leya
Leya’s update: winter 2019
Leya’s update: winter 2019. I don’t know if I have really progressed much. At the start of the year – after a flower season during
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Of course. Leya’s story is a perfect fit for the ‘Childhood’s got a lot to answer for’ heading. But, actually, as you read her story, you’ll see that Leya’s a self-made woman, giving up conventional bricks and mortar to lead a very alternative life.
And it hasn’t been – and still isn’t easy. But she has stopped the often repetitive wheel of a difficult childhood with her own daughter – to bring up, home-school and guide her daughter into a happy and satisfying adult life; a daughter who is also now her best friend.
Leya’s got much right in life – she cares about the ‘things’ that matter. See what you think, read her story.
I was born into a working class family, the eldest of three children, in the early 60s. My sister was born 16 months later. The only work my parents ever knew was factory work. We grew up in a small 2 bedroom bungalow in an East Midlands town. My sister and I shared one small bedroom, my parents the other. There was a tiny kitchen and bathroom and lastly the living room. Mum was never happy in there. We were never allowed to bring other playmates into our home as mum was ashamed of it and thought of it as a pigsty.
At an early age we would go to our nan’s house, dad’s mother, each day that our parents were working and she would look after us. She was the only grandparent I ever really knew. I vaguely remember mum’s mum. she died when I was about five. i don’t remember her dad, as I was even younger, when he died. As for dad’s dad, he died when my dad was just six years old.
I was a hypersensitive child and also very shy. Mum resented our nan looking after us. Maybe It was because it wasn’t her own mum. I don’t know. I just know that she didn’t like having to pay our nan for looking after us. She’d always be complaining about it. In fact everything nan did she’d complain about. Of course, me being the sensitive child I was, I’d pick up on it and I felt nan was the bad guy. I soaked up all mum’s negativity and so I didn’t like my nan. As far as I was concerned nan took me away from my mummy and made mum unhappy and got paid for it too. My sister adored her but I’m afraid I didn’t.
Mum was never really happy, when we were children. She was always complaining about the house, saying how she hadn’t wanted girls and how our auntie (her sister) should’ve had us. Quite often when we were young, she’d be wishing that a bomb would hurry up and drop on us, which would set me off crying and then that would start my sister crying also. There is one nice moment, that I remember that came out of one of these outbursts. One day when she’d set everyone crying, she burst into tears herself and grabbed us both and hugged us.
I was one of those little girls who would’ve liked ballet lessons. I think it might have been a good discipline for me if I’d been able to practise it. With my sister it was the horses. As I couldn’t do ballet for real, I used to play at being a ballerina with my sister, until one day dad told me to stop thumping around like a baby elephant. That kind of squashed that dream after that, so I was reduced to galloping along on my pretend horse, with my sister on hers when we were outside playing. My sister did get her real horse in later life.
As I was the quieter, more shy one of us two girls, I was the one more prone to being picked on. I guess as mum was an unhappy lady, she had to find an outlet for her frustrations and that was mainly me. I could never do anything right, especially as I got older.
Another thing mum wanted, other than a son and a big house, was a car. She had passed her test but there was never a car when we grew up. We did all go to Mablethorpe for the day, on a coach but as my sister and I were both sick on the way, we ended up in a launderette for much of the day. After that our parents said they’d never take us anywhere again – and they never did.
At the age of nine things started to change, we found out mum was having a baby. Also the fields just up the road were being built on with a new housing estate and a new school. This meant there was no having to go to school at the other end of town. So we started this new school after the summer holidays which meant we could walk to school and come home at dinnertime – so life seemed better. One of the worst things was my parents arguing, you could hear them shouting at each other all the way down the street. One of the worst arguments was when we were in bed. It was quite frightening. I was lying in bed trying to cover my ears wishing it would stop. Mum was quite heavily pregnant at the time. I know dad pushed mum and hurt her. Listening to her crying afterwards was horrible.
