Amy, My Daughter

The following Tuesday the Civils did an interview with Radio 5 Live and told listeners not to buy Amy’s records: if they did, they would be encouraging a drug addict. Giles accused Amy’s record company of working her to the bone and implied that we, Amy’s family, had a vested interest in them doing just that.

Things were getting out of hand. I felt the only way to protect Amy was to tell the truth, rather than have people listen to strangers’ lies about her. I decided to have my say as well. Later that day, on Radio 5 Live, I told Victoria Derbyshire how much worse things had become since Amy and Blake had been married: I was getting no support from the Civils in helping Amy and Blake, and if they had turned up at the Matrix Studios meeting instead of going to the pub, they would have seen for themselves how caring and understanding Amy’s record company was.

Over the next few days I did a lot of radio and television interviews, trying to set the record straight about Amy and her problems. It was probably a waste of time but it made me feel a little better.

On 31 August I received a text from Blake:

By the way, if it eases anyone’s minds, we are on an island where it is impossible to get heroin – I read that somewhere, look it up! We are on a posh resort where we haven’t even been offered a spliff. Don’t worry about us, we’re doing fine with delicious cocktails instead. Love, Blake & Amy.

‘What a load of crap!’ I wrote in my diary.

The next day I got another text:

We’re ok papa, phone’s a little tricky here but texts are ok. Love you to xs, lots of xxx’s. Tell me u love me.

It was from Amy’s phone, but I knew it must have been from Blake – Amy would never have used words like that in a text to me. Later that day I went to the Jewish Burial Grounds at Rainham, Essex, to visit the graves of my father, my grandparents and my uncle. I was looking for comfort and solace and peace, which I found.

Unfortunately, the news worsened. On 2 September the News of the World ran another horrible and shocking story about Amy. They had pictures of her that showed what appeared to be track marks on her arms, which suggested she was now taking drugs intravenously. Devastated, I called Dr Ettlinger straight away. He believed that the marks on Amy’s arms were from the cuts she had inflicted on herself and were definitely not track marks. I was relieved for a moment – yes, people around the world might think that my darling daughter was injecting herself, but at least it wasn’t true; that was one more problem that I knew I wouldn’t be able to deal with.

The same day the Mail on Sunday ran a story about the Civils. I hated going to the newsagent’s every morning and seeing Amy’s face plastered across the front pages of the papers. It was like living in a glass house, with the world picking over every scrap about Amy’s life. But this one cheered me up a bit. In May 2007, just days after Amy and Blake had got married, Georgette and Giles had been convicted at Grantham Magistrates’ Court in Lincolnshire of disorderly behaviour and using threatening and abusive words likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. The Mail on Sunday reported:

The couple were found guilty by the magistrates and were given a one-year conditional discharge after headmaster Giles and his wife Georgette were involved in a furious incident on a village school’s football pitch.

The court heard how the Civils threatened the assistant manager of their village junior football team, Neil Swaby, and his wife Jane. Mr and Mrs Civil stormed on to the touchline and berated Mr Swaby for telling off their youngest son. Then Georgette hit him across the face with a bunch of car keys. The couple were found guilty by the magistrates and were given a one-year conditional discharge. Mr Swaby told the Mail on Sunday: ‘The problem is that Giles and Georgette blame everyone else.’

I can’t say that any of this surprised me – I knew they were nasty people and now everybody who read the Mail on Sunday did too – but it did make me wonder what else they might be capable of. Sadly, I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

On 3 September Amy and Blake came home from St Lucia. I couldn’t wait to see Amy but at the same time I was a bit nervous of what I’d find. I went to see them at Blakes Hotel in Kensington, south-west London. Amy looked fine, if a bit thin: I made a mental note to talk to her about it – another thing to worry about. I realized I hadn’t seen her eating like she used to recently, and put that down to the drugs. Blake, meanwhile, was slurring and a bit out of it; he looked like he’d taken something.

Seeing them together, I had no illusions that much had changed. I felt plunged straight back into battle. All I could think was that I had to do something: act, act, act, whatever it took to fix my daughter. Clearly whatever I’d tried so far hadn’t worked so I had to do something different, even if that meant being nice to Blake and telling Amy I’d altered my opinion of him.

When Georgette arrived we agreed to call a truce. Perhaps as a result, and with Amy and Blake still in holiday mood, we had a more rational conversation in which Amy and Blake said they wanted to get clean. I was delighted when they agreed to embark on daily counselling. It didn’t last a day.

That evening we left Blake in the hotel while I took Amy for a full-check up with Dr Ettlinger at his surgery in Upper Devonshire Place in London’s West End. On the way there I had a text from Blake:

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you personally, that you and my mum made a truce. It’s very positive and means a lot to me. Your second son, Blake x

Five minutes later he sent me another:

I will always do my best for Amy, you have my word. She is my world. Blake x.

I showed the texts to Amy straight away. ‘Okay, let’s give him another chance,’ I lied. ‘On the face of it, these texts tell me he’s actually a nice guy.’

Dr Ettlinger examined Amy, and said she was okay, but reiterated that she must not take any drugs for fear of another seizure. He also told her that she was very thin and needed to put on some weight. When we got outside, the pavement was swarming with paparazzi.

‘Dad, how did they know I was coming here?’ Amy asked. I shook my head. I had no idea.

* * *

In just two months so much had happened. None of us knew how to help Amy – nothing we tried seemed to be working. Raye and I both thought that getting back to work would be the best thing for her as it would break the routine of the last few weeks. We thought it was unlikely she’d be writing any new songs, so there was no reason to push for another album, but she loved having a guitar in her hands and being with her band. I knew those boys weren’t drug-users so it would be good for Amy to be around them, and away from Blake, for a while.

Earlier in the year Amy had been nominated for a Mercury Music Prize for Back to Black, and on 4 September I went with her to the awards ceremony at Grosvenor House on Park Lane. She was beaten by the Klaxons, but she was on absolutely top form and sounded fantastic when she sang ‘Love Is A Losing Game’ with just an acoustic guitar, reminding everyone – including me – just how great her voice was. I was pleased that the drugs hadn’t changed that. The audience went mad for her and, for a few minutes, I could forget all the recent nastiness.

She came back to our table and I gave her a big hug. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t won. To me, seeing the expression on her face as she sang the song, and the silent rapture of the fans around the room, had been worth everything. When I looked up at her on the stage that night, I saw my little girl again, possessed by nothing but her incredible music. There was so much love in the room for her. This cheered me up: she was in there somewhere – she wasn’t gone, just a little lost. But at the end of it all she still went home to Blake.

To add to my problems, Jane was worried about my health. I hadn’t had much time to think about myself