In 1999 she moved to The Independent as a columnist, but returned to The Guardian in 2009, writing a column for the paper for nearly a decade. Oh, God. I see it all, of course, from somewhere on the living room ceiling. I left on the first train after that night of reckoning, for Edinburgh, and a happier start to 1983 with Crispin. I told my parents, Win and John, that Id been offered a place at St Andrews university, they warned me that Id be out of my depth, mixing with people who had very different lives to me more money, posh, snobs. For a time the couple were glamorous fringe bohemians of the Groucho Club set and put on lavish parties. There I met Tim, with whom I formed the most normal and equal long-term relationship Ive ever had. Angela Rippon, for example, was mocked and questioned for lacking the gravitas and authority to read the news bulletins. I believed then, and still do, that the world was flat, and contemplated unwary travellers tumbling over the edge somewhere beyond Motherwell, if there really was anything beyond Motherwell. Within a couple of years of arrival in London I was the proud chatelaine of half a one-bed flat in Brixton. Still do., At St Andrews, with her Clyde Valley accent, she at first found herself somewhat out of place among what she called Englands hunting, shooting and fishing crowd, she wrote last year. He was sacked after admitting taking heroin in the toilet of John Majors plane during the 1997 general election campaign, her plea that he be allowed to resign notwithstanding. In 1990, she was hired by The Guardian where, in 1993, she became the first female editor of its Weekend magazine and later its literary editor. English, highly conscious of being an outsider in Motherwell and dismissive of Scottish ways, especially of Scottish food. It wasnt like everyone was leaping about, doing arabesques. But Deborah was always honest: so I will be too. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused. Win went on to die from kidney and bone cancer in 2013, turning into this little white-headed woman, with ghostly hair, more demanding than ever. I didnt understand where they thought all of their encouragement of my schoolwork had been going. In the last couple of weeks, it has received great but bemused attention in the literary journals of London, on the BBC and now in New York with the publication of Deborah Orrs book, simply entitled Motherwell, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 16.99). In the 50s, it had an inspired coach and produced Olympic champions, another source of municipal pride. Please put us down for one of your high-rises and all the clean air up there, one woman wrote. I told no one. His son became provost and MP and there is a grand family plot in the graveyard known, curiously, as the Globe. The proudest feature of her fathers life, according to him, was that he had never missed a days work in his life, a boast that persisted even after they made him redundant. On the day they blew Ravenscraig down, Deborah was there with her father, mother and brother David. Their disapproval dogged me, in ways I didnt understand or acknowledge. The amazing thing, really, is that after about 25 years, Colin Fox looks so very much like the boy he used to be. This was when I stopped living in a domestic environment where I constantly felt undereducated. I started to dress differently, in a long, voluminous tweed skirt and Edwardian-style high-collared blouses. Deborah was an avid animal lover and brought many injured birds to the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary for care. I didnt know what anything was. The king laughed away the claim, but admitted that it showed the superior wit of the Scots. There is a circular wall giving some dignity to the spot and making it one of the places that visitors or tourists, who do not flock there in their multitudes, should not miss. We smoked a couple of joints. Girls at best were the crumpet to simper over Jimmy Savile on Top Of The Pops. Tributes have been paid to the Scottish journalist and author Deborah Orr, who has died aged 57. I waited until he was deeply enough asleep and crept out. Deborah Jane Orr, journalist, born 23 September 1962; died 19 October 2019, Editor of the Guardians Weekend magazine who went on to become a trenchant, witty and much admired columnist, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Perhaps best known for her pithy outspokenness in the Guardian, Orr had the kind of successful career that many parents would have celebrated but this was not the case for Orr whose constantly belittling mother, Win, often treated her like a subservient companion rather than a loved child or autonomous human being. Initially, the descriptions of life in the shadow of the Ravenscraig steel mill, which made girders for bridges and power stations, have a macabre beauty. The journalist Deborah Orr, who has died aged 57 after suffering from cancer, was a strikingly original character, and made an impression in whatever she did. Maybe what is really amazing is the vastness of . When it went, so quickly [it] became a town without a purpose. Set in the Lanarkshire countryside south-east of Glasgow, Motherwell at its height made trams, heavy engineering parts, and produced 3m tons of steel every year, employing 14,000 people (more than half the towns adult population), many of them at Ravenscraig, which was targeted through the 80s and closed in 1992. I dont think that counts as pasta., Well, thats a bit strange, I must say. Following a diagnosis of late stage four cancer this summer, a decade after she was treated for breast cancer, she tweeted about her condition, from severe pain to insomnia in the small hours to her advice about what not to say to cancer patients, especially: Is there anything I can do?. Orr evokes with relish the broken glass underfoot, redundancies, boredom, teenage criminal gangs, bins full of rain and rats. In 1997, she married the writer Will Self, a troublesome relationship since her writing was often considered better in style and content than his. [6] Until 1990, Orr was a contributor to New Statesman. [2], Orr was born on 23 September 1962[3] to Winifred "Win" and John Orr, a factory worker. This book is like that, forging out of living memory a glowing vision of troubled belonging. Your place is here, with us. contact the editor here. The story of family and town are intertwined not just in the chapters on her childhood years, as would be