Viola Llewellyn - Where it all began
Viola Llewellyn: It's a groovy ride and it always feels like I'm just getting started!
I was born in 1966 in London, UK. We were not welcome. I have had to fight to find my place in a world that tried to convince me that I was either WRONG, NOT GOOD ENOUGH or just IN THE WRONG PLACE. I wanted to live a life on my own terms and not merely in response to these conditionings.
I am a journey of stories. Some of them are probably like yours: sign posts for a life that is still unfurling. The story and the journey are never over, even when this life ends, our story will still be unfurling.
My Cameroonian parents ‘ran off’ to be together. They both wanted to be accepted and successful. They wanted the same and even more for us, their 4 children. They were not prepared for the racial landscape of 1960’s London. Because of unfair housing laws, my sister Julie and many other African children had to live apart from their parents with white families who were paid to be our nannies. This was a private fostering arrangement. I lived with Nanny, Uncle Ned, Sylvia and Victor until I was 4 (I was utterly and truly loved and spoilt rotten!) My parents came to get us when Mum won the lottery and bought a house! It was this social conditioning, my culture and the heritage my parents stuffed into our little home, along with my ‘Human Design’ that has informed who I was supposed to be, what happened along the way and how I came to be exactly where I am and where YOU are today. We are all connected.
Pregnant at 19, my son Eseme was dead by the time I was 20. I was beaten almost daily by a VERY bad boyfriend from the age of 21 until I was 25. I juggled hiding the bruises and hospital visits with a career in tech and hardware sales at a time when almost NO women, let alone young Black Women were in the industry. In a bid to escape the violence in my life I went on holiday to America in 1992. I never left! The rest is the history that is unfolding today.
Truth has been manifesting through me of recent. Something is brewing and I don’t want to experience it by myself, or miss a moment of it! It has taken all this time to be AWARE. Now I am PREPARED to share what it took to be READY!! These are the 'Tulles' That are Building My Life.
