Dearest Jane... Read online

  I was thrilled and fascinated to have a baby sister. As the youngest she was much indulged – my father doted on her, later nicknaming her Lumpy Lou or LL. But of all of our three childhoods, Louise’s was the one spent in the greatest isolation with little sibling support on tap as she witnessed increasing ructions between her parents. When she was three years old, my brother and I went off to boarding school. By the time she was eleven, she was away at school herself, I was living in London and my parents had moved from the friendly village of Yateley to live at Budds Farm, Burghclere, remote from all her former playmates. She rode her pony cheerfully enough, but all too often her closest available companion was the TV set. Although a serious giggler who enjoyed a good prank, and a normal child who loved playing with her friends when possible, her essential disposition was a silent one, unfathomable in its infinite reserve – perhaps a wise tactic in our family.

  In the mid 1970s, while based in London, Louise fell in love, or so it seemed. The suitor who had captured her heart was Henry Carew, a vibrant young man whose verbal capacity more than filled the vacuum of my sister’s silence. Both aged nineteen, they soon settled down to live together in Henry’s house in London. With equal promptness they experienced parental criticism and firm opposition from both of their families – neither of whom warmed to the other – which had the foreseeable effect of cementing the bond between this very young couple. They protected themselves by popping into a registry office and getting married – in secret from us all.

  ‘At least they didn’t want to just live together,’ said my mother when the truth came out after they had announced, aged twenty-one, their ‘engagement’. Members of both families and plenty of friends attended their wedding blessing in Burghclere church.

  My father accepted the situation and made as much effort as he could to be an accommodating father-in-law. He and my mother were bewildered by the hours the enamoured young couple spent in the bathroom and how often Henry was to be found brewing up energizing snacks in my mother’s kitchen. Hot Hand Henry, or HHH as he became known, unquestionably had bags of energy and enthusiasm – but it just wasn’t the variety to put my father at ease, let alone my mother. If their unruly dogs added little to my parents’ pleasure, later their two delightful children, Becky and Benjamin, did. HHH’s entry into the family was the beginning of a whole new saga.

  My Dearest Jane . . .

  Barclay House

  6 March 1964

  It was a great relief to hear that Charles passed into Eton and your mother’s admiration for her only son could hardly be more unbounded had he won a scholarship to Oxford and three events at the Olympic Games!

  Barclay House

  9 October [mid 1960s]

  Louise is in good form and telling rather more untruths than usual. Charles has given up writing home – a custom I shared at his age. I am giving a lecture at Eton later this month and poor Charles is fearfully embarrassed. What unfeeling brutes parents are!

  Barclay House

  14 March [mid 1960s]

  Louise acted the extremely important part of a tree in her school play yesterday. She remembered her part perfectly.

  Barclay House

  24 October [mid 1960s]

  Last week I lectured at Eton and as no one actually threw anything or walked out I felt reasonably gratified. Your brother was over here on Saturday in fine form and distinctly cheeky, the young toad!

  The Sunday Times

  25 January 1966

  Poor Charles seems rather depressed; I don’t think he is the type to enjoy Eton or get the best out of it, at least not in his present frame of mind. Personally I rather detest ambitious people as a rule, but it is disconcerting when one’s son resigns himself so young to a life of good-natured sloth.

  The Sunday Times

  [Late 1960s]

  Tich seems in good form and so far likes his work. I took his friend, the ineffable GR, to Basingstoke; he annoyed me by wearing strings of beads and in general looking rather like my late governess, Miss Shaw. He is so wet that I wonder his long-suffering parents do not grow watercress on his person. Even the meanest creatures have their uses.

  Love,

  xx D

  Chateau Marcuse,

  Cohn-Bendit

  Deauville

  France

  [Late 1960s]

  Tich casually announced at breakfast that he had left his job and was taking a few months holiday. To make money, the old discotheque is again being circulated around middle-class homes in the Berkshire area. He is now talking of working in a racing stable. Louise is in good trim and retires to her room with a stomach-ache if the situation seems likely to develop to her disadvantage.

