I tend to keep what I write here impersonal and light, I’m about to change that.

I’ve just been reading Susan’s blog and she was talking about photographs. I was overtaken by a huge wave of sadness. It wasn’t because what she said sparked a memory, this is something bigger than that, something which has become part of me, a sadness which I have to deal with regularly because it won’t go away.

Cutting a very long story short; when we left UK to live in Spain we rented out our home to two “friends”. We left the house furnished, and put a few personal things in a big cupboard under the stairs to be collected at a later date, included in these was a huge bag of photographs. These “friends” devised a way of not paying their rent. They were very clever, we were very trusting. We were in regular contact with them, but it was six months before we realised something was wrong. It all came out during a phone call that they hadn’t paid any money into the bank and didn’t intend to. I remember asking them why they were doing this. “Because we can. We’re here and you are there and there’s nothing you can do.” It was the first time I’d ever experienced evil, and yes I know that’s not a word to use lightly.

I booked myself onto a flight back, but had to wait three days. When I got back I let myself into the house but they had gone. They had taken every stick of furniture, cleared out the cupboards, they had even taken the light fittings. I can’t begin to describe the hate I felt as I walked from one room to the next looking at empty spaces. I felt as if the bastards had not only stripped my home, but stripped me too. I had to get out. I remember lighting a cigarette and going through the kitchen and out to the garden. There, in the middle of the lawn was a pile of black ash. The insult to the injury, they’d burnt the bag containing our photographs.

I still don’t know “why”, “because they could” isn’t a good enough reason. When I think about it now, which I do often, I can only think it was evil. I still hate them, I always will, but along side that hate there’s sadness too. It’s a sadness which makes my whole body ache.