My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyFamily crest with the motto given by Queen Elizabeth I for breaking the law.Memory over generations is likely to be even more distorted than memory in a singlelife. Some things in life as in literature are worth remembering, but many trivial thingsthe mind does better to discard; it should not be a lost luggage depot in a railwaystation through which we passed long since. I have always consciously trained myselfin this sense. The result is that I hardly ever forget a fact that seems to me importantand is relevant to the given situation, but when it comes to remembering everyirrelevant detail of past life and of tedious people who have flitted through the scenewithout mark or purpose, I am lost. I can remember a scene, a statistic, a turning-pointof action, a quotation of prose or poetry which has moved me, but not life's minorirrelevancies.With this mental training and habit it is not easy for me to remember my childhoodexcept for vivid memories of dear people I so much loved, notably my mother and mypaternal grandfather. Otherwise my childhood, for reasons I will explain later, seemedto me of little importance. Few things are more overrated than the effect of childishexperiences on later life. However, I well recall some of the early contrasts of fortuneand circumstance which became still more extreme in my later life. My home life wasdivided between my mother and my paternal grandfather who was called Sir OswaldMosley and was the grandson of the Reform Bill M.P. of the same name. They wereusually on the best of terms, and she accompanied me and my younger brothers to hisStaffordshire home at Rolleston-on-Dove. Her own house was on the borders ofMarket Drayton in Shropshire, near her parents and brothers, who had country housesa few miles away.My mother lived in relatively straitened circumstances; a continuous struggle to makeends meet worried her a great deal. I was very conscious of this, being her eldest sonand much in her confidence. The problem was to pay the school fees of three boys atwhat were considered the best schools and to provide us with clothes and enoughgood healthy food in the holidays. Whatever the difficulty of the situation she alwayssucceeded in doing these things. We were much better off in this respect than many ofmy contemporaries. Nevertheless, it was not easy for my mother, and we suspectedthat it involved doing without many of the things which her friends enjoyed. She was8 of 424