edited by Richard Ingrams
The Oldie’s I Once Met is a game of Consequences full of unexpected twists and turns. If only the famous had known they were being met by someone who was going to describe the encounter years later they would surely have behaved differently.
One exception, I guess, is Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein, who would still have barked out a ticking-off to the unlucky boy from Westminster Abbey Choir School in which he was interested. In 1953 he more or less ordered the boys to take photographs of him and his page standing in a nearby doorway dressed to the nines for the Coronation. David Ransom was one of them. The next day the Daily Mail carried a photograph of the scene. In the foreground stood young David bent over his box Brownie camera. Alas, one of his socks had collapsed round an ankle. Such sloppiness was too much for the old soldier and the next day the poor fellow was summoned to the headmaster’s study to face Monty himself, who reprimanded him in military fashion.
Many meetings with famous actors and actresses are described. In my experience such encounters are nearly always disappointing. It is better to watch them plying their trade than to meet them face to face. Selwyn Powell saw a brilliantly funny performance by Harpo Marx in a variety show at the Palace Theatre. He followed him back to the Savoy to photograph him for Picture Post – but not one word does Mr Powell remember of what the great comedian said. (Now I come to think of it, wasn’t Harpo the one who couldn’t speak?)
When A. N. Wilson was twelve he called on L. S. Lowry to seek advice on painting. The house in Salford was coal-black outside and chaotic inside. The artist, ‘his white hair en brosse like a polar bear’s’, told the boy he preferred the Sunderland seaside because he couldn’t paint trees. Twelve-year-old boys don’t know when to leave, so after hours of his unplanned company Lowry said he would see A. N. back to Manchester and delivered him to his mother who was having tea at Marshall & Snelgrove. In this case it would have been interesting for the roles to be reversed so we could know what L. S. thought of A. N., who didn’t dare go back for the portfolio of paintings he had left behind.
Oscar Hammerstein cured Donald Sutherland’s stomach ulcers by a prescription of a soluble capsule and a packet of Dreft washing powder taken daily ‘for a while’.
John Mortimer met Robert Graves on a sofa (I told you it was Consequences). Graves said to Mortimer, ‘Jesus Christ, of course, lived to the age of eighty, when he went to China and discovered spaghetti.’ Jo Grimond, also on the sofa, asked, ‘In which gospel do we read that Jesus Christ went to China and discovered spaghetti?’ ‘It’s not in a gospel. It’s a well-known fact of history,’ answered the poet.
Vincent Brome, an ardent admirer, interviewed the dying H. G. Wells. Wells let loose a diatribe against God, the monarchy, Parliament and Bernard Shaw. Women, whom Brome imagined Wells had been rather fond of, were a necessary encumbrance to the life of a man. Humanity itself was dismissed as ‘a parcel of sweeps’. Brome left, disillusioned.
The Last Squire of Erddig was a natural for the series. When Mr and Mrs Michael Strachan went to see the house newly opened to the public, they found the Squire struggling with a clockwork spit from which hung a stuffed pheasant. He asked where they were from. ‘Scotland,’ they said. ‘So you know David Baird?’ They did. On the strength of this unlikely exchange the Strachans suggested taking him out for dinner. A series of disasters with boarded-up restaurants followed, ending with the hospitable Squire asking them to stay the night in his nearby cottage. His last guest had been a tinker: ‘splendid fellow, but needed a bath’. So did the purple sheets in the spare room, and the Strachans were thoroughly flea-bitten.
Sir Alec Guinness, Fangio, Lord Wavell, Matisse, Graham Greene, Hitler, Sir Jack Hobbs, Richard Widmark and Sir Matt Busby all come out of it rather well. Philip Larkin, Ronnie Kray and E. M. Forster don’t. Neither does Randolph Churchill.
More Cartoons, also edited by Richard Ingrams, and The Oldie Dictionary of Our Time, edited by Mike Barfìeld, were included for review with I Once Met. Alas, I don’t understand either of them, in spite of trying quite hard. But I do understand and can thoroughly recommend I Once Met.
