Façades

The latest episode of the Sitwell Saga has now concluded with my first reading of 'Façades', the story of the Sitwell trio of the last century, penned by John Pearson, and first noticed by me at reference 1. An excellent read.

A saga which was already well under way by the time of reference 2, more than a year ago. A saga which included the purchase of a second hand copy of the score of the musical offering of the same name, a nicely produced paperback from OUP, although I don't think that I got around to actually listening to it all the way through, and such listening as I did do must have been on YouTube. No CD to be found anywhere.

Pearson makes a splendid story of the goings-on of Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell, seemingly not much diminished by my having very little to do with poetry, and nothing whatsoever to do with that of Edith, by the time she died Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE, for services to same.

A family which was very keen on its pedigree, claiming descent from the Plantagenets, but which actually became seriously rich by getting into nail manufacture in the 17th century and stayed seriously rich by selling the rights to the coal under its land in the 19th century. Elevated to the lowest rank of the peerage as baronets during the Regency.

The trio's parents were a very strange pair and were very bad at being parents. To the point of the mother going to jail for debts at one point (for some weeks) because the father refused on principle to pay them. But this did not seem to dent the success of their children in the drawing rooms of Edwardian London. Drawing rooms, the contents of which Osbert, along with a lot of other writers of his time, went on to use in his writing - the appetite for tit-bits about the lives of the upper classes being huge in the lower and middle classes. Plus ça change. But unlike some, he did not get ostracised for it.

So Aldous Huxley used stories of Osbert's father in 'Chrome Yellow' (stories which Osbert had told him) and fell under a cloud for that. While D. H. Lawrence used various bits of the Sitwell saga in 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', although the source proper of Clifford Chatterley was some quite unrelated gentleman from, somewhere else in Derbyshire. He fell under a cloud too. While Nowell Coward made fun of them and their musical offering, 'Façades', in a farce which ran for a long time in the West End. It seems that Edith was almost apopleptic about this, and needed restraint to stop her calling for her lawyers, something it seems that Sitwells were rather prone to. I think they made it up, after a fashion, many years later.

Edith became a person who seemed to need enemies and people to shout at, at least in print. She seemed to spend most of her life having frightful rows with people who had been, had thought they still were, her friends and supporters, sometimes kissing & making up afterwards. She was also rather fond of discovering people, and claimed that of Dylan Thomas.

The trio, particularly Edith and Osbert, were very skilled self-publicists, to the point where another of their dread enemies, F. R. Leavis (still a god-like figure when I was at school), said something along the lines that he would not include them in his history of poetry as they belonged more to the history of advertising. All façade and no substance. Nevertheless, while Edith seems a very odd figure now, ridiculous even, by the end of the Pearson book, I came to see that she had a point. It was no good being a poet unless you got out there and promoted your poetry - by whatever means came to hand. The point of being a poet was to be read and to be famous, which was not likely to happen if you immured yourself in your tower, ivory or otherwise. So Edith became very good at making a performance of her own poetry. Unlike Simon Armitage, noticed at reference 5, who had not.

The result of all of which being that Edith, Osbert and to a lesser extent Sacheveral (who married, had children and had less time for or interest in self-publicity), were at the centre of the posh end of English arty life for maybe 40 years, say 1920-1960.

Osbert, as an older man, suffered from Parkinsons disease, but the last years of his life were eased by a devoted man servant and companion, who was rewarded in part by the life-hold of a substantial flat in the Sitwell's Italian castle near Florence, now reduced to reference 3. He was very lucky that such a suitable person turned up, at just the right time. Who survived all the turmoils and jealousies that his turning up and sticking at it set off among family and friends.

Sadly, despite having suffered from the financial whims of his father for so long, Osbert made a bit of a mess of his own will, leaving the beloved Italian castle to a nephew, but without leaving him the money needed to keep it up. So after a few years it was sold to an Italian business man.

Presently re-reading 'Chrome Yellow' (for its alleged misuse of the Sitwell story) and reading 'Escape with me!' (as an example of Osbert's travel writing).

The illustration is taken from the website of the current owners of the Sitwell's Italian castle. A castle which is a good deal older, at least in parts, than the castle that they still own near Sheffield, Renishaw. Which last is open for guided tours only.

PS: bing not well at all this afternoon, with lots of pauses. Something that seems to happen very rarely in the world of google.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/the-blade.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/laughter-in-next-room.html.

Reference 3: http://www.montegufoni.it/en/castle_tuscany.php.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/osbert.html.

Reference 5: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/sir-gawain.html.

Reference 5: Façades: Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell - John Pearson - 1978. The biographer of Ian Fleming, a chap who between bouts of writing about James Bond, provided useful support to the Sitwells, particularly Edith, in the 'Sunday Times', then a serious newspaper. Small world!