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From Hull to Hell and Back
From Hull to Hell and Back
From Hull to Hell and Back
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From Hull to Hell and Back

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When he broke dramatically onto the senior rugby league scene with his beloved Hull as a gifted teenager, prop Lee Crooks was an archetypal blood and guts heart-on-his-sleeve firebrand front-rower, adored by the Boulevard faithful.

A Cup winner and distinguished 19-Test international - best remembered for his nerveless last-gasp penalty from the sidelines to save a series against the Kiwis in 1985 - Crooks then became the most expensive rugby league player in the world when signing for Leeds, against his wishes, as Hull hit hard times.

A subsequent move to Castleford rekindled an always lively playing career prior to coaching spells with Keighley and York before, unthinkably, he crossed the city of his birth and joined the staff at Hull KR.

From Hull to Hell and Back... tells of all this and more. By turns confessional and controversial, moving and occasionally hilarious, this is the colourful story of a modern-day rugby league maverick. Think you know Lee Crooks? Think again!

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 25, 2013
ISBN9780957559325
From Hull to Hell and Back

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    From Hull to Hell and Back - Lee Crooks

    From Hull to Hell and Back

    The autobiography of Lee Crooks

    From Hull to Hell and Back

    The autobiography of Lee Crooks, with Vince Groak

    First published by Scratching Shed Publishing Ltd in 2011

    Digital edition published at Smashwords 2013

    Copyright © 2013 Lee Crooks, Vince Groak

    All rights reserved

    ISBN: 9780957559325

    The moral right of the author has been asserted

    Registered in England & Wales No. 6588772.

    Registered office: 47 Street Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire. LS8 1AP

    www.scratchingshedpublishing.co.uk

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

    This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

    If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Table of Contents

    Hessle Road

    Acknowledgements

    Foreword by Peter Sterling

    1. Love Will Tear Us Apart

    2. There in Black and White

    3. Testing Times

    4. Captain Crooks

    5. Wests Life

    6. Marching on Together?

    7. Castleford Calling

    8. Sidesteps and Dummies

    9. A Gottle o’ Geer

    10. The Party’s Over

    11. Made in Hull

    12. Is Pat on the Bus?

    13. On the Right Path

    14. Crossing the Divide

    15. Back to the Future

    Hessle Road

    "Hessle Road, Hessle Road, I am proud of Hessle Road.

    When folks ask where I come from, my head it is not bowed.

    I say I come from good old Hessle Road.

    I miss the bonfires in the street. I even miss the bullies,

    Sat'day trips round Boyes’s and the prams outside of Woolie's.

    I miss those bobbers' clogs at two, that very fishy smell,

    Langham and Eureka, and Picky Park as well.

    I miss those little gardens with sooty coloured roses,

    Little kids with wellies on, with yellow snotty noses.

    I miss those shotgun weddings, those little corner shops,

    Playing football in the street and getting chased by cops.

    I miss those brave young fisher kids, coming home to shore,

    Spending all their money, then going back for more.

    I even miss Criterion—a very quiet pub—

    And a little lass from Subway Street our kid put in the club.

    I miss Sat'days at the Boulevard. we always used to win,

    With the Drake twins, Tommy Harris, Mick Scott and Tommy Finn,

    Loose forward Johnny Whiteley—the finest in the land—

    And the best-behaved supporters, we were there on Threepenny Stand.

    There was Havelock and Gillett Street, West Dock and Boulevard.

    They're pulling them all down now. It's hitting people hard.

    They've left it all behind them, and on to Bransholme strode,

    But I bet they don't forget the laughs, the tears on Hessle Road.

    I remember what me dad said, when I was leaving home

    To fend for meself and start a family of my own.

    He said, "I brought you up, son, but nowt to me is owed.

    Just remember where you come from. You're a kid from Hessle Road."

    Words: Pete Smith

    Acknowledgements

    Lee

    MY thanks to Peter Sterling, Garry Schofield, Colin Maskill, Franky Punchard, Arthur Bunting, Mike Page, Richard Crooks, Vince Groak and David Howes.

    This book is dedicated to my mam and dad... for all the things I didn’t do.

    To my four kids - Emma, Stuart, Megan and Ben - and grandkids Sonny, Beau and Georgia. You make everything worthwhile.

