Jane
| I was born in Rochford Hospital 4th January 1970 at 5.05am and weighed 7 llb 3. My Dad, John worked for May & Bakers as a microbiologist in Dagenham and Mum worked as a XIBM machine operator. Both Mark's and my Mum's name is Margaret and both our Mum's have worked as Comptometer Operator's a big coincidence. Although my Mum's name is Margaret she has as far as I am aware always known as Peggy or 'Peg'. My sister Paula was born 20th August 1973, Mum, Dad, Paula and I lived in Eastwood. |
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My Dad's passion was growing Dahlias and a lot of my childhood memories are based around events in the Dahlia growers calender. I hated washing up flower pots a job that I hated and which I tried very, very hard to get out of. I loved it when my Dad used to use the Rotavator to dig up the soil and the smell of bonfires. My Dad grew Dahlias at exhibition level and was a judge at Dahlia shows. I loved Dahlia shows although there was often a long wait while they set up Dahlias on the stands and while the exhibits where judged but Paula and I were made a fuss of by the adults there. I remember 1 show where I was given the honour of pulling out the first ticket in the raffle which was funnily enough my own!I also used to love the Tombolla where you had to have a try and find a number with a 5 or a 0 to win a prize. |
| I entered a Dahlia show once and I remember being really excited when I won 1st prize of 20p, even though my Dahlias were the only exhibit in that class. I wanted to be a Dahlia judge like my Dad. Some of my Dad's Dahlia varieties were very famous in the Dahlia world and still today 'Eastwood Moonlight' regularly wins at Dahlia shows. Mum and Dad also sold tubers and seedlings from Dad's catalogue of 'Eastwood Dahlias', I remember my Mum and Dad parcelling up all the orders and the polysteryne shapes that they packed them up in. I liked school Harvest festivals because Dad's Dahlias used to take centre stage in the assemblies, I was very proud. | |
| It was not just Dahlias in the garden Mum also grew tomatoes, runner beans and cucumbers. I liked planting the beans in the soil and watching them wrap themselves around the bamboo canes. Even today my favourite vegetable is runner beans. Mum used to grow 'Red Wopper' tomatoes which were big like their name suggests. What we did not eat or give away to family Mum and Dad sold, we had a little sign in our front garden. Sometimes florists would ask if they could buy some of Dad's dahlias but Dad always refused because when the petals died back the flower heads contain all the precious seeds. Both my Dad's Mum and my Mum's Dad were keen gardeners. Nana's garden had fruit trees a huge Victoria plum and a Conference pear tree. Mum used to make jam from the plums and also the fruit from fruit farms where you could 'pick-your-own'. I loved the smell of Mum's jam scented kitchen, whether thick or thin Mum's jam was delicious. | |
| We had a lovely big garden and which increased in size when my parents bought 'the field' from our neighbour which was at the bottom of our garden. Our neighbours breed Chihuahuas and Lhasa Apsos and was a pet kennels. Their house always smelt of dog, I cannot really explain it other than to say that it was very strong. One Christmas we were given a Chihuahua by our neighbour, Snowy (I named him) came to us because he was too big to sell (kinda 'runt' of the littler but in reverse) his brother Tiny was so small he could stand on my Mum's hand. Little dogs yap but Snowy was bigger so he could do a proper bark. Although Snowy was not tiny he was still a lot smaller than most dogs but he was more than able to 'see off' another dog in his 'patch' even if they were Alsatians. | |
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Our neighbour also went on to have goats and geese, I don't know how it happened but Mum became roped into mucking out the goats shed. Paula and I also had to do it sometimes at the weekends, another job that both Paula and I did almost everything to get out of. I wish my Mum had done the same. When someone set light to our prefab down the field my parents decided to get some 'guard geese' as we could not have another dog with Snowy. My parents used an incubator to hatch out eggs from next doors geese. Unlike chicks that are cute when they hatch - gooslings arn't really but it was wonderful watching them grow inside the egg - you could see them by looking at the eggs whilst shining a light. And watching them slowly peck themselves out of their shells was a marvel. My parents still have some of these geese although they are now very old. |
| I used to go ballet classes as my body began to develop I was acutely aware that my body was not the same sylph like shape as the other members of class. After being absent with mumps it became obvious that I was never going to move onto 'points' shoes so I stopped going. | |
| I also went to Crusaders, a non-demonational Christian group (a bit like Sunday school but without the Church). I loved going on Crusader camps and trips. When I was still quite young, I remember telling my Crusader leader that I wanted to become a Crusader leader, which I did for a time before I went off to college. I went to the local Baptist Church if you listen carefully to the recording of my Baptism tape, you can here the sound of my sister laughing because I made a bit of a splash. I made a lot of friends through Crusaders and Church but unfortunately after going away to college I've lost contact. |
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I started having tonic clonic seizures when I was 10 and I went onto to be diagnosed with Epilepsy. Epilepsy has become a big part of my life. A couple of years ago I decided to create a website for people with Epilepsy. There is a lot of information on the website about how Epilepsy has affected my life and I believe changed me for the better, so I wont repeat it all here. Now there is Epilepsy Support website and an established online community with discussion forums and chat facilities. Hand on heart 'ES' is the achievement that I am most proud. Online I am known simply as Janey so it is easy to identify me from my posts. |
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Academically I have always been pretty much average, I wanted to become a teacher but it took an extra year for me to get enough 'O' level / CSEs (equivelent to GCSEs) so that I could study for the 'A' levels that I needed to get me a place at teaching college. Well history repeated itself as it took me 3 years rather than 2 to get my 'A' levels but I did get their in the end. 4 years later I qualified and have been teaching in the same school ever since. My curriculum area is ICT / IT and I teach a reception class with pupils aged 4 - 5. |
| I was lucky enough to meet Mark in my final year of my teacher training course. I was attracted to him because he was a bit of a 'sod'. I delayed telling my Mum that we were together because I did not want her worrying about me being distracted with my final exams rapidly approaching. Truth be known he kept me sane in those last weeks. I believe that distance either makes or breaks a relationship, the fact that I was working in Ilford, Essex and Mark was still living in Bristol did not break us. Mark eventually got a job near enough for us to be together. Our time together has been divided between here in Essex and Bristol where we were working on doing the house up we sold Mark's parents' house and his home in August 2002. This was a tough time but we got through it together. |
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Mark and I began these Baby pages after I miscarried our Baby, just 1 week ago. These pages are an early part of our grieving for our Baby. We added our own pages, just so that people visiting these Baby pages would have some idea of the couple behind the web pages. Thank
you for reading this and please sign our Baby
pages guest book, Jane & Mark. |