  Wedgwood Benn House

  Much Dithering

  Wilts

  [Early 1970s]

  If anyone else says of Charlie ‘Of course he’s very young’, I shall lie on my back and drum my heels (Lilley and Skinners mock suede recreationals) on what is left of the carpet bought in 1951 from a sale at Aldershot Co-op. He is typical of his generation of Etonians. I think they would have greeted Hitler’s SS divisions with garlands of marigolds.

  Budds Farm

  9 March [1970s]

  Charlie and I have had a very peaceful time together, but beyond saying ‘Hullo Bootface’ whenever he sees me, his conversation is seriously limited. He is fed up with his new car ‘the Mobile Tangerine’ and is already on the lookout for a replacement. How restless and impulsive he is in matters of personal transport!

  Asylum View

  Much Twittering

  Notts

  10 July 1970

  Tich is in London with that larky young Soames. I therefore expect to be rung up at 3.30 a.m. approx. from a west London police station; shall decline to provide bail but will write a cogent letter to The Times newspaper demanding the return of the birch.

  Two of Winston Churchill’s grandsons were Jeremy, the ‘larky young Soames’, and Nicholas, Conservative MP. At Eton, Jeremy had been a cheeky prankster along with his chum Lupin.

  Windsor Castle

  21 January [early 1970s]

  Life here is punctuated by telephone calls from the police wishing that your brother could help them in their enquiries; or from angry men with unseemly accents to whom he has sold cars that fell apart after purchase. I shall be agreeably surprised if he is not in prison within the next three months.

  The Sunday Times

  [early summer 1971]

  Originally Charles told me he wanted to help lunatics. That might be tough on the nuts if he took it up, but at least it would prove his sincerity of intention.

  The Totterings

  Little St Vitus

  Wilts

  Sunday [early 1970s]

  Andrew Smiley is staying here, very good looking and agreeable. In respect of manners and sophistication, he is Lord Chesterfield and Charles some uncouth moujik from the Siberian Steppes! Louise has a sweet little friend here and they giggle away in corners all day, chewing Black Magic chocolates with the terrifying relish shown by those revolting proletarian children in TV advertisements.

  No news of Charles’s future. I went to London on his behalf and made no progress. Believe it or not, the Ministry of Defence think in view of his piddling little misdemeanour, he might represent a SECURITY RISK. Thinks: Can Twitch be the successor to Philby? Charles is being very good and patient but he is a bit anxious and naturally so. If he can’t get into the Army, what next? He can’t get hold of his new blue suit as his tailor has lost a trouser leg! Typical of dear Charlie’s ‘little disasters’.

  Love

  xx D

  For those unfamiliar with Lupin’s dramas, at the 1969 Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park he was searched and then arrested after a policeman had queried the ownership of the valuable silver fob watch hanging from his belt. The watch had in fact been inherited from our grandfather. What Lupin had not inherited from our grandfather was the little lump of hash in a matchbox in his pocket.<
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  My mortified parents drove to London and bailed out their son from Paddington Police Station. Today, this episode might be accepted by parents as a predictable element in their child’s development. Then, had my brother set off a bomb in Hyde Park he could not have ignited my parents’ rage, disappointment and embarrassment more effectively.

  How proud my father was when Lupin announced his intention of joining the Army. As he now had a criminal record, he was obliged to complete a rigorous military initiation course at Tidworth before the Army could consider him as officer cadet material. Lupin threw himself into this course with creditable determination – and some success – which was soon replaced by an equal determination to abandon the Army as a route for his future. Needless to say, I was swamped with letters on this fresh catastrophe. Sympathetic to them all, I felt deeply for Lupin – ‘I realise that I don’t want to learn to kill people,’ he said to me. My parents’ sad and preoccupied faces were brightened by my wedding that same year.

