Mum didn’t have to wait long in Casualty. Her stomach was pumped and she was given a bed in one of the wards, but she couldn’t sleep and lay shaking and shivering all night. She was in such a state that she didn’t think about us poor children left behind, who would wake up with neither parent at home.
Before she was discharged later that morning, she rang a neighbour to ask her to drive her home, and decided not to tell Dad what happened until he came out of hospital. She was in no fit state to go and see him and, so that he didn’t worry, left a message with the nurse on his ward that she wasn’t very well and couldn’t visit him for a couple of days.
When Dad got home he was very shocked and upset to hear what had really happened, but by then Mum was feeling much brighter. Dad had always been an upright, hard-working man who tried to be the husband and father that we could all rely on, but the strain of living with a seriously disturbed teenager was taking its toll on him too. Several days after Mum was discharged, he snapped.
Mum had organized a family Halloween party, hoping Roy would join in the fun. Kerry and I were having a great time, roaring with laughter as we ducked apples and played party games. Roy refused to join in and started annoying us by putting his fingers in his ears and screaming. As we were so used to this by now it wasn’t a big deal for us, but it was the last straw for Dad, who broke down in floods of tears. This was so out of character for him that Mum called the doctor, who diagnosed a nervous breakdown caused by stress. He prescribed tranquillizers and Dad took a month off work.
Dad had at that time left the Merchant Navy and had been building up his own electrical business, fixing televisions, radios and the like, and occasionally rewiring houses for friends. It was going very well but Roy’s erratic behaviour had become too much for him. He couldn’t concentrate on his work and sold the business, which was a pity. Instead he got a job as an electrician at a school in a nearby town, and we bought a four-bedroom semi-detached house close by.
Roy refused to go to school following that incident at my birthday party and, after a nightmare year of having him at home, all our hearts lifted when he suddenly told Mum and Dad that he wanted to follow in Dad’s footsteps and join the Merchant Navy. He had been a naval cadet at school and enjoyed it, so we were delighted with his choice. Although we worried a bit about how someone who had such difficulties socially would cope with the other cadets, overall we felt that at long last there was light at the end of the tunnel.
The mood of the house always lifted when Roy wasn’t around and this time Mum, who had been so focused on him, started to give us girls, and especially me, more attention. But far from feeling neglected, I enjoyed it when I wasn’t the focus of Mum’s attention. Instead I had a free, unrestricted childhood, although at times I bubbled over with too much energy and curiosity and was probably a thorn in my elder sister’s sides.
Two years after Roy joined the Merchant Navy he was discharged on medical grounds, no doubt because he was acting bizarrely, and our family life once again became a roller-coaster ride. Mum and Dad thought that perhaps he would be happier if we moved to a different house in another part of the Pennines, one that didn’t have so many bad memories for him – and for us. So Dad got a job as an electrician at a technical college, and we soon settled into a four-bedroom house in a charming village. Unfortunately the move didn’t change Roy’s behaviour at all.
I loved being at the new primary school in the village. The teachers were great and made everything fun. I went to Brownies and the Christian Union, enjoyed gymnastics and was quite a tomboy. I had loads of friends, both in the village and at school. I loved climbing trees and fighting with boys but I especially liked going to the local forest to collect the cartridge cases left behind by clay-pigeon shooters. They were all sorts of different colours and I lined them up on the window sill in my bedroom. That summer my friends and I saw a wild horse in a field and the farmer said that whoever could ride it could keep it. We tried all summer but none of us managed to mount the horse, let alone ride it.
Another favourite pastime was our family camping holidays, particularly when our relatives came to join us. Best of all was going fishing with Dad. He was a true family man, a passive and loving father who was very funny and never once smacked me. He had an enduring passion for Austin Minis and, to add to his rather modest income as an electrician, he would often have up to six of them, belonging to various friends, in our garden waiting for him to repair them.
At that time religion wasn’t playing a big part in family life. Mum occasionally went to the local Anglican church and even became a Sunday School teacher for a short while, but she found neither peace nor comfort there. Instead both Mum and Dad turned to alcohol as a way of finding relief. They felt better once they were drunk, even though everything became twice as bad the next morning when they were hung-over. On Fridays they drank all night. It was well before the licensing laws changed, so they started at the pub and when it closed they moved on to the nearest hotel with a late-night licence. Dad drank beer and Mum drank white wine. Dad was regularly downing at least eight pints during a session, and by the time he came home he was absolutely reeling and as daft as a brush. He was also chain-smoking and on a Friday would get through about sixty cigarettes during the evening.
Alcohol became Mum’s anaesthetic: it helped drown her sorrows and stopped her thinking. I was still young when I became aware that my parents were drinking heavily. Soon after we moved to the Pennine village Mum invited the local vicar to tea. I told him that Mum had been really drunk the previous night. He didn’t respond, no doubt because he was trying to be tactful, so I kept saying it and the more Mum tried to shut me up the more I went on and on. His visit didn’t last long.
One of the nicest things about our move was to discover we lived close to a large limestone quarry. As well as being able to play amongst the rocks and pools of the quarry – rather dangerously perhaps, but this was the era before our modern obsession with health and safety – the quarry-workers’ families were very friendly and soon began inviting us to various parties. I had countless sleepovers with lots of children in various family bedrooms and it was enormous fun. I was very proud that, although I was one of the youngest there, I was put in charge of making toast for all the children in the morning.
Mum and Dad occasionally went to the local hotel for a posh dinner, and I loved looking at Mum when she was beautifully made up and wearing a smart dress, and thought she was absolutely stunning. When we were at home the family liked to play cards and above all Pit. It’s a very old game that simulates the activities on the floor of the stock market, and specifically the commodities market. Everyone would yell out the number of cards they wanted to trade at the same time, and the action was fast and furious. There was so much laughter and shouting going on that I got really cross when my parents sent me to bed, especially as I couldn’t sleep for ages because of the noise.
These light-hearted interludes brightened our mood for a short time but didn’t provide a permanent solution to the nightmare we had with Roy. He kept thinking people were after him and often woke me at night with his shouting. Although I had my own bedroom I often rushed into my parents’ room, where I’d lie on the floor beside their bed, almost too scared to breathe. Sometimes Mum gave me warm milk with a drop of brandy in it to help calm me down. At other times it was really so unpleasant for me to be in our house that Dad called one of our neighbours and asked if I could stay there for the night.
It was around that time that Mum decided once again that life was too much and she couldn’t cope with Roy. She’d been secretly going into his room and taking a handful of Valium, which she washed down with sherry, but this time she deliberately took too many and I came home from school to find her flat out on the floor of her bedroom. I was very scared and shook her hard. When she still didn’t move, I rang Dad at the college and, after a long wait for him to be found, was eventually put through to him. He rushed home and I stood with my back against the wall in the corner of the bedroom, barely daring to breathe, as I watched him slap her face to try to