The end of a family.

I wrote this on an old diary on 11th March 2003 at 6.35am:

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There are a number of reasons why I stopped writing there but primarily because I was avoiding writing about the events of last summer.

On 4th July 2002 at about 8pm my mum died.

She had been suffering from cancer a second time and despite much treatment - chemotherapy mostly - she didn't make it.

I got a call from my dad whilst I was at Kings Cross station waiting for a train to Leeds to visit Alison. He told me that somehow, during the night, she had turned in bed and her hip had crumbled and broke. At this point nobody knew the seriousness of this and we assumed that she would go to hospital and be fixed up. I asked dad to keep me up to date and went to Leeds. It didn't feel right.

On the Sunday as I was waiting for a cab to take me to Leeds station I got a call from dad again telling me that she was now on morphine. This is when I knew it was going to happen soon. I asked dad what he thought I should do (my train to London was within the hour) and he suggested that I should go to Preston.

I took the train to Preston and dad picked me up and took me to Churchtown (they were living at gran and grandpa's old house in Churchtown whilst renovating Clifton House.)

When I got there I went in to see mum. She was very drowsy from the morphine but still able to talk. I asked her if she was comfortable and she said no. I helped her to sort out her pillows. Every time she moved she was in agony.

She had a catheter as she was bedridden. Nurses came a couple of times a day to clean her and move her to prevent bed sores. Every time she moved she screamed in pain - you couldn't get away from the noise. Her bedroom smelled horrible, like pee and disinfectant, like a geriatric ward at a hospital - the smell of dying.

I went out with Robert who was there. I bought her some magazines - home magazines... Still planning the house! I don't think she could read them though. I also bought some food and wine and made meals for us all. Mum's last meal was one that I made.

I spoke to Matthew and told him that he should come over. I think Robert picked him up. I don't think he realised how serious it was until he got there. I kept taking him out of mum's room because he was getting so upset and I wasn't sure if she knew or not but felt she might so thought it best.

At some point during the five days we were told that she wouldn't recover. Also her morphine was increased gradually. It was in a pump that hissed every now and then as more more was injected.

I was on the phone to Chris a lot. I wanted him there but also felt that it was right that it was just family. I was annoyed when Kevin turned up, not least about his reaction when he saw mum. It was a look of shock and fear and revulsion which whilst being understandable was something I didn't need to see.

John came over a couple of times. He was a wreck.

I called Janet and Celia because I thought they should know. Janet wept like a child as soon as I told her and had to hang up. Celia kept talking normally for a few minutes before suddenly breaking down. I also had to call Matthew's boss so that they would know why he wasn't at work. It is the most surreal and painful thing to have to tell people that your mum is going to die in the next few days - especially when the people you are telling are your mum's best friends.

On the Thursday Chris drove up. He arrived at about 7pm and I needed to get out so I took him on a tour of Churchtown. We walked down the road. I showed him the two houses that Phillip and Denise had lived in then we went to the Punch Bowl for a drink.

I was about half way through my pint when Kevin called from the house. He said 'I think you'd better come back.'

When we got to the house she had died. She lay there with her head back and her mouth open not breathing any more. She looked yellow and old.

Dad, Robert and Matthew were sat around the bed and the curtains were closed. I held her head in my hands and kissed her. Then I broke down.

Dad said 'a prayer to speed her to heaven.'

About 5 or 10 minutes later the nurses arrived at the door to see to mum again. I told them that she had gone and asked them for a couple of minutes before they went in to clean her.

The nurses did there stuff and then Chris & I went in to sit with her before the undertakers arrived. The most startling thing was the change in sound in the room. After the gurgling and rattling in her chest and throat as she developed pneumonia the room seemed extremely calm now. I held her hand and kissed her again. The nurses had sprayed her perfume around the room.

Dad was in the living room phoning family and friends to tell everyone. Eventually the undertakers came and took her away. We all packed up and went to John and Elaine's.

I have never been back to that house.

Mum's funeral was on 11th July. It was a very sunny, warm day.

She left from Clifton House, went to St Chads and was buried at the cemetery just outside town. Everyone went back to John and Elaine's afterwards.

