A young married couple heard a knock on their door two days before Christmas and their lives changed for the next 45 years, after they let a man into their home
Just two days before Christmas, a man turned up at a couple’s home holding a bin bag in one hand and a frozen chicken in the other, but little did the couple know just how much their lives were about to change.
Rob and Dianne Parsons said they were getting ready for the big day when they unexpectedly heard a knock on the door. To their surprise they were met by a man holding a bin bag, which had all of his possessions, in one hand and a frozen chicken in his other hand.
Rob eventually recognised the man on his doorstep as someone he saw at Sunday School as a child, Ronnie Lockwood. Ronnie, who was autistic, saw the next four decades of his life change after Rob said two words to him.
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The couple, just 26 and 27 at the time, revealed why they decided to take the young man in back on December 23, 1975. Rob , from Wales, revealed: “I said come in.”
The couple added they felt compelled to let Ronnie in so let him bathe and told him to stay a few days over Christmas. This quickly turned into 45 years, until the day Ronnie sadly died. Rob, now 77, and Dianne, now 76, had only been married for four years when they took Ronnie, who was 30 at the time, in, they told the BBC.
Dianne said: “I can remember him now. He was sat at the Christmas table and he had these presents and he cried because he’d never known that sort of feeling of love, you know.”
The couple, from Cardiff, said they planned to let him stay for a few days over the festive period but could not bring themselves to let him go, so they looked after him. Ronnie had been homeless and unemployed since the age of 15. Rob and Dianne revealed the homeless centre told them Ronnie needed an address to get a job but Rob said he needed a job to get an address.
The couple added that Ronnie was awkward with them at first and sometimes struggled to make eye contact, but he eventually became comfortable. They said: “But then we got to know him and, in truth, we got to love him.”
Rob and Dianne then helped Ronnie to land a job as a waste collector and even helped him to get new clothes too. Rob, a lawyer, also woke up an hour early each day to take Ronnie to work before going to his own job.
Rob sweetly recalled one time he saw Ronnie smiling in the car and asked what was amusing. Ronnie said: “Rob, when you take me to work in the mornings, the other men say ‘who is that who brings you to work in that car?’ And I say ‘oh that’s my solicitor’.”
The lawyer said: “We don’t think he was proud of being taken to work by a lawyer, but we think maybe he never had somebody take him on his first day of school.”
Dianne said the dynamic at times at home was difficult but they couple said they could not imagine their lives without Ronnie. She said: “Sometimes I was his mother, sometimes I was his social worker and sometimes I was his carer.” Ronnie died in 2020, ages 75, following a stroke.
