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. In the 30s, Canon Taylor, the man who oversaw the construction of the Catholic Grotto in nearby Carfin, sent a couple of stout lads to pack them on to the back of a lorry and transport it to a more reverential home in the new grotto, but they were interrupted by a local landlord who chased them off. It followed a turbulent period when Orr had served as an unhappy literary editor of the Guardian and left the paper in the wake of the departure of her then husband, the journalist, author and media personality Will Self from its sister paper, the Observer. Deborah Orr: 'I was powerless before the relentless refusal of my parents to allow me to live in the world as the world was, to let me make my mistakes.' Photograph: courtesy of Deborah. Win could be a fierce custodian of the family narrative and she often recoiled from her brilliant daughters efforts to change the story. Win was originally from Essex but moved to Motherwell in Lanarkshire where Orr was born in 1963. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. MOTHERWELL: A GIRLHOOD by Deborah Orr (Weidenfeld 16.99, 304 pp). [2], Orr was born on 23 September 1962[3] to Winifred "Win" and John Orr, a factory worker. Similarly, Deborah Orr should have drawn a line under many of the minor growing pains she endured. It reaches wisdom, of a kind, and I felt that much sorrier that the author didnt live to see its publication. Decent 19th century housing is flattened in a fake spirit of do-gooding modernism, and terrible high-rise flats are constructed. That night my mother rounded things off by adding, as some kind of double-edged sweetener, I love you, Deborah. I WAS told a totally plausible tale about some of the stones that were all that remained of the well, but which had been ignored over the centuries and lay neglected in the hedgerow. Motherwell: A Girlhood by Deborah Orr review - The Guardian We can only mourn her loss and the brilliant books she might have written after this. As a woman it had become so rare for the three of us to sit together and talk about me. Fascinating memoir examines the Do not sell or share my personal information. There was more to it than the economy. Personal identities were shattered. After Thatcherism, his world would be blown down in broad daylight, and he becomes an almost Hardyesque casualty of the land, someone carrying his trauma and his prejudices as if they were all he had. They had much in common, being insular, proud, fearful and disapproving. 22:02 BST 25 Jan 2020 As she led them through an argument to her conclusions, the workings of her mind were visible. 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. Get some decent experience for my CV and, hopefully, some money. Deborah Ann (McCluskey) Orr, 62, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her loving family on Wednesday, August 12, 2020 after an illness. Ways to honor Deborah Orr's life and legacy. Deborah Orr's raw account of escaping her stifling childhood His son became provost and MP and there is a grand family plot in the graveyard known, curiously, as the Globe. Weve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country. As a subscriber, you are shown 80% less display advertising when reading our articles. A heritage centre, with a helpful and enthusiastic staff, stands where the swimming baths, one of the first indoor municipal pools in Scotland, once stood. Are you sure you want to delete this comment? [4] She was raised in Motherwell, Scotland. Well, let me put if differently, and say I shall feel sorry for those who dislike Motherwell, before admitting that feeling sorry comes all too easily. If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can Their love for one another was as solid as the steel upon which the towns industry was once built. Orr the columnist adapted readily to social media, communicating frankly about bitter disputes as her marriage to Self crumbled. Deborah Orr: He always did aim high, my childhood friend Full Profile. They have also lived in Saddle Brook, NJ and Ridgewood, NJ. There was once a sign on the estate which said Trespassers will be Prosecuted. When she was 11, her tenement building was demolished and she, her brother David and their parents were shipped to a new housing estate. There she made her name wooing writers including Gordon Burn and Andrew OHagan. RIP Deborah. minor crime was not being checked by policing. I told no one. They married in 1997: Orr became stepmother to Selfs children, Alexis and Madeleine, and they went on to have two sons. I passed the resits and asked Mum and Dad if I could go to Edinburgh to meet a friend also Deborah who was living there, and spend the weekend with her as a little reward. 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. As a girl Id had it, even if it was trammelled by their beliefs about the kind of attention a girl should receive. Orrs mother, Win, had moved from rural Essex to industrial Scotland when she got married in 1961. Design by Robert Peacock Win worried about what people thought, Deborah didnt. In 1997 Orr married writer Will Self, gravitating towards a man who seems to have repeated the behaviour and attitudes of her mother and her father, emptying her of self-respect. Deborah Orr obituary | Media | The Guardian [2], Last edited on 16 December 2022, at 22:36, "Award-winning columnist Deborah Orr dies aged 57", "A week ago, my mother died. They had two sons but separated in 2015 before an acrimonious divorce was completed in 2017. You must stop seeing this man right away. Really? I left on the first train after that night of reckoning, for Edinburgh, and a happier start to 1983 with Crispin. dorr | Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies - York University Here was another one. Deborah Orr: Getting in trouble