Elizabeth Chatwin is staying here for a bit, busy in the window-seat filling in hundreds of faire-parts. [5] I’ve just written a piece about Bruce for The Spectator, [6] after having done another about a Polish SOE pal three or four weeks ago. I’m turning into a memorialist. I’m now struggling with one for a sort of florilegium [collection of excerpts from other writings] for Julian Jebb. I want to end it with some lines, not written by his grandfather, or, he thought, M. Baring. He used to recite them when he’d had a few, and they have always haunted me – You probably know them:–
‘He loved her to distraction
‘As I’ve often said before,
‘And they went pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat
‘Round the kitchen floor,
‘All covered with oom-tarára, oom-tarára, oom-tarára,
‘Round the kitchen floor . . .’
Any ideas?
Very many thanks again, from both of us and love to Molly
Yrs ever
Paddy
I would have begged to review Vol. I, though all unqualified. But I took vows, some months back, to do no outside work till I get to curtain point in my Vol. III, and, except for obituaries, it would cause mortal offence to people I have been firm with. But I’ll leave no s.u. [stone unturned] to get Vol. II when it appears.
P.P.S. If, in a later vol., you want to bring out how deep ran nineteenth-century lack of interest in Byzantium, you have only got to mention O. Wilde’s Hawthornden Prize Ravenna. [7] Nearly 1,000 lines, and not one mention – as far as I can remember – can’t find – only Dante and Gaston de Foix get a look in, and of course Lord Byron and, up front, Victor Emmanuel and the Risorgimento (tho’ I don’t think he mentions Anita Garibaldi dying there). [8]
But, of Just: Theod: Belis: Narses: Galla Placidia: Theod: Amalasuntha: [9] and the rest of our little group, not a whisper. . .
[1] JJN’s book of this title, covering the period ad 286–802 and the first volume of a trilogy, was published early in 1989.
[2] The ITV arts programme The South Bank Show, presented by Melvyn Bragg (b. 1939), had made a film about PLF, first broadcast on 22 January 1989.
[3] JJN had interviewed PLF for an earlier television programme on the same subject.
[4] David Cheshire (1944–92), television director.
[5] Partly printed letters (presumably responses to letters of condolence).
[6] Bruce Chatwin died of an AIDS-related illness on 18 January 1989.
[7] Oscar Wilde won the 1878 Newdigate Prize – not the Hawthornden Prize, which was not established until almost twenty years after Wilde’s death – for his poem ‘Ravenna’, which reflected on his visit there the year before.
[8] PLF’s memory of the poem is largely accurate; the Risorgimento is alluded to, though not named, and nor is Garibaldi’s wife Anita.
[9] The Emperor of Byzantium, Justinian; Theodora (his wife); the generals Belisarius and Narses; Galla Placidia, daughter of the Emperor Theodosius I; Amalasuntha, daughter of Theodoric the Ostrogoth.
To Rudi Fischer
30 June 1989
Kardamyli
Messenia
Dear Rudi,
Just got your marvellous letter about the great rehabilitation ceremonies in Budapest. [1] It really is extraordinary. Would you ever have foretold it a few years ago? Whatever one’s reservations, I think we must all raise a cheer. Thank you, too, for your amusing elaborations on the theological aspects of Gluttony. I was given the choice between that and Lust. [2] A lifelong martyr to the latter, I chose the former.
I’ve got in such a tangle about correspondence that I can’t remember whether or not I have told you about the Yemen. If not, let me know, and I’ll remedy the gap. . .
I wasn’t asked to do a review of Bruce’s last book, and I’m rather glad, as I’ve done two about Bruce, & the obituary bit, in the last two to three years, and it would be rather a réchauffée. In the same way, I now find it very hard to write about Greece or Crete. (I’m enclosing an article about the latter, from an English Language monthly in Athens, which is less embarrassing than most.)
