I lost a brother yesterday. He didn't die or anything but any semblance of brotherly love did. I guess it had been pretty insignificant for many years. Despite all my efforts I had been unable to visit him or take him to family events since around 2016. He refused to leave Uttoxeter or allow me to drop in during the COVID years and, quite rudely, in my opinion, made no effort to help or even communicate with my son Kyran when he moved to Derbyshire and made no effort to attend, or apologise for not attending, Kyran's wedding a few years ago.
I had so admired him as a child and we laughed a lot, especially at the dinner table and just catching each other's eyes when one or our parents made a remark that we found funny would make us burst out in laughter. Nine years older than me, though, the difference in our day-to-day lives became greater and greater and he moved to Uttoxeter at the age of 15 in 1958 to begin an apprenticeship with Bamfords, a farm machinery company.
Whereas he had to live during the war rationing years and only gradual improvement in living conditions and family income during the 50s and early 60s, my teenage years saw the immense improvement of life in the mid to later 60s. As well as having a lot more opportunities and possessions, I was lucky to gain a scholarship to attend a very respectable public school whereas he had been at the grammar school and left with just O levels. I moved as an effective only child to a lovely home on a farm in Hertfordshire whereas he had been brought up in a grotty semi in Frogmore, followed by a series of temporary flats in Uttoxeter.
He would comment on the much better luck that I had had from time to time when we met on the few occasions we visited Uttoxeter or attended a family event somewhere else. I always felt some resentment but as he started to earn money and drive a nice Hillman Hunter while I was overdrawn at St. Andrews University he did seem to be achieving more with his life than I was for a while and, although, contact was minimal, about three or four times a year at most, the age difference was becoming a little less relevant and we got on fine.
The first big problem came when he got married - well, probably when he got engaged, I supposed - to Delia Morris, a co-worker at Bamfords and Uttoxeter resident. She was a devout Catholic and the wedding had to be in a Catholic church. I had no idea what the difference was between the Christian Church of England places that I was familiar with and a Catholic one but that was what had to be. My father wasn't particularly happy with this marriage. I have never been totally sure why and I don't think it was because she was Catholic as much as what she insisted that Rupert do, like attend Church with her on Sundays and do slightly different things at Christmas. I suspect that he voiced his lack of enthusiasm for all that on the one occasion Delia actually visited us on the farm in Kings Langley. It would have been around 1968 and the pair never visited my mother and father again as a couple. We all went to the wedding in 1970 in Uttoxeter and, as an 18-year-old student, I enjoyed the wine and the food and the party and failed to notice the clear division at the reception on the day. As many of my uncles and aunts mentioned, and, particularly my dad has never forgotten, the Hills were treated very rudely with many from the Morris side whispering "here come the Prozzies" as we entered and no effort was made by any of the parental generations to chat or share conversation or a drink.
I only learned of this later but how my father, in particular, was treated seems to have been appalling and even my mum, who has to be one of the most forbearing and forgiving ladies in the world, anxious to please anyone and everyone, was upset. The result was that we never visited Rupert and Delia in Uttoxeter again. Rupert would call in at Kings Langley should his work bring him down south and he was my best man at my own wedding in 1971 in St. Andrews, with Delia notably absent.
The expression 'Who's Rupert?' became quite a common one whenever the conversation with my parents turned to him. As the years progressed, mum and dad moved to Doddington in the Fens in the early 1980s but Rupert and Delia never visited, not attended as a couple any of the family weddings and funerals. With many uncles and an aunt and a string of cousins, there were many but only Rupert would attend.
In 1983 my own business had grown quite spectacularly and, promised a large investment by an American broker, I had set up a company to help new businesses get started or for small businesses to grow. I needed good advice on how to select companies and people to support and had taken on as directors two men who had been directors of a client company with which I had got on well for several years before. On a car phone in a park near the Serpentine in the middle of London one day in 1983 I remember a call with Rupert. I had heard that he had been badly let down and a job he had taken in the East of England had been made redundant almost as soon as he had started. It occurred to me that his good experience of dealing with businesses and commerce generally over his career with Bamfords would be very useful for my new company and I suggested he join the team as a fourth director.
