On Mother by Sarah Ferguson

Author:Sarah Ferguson [Ferguson, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522874082
Google: eXBUswEACAAJ
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2018-01-15T01:06:17.604000+00:00

I can hear echoes of Philip Larkin throughout this story. I wrote to Larkin as a teenager on decorated notepaper, questioning his bleak view on life. He replied from his post at Hull University, pointing me towards a line in ‘Dockery and Son’, ‘Life is first boredom then fear.’ This view was unintelligible to me, but ‘Church Going’ and other poems I understood.

Since someone will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

And gravitating with it to this ground,

Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,

If only that so many dead lie round.

Larkin and I continued to correspond, my letters long and full of questions, his replies brief. Instead of pictures of Depeche Mode or Madness or skinny Paul Weller, I pinned the poet’s letters to a board in my bedroom. When Larkin died, I got a ticket to his memorial service and sat by myself in the back row. Years later, I was briefly in Hull for an interview with John Prescott, the former British deputy prime minister noted for his butchery of the English language. I stole a few hours to walk around Larkin’s home, with a copy of his poems bought in the discount pile of a bookshop for a couple of pounds. But this is a story about my mother, who cleared out my bedroom when I got married and threw out my correspondence with Larkin and many other things beside. For years she assured me my letters were in the attic. Finally on one trip home, I demanded to see the attic with my archive intact. The attic was bare, no bundles of letters or any other hoarded goods. She had decided without asking that I too should be loyal to the present. I have so much to be grateful for with my mother, but honestly, I never forgave her.

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