2.3: Hierarchy: learning my status

One of my very earliest memories can be dated precisely to my third birthday. I was standing up in the back of an open car, waving a small Union Jack in acknowledgement to the joyous acclamation of a London crowd. Daddy was telling me that they were gathered there because it was my special day to celebrate. Only later was it admitted that there had been additional cause for the crowd's festivity in that May 6th 1935 happened to be the date of King George V's Silver Jubilee. Even then I regarded it as evidence that there must be a special relationship between the two of us. I had my picture of him hanging up in the nursery, and taking my cue from the national anthem, I referred to him always as `My Gracious King'.

My parents had always been steeped in an aristocratic elitism, such as Daphne's friend Nancy Mitford was to portray more openly in literary form. There were upper class ways of both doing, or saying, whatever needed to be done or said; and conversely, there were non-U ways for people to brand themselves in such judgement as coming from an inferior sort of background. In Nancy's books there is a salutary undercurrent of mirth beneath the whole snobbish business. But with my parents, such values were ingrained to the extent of them being taken very seriously. And we children had to learn such pitfalls in either behaviour, or language, in much the same way as in Divinity class at school, we had to learn the Ten Commandments.

To mention some trivial examples, it was a sin to refer to the drawing-room by any other name - such as the lounge, or parlour. We never went to the toilet. (It was to the lavatory - or loo.) Our eating utensils must be held in the correct manner, with their handles in the centre of the palm, and with our index fingers extended down the spine of each instrument. It was inadmissible to put fish knives on the dining-table, to carry a comb, or to pronounce the letter L in the word `golf'. Joining in a chorus of `Cheers!' - when toasting - was to stick in my throat for many years to come. Instead of that, we had to say "Your good health!" We never failed to notice, and to comment upon it later, if people who had come to tea, poured their milk in first, and then the tea. This branded them as `MIF', in abbreviation of the phrase. And the ultimate shibboleth was in the use of the word `Pardon?', which had to be avoided at all costs, unless it were integrated within some longer phrase - like "I beg your pardon." `What?' or `Sorry?' were the more acceptable upper class equivalents.

Avoidance of their gentle ridicule was the most usual incentive for learning, but Henry also indulged in the tactics of the short sharp shock. The proclaimed faults in my table manners were rapidly eliminated after I had experienced one of his lightening raps from the bowl of a desert spoon upon my funny-bone, to deter me from ever again placing my elbows on the table.

We were brought up to regard ourselves as superior sort of people, without it ever getting spelt out, precisely, what that superiority entailed. There was some vague idea about us all having class, as if it must be something perceptible, like the colour of our blood literally being blue. But we were made aware how this was a delicate subject that we couldn't discuss with others, (not even with Nanny, for example,) because they didn't have class, so they wouldn't understand what we were talking about, and might even be offended if they tried. There was also an awareness that we might be accused of snobbishness, if some of the things said in private between ourselves, were to be overheard by others.

The importance of who I was, and of what I was going to become, was never too far from my mind. When I was seven, a couple of our footmen put that very question to me: perhaps for the reason that they knew damn well I wasn't going to reply that I wanted to be an engine-driver, a soldier, or even a prime minister. I informed them, as indeed I had been told, that I was going to be the Marquess of Bath.

During those years of early childhood, before the war, our status as members of the family was held clearly in focus by all of our domestic staff. We were addressed as Master Alexander, or Miss Caroline: never by the first name on its own. Nanny alone was permitted such intimate address, and she inferred from this that she stood somewhere in status between the family and the domestic staff: a point which she never allowed those under her to forget.

That relations between Nanny and the domestic staff could be frictional is perhaps best illustrated by the anecdote, (frequently related to us over subsequent years,) how a particular cook, who didn't remain with us for very long, objected to the criticisms that were relayed down to the kitchen by the footman who came to collect the dirty dishes, that the meat course on the nursery menu had been overcooked. Next day, when the cover was removed from the plate, the sight of a raw skinned rabbit greeted our eyes. Anyway that was the fashion in which Nanny described it. And by her account, after the scene which followed, attendants from the nearest lunatic asylum were called to cart off this cook to where she belonged.

But there were clear limits to Nanny's authority, as it rapidly became evident to me that authority stemmed from Daddy. People jumped to obey what he dictated, and I knew that Mummy wouldn't actually contradict what he decreed. Nanny's authority didn't carry any manner of equivalent weight.

This was proven to me at an early age, when I was complaining to her about having to go downstairs for Sunday lunch, which had recently been established as a regular event, but which I was anxious to avoid because luncheons downstairs were far more disciplined than our meals upstairs in the nursery. So I was seated there at the top of the front stairs, snivelling my resentment in the hopes that Nanny would take me back under her protective wing.

