The Stranger In My Life

The Stranger In My Life

The true story of a woman who loses four days of her life in March 1976 and in 2010, following years of terrifying nightmares she decides to find out why. With the help of an experienced psychologist she relives the events of 34 years ago and in doing so discovers what happened to her business partner, Fred Handford. Following EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) treatment the nightmares she has suffered since the day he disappeared - 19th March 1976 - stop completely and the truth is finally revealed.
My name is Janet Holt. I am 62 years old and have farmed at Ball Beard Farm in Derbyshire for 40 years, 34 of them alone. My life has been full of funny stories and amusing anecdotes and for years my friends have been pestering me to record these farming tales in a book: a sort of female James Herriot of the Peak District, if you like.
It seemed like a good idea and so I began to write. I knew I would have to include the story of the bullock, charging down Glossop High Street and scattering pedestrians in its wake after escaping on the way to the abattoir, as well as the day in 1966 when, as a teenager I attempted to bring life back to a neighbour's pre-war potato harvester only to have the two Shire horses pulling the rusty contraption suddenly bolt, sending potatoes flying across the field like vegetable missiles.
So yes, I felt there was enough humour in my life to justify a book, but writing it down was more difficult than I envisaged and when I read back the first draft, I realised that the funny stories were actually few and far between.
Like a lot of people, my life has had it's ups and downs; there's been plenty of hard work and a certain amount of tragedy along the way - as well as the laughs that my friends said they wanted to read about - but the reason writing it down was so difficult was because there was a glaring gap at the centre of it all; a gap that made reading and writing my life story totally unsatisfactory and raised more questions than I was able to answer.
In March 1976 I lost four days of my life; from 14th March to 18th March I can neither remember what I did nor where I'd been and then on 19th March my business partner at Ball Beard Farm, Fred Handford, disappeared. From that day to this no-one has seen or heard from him and since then I have suffered the most debilitating and terrifying nightmares, three, sometimes four times a week, nightmares that have left me crying and sobbing in my bed; nightmares that have made me question my sanity on more than one occasion.
I had no idea when I began writing my biography that this was the route I would take but the journey has revealed more than I could ever have expected because when I read back that first draft it was obvious that my life consisted of two people: the woman I was before March 1976 and the woman I subsequently became.
It has taken three years but finally I have solved the mystery. This is the story of what I had to do to uncover what happened in those lost four days and, in the process, I also discover what happened to Fred Handford.
As I say to my friends: After 34 years I finally discovered the truth. Now all I have to do is learn to live with it.
Country USA
Manufacturer Janet Holt and Helen Parker
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2014-01-01
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Janet Holt and Helen Parker
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2014-01-01
Format	Kindle eBook

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