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Chapter 2
‘In the Picture’
Paul

The summer before I started school, Peter came over, a camera slung around his neck like always. Peter went to chat with Mum in the kitchen and we overheard him.

‘We’ve got more rabbits than you can imagine. Would Terrie and Paul like to come over and choose one?’

I leapt up and down excitedly, clapping my hands with Terrie. Dad didn’t like pets, but he hadn’t been home for weeks, so maybe we could persuade Mum? We both ran out to the kitchen. The excitement must have been showing all over our faces.

Mum sighed, looking at us both. ‘I guess you heard Peter’s news.’ She paused. ‘All right, let’s go and see them this afternoon.’

Terrie and I leapt up and down cheering, and Sam joined in, barking loudly.

Peter drove us to his house later that afternoon. It was bigger than ours and had cats everywhere, on every chair, surface and floor.

‘It’s like a cattery in here,’ laughed Peter. ‘Would you like a glass of orange squash, kids?’

‘Yes please,’ we chimed in unison.

We sat at a table sipping our drinks and nibbling a digestive biscuit Anne had offered from an exciting-looking tin. Terrie was pulling funny faces at me while the adults were busy talking. I tried not to laugh as my mouth was filled with squash, but I choked and sprayed squash all over the table.

‘Paul!’ I heard Mum scold.

‘It’s okay, Cynth,’ Peter said, smiling at me, ‘he’s just excited. Maybe we should go out into the garden.’

I held Terrie’s hand as Peter led us outside into his big grassy garden with a fence around it. There was a small open enclosure in the middle and there were baby rabbits of all colours hopping around. Peter lifted us over and we crouched down. I couldn’t believe how small they were.

I felt really excited and I tapped Terrie’s arm. ‘Can we choose one?’ I mouthed silently.

‘I think so,’ whispered Terrie back.

We started gently stroking them as they jumped past, nibbling grass. My eyes quickly scanned every bunny. I wanted to find mine.

Terrie fell in love with a beautiful fluffy black one. I had my eye on a grey speckled one that was snuffling at my finger. I giggled as the whiskers tickled me.

As we fussed over them, Peter appeared with his camera. Click, click.

‘Hey kids, smile for the camera!’ he said.

Proud in my favourite Superman T-shirt, I gave him my best grin.

After about an hour of deciding, we finally picked our bunnies. Terrie named hers Sooty and mine was Smokey.

Mum couldn’t thank Peter enough. ‘You’re so kind,’ she said repeatedly.

Peter ruffled the top of my head.

‘You’re more than welcome, Cynth.’ He smiled down at us both. ‘The look on these twos faces makes it worth it.’

Peter also gave Mum the things we’d need: a small hutch, sawdust, food, hay and a drinking bottle each. We excitedly set up our new pets’ home that afternoon.

They were so gentle, and soon grew used to us picking them up and stroking them. Every morning I jumped out of bed and went to poke grass through the wire of the cage as a treat. Then I sat and cuddled mine, rubbing my face against Smokey’s silky fur.

A few months after we’d got our new pets, something was wrong with Smokey. He was trying to hop, but looked lopsided. I gently picked him up, but he didn’t want to eat any grass and looked miserable.

‘Muuuuum!’ I cried, calling her to look.

‘Hmm,’ she said, looking upset. ‘He needs to go to a vet.’

We walked to the local vet, carrying Smokey in a box. The vet took one look at his leg and shook his head.

‘He’s broken it,’ he said.

‘What?’ gasped Mum. ‘How did he do that?’

The vet asked if we’d dropped him recently from a height or grabbed his leg in some way. Mum said absolutely not. The vet shrugged and plastered the leg up.

Mum was quiet on the way home. ‘Are you sure you haven’t been too rough with Smokey?’ she asked.

I was completely confused about how Smokey had done this. I kept thinking, maybe it was something I’d done.

My first day at school was traumatic as I hated leaving Mum. The thought of spending all day long without her was too hard and I cried so much in the classroom she had to come and get me. On the second day I was given a pedal bike to race around on in the playground, but when no teachers were looking I pedalled straight out of the gate and home.

‘What’re you doing here?’ asked Mum, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline.

‘I don’t like school,’ I said simply.

She let me have that afternoon off, but in the morning I was back there. I found it hard to make friends and preferred sitting under a tree or hanging out in the dinner hall, instead of playing tag, or hopscotch or skipping.

My name didn’t do me any favours either. ‘Duckett, Duckett, there’s a hole in my bucket,’ kids chanted in the playground if I did dare show my face.

