Episode 10: Lucy Bentley, Operations Manager at Cornerhouse Youth Project

INTRO: Welcome to the Trailblazers Podcast series by Periplum, sharing the experiences of trailblazers living and working in the Tees Valley: the innovators, activists, workers and adventurers as told in their own words. Episode 10 Lucy Bentley, Operations Manager at Cornerhouse Youth Project Lucy [Interviewee] So I was born in Stockton-on-Tees. My parents are Alison Bentley and Eric Bentley. Family from Stockton - from Roseworth originally. When I was very young, still a baby, we moved to South Africa for my dad's work, and lived in Johannesburg for a few years. Don't have a lot of memories about that. I was just talking about this the other day. I can remember that there was a pool in the garden. I can remember being thrown in the pool and told to learn to swim at a very young age and I think that's kind of stuck with me for life, hasn't done me bad in life, you know – a sink or swim kind of approach. But we lived over there for a few years and then came back over here when I think I was about 3 or 4 [years old] and my grandparents had found a house and they'd sort of purchased a house for my Mum and Dad in Yarm. So we moved into a house that had just been newly built on the Layfield estate in Yarm. And soon after we came back to the UK, I started education, which was one of the reasons my family wanted to move back to the UK was for me and my brother to access education over here. And I have really happy memories of growing up. I went to a nice school. I had, like really, really lovely friends and knocked about more with the boys than I did with the girls at primary school. I was quite a tomboy and sort of quite into sports and being outdoors and adventuring - kind of up at the crack of dawn, out playing curby in the street, off to the park as soon as we've sort of given a bit more independence. I was off out exploring with my friends over in the woods and what have you and the sort of surrounding area, and really sort of lucky and grateful that I got to grow up in an area like Yarm that is…that certainly was so safe, you know - where you could just go out and wander from home and play out and, and be safe and be happy. So yeah, grateful to have grown up in the period of time that I did grow up. So like by the time I was playing out it was sort of the late [19]80s, and then sort of my real growing up, sort of in the [19]90s, in terms of sort of my adolescence. So throughout primary school I developed, like a real love of reading and writing. I always sort of wanted to do well. I think we were the first year of students in the UK to do the SATS exams, so I always remember that being sort of something that was quite big at primary school. And then I used to write books with my friends. We wrote songs. I remember when it was the 1990 World Cup, myself and Gary Sloan and Craig Young, we wrote a World Cup song and we were on BBC Radio Tees and I can also remember the lyrics cause one of the teachers at our school had a husband who was a radio presenter. So Mrs Ryall's husband, I think it was Ken Ryall, so we managed to get on the radio. So that was our claim to fame. And then me and my friend Emma Fishburn were writing books, and I was the author and she was the illustrator and our big dream was to get published. But that kind of fell by the wayside by the time we got to secondary school and other factors became part of our lives. So, secondary school, I went to Conyers, which is in Yarm. And really enjoyed being at secondary school. Again, found my sort of people when I was there. My very best friend who is still my very best friend to this day - Sally Knight -, We sort of met at school and then we started to go to a youth club at Kirklevington, which was sort of the only social place for us to go. And there wasn't a lot for young people to do, other than making our own fun, which was fine - we did a lot of that. But if we wanted to go somewhere more structured and be indoors in the winter and sort of listen to music, then it was kind of going to the youth club at Kirklevington. And in terms of sort of education, I was doing well at school. I like to do well, erm, I've discovered as I've grown older. When I was at school, my desire to do well and to sort of compete with other people, I suppose, at that age, wanting to sort of be the best in class and all those kinds of things, that didn't always come naturally to me, and I did have to do a lot of work and I would put myself under an incredible amount of pressure in order to do with that - quite ridiculous lengths when I look back. And I've discovered as an adult that I have autism and I think that makes a lot of sense to me about those years of my life when I used to try and force information to my head and it would cause me great distress if I couldn't do it. So I think, you know, I think I would say that as a message to any young person that I would say: just ease off on yourself, like give yourself a break. If it's not working, there's a reason it's not working and you know there's other ways to, to achieve. So, secondary school, I kind of like, I worked hard but I did a lot of sport. I think doing a lot of sport helped me to manage the other parts of my life that I found more difficult. So I got rid of a lot of nervous energy and anxious energy. So I was part of another community I suppose. My parents and my brother, all three were athletes, naturally gifted athletes. I was not. [laughs] But I was, I was definitely a try-hard and I think that because I was a try-hard I did okay at it. So we were part of an athletics club called Middlesbrough & Cleveland Harriers, which was a huge part of my adolescence. I would finish school and I would go over to training two to three times a week over at the old Clairville Stadium in Middlesbrough, and every Sunday we would go to Acklam Grange School and there's a section of the school called Foxes Wood, where we used to train in the woods and, and do cross country running over there. But friendships, again, made there for life. So, again, I guess if any young people are listening to this, then to say, you know, the people that surround you in your youth, if they're your people then these people are potentially gonna be there for you like, for your whole life and your, your life’ll change and you'll lose contact. But as you get older and you reconnect with people, you realise how important having those people around is, and having those memories and those connections I think. And that goes back to something that I've carried through my working life around relationship-based practice. It all comes from that knowing that connection is…so vitally important. When you look at the people that are important in your life, it's because they’ve connected with you as opposed to doing things for you or whatever. It's more about the connection and, and how that person makes you feel. So secondary school was sort of, certainly up until my last year of secondary school, was pretty much a joy really. I worked hard, but loved it, and did a lot of sports, was very much involved in the school community. My athletics community had, like, solid friendships and going to youth groups. And then, I guess, sort of, GCSE year was the advent of alcohol, and cannabis and sort of experimenting and starting to become a bit more of a critical thinker and questioning, you know, like, rules and all of the things that you do as you, as you’re sort of growing up. With anything that I found that I liked, I kind of… I fully embraced it and that initially was not problematic. It was just good fun. But as I grew, I think, you know, it kind of would become a bit of a crutch for when I found things difficult as well as using it to seek fun. So yeah, I think that's another lesson of, like, things in moderation and knowing yourself, but you don't know yourself at that age - that are all, kind of, part of growth. So I had a few, maybe more than a few, wild years through sort of the end of my GCSE years- I did well in my GCSE's- I got mostly ‘A’s and a few ‘B’s. Sort of the first person in my immediate family to do reasonably well at school, so I knew my parents were happy. That made me happy. Chose to stay at the 6th form at Conyers and I studied Geography, English Literature and Sociology, and