Before the Light Fades by Natasha Walter

Before the Light Fades by Natasha Walter

This is such a powerful book, I wondered if I'd be able to read it, after the first few pages. Part memoir, part biography, part history, part polemic, it's full of tears, it inspires admiration and is gut-wrenchingly truthful. It was on several reviewers' lists, so I felt I had to read it, and I am very pleased I did.

Natasha's mother, Ruth, committed suicide when she thought she was beginning to show signs of dementia. This therefore could be described as a work of catharsis, a working out of Natasha's grief. But it is also a work of discovery as she struggles to understand why it happened - as every person bereaved by suicide seeks to understand. But in the course of it, she learns so much that she wishes she had asked while her mother was alive - a lesson for all of us; don't think that the person you see in front of you is necessarily just who you see on the surface. Everyone has a "back story" worth exploring; and Natasha explores and unravels a complex and deep history which goes some way to help and inevitably examine her own personality.

A child of German refugees, Ruth was a rebel, a political activist - against nuclear war, protesting at Greenham Common, an out and out feminist, a "bra-burning", non-conformist woman. She could not understand her parents passive and meek lives, little understanding that they as communists had fought Hitler and the Nazis from the beginning; after appalling treatment they had sought safety and anonymity in England - only to find themselves being interned as "enemy aliens" at the outbreak of the Second World War. Natasha uncovers as much of the story as she can, fascinating.

Ruth, in a safe country, felt free to protest, and did so - though the inhuman and callous treatment of one of her fellow female protesters in Holloway was probably the cause of that individual's suicide and stopped many of them from action that could lead to imprisonment.

As an adult, student, then embarking on a successful career as a journalist, Natasha rebelled against her mother's brand of feminism, thinking that that battle had been won, and embracing feminine feminism and following Margaret Thatcher (pussy bows, smart suits, high heels).

But she explains in the book how she no longer embraces that way of thinking and appreciates what her mother was fighting for; and that still, that struggle is not over.

In the final chapter of the book, Natasha embarks on serious scary political activism, civil disobedience regarding the Climate Emergency; she discusses her and her mother's hands-on support for refugees. And delves into the value - or not - of fighting for a cause which might be a lost one. Her conclusion is that "My renewed determination to do those things that in small ways feel worthwhile, to protest, to write, to act in line with what I care about, continues. Each action may be .. imperfect, but each is an attempt to build a better future….".

Do read it - and I hope you find it as worthwhile as I did.

Before the Light Fades by Natasha Walter is published by Virago Press (£18.99) and available from all good bookshops.