Ambiorix the Gaul: Brian Aldridge beware

Vicky Tucker wears her erudition lightly. The well-meaning but controversial second wife of Ambridge’s one-eyed milkman, the hapless Mike Tucker, she is known for her ampleness ‘in form and deed’ and for her lack of tact. She is fond of dancing, cooking, gardening and sun-worshipping. She loathes killjoys who might want to interfere with her fun – and exams. A characteristic utterance at Willow Farm, in her pronounced ‘Brummie accent’, might be ‘Ooh Mike, I like the look of that cruise’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/the-archers/whos-who/characters/vicky-tucker). Who would have thought that she had benefited from a classical education?

On Friday 13 April, conversation in the village shop turned, as it often does these days, to Brian Aldridge’s alarming plans for a massive milking factory. Not only will it be a blot on the landscape: the idea of keeping cows indoors, instead of allowing to them graze in the open, is denounced by the traditionalists as cruel and unnatural.

Brian’s most articulate opponent is undoubtedly the retired academic Jim Lloyd who, in the presence of Vicky and another customer, Bert Fry, referred to him as ‘the most insufferable, pompous, self-centred man’.

‘I grant you he can put on a carapace of charm’ – Jim continued – ‘when he’s trying to sugar-coat this megalomaniac scheme to blight our glorious countryside with a monstrous industrial edifice. But if he thinks he can buy off the deeply-held objections of a community with a cash donation and a few pints of ale, then he’s heading for the biggest disappointment since Sabinus trusted the word of Ambiorix the Gaul – and we all know how that ended.’

The bucolic Bert (likeliest utterance: ‘My Freda bakes the finest cakes in Borsetshire’) seemed not to recognise the allusion. Indeed, Jim’s invective was greeted with a stunned silence, until Vicky artlessly enquired, ‘Was he the one with the potion?’

No doubt Jim has Caesar’s De Bello Gallico constantly to hand, but it must be a while since Vicky read it, for it was not Ambiorix, but Cativolcus who took the potion (an infusion from a yew tree). Ambiorix and Cativolcus were the two kings of the Eburones, a people between the Meuse and Rhine rivers, who rebelled against the Romans in 54 BC. Ambiorix persuaded their beleaguered commander in Eburonia, Quintus Titurius Sabinus, to surrender, promising that he and his soldiers would be unharmed.

Sabinus had been naïve to trust Ambiorix. According to Caesar, he ‘orders those tribunes of the soldiers whom he had at the time around him, and the centurions of the first ranks, to follow him, and when he had approached near to Ambiorix, being ordered to throw down his arms, he obeys the order and commands his men to do the same. In the mean time, while they treat upon the terms, and a longer debate than necessary is designedly entered into by Ambiorix, being surrounded by degrees, he is slain.’ (De Bello Gallico, V, xxxvi-vii).

Colourful detail is added by Cassius Dio (Historia Romana, XL, vi – p.415 of the Loeb edition), who says that Ambiorix seized Sabinus, ‘stripped him of his arms and clothing, and then struck him down with his javelin, uttering boastful words over him, such as these: “How can such creatures as you wish to rule over us who are so great?”’

Few of Sabinus’s soldiers escape. Many take their own lives, rather than fall into the hands of the enemy. It was left to Caesar to wreak his terrible revenge on Eburonia. Ambiorix fled with his men across the Rhine and was never found. As for poor old Cativolcus, ‘being now worn out by age, he was unable to endure the fatigue either of war or flight, so, having cursed Ambiorix with every imprecation, as the person who had been the contriver of that measure, he destroyed himself with the juice of the yew-tree, of which there is a great abundance in Gaul and Germany’ (De Bello Gallico, VI, xxxi). Surely too cruel a fate, even for Brian Aldridge?

It is surprisingly that Jim resisted a rather apt pun by quoting from the original Latin: ‘qui una cum Ambiorige consilium inierat’ (who had entered into the design together with Ambiorix). Perhaps he is saving it for another time.

The annual ‘Directory Meeting’ is a key event for NADFAS lecturers, as they are able to advertise their wares and take provisional bookings from clients – the secretaries of the regional Decorative and Fine Arts societies – who assemble there en masse. It is a great and splendid occasion.

On Tuesday 27 March, the meeting was held for the first time in the sumptuous Westminster Central Hall, a venue much approved of by the writer, who photographed the above view of the nearby Abbey from its entrance.

Newly-accredited lecturers are given a precious opportunity to ‘market’ themselves by means of a two-minute presentation on stage. It is their one-and-only chance to make an impression and stand out from the crowd, on which their future lecturing career may well depend. These are followed by the one-minute presentations of established lecturers, who will have competed by ballot for the limited slots. The occasion is somewhat reminiscent of the auditions on X-Factor: those exceeding their allotted time are ruthlessly silenced by having their microphones turned off.

My new colleagues are all as brilliant as they are congenial and, in successive addresses, each of sparkling originality, they contrived to fascinate on the obscurest of topics. I hoped in my own presentation (the ‘Ws’ came last!) to epitomise the spirit as well as the content of my NADFAS lectures. It is clear that humour, and a strong element of social history, were much appreciated by the audience.

Apparently I am alone in offering a lecture, the teasingly-named ‘Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture’, about the most notoriously over-developed town in England. In Gilbert and Sullivan’s Rudigore, the word ‘Basingstoke’ is said to ‘teem with hidden meaning’. Apparently it teems with it to this day as the mere mention of it had the hall in stitches. The joke seems to have been enjoyed by branch secretaries from as far away as Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, who hastened to book the talk.

