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An Oral History 1985-2015
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<blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 121741" data-attributes="member: 22"><p><span style="font-size: 18px"><u>2004</u></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie Cotton, Jr, speaking in 2014: Been here [London] the last ten years.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack Branning: It was a case in Manchester — serial rapist. He’d drug girls in the club before he’d take them home. Five times, he’d been tried. Five times, the same scummy lawyer got him off. You see, what we needed was a confession. After he’d raped his sixth victim, they gave him to me. I got him to confess. Twenty years, he got. It’s called the Devil’s Bargain — you do what’s necessary, not what’s right.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michael Moon: You don’t know what Jack was like when he was Old Bill. He was crooked, he was completely bent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Max Branning to Jack: You made a fortune through corruption.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: Kenny Nelson — he was a drug dealer. We’re talking major league — you know, importing, exporting. Escobar of Essex they called him. The Met had been after him for years. He was running smack down the A12. Me and my partner Jonno, we were so far in his pocket he had us by the balls.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya Branning: You were bent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: It was supposed to have been a one off, a bit of easy money, but one thing led to another.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya: You were meant to be the good guy. You were meant to protect kids like my sister from scum like him, not take a bung so he can carry on dealing out the smack. It’s lowlife like him, they destroy lives. They lounge about in their Chingford mansions while kids like my Rainie, they’re nicking off their own families so they can get their hands on some gear and ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: I know what it’s like.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya: It didn't stop you, did it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: By the time I wanted out it was too late.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack on Kenny Nelson: Me and Jonno, we tried to keep him out the nick as long as we could, but there was this raid. I couldn’t tip him off in time. He got taken down in front of his kid and he blamed me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack on Kenny: I was the one that got him. I sent him down for twelve years. There was a load of press, a load of kudos. Oh, and I made sure everybody knew he was my body.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Newspaper cuttings collected by Jack: “Local Drug Dealer Jailed For 12 Years”, “Police Arrest Drugs Baron”, “Drugs Villain Put Behind Bars”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Newspaper headline about Jack: “HERO COPPER WINS TOP AWARD”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: We were at the station when the news came in. One of the lads went out and got beer because they were celebrating. That’s when I got the call. Selina and Penny were at the bus stop. A car mounts the pavement, mows them both down. Penny was eight. It was one of Nelson’s crew. They just drove right into them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Police Incident Report dated 21/03/04: “At approximately 13:34 on 21/03/04 Mrs Selina Branning (Mother) and Penny Branning (Daughter) were waiting at a Bus Stop near the corner of Wellington Street and Trent Avenue. When a Dark Blue car that was travelling north along Wellington Street from the direction of the Park Mounted the pavement and first hitting a Rubbish Bin that was next to the Bus Stop, drove at approximately 40 mph into both Mrs Selina Branning and Penny Branning. With Penny Branning taking the main force of the impact. Penny rolled up the bonnet of the vehicle, bounced off of the windscreen, and over the left hand side of the vehicle. Selina Branning was knocked sideways by the impact, falling into the bus shelter. There were no witnesses at the bus stop, or in the immediate vicinity of the incident. A passing driver (Mr T Davis) was the only person to see the incident. Mr Davis dialled 999 and reported the incident.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Newspaper cuttings collected by Jack: “Hit And Run Driver Injures Copper’s Kid”, “Police Officer’s Tragedy - Wife and Daughter Injured in Hit and Run Accident”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: It was some scrote who owed Nelson big time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie Mitchell: It was on Nelson’s orders?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: Yeah. Didn’t he make sure I knew it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: Selina got hurt. She broke her arm, fractured her collarbone. But Penny, she severed her spine.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Penny Branning: I wanted to be a dancer, but then after the accident ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack on Penny: She won’t walk again. Me and Selina, we stayed together at first — you know, just getting through it, day by day, but I’d catch her watching me. She’d be looking at me. I knew that weren’t love in her eyes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ronnie: She can’t blame you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: No, if I’d nicked Nelson, stood back, kept quiet — but no, Jack Branning, he can’t. He has to rub his nose in it, doesn’t he?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: I pulled Penny into my world back then. She paid the price for it. At least back then there was some twisted logic to what I was doing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack on Nelson: He was crazy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya on Nelson: What happened to him?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: He’s still in the nick, if that’s what you mean.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya: Because of what happened to Penny?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: No. We couldn’t prove any of that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya: So he just got away with it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: Not exactly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Derek Branning to Jack: What did I teach you [about revenge]? Take your time and do it properly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: Have you got any idea of the sort of people I’ve come up against? People who could hit back.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Janine Butcher: So you’ve actually got rid of people, not just had them banged up?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: Don’t you think I’ve done a lot worse?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Derek to Jack on having someone beaten up: You know how these things work because you’ve done them yourself, haven’t you, eh — worse, in fact, Detective Inspector.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: Yeah, I’ve done it to people who deserved it, lowlife scum.