‘…your Mum and Dad. They may not mean to, but they do.’ (That’s Philip Larkin, of course.) – I was going to use that quote in a post here, to hook a bit of autobiography on to. In particular I considered writing about my late mother, whose character, beliefs and behaviour didn’t exactly ‘fuck me up’, I like to think; but whose own fucked-upness, by her Mum and Dad (so not her fault), gave me a life-long insight into the mentality of many lower-middle class English women of her generation, and consequently into the history of that time. (Thatcher, for example, made complete sense to me.) Many political and social historians, I imagine – and hope, for their sakes – won’t have this advantage.
But I’ve now abandoned that idea, at least for the time being, and in this blog. (Maybe later, for my children and grandchildren alone.) The main reason is that the recollection is proving painful for me, even after all these years; not only the memory of Mum’s awfulness, as I perceive it, but also of my treatment of her, emotionally if not in material terms. Another is that I have little tangible evidence to go on, apart from my own memories, which may be false. (I’ve learned from my historical research that memoirists’ often are.) When she died my mother left no papers from her or my father’s past, apart from a couple of wartime ration-books, kept no doubt in case the time came when she could use some unredeemed ‘coupons’; and some yellowing pictures of the Queen Mother, cut out from newspapers.
A third reason is that I don’t want this blog to turn too personal. It’s not intended to be a diary, but more a chronicle of important national and world events, with commentary. Maybe that commentary has been influenced by my fucked-up mother; but not in any obvious or direct way, I think. (Unless it was her example that turned me against Thatcher.) But how can we ever tell, with Mums and Dads?
I must stop there. I’ve probably gone too far – too personal – already. And I have to walk the dog; always – me, not the dog – on the lookout now, of course, for foreign immigrants who come over here to eat our pets. – Yes, I got up early this morning – 3 a.m. here – to watch the American Presidential ‘debate’ on TV. Extraordinary. (The ‘eating pets’ claim comes of course from Trump.) Living with Mum may have prepared me for Thatcher; but not for Trump, obviously.
Porter’s Pensées 
Why on earth would you waste time watching a shadow play between two puppets? No matter who “wins” neither will have real power, which is wielded by the ultra rich who buy the politicians…the puppets do as they are told, or can’t achieve anything against the structure controlled by the ultra rich.
And yes, of course, parents fuck up their children…they…we…can’t help it.
They/we try to imbue them with “values” which we believe to be “correct and beneficial”… but are only formed from our own parents, a bit modified by our own experiences.
And your parents were probably raised by parents themselves raised by “Victorians” with all the values that entails…depending on class…as ever…
So…probably racist, (as in dark not “as good” as white British…god help the daughter if she wanted to marry one…or the son actually), not that marrying the “wrong” class was much better…but at least they were white,…”homophobic” if working or lower middle class ( the “higher” classes didn’t give a damn), probably strongly anti communist, but possibly Socialist, no sex before marriage, abortion is murder, hard work is good in itself…etc etc..
But…clearly you escaped those “values”…”despite” your mother, who presumably encouraged your academic abilities (no, I don’t know but it seems likely…) and despite your “public school”…minor, not major, as you state…which must actually have done quite well for you despite its pretensions ( “some good teachers”…yes, of course there were…there always are…but usually outnumbered…)…
Parents do the best they can…but like generals they are always fighting the last war…they want for their children what would have been best for them in their time, instead of letting the children decide what is best for themselves…which presumably is why we have a surfeit of lawyers…it hasn’t been generally “a good thing”…
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Personally, I wouldn’t want to read anything that you weren’t completely comfortable publishing. Perhaps memoir is a more convenient word to use than autobiography? Less sweeping, more selective. I suppose such writing always involves sensitive selection. No doubt Kipling, a master of editing, was conscious of this in calling his autobiographical effort “Something of Myself”.
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