The Anthony Powell Society Newsletter
Issue 25, Winter 2006 ISSN 1743-0976
A Peaceful Christmas and a Prosperous New Year to all members & friends of the Society
Contents From the Secretary’s Desk … 2 Nina Hamnett – A Sketch … 3 A Powell Letter ... 5 UK Armed Forces Ranks … 6 AN Wilson & Betjeman … 8 Widmerpool Award 2006 … 9 Summarise Dance Competition … 10 In the News … 10 Society Notices & Events … 11 Local Group News … 14 Bertolt Brecht, The Life of Galileo … 15 From the APLIST … 16 Letters to the Editor … 20 AGM Minutes … centre spread Christmas Quizzes … centre spread Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25 From the Secretary’s Desk The Anthony Powell Society Welcome to the 25th Anthony Powell Registered Charity No. 1096873
Society Newsletter. I think you’ll agree this is something of a landmark: the Newsletter The Anthony Powell Society is a has been going for 6 years and the Society charitable literary society devoted to the only slightly longer. life and works of the English author Anthony Dymoke Powell, 1905-2000. Newsletter issue 1 was very different from this issue. It was hastily created in Officers & Executive Committee Microsoft Word; printed on A4 paper; photocopied, stapled and mailed by the Patron: John MA Powell editor’s fair hand; and was a mere 8 pages, President: Simon Russell Beale including the flyer for the Eton conference. Hon. Vice-Presidents: What a difference now when we produce Julian Allason the page mark-up in a proper publishing Hugh Massingberd tool; have a more compact page size; *Chairman: Patric Dickinson improved design; and professional printing *Hon. Secretary: Dr Keith C Marshall and mailing. What’s more the Newsletter is *Hon. Treasurer: Dr Derek Miles now generally at least 24 pages – this one, with the inserts, will be 32 pages! And that *Committee Members: is in addition to the Society’s newly Dr Christine Berberich launched journal: Secret Harmonies. Dr Nicholas Birns (USA) Leatrice Fountain (USA) For all of this we must thank our Editor, Stephen Holden Stephen Holden. Without him the Tony Robinson Newsletter would not have flourished as it Elwin Taylor has and the journal would not exist. Newsletter & Journal Editor: Did we ever think we would get here? Stephen Holden Well I know we all hoped we would! Hon. Archivist: Noreen Marshall While we all hoped the Society would grow PR/Media Adviser: Julian Allason faster than it has we have achieved a huge amount in the last 6 years: three major All correspondence should be sent to: conferences and proceedings; a couple of Hon. Secretary, Anthony Powell Society monographs, with more to come; and the 76 Ennismore Avenue, Greenford launch of the journal. We also made a big Middlesex, UB6 0JW, UK contribution to the celebration of Powell’s Phone: +44 20 8864 4095 centenary in 2005. That is a lot for a Fax: +44 20 8864 6109 Society of a few hundred members. Email: [email protected]
And let’s not forget the huge amount of enjoyment we’ve given to many, many * Members of the Executive Committee who are people around the world. the Society’s trustees. All trustees are resident in England or Wales unless stated. So this Christmas let’s all raise a glass to the Society, to our Editor and of course to our hero, Anthony Powell. © The Anthony Powell Society, 2006 and the individual authors named. All rights reserved. May you all have a peaceful Christmas and Published by The Anthony Powell Society. a prosperous New Year! Printed and distributed by Express Printing, Peterborough, UK
2 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25 Nina Hamnett – A Sketch by James Mitchum
Nina Hamnett, the “Queen of Bohemia”, Torso sculpture that provided her with the was born on St Valentine’s Day in 1890 in title of her autobiography in 1932. Tenby in South Wales. By coincidence, In Montparnasse she met her husband, the another artist with whom she was to be Norwegian artist Roald Kristian, though acquainted, Augustus John, had been born theirs was a difficult marriage that ended in the same street in 1878. Like Powell in divorce. During her time in Paris she she was an army brat, spending her continued to paint, mainly portraits, and childhood in a succession of army camps exhibited at the Royal Academy in London throughout the UK. and at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. She From 1906 to 1907 she studied at the also worked for Roger Fry’s Omega Pelham Art School and then at the London Workshops producing designs for avant- School of Art until 1910. One of her tutors garde fabrics, clothes, murals, furniture (and her favourite teacher) at the latter and the like. She also became Fry’s school was George Lambert, father of mistress: “the most fascinating, exciting, Powell’s best friend Constant Lambert. She was also taught by William Nicholson. Her talent as an artist was soon spotted by the likes of John and Sickert, both of whom sketched and painted her several times. (Incidentally, one of Hamnett’s friends from the Slade was called Edward Le Bas, possibly the source of Powell’s use of the name in Dance.) In 1914 she went to Paris to study at Marie Vassilieff’s academy in Montparnasse. On Anthony Powell Resides Here her first night in Paris she went to the café CRAWFORD DOYLE BOOKSELLERS seeks La Rotonde where the man at the next and sells early editions of Anthony table introduced himself as “Modigliani, Powell’s works together with those of other distinguished British authors such painter and Jew”. They became close as Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse, friends and Hamnett often modelled for Virginia Woolf, Henry Green and him. In later years she would hoick up her James Lees-Milne. In addition to rare blouse displaying her bust with the boast, books, we offer a complete collection of “Modi always said I had the best tits”. She new books in our store near the Metropolitan Museum. Catalogs issued also met and