by Helen Mirren
Another memory that seems to explain her contradictory, dramatic, yearning nature was coming home one day from school and finding the house in chaos, my mother stumbling around with a scarf tied over her eyes. She had read about a blind person, empathised, and wanted to feel what that was like. Method acting really. She had been like that for the last few hours.
Once, when she suspected my father of an affair, she ripped every photo of herself out of all our family albums, so now I only have pictures of her young or old, none from home as we grew up. She often had no control over her tongue or her passions.
She was better with money than my father, who with his socialist leanings saw any kind of wealth or investment as an embarrassment and a class betrayal. When he died he left neither money nor debts. The sum total of his estate was two hundred and fifty quid. My mother, on the other hand, managed on her very meagre budget to squirrel away some money and even eventually bought a few stocks and shares.
Along with many of my generation, I was brought up with a fear and horror of debt. My parents had no money, but neither did they ever owe money to anyone. The mantra was always ‘get a roof over your head that no one can take away and you’ll be OK’. I have adhered to this mantra.
All our clothes, except school uniforms and cast-offs, were made by Mum. Everything from bikinis to dolls dresses, to tailored jackets and shirts for my dad. My mother and her sisters had grown up making clothes for themselves, and she taught me how to put in a sleeve and how to do a placket. I can see her now, swearing over putting in a zip or aligning a buttonhole. She was a good dressmaker, but these clothes always came out looking a bit home-made, and the only cloth she could afford was the stuff from the reduced-price bin. She had an immense love of fabrics, which I have inherited, and she and I could spend hours in a fabric store feeling the fabrics and dreaming.
Occasionally my parents would collaborate on projects such as tailor-made jackets, with my dad doing the hand-stitching – possibly something he’d learned during his East End days, for that part of London was the domain of the great Jewish tailors – and, memorably, sails in heavy red canvas for the Curlew. They couldn’t afford to buy sails, so our tiny living room was filled with yards and yards of this thick fabric for weeks and there was an awful lot of swearing. The sails got made and my dad realised his dream of pottering about in a boat, on his own.
I’ve still got Mum’s old treadle Singer sewing machine. She treated it like a beloved relative, oiling it and cleaning it and cosseting it, so it still works beautifully. Sometimes, when I get the urge, I’ll spend hours cursing as I put in a sleeve back to front.
In her poverty my mother loved glamour. I am sure she had a touch of the Romany in her. Certainly her father was a horse trader as well as a butcher, and she loved swirly skirts and sparkle. She also loved expensive perfume. My greatest sin as a child was to discover and spill an ancient bottle of perfume she’d had hoarded away for years. A bottle of perfume was the gift my sister and I always brought home for her.
Later in life, she became a regular at the local bridge club, where she was known as Diamond Lil. The diamond rings she had carefully, painfully saved up for over many years, and then haggled over in local second-hand jewellers, would be worn all at the same time. By that time I was able to give her the opportunity to play at the rich life. After Dad died I would always take her on location with me, especially on press junkets, where you are treated as a strange cross between a queen and a slave. Mum got to enjoy the queen side while I performed the slave side. The epitome of this was a trip to Paris, staying at the Hotel Crillon on Place de la Concorde, in a suite the size of her whole house, with a car and a driver at her disposal. The working-class girl from West Ham took to it as if she’d been living in style all her life.
Mum always had an appreciation for what was genuine and spotted affectation a mile off. Whenever she visited me on the set, she would sit in the corner and happily chat to and charm anyone who came by. She chatted as easily with the doorman as the chairman, so in that sense she behaved with true class. In another way she was a complete snob, wanting us to grow up without the estuary accent that now even posh boys at Eton try desperately to emulate. Like my father, she wanted to instil into us children a sense of a wider horizon than the one given to us by the Thames Estuary.
She could be dangerous in her moods, overprotective and jealous, with a tongue capable of cruelty. This probably came from frustration with her position and fear of us falling into a cosy, limited suburban life. Suitors for my sister or myself were not welcomed by either parent, but I think for different reasons. My father did not want to share us, and my mother was terrified that we would succumb to romance, get married and close our lives down too early. She would find truly nasty things to say about anyone we had the temerity to bring home. This resulted in all three of us living secret lives in terms of dating, lives we did not feel we could share with our parents.
In my case, she was totally successful, for, ahead of my generation by about thirty years, I never had any inclination to marry. I couldn’t bear the thought. It seemed to me like voluntary imprisonment.
My mother missed this moment, but in a way I did it for her.
Another subject upon which my mother unleashed her tongue was when I foolishly suggested the possibility of becoming an actress. This was treated with utter disdain and horror. I was called an idiot, a silly little fantasist. After all her good efforts to drag us into that golden world of doctors and lawyers and teachers, it must have seemed like a ridiculously retrogressive idea. She, like my father, wanted me go into law, become a solicitor or a barrister. I remember my dad trying to persuade me that I could use my propensity for drama in the courtroom. But I was too lazy at school for that ever to be a possibility. Here my mother’s cruel tongue had no effect, the dream persisted.
