Before

This is my Grandad with my mum on his knee, my best guess would be late 1950's.
When Mum was killed Grandad was still with us, but he passed last year.
I got left all the family photo's ,those of you that know me & my messed up childhood will know this was a big deal for me.
Over time it's become easier to look at these pictures - for the first couple of years they pretty much stayed in their box. But now - I'm slowly restoring the gems like this, scanning them - or in this case photographing them again because they're glued into albums (the younger of you may not actually remember photo albums, wow). It's cathartic and at the same a challenge and a joy. There was a time that I didn't think I'd be able to look at a picture of Mum and smile again.

This was never intended to be today's Blip - but I had it up on the screen when my lawyer called. Astoundingly he was ringing to tell me that he'd received a letter, addressed to me 'c/o', from my mum's killer. This man has never ever shown any remorse, so it was no great surprise to hear that the contents were vile - what was a surprise was to discover yet another example of just how messed up our judicial system must be that a convicted murderer can write to the relatives of his victim. I'd love to say it ended there - but I've subsequently found out that he wrote to my grandfather from prison - fortunately my grandfather never received the letter as it arrived a short while after he'd died (that's a use of the word 'fortunately'  no-one should ever have to make) - I can't begin to imagine the distress that would cause a grieving parent - or how such a letter could be allowed to be sent.
Parts of the system do seem to work, albeit far too belatedly - our Family Liaison Officer has spoken to the Governors assistant and all mail will now be opened - but surely it shouldn't take this for those measures to be put in place. Its very nearly four years since we got an unreserved conviction, 23 years before any consideration of parole, but it seems that doesn't mean 23 years of penance or 23 years for a family to heal its wounds.