After a restless night of my own making, staying up first at the computer as I did not feel tired and then restless in bed as idea possessed my being and I could not break free of them. I got up and made myself a milky drink and some toast and it was nearly six am before I went back to bed and concentrated on relaxing and sleep and midday when I awoke without have needed to get up, an amazing length of time, the first such period for many, many years.
My first action was to turn on the news which was grim as stock markets plummeted around the world once more. I determined to get to the root of the present financial situation which was to do with the investment operating structure of banks, that is the actions which bankers have taken to increase the their personal wealth and where the root mechanism has been the development of Hedge Funds and the extent to which Fund Managers not only charged a management fee but took a significant share in the profits and in order to increase this borrowed money several times the actual value of the real money invested in the funds,. So that in certain situations they could lose more than the total invested in the fund. Most people do not appreciate that when they put money in a bank it does not lay there but it used and has been put into Hedge fund because this was the way its traders could make more money for themselves. Say the bank creates a fund for £1 billion, It will charge a book administering fee of 2% that is £20 million a year, so the fund will have to increase by £20 million to meet its overheads. It then offers pay depositors say 7% gross that is £70 million. So It has to make a profit each year of 9% to break even. The task is therefore to create a greater profit and such profits are usually only made on the more risky and speculative ventures. In order to encourage the actual fund managers within a bank to take risk and make greater profits Hedge Funds are allowed by law to pay the manager a share of the profits usually around 20% but in one collapsed fund the amount was over 40%. Say the fund Managers make the bank an additional profit on the year of 10% so that the core fund increases from 1 Billion to I Billion and 190 million at year end. I have said that 90 million was already committed as administration fees, and interest payment to depositors, and form the additional £100 million available the individual fund managers will share bonuses of £20 million. The Bank still has £80 million for payments in corporation taxes and dividends to share holders.
However in order for Investment Hedge Fund Managers to get a bonus in the following year they much achieve a better profit margin that achieved the year before so in theory they will get no bonus if the total fund of £1billion does not increase beyond £ I billion and 190 million. This in part is where the Fund managers look to take greater risks and they do this by borrowing money to gamble on the markets including on the Share Market going down as well as up. They can borrow several times the actual amount of the investment fund assets say ten times its value and more which they invest in short term speculations such as the values of shares and commodities, and currency going up and down rather than in the actual shares, currency and commodities themselves, and which is separate from the futures markets. The trouble began for banks when they were able to treat how they handled their normal banking operations, the use of cheques and then credit cards, the taking of deposits and making of loans both to individuals, to organisation, charities and businesses and their own investment activities together rather than separate operations. More on this later if I have time and feel in the mood.
Fortunately I did not have to dwell on this for over an hour, as at lunch time it arrived, a three DVD set of Brideshead and I knew what now governed the rest of this day, perhaps the weekend. Having viewed the first part recently on TV and then with my original tape viewed for the first part, I was able to make myself not one, but two bacon sandwiches with grilled tomatoes while the first episode. I abandoned the nightmares of the present and lost myself to a time which for the upper middle class and the aristocracy of Britain, remained a golden age for its young after the horror of the trenches of World War One. This was also a decade of the 1929 crash and of economic depression and mass unemployment and for those who travelled and paid attention to what was happening in parts of Europe, Russia, Japan and China there were also the indications of the major war to come.
There was one item from the first hour of Brideshead that I have not commented, the advice of his cousin to avoid Boars Hill. I remember taking a car ride once and confirming that it is possible to obtain magnificent views across the city and where today a bed room property with beautiful grounds has an asking price of £1 million. Robert Bridges and John Masefield successive poet Laureates lives there as did the world war one poets, including Robert Graves and another who became a Professor of Poetry at the University, and hen Gilbert Murray. One famous Archaeologist left his estate to the Scout movement for a camp when he died in 1941 and there several religious orders and retreats as well as hotel and Inns and other more recent development. Thus a party from the comment of Robert Graves being noted there is nothing to suggest the nature of the notoriety. It was my understanding that it was someone to dine, without fearing the eye of the University Proctors who in addition to be responsible for the running of University Examinations remain responsible for the behaviour and discipline of students outside the area of their individual college. The College could Gate a student which meant he was not allowed to leave the premises for a period of time whereas less than being sent down, expelled from the University, a student could be rusticated, prevented from attend university lectures and examinations and other university facilities for a year. His might mean the student could remain in college. It was not always a form of punishment but could apply to a student to becomes serious ill during the year or is faced with serious family and other problems.