    Vince

    TO my mam and dad and sister, Joanna; To Chubs, Fewy, Big Lee, Little Lee, Neilo and Steve for making Friday nights enjoyable regardless of the result, and to Lee Crooks for the enormous privilege of sharing his story with me.

    To Claire, of course, for never doubting that this book would one day be finished, and to Dylan; one day, my boy, one day. I love you both.

    Foreword

    by Peter Sterling

    LEE Crooks is directly responsible for affording me one of the greatest thrills of my rugby career.

    As a child, my father always used to wake me up in the wee small hours to watch Test matches between Australia and Great Britain at Wembley. So from an early age I had a burning desire to one day set foot on the hallowed turf.

    In April 1985, Hull FC played Castleford in the Challenge Cup semi-final at Headingley. The winner, of course, would go through to the final to be played at that magical venue. But with time almost up and Cas leading by six points, we were in a bit of trouble. Suddenly, we managed to score a try and give ourselves the chance of an unlikely replay.

    Displaying nerves of steel close to the sideline, Lee calmly potted the conversion and kept our hopes alive. History shows we beat Castleford comfortably in the replay and went on to appear in one of the most exciting games ever to be played beneath the old Twin Towers.

    I wasn't surprised that Crooksy made that kick look so easy because his prodigious talent was a leading attraction in persuading me to travel 12,000 miles to join the Airlie Birds the previous season.

    Our paths had first crossed during the 1982 Australian Kangaroo Tour in which we both made our Test debuts. Lee was still only nineteen when he was chosen by the Lions’ selectors for the first game in Hull. His selection certainly piqued interest in our camp because he was viewed as the kind of individual who could cause us some problems. Respected local judges had assured us that he was a youngster with plenty of skill but that he also possessed a relatively short fuse.

    After he missed the Second Test through injury, we were able to take advantage of his fiery nature in the final game when some well-placed sledging drew a reaction and led to him being sent off. Despite this dismissal he had already demonstrated that a marvellous career was underway. Over the ensuing years the mental side of Lee’s game developed to match his physical influence and he became a professional's professional.

    Three of his twenty seasons in the top grade were spent Down Under where he is still regarded fondly as one of the truly great English imports to have graced our competition. The fact that he was a traditional ‘pommy’ front-rower from a bygone era made him an immediate crowd favourite and a particularly dangerous proposition on the paddock.

    Not since Brian Lockwood had our game seen the kind of crafty ball-playing ability so often associated with English prop forwards and, sadly, not since Lee have we seen it again.

    While that high-profile meeting with Castleford obviously made an impression on my life, it is actually a run-of-the-mill club game the previous year that sums up the Lee Crooks I will always remember.

    On an awfully bleak night at the Boulevard we took on Leigh in a match that we were expected to win easily and, although we ultimately did so, the game took place in freezing conditions. Snow fell throughout and the ground was an unforgiving surface that burnt the skin upon contact. To be honest, Australia had never looked so good.

    I believe that I managed to go through the full eighty minutes without being tackled and went into the sheds happy with the win and pleased to be physically unscathed.

    This was put into perspective when I sat next to Crooksy and looked down at his knees. They were a bloody red mess; the top layer of skin long gone from continual contact with the frozen surface I had tried so hard to avoid.

    It hadn’t been a cup final and victory had never been in doubt, but Lee had played with the same intensity and desire that he would have done if it had been a Test Match.

    He embarrassed me that night and I made a promise that I would never again look to take the comfortable route. 

    Due to the tyranny of distance I don't get to catch up with my former teammate as often as I would like these days but, with the rugby league world being what it is, I always look to see how my old mates are getting on. The last time I heard from Lee, he was spreading the gospel in Serbia.

    I am extremely proud to call Lee Crooks a mate. The same pride I felt every time we took the field of battle together.

    Peter Sterling, May 2011

    Back to contents

    1. Love Will Tear Us Apart

    WHEN Hull FC sold me to Leeds in 1987, they received more money than any club had ever got for a rugby league player. My hometown club had fallen on hard times and were skint. They needed the brass. Leeds were a rising force, bristling with ambition and with cash to burn. I wasn’t the only top player they signed that summer; just the most expensive.

