Christopher Fraser CF) and Victoria Fraser (VF)

CF: What was your initial reaction, to see a ten-year-old kid, sitting in your kitchen with not so much as a phone call prior to that.

VF: It was a surprise. I came in the door, and Grandpa was there. He told me that the police had called and that they had taken you away from your dad, and that they had brought you here, because your dad was arrested . You were very sad, you missed your dad terribly, fiercely. I remember you going out and sitting in the pine-grove outside the door and weeping and weeping, and your grief was really big.

CF: Yeah-

VF: You were quite amazing, in that first month, things that you would say to us. Not nasty things but like, do you remember when you came in and said, um, ”I really don’t think I should be living with you”, you came and told me that a couple of times.

CF: Oh yeah, yeah…

VF: And then you also came and told us that we were ’castle people’, and you were a street person. Do you remember that?

CF: Yeah, I remember that. Yup.

VF: Because you had been homeless with your dad, which we also didn’t really know about.

CF: Yeah I had a great vocabulary, and I talked like Rocky.

VF: Yeah, we never like said, ’oh yeah, he can live here for ten years’, we said ’yeah. we’ll do this one day at a time’, and ah, because you’ve been as great as you’ve been, it hasn’t been all that hard.

CF: There’s one thing I feel kind of sad about. It’s that I haven’t ever really taken the time to give you direct praise. I can say it to anyone else, but I sometimes find it hard to say directly to you. One thing that I just um, have always admired is, ah, I guess with all your grace, you managed to actually fill gaps, you fill the mother role, more than I could ever ask, and definitely more than I’ve ever known, but even with the parts that are missing with the male figure – it’s different, but you managed to make the pain a lot less. So your biography, if one should ever decide to write one, that would have to be like a big point, ’This is Victoria Fraser, she has the capacity to uh, carry the world on her shoulders and run at the same time.’ I don’t know too many people that can do that.

VF: It’s very kind of you to say that.