PICTURE TO BE ADDED
The object today is a very fine Ammonite Fossil which has received my morning cup of tea for many many decades beside my bed and is much an object of great affection to me, because it reminds me of my dad. My dad and I had a deep bond, which was a deep love of nature and the natural world, but also he loved taking me to fossil shops.
Maybe he enjoyed it for its own sake, but he won my heart utterly as a child because every Saturday morning we used to go to a certain emporium in Chelsea, rather a small emporium, off the Fulham road and down a basement and it was called Gregory Bottley & Lloyd and they purveyed minerals and fossils to all the main museums and university collections across the country so they were a very important outlet. And I was their faithful Saturday customer. A little girl going in there with pigtails, and my devoted daddy, and I made great friends with the fossil man. There was a fossil man and a rock man, but the fossil man was my favourite. And we had great chats about fossils, and the object in my hand came from this place. I might have got it with my own pocket money with a bit of help from my father. I’ve had it for absolute yonks. It was one of the things we bought in that shop. [Anthony says ‘did you get it at the age of ten?]. Yes, that’s a good round age, a good round age. I think I always put flat things on it, because it is a tray like thing. It was always like a plate. It’s an unstated beauty, but I was always fascinated by the gradations getting smaller and smaller and smaller into the middle, which I loved tracing with my finger nail, getting right into the middle there. Loved it. And its also got some very elegant curves at the side which I found most pleasing. I think I had it by my bed for absolutely years, it was always at home. It was always beside my bed as far as I can ever remember. [Antony asks if it had any function with George before he came along, in west Linton or Newcastle]. It was just my faithful companion. [to Anthony] I think you were always a devotedly kind tea bearer… you were Mr Brown, you were absolutely wonderful, incredible… It’s nice to have a ritual spot, in fact I could talk about ritual spots and drink if you like….
At one point in its life I tried to doctor its appearance by filling the interstices with candle grease, which you may see now, because I kept on with my finger checking which bits had been filled it, because it was my great desire to make it perfect you see. I don’t regret it because its part of its history. I was really very fond of it. I’m very comforted by round things. That’s right, I’m very fond of rock and patterns on rock, different kinds of rock. You must remember that my holidays were spent in Denbighshire where these beaches were very shingly, pure shingle, not that it was very interesting for fossils, but the pebbles were extremely much in in the consciousness of my toes because they were most uncomfortable to walk on. I can’t account for that [fondness for rocks] except that from the very early days with my father it was associated with my daddy, probably wanting to copy him.
He had his fondling pebbles in his pocket. I’m remembering now that my father had this passion for fiddlies, what we call fiddlies. [Anthony – he had those two Scottish little Chinese doggy things – they were pottery] [Mil – in his pocket? Things to fiddle with?] [Anthony – one at a time, yes]
[back to the original object]. Mil I’ve always loved this thing because of the order and logic of the progression.
[mil asks if their father did things with Anthony too]. Sadly no, I think he had a strange thing with mother – she kind of sucked up his attention in some way, so I don’t remember my father and my brother empathising at all.
I also remember hedgerow walks with him as a little girl, and how he taught me how to observe minutely.
[Anthony – his father owned Bryngwenallt [means the White House on the hill] until he sold it in his dotage, in his 90s, because until then he lived there (with a faithful cook Alison says)]. My father inherited Tanyrallt, a beautiful vicarage, but it was occupied for it’s lifetime by my two aunts and his brother who lived into their dotages, into their late 90s and he never got to enjoy it [I think Alison is talking about Bryn]. I remember Antony and I were students at Cambridge when my father inherited and it was too late. He enjoyed it a bit as a country house but it was an awful long journey from London to Wales for the weekend. It was a most lovely lovely place, I have very fond memories.
[of her father’s twin brother] David was always a delicate man of delicate health, I remember him having a great sense of humour and being a dedicated and excellent teacher. He was a wonderful history teacher at Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, where he became the second headmaster.
[have a look at this – showing the family history book] This has just come off the press,
I was always immensely grateful to my father for being a nature lover. It’s strange that I don’t associate that at all with my mother although she was a gardener. But she somehow couldn’t express it, or didn’t express it. [Mil is saying this was obviously something you were doing when you were in London – collecting fossils – did they have Trimmings? When did they buy Trimmings? When you were a child?]
