A History of the Annual Family Row

I got my Annual Family Christmas Row out of the way the weekend before Christmas, which seemed stylish. I don't see an awful lot of my family - my parents are both long gone (both died around Christmas time, so it's hasn't been my favourite thing for a while), and there's always been a lot of space between me and my four (much) older sisters, partly just due to the expanse of years between us (eldest sister 23 years older than me, youngest sister a mere 13 - yes, I was an Irish Catholic Menopause Baby!), and partly because our upbringings were quite different, despite having parents, and genes, and stuff like that in common. 

My sisters were all  born in pre-trendy Ireland, where my Mum was marooned, living with her parents while my Dad was 'over' (slang of the time for being 'in England') working rather bitterly in a car factory.  He'd started life as a wealthy Irish American colonial brat, but the family fell on Hard Times and he was forced to reduce his station accordingly. Naturally, he never got over the loss of status. Every now and again, he'd head back over the St George's Channel on board the Innisfallen, to reward my Mum's forbearance with another pregnancy. Then it was back to Dagenham and the hated foundry, to earn his wages and drink most of them away in the pubs of Whitechapel and Stepney. My mother was largely reliant on her parents, and on the booty smuggled  home by her father, the gifted Head Gardner at an iconic Irish historical site, to feed her ever-growing brood of little Irish girls. Although my father's meagre contributions were supplemented with what Grandad could pilfer from the greenhouses of the Anglo Irish toffs who employed him, there often wasn't enough food to go round. My sisters grew up knowing genuine poverty and hunger. My grandfather would reputedly weep alone in the kitchen after they had all gone to bed, crushed by responsibility and hopelessness.

By the time I came along, things were a little different. My Mum had upped sticks and hauled her girls 'over', largely to stop my father running off with another women, and partly because if he ran, there was every chance he'd run back to the States, leaving her even more stuffed. He grudgingly offered her the chance to relocate the whole family to New York, so that if he had to suffer the indignity of being tied to a family, he could at least go out drinking and fighting with his brothers to ease the drudgery. She refused.They worked out some kind of uneasy truce, and I was born some years later, by which time he had got a slightly better job. I say only 'sightly' - we had our own house, to be sure, but things were still not easy (my own humiliating memories involve having to regularly drag two heavy bags of empty lemonade bottles back to the off-licence, so my Mum could buy potatoes with the 2d deposit the glowering English owner reluctantly handed over on each one. She would stand at the corner and wait for me, too ashamed to do  it herself. That generally happened on weeks when my Dad had had a bad run at "the bookies".). Let's say I wasn't one of the girls who started school in her wellies because her parents couldn't afford shoes, but we certainly weren't flush.

My sisters were all required to become economically productive as early as possible, and so all left school by 15 and got out to work. They were all left feeling that my Dad was largely indifferent to them, and with some justification. With me it proved to be a slightly different story, though - for once, forced proximity to a growing infant encouraged him to take an interest in the child, and my own limpet-like persistence in demanding his attention wore him down. My sisters stood by and watched astounded, as every Saturday morning he led me up to the Public Library and waited patiently while I picked the four new books that I would devour each week (he then went straight to the pub. You can't have everything.). My education was encouraged. Pains were taken that I went to the snotty local convent school, though I hated it and didn't flourish there. But by dint of will I pursued and passed my A levels at a local college, confounding the nuns, and I left for University nine months after my Dad finally succeeded in drinking himself to death. I got a very ordinary degree from a provincial University, but so far I'm still the only member of my family to have done so. Non-vocational higher education is mistrusted and derided, though (as with many immigrant families) money, and the display of money, are highly respected. But learning for its own sake? Baffling.

And herein lies the quintessence of the row my family and I repeat, again and again, whenever we're together for any length of time. It will find a different form of expression each time, a different peg to hang itself on, whether that be racism, sexism, homophobia, religion, or any of those other dangerous areas that get used for the passing of coded messages within families.

This year it was homophobia's turn. So easy, so very easy. A small grenade, lobbed in knowingly by my youngest sister's husband. "How's Brighton, then - still full of poofs?". He stands back and retires as the room ignites. "Oh for god's sake.." I begin. But another brother-in-law is there to accept the torch. "I tell you what sickens me. You turn on the telly and it's Graham Norton, going on and on and on about men and bums and cocks. So you turn over, and it's Alan Carr, doing the same. Men and bums and cocks. So you turn over again,   and it's that other queer on Strictly Come Dancing, and he's supposed to be judging the dancing but he's leering over the men and their bums..." My sister, his loyal wife, joins in. "The media is run by a Gay Mafia!" She's banging her fists on her knees, her husband is purple-faced and flecks of spit are collecting at the corner of his mouth. I look at the folded copy of the Daily Mail on the coffee table between us.

I can't stop myself from giving them what they want. I launch into my well-practiced liberal defence of sexual freedom, acknowledging that Alan Carr and Graham Norton's tired stereotypical portrayal of gay men is not actually doing anyone any favours these days but (why do I do it, why?) pointing out that they both seem somewhat obsessed with a very narrow and specific aspect of male-male relationships, ie, anal sex, and querying him on whether it's only wrong when gay male couples do it, or would he care to police the bedrooms of the nation and apply the same opprobrium to heterosexual couples who have a taste for it too? And given their all-round distaste for same-sex couplings, how might they react if any of their much-loved grandchildren turn out to be gay? This pushes the argument to its inevitable conclusion: "It would make NO difference at ALL to me if they were gay! I'm pretty sure my own BROTHER is gay, but I still see him, don't I!" (not that often. He emigrated to Germany in 1970 and has never come out. despite a long term 'house mate' called Gunther who obligingly visits his own family in Westphalia when there are fraternal calls.). And then the inevitable, unalterable punch line...

"It offends me! It just offends me! And you're sitting there, attacking me in my own home, and thinking that you're better than us because you've got a fucking degree!"

Maybe we'll get together at the end of this year and do it again, just for old time's sake. Or maybe thirty years is enough, and I'll decline the invitation, or just go along and keep my mouth shut. Though of course, inside I'll be glowing with barely-concealed smugness about my average intelligence, mediocre academic record, and very ordinary career. It's just a bloody good job I never became an over-achiever...