Born in Liverpool in the days long ago when it was still in Lancashire.
Attended Southport School of Art & Crafts (dunno what it’s called now).
Worked as a graphic designer in Kirkby.
Got married, had two children and for economic reasons had to go back to work in factories when they were both five months old.
December 1969 sailed for a new life in Africa.
I was asked to teach art at a local girls school and I also illustrated for the National correspondence College. During this time I did lots of freelance work and lots of freebies for charities, friends, clubs and the mining company.
1977, husband decides he wants to leave and set up his own garage in the UK with an auto electrician friend. Bad move and with a year we were back – then divorced.
In 1980 I remarried and started doing my own work and selling it, though it was very much a hand-to-mouth existence.
I became ill in 1985 at the age of 40, saw a surgeon who insisted it was nothing to worry about and prescribed a tube of ointment! I went back to see the equivalent of my GP who had realised in the first instance that there was something seriously wrong. Seeing that it seemed pointless revisiting the same surgeon she said she would ask another surgeon friend of ours (in orthopaedics) to examine me. He did a biopsy and 12 days later I received the results – cancer – and as there was no treatment available in Zambia I was to head back to the UK ASAP.
I didn’t even have enough money for the flight home, but within hours a friend had lent me the money and two days later I was off. Other friends gave me cards to open on the aircraft and when I did so I found them to be stuffed with cheques – over £650!
Two months later I started my treatment at Christie Hospital – a radium needle implant. ‘Needle’ being rather a misnomer, as the needles resembled two inch nails.So ten 2″ nails surgically implanted to my rear end and to be left in situ for nearly six days, with me remaining immobile for all that time and visitors only allowed for one hour and could come no closer that the foot of the bed.
By the end of the six days I was quite badly burnt and when back home at my parents, had to have daily visits from the District Nurse to ensure the burns didn’t become infected. My three-month ticket was about to expire, but another friend managed to get me a one month extension. Even though I could hardly sit down, I worked like a wild woman on various portrait commissions, to try and make enough money to repay my air fare.
Now back in Zambia, still working furiously (being faced with your own mortality really spurs you on) everything was going smoothly until 18 months later when during a check-up my doctor noticed enlarged lymph glands and it was back again to the UK. This time it was more serious and I had to have the dreaded A/P resection. At this point I made a major decision – to leave my husband (things hadn’t been going well) and Zambia. I had with me half a suitcase of clothes and half a suitcase of art materials.
My surgery was in November 1987 and I realised that the UK art scene had moved on so much since I had been tucked away on the edge of the African bush for some 17 years. If I was going to support myself, I would have to go back to college and re-educate. I enrolled at Liverpool Poly to do a three-year degree course (there’s positive thinking) in Graphic Design, with a leaning towards illustration.
I was only just into my first year when, at a well-woman clinic, it was discovered I had carcinoma in situ of the cervix. More surgery at my local hospital in Ormskirk, but that was aborted because they discovered they couldn’t manage it on account of my uterus having been displaced by my previous surgery. They would just monitor the situation by regular smears.
By this time I had just met the love of my life and everything was going swimmingly, until 1990 when early in the year I started being unwell. On a routine visit to Christies they had done a smear, noticed the abnormal cells and referred me to St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester. More and more tests, colposcopy, cystoscopy and some surgery for bladder problems. All during this time I was suffering increasing pain in my lower pelvis and I could hardly walk. Even when undergoing the above examinations, I had to ask the staff to lift my left leg up onto the couch. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get anyone to pay attention – their only interest being gynaecological. My GP sent me for an x-ray on my back, saying he thought it was referred pain. I couldn’t get back to Christies, because I was still under the care of St Mary’s. I was desperate. Finally, in December, I had an appointment with the professor, only for him to give me the news I had carcinoma in situ of the cervix. ‘I know all that’, I told him, ‘I told your staff I’m being monitored for it at Ormskirk Hospital, nobody is listening to me, I can’t walk, I cant lift my let leg, your staff have had to do it for me!’ With that he helped me onto the couch, examined me and immediately went to phone Christies. That was Monday and there had been a scan cancellation on the Friday.
I went for the scan and also there was the professor and my consultant radiotherapist, Dr James. Scan completed they both came into the room with grave faces. My original tumour had thrown down secondaries, which had started to erode and fracture my pelvis. No wonder I couldn’t walk! It was December 21st and they wanted me to return on the following Monday to start radiotherapy with a break for the hols. I said ‘no, my son would be arriving from Hong Kong on Sunday and here for just four days over Christmas, after we have taken him to Manchester airport on Thursday, I’ll come straight in’. As I had already gone the best part of the year in pain, they were in agreement and so on 27th December I started four weeks of radiotherapy, went home on the Friday and back again on the Sunday for some more surgery next day. Out again and to my partner’s in Blackburn to convalesce, but on the Sunday I started haemorrhaging and ended up in Queens Park Hospital for a transfusion and nearly died (but that’s another story). Three weeks later I started five months of chemotherapy at Christies.
All this was taking place during my final year at Liverpool. The staff on the radiotherapy ward was amazing and let me use the Interview Room to write up my notes for my dissertation and although my practical work suffered, I got a 1st for my dissertation and graduated on schedule in 1991.
It took me a long time to recover, but I worked for a Blackburn company until my retirement in 2005. Sadly my precious partner died very suddenly just a few minutes into the new year of 2007. I now have my 91 year-old mother with Alzheimer’s living with me.
In 2009 I was randomly selected to appear on the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square as part of the sculptor, Antony Gormley’s project, One and Other. You can still see me via this link
I made a plaster cast whilst up there, spoke about my causes and threw/gave away over 30 of my prints and two originals, each of which had a charity or cause on the back, in the hope the recipient would donate to that cause. One of my causes is that of HIV/AIDS and so I also threw off condoms and literature on the subject.
You can listen to my pre plinth interview at:
http://film.wellcome.ac.uk:15151/mediaplayer.html?0056-0000-5352-0000-0-0000-0000-0&aud=1
