I love that song,ever since it first was released it has been a favourite of mine. The lyrics mean different things at different times for me and I am sure for a lot more people.
My brother PG,the lost brother.
When I say he is lost and noone knows where he is etc,people presume that he became 'lost' as an adult,when he could finally leave home and do his own thing.
In actual fact PG was lost to us from the age of nine months.Even though he did live his years untill his teens with us. Confusing isn`t it?
I was eight and a half years old when we ' Lost' PG,it happened one fine summers day,I was sat on the wall watching down the street waiting for mam to come home from the doctors where she had taken PG,she had been gone far too long,and I had this cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had fed the little ones and tidied up and done all the jobs that had to be done. I kept going out and looking down the street,and eventually when the little ones were settled and the older brother had got home I sat and waited. And when I saw her walking slowly up the bottom street with an empty pushchair I convinced myself he was dead and I knew it was my fault.
The day before we had been playing,I had been keeping the young ones amused,it had been raining on and off all day and so I couldn`t take them out as I normally did,big brother P had this idea to make a slide for them,using the ironing board he propped it on the chair and we held them and slid them down it. They loved it and we spent ages playing with them. Then D wanted something and I left the room to get it,while I was out of the room PG had climbed on the board and fallen off. I checked him all over and apart from a little red mark behind his ear there was nothing. A biscuit and some hugs and he was soon off playing with the others again. Course I had been blasted when mam came back for not watching him,she also looked but could find no injuries.
Around about sixish he got whiny and he was put to bed,later he was still whining and crying and he now had a temperature. He cried all night,his temp stayed up and through all the next morning too. You didn`t need appointments with our doctor so mam got him ready and off she went. With the usual orders of what I had to do and that it was my fault she had got no sleep all night.
She got to the house and I didn`t dare ask,she told me to get out of the way,and she went inside. She went upstairs and I could hear her crying and I was just numb,A came to me and he said that PG had been taken to a hospital far away and mam had to get him some clothes and take them on there.
It turned out when I finally managed to learn what was going on that he had been taken to St James at Leeds,which to us was far away though it was only 20 miles or so. The next 24 hours were a flurry of activity as people came and went,The male parent was summoned from camp,strange people were coming and talking and A who was 17 was left in charge ( big mistake),for over a week Mother when she was at home ignored me and my questions,apart from the orders of what to do,I looked after the little ones and cleaned and just waited.
Eventually a nice gentleman that had been coming to the house sat me down and explained what had happened.
When PG had fallen he had banged a place behind his ear,instead of the bruising coming out there was just the red mark,but it had bruised internally ( he put it as inside) this had caused things to swell inside his head,apparently it was a one in a million chance of this happening,but happened it had and PG was a very sick child and was going to be in hospital for quite a while. He told me it wasn`t my fault and that if anything it was my mothers fault as she wasn`t watching him either. I realised that he didn`t know that mam hadn`t even been there,that she was as usual out and that I had been in charge of the young ones. I said nothing.
PG was in hospital for nearly a year,I never saw him from the day he went to the doctors when he had screamed when mam had taken him off me to put him in the pushchair,to the day he came home when he screamed every time I went near him.
Throughout that time I had sent him pictures and written letters,he had a special nurse her name was Carla,she wrote to me and thanked me for the things that I sent.She visited us a few times to let us know how he was doing,mam had stopped going on after the first month and only went on then intermittantly.
Carla was my introduction to Racism. I knew about prejudice I had seen that with the people down the street in the 'Big Yard' the ones we weren`t allowed to play with because they were dirty and no good. My best friend lived in there and I had to meet her in secret.
Carla was West Indian,she was a lovley,warm wonderful woman,big and cuddly. But,she was black and the male parent hated her,mam hated her, and they were not very nice to her at all when she came to the house. She was never offered a drink,never invited to sit down,they didn`t hold conversations with her,they talked at her not to her. And when she cuddled me before she left I was immediatly ordered to wash and change when she was gone.Carla was my only contact with PG,she was in effect his 'Mother' for the time he was in hospital.
The big day came when PG came home,gone was the happy bubbly baby that he was and here was a sullen,uncommunicative toddler,I knew it was hard for him,he didn`t know us and now we no longer knew him.
This post is already too long,more later.