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An Oral History 1985-2015
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<blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 119721" data-attributes="member: 22"><p><span style="font-size: 18px"><u>1989</u></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jim Branning, speaking in 2006: It’s been seventeen years [since I last saw Max]. Not a minute too long.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carol Jackson on Max and Jack: You two hardly spoke for years.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Masood Ahmed, speaking in 2009: I’ve driven a cab before, held a licence for twenty years, no previous convictions or accidents - well, none to speak of.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pat Evans, reading from a hospital report about her sister: “Joan Harris was transferred in 1989.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Will Passmore, manager of the Springville Residential Home, to Pat: Your sister and some of the other residents came here from a more formal care institution.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Len Harker: They closed all the big asylums down in the eighties.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Will Passmore on Pat’s sister Joan: She was quite a character. Her favourite thing was doing the drama workshops. She loved dressing up, entertaining the other residents. Joan was loved very much.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Will, showing Pat a photograph: This is Joan with Michael, Joan’s husband. They married when they moved here [Springville]. She did used to talk about Patricia. She would say how much she loved her. Michael died a year before Joan. They were soul mates. Anyone who saw them together would tell you that. She was a wonderful woman.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pat on Joan: Where did she die — in hospital, here [Springville], where?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Will: It was here. In her sleep. She didn’t suffer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Denise Fox: Do you know how many boys I had by the time I was twenty? Plus I had a two year old baby.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Shirley Carter: Do you remember Vicky Park?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick Carter: You and Kevin got me out of me nut on [cider]. How old was I?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Shirley: Sixteen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: No, I was about thirteen. I just remember the park keeper going insane over his marigolds.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Shirley: Yeah well, you were watering them with your little willy at the time, weren’t you?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: Oi, oi, less of the little.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tina Carter on Mick: He never could handle his booze.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick on Shirley: I remember her and Kevin running about on the beach, wind blowing in her hair. She never looked so happy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: That’s because I wasn’t there, doing her nut in. I missed all the family holidays.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: You was there. And Carly and Jimbo. You must have been about one, semi-cute, you know. I remember she kept taking pictures of you in this little beach outfit and showing it to everyone.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: Shut up I had a beach outfit on!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: I’m telling you, you had a beach outfit! You didn’t have it on for long. You got ice cream down it and she had to go and wash it in the sea. I think you done it on purpose because, to be fair, you looked like a girl. She loved you. She was a good mum.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Shirley to Dean: You always were a messy baby.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kevin Wicks on Dorset: I used to bring the kids down here when they were little. Of course, Carly was too young to remember our holidays down here and Deano was only a baby.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Eddie Moon on his sons, Anthony and Tyler: When they were toddlers, you could slide them a 99 and that would shut them up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah Hills: Why did you and Mum split up?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ted Hills: Let's just say we both married the wrong person.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah: [Mum] couldn't stand you controlling her life anymore, saying what she could do, where she could go. That is why she left.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ted: She left because she was seeing another man.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah: Because you drove her to it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ted: No, because she was a slut. She always had been. That's why I wanted to know where she was going, who she was with.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah: She loved you, she loved all of us and you drove her out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ted on Irene: I loved her so much I drove her away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah on Irene: Whenever I kissed her, I used to smell [her compact powder pad] on her face. I kept it when she left.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Irene Hills to Sarah: When I told your gran I was leaving your father, she just looked me cold as you like and said, "I'll never forgive you for this." And she never did because two months later she was dead.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Irene on her Aunty Maureen: We had a huge fall out when I left Ted. She never forgave me for taking off like that. She thought I should have stayed and made the best of it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tony Hills on Irene's Aunty Maureen: [She's] an old dragon. She's been in an old people's home for years. None of us have seen her since.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tony to Sarah: Mum walked out on us, not just Dad. Didn't even bother to say good-bye. You used to stand at the window looking out, hoping she'd step off a bus and walk back into the house, and when she didn't, you'd go away and cry.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah: She's my mum and I loved her. Then one day she was gone.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joe Wicks: It's a shock, isn't it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah: I suppose it was.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joe: You don't always realise it at the time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah: From then on, everyone just seemed to bad-mouth her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joe: And you had to agree.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah: Yeah, or have them turn against me too. It made me feel ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joe: Bad.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah: Yeah, because if she was bad then I must be too.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joe: Same thing happened to me. My mum couldn't bring herself to speak Dad's name and it made me feel all guilty.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Irene: It was a terrible time. I'll never forgive Ted. He deprived me of those children.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tony on Irene: I haven't seen her [since 1989].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Irene: I got the house when I divorced Ted. That was joint marital property fair and square.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kathy Mitchell to Irene: You took Ted for everything and then deserted him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ted to Sarah: When your mum went, well, if it hadn't have been for you, I'd have gone to pieces completely.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ted on Tony and Sarah: When their mother left, there were times I felt like doing the same thing, but I didn't. I stuck by them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ted to Tony: I worked hard to raise you and Sarah on my own. I had a business to run and kids to raise and it was hard, but I did it the best I could. I raised you the best I could.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sarah to Irene: I used to dream about you coming back.