Live IT & Love IT

On the 15 th June 2014 I wrote a blog named Swimming against the tide. This is an extract from it: “I decided I wanted my children to understand the importance of struggle, of community, of what is right and wrong and most of all about respect. Most days I am swimming against the tide but nevertheless I still swim. I still swim because I would like my boys to be strong individual men that respect themselves and have respect for all others.    I hope their greatest attributes will be respect, honesty, integrity, justice, decent morals and tolerance. Just imagine what sort of a world we would have then. If you don’t invest the time in children, how on earth can you expect them to turn into decent human beings? I can’t be doing too bad a job when my son is giving my advice out and asking if I would help his friends if they need it!! ” (full blog here ). For too many years I have received criticism for the way I have raised the boys, but I knew my plan and I was sti...

Today, in the UK, we celebrate one hundred years since the passing of the Representation of the People's Act 1918. This act gave a limited number of women the vote! Equality in voting did not occur for another ten years… TEN YEARS in 1928. We may have the right to vote today but we have a hell of a way to go before we see true equality. I have no interest in the notion of women being superior to men or vice versa. We are all human beings, only separated by genetics. What concerns me more is the artificially made inequality within our society. The hypocrisy of the Prime Minister and Home Secretary this morning is sickening. They are lauding the Suffragettes, their actions and their fight yet these two women are responsible for Parliamentary Acts specifically designed to stifle democracy and freedom of speech. In addition, their Conservative Party has orchestrated poverty, WASPI women loss of pensions, working mothers being disproportionately hit b...

The more I deal with this ticking time bomb, the more I realise it is essential to keep raising awareness. Over 13 million people in the world suffer from it yet the reaction I get when I speak about it is one of “what is that?” and “well you don’t look ill”. Only my boys see me on the bad days. Time is so precious. Everyday, I spend 50-60% of my energy disguising the symptoms and fighting the disease so people don’t see its true effects. That only leaves between 40-50% of my energy to raise the boys, run the house, sort the finances, study, write and keep everything together. The hardest part of it is not knowing from one day to the next, what symptoms, what attacks, what the hell is going to happen. It is really a ticking time bomb. On a recent visit to the doctors, the doctor was talking to me and all I could think of was the old loony tunes cartoons (appropriate!) When they used to have one of those round black bombs lit and were running around with it and you knew it wa...

Enough is enough. Are we really regressing into the past world of segregation and inhumanity? I make no apology in saying that unless these attacks are directed at you, you do not personally know what it feels like.  My eldest son is mixed race. His Dad is British like me yet since Brexit, my son has suffered racism and a change in attitude towards him. I see it too when we are walking around the supermarket – the looks he gets, the disdain, the women who suddenly clutch their bags tighter, not to mention the under the breath comments.   It is repulsive and disgusting and legitimised by world leaders and politicians. He tells me how it makes him feel but I can't imagine it, just as he can't imagine how demoralising it is for me to be treated with contempt because I am female. I don't want tokenism, I want fairness and equality based upon my experience and hard work just as my son wants to be treated as the good, British citizen that he is. His patriotism is far str...