Memoirs Of A Not So Dutiful Daughter

Jenni Murray's memoirs of a not so dutiful daughter - Telegraph

Unlike her schoolfriends who longed to be Ursula Andress, young Jenni headed straight for the top: It was power that interested her, not looks. Murray has campaigned tirelessly for gender equality, sex education, natural childbirth, better treatment for breast cancer, depression and terminal illness, and the right to be a mother without having to sign up as a wife. She got her basic training from the fishwives of Hull 'I learnt more about feminist politics from them than I ever did from The Female Eunuch' while packing pet food for Findus in vacations from university.

The lessons they taught were reinforced by a brief marriage to a fellow student, the luckless Mr Murray, who had the nerve to expect her to shop, cook and clean for him and found himself ditched instead. Murray puts much of her success down to her mother, a formidable character who never forgave her only child for not being a boy.

Mother and daughter were locked from the start in unequal combat as Mrs Bailey struggled to turn her large, noisy, obstreperous daughter into a model of feminine modesty and meekness by slapping her and making her sit on the stairs or later by binning her miniskirts, confiscating her make-up and sending her early to bed. Much of Murray's programme in later life was a calculated response to the phantom mother who, whether present or not in the flesh, 'sat on my shoulder, critical and displeased, oozing disappointment and disgust'.

The two fought long and hard over Murray's tall, dark and handsome father, who accepted their uncritical adoration in satisfied silence. Their rivalry became increasingly sexual. Murray was outraged to be told for the first time at 15 on a family holiday that her parents no longer wanted her sharing their bedroom.

Shortly afterwards, she scored a first of her own by reducing her mother to tears and provoking her father so sharply that he finally hit her. Mrs Bailey got her own back on her deathbed 'It's always been the same,' she hissed when Murray tried to distract her grieving father with tales of her latest success. The couple died within six months of one another. Murray describes this diary of their last year, during which she endured a mastectomy and gruelling chemotherapy, as a love letter, though it reads at times more like battlefront dispatches and ends with both parents roped to their daughter's chariot wheels as in a Roman triumph.

Beneath the tangled thickets of largely unexplored resentment, frustration and rancour sprouting between its lines, this is a salutary book. Murray straddles a gulf in time almost unimaginable even for those who lived through it. She was born and brought up in Barnsley, where both her grandfathers were miners. Her maternal grandmother was the youngest of 12, the only child in her village whose family could afford to send her to school in shoes. However, in this case it happened to the doyenne of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and just as she was setting out to write her memoirs.

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Of course we share a name, even though she has done terrible things with hers. We were also born in the same place, I now realise with a sense of shock not that many years apart, and my mother and aunt A heart aching book. We were also born in the same place, I now realise with a sense of shock not that many years apart, and my mother and aunt attended the same school she did.

Whap, some of the place names hit me and it cannot be only the production values of the large print edition that made me think for a moment of my grandmother when viewing photos of her mother. I had not I think appreciated before how many though not all personal values we share - a testament to her radio skill perhaps. There is nothing spectacularly awful in the book - perhaps that is why it is so moving - except perhaps a clear message that cancer care in the UK is generally an awful lot better than care for degenerative disorders. On reflection it is spectacularly awful that the end of her mother's life is sufficiently usual not to seem remarkable.

It is an interesting account of the changes in lives between generations and the tensions for which those changes are at least partly responsible. The title derives from Simone de Beauvoir's Memoir's of a Dutiful Daughter although to be honest I feel Jenni only gave as good as she got. I do have a slightly uneasy feeling that the book is something of a snapshot and not all her stated positions are ones she can back up and thus maybe more journalism than definitive reflection on her life. Sep 10, Hannah Dalton rated it it was amazing. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.

To view it, click here. I've only in the last year begun listening religiously, via podcast to Woman's Hour. If you listen to Jenni on the radio you'll know already that she takes no prisoners, and that determination is a virtue she has in spades. Happily this is reflected in a seamless, month by month 'diary' which links her current year with her past all the way back from birth.

What' I've only in the last year begun listening religiously, via podcast to Woman's Hour. What's surprising is not the honesty with which she tells her story, but the ability she has to recall the emotions and the exact way she felt at the time.

It is brutal at times, with regard to both her mother and the cancer - but with it you'll find you are giggling in the absolutely necessary dark cloud. It is a story about love and about self belief. I can't fault it and couldn't put it down. Feb 13, Julia Lund rated it really liked it. I don't normally read biographies or memoirs and only picked this one up because my book group is reading it. I have to admit to never having heard of Jenni Murray before reading this book.

I was captivated by the first half of the book, which explored the author's difficult relationship with her mother. However, the latter part of the memoir felt like a completely different book, covering her experiences with breast cancer and the consequences of her mother's death for her father. However, I did I don't normally read biographies or memoirs and only picked this one up because my book group is reading it. However, I did want to finish and identified with some parts - we attended the same university, though a decade apart, and the hospice descriptions moved me to tears as I remembered my mother's final weeks spent in a different, but equally wonderful, hospice.

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Parts of the book, for example the opening to July , were lyrical and I enjoyed those sections of her writing most. Oct 02, Rachel rated it really liked it. My first official celeb biog oh, other than Geri Halliwell's picture book efforts and I loved it. Jenni mixes up current material about her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, along with the death of her mother and father within the same year An engaging and honest account of growing up in the 50's with a difficult mother, and lots of meaty stuff about mother-daughter relationships, feminism, marriage and the like.

Lots of amusing Woman's Hour celeb name dropping too if you like that kind of thing - which I apparently do.

Confessions of a mother hater

Jun 16, Jennie Diplock-Storer rated it really liked it. It's difficult to say that i loved this book, which I did, because of the intense content. I will admit that, reading her description of h It's difficult to say that i loved this book, which I did, because of the intense content. An honest account of her relationship with her parents. She comes across as a warm and lovely person, but not the easiest of people particularly because of her modern and feminist ideas which her old-fashioned parents didn't, or chose not to, understand. She also discusses her diagnosis with breast cancer and subsequent treatment which is a bit too close to home at the moment for me to want to dwell on.

Sep 05, Sonja Trbojevic rated it it was amazing. Jenni Murray's no- nonsense views and broadcasting style are apparent here, in these memoirs. An honest, moving, fearless account, set out in months, each starting chronologically, and then looking back to the past events of each month.

From her battles with a strict mother, her teenage years during the 60's, her mothers protracted suffering and death, I empathised, laughed, and cried along with her.

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Oct 20, Ellen rated it liked it Shelves: Picked this up because of the title: A story worth telling, doesn't matter that the author is well-known in UK as a radio interviewer a good one. A powerful woman, Jenni Murray, who dearly loved her father and had a much harder time with her mother.

Apr 23, Tracey rated it it was amazing Shelves: A wonderful autobiography that's heart-warming , yet sad at the same time. Jenni Murray very open about her relationships with her parents , her mum having Parkinson's disease, her own battle with cancer and her dad's devotion to his wife and his loss without her. Oct 02, Tarquilla rated it really liked it.

Written in such a warm way it was like having Jenni Murray reading to you over the radio.

An interesting story, I have even more respect for her having read it. Farm Mum rated it liked it Jul 11, Suzanne Perry rated it it was amazing Aug 31, Jennifer rated it really liked it Mar 20, Joy Parker rated it it was amazing Dec 02, Felicity rated it really liked it Jul 27,