2.6: Identity and deity: the crystallisation of what I am

To examine the beginnings to my life within a more general context, I had indeed been born with a great deal of good fortune heaped there upon my plate - or with the proverbial silver spoon protruding from my mouth. But within the first few weeks of my life, I was given some foretaste of things yet to come when some careless visitor managed to drop me on my head. I was taken to hospital for X-ray examination by one Dr H Graham Hodgson and his letter, dated August 29th 1932, is still on the family files stating that there was no photographic evidence of fracture or any other injury in the bones of the skull. His certificate makes no mention of the state of the material below the bones of the skull, and there have been some who have wondered about this ever since.

There are some other pictures taken of me at an early age which are indicative of a fierce temper. Or perhaps it just shows how press photographers have always delighted in snapping me at my worst. But Nanny Marks in any case did carry that impression of me, as a fierce-tempered baby, setting it in contrast to the milder temperaments of the other children.

I don't think I was a spoilt child in the sense of having everything my own way. The very fact of having a sister nearly four years older than myself would have been sufficient to kill that prospect, even if it had been there. From the time when I had a specific memory of myself (which dates from before my third birthday,) it was developing on the lines that I was someone both loved, and loving, but more essentially as someone who was important in life.

I still maintain an image of me as a loveable child - for all the reasons which seemed to appeal so much to my mother at the time. But I might choose to single out what I now regard as the quality of candour, or direct openness, in all my relationships. It was to be gradually debased, of course. I was no longer being quite so straight-forward in my relationship with Miss Vigers, for example. In that case, my behaviour might even have been described as hypocritically affectionate, to suit my more devious ends. And to some extent, it may be that all qualities turn out to be corruptible, although I like to think that there is still something of that original Me that remains intact.

Another essential aspect of me is that I was highly strung. The way in which this first came vividly to my own attention (if only retrospectively) was on our way to Jamaica, on board `The Araguany'. When it came to the practice boat drill, we had all been lined up on deck, waiting for the ship's hooter to blow. But when it did, I jumped out of my skin, with my leg shooting up uncontrollably as if in some manner of wierd salute. The idea of the next boat drill was something which thereafter, I dreaded; and there have been similar experiences throughout my life.

There is also the concept of humour to consider. The urge to laugh (if indeed it was initially present) was never cultivated during my early childhood. I was a solemn little boy, always endeavouring to interpret what happened to me, or whatever might be said to me quite literally. That `imp's trick', when I was invited to watch smoke appearing from my father's ears, may have been an example of Henry's humour, but it never became an example of mine. There was always something not quite in tune, between the two of us, as to what humour should really entail. And if Daphne was good at exploding into sympathetic mirth, when others were displaying their humour for her appreciation, she was not tuitional concerning what it was in life, which had the merit to be regarded as funny.

I don't think that Cal had a particularly well-developed sense of humour either, but she was in a far better position to pontificate upon the subject of what it was all about. She would explain to me with dead-pan seriousness of expression, why the cartoons in the Daily Mirror were funny. (That, and the Daily Express were the family's daily reading.) I remember a series of cartoons which went under the heading of `Sillystrations', and one in particular depicted a man whose fingers were removed from his hand, and planted in his hair - to illustrate the absurdity in the English language of saying: "He ran his fingers through his hair." Cal laboured long in trying to make me understand why this should make me laugh. But she finally endorsed the parental verdict, that I must have no sense of humour: a label which stuck with me in the family for many a long year to come.

Alongside the concept of identity which was forming, we should also consider how I was beginning to relate myself to the universe as a whole: or as some might prefer to phrase it, beginning to conceive God. Religion wasn't regarded as an important subject by either of my parents. But they had conformed with tradition by having me christened, and furnishing me with godparents, most of whom died during my infancy. The one stalwartly remaining however, was Laura Corrigan who delighted in the social elitism of being so openly related to a future marquess.

She took her duties seriously too, in that she persuaded Daphne that I ought to be read stories from the bible. Obedient to the godmother's bidding, she did so - from a beautifully illustrated book donated by Laura for that purpose. I grew up quite well versed in these matters, although it wasn't until she started giving children's parties for my benefit that my appreciation for Mrs Corrigan took firm root. Indeed, there is one terrible story of how, as an infant after she had taken me up in her arms, I gave way to a temper tantrum and seized her by the hair - which happened to be a wig. But I could hardly have been expected to comprehend such matters at the time.

Religion gets muddled up with superstition, of course, and I was fed an abundance of that within all the legendary concerning Longleat - quite apart from the fact that my sister happened to be a fairy. I believed in ghosts, and I believed in Father Christmas - until Ben Wilson informed me that it was just a question of grown-ups making fools of us. I was five at the time, and felt grossly deceived, insisting that he wasn't telling me the truth. Ben was hastily banished from our Longleat nursery to his own, but Cal did gently open my eyes to the fact that the real world was as he had stated.

