The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives by Sebastian Faulks
That evening I switched on the tape of Martina Browne’s melodic (slightly Irish, as it turned out) voice and thought about Wolfenden. Compared to Christopher Wood or Richard Hillary he had ‘achieved’ almost nothing. Despite being far cleverer than they were, he was more deeply and horribly flawed. Apart from the memory of his brilliance, he had left nothing behind – no paintings, no book, only some newspaper articles now lost by the paper in question. Yet, like the other two, he had touched a nerve; in some minor way he had represented a generation. How? Was it that like Hillary, the pilot, the epitome of the 1930s private figure forced by calamitous events into a public role, he had been a victim of sinister global forces? Was there something exemplary in his life, like Wood’s, or in his death, like Hillary’s? Wolfenden’s was a murkier, more sordid story, replete with internal contradictions and dead ends. In fiction one would be obliged to harmonise the dialogue, themes and actions of the narrative into a more artistic whole. In fact it presented a puzzle that I could not fully solve, though I felt that Colin Falck had been getting close when he talked about the failure of the institutions that produced him.
When I went downstairs the next morning, still thinking of all that bright promise wasted, I found a letter from Wolfenden’s old Oxford friend, Rod Prince, who had seen an advertisement I had placed in a magazine asking for information. His letter talked about the great days of political hope at Oxford, of their aspirations for the new Elizabethan age. He concluded:
‘Jeremy was a strong influence, of course, and still is. I can only say how very much I appreciate having known him.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AND SOURCES
CHRISTOPHER WOOD
The main source is Wood’s letters to his mother, copies of which are held by the Tate Gallery Archive. I am grateful to the trustees and staff for allowing me to consult these and related papers.
I would also like to thank Winifred Reitlinger, Christopher and Sabrina Perm, Teddy Kennedy, Maurice Dirou, Douglas and Madeleine Johnson, Nigel Stewart at Malvem, Jill Thomas, Euan Cameron, Julian Turton, John Sheppard, Toby Eady, Matthew Gale at Kettle’s Yard, Françoise Steel and Marie-Claude Martin of the Hôtel Ty-Mad.
Richard Ingleby’s Christopher Wood: An English Painter (Allison and Busby) had not been published when I wrote my life, but I read it while mine was in proof and was able to compare notes with him on dates, spellings and so on. Richard Ingleby’s loan of various papers also spared me hours at the photocopier. It is not gratitude, however, but admiration for the result that makes me able to recommend his biography unreservedly.
Wood was a terrible speller and was not well served by the typist who transcribed his letters. I cannot guarantee that I have corrected all their errors, particularly in proper names. Most of the translations from the French are my own, so a similar doubt must hang over their accuracy.
RICHARD HILLARY
The principal sources are: The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary, Macmillan, London, 1943; Richard Hillary: A Biography by R. Lovat Dickson, Macmillan, London, 1950; Mary and Richard by Michael Burn, Andre Deutsch, London 1988; documents in the Richard Hillary Trust archive at Trinity College, Oxford.
Arthur Koestler’s essay ‘The Birth of a Myth’ was published in Horizon, April 1943 and reprinted in The Yogi and the Commissar. Middleton Murry’s essay appeared in Adelphi in July 1944 and was reprinted in Looking Before and After, 1948. Eric Linklater wrote an essay on Hillary in The Art of Adventure, 1947.
I would like to thank Dennis Burden, Clare Hopkins and the Hillary trustees for allowing me to consult the archive; Michael Burn, whose reconstruction of Hillary’s last year in Mary and Richard I have confidently followed on the few occasions where the archive was silent; Tony Gould, John Coldstream, David Woodrow, Godfrey Carter, Barry Brigg and Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris. I have also drawn on reminiscences by former fighter pilots Brian Kingcome and Paddy Barthrop published in the Independent on Sunday in September 1990.
My particular thanks to Captain A.B. Sainsbury, archivist extraordinaire, and to Denise Patterson (née Maxwell-Woosnam) the dedicatee of The Last Enemy.
JEREMY WOLFENDEN
The source was interviews, with the addition of some letters, to Robin Hope, Martina Browne, Neal Ascherson and Michael Parsons. All Wolfenden’s work for the Telegraph was destroyed in the move from Fleet Street to Canary Wharf, though his mother and his cousin Sally Humphreys have some cuttings.
