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apart!’
    But it was especially bad if we mentioned Stacie after a weekend there.
    ‘What did your Dad make you for dinner tonight?’
    ‘Nah, he didn’t,’ I’d slip up. ‘Stacie did, it was good.’
    Then straight away she would get the hump. ‘Oh, having a good time with her, are ya? Your dad left me for her and you prefer spending time with her?’
    I always got what she meant, and why she was upset, but what did she want us to do? I’d sit in my room on my own, thinking, ‘Fuck, man, I don’t like Stacie for what she did, of
course I don’t, but I can’t help it if she’s in my life when I’m at my dad’s. I can’t ignore her all the time, and refuse to eat her food or whatever, just to
keep Mum happy.’ It was such a hard place to be in as a kid. I don’t blame Mum for being so mad, but I just wish we didn’t always have to suffer for it.
    All this time Dad’s business brain was going into overdrive. Then, sadly, his dad died of cancer in early 1999. He had told my dad after Nanny Pernod died that he
didn’t think he had anything to live for and, true enough, he soon got sick, and didn’t seem to fight it, but just kept deteriorating. He went into hospital for chemotherapy, and lost
his hair and put on weight from the treatment. I hated visiting him because the whole place was just so sad and full of death. Ever since then I have had a total hatred and fear of hospitals.
    Then he moved out and lived with Dad. I would go round and visit, but he couldn’t talk much. It was like he was getting older by the day, right in front of our eyes. I was ten when he died
and that fucking hurt. I just wish I had known both him and Nanny Pernod when I was older. I still visit their graves, and talk to them, but I feel like I missed out on a lot of time with them. Partly because of the divorce, I guess, I didn’t see them as much as I would have liked. But I hope they are proud of what I have done since – Mum’s parents got to see me on TV
and I know they were.
    I also would like to know if they are proud of Dad, as he achieved a lot of his success after they passed away. Granddad left £500,000 between his five kids. Not bad for a guy who had to
provide for five children, as in those days his wife wouldn’t have worked to supplement his income. Dad used some of his money to buy a two-bedroom house to rent out, and some to help set up
his own company. Now he had moved from welder, to manager, to company director – and he was loving it! Dad is always in his element when he is deep in work and getting results. And getting
results he was, in both business ventures.
    His own company, Delfini, which made signs, built up quite rapidly. If you want to know where the name comes from, my aunt used to work for him as a secretary, and she loved dolphins. Some of
their early work was with Greek companies, and the Greek word for dolphins is
delfini
, so they called the company Delfini MB Services – the MB standing for Margaret and Bernard, a
nod to Dad’s parents.
    I remember watching that company grow for Dad. His first office was this shitty little Portakabin on Tilbury Docks, a proper dockers’ place, tiny with a load of men in there and porn on
the walls. Then he bought another Portakabin and put the two of them together, and then soon after he bought a whole warehouse. It was like you could see his company growing and expanding just by
the size of the buildings he was working in, and all this came about because he worked so hard. Metal was his bread and butter, and it seemed to me that he could build just about anything from
scratch.
    He was also really well respected down on the docks. Whenever I would go with him everyone knew him and would want to speak to him, and they would be good to me just because I was his son. Even
today if I go down there, although he no longer has a company on the docks, people will still come over to talk to me, and speak warmly of Dad, and call him ‘a proper