I: Okay so could you, do you remember being lonely because of lack of attention or do you see it retrospectively?

I remember not having the same attention and being jealous at the time. He was fourteen when he died so I’d be seventeen when it happened. Yeah, I think, I think more retrospective more than anything else, but I did realise he was getting all the attention so how that manifested itself at the time, I don’t know. But I do know that my mum at the time wasn’t, I think her mother, my grandmother was an absolute cow. She was like Victorian then. I was born in 1950 so it wasn’t that unusual so she like young kids should be seen and not heard. My mum was pretty much the same so emotions, feelings etc, etc weren’t really shown. So emotionally, I wouldn’t say starved but there’s another word but not as much as you normally would. I’m not going to say it’s like a normal relationship because there’s no such things as normal but yeah, I wasn’t shown much relation-, much emotion. I think that did affect me for quite a while.

When you’re going though depression is and you’re, horrible thing about depression is loneliness really, feeling as if you’re by yourself. I think that’s the worst, that’s basically that’s the worst thing about depression, nobody knows what I’m going through. Knowing that somebody understands what you’re going through. Knowing that you’re not unusual and you’re not a freak and there’s nothing wrong with you, so to speak, speaking to somebody else about it to realise that actually they’re going through the same thing, then the loneliness isn’t as bad because you’re with somebody. There’s a…

I: Do you find that?

There’s a brilliant, there’s a brilliant story about a soldier suffering from PT, PTSD and he was in this hole crying out for help and a minister walked passed and he says he’ll pray for him and somebody else walked past and said they’ll do this for him, everybody else walked passed and they said they’d do something, get some help but he’s still in his hole and then another person came along and jumped into hole with him and said, “What are you doing here?” and he turns on, “I can get you out, I’ve been here.” XXX I didn’t realise.

I: Sorry I didn’t understand the end.

R: Someone jumped in the hole with him, said, “I can help you out because I’ve been there.” Rather than everybody else saying, “I’m going to help you,” you know, and that’s, you know, is yeah, God…

I: it’s a very beautiful story.

Yeah, I’ve obviously heard it a few times. It’s a soldier thing, yeah.

And then, obviously, I got used to being lonely.  I’m used to me own company, that’s a better way of doing it and here being in Thailand, loneliness is a big part of the ex-pat community. Being married to a Thai lady, by the way I met her in in England and she’s not 14.

I: What do you mean, she’s not fourteen, why would she be…

R: Oh, people think because I’m married to a Thai lady, I either bought her online or she’s a bar girl. It’s a typical UK assumption. I met my wife, my, my now wife in [name of county]. She’s about maybe six years younger than me but a lot of people think, they jump to conclusions, it’s typical.

I: It’s terrible.

R: Well it is but you just get used to it. I just don’t really mind anymore. So you do get lonely basically because of, well I’ve been told by friends and expats here. It’s quite simple, you marry a Thai lady. You’re in a different culture. Different land.” Different language, which is quite hard to, well it’s hard to learn and you either turn to drink and then you turn to drink, you then go to bars and then you end up having affairs, that’s a lot of what happens here because culture’s a big thing. So even though you’re married to somebody, the Thai culture’s quite different from the UK culture so it can be lonely even though you’re with somebody, if that makes sense.

I watch another film is, a film I used to, that I haven’t watched yet because I’m afraid to watch it is, oh God what’s it called, my son gave it to me. Will Smith with his son.

I: Oh the Pursuit of Happiness.

That’s it. He got it me years ago, I still won’t watch it because for me watching something which hits me is, is a thing and that I know will hit me so I’m sort of afraid to watch it even though my son’s threatening to, keeps telling me to watch it and he bought it. Grey’s anatomy is something I used to watch during my, don’t ask me how, I think I was pretty depressed at the time and I happened to stumble across a channel at the time who were doing a mega series thing at the time and that’s another thing that hits me because it’s quite emotional. It’s quite, well when I say real, as real as TV can be, especially from America but that hits the heart strings so not anyone in particular but if it’s a good TV programme you, you can recognise it if you know what I mean. It hits the spot.

I: And how does loneliness come into those programmes?

When you’re dealing with things by yourself, if you’re dealing with being a single parent, loneliness about dealing with problems by yourself. Loneliness about not knowing how that you’re by yourself. The loneliness of dealing with a problem rather than loneliness as being isolated. I suppose there’s different types of loneliness. I’m isolated here to a certain extent but I’m not necessarily lonely but if something else happens and I’ve nowhere to go to or feel as if I’m, you know, emotionally isolated, that’d be better, yeah.

I mean at the end of the day, I did go to Gingerbread to see if I could find somebody else to help but at the end of the day, the women were just as bad as everybody else, you know, I was the outside because at the end of the day, I was a nasty man who was, you know, men didn’t understand that [um] so yeah I ended up being by myself so that’s the…

I: You didn’t manage, it wasn’t, you couldn’t connect to anybody? Nobody could connect to you in Gingerbread

No because everybody else, because all they did talk about, all they would, again that’s accusing but all they were were complaining women about their men, how shit they were, how they abused them and they were doing this and they were bad this and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘What’s this got to do with me?’ You know, I’m a single parent. You know, I’ve gone through crap too,” but they, they don’t seem to understand that, you know, [sighs] men can’t be dads basically, you know. Can’t look after kids by themselves. Only women can do that and that’s basically what I was against.

I don’t necessarily need company. I like company but if I’ve going to be here by myself all week, I’m not worried plus the fact I’ve got my dog, you know, which does help. I’ve never had a dog before until I came here.

Does he help with loneliness then?

Yeah, he does. He’s not exactly the cuddliest of dogs but yeah you can’t really choose your personality, you know.