Array Girl A: Girl A: My Story

Since I was little, I’ve wanted to be a nurse and when I was four, I was given one of those white nurse’s outfits by Father Christmas. At home, me and Lizzie, who was just a year younger than I was, would spend hours playing nurse and patient.

‘Breathe in,’ I’d say very seriously, wielding my pretend stethoscope at my poor victim.

We’d wrap tissue around our arms and legs as casts and try to make them set with water. We’d end up looking like little mummies, and the carpet would look a bit of a mess too. But it was the most fun I could remember. Mum’s always said I had a caring side.

I didn’t particularly notice at the time, but in those early years by the seaside we always seemed to be pretty well off. Dad’s business was doing well. I was also busy building up something myself; in my case, a huge collection of Barbie dolls. All high gloss and perfect. I’d sit them in their pink convertible so they could sweep their way around our bungalow.

There was enough money for ballet lessons, and for me to spend a fortune on every bit of S Club 7 memorabilia that money could buy. Lizzie and I would watch the S Club 7 films and dance endlessly to their music. There was a lot of Britney, too.

For holidays we’d go to places like Butlin’s at Clacton, Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest, or else to campsites around the country. The family could guarantee that if there was ever a karaoke night, I’d be at the front of the queue, taking my well-rehearsed S Club 7 moves to the stage. I never could sing, but it didn’t stop me trying.

At school, though, I was a lot quieter – a bit like I am now – but I did well in all my lessons. Maths was the best, and by the time I left for secondary school I was getting level fives – the best you could do – in every subject. It was only me and a lad in my class that managed that in our SATS, and Mum and Dad were so proud they took me to the local shops and gave me £20 to spend. Some of it went on having my ears pierced, the rest on earrings and bracelets in Claire’s. Everyone loved Claire’s then, even though it was dead expensive. I think Dad thought there were probably better things I could have spent the money on, but he knew it was my treat and my choice.

‘Very nice,’ he said, smiling proudly as I showed off my new sparkly ears.

I was always a bit of a Daddy’s girl. Lizzie and I could always wrap him around our fingers. Mum would say no to something, and as soon as her back was turned we’d just go to Dad and get round him. Some of my favourite times with him were when we’d head off camping in nearby nature spots. We’d usually go for just a night or two, with our tent, a camp stove and marshmallows for us to toast at night. Mum would come too, if it was a summer holiday, but otherwise she’d tend to stay at home with the little ones so it would just be me, Dad and Lizzie.

Dad’s always been a bit of a practical joker, and he’d sometimes send the two of us off into the fields and riverbanks for duck eggs. We never actually found any – at least, not until the day he bought some secretly from a farm and dotted them around so we could have the pleasure of finding them. Years later, he told us he was still chuckling as he cooked them that morning. They tasted fab!

At night, we’d sit there looking up at the stars, the flames from the fire casting shadows across our faces. Sometimes Dad would tell us ghost stories that had us clinging to him once we were back inside the tent. Other times, we’d snuggle up to him while he told us stories from when he was a lad and the escapades he’d get up to, but there’d always be some kind of moral that he’d leave us with.

‘You don’t get anywhere in this life without hard work,’ he’d say, as we nestled into his side. ‘Just make sure you always do the best you can, so that you’re proud of yourself.’

In those days, Dad was the best teacher you could hope for: in some ways, better than the ones at the rather posh high school I went to. I’ll never forget heading off into Blackpool with my mates after school in the first couple of terms there, to go shopping or to the Pleasure Beach, where we could scream our heads off on the scariest rides. We’d have the time of our lives and it would become a regular event.

But then, one day, things began to change. When I went to ask Mum and Dad for the money to go out, Mum would look anxious.

‘I’m sorry, love,’ she would sigh. ‘I can’t give you any today, maybe next week.’

Over the next few weeks, I’d find myself greeted with the same response, and gradually I found myself going out less and less with my mates. I never understood why. I probably thought it was Mum and Dad being spoilsports. But soon all became clear.

They say that all good things come to an end and, in our case, at least financially, that’s what happened. We may never have been middle class, but we’d been comfortable. However, by the time I was well into my first year at high school, sales in Dad’s business began to slow down and his cash flow did the same.

He had to sell up, along with our home and, in the months that followed, we moved into a council house when I was just thirteen. It, too, was on the coast, but with no work, Mum and Dad decided it was time to head towards Manchester.

They chose Heywood because it was close enough to Dad’s roots to be a good location and yet cheap enough for us to be able to afford. People call it Monkey Town for some reason. One of my mates said it was because the chairs in some of the local pubs used to have holes in, big enough for a tail to go through. To me, it seems to fit. Heywood may have given us Coronation Street ’s Julie Goodyear, but it’s full of folk who can’t stop chattering about other people’s business. That’s the bit I hate about it.

There used to be coal mines around the town, and nearly thirty cotton mills, but they’re all gone now – well, none of them have anything to do with cotton, any more, at least. Most of them were torn down to make way for the red-brick terraces and council houses that stretch away towards Ashworth Valley and the Pennines. The only thing that’s kept the town going, as far as I can see, is the distribution park there, with all its warehouses and long-haul lorries. We’re close to the M66 and the M62, and Bury’s just down the road, for some half-decent shops.

Not that it’s grim, but a poet once said the back-to-backs all the way from Heywood to Rochdale looked like they’d worked in the local factories themselves, let alone the people who lived in them.

Rochdale itself was big in the days of smoke and cotton, but not any more. There’s a fancy town hall, but what you really notice looking down from the surrounding hills are the Seven Sisters – seven huge tower blocks that rise up towards the distant wind turbines on Scout Moor. They loom over the skyline in a really sinister way.

I’ll never forget the day we left the bright lights of Blackpool behind us (and all of my friends and lovely home) and drove up to this weird new horizon. I had a really strange feeling in my tummy. A strange sense of foreboding.

Starting at a new school is always hard, but starting towards the end of a school year when you’ve just turned thirteen is even harder – everyone has already made their friends for the year and newcomers feel excluded.

It was due to timings and paperwork that it took a while for me to get a place at school: for three months, I just kicked my heels either at home or else on the estate that was now my home.

Lizzie had started at her new primary school, and after a few weeks her new friends came calling at the house. One of them, Maddy, had a sister called Elouise, who was the same age as me.