Land Girls

Tags

Angouleme, carpet bag, Cinderellas of the Forces, Circuit des remparts, Concours d'elegance, Delahaye, Freedom of Information Act, General Registrar, Her Majesty's Passport Office, Istanbul, Land Girls, National Trust, Ouspensky, perjury, Pierre Loti, release certificates, Rumi, Russell Square, Simon Bolivar, Snodland, Sufi, T S Eliot, theosophical, Women's Land Army

Sonia said, Yes, I’ve heard of Ouspensky.  He was theosophical, was he

not?

I died a mineral and became a plant

I died as plant and rose to animal

I died as animal and I was Man.. 

-sort of Sufi-inspired Rumi concepts..

Something like that, said Dru.  She had dropped in at Royalist House

to see her mother and to discuss the latest proceedings.

I had a look at some newspaper cuttings which were in the envelope that

Bunbury, Quatrefoil and Quincunx, Solicitors gave us.  There were some

leaflets for a series of lectures that Ouspensky gave at Lady Rothermere’s.

I think that Augusta- she of the Bosphorus- attended when she came over

to London to arrange the birth of her first child.  It was all the rage to go

and hear him at the time. I think T S Eliot and other literary figures went

along.  Augusta had heard him first of all in Istanbul.

So, Diana tried to keep on track, she gave birth in London to Augusta 2?

Yes, said Dru. She had  taken a room in Russell Square, near to

Ouspensky’s lodgings.  Lord Wyvern arranged it.  I think it was in his

town house.  Some of her letters were on his notepaper.

Lord Wyvern?  How did he come into it? asked Diana.

Well, she had had a fling with him a good few years before, but they had

parted amicably, before he married Aurelia Tindall.  Augusta’s baby wasn’t

his; it was definitely the rug seller’s; his name was on the birth certificate.

She popped Augusta 2 into a carpet bag and bounced back to the Bosphorous

to live the female equivalent of a Pierre Loti dream.

How had they- I mean Lord Wyvern and Augusta1- come across each

other?

I think Aurelia’s mother and Augusta worked on the land during

World War 1.  Lord Wyvern’s first wife and Aurelia’s mother had been

friends at a London Finishing School. The Land Girls used to hang about

The Red Lion Pub, spending some of their 18/- a week.  Because Augusta

1 used to nostalgically talk to her daughters about the rural idyll that was

Kent, they developed a fascination for it and, after Augusta 2 left St Vitus’,

having been Head Girl, she went to join the WLA, as one of the Cinderellas

of the Forces and headed for the hop-picking. She didn’t want to live in

Istanbul.

WLA? queried Diana.

Women’s Land Army, Sonia butted in.

She wrote to Berenice and told her what larks she was having and

Berenice got herself expelled and, once she was seventeen and a half,

she signed up too.  Wearing breeches appealed to her. She had an

affair with Anthony for a couple of years.  Of course, her mother hadn’t

given her any moral compass.

So, that’s why he recognised the family resemblance in Augusta 2 in

Snodland Nursing Home?

Yes, I suppose so.  The sisters were alike.

When did he take up with Aurelia?  Sonia was a stickler for detail.

Oh, not till about 1948 or 1949-after he rescued Peregrine.

And Gus was born in 1950, added Diana.  She had always

remembered his birthday, if only to supply him with socks.

Correct.  Aurelia paid Berenice to pretend that the baby was hers,

but Berenice took Father to Istanbul.  Her mother wasn’t interested

in him and so Augusta 2 eventually arranged his enrolment into St

Birinus’ pre-prep department, Dru explained.

And Berenice took the money and ran off? Sonia frowned.

..to Venezuela, to follow romantic dreams about Simon Bolivar, taking

after her vagabond mother, Dru clarified. The sisters had received

their release certificates from the WLA in 1950.

But Berenice was born in Istanbul? Diana probed.

In 1923. Lord Wyvern married Aurelia in 1934 when he was

fifty-four.

How old was she? Sonia asked.

About eighteen, Dru looked disapproving. Some of her girls in the

boarding house were of a similar age.

And when did he die? Sonia was analysing every detail.

Well, the boys were born in 1935 and 1936..

Lionel and Peregrine? Diana checked.

Yes, in quick succession! But Lord Wyvern died on his way to the

Circuit des Remparts, in Angouleme, in 1939.