In later years, of course, she loved it and all it brought. My parents proved to be the rather cool people they had always been, changing as the society and culture changed. They had to put up with quite a lot from my corner, especially as I became someone occasionally mentioned in the prurient and sex-obsessed press. This all had to be explained away to the bridge players and sailing club members, and still they valiantly supported me. Their bohemian roots came through, and they never blinked.
I wish my parents had been around to see me become a Dame. This might not have been a pure moment of pleasure and pride for them as some of those old left-wing theories of social equality would have lingered on. Nonetheless, in terms of professional success and the triumph of a small family coming really from nowhere and gaining recognition in a country, adopted in one sense, and excluded in another, the moment would have been sweet for both my parents.
Mum would have just loved dressing up and going to the Palace. Once there, they would both have appreciated the actual social equality of the whole thing. Honours went to people from every walk of life; a fine parade of about two hundred ethnically and economically diverse individuals who had all made a contribution. Prince Charles, flanked by two Gurkhas, did the honours with grace, and treated these good people equally and with warmth. Their families, all dressed to the nines, looked on with pride, as did mine, as a military band played showtunes. The whole thing was quite extraordinary and rather moving.
So Mum died without experiencing that, but knowing that at least, thanks to her drive, her dreams and her tongue, her daughters were economically secure, owning their own houses. She had travelled and seen things she could never have imagined, growing up in Ilford, or even in those early days of struggle in Westcliff-on-Sea. She had saved up a little nest egg and paid off her mortgage. She told me that, having loved her life and enjoyed every minute, she was ready to leave it. There was no religion in this. She certainly did not believe in the afterlife; in fact one of the last things she said to me was ‘For God’s sake, don’t get religion!’ – failing to see the fundamental contradiction in that request. She was perfectly happy with the thought of oblivion. Many
years before, she had donated her body to science, done all the paperwork, so her body was collected before the night was out. There was no funeral, just a tea at the Ritz with her best friends and her little family, which would have been her style, then a year later a wonderful ceremony at Southwark Cathedral. Like my father, she has no headstone, no plaque. My mother lives on for me in my memory and my being.
Here is the young woman my father fell madly and lustfully in love with.
My mother grew up with many sisters around her, looking after her and mothering her. Here she is as a baby with the closest to her, Gwen and Queenie, and her younger sister Doris. She stayed close to these sisters all her life. I have inherited this from her. My sister and I are very close.
My father with his mother and wife-to-be. His mother and wife share a similarity in the leg department, which I have also inherited. I call them my ‘Rooneys.’
Left: Kit, as she was known, at school, hanging out with her girlfriends on the netball team.
Kit was curious about everything and everyone, able to mix with and chat to LA cops as well as body builders. I had a friend in the competition and took her along. She was fascinated. The picture above is of my mother on the set of ‘Blood In, Blood Out’, a film Taylor did about the Latino Mafia in East LA. The reason the cops were there was because there had been a drive-by shooting not long before and the caterer had been injured. I didn’t tell Mum.
Kit shows her love for birds and dogs (and horses and cats and all animals).
She loved to visit LA. Alex and Rio, Taylor’s sons, became her borrowed grandchildren, and Ghost, Jasmine and Vato, her borrowed dogs. She loved them all.
She enjoyed visiting me on set with Dad. They came together to Ireland for ‘Excalibur’, and after my father died she came to France for ‘Mrs Reinhardt’, a film I did with Brad Davis. This was her first trip away without her beloved husband and it was hard for her. I was so happy she had the will and the courage to do it. It paved the way for many more years of us sharing things together.
Below: My mother (and some of my father) in my back garden in Fulham, both blissfully unaware of the plant behind them, as they watch my sister barbecue.
Kit in a typical outfit. In my family you dress up for Christmas.
One of my great pleasures was to be able to share my occasional trips to very posh hotels with my mother. Here she is at the Hotel Crillon in Paris, where our suite was the size of her house in Leigh-on-Sea. She took to it like a duck to water. You would have thought she’d done it all her life.
When my mother died, she left her body to science; this was a typical gesture on her part, a dramatic, idiosyncratic, self-effacing, attention-seeking gesture, deeply felt nonetheless and useful. I was with her, the night she died. We knew she had not long to live. That afternoon I had carefully painted her fingernails a bright, life-affirming red. I wanted those young medical students soon to take her body apart to know that this was a woman who was and had loved. She died at about three in the morning. I kissed her goodbye, although she had already gone, and took her wedding ring off her finger. I still regret not cutting off her long and beautiful hair to keep, never cut or coloured or permed. She would have loved the theatricality of the service of thanksgiving, held by the London Medical Schools in Southwark Cathedral about a year later. It was non-denominational, non-religious, with a glorious choir, and the servers were all young medical students. She would have loved it, as my sister and I did. She would have loved the idea of being surrounded by young people, eager to learn and to explore; she would have loved the fact that instead of a homely funeral celebration, her small group of mourners went to the Ritz for tea. She would have loved also the fact that she had the longest name in the list of donors: Kathleen Alexandra Ena Matilda.
