Lisa Jordan (55) says she felt blessed when she fell pregnant with her only child Pearl. “I was led to believe I couldn’t have kids.” She says Pearl was an amazing baby from heaven “very well behaved, no trouble and gorgeous.”
Lisa fondly remembers entering Pearl into the “Boots Baby” competitions and winning. But then Pearl changed dramatically when she got to age 11 and puberty hit. “Pearl suddenly was more interested in boys and drinking Lambrini and back chatting me than keeping our mum and daughter bond.”
Aged 11, after a string of arguments about curfew times, her daughter left and didn’t come home. She was missing for over a week. Mum recalls the week as if it was yesterday. “It was hell, I couldn’t eat or sleep, I’d spend hours by the phone and then hours searching Portsmouth by night.”
Lisa made posters of Pearl and put them up around town and the news hit the local headlines and TV stations. “I was convinced she had been raped and killed”.
On the seventh day, Pearl was escorted to mum’s front door “I was so relieved – you just want to hug them.” The police had spotted her buying chips…
Pearl (23) looks back with embarrassment at what she put her mum through “When you are younger every thing is so dramatic.” Pearl says she was unaware about what her mum was going through until she saw posters around town with her picture.
“The posters made me too scared to go home – I wondered how angry my mum would be and what would happen next if I was to return. I stayed away longer and just made it worse.”
Pearl spent the week with an older man who cooked and cleaned for her. “I have to admit I dressed very provocatively – years older than I really was.” She borrowed her friends’ clothes to survive. “I wanted independence and I was fed up with my mum and her strict rules and curfews. I am so sorry now.”
The happy ending is that not only was runaway Pearl found and returned safely, the relationship between mother and daughter survived the ordeal, and they now regularly go clubbing together!
Another advantage of this story is that it reflects runaway statistics – girls account for 70% of runaways, 90% of runaways are back within a month, single children are more likely to run away [Pearl was an only child] and 51% of runaways sleep at friends’ homes.
Programme Contributor: Mother Lisa
