The Anthony Powell Society Newsletter Issue 33, Winter 2008 ISSN 1743-0976 We wish all members & friends of the Society a Peaceful Christmas and a Prosperous New Year Contents From the Secretary’s Desk … 2 Anthony Powell, Gardener … 3 Anthony Powell & Auberon Waugh … 6 Coffee-Stall at Hyde Park Corner … 8 Bombing of the Café de Paris … 10 Top 20 Sportsmen in Dance … 12 Letters to the Editor … 13 Dates for Your Diary … 14 Local Group News … 16 Book Review: Ferdinand Mount … 18 Book Review: Osbert Lancaster … 20 Cuttings … 23 Merchandise & Membership … 26 Christmas Quizzes … Centrefold Remember: New Subscription Rates from January 2009; see page 7 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #33 From the Secretary’s Desk The Anthony Powell Society Registered Charity No. 1096873 And so another year rolls round. It seems only a few weeks ago that we were about to The Anthony Powell Society is a have the first annual Anthony Powell charitable literary society devoted to the Lecture, yet here we are on the eve of the life and works of the English author second lecture which will have been and Anthony Dymoke Powell, 1905-2000. gone by the time you read this. And for those of you who can’t be there we’ll print Officers & Executive Committee a report in the next Newsletter. Patron: John MA Powell We have also recently held the AGM at which we had an interesting and President: Simon Russell Beale entertaining talk from Paul Willetts on Hon. Vice-Presidents: Julian Maclaren-Ross, or as he expressed it Julian Allason “the man who was X Trapnel”. Again we Patric Dickinson hope to print Willetts’ talk in a future issue *Chairman: Dr Christine Berberich of the Journal; and the minutes of the AGM *Hon. Secretary: Dr Keith C Marshall will be in the next Newsletter. *Hon. Treasurer: Dr Derek WJ Miles Mention of the Journal reminds me that *Committee Members: this year’s issue is running well behind Dr Nicholas Birns (USA) schedule and it may well not appear until Stephen Holden January. As I keep saying, we are all Jeffrey Manley (USA) running the Society in addition to Tony Robinson demanding day jobs, and sadly something Elwin Taylor has to give. Indeed I made it very clear at the AGM that unless somebody(s) step Newsletter & Journal Editor: forward to take on the Membership Stephen Holden Secretary and the Merchandise roles in the Hon. Archivist: Noreen Marshall next year, I shall step down as Secretary at PR/Media Adviser: Julian Allason the next AGM. I cannot keep trying to do the amount I am, especially as it is All correspondence should be sent to: beginning to take a toll on my health. We Hon. Secretary, Anthony Powell Society also need someone to take on organising 76 Ennismore Avenue, Greenford events in the UK; again I cannot do it all; Middlesex, UB6 0JW, UK there haven’t been many events this year – Phone: +44 (0) 20 8864 4095 despite some good ideas – purely because I Fax: +44 (0) 20 8864 6109 have just not had the time organise them. Email: [email protected] On a more positive note, Nick Birns is organising what promises to be an * Members of the Executive Committee who are outstanding conference for next September. the Society’s legal trustees. All trustees are Again we hope to have more details and resident in England or Wales unless stated. booking information in the next Newsletter. Cover photograph © John S Monagan 1984 So once again at the end of the year it really and reproduced by kind permission. remains only for me to thank everyone © The Anthony Powell Society, 2008 and the for their support during the year and to individual authors named. All rights reserved. wish you all a peaceful and enjoyable Published by The Anthony Powell Society. Christmas and a prosperous 2009. ■ Printed and distributed by Express Printing, Wellingborough, UK. 2 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #33 Anthony Powell, Gardener A letter from John Powell Anthony Powell took to country life and energetic gardening. Also rediscovering Albert’s Grotto and Fum’s Oak. He lived in Somerset without becoming in the least countrified, venturing out only for a stroll down to the lake or to chop a few logs. [Cold Cream by Ferdinand Mount, page 70] As soon as we moved down to Somerset in house and near the stables; these walls 1952 my father sought practical advice remain to this day, now partly concealed about what was worthy and to be by ivy. encouraged in the garden from his great friend Alick Dru who farmed on the other Features of the grotto, completely hidden side of Somerset near Minehead. In reality by laurels and ivy, were really re- discovered