Hard Yards
I spent my childhood in leafy Auckland suburbs, or at a bach by the sea in idyllic surroundings on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. However, there was a serpent in the garden, and I had difficulty coping with my parents’ paradoxical behaviour from a young age.
My father was unpredictable; he could be calm one minute, then erupt into rage and violence the next. This was exaggerated by mystery – I knew little about him. He was born in London in 1918, had been a front-line officer in Burma during the Second World War, and worked as a journalist in Singapore, Sydney, and Auckland after the war. His mother died when he was six, he had a brother named Fred, and he loathed his father for some reason. He was also an alcoholic – I followed in his footsteps in this regard, and also in working as a journalist. He could be fun to be around at times, but the certainty that the “truce” would not last created an atmosphere of foreboding.
My mother was a conundrum. I just never understood where she was coming from. I was informed that she never really wanted children. That might explain at least some of her behaviour toward me.
This conjunction between the sublime (nature) and the grotesque (experience) predisposed me to appreciate the work of artists such as David Lynch, and Leonora Carrington.
The mistrust I felt toward my parents from an early age affected me profoundly. An aunt once remarked to me, with unusual candour, that she hoped I would be dim and compliant, and that she feared for my future when it became apparent that I was the opposite.
In my fifties I came across the MBTI personality typology based on the work of Carl Jung. I am an INFJ personality type – the rarest. Here’s an excellent video about what it means to be an INFJ (13 mins long, contains some tough language). I am also a Highly Sensitive Person, well and truly on the spectrum for this biological personality trait, as researched by Elaine Aron.
Domestic gothic
The claustrophobia I felt at home was intensified by social isolation. My parents had no friends. The only visitors were a few uncles and aunts, and my grandmother, the matriarch, who was treated with deference.
The key ingredients I felt that I needed for growth and development – such as understanding, approval, acknowledgment, encouragement, validation, harmony, and transparency – were either absent or severely rationed. Indeed, on many occasions my insignificance was made clear to me, reinforced by criticism, sarcasm, condemnation, violence, threats, and a phantasmagoria of controlling behaviour that my mother perfected. The main tactic employed was what has become known as gaslighting, a term with a literary origin, derived from a 1938 play – Gas Light, by Patrick Hamilton.
I spent a lot of time asking older people for permission to do relatively ordinary things, and being met with surprisingly violent responses. It took me a while to figure out that it was the asking itself that was the problem more than the nature of the request. It was better to be neither seen nor heard. One of the most disconcerting features of the situation I found myself in was its sheer randomness. I was unable to discern a pattern to my parents’ behaviour from which a strategy for avoiding further trauma could have been formulated.
A temporary respite came when I was allowed to spend school holidays staying with my Waikato cousin, with whom I got along famously. I remember the joyous feeling as the Midlands bus mounted the Bombay hills and descended into Pokeno; Auckland for a while out of sight if not quite out of mind. Pulling into Morrinsville, my destination, was like arriving in a magical kingdom.
Another enchanted sanctuary was Kawau Island in the Hauraki Gulf, where I was fortunate to spend several holidays in my mid-teens with my old friend Richard and his family. We fished, we went scuba diving, and generally messed about in boats.
I often sought to alleviate stress by acting the clown – my early forays into the theatrical realm were driven by self-preservation rather than aesthetics. But there was tension constantly in the air, similar to the mood captured by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch in his Frieze of Life series.
I dreamed that one day I would wake up from the Lovecraftian nightmare, and everything would be different – the people around me would behave rationally, and there would be explanations and rapprochements. Mostly I clung on in a state of anxiety, bewilderment, and frustration. Abusive people often have a strong vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and protecting themselves from criticism. Accountability does not exist for them.
By the time I was 17, the cracks were beginning to show. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I had become depressed. Instinctively, I swung into action. I left college, where I was a leading light of sorts, and spent as much time as I could away from home, even hiding under the house of one of my school friends. Throughout this period, I received no advice or emotional support from my family. It was as if I had ceased to exist.
One day I turned to my mother for assistance; I rang her from a public phone box. She replied, “People like you commit suicide” in a voice that was cold and mocking. I shuddered in horror, and abruptly ended the phone call. This would not be the last time a conversation with my mother proceeded in this fashion. She wrote me letters, too, many of which were – according to a counselor who was privy to their contents – “masterpieces of emotional blackmail and manipulation”. I also sought advice from my godmother – a person who had been kind to me in the past – but was angrily rejected. I knew what the consequences would be should I dare to speak with anyone outside the family, and how could I be sure that they wouldn’t betray my trust, too? This ingrained misconception kept me from reaching out for help until I was virtually at death’s door.
Obviously, I would have to find a way on my own. Out of these challenges grew a tensile emotional and mental strength that has carried me through many crises.
Talented grandfather
My maternal grandfather, Edwin Arthur Ward (1859-1933), born in Bradford, Yorkshire, was a highly respected English portrait painter.
Ward studied at the Nottingham School of Art before moving to London at the age of 19. Known exclusively as a portrait painter, his period of greatest creativity was from 1883-1927. During that time, he exhibited widely. Among the many venues to host his exhibitions were the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street, Society of British Artists and New Gallery which arose from the Grosvenor Gallery. His outstanding reputation attracted many prestigious clients including Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Henry Irving. He was elected to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1891. Today his work can be viewed at the Castle Museum, Nottingham.
