24 SEPTEMBER 1983, Page 31

Postscript

September song

P. J. Kavanagh

Near the beginning of this month I was sitting in the gardens of Walmer Cas- tle, near Deal, with my two sons. We have been doing such things together for a dozen years or more: wandering cold seasides (or warm ones), examining what there is to see and do, going in search of ice-creams that sort of thing. I had expected to find it a bore, those years ago, and sometimes it was, but not often. On the whole I was sur- prised to find how much I enjoyed it, how much of a child I still was myself. Now, by the nature of things, this had to be among the last of such occasions, if not the last; I realised that to some extent I had come to depend on them.

Thinking of this, listening to the boys, you will not be surprised to hear that I also pondered the death-mask of the Duke of Wellington. The castle is the residence of the Warden of the Cinque Ports; he was a Warden, and lived there towards the end of his life. It is an unsparing likeness. His false teeth had been removed, so that his chin nearly meets his great nose. He died there, in his wing chair, by his iron campaign-bed in his small, soldierly, bed-sitting room. The wrinkled, almost sexless, image of that straightforward and useful man is moving. The austerity of his room is moving too, for it is comfortable enough, the few pieces of furniture good, but it is simple. The last palaces I looked at (and Walmer Castle is a kind of English, domestic, palace) were in Leningrad: gold piled on gold, rare marble on rare marble, gigantic salon after gigantic salon, until gawping wonder shades into distaste, even horror. Here the greatest of our Captains lived in a kind of monkish dignity (he was a widower by this time) with not a weapon or a memento in sight, if you except his campaign-bed. It seemed infin- itely superior and (though the idea came too easily perhaps) 'English'. One has to remember Apsley House. But we do seem to have a gift for the domestic.

The castle itself is English in other ways; it was a weapon of war (and we are a warlike race) that was out of date even before it was built, by Henry VIII. It has been further 'Englished' by being turned, some time in the 18th century I should guess, into a comfortable home. The Duke's room was a gun-port, now wood- panelled and painted a soft, feminine grey. None of the rooms is large; William Pitt's is

the size of a sitting-room in the average semi. The furniture is very good, but does not loudly say so.

1 wondered, sitting in the garden (the mood, you will have gathered, was elegaic) how much of that sort of 'Englishness' still existed. We seem less rooted, more emptily boastful now. We would make an awful mess of Walmer Castle if we tried to turn it into a home today.

I also knew that any fun my sons may have had on these paternal jaunts (if they had any) they would only remember, in- advertently, after I was dust; certainly long after my nose had met my chin. It was win- dy, the season was changing, gusts tore green leaves from the trees. These lay on the grass until an odd, lower, wind suddenly caught them in a neat line and swept them, a small green wave, out of sight.

It was time to go, the summer holidays were ending; exams, jobs (or the absence of them) lay ahead. Was there anything left of England but museums, memorials; was there anything left of the inspired com- monsense of the Duke? This was a legend to these two boys even when they were smaller. 'What shall I do about the spar-

rows in my Crystal Palace?"Spar- rowhawks, ma'am.' They fantasised on the theme: 'What shall I now do about the sparrowhawks in my Crystal Palace?' 'Golden eagles, ma'am.' — and so on.

Then we came to the yew avenue. It is not very long or wide; a place to stroll along,

not march between. But the surprise was

that the yews have not been made rec- tangular, not cut into box-shapes. They have been allowed to grow, but trimmed.

The result is a double line of joined yew trees in irregular scallops and scoops and plateaux of different greens, from almost black to almost lemon, as if floodlights played on them, causing highlights and shadows. It is man and nature working together, the trees allowed to grow and helped not to straggle; and this had been understood now, was being continued now, inspired commonsense in fact, and the sight, even in my farewell mood, was strangely encouraging.