Mum, how could you say that! Even the most loving mothers make remarks that cut to the core, as these daughters reveal Mothers are often their daughters" biggest fans - but also their harshest critics. For proof, look no further than Clare Balding's admission last week that the spur for her recent weight loss was her mother saying she looked fat. Here, seven brave writers reveal how their mother's unguarded opinions on everything from their appearance to their husbands have shaped their lives. You're my sweet baby elephant, she said Author Wendy Leigh is in her late 50s and lives in London. Her mother, Marion, 86, lives in the flat below her. I was eight years old, an only child, secure in my mother's love, with very little self-doubt. Then the blow fell. One tea-time, just as I was helping myself to my second chocolate cupcake, my mother put her arms around me. "My sweet little baby elephant," she said, lovingly. Years later, she recalled: "I did my best to tell you in the kindest way possible. Even though I made sure you went to ballet and to tap, and took you for long walks on Wimbledon Common, you were so plump. Plump: Wendy with her mother Marion Charles, who noted how plump she was despite long walks and ballet Despite my mother - a tall, willowy brunette who managed to maintain her model-girl figure without dieting - thinking she was cloaking her words in velvet, they cut deep, and I embarked on a lifetime of diets. WeightWatchers, health spas galore; you name it, I've done it. Through the years, I lived on low-calorie chocolate bars, then I went on a yoghurt and fruit diet, then an orange and peanut diet - but all to no avail. I always skipped breakfast, ate sporadically, and abhorred regular meals. In fact, it is only in the last year, now that my mother is 86 and living in the same building as me, that I have finally lost weight once and for all, and kept it off. And all because of the three balanced meals a day I cook and serve her religiously. It's taken over 50 years, but, finally, thanks to my mother, I weigh just nine stone. Look at you... And you're not even thin Liz Hodgkinson, 69, an author and journalist, lives in Oxford. She is divorced and has two adult sons. Her mother, Mabel, was in her 80s when she died in 1998. However clever, pretty or rich you may seem to others, you can always rely on your mum to cut you down to size. In my case, it was the spur I needed to confound her (low) expectations. When I was a teenager trying to be fashionable, my East Anglian working-class mother Mabel, who ran a florist's shop, would look at me and say: "It's not as if you're even thin." Well I am now, Mum! Thanks to her remark, I lost weight and resolved never, ever to be fat. Weighty words: Liz Hodgkinson's mother Mabel said 'it's not as if you're thin'. From that day, Liz stayed slim Much later, when my first book was published, she dismissed it with: "Everybody writes books these days." That galvanised me into writing more. As each was published, Mum would say: "I can't get it in Smith's." I don't think she ever read or bought a single book of mine. Her great hope had been that I would train as a secretary and get a job with some rich boss, whom I would marry. Instead, I determined to have a big career of my own. But the put-downs didn't stop with me. When my son Tom got into Cambridge, she immediately said: "I don't think Cambridge is what it was." She's been dead many years but I often think my whole life has been a mission to show her, somehow, that I could be something better than she imagined. You look like a witch, dear Jeannette Kupfermann, 72, lives in Berkshire. She started out as a model, then became a lecturer and writer. Her mother, Eva, died in 2001. My mother's brow puckered. I was 18 and bristling with excitement in a newly-bought white dress for my big date at Cy Laurie's, THE West End jazz club at the time. "Yes, very nice - but you know you have a thread hanging off, and I'm not keen on your hair at all," she clipped. In just two seconds, my confidence was shattered. It wasn't just my clothes that came in for criticism, it could be make-up: "Your eyeliner is too heavy, it makes you look like a witch." Or my skin: "Has that spot got bigger? I told you not to pick it. Shattered confidence: Jeanette Kupfermann's mother Eva (right) would remark on everything When I begged for driving lessons, she said: "You'll never drive. You're too highly strung. To my regret, I never did learn. When I became an academic, she said: "You may have book learning, but you've got no common sense. You're totally impractical. Thanks to her put-downs, I felt I couldn't be trusted to do anything. It was only when I was 46 and my husband, Jacques, died suddenly from cancer, that I realised I really was able to cope on my own. Who cares if your skirt fell down in public? Jenni Murray, 63, is a writer and broadcaster. She lives in London. Her mother, Win, lived in Barnsley. My mother, Win, Barnsley-born and bred, made an art form of being cruel to be kind. No sooner had she heard me playing out in the street with the local kids, shouting and screaming in a broad Yorkshire accent, than she'd whisked me off for elocution lessons, saying she never wanted to hear me sounding so "common" again. I was three, and of course all my mates knew exactly what was going on. Suddenly I was "that posh kid at Number 14" - and nobody wanted to know me. I was trooped along to lessons every week, entered for exams and prepared for musical festivals, where I would compete in the Speech And Drama classes. Well-hidden pride: Jenni Murray and her mother Win, who taught her never to show off and not to care My most humiliating moment was at the Elsecar Festival, circa 1959 (I was nine). I'd been through the usual scrub up (make sure you've washed behind your ears), had my hair tortured into pigtails and was dressed in a brand new tartan skirt. Ignoring my pleas that the