First of all I want challenge all those people who look on every obese person as a lazy, gluttonous, drain on society... this is MY story....

It all started after Sunday School (yes, I did once believe in something beyond this world...) in September 1952 when I was 7 and a half years old. I had been told to stick close to my brother at all times and being an obedient little git, that's exactly what I did. My brother ran across the road after a ball and I followed. Unfortunately I had been given a new gabardine mac with a BIG hood and I had it up at the time, restricting my view to the sides... Result - I ran smack into the front of a double-decker bus. The wheel parked itself on my leg and the driver, on being told where I was, passed out. He was brought round and promptly passed out again; this went on for 17 minutes while I lay with a bus on top of me. When they eventually got the bus off my leg it was, as you can imagine, quite a mess.

To cut this part of the story as short as I can, I ended up in a wheelchair for a long time, with three stays in hospital and a wound so big that it refused to heal for over 6 months. A skin graft was being considered when a nursing sister called Muriel Baxter (who later received the MBE for services to medicine), took charge of my case and was successful in closing it up.

During my long stay in the chair I put on a lot of weight - at one point the doctor told my parents it was doubtful if I would ever walk normally again. Those who know me won't be surprised to know that I stared him in the fact and yelled 'Rubbish' very loudly! Before the accident my whole life had been dominated by ballet - which I was told I was pretty good at... in fact my first appearance on stage was at the age of 5 as a dancer. When I finally got out of the chair I attempted to go back to dancing - however, it was quite obvious from the look on the teacher's face and the horrified stares of the other children AND their parents, when they saw both my weight and my scarred leg, that my presence at the school was NOT welcome. I persevered but every week the comments got to me and I ended up going home in tears, so I gave up dancing and took up the solo hobby of learning to play an instrument.

I returned to school, late in the summer term of 1953 and was also met there with a barrage of cruel comments mixed with an unwillingness on the part of any pupils to include me in their circle of friends. Despite only attending school for a few weeks of the year and the treatment I had had, I worked hard and managed to come 19th out of class of 32. The following year the cruel attitude from the other kids escalated into bullying by some and being ostracised by the rest until it got so bad my parents had to go to see the Headmaster. When it came to PE, it was obvious that the teacher had NO patience with me because of my weight and inability to 'perform' satisfactorily and most of the time I was told to stand on the sidelines and not slow up the other kids! I grew to dread days when I had to face this weekly humiliation.

Despite all this, I managed to pass my 11 + examination and ended up at the local Grammar School which was, in those days, co-educational. I'd love to say things improved there but in fact they got far worse. I think it's fair to say that I hated every single day of my school life and my experiences there even put me off ever having kids of my own.

'Games' and 'PE' days in particular became a nightmare which eventually made me ill. There are aspects of being overweight to that extent, that are not talked about because of embarrassment but the effects can cause more mental anguish than anyone knows. For instance - the thighs of very overweight kids can rub together TIL THEY BLEED especially in hot weather and no, it's not talked about because it's a source of SHAME. Stripping off in a communal changing room and letting other kids see that is not something to look forward to. Neither is the fact that I couldn't wear the same pretty underwear or even standard school kit as other kids, because it simply wasn't MADE in those sizes. Assuming that I even made it to the playing field however, the humiliation didn't stop there. The gym teacher alternately pushed me to do things that I was doomed to failure in because of my size or again, sidelined me so I wouldn't slow up the others. There was no swimming taught in those days, so I didn't even learn THAT skill, which was one I eventually excelled at in later life. When it came to team games of course NOBODY picked 'the fat girl' so once I again I felt like something from the bottom of the pond. I went home in tears after every single 'games' day and eventually the dread affected me mentally and started to impinge on my schoolwork. I was finally taken to the doctor who decided that the possible benefits of physical education were being outweighed by the effect on me mentally and he recommended to the school that I be excused any form of physical education there as a result.

I was NOT, however, a 'lazy, couch-potato' type of child. I took up horse-riding and eventually my Dad bought me my own horse. The problem was that because of my size, the only horse that would carry me was a huge heavy hunter who was, frankly, too much for me to handle. For a long time though, riding was a big source of exercise for me and something once again I could do as a solitary hobby where I wasn't subject to abuse. Even that had it's problems though - in order to get the horse shod I had to ride it through the streets to the only farrier in the district who hot-shod horses. The comments I had from passers-by while doing that made it the day a regular hell I had to go through as well. Unfortunately, like any rider, I also had a few spills and being my size and falling from a BIG horse, these were occasionally quite serious. I damaged my back in one fall when I was 12 - and complained about the pain for 3 years before anyone took any notice - and damaged a shoulder badly at the age of 15. I believe that these falls were the initial cause of a lot of the pain I'm now in.

