A TYRANNY UNCHALLENGED - Memories of 1999 to Present Day

 

My Grandparents avoided popular culture like it was a poison that could infect their little slice of 1950s England. Everything was much simpler in the 1950s. Men and women had defined roles they knew where to be at all times. The 1960s were frightening. They were still scared of it years after it had ended. They were devout Christians of the United Reform Church. The Beatles, and everything that came after the Beatles, was ignored. They didn’t want a ticket to ride the Magical Mystery Tour. They didn’t listen to blues, jazz, rock or any of its filthy incarnations. They were ballroom and classical or silence. They understood the rhythm of the Tango’s, waltzes and fox-trots. The purpose of ballroom music was to dance in step and time. Ordered and measured expression. 

Acid was for batteries, trips were down to the sea-front for tea and cake, space was where god lived, and women did the cooking and cleaning until they dropped dead.

They kept their beliefs from the 1950s and created a time capsule inside their bungalow. The big scary world that grew after the sixties could be kept at bay by simply not thinking about it. Feminism, post-modernism, the gay rights, the miners’ strike, the decimation of industry, the post-feminism, the attitudes and changing attitudes were shut out and not spoken of. They wrapped themselves up in blankets of old soft books like The Wind in the Willows and Three Men in a Boat and Roald Dahl. They liked Mary Poppins, ballroom dancing, and choral practic

They didn’t like looking at the difficult truth of the world. No one spoke about it. The uncomfortable filth of life was masked by potpourri, hidden by frosted glass, and painted over by their son’s romantic landscapes.

They chose to associate with simple Christian folk my Granddad’s ministerial flock. They couldn’t challenge them even if they wanted to. My Grandparents ignored anyone and anything that broke them out of their soft little 1950s Marry Poppins world.

My Granddad was a tyrant and my Grandma liked it because the regime he imposed over her allowed her to hide from the truth that lurked outside the door. She was protected by her books and ballroom rhythm and choir practice. She was ruled over by a man who couldn’t be challenged, a living god.

He possessed a power of voice that even to this day is hard to challenge. He has a way of cutting through you with insults and talking you to silence. You can’t lash out because you know that lashing out would be exactly what he wants. He knows you have to be silent because the world outside the walls isn’t to be mentioned inside his house. If you mention the world outside their door it has to be filtered through the family friendly party line. The tone you speak has to mimic the BBC. You must regurgitate the televised tones of reassurance and dust what you say with icing sugar. They put their hands to their ears if they don’t like the sound of what you say.

They have their soft shallow view of history and they have their family lies to uphold. You cannot speak the truth or challenge them. That is the rule of his house.

If you come inside their home, you have to drop into a soft and sweet version of yourself that doesn’t really exist. You can’t talk about how you feel about yourself or the world around you. If they bring up the world you have to agree with them on their protracted version, they lived by.

My feelings about my father were not up for discussion. I had to agree with them that he was a great artist and a brilliant father, who wasn’t allowed to be there for me because of my mad Marxist mother. I could not tell them how much it hurt me to know that my Dad didn’t give a shit about me.

I had to acknowledge that poor artists couldn’t afford to pay for their son’s upbringing. I had to get over the sudden change of narrative when he entered his new homosexual relationship. I had to keep quiet about the strange outings with his friends that took up all of my time with my Dad.

It was always tense when all of us were in their house. My Dad and my Grandparents were putting on an act in front of me. My dad was such a little show off even in his thirties. My Grandma felt as if she was in the presence of a saint. She worshipped him in front of me. He did what he always did. Talked and talked and drank tea and coffee and cadged as many free meals out of them as he could before he had to spend his own money on my dinner.

My Granddad rarely said a bad word about him unless he owed them money. My Granddad was angry if his money wasn’t returned on time. He often gave my dad loans to pay his mortgage with, before my Dad’s partner footed the bulk of the bills.

Their little soft world was like a musical come-to-life. All the grit was hoovered away. Their tyranny has caused me damage. They couldn’t just stay out of my relationship with me and my Dad. They always had to paint him a good guy. He could do no wrong. I had to go along with a lie in order to be in their presence. If I didn’t play along the Patriarchal tyrant exploded from his chair. Everyone apart from my Dad was to blame for my sadness and my madness. They didn’t want to see that if I had had no contact with him my life would have been better.

They forced me to see him even though it hurt me. They made me feel guilt for not spending time with him, even though it damaged me. It made my life worse and they kept on pushing me and making sure I spent time with him, even though it broke my heart. They wouldn’t have it that my dad didn’t care about me. My Grandma held me at sixteen as I cried uncontrollably at the realisation that my father did not care about me and did not want to spend more than a couple of weeks a year with me. She gave me to him even though he didn’t want me. She ignored my deepest pain and refused to see the truth of her beloved son.

 He did not want to be a father. They did not want to see it. They forced a relationship.  I was crippled in the confusion.

 

I am thirty-six next month. I wrote this to put it to rest. I am done with these memories. They say don’t live in the past. The past keeps taking hold of me. I will read this if the memories come back. The ghost of my father lives in my mind. He haunts me. I have been haunted by my father all my life. He was a ghostly presence that materialised thrice a year. I followed him around the streets knocking on houses. We would enter and I would sit watching him talk to others. He couldn’t see me. They couldn’t see me. I became the ghost he took over the part of the living. No more will the ghost of my father drain me of life.