Memories are bittersweet

This story was prompted by LawyerlyBrunette and the prompt was A story looking at the Roscoe's past, like when the boys were kids. What was it like for Sandy bringing up five kids and what did their dad dying do to them?

Sometimes, when she had a free afternoon and was feeling pretty nostalgic, Sandy Roscoe loved to sit on the sofa, wrapped in her oldest and fluffiest dressing gown, drinking sweet hot tea that warmed her through, as she sifted through her old photo albums. One of these days occurred a few months after shortly moving into Hollyoaks village.

It was the first time she had had solely to herself since moving up to Chester, she had been incredibly busy and it felt like she hadn't stopped since arriving. But the boys were all out, getting up to God knows what and she had been promised a few golden hours of 'me-time'. So out came the face mask, the trashy reality TV and the boxes that were full of old photo albums, ranging from her childhood, to her boys, to present day.

She skipped the first few albums, in no mood to look at herself ageing through the years, stopping at the first album that she knew contained pictures of her and her Alan. The first few pages were pretty generic and contained pictures of Sandy and the whole crowd from university.

Although she only still talked to a couple of friends she had met all those years ago, she couldn't help but smile as the memories of all their escapades came rushing back. About halfway through the album, the pictures all slightly changed focus. Before they had all been group shots, from various trips, parties and other celebrations and whilst the groups of people rotated, the one constant was Sandy herself, standing tall and proud in every photo.

But then a new constant was added, a handsome young man with dark curly hair. He was always stood close by Sandy, wrapping his arms around her or making sure their hands were entwined.

"Alan," Sandy breathed, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall. The group shots were sporadically broken up by photos of the young couple, both smiling into the camera, looking every bit like the young lovers that they were.

She couldn't help but laugh at the last photo in the album, her dramatics from when she was younger still making her smile to this day. The picture had been blown up and took up the whole page and even now she still didn't know who had taken it.

Sandy and Alan were in the middle of a dance floor (though she couldn't remember where or why they'd been there), and it was a picture of pure happiness and romance. Alan was on one knee, a small ring visible in the picture as the younger Sandy looked down at him, her smile threatening to crack her face clean in two. In the small gap under the photo, Sandy from yesteryears had drawn a question mark under it (like her answer wasn't obvious just going by the expression on her face).

She moved onto the second album, unable to restrain the smile that broke free at the first picture (which like the last photo of the first album took up the whole page). It was from the same night, and must have been literally minutes after Alan had popped the question. The pair were standing together, smiling brightly into the camera as Sandy held up her left hand, perfectly showing off the small ring.

It hadn't been much, even then, but for Sandy it was perfect and even more. She couldn't have been happier and even now, that feeling resurfaced. The next few pictures were similar to the first album, many group shots (though both Sandy and Alan were always visible) broken up by couple shots of the pair. The only difference were the group shots and who they sometimes contained.

Whilst the first album had only consisted of university friends and were from parties, half of the large photos came from family meals (from both Sandy's side and Alan's), which only showed how serious their relationship was.

The final half was spread a bit more evenly, and not only documented Sandy's wedding (a beautiful but simple service) but also her first pregnancy with Joe, the final photo being of the new family. Sandy still remembered smiling into the camera, holding Joe for the first time as Alan squeezed her tightly, his pride for her showing through the photo years later.

The third album was spread out even more and the group shots of friends were even sparser, being replaced for family photos. Trips to the park, outings at the zoo, they were all there and time was best managed by Sandy's second growing bump as Freddie grew inside of her. Freddie's first photo entered the album halfway through, and the rest of the album documented many of Joe and Freddie's first moments together.

Joe pushing his baby brother's pram (even if he could barely reach the handles himself), the pair sound asleep on a picnic blanket, successfully sandwiching their father who was also lightly napping, both in high chairs, faces caked in baby food. Just like all the previous albums, the final page only held one picture. Ziggy's ultrasound.

Like the past few albums, the fourth one documented Sandy's pregnancy incredibly well, until baby Ziggy burst onto the scene about a third of the way through. The pictures were constantly changing, sometimes they were family shots, there were pictures that just featured the boys, just Alan and Sandy on a rare night out and few pictures of them with their wide circle of friends.

The pictures stayed pretty much the same till the end of the album, archiving the boys growing up and getting into various amounts of mischief as they grew.

The final picture of that album was a family portrait, she remembered the day well. They were all dressed up (at Sandy's insistence) and smiling widely at the camera. They were the perfect family. Two loving parents with three beautiful (and definitely cheeky) boys. Little did they know, that two more would be added to the brood in just a few short months after the picture had been taken.

The fifth album started off with another ultrasound, though unlike the previous ones, this one revealed two babies. The word surprise was written underneath in block capitals.

Alan and Sandy had never planned on having more kids (three was the perfect number they had said), though when they'd found out that Sandy was pregnant with twin five years after Ziggy had been born, the whole family had been overjoyed. There was a clear difference between all the other pictures than before, and that was that Sandy took up a lot more room with her ever increasing bump.

