Losing myself in a book.

Like many, I share the  secret superpower of being able to lose myself in a book, and books have invaded most rooms of our house; so, many places to hide. This is the utility room, behind me a freezer, washing machine and bread maker. But this is what I would rather be looking at. The three large prints each have their own story and each historic in their own way: the Beatles Poster offering free gifts to the first 300 girls just to see them, the two Papal documents dating from the mid C18th. 

The books, too, have their own history, which is the prime reason I could never get rid of them. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, I inherited from my father-in-law. Published in 1925 when the British Empire was still at its peak, each volume is full of outdated certainties. Then again, come the apocalypse, when the new ‘certainties’ of Wikipedia and the internet are down for the duration, 1925 may come into its own again.

 

It may be I never read these books again, but that’s not the point. I walk past them, tracing the memories, and regretting the books from my childhood lost over the years—in particular, an almost complete set of Biggles. 

As a boy, I developed an obsession with ‘The Saint’ and the smoke-filled London underworld the original books conjured up; approaching my teens, The Saint was replaced by James Bond. I remember cycling two miles in the pouring rain on a rumour that a particular newsagent on Rice Lane had Thunderball, the very latest James Bond.

Other rooms house classics,  the academic, and other more worthy tomes; the battered and well used pulp on these shelves: Fu Manchu, Shell Scott, Micky Spillane, Michael Moorcock et al represent the guilty pleasures of my youth, more valuable to me than any fossil found on Chesil Beach.

A Magical Mystery Tour

A few weeks ago, we went to Longford Castle, which holds one of the greatest art collections in the country and works closely with the National Gallery. It was an interesting experience just getting there, not only in terms of the stringent ID demanded, but also the manner of transport. 

The select group met at Salisbury Railway Station, where a specially chartered coach took us through winding country lanes to our destination. We were in Agatha Christie land, in every sense of the word, evocative country, charabanc, and our companions from a different class and age. I couldn’t avoid wondering who amongst us was the murderer and determined to refuse any offered sandwiches or drink. 

My favourites were two very elderly, very aristocratic women, one tall, dressed in ankle-length black and with ornate Edwardian hair, the other shorter but with no less authority. The tall one, to my joy, wore sensible trainers beneath the long black dress.

They sat behind us and talked in clipped upper-class accents. Both were members of the Hurlingham Club where fees start at £1400 a year – a largely academic figure since membership is closed except for the children of existing members. We learned that it was pointless keeping horses unless one enjoyed at least 1200 acres of land and were intrigued by the social niceties of a sewing circle both attended. Neither women had any great enthusiasm for its secretary:

“Secretary—most unpleasant.”

“Nasty piece of work.”

“So unfortunate. Her husband is such a nice man.”

“Hungarian, I’m told.”

“Yes. Wooden leg, you know. Still goes swimming. In that sea every day. Crack of dawn.”

At last, we arrived.

 

And our two guides didn’t disappoint. The lady was thin and approaching early middle age. She wore a knee-length floral skirt and a faded green cardigan that ached to be an inch longer and was fraying in the attempt. She had, though, a wonderful smile, which she switched on and off at will. The man was slight and dapper, with a boyish twinkle and a quizzical smile. Both exuded charm and effortless expertise, their patter honed to perfection. We were charmed.

And soon saturated with its history and treasures: oak and mahogany panelling, silk-lined walls and so many pictures—none of which we could photograph, the use of a camera strictly forbidden. 

The exterior it was then, very nice, but not a patch on what was inside.

What we see now is the work of the Victorian architect Anthony Salvin (1799-1851) He built it around an original Elizabethan castle, which in turn was built upon an earlier manor. Sir Thomas Gorges found the wherewithal to finish his castle after Elizabeth I gifted the Marchioness of Northampton, (Gorges was her second husband) with the contents of a galleon captured in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. 

In 1717, the house passed into the hands of the Bouverie family, Huguenot refugees from France who made their fortune from the Levantine trade. Legend has it that Sir Edward des Bouverie fell in love with the house on sight and paid for it there and then from two saddlebags of gold. That’s the way to do it. The house has remained in the Bouverie family ever since.

Amongst many Bouveries of note, my favourite is Helen Matilde, Countess of Radnor who was married to the fifth Earl.  Apart from being the first to make a full inventory of the castle’s treasures, she also formed and conducted an eighty-strong all-female string orchestra.

Playing the piano with her tiara. What style! And it's on the right way round.

 During concerts, she made a point of wearing her tiara on the back of her head, so it was visible to the audience when she stood on the rostrum. 