again the sixth form was small. It was made-up of mostly people that had gone to that school and a few people that sort of migrated in, but it was, like, a really good bunch. I was, like, really fortunate. I know that, you know, sometimes different year groups can have a different vibe, but the year group I was in was just, like, top tier like I was surrounded by brilliant people. Like really good friends. I had a brilliant English Literature teacher, 2 brilliant English Literature teachers. One was called Graham Parker, who's, er, sadly now passed away and the other was called Liz MacDonald. And Liz is kind of one of my role models in life and I'm still in touch with her now. We've kind of reconnected in my adulthood. And that's been lovely. And it's been really interesting for me to have a conversation with her about how she perceived me when I was growing up. And so what she thought and what was actually going on, they were two totally different things. But I loved the subjects. I loved words, I still do. And sociology really started to open my mind up to different ways of thinking about society and different forces and structures that form how we behave and influence what we do and on the back of that, I ended up going to Northumbria University to do a degree in sociology, although that kind of was a last minute decision. I had applied to go to Leeds to be a PE teacher. I loved fitness at that point. I enjoyed sport, wasn't brilliant at it, but I was good at it and, you know, then saw all the benefits from it. And I did a lot of peer-led support in school, so used to run sort of lunchtime clubs and would take over and support the PE teachers with lessons, and did my work experience at Nunthorpe School in PE teaching, and I was really confident in all of that. But then, due to the advent of drugs and alcohol and…critical thinking and all those things that happened, I kind of stepped out and moved away from that healthier [laughs] lifestyle and embraced a different kind of reality. And by the time I did my A-levels, I ended up going through clearing cause by that point I hadn't accepted a place. I didn't know what I wanted to do, and in all honesty I made the decision to do [laughs] my degree in Sociology on the day I got my results. I got an ‘A’ in Sociology and I thought I'll go and do Sociology then, and I was desperate to get to the pub with my friends ‘cause we were all going out celebrating after our results. [laughs] So I went home, I rang the first university: ‘can I have a place’, they gave me a place and that's where I went. Don't regret it because I had 3 amazing [laughs] years at university and I enjoyed the subject, or kind of enjoyed the subject, but, yeah, [laughs] I did, yeah, I did enjoy the lectures when I was present. And yeah, I, I do carry like a sociological perspective with me in the work that I do, which works well with our leadership team, cause our CEO at Corner house, her background is a degree in Psychology. So she kind of brings that element and I can kind of bring a different perspective to things. So, like, between us, that's always kind of been a strength for us, in my current role and for the organisation. So I, then I went to university and… went to the University of Northumbria in Newcastle. We only sorted, like, accommodation out probably about 2 days before I went up there because there’d been no one in the family that had gone to university, so it was all kind of a, a new experience, and they kind of, very much left me to crack on and sort it out myself. So I did. And I ended up in the [laughs] worst accommodation ever. It was… Oh God, forgotten the area now. Anyway, wherever it was, it was grim. It used to be a women's institution back then, like a prison, was the building, and had been converted into student flats by the most miserable landlady ever, and her son and their big dogs. It literally was a prison. You had to go through the gates and all the windows had bars on them and it cost £40 a week all bills in, so you didn't have to pay your gas or electric or council tax or any of those things. And I was put into a flat with people that I'd never met before, and my parents kind of dropped me off the gates while I waved bye and I pottered in with a suitcase and a few bags and set myself up. And then the flat that I was in, I was in with a girl called Sarah and a couple of boys. And then a flat of girls had moved in next door, and one of the girls that was supposed to be living there hadn't turned up or something had happened, and I ended up, within a week I’d moved in with those girls and that's where I stayed and I stayed with those girls through university. We chose to stay a second year at Kirkley Lodge, it was called. We chose to stay a second year at disgusting Kirkley Lodge because it was so cheap and because we all wanted to have a sunbed in the flat, and the electricity cost a fortune. And we thought if we move we won't be able to afford to run the sunbed. But the electricity bill was all in at this flat, [laughs] so we decided to stay there so we had more money to go out with and to get a cancer causing sun-tan. But we lived there in disgusting conditions [laughs] for two years. I suppose I didn't mention that all the way through secondary school and when I went to university I also had jobs. So when I was at secondary school, I worked in the fish and chip shop in Yarm – ‘Barnacles’ - where I used to work with the offenders from Kirklevington Grange open prison. One was a fraudster and one was a bank robber and they used to be on shift with me every Saturday night. So we’d do a shift for every weekend and then I would get a taxi home and drop them off at the prison and then go home in a taxi. [Laughs.] But it was, yeah, good times. So I had a strong work ethic, but that definitely comes from my parents, who are absolutely like work horses. And then I worked in some kennels for a short while, but I didn't really like that. Then I worked in Spar on Yarm High Street, and they were crazy times. Again, like, worked with a good bunch of people, and they're still friends with some of them, and also worked in a restaurant called Santaros, which is really sadly just recently closed – it’s a family-run business – and loads of happy memories of that. And then I went to work in the George and Dragon, which, kind of, that was when I was 17 that I worked there and I was glass-collecting first then started to work behind the bar and the landlady there, again, someone I've stayed friends for life really. And again, just worked with lovely people, made friends for life there, loved all the regulars and that kind of tied in with university. Although I had a little job up in Newcastle, every holidays- if ever they were short-staffed I would come back down, I would work in the George cause I loved it. I loved the regulars, I loved the conversation. I loved the different people that I would meet and probably still to this day, it's my favourite job that I've ever done, but I never didn't wanna go to work. I used to love it and like I say, I met brilliant people in their - customers and the staff that I worked with. So while I was at university, I also had a job at, like, Customs House - the Customs and Excise Office. I was cleaning in the offices there, but I was just always earwigging on the conversations and thinking this is so interesting. So interested to sort of hear what was going on. Erm, worked there for a while. The flat that I lived in, I was with some girls. And in the next-door flat was a bunch of boys and all of us have sort of remained friends and we had just totally brilliant times. We're absolutely rubbish at keeping in touch. They're all from Leeds, apart from Nicola who was from Nottingham, and we've probably seen each other about four times since we left university, but we've still sort of in touch via social media, and all people that I would count as friends and people that, you know, have similar value base, similar kind of energy. When you meet people that meet you with that energy you, like, you know, that they’re your kind of people. So when I left university, I was kind of drifting. I’d entered into a relationship while I was at university with Simon. And Simon went on to be my partner for, I don't know, like fifteen, sixteen years. We’d got together, we