Darrell Louise Biography

Get one most read article once a day. Join us on Facebook and VKontakte. Subscription can be unsubscribed at any time. Mom Darrell and her crazy family. Since childhood, many people love Gerald Darrell's books on his childhood and youth, like “My family and other animals” or “Paltus fillet”. Darrells appear in them a kind of, but very friendly and loving family, who is wisely led by the best mother in the world.

In fact, of course, Gerald described his childhood rather addictively than accurately. The restless family of Darrellov was far from the ideal, and the methods of mother could give children either geniuses or criminals. In general, both of them turned out. Louise Darrell, an exemplary mother and wife Mom Darrell, Louise, was born in India, in an Irish Protestant family.

When Lawrence Darrell met her, she was a modest, even timid girl, but with a wonderful sense of humor. Lawrence was only a student, but Louise without a doubt married him and did not regret it. Pope Darrell became an exemplary Edwardian husband. First of all, he insisted that Louise did not think about business at all, neither domestic nor finanos. He sorted out the latter, and the servants-Indian servants should have been the first-Louise was supposed to maintain the dignity of the white mistress.

Gerald Darrell's stories about the family are so popular that two series were shot on them. In fact, when her husband did not see, Louise could calmly wash the floors, chase the garden at the ghost, which the servants allegedly saw really wanted to get acquainted with a real ghost! Perhaps Lawrence sometimes suspected that his wife was not such a gentle, because when she happened to accompany her husband on business trips, she did not complain about inconvenience, like the wives of other engineers who came from England.

Yes, Papa Darrell was an engineer. Louise was crazy about her children. All the time I was busy over them. Moreover, Larry and Leslie, her eldest sons, often hurt. Louise's first daughter died completely a baby, and mother Darrell always treated children with slight anxiety. Children paid their mother with the same deep attachment, except, alas, first -born, Larry. When he was eleven years old, his parents sent him to study in England.

The country of ancestors was completely alien to Larry, he suffered from the climate, and from people, and from the unusual organization of life and for a long time could not forgive the mother of this “link”. Gerald Darrell all his life recalled India as a paradise of earthly. Jerry in India felt like in paradise. He was constantly nursed and caressed, it was always warm around, and it was in India that he first saw a zoo.

Animals simply shocked the boy, they became his love for life. But, when he was only three, he was expelled from paradise. Not an angel with a sword, of course, but circumstances. Pope Darrell died, and the family had to go to Britain to deal with inheritance and finances. The country of puddings of every little Englishman, the Scotsman or Irish in India was brought up in the conviction that his homeland, primarily in Britain.

But, having arrived, Darrells, like Larry, found that they were almost incompatible with their homeland. This hostility to Britain - as a place for residence, and not countries, of course - they carried through their whole lives. Greece, Kenya, France - at the first opportunity, Darrell chose any place warmer and sunny than England. Britain invented different unflattering nicknames, for example, a country of puddings.

All children took turns suffering from runny nose, bronchitis, laryngitis and otitis media. Miss Darrell herself was in severe depression. Her stereotypic-Irish addiction to the drink was aggravated. It is necessary, however, to understand that the alcoholism of Mom Darrell, who now recalls almost everyone who writes about the childhood of Darrellov, has nothing to do with the way they usually show a mother-mother in books and cinema.

She remained a wonderful mother, made sure that the children had everything she needed, prepared and always find time and a word for comfort and tips. Louise Darrell probably did not even suspect that her two sons would become famous writers. All the advice of mom, as Gerald later recalled, ended with parting words like: "But, of course, only you choose what to do." Louise almost never limited her children.

From an early age, each had the right to opinion and to express it. More strange than alcoholism, one can consider the constant meetings of Mrs. Darrell with ghosts. From the ghost of her husband to completely unfamiliar. Moreover, Louise did not show any symptoms of a mental disorder, and was not even necessarily drunk at that moment. For Jerry, a much greater problem than an unusual climate and mother’s love of drinking was represented by an English school.

