Читать книгу Sour: My Story: A troubled girl from a broken home. The Brixton gang she nearly died for. The baby she fought to live for. - Tracey Miller - Страница 6

They call me Sour. The opposite of sweet. Shanking, steaming, robbing – I did it all, rolling with the Man Dem.

I did it because I was bad. I did it because I had heart. And the reason I reckon I got away with it for so long? Because I was a girl.

Sour was my brand-name. How should I put this? I was quite influential round my endz. In my tiny, warped world, where rude boys were the good boys and exit routes non-existent, I was top dog. I want to give people outside the lifestyle some insight into lives like mine. I want parents to think about what their kids really get up to. For them, let this be an education, an eye-opener.

I want to lay myself bare to all the people who knew me when I was bad. I am not offering this as an excuse. I’m offering an explanation.

Above all, for all the youngers like me, the kids without a home who become kids without a conscience, the ones living the streetlife who know the thrill of likking the tills or steaming a shop, the young bucks who don’t need to be told how easily a blade slides out of punctured flesh, let this be a warning.

Youth workers could argue I had no chance. Politicians could blame my parents. Others might say the choices I made were mine and mine alone. Maybe they’re all right.

Me? I think badness is genetic. With a manic depressive for a mother and a convicted rapist for a father, I ain’t never gonna be Little Bo Peep.

So this is my story, the real story of how I fell down the rabbit hole of gangland. There are no real excuses. I did what I did and I live with what happened. I have a lot to be thankful for.

The hard part is not working out where it all went wrong. The hard part is making it right.