Indeed, well over half my bookings that afternoon were for ‘Basingstoke’. There was a tense moment when I was approached by representatives of the Basingstoke DFAS. Luckily they were all smiles and it appears that I will be able to deliver the talk to their group in 2014 without the prospect of being lynched.

Here, then, is the text of my address:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am an historian of domestic life. I am interested in fundamental things like fashions, hairstyles, and the living arrangements of both rich and poor.

First, I offer a lively introduction to the Bayeux Tapestry. I demonstrate that the Normans were a bunch of skinheads, and that they attributed the downfall of the English to their girly hairstyles.

Or I can take you on a room-by-room tour of Simon de Montfort’s castle in Hampshire. I will reveal the most intimate details of Simon’s home life, even down to his undergarments.

Or let me guide you through the world of Jane Austen, peeping into peasants’ cottages on the way. I will elaborate on the peasant’s smock and the gentleman’s knee breeches, on powdered wigs and pigtails and on the shocking introduction of the trouser. 

Or I can show you my family photos from the 1890s and early 1900s – scenes of people wearing the latest fashions in the Bois de Boulogne, sitting on bicycles, posing with a new motor car or indulging in mixed bathing, all of which offended or even shocked the conservatively-minded at the time.

Finally, let me commend to you ‘Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture’. It is about the post-war development of a typical English town. What motivated the planners who imposed the absurdities of Modernist architecture on our landscape? It is a story that neatly illustrates the ugliest episode in England’s architectural history. You will be thrilled to discover the largest phallus on public display in Britain. You will marvel at the sudden rise of the chav. Hilarity is guaranteed. Please book now to avoid disappointment! Thank you very much.

‘Wichita Lineman’ was composed by Jimmy Bell for Glen Campbell and recorded on his album of the same name in 1968. Bell claims that it was accepted by the record company before he had had time to write a final set of verses. Valiantly filling the gap, I suggest two alternative endings (in italics) below.

I am a lineman for the county,

And I drive the mainroad,

Lookin’ in the sun for another overload.

I hear you singing in the wire,

I can hear you through the whine,

And the Wichita Lineman

Is still on the line.

I know I need a small vacation,

But it don’t look like rain,

And if it snows that stretch down south

Won’t ever stand the strain.

And I need you more than want you,

And I want you for all time,

And the Wichita Lineman

Is still on the line.

When I’m lookin’ down them cables,

That connect me to you.

My heart’s soarin’ high like clouds

Across them skies of blue.

The sun is on my back now,

And the dust is in my eyes,

Still I hear your voice singing,

As I cut through the wires.

or …

The wind is getting high now,

And I can’t do no more,

And soon I’ll beat that road

That takes me back to Wichita.

The sun will soon be settin’,

But the mainroad’s straight and true,

Like the heart that always leads me

Right back to you.

(Wichita Lineman has been described as ‘the first existential country song’. In 2004 it was voted No.192 on Rolling Stone’s list of the ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’.)

I was recently commissioned by the National CV Group to write the history of Tadley in an innovative form – that of a ‘c.v.’, as if Tadley were a person. To all appearances, the north Hampshire town is singularly unprepossessing, yet it has a unique character and an astonishingly rich history.

Tadley folk were long regarded as wild, untamed woodlanders. Before World War II, outsiders ventured there with trepidation. If one courted a local girl, one ran the risk of being cast into the legendary ‘treacle mine’ (probably a patch of dark and sticky mud in the adjacent forest). Youngsters out bicycling feared confrontations with the ‘wild lads’ of the village, ‘who seemed as foreign as Red Indians or Hottentots’. The main Basingstoke to Aldermaston road, which ran through Tadley, was much narrower and little frequented in former times. It was out of bounds altogether while ferocious ‘shin-bashing’ contests were taking place, a Saturday-night fixture outside the ‘Fighting Cocks’ until the mid-1800s. Earlier travellers risked encounters with footpads or smugglers.

Since time immemorial the people of Tadley have been sustained by a variety of woodland activities – white-hoop making, hurdle-making, charcoal-burning and, above all, besom broom-making – and by the provision of seasonal labour, especially for the annual coppicing of the surrounding forests and (until the 1960s) for the annual hop-picking in September, during which almost the entire population, in a heightened state of excitement, would migrate south to the Alton area, leaving Tadley a virtual ‘ghost town’.

Many Tadley families have been settled there for generations and in some cases are of well-attested gypsy origin. The ‘Tads’ have been neatly characterised as ‘independent folk, forthright, with a dry sense of humour, a little jealous of their heritage and as united as any Scottish clan’. They have, however, been remarkably tolerant of the Atomic Weapons Establishment and its thousands of employees who have been planted on their doorstep, turning them to their considerable profit and advantage.

The novelty of writing the history of a place in the form of a ‘c.v.’ is that one can describe the current situation and then trace it back to its origins, with often surprising results. For example, it turns out that the mighty Sainsbury’s supermarket that dominates Tadley (pictured above) is the direct successor to Albert Blake’s ‘General Stores’, run a hundred years ago from the front parlour of his house on the same site.

It is interesting to compare the current opportunities for ‘leisure and entertainment’ with those of a century ago. Whilst the adults enjoyed shin-kicking and games of darts in the pub, the favourite diversion of the young was to watch the butcher at work (they thrilled to see him poleaxe a bullock!). The annual killing of the family pig in the darkness by the light of a bonfire was another entertaining spectacle.

Opportunities to receive an education had been almost non-existent before the founding, in 1850, of the Priory School. Earlier generations were illiterate shack-dwellers who eked out a most precarious living. It was beyond their means to buy coal, but wood, at least, was plentiful. Nor, in the early 19^th-century, could they afford tea: they brewed up burnt bread instead.

