Violet reaction

Class is in the news again: we're still all middle class, apparently (well, nearly all of us).

Looking back we can trace how far those people formerly known as the upper classes have come. On Friday the 8th of October 1954 George Brown MP, son of a Southwark van driver, was on Any Questions? at the Town Hall, Lydney:

'We stayed at the Feathers Hôtel,' recorded a seasoned fellow-panellist, Lady Violet Bonham Carter. 'Ralph Wightman and Mrs Wightman rolled up later - & at dinner [ie before the programe] a new member of the Team - George Brown - Attlee-ite Labour who was Minister of Works... Everyone was agreeable to him - but he was obviously lacking in "touch" - or any kind of "amenity" or intercourse.' Then came the programme itself, as ever going out live: 'George Brown's "form" cld not I thought have been worse. He made 2 really "bad form" howlers - one a quite gratuitous & irrelevant insult to the Liberal Party - the other an allusion to my age!' The transcript reveals that his crack against the Liberals was that 'they hardly have any conference worthy of the name', while he did indeed make a jocose reference to Lady Violet's 'present age of 26 or thereabouts'. Yet more unpardonable was still to come. 'When we returned to the hôtel (our BBC hosts having left us) & we sat up talking he hectored & harangued us & addressed me repeatedly as "my dear Violet". I was frozen - but did not I fear freeze him. I have never before - in the course of an unsheltered life, spent among all sorts & conditions of men - met anyone so completely unhouse-trained'.

Written in a sort of code: the various euphemisms for vulgar; the circumflex in hotel, persisted with despite other abbreviations; the unspoken expectations of deference. The van driver's son from Southwark, however, proved resistant, even to being 'frozen'. In fact, rather than making 'howlers' I suspect he was deploying his own social chaff: 'my dear Violet' was surely no accident.

But whilst Lady Violet may appear excessively genteel to our eyes, I can't help wondering how much of our progress to a classless (or mono-class) society is just down to the codes becoming more subtle, what with our manifold middle class.

In any event, it can't be denied that she was on to something: the 'completely unhouse-trained' George Brown later became notorious for his drunkenness, volatile temperament and occasional brawls. Indeed, despite his reaching high office, he will surely be remembered more as the man who gave rise to the euphemistic phrase tired and emotional than for any political achievement (I was sad to discover, though, that the Cardinal-Archbishop of Lima incident was probably apocryphal.)

Ghent in Wartime

Frank Key of Hooting Yard and our own Key's Cupboard is taking advantage of the wonders of web publishing to post his mother's wartime memoirs in weekly instalments at a blog, Ghent in Wartime:

During the 1980s, my mother [Lydia Brusseel] wrote a memoir of her teenage years in Belgium during World War Two. The first version was written in longhand, and then she bought a typewriter, typed it up, and made copies for her children. As far as I know, she never submitted it for publication. The other day, my brother had a bright idea. Why don’t we publish it on the internet?, he suggested. Although it is not written in diary format, I added my tuppenceworth to the effect that it would lend itself to appearing as a blog...

It contains some memorable anecdotes and observations, which convey very effectively the daily distress of war. They are recounted plainly and without fuss and are quite affecting. This is probably because the events we read about are occurring just a remove or two from ordinary life: it's uncomfortably easy to put ourselves in Lydia's shoes. From last week's, which deals with the family's attempt to flee Ghent for the coast and England:

My young brother was in charge of the dog on a leash. We, the older children carried bags with all the food and drink we could muster together. On the handle of the pram hung wet nappies to dry, washed at the last minute. We must have looked a most bizarre group of travellers. I guess we had walked about half way to the main highway when the baby started to cry. The mother was distressed and insisted we all stop, so she could feed the baby. 

Our little dog had never run very far from home, after going a little further the poor wretch was probably tired, hot and thirsty and had a fit, foaming at the mouth and rolling his eyes. My little brother had hysterics, upset at seeing his pet like this.