There was no way that I was going to remain a gullible ninny, now that my eyes had been opened. We were friendly (up until then) with the Wills family, of fame for their manufacture of cigarettes, and they were taking us all in a convoy of cars, to the local pantomime in Bath. Their daughter Caroline was just a few months older than myself, and we had been seated next to one another in their own car - perhaps even with marital prospects in mind. But I blotted my copybook by passing on to her this recent information I had received, which went down far worse in her case, than in my own. She was screaming so loud in fact, that the convoy had to be halted, so that I could be removed from my seat of honour and deposited in a vehicle for remainders which travelled at the back of the procession.

My sense of disillusionment didn't cease there, however. When Nanny took us out shopping in Harrods, to assist in the task of choosing our Christmas presents, she attempted to revive my faith in the existence of Father Christmas by pointing him out to me, and urging me to queue up with the other little children to tell him what I wanted. I was reluctant to do as she urged, because I now knew that they were all making a fool of me. But I was nudged up on to his dais, and whispered in his ear that I knew, really, that he didn't exist. I can remember a pained expression upon his face, but my memory doesn't serve me with his verbal retort.

It was Cal more than anyone else who kept my sense of religion alive. She was a convinced believer at that time, exemplifying an eldest child's natural inclination to promote such attitudes - because the recognised existence of God might endorse the logic within other aspects of a hierarchy which suited her, in some respects, very well. But there is no way in which our upbringing could, in reality, have been labelled as religious.

Even so, I said my prayers regularly, although I worried about the way in which they should cover everything. There was some philosophical thinking which emerged behind all this - which boiled down to an intellectual search for identifying the very hub of life. And I do remember asking God to give me a happy life, which I considered might cover just about everything.

But I also asked for fame. And when I discussed with Cal the subject of what our prayers rightly should cover, she pointed out that most people who are famous after their death, weren't at all famous during their lifetime. So which kind did I want? And having given the matter due consideration, I settled for the posthumous version - which has irked me ever since, in that I was subsequently to become far more hungry for instant renown.

That wasn't quite all however, for there was still the question to be determined of the age at which I should finally decease. This too was something to be debated with Cal quite openly, before I put it into my prayers. We didn't much like the idea of a doddery senility, but we certainly didn't want to die young. I think that we set the desirable age limits between sixty and ninety, although I now find myself wishing that we'd set the upper limit far higher.

I was also much intrigued by the notion of causation. It struck me that my whole future life's history would diverge, irretrievably, from one course to another if, for example, I picked up a particular stone from the ground in front of me, instead of walking past it and then turning.... left?.... or perhaps even right? The trivia within such detail became obsessive at times.

Miss Vigers should be praised for introducing me to an interest in astronomy. But I think it originated in my sincere marvelling at the sight of the star-studded sky, which Cal and I used to creep outside to watch: combined with the secrecy of stealing food at night from the refrigerator. My interest in the stars was noted (from my questions) by Miss Vigers, who then read us a boring book on the subject. The interest survived.

Miss Vigers also took us regularly to church on a Sunday morning: the one in Corsley, next to the house where Sir John Thynne had once lived. It was a social exercise as far as she was concerned: all part of the correct upbringing for members of the county establishment, in which she herself fringely played her role. But I don't suppose that our presence in the congregation was greatly appreciated, in that Cal and myself spent much of our time working up fits of church giggles. Our parents, I noted, only saw fit to include themselves in such religious devotion at Christmas and at Easter.

Henry had been made to swallow a surfeit of religion in his youth by his mother, Violet, the Christian Scientist, but it was all part of the general release after World War I that he felt a sense of mockery for much that he had previously regarded as holy. I can remember him telling me when I was seven that he didn't believe in God, and nor would I once I had grown to be a man. "It's women who believe in God." Thus there was an association, suggested to my mind, that atheism was linked to my required development as a macho male. Caroline who overheard the conversation, insisted to me later that I should not heed his words. But then she was a woman, wasn't she?

So what had happened to me over these past nine years? Let me now review the situation, placing my full personal identity within the situation that I have described.

I had been born within the last decade of peace within Europe, but I had also experienced the outbreak of war. I had been given acquaintance of both environments, and they were starkly in contrast to each other. The spell of peacetime had furnished me with a personal taste of what life had been like, at Longleat, during the last declining years of what others seemed to regard as its golden age. I held Longleat and all that it stood for in awe, and I had witnessed the clan gatherings at Christmas time, with a relatively large domestic staff to take care of their welfare. I knew of the expectations, even the optimism, that it was all going to continue just like that - ad infinitum. Even so, this was an époque to which I was never subsequently able to feel that I belonged. The real Me was to start, I think, with the impact of the war and its aftermath.

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