It may be asked at this stage, why my parents didn't put me on a diet? The truth was that in those days there was a belief that you 'grew out of' so-called 'puppy fat'. However, both my parents were overweight; my father's mother had been overweight also. My mother's parents were, by contrast, both very slim and my brother, who ate exactly the same food as the rest of the family, was also a normal weight. We didn't have a car available during the day and we walked everywhere and I was an active person who thought nothing of walking miles.... I don't think the idea of putting a young person on a diet even crossed their minds at that stage.

Inevitably, as it will, puberty took over, bringing with it a whole new raft of problems. My attention in particular turned to one new lad who joined the school when we were 14. I fell for him in a BIG way and of course, there was NO chance. It's easy to underestimate the feelings of someone of that age and mine were certainly dismissed by all and sundry as being of any importance whatsoever, until eventually the situation finally made me very ill indeed.

Clothes were as important, in 1960, as they are to young people today. Mine were, at that age, all made for me because then, as now, nobody really makes young clothes in those sizes. I was fortunate that my grandmother had been a professional dressmaker and could make a lot of things for me but many still had to be made specially. Underwear in particular was unavailable and so I was marched off to a local 'corsetiere' to have stuff made to measure. What followed was a day that left me literally 'scarred for life' in some ways. I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I was handled by an obviously disapproving fitter, as if I was a piece of rather unpleasant meat. I went home afterwards, cried for hours and vomited violently. Her comments to my mother were so degrading that to this day I cannot stand being touched or examined intimately by female doctors or nurses - the thought still makes me nauseous. NOBODY should have to go through that kind of experience simply because they are overweight.

Eventually, the pressure on me emotionally got too much and I ended up at the local hospital with a breakdown and something that nobody would acknowledge at home, a suicide attempt - the first of several. I finally got to speak to someone there - a psychologist - who understood my situation and under their guidance I was persuaded to go on a diet. Much to everyone's amazement however, the normal diets didn't work for me. They reduced the calorie intake further and further until finally at 800 calories a day I started to lose weight. There were just two problems with that; a) There is really nowhere to reduce it too once the body adjusts and b) You cannot live on that forever. I lost some weight but then finally I stopped losing and the doctors told me that there really wasn't anywhere to lower the calories TO and they also said that I had had as much guidance and help as I needed and that I was now on my own to continue. Of course the inevitable happened. I started eating like the rest of the family again and the weight started to pile back on.

I went through a number of jobs - I worked in a bookshop but it wasn't creative enough for me, so I turned to hairdressing, resulting in being ripped off by the hairdressing school I went to AND the first job I had in that business. Not knowing where to turn next I went to work for the Co-operative Wholesale Society like my father. I worked in their Education and Training Department, where I was bored out of my brain for 4 years, only relieved by going on daily release to college once a week for a Certificate in Office Supervision and Skills. Fortunately, whilst doing this, I became involved in the folk music scene and finally ended up doing 5 semi-professional gigs a week, whilst holding down a full-time job at the same time. I left the Co-op and did a short stint as secretary to someone who was a music agent for the folk and jazz scene but the combination of jobs eventually got more than I could handle - something had to give. I turned fully professional on the folk music circuit at the age of 23 and my weight continued to increase, despite the sometimes gruelling travelling and performing I was doing!

For the next 25 years I travelled approximately 45,000 miles a year performing around Britain alone, plus trips to Europe and as far afield as Hong Kong. I often carried a heavy guitar, a case with all my day and stage clothes PLUS a large box of vinyl records for sale, on trains, buses and planes when travelling abroad. It was at one of these gigs in Germany that I first experienced a very severe pain in my spine - which turned out to be a slipped disc. I still completed the tour but goodness knows how. The people who know me and my music know that a lot of my songs are power-ballads, a lot about unrequited love. What they were was in fact a public scream of frustration much of the time. I made jokes about my weight from the stage - but not because I thought they were funny - it was simply a way of 'getting in first' for me, mentally.

I was very fortunate when, through my work on the folk scene, in 1970 I met my husband - a man for whom physical appearance in terms of size, has no importance whatsoever. We married in 1971 and though, like anyone else, we have had our ups and downs, we have been a rock to one another for 37 years. He has experienced the type of abuse to which I've been subjected and am STILL being subjected to first hand though and it makes him very, very angry. Having to take insults from passers-by for instance when simply walking down the street together, is not acceptable and I'm surprised that more violence hasn't occurred because of this in the world frankly.