    Most players in the same position would have been excited and even grateful but when the directors of Leeds, with great pride and arrogance, rolled me out in front of the TV cameras on that June afternoon, I would rather have been anywhere in the world but Headingley. I had never been more miserable in my life and, rather than celebrate the hefty signing on fee, the pay rise and the opportunity to join one of the biggest clubs in the country, I just wanted to get away to drown my sorrows.

    Once the formalities were over, I drove a few miles down the road to Rothwell to meet up with Garry Schofield. The interview I had given at Headingley that afternoon had been shown on BBC Look North; Schoey had seen it and had found it quite amusing. He told me he’d never seen anybody look so pissed off. We had a few beers and he tried to cheer me up but it didn’t work. It hadn’t been my decision to leave Hull and I was too upset to try and pretend I was happy about it.

    A couple of weeks earlier, I had been in Sydney playing for Balmain Tigers when I was told I had to fly home to sign for Leeds. I’d been back in England a few weeks while the deal was finalised and, in that time, there weren’t many days when I didn’t have a beer to try and cheer myself up. Since most of my (now ex-) Hull team-mates were on holiday, I was pretty lonely and spent most days searching for people to go drinking with. To make matters worse, before I had flown out to Australia, I’d given up the lease on my flat in Hull so I had nowhere to live either. I crashed wherever I could; on the floor of mates’ houses, in hotels, in pubs, in my car. I don’t think I spent more than two nights in any one place.

    I would disappear for days on end. Occasionally, someone would get worried that they hadn’t heard from me for a while and would ring around trying to track me down. It was a thankless task; I could have been anywhere. Anywhere that sold beer that is. Schoey once went looking for me and traipsed around most of the pubs in Castleford before he finally gave up. He ended up getting pissed himself and landed in bother with his missus as a result!

    When the time came for me to go to Headingley for the medical, I turned up with a hangover and was told that I had a very high level of alcohol in my blood. I told them that that wasn’t remotely surprising since I’d been drinking non-stop for a fortnight.

    I couldn’t care less what they thought of me and, if anyone at Leeds was concerned about how I was feeling, they never really showed it, certainly not to me. I had to go back a few days later to do the medical again and, this time, I was unveiled to the press as the world’s most expensive player. As I stood there posing for photographs holding a Leeds RLFC scarf above my head, I couldn’t believe how I had come to be in such a situation.

    For the answer, I had to go back a couple of years.

    *****

    BY 1985, I wasn’t the same bloke who had burst onto the rugby league scene five years earlier. The success I enjoyed at the start of my career had gone to my head in many ways. And who could blame me? I was captain of my hometown club; the team I supported as a boy and the one I had always dreamed of playing for. The team I led onto the Wembley pitch for that now famous Challenge Cup final in 1985 contained legends of the game; Steve ‘Knocker’ Norton, Peter Sterling, Dane O’Hara, Gary Kemble, Garry Schofield and James Leuluai, to name a few.

    Not only was I one of the key players in the Hull side, I was as close to being a regular in the Great Britain team as I would ever be. Later in the year, I single-handedly saved a Test series against New Zealand with a man-of-the-match performance and a last-minute penalty kick from the touchline. It had seemed, for five years or so, that everything I touched turned to gold and I felt that I could do no wrong.

    I’d always had a big ego but there was no doubt that, by 1985, it had started to turn to arrogance; a characteristic that I have always hated in other people. When I first broke into the team, I was by far the youngest member and I suppose that my occasional indiscretions were sort of laughed off. If I ever got into trouble, there was always someone there to help me out and I guess I started to take that for granted. Gradually, I became more and more selfish in my attitude and behaviour.

    It was ironic really because I used to pride myself on not letting my success go to my head. For years, my first wife Janet and I spent most of our time with her family and friends, having family parties and talking about rugby league in social clubs around Hull. I had celebrated my eighteenth and twenty-first birthday parties, as well as my engagement, in the Charleston Club just down the road from the Boulevard. All of our families had been there and it was very down-to-earth and normal.

    When Janet and I moved to Hessle in 1983, we put a little more distance between us and her family and I started to spend less time with them and more time with my team-mates. It never got to the stage where I was out every night by any means, but there was never a shortage of opportunities to go out drinking and, inevitably, it started to drive a wedge between Janet and myself.