Nonetheless it was nice to have mum around more and a few months after we started our new school, my little brother was born. This was the start of the happiest two years of my childhood, after he was born as I had somebody to love and look after. As I was the eldest I helped with changing nappies and making up his milk for him. I’d take him out in his pram, read stories to him and keep him amused. I believe mum was maybe a bit happier after my brother was born, even though it was too late now to give her own mum the grandson, she’d so wanted to present to her. Before my brother was born my mum quite often would tell us, that she hadn’t wanted girls and that our auntie, her sister, should have had us, as she would’ve been happy with any child, boy or girl.
Two years later though life was changing again. At eleven years old it was time to leave primary school and to start secondary. I’d never really made any real special friends in my primary school days. I had playmates at school and I’d sometimes go round other children’s houses to play, or sometimes to birthday parties, but as we were never allowed to bring other children into our home, I never really formed any strong attachments. So when I went to big school and was put in a class that didn’t have any of my old playmates in, I lost touch with them and had to form new friendships.
At around the same time, mum started having factory homework coming into the bungalow, from the factory where she had worked before my brother was born. The homework became my sister’s and my work too. The work consisted of sticking nails in pieces of plastic, that were called top-pieces. Some would have three holes and some four. They would go back to the factory after we’d stuck the nails in and they would be fitted to the bottom of the heels of shoes. They would come in paper sacks and mum would be paid by the dozen. So the more we could get done, the more mum would be paid. Mum also took in some sewing work from a lingerie factory and likewise that was piece-work. We never got to see much of our dad as he was doing seventy hours a week at the time. He did actually get some homework coming in from the factory he worked at one time. Thankfully that one didn’t last very long. I can’t really remember what it involved other than the fact that there was a lot of glueing. The stink of the glue was horrible and made me feel really bad.
What with the work, big school (which I didn’t really like) and looking after brother as well sometimes, it all became too much for me. I went more and more within myself. My school homework suffered as a result of the other work. The factory work was more important. As I hadn’t sometimes got my homework done I would be put in detention after school which, of course, would get mum complaining, as I wasn’t at home getting on with the work. She’d start saying how I didn’t want to come home and how I’d sooner be at school – which in some ways may have been true, but I certainly didn’t want to be at school either. The one time I was persuaded to go on a school trip to Birmingham one evening, ice skating with the girls in my class, I lived to regret it. I didn’t get home until about ten -o -clock and I had actually enjoyed it, but as soon as I walked through the door, mum was going on at me as there had been quite a few sacks of top pieces come in that day, and mum, dad and my sister were all hard at it trying to get them done. So I pitched in to help them finish them, but I was made to feel so guilty for going out and actually enjoying myself, I never asked again if I could go on any more trips. I was pretty much a loner all through big school years. I could never really make any real true friends. I guess I felt a freak.
I was constantly being told how slow I was at the job, by mum. She even gave me a Mr. Slow badge of honour. As far as she was concerned I was lazy, slow and dumb. I was certainly living in a lonely world. I used to hope that maybe it was all just a bad dream and I’d wake up one day and find I was really in a beautiful world. Dad would stick up for me sometimes, when mum was laying into me, but in a way I resented him for doing it as mum would just pick on me even more. I did so want her love. Even my sister and I became estranged from each other at that time. If mum saw us being friendly with each other, she’d make snide little remarks and make it seem a really bad thing to us. We both wanted our mum’s love, but in general she was more friendly with my sister than me. I know she loved our brother most, but I never felt jealous of him. I was more jealous of my sister.
The only nan I’d known as a child, dad’s mum, died when I was about twelve. The school had been informed and my sister and I had been taken out of our respective classes, taken to the school office and told of her death. My sister had thought the world of nan and burst into tears. I’m afraid to say I felt nothing. I did cry tears, but they were for my sister. I felt sorry for her.