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Natalie Price: I was upset when my mum and dad split up, but after a while you get used to it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Natalie: Dad left because you argued with him all the time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Andrea Price: I know he said all the right things, sweetheart, but it was me who had to pick up the pieces after he left. When I think of the hell that man put me through just to keep a roof over your head.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Andrea on Natalie: I wasn't hard on her for fun. I had to be tough so that she wouldn't end up like me — a doormat, a victim.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie Mitchell: My mum and dad were a mess, a total mess.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy Mitchell: I don’t suppose you got much support from Archie.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: Maybe if I’ve stood up to him more and been stronger ... I got to the point where I didn’t know who I hated more, him or myself. In the end I was scared of what I would do if I stayed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on her pregnancy: I was fourteen, frightened, lost.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: Your mum, Glenda, she never said anything.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: She and my dad, they were splitting up so there were loads of doors banging, bags being packed. I just wanted to keep it to myself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: For how long?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Five months.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: I wasn’t really showing, or at least I didn’t think I was. Then one day, we were in the middle of a conversation and she [Glenda] just stopped right in the middle of a sentence. The blood drained from her face. Well, the roof really came off then because a pregnant teenager was the last thing they needed. The next couple of months I don’t remember much. My dad was just silent, angry.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie Mitchell: It’s hard being a dad. I found out my fourteen year old was five months pregnant and maybe I didn’t do the right thing by her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie to Archie: I made a mistake. I didn’t know what I was doing. But instead of loving me, instead of helping me through it, you used it against me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie: You were never a very great judge of what was good for you, Veronica, were you? I always had to step in — save you from Joel, save you from yourself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: My girls were growing up and everything they wanted, they went to Archie. I was a spare part.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carol: The scar on your wrist — were you unhappy?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: I couldn’t even get that right!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda, speaking in 2010: I’m a cry-for-help girl [shows Ronnie the scar on her wrist].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: When? Why?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: A long time ago. You know what your father can drive you to. And I wasn’t strong. I let you down.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: It wasn’t a serious [suicide] attempt, not really, but it was enough to make me realise that I had to get out of there, before one of us ended up dead.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: It made me realise I have to live my life for myself — not my girls, not Archie — for me. Three months later I walked out. I packed a small suitcase and went.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda on Archie: I was terrified of him. That’s why I left. The abuse was just ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Roxy Mitchell: Our dad never raised a hand to you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: He didn’t have to. You know what it was like. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to go.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: Archie pushed me out. He made sure there was no room for me in that house.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Roxy to Glenda: You stopped being our mother the day you went and left us to fend for ourselves.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Roxy: She thinks our mum abandoned us. She escaped. If she’d stayed, that man would have put her in an early grave.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: [Roxy] was so young when I left, but you were old enough to understand. You knew what it was like.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Yeah.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: And she was such a daddy’s girl, whereas you ... You were always more of a friend than a daughter, wise beyond your years. I knew you’d be all right when I left. You were always the strong one out of all of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: I was fourteen and pregnant. I was five months pregnant when you left.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: If I knew anything, I knew that you would make a better job of being a mother than I did. That’s something I never never had to worry about with you because no matter how young you were, no matter what you had, boy or girl, I always knew that that child would be blessed to have you as a mum.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda on Archie: I got him out of my head all those years ago.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: You never looked back when you left us all those years ago, never looked back at all the mess you left behind?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: I had to make a choice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Between yourself and us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: Yeah.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: It was that simple, was it, to put yourself before the needs of your own pregnant teenage daughter?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: Things were more complicated than that. There are things you don’t know about, things between a husband and a wife.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda to her son Danny: Your father is a double-glazing rep called Nick Winterton. I met him when I was married to Archie. He came to quote for new windows.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda on Nick: He said he was going to leave his wife next month, once he got things sorted — always next month. And then he got a job in Scotland and took her with him. Never heard from him again.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Nick: Is he the reason you left?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: I left because I was pregnant too. [Archie] would have killed me if he’d found out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: I had to look out for my baby. I couldn’t let Archie turn him [against me] the way he turned you two.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Even though you weren’t the only one that was pregnant? You were my mum. I was pregnant, I was fourteen, I was terrified and I needed you, you were my mum, but you had your plans. You packed your suitcase, you left, you walked out on me. What kind of person does that make you?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: It wasn’t easy for me walking away from my girls.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: You didn’t have to.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: I did. I had to give my baby a chance. It was too late for you two.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: Ran away without a second thought.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: Do you honestly think I wanted to leave my children? I had no choice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: Of course you did, but you put yourself first, Glenda, like you always did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: You walked out, Glenda. You walked out on them, your two girls. You are their mother and boy, did you muck up the job.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: Have you heard about the pot and the kettle?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: You could have taken the children with you. You could have got away from him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: It was too late.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: Too late? They were your children. They needed you. How could it be too late?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: The damage was done. He’d replaced me, hadn’t he, with her?