Earlham, Percy Lubbock, & more Lyttelton/Hart-Davis

Earlham by Percy Lubbock

published 1922

The Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters

published 1978-84

Percy Lubbock

I wrote about the Lyttelton/Hart-Davis collected correspondence earlier this week, and those letters sent me off in pursuit of this book. It is a huge favourite of both of them, and Percy Lubbock was a friend of both. He was one of those splendid old gentleman who remind me of Nancy Mitford’s description of (the fictional) Lord Montdore in Love in a Cold Climate:

We used to think that he was a wonderful old fraud.. There was an ineffectiveness about Lord Montdore which had nothing to do with age; he looked wonderful and old, but it seemed to me that… he might just as well have been made of wonderful old cardboard.

But Lyttelton and Rupert loved this book so much that I thought I needed to take a look. They have a great insult – that someone is the kind of person who doesn’t appreciate the book Earlham.

Well that’s me off the list then – as you may have guessed, I did not take to it at all. It brought out the revolutionary socialist in me. I have read a large number of memoirs of childhood, dealing with upmarket lives from end of 19^th century to the second world war, say. I have enjoyed some of them very much:

Period Piece by Gwen Raverat

Christmas with the Savages by Mary Clive

(and, NOT rich kids, there’s Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie, and

Lark Rise by Flora Thompson, The Country Child by Alison Uttley)

But this one I just got impatient with. It is self-consciously, knowingly nostalgic and would-be charming. Oh what a lovely time they had. The children are never distinct from each other, the wonderful grandmother sounded tiresome and I didn’t see why I should be interested in his detailed description of childhood visits to his large family home ie Earlham Hall in Norfolk. Would Percy, George and Rupert like to hear my reminiscences of my childhood? Everyone else’s?

The book did nothing for me except convince me that the system they lived in was way overdue for being swept away. The lovely grandmother believed everyone should have their station in life and stick to it. How amusing.

There were two points in its favour. One of the things I dislike in memoirs can be summed up as ‘our dogs were better than your dogs.’ I don’t care. But there was nothing of that in this book.

The other is that at one point Lubbock expresses doubt that it was  tremendous fun for the servants to have the children of the house running round asking for food and being delightful and annoying in the kitchen. This shows a self-awareness that is lacking everywhere else in the book.

So now back to the original text.

The privilege the entitlement – it is all over the Lyttelton/Hart-Davis letters. There is a son who is mentioned frequently: he is still alive and has his own career so I don’t want to lay into him. But we have him (ie the teenage boy) saying ‘his boys’-maid has got her own television set, and he wonders whether the Welfare State hasn’t gone a little too far.’

This is at Eton obviously. He is one of our brightest and best, and best-educated, and he is 15. Love to know how he thinks the Welfare State gave anyone a TV.

But not to worry – a few pages later his father is having top-level discussions with a Cambridge college on whether he should be getting this boy into Oxford or Cambridge. (Do I have to explain that it wouldn’t have been so easy for a state school/Welfare State teenager?)

Mind you – more promising news of other offspring. Lyttelton is the father of Humphrey Lyttelton (1921-2008), a jazz trumpeter who holds a special place in UK life because of his long-time chairing of the radio panel show I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. No I can’t explain if you don’t know about it, but I will say that I have very fond memories of a Sunday lunch in America where half the guests were UK and half US, and the Brits played a round of Mornington Crescent with great gusto to try to explain it. Obviously leaving American friends more confused than ever. (We used the Baron’s Court rules, with the Barbican extension, so it was quite complicated.)

Humphrey Lyttelton

Another topic arising – Rupert Hart-Davis is very very good at crosswords, and regularly wins prizes from the newspapers and the weekly magazines of the day. But he wins so many, that he feels obliged to start sending in his entries in the names of his sister and other friends. Devoted readers of Agatha Christie (ie me) will instantly recognize this as a plot point in a much earlier book by her – here comes the #spoilernotspoiler, it is this book.

I was very impressed by how these letters survived in that more difficult time – did they make copies, did they just store them carefully? Rupert may have typed with carbons, but L certainly didn’t – fountain pen with occasional apologies for biro. R says only one letter was lost in all that time. It's a mystery.

The other mystery is how I enjoyed the books (not Earlham, just the letters) so much, found them compulsive, while also being hugely infuriated by them.

In the comments on the first entry you can find some words of defence for the two men of letters - more discussion on this very welcome...