by Wade, Calvin
“Listen you lot! Just hush a minute will you! Let Richie speak!”
“If you are pregnant, Richie, remember to run the babies name past your mother first! Don’t be choosing anything common!”
“Dad!” Jim chastened, “Just shut up, will you!”
“When did you get so bossy?” Caroline wanted to know of Jim.
“Just be quiet! Please.” Jim repeated in a serious tone.
Silence. There was silence. I cleared my throat.
“I need to tell you all something…” I started.
“I told you, he’s pregnant!” Dad added. It wasn’t even funny the first time.
“Let him speak, Dad!” Jim demanded.
“Sorry!”
“Right. Where do I start?”
“At the very beginning.” Helen chipped in and then by way of explanation added, “Sound of Music! Do-re-mi!”
I continued unabated.
“OK. You all know Kelly’s gone away, don’t you?”
There was a collective nodding of heads.
“But you don’t know why? Do you?”
Collective shaking of heads.
“It was partially down to me.” I explained. “You see, Kelly saw me with her sister in Coronation Park….”
Dad could not help himself.
“No, don’t tell me, you were knocking off both sisters! Stupid boy! The other one’s a murderer son!”
“She’s not a murderer, Dad!”
“That’s not what the police think, Richie!” Dad replied.
“I said that!” Caroline added.
“Look everyone! Let me finish. Kelly saw me in Coronation Park and I was with Jemma and she was giving me a hug. Kelly saw us and thought something was going on, but it wasn’t!”
“Why were you hugging Kelly’s sister?” Mum asked. Mum could keep quiet when they were all poking fun, but not when there was gossip to be gleaned.
“I found out some news. Jemma was trying to make me feel better.”
“What news?” Caroline asked.
“The news that I’ve got cancer.”
The words hung in the air like smoke on a windless day. The world stopped. The door could have swung open and tumbleweed blown by. Everyone’s brains gathered the information presented to them.
“Sorry, what did you say?” Mum was already in denial.
“I’ve got cancer, Mum.”
I had been brave to this point, but my voice began to quiver. I did not want to start crying again. Since the lump, I felt like I was always crying.
“Are you sure?” Helen asked.
“Yes, I’m sure. I’ve been to the doctor’s, then to see a urologist who did an ultrasound. It’s been confirmed. They think I’ve got cancer, Helen.”
“What sort of cancer?” Mum wanted to know.
“That’s not important right now. It’s just important I get treated and I get rid of it.”
“No, Richie, it does matter” Mum was like a dog sniffing out a bone or in this case, sniffing out a ball, a cancerous one, metaphorically speaking of course!
“It matters a lot.” Mum said. “Some cancers are worse than others, if you’ve just got a bit of skin cancer, I believe, as long as it hasn’t spread, that it’s easily sorted. What cancer is it, Richie?”
“Please, Mum. Leave it. It’s not important.”
“Is it bowel cancer?” Caroline asked, concluding it was a cancer I would be embarrassed to have.
“No.”
“Testicular cancer?” she guessed again.
I said nothing.
“Shit, Richie!” Dad exclaimed.
Helen and Caroline started crying. Mum stayed composed. Angry but composed.
“How long have you known?” Mum asked.
“A few weeks.”
“You’ve known for a few weeks and you could not find it in your heart to tell me! Your own mother! Why?”
“I’m sorry, Mum.”
“I’m not looking for an apology, I’m looking for an explanation. Why did you not tell me?”
“I just needed to deal with it, myself, first!”
“No, you didn’t! You told that girl! Kelly’s sister. You just said she was there for you. She hugged you. After everything I’ve done for you, Richie, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”
“Does it matter, Dot?” Dad asked. “The lad’s telling us now.”
Mum lost it.
“It matters to me! You may have been out every day, frittering away your hard earned money on some useless donkey, only fit for the knackers yard, but whilst you have been doing that, I have been raising our kids. Teaching them right from wrong. If any of them ever had a bump on their head or fell over and cut their knee, they would always come to me and I would fix it.”