common in an autobiography, but for her whole life, even after she had moved to London. I would get married, Id have her grandchildren, and Win would be around to help me look after them. It also meant I had to spend every holiday with them. She remained emotionally chained to Motherwell, part in pride part in shame, loving and detesting it in equal measure. [1] In 1990, she began writing for The Guardian regularly. Above all she admits to being seared by an incident when she took her mothers nail varnish to draw macrame designs and lied about the disappearance of the little bottle. Please! I said, becoming desperate, and added, as the magazines advised, I have my period.. The author also attacks other Scottish poisons like sectarianism and toxic masculinity. In 2017, in a Guardian column, she revealed her diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, rooted in a working-class childhood in her birthplace of Motherwell, near Glasgow, as the daughter of Win (Winifred, nee Avis) and her husband, John Orr, a factory worker. The total change in his character, the full engagement of biker culture, the calculated nastiness and horror, was like a blow. As a woman it had become so rare for the three of us to sit together and talk about me. Deborah Orrs mother knew all about that, or felt she did. There were moments of unconsciousness, and every time I came round hed bash me on the head again, until he was done. Everyone wore bottle-thick NHS glasses, cumbersome hearing aids and callipers. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. But as soon as Deborah dared to assert her independence, the mood at home turned grim. At times, she comes close to Gorkis description of his own lower depths. At some point well into adulthood she went into psychotherapy, and was introduced to the concept of narcissism, which becomes the dominant touchstone in her analysis of everything and everyone, particularly of her parents, Win and John. So thats why weve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. Eventually, John and Win announced that they had decided that I could go to St Andrews, but only if I promised that I would come back home to live when my course was complete. End of twitter post 4 by frances Barber#FBPE, On board the worlds last surviving turntable ferry. And no one understood a word I said. "The crowd was sparse," she writes. Your problems, Deborah, are all of your own making, said Win with satisfaction. This article contains content provided by Twitter. "[11], On 19 October 2011, an article by Orr stated that the trade for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners "tacitly acknowledges what so many Zionists believe: that the lives of the chosen are of hugely greater consequence than those of their unfortunate neighbours. It's surprising how much a musical selection can affect mourning. And what a remarkable book it is impassioned, angry, tender, pathetic, honest to a fault. Sifting through her memories as she tries to make sense of her life, Orr sees how she was never good enough, how life itself was never good enough, and that John was really a man of bigotry and anger. When the already tottering campanile in Venice collapsed at night-time on to St Marks Square in 1902, damaging no property and injuring no person, people said that the bell tower had shown itself to be a gentleman. Going out with boys, applying to university (the first in the family), even keeping her own name on being married all this infuriated her mother. But there are miracles too in the world of hard knocks, and Orr, by a kind of genius, finds the kernel of the towns former existence, and locates the mother in its name. Win kept the council house immaculate. The grounds contain the remains of a 12th-century chapel dedicated to St Patrick, now the mausoleum of the Lords Hamilton of Dalzell. The family maintained its local roots, unlike comparable industrial families in, for example, Paisley, but only for a time. (modern). Motherwell, with its fierce Catholic-Protestant divide Lanarkshire apartheid lent an extra shade of gloom to the scene. The NHS has been plunged into a financial and staffing crisis. There was once a sign on the estate which said Trespassers will be Prosecuted. The hippies were preferable, however, to the Yahs. In an extract from her posthumous memoir, the writer recalls her escape to university and how her mothers disapproval haunted her. Its either that or a Glasgow kiss.. I did still want Win to view me as a good daughter. So how did she end up falling into so many of these traps, despite her best efforts? [5] If youre lucky. Much later, after the party had long dispersed, after I was in bed, drunk, half asleep, he slipped back in through my unlocked door, took off his trousers, got into the bed, silently fucked me, got up, put on his trousers, then left. Hello? Personal identities were shattered. My parents were the jailers that I loved. Maisonettes and flats at Muirhouse Housing Development, Motherwell, 1966. When she was 11, her tenement building was demolished and she, her brother David and their parents were shipped to a new housing estate. I explained that the hospice was at the top of a steep hill, that I didnt think I could manage it, that the shops would be closed anyway and that I didnt mind paying for a taxi at all quite the reverse. The Orrs (there was a brother, David) lived an orderly modest life and in this revealing childhood memoir Orr calls her girlhood home "a psychological citadel" where mother knew best, ruled the roost with few arguments and is described as "vivacious and terrifyingly well-organised". "[12] This statement, viewed by many as antisemitic, was the subject of criticism. READ MORE:Pope Francis to deliver mass by video streaming to avoid crowds. The services of food banks have never been more in demand. Teaching. No flatmates. But I couldnt believe it. The works provided employment, and gave people, men especially, the sense of confident selfhood that comes from having a purpose and a place in society. Housing estates were built on a sort of visionary, infectious hope, drawing on particular memories of bombed-out tenements and overcrowded room-and-kitchens. The original suggestion came from Simon Kelner, the editor of the Independent. Your father and I forbid you, and thats that.. You are a stupid, disgusting little fool and there is nothing more we can do to help you now. Win was so glad to be outside again, so glad to see the sky and the