Kids always found it easy to be mean about me. From my scuffed shoes to my second-hand uniform that didn’t fit properly. Even the two slices of bread and butter I brought for lunch made kids laugh.

‘Is that it?’ taunted one little boy, waving a packet of crisps and a Wagon Wheel at me, as he tore off the plastic wrapper of the chocolate biscuit and stuffed it into his mouth.

‘Mmmhmm!’ he smiled, chomping into the chocolate.

I looked at my soggy white bread and nibbled it miserably. At least I’m not going to be a fat fucker, I thought to myself.

Mum always did her best, but you don’t get a lot of choice when you don’t have money. Thankfully I started getting free school dinners and quickly learned that making friends with the dinner ladies was the way forward. I loved any food. Lumpy custard with the skin on top was a treat to me.

‘Can I have more, please?’ I beamed gratefully, as an extra spoonful slopped on my plate.

‘You’re a good boy,’ said the kindly dinner lady. When no one was around I’d get slipped an extra biscuit too; coconut ones with a cherry on top were my favourite.

Having dinner ladies as allies made up for the fact I didn’t have many others. While the girls always refused to let me play kiss chase, teachers were more likely to appreciate the nice side of me. I could think up things to get myself out of most sticky situations too.

One escape from school and home was my Nan and Pap’s. It was always warm and welcoming, full of hugs, kisses and food, unlike our own. Here I felt loved and normal.

Pap had worked in a shoe factory all his life while Nan kept the house, but she used to tell us all her stories about life in the munitions factory, or when she watched Coventry burning down in a huge bombing raid while close by in the park called ‘The Racecourse’.

I could tell Nan loved me by the way her face softened as she looked at me, and how she looked after me and made sure I was never hungry in her house.

‘We need to fatten you up, Paul,’ she’d frown worriedly. ‘You’re all skin and bone.’

Nan piled my plate high with favourites like bacon and onion roly-poly, or a dish that was pastry over meat, gravy and veg; I never knew what that was called. Ground rice for afters. Me and Terrie would eat until our stomachs hurt. And Pap was a whiz at making wine; he’d joke he could make anything from the sole of his shoe to potato, raspberry, rose hip, blackberry or any fruit he laid his hands on.

Mum adored her parents as much as we did. Sitting around that table with all of them was the place I felt safest in the world. One person who never came join us there, however, was Dad – something both me and Terrie were glad about.

Dad’s own parents, Nin and Bill Duckett, didn’t have any more patience for us than he did. They lived just up the road from Nan and Pap, but they couldn’t be any more different. When we popped around there we often saw our cousins Nicky and Claire, Dad’s sister Ruth’s kids, but we all stayed out of Pap’s way. He sat by himself in the living room, barking orders at Nan for food or drink. Nan had a terrible temper, too; however, she would at least give us a biscuit when we arrived and she never ever left us alone with Pap Duckett either. Not for a single second.

At the end of November 1979, Dad came home from another working jaunt. For once he came through the door with a proper grin on his face.

‘We’re going to South Africa on holiday,’ he announced. ‘It’ll be for four weeks over Christmas.’

We both jumped up and down with real excitement. This wasn’t something the likes of our family ever did. It seemed too good to be true!

We flew out to Johannesburg and caught a train to Kimberley. It was all scary yet exciting. We stayed with Dad’s friends Kevin and Sylvia, who had two kids, James and Anne, a bit younger than us. They showed us the sights, including a diamond mine that completely captured my imagination as we watched the glinting metal sparkle on conveyor belts through metal fences.

Despite being on holiday, Dad was meticulous with time keeping. He was like this at home and now we were away he arranged a very strict schedule. We were up every day for breakfast at 7.30 a.m. on the dot, then out the door by 8 a.m. Dad would time how long everything took. While visiting a museum about the Afrikaaners Dad tapped his watch at the entrance and looked us all individually in the eye.

‘You have precisely 40 minutes to look around,’ he said.

It wasn’t just schedules Dad liked to stick to; the way we looked was important too, despite our hand-me-downs.

‘It’s not acceptable for girls to slouch or have dangly bits of hair in front of the face, Terrie,’ he told her, pulling her shoulders back and yanking back her fringe. ‘And when you speak, speak up clear and loudly so we can all hear.’

So her fringe was kept neatly pinned back, and whenever I walked past Dad I’d square my shoulders a little more.

