4.1: Siblings: a realignment

After the experience of Miss Vigers, my parents decided that it probably wasn't necessary to employ another governess. Not that Christopher's scholastic performance at the Lord Weymouth School had furnished evidence of a better education to be obtained there. He still had problems in that area, now that he had moved on to Ludgrove. But there were two of our cousins, Charlie Wilson and Nick Vivian, who had come to stay at Sturford during the term-time so that they also could attend the Lord Weymouth; and the latter had fared distinctly worse.

Nick was very young at the time, and I daresay that he had been upsetting his peer group by boasting about his Thynne family connection. But this still seems inadequate as an explanation that one of their schoolmasters found him suspended by his arms from a tree in the school grounds, after he had failed to reappear in the classroom after the morning break.

No, it was decided it might be safest not to send Valentine to the Lord Weymouth, (prior to his moving on to Ludgrove.) Nanny persuaded Daphne that he might receive more kindly treatment if he went to the Lord Weymouth's rival private school in Warminster - Saint Monica's, which was run exclusively by nuns. Both Nan and Val were in any case perfectly satisfied with the arrangement.

There was a curious realignment taking place around this time, with Chris spending far more of his time with Val during our holidays from school. I had probably been too bossy as an elder brother during our previous relationship, and it was quite natural for Chris to move in the direction of bossing someone younger instead, for a change, rather than being constantly on the receiving end. So as far as boyish games were concerned, I now began to find myself increasingly without fraternal companions.

Now that we were seeing a lot more of Henry, who had been posted as an instructor at Bovington, in Dorset, a rivalry was developing between Chris and myself to win esteem in his eyes. We were both at the age when a father's regard acquires great importance. The whole of our Western culture is geared that way, and it was certainly how we were brought up at Ludgrove - to emulate the father figure in all his ideas, and even in his mannerisms. I had a good try at doing this, as best I knew how, for I wanted nothing better than to assist him in whatever chore he might be doing.

Holding my pink face like a mirror to your gaze,
I brazenly stretched a wretched arm to palm
your treasured blessing of proud paternal regard,
placing the prize in star-spangled eyes.
Sizing your footprints with a puppy's glutinous pads,
I gladly straddled my own meagre shadow,
plodding your exciting wake, with rakish gestures
fashionably flaunting a braggart's swagger stick.
Picking the tall flowers with the sour fruit,
I beautifully looted the brash treasure from the pleasure
garden of aristocratic renown, clowning
to your whimsy with pardonable grimly serious intent.
No criticism then could touch my mind,
for you were everything - and I was blind.

What astounded me was that Chris should emerge as rather better than myself at winning his esteem. Nothing in my life up to this point had prepared me for such an outcome. I knew that Daphne held me in higher regard, and so had Miss Vigers. If Nan felt a secret preference for Chris, her attitude was outwardly well balanced. And when it came to our performance at Ludgrove, there was no question about my end of term reports being better than those of my younger brother, who had caused some anxiety to both parents and teachers alike with his evident disinterest in education. When it came to athletic ability, we were roughly on a par, except at boxing. Not that we ever fought over this period, but my pre-eminence in that field (combined with my age advantage) always demanded a certain deference to my ultimate demands.

So how can I explain that Henry came to prefer Chris to myself, when all the advantages might seem to have been ranged on my side? I shall venture some manner of explanation.

There was at least one occasion when Henry overheard me telling Chris what he should be doing, with unnecessary authoritarian stress. The time I particularly remember occurred just outside his study, and it could well be that I was behaving in this fashion especially so that Daddy would perceive just how dominant (and superior) I really was. But he called me into his study for a few friendly words of rebuke, telling me that I had too high an opinion of myself: that I ought to put more effort into thinking about what others might want.

There were some letters too when he accused me of `selfishness'. It occurs to me now, that what he really meant may have been egocentricity. But this was never one of the terms that he employed.