Everything changed in 1944 when the American army was encamped there. The site of the camp was developed after the war into a housing estate for employees of the AWRE. It incorporates the original military lines and East Street was re-named Franklin Avenue for the wartime American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some of the original Nissen huts (albeit re-located) survive here and in other parts of the town, still performing useful roles. We feel that all Tadley residents should be made aware of, and take pride in, such a rich heritage.

Tadley’s CV, ‘the world’s first local CV’, can be downloaded from http://www.thenationalcv.org.uk/, and soon also from http://www.tadshistory.com/, together with the accompanying ‘CVpedia’. The following may whet the appetite.

Tadley Headlines            

-          Supplier, since 2004, of the witches’ brooms used in the Harry Potter movies; they were hand-made by A. Nash of 46 Mulford’s Hill, the last surviving firm of ‘broom squires’ (besom broom-makers) in Tadley; the late Arthur Nash had also supplied brooms to the royal palaces, receiving a Royal Warrant in 1999

-          Retains some of the finest heathland in Europe, amid rich forests – notably the historic, 478-acre Pamber Forest of the Benyon family, currently managed by the Hampshire Wildlife Trust

-          Services, and accommodates workers for, the Atomic Weapons Establishment, or ‘Bomb Factory’, on the former Aldermaston Airfield

-          Has consistently (since 1958) been beset by anti-nuclear demonstrations, notably the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s ‘Ban the Bomb’ marches 1958-64, which assembled on Tadley turf

-          Included within its boundaries the famous, and once very prominent ‘Hangar 5’ of Aldermaston Airfield, one of two sites used by Vickers Supermarine for the final assembly of the legendary Spitfire fighter planes, 1943-5

-          Housed wartime American soldiers in a vast encampment adjoining Aldermaston Airfield, from which airborne troops were conveyed in Sept 1944 to Holland as participants in Operation Market Garden (famously venturing to capture ‘a bridge too far’)

-          Witnessed the launch of the initial wave of the ‘D-Day’ invasion from the same airfield on 6 June 1944, after which an eerie calm descended over the village

-          Made two further contributions to the development of aviation, for it was around here that Henry Coxwell landed his hydrogen-filled balloon in 1853, a terrified local informing him that he was in ‘Tadley, God help us!’; also provided an early casualty to flight, William Brereton Evans, a famous cricketeer and resident of Fairlawn House, being the luckless passenger in Samuel Franklin Cody’s ‘Floatplane’, which crashed on its test flight at Farnborough in 1913

-          Sacrificed the lives of thirty of its sons in the Great War, their names being remembered on the Tadley War Memorial on the Green; a heavy toll in a small community (World War II accounted for a further seven)

-          Provided the dependable labour force that excavated the buried Roman city of Calleva Atrebatum (in the adjoining parish of Silchester) for the Society of Antiquaries, 1890 – 1909

-          Made a small but significant contribution to the economy in the 19^th century, supplying many thousands of besom brooms to the iron foundries of the North (they were perfect for removing the scale from hot metal)

-          Also supported, until the mid-19^th century, a thriving white hoop-making industry – the circular bands that held the wooden staves of wash-tubs and casks together. The casks of brandy lugged about by 18^th-century smugglers, even the barrels of gunpowder planted under Parliament by Guy Fawkes, may well have been bound by Tadley hoops

-          Maintains a tradition of brass bands that is probably unequalled outside the North of England, the Tadley Silver Band (founded in 1875) formerly ranking in the Premier Grade at the National Brass Band Contest

-          Produced an Olympic (1980, 1984) and Commonwealth (1978-86) medallist in the person of the sprinter, Kathryn ‘Kathy’ Smallwood-Cook, MBE (born 1960), who attended Burnham Copse Primary School

On 24 September 1944, the 33-year-old Brigadier John Hackett, commanding the 4^th Parachute Brigade, was severely wounded by a shell splinter at Arnhem. He was taken to a German-controlled hospital, where a brilliant British Army surgeon performed a life-saving operation. Two weeks later, when his removal to a P.O.W. camp seemed imminent, Hackett was spirited away by members of the Dutch Resistance.

Hackett recuperated for four months in the house of the van Nooij family at nearby Ede. The household consisted of three unmarried sisters and their niece and nephew, an active résistant. A typical, closely-knit Dutch family, ‘unassuming, prosperous and provident’, they had never harboured a British escaper before, but, to Hackett’s surprise, greeted him ‘as though we were all old friends’. As he soon discovered, they were all remarkable in various ways.

The tall, fair John was cool and courageous; Mary, his sister, never spoke a word ‘that was not good tempered and kind’. The eldest of their aunts, Miss Mien, was witty and wise; the imposing Miss Cor was clever and highly-strung; whilst Miss Ann, who spoke perfect English and exuded moral authority, was ‘one of the sweetest-natured and most charitable people I have ever known but at the same time a woman of great determination. Like nearly all others in that family she was a devout Christian.’

Confined to an upstairs bedroom, Hackett – who had read ‘Greats’ at Oxford and written a thesis on Saladin while serving in Palestine – spent his days reading Paradise Lost and St Matthew’s Gospel in Greek. He was told that the Germans were ‘everywhere’, and one day was casually informed, as if it were ‘something of no very great significance’, that a detachment of Feldgendarmerie was billeted not thirty yards away. ‘Cautious habits,’ he wrote, ‘became second nature’.

With food and clothing in desperately short supply, the electricity cut off and temperatures that winter dropping to minus fourteen, Hackett was taken aback by the ‘feeling of goodwill and kindness’ that was ‘always present in that house’. He would usually descend for meals, when grace would be said and a passage read from the Bible, as it would be again before bed. Hackett wrote of his birthday – marked by special renditions of ‘Abide With Me’ and the National Anthem, including all the later verses – that the ‘air was full of kindness, goodwill and hope. When they left me I wept unashamedly. It was no longer possible to regard [them] as any but my own family.’

