Becoming other..

We have BBC Knowledge now on the local satellite tv service DSTV. Its not half bad and may even be good. I watched a fascinating family-tree programme last night - the distinguished actor John Hurt in trace of his ancestors. Who'd have thought he was from grim Grimsby? He'd grown up with the family story that his great-grandmother was the illegitimate child of an Irish noble, the Count of Sligo. After long research up and down dale, it turned out it was not true - his great grandfather had conjured up the origin story in the nineteenth century, most probably because of his own father's shameful fall from grace working for the Customs in London. There was a poignant moment right at the end when Hurt absorbed the news that he probably didn't have Irish ancestry. He was quite profoundly upset.

With my mother's side coming from Liverpool, I too had always nurtured the idea that there must be some Irish in the family. The fantasy of having Irish origins is an easy one to decipher: it is the dream of a lyrical origin myth, attuned with a celtic elementality. At some point two hundred years ago, my ancestor may have looked out to sea on a western Kerry cliff and sang a song of lament, while her swarthy lover sailed far away. He would return after months, and there would be dancing and stories of old at the ceilidh. Even the banshees outside would halt their screeching and silently smile.

In my case, it looks like there wasn't anyone from across the Irish sea: my mother's family name, Murgatroyd, is a Yorkshire name. No oirish at all at all.

I have a friend who was convinced she was Jewish from the time I knew her in her late teens. I think it was because her grandfather had lived in the East End of London. She eventually converted and now lives in Israel..

So many dream of becoming other through fantasising their family origins in this way, and of having another story to tell about themselves. Why do we do this? Why are we not happy as we are? Perhaps it is the imagination, dreaming of other histories as forms of freedom yet to be told. Or perhaps it is just that we can find it difficult to accept all that we are, fearing that we are locked into the sameness of our same...