David Batty

You know, he would tell me the same things again and again.

And we were due to meet at this lockup that he had where he kept all the family albums and I think his films.

And he never turned up because he got drunk.

and then sort of was it late 2018 my half brother told me he'd been taken into a hospital or some kind of long-term palliative care unit um yeah and then he then in november of 2000 november or early december of 2018 um he died

Yes.

Unreservedly, yes, which might come as a surprise.

I mean, obviously, with regards to the first reunion, if I had an opportunity to go back and do that differently, I would.

But I don't regret the decision.

And I certainly don't have any particular regrets about the second reunion, which I think I handled far, far better than

Yes, this description of them being fairy tales, I compare it to visiting Cornelia Parker's exploded shed, which is this art installation where she'd blown up this garden shed.

And you see all these sort of scorched fragments that are suspended.

And so you walk into that space and it's lit by, I think, a single light bulb.

So it's a very evocative installation.

And I think I was just really taken aback when I went into that installation again and just sort of feeling like how much it encapsulated my experience.

I mean, there's been so many other things that have happened in the past few years as well.

So, you know, my adoptive father died last November.

So that's the last of all four of my parents to die.

So, you know, reunion with my birth father, with my adoptive mother dying of cancer.

So there were all these things that came up that just made it not the right time to write it.

I've spoken to people before writing the piece.