‘Don’t cry, Daddy, I’m home now,’ I remember her saying.
Unfortunately, Amy didn’t seem to learn from that experience. Several months later I took the kids to the Brent Cross shopping centre in north-west London. We were in the John Lewis department store and suddenly Amy was gone. One second she was there and the next she’d disappeared. Alex and I searched the immediate area – how far could she have got? – but there was no sign of her. Here we go again, I thought. And this time she’d definitely been kidnapped.
We widened the search. Just as we were walking past a rack of long coats, out she popped. ‘Boo!’ I was furious, but the more I told her off, the more she laughed. A few weeks later she tried it again. This time I headed straight for the long coats. She wasn’t there. I searched all of the racks. No Amy. I was really beginning to worry when a voice said over the Tannoy, ‘We’ve got a little girl called Amy here. If you’ve lost her, please come to Customer Services.’ She’d hidden somewhere else, got really lost and someone had taken her to a member of staff. I told her there was to be no more hiding or running away when we’re out. She promised she wouldn’t do it again and she didn’t, but the next series of practical jokes was played out to a bigger audience.
When I was a little boy I had choked on a bit of apple and my father had panicked. So, when Alex choked on his dinner, I panicked too, forcing my fingers down his throat to remove whatever was obstructing him. It didn’t take Amy long to start the choking game. One Saturday afternoon we were shopping in Selfridges, in London’s Oxford Street. The store was packed. Suddenly Amy threw herself on to the floor, coughing and holding her throat. I knew she wasn’t really choking but she was creating such a scene that I threw her over my shoulder and we left in a hurry. After that she was ‘choking’ everywhere, friends’ houses, on the bus, in the cinema. Eventually, we just ignored it and it stopped.
Although I was born in north London, I’ve always considered myself to be an East Ender: I spent a lot of my childhood with my grandparents, Ben and Fanny Winehouse, at their flat above Ben the Barber, his business, in Commercial Street, or with my other grandmother, Celie Gordon, at her house in Albert Gardens, both in the heart of the East End. I even went to school in the East End. My father was a barber and my mother was a ladies’ hairdresser, both working in my grandfather’s shop, and, on their way there, they’d drop me off at Deal Street School.
Amy and Alex were fascinated by the East End so I took them there often. They loved me to tell them stories about our family, and seeing where they had lived brought the stories to life. Amy liked hearing about my weekends in the East End when I was a little boy. Every Friday I went with my mum and dad to Albert Gardens where we’d stay until Sunday night. The house was packed to the rafters. There was Grandma Celie, Great- grandma Sarah, Great-uncle Alec, Uncle Wally, Uncle Nat, and my mum’s twin, Auntie Lorna. If that wasn’t enough, a Holocaust survivor named Izzi Hammer lived on the top floor; he passed away in January 2012.
The weekends at Albert Gardens started with the traditional Jewish Friday night dinner: chicken soup, then roast chicken, roast potatoes, peas and carrots. Dessert was lokshen pudding, made with baked noodles and raisins. Where all those people slept I really can’t remember, but we all had a magical time, with singing, dancing, card games, and loads of food and drink. And the occasional loud argument mixed in with the laughter and joy of a big happy Jewish family. We continued the Friday-night tradition for most of Amy’s life. It was always a special time for us, and in later years, an interesting test of Amy’s friendships – who was close enough to her to be invited on a Friday night.
I spent a lot of time with the kids at weekends. In February 1982, when Alex was nearly three, I started taking him to watch football – in those days you could take young kids and sit them on your lap: Spurs v. West Bromwich Albion. It was freezing cold, so cold that I didn’t want to go, but Janis dressed Alex in his one-piece padded snowsuit, which made him look twice his size – he could hardly move. When we got there I asked him if he was okay. He said he was. About five minutes after kick-off he wanted to go to the Gents. Getting him out of that padded suit was quite an operation, and then it took another ten minutes to get him into it again. When we got back to the seat, he needed to go again so we had an action replay. At half-time, he said, ‘Daddy I want to go home – I’m home-sick.’
