After my grandparents separated my grandmother left the theatre never to return and found a job as a civil servant in Riga, whilst my grandfather continued with his acting career on the stage. I remember my mother telling me that she and her mother lived in a flat in Riga and that she went to school there. She still had contact with her father and went to stay with him during the school holidays but by that time he had found himself a new partner, also an actress and subsequently had two more daughters - my mother’s stepsisters. That marriage was not destined to last either…….
My grandmother’s job identity card, photograph of my mother and grandfather, photograph of my step grandfather as a young man, book extract.
In the book of interviews about his life, my grandfather explained why they divorced (text in the collage above). According to him the separation was due to ‘professional jealousy’ - my grandmother supposedly unable to cope with the fact that he was getting all the roles and she wasn’t! He goes on to say that the divorce was amicable but this was definitely not the case. I think a more likely explanation was his infidelity - by the time of the divorce his new partner was already pregnant with his second child. But at the heart of the marriage I feel there was an irreconcilable incompatibility and what started off as an attraction of opposites ended in discord and difference. These words were spoken in an interview after my grandmother’s death when my grandfather was very old and I imagine that over the years he had reinterpreted the facts to suit himself. Of course there are always two sides to a story but it seems a little unfair that the words went unchallenged as by then she was unable to respond - a case of the survivors reinventing history!
Studio portrait of my mother and her father, 1930s
My mother and her father in Riga after her parents’ divorce
My mother outside the old flat in Riga where she used to live, taken on my only visit to Latvia, 2001
My mother as a young girl
This must have been a difficult time for my mother and I remember her telling me of her visits to stay with her father and how strict he was. These photographs of them together show a man about town, confident, gregarious, a bit of a dandy and a young girl unsure and hesitant. Nevertheless she loved living in Riga and was happy at school there. After the divorce my grandmother met a man eight years her junior who was to become her partner for the rest of her life. He gave her the stability and love that she craved and became a substitute parent for my mother.