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In 1986, when I was 42, I moved across Surrey from Bradmore Way in Coulsdon where I lived with my parents to Northampton Road in Addiscombe. I moved into a group home run by Mencap. It was a new home. We all moved in there in March and April of that year. Initially there were eight of us - four men and four women. Now there are seven of us - one person moved out, one died and a new woman moved in. I've been living there for 16 years.

I moved there because my parents were elderly and my mum had heart trouble. They wanted to know that if they died they could go to heaven happy knowing I was being looked after by staff.


I was born with a mental handicap on 18 February, 1944. I have a brother who is older than I am. But I don't have any sisters.

When I was a child I lived with my family. I have had some health problems: when I was two I had to have brain surgery for my epilepsy and when I was three I had my tonsils and adenoids out. I also had a time when I was paralysed down my left side and I was deaf - and I had to re-learn how to listen and how to speak. My mum was very patient with me. She also taught me how to knit and sew.

When I was in my 20s my brother got married and moved out. I continued to live with my parents. As my parents got older they started to worry about what would happen to me. I remember hearing my mother tell a visitor that, if anything happened to her, she would rather I died as she didn't think I would be able to cope. I don't know how they found Northampton Road but when they did they talked to me about moving there. They told me I could come home most weekends and for Christmas and other holidays. And so, on 24 March 1986, I moved in.

The best things about being in a group home are that I am looked after nicely. We go on holidays and outings, we have parties and I can come and go as I please, as long as I tell the staff where I am going and what time I will be back. When I first moved in I went home every other weekend and also for a week in September. I went out for day trips with my parents until my dad sold his car and he was not able to walk far. My mum died five years ago, aged 91. I lost my dad this year when he was 97.


The worst things about moving was that I missed my parents. Although I had phone calls and visits it was not the same. I missed them. I still do.

I get on quite well with the people I live with. I go out with one of my housemates most weekends for a drink or shopping or going to the Saturday Mencap Club.

I don't think I could have coped with married life and I don't think I could have lived on my own because of my epilepsy. So Northampton Road is a good home for me. I would have liked to live in the countryside, especially if there were some pylons and gas-holders nearby to look at as these things interest me.

Mary Coventry is a service user with a learning difficulty.