The old days

Jeffrey Bernard

The review sections of both the Sunday Times' and the 'Observer' have been unable to print extracts of the 'Pre-War Diaries' of Jeffrey Bernard, but the 'Spectator' has managed to obtain the manuscript of a book which sheds considerable light onabygoneandgolden age.

1 July 1928. How very delightful it is to be back at Kempton Park Towers after the ghastly hurly-burly of Oxford. Mama has done wonders with the gazebo and we while away the afternoons on the lawn sketching, writing verse and playing charades with the guests. Last week Virginia Woolf paid us a fleeting and yet oddly vague visit. She is so serious it is impossible not to worry about her. Papa says she writes too much. He looks tired after such a long spell at the Admiralty, but what a remarkable man he is, I find it somewhat strange that he and Mama should have been introduced to each other by G BS and in the gardens of Knole of all places. Why is it that gardens play such a large part in all our lives, I wonder? Even my sister Arabella seems strangely affected by flowers. For one about to be married to a cabinet minister I thought her behaviour yesterday lacked the moral fibre which she will need in her future role.

It was shortly before Wheatcroft the butler brought out tea to us on the old lawn.

had been playing tennis with Max Beerbohm when I heard sobs coming from behind one of the cedars. I found Arabella sitting there crying as if her heart were breaking. I asked her what was the matter and she pointed to a single stem—I forget exactly the plant—and she said, 'Have you ever seen anything so utterly alone?' Papa says that the sooner she gets married the better. He has a certain coarse streak which alarmsme.

August 1929. Everything they say is true. Sickened by rumours I have turned a deaf ear to everything I've heard whispered for months, but it is true. Mama is having a liaison with Ramsay MacDonald. I discovered it all on returning from Goodwood. Wheatcroft had just announced dinner and I went to the console table in the large hallto leave the volume of Swinburne I had been reading while we dined. There was a letter there opened and addressed to Mama. [ saw the signature and the sprig of heather confirmed everything.

December 1932, At last my first book of poems is ready. Five volumes in all and printed on handmade paper. Mama is thrilled but I do wish she would spend less time with that disagreeable young man Connolly.

21 March 1933. Spring, a visit from Arabella, two house martins, a letter from

Spectator 19 March 1977 Papa in Berchtesgaden, and a note from rtlY publisher—all in one day. They want at least one more poem. Downing Street seems to suit Arabella pretty well, but the idea of living anywhere in London apart from Brunswick Square, or possibly FitzroY Square, fills me with horror. I am worried about Mama. After cutting a mere three daffodils this morning she looked quite exhausted.

August 1936. Mama passed away two

years ago today and this morning I finished reading the last of her diaries. I suppose I should have been able to guess from the early entries describing her colleagues at the Comedie Francaise her incredible secret. I still can't bring myself to write the word used to describe people of her sexual persuasion. I remember those house parties we had when I came down from Oxford and 1 remember the attention she paid to partictla lar guests. I should have realised she was a woman with a broader vision than that of, one mainly known for her History al English Gardens.

June 1937. Papa has written from Munich

to say that he is never returning to England; To my surprise I find that I am not shocken but simply worried for Arabella's sake. That he had a dark side was something 1 alwaYs knew and my first memory of him is the darkest and at the same time the most vivid' 1 must have been about seven at the time It was another of those summer weekends. (Why does one's childhood seem to have consisted of only summers?) Wheatcroft had just brought out a tray of lemonade. could hear the distant click of croquet mallets and giggles from the tennis courts where Virginia Woolf, G. K. Chestertolb A. P. Herbert and Marie Lloyd were having a game of mixed doubles. Mama was IYIng on the grass and I remember she was strok g the hair of a man whose head was in her m lap. (I later discovered him to Ile Ezra Pound.) Arabella was crying behind the gazebo and I was furtively pressing flowers between the pages of a volume of TennYser! that I happened to be learning at the time. remember Papa suddenly standing over rile and demanding of me what 1 was doing. He snatched the book away from me and tore the flowers from between the pages. ‘Y.°11„ filthy little poof,' he screamed, and draggin6 me into the house, proceeded to give me art, unmerciful beating. I often wonder'f that incident had a lasting and deep effect on Ole. Weeks later I asked Mama what a poof WaS, and father's, dear.' said, 'A frien y d never to return I am left Well, al now that to sell Kempton Towers or to preserve.it arid keep the garden as a permanent shrine tl_1). Mama. I'd like to sell, but I find Lan '00 positively fatiguing. Last week, after a vis! to my publisher, Maurice Richardson h_iel me in the Fitzroy Tavern. So many of tn., new writers seem so violent. Perhaps the; hehteheisr. are just unhappy. I wonder if this operati.o next week will make me happier? Oneth11,1_!,

do know it will change my life utterly. 1-he croquet hoops are quite rusted over now and

I can hear Wheatcroft shuffling about in the Pantry. Nothing seems to last.

August 1939. Neville Chamberlain has returned from Munich waving a note from Papa. I have written to Arabella to ask her to find out what it contains. News always did filter through slowly to Kempton Towers. Yesterday we buried Wheatcroft quietly in the village churchyard along with the silver tray that must have carried drinks to some of the most extraordinary people one could have known over the past twentyodd years. It's odd to think that Wheatcroft probably never realised just who they were. Now that I am alone I am working harder than ever and I have just sent my publisher a new poem, 'Summer Days Are Here Again.'