Go and wash and see

Miguel de Unamuno, one of the most influential Spanish thinkers of his time, was born 150 years ago today. A scholar, writer, and rector of the University of Salamanca, he is considered to have been an early existentialist, but was often in trouble with the authorities for his political views. An early insight into both his intellect and the themes that would preoccupy his writing over the next 30 years came with a diary written during, and in response to, a kind of spiritual (or, indeed, existential) crisis he experienced in 1897.

Unamuno was born in Bilbao, Spain, on 29 September 1864; and, as a teenager, he witnessed a siege of the city by Carlist forces (in the so-called Third Carlist War) - a formative experience according to biographers. Aged but 16, he went to study philosophy and belles-lettres at Madrid university, and then did a thesis on the Basque language. From 1884, he worked as a private teacher, but was also writing articles. In 1891, he married his childhood sweetheart, Concha Lizarraga, and they would have nine children.

The following year, having failed to find an academic appointment in the field of philosophy, Unamono took up the chair of Greek at the University of Salamanca, an institution to which he would stay attached for the rest of his life. Around this time, he began writing the essays that would be published in 1902 as En torno al casticismo. His first novel - Paz en la guerra (Peace in War) - was published in 1897, and a second - Amor y pedagogía (Love and Pedagogy) - in 1902. By then, still in his 30s, he had been named rector of the University of Salamanca. In 1905, the García brothers opened Café Novelty in Plaza Mayor, and it soon became a focus for the city’s political and cultural life - Unamuno was a regular patron, often giving talks.

Unamuno was a man of wide interests, with a passion for poetry - he published several collections - and for languages. He read a dozen or more modern languages, as well as Latin and Greek, all the better to understand philosophers from their original texts (he learned Danish to read Kierkegaard, for example). He was also a renowned Lusophile. As a philosopher, he became recognised, latterly, as an early European existentialist.

Unamuno’s most important work - Del sentimiento trágico de la vida - was first published in 1913, and translated into English in 1921 as The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and in Peoples. In 1914, Unamuno was dismissed from his post as rector by the Minister of Education, for political reasons. But in 1920, he was elected fellow in the philosophy and arts faculty, and re-appointed rector in 1921. By 1924, though, his attacks on the king and the dictator, Primo de Rivera, led to him being forced out again. This time, Unamuno went into exile, first to Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, where his house is now a museum, and from there to France, first Paris, and then Hendaye, a border town in French Basque country.

Unamuno remained in Hendaye until after the fall of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, and in 1931, he was reappointed, for a third time, to be rector of the University of Salamanca. At first, Unamuno welcomed General Franco’s Second Republic, but he soon became disillusioned with the regime’s harsh tactics. In 1936, he had a public quarrel at the university with the Nationalist general Millán Astray. He was sacked again, and put under house arrest. He died ten weeks later, on the last day of that same year. There is not much biographical information about Unamuno online in English, but try Wikipedia (and a translation of the Spanish entry too) or Kirjasto. Fundación Zuloaga has a Spanish language page on Unamuno.

In 1897, Unamuno underwent a deep depression, a kind of spiritual crisis. This is well documented in his biographies - see Stefany Anne Golberg’s essay at The Smart Set. During this time, he kept a diary, although only a few entries are actually dated, and most of them are philosophical ruminations. These writings were somewhat rough and ready, yet he copied and circulated them to friends. They were not published in English, however, until 1984, as part of Princeton University Press’s seven volume series, The Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno. Volume 2 is titled The Private World - Selections from the Diario Intimo and Selected Letters 1890-1936, as translated by Anthony Kerrigan, Allen Lacy and Martin Nozick.

Lacy’s introduction explains that Unamuno’s Diario intimo, most of which was written in the months immediately following his crisis, in five bound notebooks, was circulated (except for the brief and scanty entries from 1899 to 1902) to several of the author’s closest friends between 1898 and 1901, then hidden among the papers in his study. He continues:

‘The Diario intimo is by no means a polished piece of work. [. . .] Even in the abridged version which is given in the present volume, few readers will fail to notice that it is obsessive, extremely repetitious, and often self-conscious in a rather theatrical way, nor that it lacks the literary merit that, even for relentless non-believers, distinguishes such other examples of confessional writing as St Augustine’s Confessions and Pascal’s Pensées. But it is an important document for two reasons. First, it announces many of the themes that were to occupy Unamuno in later years, especially in The Tragic Sense of Life and The Agony of Christianity. Second, it provides a vivid picture of a sensitive and deeply intellectual man.’

Here are a few snippets from Diario Intimo.

Notebook 2
25 April 1897
‘Quasimodo Sunday. A conventional Mass at the parish church, a sermon by the priest about the fact that many believe that going to church is doing God a favor, when it is we who need God, not He us.

How is it that I imagine myself to be a great personage, one destined to create a sensation in the Church, my conversion providing a model for others? How many ways has pride of surviving!’

28 April 1897
‘Read the ninth chapter of the Gospel of St John. I am a blind man in whom the works of God must be made manifest. Anoint my eyes with clay, Lord, and lead me to wash in the pool of Siloam, in the confessional, so that I may return with sight restored. Give me strength, for I have no will.

And later I will say, to your glory: yes, I am he who sat and begged for human glory. Jesus took clay and anointed my eyes and said to go to the pool of Siloam, and I went, and once I had washed, I saw.

