One Christmas lunch many moons ago when I was but a slip of a thing, I remember sitting, along with 30 or so friends and relations, at my aunt’s enormous dining table. We were tucking into the turkey, enjoying the usual, gently antagonistic, cross-generational banter that these sort of occasions tend to invite, when a mini rebellion broke out. The subject up for discussion was promiscuity and marriage, and both teams, old and young, were being equally patronising and dogmatic.
The Teenage team, of course, had no experience to draw upon, but plenty of idealistic theory and — bless us — plenty of hope. The Senior team had rather too much experience, perhaps. Like any collection of fortysomethings, between them they’d pretty much run the gamut of mistakes. To our unforgiving teenage eyes they hardly presented a great advertisement for the inflexible moral line they were taking.
Which is why, at some point, one of my young cousins leapt to her feet. She pointed furiously at the friendly array of oldies who between them had loved, fed, educated and entertained her all her short life long and, with typical adolescent brutality, summed up the feeling of the Teenage team: “The thing is,” she yelled, “your generation just got it wrong! But it doesn’t matter any more. Because our generation is going to get it right!”
Needless to say, the fortysomethings could hardly contain their mirth. They laughed until they cried and the line has gone down in family history as among the most arrogant and fatuous yet contributed to a discussion.
But fast forward 20-odd years, and I wonder if, to some degree, my teenage cousin didn’t actually turn out to have a point. Which isn’t to say we have grown up any less promiscuous than our parents’ generation, nor that our marriages last longer or even that we bother to marry at all. But I think the trail of emotional chaos left behind us, as we lurch from one love affair to the next, is managed better by this generation than it was by the last. We divorce more easily, yes. But afterwards it’s amazing how many couples somehow remain friends.
Think of the tragic funeral pictures last week of those young children Robert and Christianne Shepherd killed in Corfu; of their mother and their father’s girlfriend holding hands as they came out of the church; of their father and their mother’s new husband together carrying that small coffin in. There was something dignified, profoundly civilised — and very modern, I thought, about the way the four of them — all at war once, presumably, could help each other, even in such grief.
The older generation traditionally made more of an effort to make their marriages last. It meant they were willing to put up with a lot more infidelity, misery, lying and cheating — before finally calling the lawyers in. They were also the first generation to start divorcing in serious numbers. At the school I went to the children of divorced and married parents were about equally divided — so although divorce was not shocking any more it was still new. Divorcing couples had no childhood experience of divorce themselves so they had less idea how to do it without damage to their offspring. Our generation knows full well the pain divorce brings to children and so we have adapted our behaviour accordingly.
As well as being more experienced, we’re also generally less inclined to tolerate unhappiness for ourselves. When things turn sour our instinct is not to let it fester but to cut and run. Maybe we don’t allow ourselves to get quite so hurt. Maybe that’s what makes it so much easier, afterwards, to get along.
I, rather frumpily, am still on my starter marriage and have no idea if I would have the strength or generosity to remain friends should our relationship break down. But I know so many other couples who’ve managed it and I can’t help admiring them. For the sake of their children they’ve made a point of being a part of each other’s lives — of spending birthdays, Christmases and even going on holiday together. I know plenty of ex-couples who live separately but on the same street, and I know one couple who, with their new partners, children and stepchildren, all live together in the same house. Maybe our generation is more ruthless, more impulsive, less constant and less reliable. Maybe our promises don’t count for much. But our ability to divorce with civility is something to celebrate. We did get that right, at least.
- Casino Royale is being written up as the first Bond movie that will truly appeal to women. But how can that be when it’s also the first not to have included Miss Moneypenny? She’s the only female character who’s ever been allowed to outwit the hero. Not just that she’s the only female character — the only character, actually — with recognisable human emotions. Without her in Bondland, fighting the women’s corner, what with her understated elegance and that brittle wit so bravely disguising the pain of her hopeless, unrequited love, what remnant of interest is there for us?
Unless of course you’ve fallen for the hype surrounding the new boy’s sex appeal. People are saying Daniel Craig has the body of a god. Well now. I’ve not seen the film — and probably never will, due to absence of the above-mentioned, but I’ve seen a photograph of the new Bond in his bathers — and he looked a bit bosomy for my taste.
Fellow feminists, humanitarians, humanists and other committed mourners might like to join me in a Bring Back Moneypenny protest outside the film’s premiere this Tuesday night (Odeon, Leicester Square, probably about 7ish). I shall be the one with the banner, being led away by the police.
Or if that seems like too much of a bother, you might be comforted to discover there’s a new novel out from Kate Westbrook called Secret Servant: The Moneypenny Diaries, in which, once again, it’s the eponymous heroine who saves the world and Mr Bond adjusting his make-up in the passenger seat. That’ll learn him, won’t it.
daisy.waugh@sunday-times.co.uk
