Mum wished my father had been killed in the war
It’s an appalling statement. But LIZ HODGKINSON says her childhood would have been happier if her mother had been free to be with the man she truly loved
THe sting of divorce, we are told, over and over again, can last a lifetime. In these days of self-analysis, introspection and oversharing, everything from weight problems to commitment issues — even your life expectancy — can be traced back to your parents’ failure to keep their marriage together.
Of course I utterly empathise with this — how can I not? I have been divorced nearly 30 years and every day comes another reminder that the path I chose (or was chosen for me, actually: my husband left me for a religious path) was not the ideal one — for me, my boys and, in turn a generation later, my five grandchildren, who’ll never know the cosiness and warmth of stepping into our traditional ‘ Nanna and Grandpa’s house’.
But, I’d suggest there’s another, unspoken group of people out there — a minority, admittedly, but significant nonetheless — who’d argue that they still bear the scars of their parents NOT divorcing.
That’s me. I fervently wish my ever-warring, miserably married parents had divorced and that my mother had been able to marry her much younger lover.
What a different — and much happier — childhood, I would have had! I could have had a childhood full of books, paintings, love and culture. I would have seen a lot of more of my parents too, for as it was, they both seized any excuse to escape the toxicity and silence of their fractured home life.
I imagine my relationship would have been better with both of them, too. Mum, Mabel, wouldn’t have been this remote figure who wafted in and out of our lives, preferring to outsource the drudge of parenthood while she pursued her career.
While I adored and revered her as a child, we drifted apart as I grew up and questioned her decisions.
While Dad, George, was a miserable, foul-tempered drunk whom I hated ( with my mother’s active encouragement). Well, maybe that wouldn’t have been the case if he’d had some happiness in his life, too.
It’s an alternative view, probably not a popular one, but I do think some couples — some families even — are better off apart. The damage caused to a child by two unhappy parents staying together can be every bit as profound as the devastation caused by divorce.
My parents’ story starts at the outbreak of World War II. They married in haste — a decision prompted by call-up papers, not pregnancy.
MeNwere in short supply, and the stigma of being ‘left on the shelf’ was terrifying for women, so many rushed into spectacularly awful unions only to spend a lifetime regretting them.
By the time Dad was demobbed from the RAF, Mum found herself shackled to someone she hardly knew, didn’t love, and actually didn’t like all that much. Three years later, in 1948, this woefully mismatched couple found themselves with two small children, no money, no home — and no escape
This was a different age. Divorce still carried a lot of shame, with divorced women,
in particular, viewed with suspicion and derision. We lived with my maternal grandparents. It was crowded in their tiny terraced house, with no bathroom and an outside toilet, in St neots, Cambridgeshire, but there was no choice.
In desperation to earn money and get out of the crowded house Mum applied for, and got, a job as manageress of a flower shop in the town. The owner of t nearby gard he shop and its owner of t nearby garden centre was a mbitious, Rupert kalike named John Wingate, ten junior, a public years schooleducated my mother’s war hero, and she fell headlong in love with him.
Of course she did. Just look at the pictures of him. Dapper and dashing — how could she not?
Mum was already an experienced florist, having worked in many flower shops, including Harrods, before and during the war. Wingate, as she called him, had original business ideas and, together, he and my mother implemented them.
Between them, they began to establish the most successful flower business in the county, known as Paxton Park nurseries. They went ever further afield, eventually securing a network of village agents in three e counties to sell their ir flowers. Before long, g, instead of being a downtrodden wnmy housewife, my mother was a smart busibbing businesswoman, hobnobbing with rich farmers, bank nk managers, mannd solicitors and other grandees that made e up the cream of local society. ty. And it was all due to John Wingate.
Although he was married, arried, he swept her up into his world and totally changed her life.
They spent every spare minute together. The business aspect of their relationship was open enough but the more intimate one had to be kept deadly secret. I did not learn about it until years later, when my mother confessed all without a hint of shame or regret.
In spite of the differences in age, social class and education, they were genuine soul mates.
That they had enjoyed a physical relationship together was very strongly implied. But of course, I’d always suspected there was more to Mum’s relationship with her business partner than met the eye.
Even at five years old, I knew, in the perceptive way that small children often do, without being able to articulate it, that Mummy acted differently around this charming, wellspoken man than she did with gruff and grumpy Daddy.
For instance, Mum would come co home from work, get su supper, put us kids to bed and go back to work, often not ret returning until llpm or later. On Saturdays, she would have lun lunch with Wingate in the local Bri Bridge Hotel and together they wo would drive round the county, dru drumming up business. T This meant she was hardly eve ever at home and my younger bro brother and I were effectively bro brought up by Rita, our maiden aun aunt who acted as nanny. Th Then there was the frisson bet between them — it was as tan tangible as crackling electricity. Dad must have picked up on it, on t the few occasions they met. If I could sense it at five years old old, how could he not? no won wonder he hit the bottle.
