its friday. been in college this week how a dpepressing tuesday dont no y just felt like crying all day wednesday was better my mum went home on tuesday i went to see her she is well thank god but hopefully she wont get bad again and have to go back in i come back from hassans mums on wednesday after i finished collge had a ok night my friend came round and we were chatting and remanising i went in the big back garden with mia on thursday to enjoy the weather was out all day mia loved it we even got to no the naighbours. mia was spashing in the paddeling pool and i was making friends i regret staying out there for so long un covered because i have heat stroke now. i dont think im going anywere today i cant move it hurts tomuch mia is fine tho. mia was being nasty to me tho this morrning she kept scratching me and slapping my legs painfull. There is a take away evening on saturday i can pick anything i want and the staff pay so i will be going down for that and then sunday i will probaly get my stuff ready to go back down to hassans mums.

“You’ll be pleased to see the place is a mess,” says Frances, as she leads me from the reception up to her flat. I’m always joking with her that her flat is too tidy, not photogenic enough.

“How did it go?” she asks. I’ve been a few streets away, photographing the Reclaim graduation ceremony for the Wythenshawe Girls’ project. Two dozen 12- and 13-year-old young woman, uncomfortable in hired gowns and mortar boards, have celebrated with family and dignitaries.

As the young women were arriving in three stretch limos I thought it might be fun if the photographer looked a bit like one of the paparazzi on the red carpet. A bit.

Frances was invited. Her own graduation ceremony would have been over five years ago and some of her cohort were there today, giving out awards to the latest Reclaim graduates. Sadly she had had a bad night with Mia teething and had only got up half an hour before the event started.

“I’ve got something for you,” I say to Frances as I make some room to sit down on one of the sofas. She knows what’s coming and she claps her hands together. “It’s like Christmas,” she exclaims.

Ruth, Reclaim’s director and I have colluded to get Frances online. Everyone who reads the blog likes the contributions that Frances makes but these have been limited to when she has the patience to type an entry into Facebook on her mobile phone. So Ruth has donated a redundant laptop and between us we have paid for a internet dongle.

“I feel like a proud mother,” she says as she logs on and inserts the dongle. “Oh, I am a proud mother already!”

“I’ve already put the web address in the favourites.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says scrolling down the latest entry about her and her small family shopping in Wythenshawe. Although she had read the text on Facebook, this is the first time she had seen the pictures.

“And it’s so small… I’ll be able to take it to college and look really important doing emails on the bus!”

Now she is crawling and pulling herself up, Mia doesn’t let her mum spend more than a couple of minutes with the new ‘toy’, demanding her attention by clinging on to the end of the sofa.

“I can’t stay long,” I say, getting up. “See if you can write one post a week… that would be brilliant.”

On the way to the precinct Frances tells me I’m invited to take some pictures at Hassan’s brother’s stag night which is in a couple of weeks. “It’s not really a stag night,” she says, “in the Somali community it’s more like sitting round, talking and eating rice. Nice rice though. And the women get together and cut up onions.”

“Cut up onions?”

“Yeah. It’s called the night of the onions. There are two big meals to prepare for the wedding and the woman all come together and cut up onions. I’m going to that. There’s more to it than cutting up onions, obviously.”

I’ve never asked before and now seems like the right time: “Are you two married?”

“In the eyes of the Somali community we are,” says Frances, “but not legally. We wouldn’t be able to live together if we hadn’t had a small ceremony to make us official. But I’d like to do it properly one day, with lots of people, and a big party. But we can’t afford that now, we’re saving first for Mia’s birthday.” I had noticed a piggy-bank tin on the window ledge earlier.

The precinct feels depressing. The rain makes it worse. Everyone is either sheltering or dashing.

Frances and I go off to Poundland while Hassan takes the buggy to the cash machine. Yes, I have been into the pound shops near us, opposite the greengrocers we use, but this is more like a department store, it’s massive. I take shots of Frances choosing hair colour and notice all the shampoos.

“All these are just £1 then?”

“This is a good one,” says Frances, showing me a bottle of Palmolive shampoo for long hair with olive extract. I get a basket and take a couple of bottles.

“Look at these reading glasses,” I say. “These are about a tenner in the chemist’s.” Frances is amused by my apparent glee. I end up with some spare specs, a couple of reporters’ notebooks, and a big bag of wine gums as well as the shampoo.

We see Hassan coming out of Cash Generator as we leave with our purchases. “You sado,” shouts Frances.