But that's not to say one can't learn about the bigger events too. One is given an ongoing account of the response of Ghentish society to military defeat: the suspicions of Germany fed by memories of the previous war (from the week before last); the 'dejected gloom' of the families fleeing for the coast, rapidly turning to 'frozen fear' and then panic when they appear to be strafed; the brave patriotism of Lydia's father and a friend who set off on bikes for the coast to join the Allied armies in England, leaving behind fearful wives and families (how last week's ended). However, it's always grounded in the personal: 'During the following two weeks I saw my mother age about ten years.'

This is the sort of testimony that makes David Kynaston's books on post-war England so compelling. Those familiar with Austerity Britain and Family Britain will recognise this as a strong recommendation.

Spectral mash-ups

This is a bit gimmicky but some are very effective. On the odd occasion, Berlin and its bullet-holed buildings can feel a bit like this anyway. There are a few other cities featured too.

Reformation designer

Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire was bought from the agents of Henry VIII by a clothier named Mr Stumpe and converted into a woolen mill. When the antiquary John Aubrey visited in the 1660s the Norman nave still clattered with looms, and Mr Stumpe's great-grandson - Mr Stumpe, Esquire - plugged the beer-barrels in his cellar with wads of illuminated manuscripts. 'The manuscripts flew about like butterflies,' wrote Aubrey in a plangent vanitas. 'All musick bookes, account bookes, copie bookes &c. were covered with old manuscripts... and the glovers of Malmesbury made great havoc of them. Before the late warrs a world of rare manuscripts perished hereabout.'

Presumably the manuscripts were made from vellum. Medieval illuminated calfskin gloves? Quite an accessory and not something you're going to find at Bicester Village.

From In Ruins by Christopher Woodward, which I'm re-reading. I never used to re-read. Is it something that happens when you hit your 40s?

Who'd Have Thought It?

I don't know about you, but I'd only ever thought of 'Louis Vuitton' as a logo on rather vulgar baggage knocked off in Chinese sweatshops for the delectation of the chavocracy (of whom I've been seeing rather a lot lately, on my frequent train journeys on the Chiltern Line - they're all headed for something called Bicester Village, whence they return lugging vast numbers of conspicuously branded carrier bags). So, I was startled to discover today that Louis Vuitton was in fact a real person, and that he was born on this day in... Go on, have a guess, you'll never get it... Give up?... 1821! Young Louis walked the 250 miles from his home in the Jura to Paris, became an apprentice layetier (bag/luggage maker), caught the eye of Napoleon III, set up his own business - and the rest is history, surprisingly long history. What next? Will I discover that Signori Dolce and Gabbana were ornaments of the Neapolitan court, that Van Dutch was a pal of Vermeer's? The world becomes ever stranger.

The Cobham Cuckoos

If you visit Longleat and safely negotiate the lions and herpes-infested monkeys, you can enter the vast Elizabethan mansion and – via a circuitous route taking in such stately home essentials as the Saloon, the Red Library and the Dress Corridor – finally arrive at the Grand Staircase, at the top of which you will find the multiple eyes of this portrait staring at you.



Painted in 1567 by the suspicious-sounding Master of the Countess of Warwick, it depicts William Brooke, the 10th Baron Cobham, his second wife Frances Newton (standing) and their offspring. The lady sitting is Frances’ sister Johanna. She’s holding Henry. The other children are Maximilian, William, twins Frances and Elizabeth, and Margaret.

They all, you will note, have the same face. Ageless, like Midwich Cuckoos the children gaze at the nothingness beyond the limits of our perception. Margaret on the right is clearly the leader, her dark artistry fathomless, the evil palpable in her smirk – it is no coincidence that her pet, or dæmon, is a black cat.* The twins are soulless automatons, their actions controlled by infant hound-master Maximilian (left).

Their mother, Frances Newton, is an empty husk, all colour drained from her features. The Baron himself prays ceaselessly and furiously for redemption. Only Johanna, the aunt, knows the true nature of the Cuckoos; they revealed themselves to her one black night and now command her wholly.


*Or possibly marmoset, which is just as sinister if you ask me.