No more cars?

Every now and then some daft politician or politico will declare that we should all give up our cars to "protect the environ-ment" or "get more exercise" or whatever. It doesn't seem to occur to them that for a lot of people cars are absolutely essential.

We don't use our car very often -  mainly for the weekly supermarket shop - but there are many things a car is vital for, especially if you're in a family.

If public transport is poor or non-existent, if you need to move something heavy and bulky, if you're taking your kids to school or to out-of-school activities, if you're visiting your parents or relatives in some out-of-the-way location, if you're visiting someone in hospital, and for all sorts of other awkward journeys, how would you get by without a car?

Taxis are okay for short journeys, but too dear for long journeys. You could cadge lifts but you can't do that too often.

We've used our car to take things to the recycling centre, to get to beauty spots, to bring home large purchases like furniture and plants, to take visitors for an outing or to the airport, to give people lifts in bad weather, to look at property for sale, and numerous other purposes.

It could be of course that the anti-car politicians don't seriously want us all to give up our cars. They're just looking for cheap headlines to keep them in the public eye. But most people will simply snort with disbelief and ask what planet they're living on.

No kids

Jenny and I decided very early on in our relationship that we didn't want children. We just never had that overwhelming urge to reproduce and "continue the family line". And we still feel the same 41 years later.

We know all the arguments for having children. You'll love their unpredictable ideas and comments and questions. You'll be invigorated by their physical energy. We need plenty of young people to keep the economy healthy and provide care and services for the elderly. And we hope our children will look after us when we're old and decrepit.

None of these arguments were strong enough to make me want offspring. Firstly, I have plenty of unpredictable ideas of my own. Secondly, I'm invigorated very easily and don't need any further invigoration. Thirdly, there are plenty of people to provide for the elderly, including all the young migrants the government is trying to keep out.

As for our children looking after us, that argument is highly dubious. In particular, why should children feel obliged to look after their parents, just because their parents brought them into the world?

And there's an assumption that people's children will be physically and mentally fit as well as happy to care for their elderly parents. But they may turn out to be disabled or seriously ill or mentally disturbed and unable to fill that role. They might be dead, they might hate their parents, they might live on the other side of the world. That optimistic assumption about being cared for is full of holes. And very presumptuous.

If other people want to have children, good for them, and I hope they get a lot of joy and satisfaction from doing so. Just as long as I can enjoy a restaurant meal without hyper-active children running amuck.

Organ donor

For 22 years I've had an organ donor card which says that after I die any one of my organs can be donated to someone who needs it. I'm glad parts of my body can potentially benefit a person in dire medical need.

It isn't quite that simple of course. To start with, only one per cent of people will die in circumstances where organ donation is possible. Obviously you can't donate organs if you've died of some serious illness affecting the whole body, or if your organs have been damaged in (say) a car accident, or if you've died abroad and it would take time to return the body to the UK.

Also my family would have to be consulted about donating my organs, and if they objected my body would have to remain intact. Doctors won't proceed if the family objects, however useful my organs might be (though I see that next of kin don't have the legal right to veto your decision).

My immediate family is my sister, my brother in law and my niece. but whether they count as family for the purpose of consultation isn't clear.

So although theoretically it's entirely my choice to allow my organs to be donated, in practice my family can overrule me and doctors' hands are tied. I don't agree with that at all. I don't see why my family should have any say in the matter, since it's my body and not theirs. It's especially perverse when over 7,000 people in the UK are waiting desperately for life-saving organ transplants.

I would like to think that someone in urgent need had been given one (or several) of my organs and had a new lease of life, and that my body hadn't simply gone to waste.

Space hogging

Some axe-grinding journalists do their best to make couples like us, living in large houses, guilty about our "space hogging" and insist we should be selling up to a family and down-sizing.

Well, it's a nice controversial subject for their next column, but they conveniently ignore all the good justifications for staying put and not moving.

Firstly, our house may be large but all the rooms but one are in regular use. We now have our own separate studies, which we didn't have in our previous house. And we have two bathrooms so there's no one banging urgently on the bathroom door.

Secondly, if there had been a lot more houses built over the last 20 years or so, there would be plenty of family-size houses and nobody would need to vacate a large house. Even if thousands of people sold their large houses right now, there would still be a drastic housing shortage.

Thirdly, a lot of elderly couples are staying in large houses because they intend to leave them to their children when they die. The bigger the house, the more it will be worth and the more benefit it will be to a large family.

