My Sisters' House: From Kitchen Table to Women's Centre

By Julie Budge and Julie Walters

My Sisters'House - From Kitchen table to Women's Centre is a story of women supporting women, of the impact of pain, loss, abuse, and poverty suffered by women but also of inspiration, strength, resilience, drive, passion and determination shown by the same women. Julie recalls those childhood days in a '

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Unbound Press
• Release date: Dec 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913590147

Book preview

My Sisters’ House

From Kitchen Table to a Women’s Centre

By Julie Budge

2020 Women of the Year – The Barclays Woman in the Community Award

Beautiful. So brave, wise & ultimately uplifting, even if it did make me cry several times

Dame Julie Walters DBE

This book is dedicated to:

My Mum – for her strength, her love, the only person to truly say, How’s my Julie? the ‘can do’ attitude, the strength and entrepreneurial spirit she passed to me from the female side of our family going back hundreds of years. She would be so delighted that I have a book published. Herself an amazing writer and poet. Always in my heart.

Abby (not her real name but I know who she is) – A beautiful soul. Her fierce but gentle spirit, I hope, is in the skies. That’s where the soaring eagle flies. Taken too early, before we could work our magic and enable her to believe she was worth so much more.

Every woman who has crossed our doorstep to seek help or to give help has made the Centre what it is today. Thank you. Always. 

Copyright © 2020 by Julie Budge

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations referencing the body of work and in accordance with copyright law.

ISBN:

978-1-913590-13-0 (Paperback)

978-1-913590-14-7 (ebook)

Cover design by Lynda Mangoro, Creative Genie.

The Unbound Press

www.theunboundpress.com

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Foreword

Back in 2019, a letter arrived by post at my home address and Julie Budge entered my life. I don’t recall everything in the letter but remember that she was asking me to open a women’s centre in Bognor Regis.  Over the years I had been asked to support many charities in many different ways and at the time I was and still am patron to a handful that were in some way special to me. With each and every one of these there was something that set them apart, a cause, a person or a mere detail that got to my heart and the decision to support them needed no thought but was instant. Julie’s letter was one of these and it fulfilled all three of the above but there was something else, something deeply human, personal and touching about the letter. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it touched me so; the fact that she had started this centre with other like-minded women around her kitchen table? Possibly.

I’m often asked why I’m attracted to charities that deal with domestic abuse. I am also patron of Women’s Aid and people tend to think I must have suffered some sort of abuse myself, but not so. My father was a gentle and fun-loving man, my mother was compassionate and strong, and my husband is my equal. I am attracted to women’s charities because I’m a woman, I’m a daughter, a wife, a mother but most importantly, I’m a human being and I cannot bear the thought of a woman and possibly her children being trapped inside an abusive, coercive or violent relationship that she isn’t able, for whatever reason, to leave.

The day came for the opening and as I pulled up outside the building, a smiling, open-faced woman with clear blue eyes was waiting to welcome me at the door. Julie introduced me to a myriad of happy, excited women but my enduring memory was of being taken into a small room where a group of six or seven women of different ages and from widely differing backgrounds were sitting around a table with cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. In the corner of the room was Michelle, who was running some sort of group. I was invited to sit down at the table amongst them. As the session went on each of the women was gently asked in turn how she felt that day. They each used a colour to describe their mood and then went on to explain it. I wasn’t prepared for what I was to hear and I obviously won’t divulge it here, but suffice to say these women are some of the most courageous people I’ve ever encountered – survivor warriors – and Michelle with her quiet, warm strength, an absolute hero. Before I’d even unveiled the plaque, I knew why Julie’s letter had captured my heart; quite simply because it had come from hers and her heart is enormous!

Dame Julie Walters DBE

Introduction

It’s 16th August 2019 – I’ve spent the day with Julie Walters at My Sisters’ House Women’s Centre.  Yes, I do mean that Julie Walters.  She is our first patron and has sat with some of the women we’ve helped and listened to their stories.  In our hallway, she is very emotional before we face the VIPs waiting downstairs together.

