Real life shock read
Skipping along the pavement with my mother on one side and my father on the other, I beamed with happiness. My father worked away a lot as a singer, so his trips home were special. It was July 1973 and, as a five-year-old, I was excited to be tagging along with my parents to a party at their friend’s house.
We didn’t do much as a family. When my father, Charlie, was away, my mum, Betty, then 30, spent day after day lying on the couch with the curtains drawn. She’d huddle under an old tartan blanket while the dishes piled high in the sink and the washing basket overflowed. Empty vodka bottles littered the floor and she rarely even spoke to me. I
