52 Monday November 12 2012 | the times Cyclist who twice won bronze at the 1948 Games Tommy Godwin Register Page 54

MYRON DAVIS /TIME LIFE PICTURES /GETTY IMAGES Obituaries As it became notoriously difficult to wrote for amultitude of little maga- Lives remembered gain permission to quote Eliot even in zines and journals over some five the most favourable contexts, Faber — decades —was announced at the where his affairs were handled by her beginning of 2006, under Schuchard’s GeraldineMucha husband’s friend John Bodley —began general editorship, but this has grown Valerie Eliot to claim that quoting as little as five or to such ascale that aprinted version is Jill Gomez writes: Geraldine’s (obituary, six lines was abreach of copyright. In no longer feasible. November 5) gifts were recognised 1997, however, this stance was Proper concern among those around from her earliest years when she could Wife andliteraryexecutorofT.S.Eliot whostrove to challenged by an author who wrote to her for Mrs Eliot’s privacy too often led improvise at the piano before she could Mrs Eliot pointing out that in After to akind of secrecy which made editori- read. She went on to study (piano and protecthis legacy by tightlycontrollinghis archive Strange Gods Eliot had quoted six lines al tasks unnecessarily difficult —and composition) at the Royal Academy of of Yeats without payment or elaborate the resulting delays only intensified the Music and her mentors included At her death, Valerie Eliot was prob- just 14. Like schoolgirls today setting acknowledgment. Grudging permiss- feeling that there was something to Benjamin Dale, Alan Bush, Arnold Bax ably the last person in the world who out to marry Prince Harry, she decided ion to quote The Waste Land without hide. Having retained Eliot’s library in and William Alwyn. could talk unaffectedly, if startlingly, that she must work for this most payment was granted. toto at his death, she possessed one of Her substantial body of work about “Tom” and “Ezra”. Her life had eminent of figures and took asecretar- Mrs Eliot’s fears for her husband’s the crucial archives, and she was active includes pieces commissioned by the been devoted to the work and wellbe- ial course with this express purpose. reputation were at their most acute in the salerooms buying further oboist George Caird and Ifelt ing of her husband. From her school- Against her parents’ wishes, she moved over the oft-repeated allegations of material, particularly letters. But while privileged that she wrote many songs days, she devoted herself to meeting to London to work for Charles Morgan anti-Semitism (which Eliot himself had she would offer the editors tea in her dedicated to me which Ihugely him, working for him, making him at Faber’s (Eliot joked that he was pre- strenuously denied). In 1996 Anthony flat, and answer their specific queries enjoyed performing both in concert happy as his second wife, and then pared to overlook this), and in 1949, Julius grossly exaggerated these about Eliot —which books he owned, and in recordings for the BBC. The protecting his posthumous reputation. against stiff opposition and to the charges in his book T. S. Eliot, Anti- when he had bought them, and so forth ideas for them were often conceived Not, perhaps, since Boswell has anyone annoyance of rivals who regarded her Semitism and Literary Form, which gave —the contents of her invaluable during the many holidays that Patrick been so dedicated to aliterary figure, in as very much a“downstairs” part of the rise to afrenzy of impatient and ill- archive have so far, 50 years after Carnegy and Iwere lucky enough to life and in death, as Valerie Fletcher company, she was promoted to be judged press speculation. Eliot’s death, only been glimpsed. share with her at her idyllic house near was to T. S. Eliot, yet almost the entire- secretary to the man who the previous In 2003 Professor Ronald Schuchard If Valerie Eliot was sometimes Ballater on Deeside. There she loved to ty of his enormous literary output was year had been created OM and award- published details of apreviously thought paranoid in her protectiveness spend the summer months gardening, behind him before they met. ed the Nobel Prize. unknown cache of letters from Eliot to of her husband’s reputation and effects, walking in the Cairngorms, plunging Because he was 38 years older than Eliot suffered from continual poor Horace Kallen, which reveal that in the her attitude was not without good spontaneously into icy mountain she, the worlds in which they grew up health, including atouch of rather early 1940s Eliot was actively helping cause. It was said that on one occasion, streams, collecting wild mushrooms were entirely different. He had a relished hypochondria, and he became Jewish refugees from Germany and after ahospitable dinner at