2, STRATHEARN PLACE, W.2.

01-723 2220

5 December 1988

3 a.m.

Dearest J,

I have just spent a terrible few hours destroying letters from the early 80's. None of yours, I hasten to add. I am keeping only a few other correspondents - Hugo, Charles, Maître Blum, Peter, & Princess Vera's mad but riveting epistles - & just a token here & there of other people I want to remember, & interesting things to do with the books. But the whole effort has made me horribly depressed. The wasted time, the pretentions, the lapses of taste, the meaningless flirtations and spurious enthusiasms, the abandoned projects.... I feel I have been destroying the criminal evidence of a discreditable past. This reflection makes me think of poor Colin, condemned to years of servitude because of the distorted presentation of his relatively innocent past. I am really very blue tonight, but writing this letter to you makes me feel better, & when I have written it I shall go for a walk in the cold night air & then drink some very good malt whisky, just received as present from an uncle, before retiring.

Amidst all the glum reflections I keep thinking that our friendship has meant more than anything to me these past ten years, & has been a constantly enhancing & improving thing; & that it is wonderful but very odd that you should have taken me into your orbit, for I was and am so completely different from the others who have been close to you and so far removed from the things you have really loved in life - Christianity, the study of art & architecture, brilliant conversation, true intellectualism, English country life, etc. Also there is the fact that you are good & I am bad: I may require a recommendation from you to get into heaven, & even this may well fail to do the trick. I nevertheless thank God for all your love & encouragement & friendship and, like Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton, "happily I think on thee" in this low moment & feel more cheerful. I only hope I have not been too much of a bore to you down the years, too much extra weight to the emotional baggage you have had to carry, & am looking forward immensely to seeing you on the 13th.

2, STRATHEARN PLACE, W.2.

01-723 2220

26 November 1989

Dearest Jims,

I have just returned from four divine days in Paris. The weather was cold, autumnal & clear. Master was in excellent form on her ninety-first birthday. I saw the Sarge, who was sweet & introduced the very attractive & lively Didier: I suspect the Sarge sees in him shades of C. Macmordie. Didier adores you, thinking you one of the most amusing & noble-minded persons he has ever met: quite right. I saw lots of other friends too.

In between whiles, I read the first three chapters of your book. It is _excellent_ stuff. Not a word of it is dull. The Duke was evidently not the most coruscating of men, but you succeed in making him both fascinating & funny, as J. Pope-Hennessy did Queen Mary. When you discuss his interests & endeavours it is beautiful reading, for these are themes that you yourself know intimately & love. Your summaries from his diaries of his foreign travels, dealings with Geo IV etc. are masterly, all the more so for the strain of gentle mockery which pervades the whole. You have absolutely impressed on the reader (this one anyway) that the BD was an acutely sensitive & emotionally complex man who had he lived during the past hundred years would clearly have emerged as a homosexual. I greatly regretted not having taken more pages with me, as I devoured them greedily & then felt bereft. This is not flattery, but the sincere opinion of one who is wholly ignorant of the subject & period & comes to it as a general reader. This is a more than worthy successor to HN & Regy. Am sure Debo will be thrilled & J. Murray eager to publish. There is nothing to cut: the enclosed notes are tiny points, & in advancing them I feel rather like the girl W. S. Maugham asked to proof-read one of his later novels & (having just taken a course at writing school) proceeded to submit a bossy critique of his grammar & composition! I shall read on in the next few days & communicate further.

I missed Diana today but shall catch her on Friday. How was your visit to the doctor? And your meeting with the _Telegraph_? No doubt we shall have spoken by the time you get this.

Michael Bloch's
Meeting with Jeremy Thorpe

At 9.15 punctually on the evening of Wednesday the 28th of April I rang the bell of 2 Orme Square. Mrs T opened the door to me & was most charming & welcoming. Stephen Atack was with her (they having asked him to attend) & she introduced us - a bit of a joke since Stephen & I had been drinking at the King's Arms, a pub in the Moscow Road, only a quarter of an hour before.

As I had already had a couple of large whiskies at the King's Arms, and was given another two (possibly three) at Orme Square, & had a further couple when I met Stephen afterwards before embarking on something of a bender, my memory of the meeting (which lasted an hour and a quarter) is somewhat hazy, but I have put down what I recall. It is hard to remember the order in which things happened as everything (or so it seemed to me) was very jolly & fast & relaxed except for one moment.

One entered a hall of which I recall only a big stand for sticks & umbrellas, from where one could see the stooped figure of Jeremy Thorpe poised expectantly in the next room to the right, wearing a neat dark suit. I went straight in & shook his hand. Though looking somewhat shrunken & older than his 64 years (which he celebrates tomorrow), he was surprisingly distinguished & alert & full of humour & expression & showed no obvious signs of his recent accident. He still radiated an aura. From time to time he shook a little but seemed to shrug this off. I wondered if he dyed his hair which was still black. He was drinking whisky through a straw. His voice was low but not a whisper & the reason one could not catch everything was that he spoke so fast. My first words to him were: "This is a special moment for me, Sir." He immediately started a disarming conversation. I can't remember exactly how it went, but among his first remarks were (a) light sarcastic ragging at my being unavailable in the mornings & (b) asking me about my pupil master at the Bar. His had been ROBIN WYNNE (not Lewis Hawser as I had thought), who was so brilliant that he could read a brief & dictate an opinion simultaneously.

We were in a long room with desks at either end, a marble fireplace in the middle, large canvases (mostly pastoral scenes though there was a garish modern still life), faded chintz curtains and comfortable soft furniture with bright red covers. The next room along visible through an open door seemed to be a library. We stayed where we were, though S had earlier told me that he thought JT would be taking me up to his study with its curios. JT & self sat close to each other on armchairs with our backs to the window, with Marion facing us some ten feet away on a sofa & Stephen hovering somewhere on my left. Stephen later

MEETING WITH JT, 28.IV.93

told me that Rupert stole in surreptitiously during the
conversation to get a look at me & listen for a minute.
There was also an exotic looking coloured maid who brought
me a cup of jasmine tea.