I can’t help but remember how far back the seed of this moment was planted.  I’m about ten years old.  It must be 1975. The air around me is heavy with tension.  I press my face further into the pages of Anne of Green Gables to block out the sounds. 

My father is home – the air is always different when he is home, muffled sounds from behind closed doors.  I thought this was how everyone’s life was back then.  When the Navy whisked him off again there was more fun, smiles and sunny days – my brothers and mother no longer the target of his strictness.  The memories of those sunny days are louder than the others. 

We must have looked like the perfect family. Beautifully dressed and ready to pick up my father in Portsmouth.  There would be hugs and gifts.  He always looked so smart in his Navy uniform. 

I learned to numb my feelings to deal with the split between the times I felt love and the half of my life I did not.  After my father’s death in 2011, my mother told me what happened behind those closed doors, during her grief – blowing open my well-hidden memories.

I never wanted this job; I did not see this as part of what I planned to do with my life.  Yet looking back, I see how my life led me here – providing opportunities to get experience and knowledge that led me to where I am now. It must sound odd that I was never conscious of working towards a Women’s Centre.  Perhaps those famous words from Steve Jobs about the fact that we can only connect the dots in our life in hindsight is relevant.

Years working for Victim Support, running a Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) – I didn’t see that it would lead me to a place where I could provide a haven for women to find themselves, build their confidence and find their way out of difficult and dangerous relationships through the support of the community we had set up. I didn’t know that I would meet Abby (not her real name) and hundreds of women like her. Some we could save, some we could not.

Chapter One: The Beginning

I guess we can all reflect on those early young adult days with that lovely feeling that life is in front of you. I boarded the train to Canterbury in Kent with such excitement. I was 18, with the world laid before me and anything was possible, as I embarked on a student nurse career. I was only in that role for a year when I failed a practical exam three times and that was it, out. Career finished. It left me with a great sense of failure and for a few years I was totally unfocused and attempted a mishmash of roles. Not very memorable. 

Then I decided one day to volunteer as a Special Police Constable in Portsmouth every Friday and Saturday night.  In those days you played a major role, and I experienced so much that gave me a buzz, but also gave me some very fearful moments and I saw some traumatic scenes. It was that experience, though, that opened the next door.

I secured a job as Scheme Co-ordinator in July 1991 when I was 26 years old, to set up a new Victim Support Scheme in Havant/Cosham. I got the job, I think, because I shared so much passion in the interview. I remember talking about the plight of women victims. I had gained real insight on the nightshifts and I talked a lot about my experience. That was a moment when an individual gave me a chance. The first day sitting in what was like a broom cupboard in Leigh Park Community Centre with a desk, chair and no window, I thought how lucky I was to be given such an amazing opportunity to prove myself. I was young, single, career focused and devoted. What followed was an incredible seven years. I supported hundreds of victims of crime, including families of homicide, road death, suicide and victims of abuse and rape.  I recruited and trained dozens of volunteers. I raised thousands of pounds and skilled-up to be recognised nationally in the Victim Support world.  One of my most vivid memories was learning so much more about domestic abuse, as I was based in a building where we worked next to the office of the then Havant-Leigh Park Refuge Office. I often sought much needed advice and a listening ear from the amazing ladies in that office. Happy confident days. 

In those days, I started my day by going into three police stations each morning to collect victims of crime details – vastly different to what happens now in the Victim Support world, but then it was quite innovative. These days they are far more regional, and the referrals come in remotely into central offices and are then sent out to local schemes – far less face to face communication with local Police Officers. I was taken under the wing of an amazing Police Inspector who was utterly passionate about victims and so helped me gain access and I became very well known in the area. 