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: With who? With Ronnie?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: That’s not what I said.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Glenda: That is all her life has ever been — a total and utter waste. She walked out on our lives. She knew what that man was doing, she knew what he was capable of doing. She turned her back and she walked.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Roxy: A lot of things changed after you left, Mum.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Glenda: I used to lie awake at night thinking about her and I used to imagine she’d tiptoe into my room and she’d bend down and kiss my cheek and she’d whisper into my ear that she was sorry, that it was all a big mistake and that now that she was home, she was never going to leave me ever again, and I’d sit up and I’d hold my arms out and she’d hug me, she’d hold me so tight. She’d tell me that everything was going to be all right now. What a waste of time that was. The only reason my mum left is because when I needed her, when I really needed her, she didn’t love me enough to stay.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: I should have had the courage to just stay and fight.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda on her son: I should have aborted him when I had the chance. I should have stayed with my two lovely girls. The fun we could have had.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie speaking to Roxy in 2007: To this day I don’t think your mother has any real idea of the damage she did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Glenda: If I could change one thing in my life, just one, it would be the day I walked out on my girls. It was a terrible thing to do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie Cotton, Jr: I never understood you could actually have a relationship where you were good to each other because my dad wasn’t a good man. I hardly ever saw him. The strongest memory I have is Quorum, his aftershave. The smell used to land on the place whenever he came home. It just meant things were going to be exactly the same. Day One - he turns up at the door, Mum shouts at him, she kicks him out. Day Two - she lets him in to talk, have a cup of tea. Day Three - he tosses a packet of crisps at me and says, “You stay downstairs. Me and your mum have got something important to do.” Day Four - he’s disappeared with whatever cash was about the place, Mum cries.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie on Nick: He’s not right. He never has been. He was always coming around, knocking my mum about, stealing her cash then disappearing without a word. He’d only come back when he had nowhere else to go. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie to Liam Butcher: When I was your age [thirteen], I was always getting into trouble — running with the wrong crowds, hurting my mum. The police round our way, they all knew me by name. I used to say it was because my dad wasn’t around. Of course, when he was around, he was useless. But then one day I realised nobody was in charge of my life except for me and if I didn’t want to be that boy anymore …</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Minty Peterson to Jase Dyer, ex-football hooligan: I saw a row once on a train, two firms. Horrible. I mean, I’m a big bloke and not a lot bothers me, but it was terrifying. There was women and kids and these two firms, all beered up, kicking and punching and they didn’t give a stuff who got in the way. Five years out of Europe because of Heysel, because they pinned you lot in to stop you from fighting on the pitch, and then what do we end up with? Hillsborough.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Max Branning: What’s the name of that nutter when we were teenagers? Did ‘Rock Me Amadeus’.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Denise: Terrible.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Max: Classic. Well, it was fun.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carol Jackson on ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials: Alan, Billie’s dad, used to like this.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Roxy: I used to love this CD. [Sings:] “She drives me crazy ...”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Patrick Trueman: I thought your generation was more into Take That.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Roxy: No way, Patrick. I’ve always been a soul girl.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Bianca Jackson on Take That: I never went for them myself, all them girls wetting their knickers over them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on ‘Killer’ by Adamski: This is the song everyone was dancing to the last year I was [at school]. Well, everyone except Miss Bump of course.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Christian Clarke: You’re not fourteen anymore, some dysfunctional little mouse.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Excuse me, I was never a mouse.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Christian: So you really weren’t Miss Popularity back then?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Getting knocked up at fourteen? No I don’t think so. I’m the original bad girl.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Vincent Hubbard to Ronnie: I used to be the delinquent, not you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Chrissie Watts: Bet you were a right John Travolta on the dance floor.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dennis Rickman: No, I didn't really do school discos. To tell you the truth, I didn't really do school.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Chrissie: What did you do all day then?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dennis: This and that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carol on Alan: He took me up to Hammersmith Palais. We used to dance our legs off.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda Carter on playing netball at school: I was team captain. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Whitney Dean: I bet you were.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda: Me and Mick met at school. Never been with anyone else.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick Carter to Linda: I remember the very first time I saw you. I was playing football and you were staring at me and put me right off my game because I had never seen anyone so beautiful before in my life. When you was looking at me, those big blue eyes, that was it, I was gone, because I loved those eyes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: Did I ever tell you the time me and [Linda] got together? Geography. I lent her my best rubber and after that …</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Lee Carter: She was like putty in your hands.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda to Mick: I’ve loved you since I was a little girl. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stan Carter to Linda: Remember you as a kid. Legs like two strings of cotton in your school uniform. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stan on The Jester Public House: Your childhood home. You, your mum and your dad. This pub. Perfect family.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda: Perfect.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stan: John and Elaine, all in love behind this bar. Good pub, this was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda on running a pub: We’ve always done it ourselves [as a family].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stan to Linda: Thought none of us would notice, you and Mick — sitting in the corner there, heads together.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stan to Linda’s mother Elaine: Me and your old man once had a conversation about you. He said that of anything ever happened to him, he hoped that I’d take care of you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: My pretty flamingo.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda: The first time you called me that, neither of us had even seen one.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: I just remembered it [the song] was playing when we got hitched. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda on Mick: The silly thing proposed when we were kids so we had a pretend ceremony. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda: My feelings ain’t changed since I was twelve, wrapped in a sheet pretending to be Lady Di. Back of my dad’s rotten old pub, stink of stale beer and fag ends everywhere — meant just as much to me as St Paul’s would have done. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: I felt exactly the same. You have been my L since before my voice broke.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda: We had the best wedding ever.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: Lemonade and smarties reception.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick to Linda: What I love most about you is your kind and honest heart, and you gave that heart to me when we was kids and I’ve looked after it ever since.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda: We’ve never really been married. The kids don’t know, or Stan or Shirley.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: We always said we’d do it properly one day.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda: We always meant to get round to tying the knot properly one day but somehow we just never did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean Wicks: So why have you never wanted to marry Linda?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: I did. It’s just the moment’s never been right.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: You’ve never been tempted to …?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: Don’t be stupid.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: I never hid anything from you. I never have and you know that, L.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Linda: No secrets, Mick, ever. That’s always been our pact.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick: No secrets — that’s always been our marriage.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mick to his son Johnny: I love your mother with all my heart, but getting together with her so young — a whole lot of life we missed out on. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michael Moon: 6th of July, 1989 — my driving test. I passed, first time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Max: I never learned to drive in a thirty grand motor, did I?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sean Slater: When you were about six months old, I went upstairs, I grabbed your basket and I stuck you in the airing cupboard.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: What — you just left me there?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sean: I just went downstairs and watched 'Button Moon'. After about ten minutes you started howling so I went back upstairs and I opened the cupboard and you looked so frightened.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: I’m not surprised!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sean: I just picked you up and held you in my arms till you stopped crying. And that was when I realised.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: What — not to stick babies in the airing cupboard?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sean: No, I realised it was my job to take care of you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean: With Stacey, I put teething gel on her dummy [to get her to sleep].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kat Moon: So you drugged her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean: No, everyone used to do that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean: The fresh air always settled Stacey.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean, showing Stacey an old woollen rag: You loved that, wouldn’t go to sleep without it. The very first thing I knitted. Now, this [matinee jacket] was what I was most proud of.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: You knitted that?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean: I made it for Sean but your dad thought it looked like a girl’s cardigan. I didn’t mind, but your dad did so I kept it and you came along and you looked beautiful in it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie: Ronnie got a blanket for her baby.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Joel: He said that whatever I decided [to do about being pregnant], he’d be there. My dad found out and before you knew it I was miles away having the baby.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joel: We had a baby, a baby I never knew.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: I was so young. Having that baby was the biggest mistake of my life.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: There was a car journey, a damp room. I couldn’t see much. There was a skylight and I could hear seagulls. And then there was this beautiful baby, a beautiful little baby girl and he took her — Dad, my dad — the one person in my life who’s supposed to protect me and he took my baby.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Roxy on Ronnie and Archie: All I know is she got in the car, pregnant, he took her off to some relatives, and when she got back, it was all over. Ronnie’s always blamed Dad, but he was just as cut up about it as the rest of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie to Ronnie: Watching you go into that delivery room, the look of terror in your eyes. I’d have done anything to take all that pain away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Twenty-sixth of June, that was the day she was born and the day Dad took her away from me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: When I had my daughter, I got her name in my head as soon as I saw her. Maybe it’s a parent thing. I called her Amy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Danielle Jones, aka Amy, to Ronnie: From the very beginning you cursed my life.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on her baby: Before [Archie] took her away, I held her in my arms just for a few moments. I can still remember the smell of her skin. I’ve never been sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, having that memory.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Two hours and twenty-three minutes, that’s all I had with my Amy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Amy: She was beautiful, perfect. I remember her little hands clutching onto my finger. She had tiny little fingernails.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Amy: I remember when she yawned, how her nose would wrinkle up, how she’d go all pink and blotchy. A toothless yawn with this little whine at the end.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Amy: I didn’t want to let her go and maybe if you’d been there, Mum, maybe I wouldn’t have had to let her go.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Danielle: Did you ever sing to [Amy]?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Sing? No, I don’t think so.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: I was fourteen and I was a mess. Lullabies were the last thing on my mind. When I went into hospital I had this radio with me and I had it on all the time. I had it on during labour, I had it on all the time afterwards and it was summer and they kept playing this song over and over again [‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ by Cher]. How could I sing a lullaby when the radio was switched on? I never sang to her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: It was my dad’s idea to get Amy adopted - you know, get rid of the shame.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie on Ronnie: I can still hear her screaming and yelling at me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie to Ronnie: I seem to remember you spitting at me in the face.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie on Ronnie: She was fourteen. She couldn’t bring up a kid. I tried to tell her she was just a baby herself. What could she give a child at her age? They were both better off without each other, surely.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie to Ronnie: You weren’t old enough. Fourteen? You weren’t old enough to bring up a baby on your own. You’d have ruined your whole life.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Roxy on Archie: He did the right thing. He decided that a fourteen year old wouldn’t have any sort of life. [Ronnie] and the baby would just be worse off.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy to Ronnie: Archie did what was best for you because you were too young to know what was best for you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Maybe it wasn’t Dad’s fault. It doesn’t matter how old I was, I’m the one who gave her away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Roxy to Ronnie: At the end of the day, you were too self-obsessed to care for your own child. You gave her away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: The locket that I gave away with my baby, with Amy, I put a photo [of myself] inside.