were on and off before I'd gone to university, but then we were fully back on while I was at university, Simon had a full-time job. He worked away, so, sort of, I would spend a lot of time travelling between Newcastle and Wales, which is where he was working, or Newcastle and Reading to go and stay with him and see him. And so, when I finished university, I was under the naive impression that I would just get a job ‘cause I had a degree, and I was applying for jobs and I wasn't getting anything and I couldn't understand it. I was like, well, I've got a degree, like I'm a good catch for this job. You know, I wasn't getting anywhere. And so, what I ended up doing was, I'd moved back to Yarm. My Mum and Dad were divorcing at that point. That had come as a total shock to me. You know, they'd been married for 25 years - I guess a, maybe a little bit of ‘Empty Nest Syndrome’ that had happened with, within their relationship, and their relationship had changed. And so, just towards the end of my university years, it was the…, sort of the summer that I was doing my final exams and my dissertation, my parents were breaking up at the same time. So when I moved back to Yarm, I initially moved back into the family home with my Dad because my Mum had moved out. But…that wasn't really working out for any of us, so I ended up renting, a converted garage [laughs] off a guy called Mickey - . [Laughs.] He was a regular in the pub and Mickey was going through his own change in life. He was sort of reliving his youth at that time and he had this converted garage space and I moved in there and I rented that off him and lived there. So I lived there, I worked in the pub and I was partying hard by that point, and I loved going dancing with Simon. We used to rave together. Absolutely loved it, had brilliant times. Mickey too [laughs.], like everyone, but we, there was a whole crowd of us, and I really do feel, like, blessed that, like, I grew up in the [19]90s and the naughties (2000s) in terms of, like, my adolescence and my early adulthood. It did feel like a much freer time. We didn't have social media, or it was just starting maybe then. Internet was kind of new-ish to us and when I finished university, I didn't have a computer. I didn't have a laptop. I didn't even have internet, I don't think, in my home spaces. So it was kind of a freer time. There was less scrutiny. You didn't take everything home with you and like you weren't still immersed in that world. So we had one of the best nightclubs in the country on our doorstep. Literally, I could walk to it. It was sort of half a mile away from where I was living, called Tall Trees, which was, it's iconic. Anyone who sort of raved or clubbed and danced in those times will know about the Tall Trees. And it was just, like, it was a vibe, it was the place to be and just so many brilliant nights of just dancing the night away and, like, loving life and everyone else, [laughs] and probably wildly risky situations, looking back, that I ended up in and, you know, probably dicing with death in those years. But, you know, thankfully, I've lived to sort of tell the tale. And sort of in that period of time in what I would call like, sort of crazy hazy days where everything's a bit of a blur, but kind of a happy, messy blur. I became pregnant and that was kind of a wakeup call to sort my life out. And I think my life at that point, if I hadn't had become pregnant, when I've reflected on it, I think my life could have gone in one of two directions. Had I not fallen pregnant at that point, I think I'd -, you know. I don't even know if I would be alive or certainly my life would have looked totally differently because I was enjoying that life a little bit too much, I think. I fell pregnant with Katie and I became obsessed with my pregnancy, so I wanted to do everything right. I stopped everything literally overnight. And once I'd committed to the pregnancy, that was it. And Simon who’s Katie's dad, we were still in a relationship then. And Simon already had a daughter, who I had a gorgeous relationship with, yeah, she was a huge part of our life, was there when Simon and I gotten engaged, sort of somewhere in the middle of that crazy mix. We'd gone to Zante in the year 2000, I think, and Simon had proposed to me on that holiday. We’d climbed up on the roof to watch the sunrise on the last morning of the holiday, and he proposed to me then. So, like, really happy days. We had a massive engagement party, which… I say massive. It wasn't like by the sort of standards that people celebrate in these days. We hired a bus and took all of our friends from Yarm to Billingham Synthonia Football Club, so that we could all get wrecked out of view, [laughs] and go wild. And it was wild. And there was fights and scraps and all sorts that went on. It was a whole book in itself, and loads of funny things happened, well, kind of funny, kind of like, shocking things happened that night. One of the funniest stories is my Dad pouring a pint over someone's head in a case of mistaken identity. So, one of my friends who was there, my Dad thought she was someone else, and my Dad tapped her on the shoulder and poured a pint of beer over her head. And [laughs] so that's, kind of like, just little funny anecdotal stories that we can all laugh about now, but weren't so funny at the time. So yeah, I'd fallen pregnant with Katie. Simon and I were engaged. He was still working away at this point. Once committed to the pregnancy. I became completely teetotal, continued working in the pub, and started to get my shit together a little bit then I think. I was like, right, okay, like, I love working in the pub but this is not where I want to be and I need to earn more money and I want to have, you know, a better life. So I started to volunteer for Stockton Youth Offending team. I was part of the very first group of volunteers that worked on the reparation orders, like referral panels. So it was like a community reparation panel. So we did some, still say, probably some of the best training I've ever received was part of that. Sheila Whitehead was coordinating it as far as I remember, and Liz Falls was one of the people that was involved in the training, and I still speak to Liz now. But just brilliant people to have received that training and encouragement and support to want to work with young people and to view young people as human beings and no matter what brought them to the point of contact with you and whatever's gone before. Brilliant training when it came to boundaries and everything, it was top tier. We had to do like, I think it was an 8-week training programme, um, before we were able to meet any young person as part of the panels and that was really wise I think, rather than just throwing people in at the deep end, upskilling you with sort of boundaries and safeguarding and all those things that you need. And so that was an important part of, sort of directing where I wanted to go, I think, in terms of my career, sort of the building blocks of like “what do I wanna do here? I think I wanna work with young people”. So that was young people who’d offended and they'd gone to court. They'd been given a reparation order at court. That then brought them to the community panel, they had to attend a panel, and myself and some other community members would meet with the young person. We'd have information about the offence and we would make a decision about what sort of community reparation that young person should do, whether it was meeting with the victim, whether it was doing some sort of community good, whatever it was. And then, whilst I was doing that, I also met with a hairdresser that came into the pub, who was the hairdresser for a lady called Wendy Shepherd, who was another local trailblazer, and she'd set up the Barnardo's SECOS project, which was [for] sexually exploited children on the street. And I was telling Wendy's hairdresser about what I was doing with my volunteering at Youth Offending, and I'd been to university and I'm struggling to find a job. And, and she set this, this lady whose hair I do, Wendy, she’s set this project up in Middlesbrough. She got me all the information, I applied to be a volunteer there and I became a volunteer for SECOS, one of the first groups of volunteers when it was first set