It’s very, and the whole of that is very, very clearly imprinted in my mind in a very funny kind of way. I had a very, very peaceful day at work, in the office mostly tidying, and , it’s a very funny thing now whenever I have had a similar day when I’ve just been quiet and in the office tidying, I’ve had an incredible sense of foreboding and you know, kind of what’s going happen?

And our secretary stuck her head around the door, I can see her head now, and said, There’s someone to see you. So I said, Show, show them in. I’d just picked up the phone actually and I was ringing somebody else, so two policemen came in, I said, Just sit down till I finish the phone call. And there’d been a situation the day before when somebody’s car had rolled away in the car park and bumped into somebody else’s, and I just thought, Oh Gosh, I hope to goodness my car hasn’t rolled away. And then the other thing is there might have been somebody being naughty at work, which obviously would’ve been an issue, and I just hung on for a moment, and the person, it was twenty five to, it was after half past four, twenty five to five, and I just said, Blooming part-timer, they’ve gone home already. ‘Cos they didn’t answer the phone, and turned round, and one of the policemen came up from the table, sat on like a filing cabinet by my desk, and just said, There’s been an accident to Russells bus, he’s rather badly injured and we’ve come to take you to the hospital.

Ah, it must’ve been awful.

So,

You just dropped everything and went.

I dropped everything, I stood up and had my coat half on and said, Oh no, I think I’d better go in my own car, and that was very, very funny, because I then said, So that I can come back when it’s all over. And so subconsciously I must’ve thought that this is a death situation. But equally in my logical head, must’ve, and I thought that’s a terrible thing to say, and I changed it and said, To come back at the end of the evening. Thinking like, and he said, No, no, no, we’ll stay with you all night if need be. You come with us now.

You didn’t think perhaps it was something, a minor thing that you could just sort of see him at the hospital and come back again to the office? You thought it was

No, because he did, he actually said to me he’s seriously injured and he did say he’d fractured lower legs, upper legs, pelvis and had abdominal injuries, so I knew.

You knew it was serious?

that that it wasn’t, this wasn’t just, and anyway policemen don’t come and take you to you to hospital because they’ve, you’ve broken your leg.

So I must, and I must’ve sub-consciously known that it was a death situation, because of the fact saying, and I said, I’ll need my car to get me back when it’s all over. And then knowing that that was the wrong thing to say, and changing it to say, at the end of the evening.

So did you

So they then, I just bobbed my head around my colleague friends door, and said I’m off to the hospital and Russells been injured, and then knocked, knocked, on walking out knocked my head into my bosses door to say, I’m going because there’s beenan accident and they’re taking me to the hospital. She then actually came out and said, I’ll come with you. And he said, the policeman said, No we’re going now. And she said, I’ll follow you. And he said, You won’t, we’re going on a blue light.

Well my son died on a Sunday in January. He was he loved riding his motorbike and he died on his motorbike. He was 34 years old. And he was not a, he was by no means a novice motorcycle driver. He was very experienced. And other experienced drivers had told me that they thought he was a good driver.

So although I had always been a little anxious about his motorbike driving because being a driver myself I know that it’s the other car drivers that often put motorbikes in danger. I did comfort myself always with thinking that he was a sensible, a sensible driver. And he, he, he’d always been had an affinity with driving and road. And on this Sunday night in January, I live on my own, about twenty five or thirty miles away from where my son lives. And I it was late at night. I wasn’t in bed but I would’ve been going to bed. It was about eleven oclock in the evening and dark of course. And there was a ring on the doorbell. And I went to the door to find two policemen in their fluorescent jackets and their hats, outside. And I let them in.

Oh it must’ve been awful.

And my mind had already I think, started to deny the fact that there was any thing serious wrong.

Now a few hours beforehand my partner who used to spend the weekends with me had left to go home. And so it flitted through my mind that something might have happened to him. But I did push it away. And my mind I could, I can now say was already starting to push things away immediately.

And I invited the policemen in and invited them to sit down, and invited them to have a cup of tea. And mostly very quickly the younger of the two, said that, asked who I was. And was I the mother of my son. And said that he’d been involved in an accident that evening. And he had during the as a result he’d lost his life. That was how he put it. He’d lost his life. And I couldn’t, I don’t think I grasped it at all. I don’t think I grasped it. And looking back now, I am astounded at the grip that shock puts, put me into anyway.

And I think I was in the grip of that shock for many months. I would say for a year. I would say that I couldn’t grasp it. And I didn’t cry. I just was I don’t know how I was. But I was I know I was asked to phone my partner who, who is my ex-husband, and my son’s father. And I was asked where he was and could I contact him. And I did dial the number and he came onto the phone. And I started to tell him and I was unable to; my voice just wasn’t working properly.

So the policeman took the phone and spoke to him. And I think I was quite agitated and I remember even though it was cold I opened the, the door to my kitchen and was walking outside, and just walking up and down. And I remember my, my ex-husband then contacted my daughter and spoke to her partner. And her partner told, told my daughter about it. And after that my daughter rang me on the phone. And I can remember distinctly I said to her, It’s not true, it’s a mistake, it’ll be all right don’t worry. And my need was to make it right for her.

And I could not, I couldn’t, I couldn’t conceive of the fact that I was presented with this as a fact and I could not make it right. I couldn’t change it.

I saw my brother on the morning of a sunny Sunday morning in January when he came round to borrow my bike leathers so that he could taken his girlfriend safely on back of his bike for the first time.

