When Ben Leyland’s mum said she was in trouble, he had no idea she was about to be exposed for sending hundreds of abusive tweets about Madeleine McCann’s parents – or of the tragic end to her story
here was this entire part of Mum that I never knew about,” Ben Leyland says. Brenda Leyland was a stylish, well-spoken and rather private woman who lived in a picturesque village in Leicestershire. He knew she told stories, and that some of them may have been on the tall side. He also knew that she spent a lot of time on her laptop and was increasingly living online.
Brenda Leyland, who was 63 when she died, grew up in a military family in Albrighton, Shropshire. She went to convent school and briefly worked in marketing. When she met her future husband and Ben’s father in the 1970s, she told her parents that he didn’t make much money and she was bringing home the bacon. In fact, he was doing very well for himself. A working-class boy, he had grown up in Birmingham and qualified as an accountant.
Rocketman came out in 2019, five years after Brenda’s death. By then Ben was suspicious about many of the stories she had told him. The thing is, he says, his mother’s stories were so colourful that he wanted to believe them, even if he had his doubts. Take the tale about her father. “She would have you believe he was involved in more missions than anybody else in the RAF.
they lived in the biggest house on the block, and both Ben and his brother were sent to private schools. They went on holidays to the Caribbean, and Brenda was indulged. “She spent a lot of time buying clothes and at makeup counters. She liked the fine life.”Then, when Ben was 12, the family fell apart. His father left Brenda for another woman, to whom he is still happily married.
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