Fourthly, a lot of elderly people living in large houses also give money to their children to help them buy a house of their own ("The bank of mum and dad"). In which case they're not depriving their children of a house.

Fifthly, many families couldn't afford to buy a larger house because of the price differential between small and large houses.

Is this just a desperate defence of our raging greed? I hope not.

These sanctimonious journalists should think more carefully before they lay into us "space hogging" home owners.

How big are their own homes, I wonder?

Retired and annoyed

I tend to get annoyed when someone asks how my retirement is going, and I'm trying to work out why. I think it's because either they're expecting me to say it's fantastic and everything's a bed of roses, or alternatively that it's dreadful and I wish I was back at work. But the reality isn't so black and white.

There does seem to be a common assumption that retirement is great and there's no downside, that you're rolling in money and always off on the next cruise or the next luxury city break.

Of course this wonderful image is half-true at best, as the minuses of retirement are usually glossed over or spun as if they're benefits. To name a few:

• You might have medical problems that limit what you can do
• You might be expected to look after boisterous and exhausting grandchildren
• You might be very short of money
• You might miss your old workmates
• You might feel isolated or lonely or bored
• You might have to care for frail elderly relatives

At the moment I'm genuinely enjoying retirement, though I do sometimes feel isolated and a bit lonely. It's hard to make new friends and acquaintances to replace the friends you worked with. Many people are so consumed with the day-to-day demands of their family they simply have no time for new friends.

The other thing that annoys me is someone asking what I do now I'm retired, as if, stripped of employment, I have no other interests and don't know what to do with myself. Why should I have to justify my retirement with a list of worthy activities? Why shouldn't I just watch rubbish TV all day if I feel like it?

How's my retirement going? Is that a trick question?

War mongering

Journalists are always trying to stoke up a supposed generation war - young people hate the old and vice versa - whereas in reality young and old may get on very well and sympathise with each other's problems.

An article in the Independent claims that "the generation wars seem worse than ever" and "the debate is becoming more toxic". Really? Where's the evidence, apart from a load of dubious anecdotes and stereotypes?

Most families include people of different ages and different generations. Are they all at loggerheads, constantly fuming and accusing each other of heinous offences? No, of course they aren't.

Some people get on well, some don't. That's all there is to it. I wasn't at war with my mother or my grandparents or my aunts and uncles. We may not have had the same opinions or attitudes but we rubbed along okay. I was estranged from my father for 20 years but that was exceptional.

Yes, some young people accuse us oldies of making their lives worse while we enjoy the fruits of much better lives. Yes, some oldies accuse young people of knowing it all despite their limited experience of the world.

Most of us take people as we find them however and don't trot out such one-sided stereotypes.

There's a natural tendency though for each generation to think they know better than any other generation - the young because they see us oldies as hopelessly out of touch with the modern world, oldies because we have so much more experience of the problems that life throws up, and the middle-aged because they're in the midst of so many situations the young haven't yet encountered and the oldies have forgotten about - like parenting or running a business.

Bu it takes more than self-righteousness to make a war.

Unhappy families

It gradually dawned on me as I got older that there are very few genuinely happy families, and that most families have to contend with conflicts and tensions of one kind or another.

Despite the tensions in my own family, I grew up assuming most families were happy - loving mums and dads tenderly nurturing their cherished offspring, any occasional spats quickly smoothed over and blissful harmony restored.

It didn't help that so many of the children's stories I read were about perfect families who always "lived happily ever after".

As the years went by, I slowly realised that many families aren't as happy as they make out, and that in private heated rows might be the norm. Clashing personalities, political differences, disputes over parenting, squabbles over housework, womanising husbands. A hundred things to disrupt the precarious goodwill.

It's still the convention that families present a united front to the rest of the world and not "air their dirty linen in public". Even if the family is being torn apart, they should pretend there's nothing amiss except the odd good-natured tiff.

But as we can see at the moment, families from the Royal Family downwards can have their troubles. Clearly there's no love lost between the Queen and Meghan Markle.

At least warring couples are now less likely to stay together "for the sake of the children". They've realised children exposed to constant bad feeling and sniping can end up more disturbed than children of couples who've split up.

But it's very embarrassing when you're visiting a married couple and it's immediately apparent there's some simmering hostility between them. The atmosphere is so uncomfortable it's a relief to wind up the evening and depart.

