Hidden Lives

Family myths and taboos surrounded Margaret Forster's childhood in Carlisle, in the north of England, and only after her mother's death in 1981 did she feel free to explore the reality. A trained historian, she set out to unravel her own family history. The result is an honest and moving portrayal of the lives of 'ordinary' working-class women over three generations, from domestic servant to Oxford Scholarship girl, which also shows how much has changed for women over the past century - not least their expectations. 'My grandmother's birth certificate... told a familiar, sad little tale: she was the illegitimate daughter of a servant girl.' Margaret's grandmother, Margaret Ann, born in 1869, accepted her hard life as a servant, 'moved up' by marrying a butcher, and had three daughters. Her biggest fear was that they would get into trouble - the trouble that began with an e (for 'expecting'). Once they were all safely married, her job would be done, another family cycle complete. 'She had founded her family and seen its members do the same in turn and that was what a woman's life was about.' Her daughter Lily, Margaret's mother, born in 1901, was well educated for a woman of her time and class, but traded her independence and the office job she loved to marry and have children - you couldn't do both. Margaret, born in 1938, the stubborn, demanding child, nose always in a book, adored her mother but was horrified by the domestic drudgery she accepted as women's lot. ('Reading, that was what Margaret liked best. Was there a job called A Reader?') Lily found it maddening that Margaret was clever (as she herself had been). It would do her no good - she would only marry and have children, whatever she said. (Ironically, perhaps, she did, the minute she graduated - and then became a distinguished biographer and novelist.) Margaret Forster, sharp and clear-sighted, gets right inside these mothers and daughters, not least herself. How very ordinary they are: strong and truthful, just getting on with it, always putting family first. The men are more shadowy, either spivs and seducers or good husbands and solid wage-earners, but always a bit squeamish about reality. How much is this women's perception? Margaret Forster makes you think about it. (Kirkus UK)