‘he wasn’t all there…’

Posted on by Live & Learn

Uncle Arch…We drove past the front door pretty much every time we visited Dad’s parents but we only went inside on one occasion. My sole memory is that one wall of the living room was unrendered and that the place had an air of profound sadness, though the latter may have been my own projection. He never came to Christmas lunch at our house with his brother and sister-in-law. I can only assume he wasn’t invited. In our entire lives Fiona and I saw him a handful of times at most, during that single visit and at a couple of family funerals and weddings. He seemed placid and slow and a little scruffy, but otherwise not greatly different from many other guests. He never married, never had children. I don’t think he worked. Later when I asked Mum about him she said, ‘He wasn’t all there,’ and refused to elaborate so that I have no idea whether he had some kind of learning difficulty or whether he was heavily medicated for a psychiatric illness, but he lived independently into his sixties so whatever difficulties he faced were not insuperable ones. I’ve since worked with many people like Uncle Arch, the kind of people we pass all too easily in the street, forgetting that they have stories and experiences and interior lives of as much value as our own but who get pushed to the edge of society, who are excluded from family events because they’re seen as shameful, because their personal hygiene isn’t perfect, because they might behave inappropriately, because we don’t know how to behave in their presence. I can’t think about Uncle Arch without thinking of how completely and how effectively he was written out of our lives, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I never once looked around the table at Christmas lunch and thought about him sitting eating his Christmas lunch alone four miles away.

— Mark Haddon, Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour (Doubleday, February 17, 2026)

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18 thoughts on “‘he wasn’t all there…’”

  2. Wow…this one landed like a punch to the gut. We had an Uncle Arch in our family, too. He is many years gone now, and I have more questions than answers about his story, the more so with every year I age and gain perspective. Into the queue this goes, pal.

  4. I have uncle Louis in my family and I invite him to everything. I only got to know him as an adult because he was rarely invited to things when I was a child. he is a wonderful person, and I only know part of his life story, but it sounds like he went through a lot over the years and is a true eccentric to put it mildly.

  5. i’m assuming the photo is of Mark Haddon; however, i’m seeing Uncle Arch (why am I certain he’s wearing slippers with that sweater?). added this one to my “want to read” list.

  7. There’s an anguish that is felt deeply, when thinking about the results of our uncomfortable indifference. It’s not the result of our better angels (so to speak)

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