Writer and painter, Frieda Hughes, daughter of poet Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughestook root in rural Welsh after years of living in Australia. With seven children’s books and eight poetry collections behind her, she has recently published ‘George: A Magpie Memoir’ (George: memory of a magpie), a diary where she narrates only in English for now. How adopting a magpie changed your life. Now he has turned his house into an aviary injured animals he rescued and cared for: live with thirteen owls, a weasel, a spotted snake, two huskies and five furs. His father died of cancer in 1998; ten years later his brother, Nicholas Hughes, who committed suicide, as her mother Sylvia Plath has done before: childless, the last survivor of the saga. Frieda Hughes brought her grief-related experience to the service of others and trained as a therapist, working as a counselor at a mental health center and with adolescents at an institute.
Can love for an animal like a magpie change your life like a love for a human?
I loved George because he is interesting, I love animals, birds and owls in a different way, some more than others, just as I love people. There have been people I have loved more and loved less than George.
George came at a time when you were rooting: you had returned to Great Britain after years of living in Australia, settling in a cottage in Wales that you thought would be your last home. Is everything relevant?
Yes, it was taking root and I would have loved for George to be a part of it, but unfortunately it didn’t. George taught me that when we love someone, we have to let them go. Either you get bored of them or they get bored of you, you die or they die. In perspective, if he hadn’t escaped from my house I would have had to put him in an aviary, my neighbor was terrified, so it had a happy ending.
You also took into your home a raven named Oscar, how much did his death affect you?
Yes, Oscar was dying and I kept him at home for 49 days. It was clear that he would only be with me for a short time, but his death brought back George’s departure and was linked to other deaths, the death of my family, my brother, the people I loved. Interesting. Sometimes we cry inconsolably over the loss of a famous person we don’t know and people, hey, why are you crying so much? It just enabled one thing.
She writes in her book, “The backdrop that supported me seemed to be constantly changing. After my mother, Sylvia Plath, committed suicide on February 11, 1963, my father Ted Hughes struggled to settle in.” How has this lack of stability affected your growth?
I grew up pretty resilient. On the one hand, I very quickly got used to building a house out of nothing to feel at peace in any unfamiliar place. For another, he desperately wanted to be calm and safe in one place. All my friends’ children have a lot of things nowadays, it wasn’t possible when I was little, we kept on going. So I developed my ability to be alone, as soon as I started making friends, they would take me out again. It missed rooting and on the other hand had a great capacity for adaptability, these are two sides of the same coin.
The ability to adapt is very useful in today’s world.
I had a boss who said, Frieda, nothing in life is as constant as change. I felt that tremendous fear, but she saw it as a positive. And in reality it is, imagine a relationship where you can predict the next 30-40 years, and you feel stuck.
But you explain that at the age of 13, you went through 12 different schools. Too much change for one kid?
Yes, I lost count. The good thing is, I went to a part-time boarding school when I was eleven and stayed there until I was 13, then I was in the same school from 13 to 18 and that saved me, I had some stability. My father had already married my stepmother. [Carol Orchard] And when I was eleven, we weren’t moving as much as we used to. Anyway, wherever my father, brother and I were, we felt safe, he was at home. One of the most important things for parents to remember is this: As long as your child knows you love them and they can be with you, no matter the circumstances.
Do you think Ted Hughes had a constant urge to move around in the early years of his childhood to escape his past?
This is very possible. Everyone is looking for happiness and trying to find a place to be happy with those two little kids and that can be a huge challenge. But now I see that I felt like some kind of nomad or displaced person. Therefore, when I see orphaned, distressed or injured birds and animals, I see a soul mate in them and I want to adopt and save them.
It’s some kind of maternal instinct, isn’t it?
Yes, I feel very protective of creatures that cannot speak for themselves and are in need. If a wild animal is caught, nothing good has probably happened to it, but there is a small chance of rescuing it.
His father, Ted Hughes, was harshly prosecuted for his mother’s suicide. You said feminists were abusive and “horribly owning a family tragedy”. Do you still think so?
I don’t know what’s going on there anymore, to be honest, I don’t read and look at what. There are things we cannot change, such as the opinions of others. My father tried so hard to protect my brother and me from what was said, he wanted us to live happy lives and not suffer. He gave us freedom and independence, not burdened us. Sometimes I think as he gets older he should have shared the burdens a little more, but he didn’t. I feel really grateful for that. Sometimes people are ready to protect their family members more than themselves.
In 2021, personal items belonging to her parents Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes were auctioned off at Sotheby’s. Was putting them up for sale a necessary step to start your new life?
Yes, now I have some new work and workshops and it has been useful for me. But at the same time, I thought, when am I going to get rid of all this? When I grow up and need money? It took me three years to review and catalog all these items. What I didn’t expect was the joy I felt as I let them go. I’d see a family chair or a personal item and portray them in my house, but when I’m gone, no one will know who’s sitting there or whose book it is. I thought about what to sell or not sell, I had to do this gradually because at first I wasn’t ready to sell some things like wedding rings. Then I thought of my own wedding rings in the jewelery box and thought to myself, “Who will know while I’m gone?” I asked. The joy was realizing that when someone bought that item, they took on the responsibility of keeping the memory of my family connected with it, and that I didn’t have to do that anymore. And I cried, not because I no longer had all this, but because the relief was so great and everything it represented. I’m the only one left of my little family.
How do you feel about this as the last person in your family?
This is scary. I feel like I have a responsibility to live to the best of my ability because they can’t live anymore. It doesn’t matter if we’re running marathons or writing bestsellers, it would still be fine. But whether I’m sad or depressed, I feel responsible for doing the best I can in life because they, my father, my mother, and my brother can’t. My way of honoring my loved ones is to do my best in who I am and what I know. My family would be very old now, but it would be nice to have a brother. But I must go on, paint as much as I can, write as much as I can.
He hated the biopic ‘Sylvia’ played by Gwyneth Paltrow about her mother. Why didn’t you like it so much?
There is another excellent movie about him, a documentary that I am a part of. But yeah, I thought with Sylvia, why would they want to make a movie with such a tragic ending? Also, no matter how famous your parents are, you’ll see how they put words in their mouths. I asked a man who was going to make the movie how he would have felt if his parents were reinvented, and he said he thought it didn’t matter if you were already an adult, but no matter how old I am, I’m still his daughter. I. They asked me if I wanted to meet Gwyneth Paltrow. What should I say to him, mom? She’s not quite, I’m sure she’s cute but on other occasions. It brings you back to my mother’s suicide, and it’s not a happy story. It’s free, I don’t care. Although there are funny situations. I was on a plane once and a woman in the backseat said, “Look, there’s Sylvia in your movies.” I resisted looking at him. There have been such moments.