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Danielle on the locket: I’ve had it since I was a baby. When she gave me away, she gave that too.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Danielle on Ronnie: She rejected me when I was little, when I was a baby.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Andy Jones, Danielle’s adoptive father: You were just some spoilt little kid who didn’t want her nights on the tiles to dry up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: It wasn’t like that. There hasn’t been a moment when I haven’t regretted it. There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t longed to hold her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Losing a child was the most heartbreaking thing that ever happened to me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie: You did the right thing. You gave the baby away. You gave it a proper home.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: It’s that simple, is it? Do you know what it’s like to give away your own flesh and blood, eh? Hand her over, my little girl, to strangers, complete strangers?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie: Then why did you do it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: Because you made me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie: Did I? Did I hold the pen, force you to sign? No, it was your choice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: But you told me it was the right thing to do. You told me that if I did it, everything would be OK. You promised me everything would be OK between me and you — no more fighting, no tears. Then after she’d gone, nothing. I got nothing from you. You just turned around, walked away. You left me to shrivel up and die.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie: You made a choice, a bad choice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: I was a kid. I was a teenager. What did I know?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie: You knew how to break your father’s heart.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie to Ronnie: You’re no match for me, girl. You never were. Yes, I did make you get rid of that kid. I did it to teach you a lesson once and for all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie to Ronnie: If you’d just admitted you were in the wrong — just one word, one little word — if you’d come to me, said you’re sorry, maybe all of this would have been OK. It’s not much to ask, is it, eh? Just a word, a simple little word, a mark of respect.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: [After] she was taken away from me, I was whisked back home like nothing had happened. I was devastated and I kept telling myself, “It’s all right, it’s all right because when you get back, Joel will be there.” And then I got back to school and he wasn’t. His parents had moved away and no-one could tell me where they’d gone.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie to Joel: You moved away when I got pregnant. You didn’t say good-bye.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joel: I was all over the place. You know I was, but you ... I tried to ... well at least say good-bye.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joel to Ronnie: I would never have gone off my own back but everyone was ... well, you know what it was like. The whole thing was out of my hands. I didn’t have a choice.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: I loved you and you left me. Are you telling me that was down to my dad?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joel on Archie: He’s an intimidating bloke when you're fifteen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie to Joel: I made you go away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: I couldn’t contact you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joel: Yeah, but I wrote.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: No.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joel: Ron, I did write.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie on Archie: There are a lot of things I don’t remember. Every single one of them down to him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy: Look how you were then — your mum running off, you pregnant — I mean a lot of things get all jumbled up, especially when you’re only what? Fourteen?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: I wished him dead then. I never wanted anyone dead more.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Archie: I met my match a long time ago, Veronica — you. I lost my child too because I lost you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Andy Jones on Danielle: This tiny beautiful perfect baby, the answer to our prayers. The day we brought her home, it was a Monday. The sun was shining. It was very hot, not a cloud in the sky. “A perfect day,” Lizzie said to me, “for our new beginning.” We carried our baby into her new home. She was fast asleep in her car seat. The day we’d been waiting for for such a long time. We shut the door behind us and Lizzie said to me, “We’re a family now. She’s part of us.” It felt so good, but Danielle was still asleep and we were at a bit of a loss at what to do next. So we put the kettle on and I was just pouring the tea when she woke up and we were running all over the house — bottles and nappies and clean clothes and nappy bags and muslins and more nappies and more clean clothes — but eventually we managed to work out what went where and Danielle had a full tummy and clean clothes with the poppers done up more or less right. And she was settled and Lizzie said to me, “Let’s show her her room” and we took her upstairs to her bedroom and we showed her the pictures we'd put up for her on the walls, and the soft toys piled up for her at the end of her cot, and Danielle looked at the teddy bear and we looked at Danielle and we were the happiest people on earth. And we played with her, peep-po with her teddy bear, and we told her we loved her, we loved her so very much, and we laid her down to sleep.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Andy: My Dani was a sunny child, always laughing and smiling.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James from London, post: 119721, member: 22"] [SIZE=5][u]1989[/u] Jim Branning, speaking in 2006: It’s been seventeen years [since I last saw Max]. Not a minute too long. Carol Jackson on Max and Jack: You two hardly spoke for years. Masood Ahmed, speaking in 2009: I’ve driven a cab before, held a licence for twenty years, no previous convictions or accidents - well, none to speak of. Pat Evans, reading from a hospital report about her sister: “Joan Harris was transferred in 1989.” Will Passmore, manager of the Springville Residential Home, to Pat: Your sister and some of the other residents came here from a more formal care institution. Len Harker: They closed all the big asylums down in the eighties. Will Passmore on Pat’s sister Joan: She was quite a character. Her favourite thing was doing the drama workshops. She loved dressing up, entertaining the other residents. Joan was loved very much. Will, showing Pat a photograph: This is Joan with Michael, Joan’s husband. They married when they moved here [Springville]. She did used to talk about Patricia. She would say how much she loved her. Michael died a year before Joan. They were soul mates. Anyone who saw them together would tell you that. She was a wonderful woman. Pat on Joan: Where did she die — in hospital, here [Springville], where? Will: It was here. In her sleep. She didn’t suffer. Denise Fox: Do you know how many boys I had by the time I was twenty? Plus I had a two year old baby. Shirley Carter: Do you remember Vicky Park? Mick Carter: You and Kevin got me out of me nut on [cider]. How old was I? Shirley: Sixteen. Mick: No, I was about thirteen. I just remember the park keeper going insane over his marigolds. Shirley: Yeah well, you were watering them with your little willy at the time, weren’t you? Mick: Oi, oi, less of the little. Tina Carter on Mick: He never could handle his booze. Mick on Shirley: I remember her and Kevin running about on the beach, wind blowing in her hair. She never looked so happy. Dean: That’s because I wasn’t there, doing her nut in. I missed all the family holidays. Mick: You was there. And Carly and Jimbo. You must have been about one, semi-cute, you know. I remember she kept taking pictures of you in this little beach outfit and showing it to everyone. Dean: Shut up I had a beach outfit on! Mick: I’m telling you, you had a beach outfit! You didn’t have it on for long. You got ice cream down it and she had to go and wash it in the sea. I think