I’m not an expert on anything; sometimes I know a bit or can express myself lucidly. I deployed this as an oil futures broker. Yesterday a friend asked me how she should address formally (on the envelope) the divorced wife of a younger son of a marquess who has subsequently remarried.
It’s simple; divorced wives make up the rules. One serial marrier of peers simply chose the best title to console herself as a widow. The only answer is to ask the lady in question how she would like to be addressed. Technically she can hang on to the title conferred on her by her marriage until she marries again. Of course this would annoy her successor but that might make it especially appealing. A divorced wife of an earl retained her title and, bafflingly, signed her cheques with just her ex-husband’s title.
I have not told you anything about the last Prom I went to or a trip to Sadler’s Wells for Matthew Bourne’s interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. At the ballet on the plus side, I was a guest of the boy broker, there were lavish eats and drinks, there was a live orchestra (Sadler’s Wells often has canned music), Prokofiev’s music was lovely and the dancing jolly good. On the minus side, I did not appreciate, understand or enjoy Matthew Bourne’s interpretation. True – West Side Story works as a re-invention of the tale of star crossed lovers. Believe me, setting it in a young offenders’ institution isn’t a great idea. At the end R & J seemed to kill each other but maybe the lavish hospitality clouded my view.
It’s a big bore reading about things that are over, so here is something to look forward to next year: Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things at the National Portrait Gallery.
This major new exhibition will explore the extravagant world of the glamorous and stylish ‘Bright Young Things’ of the twenties and thirties, seen through the eye of renowned British photographer Cecil Beaton. It will bring to life a deliriously eccentric, glamorous and creative era of British cultural life, combining High Society and the avant-garde, artists and writers, socialites and partygoers.
Featuring the leading cast of the ‘Bright Young Things’, many of whom Beaton would call friends – Anna May Wong, Oliver Messel and Stephen Tennant among others, this show will chart Beaton’s transformation from middle-class surburban schoolboy to glittering society figure and the unrivalled star of Vogue. In addition to Beaton’s own portraits, the exhibition will also feature paintings by friends and artists including Rex Whistler, Henry Lamb, and Augustus John.
Take a look at one of his portraits that will not make the cut – bright, assuredly, but not a young thing; my grandfather’s half-brother, George Bellew. It is arresting and enigmatic.