water and the tea room. [22], She died of breast cancer in October 2019, aged 57. Another annoyance was to hear the town referred to not its own right but as being somewhere near Glasgow or recognised only because it featured among the Saturday night football results on the radio. I may even have erected a wall of pillows down its middle. What makes China tick? After Thatcherism, his world would be blown down in broad daylight, and he becomes an almost Hardyesque casualty of the land, someone carrying his trauma and his prejudices as if they were all he had. Her working class Motherwell background came in handy in 2001 when a hooded intruder, who turned out to be a woman, broke into her terraced house in Stockwell, south London. His chief contribution to the tale was to call Deborah no better than a common whore for having had sex before she was married. And over the years Wins power came to seem entirely oppressive to her daughter, like the forces excoriating the town itself. A heritage centre, with a helpful and enthusiastic staff, stands where the swimming baths, one of the first indoor municipal pools in Scotland, once stood. Orr writes that she felt her mother should have, at some point, drawn a line rather than spend the rest of her days grieving the loss of her husband. I didnt get it. A Gannett Company. Published by Miles Funeral Home from Sep. 19 to Sep. 20, 2020. When she was 11, her tenement building was demolished and she, her brother David and their parents were shipped to a new housing estate. Orr held an annual Christmas no men allowed party for female friends at their house in Stockwell, south London. It was when she opted to study English at St Andrews that problems with her mother peaked. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. This is your home, Deborah. Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who arent really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse. All the time, Deborah is looking at Win and asking: Did she mother well? But she also asks who she is herself, how capable, how good. There is great accuracy in the books sociological depictions, great courage in its manner of uncovering family secrets. She worked for over 18 years as a librarian and teacher for Pinellas County Schools. This self-discovery led to a memoir, Motherwell: A Girlhood, to be published in January: writing it took over from column writing. If she had, however, we wouldnt have this rather special book. Id paid for it, not her. Which was true. Idealism in British architecture has much to answer for, yet we like the idea that optimism mixes well with fresh cement. The conversation will go back to what it should be about people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Orr writes of this as if her life depended on it. This website and associated newspapers adhere to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Explore in 3D: The dazzling crown that makes a king. Ah kent his faither, or mither, is the most withering of Scots contempt. I know this because I know what men are like. Deborah Ann (McCluskey) Orr, 62, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her loving family on Wednesday, August 12, 2020 after an illness. The point is: it might never be understood that way again. It was once prominently displayed in public but is now concealed in a private garden. The crowd was sparse, she writes. Motherwell was a heart of darkness, even before the economy shrank in the Eighties. [10], Orr wrote, in 2017, "Homeless people are stuck in the streets once again. VideoOn board the worlds last surviving turntable ferry, I didnt think make-up was made for black girls, Why there is serious money in kitchen fumes. Not the least of the strengths of this book is that it gives a picture of the complexities of mother-daughter relationship in Scotland. Here was another one. They married in 1997: Orr became stepmother to Selfs children, Alexis and Madeleine, and they went on to have two sons. She clung on to her things, stuffing them into the bureau, but also to her disappointments, as if only they could define her, keep her voice central to the life of the family, cancelling any youthful or novel encroachments. She is survived by her two sons, Ivan and Luther, from her marriage with fellow writer Will Self, as well as her stepchildren, Alexis and Madeleine. Id already finished university by the time the miners strike began in 1984. The family lived at 18 Clyde Terrace, a timber-clad, typical two-storey dwelling in the middle of others much the same, and she recalls the bureau that stood in the corner of the living room, overseen by her mother, Win, who managed all its papers, all its memories. Theyd snort. As boys we thought that prosecuted was a synonym of executed, and having watched too many cowboy films we assumed it meant that trespassers would be shot on sight. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. I climbed on to the overnight coach to London, and found a squat to live in. Except that Tim still hadnt met my parents. Motherwell is written. Scotland this sense of historical value has been lost to such places. Strangely there is no recognised term for inhabitants of the town. 22:02 BST 25 Jan 2020 There was simply no one else who could do it at that time. She writes about the history of violence and sectarianism, the scars they leave, and slowly, with a reporters skill, she shows the interior life of her people. Deborah Orr, right, hosted An Evening With Vivienne Westwood in 2016. Ms Orr fought her off after a violent tussle and later wrote in The Independent: I feel sad for her, but Im glad we caught her I want to meet her, try to get her to understand how it feels to have such a violation visited on ones home and ones children.. But that was not that. My parents were the gaolers I loved, she writes poignantly. The architects made no attempt to create a place where you might want to hang out and once the steel mills closed down, Motherwell was a town without a purpose. "There was still a lot of. Glad to hear your mothers well, so hows your father? I got my new life! An October 7 tweet, however, said: Very ill with septicaemia. You are no better than a common whore. People forget, says Orr, how much women colluded in the perpetration of macho culture, by being scathing about nervous breakdowns, looking down on spinsters and openly sneering at men with well-kept fingernails wearing suede shoes.
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