Experiences

I remember that around about age 7 I had a lot going on. I was very active, so much more than I am now. I went swimming lessons both at school and again outside of school earning badges and stripes all through my school years. I recall having attended ballet for a short while, only to give it up. Piano lessons for a short while, only to give it up and gymnastics, which I remember attending at around that time.

I remember the place I used to go, a wide floor area for floor gymnastics and a vast amount of equipment that we were rarely allowed to use. As with many lessons, school or otherwise, I rarely gave the teacher my full attention and was easily distracted in my own world or was busy distracting others with attention seeking stunts. There's a video somewhere in the vast VHS stores in a cupboard downstairs of a gymnastics competition I took part in at around that age. It's hilarious to watch even now. Proud as I was in my little red leotard, getting nearly every single move wrong in a group floor act. While everyone was rolling one way, I would roll the other, I never listened.


We had an old cat called Oliver, gerbils that tended to either escape, get eaten by the cat or kill each other and tropical fish. I loved animals and hunting in the garden for mini beasts. I remember at one stage I had about 20 snails in 2 big glass containers in the garden and I'd feed them dandelion leaves and lettuce while keeping them out of the vegetable patch. I was very into rabbits at that stage, my first stuffed toy had been a rabbit, I've still got it, since I was given it as a baby. We were never allowed rabbits though for some reason, but I've never stopped wanting one. I made up an animal, the 'ebwa', which behaved a lot like a rabbit I guess. Me and my friends and sister would make huge dens that covered the whole floor of our shared bedroom with tunnels and hidden entrances and pretend to be a family of ebwas, hopping around escaping the hunters by hiding underground.

Whenever I got my face painted I always asked to be a rabbit.
The caption says:
'Cape Hill's fourth annual street festival got everyone in the mood for summer - even though the sun hardly shone. As well as music, there were Asian and Caribbean food stalls, stage acts, puppet shows, demonstrations of kickboxing and sword fencing and beat officer PC John Jillings tried out face painting on Lauren Newman aged seven, of Sycamore Road, Smethwick'

Though I don't remember much of the festival I remember asking the policeman if he could paint my face as a rabbit.