I remember things going downhill pretty quickly after the marriage to Robin. He was an alcoholic and he hid it well. He’d go off down the shed to do some manly thing or other. One day Mum found the empty cider bottles.
Things escalated and he started getting violent. Me, sis and mum sharing a double bed with the chest of drawers pushed in front to keep the bully out. On a regular basis.
Another day he decided he was going to kill himself by way of electrocution. He was sat in the bath threatening to put the electric fire in with him. What I remember most about this particular event is my mum insisting that I go in and see what he was doing. He was indeed sat in the bath with the little electric heater within arms reach.
What sticks most in my mind is not the wheezing, ginger bully trying to kill himself, but my mother having no qualms about subjecting me to it at the age of 10 or so. I would never in my worst nightmares have allowed my own daughter to witness such a thing.
Some things you just never forget and I don’t mean the twat in the bath.