Josephine Tey

by Jennifer Morag Henderson

  10. Dodie Smith, Look Back With Gratitude (London: Muller, Blond & White Ltd, 1985). Dodie made $2,000 a week, and up to $20,000 for one job scriptwriting and script-doctoring. Rent on one of their American houses was $600 a month, which was considered expensive. Katharine Hepburn took over the house when they left.

  11. As reported at the time of Cordelia (1946); newspaper clippings from the Citizens Theatre scrapbooks in the Scottish Theatre Archive at the University of Glasgow.

  12. The American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=1&Movie=7638 credits Gordon Daviot as a Feature Writer on Next Time We Love, citing contemporary sources such as entertainment magazine Variety.

  13. Letter 4, 21st November 1935, Mac to Dave in Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers. Gielgud played the lead role, Peter Lowe (later in Casablanca) and Robert Young were the other male leads.

  14. Ramsden, (1984), p. 58.

  15. Conversations with Elizabeth’s nephew; remembering what his mother had told him.

  16. Harben, (1988).

  17. Letter 4, Mac to Dave, 21st November 1935, Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers.

  18. http://www.davidhigham.co.uk/history.htm, http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/.

  19. After tracing the family back several generations, I have still not come across anyone called Tey. Beth got her stories about her mother’s family from her grandma Jane, and perhaps the name had been corrupted – or was from further back than surviving records. Alternatively, Beth might have done some amateur family history research and been confused by the handwriting of an entry in a parish record: at HAC, Family Historian Anne Fraser was at first excited to discover an ancestor called ‘Tey’ – before realizing that she was misreading the name ‘Fry’.

  20. AM16, letter from Gordon Daviot to Marda Vanne, 7th Jan 1940, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies archive.

  21. Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present.

  22. Jane Dunn, Daphne du Maurier and her Sisters: The Hidden Lives of Piffy, Bird and Bing (London: HarperPress, 2013), p. 197.

  23. Rose, (2003), p. 80. See also Grime, (2013). Marda Vanne’s papers are preserved in the Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies archive.

  24. Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies archive. The letters are not always dated, but it’s possible to work out a rough chronology.

  25. See AM5, AM10 and AM11, letters from Gordon Daviot to Marda Vanne, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies archive.

  26. AM10 and AM11, letter and ‘Reader’s Report’ from Gordon Daviot to Marda Vanne, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies archive.

  27. For example, letter 2, 23rd January 1919, Mac to Dave in Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers; Ramsden, (1984), p. 58. If she had been a lesbian, Beth may have wished to conceal her sexuality from Marjorie – but she would have had no need to talk around it with Lena Ramsden.

  28. ‘Progress’, November 1937, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies archive.

  29. I wonder if Marda was the only one to see her that way: one of Georgette Heyer’s mystery novels features a tweed-clad adventuring lady; a member of the Cowdray Club. (Lady Harte, in They Found Him Dead, published 1937).

  30. Letter 5, Mac to Dave, Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers.

  31. AM13, letter from Gordon Daviot to Marda Vanne, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies archive.

  32. Webster, The Same Only Different, pp. 377–388.

  33. The Internet Broadway Database www.ibdb.com.

  34. Mangan (2004), pp. 32–33.

  35. Gordon Daviot, The Stars Bow Down (London: Duckworth, 1939).

  Chapter Thirteen: Claverhouse

  1. Beth said that she discussed her interest in Claverhouse with a publisher, who suggested she write about it: The Franchise Affair papers, biographical note, Penguin Archive, Bristol University. Beth also mentioned her interest in Claverhouse to Marjorie, her friend from college, saying that he was seen in the wrong way and ‘someone ought to do something about it’ – there’s no date on the letter, but it is sent from Inverness, and she also mentions reading Edwin Muir’s John Knox: Portrait of a Calvinist, published in 1929, so Beth may have been reading and discussing Claverhouse for a while (she didn’t think much of Muir’s book).

  2. Hart & J. B. Pick, (1981); J. B. Pick (1987); John MacCormick, The Flag in the Wind (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2008).

  3. Hart & J. B. Pick, (1981).

  4. Inventory no. 9364, International PEN Scottish centre files, National Library of Scotland.

  5. Inventory no. 8560 and Inventory no. 9364, International PEN Scottish centre files, National Library of Scotland – lists of members and 1936/7 programme. I checked all the available member lists and Beth MacKintosh is not listed (under any name).

