I’ve always thought Charles Dickens’s portrayal of Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House unfair, and quite misogynistic.
Mrs Jellyby is harshly satirised for being so involved with promoting education in a faraway African state, Borrioboola-Gha, while being a neglectful mother of ten children.
She’s become a classic figure, mocking mothers meddling in all kinds of outside endeavours instead of confining themselves to their domestic duties.
But being involved with education of poor children overseas is a big philanthropic cause. Why shouldn’t women, even if they have a large brood, focus on a big enterprise? Should their world be restricted to the kitchen sink?
A rewarding exhibition about Dickens’s women has just opened at the Charles Dickens Museum (until September) in London’s Doughty Street, highlighting the women in his life, and their links to the women in his novels.
So who was Mrs Jellyby based on?
The curators say she is a ‘composite character’, drawn partly on the philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts (who was unmarried) and partly on Caroline Chisholm, another humanitarian of the Victorian age who campaigned to provide shelter and work to lone young girls.
Dickens thought Caroline’s house-keeping was wanting and her children’s faces ‘dirty’ – and so the legend of the much-mocked Mrs Jellyby was born.
We are exhorted these days to practise ‘diversity’, but is this new?
My mother, born in 1902, often repeated an old Irish saying: ‘’Twould be a poor world if we were all the same.’ Plenty of people in past times appreciated that ‘diversity’ added to the variety of life.
And so we move towards the tenth anniversary of Brexit, in June 2016.
It caused so many fissures and conflicts; so many arguments between friends and family as the two tribes of ‘Brexiteers’ and ‘Remainers’ emerged.
My best friend in North London lamented that her social life was ruined because her husband was a public Brexiteer. The invitations to various soirées, receptions and dinner parties dried up. My suggestion that she could always relocate for social activities to Sunderland or Clacton didn’t go down well.
Some friends or colleagues weren’t on speakers, or knew to avoid the subject. Yet it was also quite an exciting time. People were arguing about something important, like ‘What is sovereignty?’ or ‘Is this a clash of the Anywheres versus the Somewheres?’
These are more stimulating questions than whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s tax policies are sensible.
I abstained from the vote, so I could claim to be neutral. But I did feel sympathy for the fishermen of Dover, Ramsgate and Whitstable, who felt bitterly short-changed by Brussels.
I was told, in conversation with an old salt in Whitstable, that French fishermen were allocated six times the ratio of Dover sole that Dover fishermen got.
And there were some daft interpretations of Brexit. Fintan O’Toole, Ireland’s leading public intellectual – and influential in America – wrote a book explaining that Brexit was rooted in a complex ‘psycho-sexual’ drama, involving imperialistic nostalgia by old colonels in Tunbridge Wells.
Actually, Tunbridge Wells is full of hipsters who voted Remain.
Ten years on, there are still arguments around Brexit and its muddled outcome. The best analysis is in Tom McTague’s recent book Between the Waves.
The author shows that ambivalence about being part of Europe always existed in Britain, from the EU’s early beginnings, in 1950, and even among Europhiles.
Most political leaders, except Ted Heath, wanted to be half-in and half-out, invoking ‘British exceptionalism’.
Remainers think Brexit was a swizzle got up by Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, but perhaps it was always inevitable.
One interesting development since Brexit is that the English language has become dominant within the EU itself – as ‘Euro-English’. They’re all speaking English now, and often spectacularly well. An ‘imperialist’ gain?
Despite Brexit, fine European cuisine flourishes – with Italian food consistently most popular among Brits.
When Madonna came to England, she declared Margate ‘her idea of heaven’ and ate at a small southern Italian family restaurant in Broad Street, the Bottega Caruso. The food is freshly made, the prices are reasonable – £18-£20 a main dish – and the staff eat with il patrono.
Since Madonna’s favour became known, it’s been tricky to get a table – it’s small anyway – but it’s nice to see once down-at-heel Margate become a centre gastronomique.