befriended the likes of upon request. Cocteau, Diaghilev, Picasso and Satie, and 1082 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10028 encountered the sculptor Henri Gaudier- Open seven days per week Brzeska. They became lovers and he Telephone: 212 289 2345 [email protected] made a sculpture of her dancing naked. Member, Antiquarian Booksellers’ Later Nina would introduce herself to Association of America, Inc. people with the comment, “You know me, m’dear – I’m in the V&A with me left tit knocked off!” This was the Laughing 3 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25 tantalising, elusive, beautiful, exasperating Soho which featured Russian billiard creature in the world”. tables (possibly the inspiration for the scenes in Dance where Jean Templer and On her return to London in 1926 she soon Nick Jenkins play billiards). Hamnett took became a regular fixture in Fitzrovia, the Powell and Constant Lambert to visit the part of London so named after the Fitzroy impoverished, opium-smoking Count de Tavern on the corner of Charlotte and Malleisque and his wife, who were staying Windmill Streets in Soho. She brought at the Cavendish Hotel in Jermyn Street with her, according to the music critic accompanied by their Pekinese and a pet Cecil Gray, “a nostalgic breath of the old monkey who was perpetually trying to spirit of Montparnasse”. defend itself from the unwelcome sexual She must have met Anthony Powell in attentions of the dog. Powell described the 1927 or 1928 when she was 37 or 38 and scene at the Cavendish in Messengers of he 22 or 23. She and Osbert Sitwell were Day: the Count collaborating on a book (published by would play the guitar, or do Duckworth’s) on London’s statues which newspaper puzzles (which were to she was illustrating. She met Powell when win him some enormous prize), while she delivered some drawings to the company drank Pernod, and a Duckworth’s where he worked. Hamnett clergyman’s voice intoned church took an immediate liking to Powell and services on the radio. invited him to her studio to draw him. (A pencil sketch of Powell by Nina Hamnett The Count features in Agents and Patients was shown in the recent Wallace as the Marquis de la Tour d’Espagne. Collection exhibition.) For Powell, In his memoirs Powell writes of Hamnett’s according to Hamnett’s biographer, “Nina heavy drinking and belligerent manner: held out the promise of adventure into an unknown Bohemian world” for someone a condition not affecting her gift, but eager to taste more of London life than the restricting continuous work to a few season of deb balls. According to Peter months at best; human relationships Quennell, to equally fragmentary associations. Nina was Anthony Powell’s first grown-up love affair. He was rather pleased with it at the time. She satisfactorily deprived him of his innocence, which is a thing people were anxious to get rid of in those days. He built her up as a romantic femme de trente ans, a Bohemian mistress. During their relationship Hamnett introduced Powell to a bizarre Firbankian world some of which he reproduces in Agents and Patients (1936). They would often visit little bistros and restaurants in Nina Hamnett 4 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
She would always refer to Powell as her A Powell Letter “little Etonian”. Dr Jonathan Black, in the course of his Hamnett had always been a heavy drinker research into the painter Edward but was now losing her ability to cope with Wadsworth, has unearthed the following the booze. At the same time she began to letter from Powell to Wadsworth’s develop a taste for boxers, sailors and daughter, Barbara, now owned by her other “rough trade”. When asked why she youngest son, Alex Hollweg. The letter favoured sailors, she replied, “Because concerns a typewriter that Powell gave they leave in the morning”. Barbara Wadsworth. In 1932 she published her autobiography, The notepaper is headed: Laughing Torso, which was a best seller in the UK and USA, but became the subject Gerald Duckworth, of a libel case from Aleister Crowley. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Crowley (a possible part model for Dr Dated: 5 April 1932 Trelawney in Dance) objected to a passage in the book that read: “... How will you type? Are you writing a book yourself? The Crowley had a temple in Cefalu in possession of a typewriter is usually a Sicily. He was supposed to practice prelude to it ... I have damaged two of Black Magic there, and one day a the wheels of my car by driving on baby was said to have disappeared the pavement along the Great West mysteriously. There was a goat also Road. If I can repair it I shall very there. This all points to Black Magic, much look forward to seeing you so people said, and the inhabitants of again at Maresfield. My the village were frightened of him. misadventures show how dangerous Hamnett won the libel case but the it is to be sober in charge of a car.” situation appears to have profoundly Signed: “yours, Tony” affected her for the rest of her life. She was to spend a good part of the next few Dr Black has nearly finished his book on decades of her life inhabiting the bars of Wadsworth and Photography and it will the Fitzroy Tavern and the Wheatsheaf include a photo of a pipe-smoking Powell pubs, exchanging anecdotes for drinks. To at Maresfield in May 1929. enter a pub, wrote Constantine Fitzgibbon, Dr Jonathan Black is author of Form, Feeling and “and not to buy Nina a drink was in those Calculation: The Paintings and Drawings of days and in that world a solecism that Edward Wadsworth, Philip Wilson Publishers, amounted to a social stigma”. London, 2005.
In December 1956 she threw herself off her balcony, or drunkenly slipped, and was impaled on the railings below, dying shortly afterwards. Nowadays she is remembered too much as only a Fitzrovian legend rather than for the fine painter and designer she was.