The Lord has made clay out of the dust to which I reduced everything by means of analysis in my passage across the desert of intellectualism, and He has placed it upon my eyes, so that I might desire to see, and then go and wash and see.’

Notebook 3
10 May 1897
‘Yesterday, Sunday, at Canillas. What peace there! If one could live and die like they do. We went to the burial at Calzada of a poor fellow who had died of paralysis. I kept thinking about spiritual paralysis. They told me that he died saying: “What a sweet dream!” He seemed asleep there, at the door of the church.

Later the fields were blessed. The young girls brought all their presents in a procession, shawls, kerchiefs, all strung up on a pole.’

Notebook 5 [which contains only a page and a half of entries - here are the last few]
9 May 1899
‘How is it suddenly, today, the 9th May, 1899, in the midst of my studies, I am overcome by a craving to pray? I have had to lay down my book and retire to my room to say a brief prayer and to read in the Imitation the prayer asking for light for the spirit.’

15 January 1902
‘Today, the 15th of January, 1902, in the middle of reading Holtzmann’s Leben Jesu, p. 102, I again take up this diary.’

Our Father
Always the Father, always engendering the Ideal in us. I, projected to infinity, and you, who are projected to infinity, meet. Our lives, parallel in infinity, meet, and my infinite I is your I, the collective I, the Universe I, the Universe made person, and it is God. And I, am I not my father? Am I not my son?
Thy will be done’

An audience with Alaungpaya

Alaungpaya, one the three greatest kings of Burma, and the founder of the Konbaung dynasty, was born three centuries ago today. He forced out the French and the British, unified the country, and founded Yangon. But, before driving out the British, he negotiated a treaty with the East India Company through its ensign, Robert Lester. Lester’s diary written during that mission has survived, and it provides a first hand account of his meeting with the king.

Alaungpaya (Aung Zeya at birth) was born on 24 September 1714 at Moksobomyo (now Shwebo), a village in the Mu River Valley about 60 miles northwest of Ava (now Inwa), then the Burmese capital. He was the second son of a family that had administered the Mu Valley for generations, his father being a hereditary chief while his uncle was lord of the valley district. In 1730, he married Yun San daughter of the chief of a nearby village, and they went on to have seven children.

The mid-1700s were a period of turmoil in Burma, with the Toungoo dynasty in its dying days. Binnya Dala, prime minister at the time, rebelled against his Toungoo rulers, and rallied the Mon-speaking people. In 1747 they elected him king. It took Binnya Dala until 1752 to capture Ava from the Toungoo, but Alaungpaya refused to become a vassal to the new authority. He organised a resistance movement, declared a new capital at Moksobomyo, and announced his aim to be king. Within a year or so, he had retaken Ava, driven Binnya Dala out of Upper Burma, and established a new dynasty, Konbaung.

However, because Binnya Dala was still strong in Lower Burma and had allied with the French, Alaungpaya concluded a treaty with the British through the East India Company: land (including the island of Negrais) and settlement rights in exchange for a cannon and gunpowder. The treaty did not last long. The British, already at war with the French in India, were reluctant to open a second front in Burma. Alaungpaya, thus, came to suspect them of supporting a Mon revolt. He attacked the Negrais settlement, massacring many of the merchants there. By 1759, Alaungpaya had driven out the British and the French, and re-unified the country. Relations between the British and the Konbaung dynasty would not to be resumed for thirty years.

In 1760, Alaungpaya led a campaign to invade Siam, but, during a siege of the capital, he was wounded. He died during the retreat to Burma. Within a decade, his heirs had subdued much of Laos (1765), defeated Siam (1767), and defeated four invasions by China. The Konbaung dynasty lasted more than a century. From the 1820s, though, it began began losing war after war against the British who finally annexed the last party of the country in 1885. The Konbaung king and ruling family were exiled to India. Further information is available online from Wikipedia, the Burma Library, or indeed from The History of Myanmar by William J. Topich and Keith A. Leitich (ABC-CLIO, 2013) which can be read at Googlebooks.

Several British accounts of meetings with Alaungpaya have survived to this day. The most bona fide diary account, though, was written by Ensign Robert Lesser, Ambassador Extraordinary, who, in 1757, negotiated the treaty (for the East India Company) which provided armaments to Alaungpaya in return for settlement and merchant rights. Lesser’s diary was first published in Alexander Dalrymple’s Oriental Repertory (eight volumes between 1791-1797). This can be accessed freely at Internet Archive. However, it is easier to read a reprint published in the SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, (Spring 2005), also to be found through Internet Archive (and elsewhere on the internet). Here are several extracts from Lesser’s diary, including the day of his audience with Alaungpaya.

22 July 1757
‘This Morning, at break of day, we left the above Town, and now we are come into a wide River, we meet with great numbers of Boats, loaded with Plunder, belonging to the King of Ava, taken at Pegu, and I am informed going up to Prone, Ava, &c. and that the King is not far from us. At 3 this Afternoon, we came to a small Town, on the bank of the River, where we found the King, in his Barge, with great numbers of other Boats attending him: Antonio waited on the King, to acquaint him I was come, and, at 5 o’clock, a Messenger came from Antonio to acquaint me, that the King would give me Audience to-morrow morning and that it was the King’s Desire I should send the Present by the Messenger, which I delivered.’

