Was watching on ER tonight, and the episode was all about a woman whose son was missing, he was aged 12 years old I think. It was horrifying seeing the woman go through the emotions of worrying about her kid. Lately in the news in UK there has been several cases of children around 3 and 4 years old being abducted and sexually abused, which is just terrifying to even try to understand the fear and panic that their parents must suffer.

My daughter went for a day when she was only nine years old.
It was an ordinary day, I was through in Edinburgh, it was June 1995 and I was checking a flat that I was going to be staying in at the forthcoming Fringe Festival. I had mates in Edinburgh and had lunch and hung out with them.

Ashley was on school holidays and her dad was looking after her, we had just recently left our old home and pub and my husbands family, who were …I suppose gangsters, I don’t like that word, but we were found with guns and stuff in his fathers house less than a year before in October 1994.

We had moved up the West End of Glasgow for a fresh start, we left his family behind, they didn’t even know where we were and they separation from them had been pretty acrimonious.

There had been in fighting over his late fathers will and his six brothers were as deceitful and underhand as any Shakespearean story. We had no contact with them and I was embarking on my comedy career.

Ashley was a very independent girl and was allowed to use the underground on her own; she had been using it everyday as she travelled up to her school in the West End. Her school was a lovely fee paying establishment set in beautiful affluent tenements and grand houses with a small high street that she loved browsing.
That day as I had been out with friends sitting in a fancy bistro that was at the foot of the ominous Edinburgh Castle, Ashley was out on her own up the Byres roads near her school, spending her pocket money. Her father had instructed her to stay out for an hour then call to let him know what her movements were.

Two hours passed and she hadn’t called, he began to worry, it wasn’t like her to be forgetful as she was always so mature and diligent about her responsibilities. The added background worry, secreted in his head was that one of his late father’s old gangster enemies may have picked her up…maybe as an old unsettled score.

I called him and he never wavered once on the phone, he never blurted out that Ashley was late and hadn’t called, he knew that me being in Edinburgh would result in me jumping on a bus and that hour drive back to Glasgow would be like a scene from the famous film ‘Speed’, trust me that fucking bus would be held to ransom and it would have been driven at 90 miles per hour as I got home in hysterics.

Finally I sauntered home, my walkman plastered to my ear…dancing up the stairs, desperate to tell my husband all the news about my mates and the flat I would be staying in and the stuff I have been doing….nothing about my daughter even crossed my mind and by this time she was missing five hours.

As soon as I entered the flat, I felt a distinct creepy fear, I ripped the earphones out of my ears and ran into the living room and saw my Step mum and dad standing there looking over at the far side of the room. I followed their eyes…

My husband was lying on the carpet face down, his body completely stretched out and he was making a noise that didn’t make sense, nor had I heard that sound before…was he crying?
My brain went into overdrive, what was going on? Was my brother dead? Well he was a heroin addict who has HIV, was my sister ill?
Why then was my husband upset? He cares for none of his own family, less for mine…then it hit me…ASHLEY, the only reason he would be screaming.

I immediately ran into her bedroom, her wee bed was untouched, her teddy lay on the floor, her coat was missing, and her presence was gone…where was she?
My dad came through to me and explained quickly that Ashley had gone out for a walk up the Byres road, but she had not come back in five hours and she hadn’t called.

I felt as though I had been punched in the heart, my breath left me and I slumped to the floor. My husband came running in and held me, he told me the police were out looking for her, they had a picture of her, they knew what she was wearing and all we could was wait.

My dad, who has a bad heart and various other problems with his health, immediately threw his coat on “I am going up the Byres road, I will take a big photo of her and go look for her”
He grabbed the photo we had on the wall, shoved it under his arm and made off down the stairs.

My step mum told me to sit and wait, but my brain was racing, in my minds eye she was walking up the road near her school, she was laughing at the play ground, she was standing looking in the famous Sentry Box toy shop, deciding what to spend her cash on…she was being dragged into a car, she was being held against her will…my heart beat hard in my chest. Why had this happened?
My husband was pacing the floor.

“It’s not like her not to phone, I always let her go out, I have never over protected her” he was talking to himself.
The police came back up to the house and asked more questions
‘Would anyone want to take her?’
‘Would she go with anyone she didn’t know?’
It went on and on, I threw up in the toilet, I cried in the room, I drank tea and threw it up again. Where was my child?

Then the most amazing thing happened, my dad had been out about fifteen minutes, this was before everyone had mobile phones remember, he called from the call box outside the toy shop and told us he had just met her in the street.