Childhood
Growing up with my brother and sister
I was born in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, Chiswick, the fastest birth on record at that time. I wonder if anyone has broken it yet? I was two weeks late, but then came into the world in a big rush at about two in the morning. In fact I was born in the corridor, as the nurses did not believe my mother when she said she was giving birth there and then. It had only been twenty minutes since she went into labour. Ever since I have always done things quickly at the last minute, procrastinate then panic and get the job done quick.
I missed the end of the Second World War by two months, but the shadow of that terrible time hung over the first part of my life. My parents had spent the majority of the war in London. My mother was evacuated to the Forest of Dean, a place where I was later to find great happiness, but I don’t think she could live without my father, who was driving an ambulance in the East End. So my parents lived through the Blitz. My mother told me of walking down a street where a jeweller’s and a pet shop had been hit the night before, and seeing watches and necklaces on the pavement, and birds fluttering about. She said there was very little looting by ordinary people in London. However, there was certainly a black market, with goods available for those with enough money to pay for them, and I think this fuelled my parents’ hatred of a class and economic system that excluded so many.
The first house I remember living in was in Westcliff-on-Sea. My family moved there after the birth of my younger brother, when I was about two or three years old. At that time, long before Ryanair, EasyJet and the rise of the Spanish holiday resorts, Southend’s coastline was the holiday playground for the working men and women of the East End. With its mud flats, its ‘Longest Pier in the World’, its fish-and-chip shops. candyfloss, funfairs and, of course, its pubs, Southend was the ideal place to escape the bombed-out ruins of London. The general idea seemed to be to take the train from Fenchurch Street, or Dagenham, or Barking, sit on the beach come rain or shine, go to the pub, have a fight, throw up and go home again very satisfied.
To my parents it seemed an ideal place to bring up a family on very little money, because of course, it was a whole lot of other things too. It has a very special beauty, best described by Joseph Conrad in the pre-story to Heart of Darkness. The ship is hauled to, waiting for the tide as the story within a story is told, and Conrad perfectly describes the strange colourful beauty of those mud flats, the wideness of the sky, and the magic of that ancient river with its ferocious tides. Those eddies and channels of water as the Thames rushes in over the mud has claimed many victims who failed to see the danger until it was too late.
I loved the look of Southend. It gave me a taste for out-of-season holiday places that has never left me. The shuttered ice cream parlour, the desolate slot machines, the coloured lights swaying in the cold wind. It also gave me a taste for the fairground, for the carnival, although maybe that’s my mother’s Romany side coming through.
East Essex was a bit like the North of England, always about eight years out of date, but at the same time on the cutting edge for certain fashions. Mods came originally from Basildon, just down the road, and men from the East End have traditionally had a sense of fashion, loving good tailoring and a sharp suit. Also many bands and music trends have come from those grey streets of the estuary hinterland.
In the early days in Westcliff, we children lived out on the street with the neighbours’ kids, safe from cars for there were none to speak of, and no other predators to fear, it seemed. I was quite happy with this little band of friends, but the primary school filled me with terror. Not the classroom, but the horrible playground, with its cold and stinky outside lavatories where the doors did not lock or even close, and its insane childish cruelties, its bullying, and its incomprehensible rules of social engagement.
The three young Mironovs.
It was in the playground of Hamlet Court primary school that I committed one of the most horrible, shameful acts of my life. I must have been about seven at the time. There was a girl in my class called Geraldine and I really liked her; she was one of my few friends, maybe my only friend. She was smart, bright and fun. Then one day I told her I couldn’t play with her any more bec
ause she was Jewish. Some foul little edict had come down from the ‘popular’ kids, the bullies and dictators who declared public policy. Wimp that I was, cowardly and weak jerk, I obeyed the playground Nazis instead of following my true feelings. I have never forgotten the look on her face, standing there in the bike shed. She sensibly never spoke to me again, and I have felt deeply guilty ever since. That was the world of the playground as I remember it. Small wonder that the sound of the bell going off for break would fill me with dread.
Well, there was a brief period when I did enjoy playtime. That was when ‘beads’ became the rage, with all the children under the age of nine bartering little bits of coloured glass. In no time, like the Tulip Bubble in Holland, trading beads became a mad obsession for everyone, including the horrible boys. It was a mini Wall Street bonanza bull market as these baubles, nicked or begged from Mum, exchanged hands many times over in one fifteen-minute break, moving from one cotton wool-lined matchbox to another. I quickly grasped the importance of presentation and salesmanship, and bartered one broken bead into a whole collection. But, just like the Dutch tulips, ‘beads’ waned in popularity, and we were left with the usual activities of bullying, betraying, teasing, fighting and general loneliness.
My other great horror at that time was attending children’s birthday parties. These were just like the nightmare of playtime, only organised by grown-ups who seemed to delight in inventing ghastly competitive games that always left me feeling hopeless, inadequate and sometimes sick. One, I remember, involved being blindfolded and made to put your hand into a nasty-feeling wet mixture, which we were told was vomit. You had to rummage around looking for a present. Disgusting.
