The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother, and Me (51 page)

This vista from the pub brought the realisation that I had taken a step back from the place I’ve now been involved with for half my life. My new perspective was not just spatial but temporal. From my beer-scented breakfast table, the history of all the people who have been linked to Faringdon House appeared slightly different. After several years researching and writing about their lives, I had become deeply involved with the people who came before me, and could look with much more understanding right back to Gerald’s birth in the depths of Victorian Shropshire, to Robert’s arrival twenty-eight years later and Jennifer’s in the middle of the First World War. I had become fascinated by all three characters and how their lives were moulded by their rejection of their gentrified backgrounds. All of them suffered from critical or absent fathers, and mothers who were fonder of horses or drugged bed-rest than being with their children. All had close relationships with people they employed and troubled ones with those who loved them. And all created their own revolutions, running from the stifling conflicts of their parents’ homes and pursuing pleasure with impunity. They refused to live along the conventional lines that were mapped out.

From far off, Lord Berners and the crazy Heber-Percy couple had looked funny, even foolish, but the closer I got to them, the more I empathised with their complex natures and their individual suffering. In these more puritanical but certainly fairer times, it is easy to deprive them of their rights to an unbiased judgement. Their huge material advantages and luxury-loving natures make them easy, even automatic targets – ‘like shooting a sitting robin’, as Gerald put it, or perhaps a rose-hued dove. We eschew the older bigotries of racism, sexism, ageism and homophobia, but class discrimination remains, with a denigration of ‘chavs’ and an easy prejudice encouraged against the rich and privileged. But privilege is not immunity from pain. I was increasingly aware that, whatever their shortcomings, the Faringdon set deserved understanding. I had been pulled into their world by Robert’s last big risk in leaving me his beloved house – a development almost as unexpected as when he took Jennifer there as his bride – but it was the process of writing about Faringdon that provided me with a new sort of intimacy.

By the time I finished my coffee in the Bell’s bay window, the fire was burning nicely and the chill in the bar was easing. At this point, I felt able to step back from my own place in the story. I hadn’t told the landlord ‘who I was’. Looking at the black wrought-iron gates to Faringdon House, I became aware of how Lord Berners, the Mad Boy, my grandmother, my mother and me are just a few elements in a long story of so many other people – those who lived and worked in the same spaces before us, and the others who were there before that, in the old Elizabethan house. Of course it doesn’t stop there either. And for many centuries of that time, the Bell was here in some guise, providing ale for locals, breakfast for travellers and a view up to the intriguing gateway of Faringdon House.

INDEX

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1st King’s Dragoon Guards 62–5

Abel, Fred 313–14

Ackerley, J. R. 68

Acton, Harold (1904–1994)

comments on Gerald 13, 96

at wedding of the two Evelyns 169

learns of She-Evelyn’s ill-health 169

at Oxford University 190, 276

liking for Marie Beazley 212

believes Dr Gottfried is a quack 270

Aesop’s fables, The Grasshopper and the Ant 191

Agar-Robartes, Gerald, Viscount Clifden 43

Alden, Miss (Gerald’s landlady in St Giles’) 193, 216, 240

Amory, Mark 394

Lord Berners: The Last Eccentric 14

anti-Semitism 120, 121–5, 176, 331–2

Apley Park (Shropshire) 20

Architectural Review 90

Armstrong, Sir Thomas 209

Armstrong-Jones, Tony, Earl of Snowdon 318, 341

Ashcombe house (Wiltshire) 107

Ashton, Frederick (1904–1988)

