Heather Bellamy spoke with Linda Huskisson about a life of domestic violence, prostitution and drug abuse and how she turned her life around.

Linda: It was hard. There was a lady from Centre Point who showed me the paper and I can remember really crying. I thought, I want my children, I need to be with them. We phoned up the probation officer that Terry was under and we asked her to make sure that he wasn't going to have a welcoming party with a beating. It was agreed that was gonna happen and I felt a little bit safer.

I got there and it was really strange. It was like I'd never been away. All this fear came back again, but I saw my children, which was so lovely. Matt didn't remember me because he was only a few weeks, but Georgie did. I was really emotional 'cause I love my children.

They went out the following day; they had gone to a birthday party and it was really just so that Terry and I could talk, but it didn't happen. I was cleaning up and doing the housework and he was sat down peeling some potatoes for dinner and all of a sudden this knife whirled its way right at me. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor and I was being beaten up. He was calling me a prostitute and all sorts of names. If it wasn't for his brother who was in the house at the time, I think I would have been dead. That's why I call my book Cheating Death, Living Life, 'cause all I can remember was the back of my head was being hit against the tiles and I could feel myself more or less going out. Fortunately his brother was there to take him off me. The only thing I can remember him saying was, "Run Linda, run, just go". And I ran, and I ran, and I ran. I managed to get on to the main road towards Oxford and stop a car and they were good enough to take me to Oxford and even gave me the money to get a coach to go back to London. I didn't know what I was doing. I don't know why I chose London, maybe it's because I had gotten to know people there on the streets. I just had to get away. And so I lost my children and my husband at the same time.

Linda Huskisson

Heather: In fleeing, you didn't flee to safety, because you ended up working in strip clubs. Why did you do that?

Linda: For money to live and survive. At that particular moment I knew how desperate I was going to be to get my children back and the problem was that Terry's mum had passed away from cancer, so he had them in his care and that was a concern for me, so I was trying to raise money very quickly so that I could get myself a little place in London where I could bring the children with me. But unfortunately that didn't happen.

Heather: And things went from bad to worse with a man called Sheridan who forced you into prostitution.

Linda: When I first met him, he was a very good looking guy. He was well dressed and had a nice car. He bought me gifts and put me up for a little while and said that he would help me. At that moment in time I felt that things were getting better.

We didn't live very far from the Red Light District, which was well known back in the day, Derby Road in Southampton. This one night we were invited for a meal, or what I thought was a meal, with a girl who had been a prostitute on the streets for some time. We had the meal and it was absolutely lovely. They'd gone off to get some more wine and get whatever they needed and myself and Sharon were left together. She started telling me what it was like on the streets and the different things punters had asked for and how much she charged and all those kinds of things. I was just listening as it was quite intriguing, but at the same time, not really me. But when Sheridan came back, he said to me, "Did you have a good talk?", and I was like "Yeah it was interesting". And he said, "Well how do you feel about going on the streets tomorrow?" I thought he was joking, but he wasn't joking at all. I got very upset with him saying, "You can't love me if you want me to go on the streets, how can you possibly say that you love me?" I thought this was a really good relationship. And he picked me up and held me over the balcony; we were about two floors up. He said to me that if I wasn't going to go on the streets he would drop me there and then and he meant it; he even let go of one of my ankles. I thought, "Oh my God, he's gonna drop me", so I said "Yes of course I'll do it". So he pulled me back up, but he made sure that I did go out on the streets and that there was somebody with me. When I first started they would take the money off me there and then and I would have to go in a car and do activities for the money that was given out.

Heather: Before we get onto how you eventually did become a Christian, can we just go back in time, because it was through your mum that you first saw the reality of Jesus wasn't it?

Linda: I love mum. I miss her so very much. I can always remember kneeling down at my bed and mum teaching me the Lord's Prayer. We used to recite the Lord's Prayer together. Mum used to take me to church and I remember it being a Spirit-filled church and I saw people going down on the floor with the Holy Spirit and this one particular night, mum was praying for me because I was going into hospital. Mum was praying for me and she went down in the Spirit and I really felt the presence of God; I knew God was doing something. I couldn't work out what it was; I was only small, about five or six years old at that time, but I do remember being in the presence of God. I do believe that it was the prayers of my mother that got me saved and where I am today.

Heather: And how did you become a Christian yourself?

Linda: I'd ran away about three times; this would be my third time. I ran away to get off the streets, but every single time I ran away, I got found. Sheridan knew a lot of people in Bristol; he knew a lot of people everywhere and although they knew him, they also knew me and that I was his woman.

The last time I ran off - I ran off to Bristol and I stayed at a flat with a girl who was a prostitute; she helped me to get away. I ran out of cigarettes one day and I ran down the road to the Black and White cafe, which was on St Paul's. While I was there, I met with two of Sheridan's friends and I had a gun put in the back of me and they said that Sheridan was looking for me and they got me in a car. One of them was on one side and one of them was on the other and I was in the middle and they had a driver as well.

All the way back I was absolutely petrified because I knew what was going to happen. When I got home to Sheridan he gave me the beating of my life. I had a ruptured spleen through the beating and the police had to sign the consent form because they thought I was gonna die at Southampton. I had complications as well so they sent me off to Dorset hospital for the complications.