Daring to Dream (3 page)

W
ith all of the drinking and fighting that was going on at home, it was important for me to have an outlet and a reason to get away from everything, and that was, and remained, sport. When I was 13 I started going to a local youth club. It was 25p to get in and they had a boys’ football team I really wanted to play for. I had long wavy hair all the way down my back like Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
, but the boys said the only way I could play for them was if I cut it all off. I was so desperate to be on the team I went home, got a pair of scissors and chopped off the lot. My mum went ballistic and took me to the hairdressers where they cut my hair into a short style. I had curtains, a long fringe, which were really in with lads at the time, so I basically looked like a small boy. But it did mean I got to play for that team for two seasons as a forward, so
it was well worth it. It was only when I started developing boobs that I had to call it a day because I couldn’t get away with looking like one of the guys any longer.

Thankfully, soon after I left the lads’ team they started a girls’ team, so it all worked out perfectly and I was able to grow my hair again, much to my mum’s delight. The local kids and I also used to play football in the park a lot. We graffitied a goal onto a wall and even though the area was full of bits of broken glass and empty crisp packets it was our place, and we loved it. I’d come home from school, watch
Grange Hill
, have my tea and go down straight to the park until it got dark. My mum even sent a letter to my school saying that I didn’t want to play netball; I wanted to play football, which opened up a can of worms. Loads of other girls decided they wanted to do the same and it was a proper headache for the PE teachers.

Even though it wasn’t easy at times, I had some brilliant moments living in North Cray. Every Friday my dad would bring home a McDonald’s or KFC and we’d have dinner as a family. We also used to have what we called ‘Henry VIII dinners’. Mum would make a leg of lamb, potatoes and vegetables and we’d sit on the floor in the living room and eat the lot. You weren’t allowed to use a knife and fork and we drank out of silver goblets. We’d play folk music in the background, and then after dinner we’d watch a film Mum had hired from the video shop. Growing up, that was one of my absolute favourite things to do.

On Christmas day we would all sit round the table for lunch – if my mum hadn’t passed out by then – and put all our names in a hat. You had to act like the person whose name you’d pulled out for the entire meal. Whoever pulled my name out would fidget and talk a lot of rubbish and go to the toilet a lot. If you were pretending to be one of my brothers you’d act like you were on
Kevin & Perry Go Large.
Us kids always wanted to be my dad so we could get away with swearing. I loved being able to shout, ‘Pass the fucking gravy!’ Whoever was my mum would obviously pretend to be completely drunk, and it was the one day where we got to see how we truly all saw each other.

Christmas was always brilliant fun, despite the drinking. We’d all get a black bin liner full of presents at the end of our beds every year (even when we were far too old for them!) and I used to get so excited the night before knowing what I was going to wake up to. One year I asked for these really cool LA Gear high-top trainers and I was the happiest girl alive when I got them. On Boxing Day we went to visit some friends of my parents’ in Crystal Palace and my cousin David and I went to the park. I got really muddy, so I left my trainers outside the front door and someone nicked them! I was so upset.

The next year I asked my nan for some Nike trainers, but when I unwrapped them they were these awful plastic ‘Nicks’ she’d probably got from the market. They looked like clowns’ trainers and my brothers found it hilarious. I didn’t
want to hurt my nan’s feelings so I had to wear them all day and I looked ridiculous clomping round the house in these giant, brightly coloured shoes.

One year when I was in my teens my mum thought it would be really funny to get my nan a vibrator. It was only a small silver one and my parents told her it was a drinks stirrer. She had no idea and when we all went round for drinks on Boxing Day she was using it to stir everyone’s drinks and we were in hysterics. We never did tell her what it was
really
for.

I think my parents only regret at moving to North Cray was that my brothers got in with a really bad crowd and became involved with drugs and all sorts. Charlie could handle himself but even though Danny was much bigger he wasn’t as tough, so Charlie always took the lead. They felt a need to fit in because they knew they’d be targets for the local gangs if they weren’t a part of it. Peer pressure was a big part in their downfall because they did things they probably would never have done if we’d stayed in our old house. They were doing a lot of acid and getting into fights; my mum used to despair but there was nothing she could do. By this time the boys were in their mid-teens and as anyone who’s got teenagers knows, there’s no telling them.

