I don’t have a clear memory of Saturday evening, August 19, 1989. Perhaps
that’s because I have been trying for a long time to run away from all that
happened.
Aged 17, I was still not sure whether I would return at the end of the summer
holidays to Ampleforth, my school, where I had been in trouble. Francesca,
my sister, had passed her dancing exams with honours and distinctions after
many years of effort and was looking forward to starting work with the
Austrian national ballet.
She and her boyfriend John James – a friend of mine from school – had been
invited to a river disco that night on board a boat, the Marchioness. It was
being held by John’s friend, Antonio de Vasconcellos, who was known for
throwing great parties. I was also invited, and I’d been keen to go. But
that afternoon I had a headache and didn’t feel great.
Over dinner at our house in Barnes, Francesca tried to get me to go. “Come on,
you’ll change your mind. There’s going to be some lovely models there.”
Even to this day, I wonder why I cried off. I normally didn’t get headaches
and, for a party animal, this was the kind of occasion you didn’t want to
miss. I can’t ever remember turning down any other party invitation in my
life.
Not going that night has played on my mind for a long time, still plays on my
mind, but I have to accept, somehow, that it was God’s will, one of those
things that happens.
Mum wasn’t keen about Francesca going, mostly because it was an allnight
affair. She tried to talk her out of it but Francesca could be stubborn and
reminded Mum that she was now 19 and independent. It was agreed she would
get off the boat at Tower bridge and come home with John from there.
Mum grew up in the East End when the Krays and the Richardsons were on the go
and she was always aware of the unpleasant things that could happen. So she
asked John to make sure he looked out for Francesca and that whenever a
drink was poured for her, it was his responsibility to see no Mickey Finns
were slipped into them. And Mum would have said “Mickey Finns” because, when
it came to her children, she was never afraid to say what was on her mind.
As Francesca and John left the house, she came back to give Mum a kiss and
they said goodbye in the way they often did.
“Bye, you bitch,” Francesca said.
“Get out of here, go on, you bitch,” replied Mum.
MY greatest memory of childhood is of growing up in a loving and caring
family. Francesca was a wonderfully supportive sister – the first person who
believed in me. But it wasn’t just my sister. It was also to do with having
an Italian father – he had come from Turin to work as a waiter in 1958 – and
a mother who had come from an East End family with a strong Irish
background.
From a very early age, I remember a home environment with lots of cuddles and
lots of love. We were very demonstrative with each other, even in public,
which is probably very unEnglish. I’m sure there’s love in everyone’s
family, but with us there was always that outward expression of emotion.
When Mum or Dad collected me from school, we would hug, or greet each other in
the Italian way, with a couple of kisses on either cheek. I must confess I
did have the odd pang of worry about how other people might view this, but
it wasn’t sufficient to stop me doing something that came naturally.
For as long as I can remember, Francesca loved to dance. Long before she ever
had lessons, she moved naturally to the sound of music. A Polish lady who
was a good friend of Mum’s saw Francesca dance and was mesmerised by her.
“We’ve got to get that little girl taught,” she said to Mum.
Francesca was accepted into the Royal Ballet School after only four lessons
and at the age of 10 won a scholarship to board at Elmhurst ballet school in
Camberley, Surrey.
My earliest memory of watching her dance was of Mum, Dad and I travelling down
to Camberley to see the end-of-term show put on by the girls. It was an
eye-opener for me on two counts. First, it was a chance for me to see just
what an incredible dancer my sister was, and, for a young boy growing up
fast, it was also interesting to be among so many good-looking young ladies.
Francesca was getting honours in all of her dance exams but to see how she
commanded the stage was something else. When I watched the show, my eyes
were fixed on her. “She’s my sister,” I’d think to myself. I was very proud
of her.
Mum decided I deserved the chance of a change as well, so I left the local
Catholic primary and went, aged eight, to King’s House, a prep school in
Richmond.
Back home, though, I hung out with my Barnes friends. Barnes isn’t exactly the
roughest of areas and our home was in a neighbourhood that was on the
fringes of being lovely, but you only had to go around the corner to the
local council estate to find a bit of edge.
I wanted to do the things the older boys were doing and never wanted anyone to
think I wasn’t up for it. My appreciation of what was sensible was a little
distorted and, to a certain degree, that inability to say no and distinguish
between what is the right thing to do and what isn’t has carried on into
later life.
