Why I Thought My Mum Tried To Burn Me Alive | Minutes With | UNILAD | @LADbible

my first play school i think it was or junior school i obviously upset one of the girls there one of the other kids and her mum asked my the teachers if i could be removed because i was upset in her child my face didn't like it i was scaring her [Music] i was born into a traveller family my mom was a irish traveler and i didn't know my dad my mum was white and so was her husband so when i came out black it kind of put her in a difficult situation my mum thought that i we would be ostracized if i'd stayed in the child of a community and the story i was told was that they saw someone saw my mum put me in the in a fire and a stranger we don't know who saved me in my file it just says that my mum put me in a caravan fire and tried to kill me to be honest with you i didn't know too much about what happened to my mum after the fire um i don't think that was proof like physical proof i think yeah that was a lot you know there was no nothing they could properly pin on any one person so i don't think i don't know what happened to her after the file was it hard growing up knowing that the woman who gave birth to you tried to kill you of course it was horrible to think that you know your mum wants to kill you it's gonna be one of the worst things to think but i'm very very lucky and very grateful and i think i always felt that i always felt that grateful attitude because looking back on my mum and what i came from and thinking you know what she did i thought god you know what kind of life must she have had to do something like that you know no normal person with a happy loving caring upbringing would make those decisions you know who's around her to think that's okay what were the injuries i suffered third degree burns to both of my hands my face the top of my head i always wear a wig now and my arm i think they all the doctors at the time thought i would die you know thinking of thinking back our babies have third degree burns over their face which is a big portion of a baby it's not you know it doesn't look good so the doctors just made me comfortable gave me a little painkillers but ultimately left me to it but when i didn't die and i kept chugging on they decided to get to work and start doing a lot of the skin grafts that you know when you've got burns and necessary you have a lot of infection so they got in quick and did a lot of operations i had well over you know four dozen different types of operations a lot of them to save my life and a lot of them to try make me look as normal as possible if you can call it that i was lucky i survived with a lot of love and care from the nurses so when you were in hospital did you have anyone there to care for you after that apart from the medical professionals when i was put into hospital it was made quite clear that i would be taken away from the family and so i didn't have anyone i was uh you'd call a child of the state you know i didn't have parents or a guardian so i was yeah as a child of a state of the state for a long time when were you adopted so i was fostered when i was around six months old and i was lucky enough to be adopted by the same family when i was six years old so i'm very lucky i always i think that's sort of that you know i felt like i won the lottery really i was saved from the fire and i was adopted with the same family i was very lucky about your birth father they were always really honest my mum went with honesty which i think is the best way age-appropriate honesty they didn't jump straight in with what your mom did it sleep with one eye but imagine like did you ever feel different as a child i did feel different my first play school i think it was or junior school i should know this i'm a mum what sort of first school thing you go to anyway whatever um i went there and i uh i obviously upset one of the girls there one of the other kids and her mum asked my the teachers if i could be removed because i was upsetting her child my face she didn't like it i was scaring her even now though even then i was like i had the sort of the foresight to know that's incredibly inappropriate to say that ever out loud um i was very lucky though my teachers obviously said no you know if you don't like it you can remove your own child this girl's staying so i was really like i had these people in my corner but it was more the fact that people thought it was okay to say these things and do these things it wasn't until i got a bit older that i felt like my difference was uh something that was annoying and you know something that upset me if you like because i could get over how i looked you know you know pretty ugly beautiful whatever it doesn't really matter how you look in that respect i don't think you know nothing's going to really stop you from having a good life but what does make an impact is how people react to you if i went into a coffee shop the the waitress awaits wouldn't ask me what i wanted they would say whoever i was with what does she want does she want sugar coffee is oh i didn't exist so i didn't have a mind or i couldn't speak for myself and that can get kind of tacks in you know i felt like i was constantly having to make people feel comfortable i was constantly having to wait for people to catch up i think it's the roadblocks that keep happening you want to have like a smooth day but my day get when i was younger certainly would always get stopped because people would want to pull me in to have a conversation and sometimes it's nice but sometimes it would be um do you know that there's plastic surgeons that can help you with your face i'm like oh no has i've been using paper mache and glasses all my life like but in reality they're being nice they're trying to say like you know i've got some information i can help you um and so the intention is actually fine and they're not being bad but obviously for me i'm i'm just trying to like get to work and have a normal day and i'm having these things that you're kind of having to when did you stop you wanted to look for answers it was when i sort of was settled i created a nice little bubble for myself you know i was enjoying work had a good relationship i think i kind of knew kids were on the horizon and i think i sort of suddenly felt that need to sort of understand my past and i wanted to figure things out because i thought you know what if i don't do it now i'm probably not going to do it i thought it was now or never if i don't find it out now i'm probably never going to find out can you talk us through what you find out i went to the fibregate archives and got hold of my file and i found out that my mum's husband's mum was there on the day of the fire the names were very similar and she saved me in the fire she also suffered injuries and so my mum wasn't actually there at all i found out um i had family alive and i got to meet some of them i found out what happened on the day of the fire that it was dubious but it was more an accident than uh an intentional murder i guess god i've never said that word um yeah it was emotional i say this i know i'm saying this and it probably sounds like i should be really happy and smiling but it wasn't like you know a lovely end it was still a sad story and there's a lot of victims around the story you know it sort of hurt a lot of people so it wasn't a happy ending i i didn't expect happy ending but it wasn't a happy ending that you'd think but it was just i got information and it was nice to know that my mum didn't try and hurt me on purpose do you know what the worst thing is i can take pain to myself i'll have it any day of the week but i can't take it like i'm a mum now and i just think sorry you know if my child went through life thinking i did that to them and i didn't it just felt really bad i felt bad so you know why did i um why didn't i try no i knew she died when i was seven and i found that out that she died and she had a really hard life like she had a really hard life she died in a terrible accident herself um but yeah i just why didn't i try imagine like i'm a mum now and i know what it's like and for me to think you know i didn't hate her for sure i mean i didn't even feel like i ever had to forgive her anything you know i just thought she had a tough life but i just thought that to figure you know to find out what actually happened earlier and you know just i know it doesn't matter it's not as if it you know maybe affected her but it just makes you feel guilty you know like to think that of someone it's a horrible thing it's a horrible thing you know why didn't i question it your your birth mother was here now yes what would you like to say all i can hear in the back of my mind is i would say i'm sorry for not giving her a chance and not trying to understand her side of the story more be strange to put her face to the story for me i think that would really cement it all i was finding out that information changed in some ways i think it's hard not to change you you're going to take the stories people are going to tell you you know the adults around you are going to say one thing you're going to believe it you know you meet people and it's quite nice to judge them so you can make yourself feel very comfortable and you can put people in a box and then you can kind of categorize everything and feel very safe but in reality you don't know really everyone you don't know the story it's years down the line that you kind of really understand someone and that's why it's really necessary to be kind and give people a chance you know and forgive people over and over again i was i was sat in my in my parents living room and it was like i don't know midnight one o'clock in the morning i actually flicked the website back on and in the first half an hour of the website being live we sold 30 thousand pound in product so to go from three hundred quid a day to thirty thousand pound in half an hour um everything could sold out it was um it was absolutely mind-blowing

Channel: LADbible TV

Views: 1,068,560

Keywords: the lad bible, lad bible, lad, bible, videos, viral videos, viral, documentaries, exclusives, interviews, journalism, culture, minutes with, unilad, burn victim, nhs, survivor, adoption, foster care, childhood, burns, skin graft, ladbible tv

Id: S_zM7iIExZM

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021