her flat, she and, most importantly, writing music. complicated, if distinguished, family increasingly dependent upon the Austria to resettle in Britain and Amer- showed avery eminent American The songs for me included five John background in America, which he women around him. Friends such as ica. In letters written after the war, professor three important letters. Con- Webster songs, including Cinco Can- rebelled against but never entirely left Mary Trevelyan had for some years Eliot also voiced support for modern versation and consumption continued, ciones de Antonio Machado,and Four behind, and studied classics, literature chivvied him, cheered him, and ferried Israel. Mrs Eliot herself said that she until finally it was time for him to leave. Sonnets of Hawthornden to words by and philosophy at Harvard before him around London. But aspecial sort never heard Eliot make any remark When she asked him to pass the letters William Drummond. En Los Pinares settling in London in 1915. She was an of friendship with Valerie developed that was at all anti-Semitic, and that it back to her, he proffered only two. She De Júcar,aGolden Age Spanish ballad unremarkable girl from suburban York- over lunches in the Russell Hotel, and would have been quite out of character. asked about the third, but he assured by Luis de Góngora, was written for shire, whose life from adolescence was friendship led to love. Eliot undoubted- Yet her own reactions could be dispro- her that she had shown him only two. myself, oboe d’amore and small string lived under his influence, and subse- ly fell deeply in love with her, and for portionate —and imperious. When She, sadly, had then to ask him to turn ensemble, premiered with the string quently under his wing. Valerie this was the goal of her life. Faber published Christopher Ricks’s out his jacket pockets, and there, to his players of the Scottish National Esme Valerie Fletcher was born in Eliot proposed to her at the Faber offic- calm and judicious book T. S. Eliot and surprise, was the third letter. Orchestra in Glasgow to critical 1926, in Headingley, Leeds. By this time es in Russell Square at the end of 1956, Prejudice,which argues that Eliot’s The launch in May 1981 of Andrew acclaim in the 1970s. Eliot and Ezra Pound had changed the nearly eight years after she had begun fascination with the power of pre- Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats based on An orchestral version of the John course of poetry, and Eliot’s position working for him. She gave him the love judices scarcely ever slipped into regret- her husband’s jeu d’esprit, Old Possum’s Webster Songs featured alongside her was well established. Prufrock and of awoman which he had been denied table indulgence in them, she wondered Book of Practical Cats,was to prove Piano Concerto and Ballet Suite for Other Observations (1917) had button- for 40 years. “There was ...alittle boy whether Ricks was “one of us”. “We extremely lucrative for Mrs Eliot (and Macbeth in the celebratory concert for holed atiny readership for his poetry; in him that had never been released,” didn’t really like that book,” she said. for the small investors gathered her 95th birthday given at the Prague the essays of The Sacred Wood (1920) she later said. Ricks’s book was one of aseries that together by Cameron Mackintosh to Conservatory on September 26 and had proclaimed Eliot’s academic They were married at 6.15am on Janu- grew out of the T. S. Eliot lectures at the fund the initial £450,000 costs). Produc- recorded by Czech Radio. Ever credentials and mastery of the tradi- ary 10, 1957,atStBarnabas Church, Ken- University of Kent, over which Mrs tions followed in New York, Vienna, excessively modest about her music, tion he was carrying forward, and The sington, where —they delightedly dis- Eliot annually presided. But she was Hamburg and elsewhere. much of which was recorded over the Waste Land (1922) had enjoyed ahuge covered —the French poet Laforgue distressed, reasonably enough, to find Valerie Eliot’s life remained very years by Supraphon, the success of this vogue with the young. Then in 1925 had also been married. The priest then that several of the lecturers, such as much bound up with Faber &Faber, concert gave her great pleasure. Eliot had given up his post at Lloyds took them to breakfast at his house, Richard Poirier, went on to deprecate and several of her friends, such as P. D. Among the many famous visitors to Bank to become adirector of the new which to Eliot’s surprise was at 10 Ken- Eliot, as areaction against the idolatory James and Natasha Spender, the whom Geraldine enjoyed showing the publishing house of Faber &Gwyer, sington Church Walk, where Ezra of an earlier era. She was also apatron widow of Stephen, were connections home that was also ashrine to soon to be