Barmoor Castle, now the center of a caravan park.  Go to North of the Tyne for more pictures.

The recent passing of Joan Castle, the American actress married to William Reresby Sitwell, a distant cousin of Sir George and Lady Ida Sitwell, drew my attention to the state of affairs at Barmoor Castle, where Joan and William were the final residents.  Now in ruins, I think you might agree that there are sometimes worse fates in store for the English country house than the wrecking ball.  Or possibly not.  It is all a question of perspective. 

Still, I know how many of you enjoy stories about Hollywood actresses, and I think Joan qualifies.  Speaking of actresses, last night I was reading Barbara Skelton's memoir Tears Before Bedtime (London, Hamish Hamilton Ltd. 1987) in which she quotes Zsa Zsa Gabor: "A woman who has never been hit by a man has never been loved."  I don't know who that says more about, Barbara or Zsa Zsa, but if someone could please explain to me why any woman would marry Cyril Connolly, I would be much obliged.  I have read Barbara's account of her marriage to him and I remain mystified. 

By the way, I have added The Persephone Post to my list of favorites and I encourage you to visit their book shop.  Beautiful re-issues of wonderful books.  I have just ordered Lytton Strachey's niece Julia Strachey's Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, first published in 1932.  '[A] brilliant, bittersweet upstairs-downstairs comedy' according to Shena Mackay in the Guardian.  As you can imagine, I can't wait for it to arrive.

Warter Priory, Yorkshire, circa 1904.  Demolished 1972.
Postcard from the collection of the author.

It's hardly any wonder why Warter Priory is gone.   With nearly a hundred rooms -- and over thirty of them bedrooms -- imagine the work it would take to keep it all going.  Before some of those time-saving gadgets we have nowadays, like electricity and central heat.  And dishwashers.  It's exhausting just to think about.

Lord Muncaster sold Warter Priory in 1878 to Charles Wilson, the Hull shipping magnate, subsequently made Lord Nunburnholme in 1906.  He died here in 1907 (incidentally, his grandson the subsequent third Baron Nunburnholme was born in 1904); Lady Nunburnholme maintained the estate until 1929 when it was sold to the Hon. George Ellis Vestey, second son of the first Baron Vestey who had been raised to the peerage in 1922 for services rendered to the nation during the war.

[Vestey "had ostensibly rendered great service to his country in war by placing his cold storage depots at the disposal of the government free of charge.  In fact, the company had been paid, he had moved his meat business to Argentina to avoid paying Biritsh taxes, and English people had thus been put out of work" (Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, p. 317), but I digress.]

In fact it took a village full of cheap labor to maintain the great Victorian and Edwardian country houses like Warter Priory.  Then,  as William Lanceley recalled in his memoir From Hall-Boy to House-Steward (1925), cited in Jeremy Musson's Up and Down Stairs, (2009):

The Great War undoubtedly upset service and this is not to be wondered at by those who know the servant question.  The war called for hands to help, and many servants responded to the call.  The work they were asked to do was a novelty to them, the pay was big and they had short hours, hundreds being spoilt for service throught it.  It made those who returned to service unsettled.

Unsettled indeed.  The Great War wasn't any day at the beach, but there's no question it opened the eyes of many young people to the bigger world beyond the servants hall.  A disinterested work-force wasn't the only factor in the demise of the great country house lifestyle, of course, but it certainly had an unhelpful effect. 

After all, who hasn't felt at times that there has to be more to life than cleaning and cooking and doing laundry?  I don't know about you, but I can see the fate of Sisyphus in a sink full of dirty dishes.  And so there are weekends like this one when I say, chores be damned, let that rock roll down the hill without me, let the dust gather, let the dirty clothes pile up, I have better things to do than worry about a spotless house.  

On the other hand, sometimes nothing cheers me up like ironing sheets.  Go figure.  

Paradise Garage.  Where did you go dancing?

Our circle may have dwindled, our ranks may have thinned, but when members of my generation gather and meet and get acquainted, the same questions end up being asked:

When and where did you live in Manhattan (Paris, London, San Francisco, LIttle Rock)?
When and where did you spend your summers (Fire Island, Provincetown, Russian River, Saugatuck, Lake Como, the south of France)?
With whom did you work, play, live, sleep?
Where did you dance?
Who was your dealer?

And if to this last question you say "The Cowboy, and he delivered." we have clearly known each other in a previous life.

At dinner the other night, in this game of less than twenty questions and far less than six degrees, a name came up, as names inevitably do.  Let's say it was "John."

