Once upon a time

There's a photo, I don't know where it is now, but it is so sweet. Black and white, late sixties or early seventies, I don't know. It shows some pretty little people, a dark haired woman laughing, and her two little kids, very blonde. They are on the porch of a caravan called Rum Jungle near or on Station Hill in Devizes. They stayed there for a while.

No father in the photograph. He was never there, until he needed something. He dipped in and out of their lives, a random and total ruler whose laws changed every day, who switched from smiles to rages with swift ease, depending on his alcohol levels.

The woman in the photograph lived most of her married life harangued, bullied, deserted, reunited, bullied again. Permanently stressed, often terrified, she developed paranoid schizophrenia, slid into psychotic episodes during which she beat her daughter often. She was never treated. She eventually lived alone without electricity or running water, tormented by voices and hallucinations of physical pain.

The boy was endlessly verbally abused by his father. Seeking approval never worked, and was made worse when he came out. He got involved with drugs, caught HIV, married, was violently abused by his partner.

And the little girl in the photo? I don't know what happened to her.