Beryl Bainbridge
Page 61
10 Austin Davies, journal entry for 17 August 1953.
11 Letter from Hugh Goldie, 7 April 1953.
12 Diary entry, 22 April 1953. BL MS 83818.
13 Beryl spells the name erratically in the MS, at times ‘Gospell’, at times ‘Gopsell’, and once ‘Gospel’. In her diary for 1953 she tends to spell the name correctly. I have standardized it to ‘Gopsill’ throughout.
14 ‘A treatise on justification’, in ‘Fragments 1951–53’. BL MS 83745.
15 This and subsequent quote, ‘Salisbury March 1953’ (but written 6 May 1953), in ‘Fragments 1951–53’. BL MS 83745.
16 Diary entry, 26 April 1953. BL MS 83818.
17 Letter from Lynda South, c. April 1953.
18 Diary entry, 28 April 1953. BL MS 83818.
19 Diary entry, 29 April 1953. BL MS 83818.
20 Diary entry, 30 April 1953. BL MS 83818.
21 Diary entry, 1 May 1953. BL MS 83818. Anne Lindholm became a postulant at the Convent of Notre Dame, Ashdown Park, in October 1953. Three months later she spent some time in hospital suffering from a slipped disc, and a few months after that she was advised to wait a couple of years before resuming her postulancy. At the end of 1954 she started work at Leonard Cheshire’s Mission for the Relief of Suffering in Ampthill, and six months later applied to enter the Carmelite convent at Presteigne, a small enclosed order set up only five years before and still undergoing construction work so that it could take on more postulants. After many months of discussion about her vocation, Anne was formally turned down at the start of 1956 as the building work at Carmel was taking longer than expected. However, by the time it was formally finished she was pregnant again, after having met Colin Haycraft a short while before. The two married in December 1956, and their first child was born seven months later.
22 Diary entry, 1 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
23 Ibid.
24 Diary entry, 5 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
25 Diary entry, 10 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
26 Diary entry, 11 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
27 Diary entry, 23 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
28 Daily Sketch, 24 May 1953.
29 Diary entry, 28 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
30 Diary entry, 4 June 1953. BL MS 83818.
31 Diary entry, 8 June 1953. BL MS 83818.
32 Diary entry, 16 June 1953. BL MS 83818.
33 Diary entry, 19 June 1953. BL MS 83818.
34 Diary entry, 22 June 1953. BL MS 83818.
35 Diary entry, 14 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
36 Diary entry, 19 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
37 Diary entry, 24 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
38 Diary entry, 23 May 1953. BL MS 83818.
39 Diary entry, 5 July 1953. BL MS 83818.
40 Diary entry, 7 July 1953. BL MS 83818.
41 Diary entry, 9 July 1953. BL MS 83818.
42 Diary entry, 11 July 1953. BL MS 83818.
CHAPTER 13
1 ‘Fragments 1951–53’. BL MS 83745. Beryl’s inattention to factual detail is revealed here: while a thirty-inch waist might have been tubby for a twenty-year-old girl, it was positively slim for a sixty-year-old man.
2 Similar chance meetings between an older man and a younger girl recur in her later fiction.
3 Letter from Lynda South, c. March 1953.
4 Diary entry, 25 July 1953. BL MS 83819.
5 Letter from Lynda South, c. 25 May 1952.
6 Letter from Lynda South, c. 3 March 1952.
7 Letter from Lynda South, 1 April 1952.
8 Letter from Lynda South, c. April 1953.
9 Letter from Lynda South, c. 3 March 1952.
10 Joseph Bartley Redman, who died on 25 February 1952 at the age of seventy-four.
11 Diary entry, 8 August 1953. BL MS 83819.
12 Diary entry, 11 August 1953. BL MS 83819.
13 Diary entry, 19 August 1953. BL MS 83819.
14 Diary entry, 21 August 1953. BL MS 83819.
15 Diary entry, 27 August 1953. BL MS 83819.
16 Diary entry, 27 August 1953. BL MS 83819.
17 Diary entry, 28 August 1953. BL MS 83819.
18 Diary entry, 29 August 1953. BL MS 83819.
19 Beryl would later claim that she was seventeen when she went to Paris with ‘the Colonel’, and had done so ‘on a forged passport’. This was not true; the passport itself was legal, though it’s possible Beryl forged her parents’ signature on the application form as she didn’t want them to know she was going abroad.
