I was never close to my mother. I was actually brought up by my Gran, and only moved in with my mother when I moved into secondary school when I was 11. I became part of her new family, but I always felt like a cuckoo in the nest and felt that she resented me. I moved out at the earliest opportunity when I was 16, to live with my boyfriend who was 8 years older than myself. I was pregnant within six months and gave birth to my daughter when I was 17.

My boyfriend turned out to be very controlling, which only increased once I was pregnant. He used to lock me in the house alone when he went out and forbid me from seeing or contacting anyone. I felt as it was all my fault and that I just had to accept it and make it work, but he became unstable and eventually violent, and after the police became involved due to one incident I managed to leave him. I spent some weeks in a woman’s shelter where I felt very cared for as the baby of the group and my daughter was well looked after too by the other residents.

The shelter was only meant to be a stopgap and then we were moved to some other temporary accommodation. During this time I met the man who was to become my first husband. He was also 8 years older than myself and I also became pregnant shortly after we met.

He initially took the pregnancy as good news and proposed. The thought of being able to settle down with my now three year old daughter and be part of my own family with the stability of marriage to support us was very welcome after all I had been through, so I happily said yes.

Again it didn’t take long to sour. He wasn’t violent, just selfish and not interested in setting up a proper home. The biggest red flag for me was when he went to America for a month when I was seven months pregnant, to visit a female penpal he had been corresponding with for a number of years. I felt that was who he really wanted to be with and finding myself stuck once again I reached out to my mother for help. She had come back into my life when I invited her to the wedding. I could tell that she hated him.

He was in the pub drinking with his friends when I was in the hospital giving birth to his son, with my mother as my birth partner. I was 22, and it was the last straw. My mother managed to accommodate the three of us back in her own home for a short while, once I was feeling strong enough, and made a big fuss with the council until they gave me a house. I think she was trying to make up for our past, or trying to be the world’s best grandmother to my kids. I have to admit that I would have been lost without her at this time, but part of me still thinks that it was because she hated him more than she loved me.

So, through some emergency list, I managed to get a three bed council house for me and my children. I was 23 and seemed to have landed on my feet.

It was still tough getting by though looking after two children and a home with little money. I was young and didn’t want to miss out on my own life. My mother would have the children on some weekends, which was very good of her and allowed me to let my hair down.

If I say so myself, even after two children I was quite attractive and still had a good, slim figure. Long dark hair fell to my shoulders and I wasn’t short of attention, but I was also aware that it was the attention that hadn’t led me anywhere good so far. On one night out I got talking with someone I used to know through my husband. He said he had always fancied me, and that he was glad I was now single. He straight out asked me if I would have sex with him for £50.

That was a lot of money to me, and maybe even to him. Although he wasn’t married I knew that he had a long-term partner and a child. I still didn’t hesitate to say yes though and we went back to my house and fucked, and I gratefully received his money on behalf of my electric and gas meters.

It was actually his idea, and I’m not sure if it made him my pimp or not, although he never took a cut of the money, but it was his suggestion to mention me to some of his friends if I didn’t mind doing more. I lived a few minutes walk from a Macdonald’s restaurant and he came up with the idea of meeting men there first to make sure I was ok with them. It felt safe, it sounded exciting and the money was very attractive.