up and I was just on the point of starting to go out and do outreach, and then I found out I was pregnant with Katie and I wasn't able to go out and do the outreach because of my pregnancy. So I stayed volunteering for a short while with Barnardo’s throughout the pregnancy and I was volunteering for the Youth Offending throughout my pregnancy, moved house, moved out of Mickey's garage [laughs] and into a house on Eskdale Close in Yarm, which was sort of my first proper tenancy with Simon. Simon was still working away and, yeah, I had my first child on 10th of November 2002. Katie was born and, yeah, that, that really did change my life, yeah, from the minute she was born and she was popped on my chest and she just lifted her head up and looked me straight in the eye. And just the, that connection and love and everything that you feel when your child is born. Yeah, it was powerful. Like, the most powerful force I think I've ever felt. So Katie was born, Simon continues to work away. I went back to work quite quickly, ‘cos I was working in the pub and, you know, maternity pay and things like that weren't really a thing. It was kind of like, you know, we needed the money. So I was back there, I was volunteering, and then I applied for a job at The Five Lamps to be a Youth Participation worker. And I got the job and that was a part-time job, and that was at the newly built youthy on Thornaby Road which was, you know, it's still there now it’s a still existing youth provision still run by the Five Lamps, but it were brand new back then. And I was managed there by a guy called Malcolm Deegan. Again, remained connected with Malcolm throughout my life. And I worked there and really loved youth work. And then at the same time as all of this was going on, whilst I had knocked everything on the head in terms of the party lifestyle, my partner, fiance at that time, Simon hadn't and was kind of battling his own demons and had his own things going on there, and I was really struggling to understand that. We stayed together through all of this, but that kind of made me want to know more about substance misuse and that kind of pushed me then into another role I applied for, another job working for Cleveland Police. There was a new, then brand new system that came out called the DTT Programme. I was a Drug Testing and Treatment Officer. So that was a brand new programme that was being piloted where if someone was arrested for what was called a trigger offence, like a specific list of offences that linked to substance misuse, or were back then, if you were arrested for one of those offences, you would be drug tested in custody for class As, for crack or for heroin, so crack and opiates. So I was the person that was doing those tests so I worked in police custody, drug testing people, but also being the person that supported the engagement with drug treatment services. I did enjoy that job in terms of working with the people who were in the cells, who were being drug tested. I didn't enjoy the culture. Custody is a grim environment to work in. It was even more grim back then ‘cause it was over at Dunning Street in Middlesbrough. So it wasn't in now Middlehaven, which is kind of a, a bit more airy and pleasant working environment than the, the old police cells in Middlesbrough which were next to the court. Really grim. Really stinky. So I was working there and that was my first sort of proper salary job, kind of like my first full-time proper job. And in all of that I'd moved house. We'd moved from Yarm to a house in Eaglescliffe, onto Elmwood Road there. I loved that house. I would never have got that house if it wasn't for one of my friends, Sandy, Sandra Russon. Again. Massive part of, like, my twenties and thirties, and really kind of made me take ownership of things. The house I was living in Yarm, I wasn't really happy there. I loved her house, she had a gorgeous house in old Eaglescliffe. I was like, this is the kind of place I wanna live and she's like, it's not gonna happen unless you make it happen. And that really, like, changed the way I was thinking about things and I ended up moving round the corner from her and onto Elmwood Road. And I absolutely loved that house and lived there with Katie, was working at the police. So it was a busy time in my life, but I really didn't enjoy the working in police custody. And then a job came up with Addaction in Redcar to work on the Harm Reduction Unit - a mobile harm minimisation service, which is working on needle exchange essentially, teaching people safer injecting practises, and trying to offer people support into treatment and safe using practise. That kind of spoke to me and it was kind of something, like a bit of a personal journey that I was on as well, at the same time. And it was all quite new in terms of the investment at the time in drug services. And there was lots of information out there, lots of training available and, yeah, I was just eating all of that up. So I’d got the job over at Redcar and started to work over there. And so you can probably tell like work’s a big part of who I am and a big part of my life, and like a big sort of driver for me, I think. So worked over at Addaction, was there for a few years and then found the drive to Redcar, having to sort of -, coordinating that with drop-offs at nursery and it wasn't good. I was not seeing enough of Katie. I was dropping her off too early, picking up too late. I was getting stuck in traffic. All those kinds of things. So because of that, I applied for a job in Stockton, working for what was then called CRI - Crime Reductions Initiatives. It's now called CGL Drug Treatment Service, and yeah I had a change of role. I was a caseworker there, so I had a case load of working with adult substance misusers, who had been referred by the courts to, sort of, enforced engagement in community treatment, which never really works, but there's an opportunity perhaps to engage someone in treatment. So kind of involved in that process and then, took on a new pioneering role at the time of a pre-engagement worker where, because the rates of people being referred from courts that actually engaged in community treatment were so low, or the rates of people attending the first appointment with drug treatment were so low, they needed someone to bridge that gap between the court process and the first appointment of the drug treatment. So I applied for that role. I got that role and I loved that. I was out. I would go and meet people at the pharmacy. I'd go and see them at home, and it was just trying to support and motivate, encourage them to engage with the court order and the treatment. And I got much more of a view and an eye on what was happening in communities by being out of the office and being, running all over Stockton, and, you know, Roseworth, wherever, Eaglescliffe, just to meet people where they were at and it, it like kind of flipped how I thought about engagement and it was a really, really helpful role in terms of how my career has moved on. And then I was part of setting up the peer mentor programme in Stockton for like what is now CGL. So, myself and Vicky Franks brought that in where we would train up service users to become peer leaders to support their peers, which is now nationally recognised as a model that works – peer-to-peer recovery is, it's a big thing, you know, experts by experience and all that kind of stuff. But in that period of time, I was still with Simon, there was a lot going on in my life outside of work. Katie was growing up. Simon was still working away. And I became pregnant with my second child, Thomas, in 2009. And at that point Simon moved back to Teesside. He’d felt like he'd missed out on Chloe and Katie, sort of their early years, and didn't want to miss out with our son. So Thomas was born on the 3rd of April 2009, and I had maternity leave and while I was on maternity leave I started to rethink my options and think… I felt like working in drug treatment services probably wasn't what I needed in terms of what I was experiencing in my personal life and my partner's journey. I felt like I wasn't really having a break from, from that and there was too much crossover and too many blurred lines and I realised that really my passion lay with working with young people. And so, I saw a