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Lucy

Lucy’s story is one of resiliance and autonomy in the face of childhood adversities she was powerless to control. Her mother’s alchoholism took away the support and stability needed to flourish in early life but a weekend job with horses as a teenager helped her discover a route to her own freedoms and a loving family of her own.

Lucy's Story

My parents ran hotels and restaurants in the Cotswolds. Mum ran a tea room and Dad was at the bar and did the cooking – they worked together, but I was always aware that Dad controlled life better than Mum. I was also aware that we (that’s me and my brother Ben who was three years younger than me) had a lot of breaks with Dad’s parents in the Midlands and that Ben and I were shipped away for a couple of weeks at a time. I think from a really early age I knew that Mum and Dad had a few issues.

But it was when we moved to Penzance – where Dad was to manage a big hotel, and I was coming up to five and Ben just two, that I began to realise that things weren’t going well and that accidents – or near accidents, kept happening. I remember these incidents really clearly because there was only me, Ben and my Mum – who was supposed to be looking after us. I don’t know how aware I was about Mum’s drinking, but I was aware that she’d fall asleep like she’d been knocked out and couldn’t be woken up. I remember a few things that happened – like when Ben filled his eyes with toothpaste – he could have been blinded, and on another occasion my Mum ran a bath full of boiling hot water, and another time when I fell and cracked my head. I’m not sure how much people were addressing what was going on – I think there was a lot of ignorance around.

Gradually the neighbours got quite involved and I think my Dad realised he couldn’t trust my Mum especially when he found out she’d been using the mortgage money to buy drink.

And then we moved to Sennen and my Dad took on this pub/hotel by the sea. And almost immediately I noticed that my Mum used to hide drink in my room – which I knew was not a good thing – she used to say SSh.. to me meaning that it was our secret. I remember once my Dad found all her hidden bottles and filled them up with water and when she went to have a drink it caused her to have some sort of fit and she fell backwards and she ended up having to be hospitalised. Fortunately, Dad’s parents were there too to look after us. But after that my Mum did always have a form of epilepsy. After that incident Dad told my Mum she needed to sort herself out and he got her family to come and fetch her and take her back to their home.

I know it was just so difficult for Dad to try and keep a good job and try to look after us at the same time. I know when my Mum went I used to scream and scream at the gate for her every night.

Mum did sort her life out for a bit once she went away – got her drinking under control, met someone else at AA and even got a desk job at Manchester airport. I know my Grandparents kept an eye on her though, especially when we went to stay with them.

But then my Mum got a place of her own and we were able to go and stay with just her and I know that Dad was aware of how good alcoholics are at hiding stuff, was really apprehensive about it all. And then, of course Mum did start drinking again – so Dad was right to be apprehensive, as things did come to a head. We were staying with Mum – and she’d obviously been drinking as she’d fallen asleep and we couldn’t wake her. So I took some money out of her purse because I wanted to buy us an ice-cream. So I took Ben and we walked through the streets of Manchester to the local shop we knew to buy ice lollies. Fortunately, the guy in the shop knew my Mum and worked out that things weren’t right and walked us back home. When we got back Mum was still asleep completely oblivious, so he rang my Grandma to let her know what had happened and she came to get us.

There was a bit of a kick-off after that and so we were never allowed to stay with Mum in her house when she was on her own again.

I suppose I became a bit of a surrogate Mum to Ben really…I remember trying to get some milk out of the fridge for Ben and dragged out a whole load of eggs that smashed on the floor. Mum never heard, of course, but when she woke up she was really cross. And although I wasn’t very big myself used to carry Ben around a lot and gave myself a hernia in the process.

And then Issy came on the scene. Technically, she was supposed to be our baby-sitter, but I soon realised that she was more than that to my Dad. It was Issy that noticed the growing lumps on my stomach (the hernias) and I had to be taken to hospital.

It was about this time that I started to get very, very, very cross with my Mother – because my Mum’s sisters would come to fetch us, but then my Mum wouldn’t turn up. I remember we’d be so excited at the prospect of seeing her and talking to her over the phone by the hour. And before we were due to go to Manchester she’d say we were going to do this and that – but then once we’d got there, she never arrived.

I think I’d had it with Mum by this time and when I was with my Dad’s family – even though I was only about six or seven, because later I found some tape recordings in which I was always going on about my Mum being an alcoholic and that she doesn’t love me anymore. Nobody bothered to correct me only my Dad explained that Mum had a disease and she couldn’t help it.

Once the hate in me started I didn’t want to see Mum any more. I know Ben carried on talking to Mum on the phone, probably because he didn’t have much understanding. But for me, when she used to send birthday cards I ripped them up. For me her not turning up was the last straw and when she tried to talk to me I told her I wished she was dead.

I suppose when Issy came on the scene and tried to take over, I wasn’t having any of it. I’d tried to mother Ben over the years and had little routines like singing him lullabies at bedtime. For Ben I think it was OK, he needed mothering, but for me when Dad went to work I spent ages at the gate screaming for him.

