I spent ages thinking years thinking that it would have been better if it was me. I somehow managed to I don’t know how I got this, something to do something somebody said on the night of the accident, miracle mindsetting again, somebody said something about how the only reason hed survived was because he was so fit and strong. And which he was, you know, he was a fine physical specimen, all did all sorts of sport, you know.

And from that I managed to extrapolate the idea that if I had the same accident, if the accident happened to me, I wouldn’t have survived because I wasn’t as fit and strong. Because I smoked and didn’t play football every weekend. Which I mean, I don’t know now, but that to me, at a distance, that sounds like a bit bonkers to me, that surely in kind of percentage terms I wasn’t very much less fit than him at all. But somehow I managed to get this idea that if it had happened to me, I wouldn’t have survived at all, so therefore it would have been much better if it had happened to me. But I also felt that if it had happened to me, I just felt Matthew would have been much more robust at being able to cope with it. I feel guilty at trying to have a life at all, but I also can see that it would have been much better if I’d been better at having a life of my own [sobs]. Which I think is what hed have done. I think he would have been much quicker to say, Come on, mum and dad, you know, we all loved her but this is fucking mental.

Absolutely, it just yeah, absolutely, everything just changed like that because my mum and my dad, I lost both my parents the same day because my mum then went into the hospital. And because there was this uncertainty of, you know, he might just stop breathing at any second, you don’t want to leave somebody in a room by themselves. And you know, if they woke up and there was nobody there, so my mum was there constantly and I bought my first car while I was sixteen. I went half shares with my sister and we because, you know, my independence was so important to me because, you know, wed go down to the hospital in the morning, then wed go to school and then the school bus would drop us back off at the hospital and wed eat tea in the hospital canteen; and then we would do revision in the hospital day room and we would sit there til eleven o’clock at night and then wed go home and wed sleep. And wed get up and wash and go to the hospital, go to school and, you know, we and on weekends, wed spend all day every day there. And that was life, really.

I think that’s the main thing, is showing them that they’re still a part of your life. You know, that’s the key and that’s you know, that’s why, you know, he would have been in the family photos for my cousin’s wedding, so he was in the family photos. You know, he couldn’t come to us, so we went to him in our hideous big poof shouldered green dresses.

Oh. They weren’t your choice, I take it?

At the time, they were fine, but were talking, you know, over 20 years ago.

Things date, don’t they?

They do. But it was not even yeah, I got my GCSE results, the first place I went, straight to the hospital, from the school straight to the hospital. You know, for anybody, any sort of youngsters going through the same thing with a parent, I think the one thing that I found tough is that my grades, academic grades don’t reflect my ability because, you know, I did my GCSEs, sat in a communal hospital day room, did all my revision, living in the hospital, and theres only so much you can take in.

And I remember my cousin got married and we were bridesmaids and we went between the church and the reception, we went to the hospital and we left our bouquets in the hospital and had photos taken with him. You know, so he was still part of what was going on, but on the other hand, our lives stopped for nearly a decade, particularly my mum’s. You know, my mum did not have a life for ten years, basically. He was her life for ten years, you know, and it’s weird. It’s really weird and I can’t explain it. I’ve never ever felt like a single parent family, even though I’ve spent more than half my life without my dad in it, never felt like a single parent family, ever, ever, ever.

I’ve cried for so many years of my life, but not you know, my husband says that, you know, the one thing the worst thing anybody in the world could call me is a victim, you know, cause I believe that experiences in life, you have to just use them to make you stronger, you know, cause otherwise you just sit there and it ruins the rest of your life, you know; and that would just devastate. The person’s lying there, your family wants the best for you, you know, and for you to let this situation just ruin your life. And for course it does ruin your life in one way but on the other hand, you can hit the self-destruct button and start to feel sorry for yourself and keep going why me? And why us and why is just such a pointless question to ask because, you know, theres no answer why, you know. The only question, I think, is how would you deal with it. You know, and theres no lessons in dealing with it either.

You just kind of don’t like putting anybody else out. You just kind of roll your sleeves up and get on with it, which has, you know when you’re so young, it has such an impact on the rest of your life. It has an impact on, you know, your career, your life choices, your relationships, your attitude to money, all these things which you might not think are relevant, they’re absolutely pivotal to what happened, you know, and I know that one of my biggest flaws is that I’m too independent, I’m really bad with money. But I also know exactly where it comes from, so I should really do something about it [laughs].