The first picture taken after Robbie and Jason were born was probably Sandy's favourite. She was lying on the hospital bed, clearly exhausted but delighted, whilst Joe and Freddie sat on either side of her, cradling a baby each and smiling into the camera. Ziggy was pouting in the corner, unable to hold one of his newborn brothers, though he was sat comfortably on his Dad's knee and you could see the amusement written all over his face.

It was their first picture as a family and Sandy knew she'd treasure it till the day she died.

After that, there were two more albums, all of the same things. Days out, days in, birthdays, Christmases and holidays. They were all there, documented well so no-one would ever forget them. Showing the change in the family as they all grew from boys into young men, Sandy and Alan ageing well as time passed.

Sandy paused when she got halfway through the seventh album, staring at the picture, knowing what was coming next. They had all been at the park, having a picnic under one of the large oak trees as they got a passing dog walker to take a family photo for them.

They were all on the mat, Jason and Robbie giggling madly in the corner, planning to get into some sort of mischief as all ten year olds do. Ziggy was brooding by the side, his lips upturned into a compulsory smile as he did what every fifteen year old boy did when they were dragged out with the family. And that is, pretend they wish they could be anywhere but there. Joe and Freddie were smiling much wider, having moved past the 'I hate my family and everyone else in this world' stage and were simply enjoying their time with their family.

But Sandy and Alan were practically glowing in the picture. Sure they were older than they had been in their first picture together. Twenty six years older in fact, but they sure as hell didn't look it. They were more in love than ever and it sure showed in the one photograph.

It was one of the last happy pictures they'd had as family and the last one that had been put in one of the many photo albums. Just days later, Alan had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. He'd had chemo as soon as possible but the cancer was simply too advanced and the treatment did nothing but kill him quicker as the disease ravaged through his body

. Mere months after that photo had been taken, the family were burying one of their own, mourning their devastating loss.

Knowing she was home alone, Sandy didn't try to compose herself, letting the tears fall free as she turned to the next page. All of these pictures were taken after Alan's death and there was a definite change in them all.

Although the family were all smiling into the cameras, desperately trying to show they'd healed, that they had moved on, it all fell short when you looked into their eyes. Their eyes were all dead, no sense of happiness to be seen, instead taken over by the immense sadness that they were all under.

Sandy smiled bitterly as she remembered how twisted her family had become when dealing with the loss of one of their own. Through some unspoken agreement, Joe and Freddie had split the father role between them. They supported Ziggy, Jason and Robbie whenever they could and in turn it aged the pair beyond their years.

They had been twenty three and twenty respectively and should have been out partying with mates and meeting new people (just as Sandy had done at their age), but the loss of their beloved father had prevented that as both boys... no men had stepped up to the mark and taken on their added responsibilities with no complaints.

Unsurprisingly, the twins became more exaggerated versions of themselves. Robbie had always been quite competitive and argumentative as a child, but after the loss of his father he went off the rails (or as much as a ten year old boy could). He would start fights in the playground for no apparent reason and would do anything to win, even if it wasn't a competition.

Whilst Robbie only got louder and more spiky around new people, Jason did the exact opposite. Sandy had always noticed the slight differences in the pair's behaviour, but it was really highlighted when they were mourning for her late husband.

Jason withdrew himself completely, refusing to talk to anyone bar Robbie during school and Sandy often found him hiding under the stairs, book in hand as he tried to get lost in other worlds, where he could forget his losses and his grief and himself completely.

Ziggy was the biggest surprise though. Before his dad had died, he'd always been laidback. He'd had a few girlfriends, though nothing too serious, but after? It was like a switch had been flipped, and the middle child became brash and outspoken, unwittingly getting himself into trouble as he tried to play it cool at school, trying desperately to impress his peers.

Fortunately all five of her children had mellowed out over the years and this was shown from the pictures that littered the albums over the seven year time span. It hadn't been easy, bringing up her five sons on her own for the last seven years, they did things they shouldn't, got into fights and other things that made her head hurt even thinking about it.

But they made her proud too. They carried on Alan's garage and made it flourish under their watch. They did as well as they could in school and then did everything they could to make life easier once they'd left.

They hadn't always had it easy, but they'd done everything they could to make it worthwhile. They were survivors, every single one of them and Sandy couldn't be prouder to call them her children.

I hope everyone, especially LawyerlyBrunette, enjoyed this story. I loved writing it, because it gave me chance to give a backstory to the family and develop ideas I'd already had.

Obviously there are some changes in the canon version, the main one being that Robbie and Jason aren't actually Alan's children (this was briefly mentioned this week but no other details have been revealed so there wouldn't have been much for me to work from) and as this chapter has been long since written (I try to write chapters in advance to keep my updates regular) this detail was obviously not included.

Next Story – Jason's diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, but it's not exactly smooth sailing prompted by Reallyme