LATER,Mum said her meeting with Wingate and subsequent propulsion into a relatively glam glamorous life, was her ‘salvation’ tion from her awful marriage.
M Meanwhile, in the family home, thin things were getting worse. The marriage mar had now deteriorated to a point where it was either open ope warfare or silence.
The Th gulf between my mother and father widened, with Mum now firmly ensconced in the county cou set, belonging to flower arrangement arr societies and having hav tea and sherry in the grand gran homes of the rich farmers, and Dad alternating between monthlong mon sulks and ferocious screaming scre matches.
From Fr the time we had our own fourbedroom, detached Twenties Twe house, bought by my mother mot with money from the business bus — my parents never shared sha h ared a bedroom. Actually, they y never shared anything.
They Th hey never nev went on holiday together, tog never went out together. Instead they led complet completely separate lives. They n never even spoke to each o other, except to row and argue. ar Dad was a lorry driver and had his own friends in the pub and the cric cricket club.
T The contrast between Da Dad and Wingate, at lea least as far as Mum wa was concerned, was ex extreme. Whereas Dad wa was of low intelligence an and limited ambition, W Wingate wanted to conquer co the world. He wa was also, at least to my mother, endowed wit with every wondrous hum human quality. He was a gifted amateur teur artist and our home was s soon full of original oils and a water colours, painted by Wingate. I don’t think my father gave them willing houseroom, hou but there they stayed. stayed
Whereas my father could hardly read and write, Wingate harboured ambitions to be a writer himself; him an ambition he eventually achieved.
I hated my father but now believe a lot of this hatred was fuelled by my mother’s endless complaints about his many inadequacies and incompetence at the simplest task, especially when compared to the wonderful Wingate.
But the love affair, although intense, was going nowhere.
In the end, it was Wingate who solved the dilemma by going away. After a decade of being a nurseryman and shop owner, he sold the business and moved to another part of the country, to try his luck as a writer.
His marriage, which had also produced two children, didn’t last, I heard years down the line. My mother was devastated when Wingate left to pursue other interests, but by this time she was well established and set up her own business which went from strength to strength, building on the contacts Wingate had made.
When I was about 14, the rows between Mum and Dad escalated to the point where they went to see solicitors, with the intention of divorcing.
I was overjoyed; surely now the constant misery of our home life would come to an end. But no, it all blew over and they stayed together, continuing to make each other unhappy. Dad increasingly took refuge in drink and became an alcoholic.
During this time, Mum made me her confidante (something I am convinced parents should never do) and confessed that during the war, she kept hoping that Dad would be killed; a terrible thing to say. But as I had no affection for him, I listened without emotion or censure.
Although John Wingate was now out of her life, she did not forget him. By no means. He became a teacher and a successful and prolific writer of both fiction and nonfiction, most of his books having a naval theme.
Mum bought every single one as they came out, about 30 in all, saying that she could hear his voice in every sentence she read. ‘It’s as if he’s speaking to me personally,’ she would say, decoding secret messages that were, perhaps, not really there.
When they were together, he had poured out his hopes and ambitions to her and she was delighted he had largely achieved them. She never stopped talking about him, even when she was an old lady and had not seen him for years.
now that all the protagonists are long dead — Wingate was the last to go, in 2008 — I ask myself why my parents, who were the most mismatched couple on earth, did not divorce or at least separate.
Back in those days, most women could not even consider it as they had no money or job of their own, but it was different for my mother. She was an independent career woman and main breadwinner.
There never seemed any serious question that she and Wingate would get together as a couple, although I gather they did talk about it and wished it could happen. Maybe it simply seemed too scandalous.
BUTjust think. Instead of coming from a household of sulky silences punctuated by hideous rows, I could have had a childhood filled with art, literature, interesting discussions and — best of all — a stepfather I admired, who Wrote Books, and who would have encouraged my own writing career, rather than putting every obstacle in the way ( my father used to complain that I always had my head in a book, as if it was something shameful).
My exhusband and I are on good terms, and I genuinely like him. The boys, now adults and fathers themselves, came out of our separation unscathed, as far as I can see.
Would that have been the case, if we’d been forced to stay together, in order to miserably ‘do the right thing’?
While I am sure many are distressed by their parents’ divorce long into adulthood, it’s also helpful to remember that growing up in a home where the parents hate each other can also haunt a person for the rest of their days.