Her First Year

“It’s hot in here,” I say, following Frances into the flat. “Have you had the boiler fixed?”
“Yes,” she says, “but now it’s too hot… we have to keep the windows open.”

Hassan is out at the doctor’s. Mia is in her chair watching Cbeebies. Actually Mia is sitting up, rocking from side to side to the music on Baby Jake. “I thought at first she was just swaying,” says Frances, “but she is actually bopping along to it.” And she is.

I had texted to see if I could take them both to see Frances’ mum at her house in Moss Side but apparently she has a day of hospital appointments. Instead I have offered to give Frances a lift to one of her friends who lives round the corner from her mum’s.

I’ve brought my laptop to show her the final edit of the cinema advert she filmed for Reclaim a few weeks ago. I’ve seen it several times already and so instead of it bringing a tear to my eye it now only brings a lump to my throat.

“I need someone to lend a hand… to guide me on my way…”

As I photograph Frances watching the two minute film, Mia is uncharacteristically grouchy from in front of the TV, unable to see her mother.
“Mia!” calls Frances reassuringly .
“Ah it’s wicked,” she says as the credits roll, “and look, Mia has her name on it too. I love that.”

I pick Mia up and sit with her on my knee as I ask Frances how things are going.
Mia looks up at me, beyond me, transfixed by the reading glasses I have pushed on the top of my head.
It’s impossible not to fall into baby talk. “Why has he got those glasses on? Hey? Hey? Is he bonkers? Yes he is. Yes he is. You are a gorgeous baby, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

I ask about Frances’ mum (she’s getting better); about the Family Nurse Partnership nurse, Jane (she’s happy with progress); about housing (no change really) and about college.

“The travelling is just annoying. I have to get two buses from here or, if we stay at Hassan’s mum’s then I have to get three buses,” says Frances, “but I have had a cheque from the Prince’s Trust for my materials.”
“What do you think? Will you stick it?”
“Yeah,” she says emphatically.

“And so, Frances, what’s exciting you at the moment? What’s worrying you? What’s on your mind?”

“I really want to get a job. One of my really good friends applied for a job in a call centre, a job I told her to go for, and she’s got it! She’s on £400 a week! Because she’s living with her mum she doesn’t have to pay rent even, she doesn’t have nappies to buy. If I had £400 a week…. I’d be… jumping off houses.

“But I think I am better carrying on with my education and then at least I would have something…”

“Yes, yes,” I say to Mia, who is getting bored with me. “Are we going to Moss Side now to see some friends? Are we? Are we?”

Frances starts the long process of getting ready to leave the house with a baby. She sings along to the TV as she prepares four bottles of formula milk: “… smart potatoes sing with me…” and then, as I have the laptop, I suggest she has a look at our blog.

“Have you seen the blog recently?” I ask. Although she approves the text for each blog post on Facebook through her mobile phone, Frances doesn’t have a computer and so infrequently sees the finished entry. She loves the picture of her daughter in the chippy. “Look at those eyes,” she says, “and see how she has grown. She wouldn’t fit in that Moses basket now.”

[to be continued...]

Poorly children and a poorly car have prevented me seeing Frances this last week. We have spoken on the phone and I get her Facebook profile updates so I know all is well.

Hassan is about to give up his flat to his brother and Hassan will have the room in their mother’s house that his brother currently occupies. I can’t remember why this was happening, but Frances doesn’t seemed too fussed. Although they will only have one bedroom, she says at least they will have their meals made for them. I guess Hassan will also get some help on college days and there can’t be many grandmothers who would complain at having their baby granddaughters move in.

Frances is still spending £4 twice a week on the lottery. The thought of winning keeps her going. She puts a pound on for her, one for Hassan, one for Mia and another for her mother.

The other week, when I had lunch with Frances at her college, I asked her about money. “The rent is paid by housing benefit,” she’d said. “I get income support, child tax credits and child benefit.”

