Georgia Hall
I was born in the back bedroom of a downstairs, one bed roomed, flat in Broomhill, Sheffield in the presence of my father who was still a student, my nanny (dad’s mum) and the mid-wife. My mum has always said that I came in time for tea, a meal I have always loved and I cherish my tea-times with my own family; a time where we sit and talk about the day.I am the youngest girl of three, my two older siblings adopted legally by my Grandmother on my mother’s side (Gramps) when mum left them with her after running off with my Dad, who she met in the University bar – a place my mum held court in her student days and carried on after, even though she had two small girls to her first husband. She was the life and soul of the party, she sang, she danced, it was the 60s, she was free of her miserable life and my Dad, and many others, fell madly in love with her. My birth was celebrated with a 6 pack of brown ale to the disapproval of nanny.
Two years later my brother arrived, by which time the demon drink had taken over my mum’s life and she had started to ‘visit her other children’ (a five minute visit for money with the rest of the 2 hours 55 being spent in a watering hole). The pressures of looking after us, my mum and holding down several jobs became too much for my dad and he left. I was 3, my brother 1. And there it began. I have very few recollections of a time of being looked after as a child. I was the one looking after.
I do have some happy childhood memories; going to Grampses to see Jane and Sally, where we would have dinner and tea, a bath (our bathroom at the flat was out of order for reasons I will not go into here), going down to London to stay with nanny and granddad for whole holidays where we would grow fat and get new clothes and play on the lawn all summer long, or go to the caravan in Bognor. Mostly these memories are blighted by the fact that at some point we had to go home and become the stinky kids once more living our feral life. I loved school where we had a hot dinner every day and the teachers cared. Thank you Mr Barcham for buying me a leotard when I was 7 and paying for my BAGA awards. I was so proud of those little patches on the corner of my leotard. I still have the certificates somewhere. I wish you could see me now and know that I remember that kind act and that I turned out okay.
Between the age of 10 and 15 mum was dry. The flat became ordered...ish and she tried to make up for past misdemeanours, not that she could or wanted to remember any. She took in a girl who had been thrown out of her own home and been expelled by several schools for bullying. When one door closes another opens...so we got a sober mum, who went to work at lunch time and night (in a pub no less) and an older bully who tortured my brother and I from the moment my mum set off out of the house at night. I worked every morning and every tea-time apart from Sunday as a paper girl, taking extra rounds just to be out of the house for longer. 3 years of hell we endured with that girl and only mum could have been surprised at my venomous retort when she asked if I would invite her to my wedding. The selfish addict is also very blind – they choose what they want to see.
15 years old and mum remarries, not only to someone we had barely met but whom we knew liked a drink. You know where this is going don’t you? Their house was across the road – a tiny cottage, so Sam and I stayed in the flat as long as we could as there really wasn’t the room to swing a mouse in the cottage, never mind two growing teenagers, a kestrel, a fox (yes, a kestrel and a fox) and any other animal they thought might need a home. The downward mad, spiral began once more. One night, when running back to the flat in the rain, I slipped. I spent the night in agony laid in bed not knowing what to do. Mum came the next morning on her way to church. “I will pray for you” she said. When I was no better on her return her reply was that I didn’t believe enough and had I believed a bit more I would have got better. I had dislocated 3 bones in my ankle and spent 6 weeks on crutches. She still laughs to this day.
