Mum can you lend me twenty quid — April 2013

I have deliberately chosen a very different book this month.  A book that is not a novel but a book that I think everybody should read.   Especially anybody who has children of their own.

It is called “Mum can you lend me twenty quid” by Elizabeth Burton Phillips.    The blurb on Amazon doesn’t really do it justice:

Elizabeth Burton Phillips is a teacher, an ordinary middle-class mother who had always tried to do the best for her children; she never imagined that her identical twin sons, who had been doing so well at school, would become involved in drugs.   She was shocked when they were suspended from school for smoking cannabis; but this was just the start of a terrible, unimaginable journey – culminating in the knock on the door in the early hours by the police.   They gave her the devastating news that her son Nick had killed himself in despair at his heroin addiction.  Since his death,  Elizabeth has campaigned tirelessly to make parents aware of the pain and suffering caused to families by drug addiction; and her surviving twin, Simon, now drug-free,  has contributed his own thoughts to this inspiring and moving book.

If ever I have come across a book that shouts “there but for the grace of God go I” it is this one.   You think you are safe?  That you are immune?  That it won’t happen to you?  Read this and think again.

I would love to know what you think about it.   You can link up or leave a comment.

And if you are on Twitter @drugfam is the charity set up in memory of Nicholas