Anyway I went through those last five school years feeling very lonely, unable to make friends and feeling a misfit. Mum just found me a difficult person. She has even said in later years, that she never understood me. One day when I was maybe about fourteen/fifteen, mum and an aunt took me to Leicester on the train. I didn’t know why we were going and they never told me and as I never spoke much I never asked. I’d even got the day off school. Once in Leicester I found myself in a big room, with a strange Indian guy sitting in there. I was told to sit in the chair across the table from him and then mum and my aunt left the room. I didn’t know why I was left with this strange person. So when he asked me to speak, I didn’t know what to say. After a few minutes of silence, my chaperones were called back in and he’d given up on me. Mum was so angry with me. Looking back now and thinking on it, I guess the guy must have been some kind of psychiatrist.
I could’ve done a lot better at school. I was reasonably good at maths and French but I was never really given the chance to excel at anything. The only thing that I was encouraged by my parents to do was to work. They weren’t interested in my education, or me as a person. I was very much a person who needed encouragement to do well in something other than just work.
At sixteen I knew nothing about friendship, boys, or the world. I was spat out of school and didn’t know what I was to do. It was a pretty frightening prospect. I was totally put off the thought of work and I certainly didn’t want to work in a factory. That was something I did know. I had seen how unhappy my parents had been and had endured the work myself. That said, the first job I was thrown into was a factory. Thankfully I got sacked on my very first day. The lady told me I wasn’t suitable. Others said later that she just didn’t like me. Not that I was sad anyway.
After that my dad would keep an eye on the papers and send me off to go after a job, if it sounded appropriate for me and which I dutifully went to see about. Apart from one job that was working in the office at a factory, which I did go to, but as I couldn’t find the entrance I was supposed to go to and was too afraid to ask anybody, I just pretended I had been for the interview. In the end I ended up in the equivalent to a W.H. Smith shop. It sold cards stationary, books, newspaper and records. I went for a job in the record department but they gave that to someone else and offered me a job in the card department instead. which I took. In the end the girl in the record department didn’t stay long, so I ended up where I’d sooner have been. It was in the days of vinyl and I loved music, so I could’ve ended up worse off. It was where I was to first meet the love of my life.
In the shop I still never really had any friends as such. One day one of the girls who was a few months older than me, but a lot more experienced than me, asked if I’d like to go out with her. I was seventeen and had my first experience of pub-life and my first experience of the opposite sex. After that I went out with a few guys but if they tried getting too physical they would scare me off and I wouldn’t see them again. It was more an excuse to get away from home. Guys seemed to be interested in me, so I’d go out with them.
Eventually I was to meet a guy I really did like. He seemed different to the other guys, for a start he didn’t try anything, which I liked. We had a few dates before we even kissed. I was smitten. To me he was a million miles from the life I’d known. When he told me he smoked cannabis, it didn’t worry me because I didn’t even know what it was. The only drugs I knew of were alcohol and tobacco. He was not a particularly easy catch but eventually a year later after I turned eighteen we were seeing more of each other and I was introduced to rock festivals. In October 1981 he told me he loved me. I was so happy. To feel loved was a new and wonderful thing for me. Wow someone loves me. Then we were making plans to get a mortgage and buy a house. We moved into our own home January 1982. It was in the town where I’d been born and lived for the last eighteen years. I believe he really did love me and I loved him. He was the bees knees to me. I knew I really loved him but I found it difficult to really feel it emotionally. I guess I hadn’t been allowed to grow emotionally as a child. I came into our relationship with a lot of unwanted baggage from childhood still clinging to me. It went very deep and I couldn’t eradicate it. Nonetheless he was very kind and loving and tried to help me but I could never really give of myself.
I kept thinking if I could get further away from my past, my home town, that maybe I could rid myself of it all. So we moved six miles down the road to another house, then from there another mile down the road. Eventually after five years of being together and three houses, we sold our last house, making a profit, got rid of a lot of things and bought a motor caravan with the profit. The world was our oyster. I remember the first time we crossed the border into Wales. It was so exciting – another country, mountains, valleys and waterfalls. From that moment I fell in love with Wales. It was the place for me.
