1995 05 06 Guardian Deborah Curtis

Love will tear us apart

They married when they were both 17. Within three years he was a star, lead singer with Joy Division, and she was a mother. At the age of 23 Ian Curtis killed himself. Here, for the first time, Deborah Curtis tells her own story of their brief life together

IAN was a performer from a very early age forever taking his fantasies to the extreme. Once, when he had decided to be a stunt man, he persuaded Tony to help him rig up a wooden sledge as a landing pad. After drumming up local children to watch, he donned an old crash-helmet and jumped from the roof of a one-storey garage. The sledge shattered in all directions and the showman walked away from his first stunt.

Ian never did anything by halves; any interest became a vocation.

Rather than just kick a ball around the field with a few friends he organised a football team called the Spartans — his childhood admiration for the Ancient Greeks helped him to choose the name. He arranged fixtures by advertising in a magazine. His approach was always to decide how best to get something done; failure was not an option.

The first band Ian formed was with Tony Nuttall, Peter Johnson and Brian McFaddian at primary school. Peter wore his spectacles on the end of his nose and was considered respectable and studious. He played the piano by plucking the strings with a pencil. Brian was a guitarist whom Ian and Tony had met while caddying for pocket money at Prestbury golf club. Ian chose to play bass and Tony bought himself a drum kit. Very young and obviously ahead of their time, Ian’s first band died an apparently painless death shortly thereafter.

Ian began a new phase in his life when he passed his 11-plus and was admitted to the King’s School in Macclesfield. It was and still is a school with a good reputation. Ian was apprehensive about the type of people who would attend such a school. Socially it was a long way from his home in Victoria Park. Nevertheless, he soon made a mixed bunch of friends.

Ian’s main love in life was music and many lunchtimes were spent listening to the MC5, Roxy Music and the Velvet Underground. His fanaticism for David Bowie, and in particular his version of Jacques Brel’s song My Death, was taken at the time to be a fashionable fascination and merely Ian’s recognition of Bowie’s mime, choreographed by Lindsay Kemp. The fact that most of Ian’s heroes were dead, close to death or obsessed with death was not unusual and is a common teenage fad. Ian seemed to take growing up more seriously than the others, as if kicking against it could prolong his youth. He bought a red jacket to match the one James Dean wore in Rebel Without A Cause. He wanted to be that rebel but, like his hero, he didn’t have a cause either. Mostly his rebellion took the form of verbal objection to anyone else’s way of life.

When Mott The Hoople’s All The Young Dudes hit the charts, Ian began to use the lyrics as his creed. He would choose certain songs and lyrics such as “Speed child, don’t wanna stay alive when you’re 25”, or David Bowie’s Rock And Roll Suicide, and be carried away with the romantic magic of an early death. He idolised people like Jim Morrison who died at their peak. This was the first indication anyone had that he was becoming fascinated with the idea of not living beyond his early twenties, and the start of the glitter and glamour period in his life.

I HAD attended primary school in the village of Sutton, in the hills of Macclesfield. My childhood weekends had been spent looking for birds’ nests, building dams across the river Bollin, and feeding orphan lambs. By the time I met Ian, I had abandoned my push-bike and stopped attending the church youth club, but was still leading a quiet existence. Suddenly, life seemed one long round of parties, pop concerts and pub crawls. It was a whole new scene for me. After I took my O-levels, Ian set about persuading me to follow him and leave school altogether. He implied that he had no wish to date a schoolgirl and it took little persuasion for me to leave. All my close friends were leaving so I gladly took the easy way out. The idea of studying elsewhere appealed to me and I was keen to start again in an establishment where I felt I could be more anonymous. I disliked drawing attention to myself and in retrospect I think that was one of my main assets for Ian. I was there as an accessory, with little danger of ever outshining him. I enjoyed the attention he was giving me, believing that he knew best. I stopped wearing make-up because he said I looked better without it and tried not to displease him by going anywhere without him. “We’ll get married,” he said. “Don’t worry about a job. I’m going to make so much money you’ll never need to work.”

