Pick Me Up! 28-Feb-2019

Meeting my son’s new stepmum for the first time was a bit nerveracking. Though I was on good terms with my ex, if she was going to be spending time with my son, I wanted to know he was in good hands. I needn’t have worried. Howling over cocktails, giggling at my ex’s expense, we had a great time. We became such good friends, I even moved in next door to her and my ex! Kelly and I were so close, she flew to my side when I lost my dad a few years into our friendship. Then five weeks later she did the same again when my mum unexpectedly passed away. ‘Oh love I’m so sorry,’ she said, hugging me. She has been my rock and, despite having her…

My girls Olivia, 12, and Lucy, 10, getting ready to be spun upside down at Alton Towers, holding on for dear life! Lisa Marshall, West Wickham A memory to treasure – my daughter Grace, 5, meeting Snow White in Disneyland Paris on her birthday. Rachel O’Connor, Stone Cross Here I am beaming after winning Miss UK Rose Role Model. My first ever pageant and I won! It was an amazing feeling. Clare Hurst, via e-mail This is me with my new best mate having a smooch in Mexico on my honeymoon. Don’t tell my husband... Sian Salsbury, Halesowen We got a new furry addition to the family and Poppie is totally adorable! But I think this pic of her and my daughter Georgia is beyond cute! J Harden, via e-mail…

E-mail pickmeup@ti-media.com CALL 020 3148 6460 WRITE TO Pick Me Up!, 161 Marsh Wall, London E14 9AP FACEBOOK facebook.com/pickmeupmag SEE OUR WEBSITE lifedeathprizes.com TI Media Limited reserves the right to reuse any submission sent to Pick Me Up! magazine, in any format or medium. Unfortunately, we can’t return photos without a stampedSAE. Letters/photos must not be sent to any other publication.…

Hearing my phone buzz, I looked away from the telly. It was summer 2015, and I gasped when I opened Facebook Messenger. Hey, love, it’s your mum, read the message. I hadn’t seen my mum Jayne Lewis, 45, since I was 4. In fact, since Mum and Dad got divorced when me and my brother Chris, 19, were little, we hadn’t seen much of her at all. All we had were vague memories of her face, her dark brown hair, and her smile. The divorce hadn’t been amicable, and Dad was given sole custody of me and Chris. I often thought about Mum, wondered what she was like and what she was doing. After I turned 18, in 2011, I considered trying to get in touch with her, but I…

One of the officers said, ‘We’ve reason to believe Philip killed your mum.’ I felt numb, not really processing what I was being told. Apparently, Philip had attacked Mum and strangled her to death. But it didn’t make any sense. ‘Philip loved my mum, why would he hurt her?’ I sobbed. I was in pieces, didn’t sleep at all over the next few nights. Days later, Chris and I went to the morgue to identify Mum’s body. When the sheet was lifted, we both fell to the floor in floods of tears. Her face was so bruised, we could barely recognise her, and we had to identify her from the rose tattoo on her left arm. She’d suffered multiple stab wounds from a screwdriver, but had died from compression to…

Walking into the kitchen one morning in July 2008, my jaw dropped. On the table, where I’d left a newly-bought chocolate cake the night before, only crumbs and an empty box remained. ‘Anna!’ I called. ‘That was for later!’ ‘Sorry, Mum. I was hungry,’ my little girl Anna, 5, muttered. She’d scoffed the lot. Anna was always hungry, whether it was first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Keeping calm, I reminded myself not to be cross with her. After all, it wasn’t Anna’s fault. When she was born in November 2002, she was underweight, weighing 5lb 12oz. Her limbs flopped around with no control, and she had wrinkles all over her skinny body. On a ventilator, unable to breathe alone, she looked nothing like the chubby…