Literary Society Meeting: 18 October 2019 by Bill Doherty

Oscar Wilde  and the Black Douglas  18/10/19

Lord Gawain Douglas

Counter-intuitively, in view of his most recent appearance at the Lit. Soc. – characterised by an impassioned  recital of a series of poems from memory – Lord Gawain Douglas introduced this talk with a medieval Northumbrian lullaby assuring a young child that they need not fret as Gawain’s ancestor, the original Black Douglas, would not get him. This boon companion of Robert Bruce and hero of Scotland’s 14^th century Wars of Independence acquired the sombre epithet either from a sallow complexion or the belief that even in that notoriously violent age, Sir James Douglas was particularly bad for your health. Our speaker is a scion of a line of the Douglas clan which assumed centre stage in the history of

mid-17^th century Scotland and acquired the title Marquess of Queensbury. Some might argue that  lineal descendants the 9^th Marquess, of Rules of Boxing fame and Gawain’s great-grandfather, and his son, Lord Alfred Douglas ( Gawain’s great-uncle), might have represented a revived Black Douglas menace. Both were  active principals in the 1895 libel trial featuring Oscar Wilde which scandalised respectable late-Victorian England.   

We received a brisk background summary of the case explaining that a  handsome recent Oxford undergraduate with literary aspirations, Lord Alfred Douglas,  was introduced to the prominent man of letters, Wilde, in 1891. Although Oscar was 20 years older and married, the pair plunged into an illegal, homosexual love affair which came under very public scrutiny when Alfred’s father, the 9^th Marquess of Queensbury, goaded Wilde into opening libel proceedings, with public accusations of sodomy. Although Wilde abandoned the case mid-trial, evidence had emerged of his consorting with male prostitutes and he was subsequently charged with, tried for and convicted of gross indecency which resulted in a sentence of 2 years imprisonment with hard labour. After brief interludes in Pentonville and Wandsworth, he served the last 18 months of his sentence in Reading prison.  

In the contemporary spirit of reputation management, our speaker sketched out his mission to rescue his great-uncle from the opprobrium incurred after the trial where some felt he had ruined Oscar and to advance Lord Alfred or “Bosie’s” claims to greater appreciation of his poetry. He currently languishes at 275^th in all poetry.com’s “500 Greatest Poets”. These goals are broadly in line with those of Douglas Murray’s biography, “Bosie”, published in 2000. 

We learnt that although Bosie never visited the prisoner, he remained loyal to Wilde and even petitioned Queen Victoria on his behalf. Once granted writing materials, Oscar penned a 50,000 word missive to Alfred eventually entitled “De Profundis” after the opening line of Psalm 130, “Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord”. This was to be given to Douglas by the journalist and a  former lover of both Wilde and Douglas, Robbie Ross. For a suggested variety of reasons, Bosie never read this until it surfaced inopportunely in his later career as a serial litigant when he had Arthur Ransome arraigned for libel over Ransome’s book on Wilde. “De Profundis” was described as the greatest character assassination of all time – “Yet each man kills the thing he loves”? Oscar and “Bosie’s” relationship survived these explosive opinions and they spent Wilde’s last 2 years on the Continent together. 

Within a year of Oscar’s death (1900), Alfred had written in his favoured sonnet format “The Dead Poet” which opens with him dreaming of Wilde and ends in bathos – “And so I awoke and knew that he was dead.”   The death of someone close inspired another of his better poems “In Memoriam”, another sonnet “…the tribute of a song …” dedicated to his admired, elder brother, Francis, who died accidentally at a shoot in 1894, albeit with rumours of a homosexual liaison with the then Home Secretary and future Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, hanging over him. Some critics disparagingly class earlier poems in W.S.Gilbert terms as “…greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery…” stuff suffused with the immature synthetic melancholy of autumn leaves and winter sunsets.  

“Bosie’s” life followed an eventful if erratic course after Wilde’s death with conversion to Roman Catholicism, marriage to the bisexual Olive Custance, fatherhood, bankruptcy and lawsuits. The strangest of these came when, apparently influenced by a current of opinion which held that Britain’s Great War effort had been impeded by a coven of Germanophile homosexuals buried within the Deep State, he accused Winston Churchill and “the Jews” of murdering Lord Kitchener and trying to “throw” the Battle of Jutland. Churchill sued for criminal libel and Douglas was sentenced to 6 months in Wormwood Scrubs. There, he wrote the remarkable 17 canto “In Excelsis”, possibly a conscious contrast to Wilde’s prison oeuvre “De Profundis”, This reads more like an “Apologia pro Vita Sua” in which he lauds chastity, denounces Wilde for leading him astray, flays “the Jews” and “ bought” politicians but concludes with the defiant line “I will never bend the Douglas knee to Baal.”   Although latterly informally separated from Olive, the pair quietly lived out their lives as amicable neighbours in Sussex, “Hove, actually”, till their deaths in 1944 (Olive) and 1945 (Alfred).  