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Derek: I know how to dump a body, believe you me, Max — and your brother [does]. Ain’t that right, Jack?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: I was a dirty cop, remember? And that ain’t just a phrase, it’s a way of life and it involves doing unpleasant things - unpleasant, violent things. I turned my back on that after Penny. After what happened I said, “Enough’s enough”.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby Allen on Johnny: All those years he was doing these things, he was coming home nights with a smile on his face like he’d been posting letters or delivering milk, and me and Scarlet, we never knew and we loved him so much.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Selina Branning: What happened to Penny, it didn’t change [how we felt] - me loving you, you loving me, did it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: No.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Selina: It would have been better if it had.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: I went on a school trip to Paris. I got [my boots] there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mr Greely, Ruby’s teacher: You were studying for eleven GCSEs. Your predicted results were very good.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot Branning: My poor dear Bradley, he buckled down. He got himself some O levels and landed himself a job in the bank.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Bradley: I often thought I could have gone to university, something like that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Zainab: Last time [Masood cooked Lamb Karai] my jaw ached for days.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Amira Shah: I never really was much of a cook. Never had to be.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Zainab on Masood: He just asked [his] parents to stay. He didn’t even consult me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tamwar: Yeah, and they stayed with us for months.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Mum and Dad were married for twenty-three years. She was only forty-two when she died.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Just before Scarlet died, we went on holiday. We all got on so well. It’s like we knew it was our last time together as a whole family. Everything was so normal back then. It was just an illusion.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Scarlet had a boyfriend. You'd grounded her for being lairy and she wanted to see him so we swapped [bedrooms] so she could get in and out of the house without having to pass yours and Mum's room so she could see her boyfriend without you knowing. If you'd gone in her room to check, I'd be in there asleep and you'd think it was her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: I didn't know she had a boyfriend.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: She didn't tell you everything.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby to Johnny: I had an elder sister who talked of nothing else [but sex]. Maybe not in front of you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: There were only three things in this whole world that were really precious to me — one was my wife and and the other two were my daughters.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby on Johnny: He loved them, my sister and my mum, he loved them to bits.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jordan Johnson: I always wanted a big sister.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Amira Shah: I always wanted a baby brother.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Mum died in March.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Mum and Scarlet were killed. They were killed because someone set fire to our house when we were asleep.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: You always loved Scarlet the most.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: You don't prefer one of your kids above the other. You don't choose between them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: You did. It was her room you came to when the house was on fire. It was her you came to get. That's a choice. That's real. You don't have time to think. You go on instinct. It was her you came to get and not me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: I remember it all. The room, it was full of smoke. And not being able to breathe and being dragged out of bed and having something put over me, a coat or something.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: I didn't want her hair to catch fire.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: And being carried out into the garden, and I could hear you saying, "It's all right, Scarlet. I've got you, darling." And when you pulled back that coat and saw it was me — the look on your face, Dad, the disappointment.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: No.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: You didn't even ask why I was in her room, why we'd swapped. You must have wanted to know, but you couldn't have asked without giving it away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: Giving what away?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: That you loved her more than me, that it was her you wanted with you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny to Ruby: No, no, no. I didn't even think about it. I thought your mum was going to save you. I just did what I thought made sense at the time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby to Johnny: And then you looked back at the house and it was like you were thinking, "Can I go back and get the right one?" But you were too late and you walked away from me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby to Johnny: I’m the one you saved, but I'm not the one you wanted.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Me and my dad got out, but my mum and sister didn't. All of the upstairs and most of the downstairs [was on fire], and me and my dad in the garden, and the roof falling in and loads of firemen everywhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: I couldn't go back [inside the house]. The fire was ... everything was alight. I know what it's like to stand there, utterly helpless.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: Dads protect their children, they look after them. And when [Scarlet] needed me the most, I wasn't there for her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tina Stewart: What happened wasn't your fault, you know.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: I failed to keep the people I loved safe. I deserve what I got.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: The fire that killed Stephanie and Scarlet, it was started deliberately. It was an attack against me. They died because of me, because of the life that I lead. They paid for my sins with their lives.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Peggy Mitchell on Johnny: That was his life. That’s who he was. It was only a matter of time before someone took revenge.