Forgetting's no excuse
by Mary Stott
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The first volume of her autobiography in which Mary Scott describes her life as a distinguished journalist, including her time as women's editor in The Guardian, 1957-72.Tags
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KayCliff Both books examine the effects of sudden widowhood.
Member Reviews
The first volume of her autobiography in which Mary Scott describes her life as a distinguished journalist, including her time as women's editor in The Guardian , 1957-72. It describes her work with the women's liberation movement, the changes over the years in the technique of newspaper production and ends with her account of learning to be a widow which has brought comfort and strength to women who found that her experiences reflect their own.
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Her last chapter should be compulsory reading for everyone. It exposes the great chasm of grief that opened for her upon her husband's death and through her experience demonstrates how to help the bereaved, perhaps how to be better prepared for our own catastrophe, and how to rid ourselves of the guilt of returning to the mainstream of living.
added by KayCliff
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7+ Works 45 Members
Common Knowledge
- First words
- "This place smells of newsprint," said my daughter one day as she walked up the stairs of my Blackheath flat.
- Quotations
- One should contain one’s grief. But ... we who have words can articulate grief for those who have not, and to have grief spelt out, its pattern charted, is something we all obscurely need.
The crucial thing about putting newspapers together is, as a head printer used to say to me, that type is not made of indiarubber. There are so many inches to a column length and so many ems to a column width and the page can... (show all)not be wheeled away ... until it precisely fits.
Tradition sees to it that I am tempted to feel virtuous when I have cleaned the floor, and wicked if I am at my desk with the floor dirty. . . . I think of this business of housework as a temptation, as an excuse for not buck... (show all)ling down to more demanding work. . . . If you SEE dust, smears, dirt, they shame and embarrass you: they fill you with guilt. A woman busy with children, a job, or any other activity, will, quite literally, not see dust and grime.
Many grievous things happened to us in that house, but the garden was the healer. We drew virtue from it. We grew in comradeship in it, for while K mowed and edged and hedged I sowed and planted and weeded. You learn so much ... (show all)in a garden - humility, awe, patience, persistence and gratitude.
It was three o'clock in the morning and I was alone in a very large house. My one thought was that somehow I must get through the next three hours before I could communicate with the outside world. There wasn't anyone I felt ... (show all)I could wake with this news ... I know now that any woman could knock up her neighbour and get help ... I hope no other woman, stuck as I was, will think she has to wait to cry for help, even at 3 a.m. on a cold November morning.
In the Prince's Road garden a very comical and lovable dog, Ben Bassett, was buried. Sometimes I think a small part of me was buried there too, for since I wrenched myself away I have never experienced that flooding in of del... (show all)ight I sometimes knew there – perhaps just looking at the bridal white of the philadelphus, the triumphant blaze of those common selfseeded red poppies, or the perfect formation of a dahlia or a rose. But perhaps some day, somewhere, in some other garden?
It is a fascinating thought that women – I am one of them – who resent the endless cleaning up of household clutter, the endless battle against dust, grime, smears on the paint, fluff under the bed, tarnish on the silver,... (show all) stains on the sink and bath, grease on the kitchen floor, will go on hands and knees in the garden, cheerfully grubbing up twitch or bindweed or that pestiferous mare's tail which was my undefeated enemy under the gooseberries and the old-fashioned roses. I read somewhere that mare's tail is the oldest form of vegetation, and I can well believe it. Those apparently fragile, almost invisible roots, which send up deceptively pretty conifer-like shoots, go far deeper into the earth than I could ever dig, and I never found a weedkiller strong enough to discourage them for more than a season. But patience and persistence will enable you to triumph over even twitch and bindweed, and to tug out the seeding weeds and see the good brown earth clean and neat round the precious flowers is pleasure indeed. Now why isn't it as satisfying to dust round the ornaments? Only because to some of us plants are more interesting than inanimate objects. Some women love their glass and china, their mahogany and walnut, their silver and their figurines, as much as I loved the stocks and the petunias, the snap dragons, even as much as I loved the roses. It seems to me a waste of a woman's time to spend hours every week polishing floors and furniture, but it never seemed a waste of time to tug out every clump of grass that was in the wrong place, even though I knew, that like household litter, it would all appear again in a week or two's time. Plants are as untidy as children, dropping their seeds everywhere and shoving their roots – think of clover, buttercups and sorrel – where they aren't wanted. You don't, though, have to argue with plants. You just accept that they will take over the garden, if you don't chase them. Children have to be coaxed, nagged or bullied into tidying up after themselves. If you aren't strong-minded enough to do this, you have to do the tidying up yourself, but you bitterly resent it. I never resented the march of the weeds. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And perhaps a beginning.
Classifications
- Genres
- Biography & Memoir, Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 070.4 — Computer science, information & general works News media, journalism & publishing Documentary media, educational media, news media; journalism; publishing Journalism
- LCC
- PN5123 .S76 .A32 — Language and Literature Literature (General) Literature (General) Journalism. The periodical press, etc. By region or country
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 10
- Popularity
- 2,132,281
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook
- ISBNs
- 6