  6. MacDiarmid was first approached to start the club by the Professor of English at the University of Edinburgh, H. J. C. Grierson. Unbelievably, Grierson said he could not think of any writers living in Scotland except MacDiarmid and Neil Munro, and asked for any writers MacDiarmid could recommend from the Central Belt – as they would be most easily able to attend meetings. With this sort of attitude, it’s easy to see why female, Highland authors were excluded, and how a club of this sort – however inclusive its name or aim – had strong elements of a boys’ network. See John Manson (ed.) Dear Grieve: Letters to Hugh MacDiarmid (C. M. Grieve) (Glasgow: Kennedy & Boyd, 2011), p. 18, for original letters.

  7. The Scotsman newspaper of Saturday 9th June 1934 lists additional subscriptions raised for Scottish PEN’s funds for organising the international congress. ‘Miss Gordon Daviot, Crown Cottage, Inverness’ gives £2 2s.

  8. MS 26190, f124, letter from Elizabeth MacKintosh to Marion Lochhead, 6th July 1933, National Library of Scotland.

  9. Letter from Gordon Daviot to Dodie Smith, 4th December 1937, from the Dodie Smith Collection, Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Centre at Boston University.

  10. Letter from Gordon Daviot to Dodie Smith, 4th December 1937, from the Dodie Smith Collection, Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Centre at Boston University.

  11. Neil Gunn sometimes supplied Walsh with plots. On the 23rd February 1937, Gunn wrote to Walsh about the book Walsh was writing, which would become And No Quarter, expressing his disparagement for the Covenanters – see J. B. Pick (1987).

  12. MS 9752 Letter from Elizabeth MacKintosh to Miss M. E. M. Donaldson 16th March 1938, National Library of Scotland.

  13. Letter from Gordon Daviot to Dodie Smith, 4th December 1937, from the Dodie Smith Collection, Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Centre at Boston University.

  14. MS 9752 Letter from Elizabeth MacKintosh to Miss M.E.M. Donaldson 16th March 1938, National Library of Scotland.

  15. Ramsden, (1984), p. 59.

  16. Hart & J. B. Pick (1981). The discussion of his reasons for leaving are sometimes vague: he went on a sea voyage, which he wrote about, but there are also hints of a serious fight with his wife Daisy. Gunn had an accident to his eye at this time, which was never fully explained. His affair with Margaret MacEwen ended and she went to London to volunteer for the paper the Daily Worker, though stayed in touch with him. Gunn’s circle of friends changed a little when he left Inverness and no longer held ‘open house’ at Larachan. At the very end of his life Neil seemed to feel huge remorse about this period in his life, particularly Daisy’s miscarriage.

  17. Jean MacKintosh’s reference letters – private MacKintosh family collection.

  18. Actually his second son, as his eldest son died before he was a year old.

  19. According to conversations with Moire’s son.

  20. Information on Humphrey’s life comes from his two autobiographies (Vice-Admiral Humphrey Hugh Smith, D.S.O., A Yellow Admiral Remembers (London: Edward Arnold & Co, 1932); Vice-Admiral Humphrey Hugh Smith, D.S.O., An Admiral Never Forgets (London: Seeley, Service & Co, 1936)); online records of military service personne
l http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/crews/person/37069.html; http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2701383/SMITH,%20HUMPHREY%20HUGH; http://www.dnw.co.uk/medals/auctionarchive/viewspecialcollections/itemdetail.lasso?itemid=60253; records of his first wife’s family heritage http://www.thepeerage.com/p7543.htm; his first wife’s obituary as reported in the newspapers (Times Archive: The Times Sat Jan 9th 1937), and his own obituaries several years later (Times Archive: The Times Mon Nov 4th 1940).

  21. AM16, letter from Gordon Daviot to Marda Vanne, 7th Jan 1940, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies Archive.

  22. Josephine Tey, The Singing Sands (London: Pan, 1965), p. 6. The list of people on the train is a nod to all sorts of characters in Beth’s real life: ‘a lance-corporal of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders’ gets the better of Murdo the sleeping-car attendant – surely a reference to her First World War love, and perhaps another indication that they met on the train.

  23. Sheila Mackay, Inverness, Our Story (U.K.: Inverness Local History Forum, 2007) p. 76–77.

  24. See the Inverness Courier Friday 13th May 1938 – correspondence page – letter from Colin MacKintosh, p. 5; leader Tuesday 17th May 1938; 7th June 1938; leader Tuesday 14th June 1938; correspondence 21st June 1938; leader 5th July 1938.

