A Decade in a Life

A Decade in a Life

Ten years. So much can happen in ten years. A life-time for some. For me.

It starts off with me being born (funny that). I am actually right now sitting in the building I was born in, in the kitchen of my third grandmother, Jo Jo. We’re in Brighton, Hove actually. In a place called Adelaide Crescent, 2^nd floor flat.

I was a home birth, something my mother firmly believed in. (Although it’s not one of her greatest passions, as she’s only done it twice).

There aren’t really any dramatic stories about my birth, but straight after I came out, JoJo banged on the door for minutes to be let in - but my dad refused.  But not much drama. (Oh, I did wee on my dad as soon as I arrived.)

We lived in Brighton for a while after that, happy as Larry until my dad got the mad idea to follow his dream of being a scuba-diving instructor meaning we would move to Dominica.

Yeah…. not a good plan. Being foolish adults my mum and dad plopped me on a plane to the West Indies. Sunshine, wonderful blue sea, delicious food, lovely people…

No. Hurricanes, local smugglers and giant rats more like it.

I must say that when I re-read this to my dad he said that was my mum’s memories of Dominica and for him it was wonderful and beautiful.

However, the hurricane was the last straw for my mum so back to rainy England we came.

This is where we live with my dad’s mum in London. Again, not my mum’s ideal home, but great fun for me. Every Friday Daddy and I would go to have swimming lessons. (For me not him). Afterwards we’d always have fish and chips – a lovely memory, even though I don’t really like them. (NB: please, in this paragraph, take note of the swimming lessons).

Of course we weren’t going to live with my Gamma for ever so my parents chose….

YORKSHIRE. I know, they were mad. These are the people who love cities and food and are rarely found tramping over moors. So why a tiny village named Ilkley, surrounded by moorland? I think they were having a mid-life crisis, early!

We bought a house to renovate. I went to my first school – a posh little girl’s school. Where, at the age of five, I had to wear a blazer and boater. I remember walking through town after school one day and bumping into my teacher, who ordered me to put my hat back on.

Within a year, the famous three became the famous four. I was pleased as my brother Jai arrived bearing a lovely purple cardigan and some sparkly shoes. And I realized why my mummy’s tummy had been so big.

His birth was a lot more exciting than mine. Very dramatic. He was also born at home, in the basement, which was our sitting room. Anyone walking by could have seen my mother giving birth, but she was more worried about ruining the towels than the sight. 

But as this is my life story, not his, I’m not going to explain his birth, as I was sleeping. I remember my dad waking me up to say I had a new baby brother. A small tear fell from my eye as I realized my days of being spoilt were over. I’m only joking, I was happy. And I was the first person he smiled at – so they say…

The best part of the birth was the fact that my mum started going into labour in the night and my dad, being a man, told her he was going back to sleep. So the modest angel I am appeared at her side and offered to run her a bath. Cold – the boiler never worked and, being only four, I couldn’t fix the heating.

You remember the swimming lessons? Well Water Babies started up in Ilkley. The whole business began with a phone resting on top of a fridge inside a building site of a house.

Water Babies is now the largest baby swimming company in the world, teaching more than 27,000 babies and toddlers each week. (PR: I learned it from my mum).

And it all exists because of moi.

Now my mum says she doesn’t change her mind. She does.

They didn’t like Yorkshire after a short while. Wanted to live by the sea again.

So we found an idyllic house in Devon – a falling down one on the edge of a cliff. We do make strange life choices… Time they put me in charge.

The views from it are amazing. And it was in fairly good order when we bought it.

I started at a tiny school in a tiny village. Here I stayed for the next two years, before moving to another school in Branscombe, where I stayed for another two years.

Have you ever heard of the Napoli? Well it crashed just off Branscombe beach and, yeah! we got three days off school.

 I do love school really.

Never one to sit tight, I moved schools again, this time to a school in Dorset.

When I first started I was a boarder and my brother was still at school in Devon. Everyone who knew me said I’d be a great boarder. They were wrong – to say the least. I really couldn’t bear it, so my parents, being the wonderful, amazing, incredible, beautiful people they are, brought a tiny cottage just up the road from school and moved there, just so I didn’t have to board any more.

My brother and I now both go to the same school, and we love it.

Life at the moment isn’t the life we always dreamed of, but one that’s working towards it.

Within a decade, I have had seven different homes, four different schools and a new baby brother. My parents have created the world’s biggest swimming company and we have lived in a different country.

It’s amazing what you can achieve in just ten years.

But, as my dad commented, people can have simple lives where every day is the same, or people can have lives like mine, with many different chapters.

My life has rounded me up to the person I am today.

Ps: And I have also, at last count, backpacked through roughly 20 countries and 48 cities. But I have yet to find my singing voice.

Water Babies had the idea for a fully clothed underwater shoot, showing how happy the babies and toddlers are underwater and I got to have a go!