English divorce in the early Fifties wasn’t a sedate exchange of paperwork between lawyers. If you wanted to contest it—there was every reason to do so—you had to appear in court, and risk your pain being turned into Sunday morning entertainment by reporters from the News of the World. This humiliation happened to my mother versus stepfather no. 1. It was nasty.
You couldn’t have a divorce simply because you wanted one. You needed “grounds”, every kind of which was potentially lurid. “Irretrievable breakdown of marriage” was not sufficient.. My mother chose Cruelty. Stepfather no. 1 was ready to fight this by every means, furiously defending his reputation. My mother feared he would counter-sue for adultery, and tried—by every means—to conceal the evidence. Accordingly, she lived in constant fear of private eyes. So Sep remained on the Isle of Wight, and she remained in the attic flat at my Granny’s house. At weekends, while I was at boarding-school during term-time, they would each take a train and rendezvous at the approximate mid-point: Brighton. This brash seaside town, now famous for its Gay Pride marches, was already known for hotels where lovers could sign the register as Mr and Mrs Smith and have a “dirty weekend”. Even there, my mother and future stepfather remained vigilant, in case she was being tailed.
One school holidays, Sep (his first name was Septimus) taking elaborate precaution, did come to Granny’s house. He brought me a craft knife with changeable blades as a present. I thought this was pretty good, and he seemed to be genial with a sense of humour. That evening, my mother prepared him a seductive concoction in the kitchen, a snack rather than a meal. I was indignant when I discovered it was just for the two of them. “Where’s mine?” It seemed they were trying to cut me out of their fun. As far as I was concerned, the acquisition of a new stepfather to replace the old was a matter for me to celebrate as much as my mother; and it was my role to assist her in making a better choice this time. Clearly Blackett with his flowers and all was doing his best to impress her. He would need to reckon with me as well. To the extent I approved of him as my new father-figure, I would co-operate with her too, so all would gain.
During the week, the lovers exchanged letters every day. I was pretty amazed by that. Sometimes she would read me selected fragments of his letter to her—all this of course in a joyful school holiday, when I was trying to monopolise my mother’s attention after those dreadful dark years (for which I do not blame Stepfather no. 1: he was not the cruel man she depicted). So I took it upon myself to include a daily letter too. I had nothing to say so I would draw cartoons. These soon became satirical, with Sep as their butt.
He smoked a lot so I would draw him with three lighted cigarettes in his mouth and others nearby, often burning the furniture. He was a handyman (his frustrated engineering creativity always blossoming into new projects) so I would show him hammering floorboards and inventing things. He used to remark on the way I threw my clothes on the floor, so I had him screwing hooks to the floor to make it easier to hang them up overnight. I was an eleven-year old schoolboy, after all.
Their wooing involved various gramophone records acquired for the ambience. It started with Mantovani’s Orchestra: Only a Rose, Kisses in the Dark. Then it was Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 which always puzzled me as it seemed above my mother’s taste in music and I didn’t understand how she, let alone Sep, could have come across it. I had not heard of that ultra-English film, Brief Encounter which makes high romance from furtive meetings of lovers in a grimy railway station. Between Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, the restraint and clipped accents leave everything unsaid. Only through the music do we know what’s in their hearts. I knew nothing of that, and simply enjoyed the music, which they went on playing for years after they got married, in quiet evenings by the fire, as well as Puccini’s La Bohème.
It’s laughable now that I saw their romance as a threesome and accepted no hints to the contrary. I went back to school full of music and a new sense of adventure. Soon I would be leaving this tedious boarding school. We were just waiting now for that divorce to come through and then we would all live in the Isle of Wight, with its flying boats and yachts and Miniten and swimming-pool (at Woodside anyhow, algae-infested as it usually was) and my new school, where I would go every day and then come back home. I had every reason to be caught up in the romance. I discovered English music too: “Nimrod” from Elgar’s Enigma Variations and “Land of Hope and Glory”. Queen Elizabeth II had her dazzling Coronation and a British Expedition had just climbed to the summit of Everest. Life was possibility.
a wayfarer’s notes 
I don't want to bring you down, dear Vincent, but consider how the highest love of mankind could actually be the lowest, and the seemingly low, be the highest and most genuine. Consider how life is opposite the appearance, beauty ugly and ugly beauty, not from the first point of view, but from the last and eternal.
