The mother of all lies

Helen Naylor, 38, Nottingham

Standing on the landing at my nan and grandad’s house, I stared up at the faded photo of Mum and Dad.

Mum’s face smiled out from behind her goldrimmed glasses, but I hardly recognised her.

Since I’d been born, she was usually angry or shouting.

‘Silly girl,’ my mum Elinor, then 40, would scold me.

That was one of the things she called me.

Or ‘fat’, ‘ugly’, ‘stupid’.

It was 1987, I was only 4 years old and felt like an unwanted outsider.

Mum said I wasn’t good enough.

‘Why can’t you have beautiful long fingers like mine?’ she said