Recollected in tranquillity
John Grigg
A TALE OF TWO GRANDFATHERS by Owen Lloyd George Bellew, f25, pp. 220 This unpretentious but lively and easy- to-read book is really the tale of a grand- son. The grandfathers are given pride of place partly, no doubt, for commercial rea- sons, but also as a reflection of the author's genuine modesty. He may have doubted that anyone would be interested in a record of his own life, as distinct from recollec- tions of his dynamic grandfathers. If so, he was mistaken. Despite the title and the two patriarchal figures on the cover, most of the book is, in fact, pure autobiography. Both grandfathers were dead by the time the author came of age, and his contact with one of them was extremely limited. Yet the book as a whole is enjoyable from start to finish.
On his mother's side Owen's grandfather was Sir Robert McAlpine, founder of the great engineering and contracting business. He was clearly a very remarkable man, though to most people now he is little more than a name. He started work in a coalmine at the age of eight, and ten years later found the means to take on his first job as an independent building employer (by pawning his watch and borrowing £11 from a local butcher). At 30 he lost a fortune when the City of Glasgow Bank failed; but he started again from scratch and the next fortune proved permanent. It is interesting to read about him — he is ignored even by the DNB but the author's personal memories of him are few and fleeting. Sir Robert was twice married and Owen's mother, Roberta, was his youngest child, 30 years younger than the eldest. When he died in 1934 Owen was Only ten. A more vivid impression is given of the other grandfather, David Lloyd George, who lived until 1945. Richard, Owen's father, was Lloyd George's eldest child, with whom his relationship became increas- ingly difficult. But ill-feeling did not extend to the next generation and Owen saw quite a lot of 'Mid'. He can remember Christ- mases at Churt (LG's house and estate in Surrey), at which the children of all who worked there were regaled with a huge tea and presents, followed by games or a film show. LG, he says, 'adored to have children about him and had a magical touch with them'. He also had 'a strong streak of vani- ty and was always elegantly dressed, gener- ally in a pale blue suit that matched the colour of his eyes'.
When he died Owen was serving with the Welsh Guards in Italy, and was summoned from the front to brigade headquarters before he had heard the news. Expecting a rocket for some misdemeanour, he was astonished to be told by the brigadier that he was to be flown home at once. 'Winston Churchill, in the midst of conducting a great war, had been inspired to think that it would be a fine thing for the four grand- sons of his old friend and political ally to be at his graveside.'
The funeral was at LG's home village in North Wales, Llanystumdwy, which Owen was lucky to reach. The Polish pilot on the last leg of his journey, in a Hurricane from Northolt, did not know the route and had only 'a small Phillips' school atlas' to assist him. After a dangerous passage through the mountains in poor visibility Owen arrived with an hour to spare. He then walked beside LG's coffin, which was car- ried 'on a farm wagon drawn by a single shire horse' to his chosen burial place, in a spinney with the river Dwyfor 'tumbling urgently below'. There had been a 'last- minute hitch which nearly wrecked the arrangements as no one had thought of consecrating the site'. But a clergyman rec- tified the situation in the early morning. (LG would have been amused.) The author admires his formidable grandfathers, but has a very different tem- perament himself. He is not driven by ambition, but is an equable, civilised man, whose instincts are traditionalist. The only sign of aggression in him — of which I was unaware until I read his book, though I have known him for over 50 years — is that, at Oundle and in the army, he was a keen boxer 'who never lost a fight'.
He turns out also to be a natural writer, with a deceptively conversational style deceptive because it has an economy absent from most talk. His narrative is uncluttered, though he seldom misses the chance to introduce a piquant detail. A rare exception is his failure to mention the fact that he was chairman of White's Club, a post that Lloyd George can hardly have expected any grandson of his to occupy. (We are told that election to White's was `one of the happiest events' in the author's life, but not that he was the club's chair- man.) Our history abounds in such pleasant ironies.
Owen inherited from his father the earl- dom that LG accepted, for problematic reasons, on his deathbed. Until recently he sat in the House of Lords, and did so as a cross-bencher, despite his Conservative sympathies, because he felt it would be `rather bogus to take a party whip' as an irregular attender, and anyway never regarded himself as 'a political animal'. Though not at heart pompous he has a taste for ceremony, and at the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969 he carried the Prince's sword. On the previous such occasion, in 1911, his grandfather officiated as constable of Caernarvon Castle, wearing a privy counsellor's uniform. This time the constable was Lord Snowdon, wearing a Self-designed lift-boy type of outfit'.
In his excellent diary of the day, which he quotes in full, Owen writes:
At 1.20 pm we are over the start line; memo- ries of similar movement orders 25 years ago on wet Italian slopes, but at least now there are some people to cheer us on, and so far, thank God, we have not been fired on! [Security was a serious worry, and in fact a bomb did explode on wasteland near the Castle.] We go slowly up Shire Hall Street and get a good clap. I see Robbie [his younger son] two yards away, looking incred- ulously at his father. I don't know whether he is proud or embarrassed, anyway I give him a wink and on we go.
The author's life has been privileged in many ways but not entirely easy. His par- ents' marriage broke up when he was nine, and so did his own first marriage, when his children were in their twenties — an expe- rience of which he writes with sadness and humility. Though he was fond of his father, and also very fond of his stepfather (Judge Eifion Evans), both men had drink prob- lems, and in addition his father was nearly always in financial straits. Owen himself lost 'a considerable sum of money' in Lloyd's in the late 1980s, but 'just managed to hang on'. Recently, after a lifetime of good health, he was treated (with apparent success) for cancer.
But he sees things in proportion. On the whole he has led a gainful and agreeable existence. He enjoys outdoor pursuits, in particular gardening and shooting. He is a visual aesthete, whose most congenial
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