Family Secrets: Shame and Privacy in Modern Britain

Derek Malcolm's extraordinary family scandal is detailed in this slim volume, at times written with great tenderness, humor and insight.

Malcolm was a late-in-life child to a couple who were survivors of the modernization of English society--his father a World War I veteran and his mother the great beauty of her day. Malcolm details his experiences in boarding school and the murder trial he learned about while going through a desk in his family home.

At times the book dragged, in particular in the trial transcript excerpts. The book is lacking in that all witnesses to the scandal have long passed away, and very little was discussed between him and his father concerning the entire event.

I recommend this book to lovers of English history show more or literature. show less

Described to me as "white bourgeois British families' attitudes towards biracial, illegitimate/adopted, divorced, disabled, and homosexual relatives during the nineteenth century."

An autobiography. In 1943, aged 12, Derek went to Summerfields, the exclusive prep school in Oxford, Mr Thompson, an elderly music teacher, once sat Derek on his knee in front of a class, put his hand in the boy’s pocket and fiddled with him while the other boys laughed.