“You can’t fix testicular cancer, Dot.”
“Well I could have tried!” Mum was getting really upset now.
“And I still will try, but Richie’s given it a few weeks head start on me now. There’re people I need to speak to, Doctors, nurses, consultants. I just wish I’d known sooner, if I’d have known sooner, I’d have spoken to everyone by now. Richie would be getting the right treatment now.”
“Mum! I am getting the right treatment! They’re going to take it away!”
“The cancer? They’re going to take the cancer away?”
“Hopefully. They’re going to remove my testicle.”
I hated saying that. It felt like I was saying I was incontinent, that I was sitting there having soiled my pants. Stupidly, I felt ashamed.
“Do they have to?” Mum asked.
I laughed through the first sign of tears.
“Believe me, Mum! I would not be agreeing to it, if they didn’t have to. I don’t want to be on the morticians slab with two testicles. I’d rather be here with one.”
Mum sobbed now. I surprised myself by managing to recover my composure. She stood up and moved towards me. Kneeling down besides my chair, Mum hugged me hard. I hugged her hard back.
“You’ll be OK, son. You’ll beat this! I know you’ll beat this!”
“I know I will, Mum. I’ll be OK.”
Helen and Caroline stood up. They came over tearfully, to create a mass emotional hug.
Jim looked on. He told me later that Dad looked crestfallen, I couldn’t see through the hugs. Jim stood up.
“Come on, Dad. Come and show me, Desert Orchid. Let’s leave them to it. We’ll speak to Richie later.”
Moments later Peter O’Sullevan’s excitable commentary could be heard above the tears. Brave Dessie. I hoped his trainer had bottled that bravery because I felt that I could do with borrowing some. I knew right then that I would need tons of it in those testing weeks that lay ahead.
Margerita McGordon
I was always uncomfortable about giving evidence at a murder trial. Wally was fine with it, he just felt it was our duty to testify, but from the moment Paula, our daughter, urged us to phone Ormskirk police station to the moment I stood down from the dock at Preston Crown Court, several months later, I had butterflies in my stomach. When I complained to Wally, he just laughed it off and said,
“They can’t be butterflies, Rita, butterflies only live for a couple of days!”
From what the police said, there was additional pressure knowing that our statements were pivotal to the case against Jemma Watkinson. I felt very peculiar about the whole thing. Wally and I could be responsible for sending this young girl to jail, yet neither of us really knew whether she was capable of murdering her mother or not. She was certainly capable of rowing and shouting, but murder? It’s hard to think of anyone that you would think is evil enough to commit a murder. All we were certain of, was that Jemma had been awake when her mother had returned that night, yet her statement to the police insisted she was asleep. She was certainly hiding something.
Paula bought me a new outfit for the trial. After giving evidence to the police, Wally and I both had to sign statements. A few days later, we read in the Ormskirk
Advertiser that a nineteen year old had been arrested and charged with the murder of Carole Watkinson, we subsequently received letters saying that we may or may not have to testify at the trial of Jemma Watkinson at Preston Crown Court in December 1989. We were told to be mindful of the trial dates and be available if required. Once we received those letters, Paula said there was absolutely no way that we would not have to go to court and she took me to Sophie’s, a ladies dresswear shop in Ormskirk , next to the bus station, to get a smart new outfit. Paula paid for a white blouse and a grey and black checked skirt for me, which was knee length. I could wear black tights underneath it. Both the lady in the shop and Paula suggested I may want to try trousers with the blouse, but ladies of my generation are just not comfortable in trousers and I certainly did not want to be up in the dock with everyone on the jury thinking I was mutton dressed as lamb. Smart, intelligent lady was the image I wanted to convey.
