The obligatory heroes blog

There isn't much introduction needed for this; these are the people who I love, cherish and admire most, and whose impact on my life has been huge.

My mum
Perhaps I’m just too old for the whole omgz parents sux thing, though to be honest I’ve always had an amazing relationship with my mum. We’ve had enormous slanging matches before and there has been a lot of mutual screaming and door slamming, but the cliché is true; it was only out of love and worry. Mum is the strongest person I’ve ever met. My father is not exactly a nice person, and while they didn’t officially split up until I was nine, my parents have ever liked each other and my dad was never at home much. He is very negative and walked all over Mum, stamping out her self-esteem and controlling every aspect of her life. When she finally told him she wasn’t happy, he went, “Well of course you are, you can’t leave me, I’ve given you everything you’ve ever wanted.” Which wasn’t true at all, he was tight with everything, including love. Mum had the children she’d always wanted, but we weren’t born into the relationship she’d always wanted. She’d had six miscarriages before she had my older brother, and we were always sick – Mum always said “you weren’t sickly children, if there was anything wrong with you it was something huge” – and at one point when she was pregnant with my little brother my older brother was in one hospital having massive asthma attacks and I was in another on the other side of town really ill with coeliac, and she still had no support at all from Dad. He was going to football and work parties while two of his children were in hospital close to dying. It’s embarrassing to say really, that a person like that is a part of me. But the fact that Mum has fought back from that and has never let anything stop her is something that amazes me still. Dad moved out the summer before I started secondary school, when me and the boys were 12,10 and 7, and Mum did everything, getting up at 5am and going to bed past midnight every day, working two jobs at one point, and never resenting it or being anything other than wonderful.
Mum’s dad, my grandad, died in December 2003, and 4 months later her then-boyfriend dumped her for being “too much of a handful”, Tom (my little brother) became a complete nightmare in school, constantly beating people up and getting into fights every lunchtime, the OCD I’d repressed since I was 11 came back and my older brother Matt got himself arrested. Yet, Mum held down a nine-to-five job and running everyone else’s lives just as much as ever. My nan, her mum, is 74 now, and she’s been an alcoholic since Grandad died but won’t admit she drinks too much, so Mum looks after her now as well. My nan is like my dad, she’s a miserable old bat for whom nothing is ever good enough. She never told Mum she was good at anything when she was growing up, and she’d always tell her she was ugly and no one would ever want to marry her. I think that’s why she settled for Dad; he was just another person who didn’t love nor especially like her, and she’d grown up with that, so why not just find someone else to tell her she’s not good enough? And that’s why I admire her so much; she trod on hands and stopped taking that rubbish, and set about turning things around. She’s a strong, beautiful woman and an amazing mother. She’s never once told me I can’t do something or that I’m not good enough for anything or anyone, and she’s kept us all grounded but with pride in ourselves. She’s never pushed us into anything or towards things that we weren’t sure about, she’s always just said “whatever you do with your lives, make yourselves happy”, and I too believe happiness is the most important thing you can have. Matt has been a barman since he was 18 and his wages are peanuts, but it makes him happy, so Mum’s happy.
Mum had me admitted to a mental health unit when I was 17, and the first night she left me, I was the angriest I’ve ever been, and honestly hated her. I rang her and screamed down the phone for a whole hour about how much I hated her and how horrible she was, how could she ever leave me in a place like this? etc., but when she hung up I panicked and rang her straight back, telling her how much I loved her and how scared I was. She promised to come in the next day at 10, and for the 4 months I was an inpatient, she came to see me every night bar about three. Her visits were all that got me through the days sometimes. She’d come straight from work, sometimes going into Tesco and buying all the magazines on the rack, then we’d sit and chat and sometimes look through them. It was a break from the rest of the world in that place. And though I resented her for doing it, if it wasn’t for her, being late for work to take me to psychologist appointments twice a week and eventually putting me in the unit, it wouldn’t be melodramatic to say I’d haven been dead years ago.
Mum’s the happiest she’s ever been now. She worked with Kevin for years, and while I was in the unit they started talking and Mum said she could talk to him for hours. He moved in last year, and last November he took her to Paris and proposed, and she’s in love for the first time. She loved my dad, in a weird way, but it wasn’t right. And she loved her first major boyfriend after her marriage, but he was horrible. She was so used to being walked all over, she let him do it to her as well. But now she’s found someone who actually respects her and loves everything about her. And to see her finally be truly happy is just so lovely.
My friend Laura’s said a few times, “You’re really close to your mum, aren’t you?”, and I’m so proud and grateful to have her in my life and as my mum and be able to say “yeah, I am.”