for taking mum's nail varnish haunted No! We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Motherwell is a vivid narrative of disaster, boldly and challengingly conveyed. I felt that Id deserved this experience of sex for leading him on. Ms Orr fought her off after a violent tussle and later wrote in The Independent: I feel sad for her, but Im glad we caught her I want to meet her, try to get her to understand how it feels to have such a violation visited on ones home and ones children.. Observer columnist Catherine Bennett described her friend Orr as "one of the cleverest, most unconventional, most fearless people on the planet". Deborah Jane Orr was born in a tenement flat in Motherwell on September 23, 1962, to working class parents who, she later wrote, made so many self-centred demands. Her father John was a Scot who worked in the then-throbbing Anderson Boyes factory in Flemington, Motherwell, making cutting machines for the Lanarkshire coal industry. How much she remembers! Orr, who was born in Motherwell, joined the Guardian in 1990, becoming the first female editor of its Weekend magazine before she was 30. No flatmates. We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments. I stopped going to them, not long into my first year. Her working class Motherwell background came in handy in 2001 when a hooded intruder, who turned out to be a woman, broke into her terraced house in Stockwell, south London. They routinely opened letters that were sent to me. I could have had some of the chapter round as witnesses, got my red wings.. If you have a complaint about the editorial content which relates to My parents were the gaolers that I loved, she writes at the end, when she has escaped them. The life of Motherwell was seen as an experiment that failed. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. On the west coast of Scotland they have as many expressions for embarrassment as the Inuit have for snow. Yet, weirdly, even though these people were undoubtedly far more sophisticated than I was, a lot of them also seemed stupid. Deborah Orr, right, hosted An Evening With Vivienne Westwood in 2016. Still do., At St Andrews, with her Clyde Valley accent, she at first found herself somewhat out of place among what she called Englands hunting, shooting and fishing crowd, she wrote last year. Obituary of Deborah Ann Orr | Funeral Homes & Cremation Services Opening letters that I was intending to send, though this was new. He OK too? 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. What kind of arrangement is appropriate, where should you send it, and when should you send an alternative? 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. For Motherwell, much of the civic pride was aroused by its great steel works. 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. For a time the couple were glamorous fringe bohemians of the Groucho Club set and put on lavish parties. Angela Rippon, for example, was mocked and questioned for lacking the gravitas and authority to read the news bulletins. FBI hunt 'armed and dangerous' shooting suspect. All rights reserved. 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.. A few years later, Win was diagnosed with kidney cancer. I couldnt stand the place, even when it was still in its pomp. 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. For maybe a year and a half I concealed the relationship from my parents, who still insisted that I was responsible for remaining in touch with them, because Id been the one to leave the family. Orr held an annual Christmas no men allowed party for female friends at their house in Stockwell, south London. She was born in Boston, the daughter of Richard J. and Mary E. (Watson) McCluskey and had lived in Everett before moving to Leominster last year.She leaves her loving daughter, Ruth Orr and her husband, John Gualtieri of Leominster and Melissa Orr and her husband, Joshua Wallace of Fitchburg; her grandchildren, Anthony, Isabella, Keira, Jonathan, Giovanni, Isaiah and Lylah; her fianc Steve Reddick of Hyde Park; her brothers, Stephen and Karl McCluskey; her sisters, Marilyn and Margaret McCluskey; and nieces and nephews. On reading it, I thought again of how Kenneth Tynan once said he could never really love anybody who didnt like Look Back in Anger. The Bookseller - Author Interviews - Deborah Orr | 'The more humble my Great books forge a connection between the movement of single minds and the fate of nations, and Deborah, by looking at her own Scottish family and herself, put her finger on the anger and narcissism of the current political moment: The unsettling thing about group narcissism is that theres a level on which it works really well. Motherwell sets itself apart by the energy and exactness of Orrs writing. She never fully settled, was never fully happy indeed, the core of Motherwell is Wins rage and discontent, her choked-back madness and passive-aggressive sulks. And what a remarkable book it is impassioned, angry, tender, pathetic, honest to a fault. "There was still a lot of. So much for the deterrence theory of criminology. 