Grandfather

Have you ever thought that the life your parents have led is far more interesting than your own? I certainly have, In my family there used to be a new shocking discover just about every year. The most shocking of which from my perspective came when I was between 10 and 13 and found out that my dad had been married to someone before my mum and that I had a brother and sister I never met.

My parent’s stories are filled with gangsters they socialise with, murders and murderers, secret births and weddings – and this is just the stuff they tell us about! Most fascinating to me however is the kidnapping of my mother when she was a baby by her father.

Martin Wedlock, my Gran’s first husband, was at some point in time, was stranded on a raft for three days by himself. I don’t know what had happened that caused him to be on that boat and neither does my Mum, but, she had been told that when her father had left to go to war he was said to be a kind man and loving husband. When he came back his time in the water had changed him, something had splintered his mind while being stranded and he had apparently developed a terrible temperament.

I apologise if the details here are a little sketchy but the fact is that I don’t think my Mum, who told me about this, knows all that much about it. My Mother had never met the man and in fact only saw her father for the first time a few months ago in some pictures that she was able to get from some of his family that she was able to track down.

Some time after the change in Wedlock’s personality my Grandmother had filled for divorce, whether she had already given birth to my mother or if she was pregnant I do not know. All I know is that when my Mum was still an infant in her crib Martin Wedlock took her and jumped out of her first story bedroom window with her in his arms. As dramatic as this was my mother was soon back home after my Gran and her sister went round to where Wedlock was living and simply took her back home.

I wish I knew more to tell you, if fact I just wish I knew more about the man full stop, but, anyone who could tell me about him and this incident is sadly dead or simply unapproachable for comment. The family that gave her the photographs of him told that he my mother that he had been a very kind man who was always smiling and joking. Having apparently having got over his problems Martin Wedlock, as my Mum always refers to him never as ‘my father’ or 'dad', remarried and lived a happy life in Fife until he died at some point in the last decade or so.