Family Memories

This isn't her memories but her mother's, of the family she grew up in during the late 19th century in Edinburgh. They were a family of professional musicians, teaching and playing in local orchestras. Father had died, but mother (West's grandmother) opened a shop that sold lace and they did okay. The eldest son suddenly married - shockingly - a seamstress from the shop! The couple was estranged from the family. Then another brother has consumption and is sent to Australia for his health. The youngest brother, a painter, is heading towards alcoholic ruin.
West's mother comes home one day to find police, a doctor, and the family lawyer meeting with her mother and aunt, then her third brother is sent to Canada. Not until years later does show more she learn why: he had chatted with some men in a bar and went with them to another friend's house for dinner, not knowing that it was a homosexual brothel. The shame of him having mistakenly gone there - and done nothing else - was enough that he had to leave because he would be ruined in society, and it would be impossible for his sisters to marry, and they must never know of it.
West's mother goes to Australia to visit her brother (who is drinking heavily but cured of tuberculosis and happily married to the proverbial whore with the heart of gold) and meets and marries her father. They return to England and have three daughters; her father leaves. There's a bit about West's relationships with her parents and sisters, but it's mainly about her mother's generation.
I enjoyed the family stories, always fascinating, and the look at how differently things were done in the past, a different country. show less