by Ray Winstone
One thing that did help at the time was a great conversation I was able to have with Mum just before she died. We all hoped she was going to get better, but I think everyone knew deep down how unlikely that was, especially once she’d gone into a coma. I was away in Bristol at the time doing Robin of Sherwood and there was a big fight scene with Jason Connery coming up the next day. We’d designed it a bit like the one in The Quiet Man with John Wayne, and we were just going through the final preparations the night before when I had the thought that I needed to go home.
The producers were great about it – I’d told them this moment was going to come. So I raced back to London for the next day and found that my mum had come out of her coma. I sat and talked to her all day long. We had a great chat about my dad, about life in general. It was all the conversations you often end up wishing you could have but don’t get the chance to.
My mum had always been very proud of me and backed me to do what I wanted in life (as did my dad, who might not have been easily impressed by musical theatre, but only ever wanted the best for me and my sister). She used to sit around with the aunties and watch me in Scum, which can’t have been an easy thing for a mum in a way, but she always used to say, ‘If that’s what you want to do with your life, son, you go and do it.’ Still, I think she’d realised that we needed to have a talk. It wasn’t all in the past tense as if she knew she was about to die. She made the whole thing feel more natural than that, just like a general reassurance that everything was in place: ‘Don’t worry about your father, he’ll be alright.’ Lois can’t have been more than eighteen months old at the time, so we talked about how much Mum loved her, and Elaine was pregnant with Jaime, so that was another good topic. And shortly after the conversation ended, Mum passed away.
We’d lost another child in between those two happy births, and Mum had still been alive when the baby boy died, so those two deaths came quite close together. Elaine was about seven months pregnant and the baby wasn’t right, but she had to give birth, anyway. I was there with her through the delivery, and I can tell you it was hard. Those are the kinds of experiences that can destroy you if you let them.
I think what helped us through the aftermath was knowing that my mum and dad had been through the same experience. Their attitude was: ‘It happens. You’re not the only people in the world who have had to go through this, so the best thing is just to get on with it.’ Now, while that’s not necessarily what you want to hear at the time, it does liven you up a bit. It’s like having Jackie Bowers in your corner.
We weren’t really the sort of people who would sit down and talk to a counsellor or a psychiatrist. In a way, maybe we needed to, but they’d probably have fucked us up even more. So, following my mum and dad’s stoic example was probably our best bet in the end, and the fact that Elaine fell pregnant again quite quickly afterwards with Jaime definitely helped.
It was a tough thing, but when a little bit of time has passed you’ve got to try and take positives out of those situations, and the way I’ve always looked at it is that if the other child had lived, we might not have had our Jaime, who we love. The upshot of all this is that I’m the last of the male line, as far as the Winstones are concerned. Lois and Jaime tell me they’ll go double-barrelled when the time comes for them to get married, which is very decent of them, but they don’t have to do it.
It was funny when all my three daughters were born. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t even know if they were boys or girls for the first half-hour. It didn’t worry me. I just had ’em in my arms and that was all that mattered. Of course, I would have liked to have had a boy – a son to carry on the family name. That would’ve been wonderful, but I suppose I did have one in a way, if only for a small amount of time.
Elaine and I would have loved to have held him in our arms too – just for a moment – but he was taken away before we got the chance. To be honest with you, I think two Young Winstones died that day. I’ll never forget the one who didn’t make it, and the pain of my son’s passing marked the end of the person this book is about, and the beginning of whoever the older and maybe slightly wiser version was going to be.
PICTURE CREDITS
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologies for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book. Page numbers refer to the plate sections in this book.
Plate section 1: p.1 Images author’s own; p.2 Images author’s own; p.3 Images author’s own; p.4 Top: © Huw Davies/Mark Jackson; p.5 Top: Author’s own, Bottom: © David Secombe 1990; p.6 Top: © Topfoto, Bottom: author’s own; p.7 Images author’s own; p.8 Top and bottom: © Fremantle Ltd/REX
Plate section 2: p.1 Top left and right: Author’s own; p.2 Top left: © 1979 Who Films, Inc. Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC, Top right and bottom: Author’s own; p.3 Top and bottom: ©Euro London Films; p.4 Images author’s own; p.5 Top, middle, and bottom left: Author’s own; p.6 Top left and right: Author’s own, Bottom: © ITV/REX; p.7 Images author’s own; p.8 Image author’s own
Now and then – outside 82 Caistor Park Road in 2014 and as a bouncing baby 57 years before.
My mum with Nanny Rich and the first of her three husbands.
My mum and dad together before Laura and I came along.
Me posing on a blanket like a dog at Crufts.
At another wedding with my cousin Charlie-boy (I’m in the middle, he’s on my right). Not sure who the hatless kid was . . .
Cowboy-style this time in hat terms – with Laura in Nanny Rich’s garden.
Early morning – the Cage with the sun rising in the east behind Christ Church, Spitalfields.
Old Spitalfields Market as it was – good luck finding a sack of King Edwards in there these days.
My dad looking suave on the market.
Spitalfields life before the clean-up, with The Cage, A. Mays and Christ Church in the background.
West Ham bringing home the 1964 FA Cup on their luxury single-decker. All four of the Winstones are in that crowd somewhere.
Repton boys at the London Feds . . . (I’m the one bang in the middle).
With my dad after beating David Heyland (the tall one on the left) who was Essex champ. Although I won, I gave David the bigger trophy – winning was enough for me, and he was a nice kid.
Ready to rumble.
In The Sweeney in 1975, shortly before making my unauthorised escape.
Me in Minder – with George Cole on the right and my fellow Corona old-boy Dennis Waterman between us.
Shadow-boxing with my mate Tony London on the beach at Torquay – Elaine made the right choice.
They called Esther Williams ‘A Goddess when wet’. . .
In Quadrophenia with my leathers and my Liberace haircut.
On honeymoon in the Canary Islands with Elaine and a camel.
We got straight off the plane home and went to the premiere of Scum – note the suitcases and my Quadrophenia badge.
The concluding riot in Scum – no need for Phil Daniels to help me out here. I was the Daddy by this time . . .
Luckily make-up doesn’t sting like a real shiner.
My dad at the bar in Church Street, Enfield – no sign of the Bobby Moore World Cup ice bucket for some reason.
‘Black Magic, Raymond?’ – ‘Don’t mind if I do’.
This is the outfit I wore on that plane trip to Cannes with Alan Clarke – not sure if the ‘foot up’ thing is quite working for me, though.
At the Edinburgh Film Festival with Scum in 1979.
In Canada in 1980 filming Ladies And Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains.
a) With Paul Simonon
b) A beery leer
c) With Steve Jones
d) Elaine offers me a lesson in microphone technique
e) Onstage as lead singer of ‘The Looters’
f ) Elaine is the meat in a Laura Dern/Marin Kanter sandwich
g) Paul Cook shows how a Sex Pistol occupies a chair.
Me with Alex Steene, John Conteh and Perry Fenwick, who plays Billy Mitchell in EastEnders. He’s a great mate of mine who comes from my manor. Well, close enough . . . Canning Town/Custom House.
Even Will Scarlet needs a fag break.
The face that launched a thousand arrows . . .
Lois with me, mum and Toffy, and then getting christened with me and Elaine.
Matthew McConaughey struggles not to look intimidated by my manly physique.
