"What struck me was that Stephen, my horrible brother, was being NICE to me. I felt really touched - here was documentary evidence that he liked me."
I'm 41 and I live in Stone. I'm married and have 2 children, aged 14 and 17. I'm passionate about canals and I enjoy making videos.I think that memories can play tricks on you - you can often remember key events from your childhood. A coincidence enabled me to revisit my memories and look at them in a new light. I also think my story is about destiny - I never expected to be married to a railway enthusiast! Inside Lives was extremely interesting and thought-provoking - a real pleasure.
Growing up in the Sixties, in Birmingham, I preferred my dolls to my brother. Tiny Tears never argued. In the eighties I moved to Stone. I was homesick at first but saw plenty of mum and dad and before long I had my own kids to keep me occupied. One day mum and dad popped up to see me. The kids were upstairs and dad was snoozing on the settee. Mum and I had just finished watching an old film on the video and had left the tape running - it was some old documentary about steam trains. Suddenly, mum shouted "Stop the Video!". I jumped up and pressed the button. "Play that bit again", she said, so I did. "That's you!" she said. Who? "You and Stephen". "Are you sure?" I said as I studied the tape. There were two children, aged about 4 and 7 waving at a steam train as it climbed the famous Lickey Incline. She was right. It WAS us. But what struck me was that Stephen, my horrible brother, was being NICE to me. I felt really touched - here was documentary evidence that he liked me. The film looked idyllic - there's something very English about children waving at a train. Funnily enough, I ended up marrying a train enthusiast. I don't live far from the track and my own children grew up waving at trains. Their dad and I have even started to film train journeys and the lovely thing is that we've also got shots of children waving at trains - and I hope they always will. | 
