Sarah Jones - Call Me Evil, Let Me Go

I loved being at the new primary school in the village. The teachers were great and made everything fun. I went to Brownies and the Christian Union, enjoyed gymnastics and was quite a tomboy. I had loads of friends, both in the village and at school. I loved climbing trees and fighting with boys but I especially liked going to the local forest to collect the cartridge cases left behind by clay-pigeon shooters. They were all sorts of different colours and I lined them up on the window sill in my bedroom. That summer my friends and I saw a wild horse in a field and the farmer said that whoever could ride it could keep it. We tried all summer but none of us managed to mount the horse, let alone ride it.

Another favourite pastime was our family camping holidays, particularly when our relatives came to join us. Best of all was going fishing with Dad. He was a true family man, a passive and loving father who was very funny and never once smacked me. He had an enduring passion for Austin Minis and, to add to his rather modest income as an electrician, he would often have up to six of them, belonging to various friends, in our garden waiting for him to repair them.

At that time religion wasn’t playing a big part in family life. Mum occasionally went to the local Anglican church and even became a Sunday School teacher for a short while, but she found neither peace nor comfort there. Instead both Mum and Dad turned to alcohol as a way of finding relief. They felt better once they were drunk, even though everything became twice as bad the next morning when they were hung-over. On Fridays they drank all night. It was well before the licensing laws changed, so they started at the pub and when it closed they moved on to the nearest hotel with a late-night licence. Dad drank beer and Mum drank white wine. Dad was regularly downing at least eight pints during a session, and by the time he came home he was absolutely reeling and as daft as a brush. He was also chain-smoking and on a Friday would get through about sixty cigarettes during the evening.

Alcohol became Mum’s anaesthetic: it helped drown her sorrows and stopped her thinking. I was still young when I became aware that my parents were drinking heavily. Soon after we moved to the Pennine village Mum invited the local vicar to tea. I told him that Mum had been really drunk the previous night. He didn’t respond, no doubt because he was trying to be tactful, so I kept saying it and the more Mum tried to shut me up the more I went on and on. His visit didn’t last long.

One of the nicest things about our move was to discover we lived close to a large limestone quarry. As well as being able to play amongst the rocks and pools of the quarry – rather dangerously perhaps, but this was the era before our modern obsession with health and safety – the quarry-workers’ families were very friendly and soon began inviting us to various parties. I had countless sleepovers with lots of children in various family bedrooms and it was enormous fun. I was very proud that, although I was one of the youngest there, I was put in charge of making toast for all the children in the morning.

Mum and Dad occasionally went to the local hotel for a posh dinner, and I loved looking at Mum when she was beautifully made up and wearing a smart dress, and thought she was absolutely stunning. When we were at home the family liked to play cards and above all Pit. It’s a very old game that simulates the activities on the floor of the stock market, and specifically the commodities market. Everyone would yell out the number of cards they wanted to trade at the same time, and the action was fast and furious. There was so much laughter and shouting going on that I got really cross when my parents sent me to bed, especially as I couldn’t sleep for ages because of the noise.

These light-hearted interludes brightened our mood for a short time but didn’t provide a permanent solution to the nightmare we had with Roy. He kept thinking people were after him and often woke me at night with his shouting. Although I had my own bedroom I often rushed into my parents’ room, where I’d lie on the floor beside their bed, almost too scared to breathe. Sometimes Mum gave me warm milk with a drop of brandy in it to help calm me down. At other times it was really so unpleasant for me to be in our house that Dad called one of our neighbours and asked if I could stay there for the night.

It was around that time that Mum decided once again that life was too much and she couldn’t cope with Roy. She’d been secretly going into his room and taking a handful of Valium, which she washed down with sherry, but this time she deliberately took too many and I came home from school to find her flat out on the floor of her bedroom. I was very scared and shook her hard. When she still didn’t move, I rang Dad at the college and, after a long wait for him to be found, was eventually put through to him. He rushed home and I stood with my back against the wall in the corner of the bedroom, barely daring to breathe, as I watched him slap her face to try to bring her round. Before long the ambulance arrived and she was taken to hospital. I was completely traumatized by what I had seen and had awful nightmares. Yet I don’t think it was a serious suicide attempt. It was more a sign of her desperation and her way of blotting everything out. She was again discharged within a day and not given any medication or a further appointment.

It was the last straw and finally Dad decided, with a heavy heart, that Roy had to move out as he was very worried about the damaging effect his behaviour was having on the rest of us. But it was one thing coming to a decision and quite another finding the courage to tell Roy to his face. He was so volatile it could have easily triggered a serious outburst.

Dad eventually mustered up courage, explained to Roy that he was being rather disruptive and told him gently that he had to go. He added that he was a much-loved son and although we couldn’t have him living with us all the time, he wasn’t banning him from visiting us. To our surprise Roy wasn’t at all bothered and shortly afterwards moved into a squat in a local town that was frequented by homeless people and drug addicts. Life calmed down and one summer’s day Roy came round to tell Mum and Dad that he had found what he described as a ‘fantastic new church’ close to where he was squatting. He asked Mum if she’d like to come with him. She immediately said yes and seemed so happy to find something she could do with Roy that could give them a shared interest and topic of conversation.

Bethesda Charismatic Church was run by Pastor Edmund Collins, a charming, modest young man of 28, who had been building up the congregation from scratch. Mum found her first visit rather strange. She was an Anglican and found the hymns were very different to those to which she was accustomed. The congregation also clapped, which she was not used to. Nor had she ever shouted out ‘Halleluiah’ before. But the service lifted her spirits and helped her feel peaceful, and she believed that God was there for her to cling on to.

After a few more visits she tried to persuade the rest of the family to join her. Kerry refused, while Dad was so deeply into drink and anti-religion that he said he’d rather spend his time at the pub. But I went along. It was a lovely, lively service, much friendlier than the Anglican church, and I even started going to the Sunday School. Mum became a regular churchgoer and soon wouldn’t miss a single Sunday service. She told us that she could sense God’s presence within her, felt safe in His hands and suddenly for the first time believed our family would come through our difficult times.

There was an amazing change in Mum once she started going regularly to church. She seemed to cope with life much better and Dad felt he could at last go out with peace of mind, knowing there wouldn’t be any more overdoses. Her habits changed too. Mum and Dad regularly went to the pub on a Sunday night, but since Mum found Jesus she usually went to church instead and on the rare occasions she did keep Dad company, she had orangeade rather than white wine.