November 2022 - Death – Divorce - Destruction - A friend in need - Dear John

 

I wrote this last November, as a message to my brother John, but was never sent or shared. The start of a new year seems the right moment to reach out and share some of my pain and anxiety.

Om John

It all started after the death of my sister Mandy in 2011, the family imploded and has never recovered. November 2023 and my mum, Little Betty (92) is divorcing dad, Slam Lambert (93) after 70 years. It is destroying dad yet he was there when I needed a friend. Please be patient.

My mum left the family home 18 months ago and dad now lives alone. He is a broken man and his mind is beginning to play tricks.  The final court hearing is in six weeks, January 2024, just before dads 94^th birthday. It’s not really my mum divorcing dad, it’s my brother John cos he fell out with dad as a teenager, and he wants to protect mum, which on one level I fully understand.   John and I used to be close, I love him he is my baby brother,  but he now refuses to have any contact with me.  Its daft and there are no winners. If only he would talk to me. Hey ho.

First, I need to take you back in time and pick up the start of this painful, hurtful, humorous in places, farcical, ridiculous, set of events involving the family, solicitors, injunctions, the courts, three police visits and Lambo interviewed under caution at Goole police station and loads of stuff you just could not make up. My wife Shiela died a week before the first lockdown. I escaped a week before the final one.

December 2020 – July 2021. Fuerteventura Spain. The second lockdown, I was living in Fuerteventura. The first five months at the Playitas Sports complex where I finally got myself fit, sane and sober before the last three in Corralejo which  saw Lambo crash from the ecstatic high of illicit dance parties in the mountains, erotic parties on the beach, being a crowd pleasing beach entertainer, renting  an apartment for a year, , in addition to obtaining a five year temporary  passport and a short, but amazing, passionate fling thing.  The fling thing plus way too many beers and a lot of THC sent me into an anxiety spiral just as new lockdown restrictions were imposed. I ended up going to the hospital for Valium. I crashed. Plus, the awakening of my past, but very present, life awaiting me in England. I then caught a bug, never tested but could have been covid, for the last four weeks before flying back to England a quivering mess. The fling thing had also created an itch, so I signed up to Silver Singles, but that’s for later.

Garwick Airport 30^th July 2021.On arrival  I was required to go straight to quarantine at DT94 by the best means possible. That meant via Sheen, Richmond to collect my trusty 14-year-old, falling apart Saab untouched for 8 months. The door locks worked but the battery said no to start. Now I had a problem as not easy to get a jump start when I was meant to go ‘straight to jail without passing go’. I managed it while socially distancing but the jump start didn’t work either.  Umm, a new battery was needed. I was permitted -under the rules- to get a cab to take me home so wondered if this covered a black cab to Halfords in Twickenham to open the back door, with me inside, to purchase not only a battery but a socket set, as no tools, all paid for electronically whist being fully masked. I took the chance it was just the battery and three hours later I opened the door to home in Dorset.  I noticed what my late wife Sheila’s awesome garden looked like after a whole season of nothing, it was wild yet inviting.

A good friend had left bags of shopping, and 18 cans of Stella. Hey ho. I am now in quarantine for ten days, in a damp- more musty- home with freezers (power off) full of rotten food and a jungle of a garden. I had drunk no alcohol for over a month after the May and June excesses; the first beer tasted yummy, my second better, my third …. I cried a lot the next day, an awful lot the day after. The following morning the phone rang.

It was my dad on his mobile phone. The line was poor but clear enough to discover he was on a train from Bridlington to Sherborne and changing trains in Sheffield and Exeter and arriving at 1735. Oh my god, I needed a friend and there was dad, a friend in need.

August 7th 2021.

My depression and anxiety was ever present but dad (permitted under the rules as carer for me) being there meant I had to get out of bed, put in a days work and not descend into a mess again.

I kept getting messages from the Covid Police to log my location but didn’t work. A man turned up to check I was isolating just after driving dad back from the supermarket, as allowed under quarantine rules, which made no real sense at all. After ten days I was free to …. Get miserable, feel anxious and depressed but also enjoy clearing the clutter, both inside and outside the house, having lots of bonfires, cook for dad and drink a few beers. We shared lots. I was aware of the ongoing family tensions, my mothers and brothers’ frustrations with dad, my dad’s frustrations with mum, money, powers of attorney and my brother John’s refusal to speak to me or any form of contact with me which still puzzles me. After three weeks I drove dad to Kings Cross London and set him safely onto a train home.

I will be forever grateful to my dad for helping in my time of need. What I didn’t expect was the fallout his visit would shortly create and the ongoing nightmare that continues as I write.

If I could wish for one thing [my New Year’s resolution] it would be to sit with my brother John and talk until we both cry, give each other a hug and stop our dad from being destroyed in court in six [now one] weeks’ time.

Om John