Sarah Jones - Call Me Evil, Let Me Go

As well as making life difficult for me and Kerry, Roy was also wearing Mum and Dad down. They nevertheless tried to look for positive things about his behaviour and took heart when he visited Uncle Roger, Dad’s brother, who lived in a nearby village, because it put him in a better mood. Sadly, once he was back home, he’d usually run up to his bedroom, put a record on and start on his screaming all over again.

He also enjoyed coming on our family weekend camping trips to sites in the North York Moors. We had a large tent with a separate section for each of us. Roy seemed happier in the fresh air, and nothing like as disruptive as he was at home.

Although I was too young to have any real concept of what was going on, I could sense the dark cloud that hung over the family. I was so frightened of Roy’s strange behaviour I often shook like a leaf. My parents did their best and took him back to the doctor countless times. They tried a child psychiatrist too, but, as extraordinary as it may seem, his diagnosis remained the same – a bad case of adolescent behaviour – and they were told repeatedly that the best way to deal with their son was to keep reassuring him of their love. Dad even took up kite-flying so that he and Roy could share an activity together, but it failed as Roy would always intentionally get their kites entangled, which was disheartening to Dad, to put it mildly.

One example of his strange behaviour occurred at one of my birthday parties. Dad was in hospital after a fall aboard ship when he’d hit his head on a bulwark, and was expected to stay in for two weeks, but Mum invited twelve little friends round for me and prepared egg, banana and ham sandwiches, jelly and ice cream, and a birthday cake with pink icing. I was very excited but sad too that Dad wasn’t with us. It was hard work for Mum to do on her own, but she organized lots of fun games, like Pass the Parcel and Musical Chairs. We were all having a lovely time when, about halfway through the party, Roy came out of his bedroom, walked down the stairs and threw his dinner of meat, potatoes and lots of gravy right across the room. He then started yelling unintelligibly before going back to his room. I was petrified and so upset that my special day was ruined.

Dad’s niece Belinda, who had brought her daughter, who was my age, along to join in the fun, was really shocked too. She’d never seen Roy behave like that before and said she’d had no idea that he could be so awful. I could tell Mum was really upset as she cleared up his mess from all over the carpet and armchairs. When everyone had gone home she put me in the bath, read me a story and tried to settle me down for the night. I was still quite disturbed, so it all took a while.

When peace finally reigned, Mum wondered yet again what she and Dad could have done to Roy that he hated them so much, and why such a loving child now seemed like a stranger. She also felt very nervous about what he might do next, but eventually went to bed. She woke up in the small hours with an anxious start, feeling that everything was hopeless. Grandma, whom she loved very much, had died several months previously and she was still in mourning for her. She was also worried about Dad in hospital. It all seemed too much and suddenly she felt she couldn’t cope a moment longer. She’d been prescribed Mogadon, a sleeping pill, by the doctor because of the strain she was under and on impulse swallowed all twenty or so tablets left in the container. She left a note on the mantelpiece for Kerry, saying she had gone away, and when we woke up we should all go to our next-door neighbour, whom we knew very well.

She then got into our trusty Morris Traveller and drove off with no idea where she was going. All she knew was that she had to get away. She was not fit to drive and went through several red lights, although luckily there was no one about. Two miles further on the car stalled, which somehow half brought her to her senses. She realized she had to get help, got out of the car and walked unsteadily towards a stationary ambulance parked at the side of the road. The driver got out at the same time and, as fate would have it, it was one of her friends, Billy. When he asked her why she was out in the middle of the night, she told him she had taken an overdose. He immediately drove her to the local hospital in his ambulance, which fortunately was empty.

Mum didn’t have to wait long in Casualty. Her stomach was pumped and she was given a bed in one of the wards, but she couldn’t sleep and lay shaking and shivering all night. She was in such a state that she didn’t think about us poor children left behind, who would wake up with neither parent at home.

Before she was discharged later that morning, she rang a neighbour to ask her to drive her home, and decided not to tell Dad what happened until he came out of hospital. She was in no fit state to go and see him and, so that he didn’t worry, left a message with the nurse on his ward that she wasn’t very well and couldn’t visit him for a couple of days.

When Dad got home he was very shocked and upset to hear what had really happened, but by then Mum was feeling much brighter. Dad had always been an upright, hard-working man who tried to be the husband and father that we could all rely on, but the strain of living with a seriously disturbed teenager was taking its toll on him too. Several days after Mum was discharged, he snapped.

Mum had organized a family Halloween party, hoping Roy would join in the fun. Kerry and I were having a great time, roaring with laughter as we ducked apples and played party games. Roy refused to join in and started annoying us by putting his fingers in his ears and screaming. As we were so used to this by now it wasn’t a big deal for us, but it was the last straw for Dad, who broke down in floods of tears. This was so out of character for him that Mum called the doctor, who diagnosed a nervous breakdown caused by stress. He prescribed tranquillizers and Dad took a month off work.

Dad had at that time left the Merchant Navy and had been building up his own electrical business, fixing televisions, radios and the like, and occasionally rewiring houses for friends. It was going very well but Roy’s erratic behaviour had become too much for him. He couldn’t concentrate on his work and sold the business, which was a pity. Instead he got a job as an electrician at a school in a nearby town, and we bought a four-bedroom semi-detached house close by.

Roy refused to go to school following that incident at my birthday party and, after a nightmare year of having him at home, all our hearts lifted when he suddenly told Mum and Dad that he wanted to follow in Dad’s footsteps and join the Merchant Navy. He had been a naval cadet at school and enjoyed it, so we were delighted with his choice. Although we worried a bit about how someone who had such difficulties socially would cope with the other cadets, overall we felt that at long last there was light at the end of the tunnel.

The mood of the house always lifted when Roy wasn’t around and this time Mum, who had been so focused on him, started to give us girls, and especially me, more attention. But far from feeling neglected, I enjoyed it when I wasn’t the focus of Mum’s attention. Instead I had a free, unrestricted childhood, although at times I bubbled over with too much energy and curiosity and was probably a thorn in my elder sister’s sides.

Two years after Roy joined the Merchant Navy he was discharged on medical grounds, no doubt because he was acting bizarrely, and our family life once again became a roller-coaster ride. Mum and Dad thought that perhaps he would be happier if we moved to a different house in another part of the Pennines, one that didn’t have so many bad memories for him – and for us. So Dad got a job as an electrician at a technical college, and we soon settled into a four-bedroom house in a charming village. Unfortunately the move didn’t change Roy’s behaviour at all.