Category: Literature

Orlando

The sermon last Sunday at The Royal Hospital was about baptism. The Chaplain (I prefer padre) recounted that he had been to where John the Baptist baptised Christ in the Jordan.

In Requiem

The Riddle of the Sands portends the Great War; published in 1903, written by Erskine Childers and with Carruthers as the central character. How many Carruthers does it take to make a Foreign Office? There’s one in the Korda Bros film, The Drum, another in Sherard Cowper-Coles’s memoir, Ever The Diplomat.

Books & Theatre

Underneath that pile of unread books is what I grandly call my library steps, although it came from IKEA where it is called a step stool. The pile has grown since my trip to Wales where I went to charity shops in Pembroke and LLandeilo. 

Another Diary

I left James Lees-Milne behind in London so was pleased to find a copy of The Diaries of Auberon Waugh, a Turbulent Decade, 1976 –  1985, when I was in a charity shop in Pembroke.

A Shilling for Candles

Came down with a heavy cold while I was staying in France but it’s getting better now. By a stroke of luck I’d slipped the perfect comfort reading into my bag and it much improved the homeward journey.

Published
Categorised as Literature

Fettiplace

Many years ago, after a walk in the Cotswolds with Sandy Murray, we stopped at Swinbrook to look at the church where Nancy and Unity Mitford are buried and there are these magnificent reclining ancestors. There are two triple-deckers so it is worth the detour.

Flying Bomb

This marked the beginning of a second Blitz. James Lees-Milne was living in 96 Cheyne Walk.

Hit and Myth

Bookshops are piled high with copies of The Essex Serpent, a novel by  Sarah Perry. I read it at the end of last year and have some reservations.

Micawber

If I gave you a butterscotch early 1950s Fender Telecaster with a Gibson PAF humbucking pickup, what would you do with it? I might add, to make my theoretical gift more interesting, that it’s called Micawber.

Diaries

Since last November George Lyttelton and Rupert Hart-Davis have been my companions at bedtime but all good things come to an end and I have come to the end of their letters. There are more than six hundred and they span some six years.