Post by Mitch on Jun 8, 2005 10:23:04 GMT
Jipping Street is a fascinating book about a mother and daughter relationship set in London at the turn of the century, and written by the daughter. Things have changed since then, but there's a lot in this little book for working class and lower middle class women that might ring true about their experiences, and most of all relationships with mothers.
The very fact that this book was ever written is a testament to the strength and courage of the daughter, it begins like this:
"The circumstances of my mother's life in no manner differ from the circumstances of the lives of those inarticulate people without number who compose the 'lower' classes. She was born in poverty; she was acquainted all her days with the insecurity and uncertainty which are the heritage of the poor. She knew, she said, only two certain things: death - and the landlord; and for her the dawn of each new day was cast over by the pale shifting face of want.
Her life was as bare of exceptional events as her inheritance was innocent of distinction: she could read only the simplest words, and wrote her name with much difficulty. Nature had shaped her, Nature as she breeds in the byways and alleys of great cities: crude, dumb, brutal, kind, unlovely, unalloyed. A common lot she had, and lived a common life, and she remains for me one of the most singular and individual women I have ever known.
Singular, for example, in her strength and poise, for my mother had that strength and poise which comes to those without hope and without fear.
I think she must once have known hope, when she was young and had large grey eyes, even white teeth, hair black as jet, a full, laughing mouth, and a straight, live, eager body, whose eagerness you could clearly see in the old photograph we had, where she was eighteen and wore a frock full of the oddest flounces and tucks which strove to conceal the live, warm, eager lines.
I think then she must have known hope.
She was born and grew up in a back room behind Cloth Fair, within the sound of Bow Bells and the smell of the meat in Smithfield Markets; and she loved her mother with a passionate love made fierce and protective by the unbelievable cruelties inflicted on them both by her father.
A later generation would have called my grandfather mad; my mother and my grandmother thought him simply bad, and after he had bruised and trampled on their lives, he drowned himself in the Thames, to the inexpressible relief of them both".
I'll bob some more up if anyone's interested? (this should probs go in book reviews - eeek!)
The very fact that this book was ever written is a testament to the strength and courage of the daughter, it begins like this:
"The circumstances of my mother's life in no manner differ from the circumstances of the lives of those inarticulate people without number who compose the 'lower' classes. She was born in poverty; she was acquainted all her days with the insecurity and uncertainty which are the heritage of the poor. She knew, she said, only two certain things: death - and the landlord; and for her the dawn of each new day was cast over by the pale shifting face of want.
Her life was as bare of exceptional events as her inheritance was innocent of distinction: she could read only the simplest words, and wrote her name with much difficulty. Nature had shaped her, Nature as she breeds in the byways and alleys of great cities: crude, dumb, brutal, kind, unlovely, unalloyed. A common lot she had, and lived a common life, and she remains for me one of the most singular and individual women I have ever known.
Singular, for example, in her strength and poise, for my mother had that strength and poise which comes to those without hope and without fear.
I think she must once have known hope, when she was young and had large grey eyes, even white teeth, hair black as jet, a full, laughing mouth, and a straight, live, eager body, whose eagerness you could clearly see in the old photograph we had, where she was eighteen and wore a frock full of the oddest flounces and tucks which strove to conceal the live, warm, eager lines.
I think then she must have known hope.
She was born and grew up in a back room behind Cloth Fair, within the sound of Bow Bells and the smell of the meat in Smithfield Markets; and she loved her mother with a passionate love made fierce and protective by the unbelievable cruelties inflicted on them both by her father.
A later generation would have called my grandfather mad; my mother and my grandmother thought him simply bad, and after he had bruised and trampled on their lives, he drowned himself in the Thames, to the inexpressible relief of them both".
I'll bob some more up if anyone's interested? (this should probs go in book reviews - eeek!)
