British author says we must be honest about our loved ones’ flaws to truly remember them
interviewed British author and comedian Baddiel on Friday evening at Dalkey’s Church of the Assumption. Baddiel once pioneered stadium comedy in Wembley Arena and opened up the taboo on anti-Semitism in the UK, but lately his focus has been even closer to home: getting to grips with his mother’s affair with a golf memorabilia collector.
His parents are Jewish: his father was Welsh-Jewish, while his mother fled Nazi Germany with her family as a baby. “It’s kind of terrifying that I’m here in the world at all,” he says. “They got out in August 1939.” In the 1970s, however, things started to get weird, he says. His mother took a sudden and deep interest in golf, writing golf-related poetry and collecting memorabilia about a sport she had never even played. It soon became apparent to David she was having an affair and was taking an interest in her paramour’s hobbies. She would often write love letters and leave them strewn all over the house, Baddiel says.
Speaking about being arrested in 1984 for obstructing police at a Stop the City demonstration against the UK’s military-financial complex – Baddiel says his parents didn’t even turn up to the trial. “That was a shock for me,” he says. “If either of my children were arrested I would turn up, if only to wave them down.” Surprisingly, he doesn’t hold it against his parents.
David-Mcwilliams David-Baddiel
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