I remember that for about ten minutes I was almost
hypnotized by JT & staring him full in the eyes while we
talked vigorously about what I cannot recall, until Stephen
broke in with some rather formal words to the effect that
perhaps I should now state my business. This rather took
me aback, and I stammered that I was writing a sympathetic
biography and understood their apprehensions and hoped they
might feel able to give me some help though I wished to put
them under no pressure to do so.

JT said that before deciding whether & how to help he
wanted to know about two things. (1) At the end of the
day, would I let him read the MS in proof so that he could
correct factual inaccuracies? (2) Would it be possible to
control serial rights so that they gave a balanced picture
& did not give undue prominence to controversial matters?
In connection with (1), JT said that he had recently read
a MS which had given a completely fallacious account of his
dealings with Ted Heath in March 1974.¹ In connection with
(2), Mrs T mentioned that they had been rather shocked at
the serialisation of the Humphrey Carpenter book on Britten
which had concentrated on his homosexuality. JT also made
the point (3) that by giving me valuable material he might
be shooting his own fox, or a phrase to that effect. If he
were minded to, he could provide me with a wealth of
anecdote & fascinating archives & reminscences.

I replied to the effect that I considered all these
concerns to be perfectly natural & valid & that in his
position I should have raised them all myself. I
especially appreciated the serial point, as my Windsor
books had been serialised in a vulgar & sensational way
which gave no impression of the seriousness of my work &
had harmed my reputation. Unfortunately it was almost
impossible to control these newspaper serials once one had
sold the serial rights. I had not sold mine yet, but
feared that the newspapers might not be very interested in
serialising my book, as they would still have much unused
(and no doubt unfortunate) writing on the subject by their
own journalists, compiled in the seventies. JT replied
that such old writings would be completely uninteresting

¹ This led to a brief talk between JT & self on the
subject of that episode, Mrs T eventually telling him to
shut up as he was giving rather a lot away!

2

MEETING WITH JT, 28.IV.93

and that anyway the newspapers would never dare publish
them, knowing there was such a thing as a law of criminal
libel!

On point (1), I thought it perfectly right & understandable
that JT should want to be able to read my book in MS, if he
had made a substantial contribution to it, but I stressed
that I had to write my own book & retain my independence.
I was a sympathetic biographer & saw him indeed as a great
man of outstanding qualities (JT smiled & made a self-
deprecating gesture) but my view of him would probably not
be the same as his own. I had to tell the truth as I saw
it. Of course I should in principle be most interested to
have his views on what I had written, but I did not feel I
could allow him to blue-pencil the MS or prevent it coming
out if he did not like it. JT assured me that it was
facts, not interpretations, which he wished to try to
influence. He accepted the point about independence, &
said that if he helped he would want me to make it clear in
my preface that his assistance did not imply that he took
responsibility for anything I had written.

I think I got rather carried away after this, & told him at
one point that I regarded him as a brilliant & inspiring
character & wished to write a brilliant & inspiring book.
This was greeted with a certain amount of hilarity. I told
JT that he had nothing to fear from me in that my warm
feelings for him would not change if he felt he could not
help me much. He said he accepted this.

At one point, Mrs T asked if my book would mostly be about
politics, & I said straight out that I was painting a
portrait & saw JT's life as all of a piece & public &
private life would both have to be treated. This was
followed by a moment of tense silence, broken by Stephen
with a brave attempt at a hearty joke.

JT asked how long I thought it would take me to write my
book & when I expected it to come out. This was a somewhat
awkward question for which I should have been better
prepared. I told him frankly that my contract, drawn up
three years ago after he had indicated that he did not want
to be involved, provided that it was not to appear in his
lifetime. I had insisted on this provision, and it was on
this basis that people had been talking to me. Of course,
the premises had slightly changed and all things were
discussable. I may not have been very tactful because at
one point Mrs T, who has a sort of tough-humorous manner,
rebuked me for talking about JT as if he were already dead!
I told JT that I could happily spend years doing this very
enjoyable research but felt I had to get down to it soon &

3

MEETING WITH JT, 28.IV.93

meant to start writing this summer, beginning with the
chapters on his background & early life to 1959.

JT said he had a fascinating & enormous collection of press
cuttings concerning himself. I expressed interest & said
I had already read the huge collection on him at the Daily
Telegraph Library. Mrs T remarked on how the Telegraph had
behaved during the trial, agreeing to pay Bessell more for
his memoirs provided JT convicted.

Auberon Waugh came up as an example of someone who, in the
view of Mrs T, would use publication of my book as pretext
for writing long nasty articles in places like the
Spectator. I said I had seen AW & believed that his view
of JT had greatly mellowed. I even thought AW might have
some remorse. This greeted with scepticism.

Mrs T asked if I had any idea of the shape & form of my
book & I said it I thought it would open in 1974-5 to show
how JT had built up a terrific position for himself by then
(1974 elections, huge personal rating in opinion polls,
hero of EEC referendum campaign etc.) & seemed about to go
into a new political orbit. (Mrs T thought this a just
assessment & said that it was precisely because JT had been
doing so well at that moment that they had been intent on
bringing him down.) Then the main body of the book would
show how he got there & the trial etc. would be the
dénouement.

Mrs T admitted frankly that she had been full of
apprehensions & still had some. She had read every word
of Ribbentrop & thought it good.