She was preening herself no doubt, in such evident display of my preference for her company, and she was murmuring words of consolation in my ear about soon having her back again - or whatever. Then came Henry's trumpeting bellow from his study downstairs, ordering Nanny's retreat to the nursery, which was promptly obeyed. My whining also ceased instantly at his command, and I was never heard to make a fuss about going downstairs to lunch after that. We all understood that Daddy's authority was paramount within the household.

When it came to the subject of our grandparents, whether at Longleat or at Glynn, (the house in Cornwall where Grandpa Vivian dwelt,) we understood that the authority of each upon his own territory was to be regarded as supreme. Each was a considerable personality in his own right: Thomas in his reverenced dignity and lofty reserve, and George in his peppery individualism and coercive bombast. I was aware how each was to be respected, and I revered them - without managing to feel that I ever made any special impression upon their affections.

The battle for status came to a head at gatherings of the Thynne clan, at Longleat over Christmas. Thomas allotted each family its own special nursery, with Henry (his son and heir) having what was traditionally the nursery, on the second floor of the north wing of the house. Kathleen and Mary, both of them elder sisters with families of their own, had to make do with spare nurseries up on the top floor.

Kathleen had married Oliver Stanley, heir presumptive of Lord Stanley of Alderley, and her brood consisted of four sons, all of them older than myself. Nanny Harrod was in charge of them, and was senior in age and experience to Nanny Marks. Moreover she had the support of Nanny Bolton, who looked after Mary's two boys and a girl: Mary had married John Lord Numburnholm, and her Wilson children were of approximately the same age as Henry's own. But Nanny Harrod put forward the case that nurseries should have been allotted in accordance with the order in which Lord Bath's children had been born, which would have dropped our brood to the bottom of the list: something that would have put Nanny Marks firmly in her place, as her two rivals would have liked to think. But she certainly wasn't going to stand for that, and the case was taken to my grandfather, who was content to abide by tradition and his former judgement, insisting that the allotted nurseries remain as he had ordained.

The snobbery of the upbringing was rammed home to us, not only in the acquired values of Nanny Marks, but also by Miss Vigers who became our governess. Each of them was sine nobilitas of course, but they had the opportunity, often enough, to listen in on the way our parents talked about life in the company of their own family, and Miss Vigers in any case had known previous such experience in that, amongst others, she had taught George and Gerald Lascelles, the children of the Princess Royal. Many years later, when comparing family memories about Miss Vigers with the former Countess of Harewood, who had been married to George, I learnt how the Lascelles boys had observed that she would bob up and down in curtsies, whenever she had the Princess Royal speaking to her on the phone - without apparently being aware of what she was doing. But in any case, she regarded herself as a real specialist in aristocratic ways. Not that Nanny Marks was ever going to let it be said that she knew less on the subject than Miss Vigers, for the two spinsters (the former middle-aged and the latter elderly,) detested each other to the core.

There had been a power struggle when Miss Vigers had first arrived, which was in 1938. She wasn't our first governess, but she was the only one to take up the thorny question of whether governess or nanny had precedence within the family hierarchy. Her subtle scheme was to persuade my mother that she could save herself a lot of bother by entrusting the house accountancy to herself: which just incidentally included the task of paying the servants. Daphne unwisely agreed to the suggestion. But when Nanny learnt that she was now expected to queue up with the servants every Saturday, to receive her wages from the hand of Miss Vigers, she went on strike. She reminded everyone that she was employed by Lady Weymouth, and not by Miss Vigers. So Daphne felt obliged to acknowledge that Nanny was not to be treated as one of the servants, and henceforward was paid separately: much to the governess' chagrin.

The power struggle thereafter was more a question of who had the right to exercise influence over us children. Caroline and myself had separate bedrooms downstairs, adjacent to that of Miss Vigers, whilst Christopher and Valentine remained upstairs in the nursery, still under the care and protection of Nanny. It was only during the holidays that all four children were recombined, and even this led to problems on occasions.

For example, there was the day when Miss Vigers returned from her holiday to find that one pair of Caroline's pink knickers could not be accounted for. She made a special point of keeping lists of everything, so she took the appropriate list up to the nursery, demanding an explanation. But Nanny was in no mood to be cross- examined on the subject, so held the door firmly closed in her face: something which the governess found most offensive.

There was a farcical scene with them shouting at one another through the closed door: Miss Vigers demanding instant admission, while Nanny confined herself to disclaiming any knowledge of the missing pair of pink knickers. After persistent accusation however, she changed her story, and declared that she had eaten them: not that this did anything to soften Miss Vigers' insistence that the door be opened so that she could explore the nursery wardrobe for herself. And she was now pushing vigorously against the door, in the knowledge that her superior weight must surely win the day against her far lighter opponent.

At this juncture however, Nanny chose to step aside while pulling the door open, saying: "Then come in, Miss Vigers!" - which she did of course, falling flat on her face. This story was related to us subsequently, on numerous occasions, by the triumphant nurse.