We got engaged on April 17, 1974. The engagement ring held half a dozen small sapphires surrounding a minute diamond and cost £17.50 from Ratners. Once we had named the day, our wedding preparations seemed to set themselves in motion. Ian showed little concern for the arrangements, but knowing his fetish for making sure my body was covered I chose a high-necked wedding dress. He didn’t like other men to look at me. I also bowed to his request that one of the hymns would be Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken, sung to the music of Haydn which is the same tune as the German National Anthem.

Once our home life settled into a routine, Ian became frustrated with his lack of involvement in the music business. It was clear that in Manchester something was beginning to bubble right under our noses. Unknown to me, Ian placed an advertisement in the music press in the hope of getting a band together. He signed himself “Rusty” and had only one reply. This came from a guitarist called Iain Gray. The two of them began searching Manchester night-spots and pubs for others to join the band, and met Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Terry Mason.

AS IF being summoned to a religious gathering, we all assembled at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on July 20, 1976 to see the Sex Pistols. Four small waifs strutted across the stage dressed like cronies of Oliver Twist. I wondered who was the mastermind behind this plan, but Ian was ecstatic. Seeing the Sex Pistols was confirmation that there was something out there for him other than a career in the Civil Service. Their musical ability was dubious that night, which reaffirmed Ian’s belief that anyone could become a rock star.

In the summer of 1977, Ian renewed an old acquaintance with Richard Boon, manager of the Buzzcocks. He hoped Richard would show some kind of interest to help the band on their way, but when he suggested the name the Stiff Kittens, Ian was deeply irritated. This was most likely due to the fact that it sounded just like any other punk group. At last they settled on the name Warsaw, taken from Warsawa on Bowie’s Low album, which was less like the other names being thrown up for contemporary bands. In May 1977 Warsaw played their first gig at the Electric Circus. They were undaunted by the rest of the bill: the Buzzcocks, Penetration, John Cooper Clarke and John the Postman.

The band’s debut release was recorded at Pennine Sound Studio, Oldham, in December 1977. An Ideal For Living turned out to be very much an in-house project: Bernard designed the sleeve and Steve arranged the printing in Macclesfield. The sleeve unfolded as a poster which depicted a member of the Hitler Youth Movement banging a drum, a German soldier pointing a gun at a small boy with his arms raised, and two photographs of the band members.

The release of the EP in January marked the change of name from Warsaw to Joy Division after the disappointing news that there was already a London-based band called Warsaw Pakt. The essential ingredient for any band at that time was to have a supposedly shocking name. Names such as Slaughter And The Dogs and Ed Banger And The Nosebleeds were guaranteed to conjure up the image of a group who just might resemble the Sex Pistols. Ian told me that Joy Division was what the Nazis called female prisoners kept alive to be used as prostitutes for the German Army. It was gruesome and tasteless and I hoped that the majority of people would not know what it meant. Telling myself that the members of the band had chosen it merely to gain attention, I gradually became accustomed to the provocative moniker and concentrated on the music.

Joy Division worked hard to produce a new, tighter image. The frantic punk-style songs disappeared and were replaced with strong melodies and lyrics worthy of closer inspection. Terry Mason was struggling to book gigs for the band. Often they played for free and on some occasions had to find the money to pay for the PA system. Very much the pariahs of the Manchester scene, the band became downhearted. It seemed to them that the Fall only had to step out of the door to be offered a gig. Peter Hook recalls: “Most of the musicians in Manchester then were very middle class, very educated: like Howard Devoto. Barney and I were essentially working-class oiks. Ian came somewhere in the middle, but primarily we had a different attitude. We felt like outsiders: it was very vicious and back-biting.”

