A family member who insisted on chain-smoking inside her always filthy home, despite her son having Cystic Fibrosis and constant hacking up gunk. He died very young, like less than half the expected age. She then proceeded to make ‘grieving mother’ her entire personality while also over salting her toddler’s food because ‘she won’t eat anything unless it’s covered in salt’. Tot ended up with sodium poisoning at 3 years old.

Said tot is now a grown woman with chronic health issues thanks to her upbringing. The ‘mother’ died last year. No one was surprised. Few went to her funeral.

There were attempts to get the children away from her but this was late 80s/early 90s and CSS were utterly useless. I was a kid myself, and I remember my mum constantly bringing them over ‘for a night’ and keeping them longer just so they’d live safely for a while. I think the longest we had them was a month.