In his fiercely honest memoir, Just Ignore Him, Alan Davies confronts the painful bereavement and abuse he endured as a child. The actor and comedian, known for his role in Jonathan Creek, shifts from the light-hearted tone of his first memoir to a raw exploration of his childhood secrets.
Davies details the death of his mother from leukaemia when he was six, a loss compounded by his father's failure to inform the family that her condition was terminal. Decades later, Davies discovered a letter his mother wrote from hospital, expressing frustration at her worsening symptoms; she died within a fortnight.
The memoir also reveals the sexual abuse Davies suffered from his father, Roy Davies, which began when he was around eight and continued until he was 13. His father would visit him at night, calling it "our special cuddle" and warning him never to tell anyone. Davies describes the abuse as "a quiet, librarial molestation."
Davies recounts the intense loneliness of carrying this secret, which manifested in a desperate need to please others and a tendency to play the joker. His siblings often treated him as an irritant, and his father manipulated the family into seeing Davies as unreliable, ensuring that any disclosure would be disbelieved.
At 51, Davies went to the police. His father, then in his 80s and suffering from Alzheimer's, was not charged, but the Crown Prosecution Service affirmed Davies's account. "I had what I needed," Davies writes. "The document from the CPS said they believed me, not him."
The book, he says, is not merely an exercise in healing but an attempt to tell the truth. "Above all," he writes, "I have set out to tell you the things you don't know."
