Steve was 22 when his parents died within weeks of each other. He became guardian to his two young brothers, until his wife forced him to choose between them and herself and their two young children …
Still trying to come to terms with the loss of his parents, Steve found himself solely responsible for his brothers Craig and Alan. Both boys were about 10 years old at the time. Craig had been fostered by Steve's parents and Steve was reluctant to send him back to an institutional life, away from the village where he'd been so happy. It was a heavy burden for such a young man; there was little help from other adults. Steve explains, "You’re now in the situation of becoming an instant parent with everything that goes with that … the financial and emotional implications… It was really difficult to switch over from being a brother to two lads, to being a mum and a dad overnight."
There was little time for Steve to have a social life. Much of his time was spent caring for the two boys,"One day when I was ironing the lad’s clothes and I saw they were threadbare. I thought ‘what am I going to do?’ My motorbike was in the yard I had, I sold it and went and bought clothes for the lads…"
There were problems from time to time, but the brothers pulled together. According to Craig, Steve handled prickly problems, such as discipline with maturity beyond his years and experience. Craig remembers, "I thought of Steve as an older brother guardian figure, rather than a father figure. He was firm but fair -giving us a free enough rein that that we needed. We were like cat and dog at times, as brothers can be, but at the heart of it we were very close and we’d look out for each other. .."
In 1977, Steve got married. He had explained to his wife to be that the two boys still needed support and they'd be at home with them for a while. For the first 6 months of Steve's married life, the arrangement worked fairly well. Then Steve's wife became pregnant. Steve: "We had a situation where both Craig and my wife were not getting on. I was confronted with this issues that either he vacates the premises or she was off back home. I was put in this dire situation having to make a choice between the woman I loved and the child that she was about to have… I talked it through with Craig - it was a horrendous situation, of having to let go of Craig. It’s something you just don’t want to be confronted with in life … to make these choices."
Craig moved out but kept in contact with Steve. Within two years, Steve's wife was pregnant again and Steve was faced a second with a choice he was appalled that he had to make - between his wife and children and his brother, Alan. Alan was found a place in local boarding house. Steve says, "It was tremendously painful at the time. Within seven years of our marriage, she left me too.."
Steve still felt responsible for the Craig and Alan, "You worry about them, what they’re doing - I was still in the situation of being a parent figure, and that didn’t leave me for many years." When Steve re-married and had a baby son, the time came for a re-adjustment in his relationship with his brothers. He remembers how it happened, "Craig and I had one of the biggest rows we’d ever had in our lives. I realised that Craig was right and I needed to step back.. For something like 12 months we separated, we took breath. I realised that now was the time. My present wife gave me support and understanding and I reverted back to being a brother."