Rupert came and met my other two colleagues and we had a great time. He would fit in really well and we began to enjoy each other's company once again, with laughter once more and little talk about the years before. My mum and dad were delighted that we were working together, although Rupert still didn't see much of them. We had a year of wonderful times - many, many nice meals together in Newbury, a memorable 60th birthday party for one of our colleagues on a boat on the Thames, a trip for Rupert and I to Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura in August and another to Kos one wild and windy December. I provided him with a brand new Volvo, in silver and a blue interior, as he specified and a decent salary.
All was looking so good and it was so nice to be proud of my brother again. All the staff liked him and he was good at what he did. And then, in 1985, everything came crashing down. The American broker proved to be a massive fraud and I was in serious trouble, as a trustee of a pension scheme having lost about a million pounds in loans and investments through the American that were not being returned or acknowledged.
Rupert did work hard for several months to try and help colleagues raise some money, through loans secured on some land we could acquire in the Canaries or through other schemes, and it did look as though he might succeed at times but, in the end, every single attempt failed and the whole business collapsed, some elements being forced to close by government and Court interventions. He was briefly thought to be in collusion with me in some sort of fraud that we had conspired together on but I took the hit for everything and deliberately made sure that none of my staff or other directors were accused of anything and their names cleared. It cost me dearly but it was the right thing to do.
He, as well as others of course, lost jobs and income but his expenses and salary were fully paid up to the end. He managed to keep the car too, with my Finance Director finding a way for that to be arranged. Quite soon afterwards I understand that he got a good position with the Department of Trade and was able to continue his life as before reasonably easily. Indeed, when we met at later dates, he would tell me many tales of his trips with Prince Andrew who often led the Department of Trade forays abroad to fly the flag and generate interest. I do think the events surrounding my demise were a big shock for him and his inability to get me out of trouble, or maybe, see the trouble and possible fraud beforehand, weighed heavily on his conscience in the background. It was a subject never spoken about afterwards.
I was charged with conspiracy to defraud and several counts of theft in summer 1985 and we were not in contact until sometime after I emerged from a year at HMP Leyhill in February 1990. Indeed, it was in February 1992 when we next met when he attended my second wedding in St. Albans. I remember being so pleased he had made it and that some move might be being made towards forgiving me for giving him problems before.
That was it, though, and it was not until dad died in 2005 that we met again. On this occasion he took care of most of the arrangements and there was little interaction between us and no Delia present. It was when mum became unwell and quite difficult to deal with that we started to work together again. Mum was still living in the Fens, a long drive from both Milton Keynes, where I lived, and Uttoxeter where Rupert had never really moved from. We took it in turns to visit every couple of weeks for a while but then, as she became particularly difficult, and talk of finding a nursing home for her began, we started going on the same day, usually a Saturday, every week or two. She would call each of us almost every day and we would have to decide whether whatever she was reporting as an issue was actually serious or not, and whether we needed to drive out there immediately or later. When we did meet, however, we would often go somewhere as just the two of us for lunch and I felt some of the good times return as we laughed once more and talked about our current activities.
I was a lecturer and coming up to retirement. He had been forced to retire from his Department of Trade position but was very much involved in various charitable organisations in Uttoxeter and also with being in charge of looking after the proceeds of a £1 million grant for some part of Uttoxeter's regeneration. Mum would get annoyed with him and he would shout at her on many occasions which surprised me. I seldom saw him in such a bad mood. Mum could be frustrating but I never needed to get angry with her. Rupert would stand up and stamp his feet and go outside for a cigarette. He was controlling her money and mum would say that she hadn't got any and he would say he had given her so much on this date and so on. To maintain her entitlement to various care support in the home her bank balance needed to remain below a certain amount and so, from time to time, as pension credits came in he would send me an amount which he said was half of the surplus he needed to pull down.