Soon after her husband died in 1900, she fell madly in love with Venice, gondolas and gondoliers, to the extent of bringing a gondola back to Longford along with its gondolier. In between playing with gondola and gondolier on the river Avon, she bred small white pigs, and in the eve of her years, she wrote From a Great Grandmother’s Armchair in 1927 which recorded a history of the family from the opening years of the C20th.

The Avon minus gondola and gondolier 

I'm still wondering what happened to the gondolier

To my great disappointment, no one was murdered, and we arrived back in Salisbury in time for a Pret a Manger sandwich. 

Back home, I've decided I want cyclamen in my garden. What's good enough for the Bouveries is good enough for me

Something must be done!

 

 

Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth recently claimed that female police officers can suffer sexual harassment simply by being in a room with a majority of their male colleagues: “This is not about me, but I think sexual harassment is about sitting in rooms where you have more male officers than women. Where you’re in a male-dominated environment for any women—that’s always challenging.” 

On the very same day, I saw this picture.

 

‘This is not about me,’ she claimed. I would suggest that it is about her, or at least partly so. Maggie Blyth volunteered for the position of national police coordinator for violence against women, created after the murder of Sarah Everard, an understandable knee-jerk reaction to a horrible crime. But roles and positions, commissions and study groups need to justify their existence—newly created vacuums to be filled.  Recommendations and worthy statements appear in due course, translated into soundbites and as quickly forgotten—a purpose achieved: something has been done!  In this case, a facile assertion.

‘…sexual harassment is about sitting in rooms where you have more male officers than women.’ Pity the recently deceased Queen. 

Even if the generalisation were true, what is the solution—socially engineered briefing rooms and offices where women, men and every kind of minority attend on a strict quota system? That would make a nice new layer of bureaucracy at the expense of enforcing law and order. When it  comes to the armed forces, the issue is can we kill faster and more efficiently than the other side. Are they to be faced with a similar choice: social engineering or competence in war?

 There are already laws against the crimes the Deputy Constable is inveighing against, and disciplinary procedures in the police force. I’d suggest stricter enforcement rather than re-designing the wheel.  

 Blatant sexism should never be ignored, but it seems to me that if women police officers and soldiers have enough courage and heft to deal with criminals and life and death situations on battlefields and streets, sexist comments pale in significance.   

The Final Twists

The Imperial enterprise carried with it men of vision and fortitude, obscure yeomen from equally obscure villages, who died in obscure parts of the world, soldiers and statesmen, the rapacious and venal, courageous scoundrels, risk-takers, and men driven by duty. And then there were the dipsticks, parasites with titles, the unfortunate barnacles of empire.

Porchy, (the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon) comes to mind along with his umbilically connected chum, Prince Victor Duleep Singh. 

In the case of the latter, it can be argued that he was more victim turned parasite. His father, Duleep Singh, the last maharaja of the Punjab had been deposed by the British whilst still a boy. In exchange for the Koh-i-Noor diamond, he was granted a settlement by the Indian Office and lived the rest of his life as a country gentleman and favourite of the Queen who had a thing about dashing young men with fine teeth and flashing eyes.

Father and son, (Victor was born in 1866) were never wholly accepted by the establishment, both exiles in a gilded cage. 

Neither were allowed back into India. In this context it is possible to feel some sympathy for the irresponsible Victor who spent other people’s money and welched on his debts. 

Serious Victor

Getting on a bit Victor

In his latest work, The Final Twists, William Cross, my go-to truffle hound for the sordid, the unseemly and aristocratic warts in general, re-examines the generally accepted but unproven assertion that Prince Victor was the real father of the sixth Earl of Carnarvon. 

In doing so, he retraces old ground: the fact that young Porchy and Victor came from troubled backgrounds. Porchy never got over the death of his mother and was deeply unhappy as a boy. Both boys had father issues, the fourth Earl stiff and unbending, Victor’s father highly sexed and unfaithful, with a small army of mistresses ranging from ‘Norfolk maids’ to chorus girls. 

Packed off to Eton, both boys at once showed their unpleasant side and developed habits that would come to haunt them. Both were inveterate gamblers, fleecing their fellow students and in turn being fleeced by moneylenders. They tore through their allowances and the habit worsened at university where they spent money like water. When money ran out, they borrowed without paying back. Their only redeeming feature was their deep and abiding love for each other – to the extent that tongues began wagging. Both frequented the flesh pots and brothels of London and Egypt where young Porchy may have contracted syphilis of the mouth. One can only guess. 

For that reason, and because both by now were running short of other people’s money, marriage became a serious option.  Enter Almina Wombwell. Her mother, Marie was a close friend of Alfred de Rothschild, Almina’s Godfather and possibly more. With Rothschild wealth the bargain was sealed, and overnight Almina became a Countess.

