Ben Stokes has revealed he has a huge task to face up to because the fallout from his late night in Bristol will never be over.
At some point very soon Stokes and his wife Clare are going to have to sit down with their children Layton, 9 and Libby, 7 and explain the significance of that night and what followed.
What they say and how much they reveal is still up for debate, but Stokes doesn’t want his children to be blindsided by the issue when they least expect it.
“Bristol will always be a part of my life and always something I have to deal with,” said Stokes ahead of the release of an Amazon Prime documentary about his rollercoaster life.
“When my kids get older we are going to have to sit down with them and explain that whole situation and how it is a part of our life.
“I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say to them, but we’re going to have to do it soon, Layton is getting older and he’s asking questions.
“Someone will bring it up with him, maybe at school, so we will have to explain the whole thing so they are not blindsided by it. We need to help the kids cope with it.
“People might think that just because the trial ended that was the end of it, but it certainly wasn’t. That was just the end of that period and then there was a start of another situation for me. It is never the end of anything.”
Stokes is talking from experience here too as the film explores with great honesty an incredible period in his life that could have made a trilogy.
As serious and dramatic as the Bristol episode and the trial for affray was, it pales in comparison to the situation his mum had to deal with three years before he was born when her then-partner murdered their children and then committed suicide.
And in the film, Stokes and his mum talk about the most painful of experiences.
“When that journalist knocked on the door,” says Deborah. “It was a morning I’ll never forget. I felt sick.”
And Stokes admits: “The reason that happened was because of cricket. I had a good 2019 so a newspaper brings out an article that opens up a lot of scars for my mum.”
It led to damages eventually being paid out to his mum, but it was the latest in a line of issues that Stokes was dealing with.
There was Bristol, the passing of his father Ged from terminal brain cancer, a debilitating finger injury, panic attacks, as well as life as a cricketer in the middle of a pandemic.
With his mental health at breaking point, Stokes took time out of the game, sought professional help that he still uses, while also taking medication to help him through it.
“No matter what I’ve been through I’ve kept going,” he said. “I guess it is a great strength to be able to show weakness.
“All those things are put in front of you and they are made for you to overcome. I try to never let anything define me at any given moment.”
Over the course of one and three quarter hours, a cleverly woven story emerges of a man capable of superhuman feats but who is laid low by his own humanity, his own mental and physical struggles before rising like a Phoenix from the Ashes.
- Ben Stokes: Phoenix from the Ashes launches on Prime Video on Friday 26th August
