Tuesday 5th May

I had a long walk this afternoon with Oskar in Windsor Great Park and thought quite a bit about my brother Robert...one of the assignments for the next Exposition is to "write a letter" and I am coming round to the idea of writing my brother Robert a letter...but for the blog I will continue to expand on what happened.

As I shared yesterday ....Robert was very involved in social action and had a real heart for parts of society that can be overlooked. One of the biggest surprises for me was his interest in amateur dramatics.He was an avid performer and loved comedy roles and altho I saw him in a couple of serious plays he revelled in the humorous scripts and his all time favourite TV programme was Monty Pythons Flying Circus and Spike Milligan..he could imitate voices and accents and would have me rolling all over my bed at night time....He slept in a cupboard...this is true....we had one bedroom with my dad..myself and both brothers...Dad and one brother slept in double bed and I had a single bed and Roberts bed was in a walk in cupboard with a curtain drawn across it...he would lay in there making us all hoot with laughter as his voice would sneak out in a re-run of a Monty set.We would be drifting off to sleep and he would start up a Spike Milligan song and that would be us...wide awake and wetting ourselves .!! My dad who smoked unfiltered Senior Service would go purple in the face coughing and begging him to "stop it and get to sleep "

For a period of 3 years all our lives seemed calm and quiet and settled....mum was still in London and we only heard from her rarely and both my half sister and half brother were doing well in Canada...dad worked all the hours he could to give us a half way decent life and somehow or other I still got the school trip to Paris and the week at hockey camp altho I am convinced that there was a social fund at our school as looking back I cant see how dad could ever have afforded it. One summer dad and I even had a week at the Butlins holiday camp in Ayr....quite possibly my first ever holiday and time to be with my dad was a very special thing for me .

Through his drama connections Robert met F...she was very posh and went to a private school.....most of the drama club were certainly middle class and for Robert to have a girlfriend was a major accomplishment....he was still very overweight and was plagued with skin problems and rarely ventured out socially other than work and his voluntary commitments . Both F and Robert were accepted into Dundee University and as the time for them to go crept ever closer I felt a sense of loss creeping into my heart.Looking back I almost certainly was jealous of F and her relationship with Robert but was trying very hard to be grown up about it all.

I think I shared in previous posts that Robert had tried to kill himself several times....I knew nothing of this at the time as it was when I lived with my mum...but only heard about it all years later...from age 11-16 he tried different methods..cutting his wrists...hanging..and tablets...but each time he was found by either dad or my other brother. He wasn't taken to hospital or referred to doctors or for therapy....this was decades ago and children of broken homes weren't high on any care agenda. The social stigma of having divorced parents was of a similar nature as having illegitimate children and at one time when I was in trouble at school I was referred to as "the product of a broken home" as if that was a crime and my behaviour was only to be expected.!!

I missed Robert so much and whenever he was home from university I would cajole him into helping me revise for my O levels and F was growing on me as she took an interest in what was going on educationally with me. Life was as normal as it could be ...right up until...

7pm February 23rd 1971.

I will continue this tomorrow.....let me leave you with scripture

Proverbs Ch 3 v 5
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

Philippians Ch 4 v 7
"And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I may never understand the WHY of what I will write about next ...but I do know that somehow or other God has guarded my heart and mind and given me peace. My prayer as you read this ..is that if you have circumstances in your life...past or present that you are finding hard to understand...Lean into God...He WILL give you peace