When it comes to my musical career, many many of my fans have commented that I should have made it in 'the big time' either as a songwriter or a performer. It almost happened on one occasion - but again, my weight was the end to it. I was heard by a London Agent who was representing Barry Manilow (whose Birmingham Fan Club I was running at the time) and asked to come for an interview. He stated quite clearly "Rosie, you have a fabulous voice and personality, the songs and the voice are terrific - but I can't market you because of your appearance, sorry". That's entertainment folks!

In 1986 for many reasons I was going through yet another breakdown and literally starved myself, losing a LOT of weight in the process. It wasn't a sustainable diet, it was a crash diet of the worst kind - however, I lost the weight and decided to learn to swim. It didn't come easily for the first couple of months that's for sure but the HARDEST thing to take was simply walking out into the pool in a swimsuit. Once I got past THAT, the actual learning to swim part, difficult though it was, was in comparison, a piece of cake. I eventually triumphed though, and 1 year and 10 months after starting to learn, I took my examinations and became a fully trained swimming instructor with the ASA.

As well as performing on the folk scene in the evening, I ended up teaching swimming - three hours a day, 6 days a week in the beginning - IN the water, to adults, mainly nervous beginners, who had given up hope of learning. I had huge success, including teaching blind and disabled people and loved it. However, having given up the crash diet and starting to eat normally again, the weight started to pile back on AGAIN.

In 1992 I retired from the folk scene for a number of reasons. Foremost was the fact that in those days people would not stop smoking in the clubs. I was allergic and it was damaging my throat every time I appeared at a smoking club - which made me incredibly angry. People were coming to hear me sing and yet they would NOT stop smoking, even though it was damaging the very thing they were coming to hear! That, combined with increased discomfort from my arthritis, frustration at not being able to make another album of the type I wanted to, lack of success in promoting my songs and other personal issues, I decided enough was enough and I would concentrate on teaching swimming.

I was teaching in public swimming time and a day at the pool rarely went by when I didn't have to put up with yet MORE verbal abuse from mainly kids but often youths and young men up to early 20s. Comments like 'Who let the beached whale in?' and 'Watch out, when she gets in the pool all the water will disappear!' were quite common and were amongst the kinder of the stuff doled out to me. I could either seethe inwardly and say nothing, or take time from my teaching (which people paid a lot for) to tackle the problem. The first damaged me emotionally, the second was unprofessional. Again, eventually, something had to give and I decided to teach ONLY in the adult's-only hour at the lunchtime pool session. It simply was NOT worth the mental aggravation. I only stopped teaching swimming in 2006 when the pool closed - ostensibly for 6 months but never opened again until December 2008! I will mention though, that for the last 7 years that I taught there, I did so with a collapsed spine with two discs out of place plus 2 shoulders that were completely shot with arthritis, though wrongly diagnosed as 'frozen'! More of THAT in the NHS section!

In 1997 we got our first computer and I immediately fell in love with this wonderful, if permanently frustrating, machine. As I always do, I threw myself wholeheartedly into it and went to college for 2 years to do it properly. I completed four years work in the two, ending up with the Oxford, Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts Advanced Certificate in Desktop Publishing. In 2000 I was introduced to computer graphics and within a year had a website for teaching the program I was using. I then wrote 150 tutorials and started an on-line school for vector graphics.

In 2006 I was tempted back on stage... and despite serious misgivings because of the state of my arthritis (which now prevents me even from playing the guitar because it's in my NON-weight bearing joints as well!) I took on the challenge and did a concert. It was such a success that we repeated it in 2007 and 2008 with equal success.... I have to take a lot of painkillers in order to stand up to do it - and the last one had me staying in bed for half the day for the following 5 days in order to recover because the pain was so bad - but it didn't stop me taking on another one... which is arranged for 2009.

Throughout all the above life, what exactly have the NHS done to help me when I asked for it? Also - why am I NOT prepared to accept the responsibility ALONE for my present weight? That is all recorded (or will be) on another section of this site. Suffice it to say that I am NOT amused by what is happening to public and governmental attitudes in Britain and other countries, right now.

BUT - taking all the above life into consideration, don't anyone DARE to accuse ME of being a lazy, junk-food (which I LOATHE) guzzling, work-shy, couch-potato who needs to get off their backside and DO something with my life! Despite having been obese/morbidly obese since the age of 8 and having almost being driven to the wall by the attitudes of some sections of society, I have achieved more than a hell of a lot of people have and I deserve some bloody respect. So I have tales to tell about & comments to make on the NHS, and the Government, and various other people who are now jumping onto the 'obesity bandwagon'.... Read ON!