FEATURE


Trade on Relationships It


must have been an uncomfortable morning for 11 year old Peter


Mandelson on his first and possibly only visit to Eltham.


Choosing to wear a blue tie to his grandfather Herbert Morrison’s funeral he was chastised, no doubt tongue in cheek, by deputy prime minister George Brown for being politically and sartorially incorrect. It was to become a family joke.


But his discomfort would have been deeper, with its origins in Morrison’s first marriage, something Mandelson outlines in his recent book ‘The Third Man’ in which he claims his antecedent as an inspiration.


He reveals his family only learned of his grandfather’s death after a newsflash on the television.


‘My mother tried not to show her hurt, but I am sure she felt it as acutely as I did”, he wrote.


Morrison’s second wife, Edith, in her own autobiography ‘Portrait of a Marriage’ explains:


‘Herbert never talked to me about his first marriage, and as little as possible about their only child, his daughter, who I never met’, reads her account in her own autobiography ‘Portrait of a Marriage’.


Given there were a total of only 10 family mourners at the funeral at Eltham Crematorium, she being one and the Mandelsons four of the others, she clearly was indifferent.


Morrison is Eltham’s most celebrated politician, having being Home Secretary through most of the War and deputy Prime Minister in the post-War Labour government. But his private life was often unhappy.


In Mandelson’s best selling book, he says his grandfather would occasionally drive from Eltham to North London on Saturdays to see his only child, Mary, and her family. He would have lunch and then


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fall asleep in a chair before heading home, making no real attempt to involve them in his new life.


Morrison’s first wife, Margaret, died when Mandelson was a toddler. Mandelson’ s account is that after his grandfather’s re-marriage two years later, his new wife wanted to put his old family into the background. But this is contradicted in ‘Portrait of a Marriage’, which describes many a happy weekend spent with Morrison’s favourite sister Edie in Brighton.


There were probably two reasons why Morrison took a minimal interest in his daughter and family.


His first marriage, to Margaret Kent, was a disastrous mismatch. She was shy and unassuming; he politically astute and ambitious. After Mandelson’s mother, Mary, was born, Margaret had a breakdown and the marriage, which was to last 30 more


SEnine


Colepits Wood Road Eltham


years, never recovered. Mary, spending all her childhood with her mother while he was away building his political career, naturally took her side.


And then, when only 19, his daughter first married and then quickly divorced the son of a cabinet colleague. In those days, divorce came with stigma, potentially damaging to Morrison’s leadership pretensions. These were only dashed when his boss Clement Attlee had hung on until his deputy was too old to succeed. Morrison’s move to Eltham – he was born in Lambeth – was partly inspired by a desire to keep his shy wife happy, to remind her of her garden suburb background in Letchworth.


Ironically it was his second wife, Edith, who was happy here, firstly in his Archery Road home and then in Colepits Wood Road, making friends and becoming a leading light in the Townswomen’s Guild after her husband’s death.


With all the background, it’s not surprising Mandelson’s mother told him not to trade on his relationship to his famous grandfather. It was a temptation he hasn’t quite resisted.


The Third Man by Peter Mandelson. £8.99 paperback on Amazon


Herbert Morrison ‘Portrait of a Politician’


from £4.75 (inc p/p) used on the internet Lady Morrison: Memories of a Marriage from £2.76 (inc p/p) on the internet


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