Grounded

Chapter 1 - Growing up in Barnsley

THIS IS MY STORY .
Please be kind 😅

Barnsley has my heart and my history, but it's also a place shaped by what was taken from it. An old mining town where change didn't arrive cleanly — it settled in slowly, like dust that never really clears.

If you've ever wondered what it's like growing up somewhere like that, it's not just the landscape you inherit. It's the atmosphere. The quiet weight of what used to be there. The sense that life once had more certainty to it.

My dad worked in the mines.

Born in 1963, he started at sixteen — still a boy, really. It wasn't a choice in the way people talk about choice now. It was simply what you did. Where you lived was what you became.

He fought in the strike like a lot of them did — not just for work, but for community. For normality. For something that felt like it was slipping away.

After that, he left — with no choice of his own. His whole livelihood gone. And from there, he had to scramble, to rebuild something from nothing.

My dad was one of thousands.

He eventually found work in the post office — steady, secure — and later built a small family business that lasted years. He did what he had to do. That's just how it was.

⸻

My mum and dad were together, but my dad was the provider, so I saw him little.

Home life was shaped mostly around my mum.

And in those early years, it wasn't heavy. It was warm.

My mum always smelled like Darling by Kylie Minogue. It clung to her cardigans and lingered in the air after she'd left a room — soft, sweet, a little bit glam. Even now, if I catch it on someone else, it knocks the wind out of me. Like she might turn a corner and smile at me again.

A good day was being picked up from school and going home for a floor picnic — sandwiches, crisps, juice, sometimes cake if we had it. We'd lay it all out like a feast. And sometimes she'd surprise me with a new DS game from town. She loved spoiling us, and I felt that love in every small thing she did.

She stayed at home, kept the house running, made sure we were fed and clothed. She was in charge — no doubt about it. There were rules, and you followed them. But there was also warmth in that structure.

Evenings were some of my favourite memories. We'd watch TV together — I'm a Celebrity, Waterloo Road. For a while, it felt like everything slowed down and we were just there together.

Sundays were quieter, almost sacred. She was religious in a quiet way, something she carried rather than performed. "No swearing, it's Sunday," she'd say to my dad, who had a mouth like a sailor. We'd laugh, but she meant it.

My dad would do the Sunday roast — the only day we really saw him properly outside of Wednesdays.

Weekends were shopping trips for clothes, then coming home and laying everything out like little hauls for when he got back.

I can't remember everything clearly, but I remember feeling safe.

⸻

And then, slowly, things began to shift.

It started when I was nine.

Just small things at first — things I didn't have words for. A feeling that something wasn't quite right, like something in the background of my life was changing even though nothing on the surface had yet.

By ten, I noticed more.

The perfume wasn't always there anymore. She was more tired. Snappier at times. The energy she used to carry — the routines, the music, the control of everything around her — started to fade.

It was subtle. Like watching colour drain from a photo without realising it until it's nearly gone.

She started forgetting things. Meals. Routines. Some mornings she wouldn't come downstairs. Some nights she'd fall asleep in front of the TV, and I'd be the one turning it off and checking the doors were locked.

And without anyone saying it, I started doing more.

Making sure things were done so she wouldn't stress. Watching her more closely. Listening for signs that something was off. Carrying a kind of worry I didn't yet have the language for.

I didn't realise I was becoming her carer.

Not in words. Not officially. Just quietly.

And I still loved her. God, I still loved her so much.

That never stopped.

Even when I was scared. Even when I was confused.

She was still my mum.

But I had started becoming someone who held things together when she couldn't.