Back Where My Story Began...

At the weekend, I celebrated my 34^th birthday. I had a number of the boys from my core friendship group, their partners and kids round to our new home for a BBQ in the back garden. My son was delighted to have a host of new playmates to keep him occupied running in and out of the paddling pool, up and down the slide, and in and out of the play room. My partner and I were more than happy to play host. It was a great day and amazing to catch up with the group. Since becoming a father, finding the time and money to have a get together with the boys has been harder to do. My priorities have changed somewhat. When you live on a budget each month, justifying a drinking session with the boys when bills need to be paid becomes problematic. It seems like I only get to see them for big occasions. But I guess that is life now. You do not need to see people every weekend for them to still be in your life.

For the most part, these guys have been in my life for a good ten years or more, some even longer. Our group has evolved in that time, with the main core having gone to school together, and others like me being friends with people within the group and joining the group along the way. We have seen break ups, new partners, weddings, babies, house moves, relocations abroad and many nights out.

But as I turn the grand old age of 34, I am back living in my parents’ house where I grew up, the house which most of my memories are from. The house, where we as a family have celebrated and mourned, where I have loved and lost. The house where I sat with my Grandmother during her final weeks, watching the fox cubs play in the garden. The dining room where I would listen to my Granddad sing aloud, as he listened to the Rat Pack whilst having a beer after his Christmas dinner. The kitchen with the fridge I would raid, as soon as my Mum had filled it with the weekly shop. The house where my Dad would give me piggy backs up the stairs as a kid. The house with the small box bedroom, where I would spend hours questioning everything, developing my own views and ideas about what I would do with my life.

I am back where my story began. Back home.

I am extremely grateful to now raising my own family there. My young son at two years old, exploring the world around him, chasing the squirrels and pigeons from the garden, my amazing partner who is always there for us, growing our unborn second baby, who will be ready to make their grand entrance in August. My parents, having relocated to a quieter life a few hours outside of London, have been amazing to give me a chance to save some money so that we can one day afford our ‘Forever Home’. We currently, as a family have the chance to make our own memories. I hope that my birthday BBQ in my back garden is the first of many great ones in my old house.

With moving back to where I was raised, I have been thinking more about old friends and the good times. We were a good bunch of boys united by our love of football and as we got older, beer, parties and girls. It is easy to reflect and remember stories about our childhood and teenage years.

I had many birthday parties in that same back garden. The best of which has to be in the summer of 1999, for my 16^th Birthday. It came at the end of a week where our group had been sitting our GCSE exams, and only a few weeks after a local car crash which had resulted in the loss of five young lives, including a really popular boy from the year above. There were easily over 50 teenagers in that garden, with a DJ, loud music and lots of drinking, dancing and laughing. We were enjoying being young. That night we really did party like it was 1999! Our neighbours can’t have approved, as the police were called and we were told to turn the volume down. I was lucky to have various friendship groups in attendance that night. Friends from Primary school, from Secondary school, from the local area, all came together to have a great time. A night that will live with me forever.

My oldest friends were from Primary school. All local to one area, the majority of our Fathers knew each other. We were allowed to drink in the local pub from the age of 15, as the owners placed the responsibilities of our actions to our Dads. The day we collected our GCSE results, we were in the Crossways pub, in South East London, comparing our results. By the day I was able to buy my first legal pint of lager, I had been a regular in the pub for around three years. That can be said for all of us in that group which had evolved from the local Primary school. Every Thursday for Karaoke without fail. By the end, the youngsters had taken over the pub on a Thursday, as it was so busy with under age drinkers!

As I have said in a previous blog post, I have time for anyone who has time for me. Years may pass, but the memories, love and respect will always be there. The group from my earliest memories will always be linked to my first home, and have played a huge part in my life. Over the years, I have lost regular contact with many of those boys. However, the bond is always there and in my opinion always will be. I had a great lunch catch up with one of my best friends from Primary school days today. We laughed as remembered various stories, and how we discussed the people we once knew around that time. For the most part, everyone in that group has found a form of happiness and relative success. It is good to know we have done well. Those days in the Crossways Pub must have served us well.

2016 - The Dark year for much loved Celebs...

Despite the year only approaching its fifth month, we have already lost many much loved stars and personalities. 2016 had already seen the passing of global stars such as pop-star David Bowie, actor Alan Rickman, and arguably Europe’s best ever footballer Johann Cruyff. Whilst here in the UK, icons such as Sir Terry Wogan, Ronnie Corbett and Victoria Wood have also lost brave battles with illness.

