Homes and Houses

There are houses that become homes, and homes that are never mere houses.  I've lived in a few.  You know, the sort of house that starts to take over.  In a friendly way.  Nothing spooky.  But the rooms become so much a part of the person or people that live there that it's impossible to think of one without the other.  My friend Sonya who lived in The Old Mill in Padstow I found impossible to think of without conjuring up the sheer madness of her home - the home with the wooden carved Gothic font rescued from an obscure French Cathedral, the galloping Edwardian carousel horse with a gilded barley twist pole, the stuffed owls playing poker, the hatboxes on the stairs and the hundreds of soda syphons that lined the freezing living room. 
The Bloomsbury lot have been occupying my mind for some weeks now - and this wonderful slim volume has been a real joy to discover.  Bloomsbury in Sussex by Simon Watney is a little treasure trove of facts and snippets of those two sisters, Vanessa and Virginia,  that still linger in our imagination.  Even if we don't know their work, we are all still in thrall it seems to their chosen way of life.
Charleston and Monks House.
Charleston of course, sounds jollier.  Even the name conjures up flappers dancing, whilst Monks House does have a slight ring of gloom.... I loved knowing so much about the houses.  The fact that Virginia, who loathed shopping and felt that the shop keepers mocked her for her shabby dress and inability to make a simple decision, leant on her sister Vanessa heavily for all domestic choices.  "I have ordered some wonderful brightish red-orange stuff for the curtains to be lined and bordered in mauve."
Vanessa was of course the Bloomsbury domestic goddess, but with very little cash.  She urged Virginia to attend a cooking class in Bloomsbury where she distinguished herself by baking her wedding ring into a suet pudding.
Charleston was of course decorated within an inch of it's life - and jolly good it looked too.  Heavily leaning on the new Russian Ballet for inspiration and colours, it was, and still is, an amorous house. With rooms leading off rooms and all with an individual, casual shoes off, collar undone and stays loosened sort of feel to it.
Monks House was different - more formal, very austere and oh - so little comfort. (Neither house was in any way luxurious and must have been so cold in the chilly Sussex winters)  The guests complained amongst themselves, but put up with it as The Wolves's were a joy to be with.  Water from a pump, no electricity and outside 'earth closets'.  All this changed when the money started to come in, but even then there were certainly no frills.  A range in the kitchen, hot water in the bathroom and tiny electric fires in the bedrooms were a big concession.
But - and it's a big BUT, I know....the houses then seemed to sing with the joy that the inhabitants took with their surroundings that very few homes seem to have now. 

Vanessa remarks in later life that she is amazed that they had the energy for so much decorative flair - even the murals were hard to do with their chalk grounding and lime wash.  But I'm so glad they bothered. I leave you with a wonderful painting that hangs on my wall of an impression of Charleston by Jason Lilly.

Food festival

One of the nicest things about being an author is that sometimes you are invited to do things out of your day to day life - well, I've never cooked in front of a group of strangers before, but today, on the live food stage at Brighton & Hove Food Festival, I did.  And jolly good fun it was too.
The real chef was old mate Andrew Kay, but I was allowed my own radio mike, chopping board and very sharp knife, which I eyes with a great deal of mistrust. I was convinced that I'd cut myself and bleed on stage, and there's nowhere to hide, as there are those horrible professional mirrors above the working surfaces and cooker, as well as cameras following your every move.... But, fear not, all went well.
It was a stonking wonderful autumn day, bright blue skies, sunshine and a hint of falling leaves and conkers in the air.  Tapas was on the menu, so we knocked up Chorizo and Butter Beans, Chicken livers in Sherry, Green beans braised in Olive Oil and Garlic and some Padron Peppers - now, I'm sure you are all aware that the infamous padron peppers is the equivalent of a gastronomic game of Russian Roulette.  These pretty looking green things are briskly pan fried in olive oil till blistered then drenched in flaky sea salt and eaten warm.  They are sweet and delicious - but - one  in ten are fearsome hot.  I mean, mouth numbingly, sweat inducing, throat clutchingly hot.  What to do? Well, I picked a random looking innocent and chomped away.  Nothing but sweetness and a salty taste.  Andrew was not so lucky.... Poor boy, nor the woman sitting in the second row.  A certain amount of schadenfreude on my part was going on, it had to be said.
The food went down incredibly well, judging from the rush of people to sample it - but the best was definitely the Chorizo and Butter Beans.  A perfect quick snack or a great supper dish with some crusty bread and a sharp green salad. So, here it is.....
Olive oil
1 large sweet onion

