Happiful October 2019

Emma’s book, ‘The Things We Left Unsaid’
(Century, £12.99), is available now.
Follow Emma on Twitter @EmmaKennedy
Brenda inspired Emma’s humour
Emma guffaws at the memory.
Brenda inspired her humour,
and injected her with a strong
work ethic. She is, says Emma,
“the reason that I do what I do
today, and I will never, ever not be
grateful for that.”
But there’s a but. By her own
admission, Emma has only ever
injected the “quirky, brilliant”
experiences into her work, but
today she has decided to unveil a
secret about her mum.
“Mum was one of a kind, but she
was also the most complicated
person I have ever known, and
there was no doubt that she had
an undiagnosed mental illness,”
reveals Emma.
“I think she had paranoid
personality disorder. When I
was born, she had postpartum
psychosis – it was 1967, you didn’t
go to the doctor, and it wasn’t talked
about. I think she fundamentally
changed at that moment.”
Only child Emma admits that
amidst the abundance of amazing
memories from her childhood,
there were some very “dark” times.
“When she was good she was
very, very good, but when she
was bad she was horrid,” explains
Emma. “She had the capacity to
go, in seconds, from absolutely
normal to the worst human being
you’d ever encountered.
“When you’re a child, you don’t
know how to cope, especially with
something you don’t understand. I
loved her, but I didn’t like her, for a
long time.”
Another incident that troubles
Emma happened years later, when
her mother was first diagnosed
with breast cancer, and told her
consultant she had been given
cancer by a CIA operative in a
book shop in Cambridge.
“She really believed it, [and]
what I find extraordinary about
that moment [is that] no one
said anything,” says Emma.
“My mother refused to have
chemotherapy the first time
round, because she genuinely
thought it was a ruse, rustled
Portrait | The Things We Left Unsaid
70 • happiful.com • October 2019