The power of laughter

Warning - a long-winded back story follows... I've always been a joker. My backstory is fairly stereotypical and clichéd . Whilst my childhood is by no means a sob story, there is a degree of trauma to unpack. I'm the youngest of five kids. My mum left Scotland when I was around 6 weeks old, fleeing a violent, alcoholic husband using money from the local church's emergency fund. She fled to Essex, where her sister lived, and so I was raised there. Mum remarried when I was 4