“Three months after he died I got pregnant again with another guy. Then I got pregnant again, with twins.” Photos by Alex Sturrock
 

I’ve lived here in Brockstow all my life. When I was 17 I got pregnant with Sinead and I had her at 18. I was with Sinead’s dad Terry for three years and then he started taking brown (heroin) and stuff.

I didn’t know about it at first, I didn’t know much about drugs.

Everybody started saying, “Gemma, he’s on drugs” but I didn’t want to listen or hear it. Then things started going missing and things started getting nicked. My mum got me a nice stereo for Christmas and that got nicked. In the end, after a long time, it was really obvious that he was on it.

He went to prison, came out, sorted his head out and told me: “No, I’m never going to get on it again”.

But he did. Eight weeks later, he was back in prison and I couldn’t deal with living with that. He got out of prison and six months later I had another child by him and we called him Tyrese.

It was bad with Terry because my money kept disappearing and little things from around the house went missing. Even his daughter Sinead’s bracelet went missing. He used to lie all the time and he even pawned my stereo. One time I gave him £40 to go and get it back but soon afterwards he pawned it again.



I was giving him about £12.50 a week so the pawn shop wouldn’t sell it but he was lying to me about the money and spending it on drugs. I phoned up the pawn shop and told the man on the phone I wanted my stereo back and he told me that he had sold, and that Terry hadn’t been in there for ages.

This is when I found out Terry on brown again.

After that, he tried to sort himself out again but got back on heroin and ended up back in prison again.

He went in on February 3 and on February 4 he committed suicide. That was two years ago.

I found out because Terry left me a letter. He didn’t sign it to anybody. It just said, “Tell my dad I’m sorry and tell my mum I love her and can you especially look after Gemma, Sinead and Tyrese.”

I haven’t explained anything to his children about what happened. Tyrese was a baby when it happened and Sinead was too young to understand.

Terry had tried to commit suicide once before but I think the first time was a cry for help. He told me that he’d done it and I told him to never do anything like that again.

The second time, when he actually died, the prison didn’t even put him on suicide watch. This makes me angry. If they knew that he’d tried it before you think they would have put him on suicide watch.

I don’t know why he did it. I just think he’d had enough.

When he went inside for the last time he had a £150 a day habit and all they gave him for the belly cramps you get when you come down off drugs was paracetomol. That’s not going to help him. They put him in a room with bunk beds as well. And that’s basically saying that they don’t care if he does it or not.


This is Gemma’s rotting front door and the burglar alarm, which was kicked off the wall.

Anyway, three months after he died I got pregnant again with another guy called Ben. I had Tia. Then three months later I found out I was pregnant again, with twins.

I wasn’t going to have them at first. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I went to the health centre to get a termination but they wouldn’t let me have one until I’d had a scan first. So I went to have a scan and I was 12 weeks pregnant.

In Nottingham it’s illegal to have a termination at 12 weeks so I had to go out of the area to Birmingham to have it done. That’s when they told me I had twins and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get rid of them, no way.

Even so, I was shocked, I cried my eyes out because I did not want to have them. But I did, and I’m glad.

Eventually I got into a routine and it’s all right. They go to bed at 8 PM every night. We get in about 7 PM, watch a bit of telly and then go to bed. Tia will go to bed about 10.30 PM and then I will too.

The night times are the worst because you’re so tired, and then the twins start crying. Every three or four hours I have to wake up to give them a feed. I’m shattered.

Before they get to the age of two, they can’t feed themselves so I have to do it.

A big help is that my mum lives round the corner and she helps me. Then I get the Social money for the kids so I manage on that. I get £187 a week but I’m paying off a loan to the Social as well for Christmas money.

With Child Benefit you get £17 for your first kid, then you get £10 each for your other ones and then you get your benefits on top of that. I don’t think I’ll ever get a job now. If I ever got a job, the kids would have to be at least about five or something like that.


This is Gemma’s second youngest child, Tia.

The money I get from the Social goes on food, gas, electric, clothes and the bits and bobs you need. I mainly go to Asda. I get the baby food in there. Ben’s mum and my mum helps me with nappies and I get the powdered baby milk, the SMA, with tokens I get from the health centre.

Where do I see myself in five years time? I don’t know but I know I want to get out of here. There’s always little kids in the street and every week they steal a car and set it on fire. Every day it’s the same. They’re all tramps around here. They’re not bothered about anything.

Saying that, I think it’s calmed down a lot, Brockstow. It used to be a lot worse. The trouble mainly comes from TWOC-ers and stuff (Taking Without Consent AKA thieves). In Radford and St Ann’s it’s more about drugs. People from round here by the drugs there and come back here.

If I could get a message to the Government I would say: “Give me more money.” I don’t think they give us enough. There’s gas, electric, food and everything else to pay for.

Every Christmas I get a loan to help me buy presents. They give me £600 for Christmas and now they take £16 a week out of my benefits so I can pay it back.

The council is so crap. I can’t even get in my garden, which they’re meant to maintain. And next door has two massive Rottweillers so I wouldn’t go with the kids in the garden even if the council cleaned the garden out.

I just look at how bad the houses are round here. I need a door frame but when I ask the council to bring me one all they do is bring me a new door. The doors fall off all the time because the frame is rotted, that’s how bad it is. I tell them about the frame but they just bring new doors. You have to call a call centre in London or somewhere to tell them the council in Nottingham needs to bring you a new door. And sometimes they come and sometimes they don’t.

I got a leak in my kitchen sink the other day and it was so bad it filled up a bucket in minutes. The council tried to make me wait a week before they came to fix it but if I’d have waited for them it would have ruined my floor. I kept ringing them and ringing them all night and eventually they came the next morning.

I want to get out of here as soon as I can. I hate it.

GEMMA STANBRIDGE