The visits started in the mid 1990s and carried on through to 2014 when the house was eventually sold after he death in 2013. They were much less frequent after she went into hospital in 2013 but we needed to maintain the garden and tidy up her house which we did together. I did most the arrangements for mum's funeral and that was a lovely event, noticeably more memorable than dad's, which several people appreciated, with nice displays of photos and little items on the tables and speeches from several of us at the funeral. No Delia, of course. In fact, on many occasions Rupert would bring either a girlfriend from Essex or an old schoolfriend from Hertfordshire to mum's house during the care and tidying up period. After the funeral, we set about dividing up the things in the house. I found a draft of a will that specifically requested that Rupert not have any personal possessions, only half the property proceeds. It mentioned how offended dad had been at the treatment from Delia and her family over the years and how they wanted nothing of their own to be moved to Uttoxeter. I talked to my first wife, Anne, about this and we decided that no good would come from telling him about this so I put the draft away - it was not a legally binding will, nor did mum and dad's solicitor have any will or instructions. I have never mentioned it.
I have also never told Rupert that he has a sister. Karen was born in 1945 as a result of a relationship mum had with an American officer stationed locally and who was accommodated at her house in the war. Rupert would have been just 1 or 2 and mum was taken by her mum to Portsmouth at some point, presumably when the bulge began to be difficult to hide, where the baby girl was born and immediately taken for adoption. I understand the family was a chemist in the area and the date 6 May 1945 but that is all I have ever been able to discover. Mum told me in the early 2000s and had asked me to try and find some information about the girl. I did try but was not able to get very far with the Salvation Army, who one used to approach in these matters. Quite what was done with Rupert at that time I don't know but I guess he was too young to remember anything anyway. I don't know why I never told him. Dad never knew either, incidentally. The fact that mum had told me and not Rupert had always made me feel that she trusted me with the information but not Rupert, dad being alive still at the time. I may have been wrong and thought about telling him recently but events have left me inclined not to bother as I suspect he wouldn't be interested anyway.
The division of the house things and money went well and Rupert seemed efficient and dealt with the various utilities and sale costs. One thing has always troubled me, though, whilst I received what appeared to be half of the net house sale proceeds, I never did receive anything else. I remembered that Rupert had to keep the bank balance down below £16000 or thereabouts and so there should have been a good amount of around £10000 remaining even after all the utilities and funeral costs. In addition, dad had always kept a few thousand in cash in a wallet in a drawer in the bedroom. I had looked for this in 2005 when he had died but Rupert had been to the house earlier than me to obtain some certificates or something. I assumed it had been moved to a safe place by mum at the time and thought nothing more of it until I thought more about the calculations when mum died. I don't like to entertain thoughts that Rupert succumbed to temptation or maybe considered the funds fairly to be due to him as the older brother doing most of the administrative work. I don't like to but the doubt remains and was reinforced a bit by his remark that I was lucky to get 50% of the house money. This came when I was wondering whether we might develop the house, which stood on a good-sized plot in a pleasant village. The bungalow was in poor condition so would not sell for much. Replacing it with a new building and garage and outbuildings, or even selling the plot with planning permission for the development, could be profitable. I had no funds, though, and Rupert was not interested in using any of the money for this purpose. So it didn't happen. Nor did he agree that I might move there. In 2013 I was living alone in a rented house and would very much have liked to have some more permanent accommodation. It wasn't that nice but I could slowly have made it better. I would have paid a modest rent but he wanted the house sold and I got the impression that he wanted the whole memory of mum and dad there to go. He had hardly ever spoken to dad since the wedding in Uttoxeter, over 40 years ago, and had been increasingly rude with mum in her later years. I don't think he had ever visited the there now I think about it, other than maybe an occasional passing call in on a business trip when he would appear with a girl from his office. Whereas Doddington had become my parents' 'home' to me and, indeed, I had actually lived there myself for a while in the late 80s, and, of course, I had fond memories of the farm in Kings Langley, Rupert had none of this fondness for a place or home and I began to wonder too of his real affection for mum. He certainly had none for dad.