Prince, live in Abu Dhabi 2010

Yesterday a true global icon passed away aged just 57. Prince, was a superstar, whose music touched millions. He inspired a generation, and his music will live forever. I was lucky enough to watch him perform live in Abu Dhabi in 2010, at the closing party for the Formula 1 Grand Prix. He performed for over three hours, embracing the crowd with three encores, inviting 50 fans onto the stage to dance with him, and giving the thousands in attendance a night they would never forget. His passing, similar to David Bowie’s in January has led to their back catalogue of albums and singles storming back to the top of the music charts, bringing their music to a new generation of fans.

The BBC have reported that nearly double the number of obituaries have been used at this stage in a year, than in previous years. Almost five times the number from this time four years ago.

It is interesting to know, that major broadcast produce obituaries in advance of people dying. There is a catalogue of obituaries which are updated accordingly over the years, in advance of someone passing away. According to a BBC article, they have 1500 obituaries on file, waiting for the celebrity, sports star, politician, or even member of the Royal family to pass away, so that they can run the footage if the sad news breaks.

But why has 2016 been such a dark year in terms of much loved people passing away? There have been various articles and news pieces in recent days, and it raises some very interesting points.

Firstly, the rise of popular culture in the 1960s and the arrival of the television in most households lead to more people becoming famous. Back then, if you became a star, you would be in front of an audience of millions. It launched the start of celebrity as we know it. In the UK for an example, a popular light entertainment show could attract 18million viewers on a Saturday night. In that pre internet, pre social media, pre YouTube generation, if you were on television, you would become a genuine house hold name, instead of the Z-listers we have forced down our throats nowadays.

Secondly, the people who became icons in the 1960’s or 1970’s are now in their 70s and 80s and simply starting to die, as is common for us all as humans. It certainly helps that the boom in people becoming famous had led to higher figures. There are simply more famous people than there used to be. Many of these people were born in the post WW2 era, where the population grew due to the famous baby boom. With more babies born in the baby boom, at the same time where these babies grew into the age of the launch of television and pop culture, more and more people became famous.

Thirdly, various reports state that we, as the social media generation, are highlighting and spreading the word of more deaths than ever before. We post #RIP messages about people and share our stories or our pictures of said celebrity, which we probably learned of their passing via social media. In the old days, you wouldn’t find out that someone had passed unless they were important enough to make it on to the evening news, or in a newspaper obituary column. 

This image titled 'Dear Cancer...' went viral after the passing of three global stars. Motorhead front man Lemmy, David Bowie and Alan Rickman

We as this current generation, have grown up watching these older figures, and have formed an affinity to them. Alan Rickman for example was, to me, The Sheriff of Nottingham in one of my favourite movies, Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves. As I mentioned, Prince was one of the best gigs I have ever seen. Sir Terry Wogan was a UK television and radio legend who I watched every year for Children In Need. As a boy I learnt the ‘Cruyff turn’ from very early football training sessions inspired by the Dutch football icon’s signature move. David Bowie to me, was the actor in Labrynth, which was the last film my Grandfather ever worked on, who referred to Bowie as the ‘young rock star’ despite Bowie approaching his 40^th birthday when they made the film. I didn’t become a fan of his music until much later in life. When each of these people died, I, like thousands of others, wrote our own words on social media to pay our respects.

As the year rolls on, there is a huge chance that we will continue to lose many much loved stars. But that is life, and life goes on. Death waits for no man. It is just such a shame when we lose someone we care about. 

Top to bottom (L-R) Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Denise Robertson, Sir Terry Wogan, Victoria Wood, Ronnie Corbett

David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Sir Terry Wogan, Lemmy, Johann Cruyff, Harper Lee, Sir George Martin, Paul Daniels, Ronnie Corbett, David Gest, Chyna, Victoria Wood, Prince and all of the others who I haven’t mentioned. #RIP

The Permanent Solution...

Any bereavement is hard to deal with. It rocks you in so many ways, and can do so continuously, striking like hammer blows over the years. In my case, my emotions regarding my Uncle’s death have re-emerged over the past few years, and I am feeling emotions that must have been locked up deep inside me.

I think that this is down to various factors.

Firstly, I was a child when he passed away. Time perception was different back then. A child year seems to be an adult month. Our sense of time changes as we grow older. The intervening years have been my developmental, grown up years. Lots of water has passed under the bridge since Charlie died. I have matured and had to deal with other bereavements, stresses, struggles and finding my own path in life. It is only now as I am rapidly approaching the age that he passed, that my feelings to his passing are re-emerging. As a child I was able to accept that grown-ups will die at some point. I was told that he had a heart attack, and that seemed logical to me at the time. It wasn’t til I approached adulthood, did I find out and was able to comprehend the darker truth.

