I thought Mum and I had nothing in common. But her death has transformed the way I see our relationship
Her mother had two children. She has nine. Her mother stayed at home. She’s a City supremo. So why does Helena Morrissey say…
AMum suffered post-natal depression so I was a challenge
S A child, I heard the refrain over and over again: ‘You are so like your mother!’ Physically, yes, there was an obvious resemblance, from our narrow frames to the shape of our faces and brown eyes.
We also shared a love of music, especially choral music (though neither of us could sing a note), country walks and elegant clothes. Her style was consistent and strong: I loved her striped shirt dresses, sweeping skirts and bold colour choices.
But otherwise, for a long time, I disagreed heartily that we were in any way similar, convinced we were polar opposites — and it felt frustrating to be compared so often.
Throughout my childhood, Mum declared herself ‘always unambitious’, while I have always been inexplicably driven: Mum was a born worrier; I am a natural risk-taker.
And that’s just the start. Mum kept a beautiful tidy home, but I am innately messy. (I was banned from baking after attempting to make brandy snaps while she was out. The sticky mixture dripped down the sides of the oven and was a nightmare to remove.)
She had two children and ‘wasn’t very keen on the baby stage’, but took time out to be at home with my sister and me. I have nine, partly because I adore babies, and I juggled motherhood with the demands of a City career.
She loved morning lie-ins, whereas I have always risen well before a civilised hour. But after decades of being the yin to her yang, she’s no longer here to be compared to — and that’s the saddest thing of all.
My mum Jackie died last week of suspected heart failure at the age of 82.
She leaves my father, Tony, also 82, and a big family: my sister Liz and me, two sonsin-law, 11 grandchildren plus the eldest two’s spouses and our middle son’s fiancée and three great-grandchildren — 21 in total.
While there is so much about Mum’s life to celebrate, I’m feeling her loss terribly.
Over the past few days, I have been reflecting on how in recent years we did in fact reach a new level of mutual understanding, shared beliefs and an appreciation of each other’s strengths — and empathy for our respective weaknesses.
Under the surface we were more similar than I ever let myself admit — and now she’s gone, that’s a comfort rather than an irritation.
I was, I concede, a challenging child to parent — right from the start, when my mother suffered terrible post-natal depression. My father has always had the patience of a saint, but my mother became exasperated.
She took me to the doctor about my lack of sleep and fretted, understandably, over my teenage anorexia, and perhaps less understandably, about my tendency to work ‘too hard’. I must be one of very few children whose mother insisted they work less (I’m afraid I took no notice).
And yet my mum took the time to listen and talk to me throughout my childhood and teenage years. We would chat during long walks together and though I can’t recall how the tradition started, she was happy for me to sit in the bathroom during her long hot baths, when she covered her modesty with strategically placed flannels while we caught up at the end of the day.
Even when we disagreed, I loved those talks. And I came to appreciate that my mother’s ‘tendencies’ were the result of her own childhood: born in May 1939, she had a lucky escape at 18 months old when a large bomb fell into the garden next door, but failed to explode. The frightening incident prompted her parents to rent out their house in Beckenham, Kent, in search of a less dangerous place to live, but they struggled to find a secure home and then to reclaim their own from tenants when the war was over.
So my mother had a nomadic existence until she was seven, when a judge evicted the occupants and her family (now my mother and her younger brother and sister) could return.
She told me many times that they lived from ‘hand to mouth’ during this time and the experience clearly prompted her propensity towards anxiousness. This manifested itself in her habit of focusing on what might go wrong — ‘I’ll pick you up after school today, but if the car breaks down...’
Our first house was a tiny terrace, but then my paternal grandparents (who lived in the same village) offered to swap and we moved into their bigger house with a lovely long garden.
While not affluent — Mum didn’t work when my sister and I were young and my father’s teacher salary was enough to live on but not for extravagances — mine was a happy, stable childhood. My mother, despite her tendency to worry, gave me a lot of freedom.
In the long hot summer of 1976, my sister and I both caught mumps and couldn’t meet our friends, so each day we would take a picnic lunch in our bicycle baskets and go cycling by ourselves for the whole day, exploring.
Of course, this was long before mobile phones. When I look back, I realise I was just ten and Liz was six. But that freedom to roam — and being given responsibility for my sister — was an invaluable childhood experience.
My mother’s approach to both my playtime and my studies was the opposite of the Tiger Mums we hear about today and I believe contributed enormously to making me the person I am today.
The power to make my own
The opposite of a Tiger Mum, she made me the person I am today
decisions from a young age encouraged independence of thought and a sense of responsibility for my own destiny.
I went to the local co-ed state school and my parents were thrilled when I got a place to study philosophy at Cambridge University — they had met at Cambridge in 1958. My mother was doing her teaching training at Homerton and my dad was reading chemical engineering at Queens’ College.
My mother was perplexed about my decision to seek a City job after graduating and struggled to share my excitement when Schroders bank offered me a role. I suspect she felt — maybe subconsciously — that I was rejecting their way of life.
Things changed very quickly for me. I went from a village upbringing to an early posting in New York, which was energising but also terrifying for a shy 21-yearold and at one point I was very homesick. (Ironically, perhaps, given my public profile, I am naturally much shyer than my mother.)
But my mother overcame her acute fear of flying — I don’t recall her flying on any other occasion in her entire life — to come out with my dad to visit, and I was enormously grateful. It was another example of her not shying away from personal challenge for the sake of her daughters.
Soon after my return, Richard and I got engaged. In fact, it was our second engagement — we met at Cambridge and originally planned on marrying straight afterwards, but I got cold feet — only to realise my mistake. Thankfully he took me back!
Although my mother would be the first to say she hadn’t been sure about Richard to start with, they became great friends over the years.
As my career took off and my own family grew, I regretted that we didn’t see each other very often. The big holidays — Christmas, Easter, birthdays and weddings — became the happy occasions where we all spent time together, with my sister and her own family.
My mother couldn’t understand why I wanted so many children — until they grew up a little. She loved their company and, like me, felt proud of them. That was the link that brought us together in recent years. After superficial divergence, my mother and I began to converge around what mattered — family life, our Christian faith and the importance of thinking for ourselves.
My mum always taught me that my opinion mattered, that received wisdom is not necessarily the correct position, that I have a voice and I should use it.
Hers is an incredible legacy, reflecting an approach opposed to the tradition that children should be seen and not heard. Over the past 20 years, our personality differences narrowed
The last time we met she told me she loved me. I said the same
too; my mother didn’t exactly stop worrying but learned to appreciate the good things, while age and experience taught me to be more risk-aware.
Last year’s Covid restrictions meant our last Christmas together was two years ago. But it was the best ever when my eldest daughter and her husband surprised us by flying over from California with their two young children on Christmas Eve. Four generations together, made even more special by the surprise.
My sister Liz, a teacher, recently hosted a lunch for the entire family. We sat at two tables to fit us all in, and ate from a large and beautiful buffet.
A final gathering — though of course we didn’t know it then — that I know brought great joy to my mother. As we chatted, my mum told me, as she always did, how proud she was of me and how much she loved me. And I told her the same.
Today, I’m especially proud to be ‘so like my mother’ and so grateful for her unconditional love.