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Someone hated us that much that they'd set fire to our house and want to kill us. People were talking, people who were around afterwards. That's the thing about me, people don't really notice I'm there so they say things in front of me — about the fire, why it happened.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: What things?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Business rivals, that's what they said.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: My mum died. Everything changes, doesn't it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: Yeah.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Ever since Mum and Scarlet died, I suppose my dad's way of coping is shutting down.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby on Johnny: Straight after it happened, he disappeared for a whole week. He dumped me at my aunty's and he left me there for a whole week.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tina: He didn't know what he was doing. He was broken. He couldn't bear for you to see him like that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tina to Johnny: When you didn't think you could get through it, when you didn't know who you were going to turn to, how you were going to cope, who did you come to?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby on Johnny: The next time I saw him was at the funeral.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tina on Johnny: It took everything he had just to get to the funeral.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby on Scarlet’s boyfriend: He was at the funeral.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: I didn't notice. I didn't notice much of anything — just two holes dug in the ground, that was all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: You didn't even notice me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: That's not true.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby on Johnny: Straight after the funeral, he sent me to boarding school like nothing had happened. He sent me away because he couldn't bear to talk about it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tina: You should never have been sent away like that. I told him not to send you away. I told him to keep you close.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: Why did you send me away?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: Because you needed looking after. You needed security, stability, routine to get you back to normal. I did what was right for you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny on Ruby's school: Cost me a fortune to send you there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: I was sent off to school because “it'll be better for me.” Dad carries on living in what's left of the house. It was being rebuilt.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: The fire destroyed everything I had. It took away the people I loved and it ripped the family apart, but you know one of the worst things? It stole my memories. I don't mean up here [in his head]. I mean things — all the stuff that you collect over the years. You look at them every day and then one day you look at them and it's twenty or thirty years ago, but you remember some things so clearly. I lost all that in the fire too.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: I lost my diaries, six years' worth.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: No, I mean everything, darling — all the stuff that we'd saved mapping out yours and Scarlet's lives over the years — your first shoes, things you used to make at school, your little drawings.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby to Johnny: When I was at school, I was so scared that they [the people who set fire to the house] were going to come back, come back and get you and then come and get me. The police never got anyone for it. They got away with it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: You do something like that, you don't get away with it — ever. What goes around comes around.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: I want them to suffer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: They did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby on Johnny: That’s why he was so keen to send me away to school — to stop me finding out about [his criminal activities].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack Branning: Doing the job I did, it puts a strain on a relationship. There’s no denying that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: We couldn’t get past [what happened to Penny].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: When things went wrong between me and Selina, there was a lot of unfinished business, a lot of arguing, and that wasn't good for any of us, least of all Penny, so I agreed to her terms and I kept my distance.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Phil to Jack: You walked out and left your own kid.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack on Penny: I did a horrible job of bringing her up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack: I messed up being a dad.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Extract from a letter to Jack: "Dear Mr Branning ... You will need to start paying maintenance payments ... backdated from the beginning of your separation ... 12th June 2004."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby on sleepwalking: I used to do it all the time at school. Everyone took the mick - "Zombie Allen".</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: I had enough of people thinking I'm screwed up at school.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny on Ruby's school: It was safe there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: I hated it there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mr Greely, speaking about Ruby’s grades in 2005: Over the past year, they dropped quite dramatically. Quite understandable, given the circumstances.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Patrick Trueman: You did a bit of Spanish at school, didn’t you, Chelsea?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Chelsea Fox: Yeah.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Chelsea: I got a diploma in waxing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Derek Branning: Good at school, were you?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Anthony Moon: Did all right, yeah.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie Slater, reading Danielle Jones’ music certificate: “Grade 4 clarinet.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tamwar Masood on Syed: A-Level in maths, physics, chemistry, biology, further maths.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Zainab Masood: I was so proud when Syed got into university.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Syed: Ishfaq from university, we used to share a house. I introduced Ish to his wife.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Syed: That degree in economics does come in handy every now and again.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tamwar: The Year 9 disco. Major anticipation, loads of spade work and then the crucial moment — and Johnno Ship is giving Annie with the hair his fizzy bubble gum. I blame Mum for Year 9, for the bad jumper and the plaster on the glasses and standing outside the hall window knocking all night.