When two London record labels, Stiff and Chiswick, decided to hold a “battle of the bands” contest in Manchester, anyone who was hoping to be anyone joined a band, thinking they had a chance to be singled out by one of the record companies. Tony Wilson was there, already well known in the region for his TV programme So It Goes. Every band Wilson had chosen to play on the show subsequently became famous. These included the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Buzzcocks and Elvis Costello. Ian was most impressed when his long-time idol Iggy Pop was featured, so he was determined to get to know Tony. He sat down next to him, obviously trying to summon the courage to speak to him. Being ill-mannered didn’t come naturally to Ian, but he forced himself.

“You’re a fucking cunt you are, you’re a bastard."

“Oh yeah,” said Tony. “Why’s that?”

“Cos you haven’t put us on television.”

Tony reciprocated, not by giving Ian a return mouthful, but by telling him that Joy Division would be the next band he put on. Ian was elated that he had accomplished his mission.

WITH hindsight, the decision to start a family was not a sensible one, especially as our finances were in such a precarious position. Nevertheless, hearing the other women at college talk about their children had made me broody. I tentatively began to talk about babies thinking Ian would probably suggest a more appropriate time to have one. Ian wasn’t the type of man to discuss events logically and what he wanted most in the world was for people to be happy. If a baby would make me happy, we could have a baby.

Towards the end of 1978 my pregnancy became all too obvious and on December 27 Ian had his first recognisable epileptic fit. I rang his office and mine and we both stayed at home the following day, expecting something else to happen. Ian’s GP was uninterested. The most he could do was put Ian on the waiting list to see a specialist. In the meantime, Ian was expected to carry on with his life. His fits became quite frequent and frighteningly violent.

My parents began to worry about me and our unborn baby. As we couldn’t afford to install a telephone, they paid for us to have one as this reduced the risk of my being isolated in an emergency. Ian registered himself as disabled. He told me benefit claims are processed as a matter of urgency for disabled people.

Meanwhile, the band were becoming more and more in demand. On January 13, 1979 Ian appeared on the front cover of NME sporting the soon-to-be-famous long green raincoat and the inevitable cigarette. At the end of the month the first John Peel session was recorded. Joy Division had definitely arrived.

There was so much happening in the spring of 1979. It seemed that everything we had planned was finally coming to fruition, from the birth of our child to Joy Division’s first album. Unknown Pleasures was recorded in April 1979 at Strawberry Studios in Stockport. I showed little interest in the recording. My main concern was that Rob Gretton (Joy Division’s manager) didn’t book any gigs for the week the baby was due as I desperately wanted Ian to be at the birth.

As April 6 came and went, my doctor decided that the birth should be induced on April 16, which was Easter Monday. The evening before, Ian and I sat watching a documentary about the Nuremberg trials when he suddenly turned to me and said, “I can’t imagine there being another person here with us.” I thought to myself indignantly that he wouldn’t have to imagine for much longer! I went upstairs and as I plonked down on the bed, my waters broke. Ian bundled me into an ambulance that night, but didn’t come to hospital until the next day when the birth was imminent. When it was all over, Ian said that if anything had gone wrong it would have been my fault as I had “done it all wrong”. I like to think that he wasn’t prepared for the strength of his feelings on seeing his own child’s birth.

Natalie was tiny; my father said he had seen bigger chickens. Her features and hands were like Ian’s in miniature. Ian was completely enraptured. We soon settled into a routine, but Ian was terrified something might happen to the baby. He was reluctant to hold her in case he had a fit and dropped her, and so could not bring himself to participate in looking after her as much as he might have done. Instead I had to look after both of them.

Joy Division were gigging regularly during May. It was hard for Ian as he was still working full time, and his doctor had advised him to get early nights and not to work too hard. Ian did not have any epileptic attacks during June 1979 and he did try hard to settle down into the relative tranquillity of family life. We lived a very short distance from South Park in Macclesfield and on warm summer evenings we would take Natalie in her pram and walk the dog. For me at least, these times were idyllic.