“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things”

Another factor has to be that in clearing out my Grandfather’s property after his death three years ago, I found my Uncle’s suicide letter. 

Having only ever heard my parent’s perspective on the reasons they believed led to his decision to end his life, it was a roller-coaster to quickly read his letter, all at the same time as being emotional towards the passing of my Grandfather.

My head was spinning, my heart was racing and it was hard to focus as I began to read the actual letter that was found alongside my Uncle all those years ago. Addressed to ‘Mum’ the words on the paper in my hands were the last thing to go through his mind. His despair and depression was clearly evident. He blamed himself for everything that had happened. The breakup of a relationship. The breakdown of a business. The financial ruin, and the disappointment he saw himself as. The letter apologised to his parents, and instructed my grandmother to pass on messages to his friends. But there was no mention of his brothers. No mentions of me, my sister or his other nephews and nieces. No mention of other family members. This hurt immensely when reading the letter. It made me think that on the night that he set about his task to end his life, the wider ramifications of his actions were not present in his thought process. In many ways, it made me see him as very selfish. It made me blame the bottle of alcohol that he was clearly consuming as he wrote the letter. It made me think that if he hadn’t have been drinking that night, he may be with us now.

But that was naive and of me. It took some time to reflect and study more about the subject of depression, and learn more about the man that in reality, I only knew as a playmate. Mental health issues are widely ignored even now, and back in 1993 when my uncle took his life, I can’t imagine opening up to peers, or seeking help was that common. Instead as typical south London male, he wanted to get himself out of the predicament he was in, and not unload his issues on other people. His decision to end his life was not a spur of the moment thing. He had planned his method. This was not going to be a cry for help. This was going to be a permanent solution to his pain.

Finally, the fact that I still hate the fact he chose that permanent solution, to what I now see 23 years later as an illness that can be helped. I hate the fact he didn’t reach out for help. I hate the fact that he didn’t think of his three brothers; about how this would send their world crashing down around them. I hate the fact that my Nan blamed herself fully for the loss of her son. I hate the fact that she never recovered from his passing. I hate the fact that my sister, my cousins and I missed out on getting to know him as a man. I’m gutted that we never shared a pint and laugh together. At family events, I often think that family members who have passed away are with us, watching us have fun and live life. I hope they are proud of us.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM – www.thecalmzone.net) believe that there are social and cultural barriers which prevent men from speaking out. That state that men do not feel comfortable expressing feelings and emotions. That men think they are expected to be strong at all times. I certainly agree with this statement in regards to my uncle. 

I wish he could have opened up to someone. He would have been 65 just after Valentines day. I wish we could have shared a pint in celebration.

Forever In Our Hearts..

It was Thursday July 1^st 1993, my 10^th birthday, when the phone rang. It was Uncle Charlie, my dad’s slightly older brother and best man. 

After a few minutes on the phone with Dad, I was called to come to the phone as Charlie wanted to say ‘Hello’. Charlie wished me Happy Birthday, and asked me if I wanted to go to Chessington World of Adventures theme park at the weekend for my birthday present, like he did the summer before.

But this year I was busy on the Saturday, and my parents had arranged a football party for me and my friends on the Sunday. So I told Charlie that I had my party coming up, and that he could come to that instead. After a few more seconds of chat, I quickly was told “no worries, I have got to go now, see ya soon” and after saying good bye, I hung up the phone. I soon went back to my Sonic the Hedgehog, unknowing that this would be our final conversation.

Sunday afternoon finally arrived. July 4^th. Party day! I was sitting in my living room, in my new football kit. My socks were pulled up and I was ready for action. I was full of excitement and anticipation for my party that I knew we would be leaving for in twenty minutes time. My sister was upstairs, Mum was in the kitchen, and Dad was in their bedroom, directly above the living room. The phone rang.  Mum answered it from the kitchen and you could tell there was immediately something wrong. At that moment the house was silent. I can’t recall if the TV was on, but if it was, I couldn’t hear it. Mum rushed upstairs to the bedroom and said for my sister to go downstairs immediately. Mum closed her bedroom door shut behind her, something which never happened before or again after. The house had never been so quiet.

From the living room my sister and I could hear muffled talk from inside Mum and Dads room above us, and within a few seconds I could hear the moment my Dad broke down after being informed that his brother and best friend was no longer with us. 

