My Life From Cradle To 57

Okay, so when I was growing up I didn't have the best start in life.

I was born seven weeks premature, a breach birth and weighed 4lbs 3ozs.

At the tender age of 18 months, I had blood poisoning, which turned both my eyes and I had to start wearing glasses - or not, if it was left to me - those Pink National Health thingies. I bet quite a few of you remember them. Yep, thought so. Anyway, by the time I was seven, I'd had three operations, but they didn't correct the squint in my right eye. So, I had to wear a patch over my left eye to try and strengthen it. I used to cheat. If you move your other eye over - and you can, believe me - you can see through the good one. The patch didn't work, needless to say. So, at aged ten, I had my final operation. Improved a little bit, but not much. I'd be wearing glasses for the rest of my life.

In school they used to call me 'four eyes'. Kids are cruel. This made me really self conscious and a bit on the shy side.

I was also a slow developer. I could go swimming in the local bathes up until I was eleven, wearing a pair of my older brothers swimming trunks. Yep, people thought I was a boy.

My mom took me to the doctors, because she was worried I wasn't growing properly. He told he to take me home, and whatever I ask to eat, make it for me. I had weird taste back then. I'd jut ask for mashed potatoes or custard, and I'd get it, because I'd eat it all.

When I was 12, we moved to the tenth floor of a high rise, and the air up there gave me an appetite. I started gaining weight….and gaining and gaining. That's where my troubles began.

I wear glasses, so I'm four eyes. I gained weight, so I'm a fat cow. I was never that cruel to others, was I?

Add to this that I hated my surname….Hillman, with a vengeance and swore when I was old enough, I'd pay to have it change.

Silly girl.

The boys teased me something rotten. I became introvert, shy and withdrew into a world of puppets.

I got into Thunderbirds. I started a scrapbook. Entered competitions. Got lost in my own fantasy world. I was devastated when I lent my scrapbook to a friend and someone took it from his desk. Never again.

But too soon we grow up, grow out of it. But then I had Garrison's Gorillas and Brendan Boone. Mmm, what a hunk! I remember, I wanted to put a poster of Brendan on my wall, and my dad wouldn't let me. But I eventually talked him into it [don't ask me to explain, it would open a can of worms that couldn't be closed] I had to put it behind my door so that it couldn't be seen, only by me. Fine, I sat in bed and ogled him.

When I was just seventeen, I joined the W.R.N.S. and was sent off to HMS Dauntless in Reading, Berkshire, for eight weeks training. I didn't want to go. My dad 's idea, not mine. I hated it to the extent that after two weeks, and being really homesick, I took sixteen Paracetamol tablets in desperation. I thought it would kill me - I just slept for 6.30pm to 7am - glad it didn't.

I survived training and went to HMS Pembroke to be trained as an Accountant. Six weeks there, with all those sailors. A girl is spoilt for choice.

I must admit, it brought me out of my shell a bit, but put me wise to men - or some of them - they are out for what they can get. But not from me. The word soon spread around that I'm 'not that kind of girl'.

Just because some W.R.N.S. were known as 'ground sheets', didn't mean they could add me.

When I finished my training at Chatham, I was sent to HMS Collingwood near Fareham, in Hampshire. My first Home Base.

It was all new to me. A Dormitory with twenty women in. Shared washroom and toilets. But it took no time at all to get used to. I had more trouble spending my first wage packet - all of £8 - I wanted an Andy Williams LP. So, I went to WH Smiths [yes, they were around then] and I pondered and looked. Looked and pondered, and an hour later, I bought my first item from my first wages as a Wren.

I gradually got into the swing of things, work wise, and got to do the tot ration everyday for the sailors. Wow, was I popular. Not that I could give out extra rations. But they tried.

I was there about eight months and then I was drafted to Royal Marines Depot at Deal in Kent [about half an hour by train from my home] It was convenient for weekends and I was able to go home when I wasn't on duty. I enjoyed myself there, but fell foul of an older, married man. The powers that be found out, and I was drafted to Scotland and HMS Neptune. Could they have sent me further away, I ask myself?

They don't have ships up there, not permanent ones anyway. It was Submarines and submariners. A different kettle of sailor all together. They were at sea for six or seven weeks at a time. Under the sea.

I must admit, I loved it up there. It's where I met my fiancé.

In had fancied him like crazy for months, but he was after this girl called Sharon. She was shy and not interested in him at all. But he persisted. Then out of the blue, I get a phone call from him asking if I'd like to go to the dance with him.

Would I.

And I was going out with him for four years when we got engaged and a further three years when I left the W.R.N.S. to find us somewhere to live after we were married.

Mmmm. Not a happy ending, I'm afraid.

Three months after I left the Navy, he sent me a Dear Jane letter. No guts. He'd gone off with a NAFFI wench.

I sat in the bathroom, on the floor for two days, crying my heart out. I really thought my whole world had collapsed like a house of cards and I'd never be happy again.

Well, the years in between came and went. I had a couple of jobs. Seventeen years in a model train factory. Seven years working with Mental Aftercare patients. Then my dad died and I gave up work to move in with mum and look after her. She needed care 24/7.

Mum died three years after dad, and I moved to Surrey to live with my brother and his wife.

Then I watched Torchwood Children of Earth and the rest is history.

Fell in love with Ianto Jones.

I love and adore Gareth David-Lloyd.

I follow Blue Gillespie.

My life has been turned around by the above three personages. I am happy and contented for the first time in over 30 years.

Thanks you, from the bottom of my heart.

I have very dear friends who I love and adore and I have just started fund raising for Sex Wales & Anarchy 4. I am having tonnes of fun.

What I'll be doing in the next few years… I don't know. Still following Gareth and Blue Gillespie, that's for sure.

I'll maybe write again 'From 57 Onwards', perhaps.

Thanks for reading….. Now go by something or donate funds-for-swa4 on eBay xxxxx