Chloe Sims - The Only Way is Up - My Story. Chloe Sims
I was in big trouble. She was absolutely fuming! They had been trying to contact her and everyone was really worried. They’d even had the police helicopter out looking for me! The police came to talk to me and told me that I had caused a lot of trouble and, when I went back into school the next day, the headmaster shouted at me.
Auntie Sylv didn’t stay angry for long, and the whole thing was soon forgotten and everything went back to normal, but I never did it again.
All my memories of living at Auntie Sylv’s are happy ones – even though they were poor, they always treated me. Auntie Sylv didn’t have any of her own money really because she didn’t work and Uncle Gordon only gave her a bit each week so she had to save up for anything she wanted. My dad used to give her money every week for me, though.
Uncle Gordon used to go to the pub after work and then he’d come back and would always sit in the same chair to watch the telly. When he got up, Auntie Sylv used to whisper to me to check down the sides of the chair to see if any coins had fallen out of his pockets. It was our secret way of getting a few extra quid for treats.
Sometimes Uncle Gordon would take me to the pub with him and buy me a fizzy drink, which I always thought was a real treat. Auntie Sylv was always so good to me but, looking back, I was a bit of a naughty child and didn’t do what I was told. She must have been tearing her hair out. Every night, I used to play out with the other kids from the estate and I would never come home when I was supposed to.
I got to learn pretty quickly that Auntie Sylv couldn’t walk very fast, so, when she came out to get me to come in, I would just run away from her. Even when she was shouting at me from across the street, I tried to delay going home for as long as possible.
Every house had a big concrete doorstep and I remember Auntie Sylv would give me a packet of chalks and let me colour in the doorstep to keep me busy and out of trouble. I loved doing that.
When I look back, I had a lovely childhood – I knew everyone on the estate and everyone was friendly. There was a shop in the middle and I used to run errands for Auntie Sylv when she needed things. Every summer, me and all the other kids would literally spend the whole six weeks outdoors; we were probably a nightmare for the neighbours but we had great fun. We knew where everyone lived and we got to know who was miserable. We used to torment them by playing ‘Knock Down Ginger’ (where you knock on a door, then run off and hide) for hours on end. We would also have water fights and play for hours, getting totally soaked, and other days we would have street parties on the green near our house.
When I was a bit older, Auntie Sylv got a job working at the bingo so she had a bit more money and I remember when we finally got carpet in the front room. I reckon it was about five years after I moved in, and it was a big deal. Other people took things like carpet for granted, but I still remember the feel of it under my feet. It was so nice and warm after the cold bare floors we had before!
At weekends, Dad would come and take me out and then we’d go back to his house in – I liked it there because it was just him and me. I also saw him on a Tuesday after school, when he would pick me up and take me to swimming lessons and, later, karate lessons, and then to McDonald’s for tea. I loved spending time with my dad. Often, instead of going to his house, we’d go to visit the rest of his family.
There was my dad’s mum, Nanny Linda, who lived nearby in Essex, and also his gran, Nanny Daisy, who was really my great-gran and lived in east London.
Nanny Daisy was always the head of the family. She was brilliant. A real matriarch, she kept the family together. Everyone would pile into her flat whenever there was a drama – I’ve never met anyone so caring as my Nanny Daisy.
We all used to go and get pie and mash from a shop called Kelly’s on the Roman Road near her flat and then take it back there to eat it. She had this silver cutlery we had to eat with and, because it was so old, all the silver was coming off and it used to leave a horrible taste in your mouth. Nanny Daisy died five years ago at the age of 99 and she was an amazing lady. Although she was little and frail with curly grey hair, she was a really strong woman.
Nanny Daisy was a proper old-fashioned East Ender and had a real Cockney accent, like you hear on films. She loved kids, and she always loved having us round. She always had loads of sweets and treats, which for some bizarre reason she used to keep in the freezer. The chocolate buttons would be rock-hard and we’d be nearly breaking our teeth on the boiled sweets!
Although she didn’t have loads of money, she was always giving us cash and telling us to go and treat ourselves. When I was younger, she used to give me £20 and tell me to go and buy some clothes and then come back and give her a fashion show. I’d go into her bedroom – she lived in a one-bedroom flat – and try it all on and then model it for her. She’d go: ‘Oooh, that’s nice! How much was that?’ And then she’d go on about what a bargain it was.
Nanny Linda is great too, just like her mum. We are really close and I still speak to her nearly every day. The relationship I have with Nanny Linda now is what I imagine you’d have with a mum: if she annoys me, I can tell her I’m pissed off (and vice versa). When I was younger, she always wore really strong perfume and big shoulder pads! I suppose it was the eighties, so that was the fashion back then.
She is one of those people who can’t stop feeding you – as soon as you walk in the door, she’s got a meal prepared and is trying to feed you up. She always buys the food she knows you like and her house is really cosy. If ever I’m upset, I go to my Nanny Linda’s because it feels like home. She’s lived in the same house since I was a little girl and it is always so welcoming. Mady loves going round there because she always buys her sweets and there’s this big toy box there, so she’s got loads of things to play with.
A lot of people think maybe she should have let me and my dad live with her after Mum left. But Nanny Linda had just brought up her own kids and she’d had a hard life and she said no. I don’t resent her for that at all. Maybe life would have turned out differently… I’ll never know.
Then there was my dad’s sister, Auntie Tina, and her husband, Uncle Donald, who lived in Bermondsey, south London. I loved Auntie Tina – she always looked glamorous and smelled of perfume. I think, when my mum left, she wanted me to go and live with her but she was only young and didn’t have kids of her own yet, and my dad felt it wasn’t fair on her because she should enjoy being young while she could.
She always made me feel really welcome and I loved being at her house. Uncle Donald used to drive over to collect me and I’d look forward to seeing them both. When I was five, Auntie Tina told me she was having a baby and I was really excited. I helped her get the nursery all ready and I just could not wait for that baby to be born. I used to sit in the nursery and think, ‘Wow, soon there will be a little baby in here, a cousin for me!’
Her pregnancy seemed to last for ages but eventually the baby came. She had a little girl and called her Francesca – Frankie – and I was over the moon she was a girl!
As much as I loved Auntie Sylv, I still never wanted to go back there after my weekends with my family and, as I grew older, I realised that my lot were quite different from Auntie Sylv and her family.
Auntie Sylv had a heart of gold and was very loving, but she never cared about material things or the way she looked. She only had one pair of shoes and, as welcoming and homely as it was, her house was far from immaculate. She really wasn’t bothered about appearances or airs and graces, but she was the salt of the earth – decent, hardworking and kind – and I can never put into words how grateful I am for what she did for me when I was a little girl. And Gordon and Kelly, too – I will always love them and have so many fond and happy memories of being there.
Over the years, Auntie Sylv was so loving towards me – she put up with all kinds. I used to wet the bed but she never complained; she would just clean me up and wash the sheets, never passing comment. She was such a great mother figure to me that I never even thought about my own mum, and she wasn’t spoken about either. Auntie Tina told me that I once told her that I lived with Auntie Sylv because my mummy didn’t love me, but I don’t remember saying it. I guess to other people it was