23 July 1757
‘This Morning, at 7 o’clock, Antonio came to me, and told me, that the King would give me Audience, at the same time he told me, that on going into the King’s Apartment in his Barge, I must leave my Sword and Shoe behind, and on approaching near the King, to the Place appointed for me, I must kneel; I used all the Arguments I could, and told him as an Officer in the Honourable Company’s Service, I could not consent to the above, he then, as likewise other Great Men with him, told me, that no Person, let him be of the highest Rank, could have Audience given them by the Great King of Ava, Pegu, &c. &c. (Allaum Praw, next to GOD) if they did not conform to the above, and that all Ambassadors, from the Negrais before, had done it.

As I hope it will be a means of getting the Treaty of Alliance, with the above King and The Honourable Company, settled, I agreed, and went with Antonio to the King’s Barge, and after congratulating him, on his late conquest of so potent a Kingdom, with other Compliments on the Occasion I delivered him my Credentials. [. . .]

I then desired the Interpreters to inform the King, [. . .] that the English were strongly attached to His Interest; and if His Majesty would now be pleased to consent to the fixing His Chop [seal] to the above, it would be a means of uniting the two Nations together for ages to come. The King then said, that he had sent a Sloop some Months ago to Madrass, with Goods to purchase Powder, &c, and he was informed by the Captain of another Sloop, now arrived at Dagon from the Coast, that the Governor of Madrass had detained his Sloop there, I answered that we had received no Letters, or News of any kind, from Madrass, but I was positive if the Sloop was detained, that the Governor of Madrass did not know that she belonged to His Majesty.

As I had not room to stretch my legs out, and I was somewhat uneasy, I saw a small Stool behind me, which I took, and sat on, this caused a laughter among the Great Men about me, the King asked the reason, and was informed, on which he rose up and came close to me, and laughed very heartily, and asked me what was the reason that Englishman could not kneel? I told him we were not accustomed to it; on which he pointed to the Yard of the Boat, which was close by, and told me I might set there, I told His Majesty I was not insensible of the Honour he did me, he then pointed to the Prince of Persaim, and told me he had given him a new Name (Mungee Narataw) on account of his good behaviour, the King then asked me several Questions, through the above Interpreters, viz. Does your King go to the Wars and expose his Person as I do? Do you understand the use of Ordnance, &c? Could you point a Gun to kill a Man at a great distance? Is there as much Rain in your Country as in this? What is the reason you wear that at your Shoulder, (my Shoulder Knot)? How much Money does The Company pay you [per] Month? Why don’t you black your Bodies and Thighs as we do (at the same time rising up, and shewing me his Thigh)? Let me feel your Hand, feeling my Fingers and Wrist, and said we were like Women, because we did not black as above. Is there Ice in your Country as in mine, small Creeks froze over?

I answered to all the above Questions, which seemed to please them, and to the last Question I told him that I had seen a River, as broad as this His Majesty is now in (meaning London River) frozen over, and an Ox roasted whole, upon the Ice; to which the King, as likewise all the Great Men about him, laughed heartily; the King asked me, what was the reason we did not leave the Negrais, and come all to Persaim, and settle there? I told him that the Negrais was a Key to that River, if we lost it entirely, that the French, who I believe we were now at War with, would likely come there, but that we should come with a firm resolution to settle at Persaim, if His Majesty would indulge us in settling the Treaty, and leave a small Force at the Negrais; The King then said if all the Powers in The World was to come, he could drive them out of His Country; he then asked me, if we were afraid of the French; I told him that the English and French had no great liking for each other but there never was that Englishman born, that was afraid of a Frenchman; the King then told me, that he had taken great quantities of Guns, Bombs, &c. with all kind of Warlike Stores at Pegu, and that he was now going up triumphant (with the former King of Pegu, and his Daughter, the Uppa Rajah, and other Great Men, Peguers, prisoners) to his great Cities, Prone, Ava, &c. and that he would put his Chop, to our Treaty of Alliance, and give us Liberty to trade in any part of his Kingdom; he then ordered me to follow him to the Mouth of the River, which leads to Ava, where there is a House, as above-mentioned, for the King’s reception, and I am informed, he intends to stay two or three days, and he would send me Provisions and settle the above; I desired the Interpreter to return His Majesty my hearty thanks for the Honour done me, and as His Barge was getting in readiness to proceed, I was desired to take my Leave, which I did and came away.

I have made Presents to the Prince of Persaim, King’s Brother, Prime Minister, and other six Great Men, about the King’s Person, of the following things, viz. Scarlet Cloth 30 Yards, 2 Pieces Seersuckers, 1 Piece Pullicat Handkerchiefs, 1 Kittysall, 1 Bottle Lavender Water, 1 Ring, Bristol Stone, with a Brilliant Spark on each side, 1 Black Feather, from my Hat, 1 Piece of Silk Handkerchiefs; this I have done, hoping it may be a means of getting my business done, on The Company’s Account, the sooner; the remainder part of this day we have been following the King to the Place above mentioned, the Fresh in this River is excessive rapid, and we could not come to the Place where the King was, at Night, I believe, at a moderate computation, there’s in Boats, on this River, on this Occasion, One hundred thousand Men, Women, and Children.’

