My Eldest Sister

In January 1946 my mother became pregnant by my father, a soldier based in Milan at the end of the war. He left shortly afterwards for duty in Austria. Then followed a battle as my father attempted to be reunited with my mother in order to marry her, which he eventually did, thanks to his release from the army, his return to England, and the help of a local Anglican clergyman. My parents married on June 29th 1946, in St Margaret's church, Whalley Range, when my mother was almost six months pregnant.
Their daughter, named Valerie Liliana (her second name after her mother), was born at my father's parents' home on October 4th 1946. My parents spent the first five or six years of their married life living there, mostly on the top floor. I believe Valerie was especially close to our English grandmother, especially after the birth of my parents' second child, another girl, Stella Grace, only just over a year later, on 6th December 1947. She was a sickly child, born, it was later discovered, with an enlarged heart, and she died only ten months later in October 1948. During this time I believe Valerie spent a lot of time with our grandmother, as they all lived together, and my mother spent a lot of time with Stella, with frequent hospital visits.
Just over nine months after Stella's death I was born, and two years later Rina Grace, my parents' next daughter was born. I think she too was born at Manley Road, but I think that soon after her birth we left Manley Road to live in a new council house on the Wythenshawe estate. I was weaned abruptly at this time, there was a new baby to be cared for, and Valerie lost the close support of our grandmother. I should imagine that must have been difficult for her.
My recollections of those early days of our childhood are of Valerie and Rina, five years apart in age, sharing a bedroom. I was jealous, as I was alone, but now I think that cannot have been easy for Valerie, as that is a large age gap at that young age. Valerie was less than three years older than me, but I don't recall any closeness as siblings, though I do remember running away together one day to escape from difficulties at home, taking a toy piano with us as we walked through the fields near our home, but eventually coming home as the day grew on and we were getting hungry. I don't have memories of sharing anything else with Valerie, nor with Rina then. We started going together to stay for the weekends at my grandparents, and I recall closeness with my aunt and uncle as well as my grandmother, and a little with my grandfather, but I cannot remember a sense of connection with my eldest sister. I think I must have been an embarrassing, irritating younger brother, just as how I probably appeared when I started at primary school, a scared, awed, insecure child, and Valerie did her very best to avoid me. I have often recollected the hurt that I felt then.
It was in the early 1960s that we were living again in my grandparents' house in Manley Road, overlapping a little till they moved to Devon. My parents were wealthier by then, they had a van, and went out every week together, usually, I think, on a Thursday evening. They would eat together in Willoughby's, a smart restaurant, and then go to the cinema or theatre. We would be left to our own devices all evening, with Valerie placed in charge; I suppose if I were 12 she'd be 15, Rina 10 and the youngest, Dana, would have been 4. It was a tall order for her to be in charge of us week after week, and it was sometimes difficult, though often fun. I remember playing ghosts, when we would take it in turns to place a sheet over ourselves and then come in the girls' bedroom and terrorise each other, or another time when they dressed me up as an elderly lady, complete with clothes, wig and makeup, and sent me next door. When Mrs Berry answered the door she said, 'Hello Frankie!'.
Another occasion wasn't so pleasant. Angry with me for not doing I was told, Valerie chased me down the stairs holding a heavy marble statue of a cat, striking me on the back of my head. She was so angry that I had to go to the Lorant family next door, and Dr Davitt came from his home at the corner and stitched my head. On another occasion she was chasing my sister Rina who rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her, so that Valerie's head went through the glass cutting her face. I remember she came down the stairs, face and hands covered with blood, and said to me, 'I've cut my nose off!' The next day I fainted when I recalled this. As the eldest child Valerie had the standard task of being in charge. I think a similar accident occurred when Valerie attempted to stop our learning-disabled aunt Silvana from leaving the house. Silvana slammed the front door, Valerie put up her hand which went through the glass, and she received terrible cuts.
We did go together annually down to Devon on the train to stay with my grandparents, but we lived separate lives there for most of the time, as I was obsessed with playing in the stream and the woods, but we had understandably very different interests, although I think we rubbed along together pretty well. It was no wonder she was bossy, as she was groomed for that role.
I think it was in 1964 that Valerie had had enough and ran away from home, a difficult experience, as she had nobody to stay with, and in fact slept for a few nights in railway carriages in a sidings. I think she'd met a boy already at the Twisted Wheel club—she was normal in that she was attracted by now to boys, wanted to go out, wanted to be a raver in the new 60s pop scene. My parents did nothing to prepare any of us for a social life or adult life. My mother was as usual angry, and my father played the role of the typical reactionary father: trying out lipstick, Valerie would be told she 'looked like a prostitute'. I cannot remember the exact sequence of events, but I do know that Valerie had a job as a typist at the Inland Revenue in Manchester, and that she married Peter in January, 1966. Peter was similar to my father in being a lovely, gentle guy, totally lacking in self-confidence, in his case because he was an illegitimate child, the son of a G.I. who returned to his wife in America. Valerie perpetuated ever afterwards the role of my mother in being permanently angry and unremittingly envious and resentful, and Peter duplicated that of my father in being a patient doormat.