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. Every time my parents made a seismic intervention in a relationship, I ended up pregnant. Fans appreciated her muscular style and voice. In this bureau, Orr finds to her mingled delight and dismay that her mother had kept reminders of her daughters successes from schooldays until her time as senior journalist on The Guardian, but it was a feeling she had been unable to convey to young or middle-aged Deborah. She had a brother, who was living as of 2013. To view this content choose accept and continue. Be the first to post a memory or condolences. They're not a map to follow, but simply a description of what people commonly feel. It is ever thus. [4] She was raised in Motherwell, Scotland. Our parents are the making of us from their DNA to their mad ideas about propriety, of not getting above yourself, not being different. I wish Id known. Me on the settee, switching like a traffic light between tears, attempts at self-justification and fury, aware more than anything else that, unlike a traffic light, I was powerless before the relentless refusal of my parents to allow me to live in the world as the world was, to let me make my mistakes, and maybe even to comfort me when things went awry. We'd run into each other in 2003 at a book party, when I was pregnant with my son, and she'd tearfully told my then partner, now husband, that he'd better look after me, or else: a bit rich, I remember thinking, given how vile she'd been when we were falling out. There was still a lot of bitterness. Maybe it was a way of forcing commitment in my relationships, to please my parents. Motherwell is a searching, truthful, shocking (and timely) observance of the blight that monetarist policies can bring about in a community of workers, indeed on a whole culture of fairness and improvement, while also showing in sentences as clean as bone the tireless misunderstandings that can starve a family of love. Glad to hear your mothers well, so hows your father? Id love it. Id gone up to the hospice where she was being looked after, hired a cab that took a wheelchair, put some lipstick on my mother and a shawl that shed crocheted, and gone to the place where wed always been happy. This feeling of powerlessness under my parents unflinching belief that Id let them down. Her bravado was a camouflage for insecurity. The National Health Service has been plunged into a financial and staffing crisis, yet still has to soothe the dented ego of Richard Branson by making a payout to Virgin Care. Wed already had our subdued and puritanical Christmas, just the four of us, a turkey crown and elaborate disappointment with the gifts Id brought. Deborah Orr who died last October of cancer aged 57, left behind a memoir . The work is not a sociological or historical survey but a deeply introspective autobiography which plays on the overlap between the towns name and the authors references to her mother, who emerges sometimes as mother-well but, more frequently, as mother-unwell, at least in her dealings with her daughter. Win kept the council house immaculate. According to the publication her "refusal to suffer fools was legendary", as was her "pitch-black humour". Watching images of the event, I thought the gas holder merited the same praise. VideoOn board the worlds last surviving turntable ferry, I didnt think make-up was made for black girls, Why there is serious money in kitchen fumes. (modern). I wandered the streets for hours, thinking about going to the police and how unlikely they were to take my word against his. I got my new life! An October 7 tweet, however, said: Very ill with septicaemia. This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. 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. The root of the problem? 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. Above all she admits to being seared by an incident when she took her mothers nail varnish to draw macrame designs and lied about the disappearance of the little bottle. 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. Id paid for it, not her. Deborah (pictured), aleading Fleet Street columnist, said her younger years were like growing up in a religious cult without the religion. People had to conform. 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. My own father was a butcher, and said he could feel the difference in his takings when the works were on short time. When Deborah was born in 1962, and brother David four years later, you sense that neither parent had the imagination to cope with them. I told her that I didnt want children. Her mother was traumatised by the war and by the expectations that followed. 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. We'll help you find the right words to comfort your family member or loved one during this difficult time. My mother agreed that I could bring this latest sexual exploiter of her child to visit for the weekend. Scotland this sense of historical value has been lost to such places. Deborah Orr's Motherwell: a memoir of family insights and dark asides Youve been telling me how much you hate it all my life., Pursed lips. It felt like we loved each other, in the simplest and easiest of ways. Together wed had actual, consensual, intense, affectionate sex which for me was a first, and a highly significant commitment. Orr craved her mothers approval, but received multiple evidence of the opposite. Alexander Chancellor and Julie Burchill were signed up as columnists. We talked. All rights reserved. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? I told them that university studies were really hard, which they were not. As a boy I remember standing in awe underneath that sign wondering, what could be beyond Motherwell. Our prison service is a series of riots waiting to happen. I didnt get it. There was huge resentment between town and gown, and my sympathies lay with town. Writer John Niven was given an early copy and predicted it will be "a huge hit". Few natives knew, and fewer outsiders cared, that the town has a history that stretches back into the Middle Ages. Teaching. You are no better than a common whore. When the letters came, that was when it all blew up for ever. This self-discovery led to a memoir, Motherwell: A Girlhood, to be published in January: writing it took over from column writing. Comedian and writer Shappi Khorsandi noted there were "so many beautiful tributes to Deborah Orr" on her Twitter timeline on Monday, calling it "a huge loss to journalism, to writing". Please report any comments