NATIONAL LIFE STORIES ARTISTS’ LIVES Barbara Steveni Interviewed by Melanie Roberts C466/80 This transcript is copyright of the British Library Boar d. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] This transcript is accessible via the British Library’s Archival Sound Recordings website. Visit http://sounds.bl.uk for further information about the interview. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk IMPORTANT Access to this interview and transcript is for private research only. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] 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. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators ( [email protected] ) © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C466/80/01-10 Digitised from cassette originals Collection title: Artists’ Lives Interviewee’s surname: Steveni Title: Interviewee’s forename: Barbara Mary Lesley Sex: female Occupation: Dates: b. 21.08.1928 Dates of recording : 4.6.1998; 22.6.1998; 4.8.1998; 13.8.1998, 19.10.1998 Location of interview: Interviewee’s home Name of interviewer: Melanie Roberts Type of recorder: Marantz CP430 and two lapel mics Recording format: TDK C60 Cassettes F numbers of playback cassettes: F6683-F6692 Total no. of digitised tracks : 20 Mono or stereo: Stereo Additional material at the British Library : Copyright/Clearance: Full Clearance . © The British Library Interviewer’s comments: © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Barbara Steveni C466/80/01 F6683A Page 1 F6683 Side A Commencing the interview with Barbara Steveni on the 4 th of June 1998 at her home in London. The interviewer is Melanie Roberts. Could you tell me exactly when and where you were born? Right. Well I was born in Meshed, Persia, which I suppose is Iran, and I was born in the British Consulate there. My father was...he was in the Foreign Service, and so I was born virtually in the Consulate. And I can remember quite a lot of even being in those buildings, which is quite strange because I suppose... Those early memories are quite strong, I remember this veranda and this building, so, I can’t quite remember what age I would have been then but we did come backwards and forwards to England then go out again, but I seem to remember that this building was actually the building of the Consulate, so we must have stayed there for some time like, you know, three years. Can you remember your parents at that early age? Well, my mother was, she was Irish, and the daughter of an army officer, she was Helen Chauncy. And my father was Leo Oscar Steveni, and he was half Russian, of Russian-Swedish origin, so we have a Russian grandmother, who incidentally, I went and found their home in Petersburg just recently, in 1993, which was very exciting. And, well I just remember my father, and that memory of my father was there for quite a long time because we moved backwards and forwards between either being in India or, well Meshed, which was where I was born, and then we went to India, and my father then was in the Indian Army. And, my visions, my visual of my father was quite a suave man, he had sort of slicked down hair, as was the style of the time, and my mother was dark and pretty with freckles, quite sort of Irish, very bossy, my remembrances of my parents was that my mother always bossed my father, and I was always saying to my sister later on, ‘We’ll never be like that with our husbands,’ or with whoever we...but of course, you know... And, so, my father was this quite glamorous guy, always in army uniform at that time, and I can hardly remember him not in uniform, except he would be wearing shorts and chuplies[ph] which was these © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Barbara Steveni C466/80/01 F6683A Page 2 Indian sandals. And I sort of remember from a very early age that that was the vision of my father, and that lasted right through to when we were in India. And they were great socialites, my father was a wonderful mimic, and because he...and very amusing, he could take off anybody, and he spoke about seven languages because of the Russian, which was why they used him later on in, you know, this war, the last war, in Chongqing and everything. So, there were always parties, and there always seemed to be parties all the time, because my parents did have a lot of very good friends, and my father was very amusing, and my mother was a great hostess, and that is how I remember them really, though there’s much more that I remember about my father, especially when I left home and married John Latham. But back in this early period, do you remember the sort of domestic environment and the servants and so on then? Yes, yes absolutely. And this might be slightly confused with my Meshed, you know, being in Persia, but, this big veranda that, we would be a lot on the veranda, because it would always be very hot, and there would be a lot of undergrowth growing up around it. And we had an ayah , which is, you know, the Indian nanny, and, I remember an incident about being on that veranda, which was Meshed, and it wasn’t being in India, so that was an early memory, which was that, we had some little presents sent out to us from our grandparents in England, and mine was a tiny little cold frame, you know, like a little greenhouse, and a very sort of small rake, and I remember that however it happened, I smashed the glasses of the ayah , and my mother, I don’t know how it happened, how I had smashed them, but anyway she ran screaming to my mother, and my mother came and picked up this present and smashed it down on the veranda to show me what I had done to the ayah’s glasses, you know. So I remember that very distinctly, and it was on the veranda. And I remember, I can’t remember much more of the other servants, but we’d have, I remember there was a birthday party, so, I was either three or two or whatever it was, and I had an elder sister, Elizabeth, who was two years older than me, and I remember we had balloons, they were silver balloons. They must have had helium in them because they just floated up and away, and I remember looking, and I didn’t know they had helium at that time, or I wouldn’t have known it was helium. But anyway my balloon, which was a silver balloon, floated away out of my control, off the © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Barbara Steveni C466/80/01 F6683A Page 3 veranda, and over above all this undergrowth, so I remember that. And that was Meshed, that was definitely Persia. And then, we would come backwards and forwards to England, to Devon, with my grandparents, and I always remember going on these big ocean liners, the P&O liners, and having these very hot baths of seawater would gush in and be up to here on me. And the life on the boat, we did this several times so it was sort of quite a big memory, but I remember they had boxing to entertain the passengers, and the lift boy was one of the boxers, and I remember seeing him in the ring and smashing each other up, and that was in a way the first time I had sort of seen, which was apparently meant to be an interesting game, people beating each other up, and I remember being horrified with that. And then, we would go backwards and forwards to my life in Devon, which was then very strong for me because I was then left in Devon by the parents, one, because I had had rheumatic fever as a small child, and so they never knew how, you know, strong my heart would be for India or whatever, and, which was also a reason why I didn’t go to school for quite a long time, and I... I’m losing myself a bit here between India. But... And what age were you when you were, when you stayed in Devon? About five. Mm, so very small. So, between that time I was going backwards and forwards between Devon and India, as it was then. In India, which were quite sort of strong memories, and my Devon memory, but that comes in a bit later, because I stayed there with them, but the Indian memories were also very strong in that there would be an earthquake, and again, you know, the veranda, but it was just a bungalow, we were in the Delhi Contonment which were just outside Delhi which is where all the army was based, and I remember that when we had the earthquake, and it was quite a strong earthquake and we all sort of rushed outside and everything, the whole landscape was shifted, you know, we would go to the end of the road, and the landscape was completely different, I remember as a child, how could it have been changed like that.