I hope you have been enjoying the serialization thus far. Unfortunately, Lawrence Tanner only kept his journal during term time. We will resume in January with his next entry.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Last night, the last night of term is always rather a trying one with the immediate prospect of holidays, consequently there was bound to be some noise and excitement to which I turned an indulgent ear only remarking that we could dispense with the choruses Hall wished to shout out of tune!…
I was genuinely sorry to say goodbye to Tunnecliffe who is leaving. Poor chap, he was dreadfully upset. He has been thoroughly nice all this term and it is sad to have to break up our little quartet of monitors just when we had settled down so well together. Also Tunnecliffe is only a few days younger than I am and now he has left it leaves me considerably older than anyone else in the house.
3rd Play Night
There was less squash in the Gods tonight, curiously enough, than on the first two nights. The Eton people were there and some other oddments from other schools and one fearful person who appeared in tweeds (tweeds think of it at the Westminster Play!) from University College and who insisted on asking questions of Low to his extreme disgust and my somewhat amusement, about the Play for his School ‘Mag’. ..
I did not think on the whole the Play went quite as well as on the other nights, it may have been only my fancy. Of course, as I have written before, to Barrington Ward and Benvenisti fall the honours of this year’s play. The cast as a whole was extremely good and quite up to and even above the high standard of the best traditions of the Westminster Play.
Thus ends my first term as Head of the House, and on the whole I think I have every reason to be satisfied with the result. I have established my position far more than I ever thought possible and what to me is more extraordinary I think I may say truthfully that I am popular with my House. If I can gain the respect of my House for myself as an individual I would ten thousand times rather have it than mere respect for myself as holder of a high position, because the second follows the first. It is this feeling of respect and affection that I desire so that I may be able to influence people for their good and I think may truly and thankfully say that this term a step has been made in the direction I desire.
We had a curious and somewhat tragic sequel to the Play supper this morning, when we got up we heard that John (the manservant) was missing and apparently annoyed at something the boys had said had gone off after the Play Supper and had not come back. After breakfast arrived a policeman who was with Father for some time, and according to the official explanation he [John] apparently was run over in Hyde Park. Father for some unknown reason refuses to tell me more but it is perfectly obvious that his mind was unhinged and he tried to make away with himself.
Of course now various things come up: he was known to have a partiality for liquor which, being always of an excitable nature, very little would upset him. This I did not know before although the idea had flashed through my mind about 3 weeks ago one evening on his way up to bed he looked into my room (I was in bed) and then although he spoke naturally he looked queer and I couldn’t quite make out what he was driving at and I wondered then could he have been drinking.
I am very much afraid that it was something said at tea which annoyed him and the annoying thing to me is that I have only been out of tea four or perhaps five times this term on a weekday and it should have happened last night when I was not there. Not that I could have done much even if I had been there, I expect. It appears now that he had actually been in a Lunatic Asylum when he was about fifteen a fact which none of us, not even Father, knew. Of course he will not be able to come back for which I am sorry, and it has caused a lot of extra worry and trouble.
Spent most of the morning thinking out my speech for tonight which I eventually ‘got’ more or less. This afternoon I had my official practice as Head of House and all those who were going to sing at the Play Supper sang their songs before me. It was not unamusing ‘passing them’ as all right and making comments etc. All but two were all right and those had a little extra practice with Boult afterwards. Afterwards we Chiswickites decorated ‘Hall’ with Green stuff etc. and for a time Hall resounded with nailings (with hammers, pokers, saucepans and ‘muttered execrutions’ etc) of tintacks while we agilely balanced ourselves on tables and chairs. Later we fetched the piano down and I had dinner with Father.