"'John' was one of the other house guests that summer on Fire Island," announced the gentleman on my right.  "The Pines," he added, to clarify.

"Oh my dear."

"Exactly.  Our host warned us, of course.  'No matter how charming and distinguished you may find John,' he said, 'under no circumstances should you allow yourself to go off alone with him.'"

Another guest leaned in.  "What John likes to do," he explained to the uninitiated, "requires a room with a drain in the floor."

"But he'll improvise," continued our other dining companion, "and in this case one of the house guests -- a very attractive but hopelessly naive young fellow -- let curiosity get the better of him.  So off he went one night for a stroll on the beach with John."

"Oh dear god.  What happened?"

"Well, it certainly wasn't like that scene in A Single Man.  Hardly a frolic in the waves, although the pounding surf must have muffled the screams.  I don't want to be too graphic, but let's just say that once we got the poor thing to the mainland, an ambulance was waiting."

A pause.

"Where did you go dancing?" someone else asked, to change the subject.

Venice Beach Boardwalk, near the outdoor gym loosely referred to as 'Muscle Beach.'
Photo Credit: Eduardo Santiago

You can appreciate my disappointment when I learned that Eduardo was abandoning me today.  Instead of our Saturday morning workout he was going off to Idyllwild, a remote rustic village in the wooded mountains above Palm Springs.  I could not imagine what he hoped to accomplish in such an isolated place.  Meanwhile, what was I to do in his absence?  Going to the gym by myself seemed distinctly unappealing.

"You should take the time to write about that Prince who is running for governor," Eduardo suggested helpfully.

"He is not a real prince."

"I know he's not a real prince.  My German neighbors told me all about him.  He bought the title.  In Germany everyone knows.  Escandalo.  It's perfect.  You love writing about scandal and royalty."

"Again, hello, not royal.  He sits around Starbucks in lederhosen.  He drives an old Rolls.  Hardly qualifies as royal."

"He's married to Zsa Zsa," Eduardo countered. 

"Imaginate,"  I sniffied derisively. 

"I'm sure Zsa Zsa was born in 1904."

"I'll have to check that," I said doubtfully, although it was not inconceivable, based on the last known photographs of the poor thing.  Still, it would make her a little long in the tooth when she had her affair with Rubirosa.  On the other hand, Rubirosa was married to Barbara Hutton at the time so clearly the man was capable of anything.  As you know, it was the Duchess of Windsor's best friend Jimmy Donahue who acted as go-between on the pre-nuptial arrangements in that brief marriage to Barbara, but it was society photographer Jerome Zerbe who'd caught sight of Rubirosa's famous equipment in the men's room and rushed out to tell everyone that "it looked just like Yul Brynner in a black turtleneck."

Imaginate.

"I am not just interested in scandal and royalty," I objected.  "My blog is about many things."

"Of course it is," Eduardo said quickly, hastening to agree.  "Of course it is."

Detail, tile work, guest bathroom, Marion Davies Guest House, circa 1929.
Santa Monica, California

Marion loved pretty tile, as evidenced at the restored Guest House as well as at other Hearst properties, and with 55 bathrooms in the Beach House (now demolished), one can only imagine she had ample opportunity to indulge her taste.  I hear the bathrooms at San Simeon are lovely too.

In an era not unlike our own, a time of excess and precarious fortunes and financial ups and downs, Marion and her guests certainly enjoyed themselves, frolicking in the sun and sea and sand.  Then things fell apart, as they tend to do.  By the time the War came, Marion watched the sun set over the Pacific and thought about the possibility of submarines beneath the still waters and decided she'd be damned if she was going to be a sitting duck down there on the beach when the Japs showed up, so she moved to higher ground.  The rest, of course, is history.

Like all of us, I've done well in bad times and badly in good times, and there's a downside to both.  Success, like Misery, enjoys company; let's face it, you want to be in step with at least a few of your fellow travelers on the road to Destiny.  The Different Drummer has his appeal, but it can get pretty lonely if it's just you.  Marion and Hearst and friends had less than twenty years of the high life in that palace on the beach before it was just her, waiting for the invasion that never came.  Twenty years, of course, is a long time.  For a house.  For a good time.  For a lot of things.  Still, you may not want to be by yourself when it all gets swept away.

