Nick tried so hard to be a good husband, a good father. To his credit, he always tried to do his best – not just with our son, but also with me. He would come home from work as promptly as he could. It was difficult to clock out on time as a copper, and I think his desire to look after me drove a wedge between him and his bosses at work, but – love him – he did it anyway. He would come home, make me a cup of tea and then when things were really bad, he would examine me, looking for scratches and bruises. There was a bad time involving an iron burn when he lost it – badly – with Jack, and another time when I needed stitches to my lip. Plus, the broken finger of course, and several broken ribs. And a broken nose. I had suffered, but I think it took courage for Nick to walk out of our front door every day and not know what he’d come back to. He was unable to muscle our son into good behaviour, so in some ways I think the abuse was emasculating. He knew he should be putting a stop to it, but like me, just didn’t know how. It was so hard not getting help from the GPs, but then, bad behaviour in children just wasn’t medicalised.

We tried to be self-sufficient and read up on what was available – not much then – and made plans which, to our credit, we stuck to. We tried it all. Nothing worked.

Now, things would’ve been different. Most likely, Nick would’ve been investigated, but this was before, when people looked the other way to domestic abuse and I was left to make excuses about clumsiness that were instantly believed. I know, as a nurse who’d done a few stints in A & E, that I’d seen injuries to wives and suspected, but it wouldn’t have occurred to us to do anything.

It sounds so stupid, so improbable now, but times change.