1 good quality cooking chorizo

2 or 3 tomatoes

3 cloves of garlic

1 large tin of Butter Beans, drained

 Pinch of smoked sweet paprika

Slug of sherry

Throw the thinly sliced onion into the hot oil along with the garlic and sweat for a few minutes, add the chopped chorizo and watch in amazement as the colour from the chorizo turns everything the most glorious colour.  Breathe in the heavenly aroma for a while whilst stirring and imagine a back street of Barcelona, complete with orange trees and clinking wine glasses and a rather gorgeous man smiling at you... oh sorry.... I drifted off there for a moment....anyway, let it all sizzle away for about 10 minutes then add all the rest of the ingredients, put the lid on the pan and leave it for another five to ten minutes. Time to pour a glass of wine and make the salad.  That's it.  Simple and gorgeous.  Cheers.

Commuting on the Orient Express

Princess Marthe Bibesco was the darling of Europe.  Born at the turn of the century in Romania which was just emerging as a player in Europe after being dominated for so long by the Ottoman Empire, her striking looks, her chestnut locks, her emeralds, her precocious education and her wit made her a figure of international gossip. 

Enchantress (Marthe Bibesco and her world) by Christine Sutherland is a real hagiography.  But no matter.  I can live with that.  Especially as I learn that the woman had her OWN bespoke carriage on the Orient Express that she practically commuted on, shuttling backwards and forwards to Romania, Paris, Berlin, Bucharest and London.  Oh, and let's not forget pre-revolutionary St Petersburg.  When the train drew into her stop for her country house in the Carpathian mountains, young gypsy girls with yellow and orange striped flounces skirts would greet her by singing and handing her through the carriage window earthenware pots of wild strawberries covered with sage leaves.  At this point in the book I practically swooned with envy. And who wouldn't?  (Due to extreme generosity of BF I was whisked back from Venice on said train for a 'special' birthday and have spent many an idle hour working out if I sold my flat how long could I actually live on the train.  Answer: Two years. But what a two years they would be!) But Marthe, of course, didn't have those worries. Pretty wealthy anyway, her books were bestsellers and she raked it in.  She was adored by two Kings, a Crown Prince and a British Prime Minister. More or less at the same time.  Whilst she was married.  Crikey.

She opened her doors in Romania during WW1 as a hospital (and very fetching she looked too in a sort of nuns habit, reading to injured soldiers and holding the hands of the wounded) and helped her husband set fire to the oil fields so that the Bosche wouldn't benefit.

Back in Paris, Proust was an intimate friend as was Anatole France.  Her cousin Anna, Countess of Noailles was a bit sniffy about her - jealousy I suspect as Marthe was undoubtedly the uncrowned Queen of the Left Bank.  Antoine and Emmanuel Bibesco were also cousins - and Marthe fell in love with that enigmatic tortured man, Emmanuel, not realising that he was gay and the love could never be returned.  (He came to a mysteriously sticky end, and his devoted and debonair brother, Antione,  was comforted by Enid Bagnold of National Velvet fame.  He thundered at Enid - 'Never speak of this! And never speak of your silence!'  She later wrote a play about them both and on the first night there was the most terrible storm and the theatre flooded.  Antione exacting retribution,)

Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses, Earls, Lords, Ministers and mere politicians flocked to Marthe for advice and entertainment.  She knew everyone in power and sincerely believed in a united Europe.  Of course when Hitler came to power she wept.  Then dried her tears and settled down to write some more books. 

Her only child, a daughter, Valentine, was not very close to her and Marthe certainly didn't let motherhood cramp her style in any way.  After her husband caught syphillis from one of his many consorts Marthe never kissed him again - but great affection held between them and he would rush to her side when she was operated on in Paris and nearly died.

Cecil Beaton photographed her in later years and remarked that her intelligence shone through her wattles.  Oh dear. And Enid Bagnold wrote that she adored Marthe but it was such a chore having her to stay as she would bring a ladies maid that insisted on ironing the silk sheets that Marthe demanded every day - causing upset 'below stairs' (The sheets, by the way, travelled in a separate steamer trunk and were drenched in her personal perfume of lilacs)

That world has long gone, but echoes of it are probably still to heard in corners of Europe, and a glimpse of the Carpathian mountains from any train, let alone the Orient Express will still have me swooning.

Alice, Violet & then there was Camilla...