Age 16 we move to a new house...in the red light area. A beautiful big house. I had one attic, my brother had the other. Decorated in mums mad way and permanently smelling of joss sticks, it still wasn’t a place I would take friends back but...we had a washing machine. I could wash my bedding and towels. Pure heaven. Not that it lasted long; it got smashed in a drunken fight between mum and Pete (not his real name). I had rebelled against what was expected of me (straight ‘A’ sisters) and scraped 5 ‘O’ levels. This is probably one of the very few things I would change if I could go back in time; not because you are better with more qualifications but because going back and doing it again at a later time in life is sooo much more difficult. I enrolled at Granville College for hairdressing and beauty therapy and got a job at night collecting glasses in a pub. From 16 – 18 I spent as little time as possible at home, choosing to babysit, work extra shifts at the pub. Just anything to be out. Mum and ‘Pete’ were either drunkenly rowing or madly and sloppily in love. We never knew who we were going to meet when we walked through the door. Humour showed its face in various ways; a pie Pete had cooked with ‘P**S OFF’ beautifully spelt out in pastry on the top, the neighbour who asked if Sam wanted to “Cam an’ ‘av a look at my cervix” as an educational biology lesson. It was just mad. The moment a customer asked if I wanted to lodge in his house as his wife had left him and he couldn’t afford the mortgage on his own, I was off – like a shot. Not that I ever paid him much rent and I am sure he spent all of that on food for me. Just another act of kindness from an unexpected source. I lived there for two years, in a normal house, living a vaguely normal life, with only a few hiccoughs when I got phone calls at work to pick mum up from somewhere she had collapsed, was causing a scene, having to get her home and then leave her. The guilt I felt at leaving my little brother with all of that was immeasurable, but I couldn’t have lived there any longer. The house was permanently full of strangers, often an open door for anyone wanting a drink, a fag, somewhere to hang out until the pubs opened again at tea-time. Sam eventually escaped to Oxford Polytechnic with most of his faculties intact. 26, Filey Street was burned out, arson, while Mum was in Ward 56...again, trying to figure out how to get rid of her demons.
At 19 my saviour had found another love and asked her to marry him. I moved out and spent the next few years working as many shifts I could get at the pub self destructing. It was easy to become anorexic – I couldn’t afford food anyway and thin was beautiful right? If I was thin then more people would love me. I destroyed the relationships I had by getting them to love the bones of me and then being a complete bitch until they couldn’t stand it and finished with me. I never did the finishing but I made it so they didn’t have a choice but to if they had a shred of dignity. I look back now and feel shame at the way I treated men. I was cruel. It all culminated in running away to Tenerife where I worked as a burger queen for a year meeting who was to become my 1st husband while he was out there on holiday. We wrote to each other that’s all. He was married. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a time with no man in my life. I had one waiting at home, paying my rent, looking after my car...I did love him, just hated myself and wasn’t worth someone who could love me so much to do all that.
In 1994 I married the letter writer. A controlling man was what I needed at that time and I completely and utterly loved him. He made me laugh. The rows were spectacular and violent but he laughed me out of any misery afterwards. My anorexic tendencies that had disappeared in Tenerife returned in the form of bulimia as I struggled with my normal life, normal job (with BT), normal relationship (on the outside). I wasn’t worthy of this. Our move to a 3 bed semi cemented everything normal and our relationship started to unravel. Then I got pregnant. When the deed happened I have no idea. We had spent the whole of Christmas so drunk...that Christmas day I had a black eye...I was so surprised you could have knocked me over with a feather. That day my life changed.
The summer of being 30 was one of the happiest times I remember. I was pregnant, I had the best reason in the world to look after myself and I blossomed. I just loved it, feeling that miracle moving inside me that I was responsible for. Our relationship blossomed too. Taking alcohol out of the equation made a huge difference and I feel we were truly happy then. Harriet’s safe arrival into the world was the icing on the cake. It was never going to be fairy tale though was it?
Gramps died. The one and only stable part of all of my Sheffield 31 years of life was gone. Once again, a shift in my tectonic plates caused the self destructive behaviour patterns to rear their ugly heads and whilst I adored my baby girl, I didn’t adore myself. BT wouldn’t allow me to return to my previous job part-time, so I went back in time working in a call centre. I lasted two weeks before getting signed off with depression. I started having therapy, spent the money Gramps left me paying for a course in the only thing I enjoyed doing at the time – exercising.