The Lit. Soc. audience clearly appreciated another entertaining Gawain Douglas performance complete with trademark verve, vigour and concentration.  He had referred to his mad, bad family during the presentation but none of his questioners asked if he had sought genome testing. Still the family history is fascinating.     

Whatever Happened to Barry Chambers? by Barry Kay (A review by Lawrence Youlten)

I have known the author professionally for over forty years, as a fellow allergy clinician and researcher, and always had the greatest respect for his achievements. Now I've read the story of his early life, my admiration for him is even greater. The book is a sometimes heart-rending account of his initially dysfunctional family life, including being packed off by his mother, when she found that her husband, (Mr Chambers), was a bigamist, to boarding school before the age of five, during the Second World War. The momentum is sustained from the first chapter to the last, and the story is not only well-written but very gripping. It is greatly to Barry's credit that he has achieved such professional distinction and a happy family life after a start that would have broken many people's spirit. Someone should snap up the film rights.

LY

John Davison

John's funeral service took place on 7 October 2019, at Amberley Church, in East Sussex where John had been a churchwarden, and an obviously much-loved member of the local community. Here, with the kind permission of John's cousin, Nick Blackwood, is his tribute:

JOHN DAVISON

John had a kitchen magnet on his fridge which read “A clean kitchen is a sign of a wasted life”. Well it wasn’t a wasted life!

We have been amazed at the number of people from all around the country who have told us what a lovely man he was and how much they are going to miss him. We should not have been surprised – after all he had 9 godchildren!

John, Johnny, JAD (his nickname at Berkhamsted), Tony, Davison, Sir, Uncle Johnny he would answer happily to all. One man, an old Berkhamstedian, knew him only as JAD.

We have had so many letters and emails about him. It seems you only get to understand and fully appreciate a person after they have gone – a tragedy of life. We have all seen parts of him, never the whole. He was never one to talk about himself, though stories emerged over the years.

Brighton College

One letter from someone who knew him at school, his beloved Brighton College, talked of his being bullied and that John, who was senior to him, had come to his aid. Even then he was ‘a man for all seasons’ as someone else described him. We always thought of him as a shy man, but he was far from that in many ways – we found amongst his papers the cast list for a Ben Jonson play put on at Brighton College in 1951, he was Lady Haughty! There are some of Johnny’s friends from Brighton College here today.

He would make us laugh so. My daughters, Jen and Katie, would always insist that he took part in charades every Christmas – he never wanted to, but always played his part. His most memorable charade was Mad Dogs and Englishman which had us all in hysterics as he moved around the room, his long legs and arms moving in all directions, the expressions on his face utterly lunatic. One of the many legends about Johnny the family treasure so.

He loved and admired his own family and many of his clothes and possessions were inherited from them! His behaviours too! His father, Uncle Harold, was a teacher at Brighton College and was said to have had above his door a plaque with the words “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”. By all accounts a disciplinarian but with a sense of humour. Johnny was terribly proud of his father, who had earned an MC and Bar, in WW1, and his last car, the silver Mercedes, he bought because his father had had one.

Oxford

Of course, he was an Oxford man and he remained in contact with Wadham all his life and supported them with an annual gift. And naturally there are some of Johnny’s friends from Oxford here today.

Berkhamsted

We’ve met many Berkhamstedians over the years who had been taught by JAD, and most counted their great good fortune to have been at Berkhamsted in his time. He clearly was inspirational to many, and all remembered their ‘JAD Notebooks’ some of whom have retained them to this day. One old student wrote to him recently and wondered whether the members of the local Poetry Group were being denied the ‘trauma of the JAD notebook interrogation’. He has been described as ‘gracious’, one of the few teachers who have left ‘a profound and lasting mark’, ‘he commanded our respect’, ‘encouraged and exercised positive disciplines’,…… He had the gift of making everyone feel special – one student thanked him for instilling a confidence in him that has stayed with him all his life. Another that he was moved to tears by John’s description of the final battle in Morte d’Arthur.

He was so proud of Berkhamsted and retained an interest in the school long after he retired. So much so that recently he rewrote and brought up-to-date the history of the school. He wrote so beautifully – his thank you notes were masterpieces and usually very witty. We used to ask him from time to time why he never wrote a book, to which the usual response was “I don’t have anything to say”. His belongings are beginning to throw up examples of poems he wrote on scrappy pieces of paper – one is included in this service. If there are enough, we will put them together for others to read.

There must be many stories to tell from his years at Berkhamsted – the one that always made us laugh was of the boy that he threw out of a schoolroom window for repeated offences. The boy’s suit was torn, and he had to replace it, but the parents thought the punishment a good thing! Fortunately, it was a ground floor classroom!! We learnt long afterwards that he did this more than once! Clearly a disciplinarian in his father’s mould!

