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vaccinenumber9-blog · 8 years

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My kidney and how it failed me

It was back in the summer last year I was having a happy long run along the Blackwater Valley Path. I was almost an hour in when I had the most horrific pain in my stomach. ‘Bleughhh’ I thought. Stopped. And threw up into the stream. I felt awful. I looked at my phone. I was 5 miles in but 3 from home. I knew I couldn’t run 3 miles feeling like I did. Sweat prickled my forehead and I began to shake. I sat down. The path was narrow. One side bordered by the stream, the other a high fence, the A323 the other side. I would have to carry on and at least get to my gym which I calculated was just a mile away. I could get a drink, go to the loo and call Pete for a lift. A mile equates to just 10 minutes of running. I could do it.

And I did.

I got the gym and was shaking terribly. I went to the loo and packing no punches here I weed pure blood. 'Shit’ I thought. I wasn’t surprised. It had happened once before and that time I was referred to a urologist Mr Barber. I had a whole load of tests which yielded nothing and was told in all likelihood I had foot strike haemolysis. This is when you burst so many red blood cells in the soles of your feet running you wee blood. It’s common after long runs. As long as it was the only incident and it returned to normal on the next wee I was told not to worry.

But it happened after every run. Yet by bed time all was ok. I was puzzled. I tried not running and it stopped. As soon as I ran a mile it was back. A friend told me to get some of the dip sticks we used as VNs to see if there was still microscopic blood when it looked clear. There wasn’t. It was literally only the wee after my run.

So I let it ride. Such a mistake. Crow had gone missing and I was more worried about him. I was spending a lot of time looking for him.

Over the next 6 weeks my running took a nose dive. I was slow, I was struggling by mile 5. I was sticking to one route I felt I could manage. But as long as I was doing my daily 10k I convinced myself I was ok. Pete joined me on one and remarked how quiet I was.

'I’m concentrating on getting half way so I can stop. I’m really struggling Pete’

'What’s making you stop?’ He asked

'I don’t know. It’s like utter exhaustion. Like someone is pulling me backwards’

I was getting back ache too, high up on my left hand side. I kept slapping on heat patches before I ran. I was getting dreadful stomach ache. 'Irritable bowel’ I told myself. One time I ran to the pharmacy and stuffed a load of semeticone in my mouth and carried on running.

I turned a blind eye to the fact I kept throwing up and felt sick. That I was falling asleep at 5pm for hours, that I kept waking up in the night confused and wandering about. During those episodes my whole body felt weird. Like my muscles were crawling.

I got worried as soon I was weeing blood continuously. I was exhausted. I went to my gp in the end and she reassured me nothing was found on all my scans but she’d refer me back to Barber. She put me on antibiotics, she said I had an infection. Nitrofuratoin. It was a disaster. By day 2 I had an allergic reaction. I’m already allergic to penicillin so I knew straight away. I stopped taking them and waited for my appointment. One evening Pete took me to an ooh GP. He read Barbers report, said nothing was wrong. I specifically asked him if my kidneys were ok. I showed him a pot of my wee. I said to him I was a VN, if a dog was pissing like that I’d put it on a drip. He laughed.

Little did I know but in 3 weeks I would be back in that room in kidney failure.

I went home. Over the next week protein showed up in my wee as well as blood, ketones, glucose, white blood cells. 'My kidneys are failing’ I said matter of fact to my husband. I still ran that day.

I went to see Barber. 'Ah! It’ll be your kidney stone!’ He said

'My what?’

'I’m sure I told you’

'You didnt’ I said, mixed emotions, relief it neatly explained everything and anger that had I known I would have arranged to see him weeks previously.

'It’s tiny’ he said. 'Just 2mm’ surprised you didn’t wee it out. 'We’ll scan you tomorrow’

Scan me he did. The next day I saw a friend, came home and felt a bit off. I started throwing up uncontrollably. The pain in my back was worse than labour pain. I became delirious. I thought Atticus was talking to me. He had, apparently, lost his hat in the garden. Had I seen it? It was a tartan golfing hat with a bobble on the top. Evie rubbed my back. Pete was worried sick. I said I was fine. I got it together and emailed Barber. A few hours later his secretary called. He had looked at my scan and I needed to go in immediately.

With that I kind of then realised it was serious and I had a tiny panic.

I went into his office and jokingly said 'you aren’t giving me bad news are you?’

He said he was. He said my stone was 12mm blocking my whole kidney, which was ulcerated and had failed. He needed to operate that night to put a stent in to save it. I giggled and said thank god I thought I was dying.

He got stern at that point and told me to stop it and listen up. He needed to ask a colleague how on Earth they were going to get it out. That if I liked it or not this was going to interrupt my life for a while.

'It can’t’ I said. I have to walk my dogs on Monday. I’m self employed.

He told me to go home back my bags and Jeanette his secretary would call me.

I tiptoed out. Thinking 'tits and arse’.

I was to go in the next morning at 8. I got up at 6 and ran 6 miles to prove I was just fine. My sister took me in.

So I have the luxury of private healthcare and I was shown to my room. I felt just fine. My sister and I giggling over some magazines and in walks Barber.

He looks at us puzzled for a minute as we say in unison 'we’re sister’

'You don’t say!’

'She’s the older sensible one’ I say

'Yes I don’t run’ my sister says.

We both giggle

He drew a big arrow on my left thigh explaining he wanted to get the right kidney. Which was the left one. As he departs my sister giggles 'for fuck sake Kate you could have warned me he was that gorgeous’

'I know it’s nothing short of disastrous really’

It wasn’t long before I get taken to theatre. And of course one minute I’m telling the anaesthetist where all my piercings are and the next I’m waking up pulling my own et tube out. Yick.

I get taken back to my sister. They give me a sandwich. I can’t leave til I’ve eaten it only the local anaesthetic they use in your throat means I can’t actually swallow. I tear it up a bit, move it around and declare I want to go home. Pete’s arrived with Evie, I know I feel awful but I’m not letting anyone know. I walk out. Trying to walk desperately. The pain in my kidney is like I have a knitting needle in my back. I’m going to be sick by the time I’m at the parking meter. I don’t want Evie to know. I focus on getting into the car, the front door, to my box of painkillers. I find codeine, paracetamol and ibuprofen I take them all and fight back the tears.

The next day I’m a mess. The pain is like labour pain, coming in waves and I can’t stop crying. I’m so confused. By 6pm Pete gets me to an emergency doctor. He propels me into the waiting room. I slide off the chair onto the floor. The receptionist helps pick me up, she’s lovely and I get laid down on a bed and all manner of pain killers injected. My body is rejecting the stent. The pain is over whelming. They keep me there a few hours and as the morphine kicks in I feel better. I need a cup of tea so they suggest I try going to the cafe. If I’m ok I can go home with pain relief.

I am absolutely off my trolley by now but pain free. Pete gets me tea and some biscuits. I find some funny books in the second hand book stall in the reception of the hospital.

I can do this’ I muse.

But I can’t. I get home. My friend Meg tells me I’m just following in the footsteps of my ancestor Samuel Pepys. I manage a giggle and read up all about it. It makes grim reading. He had his stone removed without anaesthesia. He was so pleased every year he threw it a party on Its removal anniversary, March 26th. My nephews birthday.

I feel sick reading it. They killed him in the end. His left kidney ulcerated and the stones adhered. A grim way to go.

At 6am I creep into the garden, hot and shaking I sit on the railway sleepers and silently cry. I can’t endure the week I need my kidney to drain and heal. My whole body feels in shock. I remember sitting there with Bean wrapped in an old cardigan holding him the day he died. At that thought I start crying and I can’t stop. I literally can’t control it. I go inside and tell Pete something is really wrong.

So he takes me to A&E. it’s from this point I can’t remember much. Just episodes of vomiting and sleeping. They sedated me and admitted me. I slept and vomited for a week. I forgot I had children. I had lucid moments. Anger at a nurse who was exasperated I wasn’t weeing and I kept telling her that was the problem I had kidney failure. Stupid woman. It was unfair of me. I recall Andy messaging me. He was in the Sun. Page 20 and not naked. Pete brought up a copy, it was all about how great he had done on his experimental chemo drug, he was cancer free. I remember smiling and then vomiting missing his picture by inches. I messaged him back saying I’d thrown up all over him. It was a comfort, if anyone knows how to survive a hospital situation it’s him and this was nothing compared to that.

I remember a guacamole sandwich that looked like poo. An older lady patient rubbing my back one night as I threw up hour after hour. My mouth was ulcerated by now and I was exhausted.

All I wanted at this point was for them to remove my kidney. I begged and pleaded. They were trying to get hold of Mr Bott who would eventually operate but he wasn’t about. I was kept on morphine, diclofenac, paracetamol, cyclazine, a host of other anti sickness stuff and a constant drip.

Eventually Pete emailed Mr Bott in desperation. The nurses were saying I needed to go home but I could barely cope on morphine so I was just stuck there.

Then on Friday evening a nurse handed me a phone and said 'it’s for you, it’s your consultant’

'How are you feeling!’ He bellowed down the line

'Like death. Please can you remove my kidney. I want to sell it on eBay’ I whisper

'I’m transferring you to my private suite, I’ll operate first thing’ he said.

I let out a strangled sob. Within minutes a porter arrived and wheeled me off. The nurse in the private wing was glorious. She cuddled me, ran me a hot bath, made me something to eat. Injected me with a whole load of stuff that felt great. I ate for the first time in a week. She put on the TV. She made me feel human.

