In autumn 1992 I went back to England for a short spell. I had had a phone call from Roberta, who said, ‘There’s no hope.’
Although I’d been aware that things were bad, Roberta’s words still filled me with utter desolation. Almost the first thing I did when I arrived was to go to King’s Green and put all Bobby’s memorabilia in his England kitbag and send it round to him via Dean.
Some of my friends thought I was mad. ‘Don’t you dare send anything to him,’ they said. But I wanted him to look at them one last time. I only thought of how precious they were to him and how much I wanted him to recall all those wonderful times and the honours he had achieved.
It was a desperately sad time. I already knew that Doss was also suffering from cancer. Dean had broken the news to me - Doss, typically, hadn’t mentioned it. I felt for her. It had taken the two of us a while to establish a really warm relationship but she had always adored Roberta and Dean, and when my mother died she was a real rock and we became very close. I was forgiven for ‘taking her boy’.
Even after I went to the States, Doss and I never lost contact with each other. Knowing she was ill, I rang her once I was back in England. I wanted to see her while there was still time. At first she was ‘feeling a bit under the weather’ and wasn’t up to seeing me. I felt a pang of hurt and rejection but no sooner had I put the phone down than it rang again. ‘Come and see me this afternoon,’ said Doss.
She was still living in the house in Waverley Gardens. I went there and we chatted about old times and I had my chance to tell her how grateful I was for everything she had done. ‘I must have given you a hard time on occasions,’ I said.
Doss looked at me and said, ‘Come here.’ She gave me a cuddle as she said, ‘Tina, you’ve always had a big, big personality.’
I think she’d realized way back that we were both totally loyal to Bobby. We’d fought battles on his behalf. We’d never hear a bad word uttered about him. And because she said what she’d said with love and kindness, I took it as the ultimate compliment.
When it was time to leave, we kissed and hugged at the front door. We knew we’d never see each other again. Doss died not long after, thankfully before the son she loved so much. But as I drove away from that place I felt at peace. Doss had absolved me.
After I travelled back to Miami, Dean followed me across the pond to join Bobby and Stephanie, who were having a last holiday at the Palm Beach Golf Club.
Dean had been a great support to Bobby during his illness, acting as his driver when he had to carry out his commentary work for Capital Radio. He spent a couple of days with him, playing golf, before he headed for Miami to keep me company. I was wobbling by then. We all were. On one of the days we spent together he and I went to a beautiful shopping mall, Bal Harbour, and had lunch. We ended up laughing and crying together as we remembered the lovely times we’d all had as a family.
‘I know the break-up must have been dreadful for you,’ I said. ‘There was so much awful publicity, and you were only 14.’
‘I felt very rejected at first,’ he confessed. ‘It was hard coming to terms with the fact he’d gone. That was why I went off the rails a bit.’
‘I know how much Dad loves you,’ I said, ‘and Roberta too. He’s really proud of both of you.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘and it’s good that he and I have had the chance to become close again.’
I was devastated by what was happening to Bobby, but Dean got me through it. He was manly and reassuring, warm and caring. Whenever I looked at him, I was more and more struck by his resemblance to Bobby. It wasn’t only the blond hair and dimples. It was in the way he leaned forward to look at you and listen intently. He had inherited Bobby’s power to focus and for such a big young man, he was very sensitive and tuned in. You could see it in his softness with children. He was a joy to be with.
When Bobby left the States to go back to England, he must have known he was going never to return again. Dean followed him back and spent the last month of Bobby’s life living at his home in Putney with Poppy. He and Roberta both loved their father very much. They knew they wouldn’t have him for much longer and wanted to be there for him and with him.
Roberta asked me to tell this story, because it really brings home how much Bobby was loved by the public. Just before the news of his illness broke, she had been staying the weekend with Bobby. He told her he’d decided to put out a public announcement on Sunday evening because he was so visibly ill by then.
On Saturday, the day before the announcement, Roberta had gone downstairs to the kitchen where Bobby was doing his books, meticulous about everything to the last.