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tamwar: I will always be the one with the crap glasses and the bad jumper in Year sodding 9.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tamwar: I actually got an award for full attendance at school.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tamwar: I don’t like football. I never have.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tamwar to Masood: I always thought that you managed to walk that line between the two worlds. I thought that you were the one person who understood what it was like growing up a Muslim in a non-Muslim society, understanding that for a woman to be pure, she doesn’t have to wear the hijab, she doesn’t have to avert her eyes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ava Hartman: You know when people say they’re married to their job? Mine [as a head teacher] came with hundreds and hundreds of children.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: My mate Kaley's dad moved this woman in for a bit and suddenly she's being forced to wear pink and tidy her own room.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ruby: So?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: Kaley's a goth. You ever seen a goth in a clean room with a pink dress?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: A mate of mine, she got pregnant at fifteen. Then she got married at sixteen. She had a great big belly out here. She wore red. That's not a good idea.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey on her sexual history: A couple of embarrassing fumbles with the first bloke that said I was special.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Bradley: I’ve done it loads of times. Well, five. None of them were great. See, up here [points to his his head], tiger — but in reality, catastrophic. Furniture gets broken, but not in a good way. I once put my elbow in a girl’s eye.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: What, on purpose?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Bradley: No, accident. I wouldn’t do a thing like that on purpose, would I? Laura Mulvey - she had a shiner for weeks.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: You might not have done it much before, but I have — loads.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kim Fox on her sexual history: Five guys my whole life — Christopher Stirk at school, Dexter, Costas in Magaluf, Costas’ brother, Dexter again so that don’t count, and Lewis. I’m, like, five drunken flings away from being a nun.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean on Stacey: Always hid her boys from me, she did. Always sneaking them in, sneaking them out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: No, I never.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: I’ve never done it with anyone who really mattered.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Bradley: It’s not as if I’ve ever done it with anyone who really mattered either.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: I’ve never told any boy that I love them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean: You ain’t ever loved, have you, Stacey? You ain’t never had no one want you — really, really want you, have you, Stacey?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Chelsea: I wish I’d waited for someone special. Your first time is special because it’s your first time, but it’s hardly ever your best. Besides, it’s the practising afterwards — now that’s the fun bit.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Bradley: Dad hasn’t exactly been a saint since he’s been with Tanya.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya to Max: My slate’s always been clean. It’s yours that got grubby.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya: This life, this home, this marriage that I left you and Mum for, ain’t always been what you think it is.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Rainie Cross: You mean he’s cheated on you?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya: Just a bit!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya to Lauren: I brought you up to tell the truth, you and Abs, to be open and honest because most of the time, that is the right way. Most of the time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya to Max: Lauren has been in the middle [of our relationship] since she was ten years old. Since she saw you with that woman, with that first woman.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Lauren to Max: That girl — what was her name? Remember? The one I saw you with when I was ten and you first cheated on Mum. I remember her and you together, Mum’s face when I told her what I saw. Why has it always got to be me that knows — that knows your little secrets, that knows what you’re really like?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya on Lauren: Since she came to me, her mum, pulling on my dress, trying to get my attention, and told me, she has been in the middle and she’s the one that got hurt.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Lauren to Max and Tanya: I have had to listen to you two just taking lumps out of each other my whole life, since I was little.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Lauren: When I was little, I had a friend called Mandy and I used to go round her house all the time and her mum and dad were just great, so normal, and I used to say to myself, “Why am I so unlucky? Why can’t I have a mum and dad that are normal?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tanya on Lauren: I did not raise my daughter to sit on her backside whinging when life gets hard.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Cora to Lauren: You never went to Sunday school, did you?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey, speaking in November 2004: Do you like this top I'm wearing? I bought it last week and I wore it to the pub. I was only drinking orange juice. Ben, this boy down the street, he was there with a bunch of his mates. He starts laughing and he looks at me and he says, "What does she think she looks like?" And then they all joined in, all of them laughing at me. It was horrible.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: We’ve been here before, haven’t we? You stick [your tablets] under your tongue and as soon as I turn around, you spit them out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean: They don’t make no difference, Stacey.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey: You always say that, but they do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean on drugs: Never tried them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carly to Dean: You’ve never smoked.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey, speaking in November 2004: Mum's completely lost the plot. She's off her cake at the best of times, but I ain't never seen her that bad before. The way she was kicking and screaming, it wouldn't surprise me if they'd put her in some padded cell by now. They've carted her off to hospital, ain't they?