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UK Armed Forces Ranks – A Comparison By Keith Marshall
In the military episodes of Dance Powell whole panoply of catering roles, again deals mostly with the UK Army, there mostly NCOs and men who would being only passing references to the Air normally be non-combatant, from the Force and the Navy, plus the small number lowly Mess Waiter (vide Private of foreign military personnel (mostly Stringham) upwards. officers) with whom Jenkins has contact. In addition the Army traditionally have However I am occasionally asked the different names for Private in many corps/ equivalent of a rank in one of the UK regiments. Examples are Trooper; Sapper Armed Services with another of the (Royal Engineers); Signaller; Craftsman Services. The table opposite is a general (in REME; Royal Electrical and view of the rank equivalences. While this Mechanical Engineers); Fusilier; Gunner is a current comparison it would not have (Artillery Regiments); etc. Similarly some been very different during World War II. corps/regiments have different names for This comparison ignores the specialist NCOs; for example, Lance-Bombardier roles found within most corps and and Bombardier (for Lance-Corporal & regiments who, while fitting into the Corporal respectively) in the Royal overall rank structure, often have specific Artillery. names for the ranks or the roles they But in true British style things aren’t quite perform. Specialists who spring to mind that simple. The Royal Marines (the include the Physical Training Instructor Royal Navy’s equivalent of the (PTI; normally an NCO), the Padre (who Commandos) follow Army ranks while the being a gentleman is always an officer), Fleet Air Arm (that bit of the Navy which Medical Officers (qualified doctors, again plays at landing planes on moving ships) by definition gentlemen, and probably uses naval ranks. Then to keep in step very senior nursing staff are officers; with NATO convention the ranks of nursing and ancillary medical staff would Brigadier up to Field Marshall are often be NCOs or other ranks). referred to as 1-Star to 5-Star General. Bandsmen (generally NCOs or Privates) That is the simplified view of a layman are, at least today, generally non- with no background in the military. I feel combatants but are called upon to sure those who know much better than I undertake field duties such as ambulance the ways of the British military will deluge work. And let’s not forget that “an army me with other examples and exceptions. marches on its stomach” so there is a
Modern UK Army NCO Sleeve Rank Insignia, from L to R: Lance Corporal, Corporal, Sergeant, Warrant Officer Class 2 6 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
Army Royal Navy Royal Air Force Commissioned Officers Field Marshal Admiral of the Fleet Marshal of the Air Force General Admiral Air Chief Marshal Lieutenant-General Vice-Admiral Air Marshal Major-General Rear Admiral Air Vice Marshal Brigadier Commodore Air Commodore Colonel Captain Group Captain Lieutenant-Colonel Commander Wing Commander Major Lieutenant Commander Squadron Leader Captain Lieutenant Flight Lieutenant Lieutenant Sub-Lieutenant Flying Officer Second Lieutenant Midshipman Pilot Officer Acting Pilot Officer Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) Warrant Officer I Warrant Officer Warrant Officer Regimental Sergeant Major Fleet Chief Petty Officer Master Aircrew Warrant Officer II Chief Petty Officer Company Sergeant Major Chief Artificer Staff Sergeant Petty Officer Chief Technician Colour Sergeant Artificer Flight Sergeant Sergeant Leading Seaman Sergeant Corporal Able Seaman Corporal Lance-Corporal -- Junior Technician Leading Aircraftsman Other Ranks Private Seaman Aircraftsman
Modern UK Army Officers Epaulettes, from L to R: Captain, Major, Colonel, General.
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AN Wilson and Betjeman
AN Wilson’s new biography of John Darling Honor, Betjeman was in the news recently for I loved yesterday. All day, I’ve rather unexpected reasons. In the book thought of nothing else. No other Wilson quotes a letter from a lady love I’ve had means so much. Was it Betjeman was supposed to have had an just an aberration on your part, or will affair with. Bevis Hillier, author of a 3- you meet me at Mrs Holmes’s again – volume biography of Betjeman, at first say on Saturday? I won’t be able to denied being the originator of this letter. sleep until I have your answer. However, a Sunday Times forensics nerd detected that the envelope enclosing the Love has given me a miss for so long, letter (purportedly sent from France) was and now this miracle has happened. purchased in Winchester, Hillier’s home Sex is a part of it, of course, but I town. Hillier finally admitted to being the have a Romaunt of the Rose feeling hoaxer, allegedly because of a hostile about it too. On Saturday we could review Wilson gave one of his volumes. have lunch at Fortt’s, then go back to By coincidence the letter mentions Mrs H’s. Never mind if you can’t Anthony Powell, but Patric Dickinson has make it then. I am free on Sunday perceptively noted that Betjeman would too or Sunday week. Signal me have called him “Tony” rather than tomorrow as to whether and when “Anthony”. However, there is a reason for you can come. the “Anthony”. The letter reads in full: Anthony Powell has written to me, and mentions you admiringly. Some of his comments about the Army are v funny. He’s somebody I’d like to know better when the war is over. I find his letters funnier than his books. Tinkerty-tonk, my darling. I pray I’ll hear from you tomorrow. If I don’t I’ll visit your office in a fake beard. All love, JB A perceptive journalist noticed that the initial letters of each sentence spelled out the words “AN Wilson is a shit”, hence the “Anthony”. Wilson is reported to have commented on learning of the hoax, “Of course I saw the funny side – I laughed about it a lot when I found out”. AN Wilson’s biography Betjeman is published by Hutchinson at £20.