“I need to go to Poundworld,” she says to me, “because they don’t do PG Tips in Poundland. And I’d go to Iceland for sugar because it’s a penny cheaper in there.” I open the wine gums and Hassan takes some.

Poundworld is much the same as Poundland. Stacked high with lots of branded products all at a quid. Tesco and Sainsbury’s are really ripping us off.

Hassan and Frances spend some time checking out the perfumes while one of the sales staff keeps an eye on us from the end of the aisle. “Surely these perfumes can’t all be £1?”

“Yeah,” says Frances. “They’re better than the real thing: they smell the same and last longer.”

While we are at the checkout (Frances has bought her tea bags and I’ve remembered we are out of washing powder), there is some consternation as the precinct security guard strides in. The staff relate an incident they have just witnessed on the threshold of their store.

“Did he hit her with a closed fist?” he asks, “or was it more of a slap?” He repeats their answers into his radio microphone.

The security guard has an American accent and it feels like we are extras in some TV crime series. “The cops are on their way,” he says before he walks back out into the rain.

“He’s Canadian,” Hassan tells me on our way to Asda. “Hates being confused with being American. There are loads of jobs in Canada, aren’t there?”

We’re in Asda now buying Coke and lemons. “When I can I get some brandy to go in it,’ says Frances, “but I haven’t had any for a few weeks now.”

Peep. Peep. Thank you for using the fast lane.

On the way back to the car Frances shows me a three-piece suite she’d like. “That one has a chair that swivels. So if you put it in the corner of your room and you want to turn around and speak to someone, you can just turn round on the chair.”

“And how much is all that?”

“Over £1000.”

We walk back to the car. It’s still raining.

It’s late afternoon and they are all having a lazy day. Frances is still in her dressing gown and is getting Mia dressed. They’ve all just had a bath.

“Everything is still coming out looking dirty,” she says holding up a Babygro.

“You sound like an advert for…”

“Daz! I wouldn’t mind but I do use Daz,” she says, laughing.

“Where do you wash? Downstairs?”

“Yeah, They’re proper laundry ones.”

Frances wipes Mia’s body and face with cocoa butter oil. Click, click. Click. “She loves this stuff, she’s going to be licking herself all day. Hello Mia, hello Mia. You don’t like milk any more, you like food, don’t you?

“What food do you like?” I ask, half to Mia and half to Frances.

“Anything and everything as long as she can eat it: rice and fish and pasta and chicken… everything. If you leave the camera over there she’ll crawl for it. Come on Mia, come on, what’s this?” Click, click, click. “Big girl.”

We watch Mia crawling, showing off. “And how is your mum, Frances?”

Frances’ face changes, her smile drops. “She’s all right, she’s just… she’s not allowed out of hospital yet. At the moment they’re just trying to work out what’s gone on. They did a heart scan and it came back abnormal. They think she might of had a mini heart attack or stroke or something. They’re going to do more tests.

“She went a bit weird. Started saying strange things, just dead confused. Even when she was in hospital she’d say stuff like, put the potatoes on, really random stuff. She didn’t know where she was or who we were.”

Hassan comes in, looking smart as usual. He’s off back down to Moss Side later.

“Hi Hassan.”

“Hello.”

“Is that Daddy?” I say, holding both of Mia’s hands, walking her in Hassan’s direction.

I’m left in charge while Frances gets dressed and Hassan returns to the bedroom. Mia and I look out of the window together at the overgrown grass in the garden. It’d make a great play area if regularly maintained, but now it’s only good for a bug hunt.

“What can you see? Can you see any birdies? Oh there’s one. Can you see any? Can you see any birdies?”

When Frances is back in the room I ask about her accommodation.

“I’ve got my positive notice,” she says.

“From this place?”

“Yeah. Hopefully I’ll get higher up on the list.”

Frances was placed in this supported accommodation shortly after she gave birth. It was a condition put on her by social services: if she wanted to keep her baby she had to move out of her mother’s house – Frances’ childhood home. There was no choice.

Dunbar Street is run on behalf of the local authority and is really aimed at those young mums who are single and, for whatever reason, cannot live independently or with relatives. They are taught how to look after their child and are given whatever support they need to start a new life on their own.

I think Frances being here has been an anomaly. As far as I can tell she hasn’t accessed any of the support services and because she and Hassan are effectively a couple she no longer fits the criteria for inclusion. The rules state that partners are not allowed to stay more than three nights a week and so Frances and Hassan move out for several nights a week, back to his flat or to his mum’s.

