Читать книгу Chloe Sims - The Only Way is Up - My Story - Chloe Sims - Страница 10

When Karen was pregnant, I remember panicking that it would be a baby girl and I would be the ugly one because, with those two as parents, she would bound to be gorgeous. My dad must have picked up on those fears about the new baby because I remember him telling me, ‘Don’t worry about the new baby. I’ll always love you.’

Anyway, when my brother was born, my dad was more settled and felt more sorted in life with a new house and things, so he decided it was best I move in with him. I know it was his plan all along, but he didn’t want to uproot me until he knew 100 per cent – which he did as this point.

With my dad, Karen and a new baby, living in a one-bedroom flat wasn’t going to be easy. I think Auntie Sylv was really sad to see me go but she was doing it in my best interests. That’s the kind of person she is – even though it broke her heart, she was doing it for me.

My dad managed to scrape enough money together to get a house in Beckton, east London, which was a cheap area and the only place they could afford. He literally spent every penny buying the house so we could be a proper family. I had my own bedroom, which was in the loft – right up in the eaves – and he took hours painstakingly decorating it and making it perfect for me. In my room, I had a double bed and a telly. I had finally got my dream – living with Dad and being with my new family.

Auntie Sylv helped me pack up all my things. She was a proper hoarder and never threw anything away so I had loads and loads of stuff that I had accumulated over the years. We put it all in bin bags and that’s how I turned up at this new house with my stuff – most of which was only fit for the bin, anyway! The thing was, I wouldn’t throw any of it away because that was how Auntie Sylv had brought me up. God knows what Karen must have thought when I rocked up with all that junk.

Despite having my dream come true, I wasn’t happy. My dad was working every hour to pay for this house that they couldn’t really afford. Karen went back to work full-time at the bank and my brother went to nursery. We had moved over the six-week summer holiday and I was due to start secondary school in the September.

I went to Brampton Manor in Newham and, when I started there, I hated it – I was different to all the other east London kids and I didn’t fit in. There was a much wider ethnic mix at the new school and I wasn’t used to it. It was really hard and took a while, but eventually I settled in and managed to make loads of new friends.

Finally, I was happy – I had a nice home, I liked school and my step-mum Karen was really good to me. Most of all, I loved my baby brother. I’d already looked after baby Frankie all those years before with Auntie Tina and I loved babies. I just wanted to mother him and I used to help Karen feed him and change his nappies. It was like having a real-life baby doll!

When I was 13, and totally settled at my new school with all my new friends, my dad announced that we were moving again. He had bought a run-down house back in Essex to renovate so we could afford to be back in an area where he wanted to be. Plus, Karen had had two more kids by then – my sisters Frances and Demi – and we needed more space. Also, I don’t think they approved of my East End ‘ghetto’ friends and wanted to move me back to Essex.

By this time, I didn’t want to go back – I was gutted about leaving all my new mates. But my dad told me he had bought this house in Collier Row, near Romford, and we were moving, and I was going to start all over again at a posh school called Bower Park. I remember he showed me the brochure for the school and then I really didn’t want to go there.

At Brampton Manor, we could pretty much wear what we wanted within reason, the uniform was not strict at all, but in this brochure all the girls were wearing blazers and ties and looked totally different from me and all my friends. They looked so posh and stuffy! How was I going to fit in there?

My dad and Karen had made their decision, though, and that was that. We moved just before the end of the summer term, and all through the summer holiday I was going backwards and forwards to Beckton to meet up with my old friends. I also used to stay a lot with my cousins, Frankie and Joey, in Bermondsey, south London, as well.

When the start of the new term came around, I couldn’t believe how big the school was – it was massive compared to my old one. There I was in a blazer that was several sizes too big for me, looking like a right idiot. And I had the shock of my life when I saw that none of the girls looked anything like the ones in the brochure.

Those girls had all been wearing knee-length skirts but in real life they were wearing mini-skirts and had make-up on and tight shirts showing off their boobs! It was my first taste of what Essex girls looked like.

On the first day, they asked a girl called Helen Woolf to show me around. She was really pretty and looked so cool and, although she was shy, she was very popular. I soon realised that all the girls were a lot more grown up than me. They were reading teenage magazines like Mizz, and on Saturdays they used to go shopping for music, which was something me and my old friends had never done. There was me thinking I was the cool one from east London, but really I was a tomboy compared to all these girls.

I quickly realised I had to change the way I looked but my dad wouldn’t let me wear short skirts or put on make-up. That’s when I got in the habit of putting on my make-up and hitching my skirt up as far as I could on the way to school, and then I would rub it all off on the way home and roll down my skirt. I’d be asking Helen if every trace of make-up was gone to make sure I didn’t get told off.