Mostly she spreads her money out across the week but sometimes it doesn’t work so well. “There was one weekend not long ago when I only had £20 left and I needed to buy nappies. They are £10.46 and then I have less than a tenner to get me through to the following Thursday. But,” she said, “Hassan helps when he can.”

This week Barclay’s Bank employees shared a £2.15 billion bonus pot and the government continued to push through their benefit ‘reforms’ that are meant to save £18 billion over four years.

Here’s something from Frances via Facebook:

still going college its all going well im of now for half term its doing my head in a bit all the traveling its to much cant wait to get a house closer still waiting to here from the housing about what band im going to be in soon as that happens i can start bidding. ive been looking for jobs on the internet because i would rather earn my own money but i cant get one with the hours im in college its so anoying the fact that i cant get a decent job that pays more then benefits and out of college hours, even if i did i wouldn’t see mia or hassan much, the best thing seems to be to stay in college till i have finish all the courses i need to do to achieve my ambition at least i will be qualified in something then i can make money. mia is doing great she’s sitting up on her own most of the time im even letting her hold on to the sofa to help her learn for when she starts walking because she loves standing up, she got weighted the other day she is about 16lbs 8oz.

Frances has had visitors this week. The social worker came round and confirmed that Frances and Mia were ‘off the list’. She was, apparently, happy with the way things were going and didn’t think there was any need for continuing intervention. Frances is happy about this. It’s like a good report card, but better.

“Someone from the Prince’s Trust has been round and filled out a form with me about the college equipment I need,” she says. “I’ll get an answer by the middle of February but he said they are not giving much out these days…”

Jane from the Family Nurse Partnership has also been here but, this time, didn’t weigh Mia as she has since her birth. “Surely it’s not such a big deal now?” I say. “No, but I like to know how much she’s put on.”

“What can she do now?” I ask, knowing that each month, each week, brings a small achievement for a new baby at this age. “She can roll over,” says Frances, proudly. “Then she puts out her hands and sits up like this. She watches the TV on her belly. Don’t you? Don’t you?”

Frances has made me a mug of tea and asks what I have been up to this morning. I tell about the new commission from the electricity company, photographing a line of pylons going straight through a housing estate in Flixton. It’s being redirected underground and I am following the work. “That’s where my sister lives,” she says. “There’s a field at the back of the house with some horses and a pylon.”

“That’s where I’ve just been!” I show her a picture on the camera screen of the exact same horses in a field.
“That’s it!” Small world.

Mia is lying on a rug in the middle of the floor ignoring CBeebies, listening instead to our conversation and concentrating intently on my camera.

“How’s it going this week?” I ask as Frances investigates the bag of outgrown clothes and toys passed on by one of this blog’s readers. I know there have been complications over childcare. “Have you managed to get to college?”

Because Hassan was booked to do a four-day security training course Frances had organised alternative arrangements for Mia. She explains that events took an unexpected turn on Sunday and Monday, which meant that she missed college and Hassan missed his course. “I think we should leave out the details,” she says. “But I’m definitely going to college next week.”

“Have you got your squiggle pad?” asks the TV.

“So it’s not been a good week?”
“No. But, on the other hand, my mum’s home.” It’s been a few weeks now since her mum’s amputation. But she is now back in Moss Side in the family house she shares with one of her sons, and Frances is clearly very happy for her. “She’s coping well but can’t really get about even with a wheelchair. My brother has to get her a brew and something to eat before he goes to work and, if he forgets, she’ll be without anything until 6 o’clock in the evening.”

I know Frances would like to be around to look after her mum but it’s not easy living on the other side of the city, with a small child and too reliant on public transport.

“Isn’t there anyone else who could go in?”

“Only my sister, Jade. She lives at the back of Hassan’s flat. But no-one else.”

“It’s time to go now but come back to get squiggling soon!”

Before I arrived Frances had planned to get something to eat from one of the shops around the corner. I finish my tea and accompany the two of them to the cash machine and then the chippy. Their own personal photographer. “Everyone will think I’m famous or something,” says Frances.