26 July 1757
‘At 10 this Morning we came to the Place, where the House, beforementioned, is built for the King’s reception; the King’s Barge lay close to it, and numbers of other Boats all about it, there being four foot Water, all round it; occasioned by the swelling of the River since it was built; at Noon Antonio came, and told me that the King wanted me, I dressed myself and went with him to the said House, or Island but found the King was gone into His Barge, on which the Prince of Persaim let him know I was come, his answer was I must follow him to Lunzee, a Place much farther up the River, and the King went away immediately. But now the Promise made to Antonio on the 20th instant (as I expected) won’t do, he now tells me that Mr. Brooke, former Chief of the Negrais, promised the Prince, of Persaim, thirty Viss of Silver, and himself twenty; if the King’s Chop was fixed to our Treaty; and that I must give them from under my Hand, in the Name of The Company, that those Sums must be paid, otherwise no Chop should be affixed to our Treaty; I told them, The Company was at a great expence, and must be at a much greater, before they could bring the Negrais, and Persaim, to any Perfection, and this was a very large Sum.

Now, I am certain that nothing can be done without the Interest of the above Men; this Affair has subsisted a long time, and is of the utmost Consequence; there has been many Embassies before, on this head, and attended with a great Expence to The Company, and if I don’t finish now, there must be another Embassy (with a Present) on the same Account, I therefore concluded, within myself, to make them an Offer, and put the finishing stroke to this long Affair, which I did of Twenty Viss, which was not accepted, and on their going into their Boats I made them an Offer of Twenty-five, which was likewise refused; so we parted: the remainder part of this Day we have been following the King, but did not come up with him at Night.’

6 August 1757
‘I this Day had a Meeting with Antonio, and settled the Treaty with him, in the following manner, viz. That we are to have two hundred Bamboos square, (each Bamboo containing seven Cubits) at Persaim, and the King’s Promise of more Ground, after our settling at that Place. That we are to present to the King annually, for the Grant of the Island Negrais, and Spot of ground at Persaim, one Piece of Ordnance to carry a twelve Pound Shot, with two hundred Viss of good Gunpowder, as an acknowledgment, &c. &c. as specified [by] Article the 6th, in the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. After this we exchanged Treaties, he presented me the Treaty with the King of Ava, Pegu, &c,’s Chop fixed thereto, and done in the above King’s Presence, I presented him with the other, to which Lieut. Thomas Newton, Chief of Negrais, had signed his Name, and fixed the Arms of The Honourable Company.’

Call me Cherie

Well, happy birthday Cherie Blair, 60 today. I wonder how you’re celebrating, and whether you’re likely to have an ‘odd do’, as you did on your 40th, at least according to your husband’s press and policy adviser. I have no idea whether you keep a diary or not, but if you do, and it gets published one day, I’m sure it will be a good read. Meanwhile, I have mined Alastair Campbell’s diaries for a few tidbits about your life during the years when Tony was leader of the Labour Party and then Prime Minister.

Theresa Cara Booth, known as Cherie, was born on 23 September 1954 in Bury, Lancashire, and was brought up in Waterloo, just north of Liverpool on the Lancashire coast. Her parents were both actors, but her father, Tony, left when she was eight, so she and her sister were then brought up by her mother, and Tony’s mother, Vera. The sisters were educated at Catholic schools. Cherie went on to read law at the London School of Economics. While training she taught law at the Polytechnic of Central London, now the University of Westminster, and became a barrister in 1976. Until 1988, her head of chambers was George Carman, a barrister well-known for taking on high-profile cases.

Cherie met Tony in 1976, and they married in 1980. They had three children between 1984 and 1988, and then a fourth (Leo) 12 years later when Cherie was in her mid-40s. Leo was the first child born to a sitting Prime Minister in 150 years. Being the Prime Minister’s wife, she came under much press scrutiny, not least in relation to her friend, Carole Caplin, a kind of New Age style adviser, and Caplin’s boyfriend, Peter Foster, a convicted Australian conman.

Cherie Blair was made Queen's Counsel in 1995. In 1999, she was appointed a Recorder (a permanent part-time judge) in the County Court and Crown Court. She is a founding member of Matrix Chambers in London, and has specialised in employment, discrimination, and public law. She was the third Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, is a Governor of the London School of Economics and of the Open University, and is a patron of Breast Cancer Care. In 2008 she launched the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, to help support women entrepreneurs in developing countries, and she published Speaking for Myself: The Autobiography. In 2011, she was appointed Chancellor of the Asian University for Women. In 2013, she was awarded a CBE. More about Cherie, the posts she holds, the books she’s written, can be found on her own website.

Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s Director of Communications and Strategy between 1997 and 2003, refers often to Cherie Blair in his diaries, first published by Hutchinson in 2007 under the title The Blair Years. (See The Diary Review article A good press secretary for more about Campbell and his diaries.) Campbell says in his introduction to this book that the focus ‘is very much on Blair himself’, but inevitably the Prime Minister’s wife is often part of his daily life, whether because of her presence at formal occasions, or because of issues, such as those revolving around her friendship with Caplin. He notes, in the introduction, how Cherie herself ‘pointed out that I certainly spent more waking hours with him than she did.’ Here are a few snapshots involving Cherie Blair taken from The Blair Years.

