Thread by @EnterpriseSBox

THREAD: 8th March.

My sister Sarah Jane would have been 50 years old today.

I speak about her and tell her story in the talk I do about #DomesticAbuse but that doesn’t tell HER story.

Here’s a bit more about her and our family.

1/

We were both adopted from Guernsey. Me in 1966/7 Sarah in 1970.

I’m told (by my birth mother - that’s another story) that Guernsey in the late 60s was more like the 1900s from a morals and development perspective. So being born ‘out of wedlock’ was especially problematic.

2/

Consequently there were a lot of babies adopted off the Channel Islands to the mainland - due in some part to the transient nature of employment in the holiday and travel industries. (I was the result of a holiday romance and we found out that Sarah was also a teen-pregnancy).
3/

Our family was ‘normal’ Mum, Dad, Brother, Sister dog (Buster).

We grew up in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire and my Dad was a policeman for 25 years before retiring into security. Mum worked part time in Mothercare and at the burns unit at Stoke Mandeville.

Photo about 1972.
4/

Dad was an only child from Gorebridge outside Edinburgh and after being a RAF chef during National Service he joined the police as PC103 in Thames Valley Police.
He was in communications and after the beat he was office based (he took the call about the Great Train Robbery).
5/.

Mum was one of seven daughters (her mum and dad REALLY wanted a son) and the youngest of the children. A twin, she was the one who survived after her sister died from TB at 4 years old).

It was undiagnosed but I think Mum was depressed her whole life under the surface.

6/

So when they couldn’t have children of their own, David (Jock) Bernard and Jean Bernard of course adopted a boy, (Me) in 1967 and it looks like they were happy doesn’t it?

7/.

They were. A few years later on they wanted a ‘complete’ family and so in 1970, Sarah Jane was also adopted from Guernsey.

She was red-haired and blue-eyed like Dad and I am brown haired and eyes like Mum.

The Nuclear Family was complete.

8/

Now, I’m not sure why, but Sarah and I didn’t always get on that well - whether I was a selfish boy who didn’t play or sibling rivalry, was Sarah ‘difficult’ or were we treated differently? I don’t know.

I suspect mum’s desire to have a boy meant I was treated like a prince.
9/

And so ‘sides’ were unofficially drawn with Dad protecting Sarah and Mum siding with me.

We fought all the time after sarah was about 5 or 6 - arguments, sniping, breaking each other’s things.

Our parents wanted the best and moved from a small village to town for schools.
10/

I was ‘lucky’ to get to the Grammar School (it didn’t feel like it when my friends went to the local comprehensive all together) and when the time came Sarah went to the Grange Comp too.

All along we were ‘separated by achievement’ consciously or not I don’t know.

11/

I did ok at school, was popular and average.

Sarah was popular, rebellious and never really invested in school. (You can see her in uniform in Tweet 1) and as soon as she could get a job she did so part time in garages and on forecourts.

She didn’t follow gender lines!

12/

When I was 17 my older girlfriend and I booked to have a holiday abroad in Benidorm (I know) so I needed my passport...

I needled my mum relentlessly for then birth certificate I needed for a passport.

After days and days of persistence, Mum snapped and we had a row...

13/

“We don’t want any more like you do we...?”

Utterly confused I asked what she meant and she blurted out the secret she’d been carrying for nearly 2 decades “you’re adopted aren’t you. So is your sister. Don’t tell her...”

So as I flounced out of the door, I went...

14/

...to Sarah’s room and said “I was adopted at birth and so were you”.

I then slammed the door and stayed at my friend Joe’s house for 3 days before going back home to talk about it.

The secret was out and I was born Mark Allen in Guernsey.

15/

From then on, our family life was fractious to say the least.

I had shared a room with my Dad for the past three years as my parent’s marriage crumbled and now none of us really spoke to one another.

Sarah really took the new information to heart and began the search...

16/

...for her ‘real’ family in Guernsey.

My behaviour went off the rails and after ruining my A Levels and chasing trouble I decided to leave Aylesbury and go away to college to reinvent myself.

Sarah stayed at home until she finished school and got a job immediately.

17/

The family split and Mum went to live in Milton Keynes with her mum and Dad stayed in Aylesbury in a small terraced house after the Detached house was sold.

Sarah lived with him and they both worked while I was away at College in North Wales.

Sarah worked at a garage.
18/

She was the parts manager at a Citroen Garage and she loved it. The work, the banter and the environment.

She met Bob, a mechanic and they lived together quite soon after in a nice new house.

After this relationship ended she started seeing another mechanic, Rob, the one! 19

They moved to Norfolk, ran a pub lived close to his family and started mini renovation on the side.
Stephanie was born and then Alexander.
The pub worked well for a while and the sideline was a bit of other income.
The early 2000s were a good time. They got married too.

20/

As for Sarah and I, we had decided in the early 90s that we didn’t get on and as we were adults had little to do with one another - we didn’t go to one another’s weddings for example - there were a lot of secrets in our family growing up and I think we never got over it.

21/

Christmas and Birthday cards came through for the families and kids but nothing very regular.

I knew Sarah had left her family and gone to live in Newcastle with Ian Hope through Mum who thought Sarah was off on a romantic mission of love.
She tried to keep the veneer.

21/

I only knew things were not joyous when a policeman came to our door and asked for me.

He told me Sarah had been killed.

I knew nothing about her relationship in the NE and her experiences at the hands of Ian Hope.

I still feel guilty.

22/

Everything I do in her name in schools and at conferences when I tell her story is to make sure boys learn respect for women and girls and that women and girls know what the signs are of #DomesticViolence

I’m trying to make a legacy from her tragic death.
23/

Rest in Peace 🙏🏼

Sarah Jane Gosling
8/3/1970 to 26/2/2012.

End #domesticviolence and #VAWG.

#InternationalWomensDay2020
End #DomesticAbuse

If you want to know a bit more about Sarah and what I do in schools please have a read of this great article by @menendez_elisa in the @MetroUK paper.

metro.co.uk/2019/10/14/bro…

...and finally if you’ve been affected by Sarah’s story and want to help other women please support the work of @nia_endingVAWG @womensaid @RefugeCharity @JeanHatchet @K_IngalaSmith

#IWD2020 🙏🏼