    Janet and I had married when I was very young and I probably missed out on a lot of the things that a typical seventeen or eighteen-year-old might get up to. By the time I was twenty-one, I started to think about what I had supposedly lost and, I guess, started to act like the teenager I had never really been.

    Ironically, at the same time, I had become one of the senior players at Hull FC and, as captain, they needed some maturity from me to help turn around the club’s fortunes because, after the 1985 Cup final, everything at Hull began to go downhill very quickly.

    After the Bradford City stadium fire in 1985, the club had been forced to shut down the Boulevard’s famous wooden Threepenny Stand. When we started the following season at home to Widnes, there was no atmosphere in the ground and it affected us on the pitch; we put in a very poor performance and were hammered.

    It was a miserable season. Rovers knocked us out of both the Yorkshire Cup and the Challenge Cup, we were humiliated at St Helens in the John Player Trophy and the tour game against New Zealand was a bloodbath. Five years earlier, we had played the touring Kiwi team and, although we had lost, the club and its fans had made such an impression on the tourists that four of them went on to sign for us. In November 1985, we lost again and I was one of five players sent off in a bad-tempered game.

    While we were struggling on the pitch, there were also lots of rumours about the club’s financial problems. The prize money wasn’t coming in any more and the crowds were well past their peak. Meanwhile, the club still had a large squad and a massive wage bill. When the directors were faced with having to make ground improvements, they just didn’t have the money. There were major problems just around the corner, although I had no idea at the time how those problems would come to affect me.

    *****

    JUST before Christmas of 1985, we headed over the Pennines for what ought to have been a fairly easy game against Swinton. But it didn’t turn out that way; they got stuck into us, stopped us from playing and we lost.

    We knew we had underperformed badly and everyone was gutted on the bus journey home but we were still in the top half of the league and nobody was panicking. Certainly, none of us had any idea of the plotting taking place on the directors’ bus. Chairman Roy Waudby called an emergency board meeting for later that night. At the meeting, he asked for a vote of no confidence in Arthur Bunting as coach. Apparently, it was strongly opposed by some directors but Roy invariably got his own way and, the next day, it was announced that Arthur had been sacked.

    Roy and Arthur hadn’t seen eye to eye for quite a few years. As a teetotaller, Roy had never felt comfortable when Arthur encouraged his players to go out together. He never really understood why sportsmen liked to have a beer to help them bond and relax. While the team was successful, there was no real challenge to Arthur’s methods but, once our results started to slip, Roy was quick to blame it on what he saw as a lack of discipline.

    Arthur broke the news to us at training the next day and, to a man, none of us could believe it. Even though our form had been poor by our own standards, we hadn’t thought for a minute that Arthur might get the sack. We all went to the Norland pub for a drink, but we didn’t know what to say to him, nobody was able to make sense of what had happened. I guess you just never know, until it’s too late, that you’re past your peak, either as a team or an individual. At that time, we still thought we were the best team in the competition and that we would bounce back. But we were wrong and it never happened.

    Arthur’s biggest strength had always been his ability to get the best out of his players. He was the best man-manager that I ever played under but, with the benefit of hindsight, he had probably got as much out of some players as he was going to. One of the accusations against Arthur was that he allowed the team to grow old together without bringing in enough younger players. Arthur was well aware that he sometimes needed to move players on but whenever he decided to let somebody move they just didn’t want to go. The atmosphere at Hull was so special that nobody wanted to leave. At one point, Arthur struck a deal with York for them to sign Sammy Lloyd, but Sammy said he’d rather retire than play anywhere else and refused to go. It proved very hard to break up the team and some of the older players stayed longer than they probably should have. Arthur wanted to be ruthless and bring in younger players but it didn’t quite happen.

    Instead of easing young players into the team gradually, as he had done with me, he suddenly found that he had to bring lots of them in all at once. Jon Sharp, Alan Tomlinson, Neil Puckering, Andy Dannatt and Paul Eastwood were all good players but they were all dropped in at the deep end at once. It wasn’t their fault they lacked the experience to deal with the pressures of playing at a club that was expected to win trophies every season. So Arthur was fired and Ken Foulkes took charge for the rest of the season. It didn’t improve our results and 1985-86 fizzled out badly.

