New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 121077" data-attributes="member: 22">1997Pauline Fowler: You stole two thousand pound?Eddie Skinner: Yes.Pauline: Whatever for?Eddie: To get my Cheryl to Australia. It was her last wish — to see the family again before she died. The same day the doctor told me she didn't have long left, I went back to work. The cash box was lying there open. I thought it was fate, that that money was meant for me. I know I did wrong, Pauline, but I don't regret it. Cheryl died a happy woman surrounded by her family in Australia. Kerry [their daughter] was thirteen.Pauline: And you went to prison?Eddie: Yeah. Did eighteen months.Nick Cotton on Eddie: We called him The Nightwatchman in Brixton [Prison].Ashley Cotton: Why?Nick: It was the job he was supposed to be doing when he accidentally slipped the contents of the punter's safe into the back of his patrol van.Nancy Carter on Mick: For his birthday, Mum got them both Arsenal away tickets. She got them little matching West Ham scarves. He was proper happy about it.Johnny Carter: So they’ve showed up all claret and blue, they’ve gone and got their tickets from the box office. Only problem was that Mum had got them tickets in the home end.Nancy: So Dad sat there surrounded by Arsenal fans and Mum didn’t have a clue. She’s just having the time of her life!Johnny: They lost two-nil that day. The Arsenal fans made up this chant and Dad had to sit there and just suffer it.Alice Branning on pickled herring: My dad had it every year for his birthday.Pam Coker: Our Laurie used to like picked onions.Les Coker: Yeah. Could never understand it meself.Kirsty Branning: When I was Lauren’s age [nineteen], I was proper off the rails and I mean proper. There was a bloke, mates who weren’t mates, the usual.Carl White: Come on, you got to admit we had some cracking times.Kirsty: Yeah, and some horrible ones as well.Carl to Kirsty: We’ve been through a lot together over the years.Kirsty to Carl: You had your moments.Carl to Kirsty: You're the only person that ever got me.Carl to Kirsty: Me and you, we were never right together.Nora White, Carl’s mother: Everyone always said you two [Kirsty and Carl] would never last.Carl: Do you remember our first motor?Kirsty: How could I forget? I spent most of my time pushing it round the estate.Carl: I loved that car.Kirsty: It was a deathtrap.Carl: I can’t believe some chav nicked it.Kirsty: They didn’t. Me and your mum sent it to the knacker’s yard. And the worst thing was we had to pay them to take it off our hands.Carl: Good times though, eh?Kirsty: Yeah.Zainab Masood: This one time, Mas was driving us to Birmingham. Syed was sitting in the front. You [Syed] were how old — twelve?Masood: Twelve, going on thirty.Zainab: And I was sitting in the back with Shabnam. Tam was sitting on my lap. He was a slave to carsickness. [Syed] was in charge of map reading, shouting out directions like royal decrees, “Go straight! Turn left here! Turn right there!” And it wasn’t until we got to Bromsgrove that we realised he had the map upside down!Masood to Syed: Do you remember what you said?Syed: “I’m taking the scenic route.”Linda: Eurovision’s always been me and Johnny’s thing. 1997, Katrina and the Waves. Do you remember I let Johnny stay up and watch it?Mick: Remember it? Me and Nance had to go and watch “Match of the Day” in your mother’s bedroom. Mick: What was it Nan used to call you?Lee Carter: Tasmanian Devil.Tanya Branning: The girls was tiny for such a short space of time and I wished it away, didn’t I? And potty-training and sleeping through ...Max Branning to his daughter Abi: When you were a baby, your little eyes got gunked up with something. You couldn’t see. Your little arms were waving about.Tanya to Abi: Your dad was up all night putting drops in.Max: Abi had problems when she was growing up. She had, like, trouble catching her breath and that. Turns out it was an allergy. Me and Tanya found this clinic and they helped her out a lot.Lauren: [Abi’s] your favourite. Always has been. You’ve always preferred her to me, ain’t you?Max: Well, can you blame me, the way you behave?Lauren on Abi: She’s a daddy’s girl. She’s crazy about him. She always has been.Max: You know, when Abi was six months old, I come home one day, I found you trying to put her in the bin.Lauren: Was you angry?Max: No. Me and your mum soon got the message, didn’t we? Started to try and take you out more on your own, making a fuss of you.Derek Branning to Lauren: I remember the first time I come to see you. You must have been — what — three or four years old? Scrappy little thing sitting there with all the grownups, chirping in, making them all laugh. I thought, “That girl’s going to go far.” There you was, so full of promise.Charlie Slater on Stacey: Pretty little thing. Always was.Big Mo: Cheeky though.Jean to Stacey: You’re a fighter. If your dad gave you anything, it was that.Stacey: I used to have a goldfish when I was younger. Mind you, it did die.Jean: Most little girls dream of their wedding day, don’t they? Not Stacey. Eight years old she comes up to me, I’m elbow deep in washing up, and goes, “Mum, I’m joining the