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PS: this…how sad the world when our little lives are the greatest and truest, and the world pales in realistic comparison, long live the individual.
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Speaking of climbing Vincent, what would you say is the difference, between philosopy and psychology?
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Oh Jim, your first comment is indeed dear to my heart, and indeed the second, because I think it is ordinariness which most needs to be celebrated and not celebrity!
And as for your third—“speaking of climbing” LOL! I am interested actually in the similarities between philosophy and psychology. Please remind me to talk to you about this, and soon.
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It was similar here in the states through at least the sixties. My mom had to “charge” my dad with something, so to speak, which she had no desire to do.
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Is that so, Paul? I believe over on this side of the pond, we had the notion that divorces were easy in the States, or that you could go to Nevada or Mexico. Or am I thinking of marriage, for which here we had Gretna Green, some village on the borders of England and Scotland where you could elope with your sweetheart and get married before either set of parents could object.
But did you find that these divorce laws created more bitterness between spouses than there was already, forcing them to exaggerate one another's moral turpitude?
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Since I am on your blog, Vincent, I can speak freely, my parents were also divorced in the 50's and it was terribly traumatic to all, but not because of the legal proceedings, they were basically cut and dried, abandonment on the part of my father.
But the problems were already there, my old man had already abandoned us financially, getting food was a struggle as was having a place to live, even with him 'present' to some degree. Then my mother attempted to do him in one day, pursued him thru the yards with a world war 2 German dress sword, intending to divorce him that way, he ran away and never returned, nor did any support for 2 kids. That day with the sword and the intent never left me, I can see it to this day, tho I do not ever spend any time in the old struggles, the image just remains vivid.
He later acquired the weapon, thru a sneaky acquaintance, and then, in my much later life, after my military period, gave it to me, I had it for a time, was eventually involved in a hand to hand fight in my own house, and ran a fellow thru with it myself, after that, I sold it to a traveling salesman and collector of antiques. So much for those memories, I still remember the blood and the regret.
Life, huh?
Yes, the ordinary is beautiful, it is the thought that the other, the celebrity, is, which messes up the ordinary.
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Vincent, I am setting as one of my top priorities to sit down and read your memoirs from the beginning, as I would read a book, now that you've published a number of chapters. So far I've read them sporadically.
They are, of course, beautifully written, and I find everything I've read of them fascinating, particularly because I can compare your life at certain periods with my life in a different land during the same periods.
Thank you for including me among your invited readers. I'll soon be one of those who has read your memoirs from beginning to end.
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Vincent,
I have been away for 10 days visiting family. My own and my Wife's.
We flew into Pittsburgh PA, and I drove a rental car over 1000 miles around Pennsylvania and New York State.
In catching up with your writings I find myself reflecting on my own experiences this past week and a half.
I have realized for many years now, that my wife and I gravitated to one another because of our similar circumstances.
Her father set her up in her own apartment when she was 16 years old in fear that her stepmother would cause her harm.
My parents were so absorbed in the demands of maintaining a lifestyle beyond their means that I felt abandoned around the same age.
There too so many parallels to describe here. However, the most important may be that it was not merely our circumstances that led to our alienation.
We both had views on life and how it should be lived and how we should treat one another that were incompatible with the societies we lived in.
We met in college, in Pittsburgh, we were both away from our home towns for the first time.
We were finding ourselves and experiencing the freedom to be ourselves in that environment. We moved to San Francisco together after leaving college.
Going back home to visit family brings back the memories of our constrained childhoods. The burdens of demands to conform, to fulfill the desires of family members that would have us serve their needs over our own.
I love my family, but they do not realize how they drag me down, nor do they realize the alternatives to living life the way they do.