The task of hiding, protecting and nursing a wounded British officer – and ultimately of arranging his escape – was an exacting one indeed. ‘The penalties for harbouring allied fugitives … could scarcely have been more severe. Carelessness or ill-luck, a simple mishap, might at any time destroy them. This would be their reward for taking in a stranger. Yet they went about their daily lives calmly and cheerfully and never showed to me, the cause of the mortal danger in which they stood, anything but solicitude and kindness. There was no trace of fretfulness. If any of them longed for their guest to be gone, and the threat removed which was embodied in his presence, they gave no hint of it. There was no appearance of anxiety in that household, no sign of fear, no tension. The atmosphere was one of confidence and trust and sometimes there was even gentle mirth. My admiration for these people touched on awe.’

Hackett was astonished by the bravery of the women. When German soldiers hammered on the door, intent on searching the house for clothing and blankets, Aunt Cor, with exquisite timing, feigned an attack of hysterics. Hackett cautiously looked out of the window and saw the Germans ‘almost slinking away from the door. A cloud of defeat brooded over their heads’. On another occasion, Aunt Ann, accompanied by Hackett on an evening walk, pushed her way through a crowd of German soldiers in order to post some incriminating letters. Hackett could scarcely believe his eyes; yet, as they walked away, ‘Ann de Nooij’s demeanour was as untroubled as if she had done no more than a little household shopping’.

The future General Sir John Hackett’s eventual escape to the coast (on an ancient bicycle) is thrillingly described in his remarkable, compelling narrative of these events. First published in 1976, this incredibly moving, unforgettable book is perplexingly out of print, but second-hand copies are easily obtainable. Its title, I Was a Stranger, is taken from Matthew, 25, vv.35-40, one of the most profound and impressive statements of Christian conduct: ‘I was an hungred and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me … Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’ Hackett was himself a man of deep faith, from a devout family; his recent forebears, pioneering settlers of South Western Australia, had built the church at Busselton – where his parents were married and he himself was baptised – with their own hands.

He parted from his dear friends at Ede with reluctance, a changed man. ‘I was leaving behind me a rare and beautiful thing. It was a structure of kindness and courage, of steadfast devotion and quiet selflessness, which it was a high privilege to have known. I had been witness to an act of faith, simple, unobtrusive and imperishable. I had often seen bravery in battle. I now also knew the unconquerable strength of the gentle.’

A detailed account of ‘Shan’ Hackett’s ancestry – in Jamaica, England and Australia – is included in Chapter IV of my recent book, Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture. He was himself descended from a long line of redoubtable women, among them a grandmother, Grace Bussell, who is famed as the ‘Grace Darling of Western Australia’.

I am grateful for the link to this post on the excellent http://www.britsattheirbest.com/

According to my fellow blogger, the historical novelist Catherine Delors, eighteenth-century Parisians liked to bathe naked in the Seine, notwithstanding the ‘horrendous pollution’ of the river. Apparently this popular summer pastime was banned after the Revolution, for both men and women. So much for ‘liberté’!

Parisian swimmers reluctantly took to wearing costumes. Catherine reproduces a fascinating print (above) of c.1810-15, from a series called Caricatures parisiennes, in which those of the men are exactly like modern bathing shorts. The women appear to be covered to the knee, apart from their arms, and are wearing caps. For both sexes there is a relatively high exposure of naked flesh, but the prudes of the later nineteenth century would see to that!

Likewise in Britain, the few men and women who had the leisure and inclination to bathe had traditionally done so in the nude, but this was increasingly frowned on. Men and women were still swimming naked together off Weston-super-Mare in the early 1870s, much to the delight of the diarist Francis Kilvert. However, the sexes were increasingly being segregated under local by-laws, as at Shanklin, which Kilvert visited two years later. At such stuffy resorts, nudity was strictly forbidden.

Followers of Catherine’s blog have wondered what Byron would have worn for his epic crossing of the Hellespont that took place at exactly the time of the print (3 May 1810). The poet Shelley, who was a non-swimmer but loved to immerse himself in homage to classical models, always did so naked, ‘just as if he were Adam in Paradise before his fall’. Surprisingly, his future wife, Mary Godwin, strongly disapproved. When, on their way through France, Shelley insisted on stopping to bathe in a stream, she firmly declined to join him, declaring that it would be ‘most indecent’. In Italy, where men, women and children all bathed happily together in the nude, Mary, again, steadfastly refused to take part. To do so, she said, would be ‘improper’. Mary may thus have represented changing attitudes, the trend towards Victorian prudery, notwithstanding that she had been unashamed to elope, at seventeen, with a married man. It is equally possible that she suffered from acute self-consciousness in respect of her own body – unlike her step-sister, Claire Clairmont, whose willingness to bathe naked can only have made her more interesting to the poet.

As for the club-footed Byron, neither his post-swim letter to Henry Drury nor his lines Written After Swimming From Sestos to Abydos includes any reference to his attire. However, Charles Sprawson states in Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero (London, 1992), pp.103-4, that Byron ‘always wore trousers to conceal his disfigurement. Only in swimming could he experience complete freedom of movement.’ I do not know on what evidence he bases this assertion, nor whether the poet’s companion, Lieutenant Ekenhead, discarded his drawers for the occasion.