At one point, talking about fact & truth & how they get
distorted, JT said curiously that everything would have
been different for him had people seen a particular
photograph taken in Cornwall. To my amazement, he then
rose to his feet & shuffled rapidly across to the SW corner
of the room where he started rummaging among large mounted
photographs which were stacked there. I got up & followed
him, as did Mrs T who was concerned at JT moving around
without his stick. Eventually I was shown a bizarre
picture, dated 1936, of JT's father dressed as the Empress
of Ethiopia together with Gwilym Lloyd George got up as
Haile Selassie. I got the feeling that this had not been
the picture JT had originally meant to show me & which Mrs
T had possibly prevented him from bringing out.

JT then talked much & fascinatingly about LG, whom he had
met in 1943, & about Megan & Violet who had both been his
dear friends though they had hated each other. They were

4

MEETING WITH JT, 28.IV.93

formidable females who were known as the Ultra Violet & the
Infra Megan. Megan was a great & inspiring speaker & JT
told me about a notable occasion when she clashed with
Winston Churchill on the hustings, getting the better of
him in repartee full of biblical allusion. JT also spoke
with astonishing wit and detail about LG's contempt for
rats such as Simon & Jowitt. It was all lucid & gripping.
I suggested to JT that he was the spiritual heir of LG,
whose descendants had abandoned liberalism & become
socialists or conservatives. He did not demur. I told him
about John Grigg's unsuccessful attempts to get Mark Bonham
Carter to see me, & said that I thought MBC's antagonism
showed that the LG-Asquith feud was still going strong 60
years later. Mrs T said that was a new one for them.

JT telling a good story is rather like a magician. One is
impressed & dazzled but afterwards it is rather difficult
to remember the detail & how it was done.

I think I was getting rather voluble & forward by this
time. Stephen had advised me that I should stay about an
hour, but at 10.15, just when the hour was up, Mrs T came
over & poured another large whisky into my glass. Ten
minutes later however I caught Stephen's eye & knew I ought
to leave.

As we all got up, JT advised me not to break a femur &
talked about his time in hospital. I said I hoped the NHS
had treated him as a VIP. He said not at all, same as
everyone else, but he admired the NHS. He had been in an
open ward with neighbours in their nineties. The nurse
came from Ghana so she & JT had much to talk about.

I gave JT a first edition of *The Second Empire* by Philip
Guedalla for his birthday tomorrow. I said it was the sort
of book I wanted to write about him, an eloquent portrait
of an unusual personality, full of romance & paradox.
Guedalla had invented the epigrammatic style of Oxford
Union speaking of which JT had been the last great
exponent. His widow had been a great friend of mine in the
mid-seventies & JT's greatest fan: she would hear nothing
against him & called him "my blue eyed boy". Mrs T
observed that JT's eyes were not blue.

As we went out into the hall, JT, with a sudden dramatic
gesture, pulled a magnificent decorated sword from its
scabbard, saying it had been given to his grandfather by
the Tsar the day before the latter's abdication.

They were off to North Devon again in a day or so & while
they were there they would think carefully about our

5

MEETING WITH JT, 28.IV.93

discussion & they would write to me in a week or so with
their views.

My last memory of them is standing in the doorway hand in
hand waving goodbye. I was rather emotional as I took my
leave.

Stephen joined me at the King's Arms a quarter of an hour
later to say it had gone very well & they had both liked
me, though Mrs T was not yet entirely clear about various
aspects of my project. The meeting had cleared the
atmosphere & things should be easier for me now whether or
not they felt able to help me. At all events, there ought
to be no problem with Stephen himself helping me & he might
soon be able to put me in touch with such people as Richard
Wainwright, Cyril Smith, John Parry and Philip Watkins.

6

2, STRATHEARN PLACE, LONDON W2 2NQ

071-723 2220

30 May 1994

Dearest Jims,

The service for Alvilde was the loveliest occasion of
its kind I was ever at. What a wonderman you are to have
organised it (& written that very apt bidding prayer) & it
was sweet of you to suggest that I should come to it. I'm
sure she would have been delighted with everything. It was
very nice afterwards to meet again many people to whom you
have introduced me over the years - Nigel Nicolson, Isabel
Colgate, Frieda etc. - & also to encounter for the first
time the heart-breaking Tony Scotland & Julian B.

I am rather confused about my book, as I hardly know
what to make of JT any more, & have collected so much
information about him that I am suffering from mental
indigestion. In a couple of weeks or so however I shall
firmly close my general research & then batten down the
hatches to write for the rest of the summer. At the moment
I am having much to do with a woman who lived with JT
between his two marriages (1970-73) & is currently dying of
leukaemia but wishing to spill to me such beans as she has.
We have rather furtive meetings in hotels in Sussex: the
last was at Lord Moyne's fake mediaeval manor near
Littlehampton & tomorrow we meet at Stopham.

I went to Cambridge for a couple of nights & dined at
my old college, where there is now a turnstile at the main
gate taking admission money. A huge modern library has
been built & practically bankrupted the coll: when I asked
why this was necessary (there being an excellent 17th
century library which in my day was always empty), I was
told that the undergraduates must have somewhere to work as
it is now unfashionable to work in one's rooms! We now
have 120 fellows, almost all of them highly unsympathetic
though there are two rather splendid old bachelor dons
(last of a dying breed) who take me under their wing. I
visited JT's goddaughter whose husband is colonel of the
OTC: she lived with them just after the trial & was quite
interesting, confirming my suspicions that Marion rules
Jeremy with a rod of iron.

Forgive these droolings. How was Scotland? I go to
Edinburgh Thursday week for a family wedding. Charles
Orwin will be visiting gardens in Gloucestershire at the
end of June so you may see him.

