Woman of the Month: Catherine Cawood

Catherine Cawood from Happy Valley

Sergeant Catherine Cawood sums up her own characterization within the first few seconds of the premiere of Happy Valley, telling a young man threatening to light himself on fire that: “I'm forty-seven, I'm divorced, I live with my sister who’s a recovering heroin addict. I've two grown up children, one dead, one who don't speak to me and a grandson.”

That’s quite a spiel, but it’s one that instantly tells us what kind of person we’re dealing with. What Catherine doesn’t mention is that her daughter killed herself soon after giving birth, presumably because her child was the product of rape. This led to the fracturing of Catherine’s family: her divorce, her son’s estrangement, and taking on the task of raising her grandson. Oh, and Ryan’s biological father has just been released from prison.

Dark stuff. I binged the first season of Happy Valley within a single night, which lead to a rather exhausting time at work the following day, but it was impossible to reach a cut-off point once the ball started rolling.

In many ways it’s a story about those who take responsibility for their actions, and those that try to deflect blame onto other people. To my reckoning, only two people in the show (Catherine being one) refuse to wallow in self-pity or recriminations, choosing instead to step up into whatever role is required of her. When a kidnapping goes wrong and events start to spiral, Catherine seems to be the only one with a handle on the situation – following leads, trusting her instincts, and throwing herself into danger to save an innocent.

That’s not to say that Catherine is perfect: she’s impatient and abrasive and overly stubborn, but she’s also one of those rare people that you can trust absolutely to always do the right thing, no matter how difficult it is.  

There’s an extraordinary scene about halfway through the season in which the boyfriend of a deceased colleague tries to pin the blame for her death onto Catherine, insisting that her reprimand the previous day put the dead woman into a vulnerable frame of mind that led her to make a bad professional decision. Catherine quietly refuses to accept that burden (despite having floated the idea to herself the night before).

I often get exhausted with the repetitiveness of characters taking the blame for things that aren’t their fault (usually as a lazy way of establishing that they’re “good” people via guilt complexes/self-mortification) and so to see a woman – especially in a story where everyone is constantly flinging blame at each other – refuse to take someone’s death on board her conscience is genuinely gratifying.

Catherine is clearly the inspiration for Kate Winslet’s Mare in Mare of Easttown; both women are middle-aged, no-nonsense, and burdened with responsibilities that the rest of the world choses to ignore. They may not take on these duties with a smile, but it’s with more dignity and compassion than they themselves even realize, without any expectation of recognition or reward.

Like George Eliot once wrote: “For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”