Another response came with the book description of Charles' return to his home for long vac, vacation at the end of his first year having successfully sat the first publication examination with its Latin paper. His father spent most of day in his Library, perhaps going to his club in the evening or out during the day to make some purchase. The totality of this life meant that Charles only saw his father over the evening meal. His father used an old once fashionable smoking jacket and brought a book to read while the meal was served to him, a practice he maintained when his son was also present, occasionally breaking off to make social enquiries about the day of his son. In the book and TV adaptation he takes the opportunity to raise the fact that he was without money. His father became very amused by this and while advising against money lenders told his son to approach him, but did not then say he would help. This form a relationship was so different from that with my birth and foster mother and during my childhood with their eldest sister, They were overwhelming wanting to know everything I did when not with them, a practice they continued throughout their life and I which I grew to find irritating because it would mean that either they did not or could not understand what I was about, or they would become over anxious if I revealed something of reality, or censorious if what I said displeased them. Therefore it was better to say nothing. Usually I just needed space to recover from the experience of the day and to reflect on what had happened and how I had reacted. In fact the instrument for the behaviour of his father was to due in part to his aunt who had stepped in when his mother had died, determining that they should a three course meal every night, going for holidays at the seaside in a guest house and trying to control every aspect of his father's life. He had thus retreated into his own world when the opportunity arose and as a consequence Charles became a stranger in his own home.
They way they behaved to us was rejection of course, painful then, and for long after, until peace came and in my case relationships were as they had never been before.
.
Evelyn Waugh refers to weeks of sultry weather which in recent times appears to occur only one or twice a decade.
During the next chapter and the next episode of the TV adaptation I was also struck by how we take our individual environments for granted not seeing it, and ourselves, as other's do. In this instance it is the beauty of his home and its furnishing which Sebastian takes for granted and which creates wonder for Charles and to covet. The book helps to explain why Charles fell in love with the house as much as he did with Sebastian. His connection with the house him to paint one of the unused area, a kind of garden room which immediately brought back memories of the house at Teddington which had a sunken garden with a coal storage cellar area to the from and a large 350 square feet area if not more room with French window doors to the garden and which was left in a poor state and where I never got round to doing anything with.
Taking our homes for granted is a healthy form of security and comfort bringing which we all need as defence against the realities of the external world. Problems arise when behaviour within the environment varies excessively from the norm. In this instance the two young men who already shared a love of champagne and other wine to excess, find that the wine cellar, although depleted, had sufficient stock of fine wines for ten years, and set about an orgy of wine drinking which starts off as a tasting. I break off to think of the young city traders and those in the banking houses who have gone out to lunch or arranged an evening dinner club to celebrate the latest bonuses in hundred of thousands of pounds squandering twenty, forty and fifty thousand on the wine bill alone.
During this episode there is the first conversations about religion.. One while sunbathing on the roof of the house. That the eldest son wanted to become a Jesuit having attended a Catholic Public School which had caused their mother a problem, a wonderful development in terms of her religion but not for the eldest son who was required to take responsibility for the estate and its obligations. Sebastian reveals that his father had only converted on marrying and reverted as soon as he ran off to Venice to live in sin with an Italian catholic of the kind which is common in the Mediterranean and Italy in particular when one can enjoy all of life's pleasure as long as one is genuinely contrite when going to confession and being granted forgiveness. In the film the mistress is more worldly while in the book and TV adaptation more of lady and with a great interest in the arts and culture. She is also the most insightful of all the characters in the book. Charles talks of his lack of belief, originating in his home, his father and his cousin who saw the Church of England as a social convention. Even those who taught him Divinity at school drew attention that the bible could not be trusted as an accurate statements of what was said and meant.
One of the first acts of his father was to insist that Sebastian went to Eton which led to following the parental pathway of happiness being equated with pleasure. The problem for Sebastian is that he is torn between the different behaviour and views of his parents and as will be revealed, the influence of the mother representing the Catholic conscience with its duties and obligations was stronger than both men were able to admit to themselves even if they run away from her and behave in ways they know she will disapprove.
There is a second discussion over dinner first with the elder brother over the ability to pay for the priest who attends the family chapel his revealing that although a puritanical and pious man, the young heir is already taking the financial management of the estate seriously, recognising that the family could just as well attend their local parish church along with everyone else.
The second conversation of the evening is with Cordelia, the younger sister, over the admission by Charles that he is non believer. Charles asks if religion is such a normal everyday subject of conversation which Cordelia confirms, being equally surprised that anyone should find this situation remarkable.
And then the two men go to Venice dividing he money for a first class ticket and sleeper for two third class tickets and then living off Sebastian's father for the fortnight. The account of their slow journey among the poor reminded me of the time I went across Europe to Sweden by train with a party of students from Ruskin.
The visit to Venice is a vary different experience from that portrayed in the film. Julia. Sebastian's sister is not part of the two weeks which are spent being a tourist with the help of the mistress of Sebastian's father and her Italian Nobleman friend. Not only is there no romance with Julia but this not the time of the long period of Carnival when Venetians and visitors do everything to excess.
