Another voice
Shame on him
Auberon Waugh
A few years ago the house in which I live was shown on television, which prompted a lady in the West Country to write to her local newspaper arguing that it was scandalous for one family to live in such a large house and urging the local authority to take it over as a hospital or old people's home. Others suggested it might be more useful as a rest home for industrial workers. I did not join the debate, nor was I invited to do so. The thing which interested me most was that every person who joined in assumed that he or she had the right to dispose of my home as seemed best. There was no suggestion that the owner or occupier should be consulted. This was democracy in action.
It is hard not to feel sympathy with Lord Brooke as the nation debates whether he should be allowed to sell his Roman vase, paintings and other gewgaws from Warwick Castle. People argue that it is a tragedy they should be moved, and so it is, but not half so much a tragedy as it is that the nation should suppose it has the right to decide the matter. One should be very careful when people start bandying words around like 'national heritage', 'community interest', especially when they are used to threaten some individual heritage or personal interest.
But then one should be very careful who one lets into one's house. Lord Warwick may have been so foolish or so generous, or so poor, or so greedy as to allow the public into his castle to look at his gewgaws and whatnots, and he would have had only himself to blame if the public had stolen or broken or urinated in his Roman urn. If he had studied the psychology of the poor, he might have known that any privilege or favour granted to them is invariably treated as an inalienable right ever after. But he could scarcely have guessed that he was creating a 'national heritage' which would transcend his own rights of ownership. Perhaps there is a sense in which the furniture of Warwick Castle can be described as a national heritage, in that these gewgaws and whatnots are in England and have been lying around there for quite a long time, but I can't honestly think of it. It is a shame they should be moved, just as it is a terrible shame whenever someone knocks down a pretty Georgian terrace in Taunton or puts up a hideous retirement bungalow in Combe Florey. Those of us who have the energy should fight the good fight against the philistines with every lawful weapon to hand public excoriation, vulgar abuse, rude noises whenever they come into the room, insults directed at their personal appearance, unpleasant remarks about their wives and pet animals. But a more important national heritage than any par
ticular decor in Warwick Castle is surely the right to own and dispose private property. If in our indignation over Lord Brooke's unpleasant behaviour, we lose sight of this greater truth, we are surely playing into the hands of those who would make the entire country uninhabitable.
With, this observation in mind, let us examine The Times leader on this subject (I have had to reconstruct it from a copy which was apparently chewed by some disaffected worker before it reached me, but I hope I have got it right):
'The Warwick affair spectacularly raises the question whether the private custodians of a national heritage can be trusted to maintain it essentially in being. No doubt some of them can, but doubt is now being sown which may in future threaten public acceptance of the whole system.'
Oh dear. So these 'private custodians of a national heritage' are answerable to 'public acceptance' of their role, are they? For my own part, I pay 85 per cent income tax on any and all unearned income I receive, 70 per cent on the top slice of my earned income. Where Lord Brooke is concerned I do not suppose that earned income is a major hazard, but I should be surprised if he were asked to pay less than 98 per cent on all but a small proportion of any income he chooses to receive in Britain. Does this indicate any great degree of 'public acceptance' for his role as custodian of Warwick Castle? More important, is not this talk of 'national heritage' and 'public acceptance' rather an oblique not to say irresponsible way of recording the opinion that Lord Brooke is a philistine and a shit who ought to be ashamed of himself?
Because that is surely the only thing to be said on the matter. When every allowance is made for the unremitting hostility of 'the public' to such as Lord Brooke which might well undermine patriotic inclinations and when every allowance is made for the extreme difficulty of maintaining a historic pile like Warwick Castle properly stocked with artistic treasures, the fact remains that Lord Brooke could perfectly well maintain them if he wanted to. Instead, he prefers to spend his money on other pleasures and this is enough to establish that he is a philistine. In order to establish that he is a shit, I would not direct attention to the 'public' or the 'nation', both of which may be deprived of inspecting his works to art in their historic setting, but neither of which has done anything to deserve such pleasures. I would draw attention to Lord Brooke's own family and all the generations of younger sons and daughters who have been denied a just share of their parents' estate so that the
oldest son could strut like a peacock in his pride among the Canalettos, the Rubenses, the van Dycks and Tiepolos, the important, Roman urn in the orangery and the suits ot armour in the great hall. They were told and accepted that this was right and Just because the older son would thus preserve the glory of their family. Lord Brooke is an only child but his father, Lord Warwick, had two younger brothers. One was killed in action in the RAFVR in 1942 perhaps happilY, as things have turned out. It is poignant to imagine that as he realised he was outnumbered by Bandits, his Spitfire or what' ever was out of control and his Gatling or his Maxim jammed or pranged, he thought that his life had not been wasted. Youll:g Brooky would see the family through. But it is Lord Warwick's other younger brother that worries me most: Capt the Honble Richard Francis Maynard Greville, After service in the Rifle Brigade, there feo upon him such -a fate as makes me shudder to relate. He had to work to keep alive as a director of Schweppes and ICia-011 Limited!
'Yes! All day long from 10 till 41 For half the year or even more; With but an hour or two to spend At luncheon with a city friend'
Ten years ago, a few days before his Or fifth birthday, and still unmarried, he died whether from exhaustion or from shanle is not recorded in any of my works of bio. graphical reference. The Times necrologY f°r the period records his passing but spells rile name wrong. Grenville. He never made Who's Who. And all so that young could take a walk around his imPorrarit Roman urn of an evening.
Few other male Grevilles survive an B rookY
none, so far as I can see, in remainder to the earldom apart from Brooke's own unfortunate son, who celebrated his twenty-first birthday this year. But there is a host of first cousins of the earl with names like Spurrier, Collin, Rasch and Dugdale, all of whom, ill a civilised, Christian or remotely sensible society, would have apartments in Warwick Castle and bicker between each other over the loot. There is only one moral to be drawn from this unhappy affair, and that is that what' ever considerations once supported olir, brutal and repulsive English system °I primogeniture no longer apply. The Main reason why our lower or 'working' classes are out of control is that there are t enough rich people anxious to control 61°1.; If Mrs Thatcher is not prepared to cornrol` herself to something along the lines of the French, Italian or German laws of inlle,ri; tance, capitalism cannot possibly surv,'vw,. another generation in this country. As 11°:. the wretched Lord Brooke, I hope he thoroughly ashamed of himself. I do no' think we have met, but I believe I saw hill; once in Wilton's. If! see him there again, shall throw an oyster at him.
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