Chloe Sims - The Only Way is Up - My Story. Chloe Sims
was really good to me and I loved her like a sister. When she left school, she got a job in McDonald’s and she used to bring home the Happy Meal toys for me. They would change the toys every week or so and she would bring me the new one every time. I’d line them up, like they were teddies.
Auntie Sylv was a proper mum – she was a great cook and was always baking cakes. She taught me to bake from an early age. She and Uncle Gordon literally had nothing – there was no carpet in the front room and the electricity meter was always running out.
Gordon was a gardener and plumber and, although they hardly had any money, I never went without. Obviously, my dad used to buy me things and help out, but Auntie Sylv always saved up so she could buy me nice birthday presents. She was so kind.
At Christmas, we used to decorate the tree together and get really excited. Auntie Sylv ordered things from the catalogue, which she could pay off over the year, so she could treat me. She was so generous and always found the money, somehow. Her house was my home, and I often used to forget that I had actually lived next door because all I could really remember was living with Auntie Sylv.
When I was five, I started at the local school, Parkhill Primary, and the first friend I made was a girl called Sangeeta. Auntie Sylv could never remember her name so she used to call her Leccy Meter, which would really annoy me! Then, just as I was settling in at school, my dad dropped a bombshell: we were going to America.
His dad George – my granddad – lived over there and we were going to stay with him. I had never met my granddad before because he had split with Nanny Linda a long time before that. He had then moved to Chicago and had remarried to a woman called Marilyn. When my dad told me we were going over there for a visit, I was really excited because it would be just the two of us. I was also looking forward to meeting my granddad because, up until then, I hadn’t had a proper granddad.
For some reason, I remember the plane journey over there really clearly. The plane seemed massive and the airhostesses were fussing around me, giving me games to play with. I can still picture one game, this box that you could fold out and make into things. My dad and me played with it the whole way to America.
Dad has so much patience – he loves kids and can play games for hours. When the airhostesses kept coming back and forward, bringing us food and drinks, I felt like a princess! I remember getting off the big plane and changing on to a smaller one. I guess there weren’t any direct flights to Chicago back then.
Granddad picked us up from the airport in his car and I just lay down across the back seat and pretended to be asleep. It was funny meeting my granddad for the first time. He looked just like my dad – he wasn’t a typical granddad at all. Tall and dark, he was handsome and still looked young.
Granddad George and Marilyn lived in a one-bedroom flat, so I slept on a mattress on their bedroom floor and my dad slept on the sofa in the front room. They had a big black dog called Jet, and Marilyn was a really good cook. She cooked spicy foods that I wasn’t used to eating at Auntie Sylv’s, things like chilli and Caribbean food.
I didn’t like sleeping on their floor, though, because I was scared of the dark and used to see shapes – it still freaks me out to this day. One night, my granddad had left a hat over the top of the door and I woke up in the middle of the night and thought there was a man standing there. I screamed the place down and they couldn’t calm me, so in the end they let me sleep on the sofa with my dad and I remember feeling really happy. Being with Dad was all I wanted.
We stayed in America for three months – until our money and our visa ran out. It turned out my granddad had told my dad that he could get him a job over there but for some reason it hadn’t worked out.
I remember my dad sitting me down and telling me he had to go home and he asked if I wanted to stay. George and Marilyn had offered to look after me for him because they knew it was tough. But there was no way I was going to be parted from my dad. I didn’t want to live in a different country where people spoke in funny voices, so I said I wanted to go home with him.
I was happy with my dad and there was no way I was going to stay without him. I don’t remember anything about the flight home but, when we got back, Dad took me to stay with some distant relatives who I had never met before. Auntie Sylv was upset that he had taken me away to America and Dad was worried she’d go mad at him if he took me back. I think he wanted us to stay in America for good, but things didn’t work out. When we came back to England, I wanted to go back to Aunty Sylv’s, not stay with some random strangers, so I acted up. It worked. I was really naughty and eventually my dad came and got me and took me back to Auntie Sylv.
She was really glad to have me back, but really I just wanted to go with my dad. I worshipped him. To me, he was a superstar – he was good-looking and I honestly believed he could do anything. But, at least when I was at Aunty Sylv’s, he was always nearby.
When we came back, I started at a different local school, Gilbert Colvin Primary, and I was always wetting myself – I remember getting changed into dry clothes on several occasions. I made a new friend called Katie Alexander and she soon became my best friend. We were inseparable at school and always sat next to each other.
Katie was the opposite of me – I was blonde and a skinny little thing, but she was dark and sturdy. She had brown hair and freckles, and she was athletic. At the time, I thought she was rich because she lived in Barkingside in a nice area, while I lived on a council estate in Clayhall. We had no carpets, so anything would have seemed posh!
Katie lived in a semi-detached house and she had a garden with a tree in it that we used to climb. I would stay over at her house quite a lot, and I really liked it there. Her mum used to buy Katie little presents and she’d always buy me one too. She had the best sweet cupboard ever! We were allowed to take in a snack bag to have at break time at school and Katie’s mum made the best snack bags. It would be a clear sandwich bag, with a drink and chocolates and sweets inside. If I was staying over, she would do a snack bag for me, too, which I loved.
I haven’t seen Katie for years – we drifted apart after we left primary school – but I still drive past her old house sometimes now, and it’s funny because, all those years ago, I thought it was so big but now it looks small.
My next clear memory is of my sixth birthday because Auntie Sylv organised me a surprise party. She used to go to bingo every week and I would go along with her. Every week, they played the same music in the bingo hall and I used to skip around the chairs while the music played, with Auntie Sylv and all her friends clapping along.
On my sixth birthday, I put on a really pretty dress and Auntie Sylv told me we were going somewhere. We went to a local hall and, when we walked in, all my friends and family were there and the same music from bingo was playing. I skipped in! I was so excited – my Nanny Linda, my dad’s mum, was there and lots of the family, as well as people from my class at school.
Auntie Sylv had baked me a huge ‘My Little Pony’ cake and I loved it. I even had my first kiss at that party with a boy called Ben, who was in my class. I can’t remember his surname but I just went up to him and kissed him on the cheek. Even from a young age, I was confident around members of the opposite sex!
It was a really special party and Auntie Sylv had gone to loads of trouble. Even all these years later, I remember everything about it. It is such a special memory.
A few months after my birthday, I went to school as normal – I used to walk there by myself, even though I was only six – and, when I got there, I realised that Katie wasn’t in that day. I’d already swapped my lunch tokens but I decided I didn’t want to be at school without her so I just left again and walked back home, without saying a word to anyone.
I told Auntie Sylv that school wasn’t on that day and she believed me. So we caught the bus into Debden and went shopping for what she called ‘goodies’. We were gone all day. Then on the way back, I needed the toilet, so I ran from the bus stop back home to go for a wee. Auntie Sylv could only shuffle slowly so I ran ahead, and, when I got back, there were loads of people waiting and they said the police had been called because I had disappeared