It was Valerie who organised and paid for her and Peter's wedding in January, 1966, my parents proffering the regular excuse that January was a difficult time for money, though at this time my father was drinking heavily, and expensively. However, Valerie and Peter did come to live upstairs at Manley Road, in the very rooms our parents had lived in for the first years of their married life together. Their daughter Lisa was born just thirteen months later, in February 1967. I remember babysitting for them, and giving Lisa baths as a baby.
It was when Lisa was born that my mother became pregnant with her last child, whilst staying with my father when he was working away on Anglesey for several months. Although Lisa was my parents' first grandchild, my mother's pregnancy meant that Valerie was unable to receive the expected dotage for her own child. Furthermore, my mother spent most of 1967 in hospital, and I think she had to take her O-level exams (she was studying for adult-entry teacher training) sitting in a hospital bed. Throughout 1967 it was I who took the main responsibilty for caring for my two younger sisters, and feeding them and my father, whilst at the same time I was attempting to study for my A-levels which I took in June 1967. Looking back it saddens and surprises me that Valerie kept firmly separate and uninvolved, though I was helping to care occasionally for my niece as well.
When my mother went into labour in November 1967, after two days an emergency caesarian section was performed, and my mother's heart stopped. She was resuscitated, but it was very scary for all of us. I supported my father, who sent for me urgently to join him at the hospital. When she had recovered a little we were all able to sit round her bed, emotional to see how frail she looked, and knowing how close she had been to death. When she came home it was me who bore the brunt of the nighttime childcare, giving my new baby brother his feeds in the early hours, and continuing with the domestic chores, though it was my father who would get up when the new baby woke in the morning, and bring him down at 6am to play with him. It was fortuitous that although I passed my A-levels in the summer of 1967, my grades were mostly poor, so that I ended up repeating the year, which allowed me to continue my caring role.
Valerie though. never accepted and welcomed her brother. Adrian did not have a happy childhood, especially after the first few years, but Valerie never forgave him for the mere fact of even being born. They live very close to each other but have no contact whatsoever. The resentment has never gone away.
I think it was about this time that Valerie and Peter left for their own home, which I think was a terraced house in Railway Street, Gorton. I did visit them there a few times. I also enjoyed going for walks in the Peak District with Peter.
I went off to university in October 1968, but in the autumn of 1969 both Valerie fell pregnant, and our sister Rina. Rina, however, was unmarried. I happened to be home in Manchester when she told my mother, who asked me to tell our father. I guessed rightly that he would be furiously angry, but I managed it well, and the anger was contained. Rina, under pressure from my mother, kept the pregnancy, but she lived at home and at long last she had some loving support from our mother, but meanwhile Valerie, who was equally pregnant, missed out yet again on some grandparental dotage. Fortunately this was forthcoming from the lovely Auntie May, which was how everybody knew Peter's mother. Valerie's son Michael was born on 22nd April 1970 and Rina's son Julian was born on 2nd May 1970. I am sure my parents celebrated this, but with a toddler of their own, and given the kind of people they were, I am also sure they wouldn't have realised how hurt Valerie might have been. Valerie was always close to her mother in law, and Valerie had her last child, her son Paul, on 16th April 1973, by which time they were living on the Hattersley estate outside Manchester. It was here that Auntie May died in the spring of 1979, aged only 60. Valerie did care for her at the end of her life, but there was a curious and inexplicable incident when her death occurred, and Valerie wanted the body removed from their home immediately. I've no idea why that was so.
Valerie and Peter moved from Hattersley to Glossop, buying their own home. Peter worked in engineering, I think as an engineering fitter, and was unfortunate that his employers went successively out of business. Fortunately, Valerie managed it so that the mortgage was paid by the benefits system that then existed, but Valerie was already becoming a victim to jealousy and resentment. My father employed Peter for a while, and they enjoyed working together, but we heard that Valerie thought he was underpaid, and stopped it. Over the years there were many similar stories. I paid Peter to help me demolish some outbuilding, and to build some new sash windows. I paid train fares, a salary and provided obviously board and lodgings, but I heard that that too was unsatisfactory and insufficient. My uncle Ralph paid Peter to fit a new kitchen, and the same complaint arose. My sister and her husband were living in Bideford, so at the very end of their Devonshire sojourn we employed my sister to do some childcare for our youngest, then a toddler, to give them some financial support.
The stay in Bideford was difficult. Valerie always gave priority to her two sons who could do no wrong. I recall being invited to visit and have tea with my wife and children, but when we got there the two sons had been, and all the food was eaten. There was no apology or explanation, just a suggestion that we'd got it wrong. I nipped up the road from their house and bought some food, pretending that it was what we expected, but I was hurt. My mother was similarly hurt when she visited them from Manchester, and her camera vanished from a table while Paul was there, but the inference of course was made that she'd made a mistake.  My parents were staying with us in March 1993 when we took them to see Valerie and Peter before we were to go to Dowland to see our father's sister, Lyn, but sadly Lyn died that day.