The next day I had my op. It took ages. I didn’t recover well. They had trouble waking me up. I vaguely recall them trying and desperately wanting to sleep. I was so weak and exhausted it was hardly a surprise. I had been injected with heparin all week as well as the worry was that going from running 6 miles daily to this I’d get a deep vein thrombosis. My stomach was a mess of bruises. My piercings had all got infected, my mouth was so ulcerated. I felt like shit.

Mr Bott called Pete to tell him he had got it all out but he had to put in another stent as my kidney was a mess.

But the stone was out.

I decided to be brave and went for the option of stent removal without anaesthesia. I was worried I wouldn’t wake up at all third time round. He took it out the next day but warned me to stay a while as I’d get colic about 2 hours later. I did. I needed more morphine. Kidney colic isn’t nice.

Pete took me home after I had a bath. I made myself look as normal as I could. I looked scrawny and I felt awful. I put my boots on and walked out. They gave me a bag full of pain killers and a number to call in an emergency. Pete got me home. I curled up on the sofa and slept. 2 hours later I heard the gate go. I got up and opened the front door. Seth and Evie hurtled into my arms. They had been at my sisters and Pete had collected them and a Christmas tree. We spent that afternoon decorating it. Seth spent that day cuddling me.

Fast track a month later and I’m back having more scans (no more stones) and I’m told it was made of Uric Acid. I am Botts first ever case of a vegetarian with a stone made of animal protein. He suspects it’s a metabolic problem. Do I have gout? I tell him about my child hood arthritis how I still get flare ups in my big toe joints but I know how to deal with it. I just cut the sides of my running shoes open and run on the outside edges of my feet. He looks at me long and hard and silently.

I start talking 'my dad has gout, and he had a kidney stone’ I ramble. 'It’s all his fault!’

I tell him how my arthritis kind of went when I became a vegetarian. That my mum treated it gently, no steroids, no ops, lots of rest and heat. I did ok.

He tells me I need to drink more water, to modify my diet. Cut out as much purine as I can. If it’s metabolic he’ll put me on allopurinol.

As I scuttle out his room I text my dad and ask him if he’s still on meds for his gout and what is it called??

'Allopurinol’ he says.

Bloody Bunkers. It figures. His brother and sister had the same problems, trace it back through his mum and you land at Mr Pepys.

So here I am still having tests done but confidently knowing my dads ok and I will be too.

'It’s funny’ my mum says 'your dad was 45 too when he had all his problems with his stones and gout’

You can’t defy your genetic path it would seem. These things are written in, but I’m in good company at least. As my dad slops in his slippers (drives my mum mad) towards 80 he’s in fine fettle. He moans about his feet as much as I do, but he still has all his teeth, selective hearing and all his beautiful snow white hair.

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vaccinenumber9-blog · 8 years

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Crow.

I was sitting in the sunshine, on doctors orders, outside Seth’s school on the grass, waiting for him to finish a detention when I received a text from my friend Sue. Her boys had found a baby bird at the base of a tree in her garden and she wasn’t sure what to do. I have the age old advice to leave well alone as in all likelihood the parents would be close by feeding him and keeping an eye. Any human interference can often put the parents off. Sometimes the human threat early on in a breeding season will convince them to abandon said baby and start again with a new clutch of eggs.

The afternoon progressed with no parent visits. A photo sent rendered what looked like a fledgling magpie. Night was approaching and Sue and her boys were really worried. Now at this point I knew that if I interfered and stepped in the commitment and responsibility was mine. It would in all likelihood mean at least a month of care…. if it survived at all. Of all the nestlings I have tried to rescue I can count on one hand those that have survived the shock of human contact.

My primary concern was that if I did the right thing ie to leave him, he would in all likelihood die, BUT the rule is you don’t interfere with wildlife, once captive you should not release…. There are all sorts of rules and guidelines, most of which the years have left my mind fuzzy about. But if I took him in all likelihood he would also die. Children were involved, at this point I thought he was a magpie, my most favourite of birds, I sent Sue a text and said I’d take him. I gathered a towel and a bucket and drove over to take a look.

And there in the undergrowth was a big black bird with what appeared to be white sides. I picked him up and realised he wasn’t even a fledgling but a nestling. The white stripes were his as yet un emerged wings, he couldn’t stand and was very still. ‘Close to dying’ I thought but didn’t voice, the hard part of my no nonsense animal head wavered slightly and I thought better to die in the warmth and safety of a box than the jaws of a cat. I bundled him up and took him home.

Up straight into the bathroom I gave Evie instructions to get me some water and cat food. I lifted him out. 'He’s a crow!’ I instinctively realised. He was a huge nestling, but so weak. He wouldn’t eat and I tried dripping drips of water round the edge of his beak. I didn’t want to stress him so we made a little bed for him and switched the lights out. I gave Evie strict warning that he would be dead by morning so it was no good getting too excited by any of it.

That night I got up several times to check him. He was slumped flat on the ground and on each check I was convinced he was dead. Sometimes you can rear chicks for a good 48hrs, they’ll eat and be all perky then suddenly they keel over, toes up from shock. Wild animals are wild. They should remain so and human contact is a disaster, I am so strict about it but you know children get involved and you don’t see reason.

By morning I was amazed to find him sitting up. He looked at me and opened his beak for food. I rammed in some cat food. He was starving but I didn’t want to over feed him. Little and often and try and replicate his his parents would feed him.

I called my dad, I had a nestling crow, what should I do? Jokingly he said I had 2 choices. Stuff it full of cat food and give it to the cat OR put it in a large bucket of water. The bucket/water joke is a long standing problem solver we use when overwhelmed with nursing animals. Dad always says when I’m lamenting that I’m getting nowhere with whichever hapless creature I am attempting to raise from the dead 'there’s always a bucket’. In short it means worse case scenario is death but it means the problem is over. It sort of puts it into perspective. Harsh? Maybe but when it comes to animals there is little room for sentiment. They all will die before me, save the tortoise, so at some point I have to deal with that, and animals are not human. They are animals. Yes they are equals, hence I don’t eat or wear them, I try and save their lives, I have the most enormous respect and understanding of them, but no pet of mine will ever be classed as one of my children, I am not their mother, nor do I want to be. I know their intelligence and awareness of being is as equal as mine, they are just different, they express themselves differently. I have spent years learning those expressions on so many different species, their body language their behaviour. You don’t ever ever humanise an animal, it’s insulting to them and shows a deep lack of respect for accepting their species for what it is.

So back to dad. My dad knows everything there is to know about birds. Any bird. Wild, domesticated, whatever. He knows. He’s had aviaries and bred birds long before I existed. I was raised in an aviary I am sure. In fact I remember sitting in them when tiny. Birds fluttering about. Finches and canaries, diamond doves, quail, budgies, cockatiels, Bourkes and Stanley’s (my favourite). My help was often needed… turning tiny eggs in an incubator, catching little finches and most importantly removing teensey rings from twig like finches legs. My tiny fingers as a child made quick work of it where my dads huge fingers struggled. I guess I grew up a bit complacent about them really, they were always there, the canaries dawn signing in the breeding season was enough to make you want to purchase a shot gun, my dad was always out there in his woolly hat with them. His hat. His hat was knitted and navy blue with a thin red band around the edge. It was encrusted in bird poo, feathers and seed in equal measure. He claimed it to be an essential part of recognition for his birds, my mother declared it disgusting and it came to a sticky end. It went missing and my mother was pleased. A week later we all saw it in the window of Leeds Building Society in Bracknell. My mum would not claim it as she said the shame of admitting ownership was too much. I wish I had had the guts to go right in and get it now but if I’m honest she was right, it WAS disgusting.

As for birds and recognition my father is right. In my experience birds learn faces. I hand reared a pigeon in Brighton. She was found in the window of the juggling shop in the lanes and whilst out shopping with Ery and Melly they dared me to go in and ask how much it was. Now the three of us knew each other from Wyevale, we were the pet department girls, we had hand reared house martins, we kicked arse and a pigeon would be simple. So they pushed me up to the counter and I offered to take her. They readily stuffed her in a box and I took her back to the flat. She was indeed easy. I fed her cake and maple peas. She slept on my pillow, showered with me and flew the streets of Brighton by day. If she spotted me out she would fly down and land on my head. She’d follow me home and come in the front door. I loved her to bits but my husband didn’t. He hated the mess she made, I think he thought it was one step too far with my eccentricity. I went away on my own for a week and when I got back she had vanished. I was distraught. He said he hadn’t let her back in the flat. I assumed and hoped shed found somewhere safe to go. I never saw her again. It was a hard lesson and one I had no intention of reliving with this big old baby crow.

To be contd....

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vaccinenumber9-blog · 9 years

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The naming of me.

