Welcome to Six Stories.
I’m Scott King.
It rains there endlessly, I’m told. I cannot see, because I conduct the interview by phone.
It takes a long time for my interviewee to get herself together enough to talk to me. I feared that when I got in touch she would simply hang up. Instead, though, her response has been overwhelmed, breathless, punctuated by spells of sobbing. Sonia Lewis was practically hysterical and it has taken a long time to calm her down.
Sonia Lewis is the mother of Alfie Marsden, the seven-year-old who vanished in Wentshire Forest on Christmas Eve, 1988. In this series we’re raking through the soil of a mystery that has never been satisfactorily solved. We’ve already looked at four other perspectives on the case. Finally, we now have a view from one of Alfie’s parents.
At Sonia’s end, this interview takes place in a dismal caravan situated on the edge of a dismal field on a dismal coastline. The caravan is not in a park, she tells me – it stands alone, hidden from the main road. If you don’t know it’s there, you won’t find it. I can relate to that. Sonia Lewis tells me that she deserves every bit of this misery, her enforced solitude.
As with Wendy Morris, when I got in touch with the mother of Alfie Marsden, all I had to do was drop a name, and she agreed to talk. Sonia would not meet me in person, she said. She couldn’t risk it. Not now. Not until her story has been told.
I can hear the rain drumming an endless tattoo on the metal roof of Sonia’s caravan. She says she cannot remember the last time she had a proper conversation with another human being, and she needs frequent breaks to compose herself. As we go on, though, Sonia becomes more lucid, more controlled. She often emphasises that her story will not matter, that no one will want to hear it. People have certain long-held views about her, she says. She does not believe that this interview will change them. In fact, she’s not interested in trying to change anyone’s view. This interview is for her.
The fallout from the Marsden case was huge for Sonia. Photographs of her slack, glazed expression appeared in the press, along with accusatory headlines; ‘Not Bothered’ being the most iconic. One famous picture shows Sonia, caught in a half-stagger, staring past the camera, a scowl on her face. She tells me she has no memory of those photographs even being taken. There is one that the whole world remembers, though. In it, Sonia looks like she’s smirking. Whichever photographer caught this millisecond of a mother’s grief is responsible for much of the invective directed at Sonia. I have watched the few press conferences that are available on YouTube and feature in documentaries about the case. Throughout all of these, Sonia slumps, her stare glassy, her hair falling over her face. By contrast, her ex-partner, Sorrel, stares out into the eyes and hearts of the country, the world, begging for the return of their son. It reminds me of the meeting at Alfie’s school, as recalled by Delyth Rice in episode three.
Sorrel has always claimed that he took Alfie back to his home in Wrexham for the child’s own safety. According to Sorrel, Sonia was ‘shrieking and delusional’ and ‘could not be reasoned with’. She allegedly threw a pair of scissors at Sorrel, who was wrapping Christmas presents. Sonia had been drinking all day. All of these issues, none of which have been proved, have made Sonia an easy scapegoat.
Sonia does not seem drunk when we speak, although it’s hard to tell from the end of a phone. Today, Sonia is in her late fifties. No one knows who she is now and she lives a life of almost complete solitude. Sorrel has kept up his mournful annual pilgrimage to Wentshire Forest, while Sonia has shunned any attention. For some – in fact, for most – this is Sonia admitting the part she played in her son’s disappearance.
So why has Sonia never told her story? Why has she shut herself away? I tell Sonia that this is an opportunity finally to give her point of view.
—You don’t know how many times people have told me that. That’s all anyone says: ‘Give your point of view; tell your story.’
But when I began, they didn’t want to hear. The journalists, the television people, they wanted me to tell their version. They wanted to know how I failed my boy and what turned me into that failure. What turned me into a monster.
—Are you admitting culpability in your son’s disappearance?
—Of course I am. What mother wouldn’t? There isn’t a day that goes by that his ghost doesn’t haunt me. There isn’t a night when I don’t lie awake, asking why? That’s where my story starts – with why.
—And are you ready to tell that story?
—I’ve always been ready. The question is whether you’re ready to hear it?
—Of course. You can start where you want, and we can talk for as long as you like.
Sonia does not speak. It’s as if she’s been waiting for this moment. But her guard is still up and she’s having difficulty letting it down. Perhaps her long silence is proving hard to break. Perhaps, as she says, her previous experiences are making her wary.
So why does she think now will be different? Why is she here with me, agreeing to try again? And I realise a huge part of me wants there to be some special reason Sonia finally wants to share her story.
—Can you … can you start by asking me something; just let me hear your voice, please.
—Of course. I—
—I’m sorry. I’ve been saying that all my life and I want to say it once more before I start. Now … please…
—I’m not sure I understand why now, after all these years, you’re prepared to speak out. I cannot imagine there’s anything special about me…
—It’s a funny place, the internet. If you have enough time, you can find almost anything. People. Places. Old things.
My hackles rise at this statement and I am immediately reminded of the trolls that plagued me a while back. I remember that fear and think that this must be what Sonia’s life has been like since Christmas Eve, 1988. Fear.