I have written before of my one memorable day visit to Venice having camped in a municipal site outside the Lagoon the night before, rising early and taking a public launch to the Piazza Saint Marco and wondered the streets, going across bridges visiting the houses, the palaces and the churches. This is my memory retained with the help of two water colour prints of the grand canal which I have to this day and are hanging in the garage part of the patio. To do this two weeks, to live in sumptuous surroundings what bliss, Perhaps it would have been not to have gone than to only have had had a taste. The difference between my experience and having studied and live in the City of Oxford fro five years and to felt part of both University and City Life. However to have been involved in the periphery, to have had tasters, invited to the dining club and ending drinking into the early hours while other members of the Party played billiards at the top of Nuffield tower; to have be invited to dine at the Union as guest speaker with Prime Minister to be Ted Heath at the next table with the University Conservative Association but always knowing that to have gone up as undergraduate to a college, that would have been the experience, and going as an ex Ruskin for three years, skipping the first Public Examination that would have been better, but never as good as doing so in the season of such things. In idealist, a romantic and a traditionalist in many aspects of living, I know I am.
I and my companion did take a brief look at the Lido which in the TV Adaptation is shown on a typically English summers day, wet and dull. That evening we motored the short distance to the Adriatic coast and had an accident in the car on my way into town on my own involving a cyclist who fortunately was not injured and therefore I was not locked up. I then had driven the car minus its cracked windscreen into a storm drain ditch on the camp site and where four English young men help us to get the car back on the path about one am. The following morning was spent clearing bits of windscreen from inside the car and finding a garage with a replacement, not available until the following day, a Monday. Sunday was the one day on he trip when we were sun bathe on a beach. It was lunchtime when we were able to do so. It then poured with rain as only it can in Italy on a summers day so we packed up and went to the pictures. I was reminded how quickly the weather can change.
The two men return to their respective homes and for Charles there is just one overnight stay at the family home with his father who reproaches his son for not keeping in touch although making it plain his actual and their mutual disinterest in each other.
At Oxford the first term of each year is called Michaelmass. But it is the names given to Easter and Summer which continues to puzzle me, did I ever know with Easter in called Hilary, at Cambridge it is Lent. Although the dates of each term varies the length in the 1960's was precise. 70 days for Micklemass and Trinity and 70 for Hilary. I have been unable to find out on the internet so I was forced to go in search of my library copy of the Oxford University Handbook 1961 but as I feared there is no explanation offered.
The return of the two men to Oxford marks a significant change in their relationship matched by the Autumn air and closing in evening darkness. Sebastian has become gloomy as a fellow of All Souls has been employed by his mother to write a family history and to keep and eye on him during term and he is also pursue by a priest, He comments that he is being asked to confirm, joining things like the League of Nations Youth, I joined the Jacarei and War on Want societies as well as the Labour Club and the CND, and then Crime a Challenge Society. Sebastian added and reading Isis, the student produced weekly, where I had two important covers for articles on Prison and Homelessness. And then drink coffee in he mornings at the Cadena café which used to be vast place now replaced by an indoor shopping centre and where I also went from time to time to meet up with other Ruskin students when in town during the period of the first year when based at Headington Hall in the Old village or to meet the few University contacts very occasionally. There was no time for socialising and attendance at the societies and clubs was significantly reduced for that second year when I was able to study for the Post graduate Public and Social Administration Diploma, undertaking practical work places in the vacations, the Family service Unit working in Salford Manchester, the Surrey probation Service and the Manchester Children's Department. The mood of change was expressed by the news that Anthony Blanche had gone down, left of his own accord, gone to Munich and was said to have taken up with a policeman.
The change in their relationship from the highs of summer was forecast by the mistress of Sebastian's father who commented that Idealist and romantic love was something particular to the English and German people although in England it happened later and that Sebastian was attempting to cling to his childhood, with his Teddy Bear and constant visits to see his nanny. The Mediterranean approach is more earthy and sensual. It was she who forecast that the intensity of the relationship would end with time, especially for Charles, whereas for Sebastian with his barely disguised hatred for his mother the relationship would mean more. As his cousin had warned friends made during the first year were shed during the second and as a consequence he and Sebastian kept mainly to their own company. This was the situation when Lady Marchmain came to Oxford to spend a week, meeting her son, and his friend, but primarily to discuss the project with Mr Samgrass of All Souls for the production of the book about her brother, and no doubt to review and monitor the progress of her erring son. She accepted Charles and tried to make him her friend too and Charles flattered at this responded thus unwittingly driving a wedge between himself and Sebastian, forgetting Sebastian's attempt from the outset to separate Charles from the rest of his family except nanny.