I started to get into a bit of trouble myself when high school rolled around. The first one I went to was called St Mary’s and St Joseph’s, which my mum chose because a lot of the kids from my primary school were going there.
Kate Bush also went there when she was young, which I always found quite exciting. I formed my first band there. We didn’t have a name or anything; we just used to meet up and have jamming sessions in the music room. I played the drums, a lad called Martin Molly played piano, and another guy called Steven Austin was a violinist but he was learning guitar. Steven was my boyfriend for a short time but then he split up with me to go out with another girl called Siobhan for a week, the cad. Then he decided he wanted to get back with me for a week, and then he went back to Siobhan, and the pattern continued for several weeks. At one point he made us have a physical fight over him to decide who would win his heart. I won but he definitely wasn’t worth it!

The first few months of high school were hard because, again, I got bullied. Also, Jenny, the woman my dad had the affair with, had two children at my school, which felt a bit weird. One day I was walking home and Jenny kerb-crawled me and started shouting abuse out of her car window, calling my mum all sorts of names. When I told mum she went mad and said I couldn’t stay at the school, which I felt relieved about if I’m being honest. I didn’t have any real friends there and I felt different somehow. I was still into sports and I did a lot of athletics and played hockey for the school. I had county trials and all sorts, but I still didn’t feel good enough.

I even started doing a little bit of singing so I could try and get in with the cool group because the leader of the gang,
Rebecca, loved singing and she was the one who bullied me the most. But rather than make her warm to me it made her like me even less because she felt she had to compete against me. I didn’t think I had a very good voice back then, but she obviously saw me as a threat and was constantly trying to outdo me. Once after PE we were in the changing rooms and she punched me square in the face for no reason at all and gave me a nosebleed. It made me feel so crap about myself, and rather than rush to my aid the other girls ignored me in case she turned on them too.

All I wanted to do was grow up, get a pair of boobs and start my periods so I could be like the other girls. They would all be in the changing rooms after sports showing off their bras and talking about their periods, and my own didn’t start until quite late in life, so I felt like the odd one out. I remember wanting to be grown up so much I nicked one of my mum’s Tampax to try it out and I was found collapsed on the bathroom floor. I was taken to hospital and it turned out I had toxic shock syndrome and I was told I could never use them again. That was the last time I did anything like that!

Thankfully, within 48 hours of the Jenny incident I had been moved to a new school, Cleeve Park, where a lot of my friends from the estate went. I walked in there on my first day and I said to myself, ‘You need to make a difference today. You’ve got to make it clear to people that you are
not
going to be bullied.’ The minute one girl came up and gave me a bit of attitude for being the new girl, that was it. I followed
her down the corridor and pushed her really hard so she fell over. Everyone was standing around shouting ‘fight, fight’ and cheering. We totally laid into each other and were both punching each other repeatedly. It was my first proper fight and I was scared, but equally I had to let people know that I could stand up for myself.

I was sent home that day with a stern note and my parents weren’t happy, but I think they kind of knew why I’d done it. I was sat watching telly in the living room with a giant lump on my head when dad turned to me and said, ‘So, you had a fight today then. I see you head-butted her?’ I was waiting for him to send me to my room and tell me girls shouldn’t fight, but instead he sighed, ‘You’re doing it all wrong, come here’, and he stood up and taught me the proper way to head-butt someone, telling me, ‘Short, sharp shock.’ I think he realised that I needed to be able to handle myself. He didn’t want me to be the kid who was forever getting beaten up.

You had to have your wits about you at Cleeve Park. A lot of the travelling community went there and I had to toughen up quickly, but after that day no one bullied me. In fact on a few occasions I became the bully to prove my worth to other people, which I’m really ashamed of now. If I could go back and change it I would. I’ll never forget this one kid who was sitting down and for some reason everyone was spitting on him. I walked up and I spat on him too, to show that I was as hard as everyone. That poor kid was probably
so traumatised. I know how I’d been affected by the horrible things that happened to me and I really wish I’d stuck up for him instead of joining in.