All too soon, we had to go home. Dad was in a foul mood on the trip back. He had been ill most of the holiday. When we arrived back in England, everywhere was covered in snow. Dad didn’t talk all the way home. Terrie and me slept most of the way back. As soon as we arrived home we were sent straight to bed. It was so cold.

In the morning Mum said Dad had gone to Portsmouth for work. A few weeks later, when it was the half-term holiday, Mum told us we were going to go and visit him. We had to catch a coach. My insides just clenched at the thought of a coach. I got terribly car sick on the shortest journey and knew I’d end up throwing up on a two-hour trip.

We packed a small bag and set off. I sat next to Terrie. She seemed miserable.

I tried to cheer her up. I patted the seat with my hand. ‘Look, bum dust.’ I giggled as a cloud of dust erupted from the seat.

She patted her seat, laughing hard. ‘Fat bum dust.’

Soon we were lost in laughter and patting seats, when Mum leaned over from behind.

‘Pack it in, you two,’ she hissed menacingly. ‘Just sit quietly.’

‘Yes Muuuum,’ we chimed in unison, grinning cheekily.

I turned to look at Terrie. She was doing her best not to look at me. I knew all I had to do was catch her eye and she’d start laughing again.

I closed my eyes, trying to sleep, to escape the waves of nausea. I could feel the bile rising just 20 minutes after we set off.

‘Oh, not again, Paul,’ Mum said as I turned green.

She stood up, wobbling and holding onto seats as she made her way to the driver. ‘Excuse me, but my son is going to be sick,’ she said.

The driver half turned around.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right, well, grab that newspaper by the side of my seat and make him sit on it.’

‘Eh? Sit him on the newspaper?’ quizzed Mum with a puzzled look on her face.

The driver gave a laugh. ‘Yeah, I don’t know why, but it does often stop people feeling sick.’

Willing to try anything, Mum picked up a few sheets and came back.

‘Pop this under you, Paul. The driver says it will stop you chucking up.’

She pushed it under my bum. I struggled, thinking I would look silly and not believing for one moment that the paper would make me better. However, the next thing I remember is waking up, having dozed off, the sickness passed as if by magic and I felt much better. When we arrived in Portsmouth we had to stand and wait a few hours before Dad’s friend Gerry picked us up.

‘Sorry, Cynth.’ He looked embarrassed.

He took us to the house where Dad was staying. A few of the construction men rented the place between them. Dad was sitting at the table; he nodded at us both and handed us 50p each. ‘Go and entertain yourselves until six.’

Terrie had to check her watch was wound up and said the right time. We both then turned and walked down the hallway. On the way out we had to walk past a big glass bowl full of 10ps and 50ps. I looked at Terrie and she raised her eyebrow as we both had the same thought: 50p wasn’t going to last us eight hours. We’d be starving by the time we got back. Terrie grabbed us a handful of change each and we scurried out of the door.

Side by side we set off for the seafront. First stop was the sweet shop. We filled little white bags with sherbet pips, jawbreakers, fruit salads and chewy peanuts. Then we walked to the seafront 15 minutes away and sat down and gorged ourselves. Next, we went roaming on the rocks, grabbing tiny crabs with our hands and chasing each other. We took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our trousers and ran along the sea edge, splashing each other with the cold salty water.

‘I’m cold, Terrie.’ I was shivering; I’d got wetter than I had intended. I was also feeling hungry.

‘Me too,’ agreed Terrie.

We sat on a bench and shared some hot chips. Then we spent the afternoon playing in the amusement arcade.

‘Time to go back, Paul,’ Terrie said resignedly, looking at her watch. She knew I felt the same and squeezed my hand harder as we trudged back. This time the house was quiet as we turned up. No yelling; that was good.

But as soon as we walked in, one look at Mum, her face red and swollen with tears, told us the visit wasn’t going well. Terrie led me off to our room and we quickly got changed. Dad took us to his favourite Chinese restaurant for dinner, but told us we were only allowed crab and sweetcorn soup.

As the pretty Chinese waitress showed us to our seats she looked a bit confused. ‘Hello, John,’ she smiled, bowing. ‘And Karen …?’

Mum visibly bristled, glaring at Dad, as we were ushered to our seats with Dad trying to laugh it off.

I’d heard of Karen a few times by now, but I still had no clue who she was.

Chapter 3
‘Last Laugh’
Terrie

It was in early April 1981, when Dad was away working in Portsmouth, that Mum made an announcement over breakfast.

‘We’re going to emigrate to South Africa.’ She paused, looking at our faces. ‘What do you think? It’s all happening in September, so Terrie, you won’t be starting upper school.’

