Desperately seeking Sarah

It all happened so quickly. I should have done more for her then, but my own adored son had died. Sarah cried all the time and later got very bitter and angry. We should have got her counselling, but we were so caught up in our own grief.

After that, she started to change. Maybe it was a cry for help. She ran away on a regular basis - always overnight, was dabbling with drugs and got in with a wild bunch. We found each other hard to understand, but we never broke the bond. She'd still fling her arms around me and say: 'Hello Nanny, I love you'.

Sometimes we'd talk or she'd sit on the floor at my knee and we'd watch telly together. It's hard for anybody to admit their children are on drugs, but she was. She started to run away two or three days at a time and I did get very angry with her.

She'd say, 'Oh Nan, you're so old fashioned,' and I'd try and say, 'But these things are important, how you sit, how you dress, how you eat, how you talk to people.' Even when we weren't getting on, after I'd said my piece, she'd hug me.

The only time I really ever lost my temper was when I found out that she'd been inhaling some of my body spray up in the bathroom. I found out later that you can get high on that and I flew at her: 'How stupid can you be, you could have killed yourself.' But mostly I was her Nan, always happy and jolly and a bit old-fashioned, but not a dragon.