The Hill family, prompted by mother Melissa and daughter Cortney's experiences, are restoring a huge house in Dumbartonshire with the intention of opening it as a home for single pregnant women and victims of sexual abuse. Reporter Alan Jones spoke to them.

Overtoun House

The Hill family hope to open Overtoun House, which they're restoring, in a few years time. It was Melissa and her daughter Cortneys' stories that prompted them to begin such an ambitious project.

Three years ago Melissa Hill received a phone call from her daughter, Cortney. Cortney told her mother that she was pregnant, and that her partner was abusing her. It came as a tremendous shock to Melissa who, although sexually abused as a teenager by her alcoholic father, felt that she put the past behind her, only telling her children what her own childhood had been like when they were adults. She and her husband Bob, a pastor in the American "Home Church", had raised her daughters to have confidence and self-esteem. " I cried a lot when she told me." said Melissa, "And asked a lot of questions. We never had that kind of a family. It was quite a blow."

Cortney had been with her partner for about six months. After three months, her began to abuse her. Having been raised in a loving family she wondered why she got involved in this relationship in the first place, I have a tendency to want to rescue people," she explained. "He was a very lost sort of person. I thought that if I loved him enough, and said the right thing, he'll change. That didn't happen."

Cortney and her mother talked about what had happened and why. Melissa's past helped. "It gave us an open door to talk about my daughter being abused and me being abused and how to walk away and start a new life."

Cortney did walk away from the relationship, but occasionally sees her daughter's father when she's visiting America. She's still in close contact with his mother and sister, "I don't feel it's his mother's fault that he is as he is, so I don't think it's fair to cut her off from her grandchild. I don't really have a relationship with him. He's wonderful and nice at first, but after any length of time, I wouldn't trust him two feet."

For Melissa, it took a lot longer before she could talk to her own mother about being sexually abused by her father, now dead. It was only five years ago that her mother admitted that it had happened, "Now we've talked it through, we're fine," said Melissa, "I tell girls all the time, 'do not keep this a secret, tell someone and get free from this." Melissa often saw her father beat her mother, and understands that in spite of the violence, some women feel they must stay. "My mother felt she had to stay there and make a life for us. We felt she should have walked out."

Melissa feels that she has dealt successfully with her painful memories, "I have no problems at all about my past. I have had many opportunities to be free from it. I feel it has no hold on me whatsover. I just feel like my personal past and my daughter's past is a help to someone else."

Work on Overtoun House continues. There's still a lot to be done, but in three years time, the Hills hope to have the doors open to the single pregnant women and victims of domestic abuse. Both mother and daughter see their experiences as useful, "I believe I can help these girls," Melissa said, "and their mothers as well - having been there."