DIARY
MARK AMORY When Ian Fleming wrote Atticus for the Sunday Times in the Fifties, he was offered a lot of advice by the superior liter- ary friends of his wife. Exasperated, he wrote to her that it was probably true that any of them could produce a far better col- umn than his once but that the trick was to keep it up. Just so. Once is quite enough. Similar but not quite the same was the plight of a friend of mine who, having promised to describe her week a long way ahead, was asked to bring the article for- ward. She replied that this was a preposter- ous idea. 'Do you seriously suppose that I can throw together a glittering series of first-night parties, lunches at All Souls, meetings with fascinating foreign prime ministers all over again?' And refused to budge. These are the difficulties of public diarists. I have kept a private one since school, and am always irritated by those who insist that everyone really has publica- tion in mind. Absolutely out of the ques- tion, mostly on grounds of boredom but also from embarrassment, or perhaps the other way round. I put down all the wrong things. Once I went to a lunch for Gerald Hamilton, the original of Christopher Ish- erwood's Mr. Norris who changed trains, and found that eight people were going to write up the event. That seemed enough, so I did not bother. All I can remember now are his fat blubbery lips and his saying that he 'lived above The Good Earth (a restau- rant in the King's Road), which was better than being under it', but he said this with the weary air of one who has used it often before and will again: not an exclusive. In fact, several versions of the same event are fascinating; I look forward to them, if pub- lished. Among those present was Lady Antonia in those days Fraser, now Pinter, whose diary was later pinched by a friend and read aloud — unforgivable. What it contained was lyrical descriptions of the tropical night, the green sky darkening above the palm trees. She too, at least from the point of view of the thief, had put down the wrong things.
Last week I wrote about the uncertain future of my house. A reader told me that I should have described it, so: built in 1914 by my grandfather on a fine site in Somer- set, it is of local stone, which is reddish and suggests potted meat to some. One such gazed awhile and then tentatively men- tioned covering it with creepers, ivy, any- thing — just what I think about the Nation- al Theatre (all right, the completely point- less Royal National Theatre). Not conven- tionally beautiful then, but we are fond of it. Reversing the usual trend, I thought it small when I was small and big now that I am big and pay the bills. When told that it
was to be listed Grade II, I was surprised but flattered, and co-operated; I should have fought it tooth and nail but perhaps there is no escape. Now if it is destroyed I can be forced to replace it, stone for stone, unobtainable tile for unobtainable tile. The expense would be enormous, so the insur- ance is painful. Unofficially it is suggested that if more than half were burned down, restoration might not be enforced, so I may risk pouring oil on the flames, though with tears in my eyes as I do so.
Ihave killed Lord Berners twice. It is quite all right not to have heard of him, I assure those who persist in asking who I am writing about. Persist because I am likely to know more about him than they do and so it is a dull conversation for me, and I try to talk about the editor of The Spectator instead. I used to ask spouses what the other one was doing but have been told that that is unacceptable on feminist grounds. It was true that it tended to be wives asked about husbands. So, since you insist, Berners was composer, writer, painter in that order, 'the last eccentric' like so many people, and, though I dislike the word because it raises such impossibly high expectations, wit, 1883-1950. Even when I visit faded ladies of fashion who knew him as I did not, they tell me slightly inaccurate versions of the same stories, how he painted his doves brilliant colours— blue, yellow, pink; how he played a piano in the back of his Rolls-Royce; how he asked the indefatigable social climber Sybil Colefax to meet 'the P of W', who turned out to be not the Prince of Wales but the Provost of Worcester. Unfaded Lady Moseley says that she does not believe that this event ever took place, because it would have been unkind to the Provost. Any other anecdotes or reminis- cences gratefully received; I shall be fidget- ing with it for months yet.
Suddenly for this the Books issue I drop the habits of 51 weeks and chase vulgar fame, or at least slide the better known names into feasible slots. For instance it was clear that Craig Raine's History: the Home Movie would get a lot of attention, so I held his timeless views on Dr Johnson's testicle till now. On the other hand, the poem from Ted Hughes just arrived in the office this morning. I was by no means cer- tain that John Fowles would be interested but not for the very personal reasons he suggests. Even with the help of the subtitle `Erotic Diaries', I did not guess at its main thrust, so as to speak: the pages I glanced at were pure. Victoria Glendinning I posi- tively misled. It was not Frieda Lawrence I met in Taos in 1959 when she had in fact been dead six years but Dorothy Brett, not the wife but the woman who loved him. I was looking at D.H. Lawrence's dirty pic- tures (not very, but they had been banned; didn't fruit come in a good deal? I seem to remember a great succulent peach but per- haps it was a nude) when this dumpy old Englishwoman picked me up and carried me off to a caravan (can that really be right?) and talked to me of Bloomsbury. Another thing I failed to put down in my diary.
Two tips to help you through life: whenever you look up a telephone number, mark it so that it is easier to find the next time; particularly useful for those with fail- ing eyesight. Godchildren, and nephews and nieces if you are generous: it is clearly impossible to remember their birthdays so give them all presents on yours. To them it will seem, anyway for the first few years, delightfully random. I thought this was original but have been told Edith Sitwell did it.
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