The People of Ship Street by Madeline Kerr

Author:Madeline Kerr [Kerr, Madeline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference, General, Social Science, Sociology
ISBN: 9781136244728
Google: paOAAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-08-21T04:48:46+00:00

(D) VISITING BY RELATIVES

In contradistinction to this lack of non-related visitors, members of the family visit frequently and unusually regularly.

Mrs. Y. said that they are all on visiting terms, but her husband's brothers and sisters visit the house much more frequently as they live very near. ‘They are here every day.’ She often pops into their homes.

Dinah, aged 12, told me that her father has one brother and two sisters. She doesn't know where his brother is but his sisters live in the suburbs. She goes to visit these aunts, in turn, every Sunday.

Elsie and Bill said their married sisters Mary and Jane frequently visit them, bringing their babies. Their uncle and aunt frequently visit them. They live just opposite. Their mother and father frequently visit their uncle and aunt. Elsie, aged 11, said, ‘Not every day because me mother's too busy. She hasn't time.’

This constant visiting does not, of course, apply to all members of the family. It has been pointed out before that families are on the whole pretty large. Equally obviously some members of the families must break away and live in other parts of the town, if not in other towns. The reason why one individual rather than another remains in the residual group round the Mum is not yet clear. In general, those who get away do so because of status. Our group is not very concerned with problems of status; in fact, in comparison with people living on a housing estate investigated by Mitchell and Lupton1 they are conspicuously unconcerned. In the following two quotations our informants explain why social relations have been broken off with one or more members of the family.

Mrs. D. said that as children she and her sister were good friends. Her sister is ‘comfortable’ and so they now never visit each other. She used to go round to her sister's place but her sister was always out when she called. Her sister's husband would sit and put a newspaper in front of his face, so she never goes any more. She said of him, ‘He's ignorant.’ Her sister's children and her children never visit each other or play together. Her sister lives in another street. Her sister does not go out to work.

Mr. J. said his wife's mother and father are dead. Mr. J. told me that his wife never visits her brothers and sister. I asked Mrs. J. the reason for this. At first she said, ‘I don't know.’ Then she said, ‘I’m not good enough for them,’ and she looked at her husband, who has been on sick benefit for years. The inference was clearly that they consider she has married beneath her. Mr. J. was listening. Then she added, ‘They live in a better neighbourhood.’ They never visit her. (This information was withheld on my first visit.)

In the next example the woman is married to a coloured man. At first she told me she has only one brother alive, then she said, ‘Oh, I've another but I never see him.

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