Richard Perceval Graves, who has written acclaimed biographies of A.E. Housman, Richard Hughes, the Powys Brothers and his uncle Robert Graves, has now turned the spotlight on his own life and times: primarily because he wishes to give a true account of what it was like being brought up in those far-off and very different days of the 1940s and 1950s. At the start of Richard’s story, we are living in the shadow of the Second World War. Rationing still exists. Traditional patriarchal families are the norm, with most women staying at home to look after their children. England is a largely white, largely Christian and highly deferential society. There is no Internet and no such thing as a smartphone; and children are reading many of the same books and being brought up in much the same way as their late-nineteenth-century predecessors, although the wireless now brings them Children’s Hour. The British Empire still exists: King George VI remains Emperor of India; but a Labour Government is coming to power and great social changes lie immediately ahead.

At 10am on the 3rd of May, 2013, Paul walked into the therapy room. The sense of fear was immediate and palpable. He was shaking, hadn’t slept meaningfully for weeks, was barely able to function and in unbearable psychological and physical pain. However, this story of everything that had led up to this moment and what happened next, is being told from the other end of the therapist’s couch. A first-person account of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the life that led to it, and the challenges faced together by Paul his daughter Natasha during the fight back. With nothing held back, this is an intimate and up-close look at how childhood abuse, trauma led to a spiral of self-destruction until the reunion of father and daughter starts a journey on the long, hard road back to health. This isn’t a story of recovery or cure. This is learning to adapt and overcome from severe psychological injury and to accept that the struggle continues. It is written for all those who never stood a chance, all those without a voice who are still hidden behind the veil of silence, and all those held mute by the stigma of abuse, trauma and mental illness that pervades our society.