Sunday Brunch: Vanessa Feltz still hears parents' voices
Vanessa Feltz, the beloved former presenter of This Morning, has opened up about the enduring impact of her late mother's critical voice.
Her mother, who tragically succumbed to endometrial cancer in 1997, still resonates in Vanessa's thoughts.
During a candid chat on Sunday Brunch with hosts Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer, Vanessa spilled the beans on her latest literary venture, Vanessa Bares All.
Despite initial reservations about penning another volume, she was swayed by the excitement of a "bidding war" to share her story.
In this revealing autobiography, Vanessa doesn't shy away from the complexities of her upbringing. She casts a candid light on her relationship with her parents, Valerie and Norman, characterising their approach as "critical".
The television personality opened up to the Channel 4 duo about her perpetual struggle to meet her parents' expectations, confessing that she "never felt good enough". Despite her best efforts, Vanessa felt she could "never be the person they wanted her to be."
She disclosed: "I could never quite get it right with my parents, they wanted me to be a totally different person than the person I am. They definitely wanted the best for me but much like parents today they didn't have that unconditional love for the child that they had," reports the Daily Record.
Vanessa also reflected on her marriage to her first husband, Michael Kurer, revealing that her decision to wed was heavily influenced by her desire to fulfil her parents' wishes.
She fondly reminisced about her wedding day, sharing a humorous anecdote: "Even on my wedding day all you can hear my mother say on my wedding video is 'Oh Vanessa be quiet'," she revealed. "She wanted a quieter bride and that just wasn't me."
Despite her academic success at Trinity College, Cambridge, where she achieved first-class honours, Vanessa's parents were less than thrilled, having hoped she would find an "eligible husband" there. She recalled her father's pointed comment upon her return home single: "'Darling you have delighted us long enough,' meaning he wanted me out of the house.
"The burden of never fulfilling your parents' expectations, oh yes, of course I do," Vanessa expressed when asked if she still felt the weight of parental disappointment.
She then shared how the voice of her late mother Valerie continues to echo in her thoughts: "My mother's been dead, god love her, I've missed her for every minute of the day for 29 years, but I can hear the voice, the critical voice in my head.
"Lots of people whose parents have passed away can have a daily conversation with their parents who are now no longer with us and it's always the same critical voice, 'What are you wearing that for?' and 'What do you look like that for?', 'That wasn't funny, why did you say that?', that type of thing."
Vanessa grappled with the daunting task of quieting her mother's disapproving voice that lingered in her thoughts.
However, she took solace in the shared experiences of others, revealing: "It's very hard to say to your dead parents shh, shhh, you know come on I don't need that voice but I was very reassured to hear that even Michelle Obama has imposter syndrome as that made me feel so much better."
Sunday Brunch airs Sundays at 9:30am on Channel 4.
