According to recent reports in the press, my father was not only an alcoholic (a remarkably functional one given his output) but he also suffered from bi-polar, or manic depression, to use its twentieth century name. Diagnosed when he was in his early twenties, he managed to conceal it from my mother until after they were married and went on to conceal it from me until I was a teenager. My mother let go of the secret one night over the kitchen table after he’d woken us up by dancing on the hen house. She told me the story of how he’d been found wandering naked among Mrs Harbinger’s lettuces and how his parents had to convince her not to phone the police. Mrs Harbinger had phoned the doctor instead and he was taken to the Bartholomew Clinic on Mayview and admitted as a voluntary patient where he proceeded to harass the nurses with surprise erections and fail repeatedly in downing his blue pills, which meant a fair amount of sedation-by-force.

After that first night dancing above the hens he began to make a habit of it. He would arrive home after being expelled from our local drink-pit and after falling on the same stone in the driveway every time, would climb onto the roof, his feet catching in the wire netting, and make a medieval din dancing on the rough cover, kicking his feet as though a newborn hound. The hens would muscle together beneath him, protesting noisily. They cackled, afraid, and my father would simply Hoot! in response, twisting his body and singing tunes from the drink-pit’s jukebox. My mother would eventually be able to lure him down but only after repeatedly flashing her breasts. ‘Do it again,’ he’d scream. ‘Come on love. For me and the hens!’ By the time he was stumbling back inside they were both laughing and while my mother ran the cold bath and scolded him charitably, I’d be gazing up at the ceiling from my pillow along the hall wondering how they’d ever thought they could raise a child.