071-723 2220

5 August 1994

Dearest Jims,

Many thanks for yrs which arrived this morn. I'm glad
you have so many jolly plans for coming weeks though
confront you & the meetings with advisers etc. It really
isn't right that you should have to face such problems &
you must be totally selfish in arranging yr life to suit yr
comfort, pleasure & security as far as possible.

I'm pleased I correctly guessed the Hailsham book was
something you would want to read: do dispose of the extra
copy to some likely person & I'll get something else for
your birthday. I read it myself last night & cd not put it
down. Actually it's very prolix & repetitive & his whole
thesis (which I don't disagree with but strikes me as
sentimental rather than logical) could have been put down
in about five of those beautifully written pages. But it
is a breathtaking achievement that anyone (let alone a man
of 80+) should be able to write such faultless prose &
argue so lucidly & at the same time produce a visual work
of art all evidently off the top of his head.

No, we didn't see the grave at Polesden: thousands of
trippers in the grounds so we made a quick exit after
visiting the house. What fun you must have had doing it up
with the Charles Street stuff & capturing the exact flavour
of the loathsome Mrs RG's Edwardian ostentation. Flint
Cottage - a regency dolls house with lovely garden & views
- is let to one of the handsomest couples I have ever met:
he happens to be godson of a first cousin of the first Mrs
Jeremy Thorpe so I heard some interesting things.

I enclose the brochure of the place I have been at in
case it's of interest: it's simple, comfortable & old-
fashioned, food OK, incredibly cheap, & while I've been
there the company on the whole has been delightful - though
perhaps I've been lucky, & I have the boon of instant
access (25 minutes from Victoria) which is not quite the
case with residents of Glos.

I'm intrigued to hear about the birthday pilgrimage to
Worcs. Who I wonder lives now in yr childhood house?

071-723 2220

20 September 1994

Dearest Jims,

I was thinking of you last week-end as I went to stay
in the Cotswolds with John Cambridge, a charming retired
ambassador whom I used to know via Hugo & Charles Orwin &
who apparently met Alvilde & yourself once or twice at
gatherings. He lives at an idyllic place called Filkins in
Oxon - just next to where Mrs Wandesborough lives who is
just about still there (they tell me) at 98 - & inhabits a
fine stone house which looks 1750 but is in fact 1936 &
most comfortable. I went down with a diplomat friend whom
I'm slightly in love with & we both had a splendid time, JC
being a lively host & the weather fortunately marvellous.
Every meal (including tea) was a party at someone's house:
we met lots of delightful characters & so far as we could
see almost everyone in that part of Oxon is either a queer
or a fag-hag.

I'm quite excited as I'm starting my drawing course at
Heatherley's School of Fine Art in Chelsea on Thursday. My
efforts have improved even since I did that not very
flattering sketch of yourself & am hoping for spectacular
progress once I expose myself to professional training.
Meanwhile I still haven't managed to do much writing on the
Jeremy front but believe it will start pouring out soon.
I saw his cousin at Filkins - a rather wild woman who used
to be a mistress of the Aga Khan & is one of the great
queers' molls of the locality. I saw Jeremy himself a week
ago who was most friendly - though I'm not sure he would
have been had he known that I had spent much of the
previous week (in Edinburgh) reading police reports on his
activities. He seemed in very lively form, given his
condition - no doubt of his courage.

Are you terribly excited about your new diaries coming
out? I haven't seen any reviews yet but haven't been
reading the papers much of late. I do hope you're all
right J & hope to speak to you soon.

071-723 2220

1 November 1994

Dearest Jims,

Thanks so much for letter from Brideshead - very kind to think of me & remember of old how I get a kick out of receiving missives from you when you stay at such grand places. Yesterday eve I went to Selina's party at the Ritz - amazing gathering, hundreds & hundreds of well-known faces. Sarge there & in his element. I had to leave half way through being deafened. Her book is bound to be a fabulous success - & deserves to be from what I've read in the Tellywag. I'm sure it will be a sympathetic portrait as S with her love of colourful & difficult middle aged men would have adored EW, who in turn would have adulated her Plantaganet blood. I don't think EW would have liked me.

I'm now waiting for Hugo to come & spend this eve here. I haven't seen him for two years, wonder how he is. He's got quite a grand job to do with what the German press writes about England. When they published the nude photo of the Prince of Wales, he spoke on telephone to St James's Palace answering questions about how much was visible etc.

I enclose (a) review of you in Standard which appeared yesterday which I'm sure you'll like, (b) my little drawing of Sarge - is it like?

An old friend of Jeremy Thorpe's mother whom I know - Ruth Montefiore - lunched yesterday with the JTs & heard from both of them that they like me & would not have anyone else do this book!

I'm dreading going to France in 3 weeks to celebrate what would have been Maître Blum's 95th birthday with her niece & nephew & secretary - a painful case of 'going back'. I haven't heard from her stepdaughter & heiress, who I gather has disposed of all my possessions in my old office (books mostly) without a word.

Take great care of yrself & don't do anything you don't want to do.

071-723 2220

8 December 1994

Dearest Jims,

Having a privileged look at this piece was a lovely Xmas present, better than a Rolls Royce (with which I would not know what to do, being unable to afford the services of a nubile chauffeur). I am not being kind when I tell you that it is a powerful & grippingly readable narrative & its vivid personal touches give it an elegaic quality. It was fascinating to me, knowing so little of RB; & you handle his inclinations very delicately. I'm sure Murray's will be thrilled to publish your book. I return the thing with a few trivial comments.

I'm coming to the end of a rather wasted year during which I have amassed a vast amount of information about my subject but written nothing but a few sketchy drafts of chapters & a couple of book reviews. The awful thing, I can confide to you dearest J, is that I am living more than half the time in a world of pleasant anaesthesia induced by marijuana. Well, at least that's a lot better than drink, does not undermine one physically & makes one's temperament sweeter rather than sourer; but it does not help concentration & all the things in life take an eternity to do. But I'm overwhelmed now with a feeling that it's time I woke up & wrote my book, which is what I'm going to start doing over Xmas.