‘Oh, wow!’ I was stunned. I glanced over at Paul, trying to read his expression. He was smiling and then began manically leaping around the kitchen. I raised my eyebrow, pretending to look disapproving, and after a few moments joined in.

I was very excited. I’d loved our holiday to South Africa. Anywhere had to be better than grey old Northampton. I wondered if Mum and Dad might be happier in the sunshine too. It also meant a fresh start, maybe a place I could make friends and fit in.

At school, I told all my classmates about it. ‘What? The Ducketts are going to live abroad?’ laughed one. ‘Not that we’ll notice you’ll be gone.’ They just poked fun at me and I could see they didn’t really believe that we were moving.

My friend Lisa, who was more of an enemy I kept closer, looked a bit sad when I told her. ‘But I thought you were really poor,’ she said, looking confused. ‘How comes you can afford it?’ I shrugged. I didn’t actually know the answer to that.

That evening I had a chat with Paul about our fresh start. ‘I don’t care whether we move or not,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t have many friends anyway and I doubt anyone will miss me.’

‘Aww, Paul. What about Mark Millar? I thought he was a friend.’ I gave him a hug. But I understood how he felt. I wasn’t going to be missed much either. Paul struggled as much as me to fit in; relentlessly bullied about our surname, haircuts and never having the fashionable clothes or the latest toys meant we couldn’t join in many games. Thankfully, we had each other, and we enjoyed playing out with bikes and exploring.

That summer, before our emigration, was one of the hottest for years. Dad had flown out to South Africa to try to get a home and job sorted ready for when we flew out, and meanwhile Mum worked all hours to pay the rent and bills. She’d started packing up the house into tea chests, sending what we thought would be important over to South Africa. Other items she sold to friends: the cooker, the sofa, our beds, my lovely bike. Gradually each room in our house became more and more bare as furniture and bits and pieces were shipped off or sold.

‘I don’t see how I can carry on like this.’ Mum was stressed and was sitting chatting to Dad on the phone. He rang once a week, giving her updates on our new life, telling her what needed doing back home in England.

She’d left the shoe company and had got herself a job as a saleswoman for a carpet company called Rainbow Carpets and worked nine to five every day. She couldn’t afford childcare so we were left to our own devices all day during the holidays.

Paul and I were getting good at entertaining ourselves. One afternoon Paul, my friend Lisa and myself got hold of a couple of pairs of old tights, cut them at the knee and then pulled them over our heads.

We roared with laughter as we saw each other’s squashed noses and hooded eyes. ‘Let’s pretend to be bank robbers and scare some neighbours,’ said Paul, sniggering from behind his tight mask. His nose was puckered upwards like a pig’s snout.

At the same time we looked at each other. ‘Doris!’ we said in unison.

Doris was a little old lady who lived three doors up. She was a proper busybody, always peering out the corner of her window, or twitching her net curtains whenever anyone went past. We crept along to her half-open kitchen window and saw her standing doing some ironing, her head down focusing on the crease she was pressing into a shirt. Arranging our tight masks over our faces we nodded at each other and then leaped up as high as we could. ‘Boo!’ we yelled.

She screamed and dropped her iron onto the floor in fright, while we ran off around the corner and rolled around on the floor, clutching our stomachs as we laughed hysterically.

Later on in the week rain set in, so we stayed inside to play board games and watch TV. Paul thought it might be fun to make a few prank calls and get a carpet delivered to Mary next door. We’d get a good view from the kitchen window and we could have a laugh at her reaction.

Later, when Mum came home from work, she was not best pleased with us.

‘Today my boss stuck the speaker phone on,’ she said crossly. ‘And I heard two giggling voices ordering a fuzzy blue carpet for Mary next door.’

I tried not to look at Paul. I knew if I just took one look at his face and saw a twitch of his lip or an eye movement I’d laugh.

‘My boss asked me if those voices belonged to my kids and I said I was sure it wasn’t you as you were with your grandparents all day. But I would know your voices anywhere,’ she scolded, a twinkle in her eye.

We all started laughing and we couldn’t stop.

‘Right,’ said Mum, getting her breath back. ‘A lock is going on this phone so you won’t be able to use it at all.’

‘Awwww,’ said Paul, realising how much it’d spoiled our fun.

Mum was true to her word. The following day a silver lock was secured into the number one on the dial of the phone. Annoyed at not being able to play wind-ups on the phone any more, Paul started fiddling around with it in the afternoon, pressing the receiver up and down, up and down. Suddenly he froze, the receiver mid-air. I could hear a faint mechanical voice coming from the phone; by this point Paul was staring at it with a wicked grin, which later on I came to recognise as his ‘light-bulb’ moment.