  25. Criticism of Colin and Beth’s engagement in public life came from the Inverness Courier, rather unchivalrously, in their obituaries. Obituary of Colin MacKintosh, Inverness Courier 26th September 1950; obituary of Elizabeth MacKintosh, Inverness Courier Friday 15th February 1952. These obituaries, especially Beth’s, have been quoted in many articles.

  26. IRA school magazine, 1939.

  27. Inverness Courier, leader Tuesday 14th June. The barriers at Craggie’s Close and Maclean’s Close were broken in broad daylight, first by ‘an enterprising and public-spirited citizen’, Mr Roderick Reid, butcher, 33 Castle Street ‘with a saw obtained from a nearby shop’. The barricades were then broken again later in the day, and once again by two young men late at night.

  28. Dodie Smith Collection, Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Centre at Boston University.

  29. See Dodie’s biography by Grove (1996); and Dodie’s own volumes of autobiography.

  30. Josephine Tey, Miss Pym Disposes (London: Arrow Books, 2011), p. 228.

  31. www.imdb.com; Grime, (2013), p. 117.

  32. According to conversations with Moire’s son.

  33. Letter from Heinz Mollwo to Alexander MacEwen, 18th June 1937, Dep 209, National Library of Scotland – Neil Gunn Archive; Hart & J. B. Pick, (1981), see p. 163: ‘Both she [Margaret MacEwen] and [her brother] Malcolm MacEwen suspect that Neil’s invitations to Germany were connected with a Nazi attempt to use Scottish Nationalism for their own ends’.

  34. 16th August 1936, Alexander MacEwen visitor books 1926-1940, D375/5/3, Alexander MacEwen archive, HAC.

  Chapter Fourteen: The Second World War

  1. John Gielgud, ‘Foreword’ in Gordon Daviot, Plays (London: Peter Davies, 1953), p. x; Rose, (2003), p. 114. Rose says that Daviot spent two weeks in Edinburgh, and that she and Gwen visited sites of interest to Mary, Queen of Scots.

  2. Letter from Colin MacKintosh to his youngest daughter, Etta; dated only ‘Sunday afternoon’; private family collection.

  3. Letter from Colin MacKintosh to his youngest daughter, Etta; dated only ‘20th’; private family collection. The Longman is now an industrial estate.

  4. Letters from Mac to Dave, Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers.

  5. Letter from Colin MacKintosh to his youngest daughter, Etta; dated only ‘Sunday afternoon’; private family collection.

  6. Letters from Colin MacKintosh to his youngest daughter, Etta; various; undated.

  7. Online records of military service personnel http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/crews/person/37069.html; http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2701383/SMITH,%20HUMPHREY%20HUGH; http://www.dnw.co.uk/medals/auctionarchive/viewspecialcollections/itemdetail.lasso?itemid=60253; Obituary for Humphrey Hugh Smith in Times Archive: The Times Mon Nov 4th 1940.

  8. For a good description of the closing of the theatres and the effect on people and business, see Chapter 17 of Richard Huggett, Binkie Beaumont: Eminence Grise of the West End Theatre 1933–1973 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989).

  9. Marguerite Steen, Looking Glass: an Autobiography (London: Longmans, 1966); Ramsden, (1984), Chapter 10.

  10. Smith, Look Back With Astonishment ; Smith, Look Back With Gratitude ; Grove, (1996).

  11. Letter AM16, Gordon Daviot to Marda Vanne, 7th January 1940, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies Archive; see also Rose, (2003), p. 105.

  12. See Grime, (2013); and Rose, (2003).

  13. online records of military service personnel http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/crews/person/37069.html; http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2701383/SMITH,%20HUMPHREY%20HUGH; http://www.dnw.co.uk/medals/auctionarchive/viewspecialcollections/itemdetail.lasso?itemid=60253; Obituary for Humphrey Hugh Smith in Times Archive: The Times Mon Nov 4th 1940; Letter from Colin MacKintosh to Etta, dated only ‘Sunday night’, private family archive; letter from Jean to Moire, dated ‘Thursday 16th May’, private family archive.

  14. Letter 8, 23rd April 1941, Mac to Dave, Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers.

  15. Letter from Colin MacKintosh to Etta, dated only ‘Sunday night’, private family archive.

  16. Letter from Colin MacKintosh to Etta, date obscured, private family archive.

  17. Huggett, (1989), p. 246.

  18. The story goes that Winston Churchill’s finance minister said Britain should cut arts funding to support the war effort. Churchill supposedly said ‘Then what are we fighting for?’ Whether or not he said it, it was certainly felt – as shown by the reopening of the theatres and the exemptions from fighting granted to actors like Gielgud – that the arts were important.