The harsh discipline, the official spirit, the cramming, instead of fascinating stories, were so incompatible with the little Gerald Darrell that he acquired a persistent hostility to any school in general, and the teachers, as one, held him for a badly educated, near and lazy child.Tell them that they see in front of them the future honorary academician of many universities in the world and a popular writer, not one could believe.

Gerald Darrell was interested in animals much more than a school. Leslie grew up with a gloomy, closed, rude teenager. He did not like and did not know how to like, the only person who sincerely loved him and always tried to support him, was his mother. Perhaps the death of his father and moving to the gloomy - after India - a cold country. Be that as it may, and the position and behavior of Leslie in the books of Gerald Darrell about childhood is greatly smoothed.

In the family, he was always a lousy sheep. Larry frankly and very viciously mocked him, Margo and Jerry remembered him only when he gave a reason for complaints. Moving to Corfu, who once started Larry, was a real salvation for the whole family and personally for Gerald Darrell. Otherwise, he, perhaps, could become gloomy, closed in himself and an unpleasant type in communication.

Humanity would have lost a lot if Gerald Corfu had not been in childhood.

Darrells in Greece: the time that has become a legend has been happy for several years in Greece, which we all seem so vividly represented thanks to Gerald’s talent as a writer, it looked a little differently than in books. For example, life at the hotel upon arrival was not a short episode at all. Darrells had problems due to the fact that the Greek bank did not immediately accept and issued their money from England.

For a long time they could not move anywhere, but ate literally because they managed to get free - we can say they lived in gathering and hunting. Larry Darrell with his wife Nancy. Larry did not live with the whole family at all. When Darrells arrived at Corfu, he was more than twenty years old. He was married to a girl named Nancy and they very quickly began to shoot a separate house with her.

Larry and Nancy often visited Mom Darrell and the whole family - especially since Larry and Jerry, two future famous writers, was connected by friendship, despite the serious difference in age. Jerry still seemed incapable of learning, and this very upset his mother. While she was trying to find a teacher who could invest in Jerry’s head all the knowledge that boys from a good English family should have, Larry wrote out books for her brother.

Largely thanks to Jerry’s brother, the writer's style that we know and the ability to systematize information that previously seemed to him inaccessible from nature. It is unfortunate that Nancy did not enter the books of Darrell - she herself had the most enthusiastic memories of this family. At first glance, a complete anarchy reigned in the Darrellov house.

They shouted at each other at each other. In each room, including the living room, things were lying around. The house was full of animals that Jerry dragged into the house. Jerry himself, glorious, like Christopher Robin, knew how to sleep with any noise, so used to Tararam. Nancy Darrelli seemed very free and very friendly. Yes, it was, the bodies of their freedom would confuse many of our contemporaries.

In his opinion, the boy grew up at the Corfu, freely, according to many relatives, a savage. With Jerry, a variety of aspects of sexual life were calmly discussed. Perhaps that is why adult Gerald Darrell looked after women in the style of Lieutenant Rzhevsky from Russian jokes. From an early age, he tried alcohol - and then, just like his mother, he suffered from alcoholism.

Just like a mother, he then even a drunken adult retained complacency, a sense of humor and charm. Margo sunbathed to the joy of the whole island in an open swimsuit - in terms of effect, it was comparable with the advent of the topless girl on the city beach near Moscow. Leslie staggering where he wanted and as he wanted, met criminals, drank and shot endlessly. Jerry was friends not only with his teacher Theodore, but also with his daughter Alexei.

If you add eccentric, sexually unbridled, almost completely drinking Larry's friends, now and then the Darrell's mother that appears with him in the house, you can only wonder that only one of the four children of Louise - Leslie grew up a fraudster. In adulthood, he had a lot of poor, and the family tried to make amends for his misconduct. Margo grew up the same frivolous woman as the girl.

She tried to open the boarding house, went bankrupt and went to the maids. A fairly ordinary biography. Gerald and Lawrence, as we now know, became world famous. Gerald loved his teacher, the famous Greek scientist and poet Theodore Stephaneses all his life, and his whole life communicated in a friendly manner. Theodore Stephanes himself was largely similar to his student.