My own comment on this subject is that the way in which we were being raised encouraged such egocentricity to develop. Our parents weren't particularly interested in our day to day development. It might even be said that they were happy provided that we didn't become intrusive within their own lives. I don't think Henry should have been surprised if egocentricity became a characteristic of such upbringing, even if the question remains open as to why I should have developed more egocentrically than my other siblings. But the answer there of course, is that I was developing an isolation from the rest of the brood, in the direction already indicated.

Perhaps the greatest insight that I can offer on how I might have seemed objectionable in some peoples' eyes comes in a letter that I wrote to Henry, who was then back in action again. (More on that later.) I was writing to him about an outing with a pony called Topsey, which had been loaned to us by the Jolliffe family at Amerdown. A note is discernible of almost savage competitiveness in spirit with my two brothers, and especially with Chris, marking a determination on my side perhaps, to be perceived by Henry as the most laudable of his sons. But on reading this letter, I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that there might well have been substance to the judgement that Chris was then a more amiable creature than myself. It reads as follows.

So much for the letter. But there may have been more to my father's disapproval of me than just that particular slant on my personality. Perhaps it is relevant to talk about the family stamp album. Under the influence of Miss Vigers, I had once been a keen collector of stamps. This was shortly before Henry embarked for the Middle East and, almost as a leaving present, he donated to me the family stamp album which had been compiled over the best part of a century by both my grandfather, Thomas, and by Henry in his turn. So I was now regarded as being old enough to participate within the family tradition and make my own contribution to the collection. And I began off in a keen spirit by doing so.

While he was away in Africa however, I did not see fit to take my stamp album to Ludgrove with me. Quite frankly, it would have been unwise of me if I had because, even within a school for the sons of the relatively rich, there are still thieving fingers, and this album did contain some valuable old stamps which had been collected by my grandfather during the previous century. Therefore I am still offended that Henry, after his return to this country, should have felt that I was slighting his gift to me by my established habit of leaving the album at home, rather than taking it back to school with me. He wrote and told me that since I evidently didn't appreciate the album, he was taking it away from me and giving it to Christopher instead.

Now this small act was typical of Henry. Whatever he gave, he felt that he had the right to take back, from which we might infer that his children had no rights of property, such as is customary to suppose within Western culture. It also coincided with the development of his authoritarian, dictatorial streak of which I shall be writing at some length later on. At this point however, I merely wish to emphasise that he took the album away from me, and gave it to Chris, who was of course very careful to take it back to Ludgrove with him for the first few terms. But when he too eventually saw the wisdom of leaving it back at home, Henry had no objections to offer.

To offer an explanation for Henry's preference from another angle, we should remember that he himself had once been the underprivileged and intellectually backward younger son. He perhaps found it easier to identify with Christopher's problems rather than with my own. And when he overheard me speaking in an overbearing manner to Chris, he was quick to sympathise with the underdog, in that it paralleled his own experience at Longleat prior to his emergence as the only surviving male heir; and perhaps even after then, inasmuch that his two eldest sisters were always inclined to assert themselves, at his expense.

I was mystified more than troubled, at this stage in my life, by Henry's attitude towards myself. I had the feeling that he must be missing out on some essential piece of information, which I might readily be able to furnish. After all, I had established such an excellent filial relationship with my headmaster at Ludgrove. I could not understand why it should be difficult to acquaint my real father with that excellence, so that I might quickly emerge as his favourite son.

But I was also beginning to take note of the areas where Chris was beginning to score his successes - in whatever field. And there was an occasion when Cal got hold of a paper-back entitled Meet yourself as you really are. This was a book where you were enabled to slot yourself within different stereotypes for personality, in accordance with particular psychological theories - like the distinction between extroverts and introverts, manics and depressives, or between schizoids and paranoids. We all enthused upon the task of unearthing our inner selves, with conviction offered for all that we read. But I felt greatly peeved in that, when we arrived at the point where Christopher's personality was to be exposed to public view, we were told that of all the characters in this book, his was the best, whereas in its analysis of my own, I had been served out with a whole gamut of psychoses and depressions which promptly accumulated on thus learning how I had been described.