The friends from the council estate were into all sorts of different mischief,
mostly the things that kids do – shoplifting, drinking a little, smoking,
vandalising. I’d go along with whatever the other guys were doing. I was
happy to be involved, whether it was going off to do a bit of nicking from
shops, or to knock on people’s doors and run away, or throw stuff off
buildings, or spend the evening spraypainting.
We would drift off somewhere and come upon a reservoir that had lots of signs
saying “Keep out”, and that meant we had to climb over the wall or sneak
under the fence. We were at an age and had an attitude that made everything
forbidden seem attractive. Hanging out with these guys meant I talked in a
different way from the average prep-school kid and it gave me an edge.
My parents, especially Mum, were conscious of the trouble that was likely to
come from staying out late. Of course, I tried to push my luck, but Mum
would get in the car and drive around the neighbourhood until she found me.
When she did, she would embarrass the hell out of me in front of all my
mates. She would drag me to the car and give all the lads a mouthful as
well.
While Mum’s approach was to talk to me constantly, Dad would physically punish
me when I stayed out later than I should or did something wrong. That led to
a traditional smacking and, to Mum’s concern, it was often too severe.
My reaction was to accept it as a fair punishment because I knew when I had
done wrong. Also, unknown to my parents, I had already been there.
When I was younger, from when I was about six, they would sometimes leave me
with another family to be looked after. If I did any little thing wrong, the
father of the family would punish me by beating me up. The thing that made
it different was that he used to take pleasure in hurting me.
I never told my parents because I knew they would be devastated to find out
they had left me with someone who was physically abusing me. He was a strong
man and maybe he didn’t realise he was hurting me, but I would be screaming
for him to stop and he’d just carry on. It definitely had an effect on me in
that it made me tolerate being hit, to a point where I accepted it as
normal. I’m not sure how else it has affected me but I imagine it has.
Throughout the days of disappointing school reports, occasional phone calls
from the headmaster and Mum pulling her hair out, Francesca was fantastic.
She would tell me how hard Mum and Dad were working to send me to my school
and that I really needed to work much more and appreciate what they were
doing. Then, after I had left the room, she would put her arm around Mum and
reassure her everything was going to turn out fine.
My mother, as you may have picked up, is a strong character. When she gets an
idea in her head, she will generally see it through. If at all possible, she
wanted me to go to a Catholic secondary school and the name Ampleforth
College kept cropping up. A friend who knew about these things told her:
“It’s a superb school, Eileen. Although it’s far up in North Yorkshire –
it’s the premier Catholic public school in England.”
I ended up spending almost four years at Ampleforth and enjoyed being there.
But the balance between acting responsibly and irresponsibly was fragile and
has remained so through my rugby career. I believe the wayward side of my
character has held me back and anyone who saw how I conducted myself at
Ampleforth would not have been too surprised that I got, and then lost, the
England captaincy. That sums up a lot about my character.
Among some of the older boys at Ampleforth there was a great entrepreneurial
culture in which fellows were always trying to come up with ways of making
money. I came up with one scheme to purchase Zippo cigarette lighters from
America, which were all the rage at the time, and sell them in the school.
It left me with about £5,000 in cash – not exactly the best thing for a
16-year-old who liked to have a good time.
Francesca used to write me wonderfully long letters that I looked forward to.
We could go months without seeing each other, but all my memories of her are
fond ones. I suppose we didn’t see enough of each other to have
brother/sister rows.
From my parents’ point of view, she was a joy and very different from her
younger brother. Every teacher talked about how much they enjoyed working
with her but that wasn’t a surprise. Her generosity and kindness endeared
her to people and she was incredibly beautiful.
She loved what she did and had spent years learning how to do it to an
incredibly high level. In our house, she was the star and I felt if I ever
achieved in rugby half of what she achieved in dancing, I would be doing
well.
When she left Elmhurst in the summer of 1989, the years of adhering to a tough
regime were behind her – the warm-ups that began at 6am, the class that
didn’t finish until 8pm. She accepted an offer from the Austrian national
ballet, which would allow her to continue dancing but also included
opportunities to teach and to model a little. The way I saw it, this was
going to be her time. And then it was all taken away.
By those summer holidays of 1989, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to
Ampleforth, even though it would have been my time to make the rugby first
XV and there was a chance I would be captain.