Funny things run in families, don't they? With me, it's the nose.  Not something I'm thrilled about to be honest.  But the older I get, the more I notice the nose... It is the exact spit of my mother's, my uncles AND my great aunts.  Others get luckier and inherit the fabulously glossy chestnut curls, or the swan like neck, but, no, I get the nose.  Ho hum.  Well, of course in the case of the Keppels - it seems to be Royal lovers, but in the case of Camilla, she actually got to marry her prince. If Camilla has inherited anything from Alice Keppel and her daughter Violet let's hope for her sake it is an ability to be happy, as I think Mrs Keppel was, unlike her poor daughter - the lover of Vita, the lady novelist, the spoilt darling - Violet.

After Sissinghurst, I re-read a novel by Violet Trefusis (who was the of course the daughter of the infamous Mrs Alice Keppel, who was the consort of the lusty King Edward V11) the novel in question was Challenge, and a jolly good read it is too... as are all her novels if read with an eye for the period and if one is in a forgiving mood about the huge amounts of snobbishness and casual racism that was rife then.

But - oh Violet - what a life!

In the wonderful biography by Diana Souhami - Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter, the most unlikely facts are thrown up.  One of them is the simply appalling upbringing of Bertie, the Prince of Wales.   Amongst his other extensive lessons were housekeeping, drill, archeology, gymnastics, calculating, drawing and - wait for it- bricklaying - which went on for seven hours a day six days a week (no wonder he went so badly off the rails as soon as he could)  He had the most awful reports from tutors 'commonly averse to learning', 'wilful inattention' and 'anti-studious practices', which could easily have been my school report too, so I sympathise madly.

Of course by the time he got together with the voluptuous Mrs Keppel, Violet was in the nursery - though in later life, she dropped not very subtle hints that he was her father, claiming they had the same jaw line (family noses all over again) But this was not the case.  She was not of royal blood.  She could play with the Royal whiskers by the nursery fire and slide buttered crumpets down 'Kingy's' trousered legs. But she could not be his daughter.

Violet was dandled on laps, dressed in frills, taught French, music and art.  What else did she need?  Obviously she was going to marry well and that was considered more than enough.

Mrs Keppel was a shrewd judge of character and a money making machine.  Her wealth, even by Edwardian standards, was huge.  She was sensual and greedy and controlling, and covered all of this with the most amazing mask of manners.  That was the way things were done.  Etiquette ruled. The laws of class were upheld.  Adultery was too common to be remarked upon, lovers being allotted joining rooms at weekends away.  Fortunes were won and lost at the gaming tables, gentlemen shot pheasants, drank claret and the women were trained to amuse and quaff champagne, smile at risque jokes whilst wincing at the tightness of corsets.  Servants outnumbered guests, but were seen and not heard.  Just like the children. 

But Violet proved to be no ordinary child.

She'd already chosen a priceless Doge's ring at an antique shop (making the owner blanch with dismay as he expected her to choose a doll) and her waywardness started early.

She was the temptress, the witch, the seducer who longed to be seduced, by Vita.  It is a sad story of it's time.  Violet and Vita lead a tortured love affair, high on passion and romance, fuelled by forbidden love - then Mrs Keppel steps in and promptly arranges a marriage to Denys Trefusis.

Poor Violet.

She expected Vita (married and with two small children herself) to save her.  But she couldn't even save herself.  Her life was not what she expected it to be.  Still wealthy, still attractive and talented but with no discipline or ties, Violet drifted into obscurity, becoming a bore and a joke to her friends.  She returned from her beloved France at the start of the war, leaving her adored home (Vita and Violet both bought towers, which I'm sure Freud would be chortling at) and then had to endure being recognised as Princess Sasha in Virginia Woolf's love-book ot Vita - Orlando. Sasha IS Violet.  Deceitful, lying, duplicitous but no-one could resist such a siren.  At least, it seems that no well born, high bred lesbian in England did. Violet had many conquests, but there was only one love in her heart and that remained unrequited.  She had lost Vita to her husbnad, her children, her garden.  Violet was left with nothing.

This is a wonderful book, giving clear insights to the manners and morals of the day. The heart-breaking letters are re-produced leaving one with a real sense of the passion that the two women went through and the turmoil and torment they caused for their families.

These are the words that Violet wrote about herself.

Accross my life only one word will be written: -"Waste"- Waste of Love, Waste of Talent, Waste of Enterprise.

I think she was wrong. Her books are more readable than Vita's.  Her life was frittered away rather than wasted, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of frippery now and again...