part-time role advertised to work at Corner House Youth Project. So I applied for that and I turned up for my interview a day early because I’m a bit unorganised and chaotic, and that's, you know, that's, that's kind of my brand, I suppose if you wanna call it – a bit, bit all over the place. So I had to come back the next day for my interview. So it hadn't really boded well for me, but actually it all worked out in the end. I got the job, I worked part time at what was then, it was alternative education programme. So that was young people that were struggling in mainstream school who would come into the Corner House during the daytime. Our then CEO was Jackie Duncan. Again, like a massive role model to me and sort of a bit of a full circle because Jackie was one of my Mum’s best friends growing up and I hadn't realised that when I’d first met her. But Jackie was a brilliant mentor to me and did an amazing amount for young people in Stockton-on-Tees, erm, in terms of keeping a service alive and allowing that project to grow and benefit more children and young people. So I was part-time there and Thomas was at home. Simon stayed at home and was a stay-at-home dad for a while, looking after Thomas while I was working at Corner House, but then he got another job up in Teesside and I also, my role changed because the person that was leading on the alternative provision programme at Corner House, they were leaving and so I stepped up to lead on the alternative provision programme and that left a gap for my old role. And Debbie Jones applied for that role. And so that was Debbie and I and a guy called Rob Bell delivered the alternative provision and youth work for Corner House. And it was just like an awesome team to be part of, just, yeah, when people just click. Debbie was totally brilliant and Rob too. And because we all had different strengths, it worked really well, and so the alternative provision programme that we were delivering just grew. It grew and, yeah, we sort of achieved some really, I would say like amazing accolades. You know, there was a new system, it wasn't Ofsted-regulated then and alternative provision now is, it wasn't then, but we had what was the local authority Gold Standard provision. But again, my priority always - my home life, my children, my, my personal life. And as that programme grew and, and expanded, the pressure changed and I felt like I couldn't fully commit to that and be a Mum to two children. And I had realised quite early with Thomas that Thomas…was, erm, different and, and required me to be around more and as it turns out in sort of adolescence for Katie and early childhood for Thomas, both my children were diagnosed with Asperger's: Autism. So, I hadn't realised that then, but I knew there was something but didn't know what it was. So there was kind of a lot of stuff going on and a lot of need and as well in all of this mix is my grandma has dementia, and that was progressing, and - , I haven't even mentioned my grandparents, but like my grandparents, again, particularly my grandmas, a massive part of who I am today and amazing role models to me, and loving and kind and caring and vocal and all those things that, you know, great women are. But my grandma had dementia and I was really struggling with that because I had such a close relationship with my grandma and she was at that awful point of dementia, her dementia journey, where she was still living independently, but she was starting to struggle with night and day and… struggling to live independently and having those horrible moments of clarity of, sort of, where she would be okay and, and be living in the now, and then where she would realise that things weren't, weren't right and that. So hearing her fear and all of us - , was kind of like all of that was going on in my head. And I said, I can't, I can't commit to what this job role needs, you know, and what young people deserve, which is full energy, full focus. I couldn't do it. So I started to look for a job that met with my family dynamic better. And so I applied for a job at Conyers school, which is where I used to go, just because it cropped up. There was a vacancy. It was as a year manager. It was term-time and I thought that's something I can do quite easily. I've got the, sort of, experience to do that, and it's term time and it's not a job that I need to take home - I can park it at the door and go home and be all in with my child. Which didn't quite work out like that. [laughs] Because, as I've discovered and as I've learned to sort of know myself a little bit better, I never park it at the door and I'm all in with whatever I'm doing. So yeah, just loads of change going on in, in my life and sort of navigating raising two children who I then – although I suspected it with Thomas, I hadn't realised it with Katie – and the pressure that I was putting on myself, I think at that point to try and portray to the world that everything was fine and I'm okay here. No problems here. And actually behind that closed door it was all falling apart and the wheels were coming off for me and Simon. That was, I think, you know, again, Simon like had his ongoing stuff going on. And the children and, and the pressure of that and differing views about how to parent and how to respond to things, erm, and that ultimately led to Simon and I separating when Thomas was 3. And so Simon eventually moved out and I stayed in the house. By that point we'd moved just down the road to a property on Oak Road in Eaglescliffe and I stayed there - , I wanted to stay in that house. I wanted to buy that house, but I couldn't get a mortgage. When the landlord was selling the property I’d wanted to stay there, I couldn't. And so I very quickly had to find somewhere. I was in the private rented sector. I very quickly had to find somewhere for me and the children to live. And I took on a property because I wanted to stay in that area. I wanted the children to stay at the same school. They went to a lovely primary school, Preston Primary, and the property that I moved into, I couldn't really afford and - . I'm terrible with managing my budgets anyway. But, moved in there nevertheless. We didn't last long in that property ‘cause I really couldn't afford the bills. So that lasted only a short while, and my, er, friend Sandy, she popped round to see me one day. We hadn't actually seen each other for ages. And she was also struggling and she said, “Why don't we consider you moving in with me? I've got loads of space at my house, it would help me out financially, it might help you out for a, like, a stopgap. And, and we ummed and ahhed about it and had loads of like, er, will that really work? But ultimately me hand was forced because I couldn't afford the house. I was working in school as a Year Manager. My job role there was changing – I’d been asked if I would take over the teaching of the Health and Social Care qualification because the Health and Social Care teacher was going on maternity leave. So I foolishly said ‘yes’ and that I would train and do a PGCE at the same time as teaching A-level and GCSE classes and raising two children on my own. Yeah, whilst living at my friend's house. [laughs] So, yeah, needless to say it didn't last long. Yeah, by that point, and, and also, as I've now realised, I have autism myself, and at that point, the wheels really came off for me and I,um, I was at the start then of a decline into a significant episode of depression and burnout. I didn't recognise it at all. It totally affected my friendship with Sandy. I moved out of her house and moved into a small flat in Yarm, a 2-bedroom flat. So the kids both had a bedroom and I slept on the sofa in the front room, and we lived there for three years and… it wasn't great. It was probably the darkest time of my life. I was pretty much killing myself at work because I was trying to do all this. But again, realising my brain’s different, I can learn this information. I can understand the information, but I can't churn it out to teach it in a way that is working for young people ‘cause I haven’t got the time and, and, and I needed time and time I didn't have. So I was really struggling with that, with really wanting to do the best for the young people I was teaching, conflicting with management and leadership in the, in the