S ummertime, and the house is open. Often people ask me
what it is like having your home 'invaded' by the public. Well, it all comes down to attitude. If you see the approach of a coach, and the theme tune of Mastermind — 'Approaching Menace' — starts to well up in your brain, then you really should absent yourself from proceedings. If, however, you and those working with you can give a genuine welcome, then happiness is transmitted and received. Also, so many come who have their personal connections to Althorp; the centurion who was a housemaid to my great-grandfather, yet who had never before been allowed through the front door of the house; the second world war contingent — young evacuees who lived in dormitories here, and gunners from the anti-aircraft unit in the park; the stable lad who caught the young Elizabeth BowesLyon — the future Queen Mother — experimenting with cigarettes behind the straw bales. Then there are those with less nostalgic connections to history: the lady who rolled up her sleeve this week to show me her Auschwitz tattoo, told me to love those close to me, since life is so fragile, and man so destructive. She was with friends, and without family.
In common with other counties, Northamptonshire has been subject to an infestation of insects. With scones and jam being a staple part of the Althorp tea, and ice cream particularly popular in the sultry heat, we have suffered from a constant influx of wasps. The largest nest we have found, in the rafters of the house, was the size of a Mini. How long it had been active, nobody knows. We had to implode it, since any alternative mode of destruction risked raining the nest's inhabitants down on our visitors. At the same time, we seem to have found the correct liquid to lure them into our wasp traps: over 1,000 of them sluiced around in the sticky juice yesterday morning. Wasps are pointless, painful and worrisome; I have ordered a purge of Stalinesque brutality on ours.
T have a cricket team at Althorp, playing 1 eight or so fixtures a year. Many greats have played on the ground in the deer park — in recent years, Gavaskar, Barry Richards, Chris Cairns and Gooch. It's always difficult selecting a team that can contribute to a close and enjoyable match. This year saw our highest ever score, 355 in 40 overs, but the joy of the day is balanced
by the certainty that next year vengeance will be in the air, and the amiable men who spilled their catches with rueful smiles will be replaced by their captain with semi-professionals told to seek out blood. On Sunday, after years of under-achieving, the opposition brought along 17-year-old Ricky Wessels — son of Test-playing Kepler — who is a dazzlingly good wicketkeeper/batsman; he scored 30-odd against the West Indies for the MCC the other day, at Arundel. Because of parentage and residence, he will be eligible to play for England, Australia or South Africa. When rain poured on our game, there was some relief that he could not add to his two most recent League scores of 160 and 180. The real talent, in country-house cricket, is finding out such players' email addresses, for future reference.
Blessed with seven children and stepchildren between us, we have only a few days a year when we can get away. As a result, holidays tend to be taken at pace, this year's sprint round Turkey even involving trips to Gallipoli and Troy on the same afternoon. Both military campaigns — the one historical, the other mythical — have been controversially served by celluloid. Our local guide in Gallipoli was particularly scathing of the Australian movie, which had the British brewing up their tea on the beach as the Aussies were used as machinegun fodder. I do not belittle the Antipodeans' undoubted heroism, but the
British suffered the greater toll of casualties. Massive mistakes were made; in particular, the failure by the Allied high command to advance inland from the beach to take the ridges and hills that look down on to the plain below. The Turks had time to bring up their army, and the subsequent months saw 250,000 casualties on each side. The great generals of the 18th and 19th centuries — Marlborough and Wellington — would never have made the basic error that their early 20th-century successors committed.
Bringing a book out in August would not be many authors' choice (the run-up to Christmas being the season of plenty), but there is no option when your publication date needs to coincide with an anniversary. The battle of Blenheim took place in Bavaria in August 1704, and was the first time that the British had managed a starring role on a foreign battlefield since Agincourt. Because the late Stuart period is barely taught at GCSE level today, it is clear that many younger people have never even heard of Marlborough and Prince Eugene's combined heroics, which stopped Louis XIV's ambitions to overrun the Holy Roman Empire, and started Britain's own imperial path. It is a startling fact that Blenheim Palace is now significantly better known than the engagement it was built to commemorate.
ff to the publisher's warehouse in
Sussex, crammed with 40 million books. Signing 1,000 copies takes 11/2 hours — a very average performance. Apparently, the record is 1,000 books in 25 minutes. The men in the warehouse are just coming back down to earth after Jordan's recent visit. The glamorous autobiographer found 100 per cent of the male workforce volunteering to help her through her ordeal by pen. The staff were less impressed by another bestselling author, who insisted on lying on the table and being massaged after every 100 copies signed. Book-signers veer from the meticulous to the slapdash — one wellknown travel writer insists that all his books are presented to him at a 47.5° angle from his seated position. For those employers who believe in graphology, perhaps booksigning should be added to the list of job interview requirements, to reveal the applicant's true character.
Blenheim: Battle for Europe, by Charles Spencer, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20.
Previous page
