Cheryl: My Story

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‘When will I get them back?’ I moaned, telling her I wished I hadn’t lent them to her because I wanted to wear them that weekend.

‘The police took them away for forensics. They got splattered with blood. Could be six months.’

‘What? They’ll be out of fashion by then. Anyway, as if I’d want them, after they’ve had blood on them.’

I was 12 years old and by now I was well used to Andrew being arrested regularly for thieving and stealing cars. That meant the seriousness of what he had done this time round didn’t hit me at all until I saw the rest of the family just crumbling in front of me. Everyone was in pieces and it was so painful to see. Mam cried a lot. People were talking about sentences and prison, and I was lying awake yet again, worrying myself sick.

‘We’ll go and visit him as much as we can,’ my mam said after the court case. ‘He’ll not serve the full sentence years, I’m sure.’

I hoped not. My brother had been sentenced to six years and was being locked up in a young offenders’ institution to start with as he was too young for an adult prison. I’d be 18 by the time he was released, so I felt like part of my childhood was taken away that day too.

By now Joe had left home and me, my mam, Gillian and Garry had moved into a three-storey house in Langhorn Close, Heaton, which was not far from our old family home in Byker.

Once a week I’d pop over and see my dad. I’d either get a bus over to his new house, which wasn’t far away, or I’d see him at my Nana’s. There was never any formal arrangement in place or anything like that; I was old enough to see him whenever I wanted to. Whatever my mam thought of my dad after their split, she never tried to poison our minds against him and I don’t really remember my relationship with my dad changing that much; he just didn’t live with us like he used to. ‘Want to listen to some Level 42?’ he’d ask, just as he used to when he lived with us.

It was my relationship with my mam that changed more, probably because she altered so much in herself. Without Dad there, I think me and Mam started to become closer, like friends as well as mother and daughter, and it’s more or less stayed that way ever since.

***

Throughout all this upheaval I carried on dancing every week. Whatever was going on in the rest of my life I always smiled when I was performing. It wasn’t my way of escaping the bad things that happened at home or anything as deep as that; dancing was just a part of my life I really enjoyed, while the family problems were something I accepted and got on with, because I had no choice and that was the way it was.

‘There’s a panto coming up, I’m gonna audition,’ I said to my mam one day.

‘That’s nice. We’ll go and see Andrew after.’

I’d go on my own to shows and auditions now, taking buses or getting lifts from other parents, because Mam couldn’t drive and we never had a car. Sometimes I’d still be in a sparkly costume when we visited Andrew in the young offenders’ institution. It was like a kind of foster home, with a lounge and a place you could play pool, but I knew Andrew was locked in his bedroom at night, which was a horrible thought.

‘Tell Andrew about your next show,’ Mam would say. She never seemed to get upset, blame Andrew or ask him why he had committed crimes, and we’d just talk about normal stuff, as if we were sitting in the kitchen at home like we used to.

‘It’s a panto but I haven’t got the part yet. I’ve made up my own dance routine, though, and I’ve done a tape of the music for the audition.’

‘What have you picked, Cheryl?’ Andrew asked.

‘“No Limit”, from 2 Unlimited. I got it off one of them “Best of” tapes my dad got me for Christmas. You know the one: “No, no, no, no, no, no, there’s no limit!”’

I sang the words a bit too loudly, which made everyone smile. Then we said our goodbyes and went home to have chips and egg for our tea. With Andrew inside, life seemed a lot more simple, and once I got used to the idea of him being away, I was glad I didn’t have to worry about what he was getting up to or what time he would come home.

‘Good luck, Cheryl,’ Andrew said, and I told him I didn’t need luck. ‘Thanks,’ I shrugged. ‘If I don’t get this one I’ll get another one.’ My belief that I was going to succeed as a performer was the one constant in my life. It was not a question of ‘if’ I was going to make it, just ‘when’.