20 Diary entry, 1 October 1953. BL MS 83819. In later accounts Beryl would say that the chambermaid said ‘Courage mademoiselle’, implying the hotel was used to unmarried couples coming for a ‘dirty weekend’ and the maid was trying to make her feel better about the ordeal to come. However, it is clear from the diary that the remark was directed at them both, and referred to the number of stairs to climb, not some kind of sexual innuendo.
21 Diary entry, 3 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
22 Diary entry, 4 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
23 Diary entry, 2 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
24 ‘Fragments 1951–53’. BL MS 83745.
25 Ibid.
26 Diary entry, 5 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
27 Diary entry, 8 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
28 Diary entry, 9 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
29 Diary entry, 13 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
30 Diary entry, 15 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
31 Diary entry, 17 October 1953. BL MS 83819.
32 Information from Stephen Peppiatt, email to author 23 March 2013.
33 Diary entry, 11 September 1953. BL MS 83818.
34 Diary entry, 13 September 1953. BL MS 83818.
35 Literally so in one instance. Ronnie’s scheme to prevent his ex-wife getting access to his money, by opening an account with the Bank of Ireland under the fictitious name of Claude Bainbridge and using Beryl’s address for correspondence purposes, didn’t take into consideration how he could access the money, nor what would happen if he were to die. After his death, Beryl had been sent a new passbook for the account on its conversion to euros, and by 2010 it had some 7,000 euros in it. As it was of dubious legality, no one could get to the money or even make any legal claim on it. The existence of the account caused a certain amount of confusion during the probate of Beryl’s estate after her death.
36 Diary entry, 10 October 1953. BL MS 83818.
37 Diary entry, 6 September 1953. BL MS 83818.
38 Letter from Lynda South, 13 October 1953.
39 Diary entry, 14 October 1953. BL MS 83818.
40 Diary entry, 28 November 1953. BL MS 83819.
41 Letter from Austin Davies, 3 December 1953.
42 Letter from Austin Davies, c. December 1953.
43 Letter from Austin Davies, 9 December 1953.
44 Austin Davies, journal entry for 15 January 1954.
45 Beryl managed to write one last entry in her diary before the illness overtook her: ‘It is very late but I feel so ill. Suddenly I feel I have been ill for a long time and not known it. Yesterday the doctor came and said I was undernourished. I felt frightened suddenly sitting up in bed with him tapping my chest. When I looked down I looked so thin. I have lost weight, a stone, maybe more.’ Diary entry, 17 January 1954. BL MS 83819.
46 Diary entry, 10 April 1955. BL MS 83820.
47 See letter from Sefton General Hospital to Cyril Taylor, 21 July 1954. To rule out the possibility of a tuberculous lesion Beryl was X-rayed again a few months later. She was subsequently given a bronchogram, but again the tests came back negative: ‘There is no evidence of any tuberculosis infection.’
48 Austin Davies, journal entry for 15 January 1954.
CHAPTER 14
1 ‘The People in the Park’, ‘Fragments 1951–53’. BL MS 83745.
2 A sign of the growing emotional distance between them is reflected in the gift Lyn was given for being bridesmaid – a copy of Under Milk Wood. Beryl didn’t write a message or ev
en sign her name in the book, instead Austin wrote a slightly awkward dedication – ‘For services rendered (i.e. bridesmaid)’ – and signed it on Beryl’s behalf. When Lyn married Rik in Greenwich six months later, neither Beryl nor Austin attended.
3 Austin wasn’t the only one to find the choice of a Catholic church uncongenial: Uncle Len refused to attend the wedding on religious grounds.
4 ‘Drape expectations’, Evening Standard, 4 January 1991.
5 Information from Robin Riley, interview with author, 15 March 2013.
6 Even at the height of her success it is doubtful whether Beryl could have afforded to buy the house she had once lived in as the wife of a university lecturer in art.
7 George Melly, Revolt into Style, Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1970, p. 213.
8 A Weekend with Claud, New Authors, 1967, p. 51.
9 Manchester Guardian, 1 November 1954.
10 Diary entry, 10 April 1955. BL MS 83820.
11 Email from Belinda Davies to author, 26 January 2014.
12 Mayer-Marton was also a skilled mosaicist, and when Austin later moved down to London he used the techniques he had learned from him to produce a decorative mosaic commissioned by East Ham Technical College.
