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| Offered without comment |
I’m not sure where it all began. You’d have to ask my parents. But nearly 40 years is a long time ago.
I’ve often said, maybe even as much as half in jest that my
parents were there for me when it really mattered – my conception. There are many stories about this event. Some of them may even be true. I have heard it happened on a sofa somewhere,
or on the Isle of Man, or maybe even behind the back of the Three Mariners in
Lancaster. But, whatever, it happened.
My parents did, of course not plan, for this. Though they were vaguely aware of the
mechanics of human reproduction, in my mother’s words they “never thought it
would happen to us”. So I was certainly
unplanned. As for “unwanted”, I have my
own suspicions of what they thought at time, but I will leave you to speculate
on these matters.
It was a cold, dark and rainy night in Preston when I was
born. Or at least I presume it was. Nights are generally like that in Preston on
December evenings. The date was planned
in advance. An induced birth to ensure
my mother was out of hospital before Christmas.
I was finally pushed out at 7:21pm on 8th December 1975, just
in time for my mother to catch the 15th anniversary episode of
Coronation Street. My father presumably
worked late to avoid being there until he absolutely had to be.
----
The world wasn’t quite as baby-friendly as it is now. And both my mother and I spent the majority
of time at home, at the time my grandma’s house near Preston town centre. My
father presumably took the bus or walked to work at his job at General Accident
near Winckley Square, leaving his wife
and mother to sort everything else out.
Or perhaps not.
To say my mother and grandma did not get on is an
understatement. One of her main pieces
of advice to all young women nowadays is “never live in another woman’s house”. In fact, she even goes to far as to blame
many of my “problems” (her euphemistic term for the myriad issues I’ve had to
suffer and deal with for the last nearly four decades) on the stress she
suffered having to live under my grandma’s roof for nine months in the
mid-Seventies. As I always say, I can’t
discount the possibility, but it’s very convenient to blame somebody who’s been
dead since 1986.
So, in the summer of 1976, while other people were
sweltering, drinking lager or being
eaten by ladybirds, my mother was dragging my father (kicking and screaming,
quite probably) to the estate agents in order to buy their own house. They settled on a mid-terrace in the cheaper
end of Fulwood, just north of central Preston.
Close enough for my father to travel to work, and yet far enough away
from his mother so she couldn’t just pop in.
This is the first place I remember living in.
------
When I finally became ambulatory, sometime early in 1977, I’m
guessing my parents had realised I wasn’t the typical child. Wheras most small children cling to their
mothers for safety and security, I sought time alone and generally engaged in
solitary activities, either sanctioned or not by authority figures. (This is presumably why my mother has always
preferred my brother to me, as he was clingy and tactile, and indeed was still
sitting on her lap at the age of twelve).
What I lacked in sociability, I made up for in ingenuity. Numerous were the times I managed to escape
from the house, once even dragging something to stand on to get to the door
handle my two-year-old arms were as yet unable to reach unaided. I, of course, was always blamed for
this. Which is easier for parents to
deal with than the fact they weren’t watching a child who had a history of
absconding. It’s almost as if I wanted
to get away from them.
My mother didn’t really know how to handle me. I don’t think I was like any child she’d had
to deal with before. My father, on the
other hand, knew exactly what he wanted from me. He wanted me to be a man. You’d have thought that my obvious breaks for
independence would have made him happy.
But no, he had (and still has) a terrible temper and extreme lack of
patience and empathy. He had very fixed
ideas of how children should behave (“seen and not heard” was his
philosophy). And if the child had the
temerity not to match these standards, he just hit them. Preferably round the head so they remember
better. One of the most vivid memories I
have of my childhood is him doing this to me for some minor misdemeanour and my
mother yelling at him “Don’t hit him on the head, hit him on the legs.” I’m not sure whether I should find that funny
or sad. Or both.
My father and I have never been close, or even really on
speaking terms. We’re both adults now,
me close to middle age and him close to old age, and we’ve yet to have a proper
conversation about anything. I don’t
suppose it’ll ever happen now. What in
all honesty could we ever talk about?
I’ve been told by my mother he regrets the way he brought me
up. But he’d never tell me that
personally. No, he never would. Sadly, life isn’t a human interest movie, and
closure is rarely achieved. All things considered,
my father should be grateful I’ve turned out as well as I have. But I doubt he even thinks about that.
I’m just something that happened, as some kind of
accident. A long time ago.
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