Bloody Marys …. five please. Lime for ice and soda and bananas toasted in honey and cinnamon… Pomegrnate for salads and lemons full of sorbet…. yummy ,,,,

What does freedom mean to you?

Freedom as an idea has often been a psuedo political idea, a male idea of ruling society in such a way as provides men with power, money and autonomy to behave in ways that are ideal .. Freedom has always been inexpicably linked with revolution, war and every manner of tyranny. Is this really freedom ? Well it depends…

War and revolution to make community safe from tyranny or genocide is of course justifiable, It was an idea that I grew up to understand. That when a group are targeted and bullied and that turns to violence and genocide then to stand up agaisnt those responsible is a collective duty for freedom. This idea informed my ideas on what freedom is.

Having grown up in a matriarchal family, my introduction to living with patriarchy in society was a horrrific shock. It made me wonder if in fact women themselves are or should be a protected race ? That men so hell bent on their freedoms, their money, their greed, their sexual proclivities, often made the freedoms that just a generation before real men had sacrificed their lives for, fought against the disgusting tyrany of men and their women who tortured, raped murdered and terrorised an entire continent.

For me this male Freedom to rape, attack, steal, stalk and generally behave like barely formed animals started early. I found myself the first time it happened ( I was a very young child) thinking is this really what Freedom is. Being used for males, by males for their freedom ?

It has taken a very long time, many attacks. To lose everything from my childhood. To watch my mother die surrounded by people who gave no thought to arranging any medical treatment. One who used to make a show of telling me how much he liked her ass, one who had stood by whilst her husband abused animals, children and women. Yet so consumed with jealousy decided to blame her siblings for her failures to walk away. Seeing her, having been so angry at her rejection of her grandchildren and children. I finally saw that this was because she was not free.

For my biological mother the only freedom in the country was death. The amazing life she had lead raising my brother and I was wiped out by men and women who abused her, through jealousy and hatred. I would have rather she died alone than surrounded by the people who were the cause of that lack of freedom. Her male abuser refused to allow her to be seen alive. He and his children, waitied until she was unconcious to allow me to see her.

As she lay in his bed. He hadnt bothered to arrange for a hair appointment during her illness. Her nails were unpainted. This was the ulitimate indiginity for the woman who was very neat and tidy. The man who had called her a whore, whilst allowing her to raise his children. Sat and waited for her to die before allowing her daughter to say goodbye. As I took her hand and told her I loved her, that she was going to heaven and would be Free, I knew the hearing was the last sense we lose. I felt her squeeze my hand. Iknew she heard and that she died knowing that she was loved and special. No matter the state of the people surrounding her. ( My brother the only one with any sense of care ) I knew in that moment what Freedom is.

It is in part money, her Freedom when we were children came entirely from the support she had from her mum and the man who was part of our life, from Abu Dhabi. She died surrounded by tyranny. So much so that the sad excuse for a man and his spawn of spoilt children threatened to kill me at her wake. Whilst donning the jewellery that her partner from the middle east had bought her, a heart sapphire and diamond ring and other pieces. Freedom for them, theft, threats and disrespect.

Now as I reflect, I see that Freedom is really just living without tyranny and abuse. That in a G7 country this is far from possible is a damning indictment. I chose France as a safe country to live, because perhaps it is one of the few countries where the safety of women and children is paramount. Never again shall I feel Freedom in the country of my birth. No matter the compenstion for the attacks, the writing the blogging the books. Nothing shall ever persuade me to forgive a country that has harboured men who are violent manipulative racist violent abusers. A country that chose a rapist to work in child protection over a well trained competant women. A country that went from removing all traces of Jewish idenitification from my family for ‘safety’. To covertly allowing targeting of me and my family. Us never supposed to find out why. The cat is out of the bag. Freedom is living free from fear and tyranny. As i look at the photographs from my childhood, I see how far this country fell from those ideals. That Freedom no longer existed.

Constitutional monarchy is an idea that I have perhaps always wondered about. Yet growing up with a Queen, for some reason vicariously living through her glamour and values seemed not unlike have a distant relative, who was minted and liked to tell the world that it was good for everyone, that it was only possible with a man. that despite being the wealthiest and most powerful person in the world, that her family were disrespectful, ungrateful and spoilt adults. Whilst she worked tirelessly for the country, communities. My respect and admiration for her was met in equal measure with distaste for how the wider family behaved. The undoubted priviledge her position provided them, seemed to the outsider to allow them special permissions to behave in ways that I feel sure on a personal level must have been incredibly difficult.

When Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed died in a tunnel, I realised that the constitutional monarchy was more about the Church of Engand than one may think it is. The underlying tones of suggestion that he was perhaps not a good church of england christian. That to be a female, attractive, talented and confident meant death. It appeared to me to be a medieval spectacle or perhaps a faux Roman arena of warning women and people of differing faith groups in England that your death in lurid technicolour filmed and shared is acceptable. That wealth and faith outside of the church of england must serve its interests or die. This was a very difficult concept for me to accept. That the husband could fuck whomever he liked have affairs, yet the mother was to die horrifically without any protection filmed for the pleasure of a institution of men.

Then as time passed the children. Prince Harry who felt that on some level dressing as a Nazi was an acceptable expression of his freedom. Failing to see that his priviledged position meant that he was effectively condoning and making light of the slaughter, the biggest genocide in the history of the world. I wondered that a young man could become so wayward, so ill judged and insensitive to the country. That his Grandmother had served in that war and sent many men to fight for the end of the atrocities. That some things can be laughed at, but genocide is not one of them.

The invisibility of his mixed race princess and son. This man chose to attend an event for publicity, to watch black people perform in a choir for the pleasure of white priviledge. All the previous sniggering towards the black evengelical church tradition gone, now the mixed race princess was safely hidden away. the spectacle could be enjoyed in the romanesque slave performance manner, not one of them !

Then the choice of middle englands answer to a future queen. They shuffed their three children and parked them in full view a few seats away from a man that was photographed with a minor. A minor who in adulthood statemented being raped and traffcked to england. Whilst the Jewish man honourably committed suicide, the female accepted prison. The little prince hid in church, with children. The future king and queen took there children to sit with him. There they sat all of them. The grandmother dead the aristocratic future queen dead. Yet the child sex offender, the nazi uniform wearing man, the social climbing middle england woman, all silent so they can cling on to power and position.

Yet in that church, the outstanding feature for me was that rape as a weapon and use of power is used ( in breach of international law ) in just a few countries. Prince Andrew is the embodiment of that. Yet he chose to traffic an American child, Harry chose to try and traffic an American princess. With handmade Roman hair pieces denoting the wives of warriors, it was clear that englands constitutional monarchy condones slavery, rape, trafficking. The children in adulthood are tone deaf to genocide, the deaths of thousands of people during the second world war, the excess deaths during a pandemic, the use of foodbanks amongst the population, public servants commiting offences against women and children. As I sat on that rainy day, it was clear that this family of indulged white privieldged individuals repreasented all of the worst aspects of behaviour. Yet none were held to account. Unlike Epsteins honour, Maxwells acceptance, Prince Andrew the coward, hid away. The once brave warriors fighting for principles, or peacekeeping around the world, sat as cowards. Surrounded by men in frocks all to happy to benefit financially for these men and womens cowardly actions.

Quarter of a million people and counting died in excess of usual death rates in England. Yes the government provided financial support during the pandemic, no doubt the Queen would have heavily insisted of this for her country. She stripped her son of position and action for his invovlement with a child sex offender. Yet the rest of the family were happy to sit with him and bring children to sit with him, spending millions for a white male priviledged event carriages bumping along over pot holed streets !!  For me the person that represents everything wrong with this was without one shadow of a doubt Prince Andrew.

At nineteen years of age I took the considered decision to apply for the police service. My first thought was to apply for a force outside of England. I think possibly as it was a way of feeling impartial, in a role that I knew even at that tender age was challenging. This changed and I decided to apply to join the force area where I was born. I at that time considered that it would be a true test of my character.

Sixteen years later I realised that I need not have been so concerned about my impartiality, I managed this eloquently and with a keen sense of aplomb. However my intelligence, curious nature and complete and utter sense of serving my community, meant that for men (it was mainly men at that time ) this was a difficult combination. I was not easy to corrupt. I had no interest in marrying for ease or status.

When eventually my marriage to a violent officer was deteriorating. I closed down the home based business ( it was a temporary arrangement with two small children ) I returned to policing and resumed my career. It was however the point at which my entire life was stolen. The violent officer terrorised me, I was given an option to report what was happenng in return for support to leave him. This was the first of many lies that stole my career, my home, my posessions from my mothers famiy and my dignity.

How to reposnd to this ? I began to rebuild a career returning to business. I worked hard paid taxes and tried to build a life with some semblance of safety. It seemed impossible, yet the career went from part time work in a retail pharmacist to management of large teams in multimillion pound turnover retail stores. All this whilst threats, assaults, burglaries, criminal damage, threats and targeting of businesses that employed me.

