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Living up to a highflying mother with a stellar career is not easy for any daughter. When that mother has somehow managed to raise a total of nine children in addition to racking up a string of staggering professional achievements, it’s quite another thing altogether. Such is the challenge for Flo Morrissey, the second eldest of Helena Morrissey’s expansive brood. Helena, 51, is now head of personal investing at Legal & General, having left her job as chief executive of Newton Investment Management in 2016, a position she held for 15 years. As one of the UK’S most successful business executives, it is hard to fathom quite how she found the time to juggle the daily duties of parenting with the demands of running a City firm with £50 billion to invest. Yet, according to Flo, 23, she was not an absent mother.
“It never felt like we’d been neglected at all,” she tells me as Julian, her newborn son, sleeps in her west London flat. “She always came home at 6pm and ate dinner with us.”
In fairness, it was Richard, Helena’s husband, who carried out much of the day-to-day household and parenting tasks as Flo grew up, having given up his job as a financial journalist to become a househusband and Buddhist monk. Which is just as well, since Helena not only had her career to focus on, but also the campaign group she helped to launch in 2010.
Called the 30% Club, the aim of the initiative – now chaired by Brenda Trenowden – was to increase the proportion of women in boardrooms to a minimum of 30 per cent. Her efforts to improve diversity in financial services earned her a damehood last June, yet somehow, she has also found time to write a book – A Good Time to Be a Girl – which was published last month, and has been described as a memoir-- manifesto that argues for an overhaul of the patriarchal system.
With International Women’s Day upon us today, the achievements of women like Morrissey are at the forefront of our minds. But what is it like being the daughter of a nationally renowned “supermum”? Surely, Flo must feel her mother’s example is a tough one to follow?
“Definitely,” she agrees, “I feel I put pressure on myself. Growing up in a household where my parents were hard-working really inspired me to find my own way. But sometimes I feel I’m not a superwoman but I’m my own person, and [my mum] reminds us she also is a human and also finds life overwhelming.”
In Flo’s case, finding her own way meant pursuing a career in music, something she has done successfully, becoming a singer-songwriter with two albums to her name. The marked
‘In such a tight family, we know each other so well there is no hiding place’
distinction between her career path and her mother’s is probably no bad thing, either. “I think it’s nice she does something very different to me, but we’re both hard-working,” says Flo.
Yet in a family of 11, I can’t help wondering how she ever had any personal space in which to pursue her own passions or carve out her own identity. Growing up, she shared bedrooms with various of her five sisters – Millie, 18, Clara, 17, Octavia, 14, Cecily, 10 and Bea, eight – who at one stage occupied three sets of bunk beds in one room. “It was like a continuous sleepover,” says Flo, who insists she always found it fun.
“In such a tight family, we know each other so well there’s no hiding place,” she says, without giving any hint that this bothered her. Rather, the siblings enjoyed each other’s company.
“None of us has wanted to go to raves or do the nightclub thing,” she says. “It’s quite unique. We all just want to spend time with each other. I’ve always been quite introverted and I need time alone. Probably more than anyone, I felt I do need my own space.”
During sixth form, she moved out of the main family house in Notting Hill and into an outside room in the garden, before going to Los Angeles at 19 to record her first album – Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful, released in 2015 – and then moving to Paris for a year. “It felt like it was necessary… to try living on my own for a year and work out what it’s like to be an adult,” she says. “I learnt a lot living on my own.”
She has also learnt a lot from Helena. “As a mother, she sets a good example in that she can push the limits and do it all,” says Flo. “Our personalities are slightly different, but she inspires me.”
As well she might. Helena, the daughter of two teachers, attended a comprehensive school in Chichester before studying philosophy at Cambridge. She was 25 when she had her first child, Fitz, now 26, who was unplanned. (Her other two sons are Tuppy, 19, and Theo, 12.)
Is it a coincidence her daughter has had her own first child at a relatively young age, too? “I hadn’t planned to,” says Flo, whose partner is Benjamin Clementine, the singer who won the Mercury Prize in 2015. “It just happened.” Benjamin was present at Flo’s labour, as was Helena, which Flo says brought them much closer. “We have this deeper understanding now,” she says. “She shows me to be patient as a mother. When I was young I thought it was all smooth sailing. She has taught me I don’t have to do everything on my own.”
Valuable life lessons, no doubt. But all the patience and understanding in the world can’t explain how a clan this big handled the practicalities of family life. How did they ever go anywhere together at weekends, for instance? “We often would have to take two cars,” says Flo. “We had a tiny little car and a Land Rover Defender to just pile everyone in, but it always felt normal doing expeditions together – though we didn’t do them that often.”
Holidays unsurprisingly required a great deal of organisation and would be planned a year in advance. “We would often go somewhere remote or rural [in Britain] and rent a house. My dad would do the cooking and we’d pretty much stay put for a week,” says Flo. “We’d never do extravagant things. My parents just wanted to relax.”
Flo realised from a young age her family was atypical. “When
I was at primary school and my dad would come to watch us play netball and everyone else would have their mums there, that always felt different, but it felt special,” she says. “I never thought my mum was bad for not being there because she always came to the important things. My friends thought my dad was quite cool and I feel very close to him. But I feel I’m as close to both [my parents].”
So does Flo plan to follow in their footsteps and have another eight children herself ?
“Not another eight, but maybe a few more,” she says, sensibly. “I’m in awe of my parents for having nine children.”
A Good Time to Be a Girl by Helena Morrissey is published by Harpercollins (£14.99). To order for £12.99 plus p&p, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books. telegraph.co.uk