It is also at this point that Julia also turns to Charles but in the context of her relationship with Rex Mottram the British subject Canadian a successful business man who has became a Member of Parliament and the future husband of Lady Julia. They arrived inspected after finding Lord Flyte and Lord Boy Mulchester out, and anxious for lunch having starved during a country house weekend. They were out en route to have lunch with Charles so they joined up to make a luncheon party. Arising from this encounter Charles to a dinner is invited along with Sebastian and Lord Mulcaster to a dinner party at Marchmain House, their London hone prior to a dance party (Charity Ball) Julia was organising. The three young men were much drunk by the end of the dinner and at this point Charles and in particular Sebastian was to led astray. Viscount Mulcaster was not someone they liked but was of Sebastian's class and set and he persuades them to go to a dubious hostess nightclub instead of the ball because of one night of passion with one of the hostesses several months beforehand. They go out of curiosity and allow themselves to picked up by two of the hostesses and they all set off in the car driven borrowed and driven by Sebastian. The description of the club reminds me of the Scandal that surrounded Lord Boothby won of the discrete but notorious characters of the twentieth century who fathered three children by two women who were not one of his two wives and had an affairs with the wife of Conservative Prime Minister Harold McMillan, but also had a relationship with one of the night club loving Kray twins gangsters bosses as well as other suggesting that his bisexual interest extended to very young men. It was years later that I was made aware of similar bisexual interests of three leading Tory politicians who then suddenly disappeared from the front bench, two who were tipped as leaders and therefore Prime Ministers. These days no doubt the attraction would the lap dance clubs and I came across an advert for one in the new City of London, the Canary Warf land offering deals on cases of Pink champagne and where the young lads and some of the lasses could spend their bonus celebrations. In the novel the three young men, set off with their pick ups at the early time of midnight after consuming more drinks at appropriate priced despite pressure on the commissionaire for them to take a taxi Sebastian narrowly missed hitting a taxi head on and they come to a stop before two police men where Viscount Mulchester attempts to bribe and they find themselves locked up two being drunk and disorder and Sebastian for dangerous driving.
It is then that Mottram comes along , the Member of Parliament and fixes things so that the two lads pleads guilty the following morning, are fined fifty pence today money and where the conviction is kept out of the London papers and appropriate words spoken to the University Proctorial office and the college. Sebastian is bailed for a week after their hurriedly arranged barrister argues that the young men were down from Oxford supporting their sister's charitable event and had become worse for drink because of their inexperience. This approach is taken a week later at the hearing for Sebastian, but following the worth fellow appearance of Dr Samgrass, Sebastian is given a good talking too and fined £10 and everything sorted out with the University. The two men were gated for the rest of the Term, although this was overcome with the assistance of a rope ladder. In the 1060;s there was an incident during my time when a number of college window were badly smashed following a drinking binge but was dealt within the college. When I undertook for the Department of Health a Drug Advisory Service Visit some twenty years ago, it was drink which remained the major problem. This is not to say that some students did not use illegal drugs recreationally but generally this was outside of college with London the main centre. The situation was expected to change with the develop of the connecting M1 M40 motorways and the consequential links to Manchester. It was and always be a situation where young men will be young men and where the law ahs to take account of backgrounds and future where the lives of others are not affected. With the past week a fisticuffs bust up between two players at a Rugby Club during training was dismissed as the kind of thing that happens on regular basis and is quickly forgotten with everyone moving on. However when the lives of others are in question there is a different approach. This week a young football who was found drunk in his vehicle after hitting and killing two young boys was sentenced to over seven years imprisonment.
However Lady Marchmain took matter in her stride her stride all part of youths excesses and I too had the experience of appearing before he magistrates the very court where two years later I was to become its court officer, although in fairness I had not broken the law and was part of a clever ploy by the authorities to remove march marshals from the scene so they could exercise full control over subsequent events, but it was also a close shave which could have scuppered my subsequent serious work and qualification. Charles was given for his limited part in the affair and after spending Christmas at home with his father he invited to celebrate the New Year at Brideshead with the remains of the remains the family Christmas Party. Charles now found himself treated as a full member of the family set and was consequently expected to participate in the Catholic services with Lady Marchmain telling everyone they would make a good Catholic out of him yet. They would attend Mass every day and then say the Holy Rosary morning and evening and Sebastian commenting on the extent to which his mother was having little talks with Charles on a regular basis about his lack of faith, being invited to her specially redesigned personal sitting room with is lowered ceiling and statues of the Madonna, and for me of greater significance, of St Joseph. It was on one of these visits that Lady Marchmain commented that when a child, she her three brothers, all of whom were killed in the Great War, were richer than most but comparatively poor, When she married she became excessively rich and learnt that it was sinful to convert the position of the poor who were always favoured by her Christian God. And that it was possible to be rich and holy, comparing the situation to that of pre Christian Rome. This all untouched Charles who interest remained with Sebastian and being able to enjoy the house and its location which was also inhabited by Samgrass which led them to escaping to London where Sebastian stayed with Charles to the delight of his father who expressed the wish that the young man would be invited often.
It is during the Hilary term of the second year that what had become for Charles the attainment of ambition reach the beginning of the end. He continued to drink, but less so recognising that for him he got drunk to maintain And prolong the moment of good and high spirits. He realised that with Sebastian, there was something deeper that drove him to drink to excess without stopping, continuing when he was lone. It was his sister Julia who commented that with Sebastian there was something chemical with him. It was a fashionable saying of the day just as chemical between them referred to those engaged in a love hate relationship. The situation was to come to a head at the Brideshead Easter Party, that is commencing on the Tuesday as from Maundy Thursday until resurrection day the whole family went into a religious retreat in the guest house at a Monastery.
