think up a lie to tell her. 

I sat here when I didn’t want to go home but needed to be near in case, she needed me. 

I have sat here and cried many tears. 

This is where I sit to ground myself. 

And I had forgotten all about it.

And then we sat together, she and I. Me and her. Like I knew I needed to. 

I sat in silence for a good while. Whilst we made peace. Whilst we cried. 

Whilst we remembered how hard it was to live here. 

Yes…so much love…but so much pain. 

Too much. 

We agreed that whilst we will always respect this place and will now often visit, and lay flowers for mum, we don’t need to stay here anymore. 

She needed to come with me now.

Then I said out loud but ….in like a broken whisper

“Come on, you don’t live here anymore”.

And we had our last cry. Me and Blondy. 

Because even though I had lost her and then found her over the past 18 months and realised that the little girl in me was not to blame for all that…. I didn’t trust her enough to come home. 

I didn’t believe in that inner child enough to set her free.

Until today.

I sat on those stairs today and …. if you can picture it as I did…. I sat there as me…next to her…and she was very angry and sad. 

She wondered why I had left her here. Why she had to stay here. Not even in the Flat. Just sitting outside. And I had to explain that it was my way of coping. 

That the hurt was so bad that I punished her. 

Rejected her. 

And that I was sorry.

I ran my hand over the wall as I thought about all of this. 

Something I always did as a kid but did not remember until today. 

I remembered the sensation so well. 

Sitting there as a kid, running my hand over the cool wall, liking the way the bumps felt. 

Sometimes it was freezing in the block. 

Sometimes there would be rain bashing against the block windows. 

Sometime the steps were wet and dirty. 

It didn’t matter because I was safe there.  

Over and over, I would rub my hand as I worked out what ever problem I had come to the steps with that day. 

And her I was now, 41 years of age, using the same stemming method to calm myself. 

And this made me smile, that simple touch took me back and I could have kissed that wall because I have never felt more at home as I did in that second on those steps running my hand across the wall that has calmed me trough many things, 

And I am grateful I had that space.

I got up and …. I was not broken. 

I was the opposite of broken. 

It was time for me to leave. 

I would be back…but never like this. 

This time I was leaving whole and would return as a visitor the next time…like someone who visits a museum and just looks and nods at the history around them, not searching for comfort and security. 

I had returned to the battle ground. 

Where IT had all happened. 

But there were no dead bodies or horrid scenes I needed to turn away from. 

Just ghost of the past that didn’t want to hurt anyone.

It was time to leave.

I went home today.

Kendra Houseman

Kent

Part 2 (b) – Extract

I left broken and returned grown. My journey home.

A lot of change has taken place. In me.

A lot of change has taken place in me.

A different mindset. 

I feel like…me …again. 

A sequence of events led to me being in London last night. 

At 2am on my son’s sofa (they offered me the bed…Gabbie will kill me if I don’t mention that part) I lay there listening to a noise I had not heard for years…. London. Noises and hustle that I had not heard in so long…and have needed.

My alarm went of at 7 and I just lay there. I was so tired, and I thought…I can’t do it. Na…I’m just gonna go back home.

And that’s when it hit me. On that sofa….7 o’clock this morning. Where is “Home” exactly? Because from the second I stepped out of the train station at St Pancras I felt different. I felt…comfortable. I don’t feel like that in Kent. Ever. 

I feel like an outsider. Like a kid hanging around a group …. kind of included…but not really. You’re not really one of them. 

But here …on this sofa…right now…. I felt like me. Anyway…I needed to go and get her……

And so, the journey began. I got ready and me and my son left. He walked out of his block of flats with me…. dressed in his shirt jumper and tie…. clearly at ease with not only his environment but also himself. Something I had not seen in him for a long time. My son…dressed all smart for his government job…The son born on these streets… born on Clapham manor street…. just walking beside me casually taking me to the bus stop as he headed off in the opposite direction for his job. We hugged and he left, and I watched him walk with ease within the crowd. I watched him cross the road, in his own world. Relaxed and set for the day. The boy they told me I could not keep. The one who so many said would not achieve….and here he was…home…living a life I could only dream of at his age.

And that was the first cry. Sitting at the top of the bus, on the way to Clapham junction, crying behind my sunglasses. Because I have obviously done something right if he is holding his own…and well….in the same environment that once broke us all. I stopped crying just before junction and realised I would have to keep my sunglasses on until I found a mirror now.

I got off at Junction and was struck by how different and the same everything was at the same time. The landscape was the same…there was Arding and Hobbs…. there was JD…no wait……that’s a bank now….and off I went, taking in Clapham junction for the first time in a long time. A million memories hitting me at once and halfway down the high street I had a rush of panic. Its too much. SO much. If I turn back now, I can get the train home from Junction. And then I felt it…. a voice…a feeling. I don’t know how to explain it. Like a whisper….” what about me” and in my head I said …Ok…I’m coming.