I believed implicitly in the authenticity of this book, but I simply couldn't swallow that Chris had a better character than myself. So I felt indignant in my conviction that he must have been cheating by offering false information to the list of questions which had been supplied, and I rounded on him critically on that issue.

His friend Nick Cobbold had found himself with the identical character assessment, so I maintained how this was proof that they were acting in unison to acquire our admiration on false premises. But I was then trounced by Mrs Cobbold (the mother) taking their side to say how accurate she felt the assessments really were, with regard to each of our personalities. So I felt saddled with the book's conclusions. My one let out was to convince myself that if they had characters which were good, mine might still be the more interestingly complex. I settled for that.

But I was becoming increasingly aware how Chris was now striving to better my performance generally all round - apart from in scholastic ability, for he seemed to have turned his interest away from education completely. But there were other areas where his constant challenge was made known to me. In music for example where, at Ludgrove, there was no doubt that I was regarded to have superior talent. Yet here at Sturford, Chris acquired a certain proficiency on the mouth-organ, and the tonette, which was the plastic imitation of a recorder. He played these frequently, over a brief spell, until he had received Henry's commendation on being a better musician than myself: a judgement with which I didn't concur. It made me wonder why he never bothered to check up with our teachers as to which was the more musically gifted. But it was his commendation that we both so desperately wanted to win.

Also in the field of art, Chris spent much of his holiday time over one period, studiously copying Walt Disney caricatures. But what irritated me in particular was the way in which he then presented them as his own original drawings. When I accused him of copying them, he firmly denied this - until I set down the book from which they had been copied in front of him. Yet once again, others were not being so critical as to where the originals were to be found. And on this occasion, it was not only Henry, but also the lady who taught us drawing at Ludgrove, who began praising his artistic talent in contrast to my own. As I saw it, Chris was fraudulent - and knew it. But Henry didn't seem to judge things that way. And in Christopher's favour, I do need to record that the art teacher at Ludgrove held just as high an esteem for his talent, as for my own.

There was also the glimmering of a sexual rivalry emerging. I had been much smitten by the beauty of my cousin Sally-Anne - as previously related. And there were still occasions when we exchanged visits. But I was now feeling increasingly inhibited about the whole subject of how a young boy should communicate with a young girl. It was certainly not a subject that had been covered within the school curriculum, and there were more `thou shalt not' injunctions than suggestions of permissibility in anything that I had recently learnt. It only seemed natural that I should keep my distance. But Chris was made of different metal, seeming to be unaffected by such inhibitions. His behaviour towards Sal might even have been described as mildly flirtatious, which disconcerted me greatly - as if it were a question of him not abiding by the rules of the game. It had surely been long established that Sal was my girl-friend, and not his, but I was conscious of a taboo against even discussing the matter with him openly. So he continued to flirt with Sal and, although I didn't identify my feelings as such at the time, I was jealous.

That this was no freak situation became evident to me at a children's dance, that was held at Claridges around this time. Both Chris and myself had been seated at the tea-table which included Princess Alexandra, and it must have been faintly in the minds of those who were organising this event that I might eventually emerge as an utterly suitable candidate for her hand in marriage. (For this was long prior to my development in what they would regard as a mistaken direction.) But it was Chris rather than myself who had the audacity to keep dancing with her, and I was much aware how adults, like Nanny, were commenting upon this - somehow as if he had put my own nose out of joint.

If there were areas for potential future discord with Chris becoming established over this period, there was little for immediate concern. It was only natural that he should be striving to emerge with an identity of his own and, by challenging my own established superiority in certain fields, he was managing to do just this. But there was little hostility in the relationship, and we really didn't fight with one another. In fact there was remarkably little friction between all of us children in general.

