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Memoirs Of A Not So Dutiful Daughter
  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407040042
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:

Memoirs Of A Not So Dutiful Daughter

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The powerful and moving exploration of a relationship between a mother and her 'not so dutiful' daughter, by the longtime 'voice' of Radio 4's Women's Hour.

The only child of an electrical engineer and a mother who resented the fact that she'd never been to university, the broadcaster Jenni Murray grew up in a traditional household in the 1950s. But instead of becoming the conventional housewife her mother expected her to be, Jenni opted to forge her own path in both her career and her personal life.

The resulting tensions lasted as long as Jenni could remember. How, she often wondered, could two women be so close, so full of love for each other, and at the same time so full of hate that they broke each other's hearts?

And so Jenni began her remarkable memoir - and continued to write as her mother lay dying, and Jenni struggled to care for her and her beloved father while herself being treated for breast cancer.

Filled with love and laughter, frustration and heartbreak, and with the courage 'to keep on keeping on' even in the darkest days, Jenni Murray's memoir will speak to every mother and daughter, dutiful or not.
  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407040042
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:

About the author

Jenni Murray

Jenni Murray was a journalist and broadcaster who presented BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour from 1987 to 2020. She was the author of several books and wrote a weekly column in the Daily Mail. She lived in north London and the New Forest. Jenni died in March 2026 aged seventy-five.
portrait photo of Jenni Murray

Also by Jenni Murray

Fat Cow, Fat Chance
That's My Boy
Is It Me Or Is It Hot In Here?
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Praise for Memoirs Of A Not So Dutiful Daughter

She tells her story with admirable candour

Jane Shilling, Sunday Times

It is her fearless examination of her "love-hate" relationship with her mother ... that is most fascinating.

GUARDIAN

She is not just the voice of Radio 4's Woman's Hour...She IS Woman's Hour.

THE TIMES

Intimate, confessional ... as powerfully raw and moving as anything I've ever read.

THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

A painfully honest account of a complex relationship.

WOMAN & HOME

A captivating account of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s by the Woman's Hour presenter... she describes in frank and compelling detail how her parents have influenced and shaped her life, setting her personal experiences against a backdrop of changing social attitudes, politics and culture.

SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE, August 2008

It is as though this skilled journalist is interviewing herself, reining back the instinct to comment and teasing out the story. This history of women's lives... is one well worth the telling.

THE INDEPENDENT

An intense story, vividly and sometimes humorously told.

DAILY MAIL

Calm, clever and compassionate.

SUNDAY TIMES

Murray is as scrupulously honest in depicting her own failings as her mother's, and the depth of their affection - "I feel I am beginning a love letter" she writes - shines through.

TELEGRAPH REVIEW

A humorous and deeply human account, looking back at the rejected little girl who became the voice of Radio 4... a warm and revealing memoir.

INDEPENDENT

Warm and thoroughly readable.

INDEPENDENT

Heart-warming.

EVENING STANDARD