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey, speaking to Jean in 2005: What you blaming your disability on this time, eh Mum? China dolls? Maps of Norfolk? Cupboard full of broom handles again, is it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Stacey to Charlie: You're the first person I thought of when social services asked me if there's anyone I could stay with.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jean to Stacey: The sacrifices I made for you and you just went off and left me. What did I do, eh? What did I ever do except give up everything — everything?!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Tina Stewart, speaking in April 2005: We [herself and Johnny] have been pussyfooting around his daughter for the past six months.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jake Moon: I hate salsa. It reminds me of dingy basement clubs in Manchester with no windows and luminous green geckos painted on the walls.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny Allen to Jake and Danny: You were doing a simple job for me — deliver a package. Next thing I know, I've got these people in my face wanting to know where their money is and I'm stood there without a clue what anyone's talking about.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Danny Moon on a bag he picked up: It was just there and - it was just there. They didn't look like they knew what they were doing so I just ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jake: So what — you just took it? What were you planning to say when they came and found us, "Oh, sorry I nicked your drugs, but I thought you wouldn't mind"?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Danny: I thought it was just money.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Johnny: You should have come straight to me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jake: I know. We weren't thinking. We were out of order.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Danny, speaking in November 2004: I haven't eaten since Manchester.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam Coker: I used to have a career. I was a hospital social worker and I loved it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam on her son: Laurie loved children. He gave up the funeral business to become a teacher. He would have been a great teacher, but his health was …</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Emma Summerhayes: So Laurie fell ill then?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam: He was very ill. He wanted to go before the end and that’s what happened. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Emma: He killed himself?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam: Yes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam, speaking in November 2014: Our son Laurie died ten years ago this week.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam to Les: We always said no-one must find out what I did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam: Some people thought I might have helped him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Emma: And did you? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam: No. There was an investigation, questions. I loved my job but what with all the suspicion and the rumours, I gave it up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam: I got sick of it all so I quit and I’ve always regretted it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: I shaved a mate’s hair off once. Well, when I say “mate”, I kind of mean, “girlfriend”. It’s not my proudest moment, alright? I was seventeen and in my defence, I was very drunk. And she cheated on me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kevin on a Wicks’ New Year tradition: "Drinks Around The World.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carly: From Christmas Island to Hawaii.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: The idea is that we start ten o’clock in the morning, New Year’s Eve.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carly: And then drink a toast every time the clock hits twelve somewhere different in the world.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: The idea is that we try and beat last year’s record.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Denise: So what’s the record then — the furthest you’ve made it around the world?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kevin: I think I made it to the Eastern Seaboard once.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: Yeah, right!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kevin: Well, what would you know? You were hanging out the window shouting, “To infinity and beyond.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: You passed out somewhere mid-Atlantic.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kevin: Did I?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Denise: So you get pretty drunk then?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kevin: No, no we don’t go over the top.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dean: Absolutely ratted.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather on herself and Shirley: We always see in New Year. It’s tradition.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carl White to Kirsty: Brighton beach, New Year’s Eve, huddled together, bells ringing, people shouting, fireworks going off, but all I could see was you. I didn’t feel the cold.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James from London, post: 121741, member: 22"] [SIZE=5][U]2004[/U] Charlie Cotton, Jr, speaking in 2014: Been here [London] the last ten years. Jack Branning: It was a case in Manchester — serial rapist. He’d drug girls in the club before he’d take them home. Five times, he’d been tried. Five times, the same scummy lawyer got him off. You see, what we needed was a confession. After he’d raped his sixth victim, they gave him to me. I got him to confess. Twenty years, he got. It’s called the Devil’s Bargain — you do what’s necessary, not what’s right. Michael Moon: You don’t know what Jack was like when he was Old Bill. He was crooked, he was completely bent. Max Branning to Jack: You made a fortune through corruption. Jack: Kenny Nelson — he was a drug dealer. We’re talking major league — you know, importing, exporting. Escobar of Essex they called him. The Met had been after him for years. He was running smack down the A12. Me and my partner Jonno, we were so far in his pocket he had us by the balls. Tanya Branning: You were bent. Jack: It was supposed to have been a one off, a bit of easy money, but one thing led to another. Tanya: You were meant to be the good guy. You were meant to protect kids like my sister from scum like him, not take a bung so he can carry on dealing out the smack. It’s lowlife like him, they destroy lives. They lounge about in their Chingford mansions while kids like my Rainie, they’re nicking off their own families so they can get their hands on some gear and ... Jack: I know what it’s like. Tanya: It didn't stop you, did it? Jack: By the time I wanted out it was too late. Jack on Kenny Nelson: Me and Jonno, we tried to keep him out the nick as long as we could, but there was this raid. I couldn’t tip him off in time. He got taken down in front of his kid and he blamed me. Jack on Kenny: I was the one that got him. I sent him down for twelve years. There