The Catherine Deveney Interview: All about my mother

• Published in: Scotland on Sunday
• Main Author: Catherine Deveney portrait Graham Jepson
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh (UK) NLA Media 13.09.2009
• Subjects: Campbell, Colin; Ziadie, Georgie; Ziadie, Michael
• ISSN: 0955-8756

[Colin Campbell] smiles instinctively. "Oh I loved that," she says and laughs. Well, I didn't say I didn't love it! [Gloria] sounds monstrous. But however awful she was, most people would consider Cambell's behaviour manipulative. "Yes, of course," she agrees soothingly. "I stayed awake three days and nights figuring it out..." Did she feel guilt? "Absolutely not," she retorts, almost indignantly. "I was just relieved. I was proud of myself for coming up with it, though I was a little bit ashamed it took me three days." She laughs infectiously. "There was mummy churning out these blasted schemes, and it took me three days." Only in later years did her children understand that her behaviour indicated narcissistic personality disorder. A friend of Campbell, a psychoanalyst, suggested she write a book on the subject. "I think she thought I had the tools, the spiritual tools, to do it justice. I was flattered, but then I recoiled. I said, it's my mother! But she said, 'No, your mother's dead. It's no dishonour to her now.'" Even Campbell's two sisters encouraged her. "One sister, Libby, I think wants the book out because everyone will know what she had to endure. You can't go around telling people what a monster your mother was on a day to day basis. It's unseemly. So I think she wants the recognition, the validation, of what she suffered at the hands of this monster." "When I left that c..." she says, and stops abruptly. "You nearly heard!" she laughs. When she left her husband she expected to marry again. It never happened, despite various relationships over the years. There was EastEnders actor Larry Lamb. A darling, she says. But there was only one man she might have married. When he wanted to marry her, she refused, and when she would have married him he was married with two children. They were together for 15 years. "He was a good guy," she says quietly. "It was a good relationship." She says she would rather be on her own than in the wrong relationship. "I was never lonelier than when I was with Colin Campbell. Never. I was crushingly lonely."