When Amy was about seven, I took her to a match. When we got home Janis asked her if she’d enjoyed it. Amy said she’d hated it. When Janis asked why she hadn’t asked me to bring her home, she said, ‘Daddy was enjoying it and I didn’t want to upset him.’ That was typical of the young Amy, always thinking of other people.
At five Amy started at Osidge Primary School, where Alex was already a pupil. There she met Juliette Ashby, who quickly became her best friend. Those two were inseparable and remained close for most of Amy’s life. Her other great friend at Osidge was Lauren Gilbert: Amy already knew her because Uncle Harold, my dad’s brother, was Lauren’s step-grandfather.
Amy had to wear a light-blue shirt and a tie, with a sweater and a grey skirt. She was happy to join her big brother at school, but she was soon in trouble. Every day she was there could easily have been her last. She didn’t do anything terrible but she was disruptive and attention-seeking, which led to regular complaints about her behaviour. She wouldn’t be quiet in lessons, she doodled in her books and she played practical jokes. Once she hid under the teacher’s desk. When he asked the class where Amy was, she was laughing so much that she bumped her head on his desk and had to be brought home.
Amy left a lasting impression on her Year Two teacher, Miss Cutter (now Jane Worthington), who wrote to me shortly after Amy passed away:
Amy was a vivacious child who grew into a beautiful and gifted woman. My lasting memories of Amy are of a child who wore her heart on her sleeve. When she was happy the world knew about it, when upset or unhappy you’d know that too. It was clear that Amy came from a loving and supportive family.
Amy was a clever girl, and if she’d been interested she would have done well at school. Somehow, though, she was never that interested. She was good at things like maths, but not in the sense that she did well at school. Janis was really good at maths and used to teach the kids. Amy loved doing calculus and quadratic equations when she was still at primary school. No wonder she found maths lessons boring.
She was always interested, though, in music. I always had it playing at home and in the car, and Amy sang along with everything. Although she loved big-band and jazz songs, she also liked R&B and hip-hop, especially the US R&B/hip-hop bands TLC and Salt-n-Pepa. She and Juliette used to dress up like Wham!’s backing singers, Pepsi & Shirlie, and sing their songs. When Amy was about ten she and Juliette formed a short-lived rap act, Sweet ’n’ Sour – Juliette was Sweet and Amy was Sour. There were a lot of rehearsals but, sadly, no public performances.
I was devoted to my family, but as Amy and Alex got older, I was changing. In 1993, Janis and I split up. A few years earlier, a close friend of mine, who was married, confided in me that he was seeing someone else. I couldn’t understand how he could do it. I remember telling him that he had a lovely wife and a fantastic son: why on earth would he want to jeopardize everything for a fling? He said, ‘It’s not a fling. When you find that special someone you just know it’s right. If it ever happens to you, you’ll understand.’
Unbelievably I found myself in a similar situation. Back in 1984 I had appointed a new marketing manager, Jane, and we had hit it off from the start. There was nothing romantic: Jane had a boyfriend and I was happily married. But there was definitely a spark between us. Nothing happened for ages and then eventually it did. Jane had been coming to my house since Amy was eighteen months old and had met Janis and the kids loads of times. She was adamant that she didn’t want to come between me and my family.
I was in love with Jane but still married to Janis. That’s a situation which just can’t work indefinitely. It was a terrible dilemma. I wanted to be with Janis and the kids but I also wanted to be with Jane. I was never unhappy with Janis and we had a good marriage. Some men who stray hate their wives but I loved mine. You couldn’t have an argument with her if you tried: she’s such a sweet, good-natured person. I didn’t know what to do. I really didn’t want to hurt anybody. In the end I just wanted to be with Jane more.
Finally, in 1992, I made up my mind to leave Janis. I would wait until after Alex had had his Bar Mitzvah the following year, and leave shortly afterwards. Telling Alex and Amy was the hardest thing; I explained that we both loved them and that what was happening was nothing to do with anything they’d done or not done. Alex took it very badly – who can blame him? – but Amy seemed to accept it.
I felt awful as I drove away to live with Melody in Barnet. I stayed with her for six months before I moved in