“There you are” slipped out my mouth with love. Like I had seen an old forgotten friend. But what I had seen…was Clapham common. The trees…the grass….

And I ran…

Like a loon in flip flops

I ran onto the common and just threw my head up to the sky and took a deep breath.

And cried.

I took of my flip flops and just stood with the grass under my feet. I took off my sunglasses (All vanity gone) and it was electric. Everything looked so green and new and …. home. I just started walking and realised something…. all the trees were the same. I can’t explain what I mean (and this will be a theme so be warned) bit I recognised trees. I had played on this common my whole childhood….my teens…until I was 28. And so, I had trees that were landmarks…and didn’t even realise. 

I spent ages walking from one place to another, places…spaces….and the whole time that feeling…. of a kid saying…look…oh look at that one….no look at this one…. was becoming stronger.

I stopped even planning where I was going at one point and just went with her. She obviously knew what we needed to see. Like wind…. I could just feel where I needed to go.

Not to the flat

Not yet

I found myself at the boating pond and I felt like I needed to stop a moment.  I sat in the place where I had sat many times. And I realised that I had been walking for 2 hours solid. And that I had passed quite a few places where good memories were and also where bad memories were…. but…. I was able to acknowledge the bad ones and just move on. Not ignore. Not all. But…. We didn’t come to feel that…. she said….

And all of a sudden it was time. I was just sitting at the boating pond, reminiscing and suddenly it was like…right…. it’s time to go to the flat…. come on. 

Tears running down my face in the middle of big Sainsburys (Only OGs will know its big Sainsburys). Crying. Like a baby.

Why

Because I had come to get my mum’s flowers.

Well…. I could not go home and not take her flowers. Because I always get her flowers.

Kendra Houseman 

Kent

(to be continued Day 24 of FabulousFebruary)

Part 2 (a) Extract 

       I left broken and returned grown. My journey home.

I went home today. My real home. SW London. More than that…I went to the flat that I grew up in. The flat where my son took his first breath, and my mum took her last. The walls of that place have seen and felt every emotion I can think of. And I have been in fear of returning to it since the day I left.

When I left my home, I was a broken women in many ways. My mum had died a few months before and the flat…. the one that I had lived in since I was 18 months old…. was taken away from me. A lady turned up a few weeks after my mum died and served me notice. Me … now…the person I am right now…. would have squashed that madness, fought for my home, and stood my ground. But I was broken in the worst way. I was broken inside and out.

But more than that…. the area I had grown up in was broken. It was grimy and merkey. And so was I. Bad things were happening in the area. Had been for a long time. I felt scared in the flat a lot of the time. Clapham was dank and dark. Nothing seemed to change, and nothing got better. I couldn’t change or get better. Looking back now I can see how toxic we were for each other.

Me and my ends. Like an abuse relationship that just won’t end until someone gets hurt, and I got hurt. Badly.

Everything caused me anxiety in SW London. I didn’t realise that at the time. I was just …anxious…. but actually, it was more than that. So many different traumas resurfaced each day. A simple walk to the shops could trigger something in me. And often did. But I didn’t realise because I was in it. I just thought it is who I am. 

Until today.

Me and my area were bad for each other at that time. Leaving was the hardest thing. And when I left in October 2008, I said that I would never ever return. Because it would hurt too much. And I never did.

Until today.

I thought that it was so bad when we left…gangs…violence…. hate…that when I returned it would be so dangerous that I would fear my own streets. And I could not accept that.

And so, I stayed away.

Until today.

I thought that the pain of my mum not standing at the back door as I walked towards the flat would rip me open again and I would have to heal all over.  I dream about “the flat” often. Mostly nightmares. But its where my mum always is. If I dream about the flat, then my mum is part of that dream. Good or bad.

A few years ago, I started talking about going back. One last look. I didn’t really know why, but I was starting to heal from…. everything…and something stirred in me. A need to go home. Not strong enough that I would do it…no way…. but I would spend ages on google maps looking at all the streets that were mine as a teen. I would make up all these scenarios of what it would be like to be outside the flat. It hunted me. I felt like if I didn’t return, I would never heal. So, I made plans many times to go back…. many times. But something always come up…. like…. that time when I was going to go but my alarm didn’t go off…or I couldn’t get a babysitter…or it was too cold….too hot….. anything….so I “couldn’t” go. Next summer I would say to myself…have said to myself for years now…. next summer I will go. But I didn’t.

Then, about 18 months ago my son came home after being out all day and said “I went to the flat”.

It was like he had said “I went to the moon and sat with Elvis”

I didn’t know what to say. I was so angry that he had put himself in danger from all the mandem around and that he had gone there and not been able to cope and….

Well

That’s not how it went down at all. He started telling me how nice it was. He asked if I wanted to see pictures. Initially I said no. No way. Then …maybe one

Man …I binged on his photos for weeks. He had taken pictures around the area as he walked about. It was…heaven. I knew every little bit of each picture. But …the pictures he had taken of the flat…. I could not hack them. They had the wrong curtains in the window and outside was all wrong. No no no….its not meant to be like that

And that was when I realised, I was not ready to go back. Not yet.

