in expostulation at Randolph’s cheek, then melt so as to be gallant with the girls and tolerant of the boys: that one night we remained at the dinner table till midnight while W. C. gave us a demonstration of how the Battle of Jutland was fought, with decanters and wine glasses in place of ships, while puffing cigar smoke to represent gun smoke. He was like an enthusiastic schoolboy on that occasion. The rest of the visit he was in waders in the lake or building a wall, or pacing backwards and forwards in his upstairs room dictating a book to his secretaries. Thump, thump on the floorboards overhead.
James Lees-Milne
1994
Rugged is my favourite word.
If I had my way even workmen would wear velvet every day.
Ossie Clark
1995 [Brussels]
As I got up to leave the restaurant, the crêpe chef in the middle of the room gestured urgently to warn me of something. I assumed, ‘Careful – this stuff is flambé’, and waved to acknowledge. I moved between the tables around him. He cried out again. I realized he was saying ‘Serviette!’ and that I had it hanging neatly from below my now buttoned jacket – a large, white, triangular codpiece. Everyone looked at me with the patronizing admiration the Europeans show to the absent-minded and/or obsessed.
Brian Eno
8 January
1849 [Ireland]
I don’t see that the misery of the country is at all increasing, it is only spreading. None of the lower orders need suffer for an hour, the Poor House is open. They bear a great deal before they will go there, hunger alone drives them into it, so that those who are out however wretched they may look are not as yet in want of food. The upper classes are now suffering, the farmer class a good deal, the landlord class a great deal. Every day we hear of the ruin of additional families, of themselves or their ancestors, yet who managed to live and let live till these unjust poor laws came to overwhelm them. That we have so far escaped is owing entirely to the Honourable East India Company’s pay, small though it be, for the little property having but a debt of £1,000 upon it would yield but a bare £100 a year for the support of its owner after all the charges on it were paid unless we were to dismiss all the servants and labourers. We are tight enough as it is and must try and lessen our expenditure still.
Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus
1934
At Marks and Spencer’s I bought a peach-coloured vest and trollies to match with insertions of lace. Disgraceful I know but I can’t help choosing my underwear with a view to it being seen.
Barbara Pym
1935
I arrived back at Elveden late, cold and hungry. Our guests were all still up but all the fifty servants had gone to bed, and I could get nothing to eat. In spite of that, of all the Iveagh houses I like Elveden. I love its calm, its luxurious Edwardian atmosphere. For a fortnight now I have slept in the King’s bed, which both Edward VII and George V have used. And this morning, in the wee sma’ hours, I had a humiliating accident – I somehow smashed the royal chamber pot. It seems a habit of mine, and one much to be discouraged. At Mentmore once, staying with the Roseberys, I broke Napoleon’s pot in similar circumstance, a very grand affair covered with ‘N’s and Bees.
‘Chips’ Channon
1940 [Berlin]
Did a mike interview with General Ernst Udet tonight, but Göring, his boss, censored our script so badly that it wasn’t very interesting. I spent most of the day coaching the general on his English, which is none too good. Udet, a likeable fellow, is something of a phenomenon. A professional pilot, who only a few years ago was so broke he toured America as a stunt flyer, performing often in a full-dress suit and a top hat, he is now responsible for the designing and production of Germany’s war planes. Though he never had any business experience, he has proved a genius at his job. Next to Göring and General Milch, he is given credit in inner circles here for building up the German air force to what it is today. I could not help thinking tonight that a man like Udet would never be entrusted with such a job in America. He would be considered ‘lacking in business experience.’ Also, businessmen, if they knew of his somewhat Bohemian life, would hesitate to trust him with responsibility. And yet in this crazy Nazi system he has done a phenomenal job. Amusing: last night Udet put on a little party at his home, with three generals, napkins slung over their shoulders, presiding over his very considerable bar. There were pretty girls and a great deal of cutting up. Yet these are the men who have made the Luftwaffe the most terrible instrument of its kind in the world.
William L. Shirer
1943
Left flat early, bought sour apples and (at Fortnum & Mason’s of all places) a head of celery – the last one left, price 1/-, very dirty & I could take it or leave it! Took it, as my object was to procure some vitamins for Stuart.
Lunched at the Westway Hotel with Howard Kershner (Director of Relief in Europe for the American Friends’ Service Committee) who told me interesting facts about the food situation (including the fact that Churchill & Roosevelt are the persons really responsible & nothing but a large public agitation will move them). He also said that 6,000 Jews escaped to Spain from France, & are now in danger of being sent back to Germany by starving Spain, yet our Gvt. despite all its talk of atrocities will do nothing for them!!
Vera Brittain
1970
Cecil Beaton had sent me a card saying come to lunch and that it was to be just him and ‘a load of old women.’ The ‘old women’ turned out to be Loelia, formerly Duchess of Westminster, now Lady Lindsay, and Lady Hambleden. Cecil was in terrific form: ‘I just flew in and went straight to the doctor for a couple of injections and slept for a week at Reddish.’ Both grandes dames turned out to be highly engaging. Loelia Lindsay particularly so. She had a wonderful eye for changing social mores, recalling the blatant snobbery of the twenties when she was a deb when, if you had danced with a man the night before and had found that he was socially inferior, if you happened to see him the following day you would just look through him.
She recalled how once she went out to dinner, and returned explaining to her mother how wonderful the food had been, how delicious in particular the consommé with sherry had tasted. She was never allowed there again. For her first weekend away, her mother insisted that she took gloves up to the elbow to wear in the evening. On descending the staircase with them on she found herself an anachronism, and, taking them swiftly off, tucked them behind a silver-framed portrait of Queen Ena of Spain.
Roy Strong
9 January
1821
The lapse of ages changes all things – time – language – the earth – the bounds of the sea – the stars of the sky, and every thing ‘about, around, and underneath’ man, except man himself, who has always been and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have multiplied little but existence.
Lord Byron
1836