The strange thing is that only now, months later,I am noticing how it affected me and continues to.

I went back to work immediately but don't know how I managed to do anything - it all seems a bit dream like now.

We've left London now. We lived at my dad's (that's weird too - not saying 'my parents') in Poulton for a couple of months and now live in Chester.

I still have weird dreams about mum and get upset every day.

If you imagine your body is made up of your emotions, it now, still, feels like a huge chunk of my chest has just disappeared. Most of the time I feel empty and as if I am just floating about aimlessly. I don't feel like I have much influence on my own life - I just react to situations. I have little enthusiasm for anything and no ambition. I don't feel that I can talk to anybody about it and I don't think most people are interested.

The whole affair (for want of a better phrase) has made me clarify my thoughts on what happens after death. During mum's funeral the words about God and Jesus did nothing to comfort me. It's hideous but I can only think of her in a box under ground. It kills me to go to her grave. Mum was only 55.

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Reading back on this tonight is upsetting but also makes me realise how much I've healed over the years since mum died. I still don't go to her grave though.

Chicken face

Everybody has awkward moments in their life. Take me this morning for example, I had to phone up Prowler and have a heated discussion about why my bottle of poppers and erm... magazines hadn't been sent through their mail order system despite my ordering them a couple of weeks ago and chasing it up with an unanswered email. The nice young man at the other end kindly informed me in gentle (camp) tones that my card had been declined, they had emailed me on my other address and if I cared to pay now they would dispatch the porn immediately.

Many incidents from yesteryear stick in my mind, such as the time at primary school when someone pulled my trousers down whilst I was standing on a chair at a high window thus flashing my bare bum to the entire class and the excruciating moment when I called Mr Melican, my second year history teacher, mummy. I am still cringing now...

That little anecdote, however, segues nicely into the queen of embarrassing moments - my mum.

There was the time at the post office when she felt something uncomfortable on her leg and shook it to try to alleviate the problem only to fling a pair of knickers out of her trouser leg and across the floor of the post office. Such tumble dryer mix ups were a source of hilarity in our house - I mean, who can resist laughing at someone with a sock stuck to the back of their cardigan by the awesome power of static electricity. Then there was the time that my parents were at one of my school's parent's evenings and she realised the importance, half way through the evening, of getting dressed with the lights on. She was wearing a lovely pair of kitten heel shoes, identical to each other in every way other than their colour. One was blue and one was green.

My favourite however was the heroic moment that she lurched to the rescue of a baby that was about to topple out of a trolley at Tesco only to realise upon successfully completing the heroic rescue that said baby was made out of plastic.

Maybe it's something about mums - my friend Janine's mum spent a couple of hours shopping around Chester with a substantial piece of chicken firmly stuck to her spectacles after putting them down on the table during lunch.

Buckley has made a few such faux pas in his time too. In a supermarket in Sale he picked up kangaroo steaks, started singing the song from Skippy the kangaroo and turned to me, steaks thrust forward and asked in a sing-song voice "Do you like Skippy?" Trouble was that I was a couple of metres behind him and he had just serenaded a stranger with kangaroo meat. My favourite Chris moment though was the train journey back to Manchester. He trotted off to the loo for - well let's call it a sit down - and dropped the loo paper on the floor. It was at the precise moment, whilst trying to retrieve it, when he was head to the floor bare bum pointed at the door that he discovered, much to his chagrin, that he had failed to lock the door - swoosh it opened. Chris remained in this position until the unwitting spectator had moved on, so as not to be recognised and then had to do the walk of shame back through the carriage to his seat.

My friend Janet... well there's potentially a whole other post about her. The tin of green paint on head, the man with the stutter that she offended and, as I remember, asking the customer at Habitat when her baby was due despite the fact that she had already had it. La la la la la la...

Pubs

I have spent many an hour of my life in a pub, a bar or a club. Indeed Buckley and I met in a club - the Hacienda if you will. I would like to write about some of memories of pubs - or more importantly things that happened in pubs. Lets begin at the beginning:

• The Shack in Oldham - I met Alison in The Shack. A pivotal point. A few weeks later I found a hole in the crotch of her tights in front of the fire in The Shack. Elvis ripped up my job application for a job at the Queen Elizabeth Hall close to that same fire.

