Loribelle Spirovski

Don't worry, I'm playing the long game.

I'm just going to try and win at life.

You can go back as Miss Senior.

Oh, my, totally, totally, exactly.

I had about three photographs that I could use as a reference point and I remember thinking

I look more like that stranger than my mum.

And that was very unsettling for me.

And, you know, when phones, mobile phones first started, he sent us one.

I think I was around, yeah, six or seven.

And I heard his voice for the first time.

And it was like a walkie-talkie quality, like really bad quality sound.

But my...

It's so strange what children understand, I think, because I knew that I had a father, even though I'd never met him.

I thought of the concept of a father, that I came from someone and my mum, almost like a kind of, you know, my mum plus something else equals me, because I could tell that I was not a direct copy of her, you know, even though I tried to be very hard.

But my dad was, he meant so many different things.

He meant a promise of a better life.

He meant a promise of peace, certainly, because Manila is not a peaceful place at all.

And I was overwhelmed most of my childhood, I think.

So much so that I'd often just sit at a corner like a creepy little...

Creepy little possessed child that would just be like facing a corner because I was too overstimulated.