Chapter one

      The man who ruined my life was dressed as Father Christmas. We were sitting in the front room – Grandma, Mum, Dad, my big brother Michael, my new baby sister Lisa and I – when he walked in with his white beard, red suit and jolly ‘Ho-Ho-Ho!’. I didn’t realize who he was then, when I was three; and it’s funny because now – when I watch the cine-film of Christmas 1973 – I still don’t recognize him as my grandfather.

      Granddad and Grandma were Dad’s parents. They lived in the same street as us in Luton and we were a close family. Every Sunday they’d come to our house for dinner or we’d go to theirs. Michael and I totally adored them – there was no reason not to. Grandma was plump and always on a diet, but she loved her food too much. She had dark-grey hair and smoked in those days. Granddad smoked too. He liked Clan tobacco and walked round with his pipe in his mouth even when it wasn’t lit. He had a hooked nose and, under the trilby he always wore, his pure-white hair was thinning. You could tell from his freckly skin that he’d once had bright-ginger hair. Michael and I favoured Granddad because he gave us sweets. So did our dog, Sabre, who was always sniffing his pockets. Granddad would fumble in his pocket, fish out his white handkerchief and the mints he always carried, dig a bit deeper and produce a Mars Bar for us each.

      Mum and Dad were poor and really struggled when we were young. Dad worked across the road for a factory manufacturing ball-bearings. As soon as he came in at night, Mum would go out to her cleaning job at the same factory. Dad worked weekends as well, and on Sundays Mum would sit down with us kids to watch the afternoon movie on TV. I liked the old Elvis films and Mum loved anything starring Mario Lanza. Sometimes Mum would point out of the window and say, ‘Look, there’s Daddy.’ We’d look up from the TV screen and there he’d be, waving from the roof of the factory wearing a big black coat with the name of the factory written on the back.

      By the time my sister was three months old, money was the least of my parents’ worries. Lisa developed serious breathing problems and at first it was thought she had cystic fibrosis. She was eventually diagnosed as a brittle asthmatic, and the doctors told my parents that she was unlikely to make it to her 18th birthday. Poor Mum and Dad were constantly in and out of hospital with Lisa, and my brother and I increasingly found ourselves at Grandma’s for tea.

      Grandma was a great cook – she made homemade doughnuts and did lovely roast potatoes. She used a lot of fat in her cooking and you’d be hit by the smell as you walked through the door. It was a typical old people’s house: the carpet in the hall was an orange and brown pattern and in the front room stood Grandma’s organ and a record-player in a long, old-fashioned cabinet. The records were Granddad’s: he liked popular songs like ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark and ‘Stupid Cupid’ by Connie Francis. The fireplace was almost completely obscured by a battery of family photographs, and on the wall opposite hung a rug with deer on it – I loved that rug. The stairs twisted up to the first bedroom which was Granddad’s. It was a plain room with a wardrobe and two single beds. There were no books by his bed – he didn’t read. Next door was the toilet with its creaky door and cold lino floor. It smelt of hospitals in there and sometimes, instead of toilet paper, there would be