Christmas cheer at the single mums’ mansion
When Janet Hoggarth got divorced, she was left heartbroken and with three children under five. She tells ELIZABETH ARCHER how a very unusual living arrangement changed everything
MUM, mum wake up, it’s Christmas!” Janet Hoggarth blearily opened her eyes to see her three young children clambering on to the bed. It was early but they were far too excited to sleep. As they snuggled up together, cries of “Happy Christmas, mum” echoed around the house.
But the cheerful festive greetings weren’t just for her.
Janet was one of three mums living together with their children in a four-bedroom townhouse in East Dulwich, south-east London.
This was their first Christmas in what was dubbed “the single mums’ mansion” and as Janet looked at her happy, smiling children, she knew it was one they would never forget.
Eighteen months earlier, in May 2008, Janet had been left completely heartbroken when her six-year marriage ended in divorce.
Suddenly, she was a single mum of three children under five. Life was, she says, very tough.
“Looking after three young children on my own was hard,” recalls Janet, now 48, an author. “In fact, it was hellish at times.”
A few months later, Janet’s best friend Vicky also went through a painful break-up.
So Janet asked fashion stylist Vicky, now 46, who had four-month-old baby Daisy, to stay in her spare room.
“Vicky had nowhere to go so she and Daisy came to stay with us,” says Janet.
THEN when Vicky and her ex-partner sold their house in September 2009, she moved in with Janet fulltime. Meanwhile, the pair had become friendly with another single mum, yoga teacher Nicola, now 47, who started staying in the house at weekends with her daughter Martha, then eight, and son Elliot, then four.
And so the single mums’ mansion was born.
“It happened by accident but because we are all quite similar people, it worked,” says Janet.
Janet says when her marriage ended, she worried Christmas would never be the same for daughters Lilla, now 15, and Teya, now 14, and son Danny, now 11.
But as she watched wrapping paper flying around the room that Christmas morning, she knew everything would be OK.
“It was absolute chaos but happy chaos,” says Janet.
“We had hidden all the presents in my wardrobe so before we went to bed, the three of us placed them under the tree. There were so many they filled half the room.
“In the morning my children piled into bed with me, along with Nicola and her two kids, to open stockings. Then Vicky and her baby joined us and we had a big breakfast in the living room.”
Despite her worries, Janet says Christmas in the mansion ended up being a brilliant day.
“The children still talk about our commune Christmas even now. It was such a happy time.
“It was amazing to feel cosseted in the house with the children, eating a proper sit-down dinner and drinking Champagne.
“We could see how far we had come from the previous year, when we were all newly single and completely broken. It felt like we had reclaimed Christmas again, making it fun.”
Janet found that living together with Vicky and Nicola helped her get over the pain of her marriage breakdown. “After my divorce, it felt like I was sleep-walking through experiences.
“I had every other weekend off because the children would go to their father’s house but I would just sleep.
“It was hard to find joy in anything when I was feeling so rubbish. But when Vicky, Nicola and the kids moved in, those feelings lifted.”
Janet started to feel that her house was a home again.
“After the break-up, I wanted to move because I’d done the house up with my ex-husband and I had a lot of memories there.
“It was a knee-jerk reaction because I was so heartbroken.
“So when the mums moved in, we changed things around.
“Vicky bought bits and bobs as a thank you, like a new rug for the living room and bookshelves for the kids’ playroom. Now it reminds me of a happy time.”
And the children loved their new playmates. “They were besotted with Daisy and used to enjoy feeding her in the high chair.
“The older girls would have little pow wows in the bedroom and talk about how they were feeling.
“At the time, they were the only ones in their friendship group whose parents were divorced.”
The women soon fell into a routine. “There were so many of us in the house, we needed to keep on top of stuff,” says Janet. “I was the obsessive hooverer and Vicky was the cake baker.”
And the friends looked after each other’s children as if they were their own. “If any of the children had a mega tantrum, the mum of that child would usually deal with it, unless she wasn’t there.
“Danny was so comfortable with Vicky though that he would have a tantrum with her but generally it was just saved for me,” she laughs.
THE women found the mums at the school gate surprisingly accepting of their unusual living arrangement. “These days, people often live far from their extended family so they rely more and more on friends and no one bats an eyelid.
“A lot of the mums were jealous because we had no annoying men in the house,” laughs Janet.
“Sometimes people assumed Vicky and I were a couple, although we weren’t.”
After two years of living together, the mums decided they needed more space for their growing children.
“It became over-crowded in the house and I think it was because Daisy suddenly grew up and needed more space,” says Janet.
“Also Vicky really wanted to meet somebody and it’s hard to do that when you live in your friend’s attic with your daughter, who sleeps in the same bed as you because she’s outgrown her cot.”
Janet is still in the house she shared with her friends in East Dulwich.
Since the mums moved out, she has remarried, and lives with husband Neil, 38, an IT worker, who she met on a night out with the mums.
And although the women live separately, they still celebrate Christmas together each year.
“The year after our first Christmas, Nicola and I flew to Brazil together for Christmas Day because our kids were with their dads,” says Janet.
“Now we always go out for dinner and cocktails as a three, either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.”
And Janet has nothing but happy memories of her time in the “mummune”.
“Living together saved our sanity,” she says.
● The Single Mums’ Mansion by Janet Hoggarth (£7.99, Aria) is available now.