‘I like school’ said eight year old Katie Bunker. Sigh. That quote, taken of course completely out of context, in the local Bracknell news paper circa 1980 caused the most enormous hilarity for my sister. I had been mis quoted. On winning the ‘garden in a soup bowl’ competition in the Autumn Fair at school I had been interviewed by a journalist, such was the excitement of Binfield village. Did I like school? I was asked. I could hardly say no considering Mrs Harper one of the teachers was standing right next to me. Being eight and confused I said yes. Thirty six years later my sister still finds ways to drop this into casual conversation, possibly because it really does make a total mockery of my defiant and disobedient nature I have evolved and nurtured over the years. If truth be told though I did love school, despite being a bit of a thicky. I was always first out in ‘fizz buzz’ til lovely Elizabeth Lambe showed me how to cheat and I think at least one teacher was put on Prozac well into the 5th year of having to teach me how to tell the time. Funnily enough it took my dad to make the break through. He simply said 'Right Catsie. There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day’ And I got it immediately. No one had bothered telling me that. It was kind of essential. I had thought I had to memorise every conceivable position of hands. I wondered how everyone else was so clever. I digress. Back in those happy days of St Marks CofE school I was Katie Bunker. One of three Katies. It was a tiny school, no more than 100 children at most. It was lovely, in fact it was perfect. These days I am Kate Duerden. But neither of these are my real name. And it’s something I struggle with a lot. Back in 1972 when I was born, I caused my mother no end of grief. There were no scans back in those days and my mum was having a pretty rough pregnancy with me. They couldn’t decide on dates, there was a whole load of hoo ha, she went into early labour, they staved it off. She was in hospital a long time, then she dropped her crochet hook, leant over the edge of the bed to retrieve it and it seems I had had enough and wanted to start really living, only in the end my mum had to have a GA to have me. I must have been a wreck because they took me to an entirely different hospital and slammed me in an incubator. My parents didn’t see me for a week. I have no idea who took care of me but eventually my dad got cross and said a few choice words. I was duly fetched. I’m sure he rued that day. Now the thing is I was born early. And I was a girl. My parents were convinced I was a boy. My name was David Bunker. They were pretty shocked. They were so sure they hadn’t even considered any girls names. Randomly the plucked the name Tracey Maria from nowhere and that was my name. They had to come up with something as I was the second baby born at Heatherwood in Ascot and I was about to be put in the local paper (it was a theme of my child hood) for missing out on the prize hamper by half an hour. So home I went as Tracey. It’s on my birth certificate and everything. And my little baby name tags. Tracey Bunker O-ve My sister decided on seeing me, quite passionately that she was going to call me Katie. She was 2. She’s always had my back, right from the start see. Somehow it stuck and everyone began calling me Katie. Everyone that is aside from my GP and my grandmother who both insisted on Tracey. My dad has always called me Catsie, my Grandfather randomly called me Fred for a while (he was a Bunker and that sort of thing is entirely usual) but for all of my childhood years I was Katie. I grew up, in a fashion, and forgot all about it. Until I got my National Insurance card aged 15. It was for Tracey Bunker. I had got to that age of suddenly wanting a bank account and a Saturday job and some kind of a start on adult life and there were forms to be filled in and it was pretty depressing filling them in for a girl I knew nothing about. My mum contacted our solicitor and we decided to change my name officially. I opted for Kate Maria Bunker. It sounded and felt grown up. I signed my forms, Pip witnessed them. I was Kate Bunker. David Bunker, Tracey Bunker, Katie Bunker, Kate Bunker. That’s a lot of names in 15 years. And so I stayed that way. Got to add VN at the end when I qualified as a vet nurse, that was good and happily I stayed that way. Some friends still called me Katie. Mark always did and does, my old primary school friends do. Pete mainly calls me Kate. He tried calling me Catsie like my dad but I hate him calling me that. Only my dad gets to call me Catsie, he’s earned it after all these years, it’s his name for me and no one else’s. Now this is the point at which I made a fatal error. I got married. Pete and I weren’t really wanting to at all. We had been living together for 10 years and we had left Brighton to be able to buy a house and have Seth. I figured if I was a Bunker and Pete was a Duerden that there would be all kinds of speculation and pressure from family as to whose name our child would have. I figured if we had the same name there was no argument. That AND I was stupid enough to believe that by getting married I would be taken seriously and ultimately gain an extra new family. Time has taught me that those things are not gained by title alone, rather it is actions. Those reasons were childish expectations. We got married. I wanted to leg it to Brighton, get married with no guests and grab a pint at The George. Everyone else had other ideas. Think we postponed it twice whilst everyone argued and I cried a lot. Eventually I compromised bought a dark blue dress and booked Guildford Registry office. The whole day was cobbled together on just £200. I managed to piss off all my family. I was so unhappy that morning. Pete rushed out that morning and hired a nice car literally an hour before we were booked in to cheer me up. It was devoid of petrol. I was legless on brandy at 10am. My lasting memory of the whole day was running across a garage forecourt up on the Hoggs Back in some god damn awful frock in the fog yelling excitedly wafting a copy of the Daily Fail over my head that Myra Hindley was dead. Anyway, I didn’t get my pint in Brighton, or get to wear my jeans, or go on holiday for the weekend to Edinburgh, but I did make our extended families slightly happier with me than they had been. We spent that night clearing up the cottage and drove down to Polperro for two freezing weeks. I stopped smoking that day I changed my name to Kate Duerden. I was more lost from myself than I had ever been before. So I had relinquished the name of Bunker. I should muscle in at this point and give a potted history to the Bunker side of the family. My dad, along with his brother and sister were raised in Slough. Later they lived in Chavey Down and it was there that my parents knew each other from the local Youth Club. By the time I was born my dads parents owned and ran the bright pink sweet shop in Bridgewater (I used to sit on the counter and give the customers their change) Many happy memories of that shop in my mind. Sometimes I get to smell it again in certain local newsagents. That smell floors me. I can remember where everything was. The coloured plastic streamers at the doorway behind the counter that led to their living room. My gran calling me Tracey, feeding me bowls of tomato soup. Helping her chop a pineapple. She died when I was 4, but I can recall her so clearly. She was a 'Norries’ …trace her back far enough and you allegedly get to Henry Norries of 'you wait to fill dead mans shoes’ as uttered by Anne Boleyn which was over heard and they both got their heads chopped off. Silly pair. They shouldn’t have got caught. My cousin Gary discovered it. He had traced the family tree right back. Had discovered Samuel Pepys in there and everything on her side. An interesting and naughty lot they were. Their lasting legacy being the Norries estate in Wokingham. I kept that one quiet when I was sitting in Shane’s heated car seat the other night and we were giggling and lamenting in equal measure over the state of the place. My cousin Gary had also gone back through the Bunkers. By and large they were mostly mad. Think my great great Grandfather was in Bedlam for a short 'detox’. He fell in love with his nurse, he got discharged, they got married. They had more Bunkers. He clearly wasn’t cured as he flung himself off Eton Bridge and drowned. My dad says they pulled his body out at Richmond. Nice. Lovely Gary. He ploughed himself into his family research, it was a lovely legacy and it made a huge difference to me to help me know who I was. Gary had been ill a while, badly ill. He wasn’t much older than I am now when he died. He was the last male Bunker. Not long after his mum became unwell. On hearing her illness was terminal my lovely Uncle Bob more or less dropped down dead. They were devoted to each other. She died just a week later. Their joint funeral. Gah. I stop here lost for words, remembering lovely Sara my cousin. How brave she was. I was stuck in these pews and my dad had gone up and was doubled up in grief. I felt the most horrible physical pain. It made me turn sideways, it was peculiar and horrible. A whole half of the Bunker family gone. Somehow Sara had organised a lovely get together afterwards. I remember her being amazing. I remember wanting to be a Bunker again. Me, her and Lisa were the Bunker girls. Yet none of us had got to keep our name. When I left she hugged me and said 'you and I are more alike than you know’ it was a huge compliment because to me she was utterly awe inspiring. Truth is we are alike, we are Bunkers. I went home that summer determined to live my life as if it were my own, simply because it is. It is mine one time only. It’s not my parents, or my husbands, there are no re runs. This is it. I was born alone. I lived my first 5 days here alone. I walk this Earth alone and I will die alone. I should imagine dying is far easier with no one watching and critiquing. I will walk in step with many of you by my side for a long long time. I have a nasty habit of not liking loosing friends, it’s sort of embarrassing my persistence, and irritating. I fall in love easy and don’t like letting go, I adore my friends with a passion that is probably bordering on the inappropriate, but the pay off is I build huge walls in defence and not let anyone really know who I truly am. All of you will know bits of me, but not all of me. If you all put your heads together you would probably get a full picture. Hopefully you won’t want to ever bother doing that. So all of this leaves me floundering about not really knowing what I want to be called. David Bunker, Tracey Bunker, Katie Bunker, Kate Bunker, Kate Bunker VN, Kate Duerden. I still can’t decide which one was possibly really me. I think perhaps Grandad got it right. Just call me Fred.

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vaccinenumber9-blog · 9 years

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'Katie's controversial opinion'. See. SEE!

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vaccinenumber9-blog · 9 years

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Just as I sat down to write 'the lost entry'

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vaccinenumber9-blog · 9 years

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My name.

I wrote for two hours. It was awesome. All about my name. I got distracted by a friend. My iPad shut down and I lost the lot. There's a lesson in all of this somewhere. Needless to say Katie Bunker is still fucking it up.

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vaccinenumber9-blog · 9 years

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Constance Sone

The maternal line is tenuous in our family. But it’s extremely important because it is so very great. Of course it is, I am part of it and I very much embody what is so great about it.

I would never claim its intelligence or beauty or even talent that make my line shine. Hell no. It’s way better than any of those things. Our family breeds women who have a strength of heart, a resilience to life that is almost viral in nature. With every dreadful deed that life might throw at us we just morph and find ways to adapt. Depression, sorrow and self pity aren’t on our radar. We find the silver lining, and if we can’t, we make it up.