IAN’S impractical approach to money always caused him difficulties. It was a concept he never understood. His quest for extra pocket money was never ending. He even stooped to cleaning the rehearsal rooms as the rest of the band could afford to pay him. When Factory pressed the first Durutti Column album, Tony Wilson needed to glue the sheets of sandpaper to the sleeves and Joy Division were drafted in. Ian did most of the job himself because the others became engrossed in the porn movie hired to alleviate the boredom and Ian needed the money for cigarettes.

Unknown Pleasures was released in June. Nearer to the truth than most people imagined, it was reviewed in Sounds under the headline Death Disco. The reviewer wrote a short story around the album; his opinion was that if one was contemplating suicide, Joy Division was guaranteed to push you over the edge.

As I became familiar with the lyrics, I worried that Ian was retreating to the depression of his teenage years. After pondering over the words to New Dawn Fades, I broached the subject with Ian, trying to make him confirm that they were only lyrics and bore no resemblance to his true feelings. It was a one-sided conversation. He walked out of the house. I was left questioning myself instead. Would he really have married me knowing that he still intended to kill himself in his early twenties?

The end of August 1979 was make or break time for Joy Division. They were lucky enough to be offered the chance to be support band on the Buzzcocks tour, so it was “give up the day job” time. Ian had no qualms about this as it was what he had been waiting for. His relative contentment is borne out by the fact that he had only one grand mal attack during September. The other members of the band took good care of him. Their time was spent surreptitiously watching him for signs of an impending fit.

Mountford Hall in Liverpool was the first of the 24 dates that Joy Division played supporting the Buzzcocks on their autumn tour. The season began extremely well for Joy Division, who effectively blew the Buzzcocks off the stage on this first night. They earned a rave review from Penny Riley who wrote: “It’s music that washes over you, music to surrender to. Only then do you receive the maximum excitement.”

ON OCTOBER 16,1979, during a break in the Buzzcocks tour, Joy Division played Plan K in Brussels. It is purported to have been at this gig that Ian first met Annik Honore. Rather than not mention her at all, he told me about a chubby Belgian girl who was a “tour arranger”, although Steve Morris (the band’s drummer) says she was posing as a journalist and she was certainly not chubby. Ian said he felt sorry for her and had taken it upon himself to act as her protector. Knowing Ian’s caring nature, I thought nothing more about it. The signs are so obvious now that I’m embarrassed at my stupidity.

By the end of 1979 the downward spiral of our financial situation had almost reached the bottom. Each member of the band was on a weekly wage, Ian having negotiated £15 per week, slightly more than the others. I was grateful for that concession, but it still didn’t compensate for the loss of both our wages. I asked around and heard that they were looking for bar staff at Silklands, a local disco. My mother offered to baby-sit while I earned some money in the evenings. As Ian had been so overly protective in the past, I thought he would try to dissuade me, but he didn’t seem remotely concerned.

IT WAS January 1980 when Joy Division set off on a ten-day European tour. I was genuinely surprised that he never telephoned me or even sent a postcard during the entire trip. It was a particularly arduous tour with a performance every night and little time to sleep, never mind recuperate. Coupled with this was the fact that', unknown to me, Ian had brought Annik with him.

When Ian came home we practically passed on the doorstep, as I was on my way to work. I returned after midnight and found the house strangely quiet, but eventually located Ian lying on the floor of the blue room. He had consumed most of a bottle of duty-free Pernod and so was difficult to rouse. I was annoyed to find him incoherent and when he gained consciousness he spewed all over the carpet. He didn’t raise any objections when I insisted he clean it up himself, then he sloped off to bed. I noticed weals on his body, but could not be sure if they were recent.

After he had gone I picked up the Bible and the knife which were lying on the floor. The Bible was still open. Chapter two of The Book of Revelation of St John the Divine was gouged from top to bottom. I read the still-legible words referring to Jezebel and flattered myself into thinking he had been worried about my fidelity while he was away.