that break our rules. READ MORE:Pope Francis to deliver mass by video streaming to avoid crowds. Girls at best were the crumpet to simper over Jimmy Savile on Top Of The Pops. [1] She was also a columnist for The Independent. From there she was invited to join the Guardian as an arts subeditor by Alan Rusbridger, who was then its features editor. She was predeceased by her granddaughter, Aliyah; her brother, Richard; and her sister, Maureen.Funeral services for Deborah are private and will be held at the convenience of the family. When he leaned in to kiss me, that was fine. Your father and I forbid you, and thats that.. Her father John. By It took six seconds for that huge, blue gasometer and those massive elegant cooling towers to come down After the site was decommissioned, its buildings flattened and shovelled away, its earth decontaminated, there was just a big hole, in the town, in the shire, in so many peoples lives. The local council let off some balloons, to represent every person whod ever worked there, and the Orr family went home, like many others, to live out their myth of survival. It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse. Is a memoir therapy or revenge? asks Orr. 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. Men not given to poetry would show signs of emotion when in after years they remembered the sky being lit up when in the evening the furnace doors in Colvilles were opened, and a brightness seemed to prance from cloud to cloud. Facebook gives people the power to. Youve lived in Scotland all of your life and youve NEVER BEEN SHOOTING?. A Gannett Company. Read about our approach to external linking. The family maintained its local roots, unlike comparable industrial families in, for example, Paisley, but only for a time. There he got into a dispute with one Sir Piers Courtenay, which ended up with a challenge being issued and accepted. She sulked until I gave in and took her down to Airdrie, finding it hard to stop the wheelchair from going too fast on the way down, sweating with the effort of pushing on the way back up. Id already finished university by the time the miners strike began in 1984. Her always fiercely intelligent point of view," she added. 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. Orr went on to work for Independent in 1999, before returning to The Guardian as a columnist for almost a decade. Motherwell review: The late Deborah Orr's girlhood memoir is excellent 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. She is survived by her sons, Ivan and Luther. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. It's surprising how much a musical selection can affect mourning. Thank you.. Other journalists, writers and beyond have been paying their tributes. [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. [2] From 1993 to 1998, Orr was editor of the Guardian Weekend magazine. Popular television comedians got into drag to show how silly and grotesque ladies were. She talks about a past lover called Crispin who was abandoned by his mother as a baby. Overview. I told Win that I intended to go away, but that Id prefer it if they would give me their blessing. Oh, no. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Spaghetti hoops from a can was the height of exotic dining. On October 1, she tweeted: I live in Brighton now! So thats why weve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. Those ads you do see are predominantly from local businesses promoting local services. But. She worked for over 18 years as a librarian and teacher. The Wee Review : Deborah Orr Obituary: Deborah Orr, award-winning journalist | HeraldScotland In the 21st century, it's not just urns and gravestones anymore. The king laughed away the claim, but admitted that it showed the superior wit of the Scots. But I loved it too. These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience the local community. To offer your sympathy during this difficult time, you can now have memorial trees planted in a National Forest in memory of your loved one. After dark, the lights of Ravenscraig could once be seen from the whole town, and far into the surrounding countryside. These moments were offensive to local pride, which was real. We were both in bad moods when we parted, and I never saw my mother again. I was living in Edinburgh and, like most people from mining families, I was going on the demos, helping with the collections, attending the fundraisers. The best poems for funerals, memorial services., and cards. The author also attacks other Scottish poisons like sectarianism and toxic masculinity. On the day they blew Ravenscraig down, Deborah was there with her father, mother and brother David. Early in Motherwell, it seems that Win is the engine of all this painful self-loathing, but then we see John, Deborahs father, who is either an unskilled labourer at Ravenscraig (Deborah) or a trained engineer (Win). They stood behind the cordon. But as soon as Deborah dared to assert her independence, the mood at home turned grim. If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can If you would like your comment on this piece to be considered for Weekend magazines letters page, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication). Giving to charity is a meaningful way to honor someone who has died. Orrs father had been seen off six years earlier by oesophageal and liver cancer. Tim was astounded, and not a little put off. I think she felt that I was throwing money at her, as if she was a problem. inaccuracy or intrusion, then please This is just another one of your nine-day wonders, Deborah. Unless you are experienced as an estate executor, you probably should hire an attorney. Some of us become cookie-cutter replicas of our parents, others break away. 16:11 BST 26 Jan 2020, Deborah Orr W&N 16.99.