Did you like school?

[ZIZI]

Gosh Daisy do you think so? I never thought of my life as colourful. Could think of some adjectives to use for certain times of my life but colourful would probably not be one of them.

I went to a palmist once. It was not long after my stillborn daughter and I think I was trying to find comfort. I asked if I would have any more children. She said there would be two boys. One blond and the other dark haired, that my own natural son would be difficult but would find his own way. She did not say they would be "mine" - the boys I mean. She said that once day I would find someone who would be just mine (my stillborn daughter was after my then husband beat me up in a drunken attack). She also said I should not allow my boys to have a motorbike. There was an incident some years ago when my natural son was about 19 when he took a trial bike belonging to his brother (well he had borrowed it and we had forbidden him to keep it) in the middle of the night and drove it on a golf course into barbed wire and escaped death by not even a hairs breadth. He remembers hearing the paramedics say that he wasn't going to make it when they put him in the ambulance. A horrific time.

I think I might have preferred a slightly less colourful life sometimes........

[Libra Gran]

School was fine until the last year which just bored me witless, I couldn't wait to leave and start earning. Left without a single qualification to my name,but it hasn't held me back . I have always had fairly good jobs. But was never ambitious,but strangely I was for my own children.

[Daisy]

Zizi - what I admire is your 'get on with life' attitude. You make the best of whatever life deals out - now don't start blushing!! What an horrific attack by your then husband to have lead to the loss of your daughter. plus the accident your son had, and how eerie that the palmist had warned about it.

LG - I don't think you give yourself credit for what you have achieved. You've taken on a lot of responsibility at work.

Qualifications are strange things - you need them (more nowadays than in our youth) but my father didn't see how O Levels qualified you for any thing jobwise and that'a why I did a secretarial course.

[ZIZI]

I know Daisy, very eerie but more eerie is that husband, long before I knew him, went to a spiritualist with a long standing employee who had recently lost someone. During the "performance" Or whatever it is called she also warned about motor bikes in our family. Yes I do try to get on with things but there are some times when I just want to lie under a blanket with my thumb in my mouth and a bottle of gin with a straw in the top........

My still born daughter was one of the hardest things I have ever had to deal with especially knowing before giving birth she wouldn't be coming home. I still sometimes cry all these years later especially if there is a storyline or something on the TV about a similar incident. The damage that man did meant that I could never have more children which was sad.

My son's accident was the result of complete stupidity on the part of him and his friend. I won't give you the full story but it was a very difficult time . In fact the plumber/gas fitter who did our kitchen is the second boy involved! He is now with a partner and has two kids and has his own successful business

[Daisy]

Zizi - there is a lot more support now for mums of stillborns, but in those days you were just left to get on with it. It must have been horrific.

How strange that you and your OH had two warnings about motorbikes. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when our teenage sons came through those years, but yours was lucky to survive his stupid behaviour.