It’s a wonderful gift.

I never met my maternal great grandmother but by all accounts she was fantastic. And a bit of an enigma. The bottom line is we don’t know who she was, neither did she it would seem, she was found wandering in Drury Lane in London as a child. If she had no memory or just wasn’t telling we don’t know, but she was taken in by a family who lived there. We know a little of her life there. She made a friend called Joe who lived on Drury Lane too (his house is now an office) and aged 15 she was sent to live in France, with nuns. We think maybe something happened between her and Joe that caused this, as on her return they got married and had my grandmother and later two boys. Both boys died in infancy, my grandmother was old enough to recall them, by all accounts she rarely spoke of them, but when she did you could see it wasn’t good for her.

They often took holidays in Brighton, we have Joe’s diaries and reading them for me is haunting. He describes my Brighton (this would have been in the very early 1920s) the streets, the building, what he did, where he went, paddling in the sea. History repeats. It’s peculiar.

Joe had been in the First World War, reading his diaries and how poorly he was in my opinion he had weak lungs and TB. I assume he was gassed. At the age of just 43 (my age) he died. My gran had lost both her brothers, and now her father.

My great grandmother, Annie, moved what was left of her family to Brighton. She bought my gran a writing desk. It is now mine and will become Evie’s. Last year the lock fell out and in it I found a rolled up stamp from the 1920s. I held that piece of time immortalised in my finger tips trying to imagine how it got there. Who put it there. Would they imagine I would find it? I didn’t exist then but the choices they made created me.

Annie married again very quickly, I have a feeling he was a friend of hers already, my gran told me she wasn’t impressed with her mother’s timing, but she came to love her step father dearly. He was German and all I know of him was that he fried tomatoes and liked to walk out on the breakwater next to Brighton Pier. They ran various pubs and shops in Brighton, one was up Southover Street where I came to live all those years later. Annie turned her hand to delivering babies and laying out the dead. She would say ‘I see them in and I see them out’.

And as of my grandmother I can only assume living in Brighton in the 1920s must have been spectacular. She told me how she had danced around the fountain on the Old Steine, drunk amongst other things, I wish I could have been there.

She met my Grandfather on the sea front. He offered her a boiled sweet which she accepted, there was lots of dilly dallying as she was supposed to be marrying someone else, and then a tea dance where they met again and that was that. All sounds very simple, I am sure it wasnt, as these things rarely are, but that is the long and short of it.

They started their family, they had Barbara and then David. I believe they thought their family complete and the next bit is horrible. Simply put David died. And looking through the telegrams and piecing together what little she spoke of it I wonder how much it made her who she was or if she was resilient enough to survive because we are who we are, but it went something like this.

David was just a year old and had been born a happy healthy baby. He had thrived and then had been vaccinated against small pox and circumcised. Very quickly he became poorly, he developed terrible eczema and had convulsions. He was taken into hospital but it seems my grandparents were rarely allowed to visit and were only kept informed by telegram. His condition deteriorated quickly. One telegram generously advises they can have an extra 10 minutes visiting time. The next dated a few days later was to tell them he was dead. He was a year old.

My grandmother had lost both her brothers, her father and now her son.

Barbara was old enough to understand what had happened and her accounts are quite harrowing, to be kept private and not told here. It was such a different world then. There was no funeral. A grave plot number was issued. That was all. Just silence.

The thing is, about David, for all he suffered, for all they suffered, all of them, if he hadn’t, my mother never would have been born, and I and Seth and Evie would not be here. And whilst I can never rejoice I can be grateful.

My gran often said my mum was 'the after thought’ followed 2 years later by the happy accident that was my dear Auntie Lyn. War had broken out, my Grandfather was on the Brighton Home Guard, the family living up in Woodingdean, as my gran so eloquently put it, she wanted her girls removed from Brighton as it was 'a den of iniquity’. The satisfaction I had in telling her I was moving there to live was enormous. She was in fact thrilled, her eyes twinkling she gave me a map of Brighton with all her best and favourite bits. It was the most useful and treasured thing I have ever been given. I still have it. She highlighted the job centre, where my house was, the clock tower and other various points of interest. That map saved me on many an occasion, there was no google maps see back then.

They left Woodingdean on the notion of a house swap. In Slough. I can’t even comment on that other than to say thank goodness or my mum wouldn’t have met my dad. See every cloud…….

My grandfather died when I was 16. Just before I met Pete. He wasn’t old enough. Just past 80. I cherished him, and everything he was. He was a wonderful man, all polo mints, Asimov novels and bonfires. And where my gran was hard on me, he was terribly soft. They were a fantastic combination.

She lived over 20 years without him. They had been married more than 50. At this point she had lost her brothers, her father, her son and her husband.

I won’t dwell on the rest of her life, because the interesting thing about her is what she was like as a person.

If I am truly honest being her granddaughter was a tough business. My gran wasn’t the sort to wear lilac cardigans and smell of lavender and be all squidgy cuddly. Dear God no. Nor was she harsh, bony or unkind.

She was clever. She was well read. She could write and did. She had so many friends it made me giddy. She had pen pals and my god she could talk. She could and did talk to anyone, and could hold her own in any conversation. She would have LOVED Facebook. She would have adored the Internet. She was HUGELY critical and not scared to be so. I never saw her cry, not once, ever. With me she was firm and as a child I felt she was hard on me. If I hurt myself she would pick me up and brush me down and tell me to get on with it. She read to me a lot as a child, she organised treasure hunts, gave me lots of lemonade to drink and cooked the best cheese soufflé on the planet. Tea was always marmite on toast (too much marmite) and roly poly pudding. She had various little keepsakes she kept in the book case next to her throne (I mean chair) which I was allowed to look at on visiting. One was a little plastic Swiss Alps chalet with a little peep hole, inside told in pictures was the story of Frau Holle each picture revealed as you pressed the chimney. She gave it to me when I was about 30. The part of the story where the girl falls down the well was inspiration for painting the spiral staircase for Seth’s room pitch black. I am always that girl on decent, waiting for an adventure.

My gran criticised me continually as I grew up. She was hard on me. My sister and I joked about it continually even as adults. I would encourage my sister to dye her hair some frightful colour before a 'Nanna visit’ just to take the heat off me if I knew I had done something that had met her disapproval prior, and the events had filtered down to her.

Every clothes shopping trip with my sister would end up in giggled hysteria in the shared changing room as we would declare outfits either 'Nanna proof’ or not. I would always buy the ones we would decide weren’t and then await with baited breath her caustic comments. These would be delivered in earshot of us both and the stifled mirth was always very much a part of the whole game. I have no idea if she knew, but I miss it.

But for all my misdemeanours eventually, in her eyes, I got it so right. She must have been about 97, she was quite frail but her mind was as alert as ever. I got pregnant. With Evie.

At this point my sister and I had given her three wonderful grandsons. Each of them she adored, don’t get me wrong, but I always kind of felt I had fallen short somewhere. On seeing them all for the first time, the look on her delighted face, I wondered if she was looking for David. She never said anything. But I know it is what I would have done.

But anyway, in gate crashed Evie. I have spoken of my utter horror upon her conception, one resilient thought I had at the time was that it might give my grandmother something to live for. I told her so. And she did. She lived long enough to hold her, and I won’t ever forget it. It was my gran, my mum, me and my daughter. Just us four. And in the silence that was that moment I realised for all my wafting about with no purpose or direction in life, that I had in fact done something quite useful. I had continued the maternal line. Had I not had Evie it would have ended with me. She did however, that day, slap me back into line. She pose red her name. She said Seth’s name. She said them together. 'Two biblical names Kate. You should know better than that’. Thing is, her criticisms were always just. If I am honest I hadn’t thought about it. Better than 'Blade and Whitney’ I think I mumbled in my defence……

My gran lived a little longer, but not much. She listed her friends and asked me who was still alive and who was dead. My mum concluded she was the last man standing. The look of satisfaction on her face was priceless and in that moment I recognised a part of myself and could only applaud her strength of soul. Her mind was sound until the very end, then it stuttered and faltered. She kept saying there were people in her room that last week she was alive, she would ask me who they were. It was unnerving but I knew what it meant. My mum and her sisters took such great care of her all her life, very much so after my grandfather died and by the end…well they worked so hard. They set the bar high, I wonder if I can ever live up to the example they set.

She was 99. Evie was little more than a year. I wasn’t quite 40. That’s a long time to have a grand mother. I was lucky.

There was a sense of relief with it all. She hadn’t died because she had been ill, she just declined. But my mum and aunts were exhausted. I was looking forward to seeing them relax a bit, a silly notion, they were all devastated for a long time.

As for me, I was fine. She was old, she was a tough old bird, she had lived and then some.

But do you know what. Since having Evie, and loosing her, bit by bit over the years as I watch my daughter grow, with it comes a deep understanding and love of who she was and why she was like she was. The maternal line is not to be scoffed at, it’s a serious undertaking. There comes with it an unwritten set of instructions for nurturing and championing the female aspects that make your family who they are.

In short. I am turning into my gran. No I won’t be as critical, but I constantly find myself behaving with Evie how she behaved with me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not harsh with her, but I take no nonsense. It doesn’t mean I don’t care, trust me, the nights I have sat up watching her breathe through every illness, every vaccination. I fret with the best but she’s never going to know that and she’s never going to see me cry. I need to raise a daughter who is bold and compassionate, fearless and kind, resolute and determined. Why? Because these are the attributes of my maternal line. We don’t get sad, we don’t get depressed, we don’t give up. We find the good in everyone, in every situation. When we decide to do something we throw our very soul into it. Trust me my mum is the same.