I know that Sonia was living in a different location in 2000 and was somehow discovered by a UK tabloid. She was hounded out of the estate and was placed in police protection for a while, to the uproar of the media. So we share something. Sonia’s used to hiding, too.
Whatever Sonia has found out about me online, though, I want to be ready for it.
Sonia sighs, clears her throat.
—I got a phone call. Not long before yours. No one ever calls, save one person. That person told me to look up some things online. So I did. I looked you up. I checked you were the person I could tell my story to.
—What made you believe that I’m the one?
—We’ll get there, Scott. I promise, OK? But right now, if I say any more, I’ll … I’ll not be able to tell my story. So let me get this out, before I can’t, OK?
—That’s fine. You go at your own pace.
—I’m not asking for sympathy for the way I am, you understand that, don’t you? I know I don’t deserve it.
—That’s fine.
—I was a virgin when I met Sorrel Marsden. Nineteen years old and a virgin. I’d never even been drunk before. All my adolescence I’d kept my head down, lost in music for most of it. There was a part of me that didn’t want to grow up. I never went anywhere, did anything. If it was up to me I would have lived in my bedroom for my whole life, with my cuddly toys and my record player. Mam and Dad were lovely, and they let me be like that. They never pushed me out into the world. I was still their little girl, and that’s all I ever wanted. Then I met him – that’s when I met Sorrel.
That was when my life changed. It was turned upside-down. And that’s where my story begins. You see, I’d always wanted it to be special. I’d been kissed before – grudging, beery kisses after the attractive girls had all been taken. So I’d never chosen anyone. Until him there’d never been someone who made me feel visible, let alone special. The man I lost my virginity to was going to be the man I stayed with forever. That’s what I thought. The man who I gave my virginity to would be the one who saw me. When I met Sorrel, I knew it was him.
—Why was that, do you think?
—I think the best way to describe him is this: when he’s around, everyone around him blurs into the background. He shines. I remember him now and again, and I wonder whether that was really the case or it was just me. Maybe I was just looking for someone to come out of the darkness and take me away?
—If you don’t mind me asking – what did you want to be taken away from?
—Every girl wants to get away, don’t they? To escape to the bright lights. I was an introvert, no life experience, no skills. Overprotected, perhaps? I think Mam and Dad thought by indulging me, that I’d stay their little girl forever. I just wanted to be somewhere else, away from my parents, my whole life. But I wanted to come back eventually and have my supper waiting for me.
—That doesn’t sound so different to most teenagers.
—There was nothing to feel sorry for me about – no abuse, no violence, nothing like that. I just think Mam and Dad didn’t understand me. They were loving, but we didn’t talk – about my feelings, what I wanted. I think they were happy for me to stay in my room with my nose in a book. It was easier than having me out in the great wide world.
—Why do you think that was?
—It was just their nature. My dad, particularly got distressed about such little things. And there were all these rules he thought you had to play by. Don’t be late; don’t make a fuss; don’t do anything unexpected. By the time I was nineteen, all I was good at was keeping the house tidy, wiping out every sign that I existed. I remember the day I put up a poster in my bedroom. My favourite band at the time was The Cure, and it was the ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ poster – I loved it, a silhouette of the singer, Robert Smith, staring off into the distance. I loved that. I loved him. My dad went mad, though, cos of the Blu-tack on the wall. He said it would make marks. Maybe all this was why I was waiting to be swept away. By some handsome prince…
—And that was Sorrel?
—It was Robert Smith. I’m sorry, that was a joke. He was my first love though, Robert Smith.
—So tell me about 1981. When you met Sorrel.
—I was in a … a transition phase, I suppose you could call it. I was beginning to create my own image, my identity. I was into that New Romantic look. I must have looked a fright. Crimped hair and too much eyeliner. I had started to go out as well, just to a few discos here and there. I never had the courage to talk to anyone, though.
—So when was it that Sorrel Marsden walked into your life and changed all that?
—When I was nineteen, Mam said I had to get a job, to help out. I couldn’t just mope about listening to Siouxsie and the sodding Banshees! So I got a job in Dayton’s holiday park up the road. I was going for a job as a glass collector but they told me I was prettier than that, that I could be one of the gold-coats, the entertainers. Me! No one had ever told me I was pretty before. And I didn’t want to be pretty. But that’s what they said at the interview: ‘Get all that crap off your face and you’re in. You’re pretty enough under there.’
I think that’s why I said yes to the job. It was the first time anyone had ever called me pretty since I was a little girl. There I was trying to be angry, to have an edge with my crimped hair and wonky red lipstick, and they’re telling me I’m pretty.
So I told myself I was just doing the gold-coat thing for money, pretending to be one of the normal people. But then I found this whole different world at Dayton’s from what I’d experienced before. The way people would look at you in that gold-coat uniform. The boys would have the blazers and we had the white shirts with the big red ribbon on the front and the sparkly gold waistcoat. I looked like a Christmas present! Then, not long after I started, they asked me to be in the gold-coat cabaret. Only the prettiest girls got to be in the cabaret. Of course I said yes. We had to wear these sequinned black leotards and our sparkly waistcoats, fishnet tights, little black bowtie. I swear the way people looked at you, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I have one photo of me back then. I keep it in an album under the bed. I never look at it. It’s too much, looking at who I was – that little girl with her life ahead of her.
