the feeling that they’d had their lives – they’d had children and families and yet they were now being looked after by a stranger who was paid to be there.
Perhaps it was all part of the muddle and sadness of the break-up and selling the house. More likely, I was still traumatised by the abortion. Maybe I thought that the grass was greener, or that I needed a change of scenery. Certainly living with Chris had become increasingly claustrophobic. But whatever the reason, switching jobs didn’t seem to do the trick. I still felt sad and a bit of a failure, and I longed to be back working with children.
All in all, after a few weeks of staying at Mum’s the feeling of claustrophobia was getting worse, not better. I felt trapped and useless and miserable. Gateshead seemed small and limiting; my career stalled and unfulfilling. And then I saw the advert.
It was in one of the daily papers Mum had delivered to the house. To this day I can’t recall which paper it was: it was definitely a tabloid and the advert was in a little box of its own in the classified section, which made it stand out from all the other words around it. And when I saw it I thought I’d found the answer to my prayers. The words in the little box said: ‘Nursery nurse wanted to work in crèche abroad. Accommodation available.’ I read the words once but I couldn’t quite take them in. It seemed too good to be true: a job doing what I loved and in a place far away from Gateshead and all its horrible memories.
It was so perfect that I was afraid I must have imagined it. I was terrified that if I looked away the little box, the words inside and all the promise they held out would disappear. But somehow I calmly sat down on the living-room couch, closed my eyes, took a deep breath and then opened them again, willing the advert to still be there. It was, and for the next hour I read it over and over again. Then I snatched up the paper and took it through to the kitchen to show Mum.
To my intense annoyance, she wasn’t impressed. She couldn’t seem to see all the wonderful possibilities that I saw magically opening up for me … if only I grasped this fantastic opportunity. She could, though, see all the downsides – and proceeded to tell me about them in great detail. I was still only 19. I’d been through years of abuse, I’d lived in Care, I’d had two failed relationships and an abortion. I was only just beginning to find my feet again – oh, and had she mentioned that I was still only 19? Just a bairn, really.
And what did I know about the company behind this? What sort of people advertised for a nursery nurse in the classified section of a tabloid rag? And abroad ? What on earth did I know about working abroad? I didn’t speak a word of any foreign language. No, there was something not right about this – not right for me, at any rate. Forget it, Sarah. Focus on getting your life sorted out here.
But I was having none of it. This was the golden opportunity that was going to change my life. It was the piece of good fortune I was surely due, and I was going to grab it with both hands. We argued, Mum and I, up hill and down dale. We argued all that day and well into the night. My little sister took Mum’s side; even my brother weighed in with his view that it all sounded decidedly ‘dodgy’. And the more they warned me, the more I dug my heels in, and the more I was determined to pursue this wonderful opportunity with every breath in my body.
There was a phone number to call printed at the bottom of the advert. I flounced out of the argument and picked up the telephone. As I dialled the numbers, I knew – I just knew – that from this moment on my luck was going to change.
The voice that answered was pleasant enough. He said his name was John Reece and yes, he was looking for a trained and qualified nursery nurse to work in a crèche with which he was associated. Did I have proper qualifications, because he wasn’t going
Perhaps it was all part of the muddle and sadness of the break-up and selling the house. More likely, I was still traumatised by the abortion. Maybe I thought that the grass was greener, or that I needed a change of scenery. Certainly living with Chris had become increasingly claustrophobic. But whatever the reason, switching jobs didn’t seem to do the trick. I still felt sad and a bit of a failure, and I longed to be back working with children.
All in all, after a few weeks of staying at Mum’s the feeling of claustrophobia was getting worse, not better. I felt trapped and useless and miserable. Gateshead seemed small and limiting; my career stalled and unfulfilling. And then I saw the advert.
It was in one of the daily papers Mum had delivered to the house. To this day I can’t recall which paper it was: it was definitely a tabloid and the advert was in a little box of its own in the classified section, which made it stand out from all the other words around it. And when I saw it I thought I’d found the answer to my prayers. The words in the little box said: ‘Nursery nurse wanted to work in crèche abroad. Accommodation available.’ I read the words once but I couldn’t quite take them in. It seemed too good to be true: a job doing what I loved and in a place far away from Gateshead and all its horrible memories.
It was so perfect that I was afraid I must have imagined it. I was terrified that if I looked away the little box, the words inside and all the promise they held out would disappear. But somehow I calmly sat down on the living-room couch, closed my eyes, took a deep breath and then opened them again, willing the advert to still be there. It was, and for the next hour I read it over and over again. Then I snatched up the paper and took it through to the kitchen to show Mum.
To my intense annoyance, she wasn’t impressed. She couldn’t seem to see all the wonderful possibilities that I saw magically opening up for me … if only I grasped this fantastic opportunity. She could, though, see all the downsides – and proceeded to tell me about them in great detail. I was still only 19. I’d been through years of abuse, I’d lived in Care, I’d had two failed relationships and an abortion. I was only just beginning to find my feet again – oh, and had she mentioned that I was still only 19? Just a bairn, really.
And what did I know about the company behind this? What sort of people advertised for a nursery nurse in the classified section of a tabloid rag? And abroad ? What on earth did I know about working abroad? I didn’t speak a word of any foreign language. No, there was something not right about this – not right for me, at any rate. Forget it, Sarah. Focus on getting your life sorted out here.
But I was having none of it. This was the golden opportunity that was going to change my life. It was the piece of good fortune I was surely due, and I was going to grab it with both hands. We argued, Mum and I, up hill and down dale. We argued all that day and well into the night. My little sister took Mum’s side; even my brother weighed in with his view that it all sounded decidedly ‘dodgy’. And the more they warned me, the more I dug my heels in, and the more I was determined to pursue this wonderful opportunity with every breath in my body.
There was a phone number to call printed at the bottom of the advert. I flounced out of the argument and picked up the telephone. As I dialled the numbers, I knew – I just knew – that from this moment on my luck was going to change.
The voice that answered was pleasant enough. He said his name was John Reece and yes, he was looking for a trained and qualified nursery nurse to work in a crèche with which he was associated. Did I have proper qualifications, because he wasn’t going
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