Rebecca Nicholson: You made me love music – that meant I got to write about it for a living
Dear Mum,
Thanks for taking me to my first concert when I was 10. Thanks for making it Simply Red. I spent most of my 20s writing about music; that means more people than you’d think ask you what your first ever gig was. Thank you for making my answer eternally, immovably Simply Red.
A few years back, we found an old VHS of everyone in the pub after my sister’s christening. It must have been the year before the show. The resemblance to This Is England is uncanny. Someone asks me on camera if I’m going to go to university. I say “hopefully” with a strong northern accent that has since deserted me unless I’m on the phone to you. Everyone laughs. To go to university was a far-off fantasy, for other people. “And then what will you do? Work for the BBC?” More laughs. “Maybe!” I chirp back.
Not so long ago, I went on Radio 4 to talk about Simply Red’s album Stars. After years of being apologetic that Simply Red was the first band I’d ever seen, I ended up offering a theory to listeners that many modern-day indie artists sound a lot more like Simply Red than they’d ever admit. I implied that it was a better album than Primal Scream’s Screamadelica, partly because I was tired of listening to 90s students banging on about how they took mushrooms to Loaded one time. I wonder if I’d have felt so strongly had we not gone to Sheffield Arena that night.
Even before Simply Red there was music, all the time. You dug out a photo of me recently, and amid the many shades of brown in the wallpaper, settee and carpet, there’s Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love propped up next to the record player in the background. You kept your records in the sideboard cupboard and let me listen to them whenever I wanted: Echo and the Bunnymen, Bauhaus, Human League, the 7in copy of Fairytale of New York that I played all year round. Most of them had your name written in biro on the corner from when you used to take them to discos, a glimpse of you as you had been before me.
You made me love music, and loving music meant I got to write about music for a living, and that meant I got to do things that were unthinkably lucky and extravagant, so thank you for those experiences. Now might be a good time to tell you I nicked your Joy Division album – but I promise, I’m looking after it.
Love you,
Rebecca
Maurice Mcleod: I was going to meet you in Swaziland when you passed away. It taught me to never to put things off
Dear Father,
I’m writing to you because the two brief phone conversations we had eight years ago were not enough.
We only met once, back when I was about four. All I remember about that encounter was that you were black. I’d been expecting a white man, maybe with a beard, because Mum told me you were important and I’d only ever seen white important people.
For most of my life I told myself, and anyone who would listen, that I was fine without your input. Mum’s nurse’s salary meant money was always scarce, but I never went without a meal and always had clean clothes on my back and a roof over my head.
The financial hardship of my early life helped me to value people over possessions and presence over presents. I spent more than 40 years wrongly thinking you had abandoned us and this gave me a determination never to do that to any child of mine. My relationship with my daughter, who is going to be 26 next month, is wonderful – built on what your absence taught me.
Mum was devoted to me, and my siblings, when they came along a decade later; she still is. Still, I always felt I lacked a male role model. I don’t just mean learning to shave or tie a tie; I mean teaching me how to carry myself as a man. How to be male and black in Britain in the 70s and 80s.
I learned on my own, through trial and error. Growing up with Mum meant I never learned how to use aggression. Instead, I learned how to listen, tell stories and make people laugh.
When I was younger I hated these traits. To my mind, they were feminine and meant I always made a friend but never got the girl. But later I got the girl anyway.
Eight years ago, when I found you via Facebook, we spoke on the phone but it was stilted and I couldn’t think of anything to say. On the second call, I arranged to come and meet you in Swaziland. Then, just six weeks before we got there, you passed away. This taught me to try never to put things off.
I hope you know that I visited Swaziland after you left. I’ve been there four times in total now. I’ve met your mother, my beautiful Gogo, three times, and was able to attend her 100th birthday party. I am getting to know my seven siblings and I planted a tree with my daughter, your granddaughter, on our family land. By getting to know Swaziland, its customs and my huge family, I’m slowly getting to know you. I also learned that your actions were not the simplistic comic book version I had been carrying around as my personal history.