school that I was working. And obviously my like, you know, children. It wasn't ideal I didn’t have a bed to sleep in. I was sleeping on the sofa in the front room. Again, I was surrounded by brilliant people who helped me up. Friendship sort of helped me through, I think, you know. I had, like, really brilliant friends, Mel Adam, sort of the people in the office as well that - people that, you know, got me through that time in my life, I think. And I got a dog in the middle of all that, which was like - . I can remember my Mum and my Mum's then husband Mervin saying to me, you must be absolutely crackers, getting a dog is not, it's not the right time for you and it probably wasn't but I don't know if there's ever a good time, and actually what it did was it got me back out again. I was out walking every day. And then, my friends kindly nudged me in the direction of going to the GP and said, you know, you're not yourself. You're definitely not right. I was then prescribed medication and I started to think differently again, and kind of feel a bit more myself and think, okay, what am I doing here, like what am I actually doing? Why am I putting up with all this crap? Why am I living like this? And I would say, you know, that taking the medication and having friends that nudged me in that direction allowed me to, what they, when you can't see the wood for the trees. I could start to see, see again. I could, I could sort of see clearly back to daylight again and I handed my notice in. And so I actually phoned Jackie Duncan at Corner House, I was also doing a little bit of sessional work because the pay, because I needed the money – and, I’d rang Jackie and said, “Is there anything, absolutely anything. I'll take it, like, if there's any roles”. And she said, there's a part-time role, so you'd have to come for interview for it. We've put it out for interview. I was like, okay, put me down for an interview. I'm coming. And I interviewed for a part-time role as Community Cohesion Lead at Corner House. It was a drop in pay. It was a drop in hours, but I just, by that point, like, I needed to get out of where I was. I'd completely lost who I was. I felt totally de-skilled. I felt I'd left that role, I left the organisation, that place, definitely in a worse place than when I started. But then I came back to Corner House. But I always say, like, you know, I live by that money isn't everything. You need it. But, you know, it isn't everything. And I'd rather live on beans on toast and sleep at night and have the time to spend with my children. And, and I've got to say, like parental mental ill health is a rough ride for children as well, because I think, like, it deeply affected my relationship with my children at the time. I wasn't parenting well and that couldn't have happened at a worse time for my daughter, who was sort of going through her mid- adolescence then and her GCSE's and all of that kind of stuff and was having a dreadful time in, in education and in her final year was actually diagnosed herself with Autism. And everything started to make sense by that point, I think. So then, for the first time, I put my name down for social housing. I didn't really understand housing and didn't - . Just stuff like that doesn't bother me, like, I, I don't like money, housing, stuff like, you know, getting my head round paperwork and things like that doesn’t interest me, but I did anyway. I put my name down for social housing. I got a house around the corner from where I was living in Yarm, on the Meadowings, and affordable rent, secure tenancy. Moved in there with the children and have remained there. And yeah, we had a few more sketchy years with, you know, my daughter growing up and a bit like myself, discovering all the joys of the chemical world and, and relationships and difficulties with all of that as well and, you know, struggling in education, you know. She had a different experience of education than I'd had but a different experience of growing up as well. Like my growing up had been more stable but my children's wasn't as stable. So yeah, we, we moved, we settled there and, yeah, from there I was back at Corner House and that's where I’ve remained and my job role within the organisation’s changed from sort of Community Cohesion Lead part-time to full time to, to now Ops Manager and Safeguarding Lead. And that's kind of where my passion is, is safeguarding children. Lynne [Interviewer] Can we talk a little bit about your work, Lucy. Lucy [Interviewee] Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lynne [Interviewer] Because I've got the feeling, and correct me if I'm wrong, I can see now knowing the work you do, how your experiences feed into that. Lucy [Interviewee] Yeah. Lynne [Interviewer] And I know from personal experience how passionate you are about the work. So could you maybe talk a bit about the work, and about what life is like for the young people that you work with? Lucy [Interviewee] Yeah. So the charity that I work for is Corner House Youth Project, Stockton-on-Tees-based charity and been going now for, in sort of 25th year this year. And it's a unique charity, I think, it does unique work. We have diversified over the decades as an organisation, to adapt in order to attract funding and to keep our doors open I guess, in the way that we deliver. But we, as best we can, try to stay in our lane delivering top quality youth work, which is the absolute driver because every young person deserves to have access to youth work. You know, youth work is a really unique relationship between a young person and an adult professional. Most professionals that are involved in the lives of children and young people are involved because the child has to engage, or it's, you know, is expected to engage. So that's in education, in the classroom, whether that's with the social worker, the police, youth offending, there's a requirement for that child to engage. Youth work is on that child's terms. If they want to they can. The power – there's an equal balance. It should be. No one has to come to a Youth Club, certainly not at the demand of the youth worker anyway. And I think that power balance is one of the drivers for me in terms of, like, trying to shift the narrative in the relationship between young people and adults. But also, notwithstanding that young people need guidance and, and, and support in terms of decision-making and looking at things from a different point of view and all of those things as well, but also in terms of the power imbalance between statutory services and voluntary & community sector organisations, and the private sector and decision makers, and the government and local authority, and the gap and the power imbalance between communities - the people that are living their lives affected by those making decisions and how those decisions affect people. The injustice of it all, the imbalance – that is kind of what drives me. It speaks to me as a youth worker, and I firmly believe that there is no young person that can't be engaged. When people say a child is hard to reach or difficult to engage, change the way that you’re working. That's not true. Every child could be engaged. Absolutely every child can be engaged. Every child has got something that motivates them. Every child has got something that interests them. It's your job to find out what that is. If that is your role. You know, I think the current sort of status quo in this country, it's no surprise we're in the mess that we're in, in that, you know, it's 2025 and we've got a failing education system with brilliant people working within it, but maybe working within it and not confident enough to question the system that they’re working within. And we have brilliant people working in social care and children's services, but again, maybe not the disruptors. and maybe not having worked in any other role in order to see what can happen and what needs to happen to bring change. So you find that often, like in education, obviously not always, but often in education, people who want to teach have gone to school, gone to sixth form, gone to college, gone to university, gone straight into teaching. Not always. I know people do come to it in later life, but I don't know what the percentages are, but I think a quite a high percentage of people