I’m trying to think what it was; I think it was a Saturday.
Which year?
200715th September, I was in bed actually asleep and my brother had been trying to phone me, and my mobile was on silent so I hadn’t, I had not seen, heard it, and he just came walking into my bedroom, which straightaway I knew that something was wrong because it was about 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning, and he said, “Mum’s died”, so I jumped out of bed and said, “Oh my God,” you know, “What’s happened, how?” And he said, “A fire.” And I knew it was a cigarette, I knew.
Did she smoke a lot?
She smoked, and she always, I kept saying to her, “Mum, be careful of cigarette butts on the rug, and bits and pieces,” and I kept saying, “Can you please be careful of your fags all the time,” I said it to her. And as soon as he said it, I said, “It’s a cigarette, it was a cigarette, I knew it, I know it is a cigarette without doubt.” I definitely knew it was so. I don’t know what I felt really, just, I think it was guilt to start with, because I just knew it was this cigarette, and I just thought to myself, I wish I’d bloody, I don’t know drummed it in a bit more. But I think it was her only pleasure she had really, was her fags, and so it weren’t, it weren’t a case of her giving up. And so anyway I jumped out of bed and I don’t know what you feel really, do you? I don’t know what we, you just, I was more concerned, the kids as well, because they’re very close to Grandma, very close to Grandma, and I think you start worrying about everyone else really. Start putting that motherly instinct in and trying to protect them, make them be strong as well, so I was trying to be strong for everyone else.