John Betjeman (top) and AN Wilson 8 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
John Prescott Wins Feared Widme rpool Award The Anthony Powell Society inaugurated power.” Lastly, an annual Widmerpool Award in 2003, for Prescott amply the public figure who most embodies the fulfils the role of characteristics of Kenneth Widmerpool. buffoon, the man who acts like a fool The award takes the form of an engraved and then cannot "wrong kind of overcoat", purchased by understand why the Society (at no small expense) from everyone is some local flea-market or charity shop. laughing at him. John Prescott (the UK’s Deputy Prime Among those short- Minister) follows in a distinguished line of UK Deputy Prime listed in 2006 were: Minister John Prescott Widmerpudlians. In 2003 the first winner (by several lengths) of the Widmerpool General Sir Mike Jackson was nominated Award was Lord Irvine of Lairg. The for being, "a politician in uniform, citation referred to his “unabashed originally commissioned into the exercise of the powers and privileges of Intelligence Corps (an Intelligence Corps his office without care of public opinion.” origin being the equivalent to wearing the wrong sort of overcoat).” He was recently The 2004 winner was Sir Max Hastings. spotted being “chummy” with Alastair The nomination was “on the grounds not Campbell, Tony Blair’s ex-spin doctor, only of physical traits (thick specks, causing journalist Piers Morgan to write, booming manner) but for petty abuse of “I’d say the British Army is in safer hands power” in using the medium of a review of with a man [General Sir Richard Dannatt] a new biography of Powell as an excuse who takes on a duplicitous Government on for personal score-settling. behalf of his soldiers – rather than a man The 2005 winner was London’s who enjoys sipping champagne at Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian celebrity parties with his mates from the Blair. His nomination noted a Downing Street spin machine.” “combination of PC cringe and personal London Mayor Ken Livingstone, “for ruthlessness that make him appear by far having carved out for himself a completely the closest to Kenneth Widmerpool in unjustified position of ultimate power, and character.” being apparently immune from the law for John Prescott’s nomination mentioned “his the various ills he has perpetrated – getting very public abuse of position which into fights, insulting people racially etc. continues, an abuse which encompassed His are not exactly the self-same sins that not only adultery with members of his staff Widmerpool committed, but the result is and accusations of sexism, but also a the same: ie. riding roughshod over scandal involving allegations of accepting anyone who dares to disagree with him, favours and gifts from a US developer, and constantly springing back up like one Phil Anschutz, in return for smoothing the of those figures in a shooting gallery”. way for Anschutz’s UK business Michael Portillo, though “apparently dealings”. Prescott also qualifies in his humourless, as ambitious in small things “lust for perquisites, and the ultimate as in large, he keeps turning up in unlikely futility of his Widmerpudlian will to places.” 9 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
Summarise Dance Competition Main Christmas Competition This year we have an extra in the Quiz Supplement Christmas competition. centre spread Contestants are asked to summarise the whole of Dance in no more than The winning entry will be the one 150 words. which most amuses a cabal of the Society’s Trustees. Maximum 3 entries per person. The winner will be announced in the The prize is a year’s gold membership Spring 2007 Newsletter. of the Society. Competition Conditions Entries, with your name & address, The judges’ decision is final and binding. should be sent to: Entry is open to Anthony Powell Society Summarise Dance Competition members and non-members. No purchase Anthony Powell Society necessary. Entries must be original and the 76 Ennismore Avenue, Greenford work of the person submitting them. Middlesex, UB6 0JW, UK Maximum three entries per person. No cash alternative. No correspondence will be Fax: +44 20 8864 6109 entered into. The Anthony Powell Society Email: [email protected] reserves the right to publish the entries but to arrive by 31 January 2007. otherwise copyright remains with the author.
In the News From: Private Eye, October 2006 What You Didn’t get Round to Reading. No 94 From: The Sunday Times Betjeman by AN Wilson Magazine, 3 September 2006 “A frequent visitor to the Dower An interview with Lord Snowdon House was Hon. Rosie Wheatcroft. “Snowdon begins his usual interview A devout Anglican and niece of the tricks. Instead of answering one-time Punch cartoonist Hector questions, he likes to test your Sibthorp (Hecko) she is thought to powers of deduction and laugh at have inspired the character Jessica your slowness – a diversionary Prozac in Anthony Powell’s pre-war tactic. ‘Tell me what date that is,’ he novel Whatever Happened to Mrs smiles, pointing to a picture of a man Fothergill? A keen otter-hunter she dressed from centuries ago. often accompanied Betjeman to the Eighteen hundreds? ‘No, look little church of St Crispin’s, Panesar, harder, it’s me, it’s me! It’s me! It’s where the incumbent was Rev. a montage done by Anthony Powell, Benchley Warboys, a one-time who was a great friend.’” Cambridge don who (cont. p94)”
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Society Notices
Local Groups RIP Maggie Noach London Group It is with great regret we have to Area: London & SE England announce that the Society’s former Contact: Keith Marshall Chairman, Maggie Noach, died Email: [email protected] unexpectedly after a short illness on Friday 17 November 2006. She was North East USA Group just 57. Her funeral took place on Area: NY & CT area, USA Wednesday 29 November at St Mary Contact: Leatrice Fountain Abbots, Kensington; the Society was Email: [email protected] represented by the Hon. Archivist. Great Lakes Group Maggie leaves a husband and a Area: Chicago area, USA teenage daughter. Contact: Stephen Pyskoty-Olle Email: [email protected] Those of us who knew Maggie will remember her with great affection. In Swedish Group the words of Nick Birns “She was Area: Sweden charming, funny, and had a sharp Contact: Regina Rehbinder sense of the literary scene in both the Email: [email protected] US and UK. We are lucky that she Please contact the Hon. Secretary if gave the Society so much of her time you wish to make contact with a group and effort.” and don’t have email. Donations in Maggie’s memory to Any member wishing to start a local Save the Children Fund. group should contact the Hon. Secretary who can advise on the Our thoughts are with Maggie’s family number of local members. and the staff of her literary agency.