Just before we went to the Yemen, Elizabeth Chatwin flew out, and (as I think I wrote to you) said it was Bruce’s dearest wish that his ashes should be buried beside a small church of St Nicolas about two miles up the flank of the Taygetus, near the village of Exochori (which we walked to after plunging into the deep canyon between it and Tseria). It’s on a spur of the mountains, very small and old – tenth or eleventh century, & v. bat-haunted – with fragments among the stone-and-tile Byzantine masonry, probably meaning there has always been a shrine on the spot. We often picknick there, among the v. steeply perched and narrow ledges, covered with olive trees and very tall oaks. As you know, B. had become an Orthodox – he wanted to meet me at Chilandar on Athos, on the way back from Bulgaria, to keep him company while he was received by the Serbian monks there. But things had gone too far for travel, even in a wheelchair. When I got back, I asked our vicar (Fr Dimitri) if it was all right and he said yes indeed, and he would sing a mass if we liked. But as there had been two already, one in France, another in Moscow Road, [3] Eliz. thought not. She flew over here three weeks ago, and she, Joan and I drove up there with trowels, and spade, then Eliz. emptied the casket in, we filled it up, uttered silent prayers and poured on some wine as a libation; then feasted under the branches.
With any luck, I’ll just catch the last outgoing post of the week – viz. Friday morning – so I’ll put a sock in it now, dash down, and do better in my next!
Love to Dagmar
Yours ever
Paddy
P.S. Sunday night (1.7.89), I’ve reopened this to append that the excellent translator of Mani [4] has broken the government impasse here by getting elected caretaker PM of government till new elections in Oct. He’s a delightful man, honest (v. important), religious, commission in Navy when Colonels came in, Minister of Works under Karamanlis. He’s gt. gt. grandson of Zanetbey Grigorakis of the Mani [5] (see Book) and translated it in political exile in Kythera.
[1] On 16 June 1989 a ceremony took place to honour those executed by the Communist regime in the repression that had followed the Hungarian uprising in 1956. As many as a quarter of a million people lined the routes and crowded into Heroes’ Square. Speakers denounced the Soviet invasion of 1956 and called on Soviet troops to leave the country.
[2] See page 202.
[3] St Sophia Cathedral, the Greek Orthodox Church in Bayswater, London.
[4] Tzannis Tzannetakis (1927–2010) resigned his naval commission on the day after the 1967 coup d’état. He was imprisoned and later exiled by the military junta for his resistance activity. When democracy was restored in 1974, he joined the New Democracy party of Constantine Karamanlis, and served as Minister of Public Works and Minister of Tourism. In 1989, after the socialist leader resigned in response to corruption charges, Tzannetakis became prime minister of a coalition government for the ensuing few months of political crisis. He later served as Deputy Prime Minister (1990–93), Defence Minister and Minister of Culture.
[5] Though appointed bey of the Mani, Zanet Grigorakis conspired with agents of Napoleon to mount an uprising against Ottoman rule with French support.
To Michael Stewart
21 July 1990
Kardamyli
Messenia
Dear Michael,
This is just a brief message to say that Joan and I had a great treat last night entirely thanks to you. We uncorked and decanted the magnum of Château Fombrauge early in the afternoon – two and three-quarter decanters-full – and gave it a long breather while Joan prepared a marvellous plain chicken and pommes vapeur. I went for a long swim in the gloaming, then ascended and laid the table for two at the top of the stairs. Then, after a preliminary swig or two of Glenlivet, and a cleansing munch of brown bread, we settled down to it. The wine was absolutely magnificent, with a fascinating and transporting bucket (if that’s the English for bouquet), and a
smooth and insidious texture that cocooned us in happiness. We didn’t rush it, but we were soon on to the second decanter, which was accompanied by some excellent Shropshire Blue I had brought back from Blighty a few days earlier. We didn’t finish it – too good to gulp – but hope that, firmly stoppered, it will relaunch us again tonight.