‘Terrie!’ he yelled excitedly. ‘We can still make calls! Watch this!’ He tapped the black plugs in the receiver cradle in a sequence, almost like Morse code, and then I saw it too – the taps corresponded to numbers.

‘This is the speaking clock,’ I heard the mechanical voice again.

‘Paul, guess what?’

‘What?’ he asked, looking up at me.

‘Mary is hungry. I think we need to get her a pizza.’

Giggling our heads off, we called for a pizza for our neighbour Mary and a cab for the lady across the road who seemed to walk everywhere.

When the next phone bill came through, the look on Mum’s face was a picture. I felt guilty as I realised our fun had cost her. She was puzzled and had no idea at all how it was so high.

The holidays passed by quickly. We spent hours scrumping fruit from around the estate for lunch; we would antagonise local children and spend hours evading capture, or bike for miles and wander around the estate collecting seeds from weeds like poppies and dandelions to drop into nearby immaculate gardens, just out of boredom. Then we’d walk along to the bus stop just in time to meet Mum getting off, and stop off at the chippy on the way home, where Mum would buy two-pence worth of batter bits for us to nibble on.

The date for our emigration drew closer. The worst part of all for me and Paul came about: we had to say goodbye to Nan and Pap. They both held me close, as I breathed in their lovely smell for the last time. I had no idea when I’d see them again.

‘Of course we’ll come back as often as we can,’ said Mum to Nan, cuddling her tightly.

‘I wish you could come too, Nan,’ I said, tears welling in my eyes.

They would both miss us terribly and vice versa, but I knew we’d write and ring as often as possible. We packed our final personal bits and pieces in a big tea chest to be shipped off to our new home and I said my goodbyes to Lisa. The rooms in our house now echoed as they’d been stripped of everything. All we had left were our suitcases.

On the morning of our flight, Mum clattered about in the kitchen, looking tense. She’d just called South Africa from a neighbour’s house as our phone had been disconnected.

Then the doorbell rang. It was Peter. He looked cheery as ever, although his face dropped when he saw how upset Mum appeared.

They spoke in hushed tones, as Mum started weeping.

‘Come and use our phone,’ he assured her after they’d spoken. Mum left with him and returned looking deathly pale.

She’d been crying. ‘We’re not going. Not only has your Dad been looking for somewhere for us to live but also his girlfriend Karen. So I’ve told him we’re not coming. Our new life is cancelled.’

We stood in the empty kitchen. Paul and I looked at each other, not quite sure what to do.

‘Well, you might as well go to school,’ Mum sighed, waving at me. ‘Go on, Terrie, get ready.’

She turned and lit up a fag on the gas cooker.

I frowned, upset. The new term had started two weeks earlier. How could I possibly just turn up at school as if nothing had happened when we were supposed to be on our way to the airport, starting a new life?

‘But I’ve not got a uniform,’ I began. ‘They’ve all been at school for weeks.’

‘Just wear your old one then,’ snapped Mum, looking upset.

Peter put his arm around her, so I dropped it. ‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘Everything will work out. I’ll drop Terrie and Paul at their schools if you like.’

Peter dropped me off outside the school gates at 10 a.m. I looked at my reflection in a large window before entering the building. I felt embarrassed. I had last year’s uniform on, and my socks looked grey. Then there was my chopped, short, spiky hair. I looked down at my feet and sighed. But I raised my head and took a deep breath as I entered the building. I confidently approached reception but inside my stomach was churning, my heart pounding. Both of my hands were clammy and I was shaking. I explained who I was and why I was there. The receptionist looked at me disapprovingly. I could feel her eyes looking me up and down.

‘We have a uniform code. Your Mum should have received a letter.’ My anger rose at her nasal tone. ‘We have a lost property bin, I suggest you look in there for a jumper.’

She took me to a room where I had to rummage for a jumper that was too big and had worn cuffs, and then she showed me to the classroom for my first lesson. As I walked in alone, I wanted the ground to swallow me up.

‘Ah, Terrie Duckett,’ sniped the teacher. ‘We’re honoured by your arrival. You do know term actually started two whole weeks ago and school starts at 8:50?’

Heads swivelled to look at me. I could hear stifled giggles. I blindly found an empty desk to sit at. After class, everyone brushed past me, wearing new cardigans and shiny shoes, looking down their noses at my clothes. Keeping my head down, I found a bench at break time but soon found myself surrounded by kids from the previous school.