Sissinghurst

I definitely became very Vita-ish, there's no denying it.  And who who wouldn't? Climbing the creaking wooden steps to her writing room in the tower at Sissinghust I was filled with excitement (and annoyance if I'm honest, that I wasn't on my way to have tea with her, but had to share her with the hordes - probably a very Vita like emotion.) Peering through the archway into her double room - where she famously tumbled Violet and later Virginia - felt a tiny bit voyeuristic, to be honest...but I soon got over it.  The divan looked small and shabby, the room was gloomy (the windows too high to be distracted with the glorious views) the writing desk small, and the hearth looked inadequate for anything but a mild autumn day, and how on earth would you carry anything up there? (answer of course - you didn't.  You had servants) A rush up the spiral steps to be blown around by the teasing wind of an English August afternoon and the magical view of her garden.  Bee-hives, apple trees, statues, riots of flowers, and of course the famous White Garden. I was practically elbowing other Vita acolytes out of my way to rush down the tower again and explore the grounds.

Heroically ignoring the many broken armed tourists (really, at one point I thought there was some sort of one armed convention going on the amount of splints, plasters and slings I saw) I whizzed up and down walkways of  pleached limes, box hedges, parterres, and burst upon the White Garden - and oh, my goodness, it was like being on the inside of a glass of champagne.  Bubbly and frothy and exciting and joyous.... and satisfyingly formal.  This wasn't a garden to lounge around in with flip flops, oh no.  Or to share, I suspect.  This was a private joy made by the woman who wore pearls casually 'the size of pigeons eggs' around her aristocratic neck, who treasured a priceless Doges ring, who was daughter of the estate known as Knole, and who fascinated some of the most fascinating people (men and women) of her time.

What was it about her that held people in thrall?  Staring at her portrait inside the main house, it's hard to tell.  Certainly she was beautiful, although the ravages of time were not kind to her, but perhaps she didn't care by then, living for her garden and her writing. The grandness helped of course (what first attracted you to the millionaire?) But really, I don't mean the wealth - I mean the grandness of her very being.  This is the woman who had Leopards as part of her heraldic past, who once saw a stag breathing hot air into a frosty room at the end of a corridor in the enormous Gothic castle of her childhood home, it's antlers wreathed in ivy, snow falling outside, with the caress of ermine at her neck.  Goodness, me the glamour of it all! Hers was a stern beauty worn carelessly, issues ordered from her lips, without a doubt or hesitation that they would be carried out.

But then - the revelation of her intense love of her family.  The love certainly of her husband, her sons, her friends was not something that I had suspected till I read Portrait of a Marriage by Nigel Nicolson. I could not imagine Vita being, well, being cosy. Choosing jewels in Paris - yes.  Striding in daring trousers through fields with a dog? Yes.Toasting crumpets round the nursery fire? No.  But is would seem that I was wrong, this book sets it all straight.

There are wonderful letters, snippets of history, and the remarkable tender portrait of a woman who we think we know.  But we don't.  Do read it.

Poor old Violet Trefusis doesn't come over too well in it, but I shall deal with her at a later date.

A keeper.

Flying the (vintage) Rainbow Flag

What would Cecil Beaton have thought of it?  I have already headed off 3 Sailors, 2 Supermen and a Fireman walking the wrong way towards Pride this weekend.  If I hadn't stopped them they would be in Shoreham by now, missing out on the dubious delights of the Parade (don't get me started on that... long gone are the days of creativity and joyous abandon, now we have sponsored trucks by high street banks happy to take the pink pound) and the shabby entertainment in the tents in the park.  Oh dear.  Although I am, always have been, and undoubtedly always will be a Friend of Dorothy (some would just say Fag Hag of course) I was wondering what the heck Cecil would think?
In the wonderful Beaton in the Sixties, More Unexpurgated Diaries edited by Hugo Vickers, Cecil comes over as a sensitive soul, although obviously a most glorious snob and would have cringed, I think, at the sheer sloppiness of it all.  An elegant, sharp witted creature who was never quite accepted by the people he longed to be accepted by.  A Royal snapper, a set designer, a painter and creator of gardens, he led what must be seen as now, an incredibly priviledged life.  But, oh, how he worked at it. Nothing is left to chance.  The artfully arranged supper, the careless wisp of silk draped over a lamp, the worry of ageing, the fretting over the details... And my goodness, the people he knew.  A positive Who's Who of the rich, the famous, and the infamous.
The critics often use the word 'waspish' with him.  But... what good would be his wonderful diaries if he wasn't a tad waspish?  Certainly I rejoice in knowing that the Queen Mother was too fat to pose for a portrait with her hands in lap, or that she squabbled furiously with Tony Snowdon and Princess Margaret about using a biro to sign a guest book at the London Zoo.  The gossip is really delightful, and matters not that the people involved in the scandles are dead.  The Duke and Duchess of Windsor are described and conversations reported so that I felt I was there.  There, when the Duke (a tiny, weak eyed man) confessed to Cecil that he was too lazy to use the bathroom for a pee sometimes and simply did it out of the window at their residence in Paris.
It wasn't just Royalty, either, though he did have a bellyfull of them.  He chased the new talent, too.  Mick Jagger gets the Cecil Beaton treatment.... His skin is chicken breast white, and of a fine quality. He has enormous in built elegance....He is very gentle with perfect manners.  I was not disappointed.  But then, a few day later round the pool in Tangiers, Mick Jagger walks towards Cecil and he notes...I couldn't believe it was the same person. His face was a white podgy shapelss mess.... He looked like a self-conscious suburban young lady.  Ouch.
And you feel his despair when he meets up with Greta Garbo on a sailing cruise courtesy of a Rothschild private yacht round the Greek Isles. The pair had been romantically involved for decades, but with Cecil it was all talk, really, his persuasions were not heterosexual.  It was her beauty that enslaved him.  But now, after a parting that has lasted years, they are cooped up together on a small yacht and he mourns her lack of substance. She has nothing to fall back on, no conversation, no intimacy, no humour and not much kindness.  They all have to creep around her, terrified of arousing her displeasure. Only once does he glimpse the woman that he had loved all those years, and he cries at the waste of it all.
Probably at no other time in history could Cecil have moved so much with the movers and shakers.  Picasso, Frederick Ashton, Andy Warhol, Barbara Streisand, Coco Channel and Katherine Hepburn all are friends, but none are spared in the diaries.  It's utterly fascinating.  But perhaps even more so are the figures that are not 'names' but hover on the periphery of history.  They too have stories to tell, and the fascination grows.

