economics and social history. Although economics was an unlikely subject for a woman, it is hard to know why she abandoned mathematics, the subject she most enjoyed and would later credit for her interest in garden design patterns. Her tutor was Hugh Gaitskell who was then lecturing there. Gaitskell would go on to lead the Labour Party in England for many years and become a forceful member of Parliament. Although he was highly regarded and was a contender, he never did become Prime Minister. Still, he must have been an exciting mentor and demanding tutor. It was an interesting time to study economics, with the world just beginning to emerge from the Great Depression. Hitler was on the rise and England’s leaders were intent on avoiding another war. In that same year, the King abdicated his throne to become the Duke of Windsor and marry Wallis Simpson; King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth were crowned.
Despite the tensions in Europe and the threat of war, life in London for those in the right circles continued predictably, observing longstanding social traditions. During the months of May, June, and July, a period that is still referred to as the “London Season,” the major social events take place since there are better odds that the weather will cooperate, at least some of the time. Ascot, Wimbledon, and the British Open all take place in June. For a girl her age, Rosemary was expected to be presented to society as a debutante and attend the endless rounds of parties and balls.
Thus began Rosemary’s schizophrenic existence; her serious academic studies were “in complete contrast to my debbing season and all the dances I went to in London and the country. It was like living in two quite different worlds.”8 Rosemary’s life as a debutante was almost a full-time job, yet somehow she managed to juggle her social whirl with her studies. Before the phrase was invented, she was a successful “multitasker.”
Suitable young men were enlisted to serve as escorts for the debutantes. David Farquharson, who was chosen for Rosemary, recalls her radiating energy and fun. She was “good value … full of life, always bursting with energy, and quite fearless too. I got asked to a certain number of deb dances – all the debutantes scrounge around all the boyfriends they know and ask them to come as their partners. I found out I was to escort Rosemary. Apparently it was her first deb dance.” The “routine generally was that one would meet one’s partner about 7 P.M. or so and go and have cocktails and dinner and then the ball wouldn’t start until 10 or half past. Then you would go on to the ball and then at about 2 there’d be supper – the band played until about 3 or 4 in the morning and you’d finish up with bacon and eggs.”
We “always had a jolly good laugh together and I think she had a great sense of humor. “David, himself a champion diver, remembers inviting Rosemary for a visit to his family’s country house that year. When they went swimming, David displayed his prowess by performing a rather daring dive. “I won the diving at Eton and I learned to do some fancy diving – I was good enough to compete in the Canadian springboard diving championship. I did a 1½ somersault dive off the spring board in this lake so Rosemary said she’d try it. It’s not the kind of dive one takes lightly. [She did] the most awful belly flop but she came out laughing.” This was an early example of her competitive nature and willingness to take risks. David found her “a lot of fun, because she played tennis, she’d ride, she’d swim – she wasn’t all that sexy and attractive but she wasn’t unsexy either. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, but very good company, very cheerful company, very nice smile; she’d laugh like hell at everything.”
That energy, fearlessness, and sense of fun attracted many young men. Her girlfriend, Gillian Jackson, who would become Gillian Sandilands when she married Rosemary’s favorite brother, Francis, confirmed that Rosemary had “lots of suitors, but none of them were particularly suitable, none were intellectual.” Rosemary set off with one such unsuitable young man on a daring adventure. His father owned a sporting goods shop, which gave him access to every kind of sporting equipment. After outfitting the two of them with water skis, they skied down the Thames, dodging their way through the barges and other heavy water traffic, zooming under London’s bridges. It must have been terribly dangerous. The Thames was a major thoroughfare, the equivalent of the modern highway, full of traffic, as well as pollution. What a sight they must have been, those two young people on skis, racing through the watery heart of London!
During the deb parties, Rosemary danced with David Verey for the first time. They had known each other for many years since David was a close friend and Eton schoolmate of her brother, Francis. David had often visited the Sandilands family but there was a five-year age gap between David and Rosemary. Before her coming out, Rosemary was the little kid sister, and David must have seemed distant and far too old to incite any romantic interest. They had paid very little attention to each other before that fateful dance. Rosemary discovered “he was the best waltzer.” He was also quiet, intellectual, and far more respectable than the likes of her waterskiing friend.
David Verey was the only child of Cecil Verey, a parson, and his wife, Constance Lindoraii Verey. The Vereys were an “aristocratic parsonage family. They were all vicars and rectors and they’d been sort of writers and dilettantes – perfect dilettantes.”9 David was not only the single child of his parents, but also the sole descendant of most of his uncles and aunts. By contrast, Rosemary’s lineage included a solid banking family, although she often boasted about a more distinguished ancestor, claiming to be a descendant of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of Henry II, pointing out the “heart on the Coat of Arms of the Sandilands came from the twelfth century.” That coat of arms would later hang in her guest powder room. “Typical play it down Brit – but make sure everybody sees it!”10
David Verey had finished reading architecture at Trinity College, Cambridge, and had joined the Royal Fusiliers. Notwithstanding his military enlistment, he still had time to participate in the 1939 London season and enjoy that waltz Rosemary recalled. There is nothing in David’s diaries to suggest he particularly noticed her or that dance. Instead, his diary recorded dancing until 2:30 A.M. with another young woman named Barbara Russell after he took her to the ballet. “It was the greatest fun. I think I’ve ‘got it’ worse than ever before.” His diary is full of references to Barbara; but by March of 1939, he wrote that the relationship proved to be “a little hell as it is not reciprocated. All rather pathetic.” He shared his disappointment with his mother, noting that “owing to some instinct of self-preservation I had not gone right off the deep end. And last night was in the nick of time; but it is very unpleasant all the same.”11
The threat of another war provided a sobering backdrop to that social season. David worried about Chamberlain as “the only string on which peace is hung … if Chamberlain goes what will happen?” On April 8: “Mussolini chose yesterday to bomb the defenseless towns of her friendly little neighbor Albania. The British press is indignant in these terms at the sudden Italian conquest.… It is a world shock.” He listened to Hitler’s infamous Reichstag speech on the afternoon of April 28 and drew upon his religious convictions for strength. A few months earlier, David noted that a relative, Philip Verey had a son, the “first Verey birth since mine.” But days later, there is a sad note that the little boy died. David continued to be the sole male descendant carrying the Verey family name.
As David worried about the threat of war and the “world going from crisis and making everything uncertain,” he learned that after several attempts he had failed to pass parts of the exams required for licensed architects. At one point, after losing his job with an architectural firm, he almost gave up in frustration. “I have decided not to go on with architecture.”12
That summer, David was asked to escort a group of school boys on a trip to Canada, but didn’t want to leave his mother who had suffered a fall while moving into Barnsley House with her husband. Then he changed his mind, observing, “It’s my well-known weakness in character to feel compelled to change after a decision has been made.” Before he left, Rosemary’s brother and David’s close friend, Francis Sandilands, announced his engagement to Gill Jackson. To celebrate and bid David good-bye, the newly engaged couple and Rosemary paid a visit to Barnsley. They all enjoyed lots of
