Thomas Blackburn (poet)

[2] The mother, who was supposedly beautiful but unstable, disappeared once she returned to Mauritius and the young Eliel was given to the care of an Uncle, where he was brought up to be a passionate Anglican.

[2] When Thomas Blackburn was a young boy, Eliel forced him to wear a painful chastity contraption on his groin, to prevent him from being tempted by masturbation.

[3] He also had to put up with his father, haunted by feelings of racial inferiority, repeatedly scrubbing his face with peroxide in order to lighten his complexion.

[4] The poet Alan Morrison, discussing this experience, noted that 'Blackburn' is "a cruelly apt surname for someone whose father used to literally try to burn the black off his skin".

[5] This was followed by a short spell as an articled clerk at a law firm; then Brookfield Hall, a treatment centre for alcoholics and drug-addicts, where he was expelled for drunkenly attempting to seduce the wife of one of the medical staff; and finally several months of shock therapy at the hands of a Harley Street doctor.

[6] Here he was called up to the Merchant Navy but left after suffering jaundice and instead worked as a lecturer with the National Fire Service, which proved to be his first steps into the world of teaching.

During the marriage he was regularly violent and, on the birth of Julia, became a frequently absent parent returning home drunk after many infidelities which he did not keep secret.