Angouleme?  Sonia couldn’t quite place this French city.

‘Monaco without sea’, as it was known.  In the Charente.

He was travelling in a Concours d’Elegance and he got a flat

tyre. He jacked up his Delahaye, but it collapsed on top of

him and crushed his chest.

So Lady Wyvern had been a widow for six years when Anthony

arrived to tutor the boys?  Sonia was on the ball.

She was thirty-six when Father was born.  By 1955 she was dead and

the house and estate given over to The National Trust.  Except for

grandfather being allowed to remain in the stable block apartment

until his decease, by special arrangement.  Lionel had gambled away

most of his inheritance.

What I can’t understand is why Berenice, or the others, were not

prosecuted for perjury on the registration document? said Diana.

Mum, there may be a warning about criminal offences and falsification

on the certificate itself, but no one has been prosecuted for the last

thirty-five years for faking parentage.  Under The Freedom Of

Information Act, I checked all this from her Majesty’s Passport

Office.

So, there isn’t much incentive to tell the truth? remarked Sonia.

‘The Registrar General does not routinely investigate the

circumstances in which erroneous information came to be given

at registration’ were the exact words, as I recall, said Dru.  And,

anyway, there is a time limit of three years to report suspicions

to the police.  You would need DNA from all involved and Anthony

and Aurelia are dead, as is Berenice.

So, the records are not likely to be changed?  Diana said.

You’ve got it! replied Dru.

 

Balls

Tags

Cadbury's Creme egg, Call the Midwife, Cato, coronet, De Agri Cultura, Discovery Trail, Easter Bunny, gastropod, Gladstone bag, Istanbul, Judas, kelim, Laetare Sunday, Mary Berry, marzipan, mollusc, onesie, Paralympian, placenta, plakous, plebeian, Simnel cake, souk, Thornton's chocolate, Tortoise and Hare, Wyvern Mote

Great-Aunt Augusta was ready and waiting for them.  She was

ensconced in her usual corner of Snodland Nursing Home for the

Debased Gentry and the tea trolley had been parked beside her little

enclave.

Her gimlet eyes had already detected the Thornton chocolate egg that

Drusilla was bearing.  The old lady smiled broadly and greeted them with

an invitation that could not be refused:  Go on- have some placenta cake.

It’s that time of year.

Snod sat down in one of the institutional high-backed chairs.  What did

you just say, Aunt Augusta?  I need to have my ears syringed.

Placenta cake.  One always has it from Laetare Sunday onwards.

Oh, I see.  You are drawing an analogy with that plakous cake so beloved

of the Greeks?  But I thought that was made with dough, cheese, honey and

was flavoured with bay leaves.  Wasn’t there a recipe for it in Cato’s De Agri

Cultura?

Possibly, replied Aunt Augusta, but people have linked it to our Simnel cake

and Matron has allowed us to have one for afternoon tea.  So, you be

mother, she directed Drusilla.

Dru looked relieved that she was not going to be faced with something

slithery from Call the Midwife.  It looked fairly innocuous, but shop-bought.

It’s to a recipe from that youngster Mary Berry, Augusta informed them.

Ah, simila, meaning ‘fine flour’, Snod pontificated.  It was going to be a

long afternoon.

And you know all about the balls?  Augusta interrogated Dru, distracting

her while she was pouring, so that she slopped some tea into the saucers.

Balls?  Coronets had them and now simnel cakes.  They were ubiquitous. 

Balls? Dru repeated gormlessly.

Gus looked a little red-faced.

They represent the Apostles.  Minus Judas.  But when I baked mine, I

always used to add him in. After all, he did repent.

Hmm, mused Dru.  I’ve been thinking about that during Lent.  I would like to

be inclusive in my attitude too.

You see, Augusta said.  I knew we think alike.  So, assuming that you don’t

have one of those dreadful tramp stamps, I can now give you an Easter

present.  Fair exchange, as I see you have brought me a Thornton’s

chocolate treat.  Just something mother picked up in a souk in Istanbul,

or somewhere.  Don’t get too excited.

Dru looked puzzled as Aunt Augusta opened a kind of Gladstone made

from a Turkish saddle-bag. Or maybe it was Anatolian.  Dru wasn’t an

expert.