“Morning Len,” says Ruth’s text this Saturday morning. “Just letting you know I am outside Frances’ flat as her and Mia are starring in the Reclaim film this morning…”

Ruth heads the ‘mentoring-and-much-more’ youth project that Frances attended when she was just 12. Reclaim is how I got to know Frances and, although she hasn’t been officially involved for five years, she still gets active support from the team. Today she is one of four or five ‘case studies’ who will promote the project’s work.

One of this morning’s locations is close by, at Monika’s house but I have missed most of the action by the time I get there.  “Come through the back door,” Monika shouts as I walk up the front path, “there’s too much kit in the way here.”

Any house with small children is already full, so the addition of a four-person crew, all their equipment, Ruth, Frances, Mia (she doesn’t add too much) and now me, pushes the limits.

Monika is a board member on Reclaim, mum to two year-old Isabelle, pregnant with her second, and counsellor to Frances when she was expecting Mia.

As I arrive, Monika is helping Frances administer Calpol to poorly-looking Mia.
“What’s wrong,” I ask.
“She’s got the flu,” says Frances. “I’ve had it all week, too. Haven’t been able to go to college.”

There’s just one more shot to do. Frances and Monika ‘chatting’ across the kitchen table. Ruth is left in charge of Mia and Isabelle. I crouch out of shot on the kitchen floor as the camera operator shoots from the back garden.

As the film crew pack, Frances tells us she is going to take lifeguard training. Lifeguard training! Why not? “I’ve always loved swimming,” she says, “used to swim in the sea for miles.”

I offer to take Frances back to Wythenshawe. It’s not far. She tells me next week Hassan is doing a four-day security guard training course. It’ll be on Frances’ college days. “So what will you do with Mia?” I ask.
“On Monday, my sister will look after her. On Tuesday Reclaim say they will help. Not sure about Wednesday yet.” It’s complicated.

[... continued]

Hassan had been wondering where she was. He needs to go out. Frances assures him she’ll be back soon. I’m giving her a lift.

In the car Frances passes on her good news. Her social worker has closed her case. No more ‘case conferences’, no more having to justify herself to strangers. I’ve quizzed her a number of times about the circumstances of her being ‘on their radar’ and Frances herself has never been quite sure. Which, in itself, is revealing: why has Social Services not made it clear enough for Frances to understand this unwanted intrusion. Was it because of the family past, or even her choice of partner? It no longer matters.

I’ve been wanting to come and see Hassan’s place. Before Christmas they were thinking of giving up on Dunbar Street and going back to Moss Side. This is where they have friends and family. It’s familiar.

I’ve been past here a million times. It’s on Princess Road, the main road through Moss Side, one of my routes from home to town. Frances and I walk past an internet cafe, the Jerk ‘n’ Spice café and a worldwide money transfer shop. Hassan’s flat is just near Mohammed Ali’s Peace and Love Barber Shop.

“The place is a mess,” warns Frances as we get to the top of a second flight of stairs. Inside, the buggy reminds me how much they will have to carry up and down those stairs each time they go out.

Frances is right. The place is a mess. To spare embarrassment for us all I restrict my picture-taking to Mia who is lying on the double bed apparently enjoying her four-month birthday. Hassan suspended his tidying duties this morning to take Mia to the local health centre for her BCG injection. Frances is now examining the puncture mark.

Despite them feeling comfortable here, I can’t imagine it being ideal when Mia is a little older. Fine now, while she is immobile – Frances demonstrates how she can now sit up, another milestone surely celebrated by parents everywhere – but it will be different again when she starts crawling, toddling.

Today Frances has been telling me how she has started playing the lottery and what she might do with her ‘big win’. If it doesn’t happen any time soon she concedes that she’ll have to wait until March when the support workers at Dunbar Street will give her ‘positive notice’. She’ll get preferential treatment on the council’s housing waiting list and maybe get somewhere close to the places she knows in Moss Side.