It would be even more interesting to know whether Jane Austen wore anything when bathing off Lyme in 1804: as she writes to her sister, Cassandra, on 14 September – surprisingly late in the year for sea-bathing – ‘The Batheing was so delightful this morning & Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself that I believe I staid in rather too long …’ (The Letters of Jane Austen, ed. Deirdre Le Faye (Oxford, 1996), p.95).

Read Catherine Delors’s article at http://blog.catherinedelors.com/swimsuits-in-1810-paris/

Grateful acknowledgement is made to Susan Holloway Scott who examines the print at http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2010/08/men-women-swimming-togetherin-1810.html

I am greatly looking forward next month to addressing the Kingsclere Village Club, for the second time (Thursday 15 December, 7.30). My talk will be entitled ‘Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture’. There is a synopsis on my ‘Lectures’ page.

There are interesting historical links between the two towns. The rectory of Kingsclere was once held by Walter de Merton. Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of England in the 1260s. Walter was a native of Basingstoke, born on the property later known as ‘Merton Farm’. The site of the farm has been buried since the 1960s under the vast concrete ‘superstructure’ that blights the town. Specifically, ‘The Malls’, one of Britain’s least popular retail centres, looms above it. Merton Farmhouse was precisely situated beneath that unlovely feature, the ‘Great Wall of Basingstoke’, an ugly staircase (pictured above) marking the exact spot.

It is regrettable – to say the least – that Walter should be barely remembered in his home town. His great foundation, Merton College, Oxford (pictured left), was the first self-supporting and self-governing university college in England, the model for all that have followed.

As for Kingsclere, Walter was a pluralist and probably had little to do with it, but others of his family were to forge a strong link. Walter’s maternal aunt, Margaret FitzOliver, married William Chasteyne de Kingsmill – the royal mill in Basingstoke, which had been granted to the family by King John. The ‘Chasteynes’ or Castons were well-known in Basingstoke until the 19^th century. Their memory is preserved in Caston’s Yard. They also had an early connection with Kingsclere, owning, until 1322, a hall house next to the church. It was the forerunner of the present Falcon House, which, itself bent with age, is now one of Kingsclere’s most historic buildings.

Furthermore, the descendants of William and Margaret Chasteyne de Kingsmill include the Kingsmills of Sydmonton, whose grand tombs (left) are in Kingsclere Church. These Kingsmills were rich merchants. As well as rebuilding Sydmonton Court in the reign of Elizabeth (for the future enjoyment of Lord Lloyd-Webber), they retained an impressive town-house in Winchester Street, Basingstoke. It was fit to receive Katharine of Aragon in 1501, on her way up to London for her first wedding. Sold out of the family after the Civil War, the Winchester Street house may have been converted (by 1671) into an inn, the ‘Maidenhead’.

I have a theory that this historic building still exists, albeit heavily disguised under later accretions. If my identification is correct, it today houses a betting agency, a charity shop and a laundry: for further details, refer to my ‘News’ page. Its survival would more than compensate for the loss of Merton Farm.

I shan’t mind at all if members of my Kingsclere audience want to invest in my latest book, Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture, on which the talk is based. It is designed to be the perfect stocking-filler, so I shall bring some copies just in case. For details, please refer to my ‘Books’ page.

Further to my last blog, the Nea Mone, Chios, was not quite deserted when I visited it on Thursday 10 October 1991, as I was reminded on re-reading my diary of the journey.

The previous day I had lunched with elegant Greek friends in Athens, before embarking at Piraeus on the Sappho, bound for Chios at 7 o’clock. I describe the ‘hellish atmosphere’ on board, ‘my class in one communal room with bar & food, television. Shortage of seats, which were cramped & uncomfortable. Many Turks, gipsies (one dirty boy begged from me) and soldiery. Slept badly …’

All was well on my arrival at Chios town. It had a ‘very Turkish atmosphere. Shacks built on top of the ramparts. Giustiniani Museum with a few Byzantine relics.’ On Thursday afternoon, the redoubtable Pandeles Spanos (‘the beardless’) drove me ‘up mountain to Nea Mone – sick-making hair-pin bends, a long drive to a very remote place …’ Pandeles thought we should delay our arrival till 3.45, as the monastery would surely be closed ‘for a long lunch’. He proved to be an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide. ‘A kindly old monk supervised in the church – an illiterate.’ Pandeles ‘explained that I was a writer of Byzantine history, about which he was unfortunately ignorant. Later another, younger monk appeared, & an elderly nun, who gave me Turkish Delight & a cup of water. She had seemed charmed when I doffed my hat to her & also when I said the sweet was “nostimo” – delicious.’

We ‘went on to Anavatos, a desolate, haunted place, inhospitable enough even when inhabited’.

It is strange that my strongest memory of this day should be of seeing the Emperor Monomachos’s prayer book, and that, of all details, I should have omitted to mention this in my diary.

The Byzantines frowned on second marriages. They were permissible only when the first marriage had been childless. Third marriages were contrary to both ecclesiastical and Roman law, and to marry a fourth time was, according to the Patriarch Nicholas I Mystikos, ‘a bestial act only worthy of lower animals’ (Judith Herrin, Byzantium (London, 2007), p.187).

In the imperial family itself, notable transgressors were the Emperor Leo VI (four times married) and his great-great-granddaughter, the Empress Zoe Porphyrogennete (three times married). Although Zoe and her younger sister, Theodora, were the sole heiresses to the Macedonian dynasty, they were considered, as women, to be unfit to rule alone. It was therefore incumbent on Zoe to marry – and marry again. She otherwise risked being deposed.

Zoe’s third husband was the Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, himself the survivor of two previous marriages. When her second husband, Michael IV, died in 1041, Zoe considered, and rejected, two other possible candidates. Although she had not set eyes on Constantine for seven years, he had been her great favourite in the past, so much so that a jealous Michael had had him banished (on fabricated charges of treason) to the island of Mytilene (Lesbos), where he had languished ever since.