There didn't need to be any with Val, who was still the baby of the family and still spoilt by Nan, but he didn't exactly represent any challenge to the state of our individual egos. Perhaps the most revealing insight into our personal relationship might be furnished by quoting once again from the same letter as previously.

The impermanence of gifts was an attitude which Henry had fed to me of course, and which Val accepted as much as the rest of us. But we all liked Val. Within his good nature, we discerned an odd combination of squealing malleability and stubborn obstinacy - often depending upon whether Nanny was standing within earshot. Her instant support was always his surest defence, but if she wasn't in the vicinity, then he was quite capable of holding out, incommunicado, against whatever threat we might present to him.

Collectively, we must have created something of a domineering family background for the little boy. I can remember one occasion when the three bothers were all sharing a room in a London hotel, Chris and I were awoken by the vocal strains of Val, lying there fast asleep while lying stiffly to attention in his bed, and singing God Save The King at the top of his lungs. I suppose we did exert that kind of an influence over him.

Even more than myself, Val displayed a naive gullibility which made him an appropriate butt for Henry's bouts of teasing. There was the joke about prehistoric gorilla-men living in our woods. When we were all accompanying Henry on his inspections of the forestry, he would pretend to espy one of these creatures lurking somewhere in the undergrowth behind us. His pace would quicken, and he would begin to simulate a general state of alarm. By the time Chris and I were joining him in this pretence, finally making a dash for the unexplained security of some distant clump, Val was invariably bounding after us in screaming terror. But he was enjoying that terror, only half believing it to have foundation in reality. And there were many occasions when he would prompt a repetition of the performance, by enquiring hopefully if there were any gorilla-men in the particular stretch of woods that we might then be crossing.

Turning to my relationship with Cal, it wasn't growing any closer. I loved her as dearly as ever, but there could be no getting away from the fact that we were being brought up as different species of human being, with myself male against her female. There seemed to be little overlap within our expectations from life. And the methods of persuasion were utterly different. Soon after his return from Africa, Henry pronounced that it was the three boys that he was going to make his business to take in hand, mending the error in their ways by whatever disciplines that he found necessary. Caroline was to remain Daphne's concern.

I think it may be true to say that Cal was also emerging as Daphne's favourite over this period. She had the unique status of being the only girl, whereas the rest of us were lumped together into a common identity, and generally referred to as `the boys'. Daphne shared confidences with Cal, which she would no longer have seen fit to share with myself - like the identity of the lover who had perhaps meant the most to her: Nigel Grahame as I was to be informed much later. I never appreciated at the time how he had been something very special to Mummy, although we inherited his giant poodle called Chocolate, after he had been killed in action. Daphne and Cal were growing close together as female confidantes, whereas I was beginning to perceive that my own identity rested somewhere firmly upon the other side of the gender fence.

There is also evidence within a letter I wrote home from Ludgrove, that I was feeling under pressure from Cal to submit to her determination of my identity in directions other than I might choose for myself. I was in the sick room at the time, as one of the numerous victims of a flu epidemic. I wrote as follows.

The interpretation (as I now see it) furnishes a picture of me attempting, in vain, to establish my own identity and worth, with Cal obstructing me in that endeavour. It is also clear that I fear the prospect of persecution from the world outside, if I am to be deprived of the protection of my relationship with her. But she seems determined that I shall find no other. It should also be noted that the value that I was trying to set on my own identity was a strictly modest one: a mere sixpence, which was very nearly the smallest silver coin. Perhaps I wasn't being so humble as to suggest that my identity should be represented by a copper coin, but I had no grandiose illusions about myself as worth a florin, or half a crown - let alone a sovereign of course. I am stressing this because the general line of Henry's criticism of me at that time was that I was "too big for my boots," and needed "to be cut down to size."