And we had a twenty-minute conversation. He discussed with my partner where they might go and where would make a nice little ride that wouldn’t be too much for her. And I lent him my leathers and off he went.

I remember very clearly him looking out of the window of his car as he drove past the front the house and pulling a face at me as he often did. And then that was that. And then much later that evening we’d had supper. I was actually in the bath. I heard the phone. And partner picked up the phone and spoke to my father, who said that my brother had been in an accident or was thought to have been in an accident. And that the police were with my mother and that they, another car was coming to get my father who lives separately.

And not too far from where I live. So my partner got me out of the bath and told me what was going on. And I phoned my mother and said I need to come down to the hospital where they thought they had Matt.

And so the police were fantastic and they organised between themselves for the car that was picking up my father up to come here and pick me up as well. And then they drove us as quickly as they legally could to the hospital, which is about thirty miles away, from where I live, a very bizarre car journey with my father.

With nobody really knowing very much what to say. I spoke to my mum before I left. And I remember her saying, It’s not true, which I’d actually forgotten about until she reminded about it when we were talking about this interview. And I remember saying to her, No of course it’s not.

But actually I knew it was. I don’t know why but I was very sure as soon as I heard that that was Matthew, that was my brother.

And I wasn’t going to see him again. So we, we arrived down at the hospital. And it’s all a bit blurry. I remember meeting my mum and obviously us all being very upset and very shocked. And just looking to the policemen to direct us. And walking through the hospitals A & E department, which on a Sunday night you know is quite busy.

And going to the quiet chapel and then sitting for ages while people explained things to us. And that was quite hard because I know there’s a lot of legal detail that needs to gone into and that those people were trying to support us.

But actually all we wanted to do was find out whether it was him.

And

So you weren’t sure really in your mind that it was at that stage?

In my mind I was.

But he hadn’t been identified and nobody had seen him.

What happened after that? Did you have time to feel anything at this stage?

Yes, I think, I think there is an element of shock but for me it was very real, almost from, from the phone call. And certainly by the time we left the hospital it was very real. So, yeah, it was full on, I haven’t got a brother any more.

I’m so sorry.

But it, it’s so big and so painful and so incomprehensible that you’re not going to see this person again that it’s almost as though you can only, I’ve read about people discussing it as something you sort of sidle up to, or something that, that you look round a corner and remember and then come back again

Because you can’t keep it, you can’t keep that knowledge in your head all the time. So the next few days were a really odd combination of, of feeling absolutely devastated and being unable to comprehend why the world was still turning and people were still going to work and there were still cars on the road, and, and yet having to do the practical things like phone work and say, I’m not going to be in for a few days. And trying to be with my family and, and offer whatever comfort I could to my family, particularly, well, just my mum and dad and my partner, who was fantastic. And other times, you know, because we were talking about my brother and he was a very special person, he was my brother of course

But he was, and he always looked on the bright side and he always had a joke and he could always make me smile and we did a lot of laughing during that time as well.

On the 7 August 2006 Marni was killed in a car accident. It was during the day, it was about half past two actually and she just veered across the road and smashed straight into a lorry and there doesn’t seem to have been any, well at the time we thought there was no reason for it. Later on they found out that she’d got a medical problem and that was probably the cause of it.

She was driving?

She was driving yes.

How did you first hear about it?

The police came to the door, I was here, it was quarter to five on the same day and I’d spoken to her earlier in the day and she was in the local town, because I was at work, and she phoned me and I said Oh are you going to come up to work and see me? she said No, I’m going to get home because I want to look at something on the computer, so she was, not in a rush or anything, it was something she needed to do. And when I got home, she wasn’t home and I sort of thought Oh that’s a bit odd but I thought she’d probably called on a friend and I thought, you know, don’t be silly, don’t worry. But I’d got a funny sort of feeling, but you get that a lot don’t you when you’ve got children and then the police came to the door.

Were there two of them?

Two yes, two men.

Did they come in or what?

Well yes, they came to the door and I thought Well that’s a bit odd and I knew that she and her friend, well her friend actually, had been in the town a couple of weeks before and her friend had got really silly and Marni had had to sort of pull her away from a fight, and I thought that was what they’d come about and I thought This is a bit heavy isn’t it, and I wouldn’t let them in and they said Can we come in? and I said No, no you can’t, what’s all this about? and they insisted on coming in and I thought What on earths the matter with these people? you know, haven’t they got better things to do. Anyway they came in and they sat down and they asked me if I knew Marni and of course I did and they told me that she’d, she’d been in an accident and they said, And she hasn’t survived. And I thought What do you mean I couldn’t understand what it meant, I couldn’t understand what, ‘she hasn’t survived’ meant and of course I understood but it wouldn’t go into my brain.. I asked them where she was and I just wanted to get to her because I thought.., I thought I could make it better, you know, and I felt sure that there was something I could do.

What were your feelings at that stage?

Well I think it was disbelief really and it still is actually. It still is, I didn’t really, I just thought it was, I kept thinking I’d wake up, you know, that it was some dreadful nightmare, I kept thinking I’d wake up. But I didn’t go to sleep. I didn’t sleep for a long time actually.

Did you get any help from your GP?

No I didn’t because my feeling was that it was a very natural thing not to sleep actually and I preferred to let nature take its course. I knew that if I wanted to I could go and get something to make me sleep but I thought, Why would I want to sleep?, you know, I wasn’t worried about not sleeping. I was just worried about her and where she was and whether or not she’d been frightened and scared and whether or not now if she’s frightened and scared and lonely but I don’t think she is actually.