Sian
She will blush so much at this but I cannot seem to locate my caring card so gutted Howen.
Talking to her completes the day, and it feels like so long if it’s been more than 24 hours since we’ve had a proper conversation. I look forward to our daily nonsense more than is probably normal. Mostly we discuss the same things over and over, but it never actually gets old or repetitive, nor does it ever stop making me laugh. I know I can tell her anything at all; what I just had for dinner, how much I need a wee, basically anything. There’s nothing that I’m scared, embarrassed or ashamed to tell her. I trust her with my life, and my heart. I’m not a trusting person, or someone who is open to forgiving people easily – if you hurt me, even only once, I will have no qualms with cutting you off completely – and she is the first person who I’ve ever had a bicker with and cared enough about to want to talk everything through with. Which shows how fabulous she is to be honest; she changed the lifetime habits of a stubborn sod.
She lives in the Midlands and I live in South London, so we’ve only met twice, but she’s still a daily constant in my life that I can’t see ever not being there. People always think it’s a bit odd that there’s a five year age gap as well (I’m19 this month, she’s 13), but I’d never change anything about our friendship. Sometimes, with the physical distance between us, I miss her so much it’s a physical pain, but I don’t worry about growing apart at all. This friendship is too important (and I’m far, far too stubborn) for that to happen. It’d be nice not to have to travel for hours to be able to see her, but if we hadn’t met on the internet we’d never have met at all, so it can’t be all that bad. It makes my tummy feel all warm and yummy when we talk, and it makes me feel safe to say that she’s my best friend. Safe in the strength of our ~relationship, and safe to know that she’ll look after my heart. I love you, baby.

Daniel Jones
Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
I know that I adore this man, and I know some of the reasons why I adore him, but I always get stuck trying to word it.
I’ve seen McFly live 8 times so far, and each time I’ve been lucky enough to get quite close to the stage (which can be quite hard, considering how rabid McFly fans can be), it’s been an amazing experience anyway, but there’s a massive part of me that is especially touched and all warm and fuzzy to be that close to him and hear him sing when it’s not through a TV screen or on record. His voice still makes me stop and get all tingly sometimes, and it’s been years. I watched them on TV with my younger brother once and he turned to me and went, “Danny has a really nice singing voice doesn’t he? I could listen to him sing for ages.” And it made me so happy and feel all yummy. Through the years of depression, I could listen to him sing and escape, if only for the time it took him to sing his verse. It was still there.
I read an interview with them a few months after I decided to cut my dad out of my life completely, and at one point he spoke about his dad and said ‘I guess it could be the excuse for me to go off the rails, but then, why would you want to get into drugs and become a hopeless excuse for a human being just because someone else is?’, and I had a massive surge of strength and it cemented things for me in a way; I don’t need someone who doesn’t appreciate or care about me, regardless of his name being on my birth certificate.
At 18, people usually go “McFly? Really? Urgh” when they get the answer to the “who’s your favourite band?” question, but I’m not embarrassed by it, nor am I embarrassed to say that a 22 year old who misspells his own name is one of my heroes, because if he wasn’t like he is, it wouldn’t be the same would it?
p.s. I like the bald patch and the double chin, so there.