23 September 1994
‘Cherie’s 40th birthday party at Frederick’s. Odd kind of do. Didn’t feel right being photographed going in, by Alan Davidson [celebrity photographer] of all people, and I couldn’t quite work out the guest mix. Family, a bit of politics, law, and friends that didn’t always seem like Tony’s kind of people. Maybe he is a lot more eclectic than we are. Cherie had certainly been given a makeover. She looked great, but it was an odd do.’

23 April 1995
‘I had a perfectly nice chat with Cherie, in which we both lamented how much of our time we spent having to talk to TB in his underwear.’

8 September 1995
‘Eventually Fiona said we should discuss Cherie, what role and image she was supposed to be developing, what was good for her and for TB, and how we managed conference. Cherie said we had reached the position where she felt unsupported, and she had a poor relationship with the office because she felt we saw her purely as a problem. She said she had a contribution to make beyond being a ‘rich lawyer/wife’. I said I accepted there was fault on both sides. Things had got off to a terrible start because of Carole [Caplin] at conference last year. I felt Carole was a problem anyway and they had to understand if she became a story again, I would have nothing to do with it.’

27 October 1997
‘CHOGM [Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Edinburgh] finished on time, TB telling us how brilliantly he had chaired it. TB was regaling us with a few stories from the receptions. One of the African leaders pinching Cherie’s bum and asking her who she was, then him jumping a mile when she said she was Tony’s wife. Mandela being difficult on a couple of issues and TB saying to him ‘You are so revered you can come out with any old nonsense and nobody is allowed to say it’s nonsense,’ Mandela laughing.’

16 September 1998
‘TB was heading off to Coventry and I was due to come back with CB. We met up at the shop, where I had a brief glimpse of [Prince] Charles, who was showing them some of his organic produce. She said organic farming had taken up most of their conversation at lunch. The rest had been a meandering around foreign affairs. TB was always pretty discreet about his royal dealings, CB less so. She said when she first Princess Anne, Anne had called her ‘Mrs Blair’, to which CB said ‘Call me Cherie.’ I’d rather not, Mrs Blair,’ said Anne. She said she didn’t bother to protest when Charles called her Mrs Blair today.’

25 September 1999
‘I went into the office first thing, then up to see TB. He was now sure. Cherie was pregnant. They worked out it happened at Balmoral. A royal baby!. He said he felt a mix of pleasure and horror. Thank God I’m a Christian, he said. It allows me to assume there must be a reason. We discussed it on the train. At the moment, TB, CB, Fiona and I were the only people who knew, and I was winding them up as to how much money we could make by tipping off the press.’

18 November 1999 

‘At one o'clock. Piers Morgan called and said he had a story and if he told me what it was could he guarantee it would stay exclusive? I said I know what it is. He said ‘How are your christening robes?’ I said I would have to talk to TB. Then I had a meeting with Fiona and we agreed we would just let the Mirror run it and then confirm. But the Sun had heard something and Rebekah Wade [deputy editor] was paging and calling both of us relentlessly. Eventually, after speaking to CB, Fiona gave the story to Rebekah around 8, which was clearly going to be disasterville with Piers. There was no way he would think the Sun got on to it themselves. I got TB to call him to try to mollify him a bit but later Piers was absolutely fuming. ‘Why do those two women (Cherie and Fiona) have such a problem with me? I don't get it.’ CB was clear she didn’t want her pregnancy to seem as somehow being owned as a Mirror story. Once the Sun were on to it, she wanted them to have the story. It was a one-fact story. Dealing with the Sun and the Mirror the whole time was like having two mistresses. It was a fucking nightmare. Both thought they were entitled to some kind of special treatment. It would probably have been better just to have announced it earlier, but Cherie had wanted to keep it quiet for as long as possible, which was fair enough. We had a statement out at 9.10, and it led Sky straight away. There was something amusing about seeing all these hard-nosed characters standing outside Number 10 going on about babies.’

19 May 2000
‘Fiona and Cherie were pretty sure the baby was going to be born fairly soon. TB stayed at the office till about 8 and Anji [Hunter] said later he had been really nervous, nervous about the politics of where we were, nervous about the baby and what it would do for him, Cherie and the way we work. TB called as he was going to the hospital. I called Anji to get Cockerell down there to film the media outside. Fiona kept me in touch through the night. It finally came at 12.25 and we decided not to put anything out until they got home. I was in bed when Fiona texted that it was a boy. I called through, spoke to TB, who sounded very happy about it. I heard the baby and TB said ‘Here you are, Leo, talk to your spin doctor.’

The fifth Beatle

Brian Epstein, legendary manager of the Beatles who died in his early 30s from a drug overdose, would have been 80 today. He lived a hectic business schedule and a complicated private life, being an active gay when homosexuality was still illegal. He left some early diaries/notebooks with his then-bodyguard and chauffeur Bryan Barrett, who sold them at auction in 2000. A good description of these notebooks and their content can be found online thanks to the auctioneers, Christie’s, and to a Beatles fan blog, A moral to this song.

Epstein was born in Liverpool into a small Jewish family on 19 September 1934. His father, Harry, was the son of an East European immigrant who had started a furniture store in the city. Brian’s mother, who everyone called Queenie, came from the successful Hyman furniture family. Brian was moved around from one boarding school to another, being expelled from some. He spent two years at Wrekin College, but then was apprenticed at 16 before joining the family firm.