My first action was to turn on the news which was grim as stock markets plummeted around the world once more. I determined to get to the root of the present financial situation which was to do with the investment operating structure of banks, that is the actions which bankers have taken to increase the their personal wealth and where the root mechanism has been the development of Hedge Funds and the extent to which Fund Managers not only charged a management fee but took a significant share in the profits and in order to increase this borrowed money several times the actual value of the real money invested in the funds,. So that in certain situations they could lose more than the total invested in the fund. Most people do not appreciate that when they put money in a bank it does not lay there but it used and has been put into Hedge fund because this was the way its traders could make more money for themselves. Say the bank creates a fund for £1 billion, It will charge a book administering fee of 2% that is £20 million a year, so the fund will have to increase by £20 million to meet its overheads. It then offers pay depositors say 7% gross that is £70 million. So It has to make a profit each year of 9% to break even. The task is therefore to create a greater profit and such profits are usually only made on the more risky and speculative ventures. In order to encourage the actual fund managers within a bank to take risk and make greater profits Hedge Funds are allowed by law to pay the manager a share of the profits usually around 20% but in one collapsed fund the amount was over 40%. Say the fund Managers make the bank an additional profit on the year of 10% so that the core fund increases from 1 Billion to I Billion and 190 million at year end. I have said that 90 million was already committed as administration fees, and interest payment to depositors, and form the additional £100 million available the individual fund managers will share bonuses of £20 million. The Bank still has £80 million for payments in corporation taxes and dividends to share holders.
However in order for Investment Hedge Fund Managers to get a bonus in the following year they much achieve a better profit margin that achieved the year before so in theory they will get no bonus if the total fund of £1billion does not increase beyond £ I billion and 190 million. This in part is where the Fund managers look to take greater risks and they do this by borrowing money to gamble on the markets including on the Share Market going down as well as up. They can borrow several times the actual amount of the investment fund assets say ten times its value and more which they invest in short term speculations such as the values of shares and commodities, and currency going up and down rather than in the actual shares, currency and commodities themselves, and which is separate from the futures markets. The trouble began for banks when they were able to treat how they handled their normal banking operations, the use of cheques and then credit cards, the taking of deposits and making of loans both to individuals, to organisation, charities and businesses and their own investment activities together rather than separate operations. More on this later if I have time and feel in the mood.
Fortunately I did not have to dwell on this for over an hour, as at lunch time it arrived, a three DVD set of Brideshead and I knew what now governed the rest of this day, perhaps the weekend. Having viewed the first part recently on TV and then with my original tape viewed for the first part, I was able to make myself not one, but two bacon sandwiches with grilled tomatoes while the first episode. I abandoned the nightmares of the present and lost myself to a time which for the upper middle class and the aristocracy of Britain, remained a golden age for its young after the horror of the trenches of World War One. This was also a decade of the 1929 crash and of economic depression and mass unemployment and for those who travelled and paid attention to what was happening in parts of Europe, Russia, Japan and China there were also the indications of the major war to come.
There was one item from the first hour of Brideshead that I have not commented, the advice of his cousin to avoid Boars Hill. I remember taking a car ride once and confirming that it is possible to obtain magnificent views across the city and where today a bed room property with beautiful grounds has an asking price of £1 million. Robert Bridges and John Masefield successive poet Laureates lives there as did the world war one poets, including Robert Graves and another who became a Professor of Poetry at the University, and hen Gilbert Murray. One famous Archaeologist left his estate to the Scout movement for a camp when he died in 1941 and there several religious orders and retreats as well as hotel and Inns and other more recent development. Thus a party from the comment of Robert Graves being noted there is nothing to suggest the nature of the notoriety. It was my understanding that it was someone to dine, without fearing the eye of the University Proctors who in addition to be responsible for the running of University Examinations remain responsible for the behaviour and discipline of students outside the area of their individual college. The College could Gate a student which meant he was not allowed to leave the premises for a period of time whereas less than being sent down, expelled from the University, a student could be rusticated, prevented from attend university lectures and examinations and other university facilities for a year. His might mean the student could remain in college. It was not always a form of punishment but could apply to a student to becomes serious ill during the year or is faced with serious family and other problems.
