Matthew: A Memoir

From the moment she first held her new-born son in her arms, Anne Crosby knew something was wrong with him. Although the staff at the London hospital dismissed her response as cruel and unmaternal, her instincts were correct: Matthew had Down syndrome. Struggling with feelings of shock and grief, Crosby determined that she would do whatever she could to help Matthew lead as full a life as possible. This is the moving, candid, insightful, and often surprising account of the life Matthew made with the help of his mother and other caring people. With her painter’s eye for the colourful detail and a Dickensian ear for the voices of her characters, Crosby describes Matthew’s family and friends, doctors and teachers-a large cast that includes Alice Strong, his Cockney caregiver, the famous child psychologist D W Winnicott, and Princess Anne, a benefactor of MacIntyre, Matthew’s boarding school. Crosby evokes the forbidding atmosphere of Normansfield, the residential institution founded by the man who gave his name to Down syndrome; the spacious beauty of Mentmore, the country estate where she often took Matthew for outings; and the touching camaraderie of the hospital ward in which Matthew died of heart failure at twenty-four. In this remarkable memoir, Crosby also explores Matthew’s inner life, revealing his playful mimicry and unexpected humour, his outbursts of affection and occasional fits of temper, his gallantry toward his first love, and his disappointment over the loss of his first job. Anne Crosby’s portrait of her son gives us an abiding image of Matthew that deepens our understanding of what it means to be human.