AND ANOTHER THING
There's a lot to be said, especially these days, for a big family
PAUL JOHNSON
Last week, just round the corner from my house, I saw a family setting out for a day's expedition. The mother, tall, thin, blonde, who looked no more than a teenag- er herself, was festooned in various bun- dles, satchels and hold-ails. The biggest boy, ten perhaps, had a cricket bat and a set of stumps. His sister, nineish, carried an enormous plastic bag containing the family lunch. The four smaller children, the last a mere toddler though stumping along unaid- ed, each had a packet to carry, plus a much- loved stuffed bear or lion, all the worse for wear. The smallest had the largest bear, almost as big as herself. I do not think this was a one-parent family. The father was probably working, or serving abroad, rather like Commander Walker, father of John, Susan, Titty and Roger in Swallows and Amazons. The mother and her brood had no car. They were catching a bus. What struck me about them all was their air of purposeful collective content. Here, indeed, was a happy family. They were so clearly going to have a jolly time that I was almost tempted to say, 'Mind if I come along too?' Now I am not saying that being a mem- ber of a large family is easy. Money is usu- ally short and you have to do without a lot of things, or get them second or third hand. This can go on almost into adulthood. I once admonished a 20-year-old, whom I had seen walking in Fleet Street with a rather disreputable older man, and pointed out that he had been the lover of no fewer than two of her elder sisters. 'I know,' she said fiercely, 'and I've got him now!' Big families are usually competitive and mem- bers have to learn to fight for their share. One girl I know says, 'You can always tell a person from a big family. When they sit down at table they instinctively stick their elbows out to make sure they get enough space.'
On the other hand, members of large families quickly learn useful lessons about collegiate living which don't come the way of others until much later, perhaps never. They waste little time crying and complain- ing but simply get on with it. One of my nieces, a gifted artist in stained glass, has five little ones already, living in bohemian cosiness in a small Oxford house (their father, like Commander Walker, is often away on duty). But they never quarrel or cry, except for a few brief seconds to make a rhetorical point: the atmosphere of the
household is one of busy serenity. I stress busy: big families are full of interest; there is always something doing. It cannot have been easy to be one of Mrs Bennet's many daughters in Pride and Prejudice. But they were never bored, like the solitary Miss D'Arcy.
And genius fizzes in big families, or is thought to do. I met a lady at an impromp- tu Highland dance last New Year. She was plainly no longer young but still beautiful, in the etiolated, epicene way of some Englishwomen — she was what Pugin would have called 'a first-rate Gothic Woman!' I don't suppose you have any children,', she began challengingly. 'I do, I have four."Ah, do you indeed? I have ten. And every one a genius. That one' — she pointed to a young lady exactly like herself — 'is another Menuhin.' Surveying her Gothic progeny, who suddenly became instantly recognisable all over the room ranging in age, size and style from Early English to Late Perpendicular — I was awed into humble silence, for once.
It is not sufficiently known that Holly- wood was the genius-child of the large fam- ily. A wayward, sometimes an evil genius, no doubt, but indubitably creative, colour- ing the whole of our century in tints which are garish and even false but indelible. Take away Hollywood from our century and it becomes, you must admit, a much emptier time. In the last 40 years of the 19th century, Jewish-Ashkenazi families in eastern Europe probably had the highest birth-rate in the whole of history. Many of these children arrived in New York as unaccompanied immigrants with just a label tied to their necks, to be picked up by relatives and then plunged into the mael- strom of the Lower East Side until they could surface, break out and capture a wider world. Carl Laemmle, the first of the
movie tycoons, was the tenth of 13 children. William Fox was one of 12. The Warner brothers were among the nine children of a poor Polish cobbler. These and others — Loew, Mayer, Goldwyn, Cohn, Schenck, Schary, Zukor, Zanuck — products of the amazing Ashkenazi family system, created or dominated all eight of the big Holly- wood studios. No wonder the place has always, in its odd, sometimes twisted, way worshipped and upheld the family, and long may it continue to do so.
The large family is touching as well as happy. Until quite recently, those little ones were fragile, might easily disappear and be buried unceremoniously in a family vault. The iconology of mediaeval tombs in our parish churches shows not only strings of sons and daughters praying earnestly for their parents lying above, but cocooned babies who did not survive infancy. Family tears were soon dried: in an age of faith, they knew those children would be waiting for them in Heaven when their own time came. The young Dickens saw dead babies being laid out, 'like pig's trotters', in draw- ers. Faded Victorian photographs show large broods draped around their mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, on the garden steps, awaiting fate: TB would claim som9, espe- cially the daughters, wars and adventures would pick off sons. But there were always plenty left in those days. Forsyte 'Change, epitome of weekly gatherings of the extend- ed family throughout comfortable Britain, was never less than crowded.
So if large families register inevitable losses, the ranks soon close up and seem as serried as ever. As you grow old, you realise that the pains of age are nothing to the loss of friends, who cannot be replaced and leave huge, ragged holes in your wan- ing existence. It is at this point that the sus- taining role of the family, especially if it is large, is so reassuring. For the family does not stand still and wait to be hit by death. It breeds, it reproduces itself. New, smiling faces come along, pop up as if from nowhere, claiming relationship — 'I'm Amelia, don't you remember?' — suddenly transforming themselves from toddlers, to teenagers, to undergraduates, becoming persons, then personalities, bringing prob- lems, difficulties, needs, requests — above all, bringing interest, filling what Dr John- son called 'the great vacancies of existence'. A big family ensures that life remains worth living.
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