And my job is to to improve upon what my mum did with me, what my gran did for her and so on. With being a mother it’s just no damn good copying what your own mum did. Andy quoted someone recently, something along the lines of 'it’s your parents who fuck you up’ and whilst I can’t claim to be fucked up (well not in a way I haven’t nurtured for myself) I can claim that my daughters world is going to be a whole load different to mine, and that is reason enough to parent her differently. Just don’t get me started on those stupid Facebook shares that start 'click like if you remember having grazed knees and were never at home cos you had a bike, and had to go home when the street lights came on’ THAT was so yesterday. I intend to raise children better than our lot. Mine will have all that wholesome stuff and technology. They will have a mother who teaches them every god damn thing and have air conditioning. My children are hugely privileged and they appreciate it. When they descend upon the world they will take it by the throat and throttle it and make it a better world to live in for everyone else. Lord knows it needs it and someone has to do it.

Shine, House, Sone, Bunker, Duerden.

Annie, Constance, Pauline, Kate, Evie.

It’s a short line thus far, but it’s not going away. Not just yet.

And when I do get one of those moments (and I do sometimes) when I think 'I can’t do this. I am lost’ and tears threaten I open my little bookcase of things, and there is the little chalet, her old calendar from Brixham, the little music box my mum gave me one Christmas, the best Christmas I ever had as a child, the things I trot out when Evie is having a bad day to cheer her up…….and I find my grans old wooden hairbrush that still very much smells of her and find it within myself to get a grip. Rarely the tears spill because I am a tough old bird too.

But sometimes, just sometimes, they do.

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Constance Sone

The maternal line is tenuous in our family. But it’s extremely important because it is so very great. Of course it is, I am part of it and I very much embody what is so great about it.

It’s a wonderful gift.

My grandmother had lost both her brothers, her father and now her son.

They left Woodingdean on the notion of a house swap. In Slough. I can’t even comment on that other than to say thank goodness or my mum wouldn’t have met my dad. See every cloud…….

She lived over 20 years without him. They had been married more than 50. At this point she had lost her brothers, her father, her son and her husband.

I won’t dwell on the rest of her life, because the interesting thing about her is what she was like as a person.

She was clever. She was well read. She could write and did. She had so many friends it made me giddy. She had pen pals and my god she could talk. She could and did talk to anyone, and could hold her own in any conversation. She would have LOVED Facebook. She would have adored the Internet. She was hugely critical and not scared to be so. I never saw her cry, not once, ever. With me she was firm and as a child I felt she was hard on me. If I hurt myself she would pick me up and brush me down and tell me to get on with it. She read to me a lot as a child, she organised treasure hunts, gave me lots of lemonade to drink and cooked the best cheese soufflé on the planet. Tea was always marmite on toast (too much marmite) and roly poly pudding. She had various little keepsakes she kept in the book case next to her throne (I mean chair) which I was allowed to look at on visiting. One was a little plastic Swiss Alps chalet with a little peep hole, inside told in pictures was the story of Frau Holle each picture revealed as you pressed the chimney. She gave it to me when I was about 30. The part of the story where the girl falls down the well was inspiration for painting the spiral staircase for Seth’s room pitch black. I am always that girl on decent, waiting for an adventure.

My gran criticised me continually as I grew up. My sister and I joked about it continually even as adults. I would encourage my sister to dye her hair some frightful colour before a 'Nanna visit’ just to take the heat off me if I knew I had done something that had met her disapproval prior, and the events had filtered down to her.

But for all my misdemeanours eventually, in her eyes, I got it so right. She must have been about 97, she was quite frail but her mind was as alert as ever. I got pregnant. With Evie.

But anyway, in gate crashed Evie. I have spoken of my utter horror upon her conception, one resilient thought I had at the time was that it might give my grandmother something to live for. I told her so. And she did. She lived long enough to hold her, and I won’t ever forget it. It was my gran, my mum, me and my daughter. Just us four. And in the silence that was that moment I realised for all my wafting about with no purpose or direction in life, that I had in fact done something quite useful. I had continued the maternal line. Had I not had Evie it would have ended with me. She did however, that day, slap me back into line. She pondered her name. She said Seth’s name. She said them together. 'Two biblical names Kate. You should know better than that’. Thing is, her criticisms were always just. If I am honest I hadn’t thought about it. Better than 'Blade and Whitney’ I think I mumbled in my defence……

She was 99. Evie was little more than a year. I wasn’t quite 40. That’s a long time to have a grand mother. I was lucky.

There was a sense of relief with it all at the end. She hadn’t died because she had been ill, she just declined. But my mum and aunts were exhausted. I was looking forward to seeing them relax a bit, a silly notion, they were all devastated for a long time.

As for me, I was fine. She was old, she was a tough old bird, she had lived and then some.

Shine, House, Sone, Bunker, Duerden.

Annie, Constance, Pauline, Kate, Evie.

It’s a short line thus far, but it’s not going away. Not just yet.

But sometimes, just sometimes, they do.

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Brenda or is it Hillary. It's all too confusing.

Stumbling into Costa in Next at the Meadows into the welcoming arms of Christian who works there, he lamented ‘Kate you are back! Where have you been? I’ve missed you guys.’

Christian is all of about 18, and too terribly lovely. He gives the kids free cookies and flirts horrifically, he’s a port in a storm of too many ‘a harrowing week’ as a stay at home mother. He has piercings done by Lianne too, so we talk piercings, drink Pepsi Max and just for an hour I feel vaguely young again and forget I am a rank old 43. He’s better than a G&t any day.

Anyway today I needed him more than ever. I hadn’t been to see him for ages. Mainly because Pete started accompanying me, 'intrigued’ he said about my little innocent friendship (in realsville that equates to jealous) do I decided to reign it in. That and the fact that Seth said 'why do we always go out for tea there?’ I didn’t like to say cos Christian is too damn nice you know and at my age you get your kicks where you can….

So anyway, why was he so desperately needed? Quite simply. Brenda.

Brenda’s is a shop that sells evil stuff. School uniform. Those that know me will probably guess my loathsome vile hatred of anything which would render myself or my genetic offspring anything like even vaguely similar to anyone else on the planet. I have always felt it very important to express myself through how I look. I change a lot depending on what’s going on in my life. My family find it hard. Specially at the moment as I very much have built an image of utter protection for myself, mainly because I have two children to raise, and a whole load of other shit to deal with that means I need to feel fearsome. And it works. I couldn’t cope on a mental level if I dressed say in Kath Kidston every day. I would feel like a victim. Or Laura Ashley. Just point the gun and shoot whilst I sit here like a lame duck. Not me, right now. Oh no. I need my new rock boots et al so when I am looked at a stranger would think 'don’t even try’ Trust me it works. No one knows what’s going on in my head, ever, and they can assume what they like, but I feel mentally strong every single day, because I project that image, and live up to it. I won’t ever be depressed, or scared, or worried. It’s not on my radar.

So take that away from me and I guess I would find it very hard to function. Schools know that. So they put the kids in uniform, so the little hard trouble makers are already brought down a notch. It’s diabolical and wrong, and I could start arguing why, but that’s not what this is all about. Anyway, hence the piercings, a more permanent fixture of my mental armour (in case any of you wondered why)

I was fortunate. For the majority of my primary school years we had no uniform. Better still my mum made me beautiful clothes. They were very different and unique. Mainly dungarees for school, but she also made me skirts and blouses, she knitted and crocheted all my cardigans. She would make me pyjamas and dressing gowns, even my winter coats. My clothes were absolutely gorgeous, and I loved them. My mum was so good she worked for a children’s clothes designer alongside my friend Lucy’s mum. Lucy’s clothes were all home made too. Her mum did (and still does) gorgeous smocking. She had loads of beautiful sundresses. I think they probably competed in a very friendly way, which daughter was the most unique…. We lapped it up, loved it, we were incredibly fortunate.

And then they brought in school uniform.

My mum refused for a little while, but eventually we decided we could compromise. I would wear uniform, but she would make it. I had the most beautiful school dresses you have ever seen. Smocked, with lovely little hand chosen buttons. Piping, cut on the bias so my skirts swirled out when I spun….. it set me up really for a life time of always enjoying looking very different. I love my mum so much for that. She has no idea how happy it has made me. Mind you she still silently bemoans some of the stuff I wear. Usually as it’s been made badly. Patterns don’t match up at seams, pockets aren’t made properly, if at all (every good cardigan has a pocket) hems aren’t finished properly. It irks her terribly. She makes Evie’s clothes now and so propels another little protege of our maternal line into the realms of utter uniqueness.

Secondary school was a nightmare for me. I wore what I had to for 5 years but by 6th form could stand it no longer. I cobbled together my own version of the uniform. Which was black. I threw together some cunning carboot finds. A net shirt, a polo jumper I ripped the neck off and sewed a slash neck line. A long black skirt. And my hideous crucifix which looks like … Well it’s hard to describe, it looks satanic, which is the role I wanted it to fulfil. I looked, in short, a mess.