was a load of press, a load of kudos. Oh, and I made sure everybody knew he was my body. Newspaper cuttings collected by Jack: “Local Drug Dealer Jailed For 12 Years”, “Police Arrest Drugs Baron”, “Drugs Villain Put Behind Bars” Newspaper headline about Jack: “HERO COPPER WINS TOP AWARD” Jack: We were at the station when the news came in. One of the lads went out and got beer because they were celebrating. That’s when I got the call. Selina and Penny were at the bus stop. A car mounts the pavement, mows them both down. Penny was eight. It was one of Nelson’s crew. They just drove right into them. Police Incident Report dated 21/03/04: “At approximately 13:34 on 21/03/04 Mrs Selina Branning (Mother) and Penny Branning (Daughter) were waiting at a Bus Stop near the corner of Wellington Street and Trent Avenue. When a Dark Blue car that was travelling north along Wellington Street from the direction of the Park Mounted the pavement and first hitting a Rubbish Bin that was next to the Bus Stop, drove at approximately 40 mph into both Mrs Selina Branning and Penny Branning. With Penny Branning taking the main force of the impact. Penny rolled up the bonnet of the vehicle, bounced off of the windscreen, and over the left hand side of the vehicle. Selina Branning was knocked sideways by the impact, falling into the bus shelter. There were no witnesses at the bus stop, or in the immediate vicinity of the incident. A passing driver (Mr T Davis) was the only person to see the incident. Mr Davis dialled 999 and reported the incident.” Newspaper cuttings collected by Jack: “Hit And Run Driver Injures Copper’s Kid”, “Police Officer’s Tragedy - Wife and Daughter Injured in Hit and Run Accident” Jack: It was some scrote who owed Nelson big time. Ronnie Mitchell: It was on Nelson’s orders? Jack: Yeah. Didn’t he make sure I knew it? Jack: Selina got hurt. She broke her arm, fractured her collarbone. But Penny, she severed her spine. Penny Branning: I wanted to be a dancer, but then after the accident ... Jack on Penny: She won’t walk again. Me and Selina, we stayed together at first — you know, just getting through it, day by day, but I’d catch her watching me. She’d be looking at me. I knew that weren’t love in her eyes. Ronnie: She can’t blame you. Jack: No, if I’d nicked Nelson, stood back, kept quiet — but no, Jack Branning, he can’t. He has to rub his nose in it, doesn’t he? Jack: I pulled Penny into my world back then. She paid the price for it. At least back then there was some twisted logic to what I was doing. Jack on Nelson: He was crazy. Tanya on Nelson: What happened to him? Jack: He’s still in the nick, if that’s what you mean. Tanya: Because of what happened to Penny? Jack: No. We couldn’t prove any of that. Tanya: So he just got away with it? Jack: Not exactly. Derek Branning to Jack: What did I teach you [about revenge]? Take your time and do it properly. Jack: Have you got any idea of the sort of people I’ve come up against? People who could hit back. Janine Butcher: So you’ve actually got rid of people, not just had them banged up? Jack: Don’t you think I’ve done a lot worse? Derek to Jack on having someone beaten up: You know how these things work because you’ve done them yourself, haven’t you, eh — worse, in fact, Detective Inspector. Jack: Yeah, I’ve done it to people who deserved it, lowlife scum. Derek: I know how to dump a body, believe you me, Max — and your brother [does]. Ain’t that right, Jack? Jack: I was a dirty cop, remember? And that ain’t just a phrase, it’s a way of life and it involves doing unpleasant things - unpleasant, violent things. I turned my back on that after Penny. After what happened I said, “Enough’s enough”. Ruby Allen on Johnny: All those years he was doing these things, he was coming home nights with a smile on his face like he’d been posting letters or delivering milk, and me and Scarlet, we never knew and we loved him so much. Selina Branning: What happened to Penny, it didn’t change [how we felt] - me loving you, you loving me, did it? Jack: No. Selina: It would have been better if it had. Ruby: I went on a school trip to Paris. I got [my boots] there. Mr Greely, Ruby’s teacher: You were studying for eleven GCSEs. Your predicted results were very good. Dot Branning: My poor dear Bradley, he buckled down. He got himself some O levels and landed himself a job in the bank. Bradley: I often thought I could have gone to university, something like that. Zainab: Last time [Masood cooked Lamb Karai] my jaw ached for days. Amira Shah: I never really was much of a cook. Never had to be. Zainab on Masood: He just asked [his] parents to stay. He didn’t even consult me. Tamwar: Yeah, and they stayed with us for months. Ruby: Mum and Dad were married for twenty-three years. She was only forty-two when she died. Ruby: Just before Scarlet died, we went on holiday. We all got on so well. It’s like we knew it was our last time together as a whole family. Everything was so normal back then. It was just an illusion. Ruby: Scarlet had a boyfriend. You'd grounded her for being lairy and she wanted to see him so we swapped [bedrooms] so she could get in and out of the house without having to pass yours and Mum's room so she could see her boyfriend without you knowing. If you'd gone in her room to check, I'd be in there asleep and you'd think it was her. Johnny: I didn't know she had a boyfriend. Ruby: She didn't tell you everything. Ruby to Johnny: I had an elder sister who talked of nothing else [but sex]. Maybe not in front of you. Johnny: There were only three things in this whole world that were really precious to me — one was my wife and and the other two were my daughters. Ruby on Johnny: He loved them, my sister and my mum, he loved them to bits. Jordan Johnson: I always wanted a big sister. Amira Shah: I always wanted a baby brother. Ruby: Mum died in March. Ruby: Mum and Scarlet were killed. They were killed because someone set fire to our house when we were asleep. Ruby: You always loved Scarlet the most. Johnny: You don't prefer one of your kids above the other. You don't choose between them. Ruby: You did. It was her room you came to when the house was on fire. It was her you came to get. That's a choice. That's real. You don't have time to think. You go on instinct. It was her you came to get and not me. Ruby: I remember it all. The room, it was full of smoke. And not being able to breathe and being dragged out of bed and having something put over me, a coat or something. Johnny: I didn't want her hair to catch fire. Ruby: And being carried out into the garden, and I could hear you saying, "It's all right, Scarlet. I've got you, darling." And when you pulled back that coat and saw it was me — the look on your face, Dad, the disappointment. Johnny: No. Ruby: You didn't even ask why I was in her room, why we'd swapped. You must have wanted to know, but you couldn't have asked without giving it away. Johnny: Giving what away? Ruby: That you loved her more than me, that it was her you wanted with you. Johnny to Ruby: No, no, no. I didn't even think about it. I thought your mum was going to save you. I just did what I thought made sense at the time. Ruby to Johnny: And then you looked back at the house and it was like you were thinking, "Can I go back and get the right one?" But you were too late and you walked away from me. Ruby to