The problem revolved round one of my unauthorised pub trips. I was with a
couple of other guys and a girlfriend. Traditionally, animosity exists
between young guys from the local community and the sixth-formers from
Ampleforth. Something happened in the pub, I can’t remember exactly what,
but I do know I ended up defending my girlfriend and it all got a bit out of
hand.
At the end of a brawl that resulted in the hospitalisation of a few people, I
managed to walk out of there under my own steam. But I was suspended for two
weeks.
I went home for my summer holidays not at all sure I wanted to go back – not
even sure that the school wanted me back. Then the decision was made for me.
August 20, John James’s father rang our house. Mum picked up the phone. He
said there had been a collision on the Thames involving the Marchioness;
John was in St Thomas’ hospital and Francesca was missing.
Mum says she went into a type of psychological shock from which she did not
recover for 15 years, when all the inquests, hearings, appeals and legal
battles ended. She also says that hearing the words “Francesca is missing”
drained her of any will to live.
Mum was still hysterical when she woke me at around seven o’clock. She told me
the boat that my sister was on had been involved in a terrible accident and
had sunk. She was saying lots of other things, too, but I was struggling to
take it all in. The one thing I heard above everything else was: “And we
still haven’t heard from your sister.”
“What time did the boat sink?” I asked.
“About one forty-five,” Mum said. It was now five hours later. I didn’t need
to hear any more details because I knew immediately that Francesca was dead.
I didn’t say so to Mum. How could I? But my sister had more common sense than
anyone I ever knew, and I also knew that the first thing this sensible,
caring and responsible person would have done was to call her parents the
second she got out of the water.
So I just decided at that moment she was gone. It didn’t occur to me she might
have banged her head and been taken from the water in a concussed state. I
am now 35 years of age and I know that, in similar circumstances, my
reaction would be very different. I was then a kid, just turned 17, who
loved his sister and whose natural instinct was to believe the worst.
I got dressed very quickly and went downstairs. The house was already filling
up with my mum’s family. We could hear the helicopters flying overhead,
people were watching the news and slowly piecing together what had happened
the night before.
Mum called in to the police station in Barnes on her way to eight o’clock mass
and gave them photographs of Francesca. She also told them the name of our
dentist so they could get her dental records.
More people kept coming to the house, drinking tea and coffee and waiting for
news. But there was none. The next day, another long wait for news and still
nothing. Bodies were being found all the time but no news of Francesca. Four
days would pass before her body was recovered.
When I now see news on the television of someone who is missing and there are
genuine fears for that person, it brings it all back to me – the waiting in
the house and the feeling of being totally powerless.
My parents tried to protect me from most of the details but I was aware that
after two days, most of those who died had been found.
Francesca’s body was eventually found under Battersea bridge, which is about
four miles from where the Marchioness went down near Southwark bridge.
A few days later, it just all became too much for me. I couldn’t stay in the
midst of all the grief and people offering sympathy and all my family being
devastated, so I left home and went to stay with a friend of mine from
Ampleforth, Nicky Strauss, whose family lived in Yorkshire.
A day or two later, Nicky and I and a number of other Ampleforth friends went
to York races, which will seem odd to people, given what had just happened.
How could I be out enjoying myself at such a time?
It wasn’t as though I was trying to pretend it hadn’t happened but I did want
to get away from what was going on at home. I found it too hard to see my
parents broken-hearted. I don’t know what a 17-year-old can do in that
situation. Mum had her sisters and brothers around her, Dad’s family were
also there, and I just didn’t feel I could do anything.
Being among my friends was easier, although I felt they were a bit uneasy with
me being around them – “You know this guy’s sister has just died and he’s
here with us, is that right?” Everyone was as nice as could be but I could
still sense that.
They didn’t see all the times I cried, because when there are people around,
your manly instincts take over and you try to put on a brave face. I don’t
know whether that’s a good thing for you psychologically, suppressing a lot
of emotions and not being able to grieve openly.
My sister’s death made up my mind about Ampleforth. The trouble I had been in
at school and the trauma of losing Francesca meant it was in everybody’s
interests that I didn’t go back. I didn’t feel I could cope with a boarding
school at that point in my life.
Francesca’s death drove our family in three different directions. Dad was in
one place, trying to be very stoic and behaving as he thought the head of
the family should behave. Mum is very emotional and she was overcome with
grief and clearly trau-matised by the whole thing.
