The Truth Behind Still Your Child

Some songs are written. Some are carried.

I carried this one for fifty years.

1 April 1976

Her name was Beryl Elizabeth Trott. She was 34 years old.

I was 14, just a few weeks short of my 15th birthday.

One day she was there. The next day she was gone.

That's how the song opens: "I was just a child back then, didn't understand the end." Those aren't just lyrics. They're a true account of a boy standing in the spring of 1976 with no idea what had just happened to his world.

The world didn't stop

It never does. The clocks kept ticking and the seasons kept turning. The world expected me to keep moving, so I did.

I joined the army. I served with the 16th Air Defence, Royal Artillery, through the late '70s and into the '80s. Then I got behind the decks and became a DJ. I travelled and picked up a camera. I fell in love, got married and moved to Poland. I built websites, a radio station and a whole network.

She never saw any of it. Not one day.

"There were so many days you never knew, so many dreams I wished you saw come true."

The maths that stops me cold

She was 34 when she died. I'm 65 now.

I've lived almost twice the life she was given. I've had every birthday she never reached and every year she never got. Every one of them is a gift she never had.

The conversations that never happened

Every win, every fall, every wrong turn and every new start, I've still wanted to tell her. Fifty years on, that hasn't faded. If anything it's grown louder.

"Every win and every fall, I still want to tell you all."

Why now?

Still Your Child came out in March 2026, fifty years almost to the month after she left.

I didn't plan the timing. Maybe some songs wait until you're ready. Maybe some songs wait until they're ready for you.

Still her child

The song ends with something I believe with everything I have. Love like hers doesn't fade with time. It lives in every step I take and every choice I make. Everything good in me started with her.

"If there's a place where you can see, I hope you're proud of me."

I'm 65 years old. I've been a soldier, a DJ, a traveller, a husband and a creator.

But first, and always, I'm still her child.

Press play.

Then do one thing for me. If someone who made you who you are is still here, call them tonight. Don't wait fifty years to say what matters.