‘I’m not working for Capital today,’ he said, ‘so why don’t we go out of London for a nice lunch somewhere?’
They headed for Windsor and Eton, but by the time they got there it was too late for lunch so they decided to go for tea at a hotel just over the river. Stephanie went on ahead to make sure the hotel was open while Roberta and Bobby waited for her on the bridge. Bobby was leaning over the parapet with his back to the road when a young lad came over. ‘Is that Bobby Moore?’ he asked Roberta.
Roberta started feeling very protective. Bobby was looking terribly ill and she was afraid the young lad would seem shocked. That would have upset Bobby. But she said, ‘Yes,’ and at that moment Bobby turned his head to look.
‘Can I shake your hand?’ the lad said. He was completely unfazed by Bobby’s appearance.
Bobby didn’t turn round completely, but reached over his shoulder. ‘It’s my pleasure,’ he said, and shook the lad’s hand.
The lad stood completely still for a moment, contemplating the encounter, then said, ‘Do you know, I shall never forget that.’ Then he walked off to join his friend, to show him the hand that had shaken Bobby Moore’s.
Roberta almost ran after him to thank him. Bobby was looking so ill and yet the lad didn’t see the illness. He just saw Bobby.
Bobby went public with his illness on 15 February 1993. It was the lead item on the early morning news. When Roberta travelled into work that day, everyone on the Tube was reading about it. In the evening Bobby asked her, ‘Did you see any of today’s papers?’
‘I didn’t really feel like reading them all, Dad,’ she said, ‘but I went to the newsagent and had a quick look through.’
‘Did any of them say anything detrimental?’ he asked.
The modesty of the man! He was so unbelievably unassuming. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘They’ve said the most wonderful, wonderful things. How could they say otherwise?’
It’s still hard to believe Bobby said that. It was astonishing that someone could be so unaffected by fame. He was so loved and admired and yet so unaware of it. He was only anxious that he hadn’t let anyone down.
In the days leading up to his death, he had letters from all over the country. He might have been given the cold shoulder by the football establishment, but the rest of England knew what they were about to lose. They would mourn him with a passion.
I ended up sending two cards. I was in such a state of shock I didn’t know if I’d sent the first one or not, so I bought another. I just so wanted it to be right. I didn’t have to agonize over what to say. Everything was straight from the heart.
Bobby, I’m so sorry to bear of your illness. I want you to know my thoughts and prayers are with you and you’ll always have a special place in my heart.
I might even have said, I love you.
Roberta phoned to tell me that a mountain of mail had arrived for him as soon as the news broke. He read my card, put it down, then picked it up again and showed it to her. ‘That’s lovely,’ he said.
It gave me great comfort that I was able to tell him all this. That I could reassure him that whatever had happened, whatever he had done, it didn’t matter. That’s why I duplicated the card -1 had to make sure he got it. I was just trying to say to him that all the harsh words and lies and tears and rows were of no consequence. I wanted him to be at peace and I wanted to be at peace with him because I knew I was saying goodbye. He knew what I meant.
Bobby worked right up to the last moment. His final commitment with Capital Gold was at the England game against San Marino. He was finishing his career at Wembley. He would have liked that. A couple of journalists rode with him in the lift on the way up to the commentary box. One of them said, ‘We could do with you out there tonight, Bobby.’
‘I think I might need a late fitness test,’ Bobby said.
The cameras panned in on him in the commentary box. He sat there, gaunt, cap on. His voice was weak. When the game finished, he clenched his fists as if to say, ‘I’ve done it.’
It was almost noble.
‘Are you all right, lady?’ said the cop.
‘I’m fine, but someone I love is dying.’
The cop and his colleague had been standing on the sidewalk as I walked past, crying. I had been to the English pub in Miami. The intention had been to raise a glass of gin and tonic in Bobby’s honour but I just couldn’t do it. I pushed the glass to one side and gathered up my things. I just wanted to seek refuge in my apartment.