famous as Faber &Faber. Pound had once lived. None of their of afund set up in Eliot’s name, and of through the publisher. Her loyalty was Alphonse Mucha, was Sir Georg Solti. He had married Vivien Haigh-Wood colleagues had known of the impending the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize, adminis- complete, and when recently she was Seeing the piles of music MSS on her in 1915, but the match was very wedding, except one director, who had tered by Faber, which has become the askedwhat she thought of the new gen- piano, Solti demanded to know what it unhappy. Eliot turned the misery to to find asecretary to replace Valerie. most prestigious annual award to a erationofdirectors, she said simply “A was. “Oh, that’s nothing,” she replied. remarkable account in the “Game of poet in Britain. hundred per cent, ahundred per cent”. One of the most beautiful things she Chess” section of the The Waste Land, Meanwhile, Mrs Eliot had commis- She was loyal, too, to other institu- ever wrote was Epitaph: In Memoriam though at Vivien’s request, he omitted Hereditingofthe many sioned other scholars to help her sift tions with which Eliot had been con- Jirí Mucha,for oboe and string quintet, the desolating line, “The ivory men drafts of the WasteLand the great archives of material left by nected. In the 1950s, as President of the which was played again at her own make company between us”. He her husband. Helen Gardner revealed London Library, he had copied out The funeral in Prague. supported her dutifully through years of wasascholarly triumph the genesis of Eliot’s final masterpiece Waste Land to be auctioned as part of a encroaching madness, although event- NIGEL PARRY in The Composition of Four Quartets fundraising appeal. She in turn donat- Hilary La Fontaine ually she was committed to an asylum. But the world’s most famous poet could poem to his wife. It was reprinted in a Valerie Eliot with week. He also put down many of his and Emory universities, and Newnham (1978); Ronald Schuchard edited the ed £2.5 million to the library, and in When Valerie Fletcher was reading not marry his secretary in secret, and revised and more intimate form in Col- her husband in thoughts and feelings in his notebooks, College, Cambridge. Clark and Turnbull lectures as The 2008, nearly acentury after he joined Angela Humphery writes: Although his poems at school in the 1930s, Eliot the couple were inevitably tracked lected Poems 1909-1962 —“private Chicago in 1959, and went through his works with her, As keeper of the flame, Valerie Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry (1993); as ayoung reviewer needing to borrow your obituary of my friend Hilary La was no longer the nervy avant-gardiste down by afascinated press. words addressed to you in public” — above. They making her better informed about the received requests from scholars all over and Christopher Ricks was entrusted academic journals, she inaugurated a Fontaine (November 8) described her camouflaged in what Virginia Woolf Sadly, Eliot had kept his intentions but F. R. Leavis so disliked it that when married in 1957 personal aspects of his work than any- the world —atleast one doctoral with the cache of unpublished early new wing —where aportrait of her by exploits as asenior British intelligence called his “four-piece suit”. He was a secret from John Hayward, the lecturing in Cambridge he would flour- and spent eight one else in the world. student aweek, she said —and as a poems that had been found with the Emma Sergeant now hangs. She also officer who was known for her skilful revered man of letters. bibliophile and editor with whom he ish his copy with the offending pages blissful years Three years after his death on Janu- director of Faber’s she tightly con- manuscript of The Waste Land at the donated more than £1 million to Cam- handling of clandestine agents as well In 1927 he had become aBritish had shared aflat for ten years, telling Sellotaped together. together before ary 4, 1965, aseries of manuscripts of trolled the way the firm handled his New York Public Library (which bridge in 2011, to support aT.S.Eliot as for many other accomplishments, subject and been baptised and received him about the wedding only at the last Some critics thought that the cosy his death in 1965. Eliot’s poems up to 1922 was found to legacy. In accordance with his wishes, appeared as Inventions of the March lectureship at Newnham. what perhaps many people did not into the Church of England, and from minute. His note saying that he would domestic happiness Valerie provided In later years, be in the Berg Collection at the New she refused to co-operate with biogra- Hare in 1996). In her later years she became rather know was that she was agreat advocate The Hollow Men and Journey of the of course pay his household bills, as