My sister moved into my Mams bedroom and I stayed in my own with my new husband.
Any chance he could get he would go out for a drink, he would pick an argument with me, so that would be the excuse he needed to go out, he would come back all hours of the night drunk.

My Daughter was born April 1968 a bouncing baby 8lb 5oz.
When they brought the baby to me I was taken back how like me she looked, I talked to her and said " so your'e the one who has caused all this trouble" she looked at me and my heart melted, I loved her there and then.

After we got home things became really bad and Mam said that she loved me but could no longer have us living with her, my sister was upset with all the goings on and was being affected by it all.

I had saved £100 maternity benefit and found a house for rent in Easby Rd, Kirkdale.
The rent was £3 a week, so that £100 paid the rent.
I foolishly thought that things may get better between us if we lived on our own, in fact it got worse, I didn't have the security of my Mam being there to help me if John came in drunk.



At this time my Mam had saved up to visit my Brother in Australia for Christmas, my younger sister was staying with our older sister, who at this time had bought her own house in Aintree by my oldest sister.
I was going to be completely alone, Mam must have sensed this and gave me the key to hers just in case I needed to go there.
On Christmas Eve John didn't come home from work, I had no coal and no money to buy food, so I went back to Mams to just visit until John came home with his money.
The baby was asleep in her pram as I let myself in, this probably sounds silly but I went upstairs and lay on my old bed and pretended I belonged there, even stranger I went into Mams room and smelt her clothes and broke down crying.

What a mess I'd made of my life and still only twenty. I went back home.

The key went in the door and I could hear him fall into the hall, he had spent most of our money.
The worst Christmas ever, couldn't wait for Mam to come home to feel loved and safe.

I was going to be 21 in the January, and the month that changed my life

To be continued... Part 3