This is for you.  Don’t open it here.  I’ve been hiding it ever since I came in

here, in case one of the inmates took a fancy to it.  I was going to give it to

your father, but he has had the proceeds from quite a few of Mother’s kelims

in the past, so now it is your turn.

She picked off a marzipan ball and popped it into her mouth.

Like a hole in one, Snod thought.  Not much evidence of a significant

handicap.

Dru thanked her and together they managed to wrap her up and wheel

her out for the afternoon.  Of course, they went to Wyvern Mote, where,

I am afraid to relate, Aunt Augusta whirled her wheelchair around a

children’s Discovery Trail, as if she was a Paralympian, and bagged

all the Cadbury’s Creme Eggs which had just been secreted by a giant

Easter Bunny in a ridiculous Onesie.

Sugar is very bad for you, she justified herself.  I heard it on the news. 

It doesn’t matter at my age, but I am saving the little ones from future

health problems.

And she stuffed a whole one into her mouth, much as she had done with

the marzipan ball, leaving a trail of slivers of silver paper behind her, like

an orienteering trail, or the shiny slime from a sweet-loving snail.

(I was going to write ‘toothed’ instead of ‘loving‘, but the metaphor didn’t work

for gastropods and molluscs.)  Tant pis, as the escargot race are wont to say.

Once she had been delivered safely and they had driven off, Dru raised a

subject that she had been saving for a private moment.

I had a letter from someone whom I haven’t heard from for quite some time,

she said to Snod, after they had reached a straight section of road.

Oh, who was that? Gus asked, only mildly interested.  Get out of the way,

you plebeian!  It’s 30mph, or can’t you read?  It’s the hare and the tortoise

all over again!

Someone had cut him up and it wasn’t a policeman.  He reserved the

right to use the term, as a long-standing Classics scholar.

Mum doesn’t know, but it was from Murgatroyd.  He wants me to go up and

stay for a couple of days.  To see what he’s achieved in the restoration of his

house in the Borders.  Allegedly.

Indeed, remarked Snod.  This was a useful word which he employed to

good effect in difficult parental interviews.  Why do you say ‘allegedly’?

Because I think he misses me. He was in loco parentis for my first

formative years.

And I wasn’t, I suppose.  The latter was not expressed with any hint of

bitterness.

There was silence for a few minutes.  Then Snod responded.

In the light of our conversation on Judas, I can only say that we might as

well think of Murgatroyd as an extra ball.  He may not be the icing on the

familial cake, but he probably needs to be included.

Father, that’s generous of you.  It makes no difference to how I feel about

our relationship.

What about your mother?  Do you want me to keep the lid on this for the

moment?  She’s moving house and perhaps that is enough stress for her

at present.

I will think about how to tell her, but for now, it’s what I feel I have to do.

Snod dropped her off at Royalist House in High Street.  She was

exhausted.

Here!  You forgot your present! shouted Snod, handing her the parcel out

through the driver’s window.  It was quite heavy for its size.

He wasn’t going to come in.  He had some work to do for the new term

and he was so behind.  Would he change his name, or leave things

as they were? Decisions, decisions..

 

Repeating History

Tags

agapanthus, Bosphorous, Bradford on Avon, Caracas, City of Eternal Spring, dianthus, Dux, emporium, entomology, flying carpet, grandiflora, Istanbul, Iznik tile, Jesse Tree, kelim, National Trust, Panama, Simon Bolivar, Turkish Delight

Great-Aunt Augusta unwrapped the Turkish Delight as she sat

in her velours recliner in the private area of the Recreational

Room of her Care Home.

Now, are you sitting comfortably? she addressed her great-niece,

Drusilla Fotheringay.

The exophoric reference wasn’t entirely lost on Dru, so she nodded

and gave the signal for the old bag to commence on the veritable

Jesse Tree of the family genealogy.

(Jesse Tree Chartres: Wikipaedia)

Now, your great-grandmother-also Augusta-was a bit of a goer, or

a flibbertigibbet, as I told you before.  She bounced around the

Bosphorous with her rug seller for a number of years, before settling

down in Istanbul and establishing a kitten sanctuary, once her partner

had flown off on his flying carpet, to that large emporium in the sky.

Your great-aunt Berenice, my elder sister (God Rest Her Soul!), was a

bit of a gadabout too.  In the genes, clearly.

