22:02 BST 25 Jan 2020 Our prison service is a series of riots waiting to happen. And more recently: Brexit is like deciding you are going to cure cancer by giving up membership of your golf club., In the offices of The Guardian and The Independent, she knew how to put or keep male colleagues in their place. 3. Hello? Orr could be savage, thrawn and irrepressible, but she was also a born writer and a born improver of dull situations. The atmosphere at home was pure, toxic hostility. She had just moved to a new home in Brighton when cancer, first diagnosed a decade ago, returned with a vengeance two months ago and only a few days ago was found to have septicaemia. The services of food banks have never been more in demand. She writes about pathological narcissists that do so much damage be they unthinking blinkered parent or husband. FBI hunt 'armed and dangerous' shooting suspect. The name really means the Well of the Mother of God, and while it hardly competed with Canterbury or even with such Scottish sites as the shrine containing the statue of Our Lady of Haddington at Whitekirk, it may well have been a place of pilgrimage. Orr knew it was hard to speak up, and I believe she hoped for a new openness, to take charge, to take complete control, of my own family, in my own words.. But I didnt. heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment. David was a handsome, healthy, condent kid who became a very attractive young man. Here was another one. David Colville opened the first plant in 1871. This, they told me again, had been my perennial problem: I always wanted to mix with people Win and John couldnt compete with at the Guides, at the Duke of Edinburghs award scheme. University, as far as they were concerned, and just as they had warned, had been a waste of time. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, 1st Floor, Chartist Tower, Upper Dock Street, Newport, Wales, NP20 1DW Registered in England & Wales | 01676637 |. "Really shocked and upset to hear about the death of Deborah Orr," wrote Guardian columnist Owen Jones. There is also in the town a district called Ladywell, the posh area where as boys we were not welcome, but it was once the place where the actual well was positioned. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments. In the morning, when Tim had gone for a wee, Win slipped into the spare room and said arrangements would have to change because John had been up all night, vomiting at the idea of his daughter being in bed with a man under his roof. I opted for natural-looking makeup. On the one hand Win encouraged her bright daughter, taking her to the library each week and spending hours together drawing or watching old films. RIP Deborah. The family lived at 18 Clyde Terrace, a timber-clad, typical two-storey dwelling in the middle of others much the same, and she recalls the bureau that stood in the corner of the living room, overseen by her mother, Win, who managed all its papers, all its memories. Motherwell is a vivid narrative of disaster, boldly and challengingly conveyed. Orr tells the story of her vexed relationship with her parents, John and Win, who came as close to fulfilling Larkins famous warning (of parental damage) as a mum and dad ever did. People like to write about their peoples defiance, not their subservience, so this is a post-industrial story we have not quite heard before, allowing a genuine flushing-out of shame and fear about the whole condition of the British working-class, as it used to be understood. His son became provost and MP and there is a grand family plot in the graveyard known, curiously, as the Globe. But if this seems Dickensian, or out of a Thomas Hardy novel, Orr is unabashed. In the 50s, it had an inspired coach and produced Olympic champions, another source of municipal pride. Deborah Jane Orr (23 September 1962 - 19 October 2019) was a Scottish journalist who worked for The Guardian, The Independent and other publications. Win gave the anguished cry of narcissists the world over: But what about me?. It turned out, as we all walked home, that his flat was just along the road from Deborahs, and he asked us both to come up, meet his flatmates and have a joint or two. The former Guardian and Independent writer's death was confirmed over the weekend by her family. I wouldnt be able to keep up. Please! I said, becoming desperate, and added, as the magazines advised, I have my period.. It was once prominently displayed in public but is now concealed in a private garden. Select this result to view Deborah E Orr's phone number, address, and more. Orr craved her mothers approval, but received multiple evidence of the opposite. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. Wed already had our subdued and puritanical Christmas, just the four of us, a turkey crown and elaborate disappointment with the gifts Id brought. It is curious that so many Scottish place-names had Catholic names which survived the Reformation. The author idolised her father, John, an intelligent and handsome man, and she would have had a fabulous father/daughter thing if it wasnt for my mum, who came between us. Orrs book, although full of vivid observations, often teeters towards out-and-out rant but her litany of woe is leavened by some caustic one-liners. Here was another one. [5] She had one brother. We are told that what looked like peoples pride was really shame there were plenty of cover- ups about bailiffs, domestic abuse, divorce and illegitimate babies. It was the first time Win had been out in the world for more than a year, after being diagnosed with secondary kidney cancer in the bone. Group narcissism tends to keep individual narcissism at bay. I did still want Win to view me as a good daughter. My protests brought nothing but greater anger. I just had to tough it out. Your problems, Deborah, are all of your own making, said Win with satisfaction. But I couldnt face telling my parents that St Andrews wasnt right for me, couldnt bear to tell anyone else the bizarre to all of them, I felt sure fact that my parents hated me being at university. Which was true. I was 20 years old. Following a diagnosis of late stage four cancer this summer, a decade after she was treated for breast cancer, she tweeted about her condition, from severe pain to insomnia in the small hours to her advice about what not to say to cancer patients, especially: Is there anything I can do?. This, they told me again, had been my perennial problem: I always wanted to mix with people Win and John couldnt compete with at the Guides, at the Duke of Edinburghs award scheme. Maybe later. I started to dress differently, in a long, voluminous tweed skirt and Edwardian-style high-collared blouses. Her route into journalism came through City Limits, a co-operatively run listings magazine in London, where she became deputy editor (1988-90), and as film critic for the New Statesman. The gifted Deborah Orr was the latter. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. [14] Her apology, too, was the subject of criticism. The conversation will go back to what it should be about people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Their priorities were frivolous, their entitlement baffling, their conception of how the world worked hopelessly unrealistic. Later on she mentions he found out his parents were both famous actors and hints strongly that Crispin was born out of rape or some impropriety. You must stop seeing this man right away. I may even have erected a wall of pillows down its middle. Other journalists, writers and beyond have been paying their tributes. US principal visits David sculpture after nudity row. Orr writes that she felt her mother should have, at some point, drawn a line rather than spend the rest of her days grieving the loss of her husband. You can make a complaint by using the report this post link . But that was fine. Its arguable that the happier ones childhood, the less one recalls of it. Orr when she first moved to London, in the late 80s. However, the wily Sir William claimed under the laws of chivalry any two contestants had to be on equal footing, so he insisted that the English knight have one eye gouged out before he would meet him in a joust. Grief researchers say holding that missing funeral service, even a year or more later, can still help us heal. Publications. Those ads you do see are predominantly from local businesses promoting local services. Housing estates were built on a sort of visionary, infectious hope, drawing on particular memories of bombed-out tenements and overcrowded room-and-kitchens. A distinguished journalist, Orr was born and bred in Motherwell and saw the place change during her lifetime. Decent 19th century housing is flattened in a fake spirit of do-gooding modernism, and terrible high-rise flats are constructed. In that world, men were never allowed to show emotion, losing your nerve, getting the fears. What kind of arrangement is appropriate, where should you send it, and when should you send an alternative? The works were nationalised in 1967 as Ravenscraig, and Margaret Thatcher put an end to all that in 1992 when the factory was closed. Explore in 3D: The dazzling crown that makes a king. Full Profile. But group identity was shattered too. Scotland this sense of historical value has been lost to such places. Homeless people are stuck in the streets once again, she wrote. Please put us down for one of your high-rises and all the clean air up there, one woman wrote. Free UK p&p on all online orders over 15. It's surprising how much a musical selection can affect mourning. This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. They married in 1997: Orr became stepmother to Selfs children, Alexis and Madeleine, and they went on to have two sons. There was more to it than the economy. [4] She was raised in Motherwell, Scotland. I wish Id known. Motherwellis written at such a pitch of intensity you sometimes have to put it down just to get your breath back. Her childhood neighbourhood was rough but she found a safer world and civilization, as she recalled - within the cream sandstone Edwardian walls of the Motherwell Carnegie Library. It was great to be away from home, if a bit discombobulating. Win, from rural Essex, lived much of her life displaced in Motherwell, where husband John worked in a coal-cutting factory. We had lunch in the pub, and Win ate with exquisite relish. I waited until he was deeply enough asleep and crept out. No flatmates. ", Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, said Orr was "a brilliant, clever, funny writer and editor whose uncompromising and insightful approach to her work brought powerful journalism to the Guardian over many years.". I wished that I had the kind of mother I could tell about such a thing. "The crowd was sparse," she writes. Readers