Fun Size Magrs

  Not very long after my parents divorced we had a stranger in our house. Suddenly, there were huge, grimy shoes in the downstairs toilet and lots of new, different coats on the hallway hooks.  Mam said she had a ' friend ' and he'd be moving in with us.  One day, when we got home from school there were two books on the kitchen table; a guide to British birds (for my brother) and a Kenny Everett Annual (for me). Mam said they were presents from her ' friend ' - because he wanted to show us how happy he was to be part of our family.  We knew fine well that her ' friend' hadn't really given us these ' presents ' and he certainly never looked happy to be living with us... but Mam told us to say ' thank you ', so we did. We never wanted Mam to be unhappy. He always seemed to be sitting on the settee next to Mam when we watched TV but who was he? Mam said he used to live with his parents a few doors further down the street, so I suppose he was...

I don't have many memories of my Dad. My parents divorced when I was 4 and by the time I was 7, it was decided that I should stop seeing him. Mam had a new bloke. Dad had re-married and was starting a whole new family - so it seemed like a clean break was for the best.  And it probably was for the best - if you were one of the ' grown-ups'.  Sharing custody, having to deal with your ex - it was too much hassle and there was still so much bitterness about the way their marriage ended. My parents couldn't set any of that aside and at least pretend to be civil for the sake of their kids. They never did.   My Dad went through the whole process again with his second family a few years later. That made me feel a bit better. It wasn't just me! It wasn't my fault! He did it all over again to some more little kids! Bloody hell, Dad. Years and years later I had the chance to ask him about it. I asked him why he hadn't fought or made more of an effort to keep in touch...

  "Hard times, baby well they come to us all Sure as the tickin' of the clock on the wall Sure as the turnin' of the night into day" I lost my wife in the early Summer of 2023. In the warm, bright sunshine of May our world fell apart.  She'd been ill for a very long time but so many things went wrong, so quickly...   It was a series of waking nightmares; ambulance journeys, long late-night walks down hospital corridors, hushed conversations in side-rooms and then... nothing.  She was gone.  Just... gone.   Every day had always begun and ended with her. She was the person our lives revolved around. Gone. In the hollow, tired-eyed and washed-out days that followed, my son and I would sit up talking night after night. Neither of us were sleeping properly - we were plagued by dreams about hospitals and funerals. We couldn't seem to get our heads around what had happened - not so much a phase of denial as a sense of complete disbelief.   How could ...