Long life
Mingling with the tenantry
Nigel Nicolson
Between the ages of six and ten I spent Christmas at Knole, my grandfather's enor- mous house near Sevenoaks. Every year he threw a party in the Great Hall for the ten- ants and their children, and my brother and I were enlisted as junior representatives of the Family, as if we were royal. I do not look back on those occasions with any pride. Even then I was vaguely aware that our jovial mingling with the tenantry was tinged with falsehood. We played a game called Nuts and May, when a small girl was selected as the May Queen, and the refrain, sung by the housekeeper, went like
this: We'll make Mary Dibbins Queen of the May, Queen of the May, Queen of the May. And who shall we send to pull her away, Pull her away, pull her away?
We'll send .. .
That was the moment I dreaded, for while it might be,
We'll send little Freddie to pull her away, all too often it was, We'll send Master Nigel . . .
and I would advance in my sailor suit, blushing (yes, even then) at the snobbish- ness implied, and take Mary's hot little hand in mine. Once I had to make a speech: 'Would a strong boy help me with this giant cracker, please?' No, I was not designed by nature or aptitude for the role of Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Later Christmases went to the opposite extreme. My mother followed the conven- tions up to a certain point. There was always a turkey and plum pudding. But my father scarcely bothered to conceal his dis- taste for the festival once we were old enough not to mind.
'Peace and good will are all very well,' he wrote on this day in 1953, tut too much good will destroys peace. We do not enjoy cocktail parties, and make such an effort not to show our displeasure that we become taut, strained, dehydrated, absurd and unreal. So I hate Christmas, and I wish David's royal city was not celebrated in ver- mouth and gin.'
His present-giving became more and more perfunctory. His method was to enter Harrods, search rapidly for the emptiest department, approach the least busy counter in it and there buy all his presents at a go. One year we each received a leather tag in which to insert luggage labels. In his last years, after Vita's death, he would pick a book from his shelves on his way to lunch. In 1965 my present was a paperback of Abyssinia Whither? (1936). For the rest of the year, when normal posts were resumed and they contained no greet- ings cards, he was the most companionable of men. Impatience was his failing. He hated queues, and sermons which he was forbidden to interrupt.
Now that I too am a father and grandfa- ther, I think it best to give children some- thing that will cause them grievous disappointment now, but pleasure for the rest of their lives — a telescope, for exam- ple, or a drawing by Edward Lear. But I doubt whether I will have the courage to follow my advice this year. It will be Lego again, I expect, jigsaws and sewing sets. With one exception. When I was 16, my father gave me Plato's Symposium, one slim volume in Greek, another in transla- tion, each bound in tooled leather stamped with my initials. This year I have given them to a young friend of the same age as I was then, knowing that my consternation will be replaced by her delight.
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