Then the bullying started. First of all, it was just name-calling – they used to tell me I looked like I had Down’s Syndrome and I looked like an alien. Unfortunately, their first impression of me was that I was ugly and it stuck: you’re so impressionable and sensitive at that age and kids can be so cruel. They used to sing ‘Spaceman’ at me, a song in the charts around that time, and they would write it all over my books. It was so different from my old school in Beckton.

One day, it was particularly bad – a boy in my class called Lee Hayton tried to set fire to my hair with a lighter. The other kids would be making fun of me and I’d sit there with tears streaming down my face, but they just carried on. I was in floods of tears every single day.

On another particularly bad day, something terrible happened – and, to this day, it is still one of the most embarrassing things that has ever happened to me. We were doing PE, as usual, and no one ever wore the regulation PE kit, which was basically a big pair of black granny knickers – instead, they used to wear black cycling shorts. For some reason, I had decided to wear white cycling shorts, and at the end of the lesson I realised I had come on my period in the middle of the class. There was a small leakage in the crotch of my shorts so I just stuffed them in the top of my bag to sort out later.

Next thing, we were in a French class and one of the boys – I can’t remember his name – got a metal metre ruler out, leaned over and fished my shorts out of the bag. Because I had taken them off in a hurry, they were inside out and when he flicked them on the floor they landed with the bloodstain in full view of the class. Everyone saw the blood and the whole class started shouting, ‘Eurgh, that’s disgusting!’ and making vomiting noises.

I just put my head down on the desk and started crying. Everyone was tormenting me and yet the teacher said nothing. I was so mortified. The next thing was everyone in my class told everyone else, and within hours it went round the whole school. What was even worse was the fact that the story was obviously embellished along the way, as kids do, and the cycling shorts became a pair of lace knickers that were now ‘covered’ in blood.

What happened haunted me for months – even to this day it’s one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

Through all this, Helen and I became the best of friends and soon we were inseparable. She is still one of my best friends today. I really looked up to her at the beginning and even tried to cut my hair like her because she fitted in and I didn’t. Eventually, I stopped caring about the bullies because I had Helen, who was cool and popular.

When the bullies eventually realised I wasn’t bothered any more, they stopped doing it quite so much. Helen was my rock – she was good-looking but shy, whereas I was more confident and we made a good team. We used to stay at each other’s house all the time and our likes and dislikes became the same: we were both into clothes and make-up, and used to dress the same.

I was never any good at school – I just wasn’t interested. I cared more about false eyelashes and fake tan. I had a problem with authority and I didn’t care about academic qualifications. I’d decided I wanted to be a model so I wasn’t bothered about exams. It was ironic – I’d gone from being a nerd and being called ugly to wanting to become a model. I was determined to prove them all wrong.

I told my dad I wanted to be a model and kept asking him if I could enter modelling competitions but he always said no. Then, when I was 15, there was an advert in the Romford Recorder for a modelling competition organised by the newspaper. My dad told me I could enter and I was over the moon. I had my pictures taken and the photographer told me I had potential. The results were based on a public vote and, of course, no one voted for me because we didn’t really have any friends or family who read the Romford Recorder.

However, as well as being told I had potential, they later used my picture on the front page of the Romford Recorder to advertise the modelling competition. That was it for me: I’d had a taste of it and now I had real ambition. I was far more interested in becoming a model than in being at school, and I never tried very hard in my lessons after that.

It was also around this time that I discovered boys and there were two lads in my year at school that everyone fancied – Danny Sawkins and Danny Emberson. Danny Sawkins was the fittest in the school; he looked like a young Ben Affleck. Literally, the whole school was after him and I tried to ask him out, but he wouldn’t go out with me. He called me a fuck-up!

Danny Emberson, on the other hand, was more of a bad guy. Me and my best friend, Helen, started hanging around with him and a few of his friends. I really liked him, we got on well, and we used to hang around together all time. We were too young to get into any pubs or anything, so we used to just hang around the streets – we called it street raking – and me and Danny would always chat.

I guess, looking back, it was flirting but I didn’t have a clue back then! We went on like that for ages and eventually he asked me out, but it took a long time to get to the boyfriend and girlfriend stage.

I think in the beginning he was embarrassed because of all the names I got called – I don’t think he wanted everyone to know we were together, but eventually he made it official. When he said, ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ I thought it was the best thing ever! I couldn’t believe it – I was the one everyone had called ugly and now I was going out with one of the most popular blokes in the school.