The cops were sweet. They drove me home. We had just got through the door when the phone rang. It was a friend, Sharon. She lived on her own. ‘I’ve just fallen and damaged my ankle,’ she told me. ‘I can’t move. What am I going to do?’
‘Why don’t you come over here where I can make sure you’re OK?’ I said.
Unbelievably, the cops said they would fetch her. They went over to her place, brought her back and helped her into the apartment, where I made up a bed for her. It kept my mind off what was happening in England.
Then I went to bed and fell into some kind of sleep. At five in the morning, the ringing phone woke me up. It was Roberta. She simply said, ‘Dad died.’
I got dressed. Words can’t describe how I felt. I wished I hadn’t asked Sharon to come round. I just wanted to be on my own. I went for a long walk down to a church on Miami Beach. It was closed, so I stood outside and said a prayer for Bobby.
Over the days that followed, I wanted to lock myself away. My friends were kind, patient and generous. They would come and sit with me. I couldn’t talk to them.
I could have gone back to England for his funeral but in the end I decided it would be the wrong thing to do. I didn’t want my children to feel uncomfortable about my being there with Stephanie. So the day he was buried I went to church in Miami with a girlfriend and paid my respects to him there.
I was inconsolable. I couldn’t stop crying. I don’t know what I was crying over - everything, I suppose. Someone I loved had died. I’d had such wonderful times with him. He was so young when he died, the same age as my mother. He wouldn’t see Poppy growing up into a beautiful young woman. Roberta would have children and he’d never meet them.
I cried for all the years that had gone. The beautiful boy who had asked me to dance. Blue Moon, I saw you standing alone. Me in my boat-necked dress.
Bobby with his first car. The red Ford Zephyr, paid for with the neatly bundled notes in the brown paper bag.
Bobby mounting the steps at Wembley on a summer’s day in 1966. Carefully wiping his hand on the balustrade so as not to sully the Queen’s immaculate glove.
Bobby holding up the World Cup, red shirt, sunlight on blond curls.
Bobby in Mexico, against Brazil. Bare-chested, swapping shirts with Pele after the greatest game he ever played.
Bobby the father, cradling newborn Roberta in the crook of his arm. Running to Woodford Bridge on an Essex morning with little Dean on his bike beside him.
Bobby laughing, head tilted back. The man who loved life and lived it to the hilt.
And I felt he’d been cheated. He’d been so overlooked in his last years. He shouldn’t have been photographed in his final days like that, when he looked so dreadfully ill. He looked so forlorn and brave and neglected by the football world. He shouldn’t have died like that.
The last thing Dean did for Bobby was to brush his hair as he lay in his coffin. A strand had fallen to one side, and Dean knew how important appearance was to his father. At the funeral service he took him a red rose. On all the anniversaries that were important to Bobby and our family, he has done so ever since.
‘Tina, it’s Stephanie,’ said the voice on the phone.
‘Oh - hold on a minute, will you?’ I went and fetched a glass of water. It wasn’t that I was thirsty. I felt really taken aback and needed time to compose myself.
‘They’re having a memorial service,’ she said when I picked up the phone again. ‘The eyes of the press will be on us and I think we should present a united front and sit together.’
‘Stephanie, I’m not going there to be seen,’ I said. ‘I’m going there to pay my respects. I don’t care where I sit. I’m not looking for public approval.’
I made my decision. I just truly wanted to be at Westminster Abbey on my own or with my loved ones. I didn’t want any pretence on that day. I hadn’t been to Bobby’s funeral because I wanted my children to be able to think only about their father and not be worried or feel concerned about me. Now I wanted the same courtesy for myself, so I could say my farewells without any distractions to a man whom I had loved and who had been a major part of my life for twenty-five years.
And that, on the day, was what I did. I didn’t expect or press the children to sit with me, but they chose to and I was so pleased they did. I felt as if Bobby was looking down and seeing all his loved ones, friends, team-mates and fans there, honouring him at this wonderful service in such a magnificent abbey, remembering him not only as one of the greatest footballers of all time but as a man who had touched the hearts and souls of so many. It was such an accolade. I savoured every moment.