Mary Fedden C466/05/01 F1882A Page 1 IMPORTANT Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION MARY FEDDEN interviewed by Mel Gooding Fl882 Side A Interview recorded with Mary Fedden at Durham Wharf, on Saturday, January, l9th, l99l. Mary, could we start, perhaps, by my asking you about how you met, or how you first met Julian, and something about the beginnings of your long relationship with him. Well, I met him first when I was a student at the Slade. I suppose I was about l8, and I was taught at the Slade by a, a lovely Russian, called Polunin, Vladimir Polunin, who was quite a figure in his day, and had worked with Diagalev at designing for the ballet. And he was a neighbour of Julian's. Julian lived, he'd just moved into Durham Wharf, and Polunin lived on Chiswick Mall, and wanted to have a great big party for one of his sons, and he asked Julian if he could borrow Durham Wharf to hold this party. So Julian came to lunch with Polunin at the Slade, to discuss the party, and I was looking out of the window, and I saw this great, six foot four man, coming up the path with Polunin, who was very small. And I thought he looked wonderful. And I rushed down to the porter who was everybody's friend, and I said, "Connell, who is that man with Polunin?" And he said, "Oh, he's Julian Trevelyan." And I said, "I'm going to marry him." And Connell, the porter, said, "Bad luck, old girl, he's just got married." And I said, "Oh well, I'm only l8, never mind!" And a few days later, this amazing party happened. It was the first glimpse I had of the bohemian life, and there were amazing people there. The ballet dancer Sokolova Mary Fedden C466/05/01 F1882A Page 2 danced, and two Prince Galitzines came in tails, and they swam the Thames at midnight. And it was a riot of a party. From my innocent point of view, it was quite amazing. And after that, I became friends with Julian and his wife, Ursula Darwin, and knew them quite well, and used to come here often, to have supper with them, and go to exhibitions with them, and, in fact, I became a friend of both of theirs. I expect you came to many of the boat race parties then, did you? Oh I did. Yes, they'd already started having boat race parties and I met a lot more interesting people, and people who I'd sort of hoped and dreamt about when I was at school in Bristol, where I was brought up. One of the things about Durham Wharf, which is where we're sitting, is that it's actually right on the river. It's a group of old warehouse buildings that Julian prospected and found in the mid-thirties, and lived here for the rest of his life. And we're sitting in what was originally the studio, Julian's studio, and became the living room of, of the, the living quarters of Durham Wharf here. Yes. And, of course, over the years, many many people have come to this wonderful room overlooking the Thames, and that whole process began in the thirties, didn't it. It did, yes. In fact, I, I suppose your question really meant, how did Julian and I get together? Which I haven't told you. My first question was really ... Well, after a considerable friendship - mine, Ursula and Julian's - sixteen years later, Ursula left Julian. In fact, she fell in love with someone else, and left him. And Julian came to see me, and said, "Ursula has gone." And I said, "I can't believe it. I expect she'll be back." And he said, "No, I don't think she will." So I rang Ursula up, and said, "What is this awful news?" And she said, "Yes, I have left him. And Mary Fedden C466/05/01 F1882A Page 3 I'm not coming back." And I said, "Well, I'm just off to Sicily with a friend, and perhaps I should take Julian because he's rather low", and she said, "Oh, that would be wonderful. I wish you would." So I did, and eventually, Ursula married her man and I set up with Julian. So that's how it all happened. And you married Julian in l95l? l95l we were married, but we were living together for two years before that. But it was rather strange. When we went to Sicily, of course I didn't know this when we went, but he told me, of course, when we were there, that his parents had met in Sicily too. His mother was Dutch and she had a Dutch uncle who lived there. And Julian's father, Robert Trevelyan, had an aunt who lived there, and they each went to stay with their relations, and it's rather romantic, she was a violinist, and one night, she went out in the moonlight, with her violin, and played to herself, in the ruins of a monastery, called San Dominico, and Julian's father was out for a walk, and he saw this Dutch girl play her violin by moonlight, and fell passionately in love with this strange vision, and, and so history repeated itself. That Julian and I fell in love in Sicily, just as his parents. That's a wonderful story. It really provides an entree, doesn't it, to something else I want you to talk about, and that's Julian's father, and his father's circle, because Julian was brought up, wasn't he, in a most remarkable sort of household. He was really. His father was one of three Trevelyan brothers, and the most famous of the three, of course, was G.M. Trevelyan, the historian. Julian's father was a poet, and ... not as the world thinks, tremendously successful, but he was a great Greek and Latin scholar, and he collected round him, a circle of amazing friends. He always seemed to have a friend who represented painting, and one who represented poetry, and philosophy. And his friends were Bertrand Russell, E.M. Forster, Roger Fry, Lowes Dickinson, Arthur Whaley, and others who were constantly staying with Julian's parents at their house on Leith Hill. And Julian was constantly, from a very early age, brought up with these amazing people, who were his friends from when he was a child. And I think, in that way, he was so fortunate to have an amazing Mary Fedden C466/05/01 F1882A Page 4 background like that. He was an only child, very cossetted, rather spoilt, I suppose, and his father, who was a very sympathetic and poetical man, and very charming, very vague, rather quirky, used to read poetry to Julian from a very young age. The sort of poetry which Julian couldn't really understand. In fact, he used to read to him in Greek and Latin when he was four and five. But Julian loved his father, and liked the sound of his voice, and the fact that he had no idea what his father was talking about, didn't seem to matter very much. And as Julian grew up, he understood more and more what his father meant. His father made translations, didn't he, from the Greek ... Yes, he did. And he wrote one, he wrote the libretto for a tremendously long opera which Donald Tovey wrote. They were great friends. He was his musical friend, Donald Tovey, and they spent 23 years composing this opera together, which, alas, never ever came to anything. I think it had three performances in Edinburgh, with designs, the sets were designed by Ricketts and Shannon. So it was all very grand, but it was never a success. It was called "The Bride for Dionysus", and nobody has ever performed it since. What a pity. Very sad, because it was 23 years work. Robert Trevelyan, Julian's father, was also a friend of Berenson, wasn't he? A great friend of Berenson. He used to go and stay with Berenson in his house outside Florence, every year. And his, he used to go alone. He never took his wife. I think perhaps she didn't fit in with Berenson's circle, and Robert certainly did. And when Julian became about l5, Berenson used to invite Julian as well. So he used to go and stay there when he was still at school. And Berenson was tremendously kind, and used to send him to the Uffizi, and said, "Go and look at Giotto." And Julian told me that when he first looked at Giotto, he came back and said to Berenson, "I don't see the point of this Giotto chap." And instead of being angry, or offended, Mary Fedden C466/05/01 F1882A Page 5 Berenson said, "Go back again, and look at the hands in the paintings. How beautifully he painted hands." And Julian did. And from that point on, he began to see the point of the Italian primitives and the Renaissance. And Berenson was a great education to Julian, in that field. Did you know Robert Trevelyan? Oh yes. Yes. Well, I knew him from when we started living together in l949, but, alas, he died about four days after we were married, in l95l.