Comedian Janey Godley suffered abuse as a child, then the violent loss of her mother, but it wasn't until she had a child of her own that she began to question the relationship they'd had.

" I gave birth to my daughter, Ashley, four years after my mother was killed by an abusive boyfriend. Until Ashley's birth, I accepted that the relationship that I'd had with my mother had always had certain limitations - she was a drinking sort of mother with a lot of emotional problems, which led her to keep bad company after she split up with my father - but I had always loved her just the same. It was only when I had a daughter that I began to see that, on reflection, my relationship with my mother wasn't nearly as cosy as I'd liked to imagine.

Growing up, I tried to help my mother. My way of doing that was to keep out of trouble, not cost too much and try to be less of a burden all round. I made no big demands and had no expectations. But the truth was that while my father was hardworking, he was also hard-drinking and my mother was depressive and struggled to cope. When my parents split up, I then had to bear witness to her abuse by a violent new boyfriend. At the time it all seemed perfectly normal to me, as it was all I'd ever known, but, in retrospect, there was nothing remotely normal about it all.

I don't really know when it started, but I do know that I was frightened by my mother's brother from a very young age. Everyone commented on how 'good' he was with children - especially me. At family parties he would call me 'sweet pea' and sing 'Baby face! You got the cutest little baby face!' and then he would wait for my parents to go out before taking me upstairs and abusing me. I would force myself to shut down my brain and pretend I was in Disneyland, that perfect place I had seen on television with the big magic castle.

After a time, my mother became aware of what was going on, but she told me I couldn't tell a soul because if I did then my father would kill my uncle. And then my father would be put in jail and it would all be my fault that our family didn't have a dad. I accepted my mother's logic and the abuse, which subsequently turned into rape, continued for the next eight or nine years.

Since I have had Ashley, my mother's reaction to my abuse strikes me as almost incomprehensible. If Ashley came to me and told me someone was abusing her, I would have no hesitation whatsoever in thrusting an axe into his head in broad daylight and to hell with the consequences. I'm not angry with my mother for the way she responded. In time I simply felt sorry for her - and sorry for my uncle too - but it did make me begin to rethink just how close our relationship could really have been.

My mother always had an emotional detachment when it came to her children. She had such a wicked sense of humour and still remains the funniest woman I have ever met, but I realise now that we never spoke about anything that actually mattered. When I first had Ashley, I was scared that I'd repeat that mother/daughter relationship, terrified that I too would fail to be a 'hands-on' mother. As if to prove that history could not help but repeat itself, I went back to work when Ashley was just two days old. But nothing I could have done would have made Ashley the sort of child you could distance yourself from;

she was all 'Tell me you love me! Tell me you love me!' from day one, so tactile and affectionate that loving her was a doddle. I was surprised how easy it was to adore her, astonished by how quickly I felt so protective of her. To this day I would defend her to the death and, I'm quite sure, always will.

The fact that my mother did not die but was murdered was always going to complicate my feelings upon her death. Even the circumstances surrounding the revelation that she had been killed were peculiar. I was standing in the pub where I worked at the time, serving a customer a pint of lager, when an announcement on the radio stopped me in my tracks. 'Shettleston woman, Annie Currie, has been found dead in the River Clyde.' For a fraction of a second I hesitated, but then I just pretended that I hadn't heard anything and carried on pouring the pint. And that's how I continued for the next two years; no one ever told me what had happened officially, so I simply pretended that I had never heard the news. I had a pub to run, no one really mentioned her, no one ever asked, 'How's your mother?' and my brothers and sister were busy with their own lives and their young families. Denial was surprisingly easy, until one day when I went up to Shettleston where she used to live, went into the local pub where she used to drink, and went into the little corner of the pub where she used to sit with her friends. Her friends were there. She was not. And I ran out of the pub and all the way to her old house, convinced that she'd be there, where I banged on the front door like a mad woman. And that's when I broke down.

Just as I'd been taught to do as a child, rather than deal with my feelings, I'd simply pretended not to have them. But pretending not to have feelings is not something I do any more and the fact I am nearing the age my mother was when she died is causing me to think about her more than ever. I'm not worried that my life is going to end - my mother didn't die of cancer, she was murdered by an abusive boyfriend - but for the next two years I want to live for her, to do all the things I know she'd love to have done. In her own peculiar way she has become an inspiration. She died in a pair of ripped tights and plastic shoes - that won't be me. Instead, I've taken Ashley on a six-week trip to New Zealand, I've just performed over 80 shows at the Edinburgh Festival and I'm writing a screenplay; I'm living, vicariously, for a dead woman who barely left Glasgow in all of her 47 short years.

The effect of my mother's death on my life grows, in some ways, more profound as I get older. Earlier on in my life, my concerns were more illogical, albeit ultimately understandable. When my husband and I used to fight I'd think, 'What if he tries to kill me?' - much to his horror. In retrospect it was, of course, an irrational fear, but it made perfect sense to me at the time.

I still miss my mother and I mind so much that she is not here for me to share things with, to laugh at things with. Sometimes I feel angry with her that she died when she did, but I have no regrets, and instead pour my energies into the relationship that I have with my own daughter who, in contrast to my relationship with my mother, I am incredibly close to. I don't think the tight bond between us is necessarily a result of the distance between my mother and me, instead I've accepted that it is just one of those things. The relationship I have with my daughter now that she is 20 is very special. We are not best friends, we are mother and daughter, which is exactly as it should be. It is precisely the sort of relationship I would have loved to have enjoyed with my own mother."