are left to connect the dots. How much she remembers! was in Scotland at that time. I wandered the streets for hours, thinking about going to the police and how unlikely they were to take my word against his. Motherwellian sounds merely odd. They had much in common, being insular, proud, fearful and disapproving. The crowd was sparse, she writes. Few natives knew, and fewer outsiders cared, that the town has a history that stretches back into the Middle Ages. Yet the books greatness lies mainly in the psychological dimension, in the vivid portrait of her parents narcissism and the just-as-vivid portrait of her own, which to some heartbreaking degree was to prove the struggle of their lives. Childhood is a time when wounds can be inflicted that cut into the psyche and continue to wreak havoc in adult of life, and so it would appear to have been for Orr, who evidently acquired a dual identity, one public and the other concealed deep inside herself. As a boy I remember standing in awe underneath that sign wondering, what could be beyond Motherwell. As a subscriber, you are shown 80% less display advertising when reading our articles. Teaching. This website and associated newspapers adhere to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's On the day they blew Ravenscraig down, Deborah was there with her father, mother and brother David. And I decided, most dysfunctionally of all, that what I needed was a boyfriend to protect me. Read about our approach to external linking. So Tim and I slept chastely in the hideously uncomfortable double sofa bed. She was born in Boston, the daughter of Richard J. and M Lots of people had come, including one guy whod chatted to me and made a suggestive remark. She writes about the history of violence and sectarianism, the scars they leave, and slowly, with a reporters skill, she shows the interior life of her people. Deborah was born in Boston, MA and graduated from Boca Ciega High School. Angela Rippon, for example, was mocked and questioned for lacking the gravitas and authority to read the news bulletins. It was when she opted to study English at St Andrews that problems with her mother peaked. All the time, Deborah is looking at Win and asking: Did she mother well? But she also asks who she is herself, how capable, how good. The trick of this excellent book is that, in spite of the terrible things they did to Deborah, one ends up feeling grief and pity rather than contempt. [4] She attended Garrion Academy, Wishaw (which later merged with Wishaw High School to form Clyde Valley High School) and the University of St Andrews, from which she graduated with a degree in English in 1983. I explained that the hospice was at the top of a steep hill, that I didnt think I could manage it, that the shops would be closed anyway and that I didnt mind paying for a taxi at all quite the reverse. minor crime was not being checked by policing. Not at all.. Her always fiercely intelligent point of view," she added. Parents and teachers were physically violent towards children, a normal punishment back then. She created a beautiful garden, and developed a sympathetic ear to the troubles of others. It was obvious to them, Win said, like St Peter for the prosecution on Judgement Day, that I was sleeping with this man. At some point well into adulthood she went into psychotherapy, and was introduced to the concept of narcissism, which becomes the dominant touchstone in her analysis of everything and everyone, particularly of her parents, Win and John. There she made her name wooing writers including Gordon Burn and Andrew OHagan. When she was 11, her tenement building was demolished and she, her brother David and their parents were shipped to a new housing estate. She was a sought-after contributor to magazines and other publications from Radio Times to The Gentlewoman and was also a regular expert commentator on TV and radio news shows. They stood behind the cordon. People had to conform. The barriers between private and public life were in her case porous, and while the focus of her attention is her own family, the wider life of society is always in sight. Id nodded, even though I didnt know what Oxbridge was. She once told me Deborah was perverse, and, of course, clever children must sometimes seem that way to their confused and fretful parents. The journalist Deborah Orr, who has died aged 57 after suffering from cancer, was a strikingly original character, and made an impression in whatever she did. The answer is that they really do muck us up, our mums and dads. If Id been told then that Id never live in Scotland again, Id have assumed that I was conversing with a lunatic. I was absolutely heartbroken in a spectacularly unprofessional weeping wailing way, she said. Every time my parents made a seismic intervention in a relationship, I ended up pregnant. The amazing thing, really, is that after about 25 years, Colin Fox looks so very much like the boy he used to be. They had two sons but separated in 2015 before an acrimonious divorce was completed in 2017. I had nothing in common with the students. Deborah Orr Orr was born and reared in Motherwell when it was the great steel town, dominated by Ravenscraig, and was possessed of a proud, powerful and intolerant identity. The best poems for funerals, memorial services., and cards. She tells of the theft of a cherished bracelet by a girl of her own age and her fathers inability to recover it even after they went to the home of the juvenile thief and could see it on her wrist. Published: 17:10 EDT, 23 January 2020 | Updated: 17:36 EDT, 23 January 2020, by Deborah Orr (Weidenfeld 16.99, 304 pp). My pride wouldnt let me admit to Win and John that theyd been right and Id been wrong. She makes the wry but insightful observation that the heritage industry moves in when people dont know who they are any more and have to focus on who they were. By then it was, all of a sudden, far too late. The central factory was officially called the Lanarkshire, but was always known locally as Colvilles. All rights reserved. Id paid for it, not her. Some of us become cookie-cutter replicas of our parents, others break away. Her memoir about her upbringing in. