When our sister, with very good reason, left her home (and Jim Perrin) and stayed away for three days at ‘Swallow Falls’, things were never to be the same between them: she had lost all faith in him. After this most serious rift Jim Perrin wrote in a letter to her: ‘When you walked out on me for three days… ‘ However, in his book he puts a very different slant on it:

‘At one point she disappeared for a couple of days, ‘phoned friends from a ‘phone box to tell them she could not bear to burden me further…’  Ref. page 258 of West.

This was utter rot. It was not the reason that she went away, (and she certainly had no notion of ‘not bearing to burden [him] further.’) — he knows that it was not, and he knows exactly why she left him when she did! Ref. our post Swallow Falls.

She was wearied by his implacable dislike of her sons; by his self-righteousness and his constant hectoring. She was desperately ill and needed to retrench, and had no wish to fight with the partner who by now was exerting such control over her life. It was essential that she should conserve her energy for her battle with the cancer; she fully intended to win this battle, but it was in the end to be  with a mortal enemy. Resigning herself, as she saw at that time no other way than to return to her home, she left ‘Swallow Falls’ and prepared to brave out the inevitable incriminations which she knew she was about to face…

One would imagine that at this point Jim Perrin should have realised how his actions had affected and hurt her, and would then have tried — as they say — ‘to be there for her’. Although his son had died Jac was alive and in great need: yet it was, instead, quite remarkable how he looked after our sister, ref. page 8 of West: ‘Whilst I cared for my woman in her time of dying.’

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Jac’s daughter, her loving and sweet-natured youngest child, to whom she was exceptionally close, offered always her help and support. Jim Perrin discouraged her and not infrequently deliberately contrived to exclude her. Friends who used to visit found themselves less and less welcome (even before Jac’s illness he was not hospitable) but were told ‘she is tired’—’she needs to rest’. Others who went to the house, on seeing Jim Perrin’s car there, would reverse their own and drive away; such short shrift had they been given on previous occasions.

Jac no longer had control of her house-keeping budget and he did all the shopping — in Sainsbury’s — (even, if one could believe it, on the very day after her death. Ref. page 271 of West). He always bought the most luxurious food, and much brandy and wine; and apparently he was somewhat of a cook.

But our sister, ever thrifty in her ways, had always managed her family on a shoe-string and Sainsbury’s was never her choice: we would often discuss  our latest charity shop finds. Each year Jac and her children would save 20p’s in a giant bottle, for their camping and surfing summer holiday, and found it so exciting to count them — how quickly 20p’s became pounds — their anticipation mounting as they added them up.

After Jim Perrin moved in however, he took over the running of the household entirely and Jac’s ‘retail therapy’ was seriously curtailed. When he sold his house in Llandraeadr ym Mochnant, we know, having seen the evidence of the paper-work, that he had the most pressing financial concerns and was heavily in debt: the finalising of his plan to go and live with our sister — as he had all along intended to do — would certainly have been entirely to his advantage…

He claims in his book to have been the only one to take Jac on holiday, which was quite untrue, but those on which he did take her, and they were not many in the time they were together, were working holidays to destinations about which he subsequently wrote in his travel articles; and of course, keeping his receipts for his accounts… although we accept that extra would have been paid for our sister’s fares etc. Yes, our sister had always loved to travel but for Jim Perrin to claim that it was only he who had ever treated her, and worse, that he had in any way lost by it in a pecuniary sense, was unworthy. Ref. pages 65 and 201 of West.

In any event, it pleased her to go with him, although it was ‘Not all roses’. She told us as well as one of her friends of a particularly unhappy time in Tobago; a ‘working holiday’ which had been chiefly memorable for the most vituperative and distressing argument, when he had harangued her endlessly and given her no peace: she said she was only too glad to be home again…

The telephone was frequently left unplugged when work on his computer was finished, and gave an endless engaged sound. There were periods when in-coming calls were — mysteriously — not possible. This was during the last two months of Jac’s life when conversations with her sisters were more than usually important. Her ‘Welsh’ sister tackled Jim Perrin about it, when she realised what was happening (sadly though, too late) — ‘Phone calls would have disturbed her’, said that controlling man.

Latterly, when Jac had become seriously weakened and yet had been pressured by Jim Perrin, ill and tired as she was, to accompany him to his readings, she told us that she would have much preferred to stay quietly at home — his wish, to take her with him, invariably prevailed.

The following incident related by an infuriated Jac shows, we think (and she certainly did), how he tried to control her. She had walked with her Yorkshire sister up to the top of the very steep track — some long distance from the house, as the weather was unpredictable and cars had to be left there in wintry conditions. She had intended to go out in her own car but they discovered that it wouldn’t start. He had taken it upon himself to change the security code!

For Jim Perrin to deny her this freedom — not to tell her; to control her life; just in case she wished to use her car, immobilising her vehicle! Who did he think he was to so prevent her free movement? How dared he do this? Really, words are entirely insufficient…

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When Jac’s ‘Yorkshire’ sister visited her, just before Christmas, 2004, she saw that Jac was on tenter-hooks. Her younger son was coming home for a pre-Christmas visit, as Jim Perrin had ‘cancelled’ Christmas that year, ref. Jim Perrin’s Christmas, and she knowing, and only too well aware, of his animosity towards him, was anxious and on edge. Jac was right to have been so worried as it was in the course of the next few days that Jim Perrin infamously assaulted this son.

Jac’s sisters.