I get to her college with time to sit. They all look so young, so fashionable, even the staff. No! Both hands down the front of your already descending pants is surely not a good look. I resist the urge to reprimand the young man coming through the double doors as I would my own teenage son.

Frances walks across the courtyard: smart, smiling, not a bit out of place. I offer to get us both some lunch and, once she has assessed the crowds – “I hate lots of people” – she agrees.

“How’s the course?” I ask, crumbling a papadum into my mouth.

Frances tells me about getting up at 5.30am, sitting for an hour on the bus to town and then another 20 minutes on the bus from town to college. Her bus pass is £11.50 a week.

“I’m falling asleep on the way home,” she says. “I’m in bed by 9 o’clock. But it’s only three days a week. I should be able to manage that.”

I was concerned about the travelling, for Frances. It’s a slog from her flat to this campus on the other side of town, and, by her own admission, she’s not keen on mornings. So I have to admit to her, “I’m impressed. I was a bit worried.”

“So was I.”

Hassan is apparently enjoying quality time with Mia on the college days, with instructions to keep the flat clean and tidy for Frances’ return. Having observed Hassan’s abilities, this won’t be a problem for him.

“This must be the longest you’ve been away from Mia, since she was born?”
“Yeah. I talk about her all day long, everyone must be getting sick of me,” she replies. “She wakes up when I’m getting ready and ‘talks’ to me. It’s dead cute.”

Despite the early starts, the long bus journeys and the extra expense, Frances sounds really positive, and it’s great to hear.

“I’m going to apply for £20 a week, something like the EMA [now defunct Education Maintenance Allowance] but not that,” she says. “And if I come in every day, on time, for the whole course then I get a £100 bonus. I’m going to buy me and Mia something nice with that.”

As well as the hair and beauty, she studies ‘functional skills’, maths and English. “And what have you learnt so far about beauty therapy?” I ask, not expecting much.

“Well, first off you have to wash your hands in front of the client so they can see you are clean. Then you cleanse their face, wipe it off with wet cotton wool, tone it, dab it off. Then moisturise it, then put concealer over the dark bits, then the foundation… powder… blusher… it’s a big long list. But it’s fun.”

She also has to find £100 for her equipment: hair brushes, make-up kit, doll’s head, uniform. “I need to go to Connexions [careers advice] some time and ask about that,” she says as we leave the noisy canteen. Before we walk through the rain to my car, she calls Hassan. She’s had six missed calls from him whilst we’ve been eating our chicken curry.

[to be continued...]

Apart from the news about her mum, the festive season has been good to Frances. We’ve been missing each other for about ten days but today I manage to get her on the phone and she sounds upbeat with real optimism for the new year.

Their small flat in Dunbar Street was ‘invaded’ on Christmas Day by one of her sisters and her five children, a brother and the sister’s boyfriend’s mother. “Then,” Frances tells me, “we all went to see my mum, plus another brother and my other sister. She was well happy.”

“How is your mum?” I ask, trying to imagine the scene around her hospital bed.
“Well, she’s got to have her leg off tomorrow. Serious.”
“Not the whole leg?”
“Hopefully only from below the knee.”

This is the news that the family has not wanted to hear. Previous smaller operations have not been successful. It’s another two months in hospital, Frances says, and a transfer to another hospital for a prosthetic leg after that.

For Frances it means more visiting but, while she stays in Dunbar Street, at least the hospital is relatively close.

“And what did Mia get for Christmas?” I ask, trying to lighten the conversation. “Clothes, books, a pair of earrings – good ones for when she gets her ears pierced – a toy buggy from my mum, loads really.”

New Year sounds more sedate, certainly not typical for a 17-year-old. “We were here at the flat in Moss Side [Hassan’s place]. We didn’t do anything, just stayed in. Nowhere to go.”