"artless fiction"
Photo Credit: Bianca Dorso

Over breakfast at IHOP with Adrienne, we discuss the phenomenon of Jersey Shore.  What is the appeal?  We decide that somehow it is related to the on-going class war in America.  The educated elite middle/upper-middle class viewer fascinated by the pointless madcap antics of the lower classes.  Except there is no middle class anymore and college degrees aren't paying off with good jobs either so what's so elite about that?  Then we wonder about the story arc.  All  reality shows have one created by  the producers, reality transformed into fiction.  Snooki the outcast gets punched by this guy so the group rallies round her because even the lower classes have a moral code they live by, which in this case is you never punch a girl, no matter how short she is.  Is that it?   

Finished The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.  Decline of the English Country House told from the point of view of the son of one of the housemaids.  And a ghost story.  But more than that.  Have now begun Up and Down Stairs, The History of the Country House Servant (London: John Murray, 2009) by Jeremy Musson.
 
"You seem awfully interested in the lower classes," says my friend H disparagingly.  I wonder.  As opposed to what?  I mean, I know we aren't supposed to have a servant class anymore, but that just means we don't give them a place to live and pay them cash under the table, right?

And besides, what's so comforting about thinking you're middle class?  What does that even mean? I ask Adrienne.  Oh, it's code, she explains.  It's old-fashioned code for "At least I'm white."  Which is harder to get a buzz from when the President isn't.  Hence the feeling lost and threatened.  White trash when white doesn't count is -- well, not all that much to be proud of, is it?  No wonder folks are unhappy.

But this is the crazy part -- they're mad at the Educated Elite and the Middle Class who don't even really exist and have no power!  Martha Coakley doesn't have an accent and Scott Brown sounds like one of those guys in Good Will Hunting, and he drives a truck!  Up with truck-driving guy, down with boring educated woman.  Talk about a class war, except it makes no sense.  Except, okay, he's kind of hot and she actually was pretty boring, but still, really?  Meanwhile, the stars of Jersey Shore are happy and celebrities.  Where's your happiness, Miss Snarky Independent Brown Grad?  Why aren't you a celebrity, Mr. Out-of-Work Liberal Arts Degree?   

The point is, maybe it is all fiction, all of it, and so let's look at the fiction.  Let us, says Jeremy Musson of Up and Down Stairs, look at the struggles of the servant class in literature: 

Moll Flanders
Pamela
HumphreyClinker
The Adventures of Joseph Andrews
Vantiy Fair
Jane Eyre
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Remains of the Day

And then of course there's always Jeeves (Wodehouse) or Mrs.Danvers (du Maurier).  Maybe we could get some tips from them on how to handle the present situation. (Word of Advice: go with the butler who looks like Stephen Fry, not the mean scary lady telling you to jump).  Maybe we could get some ideas on how to win this war.

There are no doubt many places in the world where one looks out one's window to see snow and palm trees at the same time, and so I must seem very provincial to be so struck by the combination, but there you are.  Spend your formative years in rural Ohio and many things seem fantastic and marvelous, even impossible: ski slopes simultaneous with tropical vegetation is just the beginning.  Plus, I am easily impressed.

You must remember, however, that my first taste of the exotic was in Shaker Heights, an especially cosmopolitan part of Cleveland in those days, home to a smart exclusive gathering place aptly named The Shaker Club where one met so many interesting people from all walks of life -- artists and designers mingling with captains of industry and the very upper echelon of high society.  In turn, one was invited to special events in homes and apartments across the city in what became a dizzying social whirl in which one was exposed to a myriad array of new delights.  My horizons, as they say, expanded.  My future, if not specifically incorporating snow and tropical landscapes, certainly appeared bright.  And in the immediate present there were many "firsts."  You can imagine, to take but one example, how exhilarating brunch with champagne and fish on doughnuts can seem to a teenager.  "What's a bagel?" I asked with one in my hand, inducing much hilarity in my host who sang the refrain from Marlene Dietrich's immortal "Mein Blondes Baby" and later explained what a goy was.  

Another new friend, a much older, distinguished and generous gentleman whose tastefully appointed home included a portrait of Catherine the Great over the drawing room mantel, would send a car to pick me up and take me with him to cultural events and to private parties afterward, telling the other guests that I was his nephew.  A "little white lie" in which I was more than happy to be complicit. 

"Charlie's nephew?" a friend of my host repeated somewhat quizzically.  I nodded politely.
"And where did you meet your uncle?" he asked.
"At The Shaker Club," I replied, perhaps a trifle too truthfully for my own good.

I suppose we deserve some weather.  Of course not in the way Christians like Pat Robertson believe that New Orleans deserved a hurricane because of the gays, or Haiti the earthquake for worshipping the devil, because obviously L.A. would have been destroyed many times over by now if that were the case.  No, we deserve to have a little weather every once in a while because we simply don't have much in the way of adversity in our lives.  Without weather we get complacent.  All those relentlessly sunny days end up making us lazy.  Life is too easy.