Why the police needed both Wally and I to testify, I’m not really sure. Our statements were virtually the same, we had been in bed next to each other when Carole had died. We had both heard the same things, but Wally remembers detail so much better than me, I just wish he could have sorted it all out. I just kept hoping they would only ask Wally to court and not me. When the letters arrived though. my heart sank, they needed both of us.
Wally was called to give evidence before me. When he came out of the court he did not look in the slightest bit phased. He looked more flushed when he had been around to our Karen’s to sort out her electrics, the previous week. Wally re-assured me that it was all very straightforward and that everyone in court had been really polite and courteous.
“All we are doing Rita is confirming what we heard. It’s not a test, no-one is trying to catch us out. We are just here to tell them, what we heard. Let the judge and jury draw their own conclusions.”
The following day, it was my turn. When the ‘Clerk of the Court’ announced me, Margerita McGordon, I felt more nervous than on my wedding day, forty nine years earlier. I had worn white that day and I just felt everyone was looking at me thinking, ‘Wearing white at twenty nine years old! How ridiculous!’
My cystitis had become a hundred times worse because of this ordeal and the fact that I might need to go to the ‘Ladies’ at any point made me feel even worse. Obviously I am not saying the trial had caused my cystitis, but the nerves made me go to the loo even more than I was doing already. My GP, Dr. Whiteside, had advised me to drink plenty of water too, which increased the odds that the trial would need to stop.
I took my oath to God and then Mr.Hodkinson, the prosecuting barrister, began to question me. Mr.Hodkinson was in his late fifties, he was grey, balding, had reddened, veiny cheeks, like a man who had enjoyed an affluent man’s life. He was the consummate professional and although I was visibly shaking when I took the stand, within a couple of minutes, Mr. Hodkinson had put me at ease. His style of questioning was very calm and matter of fact and I felt comfortable relating the events of that Sunday morning in April to him. The court was packed, I suppose a murder trial brings more interested observers in than any other type of trial, but that did not bother me at all because of how Mr.Hodkinson made me feel.
Mr. Hodkinson wanted to know exactly what I had heard on that Sunday morning. I ran through the events of the whole night, packing, retiring to bed early, due to our very early morning trip to Manchester Airport and then relating how we were woken by the two sisters next door arguing. I told Mr. Hodkinson how the older one, Jemma had sent the other one away, how Jemma’s mother and Jemma had argued and Jemma, in some form of head to head confrontation had warned her mother to back off , which was followed by banging and then it went quiet. Mr. Hodkinson seemed satisfied with this, thanked me and returned to his seat.
Mr. Cole-Crallen then questioned me too, on behalf of the defence.
Mr Cole-Crallen was a lot younger than Mr Hodkinson. He was in his early forties, with a full head of wavy, dark brown hair, poshly spoken, as Mr Hodkinson had been, it was probably a pre-requisite for barristers and like Mr. Hodkinson, Mr. Cole-Crallen did everything in his power to keep me at ease. He sauntered up to the witness box.
“Good afternoon, Mrs McGordon. I apologise in advance for asking this question, a gentleman should not be asking a lady this, but would you mind telling the court how old you are?”
I didn’t mind telling people my age. I would rather shock people by revealing my true age than say a younger age and have people think I look every day of it.
“I am seventy eight years old.”
I am sure I heard a gasp from the public gallery.
“Really?” Mr. Cole-Crallen seemed genuinely surprised. “You don’t look a day over sixty, Mrs.McGordon.”
“Thank you! Wally, .I mean Mr. McGordon, my husband, tells me that. Thank you!”
A double thank you to underline my gratitude.
“Now I understand having to testify in a murder trial can be an ordeal for anyone of any age, but I listened intently to the questions Mr. Hodkinson posed to you and I think your responses were incredibly insightful. I must admit, prior to hearing you testify to Mr. Hodkinson, I thought there may be some doubt about whether or not you could have confused the date of the incident next door. Now though, having listened to your answers, am I right in thinking you are one hundred per cent certain that you heard Jemma, her sister Kelly and her mother Carole, in the early hours of Sunday 16th April?”