Another response came with the book description of Charles' return to his home for long vac, vacation at the end of his first year having successfully sat the first publication examination with its Latin paper. His father spent most of day in his Library, perhaps going to his club in the evening or out during the day to make some purchase. The totality of this life meant that Charles only saw his father over the evening meal. His father used an old once fashionable smoking jacket and brought a book to read while the meal was served to him, a practice he maintained when his son was also present, occasionally breaking off to make social enquiries about the day of his son. In the book and TV adaptation he takes the opportunity to raise the fact that he was without money. His father became very amused by this and while advising against money lenders told his son to approach him, but did not then say he would help. This form a relationship was so different from that with my birth and foster mother and during my childhood with their eldest sister, They were overwhelming wanting to know everything I did when not with them, a practice they continued throughout their life and I which I grew to find irritating because it would mean that either they did not or could not understand what I was about, or they would become over anxious if I revealed something of reality, or censorious if what I said displeased them. Therefore it was better to say nothing. Usually I just needed space to recover from the experience of the day and to reflect on what had happened and how I had reacted. In fact the instrument for the behaviour of his father was to due in part to his aunt who had stepped in when his mother had died, determining that they should a three course meal every night, going for holidays at the seaside in a guest house and trying to control every aspect of his father's life. He had thus retreated into his own world when the opportunity arose and as a consequence Charles became a stranger in his own home.
They way they behaved to us was rejection of course, painful then, and for long after, until peace came and in my case relationships were as they had never been before.
.
Evelyn Waugh refers to weeks of sultry weather which in recent times appears to occur only one or twice a decade.
During the next chapter and the next episode of the TV adaptation I was also struck by how we take our individual environments for granted not seeing it, and ourselves, as other's do. In this instance it is the beauty of his home and its furnishing which Sebastian takes for granted and which creates wonder for Charles and to covet. The book helps to explain why Charles fell in love with the house as much as he did with Sebastian. His connection with the house him to paint one of the unused area, a kind of garden room which immediately brought back memories of the house at Teddington which had a sunken garden with a coal storage cellar area to the from and a large 350 square feet area if not more room with French window doors to the garden and which was left in a poor state and where I never got round to doing anything with.
Taking our homes for granted is a healthy form of security and comfort bringing which we all need as defence against the realities of the external world. Problems arise when behaviour within the environment varies excessively from the norm. In this instance the two young men who already shared a love of champagne and other wine to excess, find that the wine cellar, although depleted, had sufficient stock of fine wines for ten years, and set about an orgy of wine drinking which starts off as a tasting. I break off to think of the young city traders and those in the banking houses who have gone out to lunch or arranged an evening dinner club to celebrate the latest bonuses in hundred of thousands of pounds squandering twenty, forty and fifty thousand on the wine bill alone.
During this episode there is the first conversations about religion.. One while sunbathing on the roof of the house. That the eldest son wanted to become a Jesuit having attended a Catholic Public School which had caused their mother a problem, a wonderful development in terms of her religion but not for the eldest son who was required to take responsibility for the estate and its obligations. Sebastian reveals that his father had only converted on marrying and reverted as soon as he ran off to Venice to live in sin with an Italian catholic of the kind which is common in the Mediterranean and Italy in particular when one can enjoy all of life's pleasure as long as one is genuinely contrite when going to confession and being granted forgiveness. In the film the mistress is more worldly while in the book and TV adaptation more of lady and with a great interest in the arts and culture. She is also the most insightful of all the characters in the book. Charles talks of his lack of belief, originating in his home, his father and his cousin who saw the Church of England as a social convention. Even those who taught him Divinity at school drew attention that the bible could not be trusted as an accurate statements of what was said and meant.
One of the first acts of his father was to insist that Sebastian went to Eton which led to following the parental pathway of happiness being equated with pleasure. The problem for Sebastian is that he is torn between the different behaviour and views of his parents and as will be revealed, the influence of the mother representing the Catholic conscience with its duties and obligations was stronger than both men were able to admit to themselves even if they run away from her and behave in ways they know she will disapprove.
There is a second discussion over dinner first with the elder brother over the ability to pay for the priest who attends the family chapel his revealing that although a puritanical and pious man, the young heir is already taking the financial management of the estate seriously, recognising that the family could just as well attend their local parish church along with everyone else.
The second conversation of the evening is with Cordelia, the younger sister, over the admission by Charles that he is non believer. Charles asks if religion is such a normal everyday subject of conversation which Cordelia confirms, being equally surprised that anyone should find this situation remarkable.
And then the two men go to Venice dividing he money for a first class ticket and sleeper for two third class tickets and then living off Sebastian's father for the fortnight. The account of their slow journey among the poor reminded me of the time I went across Europe to Sweden by train with a party of students from Ruskin.
The visit to Venice is a vary different experience from that portrayed in the film. Julia. Sebastian's sister is not part of the two weeks which are spent being a tourist with the help of the mistress of Sebastian's father and her Italian Nobleman friend. Not only is there no romance with Julia but this not the time of the long period of Carnival when Venetians and visitors do everything to excess.