Frances is excited about starting her hair and beauty course on Wednesday. It’ll be two and a half days each week, so this week, because of the holiday she’s only got a half day, 9 until 12.30, which is an easy start.

Seems childcare is not needed as Frances says Hassan will look after Mia on college days. And he will. Hassan, I have seen, is a very capable dad, getting stuck in with the bathing, dressing, feeding and changing with apparent ease.

“So, apart from your mum, everything is going well?”
“Yeah. Mia is getting bigger and cuter every day. Proper gurgling away.” Frances puts Mia to the phone or the phone to Mia and I hear her ‘talking to me’. “She’s laughing now; holds a bottle; sits up even more; rolls over. She’ll be four months in nine days.”

Four months. That means we’re a third of the way through Her First Year. I feel as if I am just starting, getting to know Frances, and Mia, and Hassan… a little. There’s more I want to do. I need to photograph them all outside of Dunbar Street, at Hassan’s at least, where they spend some of the week because of the constraints at the supported accommodation. I could photograph Frances at college now, or travelling to and from.

Expand the story. That’s my new year resolution.

Today it’s the six-weekly review meeting with the social worker, Jane from the Family Nurse Partnership and one of the workers from Dunbar Street. Because of Frances’ history Mia is a ‘child in need’ which means she is ‘assessed as requiring additional services in order to reach or keep up a reasonable standard of health or development’.

I press her buzzer and wait. I press again and hear Frances’ voice. I’ve woken her up. Upstairs the flat is decorated for Christmas with tinsel around almost everything including the TV.

Frances fetches Mia from the bedroom. “Hello Princess,” she says, playing with her legs. The three-month-old is brought to the changing mat in the sitting room where Hassan is waiting with a bowl of warm water and some cotton wool. “Good Morning!” he exclaims to his daughter. “How are you?”

After Frances has brewed up she and I take our mugs downstairs to the meeting. I nearly don’t make it, slipping on the newly-mopped floor, spilling my tea.

Jane has already arrived and is in the communal sitting room. Linda [not her real name] comes out from the front office and tells us the social worker has had to cancel. “We need to do it anyway,” says Jane, who takes on the role of chair as Linda agrees to write the minutes. There is a lot on the informal agenda: education, health, housing, Frances’ mum.

Frances is enrolling in the morning on the Hair and Beauty course at the local college. Jane is pleased, it was her intervention that has paid off. “Well done!” she says. “When do you start? What about childcare? What equipment do you need to buy?” Frances says she hasn’t sorted childcare out  yet – she was waiting until she enrolled – so Jane and Linda say they will make some calls on her behalf.

“You’ll need equipment,” says Jane who apparently has had one of her 20 other clients follow a similar route recently. “You buy it direct from the college but it can cost up to £160.” Frances looks aghast. She hadn’t thought about that. “The Prince’s Trust can help with things like that,” says Jane. “I’ll ask.”

Yet again, I’m impressed with Jane’s knowledge of the support that is out there for people like Frances. She used to be a health visitor so, when it comes to parenting, she’s like another parent to Frances. (“Is she cooing yet?” she asks when they talk about health and wellbeing). But she’s also up there with educational opportunities, housing advice and can even navigate her way through the benefit web.

With education sorted they turn to accommodation. Frances says she wants to move out of Dunbar Street and move into Hassan’s one-bedroomed flat in Moss Side.

“Why do you want to go?” asks Linda.
“Me and Hassan want to start our family life together. And I want to be back in Moss Side with my mum and family.” It’s a good argument and there is nothing anyone can do to stop Frances going. Linda explains that if she stays a few weeks longer then the staff here can not only give her a positive reference but have some leverage in helping her find a two- or three-bedroomed house where she wants to live. If she moves directly to Hassan’s then she’ll have to wait on the housing list like everyone else, without priority treatment. “No guarantees,” says Linda, “but you could be in a house by March or April if you let us help you.” Frances isn’t sure. Three or four months is a long time for a 17-year-old.