So how about Jenny and me, I hear you ask. Well, obviously we're the happiest of all happy couples. How could we not be?

Family of strangers

Sometimes I wonder what it's like to have a "normal" family. Or at least how I picture a normal family, if such a thing exists. The sort of family that's endlessly paraded in the media and TV adverts.

You know, the kind of family where they all get on with each other (more or less), where there's lots of physical affection, where they have frequent gatherings to celebrate things like Christmas and birthdays, where they defend each other to the hilt.

My family isn't remotely like that. The polar opposite in fact. It would be hard to find a family more dysfunctional, more like a bunch of strangers forced to mingle with each other than a family.

My father and I were estranged for a good twenty years. It seems I was too unconventional for his tastes, so he broke off communication. My sister and I have been estranged for even longer. I suspect she dislikes my political views but there must be more to it than that.

My brother in law and niece are equally non-communicative. We were in close touch for a few months while my mum's probate was sorted out, but then everything went quiet again.

My mum always kept in touch, but we were never that close because like my father she never understood my aberrant personality. Even my vegetarianism defeated her. To her dying day, she was sure I was really a meat-eater.

So I imagine that strange phenomenon, a normal family. A tightly-knit group of buddies rooting for each other and enjoying everyone's odd tastes and opinions.

My mental template of a normal family is the time I visited a Jewish family in Bournemouth. The interaction between them was extraordinary. They were all speaking at once, arguing passionately, sparking each other off. They plainly got on like a house on fire.

A far cry from my own peculiar family.

On their own

At this time of year there are plenty of media articles about joyful family Christ-mases, with granny and grandpa knocking back the whisky, kids playing with their new toys, and parents happily serving the turkey and sprouts.

There's not much mention of the folk who'll be on their own at Christmas, all too conscious of the festivities going on around them and wishing they were included. It may be only one day, but when you're feeling left out, it can seem a lot longer.

Of course there may be a good reason why they're on their own. Maybe they have the sort of personalities that drive others away. Maybe their relatives live on the other side of the world. Maybe they can't stand their family and want to avoid them. But whatever the reason, it can be a miserable day for some.

When I was living on my own in London, I often spent Christmas by myself, but I didn't feel lonely. I would settle down with a good book, go for a long walk on Hampstead Heath, and work my way through a packet of mince pies. One Christmas I read The Gulag Archipelago, a strange choice for Christmas I know, but it was horribly riveting.

As I've said before, I don't often feel disconnected from other people. I feel very connected to all those with similar passions and interests - especially art, music, books and films - so the lack of connection with particular individuals doesn't bother me. If I'm in an art gallery surrounded by other people, I feel completely at home even if I don't know a single soul. In fact if someone starts talking to me, I might very well shoo them away!

But it's a shame the huge emphasis on Christmas as a rowdy, gregarious get-together only makes the lonely feel even lonelier.

A mug's game

I'm always fascinated by neighbour disputes, especially the really crazy ones that go on for years and cost a fortune. What motivates people to push these disputes to the bitter end, whatever the financial and emotional cost?

Cilla Carden of Perth, Australia, is planning more legal action against her neighbours, citing their cooking smells, cigarette smoke, chairs scraping on concrete, reflective light, the sounds of children playing basketball, and pet birds.

Seriously? Aren't all those things just what you would expect from a family enjoying their home? Are they meant to creep around super-silently, avoiding any kind of noise or smells or signs of their existence? I would say Ms Carden is ludicrously intolerant and unable to live and let live.

Jenny and I have had a few problems with neighbours, but there's no way we would pour money into lawyers' pockets to deal with them. There are always other ways of sorting things out.

We once had a flat in a London mansion block, and the neighbours were fond of riotous all-night parties. We kept a detailed diary of the disturbances and asked the local council to take action. The neighbours were fined a large sum and moved out shortly afterwards. Result!

A few years before, in another block of flats, our downstairs neighbours were amazingly noisy, one with a constant hacking cough we could hear all too clearly. We asked them politely if they could be less noisy, but their response was to let down our car tyres.

While we were still wondering what else we could do, they moved out and were replaced by a much quieter couple we befriended. Problem solved.

Now we live in a detached house so neighbour nuisance is less likely, though we did have some neighbours who were also fond of late-night parties. Luckily they tired of such revelry, two of them moved out and the one person left is quiet as a mouse.