Planning began for a Joy Division tour of America. It seemed too big an adventure for him not to share it with me and it crossed my mind that if he had still loved me, then maybe he would have asked me to go. It still hurts to know that while I was being told the band couldn’t afford to take me along, Annik’s expenses on the European tour had been incorporated into Joy Division’s.

In spite of all the turmoil, Ian had only two grand mal attacks in two months. I knew that he was taking medication for his epilepsy and that he was seeing his specialist regularly, so I began to suspect there was something else in his life. I had to summon immense courage to confront Ian. His depression was acute, yet he refused to tell me what was affecting his behaviour. I begged him to explain to me, but he told me he couldn’t because he was afraid of what I might do. I was eager to eliminate every possibility other than the obvious. Thinking back to the days of the gay parties and remembering a fleeting glimpse of him trying on my sandals, I took a deep breath and plunged in headfirst: “Is it a man? Have you fallen in love with a man?” Ian slid even further down in the chair, his legs splayed across the floor. His body shook with his silent laugh and I couldn’t help smiling too. Our eyes met in conspiracy, mutual appreciation of a private joke, as if we were a couple again. When he regained his composure and put on his serious face, I said, “It’s Annik Honore isn’t it?” and he nodded.

Several weeks went by and as far as I knew Ian made no attempt to tell Annik about the situation at home.

As Ian’s personal life was disintegrating, his professional life was flourishing. His voice had improved. It had a powerful, enigmatic quality which would bring a poignancy to the slower songs in particular. Closer was recorded at Britannia Row Studios, London, in March 1980. Ian seemed to be in a trance for the whole of the time he was writing and recording the lyrics. Wound up and intense, he was in another world. I wonder if he needed the rivalry and passion of conflict in his life to help him write the words he did.

Back in Macclesfield, I was pacing the pavements. It was lonely without Ian again and I passed my time pushing the pram around or listening to the Durutti Column’s Return Of The Durutti Column. The music was so mournful and emotional that it seemed like the only suitable thing to play. Then one day Ian rang me and in a very hushed voice said, “It’s okay, I’ve told her.” I dreamed about us being reunited and the future we would have together. I played the Durutti Column’s sandpaper-clad album again. The nuances in the melody took a different mood and I actually danced around the house, ecstatic, believing I had somehow magically regained my husband.

Ian came home with a cassette recording of Closer. Had I listened to it, maybe I too could have gained an insight into what was happening in his mind, but we didn’t have a cassette player. Despite his insistence that he had told Annik it was over, she still rang, using a male friend to make the initial call. Ian refused to speak to her.

THE gigs at the Moonlight in West Hampstead in April 1980 took their toll on Ian. Disaster struck on the third night when Joy Division had to play with the Stranglers at the Rainbow before dashing back across London to the Moonlight. Bernard Sumner remembers: “When I look back now, we did some gigs that we shouldn’t have fucking done. He had a fit and went on, he was really ill and we did the gig. that was really stupid.”

I don’t remember ever seeing Ian have a fit while on stage. It was only after his death that I found out how frequently this happened. I still feel that it was only by eliminating my presence that he had the freedom to work himself up into giving such a public display of his illness. It was allowed to become an expected part of Joy Division’s act and the more sick he became, the more the band’s popularity grew.

Ian stayed in London, returning on April 7, Easter Monday. I had believed the story about staying down there to work on another project outside his Joy Division commitments and was slightly suspicious when he came home with his tail so obviously between his legs. That evening he came up to bed and announced that he had taken an overdose of Phenobarbitone. I called an ambulance and he was taken to hospital to have his stomach pumped.

I didn’t know how ill he had been over Easter and had no idea what prompted his suicide attempt. Whether it was a threat or a cry for help, I didn’t know how to help him. I hadn’t been allowed to gigs, so I hadn’t heard any of the songs written since Unknown Pleasures — neither had I delved into Ian’s lyric sheets nor even been able to listen to a cassette tape. He had left a suicide note. It said that there was “no need to fight now” and to “give his love to Annik”.