as visitor to Faringdon 2, 283

provides choreography for A Wedding Bouquet 147, 153

comment on Gerald’s ability to construct a ballet 148

believed to be a genius 153

as aristocratic dowager in Cecil Beaton’s book 187

discovers splendid tranquiliser 191–2

kindness to Jennifer 261

provides choreography for Les Sirènes 268

Astaire, Adele 140

Athens 387

Attlee, Clement 267

Auden, W. H. ‘Wiz’ 182, 183, 205

Audubon, John James, Birds of America 18–19

Ayer, A. J. ‘Freddie’ 206

Bakst, Léon 34

Balanchine, George 39

Baldwin, Oliver 171

Baldwin, Stanley 159, 166, 171–2

Ball, Des (gardener at Faringdon) 310, 311, 327, 347, 360

Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo 182

Ballets Russes 35, 36, 66, 147

BBC 38

Beaton, Cecil (1904–1980) 262

as regular visitor to Faringdon 7, 216

friendship with Gerald 12, 106–7, 193, 283

learns of Gerald’s relationship with Robert 77–8

dresses his friends in Georgian style 82

as country-dweller 92

stays at Madresfield 102

character and description of 105–6

comments on Gerald 105, 130

dislike of Robert 106, 323–5

passion for Peter Watson 107–8

seduced by Doris Castlerosse 108–11

as ‘Cecily Seymour’ in The Girls of Radcliff Hall 112–15

seduced by Fascism 118

meets Dalí 143

photographs Daisy Fellowes 144, 146

photographs Wallis Simpson in lobster-print dress 144

comment on Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas 151

as contributor to Horizon 205

as close friend of Clarissa Churchill 224

as war photographer 224

photographs Victoria 251–2, 367

designs costumes for Les Sirénes 268

devoted to Dr Gottfried 270

comment on Gerald’s health 284

visits Clayton Manor 296

punched by Robert 324–5

death of 325

photograph imitated by Leo, Vassilis and Sofka 374–5

The Book of Beauty 106

The Happy Years 284

My Royal Past 107, 186–7

Beauchamp family see under Lygon

Beaulieu Abbey 83

Beazley, J. D. ‘Jack’ 212

Beazley, Marie 212–13

Beecham, Sir Thomas 127, 286

Bell, Vanessa 136

Ben (boxer dog) 347, 356, 360

Benjamin, Walter 25

Bennitt, Colonel Ward 28, 48, 49

Berlin, Isaiah 203, 206, 209, 211

Berners Estates Company 41, 266, 357, 366

Berners, Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt (1883–1950)

character and descriptions of 1–2, 7, 9, 11, 13–14, 16, 25–6, 43, 73, 74–5, 130–31, 190–91

leaves Faringdon to Robert 2, 135

ancestral portraits relegated to the orangery 4–5

1943 photograph of 6, 7

meets Robert at Vaynol 11–12, 71–3

wit and humour of 12, 16, 26, 27, 36, 38, 40, 43, 48, 85, 87, 126, 128, 134–35, 219, 258, 330, 356

disguises, superficiality and theatricality of 13, 16, 32

birth and childhood 14–15

family background, influence and relationships 15, 16–18, 19, 20, 47–8, 149, 241

lack of piety 15–16, 23

love of animals, birds and flowers 18–20, 85–6, 250

appreciation of place and ornamentation 20–21

passion for music 21–2, 28, 37–8, 146–8, 209

education 23–4

prone to misery, melancholy and depression 23–4, 25–6, 75, 131, 193, 208–9, 269–72

male friendships 24–5, 45–7, 105–12

health of 26, 270–72

affinity with foreign cultures 27–8, 39

fails Foreign Office exams 28–9

falls in love with Henriette from afar 28

food as significant element in his life 28, 87–9, 216–17

death of his father and surprising re-marriage of his mother 29

appointed honorary attaché at Embassy in Constantinople 31–2

posted to Rome 32–5, 39

as composer 35–9, 94–5, 209–10, 256

helps found a ‘quartette society’ in Rome 35

buys Faringdon for his mother and acquires a chauffeur to drive his Rolls Royce 41–3

