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Back What I Did Save as PDF
Chapters (87)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Seventy-One
  75. Seventy-Two
  76. Seventy-Three
  77. Seventy-Four
  78. Seventy-Five
  79. Seventy-Six
  80. Seventy-Seven
  81. Seventy-Eight
  82. Seventy-Nine
  83. Eighty
  84. Epilogue
  85. Acknowledgements
  86. Extract from To Keep You Safe
  87. About the Author

I found a great job as a nurse working nights in a nursing home called Sunningdale. It was a beautiful Victorian building, with twenty-four residents. Then I found the perfect childminder – a single parent with a child at Jack’s new school. I would take Jack to her house two days a week at 7 p.m., in his PJs. He would sleep over and I would collect him in the morning, dress him for school and drop him off, before I returned home to sleep. I’d be up and ready to pick him up from school at home time.

Lillie was perfect for Jack: a bit of a hippy, she didn’t mind his tantrums, even thought them a form of self-expression, and because his friend was there, he soon packed in any bad behaviour and settled into the routine.

Two shifts of night duty, with a bit of agency, meant I was earning a full-time wage. I’d never worked in private nursing before, and although I missed the NHS, I was earning enough money to buy a little house with a garden.

I stopped stealing codeine from the agency shifts when the internet developed – I simply bought what I need from there. Although it wasn’t without difficulties, it was emancipating and I was finally able to let the agency work go.

I stayed at Sunningdale and, as Jack became older and more independent, I was able to take on more responsibility and was promoted, which meant moving away from night work.

Two other major events happened that helped. When Jack was ten, I inherited quite a lot of money from my aunt which gave me financial security. The second, only three months later, was my mum’s release from Send prison. She had been inside since 1983 when I was eight until I was thirty, a total of twenty-two years. Her sentence was high in the first place: her lawyer told me that the fact that she was female and killed her husband meant she had a heavier sentence than if she’d been a man killing his wife. And then, as respected and liked as she was by the prison officers, she still had a tendency to get ‘involved’ with the other women’s lives and parole had passed her by time after time.

With my mother moving only two miles away, it meant that Jack could visit her after school if I was working. He’d often cycle over to have tea with her and they’d play cards together; she remained his champion.