The door bell went about eight or nine o'clock in the evening on Saturday 18th March 1995. I was serenely going through some work sales files at the kitchen table and Pam was ironing in the lounge with the television on. Pam said it was an unusual ring but I don't remember that. There was some conversation and I walked into the hall holding my pen, to meet a policeman. An initial relief within Pam on seeing only one - 'they always bring two if there's bad news' had already turned to horror, his eyes revealing his purpose. Pam says now that she had experienced a double feeling, wanting to both push him out of the door and to pull him inside to say which child it was. I simply followed them into the lounge and switched off the television. The policeman asked us to sit down, checked who we were and told us that he had bad news, very bad news. Philip had been found dead. I remember “what do we do now?”, also "we must be brave" as my reply. Pam, in that atmosphere of artificial limbo could not for some moments work out the date, the day her son had died. We cannot remember much more in terms of detail. For some reason the policeman, P.C. Hoborn, wanted us to telephone Philip's lodgings which I did, not understanding that the police and Philip's body were still there. I then spoke alone in the kitchen with him, fearing other details, but he said he knew nothing. He asked us if we wanted him to stay, to leave or to fetch anyone. He carried out his responsibilities with dignity and compassion. After he left Pam and I remember little. Pam recalls walking up the stairs to face her funeral clothes laid out ready for a funeral we were attending the next day, amongst them a black coat she had bought with Philip at Christmas. We decided we would tell our other children face to face the next day and lay crying in each others arms all night. The night, as were successive nights, was clear and moonlit and passed slowly. We both instinctively dressed smartly and drove over to the address of Sally's fiancé in Putney where Sally was staying, on the way telling the Vicar on the path outside St. Anselm's just before the 8 o'clock service. We could get no reply for a long while, eventually she emerged puzzled by our smart clothes and was told on the pavement. We called next on Jonathan, Philip's 24 year old brother, who lived close by in Battersea but could get no reply. The house was empty and no one who lived nearby knew each other so we had no choice but to return home. We remember little else. Joanna, our eldest child, was told through her husband ; she screamed and threw articles around before manically cleaning the kitchen. Jonathan telephoned us for a routine chat and was told. Soon all the family were at home sitting in the kitchen. Little was eaten but tea was constantly made to break the inactivity. This set the pattern for several days. We must have telephoned and informed people. Pam's brother came, my brother called, there were other callers and telephone calls. We sat in the kitchen, made tea, washed up, swept the floor and cried and slept intermittently while the clear, lovely, moonlit nights passed. Monday or Tuesday evening, I called on the Parish Church Council meeting and said something, stayed a few minutes and left. They all knew because Philip's death had been announced by the Vicar after we had seen him Sunday morning. Stan Mills and Maureen Baggs hugged me, both unlikely people, to type it now seven months later brings tears to my eye. Monday, I think, we drove to the Coroner's Court in Birmingham to see Philip's body and confirm or even prove that he really was dead. We made the 2 hour drive along the M1 and M6 in silence, my heart was pumping in peculiar expectation but as we neared Birmingham a wave of revulsion for the city hit me. We were interviewed by the Coroner's Officer, a big gentle man. I had asked about the mortuary on the telephone. I feared an arrangement of filing cabinets but they said they had a chapel. It was a little room with a lobby in which we stood, me, Pam, our other children Joanna, Sally and Jonathan plus Joanna's husband Andrew. There was an audible gasp, a clasping of hands as we focused and all saw him at the same instant. He lay behind a glass screen, lying on what, I suppose, is a bier. He looked big and not very familiar. His hair was not swept down over his face as normal but covered by a towel. To Pam and the girls he looked in profile like Jonathan, so much so that Sally's initial thought was 'they've got the wrong one'. Afterwards we must have seen the police because they told us some one was being interviewed in connection with Philip's death and this was the first time I remember drugs being mentioned. Tuesday and Wednesday passed as an agony filled dream. Tears and prayers, tea, washing up, sweeping the kitchen floor and the moonlit nights. People and telephone calls, the routine of morning dog walks and intermittent wailing from Pam. Thursday was Birmingham again for a 10 o'clock inquest. We saw Philip again in the little room and I remember a delay, I think they had to prepare him. We went into the court and waited while an inquest was carried out on another boy. His crying mother and step father were there and heard how the 14 year old had stolen a car, crashed outside his school and died. Our turn next. It lasted only a few minutes. I went into the witness box and made a formal identification of Philip. The coroner was interested in his exact address, correcting Selly Park to Selly Oak. He asked me questions I couldn't answer adequately, about asthma and Philip's general health, and that was that. The inquest was adjourned. They gave us a brown manila envelope, six inches by eight and a half inches with "Birmingham City Council" printed on the flap, containing the original and a few copies of the Interim Certificate: We asked to see the Coroner, Dr. Whittington afterwards and told him that we understood Philip had died of drugs and the police thought they knew who had given it to him. He was sympathetic but non-committal. But then, what could he do or say. We drove to 146 Bournbrook Road, the house where we had been so pleased that Philip had chosen to live, close to the main gates of the University and where we were pleased that Natasha, his girl friend, had moved out of at the end of the second year, to live a few places along the road. As arranged on the phone the day before, housemates Mark and James (Jim) were there. We sat amongst unwashed mugs in the lounge as Mark gave us a very clear, steady story of the events. James who hadn't been there the night of the death just sat looking tearful and comatose. I remember little of the exact course of events. The police had left a message saying they would like to see us. We went to Belgrave Road police station and somehow Jonathan turned up with a group of people that the police wanted to interview. Another housemate John was there, his arm in plaster. Pam remembers him standing, crying, saying "I'm sorry, I just didn't realise". Also there was a friend, Gillian, who I remember hugging and Sally asking "did you tell the truth?" At some later stage we went back to Philip's house for another cry on the bed in his room. We found on his side table a red cash box which contained a couple of mini polythene bags. There appeared to be a small tear of paper inside one bag which I did not really register but Jonathan suggested could be the drug LSD. We looked elsewhere in the room and found an empty box for electronic weighing scales and some cannabis. A hurried debate took place, right there where Philip had died, - were we going to endanger his good name? We returned to the police station and D.C. Boyle (who seemed to be in charge) and an assistant arranged for us to follow them back to 146 Bournbrook Road where they carried out a quick but methodical examination of Philip's room. I just stood in the doorway moving when necessary. They found more cannabis and other drug related paraphernalia including Macdonalds straws (some cut in half) that we were told were used for snorting cocaine. It was almost midnight by the time we left for home and having been sustained by an initial energy through the day I fell into an exhausted trance, so much so that we had to stop at every service station on the way