2nd Play Night and Play Supper
. The Play was somewhat late in starting and we were squashed to suffocation in the ‘Gods’ — I kept my chair but the squash was so great that even monitors were being turned out. The Dean brought Admiral Sir John Fisher with him, the Dean of Christ Church, Lord Stalbridge and others. Prologue was much better and less nervous but he had to be prompted once. The Play on the whole went very well. Benvenisti was I thought very good and acted the first scene with consummate art. He and Ward are as good actors as I have seen on the Westminster Stage. There were no hitches tonight, though sometimes there were some lengthy pauses between the Acts.
The Supper was excellent and at the auspicious moment the Head of House rose amid applause and inwardly quailing though outwardly calm began: – ‘Mr Tanner and Gentlemen. It with great pleasure that I rise to propose the health of Mr Tanner (Hear Hear) In doing so I am standing in a unique position, this is the first time, I believe, in the history of the House that it has fallen to the lot of the Head of House to propose the health of his own Father and it is a position I am proud to be in (hear hear) At the same time I am fully aware of the delicacy of my position (laughter) but I feel quite sure that nothing that I can say will add in the least to the great pleasure we all feel in drinking Mr Tanner’s health (loud applause). The toast was drunk with enthusiastic cheers and musical honours.
I then called on the following for songs in the following order saying ‘I call upon Mr So-and-so for a song’:
A.K. Gilmour – ‘A more humane Mikado’ (Mikado)
G. Scott (OW) – ?
F. Tomlinson – John Peel
J. Radcliffe (OW) – The Carrion Crow
J. Mason – Mr Dooley
A. Boult (OW)- The Berkshire Tragedy
R. Sedgwick – The Baby on the Shore
G. Pitt-Lewis (OW) – ‘Young Man despair’ (Mikado)
H. Eyre – Pollywally Doodle
A.F. Noble (OW) – Camptown Races
G. Frampton – The Church Parade
D. Smurthwaite – Go to sea
J. Radcliffe (OW) – Widdicombe Fair
We finished by singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and ‘God Save the King’ and then broke up about 1 o’clock all the Old Grantites coming in to the smoke and talk afterwards in the Drawing and Dining Rooms. I think the general opinion seemed to be that it was a very successful Play Supper and that it was a very good selection of songs.
We eventually got to bed about two o’clock, Rigaud’s keeping on their supper until 2.30, much too late I should think.
A funereal and miserable day with Ray’s departure hanging over our heads. Father, Ray, Aunt Mary and myself went to Early Service this morning. Ray went at 5.30 for three years or more [his regiment was leaving for India]. when he comes back on leave I shall (Deo volente) be a 2nd year man at Cambridge. However it is not good to speculate on possibilities and as I don’t feel much in a mood for writing tonight I shall write no more.
Boult came down this evening and gave a private practice to the Professor who delivered himself of the opinion that he didn’t grow because he had too much on top! (i.e. presumably his large head and brains). He is a queer child.
Father was rightly somewhat annoyed to find Whitmore and Mason calmly sitting in ‘Outer’ this evening as (so Whitmore says) they couldn’t find him they took ‘French leave’. Well I was in the study almost all the evening and Whitmore didn’t come in! It is such calm cheek for two Hallites, sometimes as a great favour when Outer is empty and so as not to keep two fires going Hallites are allowed in, or perhaps by special invitation, but to take it as a right is pretty cool and as Father remarked with very little extension would mean they could do anything they liked if he wasn’t there. It is really almost a case for me and if it wasn’t the end of term I really think I should have them up. I may do yet.
D. M. Low has got his Oriel Scholarship. Really I fell quite honoured to have two such distinguished friends. A scholar of Balliol, a scholar of Oriel and a fool in the middle.
All the papers seem to have very laudatory accounts of the Play I am glad to say. Ward gave me his little poem for the Grantite this morning.
A most astonishing thing happened today. The VIIth had a ‘play‘ and Low came up and said ‘can’t you get a play and come out with me’ so I waylaid Gow coming out of Hall and said ‘do you think I could have a play today’ and to my amazement instead of the expected snub, he nodded his head. Consequently Low and myself rummaged in Print shops this afternoon and were quite happy. I got a little one of Lord Chief Justice Eyre from whose great-great Uncle I am descended.
