By Deirdre Huston
Cheryll Avery McNeill was born in Doncaster, the middle one of three sisters. When she was three, the family moved, and she recalls: “My father had worked down the pit, so when we returned to visit the area, my early memories are of him talking to other miners about the strikes.” Cheryll spent most of her childhood in the Lancashire village of Helmshore. “It lacked the sense of community found in Hassocks but, fortunately, we had eleven cousins nearby and my grandparents lived at the top of the road, so we were scooped into the extended family.” Cheryll remembers roller-booting down the steepest hill outside her grandparent’s bungalow. “The trouble was, I couldn’t stop, but those boots made me fearless. I loved it!”
At 13, Cheryll was wrenched away from her grandmother when her family moved to Burgess Hill. Cheryll joined Downlands Community School in Year 9 and stayed to do her GCSEs. “Suddenly, I felt like I fit in,” she says, and explains: “Although, I missed my extended family, I had new friendships to make up for it.” Cheryll gained qualifications at Secretarial College and worked as an office receptionist. After working as P.A. then Team Manager in various offices, Cheryll researched the marketing of pharmaceutical products for her father’s new business.
Keen to learn more, Cheryll signed up for a degree. For three years, she worked part time and studied. She achieved a First Class BSc Honours degree and became a Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. After she graduated, she continued counselling parents of disabled and critically ill children under an excellent supervisor for a year. She then became a paid counsellor for the YMCA Dialogue service in West Sussex and stayed for three years, working with teens and young people in care.
In her private practice, she offers talking therapy as well as a range of expressive and creative therapy activities and techniques. She predominantly sees teens and explains: “I work creatively, and kids naturally have fewer defences to using metaphor, creativity and imagination. Teenagers may not have the emotional literacy to express themselves, so it can help to use a sand tray, objects such as stones and shells, games, clay or paints, paper or wallpaper.” All counselling methods Cheryll use comes with a choice and she explains: “This is a gentle way to let them practise being in control as sometimes that’s not a feeling they’re used to in their everyday lives.”
For more information, see: www.astonesthrowtherapy.com
To read the whole story pick up a March Hassocks Life magazine today and turn to page 16.