  Budds Farm

  Thursday [mid 1970s]

  Tomorrow your brother goes for an interview in London with a prospective employer. I am perturbed, though, by his attitude of extreme condescension, rather as if he was conferring a considerable benefit by his application.

  Budds Farm

  24 March [mid 1970s]

  Possibly we have brought your brother up unwisely but he can hardly claim to be underprivileged and unloved. He is not a bad boy and his little escapades are merely the attempts to gain applause and recognition as a merry little lawbreaker by one who has signally failed to gain distinction in other respects.

  ‘Bangla Desh’

  Burghclere

  4 December 1971

  Louise says she can play the guitar which fills me with a dreadful despair.

  The Crumblings

  Cowpat Lane

  31 December 1972

  Louise is off tonight to see the New Year in wrapped (presumably) in the arms of Randy Andy, embryo cash-chemist and man about Banbury. I had to pick up Louise and glamorous Emma Edgedale from a Pony Club Fiesta at Bradfield last Saturday. Nowadays even dim functions of this sort end up like one of Caligula’s more enterprising orgies and in ill-lit corners I perceived thirteen-year-olds writhing in postures that not so long ago were only adopted in privacy. If this goes on your offspring will probably be stripping off at his (or her) sixth birthday party. I expect we shall soon find contraceptives issued in tea-table crackers.

  Best Wishes for the New Year to you and my son-in-law,

  Love,

  xx RM

  Hotel Magnifique et du Commerce

  Burghclere

  31 January 1972

  No news yet from Louise: I expect she will say she could not afford a stamp, thereby transforming her own indolence into an accusation of meanness levelled against her parents. I think she will get on very well in the world by and large.

  Many Cowpats

  Burghclere

  [1972]

  Your brother has just left here looking quite clean, healthy and happy. He kindly presented me with a photograph of himself with his feet on his desk and holding a copy of The Times. Rather saucy, I thought, from a junior salesman, but the right spirit. Your sister is here, quietly happy and totally self absorbed.

  The Sunday Times

  16 September [early 1970s]

  Yesterday we went to Tudor Hall to see Mrs B., Louise’s Headmistress. We were ushered into a sitting room where a splendid tea was laid out. I was just moving to pick up a cucumber sandwich when Mrs B. remarked in severe tones – ‘This is not for you, I’m afraid.’ Rather a disenchanting start.

  Le Grand Hotel de Bon Confort et de Repos (I don’t think)

  Burghclere

  14 January 1973

  Louise has passed some O levels and there is as much excitement as if she had won the Nobel Prize for reducing the incidence of liver fluke in frogs. I have no news of your brother Charles. I expected to meet him at Ascot but he did not turn up. Perhaps like Andy Capp, he has been compelled by financial stringency to pawn his overcoat. I may take Louise to Brighton for 2 nights this week. I only wish you could come, too; you might conceivably bring, after two jumbo martinis, a faint and transient smile to my raddled old features.

  xx D

  Budds Farm

  [1973]

  We had quite a laugh at Brighton and Nidnod was in excellent form and thoroughly enjoyed herself. Your sister was as sphinx-like as ever but I think the fact that she had a bath, radio and TV set in her bedroom afforded her pleasure. She is a true representative of the consumer society.

  Schloss Burghstein

  Oberblubberhausen

  [1973]

  Your brother Charles has got a chauffeur’s ticket for the royal wedding (Princess Anne) and will drive Soames there wearing his blue suit and peaked cap.

  Budds Farm

  11 July 1973

  Louise flies to Washington DC on Monday and the preparations for this simple expedition remind me of the general mobilisation in 1939.

  La Maison des Deux Gagas

  Grand Senilite

  [1973]

  Your sister left for America today, 24 hours late. The reason was as follows: Your dear mother insisted on doing all the preliminaries herself – bar signing a cheque for £122 in respect of the ticket – and any suggestions made by me were received with a certain frigidity. Unfortunately she had never heard of visas. Need I say more? It is fair to add that only your mother’s dauntless pertinacity could have obtained a visa within six hours with all the ramrod ranks of petty officialdom lined up against her.

