What's Your Story? Kinship Carers: What's Your Story?

By Writing on the Wall

The work contained in this book was written by four Grandmothers, or Kinship Carers, who look after their grandchildren. They attended a ten-week Creative Writing course during the summer of 2014. This is writing coming straight from the hearts of women who are living through harsh experiences. Their aim is to support other Kinship Carers by giving them insight, guidance and inspiration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writing on the Wall
• Release date: Sep 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502276179

Book preview

What’s Your Story?

CAMHS NANS

Contents

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Foreword       i

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Why Am I Here Today?      1

Worry Is        13

Item of Clothing        19

Changes I'd Like To See      29

Positives        41

If I Won The Lottery       49

Letter To A Friend        55

Grandchildren's piece      63

Collaborative Pieces       69

Foreword

I lived with my nan, a feisty Irish woman, for many years when I was a child. She was one of the most important people in my life, and I still think about her often. It was her kindness I admired, and her refusal to let life get her down. From observing her, one thing I know for sure, is no matter what happens in our lives the only thing we have control of is how we react to those things. In that respect, this is a book about life choices, about how you choose to feel inside when the unthinkable happens, and, ultimately, about the positive impact one person can make on another person’s world.

Some of the work presented here is painful to read; some of the work is inspirational, some pieces will make you laugh.

There are people who have made a real difference to the four Grandmothers, which was encouraging to hear. What needs to be heard too is the injustice contained within these pages, people being let down, and ignored, by systems that were supposedly put in place to help them. That matters, because people matter.

I would like to thank Marge, Kathy, Bernadette and Julie, for sharing their experiences with me, for working hard to write their pieces, resulting in this important book in which their voices can at last be heard. Thanks to their grandchildren, for their thoughtful contributions.

To Mike, Madeline, and Rosa, and all at Writing on the Wall, for championing these unheard voices.

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Debbie Morgan

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Why Am I

Here Today?

Marjorie Jones

I have always wanted to write a book on the situation we found ourselves in rearing four Grandchildren which were taken away from my daughter Johanna by Social Services. The pain and experience I have had from this journey, as I call it, needed to be told. I tried on my own to do it, went to a writing course, and it did nothing for me. We just talked about writers and nothing else, most of the group stopped going, but I stayed to get my money’s worth, then put in a complaint about how bad the group tutor was.

Hazel, our support person in CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) found this group and writer, and I was over the moon. I am here today to try and write the book about my daughter’s life, and how she lost her children, taken away by Social