By then I was with Pete, only he was at college. He would come and visit me at school. I was summoned to the head of sixths office. I wasn’t to be seen in the school with Pete. We were a bad image to the younger children. In fact I was such a mess I wasn’t allowed in school assembly anymore. My friend Ollie was told the same thing (about assembly, not Pete). We were jubilant. He was as much a mess as I was. We sat messily in the common room, drinking tea, giggling, listening to The Clash and high fiving how clever we were. Neither of us has changed a bit, and we are still friends. And we are nice.

Anyway back to Hillary, I mean Brenda. Hillary sells blinds, does she not?

Brenda. I had to take Seth to Brenda’s to buy his uniform for secondary school. Now my children know me well, but some things I keep a lid on, because quite frankly they can make up their own mind about stuff. So I haven’t ever really said anything about school uniform to them ever. But to say I was looking forward to this with glee well that would be an utter lie. Pete had PROMISED me he’d do it. I had several friends offer to come with for support. Somehow it got to today, a few days before we are on holiday for two weeks and no uniform. All my friends had been brave and done it. I hadn’t.

My dog walk had been canceled due to diarrhoea (the dog) and left with a free day I had no excuses. I decided on it in the middle of my second morning cycle ride of 15k (it’s a running deterrent) and rushed home to break the good news.

To Seth.

He went quiet and said 'ok’

Half an hour later Pete strides into my bath (literally) and says Seth is sobbing on his stairs as Evie is using the phone. Instantly I knew this meant he was upset about his uniform, cos I can read that little brain I made like a book.

So I go and find him and extract the whole story which comes down to the fact that if he has to go out he has to arrange his day accordingly. Now Seth is like me. His friends mean everything to him. A day isn’t a good day unless he’s crammed in some kind of communication with as many as he can. I am the same, so I get that. He’s not upset about the uniform but he is upset he has to spend 2 hours of his day alone with me and his sister.

I sort the phone problem, explain how he has to do this, that I will make it as fun as I can, but really he can crawl down from his room and expose his skin to day light for at least one afternoon this week. Reluctantly he agrees, after all he is grateful I sorted out his social arrangements for the day.

Because of his complex timetable it really looked like Hillary was going to have to be visited late. 'Great’ I think ’ I can get in a sneaky tea at Costa. Saves me cooking and a bit of fun at the end of the day’

So at 4pm I announce the hour is upon us.

Audible groans from both children.

First time I called nicely, second time I was terse. The third time I screamed like a banshee.

Seth came tearing down the stairs in abject horror of feigned surprise he was having to do this. We were not off to a good start.

He stood in the lounge bewildered, so I told him to put on his socks and shoes. He is almost 12. I am almost exasperated.

So he has to climb back up two flights of stairs to get his damn socks.

He can’t get them on it seems as his feet have swelled during the night. I am making a point of saying nothing.

He begins to bite his socks in an attempt to stretch them and take out his fury on an inanimate object. This happens a lot in Seth’s world. I have seen him cut the seams out of his socks in fury before. Seth has always hated socks since he was about 6 weeks old. At two I caught him throwing them on the fire, menacingly whispering 'bye bye’. I have found them in the bin, stuffed down the side of his mattress. Hidden behind cushions. Then he always claims he has no socks so cannot wear them.

We got past the socks. Then it was the scramble for the door and him pushing past us all with him getting tangled in Evie. I separated them and got them to the gate. Then disaster. I had left my phone in the house. My phone is my life line. When they bicker I put my headphones in. This week it’s The Cure, 'I don’t care if Monday’s blue, Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too……’ Drowns them out nice.

Besides if Andy sends me a daft message it can be a life line of humour in a potentially disastrous sort of day. And he was feeling better and being funny, he was going to be essential to my utter survival. . but it would mean leaving them alone on the path for 2 minutes. I had no qualms about them being abducted, more that they would in fact kill each other.

Retrieving my phone I got them in the car. Alive.

As predicted, Seth starts getting claustrophobic, Evie wants music on she can sing to. This spirals Seth’s affliction out of control. He starts gasping and choking. So I just drive off hoping he sees reason by the time we hit the bypass.

He does when I just explode at them both. I shout so loud I hurt my throat. I can’t remember what I said but I swore a lot, said I had had enough and he could go to school naked for all I care besides I would be £150 better off. I would spend it on gin and a new pair of boots.

He said sorry, and meant it.

The rest of the trip was ok. Yes he refused to let me help him try on what he needed, besides I trust him enough to be able to know what feels right. Yes he swore behind that curtain that he couldn’t get the bloody belt done up. Cue tutting from another mother, but he sorted it all himself, and I did feel very pleased he had got it together in the end.

We even managed a trip to M&S and got his shoes, Tesco for food supplies for a celebratory BBQ with his cousins tomorrow (gin for my sister and I) all done in good spirits, but with the aftertaste of attempting to pretend to be good, like aspartame in Ribena. It’s false and so very wrong and not 'Kind’ in the slightest.

So when I staggered into the welcoming embrace of the long lost Christian, it was hugely needed and very welcome. We had our tea, I had my flirt, I felt better by a million miles. Uniform accomplished, two children very much alive.

So where does this end. If it ended here it would be a bit flat. And it so doesn’t end here.

When I got home I put something on Facebook and my friend reminded me about name tags.

NAME TAGS!!!!!!!!!

Dear God no. I had forgotten. I had even managed the shoes today but name tags?

And then the most Devine thought. A little voice in my ear reminded me that somewhere in the bottom of my Grandmother’s sewing tin were Seth’s name labels with a little green train on them from pre school…..

Yes they will be sewn in his uniform. I shall sew hundreds in his blazer which is large enough to last him to his final year aged 16. I shall sew them in all sorts of place he won’t think to look to rip them out. Because I am the sort of mother who always has the final word, who always teaches by example and will never tow the line. And that’s why my son loves me so much he has heart felt respect and therefor always behaves (eventually) so well. The feelings mutual on the love and respect by the way.

And one last musing from my mind. As I got it all out to show Pete I realise his trouser size is now one size larger than my own. His blazer fits me and so do his shoes. How did I manage to make another human being who is now bigger than myself? At that moment I felt lost. For all my self armour and bravado I was ultimately responsible for his life. I am crap at managing my own and some damn fool gave me two more to fuck up.

I guess as I sit on the side line of assembly, or parenting, or even this wife business that I just can’t fathom, I am still utterly me, messing it all up as only I know how. I can only hope that on my last day on Earth I have both those little beings I made hold my hands as I make a fucked up exit, leaving them both behind to carry on fucking it all up. Then my job is done. Thank you Hillary or Brenda or who ever you are for rendering my child to look like the general masses on the outside, but when he slips that blazer off it will be awash with his name a hundred times over.

He will always be SETH DUERDEN.

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Jake

Desperately hot after a couple of hours at the gym today, I showered and decided I needed something cooler than my almost uniform black jeans to wear. I began groping around in my death trap of a wardrobe. My wardrobe is evil. It’s ‘vintage’ which means it WAS knackered and someone slapped the wrong sort of paint on it (scarily it’s called Elephants breath and for some reason when I found it on eBay the seller felt this fact was a promotional point. Clearly it was because it sounded so sinister I placed a bid…..I was the only twat that did, hence I have a wardrobe that has clearly crept from the lower regions of hell) and it also sports quite a lot of chicken wire which quite happily rips into skin and fabric alike. When it’s not doing that the drawer slices off your fingers, the edges yield hideous splinters and it’s not deep enough for your average top shop hanger so the door never shuts. None of the clothes stay on the hangers, my clothes are in a tangled heap at the bottom. Abner loves to climb it by sinking his huge claws in the elephants breath so now it is peeling off so it looks bloody awfulI. It’s a foul contraption, but I like it because it IS so nasty. I relish my daily battle. I really do. It sets me up nicely for the school gate.

Anyway, I was rummaging about, getting snagged and stabbed when I found my Paisley trousers.

I haven’t seen them in a long time, and they made me smile. I bought them in Oxford when I was just 16. There was this guy walking about pushing a clothes rack full of hippi clothes. On it were my trousers. I bought them. I loved them. I wore them a lot.

Now the next summer my sister had met this guy at Ascot car boot. He had a music stall and she had got chatting to him when she had gone back along this row he was in to get a picture frame she had seen. She had started seeing him. All I knew of him was his name was Jake.

Now this is when two coincidences happened. My sister had told me to look by his stall one Sunday and say hello. I had no idea what he looked like at all only he had a music stall. I saw this guy, he was hugely tall, long blonde hair and bloody hell he had on a Paisley shirt which matched my trousers (which I was wearing). So I walked up and said 'are you Jake?’ He looked at me and giggled and said he was and nice choice of trousers, I complimented him on his shirt and said who I was. Then he made me a cup of tea from his camper van. Jake and tea just went together. He spent years then after making me tea, but that was the first one.

Now the second coincidence happened. Sat down on a blanket by his van was Andy, now Andy was a guy I knew from South Hill Park. He worked in the little music shop with my friend Dean. It seemed he was a friend of Jakes. Somehow, well it was all a bit odd really, it all felt inevitable.

And so began Sunday’s at Ascot car boot. My sister selling books to help pay her way through uni, Jake and his music, stopping by for a cup of tea and smoke… There were always other friends stopping by too. Jake seemed to know a lot of interesting people. They were happy Sundays.

Now Jake. I need to describe him. He was tall, but his personality was taller. His laugh absolutely infectious. He had such a presence. I never knew him sad, he was always happy, incredibly laid back, always drinking tea and always terribly amused about everything. Particularly me, he seemed to find his girlfriends little sister delightfully daft. He had a whole load of silly nicknames for me, 'Katie Country Mouse’ was the most common one, he felt I was terribly sweet and naive, he knew it annoyed me, he’d call me that and giggle. I never minded, it was Jake.