Constantine was handsome, effortlessly charming and genuinely likeable. In his youth he had been a champion pentathlete. He was the last heir to a prominent ‘civilian’ family (most of whose known members had pursued judicial careers) and both his previous marriages had been illustrious. On the first occasion, he had become ‘son-in-law to the outstanding member of court society’ (regrettably unnamed by the chronicler, Psellos). Then, as a childless widower, he had been permitted to re-marry (in or before 1025), to the only child of the magistros Basil Skleros. The bride’s mother, Pulcheria Argyropoulaina, was sister to Romanos Argyropoulos, who had subsequently become Zoe’s first husband and emperor as Romanos III. It had been Romanos’s particular wish that Constantine should be ‘grafted to the rich fertile olive’ of his family, though he had a low opinion of his nephew-in-law’s abilities, and had never trusted him to do any serious work (Psellos, Chronographia, VI, 15-21, trans. Sewter, pp.162-5; J.-C. Cheynet, Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (Paris, 1996), pp.192-3, 269).

At the time of his banishment in 1035, Constantine had recently been widowed for the second time. There was no hope of his remarrying. He had, however, fallen madly in love with his late wife’s niece, Maria Skleraina, a young widow herself, who had been taken into their household. The normally discreet Maria had been inveigled into a ‘highly improper association’ and had elected to share Constantine’s exile on Mytilene (which was considered a cruel fate indeed for a Constantinopolitan). On their way out, some monks of the neighbouring island of Chios had prophesied Constantine’s eventual return to the capital, not in disgrace but as emperor (Cheynet, pp.46, 56-70). It had given Maria hope that they would one day be able to marry. For an emperor, surely anything was possible.

Constantine was recalled in the spring of 1042 and returned to Constantinople in triumph. His wedding to Zoe took place on 11 June. The Patriarch, Alexios, made what are tactfully called ‘concessions to expediency – or shall we say that he bowed to the will of God in the whole affair?’ Constantine was about 42 years old. Zoe, at 69, was old enough to be his mother. There seems, at first, to have been a physical element to the marriage, but she soon tired of that, preferring to pursue the real passion of her later years, which was the running of her own private perfume factory in the Palace.

Maria, waiting anxiously on Mytilene, was sent word that an indulgent Zoe had consented to her return (Psellos, VI, 54, p.182). Constantine set her up in a small house near the Palace. If multiple marriages were frowned upon, it was yet more shocking to keep a mistress. Romanos III is said, by doing so, to have shown ‘little respect for the accepted standards of morality’ (Psellos, III, 17, p.75). Affronts to the dignity of the purple-born Zoe and Theodora were also liable to enrage the populace, who referred to them as ‘our mums’.

Deeply ashamed of himself and terrified of a scandal, Constantine took pains to conceal his affair. He commissioned extensions to Maria’s house and, on the pretext of overseeing the work, was able to pay her regular visits. Whilst the members of his entourage were distracted by banquets in the garden, he would disappear inside. They knew exactly what was going on, but became used to their regular feasts and seemed happy for them to continue. The Emperor, encouraged and emboldened, ceased after a while to make any secret of the affair.

It remained for him to come to some sort of arrangement with Zoe, who proved remarkably compliant. The Empress not only agreed to have Maria move into the Palace itself, but was also willing to sign a ‘treaty of friendship’ between the three of them. The entire Senate was summoned to witness the contract. They were astonished that Zoe, far from being humiliated and distressed, actually seemed to be quite pleased with the arrangement, by which Maria was even to be addressed officially by a specially created imperial title, that of sebaste. (On Maria’s title, see Nicolas Oikonomides, ‘St George of Mangana, Maria Skleraina, and the “Malyj Sion” of Novgorod’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 34/4 (1980-1), pp.239-46.)

According to Psellos, young Maria was not a remarkable beauty, but had a wonderfully charming and unaffected manner. It was a delight to hear her speak. She was also a good listener, and acutely sensitive to the feelings of those around her. Psellos, then an imperial secretary of similar age, found it impossible not to like her (Psellos, VI, 58-65, pp.183-7).

A large crowd gathered to watch Maria on her first public outing, when she processed with the other members of the imperial family to the Theatre. As she was passing, Maria saw a bystander turn to his companion and, in a stage whisper, mutter two well known words from Homer – ‘ου ηεμεσις …’ A cultured Byzantine quoted Homer as readily as a cultured Englishman quotes Shakespeare. He would also have been educated, and – at least in formal circumstances – would probably have conversed in classical Greek (the equivalent of a modern Englishman speaking the language of Chaucer). Anyone with an education would thus have recognised the quotation and understood its significance. It is the passage where Priam’s counsellors, rationalising the sufferings of the Greeks and Trojans for the sake of Helen, say that men have understandably been driven to it by her unearthly beauty.

When the formal ceremony was over, Maria approached the man and, imitating his tone exactly, recited the quotation in full:

ου νεμεσις Τρωας και ευκνημιδας Αχαιους

τοιήδ’ αμφι γυναικι πολυν χρονον αλγεα πασχειν.

αινως αθανατησι θεης εις ωπα εοικεν.

‘Small blame that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should for such a woman long time suffer woes; wondrously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon’ (Iliad, III, ll.156-8, trans. A. Murray, Loeb edition, I, p.129. I have, perforce, omitted the iota subscripts, breathing marks and other diacritics, too great a challenge for my computer).

It was a graceful compliment indeed, for which the flatterer was richly rewarded.