by him. We had no full time my father put much work into the gardens gardening help, many of the trees around which spread out around The Chantry the property AP encouraged as saplings from the word go. Descriptions of the adding to the mixed woodland. The clear period after we had moved down here wooded stretches by the house with a when he was commuting to London to variety of trees were entirely his creation. literary edit at Punch two nights a week, However his pruning policy could be ignore the fact that AP was always at work in the garden here in much the same way severe. as he was promptly at his typewriter every In a grassy alcove just beside the house, morning. there is a curious low stone platform which was deep in laurels when we arrived. This When we arrived here in 1952 AP was used to be the foundation for an electricity confronted by various jungles around the house and in other parts of the property particularly by the lake. The Walled Garden, while in its original state in many ways, was overgrown. Two very large greenhouses were in total collapse. These were dismantled single- handedly by AP; the large number of panes of glass are still piled against the wall of the garden. Mostly it was laurel, brambles and elder that had to be cleared. Amongst the laurels qi i surrounding the house there was an idd S endless supply of country litter: old k aik F bottles, china and earthenware fragments & drifting up in the soil as well as enough n i large stones to be gradually redeployed in al M low dry stone walls by the front of the hoto P 3 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #33 generator. When cleared of laurels, then opportunity arose and before the dust surrounding the house, the area with the pollution in the streams disturbed the stone platform was named ‘Albert’s natural breeding of the brown trout. Grotto’ in memory of our cat Albert who In 1972 he was an active supporter of the came with us from London in 1952; he ACA (the Anglers Co-operative used to sit there while happily adapting to Association) campaign which forced the rural life in old age. then Labour government to drop proposals One of four excellent photographs taken in to alter Common Law allowing a riparian 2007 by Malin & Faik Siddiqi during the owner to proceed for damages against a AP Society visit to The Chantry shows the discharger of effluent or other pollution. head of Apollo resting in a stone flower There is correspondence up to ministerial pot on top of a redundant Georgian level, as well as a thick file of technical chimney in Albert’s Grotto. Further to the correspondence on the new reservoir left beyond the arcade (originally from the regulations introduced in the 1980s, in Walled Garden) there is a small but broad relation to the lake. oak tree often referred to as Fum’s Oak by He liked and used the traditional names for AP (after Kingsplay Flixey Fum, the the fields, roads and lanes. With Lady Burmese successor to Albert). Violet he was an early supporter of the The image of AP not taking exercise but Somerset Trust for Nature Conservancy. keeping fit by moving between the sofa While he was happy to let Lady Violet (for reviewing), cooking cool curries and look after the endless environmental the various collages is not accurate problems with the local quarries, he would particularly in terms of the timescale. write forceful letters on local matters when Initially when we moved here clearing the required. garden was his main activity away from Part of The Chantry’s treescape the literary world. The curries, followed by the boiler room collage, both came later on in the 1960s, the latter a very gradual process over some years. He always took moderate exercise while he could. He was most conscientious about all aspects of running the property, planting trees (one or two we actually brought from London have survived to this day). The lake was gradually revitalised and its fishing syndicate made more durable. There was a feeling in the early fifties that the lake would become silted up within 15- 20 years; time has disproved this theory ll due in large part to the syndicate which Marsha took over in the 1970s. He wrote an essay th i e describing the fishing at The Chantry. He K was a determined fisherman when the hoto P 4 Anthony Powell Society Newsletter #33 He researched the history of The Chantry. His early energetic clearing activities lead to the discovery of half of a fractured inscribed foundation stone for a new canal in nearby Coleford that would have reached Dorset. This was a project of the Chantry Fussells in the early 1800s.