inherits a title and changes his surname to Tyrwhitt-Wilson 41

legends concerning 42, 71

lives a life of travel and luxury 42–4

takes up painting 43

female friendships 44–5, 99–105, 117–18, 125–9, 144, 146, 151–4, 206–8, 217

death of his mother Julia and his stepfather 47–9

decides to take over Faringdon 49

reaction to seeing phantasmagoria of taxidermy at Hodnet Hall 52

entertains Ballets Russes at the Cavendish Hotel 66

relationship with the Mad Boy 74, 76–81, 89

eclectic decoration of Faringdon 84–7

daily routines 89–90, 117–18

involved in local country life 92–4

as painter 95–7

as superstitious 97–8

youthful friendships 99–112

political views 120–4

attend Olympia rally 122

apparently has lunch with Hitler 123–4

enjoys social life in London 125–6, 129

pranks and teases 128, 129–31, 267

builds the Folly for Robert 132–6

friendship with Dalí 136–42

fascination with Surrealism 141–2

incident of the diving-suit 141, 142

anxieties concerning the war 189–90, 191

lives with Bowra in Oxford 190–91

keeps a dream notebook 194–5

undergoes psychoanalysis 195–6

bizarre portrait of painted by Denton Welch 205–6

worried about Robert’s enlistment in the Army 206

refers to Robert as his ‘agent’ 207–8

returns to Faringdon 209, 214, 217

takes to wearing knitted skullcaps 212

portraits painted by Gregorio Prieto 213

rumours that he might marry Clarissa Churchill 217

loyalty to old friends 220–26

jaundiced view of Jennifer and Robert’s marriage 236–7

accepts Jennifer as part of Faringdon household 239–40, 243

appears to like baby Victoria 251–2, 278–9

undergoes electric treatment with Dr Gottfried 270

final illness and death 282–7

ashes buried under the front lawn 315

concert and readings given in his honour 322

celebrations and unveiling of a blue plaque 393–6

WORKS BY

books

The Château de Résenlieu 14

A Distant Prospect 14, 24

Dresden 14

First Childhood 14, 24, 47–8, 90, 205

The Camel 20, 90

Far From the Madding War 37, 112, 192, 195, 210–11

The Girls of Radcliff Hall 71, 112–15

Mr Pidger 104, 131, 193, 210

The Romance of a Nose 141–2, 210, 236

Count Omega 210

compositions

‘Le Poisson d’or’ 35–6

Three English Songs 37–8

Three Songs in the German Manner 37

Fantaisie Espagnole 38

The Triumph of Neptune 39

‘L’Uomo dai baffi’ 40

Luna Park (ballet) 45, 134

‘A Fascist March’ 123

A Wedding Bouquet (ballet) 146–7, 155

Cupid and Psyche (ballet) 187, 269

Cinderella, or There’s Many a Slipper 210, 256

Come On Algernon’ (song for Ealing film) 256

The Halfway House (Ealing film) 256

Les Sirènes (ballet) 268–9

Nicholas Nickleby (Ealing film) 268

plays

The Furies 234–5, 380

poems

‘Surrealist Landscape’ 138–9

‘Portrait of a Society Hostess’ 152

‘The Romantic Charter’ 211–12

Berners Trust 354, 394

Betjeman, John (1906–1984) 66, 67

description of 90–92

friendship with Gerald and Robert 91, 92–3

as editor of the Shell Guides 92, 136

love of Englishness 92

comment on Robert and Gerald lunching with Hitler 124

comment on Gerald Wellesley 133

comment on Schiaparelli’s visit to a jumble sale 144

as friend of Cyril Conolly 182

at Oxford University 190

poem on St Giles’ churchyard 193

falls for ‘Billa’ Harrod 203

nicknames Billa ‘Turkish Delight’ 203, 243

appointed press attaché in Dublin 204–5

as regular visitor to Faringdon 269, 283, 317

attends Gerald’s funeral 286

pens an obituary of Gerald for the Listener 288

gives readings of works by Gerald 322

‘The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel’ 91–2

Ghastly Good Taste 92

Betjeman, Penelope Chetwode (1910–1986)

description of 90–91

friendship with Gerald and Robert 90, 91, 283

persuades Gerald to write overture for a mystery play 92

religious sensibilities 92–3

fondness for her horse Moti 93–4

told of Robert and Gerald’s lunch with Hitler 124

comment on Gala Dalí 137

as friend of Cyril Conolly 182

has mass said for Gerald at Uffington 193

as character in one of Gerald’s books 211

learns of Robert’s discharge from the Army 214

Diana Mosely sends her love from prison 221

as regular visitor to Faringdon 269, 317

attempts to convert Gerald to Catholicism 271

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh 326–7

Bilignin (France) 151–2

Binfield, Ena 340

The Blackbirds (jazz musicians) 147

Blackwood, Caroline 280

Bourchier, John 41

Bowen, Elizabeth 63, 202, 232–3, 267, 283

The Heat of the Day 233

Bowles, Hamish 369

Bowood House (Wiltshire) 377

Bowra, Maurice (1898–1971)

Osbert Lancaster’s drawing of 93

description of 190

Gerald moves in with 190, 192

sexuality 190

friendship with the Harrods 203, 206

as character in one of Gerald’s books 211

kindness to Jennifer 261

comment on new Faringdon set-up 266

Brain, Richard 381

Brandt, Bill 205

Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme, The Physiology of Taste 216

British Union of Fascists 117

Britten, Benjamin 148