The 'Where's Rupert?' remark that had been a sarcastic one back in the 70s and 80s became a 'Who's Rupert?' from my own children from around the 2000s to this day. He has never had any real conversation or shown any interest in them in all the years. Of particular sadness for me was his lack of any attempt to help my son in Derby as I have referred to before. If I talk about him with them, notably Katie will come out with the 'Who's Rupert?' comment and they all find it strange that, as quite close brothers and sisters themselves, Rupert and I seem distant.
At Christmas 2024 I called to wish Rupert a merry Christmas, as I almost always have done every year, even if that's all we have said. Delia answered.
"Can I speak to Rupert, please?"
"No."
"Er . . . OK. Where is here?" (thinking he was in the garden or out for a walk or something)
"He's in a Home."
That hit me like a thunderbolt and, after recovery I managed to get the name of the Nursing Home but absolutely no other information at all, no number, no cause, no timescale, no nothing. No apology for not telling me or sympathy either for that matter. It was almost like it was none of my business.
I immediately called the Nursing home and managed to get through to Rupert as he was about to have his lunch. He was a bit croaky and rough but I got the merry Christmas message across and said I'd come up and see him in the New Year.
I went up in January and found him in bed in a small room where he said he had been since some time in September 2024. I said that I had only just found out and asked what had happened but got little response. He said that that was his life now and he would be there for the rest of his life. He had arranged for a friend and Delia's relatives to take care of everything and given a power of attourney to one of them. He almost seemed to say that there was no need for me to know anything anyway and dismissed any offer of help as everything was taken care of. He didn't remember the call or much about what had happened to him before. Delia was at the house, as I knew, and being looked after by people there and all was well, as far as he was concerned. Basically, he didn't seem too bothered about my seeing him and, after about 30 minutes, I was none the wiser about his condition, prognosis nor affairs, and he said he had had enough talking and needed to rest.
I left feeling a bit rejected as well as dejected as it was a big change to see a once lively life-and-soul-of-the-party fellow in such a dead-end street place.
Two cousins visited in the summer but I was not inclined to make the long trip in a hurry. I had swapped my BMW for a Jaguar but that was very expensive to run and I was looking to change it, putting off the trip to Uttoxeter until I did get something else. The cousins reported similarly to me; a grumpy Rupert who hardly knew them and who shared nothing of much interest.
I did discover from the main nurse at the Home, a very pleasant and helpful lady, that Rupert had become unable to walk around and had been hospitalised for some months in the summer of 2024. I think Delia was unable to look after him and so they had chosen the Home at that time. He had some diabetic problem and needed to wear a urine bag and, initially, was unable to move about much, with painful bones. After coming to the Home, however, the nurse had noticed that there seemed little wrong with him apart from the urine bag necessity. It was her view that he needn't lie around in bed all day and they might make an effort to encourage him to move more. She said he asked why he needed to move and, in a similar remark to what he'd said to me, he had said that he would stay there for the rest of his life and what would he need to have movement therapy or whatever for?
I was planning to visit this Christmas when I got a call on my mobile in the car. It was Rupert, thanking me for the card I'd sent. He then told me that Delia had died but they'd had a private family funeral and, basically, there was nothing more I needed to know anyway. I wished him well and said I would visit soon. He said there was no rush.
I drove up yesterday. I had told the staff I was on my way and they said lunch was at 12:30 so I reckoned I would get there for 11:30 and have plenty of time and, of course, he might only manage 30 minutes anyway. I arrived at 11:40 and his first remark was to say that I shouldn't have come at that time as he would be going to lunch in 15 minutes. He pointed at the clock behind me. I said his lunch was at 12:30 but he insisted it would be 12 and he had already ordered his preferences from the menu. I said I needed to help make arrangements for him now that Delia was gone and presumably there'd be much to sort out.
