The Perfect Summer, page 30
F.E. Smith, one of the most outspoken Members of Parliament against Irish Nationalism during the Home Rule Crisis of 1912–14, was then appointed to the Government’s Press Bureau and, paradoxically for a man so outspoken, was placed in charge of newspaper censorship during the First World War. He and Winston remained lifelong friends.
Eric Horne was horrified by the advent of the war, and by the capitalist nouveaux riches who ‘filled their pockets while Tommy was fighting.’ He did, however, publish two volumes of memoirs, calling the first What the Butler Winked At; the book went into four printings in the first month, so anxious were the ‘Gentry’ to discover what their servants really thought of them.
Diana Manners discovered Venice and loved Raymond Asquith ‘hopelessly’. But Duff Cooper, a university acquaintance of her cousin (named, like her brother, John Manners) ‘grew into my life as I grew into his’, and wrote her love letters, ‘sometimes three a day, in the lightest vein and gaiety.’ It was not until after the war that Diana succumbed to Duff’s wish to marry her; by then Raymond was dead, killed in the fighting.
In 1915 Rupert Brooke was in the Aegean on his way to Gallipoli when he died suddenly of blood poisoning at the age of 27, on Shakespeare’s birthday, 23 April. In his obituary Winston Churchill declared that Rupert’s ‘War Sonnets’ (published early in 1915) would be ‘shared by many thousands of young men, moving resolutely, blithely forward in this the hardest, the cruellest and the least rewarded of all the wars that men have fought’.
No one who lived through that hot busy summer of 1911 – not Asquith, not Edward Grey, not even Winston Churchill, especially not George V – was fully aware of the dangerous shadow slowly approaching England from across the water. The crisis in Agadir had been settled to the Kaiser’s apparent satisfaction when Germany was given land in the Congo in return for recognising Morocco as a French protectorate. The Kaiser was ignorant, however, of secret talks between England and France ending in an agreement that the British would safeguard the Channel and North Sea, ensuring French naval security in the Mediterranean. But the very real prospect of war had alarmed Sir Edward Grey, and over the next couple of years he was as conciliatory as possible towards Germany.
By August 1914 a dark cloud directly overhead had replaced the looming shadow. England concentrated no longer on what was happening at home, but fought on the Continent for its survival.
In 1914 Brian Calkin, former chorister and soloist with St Paul’s Cathedral Choir, ‘overstated’ his age (he was 16) and joined the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment. On 6 June 1917, sixteen days short of the sixth anniversary of the Coronation at which he had sung for the King of England and the German Kaiser in Westminster Abbey, Brian was in France with his regiment. He wrote his family a letter and, on the front of the envelope, ‘To be opened only in the event of my being killed in action’. Brian survived the next attack though he was severely gassed, earning himself a precious few weeks at home to convalesce before returning once again to the front line. While he was in England, unknown to his family he gave the sealed envelope to his father’s office manager at Lloyd’s Insurance brokers for safekeeping.
My dear Family,
I have just time to write you a short note, before going up to the line to ‘push’, just to bid you all a fond farewell should it please the Almighty to take me, in which case, only, will you receive this.
Our Brigade is to be in Reserve, not actually in the front line to start with, but we are likely to be pushed up anywhere to support the attacking parties.
We shall be in the thickest part of the Push, of which you will doubtless have read ere, if ever, you read this.
Of course I have known of this for some weeks but for obvious reasons have been unable and unwilling to mention it.
I am going up with HQ as assistant adjutant, though I should as soon be with my platoon in the line. However I shall have plenty to do.
It will comfort you to know that I am not in the least worried or concerned about what may happen to me, but am perfectly happy to leave the issue in the hands of God. My one concern is for you all, should I be taken. Do not, I beg of you, be unhappy, for I am, and you are, convinced that I shall be happier with Him.
Now I will refrain from soft talk etc: because it is not in my line, but cheer up and keep smiling.
Good-bye all you dear ones. I could not have been blest with a better family. May God bless and keep you all – and bring you all in his good time to your loving
Brian
On 10 July 1918, only four months and a day before those catastrophic four years came to an end, and with Germany very close to defeat, Mrs Calkin was given her son’s letter to open. Brian was twenty years old.
Dramatis Personae
Dowager Countess of Airlie (Mabell; 1866–1956): Confidante and Lady-in-Waiting to HM Queen Mary.
Herbert (Henry) Asquith (1852–1928): Liberal Prime Minister 1908–1916.
Margot Asquith (1864–1945): Wife of the Prime Minister and stepmother to Violet and Raymond Asquith.
Raymond Asquith (1878–1916): Scholar, son of the Prime Minister and leading light of a group of friends called The Corrupt Coterie. Killed in the First World War.
Violet Asquith (1887–1969): Only daughter of the Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, and great friend of Winston Churchill.
Thomas Beecham (1879–1961): Distinguished English conductor, lover of Lady Cunard and grandson of cure-all pill inventor.
Max Beerbohm (1872–1956): Critic, essayist and caricaturist. Author of the novel Zuleika Dobson, published in 1911.
E.F. Benson (1867–1940): Novelist and famous creator of the characters Mapp and Lucia.
Annie Besant (1847–1933): Theosophist and feminist campaigner.
Rupert Brooke (1887–1915): Heart-throb poet and tenant of the Old Vicarage at Grantchester. He was writing his first volume of poems during 911 and subsequently died of blood poisoning during the First World War.
T.W. Burgess: Cross-channel swimmer, successful on his sixteenth attempt.
Brian Calkin (1897–1918): Choirboy with St Paul’s Cathedral Choir School.
Clemmie Churchill (1885–1977): Wife of Winston and mother of Diana and the newborn Randolph.