It strikes me nowadays that Cal took me very much for granted, as a person, and that she never appreciated how loving, and indeed how deferential, I had always been towards her. It was a one-sided love affair, and she never particularly noted the areas where I was in fact quite gifted. I think she wanted to see herself as supreme - if only she had been a boy. So even my boyish talents were downgraded in her judgement.

By way of an example, I might indicate my physical strength. Never in my life had I assaulted Cal, with a view to letting her see that I was tougher in combat than herself - despite all my established prowess in the boxing ring. Where my sister was concerned, everything was verbal in whatever antagonisms that might arise between the two of us.

Then Cal went to stay for a brief while with our Vivian cousins, and she encountered a very different kind of fraternal relationship between Sal and Nick. There were similar age gaps between them, as between ourselves, but young Nicholas would hurl himself in fury at his elder sister so that she found it difficult to control him. And it was on witnessing such an onslaught that Cal lent her backing to Sal, and received the full force of an angry young male in counterattack.

On returning to Sturford, she told me how she had suppressed Nick with some difficulty, but that he was far stronger than I. When this little titch finally reached Ludgrove, and even if we had been of similar age, there is no doubt at all that he could have been wiped off the floor by me in any boxing contest, or other contest of strength. He never acquired any prestige at school as a pugilist. So it galled me greatly to hear Cal assessing our relative physical strength in this fashion. And what galled me even more was her insistence that we have our own trial of strength, right there in her bedroom: all perfectly friendly, but she wanted to see which of the two of us was really the stronger.

The truth of the matter (as I see it) is that I wouldn't have known how to cope with the situation of seeing Cal flattened by my fists, and obliged to perceive that there must now be considered a new dimension to our relationship. I didn't want either to defeat her, or to humiliate her. I just wanted to salvage what I could of the wonderful relationship that once we had. So victory in battle over her wasn't in my best interests. I had been declining to wrestle, and I certainly wasn't going to start punching her. But when she enveloped me in a loosely clinging envelope of flesh, I permitted her superior weight to lower me to the ground. So she emerged from the contest confidently reasserting that I wasn't nearly as strong as my young cousin Nick, who was even younger than Chris in effect.

Another manner in which Cal asserted her psychological nuance of superiority over the rest of us was in her claim to preternatural sensitivity. My father's mother had exercised control over her family in this fashion, in the manner that Henry had always both believed and admired. So this thought may not have been too far from Cal's mind when she started to exercise such control over ourselves.

It required of course, that she should have acquired some personal experience of viewing the ghosts who were resident at Longleat, and such stories did gradually accumulate. She told us how she had seen.... well I won't go into all that, since my purpose is not to persuade my reader that there are indeed any ghosts at Longleat. But Cal had managed to see unsubstantiated spectral forms at Longleat, such as Henry was prepared to regard as evidence that she had inherited Violet's extrasensory powers - whereas I just felt left out, in that I never managed to see any of these things. And in each telling of her tales, I noted how the detail in her stories became increasingly firm, and irrefutable. In this manner, the ghosts of Longleat did have substance in our lives.

And then there was the game of planchette, at which Cal also excelled. I say that she excelled because the spirit that we summoned always managed to speak with the voice that she might desire - although usually she was just making fun of us, using lips other than her own. I can remember one instance of real terror when the upturned wine glass, ringed as it was by letters, and with a finger from each of us extended to make supposedly superficial contact with its base, began to answer the question (proposed to the spirit by Cal) as to how we should lay it to rest, with the letters: "C U T (pause) O F F (pause) C H R I S...."

Poor Chris was now cringing under the table, and even I didn't wish to see the message completed. But Cal insisted that we continue, after all the heart palpitations had subsided, until the message was reduced to an anticlimax in that the instruction became nothing worse than cutting off the top of a Christmas tree in Longleat woods. One point I did notice however, that the spirits which Cal summoned to play with us at planchette, had a knack of misspelling words in precisely the same manner as she did herself.

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