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, Orr wrote candidly about being treated for the disease. It felt uncomplicated. In the last couple of weeks, it has received great but bemused attention in the literary journals of London, on the BBC and now in New York with the publication of Deborah Orrs book, simply entitled Motherwell, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 16.99). I told my parents, Win and John, that Id been offered a place at St Andrews university, they warned me that Id be out of my depth, mixing with people who had very different lives to me more money, posh, snobs. He got on with everyone. Id laughed it off. The condition left her uncertain of dates, barely able to remember events of the past decade. Personal identities were shattered. But I couldnt believe it. She remained emotionally chained to Motherwell, part in pride part in shame, loving and detesting it in equal measure. You dont have A PASSPORT? We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. I feared her. Nobody care about him?. We talked. Video, On board the worlds last surviving turntable ferry, Skip twitter post 4 by frances Barber#FBPE, Met Gala 2023: Stars celebrate Karl Lagerfeld, Shooting suspect was deported four times - US media, Yellen warns US could run out of cash in a month, Photo of Princess Charlotte shared as she turns 8, King Charles to wear golden robes for Coronation, More than 100 police hurt in French May Day protests, The 17 most eye-catching looks at the Met Gala. Deborah Orr in 2009. For a time the couple were glamorous fringe bohemians of the Groucho Club set and put on lavish parties. DEBORAH Orr was born in 1962, and lived through the upheaval at a social and personal level. Editors' Code of Practice. Little is said of her own rancorous break-up with author, Will Self. Tim was astounded, and not a little put off. But that was not that. Shed sulk for days if you ate a meal out, as she interpreted this as criticism of her cooking, which in fact was terrible. Deborah Orr, right, hosted An Evening With Vivienne Westwood in 2016. One time, when Id let it drift for an entire week, and when Win finally called me, her voice dripping with angry contempt at my neglect and disrespect, I shat on a newspaper on my bedroom floor rather than tell her that shed woken me up at shameful Sunday noon. All was well. Together wed had actual, consensual, intense, affectionate sex which for me was a first, and a highly significant commitment. hen the letters came, that was when it all blew up for ever. There was nothing much to do except look forward to becoming a heroin addict. The story of family and town are intertwined not just in the chapters on her childhood years, as would be common in an autobiography, but for her whole life, even after she had moved to London. Even now, my strong, working-class, regional accent will be referred to pointedly and Ill feel obliged to respond with a rousing round of Muuuurrrduuur, in the manner of Detective Taggart. I once saw some letters sent to David Gibson, Glasgows messianic early 1960s housing convenor he took seven sugars in his tea, his wife said which came from citizens desperate to escape the slums. ", "Carrie Fisher showed the way. Design by Robert Peacock Later when the Orr family is threatened with rehoming to a newly built tower block there is a fierce denunciation of the 1960s high-rise social housing experiment. Their disapproval dogged me, in ways I didnt understand or acknowledge. He OK too? Overview. This self-discovery led to a memoir, Motherwell: A Girlhood, to be published in January: writing it took over from column writing. Popular television comedians got into drag to show how silly and grotesque ladies were. The attention that I got from them, whenever they had the chance to pick my bones clean? The works provided employment, and gave people, men especially, the sense of confident selfhood that comes from having a purpose and a place in society. My mother agreed that I could bring this latest sexual exploiter of her child to visit for the weekend. It charted the influence of her mother, who railed against Deborah going to university. We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. contact IPSO here, 2001-2023. They had two sons and lived in Stockwell;[18] they separated in 2017 and divorced in 2018. I took the train up to discharge her from the hospital where shed had her operation, the same day my own radiotherapy for breast cancer ended, and spent a week looking after her. Gripping both of my hands with one of his, he started to punch my head. Going out with boys, applying to university (the first