She used to go to parties almost every weekend, in big, country

houses.

In Turkey?  Dru looked confused.

No.  We had both been sent to boarding schools over here.  She used

to frequent the Wyvern Estate and that was her downfall.  She GOT

INTO TROUBLE.

Difficult in these days, no doubt.  Dru sympathised, as well she

might, given her own personal history.

Not difficult at all.  It happened all too easily. They were pressurising

Berenice to get rid of the ‘problem’.  They offered her a lot of money and

a contact in Knightsbridge.

‘They’?

The family of the alleged father, of course.  Augusta looked at

Dru as if she was somewhat dense.  But I persuaded her to have

it- your father, I mean.

But who was..?

No proof, but someone with an interest in entomology.

Ent..?

Yes, Berenice was a social butterfly and he netted her.  But he couldn’t

pin her down!  None of us could.  She wanted her freedom and so our

mother took the baby for a while, but she felt her own style was being

cramped, so eventually I arranged for your father to start prep school over

here as a full boarder, at St Birinus.

So, Father has spent his whole life at St Birinus?

Except for when he was at University- yes!  He’s completely

institutionalised.

What happened to Berenice?

We don’t know.  She’s one of the disappeared.  The last we heard

of her she was in Caracas, City of Eternal Spring.  El Libertador

was one of her heroes.

El..?

Simon Bolivar.

Ah. Dru’s South American historical knowledge was rather

vague. Who paid Dad’s fees?

The Wyvern Estate and, once my mother passed on, her demise

hastened by an infected feline scratch, I inherited all the antique

kelims and sold them off, as and when, along with some Iznik tiles,

to cover his ‘extras’.

Fascinating.  Did Berenice ever reveal the paternity of her son?

Not exactly, but she did take Gus to the estate very early on,

before she ran off, to meet some gardener or other.

Gardener?!

He lived in a converted stable block at Wyvern Mote.

But that’s National Trust, surely?

Ah, yes, but I suspect that it was grace and favour ‘accommodation’,

in both senses of the word.  He wasn’t much of a horticulturalist; didn’t

know his dianthus from his agapanthus, from all accounts.

Maybe he was a natural son of the old duke?! Dru’s eyes burned with

revelatory fire.

Peut-etre, surmised her great-aunt, who now looked more favourably

at her visitor.  Look, she said, rummaging in a shoe box.  Oh no,

that’s your father aged six months, lying on a sheepskin in his birthday suit.

Dru averted her gaze.

No, here it is!  Augusta produced a faded sepia image of a man remarkably

like Gus.  He was reclining in a striped deckchair, wearing a Panama hat and

he had a glass in his right hand.  There was a large mansion behind him.

So this is possibly my grandfather?  Dru scrutinised the photo. I wonder what

his name was.

Oh, I call him Eamonn Teabag Grandiflora, Aunt Augusta scoffed wickedly.

All these men in Panama hats look the same- ie/ better when they wear

one.  Compare that Kermit MacDulloch who presented a ‘History of

Christianity’ and then the latest posho who is following him around,

probably with the same camera crew.  They visit the same graffiti and

make identical comments. They are all clones!

Grandiflora?

Well, Seaweed Millefiore, or Hymen Montezuma.  Whatever.  Anyway, your

possible ancestor, whom I call Grandiflora, almost certainly spread his seed

around.  Perhaps like the old duke himself.

So perhaps I have links to aristocracy?

Well, Miss Grandiose, I’d let bygones be bygones, if I were you.

But may I ask you one final question?  Dru was conscious that a storm

was predicted and that she had a long journey back to Bradford-on-Avon.

Fire away! replied the elderly one, nibbling on a cube of Turkish delight and

not offering to share any from the box.

What boarding school did you and Berenice attend? Dru asked.

St Vitus’ School for the Academically-Gifted Girl, of course.  But in those days

it was just St Vitus’ for anyone who could pay the fees.  My name is on the

Dux Board over the main stairwell.  Surely you have seen it?

Strange.  ‘Augusta Snodbury’.  Why had she never noticed it? And was there

something in her own genes that constrained her to repeat history?  She

hoped not.

And the way things were going, there may be a future titular amendment

to the establishment at which she earned her crust:  St Vitus’ School might

end up as an Academy for the Academically-Challenged.  Qui sait!