It was too late for me, I think I was about ten or eleven. [Anthony says] I wasn’t aware of Trimmings when I first knew you. I knew of Tanyrallt …. [Alison says]. I’m thinking about Shaftowes. We haven’t talked about Shaftowes have we? I think it was a delicious Elizabethan cottage in Vann Lane, Hambledon, where the Caroe family had their family house. A neighbouring family in Campden Hill Square in London. And this house has recently in fact been televised in detail. [Anthony]. Did you see any of The Remains of the Day serialised? This house, Caroe’s home was used as Howard’s End in the TV play. [Alison] My abiding memory Mil, of that place was honing my skills in birdsong recognition. We used to go up onto the hanger [an escarpment with trees hanging from it – English topographical term] which was a haven of birdlife. I admired my brother, first of all because he was remote, and second of all because he was four years older than me. I used to trail behind him along this hangar and say ‘Anthony that’s a chiff chaff, isn’t that a chiff chaff? Am I right? It is a chiff chaff isn’t it?’ I had to earn his hard won praise. [Mil asks if they went there for weekends, and Alison says] Yes – I remember it was quite a bind because it meant that I never saw or socialised with my schoolfriends. [mil goes back to the fossil shopping]. It was the bus to Chelsea. I always remember longing to be at home in London at the weekends and not having to go on these weekend frolics to the country because it meant I couldn’t hang out. [mil says did you have people you wanted to hang out with] Very few. Very few actually Mil. I was a rather remote little girl. I didn’t have many friends. I remember I had two friends and they were both actually daughters of artists now that I think about it. One was called Sally Wimbush and her father was a rather good artist, and the other was called Mary Thomson and her father also was a very good artist. I think he was a portrait painter of some repute actually. And I think both the daughters were artistic. [did people come to the house?] In Campden Hill [number 43] Not much. I remember being quite an isolated little girl. Seriously isolated. I remember my mother spending a great deal of time on something called Care Committee work, and I remember being passionately jealous of her time when she ought to be doing nice things with me. And she was down the road in Shepherd’s Bush doing care committee work. I definitely felt her rejection to be honest. So I took refuge in my top floor bedroom – they were very tall houses you know – 5 stories. [Anthony asks if Alison would ever have taken friends to her room]. Only one pathetic little birthday party, but I think there were only 5 little girls at my birthday party, and being rather awkward with what to do with them.
[Mil – were your parents social?] I suppose they were. Father was away a great deal – out of the house an awful lot [why what was he doing?] He was very busy, em…. In the Houses of Parliament,. What was his work….. he was in the Lord Chanellor’s office. It was just long hours you know. And he also had his passionate love for pictures and he used to spend time in art galleries [on his own?] yes on buying sprees. I do remember terribly squabbly marital scenes but they wouldn’t be scenes they would be unspoken scenes, when father would come back into the house with yet another brown paper parcel under his arm. And yet another picture would come out to be stacked by father’s desk. [wasn’t he good at turning things around though? He understood the business of a collection as well as the pleasure]. What I remember most about father was his enthusiasm for things [I’m just trying to think what the family dynamic was like – there was just 2 children and 2 grownups in a very large house – he then describes all the activities we do – art / baking etc and asked if Alison did anything like that]. No, it was a most lonely childhood mil. Most lonely. We were all rigidly excluded from father’s identity as a picture collector – that didn’t come into my remit at all, ever to go with him to a picture gallery. It was a funny dynamic you know Mil, because my mother was deeply jealous of these pictures – they were a threat to her – they took his loving attention from her. [Anthony says ‘how do you think I feel about this picture here’] Alison – oh I’m addicted to that – [Mil – yes but why does it have to be propped up on a chair between you and dad, like a wedge] You see it gets very good light here, and its a picture with lots of gorgeous details in it.
Sometimes I did yes because I used to creep in every morning to mother’s bed – they had separate beds – I think pretty well always, I can’t remember them having a double bed. I remember being intensely embarrassed one morning when I went in and father was in mother’s bed, and I was hugely embarrassed, hugely embarrassed and I remember my mum giggling and saying “come on Alison there’s room for three”.
We had a living in cook called Mary. I remember that for years and years it was a cooked breakfast and we had a funny thing called a lift that came up through the floor from the kitchen down below – dumb waiter, yes that’s right. You could talk down through the gap. I can’t remember it being a very cosy family time. People were always darting off hither and thither. Father was always away early. I remember the magic hour of twenty past 8 when one left the house. It was so boring Mil – I did the same journey every day for ten years. I went to the same school for ten years. It was called the Francis Holland School and it was in Sloane Square. [Anthony – and did you always go to the underground station on your own, or originally do you remember being taken by Nanny or your mother or father?] Never mother…. Never father… You had to go to Notting Hill Gate on the circle line, so one became infinitely familiar with Notting Hill Gate Station. [where did Anthony go to school?] He went to Harrow, boarding school. [Before Francis Holland] I went to a terrible little day school…. In Bedford Gardens in London with a very fierce teacher who I was terrified of. I have very terrible memories of a cruel teacher at that first little place. And I think I was too frightened of her to talk about her, so my mother didn’t know. I don’t think my parents were deeply in touch with me actually. Father loved me dearly. [Do you not feel that your mother loved you?] No not at all…oh dear that’s an awful noise to make. She was always too busy. All I remember about mother was she was always too busy to listen or to hear me. But she was very very very fond of my brother and I suppose I was a little bit jealous. She doted on my brother, and also there was a strange dynamic there because of my brother’s condition. She subliminally knew but she never acknowledged it [what was his condition then?] schizoid. To those who would know, those who understood mental health, he was totally wrapped up in himself. I remember it was a very uncomfortable very unhappy dynamic in my childhood. His behaviour. Unhappy because he just ignored people. He was completely self engrossed in his worn world. It was pretty lonely being his sister.
The only thing I can remember with real pleasure Mil, was the William Morris wallpaper in the dining room, which is willow pattern – do you know Willow Pattern? It was the big green willow pattern, and there was also a lovely honeysuckle. The house burgeoned with William Morris. It had a strong influence. And I think my grandmother loved it too, because I have one or two beautiful examples of William Morris fabric, silk fabric, silk and wool. My grandmother had supremely good taste. I was always very sad, I never knew the other grandmother at all. That was a blocked off ancestral sprig, that. She died when my mother was 8, and the grandfather also died tragically early, so I knew neither of them. I always feel that people are blessed to know their grandparents… well mostly blessed.
[mil asking about tea vs coffee and the transition at an early stage] No, I drank milk for decades.
The Royal Collection 