After a brief spell of national service, three terms at the RADA theatre school, and some department store experience in London, Epstein returned to the family business. Harry put him in charge of the ground floor, in the family’s newly opened store (NEMS) on Great Charlotte Street, where he sold musical instruments, among other things, and gramophone records. This must have suited him because the shop soon become one of the largest music outlets in the North of England. Epstein then opened a second store in Whitechapel, not far, in fact, from the Cavern Club.

Epstein first came into contact with the Beatles (John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Pete Best) in late 1961, at the Cavern Club. By early December, he had proposed to manage them; and a first contract was signed a few weeks later in January 1962 (which sold at auction in 2008 for £240,000), and another in October. He formed a management company NEMS Enterprises before signing Lennon and McCartney to a three year NEMS publishing contract, and, within days of that, the Beatles had released their first single Love Me Do.

Despite having no previous experience of managing performers, Epstein did much to mould the Beatles dress and stage presence, and to win them a record contract. After being rejected by many record companies, he persuaded EMI to give the Beatles a deal with its Parlophone label, paying (initially) just 1p per record sold. A first recording session at EMI’s Abbey Road studios took place in June 1962. Pete Best was dismissed by Epstein soon after, and replaced by Ringo Starr, who was already well known to the others. Epstein also organised a hectic shedule of performance tours, as well as appearances for television and film. Epstein’s role in ‘making’ the Beatles has been widely acknowledged in recent years, with McCartney, for example, stating in 1998, ‘If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian’. But, in the 1960s, when MBEs were awarded to the four Beatles he was not so honoured.

Epstein seemed to flourish in the new world of pop stars, and as busy as he was with the Beatles, he also successfully managed other groups, like Gerry and the Pacemakers, and singers such as Cilla Black. He did not settle in London until 1965, after when he bought the lease to the Saville Theatre and promoted new plays by young writers, including Arnold Wesker. His personal life, however, was one of unfettered and growing attachments to drugs, gambling, and a promiscuous homosexual life. Although it was not public knowledge until after his death in 1967, Epstein’s homosexuality was an open secret among his friends. Lennon is said to have quipped that Epstein’s autobiography (2004, and ghostwritten by his assistant), A Cellarful of Noise, should have been titled A Cellarful of Boys. Epstein died from a drugs overdose in August 1967, he was only 32 years old. Further information is readily available online at the official Brian Epstein website, Wikipedia, or The Beatles Bible.

Epstein left behind 13 notebooks written between 1949 and 1963, according to amoralto (a Beatles fan blog). Three of these (along with other memorabilia) were put up for auction, at Christie’s London, in 2000 by Bryan Barrett. Barrett (who had also made the notebooks available for a 1998 TV documentary on Epstein) was quoted as saying: ‘It is now well over 30 years since his death and I no longer feel that anyone who was close to him could be hurt by the revelations.’ The diaries fetched £3,290. The auction notes (still freely available online) included information about, and extracts from, all three diaries. Amoralto has republished these notes, and found a few extra quotes (from other notebooks) in archived newspaper articles. Here, though, is the substance of the notes provided by Christie’s in 2000.

Lot notes: ‘The insight these highly personal and tortured notes give us into Epstein’s formative years cannot be overestimated. The mental anguish his sexual orientation caused him, combined with his interest in style as evidenced by his dress and furniture designs, executed in his late teens, give fuel to the thought that Epstein was a talented man who had the misfortune to be born at the wrong time.’

First notebook (59 pages)
‘The earliest of the three notebooks begins with an entry dated October 18th, 1950 Thoughts on Things, the following six pages written in the same month give a poignant insight into sixteen-year-old Epstein’s unhappy school life at Wrekin College in Shropshire, entries include:
 - “To be a success at school one must above all be either distinctly original or good at games (all of them). Intellects of a quiet nature are at school invariably a failure. . .”
- “ ‘Playing Soldiers’ . . . in what is presumed to be an intellectual establishment is . . . futile and childish . . . and a waste of anybody’s time. . .”
- “Depression is the route of all great and important thought”
- “The majority of school boys are lyers . . . Public schools as such encourage lying however they fail to realise it.”

Epstein’s schoolboy thoughts also reflect his interest in modern art, architecture and jazz; the second half of this notebook is filled with Epstein’s pencil and ink designs for furniture, dresses, evening and day outfits and a wedding dress, on several pages Epstein also practises his flamboyant signature in blue ink.’

Second notebook (19 pages)
‘In the second notebook, written in ink in 1957 at the age of twenty-three, Epstein gives a brutally honest account of his life to date, tracing the development of his homosexuality culminating in his arrest for soliciting in 1957, in the first half entitled “Background and History” Epstein outlines the misery of his unsettled school life, moving between nine different schools, the combination of frequent poor reports and entrance exam failures generating his low self-esteem

“The matter of always attaining low marks, being bottom of the class and receiving poor reports and other factors contributed in my thinking of myself even then as a failure, dullard and inferior person . . .”

He was briefly happy in his penultimate school [Claysmore School in Somerset]: “The first half of that third term was I think perhaps the only entirely happy and contented period in my life . . .”

He discusses arguments he had with his parents regarding his artistic leanings and his desire to go to acting school rather than the family business, the personal agony he experienced whilst serving in the army during his National Service in 1952: “I venomously hated nearly everything about the army and suffered at the merciless hands of the R.S.M.”

