Family Facts & Fantasies

When I recently posed the question on social media as to the wisdom of writing about Predators from the Past, family members whose behaviour towards unprotected young girls should have been curbed, the reactions were immediate, diverse, thought provoking. Many comments came privately, some via email as have a number of communications on family matters over the past year. Overall the feeling was that it is better by far to stay silent. Do not waken sleeping dogs. Predominantly Roman Catholic Families still seem to reflect the attitudes of their Church and prefer to continue to offer robust protection where certain matters of offending are concerned. And though not entirely surprising, in this day and age that is more than a little disappointing. But is it in the great scheme of things any more disheartening than the veil of secrecy that is traditionally drawn over a whole raft of other, infinitely less contentious Family Matters many would prefer to dismiss permanently into the nether regions of the Undiscussable?

It would be reassuring to be able to say that such attitudes are behind the times, outdated, even archaic and in these more enlightened times we of the twenty first century, so utterly up to date in outlook find them laughingly old fashioned. Except so many of us don’t. My grandmother and aunts were highly shamed by the presence of Queenie the Hermaphrodite in their ranks. She was only to be spoken of in whispers. Years later Old Nan would reluctantly admit that she had been `One of Them There Aphrodites’, causing rapid reference to the Myths of Ancient Greece followed by even more confusion. Similarly in the late nineteen forties my mother was deeply mortified to concede that my father was a serial adulterer and could only bring herself to openly acknowledge the fact when he had been dead for over thirty years. In her distress she sadly always overlooked his good points. He had also been a charismatic individual with a wide range of interests and many loyal friends. He read widely, learned Arias from Italian Opera simply for fun and wrote poetry, somewhat unusual interests for a working class man and maybe worthy of discussion. But he was as far as she was concerned simply designated a sexual philanderer and as she was never prepared to openly recognise the infidelity, his memory together with all that was worthy about him was forever consigned to a dark corner and he was only rarely spoken of.

Years later it was more understandable that she had an eagerness for my brother’s brief and unsuccessful career in crime in his teens to be overlooked. He was never going to pose a threat to the Krays or the Richardsons and in the execution of his lawbreaking left behind enough clues to give even Hercule Poirot a headache but our mother’s enthusiasm for denying that any of the incidents actually took place was disquieting. So unwavering was her determination to utterly ignore his offending I was barely allowed to know of it myself and was never able to ascertain if anyone else in the immediate family was actually aware of it because an iron curtain of silence descended that made discussion impossible. This was unfortunate because even at the time I was aware that the unhappy episodes had come about primarily because he was missing a father’s influence and it might have helped if it could have been openly spoken of. This was never to be the case, however, and I imagine that should I broach the subject even today I would be soundly castigated by a number of first and second cousins who feel they knew him well yet knew him not at all.

My father’s family was no better at accepting calamitous situations and my paternal grandmother’s forty year incarceration within a mental hospital for drunkenness and picking neighbourhood fights was a luckless tale that worsened with embroidery. Simply because the true facts of her confinement were never spoken of we grandchildren came to the conclusion that she was a murderess and told each other stories of the bodies that were later found under the house in Chatham. This eventually became playground gossip then street gossip that filtered back to the astonished adults so keen on protecting her reputation from slanderous comment in the first place.

When my first son was born in the late nineteen sixties my mother was appalled by my unmarried status and for the benefit of friends and neighbours married me off to an entirely imaginary architect. I was not able to work out whether my closest relatives were also privy to this tale because the familial rules surrounding concealment of truth dictated that the topic could never be raised. However, a few years later when I entered an Actual Marriage with a New Zealand doctor she was greatly discomfited and forced to kill of the architect and remarry me as swiftly as possible. The speed of the nuptials was purely because Medicine rated more highly than Architecture in the family scale of general achievement. To this day the demise of Husband Number One is never mentioned.

Matters concerning sexual attraction and long term attachments between men and women were customarily even more taboo and their discussion was generally prohibited at all times. Leaving a long term partner was so horrifying it was largely ignored for as long as possible and finally debated only tentatively and in a kid glove atmosphere. Surprisingly, even in the more enlightened nineteen eighties family consternation was rife when my brother decided to walk away from his first marriage. Bernard had been a husband and father at the tender age of eighteen and it seemed not altogether surprising that after twenty years he saw fit to move on from his first wife to his second. What might have been a moderately standard transition was sadly greatly complicated by the fact that two couples who had been friends since schooldays and who had acted as Best Men and Maids of Honour at each other’s weddings, now kept things simple by switching partners thus making their lives the stuff of BBC comedies. This fact so disturbed our nearest and dearest that the many Aunts simply decided that it wasn’t happening. It was just a vicious and unfounded rumour that could not possibly be spoken of even though the truth was clearly visible to most of those around us and the details of the partner switch so sensational and scandalous that it caused months of gossip in North Kent. It is easy to comprehend the reluctance to acknowledge the rapidly unfolding drama but unhappily such attitudes only aid and abet the layers of secrets and lies that for no very good reason thrive and flourish within families where Truth has little value. Aghast and amused bystanders are destined to be for ever confused by the end result of certain human behaviours and eventually are given to understand that just a few family members know the Whole Truth of what the reprobates are up to whilst others are aware of partial truths and a further much less informed group know little or nothing at all because for some reason they need to be Protected. And whilst Protecting the Young is completely logical, there is surely a case for querying why protection needs to continue for decades. Sadly, such mind sets become entrenched even though they serve merely to foster misgivings because in an environment of distrust it is challenging for any one of us to make sensible decisions as to what can be discussed and with whom. Possibly that was not entirely uncommon thirty years ago and we might be advised to simply analyse it alongside the underlying social bigotry that also existed at the time. But surely things have changed by now?

Yet have they? As far as relationship break ups are concerned, these carry with them such a raft of damaged emotions it is easy to see how it simply becomes easier not to examine a subject that is agonisingly painful. It’s a fact that in human affiliations one person will always be destined to suffer the greater anguish. The humiliation of being seen as no longer valued when a long term partner signals their intention to move on cannot be truly understood by those in more secure relationships. It therefore becomes ever more logical that Mythology is fostered whilst Truth withers and with time those who seek to question the Mythology are rapidly labelled Liars of the First Order.

So what of those other dark perpetrators of misery we started with? The predators from times past who heaped their inappropriate behaviours onto the young and unprotected? Does there ever come a time when their transgressions can be exposed and the torment they inflicted be examined? Or does it do no good to Bring It All Up? Should we instead begin to accept the new family parameters of Folklore rather than face what an unfortunate few once knew to be Facts? With the passage of the years it becomes ever more feasible that the transgressions of the wrongdoers are protected alongside more run of the mill misdeeds. Does it do any good to heap misery upon their descendants? The defence of Wrongdoing begins tentatively at first simply with the passing of time. Then time creeps up alongside accuracy soundlessly, surreptitiously and irrevocably stealing certainty. Its relentless passage can be traced in the shifting boundaries of honour and integrity. Time will always be the ultimate Victor.