you done it on purpose because, to be fair, you looked like a girl. She loved you. She was a good mum. Shirley to Dean: You always were a messy baby. Kevin Wicks on Dorset: I used to bring the kids down here when they were little. Of course, Carly was too young to remember our holidays down here and Deano was only a baby. Eddie Moon on his sons, Anthony and Tyler: When they were toddlers, you could slide them a 99 and that would shut them up. Sarah Hills: Why did you and Mum split up? Ted Hills: Let's just say we both married the wrong person. Sarah: [Mum] couldn't stand you controlling her life anymore, saying what she could do, where she could go. That is why she left. Ted: She left because she was seeing another man. Sarah: Because you drove her to it. Ted: No, because she was a slut. She always had been. That's why I wanted to know where she was going, who she was with. Sarah: She loved you, she loved all of us and you drove her out. Ted on Irene: I loved her so much I drove her away. Sarah on Irene: Whenever I kissed her, I used to smell [her compact powder pad] on her face. I kept it when she left. Irene Hills to Sarah: When I told your gran I was leaving your father, she just looked me cold as you like and said, "I'll never forgive you for this." And she never did because two months later she was dead. Irene on her Aunty Maureen: We had a huge fall out when I left Ted. She never forgave me for taking off like that. She thought I should have stayed and made the best of it. Tony Hills on Irene's Aunty Maureen: [She's] an old dragon. She's been in an old people's home for years. None of us have seen her since. Tony to Sarah: Mum walked out on us, not just Dad. Didn't even bother to say good-bye. You used to stand at the window looking out, hoping she'd step off a bus and walk back into the house, and when she didn't, you'd go away and cry. Sarah: She's my mum and I loved her. Then one day she was gone. Joe Wicks: It's a shock, isn't it? Sarah: I suppose it was. Joe: You don't always realise it at the time. Sarah: From then on, everyone just seemed to bad-mouth her. Joe: And you had to agree. Sarah: Yeah, or have them turn against me too. It made me feel ... Joe: Bad. Sarah: Yeah, because if she was bad then I must be too. Joe: Same thing happened to me. My mum couldn't bring herself to speak Dad's name and it made me feel all guilty. Irene: It was a terrible time. I'll never forgive Ted. He deprived me of those children. Tony on Irene: I haven't seen her [since 1989]. Irene: I got the house when I divorced Ted. That was joint marital property fair and square. Kathy Mitchell to Irene: You took Ted for everything and then deserted him. Ted to Sarah: When your mum went, well, if it hadn't have been for you, I'd have gone to pieces completely. Ted on Tony and Sarah: When their mother left, there were times I felt like doing the same thing, but I didn't. I stuck by them. Ted to Tony: I worked hard to raise you and Sarah on my own. I had a business to run and kids to raise and it was hard, but I did it the best I could. I raised you the best I could. Sarah to Irene: I used to dream about you coming back. Natalie Price: I was upset when my mum and dad split up, but after a while you get used to it. Natalie: Dad left because you argued with him all the time. Andrea Price: I know he said all the right things, sweetheart, but it was me who had to pick up the pieces after he left. When I think of the hell that man put me through just to keep a roof over your head. Andrea on Natalie: I wasn't hard on her for fun. I had to be tough so that she wouldn't end up like me — a doormat, a victim. Ronnie Mitchell: My mum and dad were a mess, a total mess. Peggy Mitchell: I don’t suppose you got much support from Archie. Glenda: Maybe if I’ve stood up to him more and been stronger ... I got to the point where I didn’t know who I hated more, him or myself. In the end I was scared of what I would do if I stayed. Ronnie on her pregnancy: I was fourteen, frightened, lost. Peggy: Your mum, Glenda, she never said anything. Ronnie: She and my dad, they were splitting up so there were loads of doors banging, bags being packed. I just wanted to keep it to myself. Peggy: For how long? Ronnie: Five months. Ronnie: I wasn’t really showing, or at least I didn’t think I was. Then one day, we were in the middle of a conversation and she [Glenda] just stopped right in the middle of a sentence. The blood drained from her face. Well, the roof really came off then because a pregnant teenager was the last thing they needed. The next couple of months I don’t remember much. My dad was just silent, angry. Archie Mitchell: It’s hard being a dad. I found out my fourteen year old was five months pregnant and maybe I didn’t do the right thing by her. Ronnie to Archie: I made a mistake. I didn’t know what I was doing. But instead of loving me, instead of helping me through it, you used it against me. Archie: You were never a very great judge of what was good for you, Veronica, were you? I always had to step in — save you from Joel, save you from yourself. Glenda: My girls were growing up and everything they wanted, they went to Archie. I was a spare part. Carol: The scar on your wrist — were you unhappy? Glenda: I couldn’t even get that right! Glenda, speaking in 2010: I’m a cry-for-help girl [shows Ronnie the scar on her wrist]. Ronnie: When? Why? Glenda: A long time ago. You know what your father can drive you to. And I wasn’t strong. I let you down. Glenda: It wasn’t a serious [suicide] attempt, not really, but it was enough to make me realise that I had to get out of there, before one of us ended up dead. Glenda: It made me realise I have to live my life for myself — not my girls, not Archie — for me. Three months later I walked out. I packed a small suitcase and went. Glenda on Archie: I was terrified of him. That’s why I left. The abuse was just ... Roxy Mitchell: Our dad never raised a hand to you. Glenda: He didn’t have to. You know what it was like. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to go. Glenda: Archie pushed me out. He made sure there was no room for me in that house. Roxy to Glenda: You stopped being our mother the day you went and left us to fend for ourselves. Ronnie on Roxy: She thinks our mum abandoned us. She escaped. If she’d stayed, that man would have put her in an early grave. Glenda: [Roxy] was so young when I left, but you were old enough to understand. You knew what it was like. Ronnie: Yeah. Glenda: And she was such a daddy’s girl, whereas you ... You were always more of a friend than a daughter, wise beyond your years. I knew you’d be all right when I left. You were always the strong one out of all of us. Ronnie: I was fourteen and pregnant. I was five months pregnant when you left. Glenda: If I knew anything, I knew that you would make a better job of being a mother than I did. That’s something I never never had to worry about with you because no matter how young you were, no matter what you had, boy or girl, I always knew that that child would be blessed to have you as a mum. Glenda on Archie: I got him out of my head all those years ago. Ronnie: You never looked back when you left us all those years ago, never looked back at all the mess you left behind? Glenda: I had to make a choice. Ronnie: Between yourself and us. Glenda: Yeah. Ronnie: It was that simple, was it, to put yourself before the needs of your own pregnant teenage daughter? Glenda: Things were more complicated than that. There are things you don’t know about, things between a husband and a wife. Glenda to her son Danny: Your father is a double-glazing rep called Nick Winterton. I met him when I was married to Archie. He came to quote for new windows. Glenda on Nick: He said he was going to leave his wife next month, once he got things sorted — always next month. And then he got a job in Scotland and took her with him. Never heard from him again. Ronnie on Nick: Is he the reason you left? Glenda: I left because I was pregnant too. [Archie] would have killed me if he’d found out. Glenda: I had to look out for my baby. I couldn’t let Archie turn him [against me] the way he turned you two. Ronnie: Even though you weren’t the only one that was pregnant? You were my mum. I was pregnant, I was fourteen, I was terrified and I needed you, you were my mum, but you had your plans. You packed your suitcase, you left, you walked out on me. What kind of person does that make you? Glenda: It wasn’t easy for me walking away from my girls. Ronnie: You didn’t have to. Glenda: I did. I had to give my baby a chance. It was too late for you two. Peggy: Ran away without a second thought. Glenda: Do you honestly think I wanted to leave my children? I had no choice. Peggy: Of course you did, but you put yourself