Johnny: I’m the one you saved, but I'm not the one you wanted. Ruby: Me and my dad got out, but my mum and sister didn't. All of the upstairs and most of the downstairs [was on fire], and me and my dad in the garden, and the roof falling in and loads of firemen everywhere. Johnny: I couldn't go back [inside the house]. The fire was ... everything was alight. I know what it's like to stand there, utterly helpless. Johnny: Dads protect their children, they look after them. And when [Scarlet] needed me the most, I wasn't there for her. Tina Stewart: What happened wasn't your fault, you know. Johnny: I failed to keep the people I loved safe. I deserve what I got. Johnny: The fire that killed Stephanie and Scarlet, it was started deliberately. It was an attack against me. They died because of me, because of the life that I lead. They paid for my sins with their lives. Peggy Mitchell on Johnny: That was his life. That’s who he was. It was only a matter of time before someone took revenge. Ruby: Someone hated us that much that they'd set fire to our house and want to kill us. People were talking, people who were around afterwards. That's the thing about me, people don't really notice I'm there so they say things in front of me — about the fire, why it happened. Johnny: What things? Ruby: Business rivals, that's what they said. Ruby: My mum died. Everything changes, doesn't it? Stacey: Yeah. Ruby: Ever since Mum and Scarlet died, I suppose my dad's way of coping is shutting down. Ruby on Johnny: Straight after it happened, he disappeared for a whole week. He dumped me at my aunty's and he left me there for a whole week. Tina: He didn't know what he was doing. He was broken. He couldn't bear for you to see him like that. Tina to Johnny: When you didn't think you could get through it, when you didn't know who you were going to turn to, how you were going to cope, who did you come to? Ruby on Johnny: The next time I saw him was at the funeral. Tina on Johnny: It took everything he had just to get to the funeral. Ruby on Scarlet’s boyfriend: He was at the funeral. Johnny: I didn't notice. I didn't notice much of anything — just two holes dug in the ground, that was all. Ruby: You didn't even notice me. Johnny: That's not true. Ruby on Johnny: Straight after the funeral, he sent me to boarding school like nothing had happened. He sent me away because he couldn't bear to talk about it. Tina: You should never have been sent away like that. I told him not to send you away. I told him to keep you close. Ruby: Why did you send me away? Johnny: Because you needed looking after. You needed security, stability, routine to get you back to normal. I did what was right for you. Johnny on Ruby's school: Cost me a fortune to send you there. Ruby: I was sent off to school because “it'll be better for me.” Dad carries on living in what's left of the house. It was being rebuilt. Johnny: The fire destroyed everything I had. It took away the people I loved and it ripped the family apart, but you know one of the worst things? It stole my memories. I don't mean up here [in his head]. I mean things — all the stuff that you collect over the years. You look at them every day and then one day you look at them and it's twenty or thirty years ago, but you remember some things so clearly. I lost all that in the fire too. Ruby: I lost my diaries, six years' worth. Johnny: No, I mean everything, darling — all the stuff that we'd saved mapping out yours and Scarlet's lives over the years — your first shoes, things you used to make at school, your little drawings. Ruby to Johnny: When I was at school, I was so scared that they [the people who set fire to the house] were going to come back, come back and get you and then come and get me. The police never got anyone for it. They got away with it. Johnny: You do something like that, you don't get away with it — ever. What goes around comes around. Ruby: I want them to suffer. Johnny: They did. Ruby on Johnny: That’s why he was so keen to send me away to school — to stop me finding out about [his criminal activities]. Jack Branning: Doing the job I did, it puts a strain on a relationship. There’s no denying that. Jack: We couldn’t get past [what happened to Penny]. Jack: When things went wrong between me and Selina, there was a lot of unfinished business, a lot of arguing, and that wasn't good for any of us, least of all Penny, so I agreed to her terms and I kept my distance. Phil to Jack: You walked out and left your own kid. Jack on Penny: I did a horrible job of bringing her up. Jack: I messed up being a dad. Extract from a letter to Jack: "Dear Mr Branning ... You will need to start paying maintenance payments ... backdated from the beginning of your separation ... 12th June 2004." Ruby on sleepwalking: I used to do it all the time at school. Everyone took the mick - "Zombie Allen". Ruby: I had enough of people thinking I'm screwed up at school. Johnny on Ruby's school: It was safe there. Ruby: I hated it there. Mr Greely, speaking about Ruby’s grades in 2005: Over the past year, they dropped quite dramatically. Quite understandable, given the circumstances. Patrick Trueman: You did a bit of Spanish at school, didn’t you, Chelsea? Chelsea Fox: Yeah. Chelsea: I got a diploma in waxing. Derek Branning: Good at school, were you? Anthony Moon: Did all right, yeah. Charlie Slater, reading Danielle Jones’ music certificate: “Grade 4 clarinet.” Tamwar Masood on Syed: A-Level in maths, physics, chemistry, biology, further maths. Zainab Masood: I was so proud when Syed got into university. Syed: Ishfaq from university, we used to share a house. I introduced Ish to his wife. Syed: That degree in economics does come in handy every now and again. Tamwar: The Year 9 disco. Major anticipation, loads of spade work and then the crucial moment — and Johnno Ship is giving Annie with the hair his fizzy bubble gum. I blame Mum for Year 9, for the bad jumper and the plaster on the glasses and standing outside the hall window knocking all night. Tamwar: I will always be the one with the crap glasses and the bad jumper in Year sodding 9. Tamwar: I actually got an award for full attendance at school. Tamwar: I don’t like football. I never have. Tamwar to Masood: I always thought that you managed to walk that line between the two worlds. I thought that you were the one person who understood what it was like growing up a Muslim in a non-Muslim society, understanding that for a woman to be pure, she doesn’t have to wear the hijab, she doesn’t have to avert her eyes. Ava Hartman: You know when people say they’re married to their job? Mine [as a head teacher] came with hundreds and hundreds of children. Stacey: My mate Kaley's dad moved this woman in for a bit and suddenly she's being forced to wear pink and tidy her own room. Ruby: So? Stacey: Kaley's a goth. You ever seen a goth in a clean room with a pink dress? Stacey: A mate of mine, she got pregnant at fifteen. Then she got married at sixteen. She had a great big belly out here. She wore red. That's not a good idea. Stacey on her sexual history: A couple of embarrassing fumbles with the first bloke that said I was special. Bradley: I’ve done it loads of times. Well, five. None of them were great. See, up here [points to his his head], tiger — but in reality, catastrophic. Furniture gets broken, but not in a good way. I