Abstract
The mystery at the heart of this novel occurred in the autumn of 1929. A three-year-old child, Betty Elston is snatched from a beach at Chapel Sands, Lincolnshire. Betty is playing on the beach whilst her mother, Veda keeps an eye on her from a distance. Veda is distracted for a moment and Betty disappears. The police are called, and after a search it becomes clear that Betty has been kidnapped. There is a seemingly happy ending as a few days later, Betty is found safe and well in a neighbouring village. When she is found, Betty is wearing a different set of clothes. She has not been harmed in any way. Betty is returned to her mother and her father, George, a travelling salesman.
The discovery of Betty safe and well turns out to be the start rather than the end of the mystery. Betty Elston grows up to an artist and Laura Cumming’s mother. Cumming is the chief art critic of the Observer. When Cumming is 21, she received from her mother a short memoir. Betty Elston grew up in a claustrophobic environment – both psychically and psychologically. This described by Cumming with a painter’s eye for detail. There are a number of evocation descriptions of the Lincolnshire coast and village life between the wars. The atmosphere in the family is restrained with the parents seemingly distant from their daughter. The kidnap means that they limited her contacts with other children and neighbours. George is away all week. He is emotionally distant – perhaps not that unusual for the period. George was a keen photographer. Cumming approached these faded family shots in the same way that she does a painting by Vermeer. She is looking for clues to the underlying family emotional dynamics. Cumming contrasts her mother’s bleak emotionally restrained childhood with her own. Betty went to an art college in Edinburgh and met Laura’s father who became a painter. Cumming’s childhood memories are full of colour, life, fun and deep emotional attachments. The book is a love letter to her mother who seems to have survived her own bleak childhood determined that her own children would not experience anything like it.
Betty Elston was a gifted and outgoing child. She wins a place at the local grammar school. On the bus one day, she is approached by a stranger who says to her “Your grandmother wants to see you”. Not surprisingly, Betty is confused and upset. She was unaware until this encounter that she had a grandmother. When she tells her parents about the encounter on the bus, her father tells her that she is adopted. He provides no information about her birth parents or the reasons as to why she was adopted. Cumming finally solves the mystery of her mother being given up for adoption (I will not reveal the details here). In doing so, other mysteries fall into place – why did the baker deliver to everyone else in the village apart from George and Veda’s house. By uncovering the facts behind Betty’s kidnap, Cumming also show the emotional impact and damage that these events caused. Betty was never able to forgive George.
Cumming explores an age-old question how much can we really know about our parents and their stories. This is a wonderful book, superbly written and deeply moving. It might be tempting to think that the events that took place On Chapel Sands nearly a hundred years ago can have little relevance to social work today. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cumming uses the family mystery as the basis to explore a number of themes such as loss, bereavement, identity, parental relationships and the impact of adult decisions and behaviours on children, that are hugely relevant to across social work. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone working in social work. In terms of current policy debates, it is clear that the Government sees adoption as a key element in tackling the crisis in social care. I wonder if Gavin Williamson and other key players in this debate have read On Chapel Sands. If not, he should. I would be more than happy to lend him my copy.