The summer of 1979 was significant in the history of my immediate family. Things of consequence happened before my father died at the age of sixty five on September 14th. He had been retired for just one year.
He had suffered from angina for a couple of years and took prescribed blood thinning tablets but otherwise he enjoyed good health. The number one worry in his life was my brother Simon and how things were turning out for him. He was often nasty and aggressive to both of my parents and some of his behaviour was just plain weird.
In July, the day after my second teaching year finished in South Yorkshire, I headed home to East Yorkshire. My father kindly came to Paragon Station in Hull to pick me up. He was looking pasty and sad and he said he had something he wanted to talk to me about. We stopped at "The Duke of York" pub in the village of Skirlaugh and bought two beers.
Dad said that Simon had been arrested in a pub in Bridlington the night before and was still in police custody. Someone had seen him rolling up a joint at the bar and then smoking it. They had in effect shopped him. Dad was suffering from a range of conflicting emotions including increased worry about where Simon's life was leading and self-recrimination for somehow failing his youngest son. In truth, the arrest did not come as a surprise to any of us.
That night Dad suffered his first major heart attack and was whisked by ambulance to a hospital in Hull. Luckily he survived. The following Monday the magistrates court in Bridlington "sectioned" Simon - putting him in a local mental hospital for I believe two weeks for assessments.
I went to visit both of them in their separate hospitals.
Dad came home after a few days with more heavy duty medication while Simon still languished in an austere Victorian building that had once been called a lunatic asylum.
My other two brothers were now around to give practical support and so with my father's blessing I headed off to the island of Rhodes for a delayed two week holiday. I was supposed to go the day after the heart attack but had cancelled my flight.
One Sunday while I was away and Dad was recuperating, a bare-chested and wild-eyed Simon arrived back at the family home with his face and torso deliberately smeared with mud and bird feathers in his hair. He had been in touch with God and had visited places in North Yorkshire that he believed to be associated with family ancestors.
It was a very disturbing episode as witnessed by my mother and father, my older brother and his former wife and two of my parents' best friends who happened to be visiting that day.
Two weeks later we were into September and I received a phone message through my school to say that Dad had had another heart attack and was once again in hospital. It was a Friday and after arriving in Hull by train but before carrying on to the family home, I went to the hospital to see him. He was heavily medicated but it was clear that this second attack had taken a lot out of him. He just wasn't himself.
He died the following morning and I drove my mother to the hospital to see him. Behind the green hospital bed curtains she fell apart and I left her with him for a few minutes believing that my presence might be an intrusion. They had been through a lot together and were in love till the end.
Ongoing stress from your brother's situation would not have helped.
ReplyDeleteHow sad that your father experienced all that just before he died. He was very young. I feel sorry for Simon, too, because I wonder if he had been properly treated? Mental health issues and their treatment have come a long way, thank god. How did all this impact you, Mr P?
ReplyDeleteI'll say 1979 was a significant year. Your dad took too much responsibility for Simon. Now that's easy for me to say. As a parent you feel that you must help your kids. Simon clearly had mental health issues that neither he nor the system could deal with.
ReplyDeleteThat's incredibly sad, Neil. I am so sorry your family had to go through this.
ReplyDeleteWas Simon schizophrenic?
ReplyDeleteHeart attacks were so much more deadly in the past. Today your dad would have had stents put in and sent home. My own dad had open heart surgery in 1975 which was very scary in those days. I wonder how much Simon blamed himself for your dad's death.
It seems the hospital should have kept Simon for much longer. So sorry about your Dad though, thinking he hadn't done enough when he clearly had since the rest of you turned out fine. It's nice to know your parents loved each other right to the end.
ReplyDeleteThat's a hard read. Even harder to live through.
ReplyDeleteIt's strange that one child can cause so much upset when the others don't. We are very complicated, us humans.
I can understand a little better now the reason for your ambivalent feelings about Simon. A once loved little brother who went on to cause so much stress and anxiety for your parents. Families can be complicated.
ReplyDeleteIt is good that you write these memories although they may be bad in their doing. But Simon has passed on and you can make a history for your family. Good and bad are part of that history.
ReplyDeleteI think the question you are mulling is that did Simon cause his father's early death. Maybe, but we are all responsible for our own actions.
Thank you for writing about this, for sharing. In many families, experiences like this are buried, become deep secrets. Reading about these experiences, helps others understand what life can be like.
ReplyDeleteSimon was obviously mentally ill. I had the same thoughts as Pixie- schizophrenia? Or perhaps bi-polar disease. He was not in control of it and if proper help and medication had been available, things may have been much different. I am sure that he suffered far more than most of us could have imagined. His behavior may have contributed to your father's death and if so, I am very sorry for that.
ReplyDeleteMy eldest daughter was born early in January, so 1979 was a good year for me.
ReplyDeleteI hope you find writing this down cathartic YP. Life is so short.
ReplyDeleteThere are wise words in the comments you've published so far, and I can understand why you need to write about such a difficult time. In 1979 I was also in Hull taking a psychology degree at the university, during which I made several observational visits to De La Pole mental hospital. That leads to some amusing stories, such as one patient asking me how long I'd been in, but I was unimpressed by the way patients were treated and it quickly dispelled any thoughts I had of going into clinical psychology. Like others, I also question whether Simon received the most appropriate treatment.
ReplyDeleteSo much trauma for all of you, Neil. I agree with Thelma that it is good to record it. Will it touch someone who reads it? Will it change someone or help someone deal with their own trauma? You never know how words can reach out to others...
ReplyDeleteI believe all families have some unpleasantness in their history . . some more so than others.
ReplyDeleteSuch a sad account. It's true when they say you can't choose your family.
ReplyDeleteThere is obviously a great deal of regret around this period in the life of your family. It's hard to live with that and with the questions it raises.
ReplyDeleteI believe that people do the best they can, given their individual circumstances and unseen issues
Such a sad episode -- or series of episodes, really. It's a shame Simon wasn't more open to treatment, but that's very common among people who struggle with mental illness. (As I understand it.)
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