MEMOIRS OF UNA, LADY TROUBRIDGE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29643, 13 October 1961, Page 2

MEMOIRS OF UNA, LADY TROUBRIDGE

[By

SUSAN VAUGHAN]

LONDON. At long last, the remarkable memoirs of Una, Lady Troubridge. will be published. Lady Troubridge was a friend of tile late Radclyffe Hall, whose book “The Well of Loneliness” caused a stir back in the twenties. Not surprisingly, it dealt with a love affair between two women and was a kind of “Lolita” of its day. Some countries at first banned the book, but time has given it the respectability of a classic. Now it has been printed in 15 languages and sell? some 100.000 copies a year. Lady Troubridge met Miss Hall in 1915. Three years later she obtained a legal separation from her husband, the late Admiral Sir Ernest Troubridge. She inherited the Literary rights of "The Well” when Miss Hail died in 1943. Her acquaintance with Miss Hall—-whom to this day she refers to as "John” — is she subject of the memoirs (called the "Lafe and Death of Radclyffe Ball”)She tojd me in Rome—she lives there in a modern flat —that the book took only a few weeks to. write. But publication has been delayed for some years. The publishers have taken the precaution of getting the permission to publish references to the living people mentioned in the book. I expect Lady Trou bridge's memoirs will prove to be well written. She has had much experience as a writer and is particularly well known for her works on etiquette. Lady TrvJoridge is now 74 and inevitably her advice has grown old with her. But it has a flavour. I particularly savpur one passage about servants' manners: “A servant should never be noisy when on duty. He is not supposed to whistle or aing, talk loudly, or call to his fellow servants.

“He should not bang doors and run about -or move noisily. He should speak genfly and clearly, and ’if he meets one of the family or a guest upon the stairs or in a passage, he should draw aside and aliow him to pass.” < > Incorrect conduct, by servants includes: “To be bored, to borrow even the smallest sum of money, tn indulge in unpleasant tricks, to stare, to pay personal compliments unless they may be very delicately conveyed.” W,