I have written before of my one memorable day visit to Venice having camped in a municipal site outside the Lagoon the night before, rising early and taking a public launch to the Piazza Saint Marco and wondered the streets, going across bridges visiting the houses, the palaces and the churches. This is my memory retained with the help of two water colour prints of the grand canal which I have to this day and are hanging in the garage part of the patio. To do this two weeks, to live in sumptuous surroundings what bliss, Perhaps it would have been not to have gone than to only have had had a taste. The difference between my experience and having studied and live in the City of Oxford fro five years and to felt part of both University and City Life. However to have been involved in the periphery, to have had tasters, invited to the dining club and ending drinking into the early hours while other members of the Party played billiards at the top of Nuffield tower; to have be invited to dine at the Union as guest speaker with Prime Minister to be Ted Heath at the next table with the University Conservative Association but always knowing that to have gone up as undergraduate to a college, that would have been the experience, and going as an ex Ruskin for three years, skipping the first Public Examination that would have been better, but never as good as doing so in the season of such things. In idealist, a romantic and a traditionalist in many aspects of living, I know I am.
I and my companion did take a brief look at the Lido which in the TV Adaptation is shown on a typically English summers day, wet and dull. That evening we motored the short distance to the Adriatic coast and had an accident in the car on my way into town on my own involving a cyclist who fortunately was not injured and therefore I was not locked up. I then had driven the car minus its cracked windscreen into a storm drain ditch on the camp site and where four English young men help us to get the car back on the path about one am. The following morning was spent clearing bits of windscreen from inside the car and finding a garage with a replacement, not available until the following day, a Monday. Sunday was the one day on he trip when we were sun bathe on a beach. It was lunchtime when we were able to do so. It then poured with rain as only it can in Italy on a summers day so we packed up and went to the pictures. I was reminded how quickly the weather can change.
The two men return to their respective homes and for Charles there is just one overnight stay at the family home with his father who reproaches his son for not keeping in touch although making it plain his actual and their mutual disinterest in each other.
At Oxford the first term of each year is called Michaelmass. But it is the names given to Easter and Summer which continues to puzzle me, did I ever know with Easter in called Hilary, at Cambridge it is Lent. Although the dates of each term varies the length in the 1960's was precise. 70 days for Micklemass and Trinity and 70 for Hilary. I have been unable to find out on the internet so I was forced to go in search of my library copy of the Oxford University Handbook 1961 but as I feared there is no explanation offered.
The return of the two men to Oxford marks a significant change in their relationship matched by the Autumn air and closing in evening darkness. Sebastian has become gloomy as a fellow of All Souls has been employed by his mother to write a family history and to keep and eye on him during term and he is also pursue by a priest, He comments that he is being asked to confirm, joining things like the League of Nations Youth, I joined the Jacarei and War on Want societies as well as the Labour Club and the CND, and then Crime a Challenge Society. Sebastian added and reading Isis, the student produced weekly, where I had two important covers for articles on Prison and Homelessness. And then drink coffee in he mornings at the Cadena café which used to be vast place now replaced by an indoor shopping centre and where I also went from time to time to meet up with other Ruskin students when in town during the period of the first year when based at Headington Hall in the Old village or to meet the few University contacts very occasionally. There was no time for socialising and attendance at the societies and clubs was significantly reduced for that second year when I was able to study for the Post graduate Public and Social Administration Diploma, undertaking practical work places in the vacations, the Family service Unit working in Salford Manchester, the Surrey probation Service and the Manchester Children's Department. The mood of change was expressed by the news that Anthony Blanche had gone down, left of his own accord, gone to Munich and was said to have taken up with a policeman.
The change in their relationship from the highs of summer was forecast by the mistress of Sebastian's father who commented that Idealist and romantic love was something particular to the English and German people although in England it happened later and that Sebastian was attempting to cling to his childhood, with his Teddy Bear and constant visits to see his nanny. The Mediterranean approach is more earthy and sensual. It was she who forecast that the intensity of the relationship would end with time, especially for Charles, whereas for Sebastian with his barely disguised hatred for his mother the relationship would mean more. As his cousin had warned friends made during the first year were shed during the second and as a consequence he and Sebastian kept mainly to their own company. This was the situation when Lady Marchmain came to Oxford to spend a week, meeting her son, and his friend, but primarily to discuss the project with Mr Samgrass of All Souls for the production of the book about her brother, and no doubt to review and monitor the progress of her erring son. She accepted Charles and tried to make him her friend too and Charles flattered at this responded thus unwittingly driving a wedge between himself and Sebastian, forgetting Sebastian's attempt from the outset to separate Charles from the rest of his family except nanny.
