Country houses, country matters

Press, 7 May 1983, Page 20

Country houses, country matters

Caves of Ice — Diaries 1946-1947. By James Lees-Milne. Chatto and Windus, 198$. 276 pp. $42.95. The Country House. Compiled by James Lees-Milne. Oxford, 1982. 110 pp. $l2. Fox-Hunting. Compiled by Sara and Raymond Carr. Oxford, 1982. 111 pp. $l2. (Reviewed by Stephen Erber) These three books have in common the reflection of a privileged life about which we, in New Zealand, can now have little real knowledge. James Lees-Milne’s great love is historic buildings. By and large English country houses are old (if not historic) buildings and, of course, from where better to ride to hounds than the front door of a country house? James Lees-Milne was advisor on historic buildings to the British National Trust for some 30 years. He has written elegantly and copiously on many aspects of historical English architecture, and, as his diaries evidence, there have been few English landowners whose holdings included an historic building whom he has not met and whose houses he has not visited. He is most recently and deservedly acclaimed for his biography of Harold Nicolson, himself no lightweight critic of things architectural and horticultural. Unhappily James LeesMilne’s diaries lack the elegance and timelessness of Nicholson’s great

diaries, probably because Nicolson stood in the wings of great events and watched and reported them, while James Lees-Milne, not having Nicolson’s vantage point, was compelled to write of things essentially less important. “Caves of Ice" is crammed with descriptions of country houses and buildings of historic and architectural interest — the two are shown often not to be synonymous. It is full of diverting chat about the people who live or lived in them, but a lot of it is meaningless to us here in the Antipodes, the buildings being inaccessible (except at ruinous cost) and the people being unknown. His attitude (at least in 1946 and 1947) seems patrician and condescending — “Looked at the Paul Klees. They are pretty designs that would do well for bathroom curtains” — attitudes for which he frequently rebukes himself to no avail. The years 1946 and 1947 passed for James LeesMilne in a flurry of house inspections and house parties and with continual expressions of regret for the accession of a Labour government. To read these diaries is to begin to understand how deeply entrenched in the upper middle-class English fabric was and (and is) conservatism, and how deeply resented by that class (and possibly by the middle-class as a

whole) was socialist adventurism. It is with renewed wonder that one is reminded by these diaries of how present is the English past. Nothing provides more evidence of this latter proposition than the very large number of books devoted to the English country house and the “archaic species” that live in them. "The Country House” is an anthology from literature which has to do with that subject, and a sweeter little, book would be hard to find. This idiosyncratic and arbitrary selection (what anthology is not?) makes most cheerful and undaunting reading. As James Lees-Milne points out, whereas we are not inclined to think uncritically of historical architecture, the people of the times never seemed to think anything was built or designed right. “I have always had the misfortune to suffer very great mischiefs from the assistance of architects,” said the Duchess of Marlborough. Not a great commendation for the builder of Blenheim Palace. Complaints of the (inconveniences of country houses are continual — “The housekeeper sent me into the Closet to look for a Chamber pot but it being in a Box I could not find it.” Then, as now, the inadequacies of servants caused problems — “I thank you for your enquiries about Irene Pethard’s character while, in my service ... Her sole disqualification for promotion in my household is that she wears spectacles.” Just as first class a production is “Fox-Hunting,” a book in the same series as “The Country House.” Now I must declare an interest: I am opposed to chasing animals to death, but the subject of the literature aside, much of the literature itself is splendid. There are, in my opinion, few better writers of the English language than R. S. Surtees and fewer greater characters than his John Jorrocks. Somehow, foxhunting seems to bring out the worst in people, but the best in writing. Literature aside, this anthology puts the cases for and against the “sport” in the most vivid way and some of the information about the hunters themselves is intruiging — Catherine Walters (“Skittles”), allegedly the last of the great courtesans, was so proud of her figure that “she was often sewn naked into her habit before she went out hunting.” These three books are a proof of the saying “autre temps, autre moeurs,” and that some of the other customs linger on.