Professor Lord Pinkrose is a fictional character in Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War. Alan Bennett plays him to perfection in the 1987 BBC adaptation. He is portrayed by Manning as being self-important, self-centred, snobbish and rude. It’s interesting to discover that he is not entirely fictional.
He is described in The Spoilt City (the second in the series of six novels) by Professor Inchcape, supposedly his only friend, as follows. “He’s not a peer, of course. Scottish title, I believe, though he’s not got any sign of Scottish blood. A title that’s mere flim-flam. I wouldn’t use it myself.”
I wonder why she didn’t make Pinkrose an Irish Peer?It would make more sense as Scottish Peers can sit in the House of Lords. Olivia Manning’s novels are to a large extent biographical and she tried to disguise her friends and enemies, in this case the latter. He is Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany in the Peerage of Ireland. His Barony was created in 1436, so not much flim-flam about that.
Born in 1878 he was young enough to fight in the Boer War after a conventional education at Eton and Sandhurst. He was wounded in the Easter Rising in Dublin a hundred years ago and was a good sportsman, horseman and chess player. In later life he became a prolific writer and had over eighty books published: short stories, novels, plays and essays. He was too old to fight in World War II and in 1940 was appointed Byron Professor at Athens University. Olivia Manning and her husband were in Athens at the same time and she cannot have taken to him. When the Allies evacuated Greece in 1941 he had to take a circuitous route home, just one more excuse for her to mock him without mercy.
I have only read one of his books, My Talks with Dean Spanley, published in 1936. You might recall that it was made into a film in 2008. It is about the eponymous Dean Spanley, an alcohol-loving clergyman who believes himself to be a dog.
I am reading the Balkan Trilogy at this moment. I think that many of Olivia Manning’s characters are comic masterpieces, but often with sinister undertones. I wondered on whom Prince Yakimov was based, played perfectly by Ronald Pickup in the BBC adaption.
I have just finished The Spoilt City and have bought the next volume. I’m making life difficult by buying each novel individually rather than as an omnibus. I will not try to claim credit for fingering Prince Yaki – this is straight from Wiki:
“Prince Yakimov, a Russian-descended nobleman who, though likeable, sponges off the rest of the expatriate community.[2] Manning has said that the scrounging Prince Yakimov is based in the Fitzrovian novelist Julian MacLaren-Ross. (Both are distinguished by an unusual overcoat in which they are always dressed.
MacLaren-Ross was a frequent contributor to literary journals, such as the London Magazine and Horizon. He was known to be a sympathiser of the Labour Party and though he never dealt with explicitly political themes in his stories, the backdrop of inter and post-war social strife was always intimated. MacLaren Ross was fictionalised as novelist X. Trapnel in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time and as Prince Yakimov in Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy and was the subject of a 2003 biography Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia by Paul Willetts. John Betjeman described him as “One of our very best writers”.
His reputation as a dandy in post-war London bohemia to some extent exceeds the actual stature of his recognised works. His turbulent life and pivotal role in the Fitzrovian milieu has ensured continued interest in his work. Debt, alcoholism and a love of debauched living all featured heavily in his life. His biographer referred to him as the “mediocre caretaker of his own immense talent”.
Mention of Lord Dunsany brings to mind his patronage of the poet Francis Ledwidge. Dunsany introduced Ledwidge to Dublin’s literary circle and helped publish the first volumes of his poetry.
Francis Ledwidge had a fascinating life story reflecting the turbulence of early twentieth century Irish history. Like many Irish Nationalists of the time, he joined the British army to “fight for the freedom of small Nations”. Ledwidge was killed by a shell on 31st July 1917 near Ypres during preparations for the Battle of Passchendaele.
Described as “the poet of the blackbird” he wrote mainly of a simple rural upbringing however the dreadful reality of the First World War inevitably became a reluctant theme.
Soliloquy
When I was young I had a care
Lest I should cheat me of my share
Of that which makes it sweet to strive
For life, and dying still survive,
A name in sunshine written higher
Than lark or poet dare aspire.
But I grew weary doing well.
Besides, ’twas sweeter in that hell,
Down with the loud banditti people
Who robbed the orchards, climbed the steeple
For jackdaws’ eyes and made the cock
Crow ere ’twas daylight on the clock.
I was so very bad the neighbours
Spoke of me at their daily labours.
And now I’m drinking wine in France,
The helpless child of circumstance.
To-morrow will be loud with war,
How will I be accounted for?
It is too late now to retrieve
A fallen dream, too late to grieve
A name unmade, but not too late
To thank the gods for what is great;
A keen-edged sword, a soldier’s heart,
Is greater than a poet’s art.
And greater than a poet’s fame
A little grave that has no name,
Whence honour turns away in shame.
Francis Ledwidge
5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
First, I confess that I’d never heard of Francis Ledwidge and shame on me. That he was an Irish Nationalist, yet prepared to fight for Britain, in my eyes makes him a greater martyr to Irish independence than those who were executed in 1916. It also does Lord Dunsany credit that he promoted his poetry. I must say that I think Ld. D was treated pretty shabbily by Olivia Manning but you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs and – Fortunes of War – what an omelette.
No day has started properly until your epistle has been internalised. But somehow I missed this one. Dunsany is magnificent. May I recommend “The Curse of the Wise Woman” the tale of a boy left alone in an ancient Irish castle after his father flees Sinn Fein, and the clash of the old and the new. The opening of the book as the gunmen arrive for his father is truly spine tingling.