*** Subscription *** Just Published *** Special Offer *** Koyama Taichi 5 years for the price of 4 The Novels of Anthony Powell Available to A Critical Study The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo new & existing members ISBN 4 590 01210 3 all grades of membership Taichi tells us that the book will be Available to March 2007 orderable soon through a bilingual *** Subscription *** page at Amazon Japan, www.amazon.co.jp *** Special Offer ***
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Society Events The Register
Births Rhythms of Dance Stefanuti. On 24 June 2006 to Ian and An illustrated talk by Christine (née Berberich), a first-born Paul Guinery son Lucas Finnegan. on the musical references in –––––– Dance, with piano accompaniment and selected recordings Deaths Monday 26 February 2007 Britton. GWM Britton, a member of the Society, died 29 July 2006. Main Hall of Swedenborg Society, 20 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1 Noach. Maggie Noach, former at 1930 hrs Chairman of the Anthony Powell Society died unexpectedly after a short Paul Guinery is a music announcer illness on Friday 17 November 2006. and presenter for Radio 3, the Funeral on Wednesday 29 November at BBC’s music and arts channel. He St Mary Abbots, Kensington. is a linguist and an accomplished pianist and organist with an ARCM in piano performance. Paul has New Local Groups? wide musical interests and is a long-time fan of Dance. The Society has an increasing number of members in the North of England Tickets are £10 and include wine and in East Anglia. If you are willing and nibbles during the interval. to start a local group in either of these Advance booking essential; tickets areas please contact the Hon. Secretary. from the Hon. Secretary (address on page 2). Payment by cheque, credit card, or online via PayPal to Copy Deadlines [email protected]. The deadlines for receipt of articles Non-members welcome. and advertisements for forthcoming Entrance to the Swedenborg issues of Newsletter and Secret Society Hall is in Barter Street, off Harmonies are: Bloomsbury Way. Newsletter #26, Spring 2007 Closest Tube Stations: Holborn or Copy Deadline: 9 February 2007 Tottenham Court Road. Publication Date: 2 March 2007 Access for those with mobility difficulties must be arranged in Newsletter #27, Summer 2007 advance; please advise us. Copy Deadline: 11 May 2007 Limited on-street parking; Publication Date: 1 June 2007 underground car park in Secret Harmonies #2, 2007 Bloomsbury Square. Copy Deadline: 7 September 2007 Publication Date: 27 October 2007
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Dates for Your Diary
Saturday 9 December 2006 Summer 2007 NE USA Group Meeting Visit to the Nottinghamshire village of Silvermine Tavern, Norwalk, CT Widmerpool 1230 hrs Date to be arranged; details to follow. Topic: Moreland and Jenkins Details from [email protected] Saturday 8 September 2007 Fourth Biennial Conference Tuesday 19 December 2006 University of Bath Anthony Powell Birthday Lunch Details to follow; see also below. Century Association, 7 West 43rd St., New York, USA Saturday 27 October 2007 12 noon Annual General Meeting Hosted by the NE USA Group Details to follow. Further details from [email protected]
Saturday 10 February 2007 London Group Pub Meet 2007 Conference The Audley, Mount Street, London, W1 1230 to 1530 hrs The Fourth Biennial Anthony Powell Quarterly London Group meeting. Good Conference will be held on Saturday beer, good food, good company & Powell 8 September 2007 at the University chat in a Victorian pub AP would have of Bath. known. Members & non-members welcome. Further details from Hon. This will be a one-day symposium with Secretary. five or six speakers each of whom will get a longer time to present and lead Monday 26 February 2007 discussion. Rythms of Dance The speakers have not yet been Venue: Swedenborg Society, arranged, so there is still time for 20 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1 Society members to submit proposals Time: 1930 hrs for a 45 minute session. If you wish to An illustrated talk by Paul Guinery on the submit a session proposal please musical references in Dance. contact the Hon. Secretary without Details opposite. delay. Saturday 12 May 2007 On the Sunday following the London Group Pub Meet conference we hope to be able to offer Details as for 10 February. some optional extra events for those wishing to stay over in Bath. A literary Saturday 11 August 2007 walk round Bath, Sunday lunch and a London Group Pub Meet visit to The Chantry are ideas which Details as for 10 February. are being considered.
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Local Group News
London & SE England Group November Pub Meet By Noreen Marshall
Nine of us gathered at The Audley for the Autumn London pub meet on Saturday 11 November, braving both seasonal cold germs (which caused the reluctant absence of the Hon. Secretary) and numerous road detours which were the result of the annual Lord Mayor’s Show in the City that morning. Present were Patric Dickinson, Derek Hawes, Neville Keery, Noreen Marshall, Derek Miles, Guy Top left: Gilbert Harding, Robinson, Bob Rollason, outspoken panellist, quiz- Victor Spouge and Elwyn master and broadcaster, Taylor. Quite serendipitously known as “the rudest man in we were also joined by a Britain” during late 1940s and ghost writer of biographies 1950s. who was visiting London Top right: Anthony Burgess, from Huddersfield and, author of A Clockwork looking for somewhere to sit, Orange. happened upon us and Bottom: AP’s great friend expressed interest in AP, Malcolm Muggeridge. having recently read the whole of Dance. particularly with regard to nineteenth Other subjects discussed included the century writers; conspiracy theories, forthcoming London Group AP Birthday notably the assassination of John F Lunch; the recent AGM and the visit to the Kennedy; and the encouragement of National Theatre to see Simon Russell various international conflicts by third Beale in Brecht’s Galileo (see opposite); parties for military purposes. Individuals Irish politics; sport; Saturday evening discussed included Malcolm Muggeridge, television; and genealogy. We also gave a Gilbert Harding and Anthony Burgess, as good airing to literary reputation, well as Anthony Powell.
