Janey Godley’s Blog

As we all know that commercial vehicle ‘Mothers Day’ arrives in UK 26^th March. I have a wonderful step mum called Mary, she is adorable and I am proud to have her as a mother and dedicated my autobiography to her (amongst other women in my family).

My real birth mother was murdered in 1982, so today I was thinking about her and thought I would tell you some funny stuff about her, she was called ‘Annie’.

Annie was slim, dark eyed and very funny (wonder where I got that funny thing from eh?)

She had a hard life, looked after her younger brother and sister before she got married and promptly had four kids to my father.

My ‘mammy’ as I call her was a great story teller and could also dance better than anyone I have ever seen in real life, this was a woman who could make soup and jive and manage to boot a snarling Alsatian out of the way as she quick stepped around a small dirty kitchen in Glasgow’s east End.

My mammy was scared of our dog, in fact she was scared of all dogs, yet we owned a biting angry dog called Major. He never bit mammy, and they had a truce between them-she fed him and he stayed out of her way.

I used to sit and stroke him and would beg my mammy to give him some affection, but Major eyed her nervously and she spit angrily that he would never get any comfort from her and this annoyed me, as Major was my love and my everlasting hero.

I was sexually abused by my mammy’s brother David and Major would attack him every time the man entered our home, the dog suffered beatings for his disobedience, yet he never gave up biting the paedophile…that’s why I loved my dog.

Anyway I recall one night when my mammy was sitting with her wee pal having a drink and good old Glasgow gossip. I sat there with them and there was knock at the door, I jumped up, went down the hallway, shoved the barking dog out of the way and answered the door.

To my absolute horror it was an Electricity Board worker carrying a small step ladder, telling me he was there to cut off our supply for failure of payment. I had made the awful error of letting him into our hallway.

I heard a commotion in the living room and the man came through as he followed me in to our dirty house.

What I witnessed will never leave me till this day…in the time it took for me to answer the door-my mammy had pulled down the couch/sofa bed, hopped into it, raised her knees beneath the dirty covers, her mate was rubbing her head and shouting to the young guy “Quick, she is having a baby, go boil water and grab her hand”

Then my Mammy, in her best Norma Desmond school of acting method screamed “Son, if you need to cut off our electricity, go ahead, I don’t want you in trouble son, you do what you need top do” And then she screamed “That’s another contraction Carole AAARRGGGHHH!”

The dog and I just stood there aghast at the whole debacle, I was only twelve years old, I really thought she was having a baby! I was unaware this was her ruse to get shot of the electricity man off the premises without disconnecting our unpaid supply.

Well the young guy ran out of our house in shock, he never stopped to cut us off and within seconds my mammy and her mate were back at the wee two bar electric heater smoking fags and continuing their chat.

That’s what I remember about my mammy, her sheer steely faced determination and funny improvised ways that got her in and out of trouble.

I just wish she could have wiggled her way out of being killed by that bastard boyfriend she trusted all those years ago.

She ended up drowned in the River Clyde, we found her days after she disappeared, I still to this day don’t know the actual day or the real facts behind her death.

Happy Mothers Day Annie.