—This was where you met Sorrel Marsden in 1981, at Dayton’s resort? He was working in the kitchens, is that right?
—He was. I remember I never saw him in his chefs’ whites. The other lads, when they clocked off for the night, they just came and sat in the bar all covered in muck, stinking of grease.
—Sorrel was different though?
—That’s why I started talking to him before any of the others. He was clean. He always had a shower after his shift, I found out. And he was polite.
—Do you remember the first conversation you had with him?
—I remember it because he was someone who I’d thought would never speak to me in a month of Sundays. I was only a few weeks into the job and I still wasn’t used to being a gold-coat. We got a lot of compliments – sly slaps on the arse, that sort of thing. Dads with their families were the worst ones, watching the show, licking their lips, eyes all over you. It was horrid but we all pretended to laugh about it. His compliments, though, they weren’t like the ones from the lairy punters. He was a proper gentleman, I thought. And he was telling me I was beautiful. There was something about the way he said it – so sincere.
—What were your first impressions of Sorrel?
—Sorrel was traditional, a meat-and-two-veg man. He wasn’t anything special to look at. He didn’t dazzle me from across the room. But the way he spoke … He said things to me I thought he would say to other girls – ones who deserved them more. But he said those things he said to me.
—Did you tell him about yourself? About your music, about how Robert Smith would always be your first love?
—No. I knew he wouldn’t have liked that. He didn’t know nothing about music, you see. He liked ABBA and all that. The Bee Gees. That should have mattered to me, I wouldn’t have ever gone with someone like that. I wanted my Robert Smith – backcombed hair and wonky lipstick. But I chose Sorrel. I took that as a sign. Maybe it was time for me to grow up.
—So that’s how it started? With compliments. It sounds like you were ready to get serious with someone.
—Yeah, I thought I was. And he was like a drug. I was instantly addicted to this man – this older man who thought I was beautiful. That’s when I started spending more and more time at Dayton’s. I took on extra shifts, worked in the bar, the restaurant. I told myself I wasn’t doing it to see him, but that was bullshit.
—You lived quite close, is that right?
—Yeah. I could walk to and from work easily. But I didn’t. I spent less and less time at home. It was a different world, Dayton’s, you see. Being there was like going to one of the parties that I’d never been invited to at school. And suddenly I was the belle of the ball. Me and Sorrel – prom king and queen, whatever you want to call it.
When work was done, that’s when you got to know everyone. Properly, I mean. On the hot nights in the summer we all used to take a few boxes of wine from the cellars and go out onto the beach, have a fire. Us gold-coats were always first, then the floor staff. The chefs always came last, when we were already half drunk. We were on the beach the night that Sorrel and I got together. The first night we kissed.
When I got home the next day, Mam had taken down my Robert Smith poster. She left the Blu-Tac marks, though, just to remind me. ‘You’re too old for all that nonsense now,’ she said. I remember not even caring. I just had this light feeling in my tummy. I was walking on air. That was one of the last days I spent at home. That’s when I realised I’d found where I really belonged, and it wasn’t there with Mam and Dad.
—I’ve spoken to Darren Morgan, a friend of Sorrel’s from way back. He remembers you fondly.
—Oh, he was lovely, was Darren.
—Darren filled me in on the staff accommodation where you all lived, the parties there – the Party Palace.
—Oh yes. Sorrel and I were properly together then. That’s what he wanted: n
o messing about; a ‘proper’ girlfriend, not just casual. I thought that was wonderful, that someone like him wanted someone like me officially. But not everyone was happy about it.
—How so?
—Sorrel was popular with everyone – particularly the other women. They hated me because I was so much younger than them. So much prettier. When Sorrel was out of earshot, they would look over at him, then at me, up and down and whisper to each other.
—How did that make you feel?
—It was horrible at first. Sorrel though, he just took me in his arms and smiled. He explained to me softly, how all it was, was jealousy, that they were just bitter. They were jealous of me because I was young and beautiful. After he said that, they could say what they liked, I didn’t care. That was his power. That was how he made me feel. Like I could do anything. Like I could be anything.
—And that changed you?
—Fundamentally. Mam was right. I wasn’t a little girl anymore with stupid band posters on my bedroom wall. I had arrived in the adult world. Sorrel, he was a big part of that.
It’s hard to choose which parts of this story to include. However, I do want to capture what was a life-changing experience for Sonia: meeting Sorrel when she was nineteen and he was in his thirties. I’m sure people will make judgements about this age difference, but for me, it’s not their ages, but the degree of life experience that was the big imbalance in the couple.
—We had our problems, and they weren’t always of my making. Not at first. She was always calling him up, always hassling him.
—This was Maryanne Manon, I presume?
—Mad Mary. That’s her. She was Sorrel’s ex. She was older than me, closer in age to him.
She reared her head again, didn’t she, when our boy … when Alfie … She was all over the news, with her ‘psychic’ abilities. A witch, though – that’s about right, isn’t it? To call her a witch?
I don’t answer this. And Sonia lets the silence linger before she laughs.
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