14 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25 Bertolt Brecht, The Life of Galileo By Patric Dickinson
On the evening of 28 October, following the Society’s AGM, a 15-strong party of members and their guests went to see Simon Russell Beale, our newly elected President, taking the title role in Brecht’s The Life of Galileo (as adapted by David Hare). It is above all a play of ideas, but in the Simon Russell Beale in The Life of Galileo National Theatre’s version it is a bustling affair, entirely holding the attention of the the energy and brio with which Beale audience as scene quickly succeeds scene, carries it along. He is a commanding with the revolving stage of the Olivier presence throughout as Galileo battles for Theatre put to very effective use. The set Reason in the face of religious bigotry. was particularly memorable, giving the impression of a huge observatory, with the The only obvious respect in which one universe on display. might compare Beale’s performance to his role in the television adaptation of Dance Howard Davies’s vigorous production is is the fact that Galileo has to age from 45 played in modern dress. This jarred at first to 73 during the course of the play. For but was rapidly forgotten in the speed of those who remember Beale’s Widmerpool the action, and for the scenes set in Rome metamorphosing from schoolboy to 70 the ecclesiastical vestments had a timeless year old it is no surprise that he quality that took one effortlessly back to accomplishes this with consummate ease, the 17th century. sometimes adding a few years almost Despite David Hare’s professed wish to imperceptibly in the shortest of breaks avoid the atmosphere of 1930s Germany in between scenes. which the play was written, the third act Happily, the play turned out to contain an opened with a kitsch song-and-dance unexpected link with Anthony Powell the number performed in Cabaret-like style, a playwright. In a scene where Galileo curious interpolation that added little to the points to a small image of the god Priapus, plot and seemed to me purely gimmicky Brecht puts into his character’s mouth (though some members of the party some lines from Horace’s Satires in which enjoyed it immensely). a statue of Priapus is made to speak – There was a strong supporting cast with which is more or less what happens in that fine actor Oliver Ford Davies in Powell’s play The Garden God. Indeed, quietly menacing form as the Cardinal Professor Peter Wiseman in ‘Powell, Inquisitor, and Andrew Woodall very Priapus and Petronius’ (the paper he gave watchable as the sympathetic Cardinal at the Centenary Conference) suggested Barberini who trims his sails when he that the very same passage in Horace was becomes Pope. But the overall success of an influence on Powell’s formulation of the production is due in large measure to Priapus.
15 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
From the APLIST Recent Discussions on the Society’s Email Discussion Group
From Jeff Manley The restaurant that has always intrigued I’ve just reread The Soldier’s Art and was me is the Trouville, where Nicholas dines reminded how much I enjoy the wartime with Uncle Giles at the end of A Question scene in the Café Royal, surely one of the of Upbringing – absolutely archetypal of best in the whole series. I then looked up the Soho restaurants that survived into the the Osbert Lancaster cartoon of the same post-WW2 years. Its table d’hôte menu, venue and, finally, checked on the which sounds reasonably mouth-watering internet to see if it’s still there. in the French in which it is written, actually comes down to whitebait; tomato Alas, it appears to have been turned into soup; sole with a rather insipid sauce; some sort of convention center. There lamb cutlets in the green goo they seems to be nothing resembling the apparently like at the Reform Club; ice restaurant where Jenkins so frequently cream and coffee. Very different writing met his chums. Or am I mistaken about from the Café Royal wartime scene (for this? Is it buried somewhere in all these which I share Jeff Manley’s admiration), function rooms? It’s been many years but quite wonderful in its own way and since I walked past where I think I can illustrating Uncle Giles’s ability not just to recall the Café Royal having been in the find sympathetic habitats but to project his 1960s on Lower Regent Street, which personality and create an atmosphere of looks like the same location for these unease on anyone and anything within his Hotel Meridien meeting rooms. In those immediate range. days it looked very much the sort of place a penniless student such as I then was –––––– could not afford. From Stephen Holden I pop along to the Café Royal occasionally Could some one enlighten me as to what as they have a series of talks on the first is left of the venue as it existed when Tuesday of the month (given, bizarrely, by Powell was a regular and whether it’s the “Last Tuesday Society”) in the Grill possible to (or still worth a) visit. Room on the ground floor. Although the –––––– décor is magnificent the food and service From Terry Empson leave much to be desired – inept, bad- It is a good many years since I was there, tempered Polish waiters, and tiny portions but certainly for a time the Café Royal of reasonable food. kept an excellent restaurant with a very Powell would appreciate the subjects of good wine list, on the ground floor, quite the talks, I think: Lord Alfred Douglas separate from the conference suites. (given by Bosie’s great-nephew); the There was, however, so far as I could see, Pemberton-Billing trial; Aleister Crowley; nothing left of its Bohemian heritage, and the Arabian Nights; Stephen Tennant. He the prices were aimed at those with might also appreciate the person who gave expense accounts. Well worth going to as the Crowley talk – a Michael Molyneux- a guest, but not for its literary echoes. Swann, who travelled the world being
16 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25 tattooed and sports body illustrations from the revolving doors of the Ritz at least the South Seas, Yakuza Japan, Borneo and once. East Africa. The exception, the Café de Madrid, would –––––– surely have merited a pseudonym out of From Ellen Jordan respect for those killed in the original. I have begun to speculate on what Although the Ritz was hit by two bombs Powell’s criteria were for using the real they caused limited damage due to its steel names for some of his restaurants, frame, the first such building in London to nightclubs etc. and for giving others be so constructed, and the chief casualty pseudonyms. In The Soldier’s Art he was gold leaf. (A later steel framed allows his characters to go to a real place, building was that sheltering the Cabinet the Café Royal, but gives the Café de War Rooms which never took a hit.) Paris, bombed in March 1941, the pseudonym Madrid. (The novelist Noel King Zog was residing in the hotel with Streatfield based a book published in 1942 the Albanian gold reserves, and spent on the same event, in which the restaurant some of his time rubbing shoulders with was called La Porte Verte.) Similarly in junior officers in a nightclub in the The Acceptance World