It would be easy to sacrifice my life to their dreams and desires as a gesture of love. But I know that deep down they understand that it would mean sacrificing more than my time and energy. It would mean denial of who I am and what I aspire to.
I don't deny that they are part of who I am and the life I lived their helped shape my thoughts and dreams. And I cherish many memories of the times we shared.
But I realize that I am not that person anymore, and I cannot pretend to be in spite of their expectations.
My comment may seem to have nothing to do with your writing. But it is your writing that prompted me.
Americans often speak of freedom, but they spend more time denying the freedoms of others than they do experiencing their own.
I wish more people could just learn to celebrate our differences while providing space for all to be and do what they please.
My Wife, my Daughter and myself have found sanctuary in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is not to say that we do not encounter pressures to conform.
But the overwhelming close minded attitudes we encountered on our trip, brought home the reality of life in our home towns, and the lifestyles of our families.
We bit our tongues, and grinned and bore the affronts to our nature. We all collectively sighed a breath of relief upon our return.
Reading your blog is a kind of welcome home too. Refreshing and invigorating, I am ready to dip into the joys of life unbridled by the burdens of my childhood.
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Jim, Fleming and Charles: it is a privilege to read something of your own stories of childhood (Fleming's being embedded in his own blog).
I'm thrilled that what I am trying to do seems to be working, that is to try and write well whilst inviting the reader to consider his or her own life. And from there, who knows?
Literature ferments within the reader. It does nothing within a closed book or an unread blog (though the author of course has an experience in the writing).
There are so many stories! Each of us has dozens – hundreds – of them, all wanting to be told. I am inspired to do some voluntary work, when my present job is completed. I would like to teach youngsters in free classes how to write. Not as a teacher because i am not one. But as a listener. Maybe some of them would be unable to read and write. But stories can be transmitted orally.
There is a youth community centre nearby – even nearer when I move to a house soon. I want to persuade them to let me start such a class, even if I have to pay for the room rental. It will be an experiment. Not in “literature” such as reading famous books and so on, or “creative writing” as if they are going to learn to be journalists or novelists, though they might.
No, I see it as a dimension of living, and that they would be inspired to encourage one another. I don't know where the idea came from but it could happen, and of course it could be published on the Internet too! And though they would be in charge of their own content, I think we might go beyond some imitative hip-hop kind of thing towards something more original.
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Sounds like a great idea and regardless of the nature of it, something that would invite youth to gain thru the interchange, whatever they actually needed, often this is the sort of key that unlocks many doors. I think you would be great at it, I know you have much to offer in the way of experience and wisdom gained from it and you are well-read also. People need help in the most suprising of ways.
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Thanks so much for the encouragement, Jim. I don't know how to go about it but I have faith in the power of sending out a message to the Universe, which then arranges all the things I am unable to do myself. It has proved itself time and again. I'm sure everyone can do it with the know-how but I could not teach anyone. And as for the teaching itself, I see everyone as different and having their own needs, which your comment astutely recognised. Perhaps it is simply a way to link the generations – and the races too because most of the youth there are Muslim. (And as I have mentioned before on this blog, this town is a recognised source of terrorists. Never mind Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan: they spent months digging up a nearby wood to find bomb-making equipment. This is another reason to keep this blog private: I would not want it to come to the attention of Mr Bush, who might send “peace-keeping” forces!
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you really didn't have a bad childhood. or may be, children make their own heaven.
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Ghetu I would not say I had a bad childhood. It's probably what I chose before I was born, for the challenge. But yes, I am sure children do make their own heaven. They certainly try and don't give up easily.
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Wonderful blog Vincent. I'm trying to keep up with it. Jim, loved your post about the sword. This blog is such a warm community of sharers… Funny about Isle of Wight. For years I have dreamt of it as the place to go to to live for ever and ever; had a lovely screensaver of poppies in bloom somewhere on the south coast; lost now. Too tired and eyes too strained to go on about anything but just wanted to send my best wishes.
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