“I’ve been able to have a career, have a family, and still be gay. She feels like she’s finally able to talk about it. “She said that she’d had a relationship, quite a long standing relationship with a woman and that her parents had written her a letter saying that if there was any form of relationship going on, that they didn’t approve and that it wasn’t an appropriate way to live a life.”Įllen kept her mum’s secret for nearly 20 years. “I then asked, ‘does anybody else know?’ and she said, ‘no, I will go to the grave with this and you are to tell nobody.’ The way she fixed her gaze on me, when she said that, I knew she was serious. She just span round and said, ‘I think I do’.”Įllen’s mum told her that she’d had a relationship with a woman, but that she had married Ellen’s father and had never told anybody. I said, ‘you don’t know what it’s been like’. “I eventually just turned around and said ‘Mum, I’m gay’. “We were just standing between the living room and the kitchen and Mum was busy cooking. I didn’t think I could continue not being honest with them. “I’d been living my gay life quite quietly away from the family home and I just got to the point where I needed to talk to my parents about my life. “I asked, ‘does anybody else know?’ and she said, ‘no, I will go to the grave with this and you're to tell nobody.’'