I went to Blighty for four days for the most frivolous of reasons, viz. to go to a marvellous twenty-firster for a grandson [1] at Chatsworth. No hopes of persuading Joan – though she egged me on, in her usual splendid way – so I was by myself, drove north with Janetta and Jaime, who I stayed with, and it really was wonderful [illegible] – 250 to dinner, 1,000 guests. There were acres of tent, a number of wild and shaggy contemporaries of the birthday boy (who has the fine architectural name of Wm Burlington), but, luckily, lots of contemporaries too, and plenty of tiaras, starting with Debo’s which was like Cybele’s mural crown, with a sweeping strawberry and raspberry-coloured dress. Soon after dinner, when everyone was getting very cheery and rather blurred, there was a masque of B. Jonson on the steps of the fountain, with dresses and scenery taken from designs of Inigo Jones in the library there, then to the soaring Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, a cumulative display of fireworks such as I have never seen, all dropping reflected in the lake. Everything then all melted into a golden Turneresque haze of semi-oblivion, until the beginnings of daybreak: a full moon with a few decorative alabaster clouds, and figures wandering about in a trance under the oak trees . . . As nobody failed to say, one will never see the like again.
Back to the grindstone! Only a few hours to go before drinking yours and Damaris’s health in the last of the Saint-Émilion.
Love from us both
Yrs ever
Paddy
[1] William Cavendish, Earl of Burlington (b. 1969), son and heir of Peregrine ‘Stoker’ Hartington, later 12th Duke of Devonshire.
To Jock Murray
5 January 1991
Kardamyli
Messenia
My dear Jock,
Many thanks for your letter and for the fascinating Robert Byron’s Letters. [1] I’ve only read a few pages after luncheon today, but Joan has been deep in them for days, absolutely hooked. What an extraordinary bird he was, incredibly and precociously gifted to an amazing extent. His mother must have been marvellous, too, to have evoked these letters. I wish I’d known him properly. I remember having a long chat, but totally tight, when I was eighteen in a nightclub – was it ‘Frisco’s the Boogie-boogie’ – too early – or ‘The Nest’? I met him after my travels, once when he and several other of the Georgian Soc. [2] were assembling for a meeting – Jim Lees-Milne, [3] R. B., Michael Rosse?, [4] and, perhaps, John Betj., but not sure. (This was in Catherine d’Erlanger’s house in Stratton St; she had taken up painting, and I was her sitter.) [5] Then again with Sachie Sitwell, and again with Bridget Parsons, in early 1940, when I was a soldier. I heard about his death in Cairo from his then brother-in-law Evan in Rustum Buildings, the SOE hang-out. [6] What a help he might have been in Greek affairs!
What I meant to say was, yes, of course I’ll do a review somewhere. His books were one of the things that prodded me to set off for Constantinople.
Yesterday, as it was a blazing sunny day, Joan and I had a picknick high up on the edge of a wood at a village on the coast called Platsa, at the monastery of St Nicholas Kampinar. The grass was covered with blue, purple and mauve anemones. After a blissful nap under the pines, I set off on foot, Joan planning to meet me by car in an hour’s time, as I wanted to walk down by a steepish winding path. The usual path was blocked with piled thorny branches to stop sheep getting along it, and also some new wire-netting, so I strolled on downhill, waiting for another path, and went badly astray. The descending path got steeper and stonier and the olive terraces were more and more neglected, till at last I was so far down as to be beyond the point of no return to the monastery, now far aloft in the distance. I thought there must be a path soon, but instead a deep ravine yawned, which logically had to descend to the sea. The going was worse and worse. An abandoned hamlet – three to four houses with no roofs, only rotten beams – was entirely covered in brambles and ivy; the once stepped, now gap-toothed path getting steeper and worse, now so overgrown and deep as to be much darker, old fungus, toadstools, rotten trees, maquis [densely-growing, evergreen shrubs] and sudden cataract drops leading to frightful cliffs, so I tried another direction, saw a tiled roof to the north. On arrival, it was a totally abandoned chapel. The sun was setting by now. I had a moment of threatened panic, thinking of Joan waiting at the car, struggled on in the gloaming, down a few overgrown olive terraces, then maquis closed in again, cliffs’ edges were muffled with bushes and undergrowth, frightful drops looming when I poked with my stick and peered down. Thank heavens, though it was dark now, it was a clear starry night. I thought I could see a gap, too hard to discern, and finally slid down onto what proved to be two truck-ruts of a seldom-used road. Oh the relief! I trudged on with a lighter heart, but couldn’t think what to do at turnings. I tried two, one led steeply down to an abandoned farmstead, then fumbled steeply up again. A second led, as far as I could see, to a full cistern; only Orion reflected in it stopped me from stepping straight in . . . At last I seemed to be on a more sensible track. I could see all the lights of the coast twinkling below and at last, three hours after I should have been there, got to the path leading to our rendezvous tower, and there was a wavering torch coming towards me – it was Joan, on her way to ring Kardamyli and organising a search party. She was right! One could have bust a leg (or one’s skull) on one of those hidden precipices. Imagine the relief! Great embraces. We were in a frightful state, hearts pounding, I soaked in sweat, shanks criss-crossed with bramble tears in the manner of Grünewald. [7] We dashed gratefully home, and double whiskeys, hot baths, delicious soup and Nemean wine, followed by glasses of port brought here by Coote, Bella and Frieda, and R. Byron and Saki in front of blazing logs, did their healing work. . .
