Sir Denys Lasdun C467/09/01 F5346A Page 1 F5346 Side A [Interviewing Sir Denys Lasdun at his office at 146 Grosvenor Road, on the 12th of November 1996. Interviewer Jill Lever. This is tape 1.] Denys, we're going to start a little bit about your background, what you know of it. Well now, my father was Russian, I think lived before he married my mother in Königsberg, which became Germany. I have very little memory - oh, no memory of him, as a person at all, because he died when I was five, but I do know that he was a cousin of Leon Bakst, who was the impresario - sorry, Leon Bakst was the designer for the ballet. Pause. Oh, Diaghilev's. Diaghilev's, yes, right. And, the only other thing that I know from writing papers that I have at home is that at some period towards my being aged four, he was in partnership with somebody called Wilson who was to do with civil engineering and building materials in those days. I mean I was born in 1914. Yes. But was your father actually an engineer? No, I don't think he was, but he was...he seems to have been very interested in political matters, he wrote letters to the Prime Minister, that kind of thing. I think he was basically a romantic businessman, probably. Yes. What was his business mostly? I think it was this bricks and building materials. There was a firm that he was partly connected with. And that's about all I know. When, do you know when he came to England? I don't think he came to England. He married my mother in Japan, and then went to Australia where I was after being born in London. I was in Australia at the age of three, then went to America on our way back to England, but he died from an operation, and that's all I know. Sir Denys Lasdun C467/09/01 F5346A Page 2 He died in America? In America, yes. Yes. Was your mother English? Yes. I mean she was...yes, English yes, born I think in Australia but I don't think she claims to be Australian. What was her name? Julie Abrahams. Yes. What was your father's name, his first name? Norman. Norman. Norman Lasdun, yes. Was that anglicised or was he...? Well I think the Norman was anglicised from Nathan, I suspect. Yes. Yes. They were both Jewish backgrounds. Yes. Were they religiously Jewish. No, not at all. My mother if anything, not disliked but did not engage herself with religion, orthodox, at all. And when she decided which school to send me to, it was basically on a school which would be in her view the most liberal in all matters including religion, and that I was to conform to whatever was the norm at that school, which we'll come to later. Yes. When your father died, did your mother then decide to return? Sir Denys Lasdun C467/09/01 F5346A Page 3 Yes. She was also, apart from being an exceedingly good musician, gave recitals as an accompanist, she was also very much involved with a rather well known publisher in America called Liveright, Horace Liveright, of the firm Boni and Liveright, B-O-N- I. And for that firm, she continued to work for that firm when she came to England, reading plays, reading books of all kinds, with a view to them being published in America, and Horace Liveright became a very close friend of hers. And so she had, as far as I know, these two interests, music and literature. And publishing as it were. Well, really publishing, for which she had to read a great deal. Yes. And when she brought you to England, did you live in London? Pembridge Place, yes. No, I was born in Pembridge Place. Yes. But at that...when she came to London we lived in the Van Dyck Hotel opposite the Natural History Museum. Why were you born in Pembridge Place? Was that your grandmother's house? I have no idea why I was born, but that's where I was born. Yes. Yes, I was born there. It's a good question, I don't know the answer. I don't know. You used to live in Dawson Place. Well, yes. When my mother got to England we lived with my grandmother at the Van Dyck Hotel in Cromwell Road. Subsequently we moved to some flats in Palace Gate, opposite Wells Coates' building in Palace Gate, and then, just before the war, she bought a house in Dawson Place, which is where we subsequently lived. And you built a flat on the top I think, an extension. I built my little pad on the top. Sir Denys Lasdun C467/09/01 F5346A Page 4 Yes. So when you were five or so, you would have gone to school, a pre-prep school. I went to the French Lycee with a brown pinafore and black stockings, and hated the place. Did you speak French before you got there? No. I had French mademoiselles looking after me, I remember them, rather nice ladies. Yes. Is your French still good? No, awful, it's all gone. How long were you at the Lycee for? I don't know, I suppose a couple of years. And then you went to another school. And I also went to the Royal College of Music, because the family had a miniature cello and my mother insisted that only the best would be good enough for her little boy, so I was sent to learn cello with a really famous teacher, Ivor James, who after one lesson said, 'Your little boy I think could do with just as well with so-and-so, he doesn't need me'. So it never developed, and I had no feeling for it at all. How long did you persevere? Not very long. Not very long. I was much more interested in football. And where would you have played football? Sir Denys Lasdun C467/09/01 F5346A Page 5 At Gibbs School, which is where I went to, a prep school. That would be after, after the Lycee. Gibbs School was a day school in Sloane Street, cherry caps, so I played football there. Did your mother have to earn the money that supported you both, or was there some other money? I think there was money, but of course she was, as far as I know, paid for her literary work, but there was a bit of money, not rich but some money. My grandmother had some money. Did you have a nanny at all? Yes I must have had them, but the only ones I remember are the French governess, the French mademoiselles as I call them, they were youngish, and they took me around at age eight or seven or something like that. And, did your mother have a maid, would there have been help in that quite large house? Yes, she had a cook, Elsie, who was part of the family kind of thing, yes, and I think there was a girl that was also a maid at times, as far as I remember. Were you very close to your mother, as a small boy? Well if you're the only child of a widowed mother you're bound to be close, and... But she was on the whole very sensitive that I should not be mother's boy, and was deliberately sent to a boarding school in Broadstairs when I was about nine or ten or whatever, whenever one goes. And when she picked Rugby it was on the basis that Rugby was not snobby, it was drawing boys from the Midlands, from the North, from everywhere, and that there was generally a kind of liberal ethos about Rugby in those days. Did you find that? Yes, I mean, my career in Rugby was distinguished entirely by mediocrity, but I spent most of my time with a very interesting man who ran the art school, Talbot Kelly[ph], and Talbot Kelly[ph] was a well known water-colourist, and with a particular interest Sir Denys Lasdun C467/09/01 F5346A Page 6 and knowledge of birds, and he used to make models of birds in paper so that the children could fold the paper and make birds. So I spent an awful lot of time with him. But, apart from that, no distinction at the school at all. But it was a very...they were not unhappy days. No. Did you tend towards the sciences or with the arts? Arts. Definitely. Yes, yes. And languages as well perhaps? A bit, but mostly the arts. What about games? Oh yes, I was keen on games, I mean I liked playing rugger, but I never got, I got what are called your black socks or whatever it is, nothing higher than that. But I did enjoy it. Yes, was that the first team, or...? No no no, you had a cap for the first team. Yes. What position did you play? Now what position did I...? I think I was scrum half, I think. Yes. Is that the one who dives in the middle and gets the ball out? No, that's a hooker. No, it's when the ball comes out he passes it quickly to the backs. Oh right, yes. I think I was... Sir Denys Lasdun C467/09/01 F5346A Page 7 That was you? Yes.