"Well, get on with it, we've only got quarter of an hour." he replied.
I said that if he sold the house then the Home would gradually take all but a small amount of the proceeds. £80,000 a year would soon take whatever he received. If a relative was living there then the house would not be regarded as an asset and the government would continue to pay the fees. So it might be worthwhile looking into the options . . .
"Ah, you want to live in my house rent free?" he said quite angrily.
I said that it might just be me in name or could be someone else. I hadn't really wanted to move to Uttoxeter. I was just trying to protect his money from disappearing. I admit that I was thinking initially about what would happen when he died but I did actually get the impression that he would be around for quite a long time yet as he seemed a lot stronger and more able to move about than before. So I could see that there was no imminent chance of any resources for me anyway.
I had clearly got off on the wrong foot but he soon made his views very clear.
"I will sell the house and it's my money." he started bluntly. "You can't live there. It will be sold and the money pays for my care here. They look after me well and I will spend the rest of my life here. It's not much to look at but I will be here for as long as I live. That's it. There's nothing for you in any of this. We were never very close, were we? I'm not going to do anything for you. You can talk to the people who have been helping me and arrange to collect anything you want from the house."
It was abundantly clear that he was not bothered in the slightest about the house money gradually disappearing and that was simply because he needed nothing now by way of money. Everything around him was paid for. Any phone bills were paid by whoever was dealing with his affairs and it would be they who dealt with the house. I learned that his solicitor, who will manage everything on the legal and tax side, is a member of the Home's management team and Rupert mentioned that he had been advised by him already on 'something to do with assets'. I got the feeling that the Home may well do better from the house proceeds for a few years than government funding. I may be wrong but decided not to pursue that line.
I told Rupert that I felt a duty to help him as much as I could and he only had to ask if there was anything he needed. I was now his next of kin and I said that I was sure he would want to do the same if the roles were reversed. He replied that there was nothing he needed and he didn't want me to do anything. There was nothing for me, he repeated, to do. He didn't want any help from me. It was like the other friends that were local had done so much for him, taking him to Delia's funeral, arranging his bills and finances etc., and I had done nothing in all the time he had been there. I did remind hm that I had tried hard to visit him and take him places in the years before and, indeed, had not even know about his being in hospital or put in the home. I even learned that Delia had died in October but he only told me two months later. All in all, he should appreciate that it was all a bit of a shock and now I am trying to help.
"Don't need you. Don't need anything. This is my money and I'll do what I like with it." That was it. Then he pointed to the clock again. It was a couple of minutes from 12 o'clock. "Get off the bed!" he shouted, and swung his legs over the side, stood up and pulled on a pullover. "I have to go to lunch. You have to go. I go to lunch at 12 every day. It's the only time I get up. So thanks for coming but you have to go now."
I shook his hand but didn't look at him and walked out the door, pulling it behind me quite hard. I was a bit upset at the way he had effectively returned to the days when we knew nothing about each other and didn't care much either. There was no humour, no understanding. He immediately thought I was looking to get his house or something but more than that, I detected that he wanted nothing to do with me at all, as if he had promised Delia that the Hill family would have nothing of theirs, just as mum and dad had not wanted Rupert to have anything of theirs. All the bad feeling had come full circle.
As I looked at Rupert on the bed when trying to tell him I felt it was my duty to be involved in what arrangements he makes henceforth, from his lack of understanding or appreciation, indeed his quite aggressive statement that it has nothing to do with me, I began to realise that this was not my brother any more. There's no love, no desire to help or be kind, to share or enquire. Quite simply, as I drove the long way home after the 20 minutes that seemed like a hour or two, I decided that I had no reason to see him again.
Farewell, Rupert. You live the life that you make for yourself.