NATALIE’S first birthday was on April 16, 1980 and I was saddened that Ian (who had moved in with Tony Wilson and his wife after his suicide attempt) still hadn’t come home. My mum made a cake and we had a small party without him. I could hardly believe that he had forgotten his daughter’s birthday.

The one good thing to come out of Ian’s attempted suicide was that an appointment was made for him to see a psychiatrist at Parkside Hospital. Amazingly, when the day came for Ian’s visit to the psychiatrist, we went together. On the way there he told me how unhappy he was in the music business. He said that when Transmission and Unknown Pleasures had been released, he had achieved his ambitions. Now there was nothing else left for him to do. All he ever intended was to have one album and one single pressed. His aspirations had never extended to recording Love Will Tear Us Apart or Closer. As I drove along, he told me how he wanted to leave Joy Division and join a circus.

As I had suspected, the suggestion that Joy Division would cut down on gigging for a while didn’t come to much. Throughout April and May 1980, they always seemed to be busy playing or rehearsing when I thought they should have been resting for the forthcoming US tour, so when Ian said he was going away for a break I wasn’t surprised. He said he’d chosen to stay in a small pub in Derby and I asked him if I could go with him. He explained gently that he needed time alone and I accepted this.

He’d only been gone for two days when I began to wonder... It turned out he was with Annik. I felt angry with Annik. She had a sexy accent, a job at the Belgian embassy and seemingly enough time and money to follow Joy Division around Europe. I felt that as Ian’s wife and the mother of his child I deserved more status. I had been well and truly ousted.

It was difficult initiating the divorce, but once I had made the decision it felt wonderful. It seemed as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. For that short time, I honestly believed that Ian was not my problem any more. Joy Division played their final gig on May 2, 1980 at High Hall, Birmingham University.

Ian would have made a gifted actor. He convinced us all that the conflicts in his life were caused by outside influences and that the stress he was suffering was a direct result of the lifestyle he was leading. Truly, as his own judge and jailer, he had engineered his own hell and planned his own downfall. The people around him were merely minor characters in his play.

On Tuesday, May 13 — six days before he was due to go to America — Ian came to Macclesfield to see me and Natalie. When I came home he had already let himself into the house. He had washed up and put fresh irises and freesias in his blue room where he used to do his writing. I was puzzled rather than pleased and thought this would be the last time I saw him before he went to the States. I also thought Joy Division would be hugely successful there and that Ian would forget about his family in Macclesfield. Before he left I insisted on taking one last photograph of Ian with Natalie. She lay on her changing mat kicking her legs and rather than pick her up, he leant down and put his face next to her. The picture shows him pale and haunted.

I believe Ian chose his deadline. It was important to keep up the charade in front of the band in case they tried to dissuade him. The only reason he was no longer worried about the American trip was because he knew that he wasn’t going.

I RECALL the events of that final weekend and it’s as if I am watching a video that someone else had produced in my absence. I have run it through so many times, looking for a point to break and insert some other sequence of events. I do know I am not the only person to feel like this, to spend time thinking “if only”, making the mistake of believing there was one single action which could have saved Ian’s life.

Ian rang unexpectedly and announced he would be coming “home” on Saturday before flying on Monday. Sunday was to be the only day I had free that weekend and although I was apprehensive about seeing him again, I thought perhaps his visit indicated a desire to talk. I was working at Silklands until after midnight on Friday May 16 and also worked the lunchtime bar on Saturday. I slept at my mother’s house because Natalie was staying there. During my afternoon break I rested and then went down to see Ian before starting work again for the evening. I explained to him what my work situation was and that Natalie would be sleeping at my parents’ house that night. “Why don’t you bring her here?” he said. “She’ll be okay with me.” I tried to reason with him. It seemed such a simple request, but I didn’t trust him. Eventually, my mother helped me by making the decision for me and we kept Natalie away. Ian said he wanted to talk to me and I promised to go back after work.

