So much can go pearshape when we write.

I was driven to write because of my past. whether we write fiction or non fiction surely the essence of who we are must become part of our story. I accidentally slipped into writing due to earlier loss. I was eight and nine months when my beautiful father died suddenly. Although I'm something of a 'closet pensioner' my memories still burn brightly.

    The fact that our mum, Brenda May and dad, James Hopper Nesbitt were both blind I don't think that we were disadvantaged. But there were differences in our busy Harold Hill, Romford home. Mum reading us braille bedtime stories. Her playing the piano whilst my brothers, Peter and Richard, hurled the parcel around the living room until mum's slender fingers ceased dancing across the keys. I'm certain that we cheated just as I'm sure that mum knew what we were up to particularly when we were quiet.

   We became her eyes as we grew older. Her RNIB books being delivered by a heavily laden postman balancing the tomb like books on his bike-it must have been so much harder for him during the winter months. Just as it must have been more difficult for both mum and dad to keep a check on us when we were out and about with them.

 Southend was a particularly exiting day out for us. There'd generally be a ride along the pier on the narrow gauge train. Us being adorned by either candyfloss or toffee apple  coated clothing. Such incidents of course didn't factor as being important. Summer seemed to last forever as we sailed blissfully along with one season merging into the next. Our world of make beleive. I was always proud of both my parents and didn't feel disadvantaged then.

The day my paternal grandmother sat on my bed and told me that dad had died in the night was the last time I was to see her in my life. It was as if she to had died; as had the rest of our paternal family.

I was asked by our grieving mum, only 32 at this time, if I wanted to see dad in the chapel of rest. I was filled with an inexplicable fear regarding the death of anything. A squashed hedgehog, a bird no longer in flight or a rabbit with bulging eyes. I chose not to visit him and see him lying in a coffin. After all I had the opportunity to see him lying in his hospital bed at Harold Wood hospital.

  I still remember our little procession walking along long hospital corridors. Mum ahead of us tapping her white stick from side to side whilst we straggled behind her. She'd tried not to cry when the consultant told her that there was nothing more that could be done for our dad. I'd never seen her cry before  but that news on that morning was more than she could bear and so she cried whilst my brothers and I sat there not beleiving what was surely to follow or how our lives were to change,