in the family), even keeping her own name on being married all this infuriated her mother. contact IPSO here, 2001-2023. Orr evidently had a battle on her hands. Her ambitions were stuffed down and denied, and instead of being pleased her daughter could be different, she hated Orr for being a career girl, as this went against the prevailing working-class philosophy: Dont embarrass us all by striving for something different.. Motherwell shows, chapter and verse, the ravages of individualism, yet it also has the guts to demonstrate how working-class identity may be weaponised for intolerance, and snared by eager bigots into voting for its own dissolution. Watching images of the event, I thought the gas holder merited the same praise. When he leaned in to kiss me, that was fine. When it went, so quickly, Motherwell became a town without a purpose. They reluctantly gave me permission. A good friend of mine and a former journalist of this parish editor of Weekend magazine 1993-98, and later a columnist she has left behind her a non-fiction book for the ages. No! Deborah Orr, right, hosted An Evening With Vivienne Westwood in 2016. As we lay on the bed and I silently sobbed, he said: Dont I get a cuddle? Petrified and revolted, I let him put his arms round me. Idealism in British architecture has much to answer for, yet we like the idea that optimism mixes well with fresh cement. The best result we found for your search is Deborah E Orr age 60s in Fair Lawn, NJ in the Fair Lawn neighborhood. Motherwell was steeltown, and the football team was nicknamed the steelmen. Win could be a fierce custodian of the family narrative and she often recoiled from her brilliant daughters efforts to change the story. Deborah Orr is survived by her sons Ivan and Luther, and stepchildren Alexis and Madeleine. Number employed in Motherwells steel industry at its height in the 1970s, The wifes job, says Orr, was to keep the husband happy, not the other way around. It wasnt like everyone was leaping about, doing arabesques. Orr, who was born in Motherwell, joined the Guardian in 1990, becoming the first female editor of its Weekend magazine before she was 30. Win was so glad to be outside again, so glad to see the sky and the water and the tea room. Oh, God. Ill get your mum.. We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse. Their attention, their validation. Its not that her town had any sort of monopoly on that, but Motherwells decline, so spitefully speeded by the Thatcher revolution, got under the skin of many families, manacling them to a sense of waste. [13] Orr apologised for words which she described as "badly chosen and poorly used". My parents were the jailers that I loved. When Win wasnt managing, with some dark genius, to deliver a silent treatment over the phone she would usually ask me if Id got a boyfriend yet, very brightly, and Id always say no. So thats why weve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. I would get married, Id have her grandchildren, and Win would be around to help me look after them. I was too naive back then to call it what it was, which was rape. I went to Edinburgh, we two Deborahs went to the pub, and there I fell into conversation with a man dressed in biker leathers. I didnt know that was even legal. In 1990, she was hired by The Guardian where, in 1993, she became the first female editor of its Weekend magazine and later its literary editor. She was best-known for her often-radical but inspirational columns in The Guardian and The Independent and was editor of the Guardians Weekend magazine from 1993-98. As a columnist, her beat was limitless but she most loved getting her teeth stuck into social, political, personal and womens issues. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. Similarly, Deborah Orr should have drawn a line under many of the minor growing pains she endured. Girls at best were the crumpet to simper over Jimmy Savile on Top Of The Pops. St Andrews was still very hippy, even in the 1980s. I believed then, and still do, that the world was flat, and contemplated unwary travellers tumbling over the edge somewhere beyond Motherwell, if there really was anything beyond Motherwell. Orr was born on 23 September 1962 and raised in Motherwell, Scotland, to Winifred "Win" and John Orr, a factory worker. It recounts Orr's upbringing in Motherwell, a flinty Scottish town - "I couldn't stand the place, even when it was still in its pomp. Id been shocked by this encounter. I phoned home every Sunday without fail, telling my mum that everything was great. A further complication is that Win was. I was on a government scheme, too the Enterprise Allowance Scheme and got 40 a week to help me start my own business, which consisted mainly of doing posters for local bands. There were moments of unconsciousness, and every time I came round hed bash me on the head again, until he was done. The very name Motherwell was always the butt of facile jokes, especially from English-speaking foreigners or comics invited along to the local Miners Welfare. Perhaps best known for her pithy outspokenness in the Guardian, Orr had the kind of successful career that many parents would have celebrated but this was not the case for Orr whose constantly belittling mother, Win, often treated her like a subservient companion rather than a loved child or autonomous human being.
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