Thanks REM for that awesome sentiment. An exaggeration? I’ll let you decide dear reader on the basis of what I have to say.

What do I remember of the 31st October 2021? I was at Martin’s flat in Anna Valley. I believe we’d been out (probably for cake) because I remember returning and scolding him for pinching a candy bar that his lovely neighbour downstairs had left out in a Halloween bucket for trick or treaters. She wouldn’t have minded. Martin had then gone off to work a late shift. I can’t exactly remember why I didn’t go back to mine, but I remember sorting laundry, and tidying up the kitchen so maybe I decided Martin’s place needed a dose of the undomesticated goddess. He wasn’t due home until long after my bedtime but I’d decided I would be there whatever hour he came to bed.

I remember it was a horrible wet and windy evening. At one point I got totally spooked by huge group of families trick or treating in the close. I was intimidated by the rabble of loud voices and shrieks. As harmless as I now realise they were, at the time I was feeling vulnerable and alone and not in my home environment. But most of all I remember the seven second telephone call from Martin, telling me there’d been a train crash, but he was ok, and little else. He was clearly in shock and I think I was a little too. All I wanted was him home with me, but the agony went on. Part of me believed he could still die of internal injuries. Especially when I found out he’d never been checked out by the ambulance crew. Because the people I love die. A couple more brief calls as the evening went on, then finally he was home, but running on adrenaline and agitated.

In the subsequent two years I have seen the man I love become a shadow of his former self. When I look at photos of us taken in the three months from meeting in July until the train crash in October we look so happy and relaxed. Life was good. I saw a picture recently flash up on our smart device and the thought that came to mind was, “The times when we used to have fun”. And I immediately felt bad, because it’s not that we never have fun times anymore, but something has shifted.

I’ve been unable to work due to poor health since 2013. It took me a long time to get over the feelings of uselessness and worthlessness associated with not having a job. I had worked out a robust self care package to keep myself well, but those self care things cost. Recently I’ve had to prioritise which things are still affordable and which aren’t. It feels like playing Russian roulette with my mentals. We just haven’t had the income we would’ve had if Martin weren’t suffering from ongoing depression, anxiety and PTSD from the accident and was still able to work.

He tried applying for jobs. Jobs he could easily have done pre train crash. Not that he’d have needed a job but for the train crash. But interviewers kept asking him why he’d left the railway after eighteen years of service. And there opened the floodgates. And suddenly he’s unemployable, or so it seems. Finally the DWP agree he’s not fit for work but we’re barely any better off than when I was claiming as a single person. Each month I juggle the money the best I can, and hope I can still do a couple of self care bits. Because believe me, I need them like never before. And as Martin has frequently told me he’s useless because he has no job, I remind him that’s essentially suggesting I’m useless too, whether he feels it not. And that too has been hard to revisit a demon I thought I’d put to bed once and for all.

I feel like so much in the last two years has been overshadowed by the train crash, and Martin’s subsequent mental and physical health difficulties. Even our wedding. Aside from my considering calling it all off the night before when he lost it with me in the hotel restaurant, and then many of the guests quietly slipping away after Martin yelled at his unofficial best man during the reception, we have photos and video the groom can’t even bring himself to look at, because he’s unhappy with his physical appearance. It absolutely breaks me.

This was not how life was supposed to be. I never anticipated having as much of a caring role again as I do currently. I want my funny, spontaneous, sexy husband back. Please don’t think for a moment that I want to be anywhere other than with Martin. I don’t. I just feel cruelly cheated out of the man I met.

Last week the RAIB published the final report into the Salisbury Tunnel Rail Crash. Some of it we already knew. Some we suspected. Some was shocking (CCTV photo from inside the carriage, aerial pictures prior to the incident). Who knew? And despite those initial emotions, Martin reports it has given him an element of closure. The crippling panic attacks, the vomiting, the nightmares, the sweats, they’re only occasional now. And hopefully in the near future there’ll be some rehabilitation in the pipeline, this time, minus the agenda of the company just wanting to rush him back to work.

There’s always hope. I just keep holding on to that.