Poor Joan! She was just what one should be in such cases, and more.
All greetings to you and Diana.
Yrs ever
Paddy
[1] Robert Byron (1905–41), traveller and travel writer, best known for his The Road to Oxiana (1937). John Julius Norwich has described him as ‘one of the first and most brilliant of twentieth-century philhellenes’. Byron died after his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine in the North Atlantic. His letters were edited by his sister Lucy Butler and published by John Murray as Robert Byron: Letters Home (1991).
[2] The Georgian Group, founded in 1937, campaigns for the preservation of historic buildings and planned landscapes of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Robert Byron was one of its founders.
[3] The architectural historian James Lees-Milne (1908–97).
[4] The Irish peer Lawrence Michael Harvey Parsons, 6th Earl of Rosse (1906–79).
[5] Baroness (Marie Rose Antoinette) Catherine d’Erlanger (1874–1959) (née de Robert d’ Aqueria), a society hostess, wife of the French banker Baron Emile d’Erlanger. They lived at No. 139 Piccadilly, the former home of Lord Byron, on the corner of Stratton Street.
[6] SOE’s Cairo headquarters, in the Rustum Buildings, known to Cairene taxi-drivers as the ‘Secret Building’.
[7] PLF is referring to the German Renaissance artist Matthias Grünewald (c.1470–1528), whose religious paintings often depicted a scourged Christ.
To Janetta Parladé
22 May 1992
Kardamyli
Messenia
Darling Janetta (change of bowstring: [1] pen conked out),
It’s monstrous that I’m only writing now, after dwelling in your shell for such an age like two hermit crabs; and what a swizz missing you all the time. I can’t tell you what a true blessing and boon it was. The new end-room, Jaime’s study, is lovely, and I even managed to get some work done, occasionally usurping your stately table upstairs.
I went to Sandringham
[2] under Debo’s wing – apparently Andrew hates staying there so much that he fled to Jerusalem – and very much enjoyed it, mostly because of (a) the novelty, (b) the luxury and delicious food, but mostly (c) because of the transparent niceness and goodness and the charming manners of the host. The people there I knew were Derek Hill, Candida Lycett Green, Billa Harrod, Angela Conner and her hubby. [3] The others were a couple who live near Tidcombe (name gone), the painter Kitaj and a beautiful wife (or girl). [4] There was a great deal of sight-seeing: Houghton and Holkham, both marvels I’d never seen – all v. queer re. the first, and v. nice, viz. someone called David Cholmondeley [5] and his pals. Then there was a marvellous ruined Norman Abbey, [6] perfect for me; and several small and beautiful churches. I had a small whitewashed room with a brass bed, which had been the P. of Wales’s when a boy, so he told me, and on these different window-panes: ‘Nicky Oct and Vth Dec, 1897’ and on the next, ‘Georgie (Greece) 1900 Nov., 1904 (Nov) and 1911 ( June)’ and finally, ‘Axel (Denmark) 1909 Feb.’ The first were the last Tsar and Tsarina, murdered in the Revolution; the second, King George I of Greece, was assassinated in Salonika two years later. The last died in his bed.
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