In the early hours of the morning in Barton Street, Ian had been watching Stroszek, a Werner Herzog film about a European living in America who kills himself rather than choose between two women. When I arrived he had almost finished a large jar of coffee and was helping himself to another mug of the thick, black mixture. He asked me to drop the divorce and I argued that he would have changed his mind by morning. There was no talk of love that night — the last time it had been mentioned was when he told me that he didn’t think he loved me. He told me he had spoken to Annik earlier that evening. Their relationship was still very much alive and I began to feel extremely weary — our conversation was going around in circles.

Ian was afraid I would meet another man while he was away. As he became more unreasonable I was convinced he was going to work himself up into a fit, so I offered to spend the night with him. I drove to my parents to tell them what I was doing, but when I returned to Ian he had changed his mind again. This time he wanted me to stay away altogether. I could tell by his face that the fit wasn’t going to surface. He made me promise not to return to the house before 10am as he was catching the train to Manchester then. Any other night and I might have stayed to argue with him, but I was exhausted and relieved that I was allowed to leave.

After I had gone, Ian made himself still more coffee. In the pantry was the all-but-empty whisky bottle from which he squeezed every last drop. He listened to Iggy Pop’s The Idiot. He took Natalie’s photograph down from the wall, retrieved our wedding picture from the drawer and sat down to write me a letter. It was a long, very intimate letter in the same sprawling capitals he used to write his songs. He did say he wished he was dead, but didn’t actually say that it was his intention to kill himself. He talked of our life together, romance and passion; his love for me, his love for Natalie and his hate for Annik. He couldn’t have hated Annik. I never heard him say he hated anyone. I think he wrote that to try to please me. The pages are full of contradictions. By the time he had finished writing, he told me, it was dawn and he could hear the birds singing.

I crept into my parent’s house without waking anyone and was asleep within seconds of my head touching the pillow. It was well past 10am, nearly midday, when I dressed and prepared to take Natalie home. I was confident that Ian would not be there. The curtains were closed. I could see the light bulb shining through the unlined fabric.

Thinking Ian might still be asleep, I left Natalie in the car. He could have overslept — a chance to talk in the daylight, when I wasn’t tired, when he was calm. Yet, as I stood in the hall somehow I knew he had never gone to bed.

I didn’t call his name or go upstairs. At first I thought he had left because the house smelled strangely fresh. The familiar clinging stench of tobacco wasn’t there. He must have caught the train after all. There was an envelope on the living-room mantlepiece. My heart jumped when I realised that he had left a note for me. I bent forward to pick it up and out of the comer of my eye I saw him. He was kneeling in the kitchen. I was relieved — glad he was still there. “Now what are you up to?” I took a step towards him, about to speak. His head was bowed, his hands resting on the washing machine. I stared at him, he was so still. Then the rope — I hadn’t noticed the rope. The rope from the clothes rack was around his neck.

I ran through to the sitting room and picked up the telephone. No, supposing I was wrong—another false alarm. I ran back to the kitchen and looked at his face — a long string of saliva hung from his mouth. Yes, he really had done it. What to do next? I looked around the room expecting to see Ian standing in a corner watching my reaction. My instinct that he was playing a cruel trick. I had to tell someone...

The police asked me to formally identify the body, but eventually my father was allowed to do it instead. I regret that very much. I sat in the car and waited — still too shocked to cry, but able to notice that, yes, like the old cliche, the sun was still shining and the breeze was still blowing. It was a beautiful day. The green leaves above Barton Street buffeted against a blue, blue sky.

It would seem that Ian’s earlier view on life after the age of 25 never really changed. All he needed was the excuse to follow his idols into immortality and being part of Joy Division gave him the tools to build the heart-rending reasons.

Ian’s pale blue-green eyes linger on in our daughter and when those familiar long fingers twine themselves unwittingly into those inherited mannerisms, I remember how warm and loved I felt when he and I were 16. 

Touching From A Distance: Ian Curtis And Joy Division is published by Faber & Faber, at £9.99.