1988 - 1990 At home

Things at home obviously started to suffer a bit too, I couldn't hide all those detentions! I also couldn't hide the smell of smoke on me. My father used to smoke, a lot, but he gave up before I was born, so there were no other smokers in the house. My mother used to nag me constantly, but it just used to make me go outside for a fag! My father never really got involved with dicipline unless it was something really serious, when we knew we were in big trouble. His approach was to express his concern or dislike and then leave it up to me to use my conscience and make my own descisions. This is something I still admire and strive for with my own kids today.

When I was about fourteen me and a friend used to hang out at the local college student bar. We started spending time with people a lot older than us and met Cannabis for the first time. I remember my first joint, it was Sunday morning in one of the student bedrooms. There was a few of us sharing a good few joints. Not wanting to look uncool I smoked far more than I should have for my first try of the stuff. When I left I fell asleep on the stairs of the flats, not for long I don't think! I was meant to be home for Sunday dinner, but I was so stoned. I felt really sick and sleepy so I went home, told my mother I was unwell and then slept for the rest of the day. That's another thing I don't think she knows the truth about.

I hung out at the college regularly, smoking weed and drinking until I met my first 'proper' boyfriend. He worked at the college as a groundskeeper and was 18. I became cooler at school - I had a boyfriend who had left school, had a job and a car! He was a nice lad and didn't approve of some of the things I was up to so I calmed down a little. My mother loved him! We were together for about 18 months and we lost our virginity to eachother. That had been my idea! I think I was lucky to have met someone who although he was 18 was still a virgin. It wasn't the best experience but then who's first time is? We made up for it though and enjoyed a vast variety of inventive places to have sex.

It all came to an end when, after having a condom break, I had done what I thought was the responsible thing, and had gone on the pill. My mother eventually found my pills and all hell broke out. My father didn't speak to me for three days, I was devastated. That meant more to me than all the ranting and raving my mother did. We were made aware of what my parents had the right to do with regards to the law, and made to promise not to have sex again until I was sixteen. I was so gutted by my father not speaking to me I actually made it to sixteen and we only had sex twice. We broke up shortly after anyway, but I still see him now and again and he will always have been my 'first love'.

I din't ride again for a long time. The I started helping out on a small, local yard. I regained my confidence around horses but still didn't ride. Eventually though I got fed up with being the one left behind on the yard and started riding again. I would go every week for lessons and treks at a riding centre on the Quantock Hills.

On the last riding holiday I ever had I met a girl from near Exeter. I used to go down and stay with her occassionally. She was a bit of a Goth and when we went out she used to dress me up. It would certainly help get us into The Lemon Grove, the Exeter university club. It's amazing how much older you can look with all that crap on your face! Once we were on the bus back from Exeter one day. My father was coming to pick me up later. A bloke on the bus gave us some, well, it was meant to have been Cannabis. When we got of the bus we went under the railway bridge and smoked it. Nothing seemed to happen and we slagged it off quite chronically. About an hour later as my father arrived the damn stuff kicked in. I sat in the car on the way home off my head, desperately trying to hide the fact I was stoned. When cars passed us I kept thinking they were driving into us, I told my father I was just really tired but whether he actually bought it or not I'm not sure!

As with school I never did anything really bad. I never progressed to harder drugs even though at the college I had many opportunities, it never appealed to me. I just didn't come home on time, smoked and drank a bit. Nothing extreme, I was just a bit rebellious. My mother occasionally tried to ground me, but with a house like ours how the hell was that going to work? I used to just go out a different door at the other end of the house from where she was. I frequently told my mother that when I was sixteen I was leaving home, and her reply was that when I was sixteen SHE was leaving home.