As he moves from invective and spleen, so we get this warm hearted vision of a tight -knit Jewish childhood, it's the voice of his conscience speaking. It gives balance in a mawkish but genuine sort of way. My mother sometimes says. "You did have a good childhood didn't you?, we were good parents weren't we?" I can only ever grunt in reply and brush it off. Yes I was well loved as a child, and except for the over sensitive child's fear and loathing ( I was over sensitive and very bright), it was a great childhood. But both my parents had no comprehension whatsoever what it was like to be me. They weren't educated, they weren't intellectual, they had no idea what it was like to be a teenager in the late sixties and early seventies. That wasn't their fault - they had completely limited backgrounds, but it is sad that it caused this huge gap between us - of course I loved them and was loved back, but I could see, from about the age of seven on, that they weren't worldly or experienced, they were naive and guileless in the new riches of that period.
One of the great things about going to Sussex University in the seventies was being to do all sorts of wacky course ( I was in the School of Cultural and Community Studies). I did an experiential course on Family Therapy, and wrote a dissertation for it based on Alan Garner's Red Shift and my own education far beyond my parent's understanding. Best image I have though is Julie Burchill saying that when she was writing upstairs ( at least she had an upstairs we lived in a fucking 2 bedroom bungalow - I never appreciated how much it really meant ot be able to be on a different floor until I moved into a house, anyway her mother used to say, of that's so nice that you're practicing your typing.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment