I’m 52 and still take handouts from the Bank of Mum and Dad
A flat in London, her children’s school fees and even pocket money – a cash strapped (and grateful) Candida Crewe admits . . .
its costs, even in 1983. My mother broke into her inheritance and bought me a flat. It was the size of an iPad, in a basement, overlooking a brick wall, but in a nice part of town.
I loved and appreciated that place every minute of every day, but that did not detract from the fact I was as spoilt as hell. At 19, the Bank of Mum was my saviour — as it has been so often since.
It put me on the property ladder, and is why I can house myself and my children today.
Even so, my mother’s generosity did not prevent various cash crises. I earned £5,000 a year — even then, far from a fortune.
After work and at weekends, I wrote what I hoped would be bestselling novels. Alas, they were far from it.
I did not have a car until I was nine months’ pregnant with my third child: seeing me struggle with a double buggy and a shopping trolley, Mum paid for my first car. I was 37.
Still, I found myself short at times. That was when my mother would visit and quietly slip me a special envelope, a habit she’s maintained to this day.
The Bank is thoughtful and imaginative in a variety of ways — it doesn’t only deal in hard cash. One married friend who, like her husband, earns almost nothing, tells me her mother gives her gift cards for John Lewis, Starbucks, the cinema — ‘to ensure it goes on something that will give me a little bit of pleasure when I am struggling, and does not just get spent on loo rolls. I can’t tell you what that means to me. I may still need loo rolls, but it stops me from feeling despair’.
My feelings of financial worry remain, but I do not feel despair because what my mother has given me — apart from a roof, holidays and as much private education for my children as she could — is the ultimate gift: that of being able to choose a career because I love it, as opposed to one that made me a wage slave. Writing f or a living has been the greatest privilege I can i magine. Until my dying day, I’ll be grateful to Mum for enabling me to do the work I love, which, without her, I could never have dreamed of doing. I always wonder what I can do to repay her, other than to ring her every day with news and gossip, which she enjoys, and read book reviews avidly so I can send novels I know will give her pleasure.
Of course, I know I cannot ever repay her properly — only pop stars and footballers can ever really give back to the Bank of Mum and Dad what it gave them — and I’ll never be able to give my children what she gave me.
I’ve started my own, albeit smaller, bank for my children, currently doling out about £15 pocket money a week between the three of them.
This new-generation Bank of Mum might collapse, but, fortunately, there’s always the Bank o f Grandmum a nd Grandad, if a bail-out is needed.