The Early Years: Growing Up In Britain During The 80s and 90s (Part 1)
It’s fair to say I didn’t have the easiest start in life, and goodness knows where I would have ended up had it not been for one couple looking to adopt their third child. This was how I came to be rescued from Liverpool’s woefully inadequate care system at the tender age of three. The names of my two would-be saviours were Pamela and Gerry Franks. I was born on the 30th January 1977, the year of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee. At that time, James Callaghan was Prime Minister, Jimmy Carter was the US president and Elvis Presley was still just about alive; he would die in August of that year. My mother, a single parent living in poverty, no doubt looked after me to the best of her ability. But she was not well. She had a mental illness, in all likelihood caused by her father Oskar. Maybe she was schizophrenic or bipolar? In any case, the strain of looking after me own her own proved to be beyond her capabilities, and eventually she gave me up for adoption. I was placed in Strawberry F