13 Peter Davies, Liverpool Seen: Post-War Artists on Merseyside, Redcliffe Press, 1992, p. 96.
14 J. F. Dewey, ‘Robert Millner Shackleton. 1909–2001’, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 2004.
15 Interview with Brenda Haddon, 13 February 2013.
16 Interview with Chloë Buck, 13 April 2013.
17 Interview with Robin Riley, 13 December 2013.
18 By the time of his death in 2000, Taylor was recognized as a leading figure in the post-war movement for democratic health reform.
19 Gideon Ben-Tovim, ‘Dr Cyril Taylor: a life of commitment’, 21 December 2000.
20 Diary entry, 29 February 1960. BL MS 83820.
21 Diary entry, 10 April 1955. BL MS 83820.
22 This and subsequent quote, Austin Davies, journal entry for April 1955.
23 ‘Dockland ghosts’, Liverpool Daily Post, 12 March 1955.
24 Austin Davies, journal entry for April 1955.
CHAPTER 15
1 Unfinished poem, ‘Fragments 1951–53’. BL MS 83745.
2 Diary entry, 5 June 1953. BL MS 83818.
3 Letter to Judith Shackleton, c. September 1956.
4 Ibid.
5 Diary entry, 30 April 1953. BL MS 83818.
6 The tapes were sent back by the BBC and remained in Catharine Street after Austin and Beryl had left. Robin Riley found them when he moved in and took them to Huskisson Street, but what subsequently happened to them is unclear.
7 Letter from Denness Roylance, 14 August 1956. BL MS 83735. Also from information supplied by Nick Green and Robin Riley.
8 ‘Ceedy Man and the Bellringers’. BL MS 83793.
9 In all, Beryl wrote six Ceedy Man stories, though only four were broadcast. The last, ‘Ceedy Man and the Music Festival’, was recorded in London in November 1963.
10 It is for this reason that I have tried to avoid using Beryl’s novels as a source of biographical information in this book, except in a few instances where it is supported by reliable documentary evidence.
11 Beryl’s decision to make Harriet and the narrator fourteen and thirteen respectively was a way of disguising the book’s origins. Given that her adventure with George occurred only six months before she married Austin, she might have felt it was too close for comfort to write about openly. Early draft versions shows that the decision to make the narrator thirteen was taken at a later date, and originally the girls were described as being sixteen-year-olds – the same age as those in the New Zealand murder case. These references to age, along with others in which the narrator notes that it has been ‘years and years’ since she had last seen the Tsar, or that she was going to leave school and move to London, which wouldn’t make sense if she was thirteen, were subsequently deleted from the final version.
12 Letter from Chapman & Hall, 18 December 1957. BL MS 83735.
13 Letter from Chapman & Hall, 1 January 1958.
14 Letter from Chatto & Windus, 7 May 1958. BL MS 83735.
15 She would continue to send the manuscript of ‘The Summer of the Tsar’ out over the next few years, to Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1960, Anthony Blond in 1963, and Hutchinson in 1965.
16 ‘Another Friday’. BL MS 83793.
17 Letter to Judith Shackleton, c. 15 July 1957.
18 Letter to Judith Shackleton, c. September 1956.
19 Probably after the play Léocadia by Jean Anouilh, whose work Beryl had often used as audition pieces. She also used the name Leocardia for the station taxi in her children’s story, ‘Ceedy Man and Hopping Dog Day’, which was written around the same period.
20 Letter to Judith Shackleton, c. 15 July 1957.
21 Interview with Brenda Haddon, 13 February 2013.
22 Interview with author, 13 February 2013.
23 ‘The Liverpool that I loved has gone for ever: Merseyside memories in the European Capital of Culture’, The Spectator, 12 December 2007. In fact Eileen Wenton, née Hogan, was born in Liverpool, of Irish extraction, and though her husband’s father was from Sierra Leone, her husband was also born in Liverpool. Nine children are recorded in the Birth Index, but their extended family may have given the impression it was much larger.