SAS.” Then it was rally car driver, clothes designer, makeup artist — you know, in the films and that — but mostly, an ice skater.Jean on Brian: He told me once he dreamt about walking you down the aisle. Said he saw it clear as day — the church, flowers.Stacey: You never said.Jean: It was years ago when you were little.Jean: I always thought I’d pass my engagement ring on to Stacey.Roxy Mitchell: When I was [nineteen], I thought I was going to meet Mr Perfect, get married, have a couple of kids somewhere down the line.Manda Best: I used to dream about a Marlon Brando type riding off into the sunset with me, sleeping under the stars, a slave to our passions, but then the excitement fades and you’re left with nothing but saddle sores.Jean on Stacey’s teddy bear: Do you remember how I used to make him talk? [adopts deep voice:] “Hello Stacey, Mr Bear here. Do you want to come and play today?”Stacey: I think I was about seven or eight. I was sitting in my room playing with my bear, Bashful. Mum was in the next room in bed [suffering with depression]. I wonder where Sean was? Anyway Dad said, “I’m going to the shops. Is there anything you want?” All of a sudden, out of nowhere, she was talking. “Take Stacey with you.” Dad went mad, he went completely mental and I couldn’t work it out. He just started shouting at her, “Why do you want me to take Stacey with me, eh? Why?” He was so angry and he wouldn’t give up until she answered and when she did it was almost a scream, “Because I want to smother myself.” And even though I was only little I remember thinking, “Well, how’s she going to do that? How’s she going to smother herself?” And then the next thing Dad was in my room and he said, “I’m going to the shops. Keep an eye on your mum.” That’s what I’ve been doing ever since, keeping an eye on my mum.Jean: Years ago, they used to keep people like me in asylums, out of sight.Stacey: When I was at school, these kids in the playground used to talk about this place called Claybury where all the nutters went. “If you’re mad you’d go to Claybury.”Charlie Slater: Claybury Hospital, yeah.Stacey: When I was little, I thought it was a made up place. I didn’t think it was real — like Narnia or Never Never Land, only it weren’t, it was a horrible place where the bogeyman lived and if you went in you never came out.Charlie: You’re not far wrong. It was one of those Victorian asylums out Essex way. They turned it into flats many years ago.Stacey: I come home from school one day and Mum weren’t there and I asked Dad where she was and he said, “She’s gone to Claybury”.Jean: That unit in Claybury — some of the people! All on their own, shouting.Jean: I can hardly remember Stacey growing up. I was in and out of hospitals so many times that whole years just passed me by. And when I wasn’t in hospital, it was Stacey who bunked off school to check I’d taken my tablets. What sort of life is that for a little girl?Jean on her children: In and out of hospital, how could I possibly show them right from wrong? Most days I could hardly get out of bed. I mean, how did either of them have even a ghost of chance with a mother like me?Ronnie Mitchell, speaking to Jean in 2010: I’ve seen you look at Stacey. My mum never looked at me like that — not once, never.Charlie to Stacey: Don’t think I don’t know how tough it was for you, love. You were a brave little girl.Stacey to Charlie: Do you remember when I was little, that picnic we went on? You brought Zoe over in the cab with Aunty Viv and we all went to Epping Forest. It was a great day. We had sausage rolls and ginger beer and we played shuttlecock. It was the best day of my life.Stacey: Do you remember when you were a kid and you laughed so hard you almost wet yourself?Stacey: I always liked Lynne best [of the Slater sisters]. She used to babysit me. She was mouthy as hell, but we had such a laugh.Stacey: I remember hoping that something would happen to Mum so I could come and live with Lynne.Charlie, speaking in 2007: The suit was made to measure. It’s bespoke.Big Mo: Yeah, ten years ago. Since then, you’ve had a lot of kebabs under your belt.Belinda: When I said I was engaged to Neville, Kat put the boot in. She was jealous, but of course she didn't say that.Zoe: What did she say?Belinda: Too young, inappropriate match, yada yada yada.Belinda: I got married too early, took off, became someone I probably shouldn't have.Lynne: We thought that's what you wanted.Belinda: Why didn't you and the rest of the family try to stop me? I'll tell you why, shall I? The Slaters all make this big show about being one big happy family, but really you're all out for yourselves, too busy getting excited about all that money to care about me.Lynne: You make it sound like we wanted to get rid of you.Belinda: That's what it felt like.Belinda: You [made me a] little offer on our wedding day. You had a very novel suggestion for a wedding present, I seem to remember.Garry Hobbs: Yeah, er, I was joking.Lynne, speaking to Garry in 2002: The way you hurt me going after anything with a pulse for the last seven years. All I ever wanted was a bit of commitment, somebody I could start a family with. Instead I got an overactive