Legal action? It's a mug's game.

Out of reach

I'm hopeless at remem-bering the details of people's friends and relatives. However hard I try, names simply go in one ear and straight out the other. My memory is so feeble I'm just about capable of remem-bering a spouse, a partner or a sibling. Everything else vanishes down a cerebral black hole, never to be retrieved.

Even children's names just flutter by like moths. I'm gaily introduced to little James, Rebecca and Sophie (well, I tend to move in middle-class circles), only to forget their names ten seconds later. Did she say James or Jeff? Rebecca or Robin? Sophie or Sally? I'm searching my memory desperately, hoping I won't need their names in the next few minutes, and wondering how to bluff my way through till I'm reminded. Ah, so it was Sally? Why didn't that lodge in my brain? Doesn't she look just like a Sally?

Or someone casually mentions Robert, and how rapidly he's recovering from his operation. Robert? Who the hell is Robert? And what operation was this? Is Robert anything to do with Teresa, the tall, red-haired woman? Is he the same Robert who's allergic to cats? How do I stealthily find out? Or hide my ignorance?

I can recall the closest names, but all the far-flung connections usually escape me. The in-laws, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces. It's too much to absorb. I marvel at those individuals who can identify every obscure member of someone's family, and recall instantly that Aunt Julia is the one who drinks like a fish, hates Indian food and always wears skirts. How do they do it? What's their secret?

I'm told that not remembering such things is simply down to poor concentration or not listening properly. Or even a lack of interest in other people. But I'm fascinated by other people and their personal quirks and lifestyles. I just have a memory like a sieve. A memory that thinks it's a waste bin.

Estranged

It must be really hard for a parent whose child develops views they simply can't understand or sympathise with, and who gradually severs all contact and wants nothing more to do with them.

Every parent must assume a life-long bond with their child, one that grows increasingly close and rewarding, and when instead that bond disintegrates, it must be immensely painful. Even more so if the child dies.

I thought of that when I was reading about Christianne Boudreau, the Canadian woman whose son Damian became a Muslim, joined Islamic State and died in Syria at the age of 22.

How does she come to terms with what became of him? How does she cope with such a profound loss?

One thing she does is to remember him as he used to be, before his conversion, before the estrangement. "To me he was a young man who was compassionate, caring, loving and protective. That was the boy I knew. I'll always remember him as that. Not for what everyone makes him out to be."

She also supports organisations that are working with families to stop a loved one embracing fundamentalism.

But it's a common dilemma for parents. I've read of wealthy couples whose child disowns them, scornful of their affluent lifestyles and shallow values. Or stiff and starchy, penny-pinching couples shunned by a child who prefers a more spontaneous, freewheeling way of life. Or a new step-parent rejected by a child who's loyal to their original parent and sees the newcomer as an unworthy chancer.

Once a gulf like that develops, it's very hard to bridge it again. Too often, both sides become set in their ways and the stand-off continues indefinitely. They say blood is thicker than water, but that's nonsense. Families can break as easily as friendships. And the fracture can cause unbelievable pain.

Pic: Christianne Boudreau

Family values

If ever there was a phrase that means precisely nothing, it's "family values". Or rather, it can mean anything you want it to mean, usually to criticise those households that are seen as weird and degenerate.

It's one of those phrases that are used to conjure up some idyllic, nostalgic paradise when everyone lived in a perfect family made up of happy, carefree individuals smothered in love and affection.

Not many families are that perfect. Most families are full of frictions and frustrations and grievances of one kind or another, and for them "family values" probably just means putting up with people who drive you nuts on a daily basis.

And if "family" implies two heterosexual parents with children, then where does that leave childless couples, or those who're on their own, or gay couples? Presumably they're a bit blemished, a bit lacking, unable to share the deep joys of family values, whatever they may be.

I'm particularly sickened when politicians pose with their spouse and children, as if that's the ideal arrangement we should all be aspiring to, and as if only politicians with these credentials can be trusted to run the country properly. As opposed to say, lesbians, who are sure to turn the country into a hopeless basket case.

Even Barack Obama feels obliged to parade his wife and kids at every opportunity, just to prove he's a regular joe who's fit to be president.

As for those politicians who regularly extol "family values" and are regularly caught with prostitutes or shagging their buxom interns, how nauseating is that?

To hell with family values. A bit more compassion, empathy and human kindness will do me fine.