Soon after Valerie and Peter left Bideford, probably in 1994 or 1995. Peter was enjoying his work at the bike hire centre very nearby, but of course he did as he was told, the house was sold, and back they went to Glossop. It was also the time when Valerie cut ties with most of us, though she stayed friends with our sister Dana while she was not close to our parents for a few years. In June 1996 it was my parent's 50th wedding anniversary, and a special dinner was arranged for us all in Chester, with my parents booked into a special suite. Valerie said she couldn't really afford it, but my mother insisted she would pay, and she and Peter were expected but never turned up. My mother never saw either of them again. I suppose the affront was deliberate. My father once engineered a chance meeting with Valerie in a store carpark, but when she saw him face to face, she just said, 'What are you doing here?' and angrily turned away.
I did see Valerie when she asked to come and visit us in Devon over ten years ago when she thought she was dying of leukaemia. She came, and we welcomed her, we listened to her, and that was that. As it turned out her leukaemia was not terminal.
A few years later there was the sad tale of Paul's death. By then an alcoholic and drug taker, he was admitted to hospital, where he was warned that another drink would kill him. He persuaded a friend to smuggle some alcohol to him, and it killed him. He had a partner and left a son. Valerie strangely attempted to sue the hospital for neglect, but she had pursued several other such futile complaints in the past. I sent a card with a message of sympathy. Dana also sent a similar card, but it was returned to her in an envelope shredded to pieces. Dana had been close but the relationship chilled whn Dana became closer again to my parents.
Valerie from her time in Bideford, and perhaps before, pursued friendships with people who disliked their families, though she did maintain a friendship with our uncle Philip. a strange person with some personality disorder, perhaps autism. She went to see him near Ilfracombe, she telephoned him, and she angled for a legacy. I think he left her £20,000 though he deducted the money he'd provided for a trip to Australia by her son Michael. I gave the eulogy at Philip's funeral, and Michael helped me carry Philip's coffin, though she studiously avoided me. My last glimpse of her in my life was as I was carrying the coffin. In fairness, it was Valerie who saved Philip's life. her stange plan of ingratiating herself with Philip meant that when she failed to make contact with him for too long at his remote cottage she called the police who broke in and called an ambulance. He may not have been grateful for this, but it was good that he did not die horribly.
I believe, according to my daughter, that Valerie left a curious comment on Amazon on my small booklet that I wrote last year about my life and illness, saying that it wasn't as she remembered our childhood, and that, I think, I wasn't practising what I preached. There was no reference, I believe to anything else, like my terminal illness, or our mother's death. I suppose it was this that has provoked my thoughts here.
Valerie has a grandson by her son Michael and his marriage to a lovely Romanian. Their son, my great nephew, was in contact with me over the past month, and I was able to tell him how I remembered last seeing him when he was a toddler, before his parents separated and divorced. He had been told that we all hated him, which was why there was no contact between him and his family. I can guess who told him that, and I assured him that it was not true.
Valerie could never see any wrong in her sons' behaviour, though they could be challenging. Her daughter was blessed with decency and kindness, though even she found it difficult to tread a safe path in her dealings with her mother. I remember many years ago when they grew apart, and Valerie attempted to take court action to gain access to her grandchildren. Lisa to her credit, being the decent person she is, did maintain contact with her parents and with her grandparents. It was she alone from that side of the family who attended my mother's funeral, just as it was she alone who came with her husband to my parents' 60th wedding anniversary. These were brave acts, as Valerie always expected people to take sides, as Dana had done for a while, to be cut off when she reconnected with our parents.
This is just a narrative account. It's not revenge, or justification, merely a description of a family in disarray. I thought that writing this down would help me to understand what happened in my sister's life. These are memories, not facts, except for obvious data likes births, marriages and deaths. They are my memories that survived through the decades. I cannot make sense of what happened. Certainly Valerie was angry like my mother, but then my niece is angry, as is my daughter. My mother's anger was not focused, it was not directed at anybody or anything in particular. My sister's anger seemed to become a whirlpool, that grew and dragged her down, and became personalised. She wrote letters that were angry. Such letters, that should be written but not sent to the recipient, she sent to me, and I dealt with them by placing them in a special box, so that they could be compartmentalised and not allowed to affect our relationship. I still have them, and haven't read them again, any more than I read the comment on Amazon that triggered this response. She was contemptuous of employers, as she was of the hospital where her son died. She drew around her friends like Sue in Bideford who were similarly bitter and resentful. She let us down deliberately, whether it was at my parents' golden wedding, or earlier, when we were paying her to help us with childcare, and she would let us down without reason. She once said two decades ago that the next time she would see my mother would be when she was in a coffin. My mother was not vindictive, like Valerie, and offered the hand of friendship, as did my father. Valerie did not see our mother ever again, and did not attend her funeral. Valerie flavoured her anger with a strain of hurtful spitefulness.
I realise how fortunate I was in my own life. I have a different personality, in which I had no choice, it was just the way I was born. Valerie's personality was different, and I am glad I do not share her anger and bitterness.