It came as a shock when I went home to visit my mum last night and she said to me "Did you know there is a documentary on tonight about your Uncle Tom?"
I watched the program, probably from a different perspective from the rest of you, being a part (although not that close) of the family. Tom Cox is my mum's brother, and the Grandma (Dorothy Simpson) is my mum's mum.
I did find it odd that the program was even made in the first place, and I can only assume that it was because they were twins in this situation (could be very wrong though).
The Social Workers in the program did seem to have problems communicating what needed to be done, but Tom was a drinker before Linda died, this just made it worse. Talking to him about anything was never easy.
There was mention of his other two children, Deborah and Paul. Deborah didn't have much to do with the family, she just lived there out of necessity. She helped her dad out money wise when she could, but didn't have a huge hand in anything. Paul, as correctly said by Tom, was what Mark and Jason were most likely going to be like. Paul was a terrible kid, even before his mum died, into petty crime etc, and was in and out of jail even when this was being made.
What I was most suprised at is how my grandma came across in the film. She does seem very cold to the kids, but I had always taken it as just her way. She's always been a loving woman to her kids and her grandkids, and we took comments like "I'm going to murder you" as part of her old woman charm.
As a side note, their friend in the documentary, Dodger (David Richardson) was also the subject of a similar documentary about how he was put into foster care, which was shown a few years back when I was still in school.
I've not seen anything of Tom, Mark or Jason since the twins were put into care, so I can't comment on what they are like now, but from how the program