Why oh why?

One of those bizarre psycholog-ical mysteries that explodes out of the blue. A college lecturer, apparently contented and enjoying life, kills her two children and herself while her husband is working abroad. Why?

It's the sort of totally unexpected event that leaves everyone stunned and aghast. Whatever was slowly eating away at her was carefully concealed from the outside world.

Neighbours, friends, relatives, clergy - none of them can explain what she did. According to them, Claudia Oakes-Green of Shepshed in Leicestershire always seemed bright and happy and doing well in life. There was nothing to suggest that some acute inner distress was about to tip her over the edge.

Whatever was troubling her - depression, financial worries, marital problems, workplace pressures - she was seemingly unable to confide in anyone else and seek outside help. She maintained a cheerful facade that hid a grimmer reality.

It takes a particularly distraught person not only to kill themselves but take their children with them, the children that up till then they've cherished and protected.

How tragic it is that people still feel so embarrassed and ashamed of their inability to cope that they simply cannot voice it. Or they feel their situation is just so hopeless that no one else can put it right.

We may find out more in the coming days. Some nagging anxiety may come to light. Some crippling sense of inadequacy may be revealed. Or her actions may remain a total puzzle, an endless source of conjecture and speculation with no one any the wiser.

The family: Claudia (44), husband Iain, son Thomas (13), daughter Eleanor (7)

Pic: The Oakes-Green house in Shepshed

Greener than you

It seems that family disputes over green issues are getting more and more heated. People will defend their views on water-guzzling baths or imported T shirts to the last, leaving the rest of the family seething and bemused.

It can get doubly acrimonious when there's no clear right or wrong position. Cloth nappies or disposables? Dishwashers or washing up by hand? Each person is adamant they're the eco-purist and the other is ruining the planet.

Having your first child can make things worse as parents want to pass shared values to their offspring but then find their values are more clashing than shared. Then when the children go to school, they pick up the latest planet-saving tips and embarrass careless parents who're still squandering energy in all directions.

Couples can get incandescent over simple things like lighting. "Anita turns every light and computer on as soon as she gets home" says Mike. "I go around after her, turning everything off and quoting the Energy Saving Trust."

It appears that where once green views were just a casual matter of opinion, now they're part of a person's basic identity and an opposing view becomes personally threatening, as controversial as religion or party politics.

Jenny and I clearly haven't reached that stage yet, as we're not too concerned about our differing planet-saving attitudes. Whatever our particular passions, we just end up compromising haphazardly like most other people, cutting down on tea bags but turning up the central heating. Or not wasting food but leaving all the appliances on standby.

We'd be the despair of environmental hotshots with our totally unstructured approach to keeping the earth in good shape. But we're certainly not going to fall out over our footling domestic contribution to global pollution, when big business is laying waste to the planet on such a breathtaking scale.

Now excuse me while I finish off this delicious bottle of (Australian) Sauvignon....
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Core Issues, a local evangelical Christian group, is holding a weekend conference at Ballynahinch in Northern Ireland, where they're promoting the idea of curing and saving homosexuals. Several gay groups are picketing the conference. They hope to convince gay attendees that they're just fine the way they are....

Picking a fight

Everyone knows it's not always sweetness and light even in the most compatible families. Now the time we spend arguing with each other has been pinned down - around 91 hours a year.

A survey by Uinvue, the family website, says the most common arguments are over household chores, children "treating the house like a hotel", couples taking each other for granted, choice of TV viewing, and children's excessive phone bills.

Well, since I don't have children, I've been spared that particular source of friction, but there are plenty of others I could name - like what we spend our money on (or not wanting to spend anything), those irritating personal habits like noisy eating, and arranging that outstanding repair job.

Mothers supposedly start most of the disagreements while fathers and children are less volatile. Does this mean mothers have higher standards (of politeness, cleanliness, tidiness, kindness) and are more likely to complain if those standards aren't met?

In my own family it was my father who started most of the arguments, my mother being more conciliatory and easygoing, so I'm surprised at that finding. Maybe women are more willing to admit they argue?

Of course the 91 hours only applies to the immediate family. If in laws were included, that figure would shoot up dramatically. Getting on with relatives we've only acquired through trails of confetti can sometimes be an uphill struggle.

In fact the tensions can be so bad that one in ten family members aren't even on speaking terms with another member. I can easily believe that. My father and I hardly spoke to each other for the best part of 20 years. We were chalk and cheese the moment I hit adolescence, and that never changed.