Maria Skleraina died before the age of thirty, suddenly, of a bronchial disease – for she was severely asthmatic – in 1044 or 5. Constantine was heart-broken. He had her buried in a sumptuous tomb at the monastery of St George-in-Mangana, under what is now the Topkapi Palace, which he had founded and granted to her – a further impropriety – so that its revenues would assure her of financial independence. Psellos was commissioned to deliver the oration (in iambic verse), in which he referred again to the charms of her conversation: he says that she was ‘truly an Orpheus and a Siren in words, sending unto all her beautiful song’ (Panagiotis A. Agapilos, ‘Public and Private Death in Psellos: Maria Skleraina and Styliana Psellaina’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 101ii (2008), pp.555-607). Apparently he was sincere.

The reign of Constantine IX Monomachos was an unmitigated disaster for the Empire. He neglected the affairs of state, concentrating instead on worldly pleasures. It amused him to construct a beautiful park and to place in the middle of it a deep pond, the sides of which were level with the surrounding lawn. He would watch as unsuspecting visitors, strolling through the park, suddenly found themselves up to their necks in water. At least the water was warm, and Constantine himself liked to bathe in it several times a day, even, apparently, in winter. It is most unusual to hear of a recreational swimmer in the Middle Ages. One day he caught a chill while emerging from the pool and it was the death of him. He was buried in January 1055, not with Zoe, who had pre-deceased him, but beside his beloved Maria at St George-in-Mangana. Perhaps they had enjoyed swimming together, all those years ago, off the Lesbian shore.

It is stated in the Russian Primary Chronicle that Vsevelod I, Grand Prince of Kiev, was married by 1053 to ‘a Greek princess’. Their eldest child, born in that year, was the future Vladimir I, surnamed ‘Monomakh’, who is assumed, therefore, to have been a relative, if not the grandson, of Constantine IX. A further suggestion is that the mother of the unfortunate ‘princess’ was Maria Skleraina. The evidence in the matter is inconclusive, but the bride sent to Russia appears also to have been called Maria (for the seal has been discovered there of the ‘all-high-born Maria Monomacha’), and Byzantine children were never named after their parents. In any case, Psellos would surely have mentioned it if there had been a child. Moreover, although he describes Constantine as the last of his line, the Emperor certainly had a first cousin, Theodosios Monomachos, who survived him and indeed aspired to the throne after his death (Cheynet, p.67); Vsevelod’s bride could have been the sister, daughter or niece of this Theodosios. (For an assessment of all the evidence, see Rupert Willoughby, ‘The Golden Line’, Genealogists’ Magazine, XXIII (March and June 1991), pp.321-7, 369-72.)

Constantine has at least left us his mosaic portrait (above), in the last bay of the south gallery of Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral church of Constantinople. Zoe was already depicted there, she and her previous husband, Michael, presenting gifts to the figure of Christ. On marrying Constantine she had all three heads renewed, ensuring that her own showed her in the most youthful, flattering light. Constantine’s interpolated head seems more realistic, with his handsome features and the fresh, ruddy complexion to which Psellos refers.

Constantine in gratitude to the Chian monks also founded the Nea Mone (‘New Monastery’) on the island (pictured left). It is now deserted, but I remember on a visit in October 1991 seeing a small psalter or prayer-book that is supposed to have belonged to him. Moreover, there are through Vladimir Monomakh – whose many descendants include Edward II’s queen Isabella of France – countless people in the West who can, with some confidence, claim Constantine IX Monomachos as a kinsman – if not as a direct ancestor.

The famous ‘Desert Boot’ was invented by Nathan Clark, who died on 23 June 2011. According to the obituaries, he was inspired by the rough suede boots, knocked up in the Cairo bazaar, that had been sported by officers of the Eighth Army during the war.

His design was not immediately appreciated by the stuffy directors of his family firm, James Clark and Sons. They ‘felt that there was something louche about suede as footwear. It was for bohemian and essentially unreliable characters.’

What, then, was one to make of Myles Raven, the legendary Latin and Maths master at Tormore School (my alma mater in Kent), and terror of generations of small boys? Raven, known as ‘Bird’, was reputed to possess forty pairs of suede boots. They lined the skirting board of his bed-sitting-room at the Old House, like soldiers on parade.

It was the horror of having Raven permanently on hand, as much as the lack of plumbing, that made the Old House the most unpopular boarding house at Tormore. As Bird lurched from his room of a morning, to shave from a bowl of boiling water on the landing, one saw far more of his flabby, six-foot-three-inch frame than was palatable. He was quite naked, apart from a white towel that hung precariously from his waist.

If I stole a glance past Raven in the direction of his fetid room, where the curtains seemed to be permanently drawn, it was only to verify the tales I had heard of his suede shoes – he certainly never wore anything else. Raven was dangerously unpredictable. He was prone to terrible, uncontrollable rages, in which his florid face would metamorphose into a livid purple. These were frequently triggered by the failure of individual pupils or an entire form to understand a particular lesson (such as ‘ut’ plus the subjunctive).

As they lined up at his desk to have him mark their work, boy after boy would offer proof of his incomprehension. Bird was like a simmering volcano. Suddenly, he would erupt, scoring his red Bic biro deep into the exercise book of the nearest boy. Others would have their books cast unceremoniously through the open French doors into the garden of the Court House, where they would invariably land in a muddy flower bed or a puddle.

Mercifully, the bell would eventually sound to mark the end of the lesson (potentially a long wait, if it was a ‘double’). Ashen faced, the released boys would alert the incoming form as to what was in store. ‘Birdie’s in a bait,’ they would mutter as they scurried away, leaving the trembling new arrivals to their doom.