He was a raging hippi. He had a collection of daft hats. He would put them on and sing 'My Hat’ by 'The Magic Mushroom Band’ He wrote and played pretty awesome music himself. I lost track of all the stuff he did, but when I first knew him he was Paper House, Optica and Optic Eye, he did loads of other stuff. His flat in Weybridge was always full of friends, all very different and interesting. Pete and I were always welcome, often we would kip on his sofa, too tired and stuff to go home.

Jake was 9 years older than I was, so when I first met him he was 27. It seemed very grown up. I was 18 and still at school. To say he was eccentric is an understatement, he wore very bright loud clothes, big knitted jumpers, boots… And he was so happy with who he was. I absolutely adored him.

Over the next few years obviously he just became part of the family. I won’t deny he was exhausting. A day spent with Jake, all his jokes, his high octane energy and you were almost floored for a day. His jokes were something else.

One afternoon at the garden centre over the tannoy came the announcement there was a call for the manager of the pet department so I went to the phone by the kitchens and took it. It was a customer wanting some advice. They were after an animal that would live in their garden, could I recommend anything. I went through everything from rabbits, to guinea pigs, to tortoises, but none of them were right. 'This is a tricky customer’

He said 'no nothing like that. I want something that will ROAM around my garden like a giraffe’ there came a stifled giggle. 'JAKE! YOU BASTARD!’ I yelled down the phone and slammed the hand piece back in the cradle. That started a whole torrent of silly phone calls that had my colleagues in stitches. This sort of thing was typical. He called my gran (nana) 'Banana’ and she hated it (but it was funny) and he drove my mum potty.

We were always welcome round all of Jakes friends houses too, and he knew some whacky people. There was one guy who kept pet eels. He had lots of fish tanks, and I was fascinated with the weird and wonderful things he kept. He had crickets living in his fire place and some really weird dressed up mannequins dotted about. He claimed there was a poltergeist in his house, he was really serious about it. I remember he bought me a really dodgey film for my 21st birthday …only he decided to give it to me in the middle of Ascot carboot. He was waving it above his head down the other end of an isle of cars yelling my name shouting he’d got me dodgey porn featuring food. I was with my dad. That is what Jake’s friends were like.

He played a lot of gigs down in Brighton, he played one year at Glastonbury, it was some kind of Eco tent, he needed people to ride a stationary bike so he could get the leccy to play. The sod made me pedal for hours with the promise of a mug of tea and some food. That year Pete and I were broke, we had bunked over the wall, we had no food or money. We were happy to starve for three days, or so we thought, but the lure of a meal and I peddled like billio. Was the best Jake cup of tea EVER.

Another night I drove the four of us to a party. In my rusty old Nova. Jake was on directions, I was galloping down the A3 when he screamed 'LEFT TURN LEFT!’ there was no turning at all and I sort of skidded into what looked like a tiny lay by, only it wasn’t. Right there on the side of the A3 were a massive pair of impressive gates. I can’t remember how we got through them but we did. A huge sweeping path led up to this mansion.

'Park here’ he said. It was a row of incredibly impressive cars. And my Nova.

'Are you sure?’

'Absolutely’

He led us to this pretty cottage by the side of the mansion. We had a great evening with the gardener of Roger Taylor. I parked my rust bucket of a car right there with all of his magnificent ones. It was the Galloping Maggots finest hour. There was never a dull moment with Jake.

He drove a yellow camper van and often I’d sit in the back on boxes of records. One time I remember clearly we had all been on our way to a carboot. It was the night the clocks went back. We thought we’d been clever and got there really early, though we had been confused and actually they had gone forwards. We were two hours late. He laughed so much he had to pull the camper over. Think we turned round and went home.

For all Jakes hilarity he kept the fact he had epilepsy quite under wraps. I knew he had it as my sister had seen him having fits, but they were a rare occurrence. He never really spoke of it. It was never a big deal. I knew he took meds for it, but it was clearly well controlled.

My sister and Jake were together a long time. All through my first years at Brighton, but things ran adrift, times changed. It ended.

I was really upset. I was torn. My sister had done the leaving and I am terribly loyal to her, and Jake was in bits. I wanted them to be together, I hadn’t seen it coming at all. Pete and I continued to see him for a long time after, but he wasn’t the same, it wasn’t the same, it was awkward and difficult and he was terribly unhappy. I think eventually I realised I had to stand by my sister and let him move on, which clearly he wasn’t doing with us still hanging around. We saw him less and less. He moved on with his life. When we moved home from Brighton I worked a short time at a private vets and he was coincidentally seeing the daughter of one of the other nurses. I was pleased to know he was still around. We saw him perform at Guildfest he was doing ok, but I was distraught even then about it all.

Two years on I had had Seth. He was a little baby and I had gone to the carboot on the A3, and there was Jake, with his stall. It was so lovely to show him Seth. We chatted for ages. He was happy, he had just bought a house in Glastonburry, he was moving there at last. I hadn’t seen him that happy in years, he was so pleased to see Seth, I said goodbye and it felt good. And that was the last time I saw him.

Three months later my mum called early one morning. It was a cold January morning. Pete answered and she just said 'I need to speak to Kate’ without any of the usual chit chat she has with Pete. She just said

'Jake has died’

I remember looking at the microwave door, for some reason, the cold hard metal. 'how?’ I asked feebly, already crying.

'He had a heart attack during a fit. He was on his own’

I don’t think I can describe the grief I felt. It was confusing as really he had exited our lives a long time ago. But this was really it. The end. I knew I had to be careful with my feelings. My sister was now married to lovely lovely Simon, they had had the boys, she was happy, they were happy. Me lamenting and grieving all over the place would be inappropriate. But as try as I might I was absolutely devastated. For about a week I walked all over Ash with Seth in his sling. He was 14 months old. It was a ring sling and he would perch on my hip. I remember his little hand patting my cheeks where I had been crying. It was the first time Seth had done anything like that, like he was turning into a little person rather than something I had to feed, burp and clean. It made me cry all the harder. I did all my crying out on those walks, not really wanting anyone to know how unhappy I was.

I went to his funeral with my sister and Dad. I felt so small. I was stood next to our friend Andy who is hugely tall. It was agony. When they carried his coffin in I swear I have never felt his presence greater. All I can remember was trying desperately hard not to cry. The pain in my nose was excruciating. My dad asked me what was wrong. 'Jake is dead’ I said choking the words out.

His family had just lost his sister 3 months before. I remember his brother cracking some joke about not booking any plane flights any time soon. I don’t know how his poor family were coping.

I left straight after the service. It gave me no peace, or resolve. Still to this day I can’t make sense of any of it.

A week later, out on a walk I met my neighbour from Holly Cottage, she was feeding her horses and she said she had finally sold her house 'to a girl you will love. She’s got a baby boy the same age as Seth’ she said. And I did love her, and still do, it was Coralie and Dave and Max (and later on Jack and William). It seemed as one door shut on one friendship a new one opened as often it does. Life would move on with or without my consent.

Over the next few months every time I looked out on the lovely view from our bathroom window, in my minds eye I would picture Jake walking down Harpers Road, turning back and waving goodbye. It was a silly and funny exercise, but it helped me say goodbye in my heart. I never do it anymore, I’m usually screaming at one of the cats to get out the lane.

And how did Jake change me? He taught me to champion myself, to dress as I like, listen to whatever music I like. He introduced me to so much of my still favourite stuff, Kristen Hersh, Throwing Muses, lots of it quite obscure. He taught me to laugh at myself, to have fun. My lasting memory of him is the sound of his laugh. It’s so loud still in my memory all these years later.

And all these thoughts went through my mind as I clambered into my Paisley trousers. It was a futile battle I had with my wardrobe as they were enormous on me. Seems I have shrunk a fair bit since I was 16. I could hear Jake giggling as I roamed around the bedroom looking like a clown.

Life is funny and precious and sweet. Jake died when he was the same age as I am now. I get to do the next bit, and he didn’t. He’d read this and probably laugh, point out all the mistakes roll me a spliff and plonk a cup of tea down and tell me to get a grip.

I loved him hugely.

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vaccinenumber9-blog · 9 years

Photo

Childhood friends, our last year at St Mark’s. I am front row far right, Andy is Middle row far left. Will middle row, fourth from the left. And Mark, the smallest of us just behind me.

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vaccinenumber9-blog · 9 years

Text

The thousandth mile.

It was September 2013 and Evie started school. After a decade of hanging out with my children I finally had some time to myself and whilst most sensible people would probably go and find a nice job, I decided that although we were broke I was never going to have this opportunity again to take some time out, and really you only live once, it was my last chance to do something beautifully self indulgent. I really wanted to challenge myself and made a list of all the things I couldn’t do. They ranged from riding a horse to rock climbing, all of them appealed but like I said, we were broke so I picked the one that cost the least…..running…. I couldn’t run AT ALL. I mean running to just the bottom of the garden would make me double over and retch and heave. All I needed was a pair of shoes and a sense of humour.

