I am back in St Annes with my family so wonderful to be with my sisters and brothers; working and staying at home with my mum and her new husband Stanley, a retired income tax inspector and lifelong bachelor with no children.  My mum managed to snag him up and he married her.
I was working different jobs; I would like them for a while then get bored and move on to something else. I still did not know what I wanted to do when I grew up. Just to give you an idea in those years, I was a Texaco girl pumping gas, a window dresser, retail jewelry, clothing, and groceries store cashier. There was an Office workshop stint at Premium Bonds filing all day. I took as many ballroom classes and social dance as I could and tried to learn the guitar, during this time.

Then I got a job working in a Council home for the elderly and I loved it .Started out as a n attendant bathing, feeding and general care of elderly bed patients and worked my way up in a short time to assistant matron at age 22.

I met my first husband Jim Shenton, tall, dark, handsome, and charming guy, who I fell madly in love with though he was 9 years my senior, previously married and had children. We bought a little house in Black pool and I got a job close to my house in a bigger nursing home for the blind. I loved my job and loved taking care of the elderly.

I was strict with my staff and devoted to my resident’s, we had our own mortuary and in those day’s we let people die peacefully in our home not in the hospital whenever possible so we pretty much did everything we could for them to have dignity and peace in passing. I had a hard time with this as I would get very attached to my residents and they became my family so this was a sad part of the job for me. This did take a toll on me after a while as I could not be detached as some of the staff was able to do.
My husband, Jim was a great guy he did a lot to try to make me happy.  He even took ballroom dancing with me and was really quite good at it even though his snooker team mates made fun of him.  He did try to dance to make me happy, but unfortunately he had a gambling habit that destroyed our marriage. The lies and the hiding gambling debts finally ended the marriage and we separated, on good terms and me with a broken heart.

I spent the time between age 16 and 18 in and around Blackpool and St Annes; spending time with my sisters and brother, who had now moved from Ashton-Under-Lyne to St Annes. First staying with Auntie Minnie and Margaret and later moving in to own house. I had my own flat with a couple of my friends and went from job to job trying to make enough money to live. I did product promotions in retail stores for a while, was a demonstrator of novelty items such as the ream clean brush that picked up anything from crumbs to nails in one sweep and the non-slip trays that were coated with a film of plastic to stop the items such as plates and silverware from sliding around when you carried them. I was good at this as I put on a show and gathered a crowd around my booth and would do a live demo of the product. This was a salary based on commissions so was tough, even though, I was selling a lot.  Sometimes the boss would not pay me and once I was thrown out of the store by the police because my boss had not paid the rent for the booth in the store. I even did a few gigs singing in a local pub and was always looking for ways to make a living but did not really know what I wanted to do. All I was sure of was that I wanted to dance and be around music and musicians every chance I got, even though that meant underage drinking and hanging out sometimes in the wrong places.
One day I got a letter from my baby brother who had gone to stay with my Dad, who was now a cook on board the fishing trawlers in a place called Hull. Hull is in Yorkshire England and is where the trawlers go out for 3 to 6 weeks fishing in the Icelandic ocean in freezing cold waters and very rough seas. But this allowed my father to live and function as a full blown alcoholic and codeine addict. My brother was desperately unhappy and needed help so I boarded the train in January and went to Hull, it was a freezing cold journey and I still did not have a warm coat.  I shivered all the way and arrived in the dead of night to the flat they were renting, only to find my father passed out drunk. My brother sitting there with no electricity or food, he cried like a baby when he saw me and clung to me like he would never let go.
We hid from the landlord and chopped up the furniture to make a fire my Dad was broke and would not have money till he got another ship, so I went to look for a job and got my last commission check from my Christmas sales, where I had sold the non-slip trays in Bentalls Department Store in Kingston on Thames London over Christmas. Thank goodness I got that money and was able to move to another place as we were literally on the street after being evicted. Needless to say my brother could not cope with my Dad and once I was there sorting things out he decided to go back home to St Annes.  I was glad that he could go I knew he would be better off there.

Now here I was in Hull and my Dad coming and going on the fishing trawlers gone for weeks and home drunk and crazy for a week or 10 days then back to the ship. A life of hell, I had a good job that I really liked as a cashier in the canteen of a government training center. Other than my job, I had no life, no friends of my own age, no music, no dancing, and was trapped in a dysfunctional relationship with my Dad. Every time I wanted to leave he would threaten to commit suicide and I really thought he would do it and felt trapped. I wanted to leave but was afraid he would die if I left. I could not date or have any friends, he would scare them away and was destroying my spirit. I hit rock bottom and had a nervous breakdown.
I was 18 years old and woke up in a hospital my wrists bandaged up and in the bed next to me a very pretty young woman was ranting and raving. Her screams of pain and anguish of her life, told for hours in the darkness of the night. I listened to her words and felt her pain and realized that I did not want to be her. I had so much more to give and so much more positive outlook on life. So much more hope for the future. I thought about how I love life, how I feel when the music plays and I can move to the beat, it is a feeling like no other, some people never experience that, they don’t love it the way we do.
After my evaluation with the psychiatrist I decided he was crazy, I ran out of there as fast as I could and as I ran up the long driveway to the huge iron gates and breathed the fresh air and smelt the flowers in the morning air I realized I wanted to live and really live; see the world and here music for the rest of my life. There would be no turning back, I would leave my Dad and Hull far behind and go to live my life and take care of myself.  Thankful for the gifts I had been given; my love of music; my love of people and my ability to make friends. I learn new skills and absorb knowledge. I wanted to travel to see the world and see all the places I had read about in books.

And the story continues…