My mum left dad in 1984, the weekend of the Brighton bombing. One day we were all together in the house with roses growing round my window, and the next we were in a strange new flat with a strange new man who wasn’t my dad. For weeks, after school, I returned to what I learned to call ''my dad’s house’’. Sitting on the doorstep for four hours waiting for my dad to return from his shift at the Ravenscraig steelworks. He and I cried when he had to take me back. And my mum cried as he handed me over. My little sister was even more confused. Eventually, one weekend a fortnight was agreed. It was like a holiday – packing, warnings on behaviour, what not to say.