I was never the ringleader and despite that fight on the first day I never actually
started
any fights because it wasn’t in my nature to behave like that. I’d be one of the ones in the background going, ‘Yeah! Whatever she said!’ But if things kicked off we’d all pile in. I remember a big fight breaking out and someone lending me some sovereign rings because travellers used to wear a lot of gold. I punched this girl and when I looked down at one of the rings I couldn’t see the coin because it was covered in blood. It was horrific. I’ve still got scars on my hands from where I wore those rings when I was fighting. I guess I did what any normal 13- or 14-year-old in that situation would do. I kept my wits about me and I stayed on the safest side.

Aside from the fighting, Cleeve Park was a fantastic school. The teachers were amazing and Mr Pike, the maths teacher, was my absolute favourite. He had a yellow rubber duck and if someone wasn’t paying attention he would throw it at them and shout ‘Duck!’ Teachers couldn’t get away with doing that now but it was what kept us in check in the classroom. He talked to us like we were adults and not kids and because of that we had a lot more respect for him and most of the time actually did behave.

I carried on with my cross-country running at Cleeve Park and I ran in the Bexley and English Championships. I also
went on to run for England in the European Championships. I was still a tiny little thing, so I was very fast. I was in Dartford Harriers Athletics Club for a while, but I didn’t like it because they took everything far too seriously. I just wanted to have a laugh and run, not have loads of pressure heaped on me.

When I was 15 I went on my first ever holiday without my parents. I went to a Haven holiday park with some of my mates from the estate and I’d had to beg my mum to let me go. While I was there I fell head over heels (well, trainers in my case) for one of the Haven Mates. Nothing happened between us but on the last night we slow danced to ‘Superwoman’ by Karyn White together and I was on cloud nine. I kept singing it for days afterwards, and from then on every day when I was with my mates they’d ask me sing it for them. That’s when I first really started to get the singing bug. My friends kept telling me how good I was and finally I started to believe that they could be right.

After that I started singing at home in my bedroom, and also writing songs. I didn’t have any professional lessons but I started teaching myself to sing like the big divas. I’d write down the lyrics to songs and I’d use a red star to mark wherever Mariah or Whitney breathed, and then I’d try and do the same as them with a backing track. The first song I wrote was called ‘I’m So In Love With You’, and it’s the most hideous thing you’ve ever heard. I will never, ever sing it again as long as I live. But back then I thought I was the next
Mariah Carey, so I proudly sang it for my parents. Afterwards my mum said I should start entering talent competitions. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about until then, but I had nothing to lose. I still wasn’t very confident in myself but for some reason when I sang it made me feel better. I wanted people other than my mum and friends to tell me that singing was the path I should be taking. Mum always used to say, ‘Oh, you sound just like that Mariah McCrarey.’ She could never say her name right and I still don’t think she can. She always gushed about how wonderful I was, but all I’d get from my dad was a measured nod and sometimes he’d say, ‘That was fucking handsome.’ He wasn’t the type to go over the top.

The first competition I entered was Bexley’s ‘Search For A Star’ competition at Crayford Town Hall. I sang ‘I’m So In Love With You’ and, knowing me back then, either Whitney Houston’s ‘Greatest Love of All’ or Mariah Carey’s ‘Hero’. I also played the drums and I had to put my dad’s coat over my legs because, amazingly, I was wearing a dress and I didn’t want to flash everyone. If I remember rightly it was one of Mum’s dresses because she said I should look a bit glam!

I ended up coming first and I’m sure there are some very dodgy pictures of me from that day out there somewhere. My parents were so proud of me. I think I was their last hope. My brothers were still wayward and flitting between jobs. Danny wanted to be a chef and Charlie wanted to be a footballer, so they did have aspirations when they were
young, but they were forever getting into trouble. If they weren’t fighting with each other they’d be fighting with someone else and they didn’t have the best reputation.