Pick Me Up! 9-Mar-2023

Prancing around on stage to Shania Twain, I watched as the residents all roared with laughter. It was the Sanctuary Care Home Talent Show, 2019, and my only aim was to put a smile on everyone’s face. I had worked at the care home since 2017, after my daughter, Rebekah, 26, who worked there as a care home assistant, told me they were looking for a kitchen assistant. Quickly, I became known as ‘Jack of all trades’. And, somehow, under my new role as a maintenance man, I found myself belting out That Don’t Impress Me Much to an audience on stage! I absolutely loved it, and the residents quickly became my family – I joked that I had 30 grandmas and 20 grandads. One afternoon, chatting to a resident…

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My six-year-old 12-year-old little girl rescue Georgi car, makes Miz. Wonder Always looking Woman for look the outdated! next adventure. Here she is Mandy – Miss Mogg, West Soapy Midlands Suds 2023. Sue Hutchinson, Cheltenham Recently I found myself in the Republic of Ireland on a driver tour and could not resist visiting this place. I have wanted to go to ever since I heard the famous WWI song – It’s a Long Way to Tipperary. Mark Dabbs, Great Wyrley Here is my three-year-old grandson Oliver, meeting his hero Thomas the Tank Engine at a summer fair last year. Tina Vowles, Stroud STAR LETTER I love photo that I took at the Isle of Wight festival last June of me, my sister and my niece. Somehow, I managed to escape…

Smoothing my hair and putting on a layer of lip gloss, I sighed. I really didn’t feel like going out but I’d promised my mate *Amy, 28, that I’d go with her to a house party, to meet a guy she’d been talking to. Saying bye to my mum, *Karen, 50, I met Amy by the bus stop on a chilly October evening back in 2009. Two busses and one trip to Tesco later, we arrived. Amy went to find her fella, while I made my way to the kitchen to pour myself a drink. ‘Keeping it calm tonight?’ a deep voice said behind me. Turning around I saw a tall bloke with dark eyes and a grin. His name was Hassan Mehmet, and at 21, he was four years…

I was retreating into myself, and my family and friends started to notice. ‘You shouldn’t stay with him, Shel,’ Amy would say to me regularly. But I was so caught up in the whirlwind of our relationship, and Hassan knew how to wrap me around his little finger. He was often verbally abusive, too, especially when he’d had a drink – which was most weekends. ‘You’re a b***h,’ he slurred at me. ‘You’re a slag.’ But the morning after, once he’d sobered up, he’d always be full of apologies, and I found myself giving him the benefit of the doubt. In March 2011, I realised I had missed a period – and I found out I was pregnant. It was a surprise, and at only 19 I was young –…