~ Cited on the Howes family genealogy website
I never met my grandfather, who died almost 30 years before I was born, yet he is the relative I feel closest to. I think we would have got along famously, and he would have taught me many things, though of course it’s easy to idealise someone I never knew personally.
While Edwin’s paintings adorned the walls of relatives’ houses, and my mother owned a still life of flowers in a gilt frame, information about him was not forthcoming. My mother only occasionally referred to “daddy”. Edwin led a bohemian lifestyle. He was an adventurous and charming fellow, moved in influential circles, and travelled widely. His interesting 1923 memoir reveals a close association with many important figures in late 19th century English art and society, including James Whistler, who was a leader in the Aesthetic movement (the English equivalent of Symbolism) that espoused an “art for art’s sake” philosophy, and opposed philistinism.
Edwin had seven children with his wife Katherine Howse, and while still married, met my grandmother (another Katherine) around 1910, and fathered nine more children with her – my mother and her eight brothers and sisters.
The other Katherine
There was a 30-year age difference between Edwin, and this “other” Katherine, Katherine Wells, daughter of a Cornwall stockbroker, James Anderson Wells, and his wife from Milan, Emily Marzetti. As the story goes, Edwin had an affair with Emily while painting James’s portrait, then spied the daughter, Katherine, who was a beauty. My parents rightfully may have been cautious about invoking the ghost of bad, exciting, old Edwin. It might have encouraged me. They aspired to live a safe, ordinary, frugal existence in the suburbs, with minimal levels of stimulation.
I grew up in close proximity to my grandmother Katherine. She emigrated from England to New Zealand with some of her children in the late 1930s after Edwin died, because the political situation in Europe was deteriorating. New Zealand was recommended as a refuge by her friend and fellow Spiritualist, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle had visited New Zealand several times to give talks about Spiritualism and liked the place, and a brother of Katherine’s – Vincent – had already high-tailed it over here.
My grandmother was staunch and self-reliant, intelligent, amusing, and discreet, and lived alone the entire time I knew her in a simple house on a sizeable piece of land off Orakei Road in Remuera.
Once she protected me from my father’s violence by sheltering me in her house, and stood up to him when he came looking for me. Then we drank tea and played chess. This simple act of kindness and courage left a huge impression on me.
She would often retreat in her grey Morris Minor to a caravan on land she owned on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula north of Auckland. Gran had books and antiques, loved to garden, and Edwin’s paintings were on permanent display. There was a mysterious side to her as well – she was reputed to have psychic abilities and was a member of the Theosophical Society.
The fight for selfhood
It was obvious from the beginning that I am highly intelligent, sensitive, and creative. I believe that I inherited a creative talent from my grandfather. To this, I would add courage, determination, and an enthusiasm for life that has never been quenched.
I was enrolled at private schools, where I worked hard and achieved academic success. In my first years at primary school I came top in art and music. Aged six, I entered a story in an Auckland-wide competition and won. My music teacher said I had perfect pitch and should learn to play an instrument. My parents refused. By the age of nine I was composing elaborate sonnets and creating puppet shows.
My Waikato cousin and I put on horror shows for family members when we were on holiday together. These events – meticulously planned and executed – were great fun, and represent some of my most memorable creative experiences. I also participated in youth theatre for a time, something I was grateful to my parents for initiating.
There were inevitably dark clouds on the home front. I elicited several violent reactions from my father when I mentioned my intense interest in poetry. When I was 16, without asking me, my parents took my notebook from the desk in my room, and gave it to Wystan Curnow, a lecturer in English at Auckland University. Curnow duly pronounced that my creative writing efforts were devoid of talent. This finding was delightedly relayed to me by my mother.
The “Curnow incident” is one little example of the betrayal of trust that was commonplace in my home. The combination of violating a personal boundary with an attack on my love of creativity was keenly felt. It’s difficult to convey in a few lines of prose the effect of constantly being made aware that they could take whatever they wanted and do whatever they pleased, at any time, and there was nothing I could do about it. Any attempt on my part to stand my ground, forge my own identity, or even ask for reasons for things was met with antagonism. My parents noticeably enjoyed the power this gave them.
So there I was at the age of 19, already an outsider, traumatised and ill-equipped to cope with many aspects of life. I was fearful and anxious, and lacked self-belief and direction. Despite this, outwardly I fought to maintain the pleasant veneer I’d been taught to glue on as a child. I was trapped. Then I discovered alcohol, that illusory panacea.
By way of a postscript
I’ve learned some things about life as the result of my experiences. For example, it’s a losing gambit to look back in anger and become mired in self-pity, though I did plenty of that when I was drinking. There isn’t such a thing as a drunk who faces up to his problems; alcoholism is about anaesthetising self and blaming the world for one’s predicament. It’s far more difficult – and also far more rewarding, if one can stay the course – to take responsibility for existence and avoid victimhood. I have managed to achieve this goal. Several health professionals have remarked on my indomitable spirit and almost superhuman resilience and survival skills.
I am grateful to be alive, and to have achieved a modicum of self-realisation. Life tends to be fateful, beautiful, and challenging – sometimes all at once. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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