Winston Churchill (1874–1965): Liberal Party Home Secretary and future Prime Minister.
Albert, Duke of Clarence (1864–92): Brother of George V and first fiancé of HM Queen Mary. Prince Eddy, as he was known, died of influenza before their marriage.
Jennie Cornwallis-West (1854–1921): Winston Churchill’s thrice-married American mother.
Lady Cunard (Emerald; 1872–1948): Famous hostess, wife of a ship-owner and the lover of conductor Thomas Beecham.
Lord Curzon (1859–1925): Ex-Viceroy of India, campaigner against the Parliament Bill and ambivalent lover of Elinor Glyn.
Sergei Diaghilev (1872–1929): Founder, producer and artistic director of the Ballets Russes, and lover of Nijinsky.
Roger Fry (1866–1914): Artist, critic and organiser of the Post-Impressionist exhibition in London in 1910.
HM King George V (1865–1936): Crowned King on 22 June 1911. Son of Edward VII, husband of Queen Mary, father of Edward VIII and George VI, first cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and grandson of Queen Victoria.
David Lloyd George (1863–1945): Liberal Party Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister.
Elinor Glyn (1864–1943): Best-selling novelist and lovelorn romantic. Sister of Lucy Duff Gordon.
Lady (Lucy) Duff Gordon (1863–1935): Celebrated dress designer, owner of ‘Madame Lucille’s’ salon and inventor of the catwalk model. Survivor of the Titanic. Elder sister of Elinor Glyn.
Duncan Grant (1885–1978): Artist, founder of the Camden Town Group, and part of the emerging Bloomsbury Group.
Sir Edward Grey (1862–1933): Foreign Secretary and widowed lodger at Winston and Clemmie Churchill’s house in Eccleston Square.
Viscount Haldane (1856–1928): Liberal Party War Minister.
Eric Horne: Butler to the nobility and secret chronicler of activities both upstairs and downstairs. Eventual best-selling author.
Augustus John (1878–1961): Most famous English painter of his time, husband of Ida. By 911 he was the father of seven children.
Tamara Karsavina (1885–1978): Fêted dancing partner of Nijinsky in the Ballets Russes.
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936): Most famous and most wealthy writer in the world in 1911, and also an amateur farmer.
Philip de László (1869–1937): Leading society portrait painter.
Rosa Lewis (1867–1952): The ‘Duchess of Duke Street’. Hotelier, the finest cook in London, caterer and party planner.
Mary Macarthur (1880–1921): Charismatic trade unionist and founder of the Women’s Trade Union League.
Lady Diana Manners (1892–1986): The most beautiful young woman in England in 1911. An 18-year-old debutante and society celebrity, never out of the papers. The youngest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland. She married Duff Cooper in 1919.
HM Queen Mary (1867–1953): Wife of HM King George V and mother of six children (including the future Edward VIII and George VI).
Grand Duchess Augusta of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1822–1916): Formidable great-aunt and confidante of HM Queen Mary.
Nellie Melba (1861–1931): Australian superstar soprano.
G.E. Moore (1873–1958): Philosopher and author of Principia Ethica.
Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938): Wife of Philip Morrell MP, and Bloomsbury hostess.
Harold Nicolson (1882–1966): Diarist, diplomat and future husband of Vita Sackville-West.
Vaslav Nijinsky (1890–1950): Most brilliantly electrifying ballet dancer of all time.
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928): Founding figurehead of the suffragette movement. The mother of suffragettes Christabel and Sylvia.
Alexander Paterson (1884–1947): Author of Across the Bridges, a study of the poverty-stricken area of south London where he lived.
Paul Poiret (1879–1944): French clothing designer who claimed to have invented the brassière. His more swiftly removable clothes were said to make seduction easier.
Marchioness of Ripon (Gladys; 1859–1917): Dazzling patroness of the ballet and the opera.
A.L. Rowse (1903–97): Cornish schoolboy who grew up to be a historian, a Shakespeare scholar and a biographer.
Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962): Poet, gardener, novelist and eventual wife of Harold Nicolson – as well as lover of Virginia Stephen (Woolf).
Siegfied Sassoon (1886–1967): Poet, fox-hunting man, cricket enthusiast.
Edith Sitwell (1887–1964): Sister of Osbert, and a distinguished poet.
Lady Ida Sitwell (1868–1937): Mother of Osbert, Edith (and Sacheverell).
Sir George Sitwell (1860–1943): Husband of Lady Ida, father of the above, and keen traveller and race-goer.
Osbert Sitwell (1892–1969): Writer and friend of everyone worth knowing in society.
F.E. Smith (1872–1930): Lawyer and Conservative MP.Winston Churchill’s greatest friend.
Virginia Stephen (1882–1941): Novelist, Bloomsbury-ite and future wife of Leonard Woolf.
Lytton Strachey (1880–1932): Author, critic, aesthete and Bloomsbury-ite.
George Sturt (1863–1927): Wheelwright and recorder of the traditional ways of the countryside.
Duchess of Teck (1933–1897): Known as ‘Fat Mary’. The mother of HM Queen Mary and a devotee of Rich Cream biscuits.
Ben Tillett (1860–1943): Founder and Secretary of the National Transport Workers’ Federation, and champion of the dockworkers.
Leonard Woolf (1880–1969): Alumnus of The Apostles at Cambridge, political theorist, Civil Servant and future husband of Virginia Stephen.
Mrs Hwfa (pronounced Hoofa) Williams: Enthusiastic guest at all the best parties and married to the owner of the Sandown racecourse.
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Newspapers and magazines
Daily Mail
Daily Telegraph
Daily Sketch
The Times
Country Life
Illustrated London News
The Lady
Punch
The Spectator
Tatler
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