And Dunbar Street is too far from Moss Side. Frances feels cut off and isolated from her friends and family. The only up side has been she is close to Wythenshawe Hospital for the times when her mum has been here. So now Frances is trying to move back. She hopes to get a housing association property – what would have been a council house – and has to use some online bidding system each week to do this. Her ‘positive notice’ from Dunbar Street – a good reference which confirms her and Mia’s situation – will give her more points, greater priority.

“How do you bid for them?”

“You just click on them. It’s better to do it on a Thursday morning because that’s when the new ones come in.” I remind myself that Frances doesn’t have a computer and has to go down to the library, a good 20-minute buggy-push, to get onto the Homefinder website.

“So, it knows who you are… and your situation… and so someone, somewhere, assesses the people who have bid and decides who has greater priority?”

“Yeah. Usually you’ll have to do over 300 bids before you get anything. And you can only bid for three a week.”

“300 bids? That’s 100 weeks which is, like, two years?”

“Yep. Ah big girl! Say Uncle Len, Uncle Len.”

it’s been a good easter holiday but there has been nothing really to do my sister and all the kids stayed a few nights so my flat was a bit cramped but i enjoyed the company. my sister has been giving me parenting help, getting mia into a bedtime routine and it has worked, well she has 5 kids so she has enough experience but she said she didn’t get how to do it till the last 2. mia is being an angel since my sister come she goes to sleep without kicking off more or less when i want but i try to make it the same times everyday. mia is 7 months now, wow how time passes fast she is crawling better and can sit up from lying down on her own she is even trying to pull her self up using things like the table. i want to start planning her birthday party soon get things ready so i no what im gonna do, i no i want it in a big venue and have lots of people. my brother has volenteered to dress as a clown so it should be fun.

me and hassan are back in college on monday i cant wait to get back to work and learn some more. Hassan didn’t pass the test for the fork lift course so he is looking for other courses and opertunities. im applying for my provisional soon so i have some form of id because ive only got my birth certificate and i want to open a new bank account to start saving for mia and rainy days.

I ask after Mia.

“Oh, she’s hard work at the moment,” says Frances. “She won’t leave me alone. If she can’t see me, she’ll start crying. Unless I’m giving her all my attention then she gets upset. Jane [the Family Nurse Partnership nurse] says it’ll only last a month or so but it’s getting really irritating.”

Frances goes to get Mia from the bedroom. “Good morning… good morning… good morning,” I hear her say.

Mia, bleary-eyed, stares at me as she is brought into the living room. “She’s getting big now,” I say, remembering the tiny baby from only six months ago.

Frances puts her down, holds her arms high and shows me how she can ‘walk’. Still half asleep, Mia isn’t quite ready to perform. “Normally she can walk right across the room,” says her mum.

As Frances fetches a bottle I pick Mia up and carry her across the room, slipping into baby talk as I go. “Hello. Yes, how are you? How are you? Soon you’ll be talking into my tape recorder, won’t you? Won’t you?

“Has she started talking yet?” I ask Frances.

She laughs. “Yes, but I can’t tell you what she says.”

Apparently Mia makes a sound which resembles a moderately rude swear word.

“So, what will you tell her when she is seven and asks what her first word was?”

“I’ll make something up,” says Frances, still laughing.

After Mia is changed and fed we set off to Moss Side. We pass an adventure playground in the centre of the estate, its slides and zip wires obscured by a high fence made out of wooden stakes, like a Wild West stockade. “I used to play there,” she says, reminiscing. “I’ve photographed there,” I say.

Remembering the two large, less than friendly dogs at her mum’s house, I pull up tentatively outside. As Frances is getting her things out of my car the front door opens and one of her sisters walks down the garden path to meet us. For a moment Frances is concerned, not expecting anyone here other than her mum. Her mother had asked for some help, needed some shopping, and so the older sister had arranged for her three kids to be picked up from school and came over straight away. I think she was relieved she could now pass on the responsibility to Frances.

“What are you doing this afternoon?” I ask.

“I’m getting ready to go and see my mum. She’s back at home. I thought I’d go down and do a bit of cleaning for her. See how she is.”

Her mum has been very poorly in hospital: complications following the amputation of part of her leg. I’ve been hoping to get to see Frances with her mum, extend the blog a little, so this sounds interesting.

“Can I come with you?” I ask.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea. I don’t think she’d be up for that. She’s fed up, the doctors have told her she has to go back in.”

