‘I learned to forgive my addict parents‘

Writer Gavanndra Hodge, 46, lives in south London with her husband and two daughters. Here, she explains how uncovering the memories of her little sister helped her come to terms with her traumatic past

- SANDRA WALSH

We were on a family holiday when I was left alone to play in the hotel pool. Jumping backwards into the water, I cracked my chin on the pool ledge and knocked myself unconscious.

I’m alive today because a man happened to open the door of his villa and see my blood spreading in the water. He dragged me out and pumped my chest until the water spluttered from my mouth.

The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital, Dad looking over me, grinning. “Let the doctor sew you up, my darling,” he said.

I was only five years old. I was a similar age when I wandered into my parents’ bedroom at home in London and spotted my mum’s contraceptive pills in her open make-up bag.

I sat on the floor crunching the pink sugar-coated tablets between my baby teeth. I’d eaten them all before my parents found me.

At the hospital, the doctors decided not to pump my stomach, telling my parents the pills had probably done no harm but I might develop faster than my peers. They were right – I started my periods and wore a bra while still at primary school.

These incidents were part of a pattern of benign neglect that shaped my childhood. My dad, Gavin Hodge, was a top hairdresser in a Chelsea salon with many celebrity and aristocratic friends. He was charismatic and incredibly popular – but he was also a heroin addict and a drug dealer.

My mum, Jan Burdette, was a former model and very shy. She was an alcoholic who drank red wine and often slept through the wild parties held at our Chelsea flat.