‘Thought you weren’t coming back, Terrie Buckett?’

‘Nice hairdo,’ one sniggered. ‘Did your Mum use a chainsaw?’

‘Yeah, you said were going to South Africa. Change your mind, did we?’

‘I bet they were too smelly to be let into the country.’

‘Terrie is just a little liar. But been caught out now, haven’t we?’ she smirked.

I ran home in tears. I hated my life, I felt nauseous, my stomach was churning and my head wouldn’t stop pounding. Today had been horrendous. How was I going to face them the next day? I didn’t understand why Mum had to send me to that hellhole, yet I was happy because I didn’t have to leave Nan and Pap. Paul didn’t look any happier when he crashed in through the door after school either.

‘The kids chanted “pants on fire” all lunch,’ he said, miserably.

‘I know. We just have to ignore them.’

We sat in my bare bedroom, our voices echoing off the walls.

‘I wonder when Dad’ll send our stuff back?’ said Paul, looking around, lost. ‘I’ve hardly got any toys as it is.’

I gave him a wry smile. Deep down I knew it was unlikely Dad would be worrying about that. Now our belongings had gone I couldn’t see him sending them back any time soon.

Mum looked strained when she came home from work. On the verge of tears, she nipped off again to Peter’s to use his phone. Then she came back, trembling as she told us to sit down.

‘I’ve told your Dad he’s not to come back to this house,’ she said, clutching a ball of sodden tissue in her hand. ‘I’m divorcing him.’

For most kids it’s an earth-shattering statement, but for us it was the one silver lining in this cloud. No more shouting. No more rows.

I suppressed the urge to leap up and punch the air. Paul and I were silent. We looked at each other knowingly. Out of Mum’s earshot, Paul and I shared our own reaction to the news.

‘Isn’t it brilliant?’ I squealed to Paul. ‘We’ll be so much happier without all the arguing.’

Paul shrugged. ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

Despite living in a threadbare house, without the worry of Dad appearing again we felt awash with relief. We played out after school and often came back late for tea. Mum would be standing menacingly at the door, telling us to get inside. We’d have to time running in just ahead of the swipe of the palm of her hand. If we felt like staying up a bit later we did so, reading with a torch under the bedclothes until the early hours of the morning.

Mum sent us on frequent errands.

‘Can you go and fill this up?’ she’d ask, bringing her empty sherry bottle through to the living room as we watched TV.

Every night either Paul or I would carry the bottle to the off-licence to get a top up and stop at the newsagents for more fags for Mum. After drinking a few glasses Mum nodded off to sleep. Once she’d passed out we’d creep back downstairs from bed to watch TV from the bottom of the stairs, or sit together in my room playing board games and reading books. We were relishing our freedom.

Mum would often kick us out of the house early at the weekends and tell us to come home for tea. We’d get back and she would be passed out drunk on the sofa. Then she started to go out drinking with her friend Cheryl. She’d organise a procession of local teenagers to look after us, as no one would babysit us more than once. We would both slip out of Paul’s bedroom window, wobble across the corrugated roof of the shed and walk like cats along the wall before dropping to the grass below. We would then play around the estate for a while and slip back in unnoticed.

Mum would arrive home in the early hours of the morning, a little worse for wear, and wake us up.

‘Hey, let’s make some crisps!’ Mum said, smiling around my doorway.

We rubbed our eyes tiredly, but it was an adventure and we’d join her in the kitchen to slice potatoes super thin and deep-fry them. Mum never had the spare money to buy crisps so it was a big treat as we salted them and sat around munching on them at 2 a.m., giggling. Other times she treated us to ‘poor man’s doughnuts’ – jam sandwiches dipped in batter and fried and then rolled in sugar. They were delicious!

Mum had to work all hours to replace our furniture, as well as pay the rent and bills. The day a second-hand sofa arrived was a big event. The sofa had big soft brown cushions, the kind you can sink into. We were all very excited.

‘Wow!’ yelled Paul. ‘This is great.’ He tried to jump up and down on it as Mum told him off.

‘Calm down,’ she yelled. I understood Paul’s excitement. New furniture felt like a new start. Mum decided to pop over to Cheryl’s two doors away for a cup of tea and a chat, waving to Jim the council man as she left. It didn’t take long for Paul, still hyper from the excitement of the sofa, to start chasing me around with his stretchy Thomas the Tank Engine belt with a metal S buckle.