dog on heat.Garry to Stacey: I ain't seen you since you were about nine.Robbie Jackson: Why didn't you ever try and get in touch with me?Gary Bolton, Robbie’s father: I remember working out the year you turned eighteen, then spent the next twelve months convinced you'd turn up. I had a speech all worked out. Then two months after your eighteenth birthday, I called your granddad up asking for your mum's number. He wouldn't give it to me. A couple of days later, your mum calls up. She said you were happy now and you had a new dad, that I was to stay away. I didn't want to cause any trouble, upset her or you.Louise Raymond to Tiffany: For years I never had the courage to tell my friends I had kids, I felt so guilty for leaving you. What would they have thought of me? "A woman who abandoned her kids? She must be a heartless cow." By the time I'd got myself together, you'd got married. A new start. I didn't know whether to come or not.Louise to Simon: Why do you think I stayed out of your lives for so long? Because I knew you'd be better off without me.Sam James: Why do you think I never had any more kids? I knew I didn’t deserve them. The same reason why I never got married. Every woman reminded me of what I left behind.Ava Hartman: So why didn’t you just come home?Sam: The further I ran, the harder it got to come back.Lucas Johnson to Chelsea: I spent all those years wondering where you were, how you were, what you were thinking. For twenty years, it felt like there was a bit of me missing.Shirley Carter, showing Carly two photos in a locket in 2007: That’s you and Dean and Jimbo, my babies. I’ve kept it with me the whole time. I kept you right here [her heart]. You were with me right here. We’ve not been apart, not once been apart.Irene Hills: I wanted to get in touch for so long. I thought — I hoped — you'd be pleased to see me.Tony Hills: Well you were wrong. I never wanted you back. Not one day went by when I missed you at all.Rose Cotton to Dot: You don’t know how many times I wanted to pick up the phone to you — you know, silly little things with no one to tell, like Mum’s bread and butter pudding and how we loved it. I’ve made mistakes, plenty of them. Who hasn’t?Julie Perkins to Billy Mitchell: The more years that went by, the more I thought you’d never forgive me [for giving their son up for adoption]. I think that’s what stopped me from trying to find you.Ronnie on her daughter: Years went by and no one spoke about it. Didn’t stop me wondering where she was though, if she was OK.Joel Reynolds on his and Ronnie’s daughter: I didn’t really think about her that much over the years.Ronnie on Joel: I didn’t stop thinking about him, not really.Danielle Jones: My mum reckoned they couldn’t help being selfish, men. That’s how they’re made. Gareth, my brother, used to get away with all sorts.Ronnie: She sounds old-fashioned.Danielle: Yeah. She was kind though.Andy Jones on Danielle: She had the softest, kindest heart. I think she must have got that from Lizzie [her adoptive mother].Ronnie to Archie: Sometimes I’ll be on the street and I’ll see a young girl or a teenager and I’ll think, “That’s her. That’s my Amy.” I even followed one once. How crazy does that make me? You did that to me. That was your fault. These are not the actions of a good father.Archie: Roxy’s been telling me for years how much Ronnie hates me.Roxy: I feel like I’ve spent most of my adult life splitting my loyalties [between Archie and Ronnie].Archie on Roxy: I saw her on and off of course, but it was never enough. It always seemed like she was leaving the minute she arrived. I needed her. I admit it. I really did. I had this stupid little fantasy that the way to get them [Roxy and Ronnie] to come to me, to be here, was to be ill, on my deathbed, and they’d be here with me and I’d hold their hands and they’d love me and I’d love them and I’d die a happy man. My wish came true. I found out I had cancer. I was petrified. I thought it was God playing some cruel joke on me — be careful what you wish for and all that. The girls never knew. When it came down to it, I realised that wasn’t the way to get [Ronnie] back. She’d be holding me hand because she thought she should, not because she wanted to, so I wouldn’t have died a happy man anyway. I beat it, Peggy. I went away, I cut myself off from everybody, I had treatment, therapy, you name it, but what kept me going through the whole thing was this thought, this image of me holding Ronnie’s hand.Archie on having an MRI scan: They put you inside a great big tube, strap your head down. You go crazy inside one of those things.Ronnie on Archie: He had chemotherapy, loads of it. He couldn’t have any more kids.Kevin Wicks: I gave my kids the chat [about the facts of life] about that age [eleven].Simon Raymond to Tiffany: [Terry] fell down a flight of stairs. The nurse said he was crying, begging for us to go down there.Irene Hills on her house: Repossessed. I fell behind with the payments. I lost my place. Everything I had was tied up there.Sarah Hills: What about Granddad? couldn't he have helped?Irene: No, he stopped giving me handouts ages ago.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?