Lola

It feels Victorian almost, doesn’t it? It is kind of, because we used to have the chimney sweep in, and we used to because we have coal fire, of course, and the coal man would come around in a horse-drawn cart, as would the rag and bone man. It's like Dickens or something. And it's this extraordinary period of change. 

And then when I found out that my situation wasn't the norm, it became, you know, “So why, why am I in this situation? Why is it that at Christmas, I'm dependent on all these strangers, for Christmas presents and things?” And, in fact, these were the grown-up children, grown-ups that had been children, that my foster mother had fostered before. And she'd adopted a couple of them. 

I think I've learned to recognise when I'm happy. Because I find, some people find it really difficult to let themselves be happy or be content, and that there's always something else that they're striving for. And I'm not making judgement on those people. I am quite competitive with myself in many ways, but I like to think that's, you know, I have an aim, do that, fine, and then sort of move on.

You can't just go from fish and chips, and suet pudding and treacle, to okra and pigs trotters in one leap. You know, it was so hard. And so the food was one of many battles that we fought over when I was with this aunt and uncle. 

It was traumatic. You can imagine, you know, how that might have been. So as far as I was concerned, I was abandoned. My father never paid a penny towards my upkeep. He paid for my fare to go to the wedding. And that, and then I stayed with different relatives, most of whom I'd never met before, all of whom had expectations and demands of me.

So, I think it's perfectly possible for things to change radically, but you still haven't made any progress. But by the same token, you have to recognise where there are little pots of progress, or changes that are a bit more positive than you might have thought.

And I think there's a way of putting out this period of time, or describing this period of time as being “we're all divided. There's so much hate and what have you,” which actually, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So you must resist that, because it's not entirely true. 

In the middle, you've got this great group. So all you need to do is to maybe get a third of that group in the middle to come over to, as it were, our 'side'. 
And we're done here, because you'll never get 100%, right?