Cabinet of Curiosities

Tags

cabinet of curiosities, Calypso Carol, Carmen, Daily Mail, Easter Island, Financial Times, Hawaiian shirt, huzun, Istanbul, Moai, Monteverdi, Nobel Prize, Orhan Pamuk, oxymoron, Panama hat, Rolls Royce, Royal Yacht, Simon Schama, Singer sewing machine, The Longs Arms, Weekend Magazine

I always feel guilty when I destroy the barista’s carefully created fern on the

top of my coffee, but, then, one has to drink the frothy arrangement.

Goodness knows, one has paid enough for it, especially at Costamuchamoulah

must-seen cafe.   At least The Financial Times Weekend magazine can be

appropriated from the public wall rack, to compensate.  The Yummies always

go for The Daily Mail, I find.

Oh, the ecstasy of finding Simon Schama and Orhan Pamuk in the same article.

I loved the novel Istanbul and was fascinated by the concept of huzun, a state

of collective memory.

Pamuk has gathered a series of objects which he stores and displays in

cabinets and these items resonate with memory traces of significant moments

in his characters’ lives.  Once these memories are categorised, they can be

stored and owned.

I wondered if I could rent or purchase a building in Suttonford where I could

collect objects connected with the narrative of my characters’ lives?

Re-winding some of my posts, I could imagine the first vitrines exhibiting a

crystal ball which belonged to Sonia, the medium who lives in Royalist House.

An empty bottle of Dewlap’s Gin for the Discerning Grandmother would

represent Sonia’s neighbour, Ginevra.  The latter’s e-novel based on a meeting

of geriatric hearts and minds could be referred to by a mobility scooter, which,

of course, would take up a large glass box on its own- something like the one

which protected HM’s Rolls Royce on The Royal Yacht, Britannia.

Doomed romance would be conveyed by the original Valentine, complete with

its proposal of marriage (never received) which the youthful Augustus

Snodbury slid under the nubile lax mistress, Diana Fotheringay’s door all those

troubled years ago.  The diamond ring which fell down the cracks in the

floorboards at The Longs Arms, but which was recovered, though not without

embarrassment, would also speak volumes to the tender-hearted.

Perhaps there could be an unmade bed which still belongs to Tiger-Lily and a

string of knitted women bishops which was removed from the cathedral

railings in Wintoncester, having been yarn-bombed there by Juniper, the

increasingly famous, gender-fluid, street graffiti artist.

The town’s canine lovers might donate a diamante pug collar belonging to

Pooh-Bah and the ever-present risk of animal vandalism might be portrayed

by the photograph of the priceless Pre-Moai figure from Easter Island, which

Andy, the Border Terrier so thoroughly digested.

Academic life could be shown by the Hawaiian shirt which one of the

Willoughby twins wore when he played the solo marimba in The Calypso Carol

at the end of term concert at St Birinus, and which provoked a caution

regarding the upholding of school rules regarding uniform.

Staying on a musical theme, the programme notes for the Monteverdi concert

in Bath which so riveted Drusilla, Diana and Gus would be interesting to study

in future years, as the cast list so clearly displayed Geoffrey Poskett and Nigel

Milford- Haven, of whom much more has to be said in future posts.

Snod’s battered Panama hat, which he sat on inadvertently at the

aforementioned concert and which Nigel effectively ruined by wearing it

when painting his mother’s bathroom ceiling, should be juxtaposed to set

up a dialogue with the alternative headgear which Nigel’s mother fished out

of her black sack and gave to him to wear to the opera, Carmen.  Placed side

by side, the museum-goer should be able to detect that this hat which Nigel,

or Caligula as he is affectionately called by the children in his care, is going to

return duplicitously to his older colleague in lieu of the original- oh, drat, I’ve

given away the plot..- will be seen to be a size seven and a quarter, and not

the seven and three quarters which Snod has always sported on his rather

large dome of a head.

History, and family history at that, will be brought to life by the inclusion of a

Singer sewing machine which belonged to Jean Waddell, Carrie’s maternal

grandmother.

I am excited by the prospect of making the intangible tangible.  Oxymoron

creates such dynamic tension!

Thank you for the idea, Orhan.  I won’t expect a Nobel Prize for it as it would

be akin to plagiarism, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

(To understand the exophoric references and intertextuality of this entry,

please refer to previous posts!)