was regarded as a conscientious priest with a lively social ministry. He and his five boys were sometimes referred to as ‘the Vicar and his sporting sons’. They were keen cricketers and accomplished riders. A family photograph taken about 1903 catches them in pensive rather than sporting mood, and Mrs Harbord looks careworn. In fact, the family was a happy and jovial one, with the boys exhibiting all the rumbustiousness of youth. Sassoon first met Gordon in 1908, after which Colwood Park became a second home for him and Gordon, whom Theresa liked, was a regular visitor to Weirleigh. Gordon was not academically inclined any more than Sassoon but he was conscientious and obtained a degree at London University. Also, and unlike Sassoon, he was practically gifted, with a bent for engineering, like Michael and Hamo. The common factor which drew Gordon and Sassoon together was sport, particularly horses and cricket. They also shared a quirky sense of humour, which colours their letters to each other but makes them unintelligible to the outsider.
Humour was not the outstanding characteristic of the person who exercised the greatest influence on Sassoon, the horseman and golfer, in the pre-war years. Although they had been together at Henley House and afterwards at Cambridge, Norman Loder was somewhat in the background up to 1907 but then he persuaded Sassoon to make a more serious commitment to riding and to golf. ‘He knew that in most ways we were totally unlike, and was only dimly aware of my literary ambitions. If I had not been keen on golf and hunting our friendship could never have existed. On that basis he accepted me for what I was, just as I accepted him.’
He and Sassoon were virtually inseparable during the hunting and steeplechase season and, more often than not, Gordon Harbord made it a trio of enthusiasts. Weirleigh was a little too far from the meets frequented by Loder to make it a day’s journey, so Sassoon would stay with the Harbords or with Loder. The friendship with the latter, whose prowess at hunting and matters equestrian was acknowledged and admired, brought out the adventurous, derring-do in Sassoon’s character. His love of heightened excitement is obvious in the memoirs, as is the delight he took in the characters and the conventions of riding to hounds and point-to-pointing. Loder had no interests outside these things, not much humour and a plodding intellect. Sassoon, however, relied on him for companionship as well as instruction. He also admired his qualities. ‘He was one of those people whose strength is in their consistent simplicity and directness, and who send out natural wisdom through their mental limitations and avoidance of nimble ideas. He was kind, decent, and thorough, never aiming at anything beyond plain commonsense and practical ability.’
With his other friend Henry ‘Tommy’ Thompson, the summers were filled with visits to golf courses, but not even golf was allowed to impinge upon Sassoon’s commitment to cricket. He was proud of being a member of the Blue Mantles, who played their home matches on the county ground at Tunbridge Wells. It was a well-respected cricket club and Sassoon’s inclusion on an almost regular basis is a pointer to his talent at club level. He fancied himself as a club player, both as batsman and as bowler, and the local teams of Matfield and Brenchley were glad to take advantage of his ability. Sassoon was very much an outdoor person, and having returned to Weirleigh he was keen to be out and about on a horse, on the golf course or enjoying the activity of a fine day’s cricket. Walking and bicycling were activities he enjoyed for their own sake and could pursue alone. He exulted in the freedom of the open road and the natural world, which marks him out as a disciple of the author and poet George Meredith, whose books lined the shelves of his library and whose praises were extolled by Wirgie and Theresa. Since childhood Sassoon had been able to identify birds and plants, nursing a special enthusiasm for butterflies, Shelley’s ‘winged flowers’. The lanes and fields of Kent, the oasthouses, the orchards, the hedgerows and the gardens, were inspirational to him and his descriptions of his peregrinations bring colour and atmosphere to every facet of his work. It was a world which appealed to his aesthetic delight, his curiosity as well as his spirit of adventure. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, The Old Century and The Weald of Youth catch the essence of Sassoon’s musings in 1909:
The setting sun was behind me. To the left of the high ground along which I was driving, the Weald lay in all its green contentedness. I was feeling fine, and had played quite a decent little innings in the match. But when I came to the cross-roads a mile and a half from home and caught that favourite glimpse of Kentish distance above the foreground apple orchards of King’s Toll farm, the low-hilled blue horizon seemed luring me toward my heart’s desire, which was that I might some day be a really good poet.
With all the splendour that surrounded Weirleigh, Sassoon was over-flowing with celebratory and evocative verse, as was appropriate for a devotee of George Meredith. It was abundant but it was not focused. Uncle Hamo’s advice about keeping one’s eye on the object had not been taken. He worked on successive drafts of his poems and was still committed to the idea of small private editions. He also continued to send a selection to the editors of various literary magazines. One such was The Academy, whose editor immodestly but typically described it as ‘the liveliest of literary journals’. He was T. W. H. Crosland, a charlatan on the literary scene, and in the habit of moving from one periodical to the next with regularity. But he had an eye for a poem, especially by young, inexperienced poets. Crosland was also a critic and polemicist in literary matters, sparing no one, however famous. Theresa disliked his stance and taste – mainly on the grounds that he had been brutal to the work of Sir Walter Scott. As she was a confirmed devotee of the Pre-Raphaelites, this was heresy. When Sassoon sent Crosland some of his work he received not an invitation but a summons to his office in London. He did not take to Crosland when they met but innocently jumped at the offer of a guinea each for the nine sonnets. The poems were published but the money never arrived.
Sassoon’s most important contact with literary London was made in 1908 with Edmund Gosse. In that year he wrote and privately published Orpheus in Diloeryum, which he described as ‘an unactable one-act play which had never quite made up its mind whether to be satirical or serious. Sometimes I was pouring out my own imitative exuberances; sometimes I was parodying the precosities of contemporary minor poetry; on one page I parodied Swinburne, (crudely, but to me it sounded rather fine).’ When Uncle Hamo read the work he, one must say loyally, thought it showed potential and suggested his nephew send it to Gosse. This eminent littérateur had been Uncle Hamo’s friend since youth, just as Nellie his wife had been to Theresa, or ‘Trees’ as she called her. Gosse’s response was that of a man who felt obliged not to be discouraging:
It was very kind of you to send your delicate and accomplished masque Orpheus in Diloeryum, which I have read with pleasure and amusement. It reminds me of some of the strange entertainments of the early Renaissance and of Italian humanism generally. And I observe, with great satisfaction, your own richness of fancy and command of melodious verse. I hope you will make a prolonged study of the art of poetry, and advance from height to height.
Gosse could be pompous! Despite that and the reference to Italian humanism being ‘over his head’, Sassoon was encouraged by Gosse’s note and pursued the connection. Gosse’s real opinion is revealed in letters he exchanged with Uncle Hamo in May 1909. Hamo pressed the question first:
Just on our leaving the other day you almost told us what you thought of young Siegfried Sassoon’s attempts at verse. I am anxious that he should have any help and encouragement in this the difficult path he has chosen to follow. So if you can advise him, do please, if opportunity occurs. He is an interesting personage and spirit. I have been severely calling him to order lately for spending too much on hunting, golf, cricket and expensive editions of books, beyond what his income of £400 will stand.
Gosse responded within the week to say that Siegfried’s work ‘showed promise’ but the need was for ‘a distinct originality’:
Now I cannot truly say that I see as yet much evidence that Siegfried possesses this. So I think that to arrange his life from the point of view of his becoming a poet would be very rash. I think that if I was his Trustee, I should feel that he ought to have the chance of training for some other profession. Of course, if, in five or six years, he should feel his powers as a writer strengthening,