It is also at this point that Julia also turns to Charles but in the context of her relationship with Rex Mottram the British subject Canadian a successful business man who has became a Member of Parliament and the future husband of Lady Julia. They arrived inspected after finding Lord Flyte and Lord Boy Mulchester out, and anxious for lunch having starved during a country house weekend. They were out en route to have lunch with Charles so they joined up to make a luncheon party. Arising from this encounter Charles to a dinner is invited along with Sebastian and Lord Mulcaster to a dinner party at Marchmain House, their London hone prior to a dance party (Charity Ball) Julia was organising. The three young men were much drunk by the end of the dinner and at this point Charles and in particular Sebastian was to led astray. Viscount Mulcaster was not someone they liked but was of Sebastian's class and set and he persuades them to go to a dubious hostess nightclub instead of the ball because of one night of passion with one of the hostesses several months beforehand. They go out of curiosity and allow themselves to picked up by two of the hostesses and they all set off in the car driven borrowed and driven by Sebastian. The description of the club reminds me of the Scandal that surrounded Lord Boothby won of the discrete but notorious characters of the twentieth century who fathered three children by two women who were not one of his two wives and had an affairs with the wife of Conservative Prime Minister Harold McMillan, but also had a relationship with one of the night club loving Kray twins gangsters bosses as well as other suggesting that his bisexual interest extended to very young men. It was years later that I was made aware of similar bisexual interests of three leading Tory politicians who then suddenly disappeared from the front bench, two who were tipped as leaders and therefore Prime Ministers. These days no doubt the attraction would the lap dance clubs and I came across an advert for one in the new City of London, the Canary Warf land offering deals on cases of Pink champagne and where the young lads and some of the lasses could spend their bonus celebrations. In the novel the three young men, set off with their pick ups at the early time of midnight after consuming more drinks at appropriate priced despite pressure on the commissionaire for them to take a taxi Sebastian narrowly missed hitting a taxi head on and they come to a stop before two police men where Viscount Mulchester attempts to bribe and they find themselves locked up two being drunk and disorder and Sebastian for dangerous driving.
It is then that Mottram comes along , the Member of Parliament and fixes things so that the two lads pleads guilty the following morning, are fined fifty pence today money and where the conviction is kept out of the London papers and appropriate words spoken to the University Proctorial office and the college. Sebastian is bailed for a week after their hurriedly arranged barrister argues that the young men were down from Oxford supporting their sister's charitable event and had become worse for drink because of their inexperience. This approach is taken a week later at the hearing for Sebastian, but following the worth fellow appearance of Dr Samgrass, Sebastian is given a good talking too and fined £10 and everything sorted out with the University. The two men were gated for the rest of the Term, although this was overcome with the assistance of a rope ladder. In the 1060;s there was an incident during my time when a number of college window were badly smashed following a drinking binge but was dealt within the college. When I undertook for the Department of Health a Drug Advisory Service Visit some twenty years ago, it was drink which remained the major problem. This is not to say that some students did not use illegal drugs recreationally but generally this was outside of college with London the main centre. The situation was expected to change with the develop of the connecting M1 M40 motorways and the consequential links to Manchester. It was and always be a situation where young men will be young men and where the law ahs to take account of backgrounds and future where the lives of others are not affected. With the past week a fisticuffs bust up between two players at a Rugby Club during training was dismissed as the kind of thing that happens on regular basis and is quickly forgotten with everyone moving on. However when the lives of others are in question there is a different approach. This week a young football who was found drunk in his vehicle after hitting and killing two young boys was sentenced to over seven years imprisonment.
However Lady Marchmain took matter in her stride her stride all part of youths excesses and I too had the experience of appearing before he magistrates the very court where two years later I was to become its court officer, although in fairness I had not broken the law and was part of a clever ploy by the authorities to remove march marshals from the scene so they could exercise full control over subsequent events, but it was also a close shave which could have scuppered my subsequent serious work and qualification. Charles was given for his limited part in the affair and after spending Christmas at home with his father he invited to celebrate the New Year at Brideshead with the remains of the remains the family Christmas Party. Charles now found himself treated as a full member of the family set and was consequently expected to participate in the Catholic services with Lady Marchmain telling everyone they would make a good Catholic out of him yet. They would attend Mass every day and then say the Holy Rosary morning and evening and Sebastian commenting on the extent to which his mother was having little talks with Charles on a regular basis about his lack of faith, being invited to her specially redesigned personal sitting room with is lowered ceiling and statues of the Madonna, and for me of greater significance, of St Joseph. It was on one of these visits that Lady Marchmain commented that when a child, she her three brothers, all of whom were killed in the Great War, were richer than most but comparatively poor, When she married she became excessively rich and learnt that it was sinful to convert the position of the poor who were always favoured by her Christian God. And that it was possible to be rich and holy, comparing the situation to that of pre Christian Rome. This all untouched Charles who interest remained with Sebastian and being able to enjoy the house and its location which was also inhabited by Samgrass which led them to escaping to London where Sebastian stayed with Charles to the delight of his father who expressed the wish that the young man would be invited often.
It is during the Hilary term of the second year that what had become for Charles the attainment of ambition reach the beginning of the end. He continued to drink, but less so recognising that for him he got drunk to maintain And prolong the moment of good and high spirits. He realised that with Sebastian, there was something deeper that drove him to drink to excess without stopping, continuing when he was lone. It was his sister Julia who commented that with Sebastian there was something chemical with him. It was a fashionable saying of the day just as chemical between them referred to those engaged in a love hate relationship. The situation was to come to a head at the Brideshead Easter Party, that is commencing on the Tuesday as from Maundy Thursday until resurrection day the whole family went into a religious retreat in the guest house at a Monastery.
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