Obviously we couldn’t keep going on the money that was left over after we’d bought the motorcaravan, so we had to set about finding work. Our first work was picking potatoes up off the ground in Cambridgeshire. It was hard work – and there I was back on piecework again, and still just as slow but we worked together so it wasn’t so bad. Whilst we were there somebody told us about daffodil picking in Cornwall. So the winter of 87/88 we headed on down to Cornwall after the potatoes. Cornwall was a lovely place and a lot less busy than it is these days. My romantic vision of daffodil picking was shattered once we got started. Our first season was started in the Penzance area, on a small farm that is no more. Piecework again, out in all weather. After that we would come down to Cornwall and pick the flowers each season. We also found work harvesting fruit and veg during the rest of the year. We also used to pick the daffodil bulbs up off the ground. A lot of the jobs these days have gone over to machinery, or else the jobs have been taken over by the Eastern Europeans.
During all our working on the land, I was still never really integrated into society. It was my guy who found us the work and he was our spokesperson. I still felt a misfit. Even in a community that is made of misfits. Especially the old type travellers who used to work on the land.
It is said In some circles that we are born with the knowledge of who we are and what we can become. We all have a potential, a calling but conditioning from parents, teachers and all those that we have contact with as a child help us to lose that knowledge. If we have the right nurturing, support and encouragement there is more chance that we can realise our potentials.
In 1990 I found I was pregnant. I didn’t even think I could get pregnant as a doctor told me a few years earlier I wouldn’t be able to have a baby. I burst into tears when I found out I was pregnant. I was absolutely terrified. My guy told me he wouldn’t leave me and he’d be there for me. I really hoped at the time that it would be a boy. The thought of a girl frightened me. Females had hurt me most as a child. Mum, sister, the girls at school. They’d all been cruel to me in their own way.
In 1991 I gave birth to a beautiful little girl and since she was born I have never regretted having a girl. I still had a lot of psychological issues but I did so want to be a good mother to her and I tried to do my best for her. As we were still moving around – albeit mainly in Cornwall, after she was born, I home taught her as she grew older. I am glad I had my daughter. She has been my stability in life and has done me a lot of good. She’s my best friend.
Now she is a grown young woman and I believe she is happy in life. She certainly says she is. As a little girl she loved horses and wanted to be able to ride them, so I encouraged her with her passion. She now works with horses and enjoys her work. So maybe I didn’t do so bad.
Over the years harvesting has changed. When once we were out in the fields picking the daffodil bulbs up off the ground, also potatoes, the farmers now have machinery to do it. Other jobs like the apple picking, strawberry picking etc. have been taken over by people from Eastern Europe. They generally were more willing to work, than next generation British pickers. Some farmers wouldn’t take British even they wanted to actually work.
After thirty years of picking work I would like to be able to move on to something different. I feel I must have some real purpose in life, other than just drudgery.
For a few years I was homeless. Not so very long ago. I have encountered some very kind people who have helped me along the way. Recently someone has given me a caravan and someone else has let me put my caravan on their land. So maybe that’s the start of good things and chances coming my way. I still feel a bit awkward with other people, especially people I don’t know but I’m not afraid of females any more. I’ve got to know a few good ladies over the last ten years and, of course, there’s my wonderful daughter who has been a boon to me. I still don’t really have any close friendships other than with my daughter. My guy has moved on but we still keep in touch.
Dad died thirteen years ago. I feel sad in some ways that I never really knew him. I never really felt I had a dad. Mum still lives in the same place, as when we were children. The bungalow has grown. It was growing just before dad died, aged just sixty-five. Now mum lives in this bigger home that she always wanted all on her own. I think it’s so sad. I wish she could’ve enjoyed what she had when her children were young. Now she’s wobbly on her legs and has dementia & has to be locked in her own home for safety. She can’t go up the stairs to the lovely bedroom they had built in the attic. It’s so sad. I look at mum now and wonder how I could ever have been scared of her. As my brother is the only one of her children still left in the same town, always her favourite, he and his wife are the one’s shouldering with the sorting out of carers for mum. They’ve been brilliant, especially as they both work and have three children. They have just come back from a well deserved three week holiday in California.
As for my sister and I, we were both damaged by our childhood. My sister was more overt about her problems. Not far off thirty years ago now, she was working in a supermarket, when she just broke down. She has never worked again. She has had a lot of psychiatric treatment over the years. She has a horse, dog and other animals, along with her grandchildren to keep her going. The grandchildren being the ones that keep her going most of all.