The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping
by Sheila Stainton and Hermione Sandwith
Not since Mrs Beeton’s Household Management of 1861 and its many updated editions has such a complete guide to housekeeping (or house-maiding rather, as surely housekeeping includes food and the kitchen) been available to those who have charge of what are now called historic houses. Through this absorbing book the housemaid herself is turned into the next best thing to a museum curator.
After forty-one years at the job I am shaken by the number of things which can go wrong. I am conscious of sins of omission which spell disaster. The mysteries of how, or, more importantly, how not, to treat the objects in your care are explained in fine detail and we learn the latest methods of conservation and the professional care of all manner of things. The way to clean rooms from cellars to attics, and the infinite variety of their contents from model ships to ancient textiles, big game trophies to marble floors, are described. The methods set out are by perfectionists for perfectionists. No short cuts, no sweeping the dust under the carpet. The dire consequences of slacking are a purple warning to all who care for ‘things’.
The book is aimed at houses which are ‘put to bed’, i.e. dustsheeted from top to bottom, for the winter. Houses which are lived in often have their busiest time round Christmas so some of the rules do not apply to them.
The houses were built, decorated and furnished at the behest of their owners to be lived in. The owners had families which meant children, dogs, canaries, white mice and other pests which discomfited the starched housekeepers of yesteryear. Yet the houses survived with a surprising number of artefacts intact. The deeper you get into the book the more amazed you are that there is anything left at all and the guiltier you feel about actually using a room or its furniture.
Hide and seek, sardines, kick the can, catapults, roller skating down passages, billiard fives and other pastimes of successive generations of children belonging to the house would drive the authors of this book mad. What would they make of the 6th Duke of Devonshire (‘The Bachelor Duke’, 1790–1858) writing of his childhood at Hardwick Hall: ‘I turned the recess [of the dining room], in which the billiard table now stands, into a kind of menagerie: a fishing net nailed up under the curtain confined the rabbits, hedgehogs, squirrels, guinea-pigs and white mice that were the joy of my life from eight to twelve years old. The smell caused by these quadrupeds and their vegetable diet was overpowering; but I would have been very surprised had any objection been made to their residence here.’
The gallant housemaids worked away through the rough and tumble of family life, turning huge mattresses daily, and carrying hot water to distant bedrooms. They served a long and stern apprenticeship which taught them much of what we learn from this book.
The hazards of keeping the simplest things in order appear to be overwhelming. If it is too difficult consult an expert.
We know that light is the enemy (Granny used to say that moonlight was even more destructive than sunlight) and blinds must be kept down. We must beware of ‘dust and airborne pollution, fluctuation of temperature and humidity, attack by moth and worm’. If the rooms get too dry my instinct is to open the windows – but in flies the carpet beetle. Having made a meal of the spireas in the garden he turns his attention to the Axminsters. Birds also fly in so you must put a net over the windows. In this house, they choose the best pictures on which to make messes. Thinking of messes, I looked up ‘dog’ in the index for advice on the inevitable where they are concerned, but could only find ‘dog-eared’.
And what about the infamous bacon beetle? I bet you didn’t know that this little epicure, denied the food after which he is named because there is no breakfast in National Trust houses, likes nothing better than to gorge himself on a globule of fat from the belly of your best stuffed fish.
If th
e rooms are too damp surely the answer is to light the fire. But if you have steel grates you must engage a metal conservator to put them right in the morning. That would be expensive at Chatsworth as he would be a daily visitor in the winter.
Outdoor shoes are banned. Dust-proof mats do their job perfectly, but the way your shoes stick to them gives you the terrifying sensation of being unable to run away from a pursuer in a bad dream.
Disease is rife among inanimate objects. There is a bronze disease and a pewter disease, mother-of-pearl gets Byne’s disease, and ink attacks the paper on which it is written. Minerals are not always healthy. The diseased stones at Chatsworth so enthralled my sister Nancy that she described their malady in one of her books, The Pursuit of Love.
We have come a long way since Granny went round Hardwick with a little mallet banging the furniture to give concussion to the woodworm.
I greatly admire the National Trust for setting such standards. I know they carry them out because I have seen them at it. It is going to be a job to live up to them. After reading this book I am going to try to be acid-free myself, to eschew the company of exuberant children and animals, and generally look to my housekeeping.