My outstanding drivers then were images I had seen. I was asked to see a woman who was being stalked and harassed – a home visit. The house was just totally horrific, stripped of everything to fuel a drug habit, it left only the very basics. The woman had a history of all forms of abuse that went back to childhood. She now lived in an abusive relationship. The image that is fixed in my brain is a picture I saw drawn by a child on a side table – they had drawn the earth beautifully but written across it, ‘I hate my life’. I looked at it, as the mum sobbed uncontrollably about being so cold and hungry. Two children sat on the floor. There were faeces, urine, needles, blood and rubbish next to the mattress on the floor. There was no bedding. The youngest had a nappy on that almost reached the floor when he stood up as it was so full of urine. I realised then that behind closed doors the unimaginable was happening; that injustice was ripe. Inadequate services and her hopelessness made it a massive wall to get over. Her history, her life, her social circle, her poverty, her addictions and her fear – of the abuse, of not getting her drugs, of injury or death, that she would not be believed and most of all fear that her children would be removed. No-one had ever really helped her. They had never stayed for long. She had no role models. She was part of a vicious circle of deprivation.

Another time, a father’s face as we arrived at the Crown Court case to give evidence after the murder of his 16-year-old daughter – killed by her 19 year old boyfriend. The fear, pain, loss – it was overwhelming. It was etched across his face. It took the biggest strength from my deep soul to not turn around and go home. That would have been easier, but not the right thing to do. I learnt so much about inner strength, about listening, about being needed.

By the time I left the scheme it had dramatically grown and merged with Portsmouth Victim Support. We moved into the Lodge of Alexandra Park. If I could sum up those days, I would say it was the best grounding ever in developing and leading people, managing a charity and myself. The overriding thing I observed every day was the injustice, the inequality, the pain and suffering of women. Real life moments of seeing the incredible never-ending resourcefulness and strength of women, and the lost souls. How many times I sat in my car crying; I do not know. One thing for sure was that I was driven. Absolutely driven, with a brain that absorbed everything and anything. The central focus was always the women I met.

After seven years, I rather spontaneously one day just applied for a CEO role with Portsmouth Citizens Advice in 1998. I was very career focused and committed. I knew after completing a part-time degree and doing lots of personal development stuff that I was a developer, an ideas sort of person. Once something was up and running, I began to feel less motivated. I guess the timing was right. At 33 years old I secured the job and took over from a CEO who had served in the role for 25 years. It proved to be a challenge – a steep learning curve. I fine-tuned my fundraising skills during these days and raised £850,000, securing Service Level Agreements and managed many staff and volunteers. I loved the CAB world and it taught me many skills and increased my awareness. But I had some hard, challenging staff issues too, which made me doubt my ability and resulted in some niggling self-criticism moments. Working with people always has its challenges and that never changes. It is how I react that has changed.

At the end of the decade, I met my amazing husband to be James Budge. Although that is slightly wrong because I’d actually met him donkey’s years before – seeing him each year at a mutual friends New Year party. He or I were always with other partners and although we often spent hours on the stair step sharing our woes, many years passed with our lives quite separate. That was until 1999 when I unexpectantly saw him in the Wine Vaults in Portsmouth and in my rather ‘in drink’ manner, I shouted to him across the busy bar. It was right from the start. He and I were not in the slightest worried when I realised, I was pregnant just months into our relationship. I think at 34 years old, I thought, ‘What the heck?’ – in a positive way. Within a year, Lucy was born, we married, and I went part-time at the CAB – a bit revolutionary at the time for a CEO, but I just did a five-day job in three days a week. George made us four, just two years later. I made the big decision in February 2003 whilst on maternity leave. I decided to give up work, as childcare costs would be too much. I felt at that point, like many women, that juggling childcare and work was too much. I felt so guilty much of the time ‘handing over my child’ and felt that I could do training and consultancy freelance.

Over the next four years I worked as a freelance trainer and consultant. I earned a particularly good self-employed income from all the skills I had gathered at