  Budds Farm

  [1973]

  Louise appears to be happy in the USA. I wish I felt confident that she had spoken to her host and hostess since she arrived.

  My sister – LL or Lumpy – also glorified in the nickname ‘Sparky’, celebrating her predominantly reserved manner. In one letter my father wrote: ‘Give my love to Enigma Variations – in other words, Louise.’

  Budds Farm

  [Late 1970s]

  We all went to Ascot on Saturday, including your brother, whose hair resembled a very old lavatory brush at one of the smaller provincial railway stations. He is, however, in good form and seems happy flogging old bits of furniture in Fulham.

  Nidscovitch Nodscovitch

  [Mid 1970s]

  Charlie is back from Krautland. He gave evidence in some legal action and to make a good impression, he put on a blue suit and clean white shirt and had his hair cut. It was galling for him that the judge was about his own age and wore blue jeans and a T-shirt!

  Budds Farm

  17 September 1977

  I see your brother has been in the news. I try not to get to stuffy about that sort of exhibitionism but I find amateur entertainment as a rule terribly embarrassing: your mother, though, rather fancies it and with a little encouragement would put on a similar act herself.

  The Daily Mirror reported on Lupin’s £300 wager to stand on a table at Sotheby’s during an auction and belt out ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ à la Elvis – losing most of his winnings on retrieving his car which had been clamped.

  Budds Farm

  Whit Monday, 1975

  Charles has spent a fortnight here covered in oil and other mechanical ordure while endeavouring to put together a peculiar little machine called a Lotus. He has at last succeeded in so doing and recently departed in a cloud of rancid fumes with Miss Lewis. The latter is rather a well-made girl and in consequence the car had a list to starboard of 45 degrees.

  Budds Farm

  24 April 1974

  Your sister is in fine trim and quite outside your mother’s control. She is chain-smoking Woodbines, has tangerine fingers and knocks back the hard stuff like a golfing stockbroker. ‘Cocktails and laughter, but what comes after? Nobody knows.’

  Budds Farm

  2 December 1973

  Your sister has returned to London. Her landlady rang me to say how much she liked Loui
se, not least because she never talked. She quickly added, ‘I mean she does not talk when I don’t want her to.’ Louise now plans to have a very large cocktail party in London. I wish the Government would forbid that type of entertainment.

  Budds Farm

  26 January 1974

  Thank God Louise’s party at the Turf Club is over. I found it fatiguing. Most of the girls were alright but I did not reckon much to some of the young men with dirty shirts open to the navel. One or two complained loudly and bitterly about the excellent wine provided and demanded whisky in strident tones. However, what can you expect from a pig but a grunt? I got browned off after a bit and went and read Country Life downstairs. Charles and Cassandra came to dinner afterwards. Both were very agreeable and chatty but looked as if they had elected to give up washing for Lent. Louise will get into the Foreign Office only if she improves her typing. Obviously she has not got down to hard work during her year, a costly one for me, in London. She has just been fooling around and spending money; perhaps not surprising at that age.

  The Foreign Office? Its credentials were pretty impeccable to an aspiring parent: ‘Oh, my daughter’s working in the Foreign Office’, said with a quiet glow of pride. My poor father – that satisfaction was not to be his. He had once tried to set me on this path but I was not up for pinstripes and the civil service. Now it was my sister’s turn, with equally negative results, as she preferred working as a sales assistant in a smart emporium off Sloane Square. Much later, when she had two children to bring up, she worked hard as a teacher at the Garden House School in Chelsea. Cassandra Hurt was Lupin’s current girlfriend.

  Budds Farm

  2 February [mid 1970s]

  Charles appeared with Cassandra. I can see he is about to spend what little money he has on an undesirable car. I reckon he has spent £6,000 on cars in four years. Louise has been on holiday for 8 weeks and now wants to go to Switzerland. I, on the other hand, am arranging for her to attend Newbury Technical College for shorthand and typing.