One mother's anguish

Her story is enough to send a chill through any mother's heart - she hasn't seen her youngest son for 12 years, ever since he walked out after a misunderstanding.

"I have to face up to the fact that he might not be alive, but I'll never give up hope," she says.

Eddie Ault, now 34, has been registered as a missing person since 1988.

He had run away from home before then but was always found and brought back. Mrs Ault, 69, from Banbury, describes her children's upbringing as very happy and Eddie's brothers and sisters are still very close, keeping in touch all the time.

So what went wrong? Eddie was not abused, lived in a happy family, went to school, had a girlfriend and several jobs, a seemingly normal life.

But according to his mother he was always different. Jo said he couldn't handle any form of dispute or confrontation and seemed unable to defend himself verbally. "He used to have a wicked temper, until he was five years old. But one day he kicked the glass door in and was so shocked by what he'd done, that from then on he learned to control his temper. I think he must have swallowed it all inside, and that's where all the trouble started," Mrs Ault says.

From then on any time there was a row Eddie just walked out and family arguments, confrontations with his father, or worries, would send him fleeing.

But his father Derrick died three years ago and Mrs Ault believes this factor is very significant to Eddie's return. "I think if he knew his father was dead that he would get in touch with me," she says. His mother also said Eddie was always a loner: "He loved going on long walks on his own and studying nature. He had lots of friends at school but not one person in particular. He didn't have a best friend and never let anyone get too close.

"And he always told people what they wanted to hear, so you never actually knew what he was thinking.

"It makes you wonder if you ever really know your children," she sighs.

People might blame his relationship with his father but Derrick sounds like a fair man. He never hit his children. "Derrick was confrontational and I think Eddie felt inferior. But all the other children handled it easily and when they were older answered him back, but not Eddie," Jo remembers.

"Derrick did get angry when Eddie ran away and Eddie knew this, which was why he didn't come home afterwards, although he always wanted to."

On two occasions he was found sleeping in a neighbours' garage. But it was not just problems at home that he ran away from. When he didn't like a job or got fed up, he wouldn't hand in his notice, or resign, he would just run away, leaving all his belongings behind. Jo says: "I remember he was working in a Harvester as a chef. I thought he enjoyed the work because he got a good wage and a good meal everyday. But he went missing and when we found him he just said he was sick to death of steaks."

Another time Eddie got a job in a Bond Street jewellers, which he really liked. He would commute every day from Kent, where the Ault family lived then, and eventually got a bedsit in London to be closer to work. But he wasn't paid much and his accommodation used up most of his funds.

He had borrowed a suit off his brother and a year into the job his boss said the suit was getting a bit scruffy and he should invest in a new one. "But instead of explaining that all his money was going on his rent, because his wages were so low, he said he would buy one," his mother says.

"Eventually he just ran away. His sister went in to see him at work and was told he'd left. The manager said he'd been a fantastic member of staff and if he'd known about the suit problem he would have bought one for Eddie himself. But that's Eddie down to a T. He couldn't tell people the problem," his mother says.

Mrs Ault thought the best solution would be for Eddie to go and live with his sister Madeleine in Hull. They got on very well and his sister had a spare room. "I thought it would be good for him to start afresh somewhere new, where the cost of living is so much cheaper than down here," she says.

"So I drove him up there and he signed on, which was very rare for him, he hated anything establishment or official. A few months later I wrote him a letter saying that when he had got a place of his own I would come up and stay with Madeleine.

"He obviously took it the wrong way and felt that he was a burden taking up too much space. That was the last time we saw him." she says.

The family had moved to Banbury by that time and when the police picked Eddie up in Edenbridge for sleeping rough, she presumes it was because he had tried to go back to his Sussex roots. "If I'd known I would have gone straight down there and searched for him. But there was a mistake and the information wasn't passed on. Instead Jo mistakenly concentrated her efforts in Hull, going up every few months for several weeks and scouring the city at night for him.

"I thought he would have been sleeping rough so I searched all the places where homeless people gathered. I didn't stop searching until about a year later when I realised he wasn't coming back. That's when I contacted the Missing Persons Helpline."

"They have been so helpful to me and are much better at looking for people than I was because they have access to lots of avenues that the public don't." Since then Eddie has been featured in the Big Issue several times, on Central's early morning missing persons slot and numerous TV and radio programmes, but to no avail. Mrs Ault has also had to tell her story many times, each time hoping the search may unearth some new information.

But now, if she's given a new lead she's highly cynical and only gets excited when the information is thoroughly checked out. Jo has had 12 years to get used to Eddie's disappearance. And she doesn't sit around feeling sorry for herself. She is a friendly, cheery woman, with lots of hobbies and friends, as well as her extensive family - she has 11 grandchildren, that she knows of. She also works for the Banbury Young Homeless Project as a night stop host, is a volunteer for the National Missing Persons Helpline, is involved with numerous environmental charities, and collects medicine for Intercare, an African charity.

"It's one of the ways I keep myself occupied and keeps things in perspective," she says.

But however hard she works she can't switch off her mind and all over the house there are things that trigger off Eddie's memory. "I do keep busy to keep my mind off things. But sometimes when I'm on my own, maybe walking, I'll wonder what he's doing now and where he is. I even go into fantasies where I imagine him being found and coming home.

"I still think about him every day. He was adored by his sisters, who were almost motherly too him and he looked up to his brothers," she says.

"Missing Eddie has not got any easier over the years I've just got better at hiding my feelings," she explains.

"I know I made mistakes, but what parent doesn't? "I don't know if I understand him but I still love him. What does seem to be denied to me is a state of contentment, that comfortable feeling that you can have that everything's all right with your world."

Mrs Ault is left with just her memories, an inappropriate sense of guilt and an inability to lay the past to rest.

Story date: Monday 29 November

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.