Many thanks for the overwhelming support

I really appreciate all the support I've been getting on the comments section of this site. My book is officially published next week and posters of the cover will be at bus stops all over the country so I am inevitably feeling a bit nervous. The support of friends really helps and the support of people I have never met is even more moving. Thank you. This has been my journey, my choice and although my family are in full support of me it is not their choice to have this opened up to the world. Therefore it would have been unfair to expose them to this publicity by making me or them identifiable. Had it been down to me alone I would have stood tall and proud.....THIS IS NOT MY SHAME.

Writing my book

When I wrote my memoir about the abuse I'd suffered as a child it tore me apart but I hoped that by allowing it to be published it would help others who have found or will find themselves in a similar situation. I insisted that names and geographical locations were changed to protect the privacy of my children and grandchildren but now find that national newspapers are questioning my story and doubting it's authenticity. I am desperately hurt and thought I would start this blog as a way of responding to the publishing process. In the prologue of SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME I describe my father (who was profoundly deaf and had tunnel vision) took me at the age of 9 to the Royal Institute of the Blind in London where he and a female friend of his (who was also visually impaired) sexually abused me on two occasions. That is one location which hasn't been changed and that abuse changed my life irrevocably. To many my story may just be another 'misery memoir', to me and my family it is all too real.