It was just a few years ago that I realised that my idea of working until sixty seven and retiring to France was not possible. The visits by police to my company. Threats to kill me and a range of other tactics to try show that the country had not chosen a rapist to serve the community. The facts however are now proven and I was left with my career again destroyed. Stolen along with all of my lifes posessions,

So what to do ? I followed some gentle suggestion to write. Who was going to read it ? What was I going to say ? Was that a real career ? … University was the first step, then people started to read. I have just finished my first book. Is this the career plan ? It most certainly was not. However to be able to share with a world audience the importance of standing up against tyranny and violence. I may not have been the career plan ( I shall grieve the careers that were stolen ) It is however as much of a priviedge as the stolen dreams I once had. …

What was the last live performance you saw?

The location …Vienna. I stayed that the hotel that Wagner himself resided in during the latter years of his life. Now a Marriott, not the best Ihave stayed in nor the worst. However the history and chocloate torte were the reasons for the choice !

Wagners ring performance at Straatspoer was fantastic. In the central dress circle box, the view was exceptional, even if my Louboutins were removed ( style and glamour always has a price… pain.

These are my remembrances of the performance, Fantastic orchestra, a beautiful ring of h’ordeovres in the interval and the ending. The gent of the piece unwraps the female and they embrace. So this is Wagner. The Nazi party hijacked this work for the Nazi party. I therefore in an imagined ending to the performace pictured a blonde woman being unwrapped at the end of the performance. ( My blondeness partly responsible for this vision! )

But no the female unwrapped was a dark haired woman. I was somewhat disappointed. As the chauffeur driven car collected me from outside, I was still disappointed. Where was the man, the knight in shining armour ? Sadly missing in inaction it seems and even in Wagner the woman was dark haired. There is no chance it seems for blonde women… Great performance and fun weekend…. But still no man!

This made me really think about what community is. There is the community of family. This is more diffcult when there has been familial violence and abuse. It can cause invisible divides in famillies. Yet still gifts messages and impromptu visits all feature in my matriarchal role in the family. Yet then there is the sense of local and national community. In England this is a community of men and women and children with family heritage throghout the world. This community requires a strong sense of self identity and aside from language barriers, a keen interest in making connections with people who have a huge variety of differing family backgrounds.

Then there is what I do for the community of my own race as such, female. I do not heitate to call out actions that do not honour other women, encourage equity and set positive examples. This may sound perhaps as though I am being harsher towards my own gender community. Yet it is clear that real change and development in equality and equity can only happen when women see great role models. Can identify risks from negative patriarchal behaviours by males or females. Yet something more. I have written extensively about my personal history of gender based violence and abuse. How normalised and accepted it was, at times leaving me unsure whether in fact it may be my fault.

My involvement in the community is to share my experience, history. Not to make the sexual violence gratutious and perhaps sadly voyeuristc. But to try and identify why violation is, how to make postive decisions, what consent looks like. Most importantly to shine a very bright light into the dark corners of familial violence and sexual violence. So that the secrets can be shared and practices of abuse in family becomes as socailly unacceptable as drink driving, not wearing seatbelt and other dangerous negligent actions that place others at risk.

This has meant some suffering on my part. Some targeting. Yet commnity is about developmen , growth and change. As i transpose my proofwirtten first book ready for publishing, i realise that it is also about being part of a community. Albeit perhaps the outspoken challenging part of that community !!

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

I suffer with dreadful movement sickness, vertigo at height and sea sickness. So this job could only be for one day ! However when at night I sometimes take a moment to gaze at the moon, I wonder what t would be like to be an astronaut? I think the silence the weightlessness and the view is something I would not want to miss!

Sat watching the Coronation of King Charles 111, this is an interesting question to answer for the blogging day… The history of England, invisible constitutional democracy in action. The formation of Parliament and the progression to voting from just landowners to populous of the country.

Growing up the constitutional situation of women was changing, rights to equality in pay, rights to bank without a husband. I was aware that just a few generations before, there was a movement of women who protested for the right to vote in Parliamentary elections. This suffragge movement saw women detained, attacked and some martyrig themselves to raise the profile of their cause.

Why was the vote so important ? At this point in my life I consider that its importance was about a gender being consitutionally accepted in equity and equality. This sense of belonging and acceptance is both a spiritual acceptance, as well as the physical process of choosing a candidate and party with cross. Taking part in a collective experience of expressing a wish and choice of policies that align with the persons views and values.

Sat tapping away on the keyboard watvching the coronation on TV rain pattering on the window. I am aware that the there were elections two days ago. It is the first time in my life I have not voted. This was not by design, just an omission through food poisoning of all things !! However this right to do so, by birth and the sacrifice those woman made in suffrage. So without breaking the rule I was told, that was often broken on one side of my family !… yet those lively discussions all those years ago, prepared me for taking my first vote at the age of eighteen years of age…

Writing this blog, completing my first book, made me really think about direction, motivation in my life so far. As I have grown, it is clear to me that my life is rooted in Gods plan. My plans and timing have proven to be rather ill judged. Yet Gods plans and timing are always perfect.