I would like to thank Lady Wolfenden, Daniel Wolfenden, Martina Browne, Sally Humphreys (nee Hinchliff), Godfrey Hodgson, Robin Hope, Philip Howard, Christopher Parsons, Stephen McWatters, David Pryce-Jones, Neal Ascherson; Joe Spence, Matthew Wilson and Penny Hatfield at Eton; Susan Watt (Susie Burchardt), David Shapiro, Robert Cassen, Jeffrey Gray, Philip French, David Marquand, Colin Falck (twice), Rod Prince, Natasha Burchardt (Edelman), Anthony Page, Michael Sissons, David Edwards, David Murray, Brian Wenham, Michael Parsons, Norman Dombey, Ronnie Payne, Chris Dobson, David Floyd, Colin Welch, Ricky Marsh, Phillip Knightley, Martin Page, Oleg Gordievsky, Mark Frankland, Douglas Botting, Marcus Warren, Charles Alexander, John Miller, David Shears, Stephen Dorril, Simon Barber, Deirdre Barber and Donald Anderson.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I read more books than I intended in the course of writing this short one, but did not keep a list of them. To two of them, however, I have incurred a debt I should acknowledge.
The first is Francis Steegmuller’s biography Jean Cocteau (Constable, London, 1986). The second is Samuel Hynes’s celebrated trilogy A War Imagined, The Edwardian Turn of Mind, and The Auden Generation (Pimlico, London, 1992). I have borrowed, without feeling the need to double-check, some factual detail from both authors and was often encouraged by Professor Hynes’s, to me, congenial belief that ‘a close relation exists between literature and history, and … this relation is particularly close in times of crisis, when public and private lives, the world of action and the world of imagination, interpenetrate.’
I would finally like to thank Richard and Elizabeth Dalkeith, J.W.M. Thompson, James Fergusson, Malini Maxwell-Hyslop, Sue Freestone and Gillon Aitken.
London, 1996
POSTSCRIPT TO PAPERBACK
EDITION
When this book was first published in April 19961 read from it at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh and was afterwards fortunate enough to meet Archibald McIndoe’s sister, Elizabeth Mason. She gave me a letter that Richard Hillary’s mother had written to McIndoe’s mother. When I had read it, I thought of trying to incorporate a little of it into the narrative, but in the end decided it was better given complete, as an afterword; for every puer aeternus after all, a mother must stand and watch.
26 Rutland Court April 24 1943
Rutland Gate
Knightsbridge SW7
London
Dear Mrs McIndoe
Thank you so much for your letter to me about my son Richard and for your loving sympathy.
He insisted on returning to the active list – knowing what it meant, he still insisted. I do not think I have ever known such courage, courage of mind and soul and an almost super-human bravery. He had so much to live for and yet he gave it all away with both hands – a truly great and gallant man.
He told me he would never know any peace within himself if he did not try to return, so I watched his return with an aching heart and some sadness, but this he would sweep away with his gay laugh, telling me all would be well…
Death held no terror for him; we had so often discussed this. I therefore know he met ‘The Last Enemy’ as gallantly as the first and as undefeated in spirit. He was to me the most amazing companion, so gay, gallant and witty. I am so humbly grateful for being allowed his companionship for 23 glorious years and know that my life has been tremendously enriched.
Richard had a great understanding of and liking for your son Archie, for it was thus he always spoke of him. I am busy with voluntary war work and am so glad to have this to do. Richard was always so amused
With all kind thoughts always
Yours sincerely
Edwyna M. Hillary
The work pioneered by Gillies and McIndoe continues at the Blond McIndoe Centre, Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grin-stead, Sussex RH19 3DZ. The hospital treats people suffering from accidents or from disfiguring birth defects and is grateful for donations.
S.F.
London, February 1997.
1. Christopher Wood, c. 1920
2. Richard Hillary, 1937
3. Jeremy Wolfenden
4. La Foire de Neuilly (1923)
5. Self Portrait, Paris (1927)
6. Dieppe (1929)
7. Building the Boat, Tréboul (1930)
8. Little House by Night (1930)
9. The Yellow Man (1930]
10. Sleeping Fisherman, Ploaré (1930)
11. Zebra and Parachute (1930)
12. Christopher Wood on a Cornish beach, 1928
13. Frosca Munster, 1925
14. 54 Operational Training Unit, RAF Charter Hall, December 1942. Richard Hillary fourth from left, and inset.
15. Loch Lee, 1940: the dinghy from the crashed Heinkel. Under fire from Hugh Stapleton.
16. Eric Kennington’s copy of his original portrait of Hillary, commissioned after Richard’s death by his father.
17. Funeral of Guy Burgess, Moscow, September 1963. Left to right: John Miller, George Hanna, Jeremy Wolfenden, Nigel Burgess and Donald Maclean.
18. Jeremy Wolfenden: a summer’s day at Magdalen College.
19. The little-known role of the Bartender in the Russian Course production of Measure for Measure. 1953.
20. The Times, Thursday 5 September, 1957.
21. Lord Wolfenden at his desk.
A VINTAGE BOOKS ORIGINAL, MARCH 2002
Copyright © 1996 by Sebastian Faulks
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson, an imprint of Random House UK Ltd., London, in 1996.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.
eISBN: 978-0-307-52360-0
Author photograph © Jerry Bauer
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