I was six when my dad moved out. I remember worrying about him being on his own and thinking that someone should look after him, so I said I wanted to go with him rather than staying with my mum. I went to his new home but it wasn’t what I thought because he moved in with another woman. She had her own children and I went to school with them. I told someone at school that her son and her daughter had different dads, which was true. I was small and I suppose I must have wanted to cause trouble but I’m not really sure. I didn’t expect it to get back to them and I never thought my dad would find out. When he did he threw me down the stairs, and then he dragged me up them again, banging my head on the stair treads, and he stamped on my face with steel capped boots, and then he chucked me out of the house with my belongings. A taxi driver stopped and picked me up, and he took me to my mum’s. She didn’t have any money to pay, but he let her off, which was kind of him. My dad was arrested and prosecuted for what he did to me. I had to go to hospital and have photographs taken of my injuries, and I had to give evidence, which I did by sitting in a room with a video link to the court.

I think it was because of what my dad did to me that I wouldn’t be talked down to or told what to do at school. It made me mad if anyone patronised me. I had thoughts running around inside me and then I used to explode, and because of that I got thrown out of a few schools. When I was sixteen I found out I was pregnant with Andrew, so I didn’t do any exams, but I probably wouldn’t have passed any in any case with all the moving around. I moved out of home then and I fended for myself. I didn’t have a proper relationship with Andrew’s father and Andrew doesn’t see him now, not because I oppose it, but because he’s in and out of prison and he has a drug problem. Kye’s father was violent to me and my two children had to go and live with my mum because of what he did to me and what they witnessed. I want to get Kye back but I know that Andrew doesn’t want to live with me, and it doesn’t surprise me because it’s been a long time now. You might think there must be something about me which makes people treat me badly but I’m not sure there is. Nor do I think that South Bank gets treated as it does just because of the way people behave. It’s the way things turn out sometimes.

No one likes South Bank who doesn’t live here. People from outside always slag it off and

make jokes about it and that’s not surprising when you look at the mess they’ve made of it, but to me it seems like one big family and for a lot of us it’s the only family we’ve got. It seems violent and dangerous to people from outside but for us it’s a safe place, perhaps only a safe place in our minds, but that’s what matters most if you’ve been hurt. Most people here have been hurt, mentally hurt, and if you’ve been hurt like that then a bit of fighting or whatever is neither here nor there.

I used to study dance when I was younger. It was something I was good at. I’d like to go to college and study to be a dance teacher, but I want to get my son back and sort out my house before I do anything like that. It’s difficult to find the space to think seriously about my life when so many problems seem to press in on me, but what I most want is to study and work, and be out in the world.