The meeting moves on. Frances’ mum is still in hospital although there is talk of her coming out this week. It’s seems amputation below the knee has been averted for now. What follows is a familiar discussion between Jane and Frances. Jane is concerned that, as her mum’s principal carer (and, it turns out, next of kin), Frances will be taking too much on once her mum is discharged. “Do you really need to do this? What about your siblings helping more or getting professional carers?” Jane has the wellbeing of Frances and ultimately Mia at heart.

“I know my mum wasn’t always there for me,” says Frances, “but I want to be there for her. I need to do this. If I don’t it’ll mess my head up and,” she says obscurely, “I’ll go down a different path.”

There’s more discussion about her mum’s care but Frances is adamant. “My mum needs me now,” she says. “And she appreciates me. Yesterday in the hospital she gave me a hug. It was the first hug she’d given me in about 10 years. I’m going to ask for another one when I see her today.”

Frances writes:

i enjoyed my birthday i didnt do much i went to the reclaim office for some dinner/snacks its was fun mia got passed round like pass the parcel she loved all the attention and everyone sang happy birthday. i got a new phone off hassan a ring from mia/hassan a bag of one sister and bracelets of my other sister my mum couldn’t get me anything because she is still in hospital she has just had another operation to open the vessels in her leg to help circulations heal the foot if that doesn’t work they will amputate more hopefully she will be home for christmas and spend it with me and my sister and her kids. i have still got mold someone is suposed to be coming to fix it and the boiler is still not working i have give up on that now i have been waiting months but its still not been fixed after loads of different people have been out and had a look all they say is it should be working tomorrow if not ring us back and will sort it out. well hey its still the same what am i suposed to do i just have to continue to boil the kettle and like i have time for that every day mia has needs to i cant wait to move there is nothing but problems here all the time it does my head in. got a call yesterday of the dentist saying to go in next week to get my tooth out had nothing but problems with that to but finally something will get done wish me look they not putting me to sleep just gonna dope me up on a lot of gas. i rang the college to yesterday to see if the courses will be in january because no one has been in contact but there is courses and im on it its starting on the 16 of january but i have to enrol on the 13 december cant wait hope i do well im really gonna try this time i dont wont to give up but it will be hard mia is not that old and hassan will be going back to work hopefully because he has got an interview soon. so it looks like things are starting to happen except moving hopefully soon though

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[...continued]

Frances is not happy when we get down to the main campus. There is some controversy about the car seat and how it slots into the buggy. It gets sorted though and we head off to find Fiona [not her real name].

As we are waiting – Mia is still asleep – I ask France about her career choice. She wants to re-do her GCSEs so we can study for Level 2 Beauty Therapy. She wants to eventually study spa therapy and, she says, own her own spa.
“Have you been in a spa, seen what it’s like?” I ask.
“No, but I can imagine it’s very relaxing. Must be a nice job.”

We don’t have to wait long before Fiona is showing us to a pleasant enough interview room. She is very good at her job. She asks questions, listens to the responses and makes notes on carbonless paper but, unlike John at the last place, isn’t able to read between the lines. She’s younger, more professional (corporate even), but lacks the experience to know there is more to this young person than the answers she is giving to these standard questions.

Turns out there is a strong possibility there’ll be a beauty therapy course starting in January at a satellite campus on Frances’ side of town. She could do English and Maths alongside it.
“Can I apply?” she asks.
“I can put you forward,” says Fiona, “there isn’t an application as such. But if it’s running, I’m pretty sure you will get on.”
“So, I don’t need to fill in anything?” This seems too easy.
“You’re in the NEET category – not in education, employment or training – which means there are targeted opportunities for you,” explains Fiona.

Fiona has it all covered. It takes less than 15 minutes. Frances signs the carbonless form and is given a copy. Outside I explain NEET again to Frances: she’s a statistic and if she gets on the course she’ll still be a statistic but a positive one.

Mia is still asleep as we leave the college.