1st Play Night
I went out about 7 o’clock and Boult, Chapman, Low and myself sat together in the Gods where there was a fine squash every inch of room being filled and I had to take a child on to half my chair most of the evening. Soon after 7.30 the Princess Henry of Battenburg arrived preceded by the Captain and led in by the Headmaster and was received with the National Anthem and mush clapping everybody standing up. a semi-circle of large armchairs had been placed for the Royal Party which consisted of about 12 people. It is said on good authority that as they went up the steps Gow remarked to the Princess ‘We are both falling over out petticoats aren’t we!!’ The Princess was much amused.
The Princess herself, so Barrington-Ward tells me, was really interested (though she didn’t appear to be) and followed the Play throughout from her Acting Edition — Gow says she understood it without the crib.
When the Princess was seated Barrington-Ward appeared through the curtain and handed his brother a bouquet of pink roses and a bound copy of the Acting Edition of the Play which the small brother presented to the Princess. She handed the bouquet to Gow who held it throughout the performance much to his inconvenience. I presume he didn’t like to put it down.
Now as to the Play. Poor Barrington-Ward obviously somewhat nervous got through the Prologue practically without prompting. It must have been a fearful ordeal.
The Play itself is long and rather dull, but it seemed to me it was uncommonly well acted throughout and by the gestures (particularly Barrington-Ward) and my small stock of Latin I followed fairly well.
The Epilogue was poor and far too abstruse but on the whole went well and the points were fairly well taken up. Troutbeck as Keir Hardie was quite well got up.
I saw various people afterwards including Adrian and Hodder-Williams. I felt rather inclined to steal one of the torches as we came out as a memento but resisted the temptation.
…I have been trying to console Low whose scholarship is being debated today, tomorrow we shall see if he gets anything.
On Monday John Sargeaunt told me Sir Clements Markham wanted to see me and had a book for me so this evening I went round to call. Sir Clements is without exception one of the most charming and generous old men I know; it is a pleasure to talk to him. I showed him my Heads of House list and he was interested and thought that Gillett was Head in 1842. ‘Gillett’ he said ‘was like Tom Pinch in Martin Chuzzlewit: very tall and always fighting. He had a fight with a ‘sci’ and nearly killed him, near the Pump, anyhow injured him badly’. Talking of his contemporaries he said he had a ‘Grantite boy’ to see him yesterday, Somerset! Raglan Somerset I may say is 77 years of age!…
Before I left I sowed a seed but whether it will grow I know not, I told Sir C how the numbers of the School were going up and particularly the Boarding element and that really, as Rigaud’s and we [Grant’s] were full it was getting a great problem what to do. Sir C at once said that if there were more boarders there must be more houses and we discussed it for a little.
Going round Dormitories tonight I stayed a minute in the 3-bedder and inquired after their songs and went on to tell them that they were going to take part in an historic occasion tomorrow at the Play. I told them a little about royalty coming to the Play etc. and a few other details and they seemed quite pleased and interested and only had the vaguest of ideas about it before.
Barrington-Ward has got a Balliol Scholarship. Personally I am delighted but I still think it revolutionary and wrong from the Christ Church point of view. However it’s the blue-ribbon of Scholarships and as a friend I am more than pleased.
Boult came to lunch and we practiced the children in their songs for Play Supper. They will be allright I think. Smurthwaite has got a nautical song with a good chorus (redolent of ‘Jacks’ and ‘tars’ and ‘ocean brine’ etc!) he amuses me by singing it with a sort of nautical roll from one foot to another and swaying his body. I fitted out Cargill and Frampton with songs and had a brilliant inspiration for the ‘Professor’ who had got a song but he thought it too ‘foolish’ to sing. I suggested the ‘Baby on the Shore’ and if he will only sing it slowly, deliberately and solemnly he will be frightfully funny.