I enjoyed my week-end at Clovelly, a wonderful & authentic & atmospheric house full of splendid old books & pictures which are falling to pieces because of the damp. I slept in an empire bed in a room filled with pastel portraits of beautiful young men killed in 1914. There were dog messes on the landing & the bath water was brown. We spent our evenings reading Shakespeare before a blazing fire in a long room known as the twinnery - the room of the twin female heiresses (Manners) of Edwardian days, who got all their friends (all to be killed in the war except Eddie Marsh) to write in their scrapbook. I think I'm in love with my hostess, Lady H. Rous, a totally mad but delightful journalist I've known for a year: I wish I were a dog in which case she would return my passion. The man I brought down, my handsome ex-army friend Martin, is like a frisky hound & she liked him a lot!

071-723 2220

26 February 1995

Dearest Jims,

This is my review of the Blackwood. Do you think it
sounds all right? I'm in for a pretty dreadful time:
*Londoners' Diary* have already been on to me asking exactly
what I think of all the insulting things she says about me,
& whether it is true I am suing her for libel! I got some
good advice from K. Rose (who said my piece should make her
book sound as dull as possible & mention self as little as
possible); but I've just been round to see him & got the
distinct impression that he won't want much to do with me
while I'm being ridiculed by the press.

Diana M. seems to have been slightly naughty, having
(according to the book) put into Blackwood's head the idea
that the Duchess longed to die but was being kept alive by
Maître Blum, but one can't blame D for being herself.

I came across your interview by Attallah in the Oldie
the other day: your replies to his rather banal questions
read brilliantly. It was beastly of him though to throw in
gratuitously that you didn't care for Clarissa.

I've been distracted since I got back two weeks ago by
the Blackwood affair, & the disastrous but amusing play,
but now long to get down to my book.

How character-building these trials are!

PS In recent months, an odd tradition has developed at the
Savile. On Wednesday nights, youngish & narcissistic
members turn up & have a lot to drink while admiring each
other. When the staff & everyone else have gone, we go up
to the ballroom with our drinks where a charming bachelor
resident member in late sixties plays romantic music on the
club piano, while we drunkenly embrace each other.

Sad what is happening at O&C club: will Lord Jenkins
also resign from Brooks's in protest at exclusion of women?

071-723 2220

16 February 1995

Dearest Jims,

I'm needing all my sense of humour (which happily seems quite abundant these days) not to let the Blackwood book get me down. It is pure malice & full of the grossest distortions: though she does have an uncanny knack of noticing what is absurd about people. I would have found it terribly funny if it had been about anyone else! I don't really mind my representation as a sort of Patience aesthete, except that she goes out of her way to make me look as ridiculous & unattractive as possible. Her loathing of the poor old Master is frightening, though the portrait does contain a grain of truth. It's pretty awful to think of a thousand copies finding their way into public libraries in a few weeks' time, to be read by old ladies well into the next century.

I'm reviewing it for the LR & shall have to think carefully about how I'm going to do it: perhaps you would be a dear & look at it some time & let me have yr view. Meanwhile I see from *The Times* that Lady Caroline is suing her mother in order to stop her leaving all her money to her grandchildren, cutting out Lady C: it is amusing to see this after reading her loathsome speculations as to Maître Blum's greed & avarice!

I see also in the *Standard* that Dr Alisdaire Hickson is about to publish his masterpiece on public school homosexuality, *The Poisoned Bowl*, in course of research for which he wrote to more than 7,000 people, including yourself. I wonder how many useful replies he got.

I had a marvellous week in Madeira & made some nice friends there one of whom has invited me to stay in his flat whenever I wish. I did some work & think I overcame the boredom which has made it so hard for me to write my book in recent months. This week-end the play based on my Windsor Letters is having two performances at the King's Head pub theatre in Islington, which should be fun: I'm trying to get my friends to go. I do think of you very often dear J & wonder how you & yr essays are getting on & long to see you soon.

071-723 2220

1 March 1995

Dearest Jims,

I'm in the habit of recording the few TV programmes which look interesting on my video machine, & then glancing at them in the early hours. I was therefore watching the Channel 4 satire on the NT at 4 a.m. this morning, when I was amazed to see your picture (a very handsome & patrician looking one happily) accompanied by a commentary saying you were the guilty man who had 'perverted' the NT, that you were a manipulator who made Macchiaveli look a mere amateur, that you were a sinister & evil conspirator out to entrench the power & interests of a decaying squirearchy etc. I felt like smashing the set! No need to tell you about how deeply I feel about your being insulted in this way, undergoing as I currently am not dissimilar treatment. If it's any consolation to you: (a) the whole programme was such an obvious ludicrous send-up that practically no-one could have taken anything in it seriously; and (b) as you were not (thank goodness) interviewed by them, their attack on you was quite meaningless - bricks without straw.

Poor Nigel Nicolson. How did they make him look & sound so odd? Evidently special cameras & sound equipment were used to produce a distorted effect. What a fate you escaped by declining to see them.

Must dash now but I know you have vast sense of humour as these days is also happily the case with your loving

071-723 2220

23 March 1995

Dearest Jims,

So good to talk to you on Mon. Your jaunt to Menton
sounds fun & it must be nice for you to open your letters
& see you are so sought after, though I quite see that you
are rationing yourself in accepting invitations.

