My mother had a lot of men, and she had a lot of sex.

At least my father had the decency to do it with her quietly, and he would always try to be a little more discreet about it. But with the other men, it was always so loudly and so brazenly done.

I remember often lying in my bed, hearing the feminine screams and the masculine grunts, and the bed creaking like it was literally about to fall apart beneath them.

I was young and confused, even scared, by what I was having to listen to.

The more times it happened and the more times I heard it, the more confused and scared I became.

I distinctly remember one night, when my mum was screaming so loudly, I actually thought she was being hurt. So I remember dragging a box that was filled with shoes into my mum's bedroom, and throwing one shoe at a time onto the back of this man who was having sex with my mum; I remember throwing them as hard as my little arms could actually throw them.

"Get out, Mary Rose! Get out now!" My mum bellowed to me from beneath the man that was now loudly cursing on top of her.

The smell of sex in that room, had filled my young and scared nostrils. And it would become a smell that would sicken me.

Not once, did my mum ever come and comfort me.

Not once, did she ever try to settle my confused mind.

Hearing sex.

Smelling sex.

It scarred me.

I was too young to articulate my thoughts. Too confused to express any of my hurt and confusion about it. So just like I always did—I kept quiet.

I kept quiet and just tried to be a little girl.

A little girl who would get to enjoy some of her childhood.

Most of my happiest of early childhood moments, are quite frankly, of the ones when I am on my own. Being brought up surrounded by the adult weirdos, the misfits and the misunderstood, they unfortunately went on to have children who were much the same as them.

A lot of the kids were spiteful, damaged or just plain strange.

One older boy, used to really scare me. He would hang around where I lived, and I had this inner instinct to know that I was to stay away from him. On one particular day, he asked whether he could play with myself and my brother. But I sensed this older boy wasn't all that he first seemed, so I said no, because we were going back inside.

"You shouldn't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." He recited, word for word, what Bruce Banner would say from the tv series The Incredible Hulk, huffing and puffing in front of me before angrily running off down the road.

Later on, when I am playing outside in our back garden, he returns. Wearing a torn and tatty old T-shirt, ripped and cut off trousers and his skin covered in green—he was now, The Incredible Hulk.

He was hiding in our coal shed, making hulk-like grunts and groans at me. Scared, I quickly tried to run, but as I did, he hurled part of a red brick at my head. The corner of that red brick hit my forehead, causing me to scream and for him to flee...I still have a little scar from that very strange encounter with 'The Hulk' that day.

Another time I remember, was when I had been bought some new toys of The Muppets for my birthday. I was so chuffed, because I had Miss Piggy, Kermit, Elmo and Cookie Monster. I remember proudly pushing them around in an old toy Silvercross pram. On this particular day, I got told by another child that my mum was wanting me home for tea, and that they'd look after my pram and toys. I had rushed home, ate my tea, then mum told me to go and get my pram and my toys back. When I got to where I had left them, everyone had gone; including my pram and my new birthday toys.

Mum was furious with me. "That'll teach you for leaving your new toys with the kids around here, won't it?!" Was all she could angrily shout at me.

I was just so heartbroken. I was so proud of my new toys. So happy that they were mine. After having them for only a few days, then for them to get cruelly stolen...was heartbreaking for one so young.

I never did get them back and I never trusted the kids ever again.

So yes, my fondest memories of my early childhood, are definitely the ones when I am playing all by myself.

I loved to watch nature. To sit and sing to only the birds and the breeze. I enjoyed my own company, because in my own company, horrible people weren't ever there. I enjoyed exploring, too. My favourite place to go, was to a small lane near to where we lived. It was such a pretty lane, with lots of trees lining it. I called it Dandelion Lane, because on either side of it, the grass verges were blanketed in the yellow weeds. But they were never weeds to me. They were many, many beautiful flowers to my nature-loving young self. My imagination was often a place where I could find such great comfort, and in my mind, I was the girl who lived down Dandelion Lane. In my tiny, innocent mind, I would get to live the joy of always waking up to the prettiness of that secluded little country lane.

I often walked there, pretending to be another little girl. It was too pretty for me to ever feel unsafe there, which in hindsight, was really rather silly, but Dandelion Lane did become a place where I would imagine that I was somewhere else. I would imagine being someone else, living someplace else. It was my little piece of escapism. So to me, I felt nothing but completely safe there.

And safe places, well, I clung to those.