“Yes.”
“Of this you are certain, because you were going on holiday the following morning and they were disturbing you. Am I correct?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“And there is no way it could have been the previous weekend?”
“Absolutely not, no. We were not going on holiday the previous weekend.”
“Good! So we now know for certain you heard voices from next door in the early hours of Sunday 16th April.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s move on from that then, Mrs. McGordon, I don’t feel it necessary to labour that point any longer. May I just ask how well you know the Watkinson family? How long have they been your neighbours?”
Wally calls me Ronnie Corbett sometimes, as I have a tendency to go into unnecessary detail with certain questions posed of me. I go off at tangents somewhat. On reflection, this was one of those times.
“Wally and I moved to Wigan Road in the summer of 1987. We lived in Granville Park in Aughton prior to that for twenty nine years. We had a lovely house there, with an acre of land and a heated swimming pool, but our two daughters, Karen and Paula, have long since flown the nest and Wally was struggling to keep on top of the garden and I was struggling to keep on top of the cleaning in the house, so we felt it was time to downsize. The state pension is next to nothing as well, so it seemed sensible to utilise some of the equity tied up in the property. Wally said it would allow him to continue to keep me in the manner to which I am accustomed. Granville Park is a very much sought after location, so our house sold in a matter of days and within six weeks, we had moved to our current home in Wigan Road, which is pleasant but a lot smaller than Granville Park. Still, it feels like home now.”
“Were the Watkinsons already living next door when you moved in?”
“Yes, our house is semi-detached. The Watkinsons live in the adjoining house.”
I suppose this was a bit of a faux pas. I should have said “lived” seeing Jemma was in prison, Kelly had, by all accounts disappeared off the face of the planet and Carole was dead. As things stood, the Watkinsons did not live next door.
“OK. Thank you. As far as neighbours go, have you been close to the Watkinsons over the last two years? Would you pop around there if you were short of coffee?”
“No. Wally and I hardly know them. I would have been tempted to call around if we were short of alcohol though. There never seemed to be a shortage of alcohol there.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Jemma’s mother, Carole, the dece
ased, was always waking us up. This incident on the 16th April was not, by any means, a one-off. Carole Watkinson was a dreadful neighbour. Utterly thoughtless. Every weekend there was singing and dancing and shouting, normally in the early hours of the morning and often this would be followed by other noises that Wally and I really did not want to hear.”
“May I ask what sort of noises?”
“Sexual noises. Carole was very noisy when she had male guests. I think she wanted the whole of Wigan Road to know what she was up to, not just Wally and I.”
“So, throughout the course of your two year period, living next door to the victim, you were subjected to this every weekend?”
“Pretty much. Sometimes week days too. Obviously, we go to Majorca whenever we can, so at least that gave us some sort of break from it.”
“So Carole Watkinson was generally unruly?”
“Yes, especially when she had a drink, which was often.”
“So, we’ve established Carole Watkinson like to let her hair down….”
I thought to myself that it was not just her hair that she liked to let down but if I’d have mentioned her knickers in court, I am sure I would have found myself in serious trouble.
“….but a lot of independent young women like to enjoy themselves, this does not make them bad people. Did Carole Watkinson give you the impression that she was a good mother?”
“Absolutely not.”
“If you don’t mind me saying, Mrs. McGordon, that seemed a very firm response, given you have previously told the court that you did not know the Watkinsons very well.”
“I could not think of a worse example of a mother.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Mother’s need to raise their children in a way that leads by example. Her example was a drunken, noisy, aggressive and promiscuous one.”
“Aggressive? Why would you say aggressive?”
“Wally and I would often hear Carole threatening those girls.
Excuse my language, but we would hear her say things like,
‘If you girls don’t make yourself scarce when Johnny comes round, you’ll feel the full ‘f ’ing force of my right hook’. She did not say ‘f ’ing though!’
