Families And How To Escape Them - An Introduction And Guide To Contents

This will be my third online memoir to be published as a series of blogs. It is likely to be the last for a long time. Writing and editing over thirty chapters of material is a lot of words to process. The first blog was called 'Memoir of an Invisible Boy', please left click here for the introduction and contents guide of it. The second memoir/blog was called 'The Alien Life' please left click here to find the introduction etc to it. Congratulations to all who recognise a theme in the titles. The theme of being raised to become an outsider by people who claimed they were central to the community they claimed to own. This made my writing about them an exploration of paradox. How things seemed vs how they were became a rich seam of experience to reflect on. No matter that what I wrote was also writing-as-therapy, where actual therapy, at the right cost, would have been more useful and effective. Reflection about those times, via writing, so long after they happened seemed to be both unstoppable and unforgettable.

This memoir will read differently from the first two. The first two blogs/memoirs were guided by a vivid sense of place. Towards the end of the second memoir I could also refer to diaries that I had written from the age twenty one onward. But I stopped diary writing for the period covered in this memoir, 1988-93, the first year I left my family behind. When I first wrote a diary it was to attempt to record what I thought apart for my family, to give myself space away from them. Circa 1980 there was a television rental advert with strapline 'You'll be glued to our sets, not stuck with them.' where the voice over was laced with sarcasm. I certainly felt stuck with my family, rather than glued to them, up to 1988. 

This memoir is about how I unstuck myself from them, whilst I was unaware that that was what I was attempting to do. A well written diary would have made the writing of this memoir better and maybe easier to write. But no such document exists. At the time I thought that the greater value was in the actual living the change, rather than half living it/half recording it. 

My previous diaries 1982-87 had evasively recorded many of the old quid-pro-quo's with Mother, where, for instance, three times a week I hosted lunch for Mother in my flat partly because my flat was near the shops and she'd been shopping, partly because she had not only done my laundry but dropped it off before going shopping. At the end I wanted to give her a space where she could be more at ease and comfy than the routines she performed in the parental house allowed her. The courage to write honestly about some subjects, my sexuality for instance, required a clear break, if I were to be honest with myself through what I wrote. 

Neither Mother nor I found the exits we required. There was no local exit that could be made from dad being the drinker he was. He saw his behaviour as utterly normal when it was not. He was consistently boorish with it as well. So many times we had to be sober to witnesses to him being drunk where he had not the first clue how he looked, or we felt. Watching him pickling himself was painful and near pickled us. Meanwhile we were both trying to do something useful with our lives in organisations he would not go near. St John Ambulance for Mother, the Church of England for me.

Please left click the underlined chapter numbers for each chapter. Also left click on the underlined 'here' at the end of each chapter to read the next chapter. 

From July 2025 the editing of this bog is a work in progress. The second edit is completed as of September 2025 and a third line by line reading is in progress to remove all remaining awkward phrasing. Typing and continuity errors will remain until they are removed.      

Chapter One - A Serendipitous Escape (1) - old agreements come apart - strange shocks - improved times with mother - the end of further education - a glimmer of actual hope.  

Chapter Two - A Serendipitous Escape (2) - a friendly chat - a contact for a job - day trips to Nottingham - new arrangements - hello Mr Unreliable - goodbye the old unreliability.

Chapter Three - A Familiar Unknown - 'final goodbyes' - practical Christian help - setting off to Nottingham with all I owned - a strained first evening.

Chapter Four - Scratch Connections - awkward beginnings - such a clean/new house -  no books or plants - my patchwork past vs his material expectations - mistakes, I'll make a few.  

Chapter Five - Finding My Way Around - starting work awkwardly - escape into the city - some backstory - the recent past is my comfort zone. 

Chapter Six - Unsettled - an admin error - losing a pretend friend - my sense of being different dawns on me -what would I like to hide behind? - the deficiencies of church life - an admin error sorted - a landlord tested - home calling.

Chapter Seven - A Hasty Move - the landlord gives me notice - change of address -the employer gives me notice - family give me notice of Gran's death - the parental house - Gran and grandad's recent moves - seeing Gran 'at rest' in the church.  

Chapter Eight - Family Recounted in Departure - my teenage life - an old school slow exit - the last word in a life.