  19. Huggett, (1989), pp. 285–288; Morley (2002).

  20. This is a general statement which is repeated in many places; I’ve tried to check if it’s true and it seems to be backed up by some academic studies. Anecdotally, I have heard people say they read more, particularly because of the blackout and the restrictions this put on going out for evening entertainment.

  21. Lilliput: the Pocket Magazine for everyone, February 1941, vol. 8, no. 2, 93.

  22. Letter 7, Mac to Dave, 19th December 1940, Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers.

  23. Saturday Night Theatre – a Tribute to BBC Radio Drama http://www.saturday-night-theatre.co.uk/; see also the Scottish Theatre Archive at the University of Glasgow; and Lesley Henderson, Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (3rd Edition; London: St James Press, 1991). See also the BBC Genome project, the collected listings of the Radio Times from 1923 to 2009 http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/

  24. 23rd July 1942, script in the Scottish Theatre Archive, University of Glasgow.

  25. Ramsden, (1984), p. 57.

  26. Letter 11, Mac to Dave, 25th January 1946, Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers.

  27. BBC Genome project, http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/. Mrs Fry Has a Visitor was broadcast as a children’s television play in 1950 and again in 1955.

  28. Gordon Daviot, Leith Sands (London: Duckworth, 1946), p. 117.

  29. Letter from Colin MacKintosh to Etta, 9th May 1943, private family archive.

  30. Pamela J. Butler, The Mystery of Josephine Tey on http:///www.r3.org/fiction/mysteries/tey_butler.html; Elizabeth Haddon, ‘Introduction’, in Gordon Daviot, Dickon (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1974).

  Chapter Fifteen: The Citizens Theatre

  1. Now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

  2. Aird, (2011), p. 66. For information on James Bridie see Ronald Mavor, Dr Mavor and Mr Bridie: Memories of James Bridie (Edinburgh: Canongate/National Library of Scotland, 1988).

  3. Citizens Theatre Website www.citz.co.uk.

>   4. See Citizens Theatre Company archives, housed in the Scottish Theatre Archive, University of Glasgow.

  5. Saturday Night Theatre – a Tribute to BBC Radio Drama http://www.saturday-night-theatre.co.uk/

  6. Letter 12, Mac to Dave, Acc 7708, no. 33, National Library of Scotland – Mairi MacDonald’s papers.

  7. Christina R. Martin, ‘A Mystery About This: justified sin and very private memoirs in the detective novels of Josephine Tey’, PhD thesis, (University of Strathclyde, 2001), p. 128. Martin perhaps over-emphasizes the friendship between the two women. Not realizing their age difference, she assumes Molly worked also on Richard of Bordeaux. She didn’t. Martin also doesn’t seem to realize the connections between the MacEwens and Neil Gunn.

  8. D375/5/3, Visitor books; HCA/D436/7/3, Correspondence between Frank Thompson and Margaret MacEwen, Alexander MacEwen archive, HAC.

  9. On the 25th November 1944, Gunn wrote to Bridie, discussing a meal out they had enjoyed together in Glasgow. At the meal, Gunn had quarrelled with C. M. Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid). J. D. Fergusson was also in attendance. J. B. Pick (1987).

  10. Bridie and MacDiarmid did not get on. MacDiarmid took umbrage (in person, at a club) at an article Bridie wrote which MacDiarmid perceived as critical. Bridie responded by letter, challenging MacDiarmid to write a play for the Citz – if he could. MacDiarmid replied only obliquely, through editorial and articles he commissioned and published in a literary magazine – sample title: ‘The Citizens’ Theatre: A Nuisance and a Menace’. Incensed, Bridie wrote MacDiarmid a lengthy defence of the Citz, interspersed with some pithy insults. Bridie then wrote a poem, ‘The Blighted Flyting of James Bridie and Hugh MacDiarmid’. See Manson, (2011), p. 343, p. 344 & p. 360. This exchange of insults and one-upmanship was fairly typical of the Scottish literary scene, and not really a world Gordon Daviot was interested in, or concerned that she was excluded from, as she got on with producing her bestselling Tey novels.

  11. Citizens Theatre Company Archive, Scottish Theatre Archive, University of Glasgow.

  12. Citizens Theatre Company Archive, Scottish Theatre Archive, University of Glasgow.