Not My Father's Son

by Alan Cumming

Memory is so subjective. We all remember in a visceral, emotional way, and so even if we agree on the facts—what was said, what happened where and when—what we take away and store from a moment, what we feel about it, can vary radically.

sometimes people do you a favour when they drop out of your life.

FFS

The most important opinion, of both my work and my conduct in life, is my own.

“And you may have heard of the word ‘doolally’, which derives from Deolali.

I suddenly felt a rush of animosity towards the military establishment, towards a country that sent its poor young men to war and let their brains become addled only to destroy any record of such damage, thereby heaping shame back onto the very young men who had given and lost so much in the first place. No wonder there is still such stigma today.

In 1948 three European plantation managers were murdered and what became known as the Malayan Emergency began. (Actually the Malayans called it the “Anti-British National Liberation War”, but the rubber and tin companies used the term “emergency” because they would not have been able to claim for any losses from Lloyds of London had the term “war” been used. Cheeky, right?)

himself as the person who had been dealing with the winding up of the estate