My dad’s efforts in trying to hold things together must have caused emotional
damage because he didn’t express the huge sense of loss he was feeling
inside. Three years later, he suffered a mild heart attack and the
specialist who treated him believed it was connected to what he had been
through after Francesca’s death.
Grief is a very private thing. Dad went one way, Mum went another and I was
sent in yet another. We were just blown apart. I believe it was the best
part of 10 years before we began to come to terms with what happened and, in
a sense, we’re still coming to terms with it.
Life is never the same after the tragedy of losing someone that close. It
changes your relationship with the world, and the nature of your
relationship with your family. I don’t think it’s ever the same again.
I saw the pain my mother was suffering and continued to suffer over the
following years. I saw the pain it caused my father. My reaction was to try
to accept what had happened but not necessarily deal with it. When you are
17 you don’t have the ammunition to cope. For the following two years, I
lived on another planet.
I was devastated by the loss of Francesca but had conflicting emotions. Her
death made me angry. To die at the age of 19 was just far too young. Her
career as a dancer was about to take off: it made me wonder about the
fairness of life, and to ask what was the point of working so hard and then
ending up with nothing to show for it, certainly not in this life anyway.
I also felt a responsibility to be there for my parents more than I had in the
past. Francesca was going to be successful, they were going to be proud of
her and now, I thought, I would have to do something to help them cope.
Despite trying to get away from the grief, I couldn’t stop my mind from
wandering. What if I had gone to the party, maybe I would have been able to
save her life? And then another part of me says, “You weren’t there and
therefore you couldn’t do anything.”
One minute we were having the most wonderful conversation – “Oh Mother, don’t
worry, I’ll be fine” – the next minute she was gone.
GRIEF affects people differently, but I don’t think there’s ever a positive
effect, certainly not in the short term. That September I started at a
tutorial college in Oxford and the plan was to complete my second year in
the sixth form, do my A-levels and go off to university. It was more my
parents’ hopes than anything. I didn’t have a plan and was living from day
to day.
Oxford seemed a good idea because it meant I wouldn’t be living at home and
wouldn’t be wrapped up in the lives of my parents, who were in bits over
Francesca. How could I be of any help to them when I wasn’t interested in
helping myself? I went for some counselling but got myself out of that as
quickly as I could.
The tutorial college was called d’Overbroeck’s and, for pretty hefty fees, it
offered intense teaching and back-up to those who wanted to study. I was one
of those who didn’t want to study. Less than a month had passed since my
sister’s death and I was all over the shop. I couldn’t or didn’t want to sit
down and work – anything and everything distracted me. I just wanted to be
out with my friends all of the time.
As I made new friends, I would tell them briefly about Francesca, they would
sympathise and that was it. They hadn’t known her and hadn’t known me before
she died. They didn’t know my history and that’s how I wanted it.
I rented a room from a lovely lady in south Oxford, Jenny Coulbourne, and she
seemed to understand and looked out for me. When she felt I was partying too
much, or needed to be reined in, she would call my mother who would come up
and have a chat. All the time a voice in the back of my head was whispering:
“What’s the point of everything if one minute you have a great future and
the next you have nothing?”
I would still go home on some weekends and during the holidays but it would be
very emotional. We would hug and kiss and that closeness was never lost but
we had to learn again to be comfortable in each other’s company.
Some time later, with Mum’s help, I bought a houseboat on the Thames at
Twickenham. To people who knew my background, it seemed a strange choice to
live on the river that had claimed my sister’s life. It was not because of
Francesca, at least not consciously. It was simply an affordable place to
live. But once I began to live on the river, I found it both comfortable and
comforting.
Francesca’s body had been found about four or five miles upriver and, as time
passed, I felt a sense of being close to her, in a beautiful way. Being on
the river was never a painful memory. Perhaps a lot of things were happening
subconsciously because I grew to love being woken by the sound of water
washing against the boat, and I also loved the sense of being away from it
all.
For 15 years after my sister died, my mother was consumed by the struggle to
get justice for the victims of the Marchioness, and only in the last three
years has she begun to get her life back. She says the young cope with
tragedy in different ways and that I chose the right way, which was to pick
up the torch Francesca had lit and to fight to be the best in rugby.
© Lawrence Dallaglio 2007
Extracted from It’s In the Blood: My Life by Lawrence Dallaglio to be
published by Headline on November 1 at £18.99. Copies can be purchased for
£17.09 including postage from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585