As for me my pain was more locked away. It hasn’t helped my relationship with my guy but I have been working on myself. I believe I’m a survivor. I try to keep positive and not listen to the demons within, that would have me think I’m a worthless person. I have to work on it but I think I’m improving. My mantra over the last few years has been “I may be slow but I’m not stupid”. I’m getting there slowly. I am “Thursday’s Child”. I have far to go.
As I look back on my life, I think of how I should’ve done some things differently but I don’t regret anything. There’s no point, I can’t go back and change anything. If I learn from mistakes and gain wisdom, that’s the best I can do.
I feel sad that I couldn’t really feel anything for the only nan I ever really knew, or any of my dad’s side generally. In my mind I felt it was something awful to have been named by my dad and also to have his surname, made me the lowest of the low. I still have the same surname as I was never married, as has my daughter also. I keep telling myself how special I am these days and I’m proud to be who I am.
I don’t really feel I had parents in the nurturing sense, giving me the love and encouragement I needed as a child but I don’t resent them these days. They got me to adulthood and taught me how to work. Over the years I have tried to connect with mum but I could never really reach her. I did struggle with it at one time but it is as it is.
I believe that writing this has assisted in the healing of what has lain deep within me. If I can clear myself of all the old wounds then may be I can become a true warrior on my life path. I do feel a shift from within.
I have a passion for astrology. I’d like to think I maybe could do something with it. I feel I must have a gift of some sort. I have been studying it for a long time on and off. Work has gotten in the way quite a bit. Maybe I’m holding myself back, with the fear of failure, but I’ve never felt adequate enough to go as far as really interpreting someone’s chart. May be I’ve just got to find my voice. I feel I want to be some kind of healer.
I became a vegetarian about 35 years ago – when I was in my twenties, because I didn’t like the way that some farm animals are kept. And then a few years ago after living and working on a dairy farm, I decided to become a vegan. I’d see these great milking machines walking past and then every so often I’d hear a shot and realise that a cow had been destroyed because it was no longer any use – which opened my eyes to the dairy side of things.
If I didn’t have to work I’d do voluntary work with nature – certainly something more in tune with nature. If Earth dies off because we’ve killed it, well, we’re all going to die off aren’t we. So certainly helping to protect Mother Earth appeals. After all she nurtures us and all we humans do is take from her and spoil her beauty.
I have read quite a few books on self help. Some that have never really done anything for me. Others that have been more helpful. One of the best ones that I have found that has connected with me most, is a book by Jamie Catto called ‘Insanely Gifted’. It was one that made me think and it also gave me a laugh which in my mind is good. It’s about the demons that are always chattering in our heads, that can end up ruling our lives & putting them to good use instead. That would be my recommendation.
I believe that we should encourage our children as they’re growing up to be themselves, if they have something that really interests them, they should be encouraged. Every twelve years the planet Jupiter returns back to the position in your birth chart it was in, when you were born. So it helps at around the age of twelve, that you’ve found some interest or something that you really enjoy, as when you’re older even if you don’t stay with it you’ll probably end up going back to it. When my daughter was twelve her big interest was horses. She’s still playing with them now and being paid for it. When I was twelve I was working. I’ve got out of the piecework thing now, just about, but I’m still just working.
I also believe that humans should slow down the pace of life. I believe very much that with all this fast paced life we live in, that humans are speeding up time. This year the months have been coming and going in a blink of an eye. It’s frightening when you think of it. Time is just a concept of man.
One thing more, we all need to learn to love each other more. There’s so much hate and mistrust in the world.
The place to start is within our families and most of all learning to love ourselves.
How can we really love others if we can’t love ourselves?
Love & peace to all the world.
Leya’s update: winter 2019. I don’t know if I have really progressed much. At the start of the year – after a flower season during
Leya’s first thoughts on applying Purrrrrfect Foundations. Nourish I think there’s a lot of greed and hate in the world and it’s sad to see
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