Just after we talked, I bought the Evening Standard &
found the enclosed delightful item. When I went into the
Savile for lunch, everyone was reading it & laughing their
heads off. I rather laughed too, but have been in rather
a quandary ever since wondering if I ought to do something
about it. There is little point in making threats unless
one is prepared to sue, which involves much time, money &
stress, with no certainty of victory at the end of the day.
On the other hand, one does not want to be thought a
sitting duck. So I've sent off the enclosed firework,
though I don't propose to do anything, whatever the reply.

On Tuesday I went to hear Lord Farnham's Case in the
House of Lords. This is fascinating. The argument is
that, as the 28 Irish Representative Peers lost their right
to sit in 1922, the only explanation of the fact that they
carried on sitting until they died out is that they were
obeying Writs of Summons, which would have made them (&
descendants) UK Barons by Writ. The Privileges Committee
looked a pretty sour & moth-eaten bunch & I don't give much
for Lord Farnham's chances, ingenious though his arguments
are. The most interesting member was Lord Mowbray, who
himself has no less than three baronies by writ & is 25th
in line: he did look a most splendid character, with
walrus moustache, monocle & black eye patch, & spoke in a
nasal twang without pronouncing his rs.

You ask whether I would still like to be your literary
executor. The answer is that I'd love to do it, & would
try my best to be worthy of the role, but should quite
understand if you felt you would like to appoint someone
else instead for whatever reason.

Do let me know when you are coming & we must watch the
film which portrays you as the evil manipulator sustaining
a fossilised gentry.

071-723 2220

16 April 1995

Dearest Jims,

Herewith the horror novel which you kindly offered to
peruse. I say novel because this is what she has admitted
it is, both in the 'reader's note' to the UK edition and in
last Saturday's Telewag - a novel in which she has not
bothered to change the names of the real people on whom her
characters are loosely & satirically based. It's a nasty
situation, because there's absolutely nothing I can do
either to protect my own tattered reputation or that of my
beloved late Master: any fuss or protest I make will only
expose me to ridicule & give a tremendous free
advertisement to la Blackwood. By every post, I receive
letters from strangers (mostly American, I enclose some
samples) begging me to write some counterblast putting the
record straight: but who would want to publish it?

The good news is that I have a few friends who have
put in a kind word - Diana Mo, Hugh Massingberd, Sarah
Bradford, & dear Andrew Roberts who has done La B justice
in today's Sunday Times: I enclose the piece in case it
has eluded you. Meanwhile my threatening letter to the
Evening Standard seems to have rattled them, I'm glad to
say, & it seems I shall be getting a formal apology along
with a free lunch at some high class London eatery (though
I'll have to be careful what I say!)

Great news that all your diaries are to be reissued by
Murray: it's quite something to have your books brought
out successively by three highly reputable publishers! &
I'd love to read mid-seventies volume when you've edited it
& typed it out.

I'm writing about Jeremy's political career but
finding it all deathly tedious. Hope you're OK & to see
you soon,

PS I was so sorry to hear about Gervase. & Charles will
be too. Does this mean also Simon Blow?

0171-723 2220

31 May 1995

Dearest Jims,

So long since we communicated in writing & I never wrote to thank you for that excellent lunch at Brooks's a couple of weeks ago. I'm so excited that Murray are taking your Bent & Straight book, which is really important to my mind not only as your reminiscences are so witty & valuable but also because half of them are hardly known to the public & but for you would go unsung & be forgotten. & your 1973-4 diaries in my view are the best yet, a sort of elegy for a dying world.

I've just been spending a few nights at my Reigate retreat. We were six in all & I knew three of my co-visitors from previous visits - an architect, a portrait artist & a funny old queen from the Garrick who writes books about Opera Singers (he has just done Tetrazini). It's like a club & the only drawback is that one spends so much time chatting to the other inmates that not much work gets done! I also seem to be in good graces of the exotic Viennese lady housekeeper who spoils me in various ways.

I don't know whether I've mentioned it to you, but I've decided to put Jeremy Thorpe aside for a bit in order to write a novel which has been in my mind for a year now. It's a murder in a gentlemen's club. The victim - a monstrous tycoon - is invented, but the six suspects are a **clef** & include yours truly who I think will have to do the deed. I'd love to talk to you some time about the art of novel writing. So far I'm finding it tremendous fun, though dialogue does not come easily. At Mount Pleasant I went for walks & worked out the next bit in a delicious daydream. One of the other suspects is based on a handsome (heterosexual) rock singer at the Savile I've been platonically in love with for six years & I'm wondering whether to incorporate this element in the scenario.

I go to Paris on Saturday by the tunnel train, getting back on Wednesday night. It's tragic about Maître Blum - less than 18 months after her death, her papers have been burned, she has been maligned in a disgusting book, many of her wishes have been ignored, her heiress has died a terrible death at 52 & her estate has ended up in the hands of people she disliked. However I am not letting this

depress me too much & I have some good friends there whom
I shall enjoy seeing. (These of course include Sarge who
wrote me a sweet note expressing his disgust at the
Blackwood horror.)

I went to see Hadrian VII at the Chichester Festival
last week following the funeral there of a rather Corvo-
like friend of mine aged 74. It was a fabulous production
with Derek Jacobi in the title role but the play while
ingenious in parts is not really up to much. That which
makes the novel readable - brilliance of language - is
lacking. Sad that Peter Luke should have died just before
this great revival of his most successful work. He seems
to have been quite prolific & respected, judging by the
programme note.

Do you know the novel *Venetian Cousins* by Stephen
Carroll (a married country solicitor who is currently my
best friend) which came out a few weeks ago? You would I
think like it & I have been meaning to send it to you. I
reviewed it in the LR. As a result of my review (which
pointed out that three of the characters were based on
Jeremy Thorpe & two exotic friends of his), a strange man
is coming to see me from Canada. I'll tell you more.

