'She didn't like me. I never thought I could please her': Nigella Lawson reveals agonising relationship with mother 'who used to beat her'
By Paul Bentley
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Nigella Lawson recently spoke of her worries about whether she was good enough as a mother, saying: ‘One is always aware of what one isn’t doing right.’
Now it appears that any skills she may have as a parent were learned in spite of, rather than because of, the way she was treated by her own mother.
The 52-year-old TV cook, who has two teenage children, has revealed that she was physically abused by her mother when she was a child.
Nigella, far left, says she had a funny but depressed mother (pictured on phone), seen here with Nigel Lawson and daughter Thomasina
A violent and depressive woman, Vanessa Salmon – who was married to Conservative politician Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor – would lash out when her children made too much noise, Miss Lawson said.
She is convinced, moreover, that she in particular would face her mother’s wrath because she ‘just didn’t like me’.
Miss Lawson, who is married to the art collector Charles Saatchi, 69, was 25 when her mother died of liver cancer aged 48.
In the past she has spoken of how her mother inspired some of her signature dishes, including a ‘praised chicken’, the smell and taste of which ‘says “family” to me and my siblings, and brings our long-absent mother back to the kitchen and the table with us’.
Nigella claims she had a unique relationship with her father Lord Nigel Lawson
This weekend, however, she revealed that theirs had, in fact, been an extremely complicated and abusive relationship.
Miss Lawson, who was one of four children, told FT Weekend: ‘I never thought I could please her.
‘She was funny but depressed and so sensitive to noise. The sound of a plastic bag being crinkled would send her deranged. She’d shout at all of us and say, “I’m going to hit you till you cry”, and so I never would cry. I still don’t.
‘It wasn’t a calculated thing; it was hot-blooded hitting, a thrashing out of things. Once she had to stop hitting Dominic [Nigella’s brother] as she hurt her hand.
‘She just didn’t like me; maybe because I came after Dominic the princeling and I was my father’s girl she was jealous, I don’t know.
‘I would say I’m sorry for whatever it was, some mess, and she’d say, “Why do you think being inconsiderate is an excuse?” ’
She added: ‘It was like children of alcoholic parents who know right away when they’ve been drinking, we always would know in an instant if it was going to be bad.’
While their relationship improved as Miss Lawson grew up, her mother would also say incredibly hurtful things to her.
As she cared for her mother as she lay dying, her mother told her that she at least had the option of killing herself now Miss Lawson was an adult, because it would have been far worse to have committed suicide when the children were younger.
Miss Lawson, who studied at Oxford University and is estimated to have earned £15million from her cookery career, had a far closer relationship with her father, who divorced his wife in 1980. She said Lord Lawson was a relaxed parent, who would congratulate her on being a terror at school but well-behaved at home.
Seen here with her first husband John Diamond, Nigella has endured both him, her mother and sister dying of cancer
He also encouraged the teenage Nigella to have a drink of whisky with him as she studied for her A-levels because he did not like drinking alone, she said.
Miss Lawson has faced much personal tragedy in her life. Her younger sister Thomasina died from breast cancer at 32, and her first husband, journalist John Diamond, died of throat cancer in 2001, aged 41. She had her two children with him, Cosima, now 18, and Bruno, 16.
Dismissing suggestions that she flirts on screen, she said her complicated childhood had led to her developing a relentless need to please people.
Art collector Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson are inseparable from each other, after moving in with each other in 2003
Nigella Lawson says that she has a happy family life after finding love again with Charles Saatchi
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Your Mum loved you, she was likely bipolar. I too cannot handle some sounds, whenever my kids drop something and it clatters it goes right through me. Since diagnosis and medications however... life is peaceful. what a difference. Your mum was very beautiful, but volatile and could have def. used some help. too late now though.. time to forgive. and these things are genetic, so watch yourself and go to the doctor if it crops up.
- MOI , Nova Scotia Canada, 05/11/2012 15:23
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