I am sitting on a bench outside a church in Steyning, talking to a man in a fetching corduroy hat. An elderly couple approach with their daughter and son-in-law. “Remember us? We lived in Chenies.” They introduce themselves and it comes flooding back. I have not seen them for 50 years. Their daughter Lois is the reason for my first scar. It is on my left hand.
(A side note: when going to see a psychic medium, they’ll often say “I think he/you/they has a scar on their left hand” and the reaction may be “wow, how do they know?” The most common scar to have is on the left hand, as it is the one that reaches out as we fall when we are little.)
Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter
We were playing kiss chase. She was chasing me. I stumbled and grabbed a gnarly old rose. Gnarly old roses are not good things to balance you as they have a habit of being covered in thorns and so my tendon was torn out. We talked only briefly of that. I felt the need to thank them. After my mother’s car crash, which put her in a coma and greatly affected her mental health, this family were so helpful to my dad and then my mum as she started to recover.
I say, “I know she was changed,” and he gives me a mournful look and says, “Yes. Yes she was.”
I am contemplating what was taken from my mother a great deal on this book tour, and how it changed us as a family. Time passes but we carry so much of it with us. Once in front of the audience, I spiral through many topics and then speak of the conversation we’d had outside. It has slightly winded me with emotion. I take the opportunity to talk of “confident vulnerability”. Of how we can take what others see as our weakness, our anxiety, fear of social shame and hold it firmly and say, ‘This is mine, this is me, I will not let you aim it against me.’
