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Marjorie. When a mother is not a mother. The Collins English Dictionary describes mothering as treating someone with care and affection. Associated words include nurture, raise, and protect. It doesn’t describe someone who uses her children as emotional tools, shows them no affection, takes no interest in what matters to them and repeatedly puts them in harm’s way. So, if the second description fits the person who gave birth to you, is it unfair to take away the beautiful tit

“Patch of grass marking Brian Warrender’s unmarked grave at Southern Cemetery, Manchester.” The photograph shows a patch of grass between graves. If you didn’t know what you were looking at, you might walk straight past it. Around thirty years after my father’s death, I was living in Wales when I began searching for where he had been buried. The answer led me to Southern Cemetery in Manchester, to plot JJ1621. I stood there in disbelief. There was no headstone, no name to tel

She Never Said Sorry. The Prequel To He Said He's Sorry My memoir, He Said He’s Sorry, told the story of what happened to my family after my father took his own life. But one question stayed with me: I knew Brian Warrender was my dad, yet I knew so little about the man he had been before his life ended far too soon. She Never Said Sorry begins with his childhood and his evacuation from Manchester during the Second World War. It follows the people and places that shaped him, t