When I Had a Little Sister: The Story of a Farming Family Who Never Spoke

When I Had a Little Sister: The Story of a Farming Family Who Never Spoke
Catherine Simpson

When I had a Little Sister is a searingly honest and wryly heartbreaking memoir about a Lancashire farming family, whose love of their land came hand in hand with the resilience to live off it. It’s a story of sisters and sacrifice, grief and reclamation, and of the need to speak the unspeakable.When did she decide to die? Was it before midnight on Friday the 6th, because she couldn’t face another night or was it before dawn on Saturday the 7th because she couldn’t face another day?Did she think about us? Did she think about her dog, Ted, or her cat, Puss, sleeping on Grandma Mary’s old sofa in the conservatory and who would be waiting for her to feed them in the morning? What about her horses in the stable? Did she think about them? Did she imagine Dad finding her? It would have to be Dad, after all. It couldn’t be anyone else. Did she know what she was doing?On a cold December day in 2013 Catherine Simpson received the phone call she had feared for years. Her little sister Tricia had been found dead in the farmhouse where she, Catherine and their sister Elizabeth were born – and where their family had lived for generations.Tricia was 46 and had been stalked by depression all her life. Yet mental illness was a taboo subject within the family and although love was never lacking, there was a silence at its heart.After Tricia died, Catherine found she had kept a lifetime of diaries. The words in them took her back to a past they had shared, but experienced so differently, and offered a thread to help explore the labyrinth of her sister’s suicide.

(#udd0315f8-f79b-597c-ad22-9af24bc770d7)

Copyright (#udd0315f8-f79b-597c-ad22-9af24bc770d7)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019

Copyright © Catherine Simpson 2019

Family tree © Martin Brown

Catherine Simpson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All images supplied by the author, from her family collection. While every effort has been made to trace owners of third party copyright material reproduced herein, the publishers will be glad to rectify any omissions in future editions.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008301637

Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008301651

Version: 2018-12-21

Dedication (#udd0315f8-f79b-597c-ad22-9af24bc770d7)

For

Cello

Nina & Lara

Mum, Dad

Elizabeth & Tricia

Contents

Cover (#u2fe280a2-dbd7-5571-8aba-3a3387a1c446)

Title Page (#ucd8221cf-f505-53ec-a3b8-e3b88f4bdaf5)

Copyright (#u6bff4248-cb6a-573c-8ff9-38b7b0c97ce7)

Dedication (#u68dbf937-8fd0-5255-bbb2-6bdd475bb0f8)

Family Tree (#u4ca2af04-f1d6-551c-a15f-58de59d5eafd)

Chapter One (#uc1a5d0d9-2162-561e-95f5-d1ef537ae3ba)

Chapter Two (#u622e9e74-ca31-5926-a1c4-461445bff0d7)

Chapter Three (#u9bebef84-c367-552a-bb13-8848ebbc9f00)

Chapter Four (#u6996f1e8-5423-53ba-808f-0501dbc8ce9b)

Chapter Five (#u0f6491fd-ff9d-56d5-b2f3-7e27349b9caf)

Chapter Six (#u50b59409-7bd4-50e5-92ed-876ce6b656f9)

Chapter Seven (#u17c7bbfc-ec07-50d6-a3c5-0c73f6eae3af)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)