Dawn O’Porter

You know, it's, it's all stuff that makes you the person that you are, not that you may necessarily realize that until you're an adult, but, um, I would never, obviously I wish my mother had never died, but she did.

And therefore I had to build it into my life.

And I,

I turned it into art eventually.

all part of who you are and any tragedy any experience that you're going through will eventually become a story that you tell about yourself and when you're in the eye of the storm that's almost impossible to imagine but it's just true and you know I think to experience like hardcore trauma as a six-year-old is really brutal but to experience trauma at any age is really brutal at some point you just realize that you've built it into your DNA and it's a part of who you are

Well, I think that's more to do with my auntie than my mum, actually.

My auntie that raised me, I moved in with her when I was 10.

And she was this amazing cook and just used to have people over for dinner parties and big Sunday lunches all the time.

And that was such a joyous part of my life growing up that, you know, the fact that our house was the party house.

I just loved it.

The fact that dinner time...

Anything she cooked for us, it was never a chore.

It was never... I didn't live in a house where I was like, oh, you know, the woman's doing all the cooking and she's annoyed about it.

And it was just such a pleasure for her to feed us her brilliant recipes and the effort that she put in.

And knowing how...

Good that felt for me as a teenager.

I just want my kids to know that our kitchen table is where the good stuff happens.

You know, it's not, I don't think that stems from my tragedy.

I actually think that stems from the great things that happened to me as a kid.

And the fact that our dining room at my auntie and uncle's house was literally my favorite place to be.