Chapter 10
Peter grew up in Essex in a small town near the coastal resort of Southend. Despite the unflattering reputation the region is famous for, Peter’s upbringing leaned more to the conservative side. His grandfather was a vicar at the local church and was the father of 3 boys, all of whom had a strict upbringing. Peter’s father, Mathew, was the eldest son and was still at the tender age of 12 when his father passed away.
Mathew’s mother, Jane, soon got remarried, to a man named Nick Lockhead. She had known him since childhood and when her husband had passed away, he was there to offer financial support. Nick was a fairly wealthy individual who owned a successful restaurant by the pier. Despite being in her late 40’s, Jane became pregnant and eventually gave birth to a baby boy they had named Vincent. However, the pressure of raising 4 children began to weigh heavy on Nick, who had up to that point lived a life without commitment. Arguments about how much time Jane was spending raising her ‘other’ children became a regular occurrence and before long, Nick had absconded with a younger woman, leaving Jane and by extension Mathew, alone once again.
By this stage, Mathew had turned 16. Thus, it fell on his shoulders to provide for the family and become surrogate father to the other children. He worked at a local mill, where he was earning barely enough money to put food on the plate every evening.
Mathew continued with the traditional Christian upbringing of his siblings and ensured they stayed true to the morals his father had passed down to him. He would take them to the church every Sunday and make each brother spend some time during the week in service of the Lord.
The Michael’s family was a prime example of the working class in that era. On the odd occasion he had saved some money, Mathew would take his younger brothers to see their local football club, Southend FC. Although they were not a top flight team, their support rivalled the most zealous of supporters across the country. For them, it was an opportunity to let out the frustrations accumulated during a hard week’s worth of work
In the 1970’s, the Thatcher government began a process of mass privatisation and deregulation of the financial markets. This meant many of the social services and industries that working class people, such as the Michael’s family, relied on were being pulled from under their feet. Factories and mills were closing down at lightning pace. The intense competition from emerging countries such as Japan was being felt at home and it wasn’t long before their economic tsunami swept through Essex.
By the start of the 80’s, the mill where Mathew had worked for the past 15 years had also shut down. Mathew was rapidly running out of money and also faced losing the house where he grew up.
Mathew felt bitterness towards the establishment and the capitalist society that led to people like him always being at the bottom of the pecking order. He knew that the only way he could survive was to adopt the moral indifference he was raised to go against.