once put my elbow in a girl’s eye. Stacey: What, on purpose? Bradley: No, accident. I wouldn’t do a thing like that on purpose, would I? Laura Mulvey - she had a shiner for weeks. Stacey: You might not have done it much before, but I have — loads. Kim Fox on her sexual history: Five guys my whole life — Christopher Stirk at school, Dexter, Costas in Magaluf, Costas’ brother, Dexter again so that don’t count, and Lewis. I’m, like, five drunken flings away from being a nun. Jean on Stacey: Always hid her boys from me, she did. Always sneaking them in, sneaking them out. Stacey: No, I never. Stacey: I’ve never done it with anyone who really mattered. Bradley: It’s not as if I’ve ever done it with anyone who really mattered either. Stacey: I’ve never told any boy that I love them. Jean: You ain’t ever loved, have you, Stacey? You ain’t never had no one want you — really, really want you, have you, Stacey? Chelsea: I wish I’d waited for someone special. Your first time is special because it’s your first time, but it’s hardly ever your best. Besides, it’s the practising afterwards — now that’s the fun bit. Bradley: Dad hasn’t exactly been a saint since he’s been with Tanya. Tanya to Max: My slate’s always been clean. It’s yours that got grubby. Tanya: This life, this home, this marriage that I left you and Mum for, ain’t always been what you think it is. Rainie Cross: You mean he’s cheated on you? Tanya: Just a bit! Tanya to Lauren: I brought you up to tell the truth, you and Abs, to be open and honest because most of the time, that is the right way. Most of the time. Tanya to Max: Lauren has been in the middle [of our relationship] since she was ten years old. Since she saw you with that woman, with that first woman. Lauren to Max: That girl — what was her name? Remember? The one I saw you with when I was ten and you first cheated on Mum. I remember her and you together, Mum’s face when I told her what I saw. Why has it always got to be me that knows — that knows your little secrets, that knows what you’re really like? Tanya on Lauren: Since she came to me, her mum, pulling on my dress, trying to get my attention, and told me, she has been in the middle and she’s the one that got hurt. Lauren to Max and Tanya: I have had to listen to you two just taking lumps out of each other my whole life, since I was little. Lauren: When I was little, I had a friend called Mandy and I used to go round her house all the time and her mum and dad were just great, so normal, and I used to say to myself, “Why am I so unlucky? Why can’t I have a mum and dad that are normal?” Tanya on Lauren: I did not raise my daughter to sit on her backside whinging when life gets hard. Cora to Lauren: You never went to Sunday school, did you? Stacey, speaking in November 2004: Do you like this top I'm wearing? I bought it last week and I wore it to the pub. I was only drinking orange juice. Ben, this boy down the street, he was there with a bunch of his mates. He starts laughing and he looks at me and he says, "What does she think she looks like?" And then they all joined in, all of them laughing at me. It was horrible. Stacey: We’ve been here before, haven’t we? You stick [your tablets] under your tongue and as soon as I turn around, you spit them out. Jean: They don’t make no difference, Stacey. Stacey: You always say that, but they do. Dean on drugs: Never tried them. Carly to Dean: You’ve never smoked. Stacey, speaking in November 2004: Mum's completely lost the plot. She's off her cake at the best of times, but I ain't never seen her that bad before. The way she was kicking and screaming, it wouldn't surprise me if they'd put her in some padded cell by now. They've carted her off to hospital, ain't they? Stacey, speaking to Jean in 2005: What you blaming your disability on this time, eh Mum? China dolls? Maps of Norfolk? Cupboard full of broom handles again, is it? Stacey to Charlie: You're the first person I thought of when social services asked me if there's anyone I could stay with. Jean to Stacey: The sacrifices I made for you and you just went off and left me. What did I do, eh? What did I ever do except give up everything — everything?! Tina Stewart, speaking in April 2005: We [herself and Johnny] have been pussyfooting around his daughter for the past six months. Jake Moon: I hate salsa. It reminds me of dingy basement clubs in Manchester with no windows and luminous green geckos painted on the walls. Johnny Allen to Jake and Danny: You were doing a simple job for me — deliver a package. Next thing I know, I've got these people in my face wanting to know where their money is and I'm stood there without a clue what anyone's talking about. Danny Moon on a bag he picked up: It was just there and - it was just there. They didn't look like they knew what they were doing so I just ... Jake: So what — you just took it? What were you planning to say when they came and found us, "Oh, sorry I nicked your drugs, but I thought you wouldn't mind"? Danny: I thought it was just money. Johnny: You should have come straight to me. Jake: I know. We weren't thinking. We were out of order. Danny, speaking in November 2004: I haven't eaten since Manchester. Pam Coker: I used to have a career. I was a hospital social worker and I loved it. Pam on her son: Laurie loved children. He gave up the funeral business to become a teacher. He would have been a great teacher, but his health was … Emma Summerhayes: So Laurie fell ill then? Pam: He was very ill. He wanted to go before the end and that’s what happened. Emma: He killed himself? Pam: Yes. Pam, speaking in November 2014: Our son Laurie died ten years ago this week. Pam to Les: We always said no-one must find out what I did. Pam: Some people thought I might have helped him. Emma: And did you? Pam: No. There was an investigation, questions. I loved my job but what with all the suspicion and the rumours, I gave it up. Pam: I got sick of it all so I quit and I’ve always regretted it. Dean: I shaved a mate’s hair off once. Well, when I say “mate”, I kind of mean, “girlfriend”. It’s not my proudest moment, alright? I was seventeen and in my defence, I was very drunk. And she cheated on me. Kevin on a Wicks’ New Year tradition: "Drinks Around The World.” Carly: From Christmas Island to Hawaii. Dean: The idea is that we start ten o’clock in the morning, New Year’s Eve. Carly: And then drink a toast every time the clock hits twelve somewhere different in the world. Dean: The idea is that we try and beat last year’s record. Denise: So what’s the record then — the furthest you’ve made it around the world? Kevin: I think I made it to the Eastern Seaboard once. Dean: Yeah, right! Kevin: Well, what would you know? You were hanging out the window shouting, “To infinity and beyond.” Dean: You passed out somewhere mid-Atlantic. Kevin: Did I? Denise: So you get pretty drunk then? Kevin: No, no we don’t go over the top. Dean: Absolutely ratted. Heather on herself and Shirley: We always see in New Year. It’s tradition. Carl White to Kirsty: Brighton beach, New Year’s Eve, huddled together, bells ringing, people shouting, fireworks going off, but all I could see was you. I didn’t feel the cold.[/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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An Oral History 1985-2015
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