A moment that changed me: A telegram arrived – and I had to choose between my head and my heart

Should I follow the man of my dreams to work in a club in Tehran? Or take up a place at an elite university? Thankfully, my dad gave me advice I’ve lived by ever since

My parents did not expect me to land a place at university. I was not considered academic enough. And anyway, I was a girl. Instead, I was being primed for marriage. My mother didn’t see anything wrong with this. Born in Britain between the two world wars, when the scarcity of men had made them precious commodities, she had left school at 14, part of a generation often brought up to believe that matrimony was the only guarantee of a secure social and financial future. While romance and indeed love were a bonus, the unwritten clause in a marital contract stipulated that a wife must play her supportive part at home while the husband went out to work. Without the necessary qualifications for the role, the entire agreement risked failure.

In 1972, I was at college studying for my A-levels, but in the holidays my mother enlisted me on various “finishing” courses. Her intention was that I acquire the domestic skills to enhance my spousal eligibility, including how to cook, carve a roast and drive a Jeep to the shops, in case I landed a nice gentry farmer. Only now, almost 40 years after her death, do I realise how much she regretted the lack of educational and career opportunities open to her. Only now do I sympathise with her subconscious envy when they were offered to her daughter.