sharingwisdom
04-04-2011, 01:53 PM
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1246717/Leslie-Kenton-reveals-incestuous-relationship-father.html
Excerpt
It was June, four years ago, when Leslie Kenton first contemplated writing about her childhood. ‘My friend Gail Rebuck – who was my first editor and is now the chairman of Random House – she told me, “You need to write a memoir.” I said, “Gail, I can’t. No one would believe it, and the tabloids would go wild.” And Gail said, “Who cares? This book will be the bridge between what you have done before and the work you will do afterwards.”’
For decades, there have been hints that the woman known as the high priestess of the real beauty movement – she advocated high-raw, high-vegetable diets and detoxifying way back in the 70s, created the Origins range and imported the skincare tablet Imedeen to Britain – had built her luminous present from a murkier past.
During the summer of 1952, she met him [Stan] on tour, sharing his hotel room, sleeping back to back. He was drinking heavily while she, though aged only ten, was trying to police him, this six-foot four-inch man. He was, in many ways, treating her as a substitute for Violet [his wife]. One night the final boundary was crossed and he raped his daughter. It was the beginning of an incestuous relationship that lasted until she was 13
I do not know how to express the damage that a family like this does. This is a disease that’s passed on. Some people survive it and others are deeply damaged.’ Leslie thinks Stanley experienced a condition known as dissociative identity disorder, involving selective amnesia, which she also developed as she blocked out the incest
Band members, she has since learnt, thought the father-daughter relationship unnatural. ‘My mother definitely did not want to notice because she only wanted to see what she considered beautiful. She loved Stanley all her life. She married the wrong man [second time around] and felt trapped.’
It would be years before all the memories gradually resurfaced, including the weird role of Stella, Stanley’s mother, in two shady drugged rituals. Leslie also recalled Stella incarcerating her, aged 13, in a sanatorium for brutal ECT treatment to further ‘fry’ her memories. She has been able to verify some details by speaking to others, including the family friends who cared for her in her fragile state afterwards. Leslie confronted Stanley in 1972 when he visited London to record a show for the BBC.
[Leslie states] ‘We all carry a lot of false beliefs about ourselves. You don’t have to be raped and have your brain fried to have traumas. If you dare to bring light into your darkness, your own unconsciousness, those things lift off, in the same way that if the body is toxic physically and you do a cleansing diet, the stuff just lifts off. My father never had that opportunity. If you can only look at the baggage you carry and not identify with it, recognise that the essence of who you are is far deeper and richer!’
Excerpt
It was June, four years ago, when Leslie Kenton first contemplated writing about her childhood. ‘My friend Gail Rebuck – who was my first editor and is now the chairman of Random House – she told me, “You need to write a memoir.” I said, “Gail, I can’t. No one would believe it, and the tabloids would go wild.” And Gail said, “Who cares? This book will be the bridge between what you have done before and the work you will do afterwards.”’
For decades, there have been hints that the woman known as the high priestess of the real beauty movement – she advocated high-raw, high-vegetable diets and detoxifying way back in the 70s, created the Origins range and imported the skincare tablet Imedeen to Britain – had built her luminous present from a murkier past.
During the summer of 1952, she met him [Stan] on tour, sharing his hotel room, sleeping back to back. He was drinking heavily while she, though aged only ten, was trying to police him, this six-foot four-inch man. He was, in many ways, treating her as a substitute for Violet [his wife]. One night the final boundary was crossed and he raped his daughter. It was the beginning of an incestuous relationship that lasted until she was 13
I do not know how to express the damage that a family like this does. This is a disease that’s passed on. Some people survive it and others are deeply damaged.’ Leslie thinks Stanley experienced a condition known as dissociative identity disorder, involving selective amnesia, which she also developed as she blocked out the incest
Band members, she has since learnt, thought the father-daughter relationship unnatural. ‘My mother definitely did not want to notice because she only wanted to see what she considered beautiful. She loved Stanley all her life. She married the wrong man [second time around] and felt trapped.’
It would be years before all the memories gradually resurfaced, including the weird role of Stella, Stanley’s mother, in two shady drugged rituals. Leslie also recalled Stella incarcerating her, aged 13, in a sanatorium for brutal ECT treatment to further ‘fry’ her memories. She has been able to verify some details by speaking to others, including the family friends who cared for her in her fragile state afterwards. Leslie confronted Stanley in 1972 when he visited London to record a show for the BBC.
[Leslie states] ‘We all carry a lot of false beliefs about ourselves. You don’t have to be raped and have your brain fried to have traumas. If you dare to bring light into your darkness, your own unconsciousness, those things lift off, in the same way that if the body is toxic physically and you do a cleansing diet, the stuff just lifts off. My father never had that opportunity. If you can only look at the baggage you carry and not identify with it, recognise that the essence of who you are is far deeper and richer!’