“What about if I just come over and give you a lift to her house and photograph you outside? It would save you getting the bus.”

“Wicked,” says Frances.

It’s about the sixth day of unseasonably warm weather. Twenty degrees at the end of March. Wythenshawe is taking advantage: the clothes lines are full, shorts are on and gardens are being tidied.

Frances comes downstairs to let me in. Hassan is on a course, more fork-lift truck training thinks Frances and baby Mia is asleep. Good, I have a chance to talk to her. I’ve been wanting to ask her what she gets out of this, the blog. Sometimes I feel it’s too one-sided.

“I love it,” she says, putting the kettle on. “I don’t know, it’s a really good experience, isn’t it? People have seen me and recognised me from the blog, haven’t they? It’s nice to know that anyone in the world could come across it on the web and be reading about me. That’s just interesting, isn’t it?”

“And what’s it like having this bloke, who’s old enough to be your dad, pitching up every now and again with a camera?”

“You are like my dad,” she says genuinely. “You know, I don’t actually have a dad, so it’s like my dad is coming to visit when you come round. You pop round, have a  brew, I tell you what I’ve been up to. It’s someone different to talk to, isn’t it? I can’t really explain it, it’s just… exciting.”

“What will it be like at the end?”

“I don’t want it to end.”

The window is open wide and we can hear kids from the other flats playing in the enclosed garden.

“So, tell me about your mum.”

“They wanted to put her on antidepressants and I said no.”

“You said no?”

“She’s on enough tablets as it is. She’s on about 30 different tablets a day. All those tablets are bad for your liver or something. And antidepressants can be really addictive.”

“I don’t think they are addictive any more,” I suggest.

“I’ve told her she should go and see a counsellor instead. My mum loves to talk – she’ll tell anyone her life story – so she would be better going to the counsellor anyway.”

“And what does your mum think?”

“She doesn’t say anything.”

“So, if she’s not talking, and she usually does, then maybe she needs to be on antidepressants,” I say, knowing that talking therapy is useful but pharmaceutical intervention is sometimes the answer. “I’ve been on antidepressants,” I offer.

“I’ve been on them too,” says Frances, “and I only realised they were making me worse when I came off them.”

We discuss treatments for depression, both of us ill-informed. “Anyway,” I say, “I’m not supposed to be giving you my opinion. I’m just supposed to be documenting yours. When does your mum have to go back in?”

“The doctor says as soon as possible otherwise she’ll end up in a coma, again. But this time it could be worse than last time.”

It seems that her mum is living at home on her own, pretty much. Frances’ brother has moved out and his mate is staying there temporarily but is out for most of the day and evening.

“Once, last week, she fell out of her wheelchair and had to wait two hours before anyone came to help her up,” says Frances. “That’s why I was going to go down this afternoon, to clean up for her, take her for a walk, or sit with her in the front garden.”

[to be continued...]

its been a rough few weeks with my mum being in hospital but she is finally out thank god. she is back home and well but she is smoking again my brother is going to pay for a hypnotist I’ve been going down as much as possible but its hard because of collage ad been trying to actually make time for myself. Mia’s good she is getting more and more active trying to crawl and always turning round now she has still got a thing about phones,she’s funny she makes us laugh she is getting so big now i love looking back at pictures of her as a baby and seeing the difference, not having another 1 yet though she is enough lol. Hassan is Ok too he is still going college and always spending time with Mia they are so cute together. Im not to bad either college is going great i ave an exam on the 26th for maths not to excited about that maths is not my strongest subject. Im starting face painting now and doing themed face painting for things like childrens parties or model pictures. I have been bidding 3 times a week on Homefinder because 3 bids is my allowence, im waiting to have a meeting with the manager of my place so i can get my possitive notice that will help me get into a difffernt band because im not classed as someone that needs re-housing and my conxtions worker is trying too get me on a housing course so i get more points.

anyway hope everyone is good and enjoying the blog i am enjoying sharing my expirence with everyone please keep reading and thank you for following mine and Mia’s story

“You coming?” Frances asks Hassan.
“No, I’ll drop off in Moss Side,” he says.
“Why don’t you come?” I say. “It’s for everyone. Anyone can come.”

Frances and I eventually persuade Hassan to come with us and he goes off to get changed as Frances irons his trousers. I entertain Mia who is by now sitting on the floor showing me what she can do with a multi-coloured piece of plastic. I’m quickly reminded how time intensive babies and toddlers are: you can’t take your eyes off them for a second. It’s exhausting.