Later on, when Dad was becoming unwell and being diagnosed, I know Ben was a bit rocky when he got to secondary school. He took an overdose and tried to commit suicide together with a good friend of his who was also having a tough time and was also gay. Fortunately, Ben was found in time and was taken to hospital to have his stomach pumped out. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in trouble; previously he’d done a runner and the coastguards had to be called out. Ben was always random, hyper and loud and I think Dad always worried that Ben had been affected in the womb by my Mother’s drinking.

Appreciate life and your loved ones and to try and stay positive – even if times get tough, but there’s no shame in asking for some support if you’re struggling.

The Bridel Ways years

And then I and my friend Lizzie got into horses and riding – so when we saw this advert to go and help horses near where we lived, we thought it sounded great. And when we went for an interview with Myni, Lizzie went completely silent and into a hole and so I had to do all the talking. But we started there a few hours a week and our lives just progressed from there.

Of course we loved it all – the three horses that were there when we arrived – Duke – the Shire, Sienna – who was so lovely and gentle and Dosey Do – crazy Dose – my favourite, because she was always doing something she shouldn’t. Myni gave Dose to me in the end and although Dose has since died, I’ve still got her son JD – short for Jolly Dancer and he’s seven years old now.

Yes, the job kept me out of mischief but we took everything really seriously – created a tack room, made lists started to go to shows and everything just seemed to grow with more horses and people coming to help us, as well as the people that Myni brought in to give us more experience.   One of the horses – Gus, Myni let me have on loan, so he could be my horse. My Dad would never have been able to do that for me.

And then I acquired a proper boyfriend and had the opportunity to move away from home and go with Myni and Bob and the horses to live on the Lizard. I was so excited all I could think about was moving and horses – I didn’t give a shit about education – and anyway I was 16 by this time. So I – and my boyfriend, moved to the Lizard and Myni and Bob gave us a static caravan to live in and made it possible for us to afford the static.

I suppose I was just enabled and persuaded to get on with my life – I even managed to get into Duchy College to study horsemanship. If I’d had my way I would have stayed on the yard, but Myni and Bob insisted, got me everything I needed and drove me there. And when I refused to get out of the car and said I wasn’t going, Myni told me/ordered me to get out of the car.

Yes, you guys ran me around everywhere and when I wanted to start driving, found me a driving instructor and then later took me for my test. I remember when I came back after the test – you were saying “well? Well?” And I was winding you up by not telling you straight away that I’d passed.

And then ‘things’ came to a head…

‘Things’ for me came to a head when I was about 17/18 years old. I know we’d just started to discuss alcoholism and I was beginning to understand what it was, what it meant and that to be an alcoholic there have to be underlying issues beyond just having a few drinks after work. I guess I was starting to get my head around the whole idea and warming to the possibility that perhaps I could actually go and see my Mum and have a conversation with her. So it was weird just at that particular time when all communications had broken down with my Mum’s family, that I got a phone call from my Grandma out of the blue. And this was the week after Dad had been having all these tests – because he’d been shaking a lot, his balance wasn’t great and so he wasn’t able to work so much. So we knew that he had health issues but just didn’t know the extent of it all.

And my Grandma said that my Mum had been diagnosed a year ago with liver failure and had been told that if she didn’t do something about her drinking she wouldn’t last. My Grandma said that the alcohol damage to my Mum had gone too far, she was in hospital and that she wasn’t expected to live much longer and that I needed to come and see her now. Of course, they didn’t know about Dad.

We thought Dad might have Parkinson’s disease – except he seemed to be deteriorating too quickly. But his diagnosis was even worse than that – a rare muscle-wasting condition with a long name I can never remember, which might give him three years to live. And all of this happened in the February – it was the worst month of my life.

So Ben and I went up to Manchester. My emotions were very mixed – I hadn’t seen this side of the family for years and I had images of what my Mother looked like years ago when she was younger – plus I’d never seen anyone before who was really poorly. When we walked into my Mum’s hospital room, I was stunned by what I saw. She was tiny and skinny but literally yellow. She didn’t even look like a human being. It scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t even bare to go near her and I certainly couldn’t touch her. Even though I thought I was half prepared, I wasn’t.

My Mum was just about conscious and she half woke up when she saw me, recognised me and said “Hi, Lucy, thanks for coming” and “How are you?” I could see that it was a big effort for her. I was stunned and didn’t know what to say or do but I had to run out of the room and then burst into tears. Part of me wanted to hug her, part of me was just so angry that she could do this to herself and part of me way saying this is my Mum – so my feelings were completely mixed. But the way she looked I couldn’t bring myself to touch her. Ben was able to touch her and hold her hand but I just couldn’t. I could sit at her bedside but I just could not bring myself to touch her. I came home after that – Ben stayed on, stayed with her until the end. But after I left she went into a coma and never woke up from it.

The whole situation affected me deeply and I went completely into wishful thinking – full of may be this, may be that – like if she wakes up let me know – and lots of phrases like that, even though I knew what was happening. It really messed me up. Even my boyfriend said “What are you going on about?”

My Mum died three or four days later but my feelings were everywhere – Mum really messed me up with all this. At least Dad was always there and I knew where he was at. Myni suggested that I wrote a letter to my Mum with all my feelings and all the things I’d wanted to say to her and put it into her coffin before she was cremated. Even after all these years, I hope she realised that I did go to see her before she died and that I did forgive her. I’m glad to this day that I wrote that letter.

