SHE was the little girl watched by a nation as she shared snooker legend Alex Higgins's greatest triumph.
And today his beloved daughter spills the whole, awostonishing truth about what it was like to be swept along by the Hurricane.
Lauren Higgins was just two when millions saw her hugged by her weeping dad after he won the World Championships in 1982.
Last week Lauren, now a beautiful young woman, took centre stage again to tell him: "I love you, dad"... at his funeral.
Now, in a sensational interview, Lauren reveals her heartbreak that his final words to her were tragically: "F*** off!"
And she tells how how he:
- HURLED TVs through windows in front of his terrified kids during booze-fuelled fights with their mum
- POSTED envelopes stuffed with cash through the letterbox to try and win his family back
- THREATENED to have his children kidnapped following his divorce and
- TRIED to marry her off to a billionaire Dubai sheikh.
Lauren, 29, says: "People called him wild, unpredictable and off-the- wall, but to me, he was just my dad.
"And, contrary to what people think, he has always been there for me. Always, in his own unique way.
"My earliest memory of him is round about the time of the famous World Championships photo.
"I can remember him hitting upon this idea of using me in a trick shot.
"He laid me on the snooker table, placed a piece of chalk in my mouth and a snooker ball on top - and was just about to take the shot when my furious mum walked in!
"From the moment I was born, he was just so proud. When I lost my first two teeth, he had them dipped in gold and wore them around his neck. So it's hardly surprising when he won the World Championships that he wanted me sharing his moment.
"But my mum says it started his decline from then on. She even told a friend, 'This is the moment that all the trouble is going to start.' "
Sure enough, Alex's relationship with wife Lynn hit the rocks - and Lauren and brother Jordan saw it all.
Dad's fights with mum were legendary
Lauren says: "My dad's fights with mum were legendary. There were loads of rows. The worst? Too many to pick from. When he drank, he couldn't rein himself in and that's what fuelled his temper problem.
"Dad would throw whatever he could through windows in drunken rages - the TV, silverware, even Jordan's skateboard once.
"Police were regular visitors. We became quite friendly with them - I can remember playing with their badges."
Alex and Lynn divorced in 1985 - but little changed.
Lauren says: "In the beginning, he was generous because he was hell-bent on getting mum back - so he used to bung envelopes through the door packed with thousands of pounds. But when he realised she wasn't coming back, it turned nasty again.
"I remember once, my mum was having a dinner party, Dad kicking the front door off its hinges in another drunken rage.
"There were times when I had to be watched at school because he said he was going to have us kidnapped.
"He would have us followed to school so often that we were waving hello at the private investigator."
He was going to have us kidnapped
Lauren says she craved a normal relationship with her father and cherished time spent out of the limelight. Like the "normal" time Alex treated his kids to a Chinese takeaway, rather than take them to a restaurant and face all the attention.
"My dad never did anything by halves. He ordered one of EVERYTHING on the menu! There was so much food that we had to move the table out the way and set all the cartons out on the floor! Sometimes though he would do normal things like turn up out of the blue to watch me in a school play.
"But there were too many times when he would disappoint us too - when he'd arrange to do things with us and not turn up."
As Lauren grew up, Alex became extremely protective of his "little girl". He hated all her boyfriends and was so rude to them that Lauren's current boyfriend NEVER met her dad.
Alex even decided to take matters into his own hands and chose his daughter's partner. Lauren says: "Not so long ago, Dad rang my mum and told her: 'I want Lauren to come to Dubai with me because I want to get her a husband - in Dubai, they're not just millionaires, they're billionaires.' He was absolutely serious."
As he became increasingly frail, the once-dashing romeo poignantly confided to his daughter that he feared he would never find love again.
"He told me, 'I can't eat and I can't talk a lot and I'm never going to get a woman.' He used to say it all the time: 'No one's here to cuddle me.
CUE-TE: Lauren snookers dad
"I think I am a better person because my dad didn't squander his millions on me. Everything I've done I've worked for and got for myself.
"Still it is annoying and a terrible waste of money. I do find it embarrassing that he blew £4million gambling. But he loved it. And I'm happy he did what made him happy."
In recent months Alex became more demanding of Lauren who is busy as a human resources executive.
"Once I was going to work and he was staying at the Travel Inn in Manchester and he rang me saying, 'I need to see you, It's really important.'
So I rushed there and he said I needed to get him a pot of tea because there was no room service. That was why he called."
Then recently Alex called her expecting her to drop everything at the last minute to be by his side at a benefit in his name. Lauren couldn't make it and Alex was furious.
He shouted: "F*** off!" at her and Lauren slammed the phone down. She said: "I thought, 'You can't speak to me like that.' I was angry. You see, in many ways I'm a lot like him."
Her dad rang a week later to apologise but Lauren was busy - and still annoyed - and didn't take the call. Alex was found dead in his sheltered accommodation in Belfast on July 24 before they had a chance to make up.
I never got the chance to say goodbye
She recalled: "Auntie Anne found him and rang my mum straight away. When I heard her coming up the stairs, I just had a terrible feeling. I said: 'Is my dad dead?' She just said: 'Yes' and I burst into tears. I was devastated I never got the chance to say goodbye."
Incredibly Lauren is convinced neither the throat cancer he fought for 12 years nor drink caused Alex's death at 61. "I believe he beat cancer - when we got the coroner's report, there was no mention of him having it.
"And also despite everyone going on about him being an alcoholic, the coroner did a report on his liver and it was in a GOOD news condition."
On the morning of Alex's funeral, in Belfast, Lauren spent a quiet half hour alone with her father's coffin.
She says: "Rather than saying I'm sorry, I told him all the things I had wished I had said. He knew that I loved him. I told him that all the time on the phone.
"But I told him I loved him one last time."
