Doris

I can feel even now

the shame, even at the tender

age of eight or so;

sent to Timothy Whites

to buy...

Preludin.

I hated the questions in the chemist, I hated the feeling I was doing something wrong.  I hated the effect it had on my mother.

'Do I have to?'

'Yes Linda, you do!'

Looking back, I see now that Doris had an addictive personality.

Preludin, were a means in the fifties to aid weight loss.  And I suppose Doris originally took them for that.  The knock-on effect was a chemically induced high, which I assume was her reason for wanting them.  She cleaned the house from top to bottom.  On one occasion maniacally polishing the furniture, she shot a huge splinter under her thumb nail and out at the first joint.  Carted off to hospital the offending plank was removed.  

She wasn't my mum when under the influence of this powerful drug, which was freely bought over the chemist's counter, for the princely sum of five shillings.  

On these potent pills she found herself in all sorts of scrapes; found herself in all sorts of ways?  Found a path  through the mist of this phenmetrazine stimulant maze, which maybe, just maybe, softened her pain at the role she played?

Hacks were the next big obsession; goodness alone knows what active ingredient she gleaned from the pounds of cough sweets she ate.

The demon drink was only a snifter away.