waist was too big, she insisted I would look better without braces. But as I stood on stage reciting my poem, the skirt began to slide downwards, coming to rest around my knees. No sympathy or apology from Mum. "It was a lesson in how the show must go on," she said. You kept going. It'll stand you in good stead in the future. And when I came first and won a gold medal: "No showing off, now - don't you get above yourself." I know from what her friends have told me that she was pleased about my successful career, but she never let on. It was still: "Don't let it go to your head, love." I would not, as the cliche goes, have been where I am today without her wisdom: trained voice, received pronunciation, the confidence to speak in front of anyone. So, thanks Mum. But a bit less of the "don't get above yourself" might have allowed me occasionally to feel a bit of personal pride in what I've achieved. You'll never get a boy if you eat sweets Petronella Wyatt, 42, is a journalist and writer and lives in London, as does her mother, Lady Wyatt. I was at the swimming pool in a leopard-print bikini with a sarong. "Where did you get that awful-looking thing?" said my mother. Take it off at once. My swimwear choice might have been provocative behaviour at say, 16, but I was 25. Nor was this the first time my mother had railed at me. When I was 11, she had just collected me from school on a Friday in the car, and I was carrying a bag of sweets and chocolates. She threw them out of the window. Do you want to get fat? You will never have a boyfriend if you eat sweets! Up to scratch: Lady Wyatt, here with daughter Petronella, threw her 11-year-old daughter's sweets away My mother was a Hungarian aristocrat who sounded like Zsa Zsa Gabor. For her, manners made the woman. In my early teens, we were taken to lunch by friends and I began pushing the food round my plate. Petronella! Don't hold your cutlery like that. I was so embarrassed that I put down my knife and fork and didn't eat another mouthful. She disliked scruffy clothes, so I never wore them. She was supremely elegant and insisted I followed suit. As for boys, I was not allowed to date until I was 17. Even then she lectured me on the dangers of promiscuity - no daughter of hers would become an unmarried mother! While her strictures and assumption of righteousness may have been galling at the time, sometimes reducing me to tears, I look at some of the daughters of liberal English mothers and am glad I had mine. Many of these girls have grown into sloppy and careless adults. I have never been overweight, am generally polite and I never indulge in casual sex. Fortunately, I have also ceased to be frightened of my mother, for when I was 19 or 20 I discovered she had a piquant sense of humour and was a wonderful gossip. I now enjoy her company as a friend. The other day, we both attended a concert. "I don't want to make you cross," she began, "but I don't like that dress." I examined my reflection. Good Heavens, I thought, nor do I! Ditch the dye - and that man! Tanith Carey is a 46-year-old mother-of-two and lives in North London. Her mother Lynne is a former advertising creative and lives near her daughter. I love my mother - but sometimes she seeks out my flaws like a heat-seeking missile. Whether it's my hair being too blonde or my eyebrows over-plucked, she picks up on it. Mothers notice every shortcoming in their daughters because they analyse us as intensely as they do themselves. Looking back over our relationship, even when I took her criticism badly, I see that she never meant to hurt me. Passing on life lessons: Mum Lynne told daughter Tanith she could get a better boyfriend than she had When I was in my 20s, she told me to dump one boyfriend after we had fierce rows, which on one occasion included him throwing my clothes out of the window of our second-floor flat. "You can do much better than him," she said. She knew he could never make me happy. As the veteran of an unhappy marriage with my father, my mother only wanted to protect me. She was right more than once, too. After a rocky start with my present husband, she told me that everyone deserves a second chance when I was not minded to give him one. I listened. It was the best thing I ever did. She is a survivor; a woman of rare emotional intuition who passes on lessons that she has learned herself, not those she has read in a book. Oh, do get yourself to a salon Melissa Kite, 41, is a freelance writer and journalist and lives in London. Her mother, Pauline, owns a hairdressing business and lives in Warwickshire. My mother is my biggest fan and my harshest critic. Only she will tell me the truth. "Listen, I need to tell you something," she said just the other morning. You need to get your hair cut. It doesn't suit you that long. You need your colour freshening up. Now get yourself to a salon. Always right: Pauline, here pictured with daughter Melissa on holiday in 1998, despaired at her fashion choices Pauline has criticised many things in my life but she has always been right. She always had me perfectly turned out as a child. I had meticulously curled hair, and perfect dresses with matching coats and shoes. As soon as I became too old for her to dress me I think she quickly despaired at my fashion sense, or lack of it, and was never afraid to point out my shortcomings. I never match or co-ordinate anything. I'm laid-back and happiest in jeans and wellies - but I wish I was as elegant as she is. She wants me to find happiness with a man and has often been frustrated in the past with my choice of suitor. I love you, but you do infuriate me. You're your own worst enemy," she'll say fondly. I know she wishes I was married with a family, but she still lets me know that she's proud of what I've achieved. I used to resent my mum interfering - as I saw it - but the older I get, the more I cherish the fact that she knows me better than I do myself.