first, Glenda, like you always did. Peggy: You walked out, Glenda. You walked out on them, your two girls. You are their mother and boy, did you muck up the job. Glenda: Have you heard about the pot and the kettle? Peggy: You could have taken the children with you. You could have got away from him. Glenda: It was too late. Peggy: Too late? They were your children. They needed you. How could it be too late? Glenda: The damage was done. He’d replaced me, hadn’t he, with her? Peggy: With who? With Ronnie? Glenda: That’s not what I said. Ronnie on Glenda: That is all her life has ever been — a total and utter waste. She walked out on our lives. She knew what that man was doing, she knew what he was capable of doing. She turned her back and she walked. Roxy: A lot of things changed after you left, Mum. Ronnie on Glenda: I used to lie awake at night thinking about her and I used to imagine she’d tiptoe into my room and she’d bend down and kiss my cheek and she’d whisper into my ear that she was sorry, that it was all a big mistake and that now that she was home, she was never going to leave me ever again, and I’d sit up and I’d hold my arms out and she’d hug me, she’d hold me so tight. She’d tell me that everything was going to be all right now. What a waste of time that was. The only reason my mum left is because when I needed her, when I really needed her, she didn’t love me enough to stay. Glenda: I should have had the courage to just stay and fight. Glenda on her son: I should have aborted him when I had the chance. I should have stayed with my two lovely girls. The fun we could have had. Archie speaking to Roxy in 2007: To this day I don’t think your mother has any real idea of the damage she did. Glenda: If I could change one thing in my life, just one, it would be the day I walked out on my girls. It was a terrible thing to do. Charlie Cotton, Jr: I never understood you could actually have a relationship where you were good to each other because my dad wasn’t a good man. I hardly ever saw him. The strongest memory I have is Quorum, his aftershave. The smell used to land on the place whenever he came home. It just meant things were going to be exactly the same. Day One - he turns up at the door, Mum shouts at him, she kicks him out. Day Two - she lets him in to talk, have a cup of tea. Day Three - he tosses a packet of crisps at me and says, “You stay downstairs. Me and your mum have got something important to do.” Day Four - he’s disappeared with whatever cash was about the place, Mum cries. Charlie on Nick: He’s not right. He never has been. He was always coming around, knocking my mum about, stealing her cash then disappearing without a word. He’d only come back when he had nowhere else to go. Charlie to Liam Butcher: When I was your age [thirteen], I was always getting into trouble — running with the wrong crowds, hurting my mum. The police round our way, they all knew me by name. I used to say it was because my dad wasn’t around. Of course, when he was around, he was useless. But then one day I realised nobody was in charge of my life except for me and if I didn’t want to be that boy anymore … Minty Peterson to Jase Dyer, ex-football hooligan: I saw a row once on a train, two firms. Horrible. I mean, I’m a big bloke and not a lot bothers me, but it was terrifying. There was women and kids and these two firms, all beered up, kicking and punching and they didn’t give a stuff who got in the way. Five years out of Europe because of Heysel, because they pinned you lot in to stop you from fighting on the pitch, and then what do we end up with? Hillsborough. Max Branning: What’s the name of that nutter when we were teenagers? Did ‘Rock Me Amadeus’. Denise: Terrible. Max: Classic. Well, it was fun. Carol Jackson on ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials: Alan, Billie’s dad, used to like this. Roxy: I used to love this CD. [Sings:] “She drives me crazy ...” Patrick Trueman: I thought your generation was more into Take That. Roxy: No way, Patrick. I’ve always been a soul girl. Bianca Jackson on Take That: I never went for them myself, all them girls wetting their knickers over them. Ronnie on ‘Killer’ by Adamski: This is the song everyone was dancing to the last year I was [at school]. Well, everyone except Miss Bump of course. Christian Clarke: You’re not fourteen anymore, some dysfunctional little mouse. Ronnie: Excuse me, I was never a mouse. Christian: So you really weren’t Miss Popularity back then? Ronnie: Getting knocked up at fourteen? No I don’t think so. I’m the original bad girl. Vincent Hubbard to Ronnie: I used to be the delinquent, not you. Chrissie Watts: Bet you were a right John Travolta on the dance floor. Dennis Rickman: No, I didn't really do school discos. To tell you the truth, I didn't really do school. Chrissie: What did you do all day then? Dennis: This and that. Carol on Alan: He took me up to Hammersmith Palais. We used to dance our legs off. Linda Carter on playing netball at school: I was team captain. Whitney Dean: I bet you were. Linda: Me and Mick met at school. Never been with anyone else. Mick Carter to Linda: I remember the very first time I saw you. I was playing football and you were staring at me and put me right off my game because I had never seen anyone so beautiful before in my life. When you was looking at me, those big blue eyes, that was it, I was gone, because I loved those eyes. Mick: Did I ever tell you the time me and [Linda] got together? Geography. I lent her my best rubber and after that … Lee Carter: She was like putty in your hands. Linda to Mick: I’ve loved you since I was a little girl. Stan Carter to Linda: Remember you as a kid. Legs like two strings of cotton in your school uniform. Stan on The Jester Public House: Your childhood home. You, your mum and your dad. This pub. Perfect family. Linda: Perfect. Stan: John and Elaine, all in love behind this bar. Good pub, this was. Linda on running a pub: We’ve always done it ourselves [as a family]. Stan to Linda: Thought none of us would notice, you and Mick — sitting in the corner there, heads together. Stan to Linda’s mother Elaine: Me and your old man once had a conversation about you. He said that of anything ever happened to him, he hoped that I’d take care of you. Mick: My pretty flamingo. Linda: The first time you called me that, neither of us had even seen one. Mick: I just remembered it [the song] was playing when we got hitched. Linda on Mick: The silly thing proposed when we were kids so we had a pretend ceremony. Linda: My feelings ain’t changed since I was twelve, wrapped in a sheet pretending to be Lady Di. Back of my dad’s rotten old pub, stink of stale beer and fag ends everywhere — meant just as much to me as St Paul’s would have done. Mick: I felt exactly the same. You have been my L since before my voice broke. Linda: We had the best wedding ever. Mick: Lemonade and smarties reception. Mick to Linda: What I love most about you is your kind and honest heart, and you gave that heart to me when we was kids and I’ve looked after it ever since. Linda: We’ve never really been married. The kids don’t know, or Stan or Shirley. Mick: We always said we’d do it properly one day. Linda: We always meant to get round to tying the knot properly one day but somehow we just never did. Dean Wicks: So why have you never wanted to marry Linda? Mick: I did. It’s just the moment’s never been right. Dean: You’ve never been tempted to …? Mick: Don’t be stupid. Mick: I never hid anything from you. I never have and you know that, L. Linda: No secrets, Mick, ever. That’s always been our pact. Mick: No secrets — that’s always been our marriage. Mick to his son Johnny: I love your mother with all my heart, but getting together with her so young — a whole lot of life we missed out on. Michael Moon: 6th of July, 1989 — my driving test. I passed, first time. Max: I never learned to drive in a thirty grand motor, did I? Sean Slater: When you were about six months old, I went upstairs, I grabbed your basket and I stuck you in the airing cupboard. Stacey: What — you just left me there? Sean: I just went downstairs and watched 'Button Moon'. After about ten minutes you started howling so I went back upstairs and I opened the cupboard and you looked so frightened. Stacey: I’m not surprised! Sean: I just picked you up and held you in my arms till you stopped crying. And that was when I realised. Stacey: What — not to stick babies in the airing cupboard? Sean: No, I realised it was my job to take care of you. Jean: With Stacey, I put teething gel on her dummy [to get her to sleep]. Kat Moon: So you drugged her. Jean: No, everyone used to do that. Jean: The fresh air always settled Stacey. Jean, showing Stacey an old woollen rag: You loved that, wouldn’t go to sleep without