As soon as we started dating, the bullying completely stopped – he went round to all the people who had ever been nasty to me and threatened them! Me and Danny soon became inseparable. He had long hair and everyone thought he was really cool. But he smoked, which I didn’t like. My family were really anti-smoking, and my dad didn’t approve and never seemed to like Danny. I’m not sure why but I guess it’s because he was my first boyfriend. Plus, I don’t think Dad would have liked anyone I went out with! I guess that’s a dad’s job. He was just being protective of his little girl – no man was good enough – plus, he didn’t like the fact that Danny hung around on street corners. Only now, as a mum myself, I understand him; I wouldn’t want that for my girl either.

We dated for a year and we literally spent all our time together – he was my first love. On my 16th birthday, he bought me a ring and everything; I proper loved him. I would have married him, which looking back now is hilarious!

After we had been together a while, we slept together – he was my first – and I fell even more in love.

I thought everything was perfect – his mum and dad were really nice and always made me feel welcome at their house and Danny was the love of my life – but, while our relationship was amazing, my schoolwork was going downhill fast.

I started dressing up, always had fake nails on and wore false eyelashes, mini-skirts and heels. I didn’t care about school at all – in fact, I hated all the teachers and I bunked off a few times with a big gang of people. Because there were so many of us missing, we always seemed to get caught!

One day, a few of us had decided to skive off early and I went back to my friend Claire’s house. She lived not far from the school and her mum was out at work so we didn’t think we’d get caught. Unfortunately, the school had phoned her mum at work and told her Claire wasn’t there, so she rang home and started shouting at her. I was petrified she would tell my dad, who I knew would be absolutely furious, so we came up with a plan: we put a boiling-hot flannel on Claire’s forehead and she lay down on the couch.

When her mum got home, we pretended that Claire had been feeling sick and dizzy, and I had helped her home because I didn’t want to let her go on her own. We didn’t really think we’d get away with it, but her mum fell for it! We must have been pretty convincing because she totally swallowed it. She told me that, if my dad said anything, she would speak to him and tell him what had happened.

I knew he would see through it straight away if I told him, but he was much more likely to believe another adult. So I went home and Dad was furious. I was shitting myself all the way home because I didn’t think he’d fall for our story, and I was dreading what would happen as soon as I opened the front door. The next thing, he yelled, ‘You are in big trouble, young lady! You’re grounded.’

Being grounded was the worst thing ever – my dad was really strict and he was always grounding me and I hated it. It didn’t just mean I wasn’t allowed out, it also meant that I wasn’t allowed any contact with the outside world. I was banned from using the phone and he even used to take my telly out of my room. It was like torture – I used to sit and watch the buses go past because there was nothing else to do.

Anyway, on that day, I was determined not to get grounded so I told him my made-up story about Claire being ill, but he was having none of it. I said, if he didn’t believe me, he could ring Claire’s mum. I thought he’d say no and just ground me anyway, but he went off and rang her. She said I had been really kind, helping Claire home when she wasn’t feeling well. I couldn’t believe my luck – I’d got out of it!

So there I am all happy because I’ve been let off when my best friend Helen walked past my house, looking really miserable. I ran outside and asked her where she was going and she said she was running away! Her mum had found out she’d bunked off too, but she’d gone and grounded her.

I was so pleased I’d been let off that I hadn’t given a thought to anyone else. Anyway, the next thing, Helen’s mum – who was a primary-school teacher and quite well-to-do – came driving past and pulled up alongside Helen and told her not to be silly and to get in the car. She was saying, ‘Please, Helen, come on, get in the car and we can talk about this.’ It was so funny; she was saying it all posh and politely, totally different to my family. If that had been my dad, he’d have got out of the car and dragged me in!

It looked so funny – her mum saying, ‘Please, Helen, just get in the car,’ and Helen saying, ‘No, I’m running away,’ even though she didn’t have a bag or anything with her – that I couldn’t stop laughing.

People had started staring by this point and Helen’s mum didn’t like to make a scene, so eventually she said that, if Helen got in the car, she would un-ground her, and Helen was over the moon. We’d both got away with it!

I could tell Helen’s mum was none too impressed, but she still liked me because Helen and me were so close.

Although I never really bothered in class and was always being told to try harder, I didn’t go out of my way to get into trouble – things just seemed to happen to me! One day, I had got in late so I had to walk in via the office to tell them why I was late. Anyway, the ladies in the office told me to take off my false eyelashes and I said no. They kept saying it, but I was having none of it – I told them they couldn’t make me, I made such a fuss. I remember saying, ‘You can’t tell me what to do – you’re not even teachers, you just work in the office!’ Then – cocky little cow that I was – I told them that it was an infringement of my human rights!