The development of his awareness of his own latent homosexuality and the misery and mental anguish the suppression of his feelings brought him, writing that in 1954 whilst working in the family business: “My life became a succession of mental illnesses and sordid unhappy events bringing great sorrow to my family . . .”

In the final eleven pages of the notebook Epstein gives a harrowing account of how he was set-up by the police and arrested for Persistently Importuning. After the horror of this experience Epstein wrote philosophically: “I do not think I am an abnormally weak-willed person - the effort and determination with which I have rebuilt my life these last few months have, I assure you, been no mean effort. I believed that my own will-power was the best thing with which to overcome my homosexuality. And I believe my life may have become contented and I may even have attained a public success . . .”

His bitterness at the injustice of his treatment is expressed in his closing comments: “I am not sorry for myself. My worst times and punishments are over. Now, through the wreckage of my life by society, my being will stain and bring the deepest distress to all my devoted family and few friends. the damage, the lying criminal methods of the police in importuning me and consequently capturing me leaves me cold, stunned and finished . . .”

This autobiographical account, clearly written before Epstein had received a verdict, ends with instructions he would like to be followed should he be remanded or given a prison sentence, the feelings of sympathy this frank account provokes are enhanced by the dignity of his closing comment: “I must apologise for my writing which I realise is difficult to read. I was unable to procure a typewriter and my hand is nervous.” ’

Third notebook (five pages)
‘The third notebook comprises four handwritten accounts of Epstein’s visits to various cities and restaurants in 1960; in the first entry apparently written after consuming five whiskies, Epstein expresses a desire: to rid himself “of hum drum, dreary god-forsaken surburbia”; [and] for the joys of Rome and his aspirations to join “that very attractive utterly ridiculous little group that call themselves . . . the International set”. In his final entry, Epstein confesses to being robbed in Barcelona adding rather poignantly: “But, I ask, is this my fault? Yes I think because I behaved foolishly and irresponsibly.” ’

See also Lennon and Linda McCartney

York Factory lady

Letitia Hargrave, firstborn daughter of a Scottish lawyer, married a Hudson Bay Company trader and left behind her privileged life to travel to Canada and live as a pioneer in York Factory, a settlement and fur trade post on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay. Although Letitia died young - 160 years ago today - she left behind letters, published a century later, which have become historically important as a primary source of information about that period of Canadian history. The published book of her letters also includes a brief diary, written during her journey across the Atlantic.

Letitia was born in Edinburgh, in 1813, the eldest of nine children in a wealthy family. Her father, Dugald Mactavish, was a lawyer, and a sherriff of Argyllshire; and the Mactavish family was well-established in the North American fur trade. One of Letitia’s brothers, William, was posted to York Factory, on Hudson Bay, Manitoba, where he became friends with the chief trader, James Hargrave. When Hargrave travelled to Scotland in 1837, he was warmly received by the Mactavish family, and formed a relationship with Letitia. The two were married in 1840, and Letitia travelled to York Factory with her new husband in June/July that year.

Letitia and James had several children, although a second son died soon after being born. In 1851-1852, the family moved to Sault Ste, but, on 18 September 1854, Letitia died of cholera. Further information is available from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and Wikipedia.

Most of what is known about Letitia, however, comes from a collection of her letters - The Letters of Letitia Hargrave - edited by Margaret Arnett Macleod, and published in 1947 by The Champlain Society (whose mission is ‘to increase public awareness of, and accessibility to, Canada’s rich store of historical records’). Letitia’s letters, written to her family in Britain, are considered historically important as a primary source of information about the life of pioneer women in Canada in the mid-19th century.

The Letters of Letitia Hargrave is freely available to read online at The Champlain Society digital collection hosted by the University of Toronto. Although almost all the book consists of Letitia’s letters, a few pages are devoted to a diary she kept on board the Prince Rupert when travelling from Britain to North American in June and July 1840. Here are a few extracts.

25 June 1840
‘In bed all day yesterday and great part of today. Ship pitching so that we could not dress. The most provoking part is that we have been beating about waiting till the Prince of Wales came out of Stornaway. Mr Hargrave and the Captain went on board of her lest any letters might have been forwarded there from Stromness, but only got a parcel of shortbread from Captain Royal for the ladies here. Nice food for 4 sea sick women. Never knew what sailing was before.’

2 July 1840
‘Shoals of bottle nosed whales playing about the ship. Wind has been westerly ever since we left Orkney.’

7 July 1840
‘On Thursday the wind began and we have had a constant gale since. No sail almost and at night close reefed. The captain says he never saw such a sea, but the waves are whole like large broad hills, lost our jib - sea getting better.’

11 July 1840
‘Second pig killed today. Fresh pork and fowls tho’ the latter old and tough. We have only had salt beef once on board.’

12 July 1840
‘All the ducks and geese are allowed to walk about deck on Sunday. Miserable objects, their bills white and whole appearance wasted. When they got out they picked their feathers and ducked down on the deck thinking themselves in the water. Mr Bolton likened the procession to Bells Sunday School - I shall note down a week’s bill of fare as we have a diet for every day. Breakfast ham and egg potatoes, tea and coffee biscuit and treacle which we always have morning and evening. Dinner. Fowl soup boiled hens, roast ducks, salt pork, plum pudding, always mashed potatoes, cheese wine almonds raisins and figs. Crossing the American line.’