Hassan is ready, looking smart.

We talk about cars pretty much all the way into town, prompted by Hassan’s disdain for my rather old, rather dirty Toyota. He concedes, at least, that Toyotas score points for their reliability, but that’s about all. “We’ll get a Honda CR-V when I win the lottery,” says Frances.

I offer to drop them at the town hall and then park. They won’t have it and say they’ll walk with me so I park near the site of the Haçienda and we walk the rest of the way. We pass dickie-bowed musicians on their way to the stage door of the Bridgewater Hall; office workers heading for an after-work pint, and hopeful Athletic Bilbao fans beating a path to Old Trafford. Frances, Hassan and Mia don’t look at all out of place and yet I’m guessing this might be the first time the whole family has been on a night out like this. For them, this is an occasion.

The banqueting room is quickly filling up and after we have said our hellos to the Reclaim team, we install ourselves on one of the round tables near the door. The proceedings begin and I jump around the place, taking photos. The two-minute film in which Frances and Mia both feature is premièred and Frances hides her embarrassment by holding her daughter in front of her face. As the credits fade the room explodes with applause and whoops.

There are moving speeches, accolades and an award presentation. As with every other Reclaim event, the onlooker is left energised, convinced beyond doubt of the capability of young people.

After the formalities a hot buffet is served and Frances fetches the food for herself and Hassan. As the socialising begins, readers of our blog introduce themselves to Frances and ask to hold Mia. They ask how her mum is, and how she is getting on at college. Frances is made up: it’s like being famous!

“That was great,” she says as we walk down the ceremonial staircase on our way out. “Really good.”

Hassan has enjoyed it too but is frustrated that someone of his age isn’t able to tap into a source of support and inspiration that is clearly so beneficial to teenagers. “Maybe I’ll tell my little brother,” he says as we head back to Wythenshawe.

Frances and I are off to a ‘do’ at the town hall to celebrate Reclaim winning a Philip Lawrence Award. She’s pretty much ready, her hair and beauty training put into practice.

In the flat, Hassan is lying on one of the sofas with Mia asleep in her chair at his side. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks so it’s good to catch up.

“How’s the job search going?” I ask, after we’ve chatted about Mia’s new obsession with mobile phones. “What’s on offer? Anything?”

“Nope. There are no jobs. It’s boring.”

Hassan says he has been to a jobs fair at Manchester City’s football stadium. I’ve been there too. I used to work for the regeneration company that organised them. A large conference room, more likely to host a footballer’s testimonial, has hundreds of jobseekers surfing the 20-30 stands manned by patient recruitment professionals. It’s well run. There are support staff from employment agencies helping fill out application forms or compose CVs.

“There were only two things I was interested in,” says Hassan. “One was for the police, working in the community or something.”

“Community Support Officer,” says Frances, handing me a cup of tea.

“There would be six months training with that,” says Hassan. “And the other was fork lift truck training. Every job now in a warehouse always asks for a forklift truck licence.”

So next week, Hassan is on a free four-day forklift truck training course. He’ll enjoy it. He’s into cars and driving, and I can imagine him reversing at speed between the pallets, alarm blaring, yellow light flashing. But again, there will be childcare issues if Frances is to get herself to college.

“If you’re stuck I could put out an appeal on the blog, I bet you’d get lost of offers… from strangers.”

“Mia, will go to my mum,” Hassan says, perhaps not realising I am joking.

With the two of them here together and with Mia’s six-month ‘birthday’ coming up at the weekend, I ask how things are.

“And how are you two getting on? Living together?”

“Fine,” says Frances.

“Arguing,” says Hassan, smiling. “No, we’re not arguing anymore. There isn’t time now that you’re at college. Before we’d spend all the time together.”

“We haven’t argued in ages,” agrees Frances.

“And what do you normally argue about?” I ask, mischievously.

“Cleaning,” says Hassan.

I remember Frances talking about cleaning when I first interviewed her, when she was still living with her mum. She admitted she was a bit obsessive and liked to keep the place tidy. Hassan’s threshold of cleanliness is not, it seems, as high as Frances’ which is the cause for occasional friction.

“It’s International Women’s Day today,” I say to Hassan, still gently stirring it, “and you have to give the women a break and do the cleaning yourself. And soon it’ll be Mother’s Day.”

Mia starts to wake up, a smile on her face.

“Good morning,” says Frances. “Good morning.”

[to be continued...]