Pea-cock
Gavin Stamp
Hugh Casson's Diary Hugh Casson (Macmillan pp.176, £8.95) Why does anyone keep a diary? For a truthful record of events? To encourage greater self-awareness? Or just out of vanity? Even if a diarist is ultimately vain in thinking that his jottings may be of interest to a wider audience, he usually waits a few decades, perhaps even until he is dead, before publishing them. Not so Sir Hugh Casson. His diary for 1980 is offered to us within five Months of its completion.
And the reason for writing it? Because it was commissioned by a publisher who thinks that a year in the life of the President of the Royal Academy will be so fascinating as to make a best-seller. Perhaps it will: one cannot open a newspaper or switch on the television these days without seeing Sir Hugh commenting on design and taste, or talking about his favourite buildings. He is a .sort of 'Arts supremo', a multi-cultural Impresario whose lovable, impish charm is famous — 'Britain's finest after-dinner architect,' Philip Johnson once called him. Sir Hugh confesses to a degree of vanity M keeping his diary: 'Even if there are no intended self-revelations, there must be elements of self-regard. It is this seasoning of vanity (often unintended or unnoticed by the writer) that makes even the dullest diary more lively than an engagement book,' But What an engagement book! I quite lost count of the number of mentions of members of the Royal Family; the P.R.A.'s life is a whirl of visits to Windsor or the Palace, of official openings and grand dinners and of important committees, and when he is not jetting off abroad to see H.H. the Aga Khan, Sir Hugh travels about England be-ng filmed in front of buildings by the B.B.C. Occasionally, Sir Hugh takes a few minutes off to execute a few more of his charming sketches, whether for the cover of a National Trust guide, or as a present for the Queen Mother, or to illustrate the margins of this book. There seems very little time to practice architecture and, indeed, this diary confirms that the burden of running Casson, Conder & Partners is carried by Sir Hugh's less glamorous partners. Ail this activity is very impressive for a man of 70, and this diary could serve as an argument both against and for compulsory retirement, for the worry is: how can Sir Hugh possibly give his full attention to so many different matters? Certainly Sir Hugh's energy has saved the R.A. from bankruptcy — though not all Academicians may sympathise with their President: 'Young mother breast-feeding her baby while eating trout at next table in R.A. restaurant. Nobody but baby pursing lips. Hooray! Could you do this at the Tate?' But are not his talents dissipated by his evident popularity? Sir Hugh has great talent with pen and brush — am I alone in wishing that he had become a painter rather than an architect? — and sometimes his sketches and caricatures are evocative and captivating. But he must churn them out; they are everywhere — and he even sells them at Glyndebourne. 'My "London" stamps out on sale today. Queues round the block in Trafalgar Square, I am told. Wish I was prouder of them,' Sir Hugh records, with a not very convincing inverted smugness.
And then there are all those important committees. The Royal Fine Arts Commission, the trustees of several museums, award-giving committees, exhibition committees. With so much to do, is it surprising that the result is so often a wet compromise between good taste and the art establishment's avant garde? The results of Sir Hugh's aesthetic dilettantism are all too evident in such historic towns as Bath, Salisbury and Chichester; as an architect, he is most likely to be remembered for the mansard-roofed 'conservation area style'.
But this diary is not just a catalogue of successes and big names. Sir Hugh can occasionally be a perceptive and illuminating observer. He is also clever enough to anticipate his critics. He dares to mention his appearance at the public inquiry about the demolition of Hounslow Town Hall and even records that this made him 'gain the distinction of a half-page attack in Private Eye. "I retain my view that the Town Hall is not worth keeping. The Victorian Society will be cross with me again,' Sir Hugh cheerfully admits. Indeed, the Society was: this was not the first time that its former Vice-Chairman had lent his authority to support its opponents. But this charming candour is really not good enough; if a diary is to be of use as an honest, historical record then it should tell the whole story, but the reader is not told why Sir Hugh gave up his precious time to plead for the destruction of a rather ordinary Victorian building. For whom was he acting? How much, if anything, was he paid? That would be really interesting. A similar bland complacency is evident in the record of his role as a Trustee of the Natural History Museum. 'Despite a public inquiry finding in our favour, opposition to our building plans is being drummed up and we are obviously in for a scratchy time.' No hint here that he had recommended the demolition of part of a famous and service able Grade I listed building. If Sir Hugh cannot understand that many people might oppose his Olympian pronouncements, that they might be exasperated by the decisions of his committees and commissions, that they might be unimpressed by the names of his friends, then he is guilty of a naiveté which borders upon arrogance.
Much of this book is deliberately autobiographical, with reminiscences of his past achievements such as the Festival of Britain. But if the reader seeks illumination about the real nature of a career which ends with television programmes and intimacy with Royalty, then he will be disappointed. This is, in fact, just a successful engagement book: but, as such, it has its value. Here is Sir Hugh describing the Queen Mother's birthday gala at Covent Garden: 'She is in pink with a pearl embroidered belt. Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret in white. In front of us are relations or courtiers. In the first interval we go to John Tooley's box: St John Stevas, Armand Hammer, the Mosers. Second interval a variation in the Crush Bar: Mary Soames, Roy Shaw, the art establishment.' How thrilled one is that Sir Hugh was there. If future generations ever wonder why so much of Britain has been spoiled, not by unbridled capitalism, but by committees of taste, by planning, by compromise by the 'art establishment', much of the answer can be found in Hugh Casson's preposterously vain Diary.
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