How Green was my Life

My mother’s family in around 1929 or 30.

I am reading a book about the 30′s in my kindle. The Thirties: an intimate history by Juliet Gardner. Reading on a Kindle, of course, is a very different kind of experience.

First I had to look up the name of the author. Unlike a hard copy book, the author’s name isn’t staring you in the face each time you pick up a book. A very different experience. I have only read 3 percent it says. What is 3 percent? In the past, when reading a book I like, I spend a great deal of time weighing it in my hands, back and forth and flipping through the pages.

When reading a book I REALLY like, it’s almost a religious act, this weighing of the book. Imagine, all this wisdom here in my hands. And you always have a sense of where you are in a book with a hard cover or paper back copy. I must admit, this feeling of awe occurred more frequently in my childhood and youth.

Indeed, last night, I thought I should re-read How Green Was my Valley. I was reading a chapter on unemployment in the 30′s, and (what is her name, again) Juliet Gardner mentioned that the Welsh coal miners had unions. That’s what How Green was my Valley is about, if I recall. Reading that novel was one of the great experiences of my childhood/youth. I’ve re-read it once since, but it wasn’t the same. And I’ve seen the movie.

I had trouble reading the names back then. That’s how young I was. HUGH was HUG to me. Bronwyn was the woman, right? She smelled nice to Hugh, that’s all I remember. Of vanilla or rosemary orsomething. I was just a little girl, but I understood the power in that. Or Llewellen conveyed it to me.

When my first son was born I wanted to name him Hugh, but my husband, who has dyslexia didn’t want to because he didn’t know how to spell it. Then later, with the discovery of these Nicholson letters, which has led to this Flo in the City blog, where I am writing a book online, I learned that my husband’s grandfather was named HUGH. If I had only known, I would have insisted.

Anyway, it’s books like How Green was my Valley and Of Mice and Men that moulded my world view. This Juliet Gardner book reminds me that I have yet to read Orwell’s Wiggan Pier.. or Priestley’s book about his travels in England in the 1930′s. I should, I guess.

I have plenty of letters from the 30′s from the Nicholson collection. They touch on the Depression. I think a sister of Margaret’s writes from Sarnia:”I never thought I’d see grown men begging in the street.”

My family, above, was doing fine in the 30′s. My grandfather had been fired from his job as Director of City Services of Montreal, by Mayor Camillien Houde, but not before he negotiated a fine pension. He was run over in 1937 by a city constable and died the next year of complications. No more pension. But that taller girl on the right: my Aunt Flo. She had been adopted, plucked from the streets of Montreal, because she spent so much time begging at my grandmother’s door.

Anyway, the great thing about the Kindle is the instant gratification part of it. Amazon.com sent me a notice about this book, (actually amazon.co.uk) and I found it and downloaded it immediately. I also downloaded a book on the Reformation. Hadn’t intended too but they have ONE CLICK DOWNLOAD and I accidentally clicked on the book and so I’ll be learning a bit about that.

Privileged Girls, Imperfect Lives

Tiny Envelope (3 inches by 1/ 1/2 inches) containing tinier envelope, with Easter Greetings from Hugh Blair to Miss Marion Nicholson, so definitely 1912, or 1913.

I found a 1935 letter from Edith to her mother, that speaks a great deal about the Nicholsons- and what makes them so special as a family. In 1935 Edith is Assistant Warden at McGill’s Royal Victoria College. She keeps that job for a long time, as her great niece, born in 1944 recalls visiting her at graduation time and seeing all the graduating women in red robes lined with gold.

Flo in the City is my book in progress about a girl coming of age in 1910 in Canada. It’s based on the Nicholson Family Letters of 1908-1913.

The Nicholsons were struggling financially in that era. Indeed, their entire life was a struggle.

Royal Victoria College

November 16, 1 am.

So glad to get your letter and to hear you had such a good trip. We all enjoyed having you for the weekend.

I intended writing you early in the evening, but have had visitors all the time. First the French Mlles (mademoiselles) and then one of the students, an English girl, in her second year.

Came to tell me her troubles.

She had a letter from her mother today to say that she was getting a divorce from Father.

This was not really a surprise, but she had hoped things would be settled between them, poor girl (only 21).

She was terribly upset. She told me the whole story and, of course, there were two sides to the case. And she sees that. She is fond of both parents.

This is a strange world. And when you live in an institution like this, you see and hear many strange and sad things.

I cannot help but think, that the greatest heritage one can have is a happy family life such as ours, one where love and affection were the mainspring.

But having had such a heritage, it makes you feel you have done little or nothing to deserve it. When you see such distress as I saw tonight.

……..

So, you see, in 1935 Canadian couples got divorced. (In 1910, divorces were rare (only a few registered in Canada a year) although there was mention in the Nicholson letters of couples ‘breaking up housekeeping’. You had to apply to Parliament for a divorce. The Nicholsons knew of one such person. Of course, some people, like my husband’s grandmother on the other side of his family tree, just left one husband for another, without getting any divorce and pretended to be widowed..Imagine, bigamy! But she was a rich woman and the rich have always done what they want.)

BBC recently replayed a story about the new no fault divorce law introduced in late 1960′s.. 69, I think, which caused divorces in the UK to quadruple over night, with mostly women applying.

The ‘presenter’ (as they call it) interviewed a group of women involved in women’s advocacy in the 1960′s (all divorced themselves) and she also replayed bits from a groundbreaking era documentary about divorce.

Divorce in the days before the new law, we’re talking the 50′s and 60′s, was difficult to come by. Judges just could not grant a divorce unless one partner proved that the other partner was a very bad person. And these judges were also, it seems, very sanctimonious. (I guess they all had “perfect marriages” no mistresses and such )

Most mothers applying for divorce would automatically lose her children, so they just didn’t apply, until the law changed.

Despite being married to a nice man, I’m not a great fan of the marriage institution, although all of these women activists interviewed for this BBC radio program said they thought marriage was a good thing and many thought divorce a bad thing and one bad-mouthed ‘feminists’ as per usual.

The presenter suggested that in a world with no birth control, pregnancies forced many into unsuitable marriages, right from the onset.1/4 of all brides were already pregnant in 1960. (I think it was pretty much the same in Edwardian Times and up to double that the century before in the UK at least! Men wanted to make sure their wife was fertile before marrying.)

Anyway, Edith, who never married, was a ‘wise woman who lived a life out in the wider world, so she had the opportunity to learn about ‘the real world’.

She knew that with divorce, as with any other conflict, there are two sides to the story. So, no one partner is evil and no one partner is a saint.

These college girls coming to Edith for solace would have been from the privileged classes.

And, yet, their lives were not perfect. Imagine that!