22 July 1840
‘Went on deck before 8am to see a large ice berg. Miss Allan describes it as being like a hay stack. It was about 160 feet above water and an oblong square plenty of ice all round.’

26 July 1840
‘Resolution Island seen from top the entrance to the straits.’

The Diary Junction

Squire vs reverend

John Peter Boileau, a squire of Ketteringham and a well-connected man in Norfolk and London society, was born 220 years ago today. Both he and the local reverend in Ketteringham left behind detailed diaries which were exploited, a century later, by Cambridge professor, Owen Chadwick, to reveal - in the book Victorian Miniature - a fascinating slice of local history, in particular an acrimonious relationship between squire and reverend.

Boileau was born on 2 September 1794, in London, the eldest son in a family that claimed to be descended from Charles Boileau, baron of Castelnau and St Croix, a Languedoc Huguenot immigrant to England in 1691, and from Étienne Boileau, the first known provost of Paris in the 13th century. He was educated at Eton, Oxford and Edinburgh, and then commissioned into the rifle brigade.

In 1825, Boileau married Lady Catherine Sarah Elliot, daughter of the first earl of Minto, and they had nine children. He acquired Thursford Hall, near Fakenham, and the Ketteringham estate, where he built a Gothic hall, and where he came into a conflict with the local vicar, William Andrew.

In 1838, Boileau was created a baronet. He served as a county magistrate and a deputy lieutenant; and he was appointed high sheriff of Norfolk in 1844. Apart from holding various offices in London and being a Fellow of the Royal Society, he was also a founding member of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, and its president from 1849. His wife died in 1862, and he died in 1869. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia and The Peerage. (Thanks to the National Portrait Gallery for the image.)

In 1960, a history professor at Cambridge University, Owen Chadwick, published Victorian Miniature (Hodder and Stoughton) which relied heavily on diaries kept by Boileau and by Reverend William Andrew, and told the story of an astonishing feud between the two Ketteringham characters. Here’s the publisher’s blurb: ‘Owen Chadwick’s Victorian Miniature paints a detailed cameo of nineteenth-century English rural life, in the extraordinary battle of wills between squire and parson in a Norfolk village. Both the evangelical clergyman and the squire, proudly conscious of his Huguenot ancestry, were passionate diarists, and their two journals open up a fascinating double perspective on the events which exposed their clash of personalities. The result is a narrative that is at once deeply informative about Victorian class distinctions, rural customs and festivities, and richly entertaining in a manner worthy of Trollope.’

The book was reprinted in 1991 by Cambridge University Press. Some pages can be browsed at Amazon; and there is further information on the Literary Norfolk website.

Boileau’s diary is deposited with the Norfolk Record Society in the Norwich public library. It begins in 1839, when he left England for a continental tour, and ends in February 1869, a month before his death. Some sections - notably 1846-1850 - remain in private hands, and a couple of short sections were probably destroyed for personal reasons, says Owen Chadwick. William Andrew’s diary is in private hands (or was at the time of the book’s publication). It is in two big volumes, the first from his ordination to 1855, and the second from 1855 to his last illness. Unlike Boileau, he didn’t write in his journal very often or regularly. Here are a couple of extracts from Chadwick’s book (which uses the diaries of both men extensively, but does not, in fact, provide many dated verbatim quotes from them).

Boileau’s diary
January 1841
‘Dined early, and in the evening servants had a ball in the hall, lighted up. There were our ten maids - four indoor and three outdoor, and Cowper - Easton and three gardeners there, besides John Cannell and wife, [ . . .] It went off well as they had supper also, and all over by two o’clock, which was somewhat too late. I took Mrs. Beale to dance in the New Year but she was puffy and obliged to sit down.’

Chadwick comments: ‘Andrew disapproved of these proceedings, and hoped that some of the participants also disapproved. He found villagers like Jonas Horstead, the fiddler, who professed uneasy conscience but nevertheless had attended the ball. He was grieved when he found that Sarah Cooper was among them. When he expressed his grief, Sarah said, “I was miserable all the while and always wished from the first not to have anything to do with the school under Sir John. But he came to me saying, “I know Mr. Andrew does not agree with me that balls are not wrong. I see no wrong and I myself join in the dance. Besides, remember you are now my schoolmistress, not his.” ” This at least was Sarah’s account of her fall, and Andrew found it impossible to be cross with one so penitent and unhappy. He bore his testimony against the pomps and vanities of the world, and took his leave.’

Andrew’s diary
5 January 1842 [while Boileau was away]
‘Drew tooth for old Mrs. Roberts. It was singular that I went round to Ketteringham for the purpose of extracting it and I found her in great pain, upon which I drew from my pocket a pair of pincers which caused the poor old woman to shake and she begged I would use a piece of thread, I at last broke it off which perhaps was better than extracting the fangs.’

16 July 1843
‘Preached from Joshua ii and Jeremiah ii 37 latter part. Good congregation. Boileaus returned, very courteous. But before Mrs. Andrew reached the church they had ordered the first and second classes of girls into their pew, when my dear Ellen properly countermanded the order saying she was manager of the Sabbath School. How much they strive for mastery, but not lawfully. They aim at supremacy.’


The Diary Junction