The idea of there being a cultural divide between schoolroom and nursery was promoted by Miss Vigers, rather than by Nanny. In the eyes of the governess, time was on her side. Children went through a natural progression in their process of education, and there was a point when nurses became expendable. If she were to bide her time, she anticipated that Nanny would soon be retired. But she wasn't content to bide her time. She wanted Nanny to know that she was on the slippery slope to enforced retirement. I can remember one fierce exchange between the two of them, when meeting on the stairs, with Nanny clutching Baba to her breast, as if the devil incarnate intended to snatch him away from her. And Miss Vigers was saying sarcastically: "Yes Nanny, I'll have that one too. He'll grow up in due course, and then he'll be mine!"

We didn't really like Miss Vigers. It was Cal who initiated our Secret Club, whose only real purpose was as a forum where our identity (uncontrolled by Miss Vigers) could be effectively discussed. Our meetings were held within the sheltering seclusion of a yew tree, down in the garden near the garage. We had recently been given a typewriter by Mrs Corrigan, and Cal put it to instant use in drawing up the list of rules of conduct and admissibility, ending up with the minutes of our first meeting. She left these on a table however, where they came to Miss Vigers' attention. We regarded it as typical of this authoritarian old cow that she should promptly read them - despite the word "SECRET" being written in capital letters, and underlined. And the penalty she imposed upon Cal for initiating such a spirit of revolt was to make her sit down and copy it all out again, with all of her numerous spelling mistakes corrected.

We disliked Miss Vigers because she was old, ugly and fierce. Nanny might cluck like a hen, but she was kindly and one hundred per cent loyal to the entire family. We made jokes about the way the two of them were perpetually trying to run the other down, but we never hoped that Miss Vigers would achieve ultimate victory. At this stage however, it rather looked as if she might.

Nanny's slant of control over us was to assume a martyrdom pose, simulating the imminent advent of a nervous breakdown which never in fact arrived. Or perhaps it really did. Anyway, by her account, the time came when she awoke one morning and found she simply hadn't the energy to move. So Dr Graham- Campbell prescribed for her a long holiday, during the course of which her place was taken by a disagreeable old harridan who shall remain nameless. Naturally Miss Vigers was full of her praises, bringing it to Lady Weymouth's attention, wherever possible, just how much better discipline her children were receiving from hands such as these, in comparison with those of Nanny Marks. Word somehow (and I know not from what quarter) reached Nanny that her job was on the line, and she abandoned her holiday forthwith: just in time to accompany us on that family holiday to Piraillon.

I suppose I was Miss Vigers' favourite. The fact of me being the future Marquess was sufficient to ensure that status, no matter what kind of personality I might display. But she bestowed upon Caroline and myself a feeling that we were the intelligentsia of the family, far superior in quality to either Pip or Baba.

When Christopher came to join us in the schoolroom, for some initial tuition on how to read and write, he only managed to infuriate Miss Vigers by watching her lips and endeavouring to guess the words he was supposed to be reading. And she insisted that he simply wasn't trying when he wrote down `Nymcut' as his best effort to spell the word `Country'. It never occurred to Miss Vigers that what he had in fact done was to switch the syllables around, which could well be evidence that such scholastic ineptitude, effectively blighting his school career, possibly stemmed from a dyslexia that was never diagnosed as such. Whacking him across the knuckles with a ruler proved insufficient as a method of igniting his interest in education.

It was Miss Vigers who spelt out to us the snobbery that was implicit within our parents' attitudes. I learnt how the local dialect, as spoken by Tom Renyard, the gamekeeper my father had appointed to instruct me in rabbiting and shooting, was indicative of low breeding, and therefore a subject for private jokes. While friendly with his nephew, I was encouraged to preserve my distance from him. Much was made of the fact that he would not be going to the same kind of school as myself. As with members of the domestic staff, I knew that I should not confide my inner thoughts to him.

What I had in fact been initiated into was a system of hierarchy. The royal family was at the top, but my father wasn't all that far below. Where the Prime Minister might find his allotted place would depend more upon his breeding, than upon his political eminence; and neither Mr Ramsey Macdonald, nor Mr Stanley Baldwin were at all well bred. My father was most certainly to be regarded as supreme within the family environment, and my mother (now that she had entered the Thynne fold) would not have seen fit to dispute that she only came second. Henry had by now, in some way, replaced George Lord Vivian as the necessary dominant male within Daphne's life. And below her came her children, in the order of their birth.

During this my childhood, I was brought up to defer to the wishes of Caroline. One deferred to her for two reasons, in that she was elder, and she was female. All females were ushered through doors before myself, and they served themselves first at table. But it went deeper than this, in that Cal's preferences on any subject were demanded before my own. And I accepted all this without demur, because my own preferences had priority over those of Christopher or Valentine. Poor little Baba, if the truth be told, was supposed to defer to everybody, and would have had a wretched time if his interests hadn't been so stalwartly protected by Nanny.

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