Deborah Orr on leaving home: ‘My parents were the jailers I loved’

In an extract from her posthumous memoir, the writer recalls her escape to university – and how her mother’s disapproval haunted her

When the letters came, that was when it all blew up – for ever. I told my parents, Win and John, that I’d been offered a place at St Andrews university, they warned me that I’d be out of my depth, mixing with people who had very different lives to me – more money, posh, snobs. I wouldn’t be able to keep up. This, they told me again, had been my perennial problem: I always wanted to mix with people Win and John couldn’t compete with – at the Guides, at the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme. Here was another one.

“This is just another one of your nine-day wonders, Deborah. College is more suitable.”

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from Lifestyle | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2RockMu

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