Mother and son

Jenny and I have spent a lot of time discussing the Julie Myerson book and whether she was right to tell the world about her poor relationship with her son.

It makes me think of my own teenage relationship with my father - a very upsetting one - and how I would have felt if he had written a book about me. Without doubt I would have been incandescent.

I was angry enough with him as it was. Like Julie Myerson, he threw me out of the house because he could no longer cope with what he saw as my anti-social and inconsiderate behaviour.

As far as I was concerned, I was just a normal rebellious teenager, forming my own views, following my own interests, and no longer doing and saying what he expected, i.e. being a replica of him.

I would come home in the early hours and disturb him, I would invite round friends he considered disreputable and degenerate, I would engage him in long political arguments he saw as naive and absurd. He finally decided "enough was enough" and told me to leave. I was 22 at the time.

Yes, maybe I WAS inconsiderate and selfish, as he said. But I was furious that he was so unloving, so intolerant, so lacking in understanding, so ruthless, so high-handed. He was treating me not as his son but like some wayward lodger who had breached the tenancy agreement.

Our relationship continued to be stormy and distant for many years, right up to his death in 1988. It was bad enough that he wrote me hateful letters attacking everything about me and dismissing me as immature and irresponsible.

If he had actually put all his one-sided and heartless views into a book for thousands of complete strangers to read, I would have gone through the roof. I would have retaliated in any way I could to get my own back. I imagine Julie Myerson's son Jake must feel something similar.

She defends her book by saying bad relationships should be talked about and not hidden to preserve the image of a "happy family". So, talk about them to friends, relatives, therapists, vicars, whoever. But why is it necessary to vilify your son to the whole world?

Photo: Julie Myerson
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I can't stop listening to: "Keep 'Er Lit" by Cara Robinson

Living with danger

I'm always humbled by people whose partners have incredibly risky jobs or hobbies but somehow have the resilience to accept the risk without being permanently worried stiff about them.

If your loved one is a police officer, firefighter, racing driver or rock-climber, you can never be sure they're going to return home in one piece - or even alive.

You must be often wondering how you would cope if you had that awful knock on the door to bring you the worst possible news. Or do you eventually get quite philosophical about it and just think "If it happens, it happens"?

Some people must face the prospect of their new love being constantly in danger and decide they simply can't face it, they'll settle for someone whose only occupational risk is a scalding from the coffee machine.

Two Northern Ireland motorcycling champions, brothers Joey and Robert Dunlop, were both killed while racing, and their grieving relatives have had to accept that they died doing something they loved and just wouldn't have been so happy doing something else.

Some people argue that it's irresponsible to choose such dangerous activities when you have a family who love you and depend on you and will be devastated if you come to harm. But if that's what you enjoy, if you're good at it, if it enriches your life, should you back off solely to be risk-free? And end up a bored, frustrated pen-pusher?

If you're the one at home though, it must be quite a relief every time your partner rings to say "I'm on my way now, sweetheart. How have the kids been today?" And for a few blissful hours, you can relax and stop worrying.

Battle of wills

How unseemly and unedifying it is when family members fight tooth and nail over a dead relative's will, disputing what it says and trying to grab a bit more money for themselves.

I see the latest family row is over the will left by Australian actor Heath Ledger. The will was written in 2003 before his partner Michelle and baby Matilda came on the scene.

Now everyone's squabbling over who should get what and how much (if any) should go to his new family. His father Kim has appealed for dignity at a time of grief.

I suppose the fewer relatives there are, and the more straightforward the will, the less trouble there's likely to be. And the more money there is at stake, and the more bizarre the will's provisions, the greater the prospect of a battle royal and insults flying thick and fast.

There are regular reports of huge sums of money being left to a pet cat or a faithful gardener or the preservation of endangered molluscs.

Relatives frequently argue that poor old Gladys wasn't of sound mind at the time and couldn't possibly have intended such absurd legacies. It was the influence of those strange pills the GP had prescribed, or the insidious charisma of some new acquaintance who wormed his way into her affections.

But at the end of the day, if that's what Gladys wanted, what right has anyone to dispute it and argue otherwise, just because they're greedy and feel cheated out of their rightful inheritance?

My family is very small, so hopefully there won't be any unsavoury quarrels when the next will gets opened. We'll just grab the money and run!!