6

It was my 6th birthday, I think. I don't remember having a party, but I know I had a birthday as there's a picture of me in standard issue 1980s sailor dress, sage-green, with a number 6 badge pinned to the lapel. I don't remember if I had a party or not as the only memory I have belongs to my Dad.

As clear in my mind as if it was last weekend, we spent the day, it was a Sunday, cruising round Stoke-on-Trent looking for doctors/pharmacies/clinics/ANYTHING that was open so he could get some relief for an affliction that will remain unmentionable but that could be easily relived with a cream. The mood in the car was tense, as usual; when Dad was wound up, we were all a bit wound up and Mum was torn between being furious for my birthday being ruined and anxious to get him the relief he clearly needed.

I say 'clearly needed' because you wouldn't ruin your daughter's 6th birthday unless it was totally necessary, would you? Unless you absolutely COULD NOT wait until the Monday, you wouldn't take the family on a scenic tour of open all hours medical establishments, would you?

I could feel the guilt creeping back from my Mum from the front seat, I can still cringe a little bit today just to think of the scenario; how did she even sell it to me? To my brother, only a toddler at the time? Why did we all have to go trooping off? What happened afterwards, when we got home? These peripheral memories have long gone, but the memory of the car ride will be forever indelible.

It wasn't that I was unhappy, I remember being happy, I think. This was, of course, our normal, to be honest, it probably didn't even feel that weird at the time, it is only perspective and hindsight which draws the shadow over the event. For me, at 6, I was properly oblivious to any other life; my Mum, my Dad, their relationship, OUR relationship was all totally normal to me. Clearly, this scenario was not normal, any one of my little friends at my beautiful, expensive prep school would not have recognised this as normal, even then, but for me, yeah it was annoying but we just got on with it. In fact, this version of 'normal' remained that way for the next 19 years.