There is a mine of information here and the list of suppliers of equipment and materials and their addresses is an invaluable work of reference in itself. I shall look after my copy with proper care.
How To Run a Stately Home
by John, Duke of Bedford and George Mikes
All Russells are clever and original, and the 13th Duke of Bedford is no exception. His lovely little book, How to Run a Stately Home, has been re-published in paperback fourteen years after it first appeared. It will give immense pleasure to all in the trade and to the millions of people who support it.
Let us remind ourselves why the Duke threw himself into the stately business with such gusto, shocking his peers who disapproved of the publicity he sought and so readily found.
In 1953 his father died unexpectedly, and he found himself the owner of Woburn: house, works of art, garden, park, farms, woods, and the rest that attaches itself to such a place; and there was a bill for the regulation £5,000,000 death duties. Lesser men would have taken the advice of the family solicitor, sold up and fled to Monte Carlo: not the Duke of Bedford. Immediately he began to feel the irresistible pull of the Territorial Imperative.
Reading a book on monkeys he realised why he was determined to hang on to it. ‘It all started with the monkeys who each insisted on having his own special private place up in the trees of the primordial forests. We humans have inherited this healthy and natural instinct from our ancestors: we must each have our own place. This territorial imperative is, basically and ultimately, the impulse that makes me go on fighting. I want my own place. This place happens to be it and I am determined to keep it. I am the owner…of a magnificent Stately Home; I am also the monkey on the tree.’ He set about making Woburn the most famous and visited house in England, and in no time he succeeded.
The Duke had owned the place for eight years when he wrote the book and much experience had been gained. By then he felt qualified to tell the others how to do it, and in the nicest possible way he has done so. It is remarkable how his fiercest critics have come to heel.
His advice to ditherers who could not decide whether to open their houses was ‘go ahead’, and they all have. But first build your lavatories. They all have. A friend of mine who is a distinguished architect tells me that his most usual commission by far is for lavatories. The Duke goes on to the tea room, the complement of lavatories (or have I put the cart before the horse as it were?). These two are the prime necessity for a successful Stately. Then comes the essential shop.
After you have given thought and energy, as well as having spent a great deal of money, on this holy trinity, you must pay attention to the hangers-on: the house, garden and park. However, having got the first three right the latter will fall into place beautifully.
Why do people come? the Duke asks himself. Because they have got a car and they must drive it somewhere. They can spend a day in the English equivalent of Disneyland, a world of make-believe, of Rembrandts and Sèvres, state rooms and tapestries which have nothing to do with reality. No one can imagine putting a baby to bed or knitting in front of the fire in such rooms and so they are transported to the unfamiliar plane of someone else’s rarefied life. In an hour or two the visitor can be back in the womb-like security of his own car. He has seen wonderful things; he is glad to have seen them but the last thing he wants is the responsibility of owning them.
That may be true, but what brought the crowds to Woburn was the benign and friendly presence of the Duke himself, exuding his fondness for the human race, always on hand to chat, to sign and to sell. He was Exhibit A in wonderful surroundings.
After fourteen years the language seems a little old-fashioned. Stately Homes have become Historic Houses. Their owners are no longer people like the Duke of Bedford but trustees who, for some unknown reason, always come from London. Lavatories were Toilets for years, now they are Facilities and are apt to sprout bossy notices like Now Wash Your Hands. Tea is still tea as far as I know, but the part of the estate which is open is a Unit, a Scene or a Complex. Souvenirs are Gifts now, except on Sundays when they must revert to being Souvenirs to satisfy the Alice in Wonderland trading laws.
The word ‘heritage’ only appears once in this book and then in its proper context. Environment, conservation, vandals and leisure are not mentioned at all. Good.
And so we learn How To Do It. Having done it, the Duke left the Stately scene as he had arrived. Grandson of the Flying Duchess, son of the Duke whose best friend was a spider, he is much missed as the undisputed innovator in the little world of Houses and Castles Open To The Public.
