Constance

One of the regrets I have from my youth was my abysmal effort and subsequent marks at A level.  Conscious that it is fashionable to say you have ‘no regrets’ these days, I beg to differ.  The dictionary definition of ‘regret’ as a noun is ‘a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over an occurrence or something that one has failed to do.’  Certain that we have all experienced this, I have never quite been able to fathom why people fall over themselves to say that this is something they don’t possess.  It is one of the qualities that makes us human after all and is a very real indication that we have thoughts, feelings, empathies and an ability to analyse.  There was very little in my poor exam marks that have produced any positive consequences - just embarrassment really - and an occasional need to justify them.  That said, I only accept 90% of the blame (which is quite a lot) for this shambolic episode.  Apart from the usual idiotic behaviour of a normal seventeen year old, I gleefully embraced the consequences of an audition system at music college which meant that - more than six months before Upper Sixth exams - if successful you were given an unconditional offer.  Absolute madness of course and some (but not all of us) took this as a licence to do fuck all for the rest of our time at school.

Secondary school for many children is a challenge and was perhaps best characterised by my lack of engagement at history A level.  Given the lack of sophistication and maturity at seventeen, for this I do have some sympathy for my younger self.  It hadn’t occurred to me before opting for the course that levels of interest would be entirely subject to the topics studied (duh) - and I was unlucky enough to land on foreign affairs in the nineteenth century.  The complexities of national boundaries, empires, battles and stuff - for which I had and continued to have no memory - simply went in one ear and straight out of the other.  It was depressing.  The British (as opposed to international) side of this historical period showed a little more promise in terms of interest, but still didn’t have the graspable, domestic side of life that really drew me in.  Part of our course was choosing a subject on which we were to do a personal study, which I left until the last minute (we had over a year in which to complete this) and - frantically clutching at straws - eventually put together a piece of bullshit on the Port of Bristol.  I rightly failed this part of the course and continue to have no interest in the subject whatsoever.  So why is there a smidgeon of sympathy for the younger me at this point?  Because I realised decades later that what drew many of my female contemporaries into study was women’s history…. and that had not yet arrived at the small corner of North Somerset where I resided for the last four years of school.

It has only occurred to me in middle age, how little of our school subjects were explored from a female point of view.  There is - rightly - a cultural discussion going on about how much black history in this country has been glossed over, ignored or even fabricated and whilst female history has had some brilliant and serious scholars giving this due consideration, it was too late for my education - and of course would explain so much about my irritation, boredom (rage?) at school, watching documentaries, reading and engaging with cultural events where women were either disregarded altogether or mentioned as a prop to men’s history.  I watched a thirty year old documentary recently about Oscar Wilde and revisited some of those feelings.  Apart from my discomfort about the heroic qualities attributed to him, I hated the fact that this programme didn’t contain a single woman.  I can’t be the only person who has read and admired his books, thought about his life and felt that he behaved a teensy weensy bit selfishly.  Even in the context of the time, the apparently casual way in which he wrecked the lives of his wife and children, causing them to live peripatetically for the rest of his spouse Constance’s shortened life and leaving his two sons to practically deny their own existence.  It is troubling, not because he was a flawed genius, not even because he behaved neglectfully towards his family (though eventually was sorry for it), but because it wasn’t even acknowledged.  Almost at every point, in reading about him I have found myself thinking ‘What about Constance?  Isn’t anyone going to mention her?  What about the children?  How did they survive his jail term?  What happened to them afterwards?’  Of course he isn’t the only brilliant male artist to have created art and left a trail of devastation behind him and - thankfully - the last few years has seen many clever women starting to address this and write scholarly books and papers on females who have appeared as mere ghosts in famous male lives.  Radio 3 is doing a good deal to address this in recognising the lives of Clara Schumann or Fanny Mendelssohn for example and books are starting to be written about wives and daughters of famous creatives, as well as forgotten brilliant women artists.  Coincidentally, whilst pondering all of this the other day, a witty poem about Dorothy Wordsworth and her constant family interruptions was read out on the radio.  It made me think about what she - and literally millions of other woman could have achieved if they hadn’t been at best patronised and at worst abused, neglected and left to live a life of domestic drudgery.  Rather than anger, pondering all of this has just left me sad.  Poor Constance, poor Fanny, poor Clara - I am thinking of you.   

Uplifting music of the day: - ‘The Things we Did Last Summer’ as sung by Nancy Wilson and accompanied by George Shearing and his band.  I cannot listen to this piece without smiling and always play it twice!  Fabulous phrasing and just a very happy place to be.

Contemplative music of the day: - As it’s the fortieth anniversary of Milos Forman’s wonderful film ‘Amadeus’ I have to mention something by Mozart. The opening of his Requiem is not only beautiful but genuinely intriguing; in some ways it doesn’t sound like him at all.  Plus the sound of basset horns (why do we hardly use these now?) is just gorgeous.

Book: - ‘Constance - the tragic and scandalous life of Mrs Oscar Wilde’ by Franny Moyle speaks for itself really.  Well worth a read.