Our Mother's House (1967)

[David Challinor]

Has any film Really affected your life? I mean REALLY affected how you live? I bet many members of this site will say, 'oh yes, I thought more about that subject because of such-and-such a film' ....' but maybe fewer will actually testify that a film affected you psychologically, contributed deeply to your condition. Most films make you briefly happy, or sad, but not many can set you on the road to being labelled 'mad'.
Jack Clayton's doomy urban Lord of the Flies drama did just that when I was 8
(today, at 41, I'm happily married with a family by the way, reasonably adjusted, in case any of you are wondering just what is coming up!)

...quickly, a little family background to explain.
My father died when I was 4, I was brought up by a loving mother and two elder sisters. Mum never remarried, or had any other relationships other my dad who died in 1968.

Around 1972 Granada screened the film starring Dirk Bogarde on a sunday night, and boy, how that plot stuck in my mind.
For any of you who haven't viewed this adaptation of the novel by Julian Gloag, a group of children cover up their mother's death and carry on normally to avoid going to an orphanage. They go along to the Post Office to pick up their mother's benefit income - rather like my mum managed, from a RAF war widows fund.
The later part, where the long-disappeared dad (Bogarde) arrives home - where the plot starts to fall apart - didn't really grip me all those years ago, but the first part did. ''Big time'' as they say.
The children - there's seven of them - descend into barbarity after mum dies, at one point shaving off the hair of the youngest daughter who almost gives their secrets away, and poor old Mark Lester's stammer gets worse and worse!
Seriously, I took it all in and subconsciously thought: 'what if my mum died?' My sisters were probably too young to save me from going into care....OH NO!
This worry manifested itself most gently in me getting out of bed very early in the mornings to view my very single mum's blankets rising and falling through the crack in the joint of her bedroom door, just to make sure she was still breathing. At worst, however, there were problems at school. Or rather, me not wanting to go there.
For about six months I suffered 'feeling sick' before I left for school - in my 8 year old mind it was because I was about to leave what I saw to be my lifeline, my mum! Yes, a mummy's boy, but also I think a bit of delayed grief about my dad was mixed in.
And I wasn't putting on, I Was physically sick, many times, though always revived when mum arrived looking, at each successive time, more and more fed up with her strange youngest child. Outside school - weekends, holidays and half term - were no problem. But Monday mornings, going to school, was the worst.
After a few weeks I was taken to the doctor's. Elsewhere I was looked at strangely by grown ups trying to solve the mystery. Theories about curing my 'sickness' were given. I was told to drink milk in the mornings. No good. Toast. No, still sick. Then no breakfast, told to eat nothing.
The adults held firm, if there was ever talk of removing me from that school to another I never heard of it...the school was a short walk away from home, and that probably contributed to me 'baling out' each morning, as it was easy for my mum to come and reach me after the phone call was made. Sometimes I wonder if I had been schooled further away I would have had this problem.
Probably. As some years later, in my narcissistic teens, when I realised I had a past, it suddenly struck me that seeing the film contributed to at least some, possibly all, of that 'lost six months'.
The truest thing I have ever thought of it was that it was some kind childhood breakdown. Better then than now eh!
By the spring 1973 I was better, suddenly my classmates stopped calling me names and took to me again. I developed a love playing football, passionately, but I still felt the recent past was being remembered and I was looked upon as 'odd'. I was changed in some ways forever...
...Many years passed and I became convinced Our Mother's House may well have affected other kids too. It appeared it would NEVER be shown again on tv.
Then in the late 1980s, there it was, in the Channel 4 schedule - at something like 1am in the morning (before that became the norm on terrestial tv for films!), but definately the same film (by this time I'd read the book).
I bought a blank video to preserve it. I stayed up for a special viewing, now a safe and steady 26 year old.
However, as soon as the film opened with its children's rhyme-like music theme I was taken right back to my insecure early years! I sat it out - it's a dull, grainy film which has one or two nice sequences, but is distinctly dark for all the presence of children throughout.
Generally, a forgotten film now, Jack Clayton's The Innocents is better remembered - but of course, it shall always have a special resonance for me.

My copy of it is buried deep in the loft, and it shall stay there even though I have a daughter who loves her films. I don't want her to go nearly mad if she loses her daddy now, do I?

[aaron]

A touching and fascinating tale David..The child is father of the man - although it sounds, as you say, that your adult life is pretty settled.
I can't say that i've been detrimentaly affected by a film/tv drama to a profound extent.
Although the public info film 'the finishing line' gave me the odd nightmare in pre adolescence, and even 'rupert the bear' character 'ragetty' made me hide behind the sofa when very young! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blushing.gif[/img]
We are all a product of our experience, and children are clearly more succeptible to influence from many sources.
Most psychologists/sociologists tend to say that stimuli such as film/tv does not specificaly inform behaviour, so much as unlock surpressed instinct, fear & emotion - I am always suspicious of experts....

Don't recall the film incidently!!

[Diane Blackwell]

Yes, a fascinating story. I have actually thought about this before, because I was asked by someone if Wicker Man (one of my favourites) had affected me. And yes, it did - I already had slightly paganistic leanings, and it certainly encouraged me to take these further (although I don't normally go around setting fire to coppers. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]

[Freddy]

The story of Our Mother's House seems to have been taken one step further in Ian McEwan's "The Cement Garden" written in 1978. There we have four children whose father dies first and then their mother who's body is hidden in a trunk to prevent them going to an orphanage. What follows is sexual, incest and emotional upheaval rather than barbarism. The adult to come on the scene is the elder sister's boyfriend with one of the youngest wanting to disclose everything to him.

It was made into a film in 1993.

The Cement Garden

regards

Freddy

[Shiloh]

Hello David,
I am new to this forum; inspired to join by your elegiac account of the effect 'Our Mother's House' had on you as a boy.It really struck a chord. I too saw the film when it aired in what must have been 1972. This would have made me 4 at that point. My memory of the time is vague but I am clear on the haunting quality of the film. It has stayed with me, despite the fact that I have not seen or heard of it since. The reason I saw your post was because I was searching to see whether the film really existed or I had made it up as some metaphor of my own childhood fears and anxieties. My mother was hospitalised at the time and Dad was very busy working so we were pretty much left in my older sister's care, who seemed to bear a striking resemblance to the oldest girl. I remember the pigtails.

I am the youngest; my brothers 4 and 5 years older. I saw the film, we were watching anything really without mum around and I was suddenly terrified that I would never see my mum again. Or that my sister knew she was dead and had kept it a terrible secret. My sister had cut my hair, cut a big chunk of knotted chewing gum from it. Not for badness, I suppose she was a surrogate mother to me. This seemed important as I watched the film...does the little girl get her hair cut in the film?

Anyway, I remained petrified that my mum would abandon me for many years after-long after she recovered. Strange that you too checked the bed to see if your mother was still breathing. I did this until I left home at 27.I also hated school and would do anything I could to stay at home. I had never connected it to these events before but it makes sense. Mum died 5 years ago,so my fears were eventually realised but y'know. This may make me sound like a pathetic wreck but I hope I am not! I was a fearless child in everything else, maybe even a risk-taker and still am a bit. I am glad to hear that you are content now. I feel so too. Thanks for helping me remember the film and the little girl I was.
S