Made In Devon

I was made in Devon

Christmas party, 1994

Pink duvet, wine on the night stand

And discarded heels on the floor

I was three months early

A demon in disguise

Feeding off my mother

Almost causing her demise

My father was an engineer

Fixing broken taps in pubs and bars

But he couldn't fix himself

Hence the faded silver scars

My mother has two parents

Who were full of love and care

Teaching her to cook and clean

In case they were not there

I’m the first member of my family

To go to university, do a degree

But my family are so complex

There’s many layers under what you see

My Scottish Granddad

Beat my Grandma, left the home

And my epileptic uncle,

Grandma and Dad all alone

My other Grandpa, John

Survived the war and the bombs

Though his house was blown to pieces

He was in the shelter, singing songs

My Grandma was a chef

Feeding a hundred mouths a day

She still loves to entertain

Fussing and fretting in every way

I'm the black sheep of the family

The rainbow lesbian child

Although it took a while to sink in

And my dad became quite riled

My family are fucked up

But they don’t admit it at all

Acting upper class, prim and proper

Always dressed fit for a ball

I still remember the day

My father left the home

Suitcase packed, full of pills

Only moving up the road

Unanswered calls, frantic screams

Paramedics bashing down the door

To find him in a pool of blood

Slit wrists, unconscious on the floor

My mother loves control

She’ll tell me what to do

“Don’t eat that, you’ll get fat!”

“That’s a portion size for two!”

My crazy screwed up family

Half lower class, half posh

Some scraping by, day by day

Others rolling in the dosh

I'm a Munro, a quarter Scottish

And the other half from Hackney

I come from a time, that if I whined

It was okay to smack me

That’s the ugly parts of the past

Now I’m 20 years old

That’s half the story, half the book

But the rest I haven’t told…