Drunken dad’s gun rampage that ripped my family apart
No wonder Craig Revel Horwood chose to do panto on the day of his funeral. But most remarkable of all? The Strictly star never stopped loving him
FOR Me, 2015 started on a high, with my new house and my 50th birthday. But it ended on a real low. On December 21 my dad, Philip Revel horwood, passed away at 74. My relationship with my dad wasn’t amazing. he battled with alcoholism all his life and he wasn’t a nice man when he was drunk.
My parents had split up in 1989 after my father went on a drunken rampage with two loaded shotguns in the street in Australia where I was brought up.
The neighbours and my family had to hide under beds waiting for the police to come. Dad fired shots and nearly killed my brotherin-law, David.
The relationship between us got worse as he got older. As I lived in London, I only managed to go home once a year because the only time I ever got off was at the end of the Strictly Come Dancing live tour.
On these trips, I would go to his farm (he’d previously been a lieutenant in the Royal Australian navy) and stay there for one afternoon or, on rare occasions, for one night. But he drank all day, every day. he’d get drunk and go to bed in the afternoon, and then get up and start again, so I never got to spend quality time with him, ever.
There was never a time he was sober so that I could speak to him properly and, as I left Australia when I was 23, he never really knew me well as an adult.
On one occasion, because I didn’t have a car, Mum drove me out there but they ended up bickering and fighting in exactly the way they used to at home. It took me back to how things were when I was a child and reminded me why I left home, because I hated the fighting so much.
To be honest, I couldn’t wait to get out of there after these visits. I did feel sorry for him and sorry that our relationship couldn’t be better because he was a very proud father, very proud of everything I did.
When I won Maestro At The Opera, the BBC2 conducting competition, in 2012, he must have watched it about 60 times and cried every time. he loved it. he couldn’t watch Strictly in Australia and he never came to the UK, so he didn’t see my life here.
Like me, my older sister Sue didn’t get on with Dad at all. We were forced to see him because he was our father but Sue, my sister Di and I saw the worst of his drunken tempers.
Our other siblings, Trent and Mel, got on fine with him, but they were younger than the three of us.
Looking back, there were many unforgive-able moments, but you just had to get on with it. We didn’t exactly turn a blind eye, but we put on brave faces. Like in the film Strictly Ballroom, we applied the ‘happy face’ technique.
he became really frail in the end. Following my visits, people would ask after him and I’d say: ‘I think that will probably be the last time I see him.’
Then the inevitable happened. I was in the middle of a panto run at high Wycombe when I got the phone call from Sue to say: ‘Dad’s dead.’ Then Mel called me, then Di, then Mum.
All this happened four days before Christmas, when I was doing two shows a day playing Captain hook in Peter Pan. That meant singing Dad’s favourite song, Frank Sinatra’s My Way, twice a day.
I didn’t tell anyone at the theatre because I didn’t want them to make a fuss. I had to go and do a matinee and an evening performance and I wanted to stay strong. Somehow, I got through both shows and sang My Way, which was very, very emotional and it was all I could do not to break down.
At midnight, I received a Google alert with the headline ‘Craig Revel horwood mourning the death of alcoholic father’.
I knew I had to tell the panto company before they read it, so I explained what had happened and reassured them that I wasn’t going home. I told them My Way was his favourite song and that I would devote each performance to Dad. So that’s what I did and I got through it.
There was no way I could leave them in the lurch. The family completely understood.
It was awful being on the other side of the world while my family were going through this but there was nothing I could do. To be honest, I had always asked myself, if he did die, would I drop everything and go back for the funeral? The answer was: ‘no, I wouldn’t.’
even though I couldn’t be there, I wanted to contribute something so I went to the sound engineer from the theatre. ‘I have to sing at my dad’s funeral,’ I said. ‘But I can’t be there in person. Can we record a song?’
So we recorded My Way in my dressing room. I got so emotional that my voice cracked but I couldn’t sing it again, because I was overcome.
Professionally, I wouldn’t have
CONFESSIONS OF STRICTLY’S MR NASTY Craig Revel Horwood
been happy with it, but there was so much emotion in the voice that it seemed perfect, and sent the recording as it was.
On the day of the funeral, I got dressed up in a suit in my hotel room and the family Skyped me. It was 3am and I was exhausted, not only emotionally but physically.
My brother-in-law David held up the phone with my Skype-transmitted face on it for the family so I could be part of the service. I was even in the pall-bearing procession. It really felt like I was there, going through every emotion that you would normally go through. It’s quite amazing what you can do in the modern world.
Sue, who has a wonderful way with words, gave a beautiful speech and then they played my recording of My Way, which was weird to listen to from afar.
We all had our own techniques of survival that each of us carried into adult life. Living with an alcoholic inflicts so much damage, it’s hard to forgive, but that’s what Sue is brilliant at.
‘Have you forgotten how we were treated as children?’ I asked her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But it’s odd because I’m remembering good things I haven’t remembered before.’
It was really emotional and, yes, I did cry. I thought I was brave enough and strong enough to cope, but there were a lot of tears because no matter what Dad was, and what he was like, good or bad, he was still my dad.
THE best part was seeing the coffin go into the grave because then I knew it was done, it was over and I could bury the past hurt with him. When you lose your father, it’s a big deal.
A few weeks after the funeral, as soon as the Strictly tour ended, I flew to Australia to help sort out Dad’s house.
While I was there I planted radishes on his grave, because he liked them. I’m sure it’s not the usual thing, but it seemed more fitting than flowers.
As a final gesture to Dad, when the inheritance came through, I dedicated an entire room in the house to create a refrigerated wine library cellar in his honour and a memorial park bench with a plaque in the garden.
He would have loved that and seen the funny side to it. I felt I had made a fitting tribute to him — and now I can toast him every time I open a particularly fine vintage wine, or simply crack open a beer. Cheers, Dad! RIP.