Melvyn Bragg on suicide loss and his breakdown
April 1st, 2008, 6:21 am Hobbies Ideas
Few would guess how hard-won Melvyn Bragg%26rsquo;s successful stability is. His CV
suggests a master of the balancing act: highly regarded author and respected
broadcaster, veteran radio presenter for the BBC and controller of arts for
LWT, equally at home in the House of Lords and working-class Cumbria, where
he was born in 1939 and still has a frequently visited cottage. Yet, as he
talks to me over coffee in the conservatory kitchen of his Hampstead house,
he soon reveals that, behind this assured-seeming public equilibrium, there
has been nightmarish private turmoil.
We are meeting prior to the publication of Remember Me…, a novel that
resurrects the most devastating event of his life: the suicide of his first
wife, the French artist and writer Lisa Roche. It%26rsquo;s a book about which he is
giving just this one newspaper interview, and the significance of which he
is eager to stress from the start: I knew that if I didn%26rsquo;t write this book,
I could never write any more fiction. It was as simple as that. It was like
something that had to be done, faced, whatever word you want to use. He
recalls a friend remarking, %26lsquo;This is a book you%26rsquo;ve been working up to for
about 35 years%26rsquo;, and adds: He was right. It wasn%26rsquo;t so much putting it off
- I didn%26rsquo;t think I could ever write it.
Writing it, he emphasises, has not brought a feeling of release. Leaning
forward and tapping on the table to drive home his point, he says: The idea
of something like this being therapy is absolute rubbish. It just makes
things worse. It%26rsquo;s stirred up stuff, so that I%26rsquo;ve thought again and again,
%26lsquo;Why didn%26rsquo;t you just leave it alone? You were managing. You%26rsquo;d got it down
there. You were wounded by it on all sorts of little occasions and big
occasions - you just see a photograph or go to a place or something is
mentioned, and it%26rsquo;s just like a bang on the funny bone, except that it%26rsquo;s
worse than anything, and you%26rsquo;re knocked back 30 years and there%26rsquo;s a sickness
of remorse %26ndash; but you live with it.%26rsquo;
And, all of a sudden, I find I%26rsquo;m mired in it again %26ndash; and I couldn%26rsquo;t get out
of it. I thought, %26lsquo;I%26rsquo;ll finish the book and it%26rsquo;ll be all right.%26rsquo; I was
consoled by the prospect. It was a really serious consolation. But it%26rsquo;s just
stirred the whole thing up, and I%26rsquo;ve been much worse over the past few years
%26ndash; certainly the past two or three years, when I knew I had to drive it
through %26ndash; than I%26rsquo;ve been for years.
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