The next year was spent teaching classes in church halls, taking Harriet with me after many failed attempts to get mum to help out with the child care. She wouldn’t turn up, she would insist on wearing her boots in the house, one time leaving dog dirt trailed through (it wasn’t her of course) culminating in getting back after my class to find her drunk, which she adamantly denied. By the time I got pregnant again my marriage had started to unravel once more and the news of twins scared me to death. At my 20 week scan I was 40 weeks in size and was told to stop work immediately, sit down as much as possible and ‘we are going to try to get these babies to 24 weeks. We will be lucky if we do.’ I was carrying too much fluid, so had to have some removed weekly. Unfortunately at 30 weeks a scan showed that one of my babies had died. I chose to have the other delivered immediately and baby, scrapper Sam fought like a good’un and came home at 35 weeks weighing 5lb.
Three years later my marriage finally ended. Neither of us was to blame really. Both of us brought issues into our relationship and although I continued having counselling to try to sort out myself it takes two to make it work. I grew strong enough to stand up for myself and my children and the family home was sold. I wasn’t sad that I had lost my normal home within which were all my normal memories; just that I had finally realised that the fairy tale that I had dreamed of all my life didn’t exist. There was no such thing. There was no knight in shining armour going to rescue me and we would live happily ever after. Life was bloody hard work and so were relationships. It broke my heart.
I was 36 with 2 children living in Hillsborough. I knew I had made the right decision for me and my children when Harriet brought home a picture of our new house. On the front door she had written a sign that read ‘The Happy House’ . Children are just the best medicine in the world. It wasn’t my side of town though and the snob in me was desperate to move to Sheffield 10 or 11. With the thoughts of “How can I make more money? I can’t jump around in church halls forever,” I took a proper job as a Learning Support Teacher with the thinking that I could do a PGCE and teach PE. The inner city school where I got the post probably wasn’t the wisest choices I have ever made. The bullying issues of my past rose their ugly heads once more and the kids seemed to sense my fear of them. I felt threatened and was often in tears at night with the intimidation I felt. My nanny died, another stabiliser gone and only my family and friends kept me going. During my time there I moved into my home with Steve, a friend who had started doing ‘boy jobs’ for me, asked to cook Christmas dinner for all my family – he was a chef and would be on his own at Christmas. Over time we grew close and the children loved him. Once moved, the amount of money spent on childcare in the morning and after school just turned my wage into a pittance and so I left, started work at a large health club as a personal trainer and went to night school to get my Cert Ed which would enable me to teach 16+. I insisted the relationship was equal financially from the start and set myself ridiculous targets to ensure this was always so.
We married in 2008, I had built up a good business and got work with a private college teaching Exercise to Music and Gym Instructor awards. All was going swimmingly until August 2009. The private college put the cost up of their courses to the point where no-one signed up. They could get it so much cheaper elsewhere. All the gym staff were made redundant and had to apply for their jobs again. The company was restructuring. No freelance PTs were allowed and I would have to be employed. My wage dropped from £30 per hour to £8.50. Neither my financial situation or my self esteem could take carrying on working there and after much discussion I left with the plans to set up my own place.
Had I known then what I know now I would never have done it. I foolishly aimed to be open by May giving me 5 months to get the finance and planning permissions etc. With the promise of my step-sons company doing all the work I was excited and energised. The finance was the sticking point. Banks weren’t lending money anyway but health and fitness was definitely a no-no. “People cut their gym membership in a recession and they certainly don’t have personal training.” No amount of financials, testimonials or demographic information made a difference. It was no. Fighting for my belief in that this would work I finally went to my MP who I have to say has been fantastic. The support from him, Big Make It Your Business and Yorkshire Finance have kept me from sinking and eventually after the most stressful year I have ever had RBS are lending me £25K and Yorkshire Finance £15K. Everything is in place for starting the build as soon as the finances hit my account. Scared? You bet I am. Terrified is a better description. Will I have lost all my client base? Am I good enough to get more?
It has taken 18 months and I feel I am standing on a precipice. In January, Bounce Busters sold half the bras that were sold through the whole year of 2010. It will never make me a millionaire but it is something I am passionate about and I can help others.
Underground Fitness is just waiting for a man to press a button so the funds can be put into my bank account and then we are off, paint brushes in hand, drill driver at the ready to open as fast as possible. Then the work will really start…
Profile released on behalf of Underground Fitness by Faye Smith, Keep your Fork Marketing 07985 038265
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