the characters visit basement, the walls of which were shored the real Ritz, but Powell renames the club up with sandbags. The ballroom was also they visit Foppa’s. (I think the real name in the basement and seems to have been was Vitali’s but I can’t find the place in the the setting for the scene in which Pamela memoirs where this is discussed.) accuses Widmerpool of murder. It is now a casino catering for what the Ritz’s I’ve just come across another instance. In historian describes as “a non-British Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant Stringham clientele”: he is probably not referring to offers to take Audrey Maclintick to the North Americans – or Australians. Bag of Nails. I had always assumed that this was an invented name like the Merrythought where Mr Deacon had his fatal accident. I have just however read a novel by Barbara Comyns set in arty circles in the 1930s where the characters vist the Bag of Nails – and, incidentally, the Café Royal. –––––– From Julian Allason I suspect it is simply a question of institutional fame. The Café Royal and Ritz were – are – so well known as to enable them to be presented with minimal description. That would not have been true of Foppa’s: although several similar establishments existed they would have been familiar to only a minority of readers, whereas many will have passed through
17 The Café Royal in London’s Regent Street Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
From Jeff Manley critics say, “the decline of the British The British media are replete with replays Empire” is not a major theme of Dance. of the Suez crisis of 1956 (as well as the 2) Gaitskell is inferentially mentioned as contemporaneous Hungarian revolution). it would have to be Gaitskell who I tried to think whether Powell ever recommended Widmerpool for a Life mentioned Suez in his novels of the post- Peerage in 1958, even though a Tory PM war period but couldn’t recall anything, (Macmillan) was in power. even though I just reread Hearing Secret Harmonies and Temporary Kings. There –––––– is no index entry to Suez, Eden or From Jeff Manley Gaitskell in the To Keep the Ball Rolling I take your point about the schedule since one volume edition (and the indices of the when the Abdication and Munich crises single volume editions are such rubbish were mentioned they were you couldn’t rely on them in any event). contemporaneous with the events in the novel, whereas Suez was nearly 2 years Does anyone recall whether any of the before the events of Temporary Kings. characters mentioned in Dance refer to However, I believe the Burgess/Maclean Suez or whether Powell does so in the affair was mentioned after the fact in memoirs, Journals or post Dance novels? connection with Widmerpool’s problems If not, does that strike you as odd, given with the East Bloc, which now makes me that he does mention other events of wonder whether Hungary is mentioned. I similar importance to British history such recall that the publication of Dr Zhivago is as the Abdication crisis, the Munich mentioned in Temporary Kings which was Agreement and perhaps others in the happening at the same time as the novel. context of the books. I believe there is So it is probably, as you say, more the some mention of the Burgess/Maclean longer gaps in time than the relative affair in reference to Widmerpool’s own importance of the events that accounts for problems. Granted, the books aren’t silence on Suez and Hungary. political in nature but they do cover life in Britain in the period 1914-1970/71 and –––––– one would think Suez would get a mention From Keith Marshall in some context. Why do we have this fetishistic belief that Powell had to mention every world event, –––––– important or not? Some things (real From Nick Birns people, events, etc.) will suit the author’s I can’t recall instantly whether Suez was purpose; others won’t. The latter will not mentioned, but, as general points: get a mention. Why should they? We are 1) I think if Dance were on the same reading a novel; a piece of fiction; not a ‘schedule’ post-war as pre-war that Suez factual history. would have been mentioned, but the –––––– longer gaps between books mean that the From Jeff Manley citation of contemporary events is not as Well, Suez was rather more important than thorough as it was in the earlier books. not. It seems to me perhaps one of the two Temporary Kings is largely concerned with most important post war events in British the Cold War (in which Hungary was more history (the Falklands being the other), and central than Suez) and, despite what some he mentioned the similarly important pre-
18 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25 war events in the background of the earlier We would not chastise a critic for asking novels – so, was he avoiding mention of whether, in fact, Akhmatova’s poetry does this one? not mention the telephone. Why discourage speculation about why Powell I think Nick has the right answer. His last apparently ignores Noel Coward’s works two post war novels are not painted on the in Dance? same sort of continuous canvas as those up through Books Do Furnish a Room and –––––– there was no occasion to mention Suez From Colin Donald since he wasn’t writing about the period I am with Ed on this one. Dance is a self- when it took place. So, it’s not so much consciously historical novel, jam-packed that he was avoiding it, as that, as Keith with references to contemporary events, says, it wasn’t relevant to the particular whose inclusion we must assume is times he was writing about. carefully considered. No-one assumes that –––––– any artist feels obliged to depict everything, but the relationship between From Ed Bock history and Powell’s pseudo-history is But, Keith, note the positive side here for absolutely fascinating. the Powell cause. Such queries are mostly made about works that have achieved classic status – eg. about Jane Austen omitting Napoleon/Robespierre. Or Why Not Advertise Here? Versailles lacking plumbing. In that sense, it might run counter to the charter aims of *** the Anthony Powell Society to discourage Display Advert Rates them. Full Page: £30 ½ page or full column: £20 Moreover, is it not a legitimate part of free cultural discussion to make observations 1/3 page (horizontal): £15 about what an author did or did not include ¼ page (½ column): £10 in a 12-book novel – either because his/her 1/6 page (1/3 column): £8 imagination failed to create it or because B&W artwork only his/her artistic taste led to its exclusion? *** Flyer Inserts £30 per A4 sheet £15 per A5 sheet plus printing costs Contributions to the Newsletter *** are always welcome and should be sent to: Small Ads Free to Society members Newsletter Editor, Stephen Holden, Others 10p/word, minimum £3 Anthony Powell Society 76 Ennismore Avenue *** Greenford, Middlesex, UB6 0JW, UK Births, Deaths & Marriages Fax: +44 (0)20 8864 6109 Free to Society members Email: [email protected] Others 25p/word, minimum £5
19 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
Letters to the Editor