I am not sure how much time passed, but Mum came down with tears in her eyes and rushed me and my sister to get to the car, ready to go to the party. I got my stuff ready and as I was leaving the living room, my dad appeared in the door way; “Have you heard?” he said to me, with tears in his eyes and cracks in his voice. The man who had been He-Man to me my whole life stood in front of me distraught. This was the first time I had seen him vulnerable. The first time I had seen negative emotion from him. I hadn’t heard the news that he had just been informed of, but I immediately started to cry, as I knew it was something life changing that had happened. I didn’t even know who that phone call had been about, and to this day I do not know who was on the other end of that phone.

But I knew life was about to change.

Mum took me and my sister to my party. I can’t remember the journey at all. I do remember that I played footy that day like a boy possessed, and have clear memories of the goals that I scored that day. Mum went ahead with the party, giving 14 rowdy ten years old's party food, party games and birthday cake after the match had ended. She made that day so special for me. Photos from that day show the fun that was had by us kids, but also show the pain and despair behind my mums eyes, as she tried to show a sense of normality for her son, all while trying to come to terms with the loss of her brother in law, and the fact that her husband and my Dad’s world was caving in as the truth was revealed to him, of how his brother had been found earlier that morning.

As a 10 year old boy, I grieved for my Uncle. As a 15year old young man, when my Grandmother passed away, we grieved again, and I was part of more adult conversations about what had happened to my Uncle. It was then that I was able to start to gain perspective on what had happened to Charlie. He had suffered from a run of serious bad luck, bad decisions, and heartbreak. This had led to the black dog of depression dragging him down. I often wonder if he had hoped to take me to Chessington as a way of cheering himself up. Only for me to have plans and for him to think that he couldn’t even do that right, adding to his list of things that had gone against him. 

In reality he was probably just trying to do his duties as a loving uncle. But what he failed to think of that night when no doubt he had a hundred thoughts racing through his head, where he couldn’t see a way out, is that we needed him and still do. It appears that drinking too much on the night that he ended things played a part too. I only wish someone could have been with him so that he wasn’t drinking alone, with a pen in his hand writing a goodbye letter, and idea in his head of ending his life. Only 8 years older than I am now.

There is a huge hole in our family, and younger relatives who do not share the same loving memories that my sister and I have, do not share the grief that we feel when we talk about him. He was the uncle who would play with us kids as if he was a kid himself, he would wrestle with us and always not really know his own strength. He would get us really worked up, and then leave our parents to calm us down. He was our friend and playmate as well as our uncle. He held a special place in my heart and I still think of him daily. 

I wasn’t informed what had actually happened to Charlie until my teenage years, when for some reason I questioned the original story of ‘illness’ which I had been told as an innocent ten year old. My mother wondered if I had been questioning it in the subsequent years. I hadn’t. I don’t even know where the question came from that day. Only now, in my early thirties, with a mortgage and family of my own, do I feel I can begin to understand what may have gone through his mind, and I think about it more and more. I too can wallow in self-doubt and anxiety, but I know I can share my issues with those around me. But if things got that bad, as bad as it got for him, would I still be able to reach out for help? Could I? Would I be judged? Will Charlie’s suicide have a knock on effect in my life?

I wish someone could have told my Uncle Charlie that he was not alone. I wish someone could have told him that were people who loved him eternally and would have always be there to help ease the burden, to ensure that he seeks support. My Dad wishes that Charlie would have decided to open up to him, to reach out to him and share his troubles. But that wasn’t Charlie. Apparently he decided that he didn’t want to ‘burden’ those around him. As far as we know he didn’t try to find help. I wonder if he was in my generation whether he would reach out to his friends and family. Times are changing, but not changing enough when you consider the alarming stat that CALM - the Campaign Against Living Miserably (http://www.thecalmzone.net) are trying to change, that suicide is the biggest killer of men my age.

I wish that the 10 year old me could have gone to Chessington on the Saturday, so that he had a great day, and the dark thoughts not appear that fateful Saturday night. I wish he had agreed to come to the party on the Sunday. But he didn’t. 

But life goes on, and I will teach my own son to open up and to express himself. To know that showing feelings and emotions does not make him weak. To know that should things go against him, should he encounter heartache, failure, and/or depression set in, there are people out there to help.

I saw a quote that said “suicide doesn’t just take away your own pain, it just gives it to someone else” – I totally agree with that..

Uncle Charlie– left us aged 41, – Forever in our hearts til we meet again.