You’ve probably heard of my mother, the former child star, Hannah Taylor who illuminated on screen; her cheeky grin making global audiences giggle or watch in awe, and her emotional scenes rivalled those of Shirley Temple, whilst also capitalizing on the grief-stricken era as another wave of depression seemed to hit the world as the economy plummeted in the mid two thousand and twenties.
My mum doesn’t talk about her celebrity status or any of her past often, but when I asked her about the Depression one day whilst doing my homework, she said that it hadn’t bothered her much as, although born in Wiltshire, England, was transported to Los Angeles, America aged 6 after her acting in British soap operas and a feature film propelled her into the spotlight.
It wasn’t too long until she was spotted in the US and snapped up by the Cindy Osbrink agency, and was chosen as the lead child in every film that needed an adept child actress in the subsequent years. Following in Jodie Foster and Drew Barrymore’s suit she was able to make the leap to adult star in later movies, but not in the ordinary way by playing a rape victim or a hooker, but instead she would play a female pimp, or a maniacal woman bent on world domination, or other interesting female characters which differed from the norm, making her even more famous and adored by the public, and all before the age of fifteen.
Unfortunately, it was at the age of fifteen where her life changed. My mum was on set for the new film ‘Magnet’, a film about how war and violence occur because of electrical imbalances in the brain and was set to be a big success. She was cast as one of the leading actors, a small town girl whose family was ripped apart by terrorist bombings, acting alongside her on-screen father played by actor David Silverstone.
Silverstone was world-renowned as one of the most beautiful men alive, constantly topping lists such as ‘world’s sexiest male.’ You’d never see him topping a list of nicest man though, unless it was a public vote, as although his public image was as a wonderfully charitable man, in real life he was a womaniser and a cheat who had got his first job by sleeping with the female casting director. How do I know this, well, predominately gossip from actors and actresses who used to work for him, but also tabloids that have started to attack him now that he’s not so famous and untouchable.
As the two main actors in the cast, Silverstone and Taylor (my mum) had many scenes together and spent a lot of time alone in rehearsals. Taylor, innocent and naive, protected by overbearing parents (who are now my overbearing grandparents!) and agents, was unaware of the dangers posed by sexy flirtatious men.
Two months later the media uncovered a story that was to ruin Hannah’s career for good. Hannah was expecting at the age at fifteen, and although the father was unknown, Hannah received the brunt of the bad press, and although it encouraged the viewing figures of her movie, leading her to receiving many more movie role offers after the baby, Hannah decided to stay out of the limelight, returning to Wiltshire in the hope that eventually people will forget her, and her daughter would be able to grow up in peace.
I was born in Wiltshire, England and was named Journey Monroe Taylor after Marilyn Monroe, who held the pseudonym of Journey Monroe for a short time. I was raised by my mother and nannies and grew up well, going to the private primary school Mothberry Preparatory. Although I was raised with good intentions, I won’t say I was raised well, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I suppose this novel is me trying to atone for them and explain why I did what I did. I know the press will leap on this the second it is published and scrutinise every tiny detail, but despite that it needs to be said so that things can begin to change.
Chapter 2
As I mentioned, I was educated at Mothberry Preparatory where I grew up with other celebrity offspring, oblivious at the time as to how this would affect all of us.
From birth our parents had planned our destinies and the teachers played up to this fact, splitting our reception class into two groups: the “Innocents” and the “Preparations” (although not actually named that, that is the group names that I chose to call them respectively.) The Innocents had names like Phinneus and Hermione and could read perfectly, having been raised by home tutors since they learnt to crawl. Their parents wanted them to have a ‘normal’ life, living in the country, being civil to one another and acting like young wannabe royals.
Then there was the group I was placed in, the Preparations. Clever name, considering we were in a preparatory school. Our group was based on the fact that our parents had trained us to be aware of the world and what life was to be like for us in our situation. Also, our parents had encouraged us to have a fantastic childhood by being spoilt with anything we could ever want, everything that our parents didn’t have, whether it was because they were raised in a working-class environment, and couldn’t afford many toys, or they were child stars and didn’t have much time for fun.
Most of the children at Mothberry Preparatory School were aware of the parents’ jobs, some still oblivious of its importance saying things like “my daddy plays the guitar with his friends.” I was one of those children. I remember when I found out though. Our teacher, Miss Myers, had set us an assignment to find out about our parents jobs and report back to the class the next day. At the time this seemed perfectly innocent, in retrospect I see that the teachers were just hunting for more information on our celebrity parents.
I returned home that day, driven home by my personal chauffeur, with which I had to check it was definitely him by asking him a password which changed daily, the password that day being “buttercup.”
My driver, Thomas, pulled up to the giant iron gates at the end of the doorway and typed the 8-numbered code into his keyboard by the steering wheel and they opened with ease. My driveway extended up a small hill with trees sheltering the road up to the house, which bloomed beautifully green at this time of Spring. The limousine pulled up to the two hedges outlining the stairs leading up to my house, and I jumped out, shouting goodbye to Thomas as I went, and ran up the twelve stone steps to my front door, where I typed in another numbered code and pushed open the large oak doors into the hallway.
“Mum, I’m home!” I shouted, and then continued my daily routine of taking off my bag, school jumper and shoes and dropping them on the floor, leaving a trail behind me towards the kitchen. I went to the fridge and spied on all the goodies inside, eventually deciding on some apple juice and a chilled Twix bar. Leaving the kitchen, I followed the stairs up to my room, threw myself on my pink canopy bed and flicked on the telly, whilst also turning on my laptop. Even aged four I was incredibly technologically minded, knowing how to set up a PS3 or X-box 360, open up an Internet connection and complete a multitude of games on both the Nintendo DS and PSP.
The television was programmed on to the Disney Channel and in the background I could hear repeats of the show Hannah Montana as I switched on MSN messenger and began chatting to my best friends Onyx and Effie, who I had only just seen at school ten minutes ago. You’d think this would mean that we had nothing to talk about, but we always had things to say, whether it was commenting on the show that we were all watching, plans for the weekend, or gossip. Yes, even at four we were expert gossip queens, having learnt from the best with all the people we were surrounded by.
I admit, I didn’t see as much of the celebrity world as my best friend, Effie. My mum was relatively distanced from the world of celebrity and rarely ever got a paparazzi picture, and living in our private neighbourhood, was seldom requested for an autograph. When the odd occasion did occur, I never really questioned as to why this must be. I assumed that it was how people wanted to remember each other by after brief meetings, leading to me offering my autograph to any passing child who I had smiled at in the street.
My closest friends Effie and Onyx were in the same boat as me in the sense that their parents were both rich, however there were some differences, as Effie’s mother is a famous singer from America who moved to Wiltshire with her music producer husband so the their daughter could grow up safely. Onyx’ parent’s, however, were not famous, her Dad being an oil tycoon and was only famous in the business world and not so much in Celeb-ville. My friends did have the same unique names as I did though; Effie Gray was named after Euphemia Chalmers Gray who inspired a collection of plays, stories and television series about her love triangle, which Effie’s mother loved learning about. Whereas, Onyx was named after a cryptocrystalline form of quartz called Pure Black Onyx, as her hair was ebony-coloured when she was born. The word cryptocrystalline was one that Effie, Onyx and I learnt early on and thought it was such a large and pretty word that we named our imaginary best friend after her and told our friends at school that Cryptocrystalline was our sixteen-year-old best friend who took us shopping and was best friends with Miley Cyrus.