 Porchy, now the Fifth Earl, gained a degree of respectability and more money than even he could spend; Almina gained a title, a sickly syphilis-ridden husband, and Prince Victor Duleep Singh. 

Victor also found a wife, Lady Anne Coventry. 

The marriage came with the reluctant blessing of Queen Victoria who nevertheless exacted a solemn promise from Lady Anne that she would never, under any circumstances, become pregnant. Late Victorian England was not yet ready for a mixed-race aristocracy.

Deprived of carnal relations with Lady Anne may or may not have been a blessing for Prince Victor. What we do know was that Almina, the new Countess Carnarvon, became increasingly close to the prince; hardly surprising since the 5^thEarl suffered from syphilis and she found him cold and revolting. 

What is surprising is that she became pregnant and successfully gave birth to the future sixth Earl of Carnarvon, even though she later claimed that she and Porchy never had sex. Victor, on the other hand . . .

It begs more than one question: was it a cynical manoeuvre between friends to create the crucial heir to the earldom? Was it a frustrated Almina rebelling against marital coldness? Was it an equally frustrated Prince Victor continuing his bloodline through the backdoor as it were?

Photos and likenesses have been pored over, diaries examined, archives explored. Unable to quell rumours, the Carnarvons have since retained a diplomatic silence and, understandably, a policy of non-cooperation. If DNA proved the truth of these rumours, then other members of the family would have a stronger claim to the title. 

This is what makes William Cross’s final claim so interesting. He has access to a locket containing a miniature portrait of the fourth Earl of Carnarvon along with a lock of his hair. Doubt could be removed at a stroke, rumours dispelled. Until then the fifth Earl of Carnarvon and Prince Victor Duleep Singh remain peculiarly bonded—but with one final twist. If DNA revealed the present Earls of Carnarvon to be descended from Prince Victor Duleep Singh, they could face relinquishing an earldom, but perhaps stake a claim to the Koh-i-Noor Diamond along with the Punjab. An unlikely event but such are the twists and turns of empire and two interesting parasites. 

Rest in Peace, Daphne Long

 

Often a story will come from an image— from a dream, a magazine or in this case Pinterest. The first time I saw the photo, a shiver ran through me. I’m not prone to shivers and there was no rational reason for this one, the image, for many, reasonably mundane: it was that of man in silhouette, blurred in rain, and holding an umbrella. I started collecting similar images, the germ of a story festering at the back of my mind. Do germs fester? The C17th had a pithier term for a tune that you couldn’t get out of your head: maggot, one that will turn into a fly and buzz there non-stop.

Back to ‘Umbrella’  the working title of something I should finish in ten months or so.  I’m 12K in so no going back. 

Starting is the important thing and allied to that, the actual ‘beginning’—one that hooks from the start. Getting back to the ‘festering,’ two villains gradually emerged, Sabine Richter and a Bulgarian occultist called Rykov. The next problem was motive. Even villains need motives even, perhaps, a redeeming point or two. And somehow, I need to incorporate rain in all its many forms? A Bulgarian rain demon anyone? Google is your friend.

The story begins with Sabine Richter on the run from Castle Wewelsburg, the centre of Heinrich Himmler’s occult obsession. Sabine is no angel but it’s hard not to feel sorry for her when she jumps from the frying pan—Himmler— into the fire: 1937 Newport and the magician Rykov.

The next crucial ingredient was the first victim. There’s going to be lots of them, but the first one is crucial: the initiatory sacrifice. The sacrificial lamb proved the hardest part of those first twelve thousand words. The name came easily; it shot through the mind as though it had been waiting there all the time: Daphne Long.

 Poor Daphne, created as a convenience, a means to an end. A sacrifice has to be made, and she’s it—blood the universal currency of demons. But of course, she’s flesh and blood, and she’s more than a name. She has to be. 

Dispatch her without backstory and the reader has no reason to care either way. And this is the weirdness of writing though at the same time predictable, you become invested in your character, in this case Daphne Long from Potter Street in Pill.

I put the killing off for as long as possible, googling needlessly into the mechanics of cutting a throat, the tactile and physical experience. But avoidance activity can only go so far.  The day at last arrived, a hot Saturday morning. Daphne’s last few moments on earth.

After it was done, I stared at the screen and felt blood on my hands, for it was me that had killed her, Rykov and Sabine the puppets. I’d felt the warm flesh, sinew and cartilage, experienced the blood. And now I sat in a cloud of guilt and seller’s remorse. Murder never comes easy. 

RIP Daphne Long.