And he contributed so much to the school, in the classroom, on the sports fields in rugby, cross-country and athletics, in musical and theatrical productions, and of course in chapel, where that wonderfully melodic tenor voice of his would rise to honour his god. My brother and I would stay with Johnny on exeats and what a wonderfully memorable host he was – we would often be dragged off to school sporting events in the ‘white Rover’. Years later he entertained my daughters in School House in much the same way. And there is a regiment of friends here from Berkhamsted!

Rackham

And then came his retirement. John was born in East Sussex in sight of the Downs and he was never more content than looking out or walking over them. His last house was in Rackham just below the Downs, West Sussex would have to do!!, and in spite of the difficulty he had in walking in his last years he would do his level best to walk up on to them. Earlier he had walked both the North and South Downs Ways with my brother, Andy, and his wife, Trisha.

My mother was his closest relative and a great friend, and he spent many a holiday with my parents, usually in Spain. He officiated at my father’s funeral.

The 20 years in Rackham were very happy ones particularly his involvement with the Church and as churchwarden at St Peter’s in Parham. He joined the CAB and worked there for a number of years. He threw himself into community activities – the church fête was mentioned every year – and he loved being part of the Poetry and Shakespeare Groups. And he made many friends in the area, most of whom are here.

Even after retirement he was still late for the family Christmas lunch – the excuse each year was that he had to shut the church up after the morning service. In his Berkhamsted years the excuse was that he had to go on a trip of the southern counties to deliver presents. But we always forgave him because it was such a pleasure to see him, his greetings special to everyone, and his usual general bonhomie. As some of you will have seen in the announcement of his passing a member of the Poetry Group described him as “A lovely man, unfailingly courteous and kind who wore his knowledge and scholarship so lightly that it never intimidated and always enlightened”. This was Johnny.

Attributes

He was unfailingly courteous always standing when a woman rose from the table, holding doors open for others, giving up his seat on trains even in the last years when his need was greater than anyone’s. His manners were impeccable. In Spain once he asked, in perfect English, a mechanic to change a tyre – the poor fellow had no idea what was being asked of him, but it didn’t seem to matter as Johnny’s courtesy was obvious to all. In the old square in Sienna he was singled out by a waiter as ‘il grande cavaliere’ with some irony and a lot of humour. Johnny always seemed to bring the best out in people.

There was laughter around Johnny, and amusement. He could conjure up a literary quote for any situation and the quote would be utterly on point and always entertaining. He had such stories to tell, often to his own detriment. The Dead Sea incident where he swam out farther than he should have done trying to recover a shoe that had floated off – the locals rescued him because they thought from his swimming style, all arms and legs, that he was drowning!

He had a particular gift for and love of poetry. He read an ee cummings poem at my elder daughter’s wedding so beautifully that friends of Jen mention it to this day. But he was far from a traditionalist in his tastes – a Rock Othello which I went to see as a boy was so loud that I lost my hearing for a while, and then, to my complete surprise, found out later that Johnny had loved it. Not so square after all!!

Goodbye

But he has gone, and we will all miss him terribly. There’s a hole in our lives where, somehow, we never expected one. He left us though all the richer for knowing him, for being taught by him, for enjoying his company, marvelling at his voice, listening to his wisdom, his anecdotes, and sharing in his humour. He was a man of Sussex, an Oxford man, a scholar, and a Berkhamstedian, but more importantly he was an Englishman, a Christian, a true gentleman, and old school in the very best sense. And he had a great capacity for making friends.

A pupil of his writing to thank John for ‘all his patient instruction and advice’ reminded him that he had once said in reference to a particular quote in Hamlet that he wished someone would say the same about him. The boy went on to repeat the quote from Hamlet of his father:

“He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again”.

He was our Johnny and it was as far from a wasted life as it was possible to be.

Another moving tribute was given by Jonty Driver, John's former colleague and friend of many years. It included Jonty's poem, the Schoolmaster, which vividly evokes an image of John for those who knew and loved him:

The Schoolmaster by Jonty Driver

Like a stork, someone said, watching him run.

Exactly so: the feet placed precisely,

The long thin legs, the stoop, the beaky nose,

A tendency to flap his arms out wide,

A watchful concentration fixed ahead

To make quite sure that nothing moved at all

Which should not move.

The world was better once.

Things of course are never what they seem to be,

But what they seemed was easier to bear

In our fathers’ time, and when the monarchs

Truly ruled. Unruly’s now the word –

Elizabethan cadence, but he thinks

They may have had it right, all right.

 Dear friend,

They may not always like you much, right now;

But you’re the one they’ll come to show their wives –

The boys I mean – and whom they’ll think of, when

(Old men and full of tales) they want to tell

Just how it was, way back in the old days:

Like a stork he looked, with his long thin legs

And a huge beaky nose, and a temper.

You knew exactly where you stood with him –

He never said a thing you could not trust.

The world was better in those older days.