Cabinet War Rooms The Fettiplaces on the other hand were a great clan, with some two dozen manors From Stephen Holden held from medieval times in Berkshire and I was interested to read Julian Allason’s Oxfordshire, who only became extinct in article “Widmerpool’s Lair” (in Newsletter 1806. They were said never to have 24) about the Cabinet War Rooms. By distinguished themselves in the field, the coincidence I was in the Cabinet War forum or the senate! I lived on their Rooms recently, looking round the new former estates when a student, and the Churchill Museum. The space for the new parish churches are full of them. museum was once the underground annex of the CWR used by the Joint Intelligence An alliance between the two families Committee. There’s a map showing the would have made political sense in the 17th layout of the JIC and who was in which century and social sense in the 18th. Given office. “D Capel-Dunn” (a suggested the existence of the Fettiplace Room model for Widmerpool) is allocated one (though it is not the great hall) my sense is office, so it looks as if Widmerpool was that Powell was aware of the 17th or 18th down there at some point. century marriage between the two –––––– families, but was careful to ensure that Fettiplace there were no living descendants using the joined names, given that Hugh From Steve Loveman Massingberd described the character as “a I recently visited Chastleton House in cringing politician”. Gloucestershire, owned till the last century by the Jones family. The house has a A study of the names of other minor Fettiplace room, named if I recall correctly characters might support the thesis that after a family with which the Jones’s Powell drew upon his knowledge of married. genealogy to identify convincing surnames without litigious owners. Could this be the source of Fettiplace- –––––– Jones? Has this connection been made Comic Stanchions before? –––––– From Jeff Manley I am rereading Casanova’s Chinese Julian Allason replies: Restaurant for an entirely different How intriguing. It sounds a typical bit of purpose but today found another reference Powell mischief. to the cast iron stanchions at the house of Stringham’s mother [described by Jenkins The house is little more than an hour’s in A Question of Upbringing]. This occurs drive from The Chantry, and its Jacobean in the passage where Jenkins attends the collection likely to have been of interest. party at that house in connection with the As a genealogist he would have been premiére of Moreland’s symphony. This aware of its retention by the Jones family time it’s Moreland who mentions the for sixteen generations. stanchions: “That’s [the house]”, said Moreland. “With objects like mammoth
20 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25 ice-cream cornets on either side of the Harry Potter front door for putting out the torches after From Robert Beasecker you have paid off your sedan chair.” So, Some time ago someone pointed out a Powell not only makes the same Powell sighting in JK Rowling’s fifth observation again, he puts it in the mouth Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the of another character and makes it more Order of the Phoenix). This was a female comic. Quite a feat. wizard named “Professor Trelawny” who –––––– had similar physical characteristics to Mrs Pale Leitmotifs Erdleigh. From Peter Kislinger In Rowling’s latest (Harry Potter and the I noticed that the word “pale” crops up Half-Blood Prince) I have detected three half a dozen times in Casanova’s Chinese possible Powell allusions/references: Restaurant apart from pale hands in the song. The first is with a new character, a Professor Slughorn who is responsible for We get “pale lost lilies”, then Members teaching potions. At the beginning of the speaks of Moreland’s “pale tunes”; Carolo book he is fond of holding parties for those is “pale and unromantic”; Mrs Maclintick students whom he thinks can advance his is wearing “a pale pink dress”; three pages career or standing in the professional later she “looked pale”; and Stringham´s magical community, à la Sillery. skin is “pale and mottled”. The second is a mention, in passing, of a A kind of leitmotif contributing, in former instructor at the school called Firbankian fashion, to unity of book, at the “Professor Merrythought.” This is the same time reminding us that telling is re- name of a nightclub that features in recreating rather than employing tape Dance’s early volumes. recording naturalism. The last is a brief reference to another Powell in his critical writing is hinting at wizard called Professor Odo who also had this “Firbank technique”. The same can of taught at the school some years before. course be observed with other words in other volumes.
21 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
Society Merchandise
Secret Harmonies: Journal of the Audio Tapes of Dance Anthony Powell Society Copies of the following audio tapes of Issue 1, October 2006. 86pp of Powell- Simon Callow reading (abridged) volumes related articles. of Dance: UK Price: £4 Overseas Price: £5 A Question of Upbringing The Kindly Ones Centenary Newsletter The Valley of Bones The bumper 120-page celebratory Powell The Soldier’s Art Centenary Newsletter (issue 21; December UK price: £3 each 2005). Overseas price: £4 each UK Price: £6 Overseas Price: £7 Wallace Collection Poster Oxford Conference Proceedings The Wallace Collection’s 48.5 x 67.5 cm Collected papers from the 2003 conference (half life-size) poster of Poussin’s A Dance at Balliol College, Oxford. to the Music of Time. Mailed in a poster UK Price: £8 Overseas Price: £9 tube. Picture, page 21. Eton Conference Proceedings UK Price: £6 Overseas Price: £7.50 Papers from the 2001 conference; limited Fitzrovia: London’s Bohemia edition of 250 numbered copies signed by Written by Michael Bakewell and the Society’s Patron. published in the National Portrait Gallery UK Price: £9 Overseas Price: £10 “Character Sketches” series this small Writing about Anthony Powell volume contains snapshot biographies of The talks given at the 2004 AGM by Fitzrovian characters including Powell and George Lilley, Michael Barber and Nick many of his friends. Birns; introduced by Christine Berberich. UK price: £4.50 Overseas price: £7 UK Price: £4 Overseas Price: £5 Society Postcard The Master and The Congressman B&W postcard of Powell with his cat A 40 page monograph by John Monagan Trelawney. Pack of 5. Picture, page 21. describing his meetings with Anthony UK Price: £2 Overseas Price: £3 Powell. Wallace Collection Postcard UK Price: £4 Overseas Price: £5 The Wallace Collection’s luxurious BBC Radio Dramatisation of Dance postcard of Poussin’s A Dance to the Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Music of Time. Pack of 5. Picture, page between 1979-82. 26 one-hour episodes. 21. For copyright reasons, available to Society UK Price: £2 Overseas Price: £3 members only. Newsletter Back Numbers Single CD of 26 MP3 files. Price: £11 Back numbers of Newsletter issues 6, 8 to (£3 + minimum £8 Donation) 20 and 22 to 24 are still available. 26 Audio CDs. Price: £70 (£26 + UK price: £1 each minimum £44 Donation) Overseas price: £2 each (CD prices apply to both UK & overseas) Society Merchandise
22 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #25
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