Balta from Unst, Shetland, by Jessie White
The painting from which I have taken sections to use as headers is by my great great aunt Jessie, sister of my great grandmother. It is signed J W Crockett – Jessie White Crockett. The small island of Balta lies off Unst across the mouth of Balta Sound in Shetland and when I was there, in 1961, it was populated by puffins.
Jessie Frances Davina White (1848-1907), a doctor’s daughter, was born in Dunfermline, Fife. In 1886 she married Robert Findlay Crockett in London. He was 35 and came from Cluny in Aberdeenshire. They separated soon after their marriage and she spent the rest of her life with my great grandparents. My great grandfather was a Congregational minister.
Her nephew – my grandfather – wrote coyly of the marriage. Robert had become a Congregational minister in the south of England: “He neglected her from the start and within a year was bringing a youth of the congregation to their home.”
Jessie left him, he lost his job and was almost prosecuted but ended up being reinstated. It is not clear what his congregation knew but it would have been shocking enough that his wife had left him, I suspect. My grandfather continues:
“At various times up to 1907 my father received letters from Anglican and Presbyterian authorities asking about Crockett, who was attempting to receive ordination with them. In one instance he saw a Bishop who had enquired and told him he would only discuss the matter in Crockett’s presence; Crockett refused to come, and that was enough for the Bishop. About 1920 Crockett died suddenly.”
We can only imagine how it affected both Robert and Jessie. He spent much of his life in debt – my great grandfather had helped him out when they first married – and unable to pursue the career he had chosen. And she was the deserted wife: “There were times when memories and frustration overwhelmed her and she needed special care.” No wonder!
Not many would judge me nowadays for having attempted marriage twice and failed both times. Things have moved on, thank goodness, from when people lost their jobs because they got divorced and the stigma of illegitimacy has also receded in my lifetime. But things need to move a good deal further because people are still being denied employment because of their sexual orientation as if it were anyone’s business but their own.
Sex is fun – it makes one feel good and does wonders for one’s mental and physical health. Why should it only be allowed within a heterosexual marriage? There are those who overdo it or abuse it, of course (and that can happen within marriage too), but that isn’t a reason to condemn the rest of us who practise it. Even gynaecologists and urologists shy away from suggesting women masturbate when it could aid, if not cure, their period problems and leaky bladders!
I grew up believing in the fairytale that I would meet a man, fall in love and live happily ever after. It didn’t happen and I later discovered that what had appeared to be a fairytale marriage for my parents was, in fact, a submissive, loyal and dutiful wife pretending that she didn’t actually mind her husband’s infidelities. And my two brothers and I have clocked up, so far, 8 marriages and 6 divorces between us. Who knows what caused us to be so “abnormal”?
Yet I know couples personally who have achieved what has proved impossible for me and they have remained true to each other for decades. Some have children and some of those couples are gay.
Men fall for men, women for women – some for both – but how dare anyone say that they must deny themselves sex or a relationship because they are single or happen to fall for the “wrong” gender. Can anyone decide who it is they fancy? It is outwith our control, of course it is, yet the way so many are told they should be celibate for their whole lives you’d think they had a choice.
What really angers me is that what happened in my family in the late 19th century is still happening to others in the early 21st and it is time for the world to grow up and learn the real facts of life. Heartbreakingly, I know this won’t happen in my lifetime but let’s hope that by the 22nd century it will finally have been relegated to where it belongs: in the past.