Chapter Nine - How to Live an Unrecorded Life - A sensible substitute for family - recalling dads detachment - why I stopped writing a diary - honest emptiness. 

Chapter Ten - Improved Movements - The melancholic landlord - the melancholic tenant - clearing out old pasts - more reflections on a past I did not ask for.

Chapter Eleven - Hangman's Row - great lifts I have hitched - friends move away - a room I liked - attempted homeliness - practical empathy via work.

Chapter Twelve - The Near and the Far Away - A mobile care assistant - new work routines - male team work that worked- office life - offended by camp - amateur therapy.

Chapter Thirteen - Progress is Relative - Old connections tested and maintained - mock job interviews - a new job.

Chapter Fourteen - The Deep End - The easy sell - full time shift work - six patients/one care worker - economic necessities - repetitive jokes lighten the load. 

Chapter Fifteen - Life Away From The Care Factory - Cheap entertainments - half truths about sex in church - half truths about sex in the movies - the Franciscan monk - a better imagination, please.

Chapter Sixteen - Three Steps Back - Shrinking hopes close to home - tiring in work - visiting the doctor  - Celia edges into the picture. 

Chapter Seventeen - Celia and Other Stories - Neither change not rest - sustaining disappointment - strange family-friendly entertainments.

Chapter Eighteen - Reversing Into The Future - Therapy ahoy - melancholy moments - meeting my future landlady - a second Christmas in work - Hello Tiredness - Hello unemployment.

Chapter Nineteen - A Rest/A Change - The best nights rest - space and time to think - my first bus pass - humour vs circular logic - fresh thinking - new temporary friends. 

Chapter Twenty - Change Comes in Threes - Easier unemployment - Pink Narcissus - change of address - job club - postman. 

Chapter Twenty One - Please Mr Postman - The intelligence test - why and how to choose to work - functional detachment. 

Chapter Twenty Two - Entries and Exits - A clean exit - the non work/life balance - how to live with blame - a reward for my patience.

Chapter Twenty Three - Unknown Territory - Travelling hopefully - the night of a lifetime - in a queue - conference time - church vs doctor. 

Chapter Twenty Four - Sideways - Better sinuses - sleep still bad - mother's solution - journaling - books on therapy - 'Dibs' - examples from the past - a job. 

Chapter Twenty Five - Journey Beyond Kierkegaard - A friend leaves - the telephone - wine - work - more journaling - arguments resolved?

Chapter Twenty Six - Unreliably Yours - Return to the dole - back to voluntary work - the household mascot - managerial evasions - accepting divisions - church vs therapy - losing touch with my past. 

Chapter Twenty Seven - Spiritual/Mental Health - Graham R where are you - origins - anger rises in the journaling - Pastor Lou - explanation time - all help is temporary. 

Chapter Twenty Eight - Choice and Change - Missing Graham - popular music -collections - the furnished life - mother's hoarding - Pastor Lou advises - music comforts me - safer downsizing.  

Chapter Twenty Nine - I am Named - Records for sale - an encounter with loss -  different ways of rating recognition in anonymity - risk and gambling - found?

Chapter Thirty - A Haircut - The Job Centre shuffle - the recession gets closer - other holding operations - an alarming fantasy - open signs of low self esteem - clobber texts - no new friends - a shave and a hair cut - new recognition - clobber texts remain. 

Chapter Thirty One - Lost In Christmas - Christmas again? - the family visit - maturity - out of sync with neighbours and friends - more on Graham R idea spirituality - sociable frustration -  new year new beard. 

Chapter Thirty Two - Clearing The Decks - Name checks of authors - family matters - family vs friends - more internal argument - Grandad's decline.

Chapter Thirty Three - Alone Together - In the dark - make your mind up time - a conversation starts - chicken broth - a visit to the pub - a good end to the night.

Chapter Thirty Four - The Admiral Duncan - Thinking time - back in the past - selfishness - 'being 'backward'' - the relay of life - lights and music - slow exits - introducing Russell.

Chapter Thirty Five - Journey Into The Past - Travel - tired family routines - mother - a new shirt - seeing friends - the funeral - afterthoughts - an awkward conversation - a final reflection.

Afterword - Limbo - middle class support - lingering losing arguments - finding and losing friends - The Admiral Duncan - companionship.