Now there is a very valid reason I couldn’t run, and really I should have given this a bit more thought, but I have issues about all of this that goes something along the lines of ‘I was told I shouldn’t so I shall’

When I was 10… In fact I remember it clearly…it was the day they raised The Mary Rose from the sea….in fact it started as we were watching it on TV at school, I got sick. It really happened in an instant. I was watching TV and my hands began to burn and sweat. I kept rubbing them on my school skirt, and I began to feel like I was burning all over. At the end of the day my mum picked me up, took one look at me and realised I wasn’t well. My hearing went a bit skewed too and loud noises would make my hands sting, it was really odd. Over the next few weeks my knees and my ankles began to swell, my elbows and wrists, I had a horrible fever and a nasty rash. With hind site now I wonder if that’s when I had Fiths as its a known fact you can develop arthritis after having the virus, and eventually I was diagnosed with childhood arthritis. It wasn’t so bad really, except I couldn’t run around much. My mum took me down the alternative route and avoided the conventional steroids and operations, gutsy of her and great. It did involve eating lots of celery, apple cider vinegar and eventually I became vegetarian, all of which helped and over the years it traveled round my body and settled at various joints then mysteriously vanish and appear somewhere else. Each place had its challenges, the year it was in my hands I had to give up playing the guitar, but being a kid, I got on with it, I sung instead and joined a choir and I still sing well today :) The final place it landed in was funnily enough my hip joints. I was 18 and it hung about for about 6 months then bam….it was over. 8 years and gone.

I was lucky. It left me with deformed toes and one cracky finger, most kids end up with dodgy hearts, the worst end up in wheelchairs, I was damn lucky and I am sure it was my mums gentle approach that made all the difference.

Consequently, sport was always never then going to be on my radar so seeking something to challenge myself and already feeling awesome in having got off lightly I thought ‘why the fuck not’.

What they didn’t realise back then is that if you are unable to run around as an adolescent you don’t lay down bone as you should. That coupled with a genetic predisposition to osteoporosis, a decade of breast feeding, chucking in a couple of years here and there of veganism, being very small…. Well all of it …..the odds were stacked against me, in short my bone density is crap.

Running 10 miles every day would take its toll as we know but back then I had no idea. I dropped Evie off at her first day at school and Jo took me out to buy running shoes to distract me. We were going to do Couch it 5k, the NHS initiative to get fat unfit people off their arses. Neither Jo nor I are fat, she’s pretty fit anyway, but I wasn’t …the irony being that it would land me in hospital, the NHS then giving me no help, mis diagnosing me on several occasions…blah de blah de blah blah, but it’s not really their fault, it’s mine for being such a persistent bitch.

Well anyway. We ran, we learnt to run and not only could I run, I loved it, absolutely loved it. It felt like I was free, I was flying, it was the only way to travel. Here today, in next week tomorrow.

I downloaded Runkeeper on my phone from the very start to track my progress, every run outside has been logged, mapped and and journaled. I stop and take photos, I make notes after every run. I love it.

Aside from my long winter break I realised about two months ago I was heading for my thousandth mile. Somehow considering I couldn’t run 10 yards and I had clocked up 1000 miles……well I needed to mark it somehow. Maybe I would run somewhere special, maybe I would just run my favourite route down Pound Farm Lane, maybe I would run in my Barbie knickers (that’s another entry). I was mulling all this over when I was pinged by my friend Andy.

Now Andy and I chat on imessenger, every day really, probably too much, he’s hilariously funny and lovely. We were friends as children, he got rid of me for a while but I hunted him down. I’ll probably make him a topic of conversation here one day but he probably won’t let me, aside to say when he Whatsapped me with one word which was 'Meh’ I knew something was up. He had also iMessaged me…clearly trying to get hold of me.

He was all polite as he always is…was I ok etc etc… Then he said 'I spoke to my mum today. Mark Cannon has died’ or words to that effect. Thankfully I was sat on the loo, ergo sitting down, and I think I had to re read what he had written a few times and I replied with something stupid like 'WTF?’

Now Mark Cannon was at our primary school for just the last year, but I had known Mark from way before then. My parents were friends with his when they first moved to Binfield, them and another couple. All three had babies the same age, there was me, Mark and Dominic. Dominic’s family fell away, think he went Eton, became a roaring success, but my parents continued their friendship with Marks. Mark went to a different primary school in the village, but we played a lot outside of school. His mum, Janet was just lovely and kind. She was very cuddly and I always enjoyed being with her. Probably more so than Mark. He was a troubled boy, I liked playing with him but he was really very serious and quite often he would take things the wrong way and I would upset him unintentionally, but he was incredibly creative and interesting, he was just really really different. He joined our primary school for the last year, he came to St Crispins with me and then the year after we left school he went off with the Dongas for a year. He continued with his art work and came home with some fantastic pictures and a book he made, when he was home he came round and showed me everything he had made, it was something else, his talent was incredible. That summer he was at his parents house in Binfield and I was working at the Garden Centre, he would drop in a lot, we hung out a bit…it was the year Pete was in Australia. And then I really fucked up and now, with that wonderful thing called hindsight bloody regret what I did.

He had really wanted me to go to this party with him and I was really unsure because I knew he was quite volatile and instead of just saying no I said I would, and then I didn’t go. To say he was mad with me was an understatement. I remember he came to see me at work the next day…he was fuming. I can see him storming off now, out the door and I just let him go. I guess I thought he’d be back in a few days but

I was to never see him again.

That year Pete came home from Australia, then I moved to Brighton. When you are young friendships seem transient and I guess it’s only with time you realise they really shouldn’t be.

Over the years I heard snippets from my mum as to how he was. He was a complicated bloke, he’d had his troubles, but he had sorted his life out, had rescued a dog and made a happy corner of the world for himself. His parents had since moved from the village, my mum had lost touch but Andy’s hadn’t.

So when Andy pinged me with those words my first thought was 'fuck no I assumed one day I would see him again, our friendship just wasn’t done’

Andy then told me what had happened. It seems he had died in a house fire. He had put something on the hob, fallen asleep…. Been overcome by fumes. A few weeks later my mum had spoken to Janet on the phone, she said his lovely dog had died too. All this had happened at the end of the winter but Janet had only just been able to start telling everyone.

I felt empty really. And angry with myself for leaving a friendship so horribly. I told myself I would never do that again. Yes you can fall out with someone, but it’s no hardship to just call later once it’s all died down just to say 'you ok?’

And how did this make a difference? Well I’m not sure if it was coincidence or something else but all of a sudden the St Mark’s Facebook page became exceedingly active. Someone posted up a picture, then someone else did, and all of a sudden there was an explosion of us all chatting. It was so what I needed to start finding my old friends. I stopped outside our now derelict school, plonked Evie outside the gate and took a photo and posted it up. I had tried to climb the gate to get in but Evie was unhappy with what I was doing. We left and that evening up went the photo. We all got talking, what if we could get in to have one last look. How cool would that be? I had taken a photo of the new owners contact details. William said he’d call. And he did and the owner was just lovely and said yes of course! In the mean time I began to try and find some of my other missing friends. I have always been in touch with Claire …had found Andy just after Evie was born, Andy was still friends with Will, had then found Anna and Barry and Gail, oh just loads of them. But Lucy was missing.

Lucy was my best friend all through primary school. She had left in her penultimate year (ironically it was her place Mark probably took) and we had kept in touch for a few years, but her parents moved to Devon, she moved to France and we lost touch. We had been so close. We had been friends since we were 3 and met at ballet class. Our mums were great friends too, we just got on so well together. She was just the loveliest kindest girl, I don’t think I ever found another girl friend to fill her shoes. She had left a gap, that was for sure.

Now I felt that maybe I could put something right. I could find her. William found one of her many brothers on the Internet. He was a GP. It was without doubt him, he looked just like his dad. It caused an uproar of giggling from all the girls on the St Mark’s site. Her brothers were always very popular at school. In fact a game had been invented that involved us all just squashing together in a corner of the playground just so we could squash up with them.

When Will sent me the link to her brother I was at my sisters. Now her brother and my sister were friends. I showed her his photo. She kinda half choked on her biscuit and said 'I wouldn’t kick him out of bed’ Finding our old friends was proving very entertaining.

So the next day I called him at work. He was busy with a patient (this was Daniel who used to fill up the post box with stones, this was Daniel who pushed my friends head into a mound of flour during a party game, this was Daniel who had started a food fight at my 7th birthday party and had written to my mum to say sorry.)

'Can you tell him it’s Katie Bunker. I’m looking for his sister Lucy. He’ll remember me’ I giggled feeling all of 10.

Later that afternoon as I was rushing to the school to pick up my own kids I noticed the answer phone light was flashing. 'Super!’ I thought, that will be Daniel, how lovely and delicious!’

When I got home I listened. But it wasn’t Daniel, it was Lucy.

I don’t cry much, unless I am ill or in pain. But I did then, but it’s the good crying that comes with happiness. And two things happened right then, when I heard her voice. The first was that I felt, for me, Mark hadn’t died in vain. I had found Lucy.

And I had found a part of myself I had lost a long time ago. A part of myself that was good and lovely and innocent…… Katie Bunker.

Katie Bunker. So buried and so hidden so she wouldn’t get hurt again. But she was there still all along.

It.is.who.I.am.

Andy still calls me Bunker. It’s one of the reasons he makes me happy. Not just because he calls me Bunker but because he knows who I really am, the me before life got in the way, the real me. Childhood friends, for that reason alone are absolutely priceless and golden.

And that’s how Mark has changed my life, the lesson he taught me.

And that’s why I dedicated my thousandth mile to him.

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