    Just before the new season began, Len Casey took over as coach. Compared to Arthur, Len was a novice and it had only been a year since he finished playing, but Roy Waudby thought Len would bring in the discipline he felt we lacked. In the event, Len’s management style was too much of a contrast to Arthur’s and for some of the older players, it was a change too far. The players also felt a lot of loyalty to Arthur and Len had a tough start. His playing style had always been very competitive and his style of management was just as aggressive. We made an inconsistent start and, by November, Len was already struggling to get the best out of us. We started to suffer the kind of heavy defeats that seem to happen when all is not well. It certainly wasn’t the kind of form we wanted to take into a fixture against the Australian touring team.

    Four years earlier, we had almost beaten the 1982 Invincibles and Peter Sterling had been so impressed that he chose to join us for two years, but the way we approached the fixture in 1986 said a lot about the team we had become. It was a brutal game, quite similar to the Tour game against the Kiwis the year before, with fights breaking out at regular intervals. Garry Jack later complained that, while he was trying to break up a fight that had spilled over the touchline, he had been assaulted by a middle-aged Hull woman who had hit him with her umbrella. Three players were sin-binned but the fan was never brought to book! The Aussies beat us 48-0 and, after the game, Sterlo said that if he ever came back to play in England then it wouldn’t be with Hull FC. I was embarrassed.

    Len Casey had lots to offer the game but his style of man-management wasn’t getting the best out of us. Len put the fear of God into his players and I think some of the younger ones were intimidated. Mind you, although I didn’t think he was right for the club at that time, I still had a lot of respect for Len as an individual. He certainly tried to help me out as my marital problems got worse.

    After a big argument with Janet one night, I went out on the piss with a couple of players from the colts team. We were daft enough to go out down Hessle Road where I was sure to be spotted. Inevitably, someone decided to tell Len what I had done and, the next day when I turned up to play, he took me to one side for a chat.

    I was expecting to get a bollocking and, to be honest, I didn’t care. I was bang to rights and so I never bothered to deny it or offer an excuse. I just told him that I’d had a row with the missus, felt sorry for myself and decided to go out. Len had been through the same kind of situation himself a few years earlier and knew exactly what I was going through. Rather than come down heavy on me, he offered me some advice. If you’re ever going to do something like that again, don’t do it in Hull. Go somewhere else where it’s quiet, he told me.

    It wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. Len wasn’t soft by any means - he’d be more likely to thump a player than let them off the hook - but I guess Len wanted to show me some sympathy and he certainly didn’t want to put my back up as he needed me to play. I was touched by the gesture but, to be honest, I needed someone to reign me in. The last thing I needed at that stage of my life was someone to cut me some slack.

    Arthur Bunting had been like a father figure to me and he knew exactly how to handle me. When he left the club, I probably needed to take more responsibility for myself and, I’m ashamed to say, I wasn’t able to. If I had been happier at home, it might have all been different but the cracks in my marriage to Janet were getting wider and there’s no doubt that it was affecting my career.

    I had met Janet when I was just fifteen and she was twenty-one. At that time, the age difference didn’t matter to either of us; I was quite a mature teenager and we enjoyed doing the same things. As far as I was concerned it was a brilliant relationship and I just wanted to do the normal things most people do when they meet the right person; get married, buy a house and start a family. For five years or so, it all went to plan. Our kids, Emma and Stuart, arrived and we were very happy bringing up our family. I had everything I could possibly want; success as a rugby player, great mates who I went into battle with every week, and my own family. It was perfect, but it didn’t last.

    Like a lot of men, I wanted to have my cake and eat it. I loved Janet and worshipped the kids and I wanted to have a satisfying home life. On the other hand, I also wanted to go out whenever I felt like it and we all know that those two options aren’t compatible. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop me trying for a while and I began to spend more and more time away from home as the temptation to get drunk and go to parties grew greater and greater.

    I had my own way of explaining my behaviour. I always felt that drinking with my team-mates was part and parcel of being a sportsman. It was the reward we earned for the hard work that we put in on the training field every week. I never thought that my drinking could do any serious harm and I probably felt that I was entitled to do as I wanted since it was my success that had given us the lifestyle we enjoyed. Besides, I was a Great Britain international and the captain of Hull FC. Didn’t that mean I could get away with what I wanted?

