sea2

Some things can crush a man. They'd better not try to hurt you by hitting you or calling you names because that's been tried and it doesn't work. So many small defeats, so many humiliations and you are a washed-up, ten-time loser and you have no qualities that a normal human being should have. Drip feed the badness in the eighties, the Falklands, ten-men-dead, the miners' strike, Hillsborough, and still they don't break you. You leave the fucking country in the end because you're sick to the gills but you come back in the wash because there's no place like home and you've had some beliefs all your life and then this last few months you've seen them stripped away and you're not on your own and the blanketmen agree with you and you try to talk and all you can say is "I've been so lonely, Ma. So fucking lonely." And you go upstairs and the sight of any empty bed finally crushes you.