Initially written for my children (only) I had considered writing 'my story' for several years but it wasn't until losing my father in Oct 2005 that the sense of urgency increased. I realised how little I had really known him and the sense of emptiness he left behind. I didn't want my children to experience that emotion when I shed my mortal coils.
The writing starts in about 1961, I was about 4 years old and is my earliest recollections of my Pop-pop (Grandad)he died on the day my sister was born.The day I became a middle child and with it all the resentment that middle child syndrome brings. Memories of maggoty cooking apples and dry bread, my favourite foods, memories of school days and of bullies, how to overcome and my education past primary school which was very little and intermittent.
My personal search for love and in all the wrong places and finding myself in some very dangerous situations, which could easily have found me buried under Fred West's patio, given the area of the country that I lived.
'Surviving Strangers, now who's the Div?' is about me and my life experiences. Covering many difficult subjects from sexual abuse, rape and teenage pregnancy and mother and baby homes,life on the run and the subsequent death of my spina-bifida son, and four years in care in a local girl's hostel.
It includes the lifelong friends and experiences I found there.
Of relationships between myself and my brother, sister and parents, of divorce and my mother's leaving, (taking my little sister with her I was 12 years old) and my father, blaming me for her leaving, my guilt and struggle to put things right.
The inevitable and eventual removal from home and being taken into care although I was eventually allowed home for weekends and unbeknownst to the authorities I was alone, there was no one left and a Christmas I spent wandering around our once family home, where I burnt my mothers wedding dress with just the coal dust from the coal shed to keep me warm; Life, death and everything in between.
My experiences of domestic abuse during my first marriage and resulting permanent disability, my second marriage and issues surrounding mental health, affecting my second husband but finally finding love in the third.
The births of my four living children, now adults and of 'Aspergers syndrome' an autistic spectrum disorder, affecting my youngest child
The fight to protect and defend my children at all costs.
Divvy was a nick name given by some friends when I was 12 years old, 'Surviving Strangers, Now who's the Div?' is the experiences, rightly or wrongly, that have been experienced during one lifetime.
Self published on Amazon and downloaded and read by a more and more everyday, it has received some good reviews, I asked 25 of those who bought the book (some of which friends of mine) to review the book for me, male and female, aged between 16 and early 60's, almost all have said they could not put it down, so presumably it would be classed as a 'page turner'.
Although it may seem that 'Surviving Strangers, now who's the Div?' is a misery memoir, it is far from it.
It is simply the story of my life with quite a lot of humour and some sarcastic one liner's, generally I find humour in everything, I like to laugh and make others laugh and there are many positives to be found in my story.
Reviews:
"I laughed, I cried... I couldn't put it down" Gill Simpson
"This is a harrowing book. It's hard to believe one person went through all this. But once I started reading it, I couldn't stop" Carrie Dexter
Many more 5 star reviews below.
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