    The situation came to a head around Christmas of 1986. I had a big argument with Janet and was all set to storm out of the house. I had two pay packets sat on the mantelpiece, one of them had only a few pounds left in it, but the other contained over four hundred quid. I grabbed that one and left the house. I headed for the Albion pub where I knew the landlord, Andy Stephenson, quite well. It was the last Friday before Christmas and the pub was soon filling up with the lasses from the local factories. Most of them knew who I was and it wasn’t long before I was chatting them up and having a laugh.

    By then, I was spending a lot of time with my team-mate Steve ‘Knocker’ Norton and so, once I had decided that I was going to stay out all night, I asked Pauline, the landlady, to ring ‘Knocker’ and get him to come and join me. I’d spent whatever cash I’d had in my pocket and so I dug in my jacket pocket for the wage packet that I’d brought with me, but once I opened it up I realised that I’d picked up the wrong one and it only had about a tenner in it. I was gutted and it put me in a really bad mood. Knocker turned up eventually but, by then, I was hammered so he just took me back to his house where I could sleep it off.

    By the start of 1987, I knew that my relationship with Janet had broken down and I made the very tough decision to leave her. Although my mind was made up, it proved to be very difficult to make the break as I just couldn’t bring myself to leave my kids. There were days when I would convince myself to leave and there were others when I was just as determined to mend the relationship and make it work.

    One night, I headed for training determined to come straight home afterwards since I had my driving test the next day. On the way to training, I stopped off to order an Indian takeaway which I planned to pick up later and take back home to Janet.

    It was Knocker’s testimonial season that year and, after training, some of the players were getting ready to go to one of his functions. Since I had decided not to go out, I offered to give them a lift but, once we got to the pub, I decided to pop in just for one. As soon as I walked in, I noticed that Knocker’s sister, Karen, was there. I had always got on well with Karen and, to be honest, I fancied her like mad.

    After a shandy, I had a beer, then another and, eventually, Knocker, Karen, me and half the team stayed up drinking most of the night. At some point during the evening, something clicked between Karen and me. I think the feeling was stronger from my side, certainly at first, but, looking back, that night was the first time I started to think that I might have a future with Karen.

    The following morning, I had to sit my driving test. I called my driving instructor and asked him to meet me at the test centre. He stopped by at my house to pick up my provisional licence and paperwork and Janet insisted on coming to meet me as well. When he finally turned up I couldn’t believe it when I saw Janet and the kids in tow. Janet wanted to know where I had been all night and it all ended up in a big row.

    Years earlier, the club had arranged for me to have a sponsored car and I had driven around in it for a long time without a proper licence. Because of that, I thought I was perfectly roadworthy but, as everyone knows, passing your test is quite different to being able to drive. I didn’t do too badly on the practical and it all came down to how well I knew my Highway Code.

    The examiner showed me a load of cards and asked me what they meant. I was doing okay until we got to the last one - some dotted white lines on the road. I had no idea and could only guess. I think I got it wrong first time but he gave me a second chance. I kept getting it wrong and he continued to give me clues until eventually I got it right. It wasn’t until much later that I found out he was a massive Hull FC fan and, at the time, I just assumed that it was normal procedure to give clues. Anyway, I was a bit surprised when he told me that I had passed my test.

    I was chuffed to bits and in the mood to celebrate so I went to meet one of my team-mates, Carl Sanderson, in the pub. Karen was there again, we all had a few drinks and, to be honest, I just wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. She needed to get back to Wakefield and the pub that she ran with her partner, so we all drove over there to celebrate me passing my driving test. I ended up staying there all day and, after that, I never really went home again. Nor did I ever pick up that Indian takeaway.

    *****

    LEAVING Janet and the kids was the hardest thing I ever did in my life and it wasn’t the end of the story by a long way. It was a momentous decision and it tore me apart to leave my kids, but I didn’t think I could be happy if I stayed.

    I moved out early in the New Year into a flat in the centre of Hull. I tried to get on with my life but I didn’t find it easy. It was bad enough being away from the kids but the flat was grotty, dark and miserable. I had no furniture to speak

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