that follow that pathway and therefore you're part of a system that’s hierarchical. It's the same in policing. It's the same in children's services. And so there's that expectation that you take direction from leaders and that is right. There's got to be some of sort of order and to some degree safety. But it shouldn't be that leadership can't be questioned, can't be disrupted and shaken up if it's not working. And it definitely isn't working right now. And we're seeing that play out in our communities and if we don't look at it on a micro-scale, which no one really is, and if they are looking at it on a micro-scale, they're not looking at it from a societal perspective and all the different elements of that, they're looking at their own element of that, whether that's the policing element or the education element or the social care element, or the environmental element - , there's no one really who has got experience of all those different aspects together and pulling those things together to try and make proper change, ‘cause that's what we need. And I do think it needs to be done at a local level, you know, by people who really love the area. That doesn't mean people can't come in from outside of Stockton and come here and bring brilliance to Stockton, and bring experience from outside of the area. Of course, we have a diverse population, culturally rich population here, that is totally to be embraced, you know. As well as learning about some elements of different cultures that aren't safe, you know. We've got to be brave about that and we've got to be knowledgeable about that and leaders need to be on top of that. Unfortunately, you know, in my experience of working with children and young people and their families in this town, that doesn't feel like that's the case at all. And that's why I think that's a big driver for me to get up every day and come to work. I do feel like I know certainly the areas at Corner House, where we deliver. So we're place-focused I suppose, as well as being young person-focused, and also knowing, sort of, not just our own Borough but sort of Tees Valley-wide. You know, young people don't see a geographical boundary line and go you know when we talk about county lines and going from one area to another and maybe moving drugs or whatever, young people don't view it like that. Like I didn't when I was younger. I didn't think I'm jumping on the train to Newcastle and, you know, I've got a couple of joints in my pocket, I'm crossing a county line or whatever, you know, I'm just going Newcastle for the day. So I think in terms of how policy and strategy are being set needs to change. I hope that's starting to change. We hear that it's starting to change. I hope that's right. It can't be right that we have local leaders and national leaders setting strategies without communities. And I don't mean the dreaded community consultation that is sending out a questionnaire and asking people to tick boxes. I mean properly knowing communities, like actually know the community that you're talking about, not that you've done a walk about for an hour one day. Like, know your communities, know who the key people are in those communities, know who the key places are. Like, there's so much good work happening in Stockton on a micro-level with different VCS organisations, with certain departments of the local authority, you know, with private organisations. There's just no pulling together of that and there's no vision, no clear vision anyway. There's visions for, you know, different elements of what this town is gonna look like – the new waterfront development, or, you know, there's Cleveland-wide a new knife crime strategy, a ‘Harm’s outside the Home’ strategy. Who's pulling all this stuff together? Like, no one. No one's going, oh, oh that fits with that. That meets that agenda. Like that isn't happening. That needs to start happening. And the conversation between communities and strategic leaders needs to be closer than it is, because the gaps between what communities view as what they need and what the risks are in their community, and what strategists see as need are totally different, or not totally different, there's some crossover, but they could be more joined. We can't go on this journey to bring change without getting communities on board and not piecemeal. Let's make it equitable. Like let's make it a proper partnership between communities and, and community leaders. Like, you know, a lot of people are in the position that they're in because of where they were born, who they were born to, notwithstanding people working hard and all of those kinds of things, but, you know, opportunity, the opportunities that you’re given in life are different depending on who and where you're born to and the environment within which you grow up. Yes, people can succeed against adversity, absolutely. But it's easier when those adverse conditions aren't in place, and we know when we look at our current situation in this country and we look at, for example, the prison population, which is highly populated by people that are neurodiverse, people that have experienced multiple traumas. Would that be the case if we hadn't had, decades upon decades of social decay in terms of investment in children and young people? I would hazard a guess, probably not. I think, like, at the moment, I'm like, yeah, I just, I want to run away from politics and strategists and all that kind of thing ‘cause I just think, God, I can't be bothered with it because no one listens really. But then I also feel like I've got to run into it as well because, you know - . So it's kind of like, a bit of a quandary really, ‘cause you feel like your energy is better spent just being with those young people and the families and communities and standing with them in, for want of a better word, the shit, and trying to help them to develop their power and their strengths. But that does really need to go hand in hand with working with the strategic partners as well and trying to build that connection. So it's a lot of work to do. Lynne [Interviewer] So who inspires you, Lucy? Lucy [Interviewee] Erm, I don't know if I've ever really given this much thought to be honest. I really admire my parents, my Mum and my Dad. I definitely didn't appreciate my parents growing up. I remember at university when I found out they were gonna divorce and it was a total shock to me. That was sort of almost the exact moment that I realised my parents were people and that they had faults, ‘cause I kind of just grew up, like, that's what they did, they were there. And I wouldn't say I had a particularly wonderful relationship with my parents growing up - we just kind of coexisted and they provided what I needed. Wasn't, like, totally loving or anything like that. They were very loving with each other. You know, not slating my parents here. My children, you know, I, I don't go a day without telling them that I love them. We weren't that kind of household. But I don't think that that was unusual, I think a lot of families were like that at that time. It's become more of a thing with the growth of social media and awareness of mental health and all those things that we do that more now. But I got that sort of love and stuff that I needed from friendship and from my grandparents. And then sort of realising that my parents were people and that they had faults and that they made mistakes and… yeah. I can sort of remember the conversations that I had with them around the reasons for divorce and all that kind of stuff, and I remember thinking, oh, God, like they’re a pair of idiots, [laughs] you know, like, how can you be that age and be that immature? And sort of unpicking all of that. And certainly with my Mum, my Mum went on to marry a guy called Mervyn Smith. And yeah, I would say we hit the jackpot, me and my brother with getting Merv, and my children and my niece, Amy, getting to have Merv be part of our lives ‘cause he was one of the best people that's ever walked the planet. I think he was a really, really good guy and unfortunately passed away a few years ago. But count my blessings as do my children and my granddaughter – I haven't come on to that yet – that we got to have Merv as part of our lives, but yeah, in terms of who I admire, like, my Mum and Dad, they're