Jeremy Bamber: Sibling rivalry?
Bamber in his own words
In my first look at Jeremy Bamber, I looked at how he described his life as a child.
In this part, I want to look more closely at his relationship with his sister
Interviewer: everybody’s got this image of Sheila, the Bambi picture
She was a successful model Eric and she was a beautiful model and she was physically in, you know when she was 17, 18, 19 .. stunning. She was a very gentle, kind person, and as a sister she was wonderful growing up, she looked after me she cared for me and when I was 14 and 15 and she was modelling I used to love going up to London and staying with her and going out with all her modelling mates, it was a wonderful… you know they used to treat me just wonderfully.
This is quite a short answer, but there are so many observations to make.
Let’s break it down
I’ll start with the order of his answer. The order we speak about things often shows us the order of how important the speaker thinks the subjects are. Here Bamber talks about:
1. She was beautiful and physically … stunning
2. She was a nice person as a sister
3. He liked going out with her mates
Notice that Sheila disappears as the answer goes on. He starts off with her at the centre of the answer, but by the end he is fully focussed on her modelling mates.
Another indication of how important things are to us are the number of times we repeat a word or concept. In this answer, Bamber mentions Sheila was his sister once. He mentions model or modelling four times.
Qualified praise
Bamber’s praise of his sister is always qualified, with only two exceptions. He does say “she was a very gentle, kind person”, apart from that, he always qualifies and limits his praise.
Have a look:
“she was a beautiful model”. Not a beautiful person, only a beautiful model.
“she was physically … when she was 17, 18, 19 .. stunning.” - he qualifies here with physically (so not mentally or spiritually for example) and she was only stunning for 3 years.
“as a sister she was wonderful growing up” - only wonderful growing up, not at other times?
One more thing limits his praise. He says she was physically stunning when she was 17, 18, 19. He says he liked to go and stay with her when he was 14 and 15. Sheila was 4 years older than Jeremy, so these periods overlap.
What can you do for me?
From this answer, Jeremy gives the impression that he makes judgements on people based on what they do for him:
On Sheila: “she looked after me she cared for me”
On her modelling mates: “you know they used to treat me just wonderfully.”
There is another strange Bamberism in here. This is where he says something that appears to mean one thing but when you look at the words he used he doesn’t actually say that. I pointed a couple out in my first look at him. In this answer, it is “and as a sister, she was wonderful growing up”.
On first sight, the meaning he is trying to convey is that as his sister she was wonderful to him as he was growing up or when he was growing up, she was wonderful to be around.
But the words say something different. She was wonderful growing up. That is, her growing up was wonderful.
Conclusion
As with his parents, there is a distance between Bamber and Sheila indicated in his words, especially after his and her teenage years.
The fact she was good-looking, the fact she was a model, the fact she was growing up all seem significant to him. Did he like the fact she was introducing him to a more adult and glamorous world? Some words and they way they are used here strongly suggest he was attracted to her.
Whatever his feelings, he doesn’t appear to have had a rock solid relationship with Sheila nor did he always think highly of her.
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