In her own Words: The Medular Sinclair Bio

Part One

Had the Pretenders been around at the time, people would have called my mother a blonde Chrissie Hynde. With her bangs, or fringe as we Brits call it, sitting halfway over her eyes and the tight angled face and smooth skin, my mother was beautiful. There is one picture with that hair style. Just a head and shoulder shot, with the only clothing a towel. A threaded pink, which could have once been burgundy, wrapping up a baby, so that you could only see the head resting on my mother’s shoulder. That Baby was named Medular Sinclair.

The year was 1970. By the end of that year the itinerant nature that was my mother’s life ceased. The baby earned her a house on a council estate.

Built inside a large square of four main roads, the houses sat in tidy streets all leading to an inner square. The school, the playgrounds, the playing fields covered the inner square. With the school one corner, the opposite corner of the square being the church. Beyond the church, the graveyard, and the community hall was the commercial hub of the estate. With a butcher, post office, greengrocer and a general store covering everything else the community was complete. A community that was my home till I left for university. An estate that experienced more depravation as I grew older.

My mother hated losing her lifestyle. Although she never directly said that.

The other photographs I have of my beautiful mother are from before I came along. Three, all battered and aged. They show how thin she was. She lived her whole life with a malnutrition body. All with that film star smile making me think my father was taking the pictures. The jewellery she wore, she made herself. She sold it to make a living.

My father and her moved around the country and Europe visiting music festivals and any local fairs that they came across. Taking advantage of the recreational drug use that found favour through the sixties, my father sold any weed he could buy. Always buying enough that he and my mother could have their own smashed time.

My father drifted in and out of our lives. Stopping for a couple of weeks, a month – if I were lucky – before the urge to drift would take him away. The length of time he was away could vary but was always longer than the time he remained still. The only picture I have of him is with my mother. Dressed in their finest hippie attire, flared jeans and a cheese collarless shirt and my mother in a long loose dress. Leaning on a bright yellow Bedford van with ‘love and peace’ badly sprayed on the bonnet.

Without a doubt my mother embodied total infatuation, intoxication, and immovable love for my father. Her smile was only wide when he was around. I only ever saw the tight little one, the one you give to something sweet that you chew.

Once cognition forms you, seeing what has been obvious is quite easy. Memory is deceptive, especially as a child. The looks of detest could be a misinterpretation but the comment, “Daddy has left again. you, we, were too loud for him.” Or “Your father walked away from you, us, again.” They are telling on a child of four. I felt the responsibility for my father leaving. The weight of my mother’s despair when separated from him again: That was on me. I was the moon to her earth and daddy was the sun, it felt like an eternal eclipse.

That drove me to silence. My father would return, pick me up and cuddle me. But then I would go to my room and wait. He always had to visit me in my room; I would only talk to him when we were alone. I had to stay quiet. I had to keep my daddy in the house.

That first time it seemed eternal; the silence held him there for five weeks. With him gone again my mother seemed to hate me even more. She spent the entire day in her bedroom. I had no food, no attention good or bad, she did not even put me to bed. Waking up on the sofa, hungry and tired. The only food I could reach was a piece of dried cheese left on the counter. I ate that and took to my bed.

The silent child. Only engaging with her mother when her mother engaged with her. She always pronounced all three syllables of my name. Often including my middle name in the call.

If she left food out, I would often eat it when she was not looking. In the evening after she had eaten, she would place her plate on the floor. I would slip down the stairs and hide behind her chair just to silently slip around to the plate and eat the scraps.

It was not hunger, I never felt hungry, it just became a habit. A secret desire. The control of my own body. My mother did feed me. She would give me breakfast, a sandwich at lunchtime and a meal around four o’clock.

School was a blessing.

For the first three days she walked me to the school, waiting for me outside at the end. I loved school. I could talk, laugh, play with other children. Every day I could go into the lunchroom and eat.

On the fourth day I was sitting on the kerb rolling a tiny stone from one hand to another, waiting for my mother. Feeling alone was not new, I was an only child, for five years I had spent my time alone. The head teacher found me and offered to walk me home.

The first time I heard the term hippie was on that walk home. Holding my hand, something my mother never did, as we walked, she said, “Your hippie parents gave you your name, Medular Sinclair. Would you like to be known by your middle name? I could tell your teachers to call you Melissa.”

I said yes. From that day, outside the home, I became Melissa. My mother hated that. Whenever we had company she would call me Medular Sinclair.

At eight years old my father left again. This time it was forever. The day following my birthday, etched in my memory. After breakfast on Sunday morning, he carried his kitbag out to the transit van.

Outside the house, he picked me up, he held me tight. He held me for a long time. “You are wonderful,” he told me. “You are my girl. I will find you one day.”

He waved as he got behind the wheel, and he drove away. Even though I kept saying to that doubt, he would be back, he never came. I am still waiting for him to find me.

I am Medular Sinclair, this is my bio. Part Two Here.

Life is about connection. On a planet of billions, there are only two – you and me.

This site will always be free. No blog post, page, or fiction will ever be behind a pay wall. We will never affiliate to any store or product. Any links to other sites, the writer placed because they believe the product or service is good enough to share – not because they received payment for their endorsement.

We will accept donations at Kofi.com to help with the maintenance and hosting costs. We humbly receive any donation.

You can express your support by Sharing, liking, or following our profiles on the net. For Ease these have been gathered on link tree.

We hope you enjoy all our content enough to buy our Published books.