A mum whose blog went viral when she wrote about being proud to be a ‘kept woman’ has revealed she was homeless for three months and forced to live in a car.
Gylisa Jayne Evans – who has 43,000 followers on Facebook for her Rock and Roll Mother blog – hit the headlines earlier this year after declaring ‘I’m proud to be a kept woman’.
But she has now admitted life wasn’t always so easy and that she and her partner Ryan once made themselves homeless in a bid to start a new life in Cornwall.
In a new book, Ever the Optimist, the 27-year-old reveals that she and Ryan jumped in their Renault Clio with just some clothes and a duvet and drove to Cornwall for a new life.
They ended up living in the car for three months, surviving on tins of soup and bottled water.
She said: ‘I felt shame that it was our fault we were homeless.
‘We hit rock bottom and I found out what it’s like to feel invisible.’
That was six years ago and the couple have since married and had daughter Lily, aged four.
The family now live in a house in Pensilva, near Liskeard, and Gylisa Jayne has found fame as mummy blogger Rock and Roll Mother.
However, when she first came to Cornwall from Stratford-upon-Avon, Gylisa Jayne said she ‘felt like I wasn’t part of society’ and described her existence as ‘degrading’.
The couple were living in the historic birthplace of William Shakespeare but both felt ‘completely unfulfilled’.
She added: ‘I was living with my dad who was mentally unwell and I was being bullied at work.
‘We were members of a health spa in Stratford-upon-Avon and one day we were in the jacuzzi when Ryan said “why don’t we just go?”
‘People talk about it all the time, don’t they … running away and starting a new life, but no one ever does.’
Without telling anyone – including their parents – Gylisa Jayne and Ryan threw some clothes and a duvet into their battered old Renault Clio and drove from the West Midlands to Cornwall.
‘Pretty soon we ran out of money and were on skid row,’ she added.
Gylisa Jane now admits that they were both naive and didn’t realise how difficult it would be to find work and a home while living in a car in Torpoint.
‘We found out that not many people want to hire people for work when you don’t have an address,’ she added.
The couple started off in the Torpoint area before parking up opposite the Child Support Agency and Tesco store in Plympton, Plymouth.
The couple had to sleep sat up in the Clio’s seats as they didn’t recline and washed twice in two months at Plymouth Life Centre.
She said: ‘We scrubbed and scrubbed until we were red” she said and claimed they would use the Tesco toilets and wet wipes the rest of the time.
‘We couldn’t tax and insure the car because we had run out of money and were homeless. We were s****ing ourselves as the car was all we had.
‘We came down with the best intentions and started looking for jobs and homes immediately, but didn’t realise how difficult it would be – without the safety net of a home it’s almost impossible to get benefits and get yourself out of the situation.
‘We realised we were on our own.’
It was during this time that Gylisa Jayne started writing a diary, which provides the basis for Ever the Optimist.
‘We were living on two tins of soup a day and a two-litre bottle of water – it wasn’t pleasant,’ she recalled. ‘We became so ashamed of how we were living and started to think we had made a huge mistake.’
Despite some passersby being rude, judgmental and even reporting them to the police, they also saw the good side of humanity.
Gylisa Jayne said: ‘In the book I talk about quite a few moments where strangers performed random acts of kindness.
‘There was a woman who worked at the Child Support Agency, near where we were parked, who kept saying if we needed anything to let her know. One day she gave us a huge parcel of food, filled with all sorts of things. Even chocolate and juice were like luxuries to us by then. It was amazing.’
Eventually, things started to improve after Ryan got a job as a delivery driver. After living in the car and surviving on just £15 worth of petrol for two months, the couple ended up getting keys to a new flat.
And now, Ryan works as a self-employed builder and the couple married earlier this year.
Gylisa added: ‘We are completely settled.
‘Writing my diary got me through being homeless – it would while away the hours and allowed me to think things could only get better.
‘The response to the book has already been incredible. It was a very difficult time but our lives are now wonderful.’
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