Bert and Sidney
LORD EGREMONT
Paintings and Drawings at Wilton House Lord Pembroke (Phaidon 90s)
The Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote: 'A man can live well even in a palace.'
I have it in mind to write an opera. Well, it will be more than an opera; it will be an opera-cum-ballet. I shall now tell you how the inspiration for it came.
Early one sunny summer morning one of my employees, George Baxter, was up on the roof of my home at Petworth, mending it. Mr Noel Coward wrote about yachts that the yacht was always the Duke of Westminster's. If you are writing about roofs, you can say that George Baxter was always up there mend- ing my roof. It was expensive but it was a good job for George and about that we ought to be glad. On this occasion some of George's associates were on the terrace below. I heard them say, 'Don't come down the ladder, George, we've taken it away.'
The libretto of my opus will chiefly consist of these ten words. The performance, consist- ing of variations on that theme, will last some two or three (well, say four) hours. I am only waiting for a building twice the size of the Albert Hall to be constructed: then I will cause the performance to take place.
It is not that I am expecting a large audi- ence: there will be no audience. Audiences are so vulgar. But there will be the biggest orchestra there has ever been with a huge pro- portion of brass and tympani.
The most famous ballerina we can get, and a crowd of other people highly qualified to do so, will dance round the ladder, which will be decorated for the occasion with lilac specially imported at great expense (there will be a strike on at the time) from the South of France. Massed choirs, accompanied by massed bands, will, however, also sing, 'Don't come down the ladder, Bert and Sidney.'
Bert and Sidney are what their many friends call John Albert Edward William Spencer- Churchill, tenth Duke of Marlborough, and Sidney Charles Herbert, sixteenth Earl of Pembroke.
They live in two of the loveliest places in England and these two books are about some of their things. Praise is due to these two noblemen for the great care which they
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Continued from page 857, have taken about their beautiful things. Lord Pembroke has compiled the book about his things himself.
History has always re-echoed to the clatter of clogs going up and the swish of grand clothes coming down : poor have got rich and rich have got poor.
The Duke of Marlborough and Lord Pem- broke, with two of the most interesting houses in England and the contents of these houses which they look after so well, should stay where they are.
Let all the people sing, 'Don't come down the ladder, Bert and Sidney.'
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