Loughborough
By Léonie Cooper profile image Léonie Cooper
7 min read

Loughborough

Today we awoken inside a hotel in Leicester from visiting Charles parents and sibling brother near Coventry. We travelled travelled to M1 via Loughborough, taking pictures along the way.

We departed from a delicious breakfast at Leicester University's College Court hotel driving toward Loughborough along the A6; briefly stopping in Highfield's to capture a picture of a ex-children's home building that I'd been a resident around thirty six years ago.

College Court hotel.

I was wary of visiting this area of Leicester, in view of Communist snakes that dwell motivation here, but I've got an antidote, having suffered cretins spiting seclusion venom, defacing my life.

Spooky: The Oaks, an ex- children's home now turned into flats.

The experience was spooky, as memories surfaced as an ongoing apparitions; of disturbed children who lived there with my disturbances. I was resettled here from the Holt and The experience was spooky, as memories surfaced as an ongoing apparitions; of disturbed children who lived there with my disturbances wrought from surviving a single parent, paranoid schizophrenic mother from four to eleven years old. Tried to kill a canvassing MP.

Rear of the Oaks, I don't remember the red building attached, nor a gate.

I was resettled here from the Holt and Dumblane Avenue children's homes before being moved into "leaving care" hostel accommodation down Highfields Street, into a poky room inside a terrace house located along Gopsal Street. Half an hour later in Rusheymead I was surprised to find Dumblane Avenue still functioning as a children's home after talking to a residential social worker during his cigarette break at the homes gate. Talking to him felt strange, for a moment we thought we recognised each other, his staunch demeanour was that of a handler; which, on gaining retrospective, his presence made me feel uneasy.

Dumblane Ave is located behind this pub and health centre; with the building continuing to be operational as a children's home I did not think it right to be taking pictures.

Between the age of 11 and 15 I had fifty-two moves whilst placed into "in care" of social services, from then on I became a new age traveller. I did not attempt to look at the Holt two miles away in Birstall, probably because I was abused there. Ten miles drive away, we arrived in Loughborough our next stop, the Great Central Railway museum station. Other than being born in this town and living in the area Thorpe Arce for the first four years of my life, I lived at a foster home, a hostel in Shelthorpe and two B&Bs along the A6. We found the Great Central Railway to be closed, returning I requested if I could take a picture of the wooden booking office, a museum curator then kindly granted me and Charlie access.

Despite an abysmal childhood and ailing adult mental health I feel both a sense of pride and fascination at my birth towns history. The openness of the museum left me reversely tearful in contrast to my encounter with the residential social worker at Dumblane Ave. We found walking down the stairwell and onto the platform almost a step back in time. I was taken aback by our then rich ancestral history and how we'd expanded the rail network. Returning to the Kiosk on our way out I made a small donation, the curator then opened the museum for us, inside was displayed a wealth of history, and also an information film.

Leaving the museum, we had to notify the curator so that he could lock up the museum. There was a blonde woman our side of the window who fell silent when we arrived. The defensive snake obscured the view through the window, even when we were attempting to talk to the curator inside.

If you return to where you have been, notably when they think you have gone, you'll find these snakes spitting their seclusion venom at connections you've made.

I had a lot of problems when I lived at a ground floor flat in Freehold Street, a mere quarter of a mile from this museum; every Sunday a group of people would break bread outside my kitchen window. This flat, emergency shelter provided by the council was also broken into, and frequented regularly by intruders that stole nothing other than my locks of hair that I'd tied to a copper pipe in my airing cupboard. I have terrible memories of this town, that by birth should have been my home. Returning to Loughborough years later I could see why they wanted me absent, to associate all their disgusting ritualised abuses.

We had arrived in Loughborough on a Thursday, market day, consumers (including my mother) used to travel into the town from satellite villages to shop here. There is a statue called the Sock Man Statue that I in view of the disturbances I experienced in this town, nicked named INGSOC; the statue is told to represent the now defunct hosiery trade (work outsourced to Asia) my mother worked at Mansfield Hosieries, Charter house and Rob Roy.

My flat on Freehold Street was situated a stone throw away from Taylors bell makers; They cast the great bell for Saint Paul's Cathedral, London. The original cast for this bell can be viewed from within Victoria Park.

Back in 2013 a stalker fully exposing himself to me and my friend, in full view of children, he insulted me, presumably angry about me having the company of a friend. As he departed; my friend Karen shouted him down a paedophile. I was stalked and harassed prolifically with what I can only define as psychological torture. Karen had counted over thirty abuses directed at me during that afternoon; we had only just made friends, meeting after she had contacted me on-line to discuss a blog I'd written post about trauma. Karen was a nurse at Glenfield hosptial, and was planning a move to Nottingham, after meeting her several times, we moved into a terrace house in Forest Fields area.

My friend Karen, this photograph I took in Nottingham was used by her family at her funeral.

The abuse did not stop in Nottingham, Karen was chased down everywhere she went. I became sleep ridden, waking having a panic attack then sleeping, this cycle happened for weeks; my psychiatrist said my body was beginning to shut down, explaining the symptoms as dying from being traumatised to death. Our neighbours abused us through the walls at night. Karen was diagnosed with a brain tumour, disappearing she was found dead in a hotel room in Brighton after committing suicide via what was reported as an overdose. The night before she died she had been out partying with her activist friends; I guess to say goodbye. I miss her greatly, she saved my life; I'll not forget her. Leaving Loughborough I had mixed feelings, the police knew about the continuing abuse I suffered; Karen was the only friend I had, she had delivered me from hell on earth.

What attacked me in Loughborough was remorseless, relentless, no shame, no guilt, just pure and utter hatred despising my existence.

I took a picture of the Bastard gates as we drove passed Loughborough University; I had planned to visit Bradgate Park but began returning to the Scottish Borders after turning back at Oaks in Charnwood. The journey north along the M1 motorway was congested, and Charlie raged at the fuel prices. We saved four pounds by travelling a mile to a petrol station from the A1 at Scotch corner A66.

By Léonie Cooper profile image Léonie Cooper
Updated on
Diary Loughborough