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She lets me into the house but then goes off upstairs.

      It feels like she’s been gone a long, long time and she still hasn’t come down and I’m getting very hungry.

      ‘Mum, are you there? Where’s my tea, Mum?’ I finally call out.

      ‘Be right down, David,’ she replies after a minute.

      More minutes go by and she still hasn’t come down.

      Then she does.

      She’s half undressed, and although she’s trying to walk normally she’s not quite steady on her feet as she comes into the living room where I’m sitting.

      The clock on the mantelpiece says ten past seven and it’s past my bedtime but Mum doesn’t seem to notice.

      ‘David!’ she calls out as she sees me.

      She staggers towards me and reaches down to hug me.

      ‘David, give your mother a cuddle.’

      Her words are slurred and I can smell the brandy on her breath as her face closes in towards mine.

      ‘Can’t we have tea, Mum? I’m hungry.’

      ‘Yes, let’s have tea, I’ll make tea,’ she says and staggers off into the kitchen.

      I follow her, and I’m now feeling frightened but I’m not quite sure why. It’s never happened before that she’s forgotten to make me tea because she’s been drinking.

      Now she’s trying to open a tin of baked beans and she’s getting angry because the tin opener won’t work.

      She slams the tin down on the kitchen table and starts looking for a saucepan in the bottom cupboard but as she bends down she falls over.

      ‘David, come here and give me a kiss,’ she says angrily, forgetting that she’s been trying to find the pan.

      ‘Oh Mum, can’t we just have tea?’

      ‘David, do what your mother tells you!’ she shouts.

      I know better than to disobey her.

      I join her on the floor and she pulls me towards her.

      ‘Give me a kiss, David.’

      I do what she says and instantly I can smell and taste the brandy on her mouth. I feel a little sick and finally pull away.

      ‘Mummy, I’m tired. Can’t we have tea now?’

      ‘Yes, let’s have tea,’ she groans and tries to get up but collapses again on the kitchen floor . . .

      Mum never gets to make me tea this evening and that’s the first time this has happened. She seems to have forgotten completely about my tea and even about me.

      In the end I make myself a jam sandwich and put myself to bed but I stay awake for a long time, waiting to hear her come upstairs.

      After what seems like another hour or more I hear her staggering to her bedroom and slamming her door shut.

      Only then do I dare allow myself to go to sleep.

      * * *

      For me the first seven years of my life in Calder Bridge are a stark mixture of lightness and dark – I think of my earliest memories of playing as a child in a wonderful, exciting setting, the happy times playing in the woods and fields or in the scrapyard down the lane and I remember that one happy Christmas. But I also remember the sexual contact with my mother – the alcohol, mood swings, violence, blood, swearing and pain. Calder Bridge has created good memories and bad for me, but mainly I am haunted by the bad ones.

      We are soon to move away from there, but the problems won’t be resolved in our new home. Instead of life getting better, it is about to get much worse . . .

3

       A Man Called Reg

      One day, when I’m seven, Mum takes me to see someone. Reginald Arthur Brownstone is old, fat and bald, with a huge ginger beard. Mum tells me she does some cleaning for him. I have no idea why we’re there, apart from allowing her to introduce me to one of her friends. It’s a sunny day and the house seems very impressive to me – detached and in a beautiful setting, halfway up a valley.

      Reg left school at the age of twelve because he was needed on his father’s farm. When I am introduced to him he’s still working in a textile factory but he only does so for a few months longer after 53 years of work. He seems a jovial man with a keen sense of humour. He certainly makes Mum laugh and that hasn’t been happening enough.

      Back home, Mum asks me what I think of Reg. I say he seems OK. She’s pleased with that and I feel good inside too. I sense there is some kind of connection between them and he seems like a nice, kind man.

      By April 1975 we have moved out of our house in Calder Bridge to live with him at his house in Ludden Vale, near the village of Bradling. When we move in he is already 65, while Mum is 30. But the age difference doesn’t matter to me and moving in is great news. He is going to be the missing father figure in my life and make Mum happy. We have a new home and are destined to have a wonderful future together.

      But unfortunately, Reg isn’t all that he appears to be.

      * * *

      Because we have moved, I start at a new school, Bradling Primary. I like it immediately and it doesn’t seem to have the problems of the old one. It is light and airy with large rooms and friendly teachers. There are lots of kids around where we live too. Even though our new house is rural, with only twelve houses in the immediate vicinity, there are eight kids aged within two years of each other and we start hanging around together.

      Our house is just a couple of fields from a council estate where many kids from the school live. The estate is very nice and the houses are well-maintained. But although the houses look great, going to the estate simply highlights how special our house is and how lucky we are to be living there.

      Our new home is idyllic from the outside – a cluster of three early Victorian one-up–one-down cottages knocked into one, with lots of character – built on the side of a valley. The downstairs rooms from the three cottages form a group of three, the middle one (which we call the middle room) being the dining room. The house is detached and surrounded by fields and woodland, with a large garden full of fruit, vegetables, flowers and shrubs. The views from the front and back are breathtaking, showing the whole of the valley in one fell swoop. Inside, the house badly needed renovating. Reg has lived there a long time alone and hasn’t bothered to do anything to the property in ages. But Mum is on the case and is going to get things done.

      Living at Ludden Vale seems just as good as Calder Bridge but without all the bad memories, initially at any rate. This is a time to renew and start afresh. We are living as a family and in a beautiful family home.

      Mum has been taking typing lessons at night school and is soon doing secretarial work as a full-time job. Although she isn’t on a high wage, her money management is sensational. We go on holiday every year, have a nearly new car every three to five years and she manages to find the cash to get lots of work done on the house. We always have pets to look after too as both Reg and Mum are animal lovers. She smokes heavily and is still drinking.

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