I can't see Cecil approving of the boys at Pride this weekend, but he no doubt would have his camera to hand, and I bet he would have found the most interesting figure to talk to over a bottle of something delicious in the bar of The Grand.

Gone to the Dogs...

I can make no excuses.  We've gone dog mad here at Seafront Bookreader. After a very lonely time in the flat without a canine friend, we could bear it no longer and succumbed to the charms of the new puppy.  She is a mixture, but mostly Griffon.  She'll be ready to pick up in two weeks time and we're now dashing round the flat to puppy-proof. (Idle occupation, I am aware....)To while away the time till then I re-read Flush by Virginia Woolf re-published in this rather gorgeous addition by Persephone Books.  The plain and elegant front cover is beautiful enough, in a stern grey - but the end papers are a real delight, with swirling ambers and reds.  Virgina Woolf is one of those writers whose lives I know far more about than her books, to be honest.  I struggled with The Waves, Mrs Dalloway and A Room of One's Own - but Flush - well that was a cinch. The dog in question, is of course, the beloved pet of Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (I will admit that I did think of naming new puppy the same, but then had visions of me calling in the rainy park 'Flush, come here, Flush!' and simply couldn't do it, as the associations with a loo is just a little too much.)

The life of the poet and the dog are intertwined in this wonderful study of calustrophobia and stifling emotions.  Poor Flush is forced into being a lap dog, being fed rich tid-bits from the slim white fingers (marred only by the occasional ink stains) of his mistress.  He has to negotiate the over stuffed and stifling bedroom, full of heavy dark furnture and the light deadening curtains and drapes, the invalid trays and medicines, and sits, cramped on the sofa, just being allowed into Wimple Street for a few breaths of fresh air. It made me question the nature of dogs.

This life is appalling for any dog, but however bad the circumstances, the reward for the human in the equation is unconditional love. The loyalty and sheer good will of dogs, must surely be applauded - or should it? Of course, sometimes they do bite back and it made me long for Flush to do so.

Flush dreams of open meadows and unfettered running, and luckily for him it does come in the well documented flit to Italy.  Of course he then has to suffer sharing his mistress, first with Robert Browning and then the child, and worse was to come.  In the heat of Italy and his unchecked roaming of the streets he develops mange.  The scissors are picked up and he is cruelly shorn of his coat.  Flush looks at his reflection and thinks, What am I now? Nothing. He was nobody, certainly not a cocker spaniel  But as he gazed, his ears bald now, and uncurled, seemed to twitch..... He danced on his nude, attenuated legs.  His spirits rose.  So might a great beauty, rising from a bed of sickness and finding her face eternally disfigured laugh with joy to think that she may never look in the glass agian, or fear a rival beauty.  

Of course the book is a wonderful conceit and talking as a dog is something that only the great writers can do without becoming all Marley and Me ...

If you haven't tackled Virgina Woolf, this is a good place to start.

Now, all I have to do is think of a name for the new dog..... But nothing that conjures up bathrooms.