very much of the, the ‘get on and do’ mentality. They are, definitely with my Mum, very duty bound. So, for my mum, both her parents, she cared for them at the cost of her own health and happiness at times I think. You know, my grandma’s dementia, it was 10 years with the diagnosis before she passed away and my Mum was there everyday for her, you know, and that kind of love and support and, you know, driving somewhere while you’re crying ‘cause you’re so tired. But doing it because it’s your Mam and it's your job now. And the-, she did the same for her dad, you know, my granddad. So I've been looking at my grandparents on my Mum's side. My grandma was a member of the church. I am an atheist, but I see the value of the community, certainly. My grandma was a Methodist and her and a lady called Dorothy Rose, another local Trailblazer, who just recently passed away. I think she was aged 99. My grandma and Mrs Rose and another bunch of ladies from Roseworth campaigned for the church to be built – St.Andrews Church, which was built on Hardwick. So they used to meet in a hut near Kiora Hall, and then they got the funding for the church to be built, St.Andrews Church. And there was an outcry at the time that it was being built on Hardwick and not on Roseworth ‘cause the Methodist group met on Roseworth, but anyway it was built in Hardwick. And so again part of my childhood was spent going to church on Sunday and going to the Sunday school. But my grandma was part of the Women's Friendly Circle and all the groups at the church. And so I got to see from a young age the importance that that meant for her- anytime someone who attended that church was poorly or was going through a tough time, her and the other ladies would go and do home visits and that would help them out. And you know, sort of seeing that sort of love and nurture of community from, from young age. And my grandma was really like, humble and hated the spotlight and all that kind of stuff. And Mrs Rose, Dorothy Rose, she won national awards for the work that she's done for Age UK and for the work she did for the church. And my grandma was like, Ohh yeah, I'm happy being in the background, you know, both equally doing the same sort of thing. And then my granddad on my mum's side, he was a submariner in World War 2, so my granddad’s brother, Stanley died on the HMS Hood. It was sank by the Bismark. Stanley was on the Hood, the Hood got sank and I always remember my grandma telling me that she was at the dance at Eastbourne Hall, which is now Primrose Hill Youth Club EPIC. They were in there at the dance when they found out that The Hood had been sank and it was full of local lads. It was the crown in the Royal Navy's fleet. The best ship at the time, and it’d been sank by the Bismark and hundreds of local lads from Stockton died there. And my granddad signed up then at 16 to go and be in the Royal Navy as a submariner. And off he went into World War 2 and he got the Maltese cross. He was a prisoner of war. His submarine was sank and he was captured. He was one of the only few to survive. His ship's Captain was Sir Ian McGeoch, who wrote a book and wrote about my granddad in the book. They survived ‘cause they could swim and they could swim well and they were kept prisoners of war. They escaped, and they were ultimately rescued when the war came to an end and brought home. So I, I like, you know, come from like a family of people that have been strong-willed and passionate and all those things. Like, I'm interested in my family history. I'm interested in the local area history. So my grandparents on my Dad's side, my lovely grandma, Grandma Bentley, Agnes Bentley, and my Granddad Ronnie Bentley. So Ronnie, I can't remember as much about him because he died when I was quite young. But I know he was a big character and he came from a family of 10 children, like a huge family in Stockton. And actually my great-grandparents just lived at the top of Durham Road in a beautiful house that’s just on the corner up there. And I've looked at all the old pictures of that so, like, I'm inspired by my family and my connections to the area. And my Grandma Agnes she, erm, she was really poorly from a very young age so she used to go to the open air school in Stockton town centre. She had a lung condition which I think would now be like a COPD type condition. Emphysema was what she passed away of ultimately. But again another, like, really strong woman and like, really popular. Like she had lots of friends, loved to socialise, would go to, like, the opening of a fridge. She's like Hyacinth Bucket because she had like, ideas of grandeur. Her and my Auntie Anne. They went on the QE2 together and that was like a big thing, like to go on the QE2, and they loved it ‘cause they got upgraded. They got the cabin upgraded to where the millionaires were, and they got to sit on a table with some millionaires, and they were like, just absolutely, like, loving it. So my role models, I think mainly come from my family, and my Mum as well. My Mum, when I was, like, really young my parents both did a lot of running and my Mum was a marathon runner and she was an elite veteran runner, so she could run a marathon in three hours, eighteen minutes and, yeah. She's like a club level and a regional level, sort of really good runner and same with my Dad. My Dad could run a marathon in just over 3 hours, and my brother. You know that kind of like tenacity and, like, dedication and all those kinds of things I think come from that. And my Mum and Dad worked hard, you know for us to be able to do our growing up in Yarm. You know, I'm under no illusion that that's part of the reason why I've got the life that I've got now and the values that I've got now and the friendships and all those kinds of things. I was lucky to do my growing up there. So I think like a lot of my role models come from family. I mentioned my Auntie Anne there, who is like probably one of my most favourite people in the whole world. She's in her late 80s now. She's as sharp as a pin. Hilariously funny, and a no-nonsense kind of woman who can see through bullshit a mile away. Upstanding citizen and really loves to go to her Canasta group and plays like online Solitaire and Scrabble and stuff. [laughs] Like, she's moved with the times. She's all over being online and, you know, being on Facebook and all that kind of stuff. Totally brilliant person, and I make sure that, like, I make time to spend time with her because I think it's important if you can to know your roots and count myself as lucky that I can. So I don't give it like loads of thought, but who inspires me? Debbie Jones, our CEO. Absolutely brilliant. A brilliant friend. A brilliant leader. Yeah. Kind, understanding. Everything that I've ever needed in terms of someone who's had the unenviable role of trying to manage me and support, and support me. [laughs] And also Jackie Duncan, our previous CEO, Karen Winner, who's our Resource Manager. All these people who are like flying under the radar. Laura Davey, an ex-colleague that I worked with. Absolutely love Laura. I learned a lot from being with Laura and watching how she works with families, how she holds conversation, really difficult conversation with parents. And that again was a, a shift for me in the way that I would approach things, was watching how Laura did things and thinking that's better. That's better than how I'm doing it. I'm gonna change that on the back of that. So there's been like key points in my life where I feel like I've learned, I've learned different things. Yeah. Lynne [Interviewer] Thank you. So just if there is anything else you want to say? Lucy [Interviewee]: I’m like blown away really, to even be asked to be part of it. I’m kind of like laughing at myself being involved in this but, yeah, what an honour and I think when you first mentioned it to me what appealed to me about becoming involved is it being part of the archive so that when I am no longer here, my grandchild, maybe more grandchildren by then, will be able to hear my voice still. And know more about their history. OUTRO: Thank you for listening to Periplum’s Trailblazers Podcasts funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. To listen to more of the series, and follow our projects visit our website at periplumheritage.com