Sunday 17th December

The long coach journey back to London.  The humiliating meeting of my and her parents, the interviews and caution by the Police.  None of this stopped me loving her; in fact it now became a War.  Us against the World.  I was determined that our love would win through, that nothing would stop us.  And so, the chaos continued.  We had short spells of living with her parents, and a crazy few weeks in a flat in Stockwell with some drunken Canadians.  We got married there and spent two days at Southend for our honeymoon.  I was trying to save money for a proper flat and for the baby but never seemed to manage it.  We did buy a double bed and a few things for baby but, as I have found so often – it is easy to save living on your own, but harder when you are a couple.

Then inexorably the time came for the baby to be born. I could write a separate chapter about that alone, but after a long labour, Justin finally arrived.  We were back at her parents by then and things weren’t going well.  Constant rows, Carol and her mother, Carol and her sisters, Carol and her father – I was beginning to realise she was a difficult person, but still I blindly loved her.  I would have died for her, or that was how I felt.  Eventually one night her Dad came in drunk as usual and suddenly hit me really hard in the face.  I have never been a fighter – a runner, yes – but never a fighter.  He threw us out, baby and all, late at night.  No idea where to go we went to the Police.  And at about three in the morning they took us to a homeless families hostel in Archway.