I suppose our friends are as honest as the next lot, but it is odd how books disappear. Not the fat and heavy biographies of politicians in two volumes which no one could read in bed (or out of it), but the attractive ones you pick up over a weekend and don’t have time to finish. They vanish like summer snow and although I sometimes search every room in our huge house I never find the missing loved one. So I have resorted to selfishness, gathering irreplaceable volumes in my room where it is unlikely that anyone would bag one, even from the pile on the floor. Perhaps my unstealables would not appeal to everyone. Fowls and Geese and How to Keep Them (1935, 1/6d and worth every penny); Book by Lady Clodagh Anson and Another Book by the same author – classic descriptions of Anglo-Irish life before the Great War; nice, thin 1930s Betjemans, Continual Dew and Mount Zion; the real Oxford Book of English Verse on India paper, the poems chosen by that professor whose name is a mixture of duvet and sofa, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch; What Shall We Have Today? by X. Marcel Boulestin (what did X. stand for?), and The Life of Ronald Knox given to me by good, kind Evelyn Waugh, who knew I can hardly read, so mercifully the pages have no words on them. They are all blank. A book which would disappear by next Monday if left in a visitor’s room is A Late Beginner, Priscilla Napier’s autobiography. Brought up in Egypt and seeing pyramids against the sunset from her nursery window, she asked, ‘What are they, Nanny?’ ‘Tombs, dear. Where’s your other sock?’ You can’t do better than that and I do not want to lose it. The works of George Ewart Evans are next to The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley by Diana Petre, White Mischief, The Prince, the Showgirl and Me, The Day of Reckoning, Rio Grande’s Last Race and books with pages covered in print, dash it, by E. Waugh, P. Leigh Fermor and J. Lees-Milne. Most precious is The Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. If that goes I give up.
Patrick Leigh Fermor15 At Eighty-Five
Paddy Leigh Fermor eighty-five? Not possible! Yet I am told he was born in 1915 and that it is his birthday today. Hardly a grey hair, upright, trudging for miles up and down dale or swimming for hours according to whether he is in England or Greece, he is adored by my youngest grandchild as well as his own generation; an ageless, timeless hero to us all.
I firs
t saw him nearly fifty years ago at a fancy dress party in London. He was a Roman gladiator armed with a net and trident and his get-up suited him very well. I had heard of him, of course. Everyone had. By 1956 the story of his exploits in occupied Crete had been made into the film Ill Met By Moonlight with Dirk Bogarde as Paddy. It is still shown on telly from time to time.
It was in 1942 and ’43, living so closely to them in shared danger, that he became deeply devoted to the Cretans and the bond between him and his old comrades is as strong as ever.
Paddy and his great friend Xan Fielding16 had lived in the Cretan mountains disguised as shepherds (I wouldn’t put him in charge of my sheep, but never mind) for eighteen months, in constant danger of being caught by the enemy, before the spectacular coup in 1944 when he and Billy Moss, an officer in the Coldstream Guards, kidnapped the German commander, General Kreipe, which earned him the DSO. Their prize was bundled into the back of the German official car while Billy Moss drove them through a town in the black-out, Paddy sitting on the front seat wearing the general’s cap in case anyone should glance at the occupants.
After a four-hour climb on foot to the comparative safety of a remote cave in the mountains, they spent eighteen days together going from one hiding place to another and sharing the only blanket during the freezing nights. When the sun rose on the first morning and lit up the snow on the summit of Mount Ida, the general gazed at the scene and quoted a verse of an ode by Horace. His captor completed the next six stanzas. Such a duet under such circumstances must be unique in the history of war.
When he was sixteen and a half he was sacked from King’s School Canterbury for holding hands with the greengrocer’s daughter, sitting on a crate of veg. What to do next? A military crammer was tried but didn’t seem to suit, so he mooned around London making friends who lasted a lifetime. At the age of eighteen (‘and three quarters’ he says for accuracy) he yearned to go to Greece. He could not afford the fare so he walked there. What a lesson to young people now who write to strangers asking for money to enable them to travel. Years later his walk inspired A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, perhaps the two most acclaimed of all his books, winners of endless literary prizes and translated into more languages than probably even Paddy knows. His love of Greece prompted him and Joan to build their glorious house on the sea at Kardamyli, living in a tent and working with the masons till it grew into the idyllic place where they live now.
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