Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [6]
He was as content as any man can hope to be, living with his bride in rural Cheshire. He took up a job with Wiggins Teape, the paper manufacturers, and together he and Patsie began to raise a small family in the countryside.
For Patsie to follow so publicly in her father’s footsteps was a decision that troubled Neville, however. He knew that it would change all their lives drastically. But he consented all the same.
The glamour of Westminster was intoxicating for his young wife, and the Westminster corridors were equally intoxicated by the bright and beautiful Patsie.
Neville waited and watched patiently from their home in Cheshire. But in vain.
It wasn’t long before Patsie became romantically involved with a Member of Parliament. The MP vowed to leave his wife, if Patsie left Neville. It was a clichéd, empty promise. But the tentacles of power had firmly grasped the young Patsie. She chose to leave Neville.
It was a decision that she regretted until her dying day.
Sure enough, the MP never left his wife. Yet by now Patsie had burnt her bridges and life moves ever on.
But the damage, that would affect our family, was done; and for Neville and Patsie’s two young daughters (Sally, my mother, and her sister, Mary-Rose), their world was turning.
For Neville it was beyond heart-breaking.
Patsie was soon wooed by another politician, Nigel Fisher, and this time she married him. But from early on in their marriage, Patsie’s new husband, Nigel, was unfaithful.
Yet she stayed with him and bore the burden, with the flawed conviction that somehow this was God’s punishment to her for leaving Neville, the one man who had ever truly loved her.
Patsie raised Sally and Mary-Rose, and she went on to achieve so much with her life, including founding one of Northern Ireland’s most successful charities: the Women’s Caring Trust, that still today helps communities come together through music, the arts and even climbing. (Climbing has always been in the family blood!)
Granny Patsie was loved by many and had that great strength of character that her father and grandfather had always shown. But somehow that regret from her early life never really left her.
She wrote a very poignant but beautiful letter on life to Lara, my sister, when she was born, that ended like this:
Savour the moments of sheer happiness like a precious jewel – they come unexpectedly and with an intoxicating thrill.
But there will also be moments, of course, when everything is black – perhaps someone you love dearly may hurt or disappoint you and everything may seem too difficult or utterly pointless. But remember, always, that everything passes and nothing stays the same … and every day brings a new beginning, and nothing, however awful, is completely without hope.
Kindness is one of the most important things in life and can mean so much. Try never to hurt those you love. We all make mistakes, and sometimes, terrible ones, but try not to hurt anyone for the sake of your own selfishness.
Try always to think ahead and not backwards, but don’t ever try to block out the past, because that is part of you and has made you what you are. But try, oh try, to learn a little from it.
It wasn’t until the final years of her life, that Neville and Patsie became almost ‘reunited’.
Neville now lived a few hundred yards from the house that I grew up in as a teenager on the Isle of Wight, and Patsie in her old age would spend long summers living with us there as well.
The two of them would take walks together and sit on the bench overlooking the sea. But Neville always struggled to let her in close again, despite her warmth and tenderness to him.
Neville had held fifty years of pain after losing her, and such pain is hard to ignore. As a young man I would often watch her slip her fingers into his giant hand, and it was beautiful to see.
I learnt two very strong lessons from them: the grass isn’t always greener elsewhere, and true love is worth fighting for.
CHAPTER 6
During the first few years