• Via Fossa in Manchester - I worked at Via Fossa on Canal Street for about a year and a half. I stole tips from drunken drinkers, I got drunk whilst working, a man pretended to be having an epileptic seizure on my first day then laughed at me when I got him a cloth to clear the drool off his chin and I first told Chris that I loved him in Via Fossa.

• The Kings Arms at Grains Bar on the edge of Saddleworth - this was the first pub that I ever worked at. There were frogs in the cellar. I saw the assistant manager - Phillip Schofield - drop a tub of mayonnaise on the floor of the kitchen and then scoop it back into the tub and serve it. I worked with the cousin of Orieta Lorenzini but I can't remember her name...

• 10 Commonhall in Chester - when we moved from London to Chester I didn't have a job. I went for a hair cut at Toni & Guy and asked the hairdresser where the coolest bar was. She told me about Commonhall. I went down there and asked about a job and Michael took me on straight away. I learnt how to mix cocktails and also who to buy drugs from. It all got very messy for a couple of months. I'm still in tough with Michael and his fiance Jo.

• 19-20 in Clerkenwell, London - this was around the corner from work when I was with MTS. I got drunk here so many times - after and during work. I spent a lot of time here with Rosemary and Chris both of which have left us now. This is also where I made friends with Jane.

• City Bar in Chester - Janet and I had our thrones in front of the fish tank. We held the short lived cinema night in the basement here and put on our VERY successful Stick It On nights here. I think we did three of them... Lots of moustaches, some spiders and some terrible music - I really miss City Bar.

• The Friendly Society. Soho London - giant goldfish wall paper in the loos, barbie dolls EVERYWHERE, a cave surrounded by fur and a brilliant DJ on a Tuesday night - she played Michael Jackson for me. One of my favourite bars in London for years.

• Cyberia in Manchester - not there anymore but this was the first bar that I ever had absinthe - with Steve as an accomplice.

• Politic in Chester - private members club with beautiful furniture and the best Old Fashioneds in the world.

• Velvet, Manchester - Velvet is a bit of an old timer in Manchester now. The bar upstairs is relatively new compared to the original downstairs venue. Many many many many evenings eating and drinking with the gays here...

• The Beer Emporium in Oldham - it's been knocked down now but this is the place that I saw graffiti that read - Kurt is dead - never mind

• The Hare & Hounds - I worked here for a about a year. This is where I met Norman. This is also where I discovered a turd in a pint glass on the back the cistern in the gents.

I can't possibly mention all of them as it's getting late. Maybe I'll continue at a later date...

Towns

We're about to move house again. This time from Chapel en le Frith to Preston. In the past eight years we have lived in Sale in south Manchester, Tottenham in north London, Enfield in Middlesex, two different places in Chester, Colchester, Chelmsford and Chapel en le Frith. It's got to the point now where I don't even think about it. We move in three weeks and I've not started packing yet.

I feel like I have learnt about very different things in each place. I learnt about Music in Manchester, art in Chester, politics in London, friends in Derbyshire, careers in Essex and I suspect that Preston will be about family.

Buckley & I don't share the same tastes in many things - and that includes where we live. I could happily settle in London and he loves Derbyshire. I find Derbyshire dull and nosey and he thinks London is dirty, impersonal and cold.

We've not found a happy medium yet so instead we go to work in different directions and do our own thing.

I would like to live by the sea. Fleetwood would be a lovely place to have a weekend flat. I would also love to live in another country for a couple of years - perhaps Spain or Holland - maybe France or New York. It's highly unlikely though.

All the moving around has left us with a scattering of friends across the country and it's very easy to distinguish the ones you care about and the ones that care about you just by who you keep in touch with. Strangely one of my oldest friends lives in Preston and I'm looking forward to getting to know her again.

Despite being used to moving I still find it quite unsettling. Every time you have to start again - finding a job, making friends, making a home and feeling comfortable again. The only constant is Chris. Everything else changes.