for Eliot had been detrimental to his left, she enjoyed York Public Library. The most impor- phers, although at least one falsely She said she was determined that all agrande dame herself, making immacu- of animal welfare. Magi onwards, his poetry took the though that were the important thing writing, but his creative work had been the fuss of being tant were the extensive drafts of The claimed that he had been denied access of Eliot’s writings should be brought lately elegant but rather nominal It was in this field that Ifirst met her form of apilgrimage. The first of what after decades of friendship, was effectively over by the time they photographed Waste Land,which Valerie edited for to archives that are open to the public. into the public domain, but she was appearances at publishing and academ- about four years ago at afundraising were to become the Four Quartets, astonishingly ill-judged. Hayward felt married. What she gave him was afew like afilm-star the scrupulous Facsimile and Tran- She also prevented quotation of the equally determined to exercise control ic events, when she would enjoy adrink event for the animal charity PETA Burnt Norton,appeared in 1935, and abandoned, and the friendship more years of life. Although he suffered script Edition of 1971, with aprefatory notes made by the barrister Michael over when and in what form. She found and the fuss of being photographed like (People for the Ethical Treatment of the last, Little Gidding,in1942, setting a effectively ended. repeatedly from colds, bronchitis, note of welcome by Ezra Pound, whose Rubinstein at ameeting with Eliot in it hard to delegate scholarly work, espe- afilm-star. Her manner was intended Animals) and subsequently at events seal on his reputation as the greatest After the honeymoon, the Eliots emphysema and the London smogs, collaboration in the poem half a which he had expressed his willingness cially on the more personal material. to convey that all questions relating to held in aid of the Mayhew Animal poet of the century. His dominance — moved to acommodious flat in Ken- they spent eight blissful years together. century before had earned him the to testify on behalf of Penguin Books in As aresult, the first volume of what are the Eliot estate were entirely under con- Home and SPANA (Society for the as the leader (with Pound) of the sington, where Valerie continued to There were winter months in the dedication as Il miglior fabbro (“The the Lady Chatterley trial, and abio- likely to be adozen or more of Eliot’s trol, and that others need not and were Protection of Animals Abroad). modern movement, as avery active live, latterly behind ablue plaque, until Bahamas and Bermuda (which the better maker”). Deciphering the manu- graphy of the bibliographer and critic letters took some 20 years to compile, not welcome to concern themselves She was one of the kindest and most literary and social critic, and as editor her death. doctor ordered and he found dull, scripts and distinguishing the hands John Hayward was frustrated by her before its eventual publication on his with it. As aresult, the pressing ques- compassionate women Iknow. first of The Criterion and then of the Eliot was now showered with honor- except for her company), and on their was ascholarly triumph for Valerie, refusal to release papers. “There is an centenary in 1988. John Haffenden tion of where her invaluable library will Faber poetry list —iswithout contem- ary degrees and greeted by crowds several visits to the United States he and the book was acclaimed and unfortunate contrast,” wrote Roger became general editor of the series in now go remains unanswered. If you would like to add apersonal view porary parallel. wherever, inseparably, they went. His showed her many of the places that had remains standard. For this achieve- Kojecky, “between Eliot’s own princi- 2008, publishing Volume II in 2009 Vor recollection to apublished obituary, you can send your contribution by post to Valerie became besotted with him last play, The Elder Statesman,was been important to him in childhood. ment, she was awarded the Rose Mary pled advocacy of an Arnoldian free and Volume III earlier this year. Valerie Eliot, wife and literary executor of Times Obituaries, 3Thomas More Square, after hearing John Gielgud’s recording produced in 1958, and the printed Even though they were under the Crawshay Prize. Honorary doctorates flow of ideas and the blockade now An edition of all of Eliot’s prose — T. S. Eliot, was born on August 17, 1926. London E98 1TT, or by e-mail of Journey of the Magi when she was version contains Eliot’s dedicatory same roof, he wrote her aletter every followed, from Boston College, Kent imposed by his executrix.” including the literary criticism he She died on November 9, 2012, aged 86 to [email protected]