They were none too impressed, so they went to fetch the headmaster and one of them told him that I’d been really insulting and called her a goat! Now I’m not saying I was in the right, but I definitely hadn’t called her a goat. There was no way I would have used the word ‘goat’. I was only 15 – I’d have said ‘bitch’, not ‘goat’!

Anyway, the headmaster hauled me into his office and shouted at me. He was so angry the spit was coming out of his mouth as he was shouting! I told him, if I had wanted to offend her, I wouldn’t have said ‘goat’, but that just made him more angry because I wouldn’t admit to it.

He told me to write down exactly what I had said, so I did. But, when I took it back to him, he wasn’t happy and tore it up and told me to do it again. I ended up doing it three times, but he still wasn’t happy because I hadn’t admitted to calling the secretary a goat.

I kept trying to say I hadn’t said it, but they wouldn’t believe me. The secretary obviously made it up to get me in trouble. The headmaster was so furious he rang my dad, and Dad and my step-mum Karen came up to the school. They sat them down and told them what had happened. Dad was livid and grounded me for a month. All over my false eyelashes!

From then on, every time I did any little thing wrong, the headmaster would get straight on the phone to my dad and I’d be grounded. It was awful! The older I got, the less I cared about schoolwork, though – I was more bothered about going out and having a laugh with my mates.

All through my last year at school, I was going for more modelling shoots and entering competitions, and I was even more determined that modelling was what I wanted to do. By the time I did my GCSEs, I had literally given up and failed all my exams except art. And I only passed that because I found some old art work of my dad’s and handed that in for my assessment. They were really old-fashioned pictures of bodybuilders and singer Kate Bush! I can’t believe they actually thought it was my work.

Around this time, I started hearing rumours that Danny had been seeing another girl behind my back. We’d been together nearly a year by this point and, when people started telling me that this girl Tracey was going round boasting that she’d stayed over at his house, I was livid. I confronted Danny, but he denied it and I couldn’t find any proof, so I decided that I would have it out with Tracey.

I found out where she was going to be one day and I marched down there and gave her a slap! I wasn’t going to have her going around saying she’d been with my boyfriend.

Over the time that Danny and me had been together, I had started hanging around with some older friends and going to pubs. I was desperate to go to clubs and wanted to go out drinking. Meanwhile, Danny was still quite happy hanging around the streets smoking. I didn’t want that – I wanted to get all dressed up and go out, and I guess I outgrew him.

A few weeks after I slapped Tracey, Danny dumped me for another girl. She was a traveller and I can’t remember her name. I was a bit gutted but it was more that my pride had been dented because he’d dumped me than that I actually cared.

I had been head over heels for him a year earlier when he’d seemed so cool but now I’d realised that, actually, he wasn’t all that. I guess he wasn’t the love of my life after all. When he dumped me, I’d already been flirting with a few guys I’d met on nights out anyway, so I suppose I wasn’t bothered for long.

Shortly after we split, he ended up going out with Tracey – the one who claimed she was seeing him behind my back. They later got married and had kids, and they are still together now. I still don’t know if he did cheat on me with her, though.

The time came to leave school and I needed to find a job. While I was at school, I’d had a Saturday job working in a card shop, where I got paid £15 a day, which is shocking by today’s standards and, even back then, it was a pittance. It all went on toiletries – I used to go straight to Boots and spend the lot on make-up and beauty stuff.

By the time I was 16, I wanted more money for going out – although my dad wouldn’t let me go clubbing – so I left the card shop. I asked Kelly – Auntie Sylv’s daughter – to get me a job in McDonald’s because the pay was better.

Even though the pay was much better – I used to get £60 a fortnight – I hated it, so I quit and just walked out without telling them I was leaving. That was what I did with pretty much every job I’ve ever had – I’ve never been one to stick at something I hate for long, if I can help it.

Next came a stint working in telesales, selling double-glazing, but I was useless at it. Some friends from school worked there as well. We were on a really rubbish basic wage and then we’d get commission if we sold anything, but I never did. We used to go down the list and find the people with the funniest names and then we’d phone and ask to speak to them, and just crack up laughing.

It’s no wonder I didn’t sell anything!

Anyway, after I quit the telesales job, I really didn’t know what to do next. My dad wasn’t happy because I didn’t have a job and he didn’t want to see me wasting my life. He was also worried about the group of friends I had because some of them smoked cannabis and took other drugs. I guess maybe he thought they would be a bad influence, but I had no interest in taking drugs.

Then Dad was offered a job for 2 years over in Majorca. The job was well paid, so as a family we relocated there. My dad organised a job for me before he went, which was working for a company that organised bar crawls.

Things were looking up again. Just a month after leaving school and still only 16, I headed over to Majorca to start a new life in the sun.