Ashley and my dad came back, she was looking so sheepish, she came running into my hallway and straight into my arms crying “Mummy I didn’t know the time, I am sorry I caused all the worry, I was playing in my friends garden, she lives beside the school and I didn’t know the time, and her mummy told me it was getting late and I should go home, then I met grand dad in the street and he told me the police are looking for me…and look mummy” she lifted up her trouser legs and showed me these red welts and bruised on her shins “I can finally go a bike”

The relief was so overwhelming, my husband picked her up and held her close and wouldn’t put her down, her wee legs dangled as he buried his head in her long thick hair.
The police arrived and Ashley was interviewed, it was ascertained that her explanation was true, she had simply met friends in the sunshine and went to their garden with their parents, had a barbeque, played for hours and then slowly realised that she hadn’t called home and was late.

I am sure we have all had days where you have such fun and forget the world, and that’s what kids should have in their life, but the worry had taken at least ten years off my life. I felt for my husband though, as I had my family there, he couldn’t even call his for support and to be honest he never did have their love or help, it made me realise how alone he was.

Ashley sat down and told us all about her adventure, as we all tried to not let an ulcer form I our guts with fear.

My father was the hero of the hour, as a child I was abused, and he never knew and this haunted him for years, he may have never saved me but he did find his grand daughter and that made his day.

Ashley did scare me that day to death. She did have fun though, and we as a family will never forget the day she learned to go a bike.

London’s Time Out magazine has launched its search for stand up comedy award nominees, there isn’t even a Scot on the line up but if you want you can vote for me, that’s only if you want to, I believe people are unaware of the competition so I am drawing your humble attention to it.
You click on the link and click on who you think should be nominated OR you can put Janey Godley in ‘other’.
If Bush can get voted in twice surely I can get at least ONE vote?
Thanks Love Janey Godley.

http://www.timeout.com/competition/liveawardscomedy

Went into town today to pay some bills, I hate paying bills; I want that money to buy things! The good news is I have downloaded some great live Steely Dan music onto my IPOD and that carried me through the boring bank queue!

Husband is doing my yearly accounts and I hate that more than period pains, it is made more difficult because my PC crashed in September and all my invoices and each gig that had been inserted with how much I have been paid was wiped clear! So I had to go through the whole diary and I used the blog to jolt my memory as to where I was and how much I got paid. It was hard trying to recall each payment, its ok with the bigger clubs as those payments are standard payments, but smaller gigs and corporate gigs proved a real chore!

Good news though, Time Out the famous London ‘what’s on’ magazine called me and asked me to write my own article which will advertise the gigs I am doing when I am back down in January, this is a real honour for me, Time Out is a well respected magazine. I have written four drafts of the article and am paranoid that’s its just shit.
The town was busy today and I hit the sales, got some neat stuff from Boots as they always have a great sale for small toiletries and bits and bobs that I pay full cash for normally. I suppose what I should do is buy ALL this years Christmas gifts now and that would save me enormous amounts of time this December, but me being me didn’t bother.

I am currently researching Sony Vaio laptops to buy and have seen some cheap ones on the web, as my own laptop is crap and over heats and blanks out and weighs more than a small fat sheep when trying to carry it around the UK. Its like being pregnant again lugging it around over my shoulders and trying to support its weight through airports and train stations.
Sony Vaio weighs only 2kgs and my old one weighs 9kg’s!
So it’s a new year and I must get off my fat ass and lose weight again, no more chocolate for breakfast.

PS there is new funny pics on this link, click on A Political and check them out#

http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/janeygodley/

Can’t believe it really is 2K6, can you. I am 45 on 20th January and feel like my life should be over by now eh? When I was 22 I imagined that when I was 45 I would be menopausal (Please let me womb stop bleeding…bring it on) but I aint! I imagined I would be wrinkly and wearing brightly appliquéd jumpers with busy butterflies and shiny sequins on them (like all the 45 year old women I knew when I was 22 years old) but I am not.

Well there are some wrinkles but certainly not as much as my mum had when she was 45, I remember her face clearly. She died an old woman at 47, I am sure some of you know my mum was murdered by her violent boyfriend in 1982, she was found in the River Clyde four days after he took her a late night ‘walk’.

I don’t mean she was an old woman, but she looked like an old woman and behaved like an old woman and that’s what most women her age looked like in those days.
My mum adored Judy Garland, she danced like her and almost lived like in the addiction department as well and strangely both of them died aged 47.

Getting back to the point, I think my mum’s generation didn’t foresee a working life after 40, certainly nothing more than working as a dinner lady or cleaner anyway.
They weren’t brought up in the 1940’s and 50’ to assume they could raise their kids then apply technological moisturisers and start shagging 20 years olds…like we are constantly fed by US sitcoms! (trust me you don’t need to be wrinkle free to let a 20 year old fuck you, you just have to have a good enough memory to remember to forget them afterwards… so I am told).

