My English great grandfather, as well as researching his family history, also wrote brief biographies of his parents, and of what he knew of other family members, such as the grandparents he never knew. I have often wanted to do the same thing, but I have always held back. Either these people were living, in which case it was unfair to write about them as that might cause hurt and pain if they were to become aware of my thoughts and feelings, or if they were already dead, what good would it do? Nobody is perfect, we all have failings, but I have always wanted to understood better why we are a certain way, and what influence our backgrounds and upbringings have had on us.
My mother died a year ago, and she was an important influence on me, and I was the only one of her children to identify with her background, language and culture. My siblings all chose to be absorbed into Mancunian life.
How do I describe my mother? Physically she was short, perhaps five feet tall. Nearly all her life she was overweight, something that I think started with the death of my sister before I was born. She lost weight twice that I recall, both times associated with returns to Italy, once when I was about seven in 1956, and again in about 1958. After that, the weight stayed on and slowly grew. She had good skin, and very little grey hair, even at the end of her life. Her personality was fiery: she was permanently angry, losing her temper at the slightest provocation. She could not cope with silence, often mumbling and humming to herself, forcing 'conversation' which usually consisted of her giving a monologue. A 'conversation' quickly became a confrontation. My mother was very opinionated, and never apologised to a person in her life, because she was always right.She was not a listener, she was a fury, with a huge sense of entitlement. To me it felt that, having survived awful experiences in the war, she met my father when peace came and then just coasted through life, expecting to be waited on, respected, honoured, pampered and indulged. Like my father she was magnificently egotistical. I remember her saying that it was my father whom she loved, and that she never wanted children, although she bore six of us. When I was driving her to distraction as a teenager I remember her phrase, wishing she had drowned me in the toilet when I was born, Another phrase, when told what a nice person I was, was to retort that 'You don't know what he's really like'. I do not recall interacting with my mother as a child. We didn't have stories at bedtime or anything like that. From birth pretty much I learnt to be on my own and enjoy my own company. I didn't have birthday parties, mostly because my birthday falls at the very end of July. We did not have family holidays, though on one occasion we all went with my grandparents to Newton's Farm near Scarborough. On a couple of occasions my mother did walk with us down the lanes from our council house to Castle Mills, an outdoor swimming pool, together with her friend Franca.
My mother's fiery temper meant that we were all in fear of her exploding, especially my father, who actually stayed away most of the time. He left early and came home late. When we moved to Alexandra Park there was the daily evening ritual of eating our 'tea' at 6pm, and my father's plate being placed over a pan of simmering water till he got home an hour or two later. There was no compromise. On one occasion I remember my mother throwing the plate at the wall when my father sulked after being upbraided for being late home as usual. The mashed potatoes and gravy created a suction pad so the plate stuck to the wall, so we all burst out laughing, breaking the tension. It did not for my mother though.
My mother was not happy as a housewife. Our food was pretty monotonous, with a strong reliance on 1960s convenience foods: 'Smash' instant mashed potatoes, 'Surprise' freeze-dried peas, that we're always impossibly salty, as my mother never adjusted her method of adding a handful of salt to cooking vegetables, and 'Angel Delight' instant pudding. She did make occasional apple pies, but custard was mostly forbidden, and because she only drank coffee she treated tea as 'unclean' and never made a cup of tea for my father in their seventy years together.
She disliked my grandmother and most of my father's family, making exceptions only for my young uncle Ralph, and for my great aunt Dora who she saw as having some class and education, as she also respected my great aunt Phyllis in Loughton, and especially her husband uncle Jimmy, who worked for a bank like her own father. My mother had no time for people she saw as working class or uneducated except as people who might admire her.
My mother could dress well, despite her dumpy figure, and in a very continental way that she never lost. She did have style. She was certainly a shopaholic, her main pastime throughout her life being shopping for clothes for herself and for my three sisters. There were vast quantities of these which accumulated in the attic rooms. She loved opera, and was very happy as a theatrical landlady after I left home, as in addition to having a captive audience of listeners, she had a plentiful supply of complimentary tickets, and she received all the income, although it was my father who made all the breakfasts and prepared all the bedrooms for the guests.
It was when we became teenagers that my mother was challenged. As children we could be smacked, shouted at and punished. As we became older we began to stand up to her and this infuriated her to the point of hysterical madness. She expected total obedience and total respect. Answering back was a terrible crime, but this gave us power, so that by answering back we could drive her over the edge, which we did. Our teenage years were marked by her reliance on purple hearts (dexamyl) and threats of suicide, such as placing the miniature gas poker on the cooker in her mouth. Christmas had always been a terrible time, when my mother's anxiety levels would explode and she would fall to pieces.
My mother could shine, and in particular I remember how she would function well as an amateur midwife, supporting my sisters when they became mothers. When my mother came close to death with the birth of my brother when she was forty we all felt close to her, of course we did, she was still our mother, despite her failings. She also shone when she returned to Italy. In about 1983 I travelled with her to Italy as my grandfather was unwell, and she seemed a different person, calmer. more rational, and more lovable. I am glad I had that glimpse of another persona.
My mother truly reflected her background, as a northern Italian, as somebody who had survived World War Two in very difficult circumstances, and who in the process of that war had been cheated of her chance of an education. It was partly that that led to her sense of entitlement too. She always felt superior to my father and his family. What I found particularly difficult was her apparent lack of rationality. I remember saying very early on that it seemed that my mother had a ganglion rather than a brain. Everything had a set response. Nothing was negotiable. She was always right. She was remarkably selfish and egotistical. But sometimes, under very extreme pressure, a better person could show themself, a glimmer of sensitivity and thoughtfulness. I always used to say that it was all Hitler's fault. I don't think it was all his fault, but certainly what she lived through damaged her terribly, and froze her so that she did not fully develop intellectually or emotionally. The price she paid was that she was never satisfied, never happy, never formed a good friendship, never was able to think about others and their needs, and was never fulfilled in what she did. Her life was one of frustration, waiting for others to make her happy.
I never gave up on my mother though. At one time I wanted to help her, to make it possible to move on from this frozen, stunted state, but of course that did not work. I determined that I would stay loyal and supportive, but in my twenties I started to make my own life, and broke away from her emotional hold. That worked. I tried to support my father as best I could, and I suppose that worked too. I learned Italian, I got the education she had always craved, I loved opera as she did, I had a home in Italy. I suppose I thought these things would make her happy, and in a way they did. Fortunately they gave me happiness too.
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