it. The very first thing I knitted. Now, this [matinee jacket] was what I was most proud of. Stacey: You knitted that? Jean: I made it for Sean but your dad thought it looked like a girl’s cardigan. I didn’t mind, but your dad did so I kept it and you came along and you looked beautiful in it. Archie: Ronnie got a blanket for her baby. Ronnie on Joel: He said that whatever I decided [to do about being pregnant], he’d be there. My dad found out and before you knew it I was miles away having the baby. Joel: We had a baby, a baby I never knew. Ronnie: I was so young. Having that baby was the biggest mistake of my life. Ronnie: There was a car journey, a damp room. I couldn’t see much. There was a skylight and I could hear seagulls. And then there was this beautiful baby, a beautiful little baby girl and he took her — Dad, my dad — the one person in my life who’s supposed to protect me and he took my baby. Roxy on Ronnie and Archie: All I know is she got in the car, pregnant, he took her off to some relatives, and when she got back, it was all over. Ronnie’s always blamed Dad, but he was just as cut up about it as the rest of us. Archie to Ronnie: Watching you go into that delivery room, the look of terror in your eyes. I’d have done anything to take all that pain away. Ronnie: Twenty-sixth of June, that was the day she was born and the day Dad took her away from me. Ronnie: When I had my daughter, I got her name in my head as soon as I saw her. Maybe it’s a parent thing. I called her Amy. Danielle Jones, aka Amy, to Ronnie: From the very beginning you cursed my life. Ronnie on her baby: Before [Archie] took her away, I held her in my arms just for a few moments. I can still remember the smell of her skin. I’ve never been sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, having that memory. Ronnie: Two hours and twenty-three minutes, that’s all I had with my Amy. Ronnie on Amy: She was beautiful, perfect. I remember her little hands clutching onto my finger. She had tiny little fingernails. Ronnie on Amy: I remember when she yawned, how her nose would wrinkle up, how she’d go all pink and blotchy. A toothless yawn with this little whine at the end. Ronnie on Amy: I didn’t want to let her go and maybe if you’d been there, Mum, maybe I wouldn’t have had to let her go. Danielle: Did you ever sing to [Amy]? Ronnie: Sing? No, I don’t think so. Ronnie: I was fourteen and I was a mess. Lullabies were the last thing on my mind. When I went into hospital I had this radio with me and I had it on all the time. I had it on during labour, I had it on all the time afterwards and it was summer and they kept playing this song over and over again [‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ by Cher]. How could I sing a lullaby when the radio was switched on? I never sang to her. Ronnie: It was my dad’s idea to get Amy adopted - you know, get rid of the shame. Archie on Ronnie: I can still hear her screaming and yelling at me. Archie to Ronnie: I seem to remember you spitting at me in the face. Archie on Ronnie: She was fourteen. She couldn’t bring up a kid. I tried to tell her she was just a baby herself. What could she give a child at her age? They were both better off without each other, surely. Archie to Ronnie: You weren’t old enough. Fourteen? You weren’t old enough to bring up a baby on your own. You’d have ruined your whole life. Roxy on Archie: He did the right thing. He decided that a fourteen year old wouldn’t have any sort of life. [Ronnie] and the baby would just be worse off. Peggy to Ronnie: Archie did what was best for you because you were too young to know what was best for you. Ronnie: Maybe it wasn’t Dad’s fault. It doesn’t matter how old I was, I’m the one who gave her away. Roxy to Ronnie: At the end of the day, you were too self-obsessed to care for your own child. You gave her away. Ronnie: The locket that I gave away with my baby, with Amy, I put a photo [of myself] inside. Danielle on the locket: I’ve had it since I was a baby. When she gave me away, she gave that too. Danielle on Ronnie: She rejected me when I was little, when I was a baby. Andy Jones, Danielle’s adoptive father: You were just some spoilt little kid who didn’t want her nights on the tiles to dry up. Ronnie: It wasn’t like that. There hasn’t been a moment when I haven’t regretted it. There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t longed to hold her. Ronnie: Losing a child was the most heartbreaking thing that ever happened to me. Archie: You did the right thing. You gave the baby away. You gave it a proper home. Ronnie: It’s that simple, is it? Do you know what it’s like to give away your own flesh and blood, eh? Hand her over, my little girl, to strangers, complete strangers? Archie: Then why did you do it? Ronnie: Because you made me. Archie: Did I? Did I hold the pen, force you to sign? No, it was your choice. Ronnie: But you told me it was the right thing to do. You told me that if I did it, everything would be OK. You promised me everything would be OK between me and you — no more fighting, no tears. Then after she’d gone, nothing. I got nothing from you. You just turned around, walked away. You left me to shrivel up and die. Archie: You made a choice, a bad choice. Ronnie: I was a kid. I was a teenager. What did I know? Archie: You knew how to break your father’s heart. Archie to Ronnie: You’re no match for me, girl. You never were. Yes, I did make you get rid of that kid. I did it to teach you a lesson once and for all. Archie to Ronnie: If you’d just admitted you were in the wrong — just one word, one little word — if you’d come to me, said you’re sorry, maybe all of this would have been OK. It’s not much to ask, is it, eh? Just a word, a simple little word, a mark of respect. Ronnie: [After] she was taken away from me, I was whisked back home like nothing had happened. I was devastated and I kept telling myself, “It’s all right, it’s all right because when you get back, Joel will be there.” And then I got back to school and he wasn’t. His parents had moved away and no-one could tell me where they’d gone. Ronnie to Joel: You moved away when I got pregnant. You didn’t say good-bye. Joel: I was all over the place. You know I was, but you ... I tried to ... well at least say good-bye. Joel to Ronnie: I would never have gone off my own back but everyone was ... well, you know what it was like. The whole thing was out of my hands. I didn’t have a choice. Ronnie: I loved you and you left me. Are you telling me that was down to my dad? Joel on Archie: He’s an intimidating bloke when you're fifteen. Archie to Joel: I made you go away. Ronnie: I couldn’t contact you. Joel: Yeah, but I wrote. Ronnie: No. Joel: Ron, I did write. Ronnie on Archie: There are a lot of things I don’t remember. Every single one of them down to him. Peggy: Look how you were then — your mum running off, you pregnant — I mean a lot of things get all jumbled up, especially when you’re only what? Fourteen? Ronnie: I wished him dead then. I never wanted anyone dead more. Archie: I met my match a long time ago, Veronica — you. I lost my child too because I lost you. Andy Jones on Danielle: This tiny beautiful perfect baby, the answer to our prayers. The day we brought her home, it was a Monday. The sun was shining. It was very hot, not a cloud in the sky. “A perfect day,” Lizzie said to me, “for our new beginning.” We carried our baby into her new home. She was fast asleep in her car seat. The day we’d been waiting for for such a long time. We shut the door behind us and Lizzie said to me, “We’re a family now. She’s part of us.” It felt so good, but Danielle was still asleep and we were at a bit of a loss at what to do next. So we put the kettle on and I was just pouring the tea when she woke up and we were running all over the house — bottles and nappies and clean clothes and nappy bags and muslins and more nappies and more clean clothes — but eventually we managed to work out what went where and Danielle had a full tummy and clean clothes with the poppers done up more or less right. And she was settled and Lizzie said to me, “Let’s show her her room” and we took her upstairs to her bedroom and we showed her the pictures we'd put up for her on the walls, and the soft toys piled up for her at the end of her cot, and Danielle looked at the teddy bear and we looked at Danielle and we were the happiest people on earth. And we played with her, peep-po with her teddy bear, and we told her we loved her, we loved her so very much, and we laid her down to sleep. Andy: My Dani was a sunny child, always laughing and smiling. [/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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An Oral History 1985-2015
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