The Murenger remains my favourite
pub in Newport. It is quiet, idiosyncratic (in a city that turns idiosyncracy
into something worth bottling) and is a refuge for writers, or those
who value a silent drink. The two, it must be said, do not go hand in hand, at
least on a Thursday afternoon. There two people hold sway, William Cross and
Monty Dart; two literary truffle-hounds who’ve been invaluable in the background
to my forthcoming trilogy, The Gift, Bloodline, and Bloodfall.
They have turned Evan Morgan, the
last Lord Tredegar, into a cottage industry and it’s impossible to avoid their
enthusiasm. They scour the arcane: Kew, the Vatican Library, and the private
records of the Great Houses in their quest for forgotten letters that reveal
more of their quarry.
William Cross’s latest book Evan, Lord Tredegar, selected Letters,
Prose, and Quotations, the Mystic Muse of Evan Frederick Morgan is a little
longer than its title but packed with insight into the earthy and otherworldly
lord. The full story will never be told because his most private letters and
other material were hurriedly burnt on his death. Knowing what we do of Evan
Morgan it’s easy to understand why.
So what do we have here?
The first part of the book treads
familiar territory to those who’ve read the author’s previous books on Evan Morgan.
It is in a sense an extended introduction for those new to the man. Having said
that there are some new, evocative snippets, such as for example Paris just
before and after the First World War.
The real joy of the book is to be
found in the letters and articles from Evan himself. I wish there were more.
There are poems too. Morgan fancied himself as the reincarnation of Percy
Bysshe Shelley. The poems though fail to support the theory.
So what for me were the highlights?
I’d have to include Morgan’s letter
to the Western Mail during the carnage of the First World War: ‘War thoughts
from Algiers’. It is too long to quote in it’s entirety but to cut any part of
it would dilute its purple absurdity, its naïve sycophancy when he praises
Lloyd George, and his ‘Geddin down wid de people’ as his article reaches its
climax. Perhaps a short quote then: ‘…Do we all fully appreciate him, we of the
old country of the mountains? He is one of us…. We are his countrymen, have
seen him, have watched him make the name of Wales ring throughout the world.
What reward, what show of gratitude can we give back in exchange, we Welshmen…’
We
Welshmen—this man who avoided Wales whenever possible in search of sun and
young boys.
There are newspaper articles and
accounts of his attempt to win a seat for the Tories in Limehouse, with another
wonderful ‘Geddin down wid de people’ moment in his lyrical description of the
‘neat’ and ‘smart’ ‘inhabitants’ of Limehouse. He even boasts about dancing
with them. As for his purple prosed rhapsody on the eternal glories of
Catholicism… Well, the church is a vessel for sinners and navigated by them,
too. So no doubt there exists a lifeboat somewhere for the generous, bitchy,
idealistic, pompous sexual predator and Satanist: Evan Morgan.
No comments:
Post a Comment