They never knew women who had ‘plastic surgery’ unless it was of course some poor woman whose husband tried to burn her in a fire and they grafted a new pinkie on her hand but left her face like a melted carpet….they just never foresaw regular people to have boob jobs or stretch marks being erased by lasers so the 45 year old could hit the beach in a tiny bikini!

I am of the generation of women who will work forever and try to look after themselves, manage their own lives and love and work to their own rules.

My own marriage has went through several regenerations…I was the original 80’s bride who wore shoulder pads, big hair, make up, high heels and sexy stockings and was into aerobics, to keep me trim, I survived on 300 calories a day (if it was good enough for Princess Diana, it was good enough for me), I ran a business, had a baby and was always ready to look good and provide hot foods and sex on demand …then I was the 90’s woman, turning my back on the job my husband had allocated for me (running the bar he owned) and became a stand up comic and started to travel alone for the first time in my married life…I even carried my own passport and cash! I had opinions that I shouted loudly from a stage and ran my own business managing myself.

I dressed to suit me, I let my hair grow longer, I got into my own music, I rebelled against everything I held dear as an 80’s woman and practically left home leaving him holding the baby (by then a school girl) and I demanded sex when I got home from a trip and revelled at reading my own name Janey Godley (not my married name…that’s Storrie, but I changed it legally to Godley) in the comedy magazines and listings.
Now I am 2K woman and we are still together, I work he cooks, I earn, he accounts it, I spend, he smiles and hides a grimace, I laugh, he laughs and we rub along fine.
I do have enormous amounts of regrets and stuff I have done and I wish I hadn’t.

I wish I had learned to shut up and listen more, I regret talking over people, I regret undermining other peoples emotions and above all I regret the red dress and pill box hat I wore at a wedding in 1989. I looked mental, I don’t regret the stretch marks ( have you seen my beautiful child? Because she worth it!), I don’t regret the scars on my knee (football as a youngster -I was GOOD!).

I don’t regret standing up to people who undermined others, I don’t regret telling a dirty joke loudly in the Vatican City last July beneath the Popes window over a mobile phone to a fervent Catholic! (I should have had more respect…really),
I regret missing some performances at my daughter school theatre, but I was on stage working to pay a mortgage and that’s life…still I do regret that.

I am eternally sorry for all the people who were my Uncle David Percy’s best friends and were really hurt and shocked when I got him imprisoned in 1996 for sexually abusing me as a child, that was rotten for them and not their fault…still that’s what happens when you touch kids and hope they grow up have a good enough memory to remember to forget them afterwards!

Happy 2K6 all…je ne regretene!

I had a great gig at Glasgow Jongleurs, the crowd was just awesome and it can be scary doing stand up comedy at Hogmanay….as the Glasgow crowd can be mental, but there was just wonderful.

I was tired as I have been up for nights watching all my BAFTA dvd’s, being a BAFTA member is a very serious business, I do get all the latest films from Harry Potter to King Kong to Narnia, including all the smaller films and indie movies and I watch THEM ALL as the first round of voting in January 4th.
I have been busy taking notes and being critical about the whole screen play business!
So tonight I went on stage as host and had great fun.

I left as soon as the show was over as I wanted to be home to bring in the New Year, and to top it all I was on TV as part of the Hogmanay show on STV!
It was odd sitting there watching myself chatting about Scottish events from 2005, but I am chuffed to bits they showed so much of me!

It was recorded three weeks ago, remember the blog? Where I was convinced I had a moustache? I have to say I did have a wee bit of a creepy spider on my top lip and my husband said in the middle of me talking “That’s a shame you have your moustache” and I was horrified, but he was joking he told me later.

The thing that bothered me was my yellow teeth hence the reason I am getting my whole set of yellow choppers whitened and veneered, it may cost a lot but at least I can smile without worry. I know they are not really yellow but they are dull and it’s a history of eating sweets and bad diet, I am from Glasgow for fucksake like my mother in the 1960’s could afford toothpaste? NO!
We never got toothpaste or sunscreen or any of that preventative care, we were lucky if we shared a stock cube for dinner!
So I am old enough and ready to pay good money for a bright smile and that’s what I am sharing today, this first day of 2006 to all my blog mates…a big dull but soon to be bright smile Happy 2006, may your family be safe, may your days be good, may your wages buy dental care, may your kids grow up free and may all your hopes be fulfilled.