Until today.

(to be continued Day 23 of FebulousFebruary 2024)

Kendra Houseman 

Kent

Part 2 (a) Extract 

       I left broken and returned grown. My journey home.

I went home today. My real home. SW London. More than that…I went to the flat that I grew up in. The flat where my son took his first breath, and my mum took her last. The walls of that place have seen and felt every emotion I can think of. And I have been in fear of returning to it since the day I left.

When I left my home, I was a broken women in many ways. My mum had died a few months before and the flat…. the one that I had lived in since I was 18 months old…. was taken away from me. A lady turned up a few weeks after my mum died and served me notice. Me … now…the person I am right now…. would have squashed that madness, fought for my home, and stood my ground. But I was broken in the worst way. I was broken inside and out.

But more than that…. the area I had grown up in was broken. It was grimy and merkey. And so was I. Bad things were happening in the area. Had been for a long time. I felt scared in the flat a lot of the time. Clapham was dank and dark. Nothing seemed to change, and nothing got better. I couldn’t change or get better. Looking back now I can see how toxic we were for each other.

Me and my ends. Like an abuse relationship that just won’t end until someone gets hurt, and I got hurt. Badly.

Everything caused me anxiety in SW London. I didn’t realise that at the time. I was just …anxious…. but actually, it was more than that. So many different traumas resurfaced each day. A simple walk to the shops could trigger something in me. And often did. But I didn’t realise because I was in it. I just thought it is who I am. 

Until today.

Me and my area were bad for each other at that time. Leaving was the hardest thing. And when I left in October 2008, I said that I would never ever return. Because it would hurt too much. And I never did.

Until today.

I thought that it was so bad when we left…gangs…violence…. hate…that when I returned it would be so dangerous that I would fear my own streets. And I could not accept that.

And so, I stayed away.

Until today.

I thought that the pain of my mum not standing at the back door as I walked towards the flat would rip me open again and I would have to heal all over.  I dream about “the flat” often. Mostly nightmares. But its where my mum always is. If I dream about the flat, then my mum is part of that dream. Good or bad.

A few years ago, I started talking about going back. One last look. I didn’t really know why, but I was starting to heal from…. everything…and something stirred in me. A need to go home. Not strong enough that I would do it…no way…. but I would spend ages on google maps looking at all the streets that were mine as a teen. I would make up all these scenarios of what it would be like to be outside the flat. It hunted me. I felt like if I didn’t return, I would never heal. So, I made plans many times to go back…. many times. But something always come up…. like…. that time when I was going to go but my alarm didn’t go off…or I couldn’t get a babysitter…or it was too cold….too hot….. anything….so I “couldn’t” go. Next summer I would say to myself…have said to myself for years now…. next summer I will go. But I didn’t.

Then, about 18 months ago my son came home after being out all day and said “I went to the flat”.

It was like he had said “I went to the moon and sat with Elvis”

I didn’t know what to say. I was so angry that he had put himself in danger from all the mandem around and that he had gone there and not been able to cope and….

Well

That’s not how it went down at all. He started telling me how nice it was. He asked if I wanted to see pictures. Initially I said no. No way. Then …maybe one

Man …I binged on his photos for weeks. He had taken pictures around the area as he walked about. It was…heaven. I knew every little bit of each picture. But …the pictures he had taken of the flat…. I could not hack them. They had the wrong curtains in the window and outside was all wrong. No no no….its not meant to be like that

And that was when I realised, I was not ready to go back. Not yet.

Until today.

(to be continued Day 23 of FebulousFebruary 2024)

Kendra Houseman 

Kent

Part 1 – Extract from Out of the Shadows series

Feel-Ups. Wake Up!

So usually when the game started, I would run for my life. 

Literally. Round and round the playground. 

You could not risk running into the girl’s toilets, because the boys would follow you 

and if you didn’t get to the cubical quick enough or lock the door in time, not only would you be sexually assaulted 

you also ended up with pissy water all over your clothes 

from falling to the ground or pushed against the toilet.

They would start this kind of chant, just before they would start chasing. 

I can not remember the words, but the groups would storm around the playground chanting something like “kiss chase kiss chase”. 

This would happen about a minute or so before they started chasing. 

I used to hear that chanting and feel like I was going to wet myself. 

I would feel instantly sick. 

Some of the girls would start giggle and laughing. 

Some would, like me, go very pale and quiet.

Then there would be like a mini roar and the chase would begin.

One day, after a particular horrendous round of “feel ups” I went home. When I walked in my mum was cooking, looked up and almost dropped the bowl she was mixing in. “what the hell happened to you “she said rushing to me, grabbing my face.

Man…what I would give for one of those hugs again one day.

This was not the first and most definitely not the last sexual abuse/ assault/ exposure that I experienced.

Wake up people.

Kendra Houseman 

Kent