Looking back – taking stock

Looking back, I don’t think I realised just how much everything has affected me.

Working on the Bridle ways yard I always thought it was really good – crazy times with crazy people and crazy horses; putting all the horses – especially the tricky ones, through everything, throwing everything at them to help them. And it was the same with the people really. It was lovely to see how certain people adored certain horses and how that horse became their life almost.

It felt good to help people, but my view back then was that you shouldn’t really get upset about stuff. When people suffered from depression, I didn’t really think they had any reason to be depressed. It used to frustrate me and I used to think – well, I’ve had to pick myself back up and I’ve got to go to work. But then I’ve realised, as I’ve got older, that not everyone has the same view. Of course, it’s nice to try and be positive with people and sad to see them go down. But now, when I look back, I think I was judgemental because I didn’t realise about those things and just got on with life. Probably being around these horses and people kept me from going down a little dark hole.

Later on when I’d left Myni and Bob’s yard and I broke up with my boyfriend – I was very close to going down that small black hole myself. I was going out drinking a lot until stupid-o’clock in the morning, didn’t care what I was doing, doing crazy things and not concentrating at work, completely not myself and even lost interest in my animals. I used to be all cheery and smiley but now, although I’m OK, I can be quick to go negative. I know now it had to do with the fact that I had a lot of negative things going wrong in my life in a short period of time. So now, if anyone in my family becomes ill, I can become negative and jump to conclusions quite quickly and think, oh my god, they’re going to die.

I realise too just how much trust I put in my animals – my babies, and I do still trust them over anyone. And it’s weird really as there’s never been any history of animals in our family – so I don’t know where that’s come from. I even talked to Scott (my husband) the other day about do I need to make a will for my animals (ie the 2 dogs, cat and 2 horses), because, technically, if anything happened to me, you’d be in charge. I think Scott’s view was that I should probably wait until I reach 80 years before worrying about this sort of thing! But this is the sort of thing I care about – where would my animals go if anything happened to me?

I don’t know how I was so aware when I was so young – a bit strange really. When I later heard the voice recordings my family made of me when I was just a small kid, I was a bit horrified at myself, taken aback by the way I was talking at that age about my Mum being an alcoholic. No-one told me about these things – not even my Dad had sat me down and talked to me. Even at that age I just seemed to know what alcohol was and that when Mum conked out asleep on the sofa – it wouldn’t be a good thing. I just always seemed to know the rights and wrongs – so when Mum was hiding drink and Dad asked me if Mum had hidden any bottles, I always knew that at times Dad was quite anxious.

Dad used to fight through thick and thin for us and, of course, our grandparents stepped in a lot.  We even had nice holidays – in fact, we were probably even spoilt brats – I remember I had a tantrum in the middle of Disneyland. Actually, I think Dad over-compensated and I don’t think we appreciated all he did for us really. Only when he was diagnosed, it made me realise and wake up because I thought he was going to last forever. Mum was never really quite there but Dad made sure everything was alright for me and my brother. I think times were really tough for Dad, but he was always there.

I suppose then I took everything for granted – but now, if I’m in a room with kids and they’re taking their parents for granted, I could easily say a lot. I’m not saying that kids should grow up thinking their parents are going to die, but just to appreciate them. I guess my life has given me a broader outlook. Somehow I’ve managed to keep steady even though I’ve got a wobbly family.

I think I am aware of trying to make the best of life – my marriage to Scott has been a really big thing for me. We got together quite early on but didn’t rush in. And I knew that Scott had children with somebody else and that that was really important. Everything’s much more serious when kids are involved. So a big part of my relationship with Scott was getting to know his two kids and taking them on board. In the beginning I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to feel about it – not just the kids, but the whole baggage that comes with the situation because you never know what might happen in the future and how it might affect life.

I love the kids to pieces and I think I’m quite aware that I’m close to them – but I’m not their Mother. I don’t ever want to feed on that. Obviously, I’ve had a step-parent, so have always been aware of that – so I’m not forceful with the kids but just make them aware that I’m always there for them – whatever they feel comfortable with really. I never try and Mummy them –they’ve got their Mum in their life – who they think a lot of. Obviously I want them to have respect for me. I do hear of people who try and wade in there and try and Mummy other people’s kids. I just make it clear that I care – but I am not their Mum. Things might be different if they didn’t have their Mum – but even then I’d be careful.

For the future? Well, I’m still on a high from getting married and we’re hoping soon we might be able to take steps to own our own home. Jobwise, I’m happy where I am for now and animals (I also work with animals) will always have a part in my life. Horses have taken a bit of a back seat in my life for the moment, and once these go, I’m not sure I’d get another one – they’re a lot of work.

I know I’ve been through a lot in my life and when I think about some of the states I got myself into – I’m lucky to have got through that in one piece – anything could have happened. But I do think I’m at my limit now – if anything else drastic happened, I’m not sure I’d be able to cope. I really am at my limit.

Orange silhouette of a cat

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