Do you like the enclosed picture? He's someone I met
with Patric Dickinson & has become a great friend (not
lover) over the past 18 months. When we encountered him he
was selling his body in Soho night clubs, having earlier
been a subaltern in a smart cavalry regiment. He's got a
respectable job now & is going to university in October.
I've got him into the Savile & took him to have this
drawing done by an artist friend of mine. I think it's
frightfully good - like Sargent. He is 25: I'm just
getting to the age when I am starting to feel paternal
towards some chaps.

Hope all is well & to speak soon,

PS When are you going to Chatsworth & will you see
Gervase?

0171-723 2220

16 August 1995

Dearest Jims,

Thanks so much for letting me see this piece, which reads splendidly & fascinatingly. It shows no signs of senility, though an editor may want to tighten it up a bit. Your picture of the close-knit & rather neurotic family is brilliant. Through your descriptions of your encounters with him, you bring JPH alive. My only real comment, as I mentioned, is that, whenever you mention JPH's 'weaknesses', you give impression of shrinking from subject with fastidious distaste. You mustn't change that, for those were your honest reactions as you wrote. But it all reminded me rather of Thin Ice, where the narrator bemoans that his friend did not fulfil his genius owing to louche obsessions - but the reader's sympathies are with the friend. There is a magnificent drama about this sort of human self-destructiveness which somehow you don't bring out.

Other tiny observations.

p.9: perhaps worth saying that, while QM an affectionate portrait, JPH as always saw what was ridiculous about her & gently sent her up throughout

p.12: the grandmother was Malay (see Verandah)

p.16: I believe JPH boasted afterwards that he had stopped Crawley getting a knighthood

p.19: restore deleted lines: they're good!

p.20: sentence starting at end of page reads ambiguously (but shouldn't be changed!)

p.36: 'surpassed' for 'superceded'?

It looks as if I'm spending next two or three months writing a short biography of Duchess of Windsor for her centenary in June next year. Not something I want to do, but it will involve me in no effort & will bring in much-needed cash. I saw my publisher yesterday & she quite understood, but hoped I would do it quickly so as to return to serious work on magnum opus. I thought I might be able to write a chapter every two days.

Look forward seeing you when weather cools down

0171-723 2220

18 September 1995

Dearest Jims,

I was thrilled to get yr republished diaries this afternoon - a wonderful birthday present. A handsome volume if I may say so & it must be nice to know you're worth £25! I haven't looked at them much since devouring them seventeen years ago & shall now read them again with my older & more jaundiced eye. (It has been an odd experience re-reading the entire literature on the Duchess of Windsor after a similar interval: I find it incredible that I devoted so many years of my life to glorifying this shallow & selfish woman - but of course I was in love with her High Priestess Maître Blum, who was neither.)

I had a delightful evening at the Savile entertaining Tony Scotland, who seemed to enjoy himself. He's so quick & gentle & amusing & it's strange to hear him make quite naughty remarks in the famous Radio 3 voice! There was quite a crowd & most of them pretty young men - all very jolly. An interesting life TS seems to lead, being solitary in the country in his self-contained ménage, & then turning up in London for part of each week where he must have many friends. He told me about Frieda Berkeley & her suspended priest: the latter no doubt very lucky to have a friend like F.B.

Last night someone rang me up who reminded me that we had met years ago dining with you. His name is Christopher Walker & he was then writing a biog of Oliver Baldwin (which he has now finished but can't find a publisher for). He wanted to find out who wrote the obituary of my friend the queer Indian army officer & found out it was me. I'd like to see him again, he's quite good looking as I recall & an odd sort of 1950s aesthete like a character out of Angus Wilson (I'm currently reading *Hemlock & After*).

Did you see the TV programme on Corsham Court? It was rather dreadful I thought & one winced every time the poor dying & I suppose alcoholic peer was referred to as 'Lord John'. Last night, on the other hand, there was a very moving prog about stag hunting on an estate in Aberdeenshire, & Channel 4 prefaced it with a declaration that it would contain scenes (viz. the humane shooting of animals which were certain to die soon anyway) which some people might find upsetting!

I'm off (on Saturday) to spend a few days with my parents in Ireland - visits I used to dread but look forward to now.

0171-723 2220

2 October 1995

Dearest Jims,

So good to get that sweet epistle you wrote me on my birthday. My trip to Northern Ireland was not really very happy & successful: father now in almost catatonic state from which he emerges periodically to make some bizarre or disagreeable remark; mother still energetic but descending ever deeper into a fantasy world where she is hardly aware of what is going on around her; both seemed unaware of my presence for much of the time & never once enquired about my life & work. I wish I could do something for them, but they're beyond my reach. I tried my best to enjoy it - we had some good meals & trips into the countryside - but as soon as I got back I smoked myself into a stupor (far better than drinking) & summoned a handsome hustler. Next day felt much better & able to face world.

Oh Jim, I've got myself into a frightful predicament. Andrew Best & self thought that publishers would be falling over themselves to bid for my Duchess of Windsor book: but they were hesitant & cautious & said such a book would have no point, in the current market, unless it had a 'new angle'. So AB asked me if I could think of an 'angle': & I said yes, the angle is that the Duchess was a man. This is what Maître Blum thought & I think it's true. Her birth was not announced or registered, & this may have been because her gender was not obvious. Her first husband - a naval officer - turned pretty nasty soon after they married, & I can imagine why. Wallis was like Good Queen Bess - a magnificent creature, fascinated by men & fascinating to them, full of womanly wiles, outstanding dresser & housekeeper, but with a man's chemistry & personality & only rudimentary female genitalia. As James P-H said: "I would say she was an American woman par excellence, were it not for the suspicion that she is not a woman at all." I don't think she ever had sexual intercourse in the full sense; the D of W always denied they ever did it before their marriage & it doesn't seem likely that they did it during marriage either. (Maître B believed the Duchess died an intact virgin - possibly true, I'll ask doctor.) I've been re-reading Strachey's *Elizabeth & Essex*, & the tale of Wallis & Edward is much the same thing in reverse - a glamorous, slightly mad & 'fey' monarch enthralled to a magnificent woman who is really a man. So that's the book it looks as if I'm doing between now & the end of the year. I shall make myself look utterly ridiculous, bring the hostility of all kinds of people down on me, have my private life exposed in the *News of the World*. & the financial rewards don't even look that great. Yet I feel I must do it, must drift towards this ineluctable doom.