A further ordeal was to be placed on Bird’s table at mealtimes. There were about a dozen tables in the school dining room and a further three in the adjacent library, where Bird presided. Each dining set, made up of boys of all ages, would progress weekly between tables, in an anti-clockwise direction. All of us dreaded the three weeks when we would be in the same room as Bird, and particularly the whole week that we would have to spend on his table.

It was particularly distressing to see him devour a substantial cooked breakfast on a daily basis, while we were permanently on short rations. (We were told, unconvincingly, that it was something to do with his diabetes.) He was also prone to revolting coughing fits and, when in one of his moods, was far from pleasant company.

It struck no one as odd that Bird should habitually chain-smoke during his lessons. He was a workmanlike teacher, who believed in learning by rote. Latin tenses and declensions were drummed into us (‘dominus, domine, dominum, domini, domino, domino’; ‘bellum, bellum, bellum, belli, bello, bello’ etc.). I doubt that he found his work rewarding. The hour devoted to ‘prep’ on winter evenings was an unpleasant enough experience, as the form-rooms were unheated. Under Bird’s supervision, it could be considerably worse. Heedless of our discomfort, he would sit outside the 4^th Form in his green Sunbeam Rapier, turn the engine on and warm himself by the car’s heater, whilst leaving the door of the form-room wide open so that he could keep an eye on us.

My brother tells another story which illustrates Bird’s remarkable lack of consideration for his charges. The First XI, with my brother as scorer, were conveyed to a fixture at Milner Court in the masters’ cars. It was a pleasant summer’s day and, on the way back, with numerous sweaty boys crammed into the Sunbeam, Bird spotted a stall selling fresh strawberries in a lay-by (my brother passed the spot recently and recognised it at once – it is between Howe Barracks and Littlebourne). Bird hauled himself out of the car, bought two punnets, and proceeded to consume the entire contents in front of the ravenous boys.

Bird’s antics have made more sense to me since I read Michael Barber’s book The Captain, a frank and entertaining biography of his elder brother, the writer Simon Raven. An extravagant, amoral hedonist, sacked from Charterhouse and the army (he had served in Kenya as a Captain in the King’s Own Shropshire Light Infantry), a distracted Simon had been exiled to Deal by his publisher (‘Leave London, or leave my employ’). In my day, he lived in a tiny clapboard cottage across the road from the ‘Admiral Keppel’, which was conveniently positioned only a few doors down from the Old House.

The Raven brothers were both avowed homosexuals, yet Myles had once been engaged – to one of the under-matrons – and Simon had been briefly married. According to Barber, an anguished telegram from his abandoned wife – ‘WIFE AND BABY STARVING SEND MONEY SOONEST’ – had prompted a characteristic reply – ‘SORRY NO MONEY SUGGEST EAT BABY’. His reputation at Tormore was as the author of ‘dirty books’, which some boys’ fathers had read. Shortly after leaving Tormore I read one myself and it was, indeed, utterly filthy. (A typical line of dialogue, from a colonel addressing his mess: ‘I’ve f*****d women from every continent and most animals, but I’ve never had a woman like that!’) I remember the boys of my house, ‘Tanks’, being taken on a school treat to the cinema at Deal, to see On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Michael Webb briefed us beforehand that all the wittiest lines in the film had been written by Simon, whose name duly flashed up on the screen. Simon also scripted The Pallisers and Edward and Mrs Simpson for television, but it was only after the publication of The Roses of Picardie in 1980 that I became aware of his literary eminence.

The occasional sighting of the caddish Simon caused a certain frisson – usually striding past the school, clad like his brother in a tweed jacket and desert boots, with the same snub nose, prominent eyebrows and florid complexion and the furtive look of a mischievous faun. I have no recollection of ever seeing him on school premises, and wonder if he had been banned (as he was from the Royal St George’s Golf Club). However, my brother assures me that he came into the school regularly to watch our cricket matches, and at one time he wrote witty reviews of them for The School Record.

Simon used to hold court at the ‘Admiral Keppel’, where most of the masters seemed to spend their evenings. Worldy, erudite and amusing, he was, I believe, a strong and, in many ways, beneficial influence on the younger staff, men like Michael Webb and Michael Strevens. I suspect they picked up many of their odder expressions and ideas from him, including – I rather fear – their habit of referring to us boys by rather surprising terms of endearment, including ‘dear heart’ and ‘duckie’.

According to Strevens – the dashing, aloof ‘Strev’ – Myles would consume four or five pints between nine o’clock and closing time and then would stagger home with a further four pints in a jug. He is said to have suffered from appalling flatulence and smelly feet, and also, occasionally, to have wet his bed, but was immune to any form of hangover. He also never wore underpants, a legacy of his own, very peculiar prep school, where they were banned. I have a feeling that we were aware of this surprising detail at the time, but shudder to think how we can have known it. One instinctively shunned him as one would an electric eel. However, I never heard of him touching any boy. Strevens told Barber that Bird had once made a botched attempt at doing so. It had been a humiliating experience and was never repeated.

Myles Raven, described by a school contemporary as ‘the idlest Scholar elected to Charterhouse in living recollection’, must have been frustrated in many ways, but schoolmastering made few demands on him and gave him limitless opportunites to indulge his obsession with cricket, not to mention his illicit fantasies about little boys. I have a vivid memory of his enquiring of us, in a Latin lesson, what part of speech ‘Eheu’ was. No one knew. ‘It’s an ejaculation!’ he said, with relish. He seemed distinctly out of place on his rare trips to London – ‘a big lump who smelt strongly of pubs’, according to one of Simon’s smarter friends. He fell down dead in 1976, at the age of 46.

Read further memories of Tormore: http://www.rupertwilloughby.co.uk/archives/673