My dad was in the army for a while though I don’t remember him ever working. I lived with my mum and dad until I was six, but then my dad left and went back to live with my nanna, and then, after a short while, my mam left as well, and I went to live with my nanna too. I was brought up by my nanna in the house I’m in now. My dad lived here as well though I wouldn’t say he had much to do with bringing me up.

I didn’t see my mam again until I was fourteen. Someone told me she was living in the next street, so I went round, and, when I knocked on the door, a foreign bloke answered. I asked him whether my mother lived in the house, and then she came to the door. I’m not sure how long she’d been living there, but, however long it was, she hadn’t come looking for me.

I left school with no exams, and I got a job at Laycocks Lemonade Factory, where I met my husband. We were married when I was seventeen, and our first child was born when I was nineteen. Our relationship was a disaster, not just for me, but for our four children as well, It took me a long time to leave. In the end I walked out early one morning with Craig and Vicky, my two youngest, and a ten pound note.

All of us suffered, but perhaps Gary, my eldest, most of all. He’s now thirty three, and he suffers from manic depression and schizophrenia. He was in St Luke’s Psychiatric Hospital for four years, but now he’s at home with me and I look after him. Craig is the youngest. His birth was difficult because his face came out first. When I first saw him one side of his face was all black and his lips were black and swollen. When he was a baby he never stopped screaming. He would have tantrums for hours at a time and no one could do anything to console him. He was diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder, and he was given ritalin to calm him down. That made him lifeless and it meant he couldn’t look after himself. He used to get beaten up by the other children, so when he was 15 he stopped taking the pills. Now he can certainly look after himself but he gets into trouble. At the moment he’s in Aklington prison serving a sentence for robbery.

I’m fifty three now and I spend my time caring for my children, all of whom are grown up. I can’t complain because my nanna looked after my dad when he was an adult, and she also brought me up. In South Bank it isn’t often that people who have children get beyond looking after them.