24 19 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
25 28 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
CHAPTER 16
1 Diary entry, 18 September 1959. BL MS 83820.
2 Interview with Brenda Haddon, 13 February 2013.
3 Maureen Cleave, ‘Will the real Beryl Bainbridge sit down and write a novel?’ Over 21, April 1979; Shusha Guppy, ‘Beryl Bainbridge, the art of fiction’, The Paris Review, no. 157, Winter 2000.
4 Sholto Byrnes, ‘Beryl Bainbridge: echoes of a rackety life’, Independent, 17 May 2004; and Authors’ Lives, British Library sound recording (Track 6, March 2009). In a letter Beryl wrote to Austin on 13 January 2002, she mentions that it was when she came back from giving birth to Aaron that she found two sets of breakfast plates and a note to a female student saying that Beryl would be coming back the following day.
5 Psiche Hughes, Beryl Bainbridge: Writer, Artist, Friend, Thames & Hudson, 2013, p. 32.
6 ‘Dame Beryl’s gymslip secret’, Camden New Journal, 7 February 2008.
7 Information based on account by Belinda Davies, email to author, 26 January 2014.
8 Letter from Austin Davies, c. 20 July 1959.
9 Letter from Austin Davies, 26 July 1959.
10 Letter from Austin Davies, c. 29 July 1959.
11 Draft of A Weekend with Claud. BL MS 83796.
12 21 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
13 Draft of A Weekend with Claud. BL MS 83796.
14 Interview with Ruth Green, 17 November 2014.
15 Letter to Mick Green, c. September 1962.
16 Letter to Judith Shackleton, c. 8 August 1959.
17 Ibid.
18 Diary entry, 17 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
19 This and subsequent four quotes, diary entry, 17 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
20 Diary entry, 18 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
21 Diary entry, 19 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
22 Diary entry, 22 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
23 Diary entry, 25 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
24 Ibid.
25 Diary entry, 29 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
26 Diary entry, 27 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
27 Diary entry, 28 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
28 The version of events Beryl gave in her Evening Standard article, ‘The night I walked out on Lennon’ (19 January 1990), is studded with errors. Beryl�
��s date for the party, August 1957, was, like most of her dates, inaccurate.
29 Mark Lewison, All These Years, Little, Brown, 2013. Harrison’s reference is to the British dance band leader Gerald (‘Geraldo’) Bright.
30 Not to be confused with Beryl’s friend and Austin’s student, Brenda Haddon, née Powell.
31 Diary entry, 19 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
32 Interview with Maggie Gilby, 5 November 2013.
33 Diary entry, 18 September 1959. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
34 Letter from Austin Davies, c. January 1960.
35 Letter from Mick Green, 1 February 1960.
36 Diary entry, 29 February 1960. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
37 Interview with Maggie Gilby, 5 November 2013.
38 Diary entry, 29 February 1960. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
39 Information on antenatal record card, 1965.
40 Letter from Liverpool Stanley Hospital to Cyril Taylor, 2 February 1960.
41 Interview with Brenda Haddon, 13 February 2013.
42 Herbert J. Davis, the same firm her parents used.
43 Diary entry, 2 March 1960. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
44 Diary entry, c. March 1960. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
45 Diary entry, 2 March 1960. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
46 A Weekend with Claud, New Authors, 1967, pp. 48–9.
47 Diary entry, c. Spring–Summer 1960. 1955–65 Journal. BL MS 83820.
CHAPTER 17
1 Draft of A Weekend with Claud. BL MS 83796.
2 Letter to Judith Shackleton, c. July 1961.
3 A Weekend with Claud, New Authors, 1967, pp. 77 and 39.
4 Born in Liverpool in 1894, Leah was the daughter of two Russian emigrés, Isaac Davis, who had a clock-repairing business, and his wife Nellie Cohen. She had not, as Beryl put it, been carried ‘as a baby across the frozen steppes of Russia’ by her mother.
5 ‘I’m Not Criticising . . . I’m Remembering’. BL MS 83793.
6 Letter from Leah Davis, 3 April 1965.
7 Draft of A Weekend with Claud. BL MS 83796. In the published version, the line becomes ‘taken to extremes of eccentricity forty years along’ (p. 123).
8 Letter to Judith Shackleton, c. 6 May 1963.
9 Letters to Judith Shackleton, 2 October 1962 and c. December 1962.
10 Letter to Judith Shackleton, c. June 1961.