Bertie Wooster describes Sir Roderick Glossop as “a high-priced loony doctor … over the years practically every posh family in the country has called him in at one time or another”. In the words of the late, much lamented, Wodehousian, Norman Murphy: “ Wodehouse never made anything up”. Indeed he based Sir Roderick on Dr Henry Crawford MacBryan who ran a psychiatric nursing home near where Plum lived as a child with his aunts in Wiltshire. In Jeeves in the Offing, Sir Roderick poses as the butler at Brinkley Court, calling himself Swordfish. He is surreptitiously assessing the mental health of one of the guests. Well, really, Plum must have made that up.
I have moved in the time machine that books afford us from the latter half of the 18th century in the company of Boswell, Johnson, Reynolds, Hume, Burke, Gibbon et al to the 20th century to be with the Mountbattens. In 1925 for reasons you can probably guess, Edwina Mountbatten’s sister was forbidden to marry her father’s parliamentary private secretary. She didn’t take it well. Andrew Lownie writes; “Mary reacted by smashing up Dickie’s bedroom and accusing one of his guests of being a brain specialist in disguise”.
Dickie and Edwina had moved into her late father’s house on Park Lane: Brook House. Andrew Lownie (The Mountbattens; Their Lives and Loves) describes the bedroom before it got a make-over by his sister-in-law.
”Dickie’s bedroom had also been redone to resemble an officer’s cabin, complete with regulation bunk, brass rail, folding washstand, the simulated noise of the throb of a ship’s engine, and a porthole trompe-l’oeil, which, at the flick of a switch, presented a diorama of Valletta harbour by either day or moonlight. Against a painted background was a collection of cut-out ships at 50 feet to an inch that, when darkness fell, twinkled real Morse signals to each other.”
Mary cannot have been completely insane to smash that up. It wasn’t long before a demolition company administered the coup de grâce and Brook House was rebuilt by Edwin Lutyens as flats with a large (thirty rooms, including a cinema, a passion of Dickie’s) two floor penthouse for the Mountbattens. Rex Whistler painted sixty wall panels for Edwina’s bedroom when he was maturing into a really good artist in 1936/37. It has been said it is the most beautiful room he painted.
The murals were removed to Broadlands for safety at the outbreak of war and subsequently David Hicks, the Mountbattens’ son-in-law, put them in his houses. Andrew Lownie’s book is compulsively easy to read and full of such interesting aperçus. In June 1936 Wallis Simpson stays with Edwina and Dickie in their country house near Portsmouth, “bringing a cold chicken from Fortnum & Mason as a present, much to the chagrin of the Mountbattens’ cook, Brinz”. Yes, it’s gossipy but he also examines their careers – triumphs and shortcomings. He could be accused of relishing the latter. Take this entry in the index: homosexuality, pages 349 – 366. He leaves no aspersion uncast, something that will infuriate uncritical admirers of Lord Louis, if there are any outside the Royal Family.
Only Connect
The connection between the Schlegel family in Howards End and MP Evans’ palm oil plantation at Pangkatan in North Sumatra would give even the brainiest competitor on Round Britain Quiz pause for thought. RBQ has been going since 1947, posing baffling, cryptic questions to two teams competing from different parts of the UK. Here is an example, to which I do not know the answer:
How did Shakespeare’s favourite clown make his way from London to Norwich; how might the innkeeper at the other end have measured out his refreshment; and what dishonest dealing might have been involved?
I can tell you the link between Howards End and North Sumatra is Hermann Schlegel, a 19th century German ornithologist and herpetologist. He has a freshwater crocodile named after him; Tomistoma schlegelii. You may not have seen one in the wild as the global population is estimated at fewer than 2,500 mature adults. One made its home in a conservation area at Pangkatan in 2016 and has been joined by a second crocodile. They are a fresh-water, fish-eating species and MP Evans’ staff have taken care to educate local villagers to leave them undisturbed. One good news story from the palm oil sector. There are more.
“At Simpang Kiri, in Aceh, over the last three years we concluded that 25 hectares of land were too steep to be replanted, so we have planted 1,500 seedlings of 11 types of forest species. At Sennah, in North Sumatra, 18 hectares of wetlands close to the Bilah river had never been very productive, so this area is being prepared for re-foresting. Forest species will be planted between the palms and the palms will gradually be removed as the forest trees mature.”
Not planting on peat, never contributing to deforestation, prohibiting the burning of vegetation or old palms, minimising greenhouse gas emissions are just some examples. MP Evans’ Chief Executive, Tristan Price, says “palm oil is the world’s most productive oil crop, and when grown sustainably can help provide nutrition to the world’s growing population in a sustainable way”. He has published a 2020 Sustainability Report and it’s printed on Carbon Balanced Paper. Small steps and The Monkees can do better.
Just got to Mountbatten over morning coffee in California after an evening of Oscar nominated short films(my money is on the Tunisians). Seeing the mention of Shakespeare’s favorite clown reminded me
I had published a book about Will Kemp years ago and his dance around the Home Counties with attendant crowds and healthy alcohol sales in his wake. A great publicity stunt and possible revidius of the banned pilgrimages of the old religion.
The beer,bums and baccy side of Mountbatten story is less interesting I think
Than the Edwina and Nehru affair of state as matters wrapped up in India bloodily and LM took the blame for Labour’s undue haste.
I have just finished reading Lownie’s book, and felt it rather overdid the ‘love’ aspect of the Mountbatten lives at the expense of the ‘life’ story. I don’t think anyone would be terribly surprised to learn of Edwina’s or Dickie’s extra marital rumpy-pumpy, but, according to this biography, they seemed to spend most of their lives in other peoples beds. The author takes a ‘no holes barred’ approach (perhaps too literal a description considering Dickie’s gay proclivities!), though his submission of possible paedophilia is rather more disturbing.
Contrary to your suggestion, Mountbatten had plenty of critics inside the Royal Family. He used various members of the family for his own personal advancement. The Queen mother did not trust him, habitually referring to him as ‘tricky Dickie’.
It is generally accepted that Mountbatten was no stained glass Saint, yet I always admired his tenacity and rigour, even if he was the most pretentious snob. He had such an over inflated ego that at times it was at risk of bursting, but his character was so well self-managed by personal spin that he is generally fondly remembered and widely admired . In the end his greatest popularity boost came courtesy of the IRA; and I think he would have been rather pleased to go out in such dramatic style.