May you rest in peace,
Maurice
Michele Hanson: You showed me there is no better way to deal with life’s horrors than to laugh at them
Dear Parents,
Thank you Mummy and Daddy, or Fatso and Thins, as I used to call you, for teaching me, mainly, how to have a laugh in order to survive without going mad. You, Daddy, the thin one, were a terrible sulker, uttered very little praise, criticised every tiny mistake, every wrong note on the piano, which taught me that nothing I did was ever quite good enough, but it did make me try harder. And when you were feeling cheerier, thank you for coming up with the most brilliant one-liners, for telling the best jokes and for turning our ghastly little family spats into exquisite comedy. You showed me that there is no better way to deal with life’s horrors than to laugh at them.
And thank you Mummy, Fatso, for smothering me with overwhelming love, and concern about everything, even my bowel movements, hanging about outside the lavatory and inquiring about them. Because you taught me that it isn’t my business to ask my daughter deeply personal questions, or display intense anxiety, and that screeching only makes children more rebellious. Although I’m not sure I’ve really learned the screeching lesson yet. I do try, but anxiety, panic and screaming, once learned, are hard to control.
And thank you also for teaching me to make the best fish and chips, and for trying so hard to teach me how to cook lots of other things, but I wouldn’t listen because I thought you were bossy, and now I deeply regret it. Thank you both for being loud, outrageous, verging on vulgar, because once I’d got over being mortified in public, I did learn that there is nothing particularly wonderful about convention. And I didn’t always realise at the time that you both loved me and your granddaughter to distraction, but like many people didn’t always express love in the best way. From this I learned it’s so difficult to get these things right, because you learned from your own parents, who learned from their parents, and that no one should be condemned out of hand.
Yours,
Michele
Remona Aly: You made me think it was a given to have best friends who were Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Sikh, agnostic, Muslim
Dear Mum and Dad,
Thank you for inflicting on me that god-awful bowl haircut as a child. It was character building. Truly. As were the black fishnet tights, red shoes and frilly dress. But beyond the questionable apparel, you gave me an ocean of life lessons, raising me on a diet of dhal, alphabet spaghetti, social justice, and C&A sales.
Even though we were of different worlds, I never felt worlds apart from you. Dad, when you came here on a boat in the 1960s like a proper FOB (Fresh Off the Boat), you had left your bustling city in India to move to a quiet, working-class village in Kent to start your teaching post in the local school. You arrived with £3 in your pocket and a head full of dreams. You worked your guts out, and then, Mum, you came over, and had to learn fast. You only ever gave – to me, my brother, my sister. Your sacrifices make me want to deserve them.
But it wasn’t always perfect, was it? There were times I questioned your take on stuff, times you upset me, times you drove me downright flipping mad. I’m sure I did the same to you. But you know what, you kept me grounded, gave me stability, and never stopped loving me.
One of the best gifts you passed down was the value of friendship. Dad, you made me think it was a given that everyone had best friends who were Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Sikh, atheist, Muslim. You even had time for Tories. You made me believe that building bridges between different people was part of everyone’s goal in life. You taught me to be respectful, bold in my faith, and made me feel that being born a girl was the best thing ever. You made Britain your home, so it could be my natural home. But it’s not always been easy for me, for you, for any of us. That’s where resilience comes in.
Dad, you lost both your parents when you were only 12, and had to look after your sisters and brother. Mum, you lost your father when you were a teenager. Both of you saw siblings die in front of your eyes. Your experiences, your dark days of depression that you hid so well from us, taught me how to bear the pain when I lost you, my own dear Dad. And you both gave me the tools to rebuild my broken heart when I lost my niece, your granddaughter.
So I want to thank you, for giving me the oxygen to be myself. For putting trust in me, for fixing each wing so I never crawl through life. You taught me compassion, perspective, struggle, conviction, faith, loyalty, love, humour, honesty. You taught me humanity.
Your (favourite) child, Mona xx
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