Wish I'd heard you on the radio. It's quite something to have sold a thousand copies of a reissue by publication day. Do hope to see you when you're next here.

0171-723 2220

31 October 1995

Dearest Jims,

Do hope all well. I had a wonderful time at the hideaway, where one of the inmates was an old Cambridge friend of mine & another turned out to be a very handsome man whom I worshipped from afar 20 years ago at the O&C club. He's very nice & we've become rather good friends: he's not queer of course but non-queer society is what I prefer these days: in fact there is a certain sort of male company in which I feel very happy without any desire to do more than have ribald discussions over a few drinks.

Work is in a crisis as I've made horribly little progress with my MS which (if I'm not to end up in a cardboard box) must be delivered by 4 December - largely owing to the 'flu from which I have only really recovered over the past week or so. But I think I can still manage it with a great, Rasselas-like effort. On Saturday I go to Paris where I have various things to do - correcting the French translation of Ribb at the publishers & collecting (I hope) the table Maître Blum left me (having been left to her by Daisy Fellowes) which purportedly was Nelson's map table on the Victory. (I can't think what I'm going to do with it or where I'm going to put it, but I am loathe to sell it right away. If I had been given it a year ago I could have lent it to the Nelson Exhibition at Greenwich.) Then on Wednesday I am seeing the Duchess of Windsor's doctor who has promised to tell me whatever I want to know about her - so my suspicions regarding her will be confirmed or not as the case may be.

Pride & Prejudice TV series ended far too sentimentally didn't you think & Lady Catherine too coarse & vulgar. I re-read the novel at Reigate & was surprised at how schoolgirlish it was. Also started a work of fiction by Sir O. Sitwell about old ladies as Scarborough but got so fed up with his prolix language & bitchiness about all his characters that I gave it up.

Hope visit to Miles Hillyard went well. Is he still living in ancestral house with same friend he told us about that night you asked Charles & self to dine with him at Brooks's?

Have been interested to read all that has been written about Kingsley Amis since he died. I met him several times at the Garrick, a malevolent, growling old drunk like the later Evelyn Waugh. But he wrote brilliant prose every day right up to the last month of his life - 500 words on a good day, & never less than 200. That's the thing to do!

Hope to speak to you before I go.

0171-723 2220

1 December 1995

Dear Jims,

I'm so sorry about this. Not my fault really, as I never
imagined my notes to M. Parris (including my reference to
yourself) would be reproduced in this rote way. Simon Brett's
letter strikes me as rather silly really: I'm not replying to
it but am suggesting to Matthew that he write to SB saying that
I admit to being rather careless and that he will endeavour to
make a few adjustments in future editions.

I have to finish my book in two days! I can't do it of
course, but am determined to finish enough of it to impress the
publishers & induce in them a willingness to wait for the rest.

Do hope you quickly get over the 'flu: so debilitating &
depressing as I know.

Simon Brett
WOOD ENGRAVER
prints illustration bookplates

12 Blowhorn Street, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 1BT

0672 512905

22 November 1995

Dear Mr. Parris,

In your two-column advertisement for your new Christmas book, this week, you have
good fun with the notion of reliability; but while retaining a note of jollity, you go to some
lengths in setting the records straight in your own case.

I'm writing in a slightly more sober tone about the Lewis Harcourt item in the book, which
John Mortimer also singled out in his review in The Spectator. You (and therefore Mortimer)
say Harcourt seduced Dorothy and Maurice Brett. In fact, he didn't; James Lees-Milne writes
of the attempted seduction of Dorothy (it was hardly even that; the detail is clearly known and
in print). He says Harcourt made a pass at Maurice, which again is not the seduction you
allege, and that Reginald Esher was furious. Of Reginald, Lees-Milne says "Regy was
naturally monogamous...would have been horrified had he known that mothers of Eton boys
warned their sons against solitary walks with him as well as with Loulou...Being bracketed
with Loulou was in a sense unfair to Regy".

Bracketing them is exactly what you have done. Lees-Milne's judicious "in a sense"
does, it is true, allow scope for that; but I think you have misread the book. The picture I have
from it and from family stories is that my great-grandfather, Esher, was certainly gay but kept
his affairs within bounds just where Harcourt did not, and was one for whom infatuation did
not necessarily, if at all, lead to physical relations.

Thus far, none of this matters to me any more than to you; but where you write of
Esher's infatuation with his son, Maurice, as an 'affair', with its present-day connotation that all
that was thought must have been enacted, bracket both older men as practising paedophiles
and write of Maurice 'supplying' schoolfriends, you are making allegations of a more serious
sort, and putting them into the literature. It is all too easy for future writers to pick up such
innuendo as fact.

It is one thing to surround yourself with beautiful young men, as Esher did. Most
people's sons bring schoolfriends home to tea. It is quite another thing to exploit this as a
practising paedophile. Lees-Milne shows Esher specifically distancing himself from such
'harpies'.

Two of Maurice's children are still alive and third was my father. At this point I care.

May I therefore ask you to tell me whether Michael Bloch's research goes further than
reading Lees-Milne, and contains elements of independent discovery, as it well might, he
being a historian; and whether you might give us chapter and verse?

yours sincerely,