Ha ha, says Mr. Wind, I blew your hat away.

How do you like that, asks Mr. Rain, I just turned Santa Monica Boulevard into a lake.  Now try getting to work.

Hey there goes your house, observes Mr. Sandy Cliff.

Behind you, calls out Miss Mud Slide.

It isn't easy when you are used to balmy days and a carefree lifestyle, clothing optional.  

It's all fun and games until it starts to rain.

  Detail, "The Comedy-Ballet of Marionnettes
                                                                                                                    as performed by the troupe of the Theatre-
                                                                                                                    Impossible, posed in three drawings"
                                                                                                                    by Aubrey Beardsley
                                                                                                                    The Yellow Book, An Illustrated Quarterly
                                                                                                                    Volume II July 1894
                                                                                                                    London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane

I told a friend of mine, a hair and make-up artist, that I had not watched the Golden Globes.

"The worst night of my life," he replied morosely.  "Everyone keeps asking, 'Who did you do?' And I didn't do anyone this year.  It was horrible."  This last part came out as something of a wail.

I completely understand.  Although it is not my field, I know it is never easy being out of step with your colleagues.  "I was busy doing something else," even if true, hardly seems a very substantial excuse in a case like this.  "I forgot" sounds totally unconvincing.   

"I was too busy," you say to the other doctors in cancer research, when they ask about your work on a cure.

"I forgot," you admit to your fellow rocket scientists, when talk turns to the contributions everyone's made to the shuttle.

"I thought I'd let it all go to weeds," you confess to the other members of the garden club.

"No, I actually planned on not finishing my novel," you explain to the recently published author.  

Sometimes there is just no easy answer.

 Sunrise with Storm
                                                                                                            January 16, 2010
                                                                                                            Photo Credit: Bianca Dorso

I think what makes life so exciting sometimes is the combination of things.  It's the juxtaposition of dark against light, for example, that makes both seem darker and lighter, respectively.  In similar fashion, a witty turn of phrase from the heroine right before the big reveal of the demon behind her provokes a laugh and a shock at the same time, which is always effective.  I would almost add that a similar result is achieved through the side-by-side play of tender moment right before the final action sequence but in my opinion that's been rather overdone lately; see 2012 and tell me if you don't agree. 

A  storm sweeping in at sunrise.

Of course sometimes it's just a combination you haven't tried or thought of yet that results in something fresh and exhilarating.  A polka-dot linen on a pair of Louis Seize armchairs.   Brie and pineapple chutney.  Plaid shorts with a thermal underwear top, although this latter example works best on the body of a 18 or 19 year-old god, and as we all know, pretty much anything on an 18 or 19 year-old in spectacular shape is going to be exhilarating no matter what the combination.  Still, I think you see my point.

Then there's the old and familiar in a new form.  I am currently reading The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and I must tell you I can't put it down.  A brother and sister with their mother struggle to hold on to a once great stately home now in decline a couple years after the War (WWII), their plight described by a narrator not from the landed gentry -- yes, you're thinking it sounds like another Brideshead, but as I said, this story takes an interesting new path through a recognizable landscape.  As you might imagine, given my taste for stately homes and landed gentry in decline, I am enjoying it thoroughly.

The point is, it was just this past Thursday while battling traffic to get to Brentwood that I attracted the attention of a young lady in a Porsche who, in order to show her disapproval of my own driving, darted recklessly in and out in front of and beside me, gesticulating wildly.  Oh dear, I thought, knowing how bad days are contagious.  Would I end up catching hers?  Not to mention that with my habit of seeing trends everywhere, as I crept ever more tardy to my destination (on a mission to do good), listening to the news reports coming out of Haiti, it did begin to feel as though life was taking a sudden and terrible turn for the worse.  

But now, since storms have a tendency to blow over around here, we've ended up having a perfectly lovely weekend, with plenty of time to run errands, make a couple trips to the gym, attend a garden party at Rob and Carlos's, have brunch with an old friend, squeeze in a cranial massage and then settle in with a good book, and if a better combination of happy circumstances could be found, I could not tell you.  You might even be tempted to forget that really awful things are going on in the world.  Emphasis on the word might, since you would not (can't) forget that this too is a juxtaposition, the unspeakable suffering and the unexpected joy, the despair and the contentment, going on at the very same time.