James Lees-Milne: the life

433 Pages·2010·26.22 MB·English

by  Michael Bloch

Michael Bloch
Born in 1953, Michael Bloch read law at St John's College, Cambridge,
and was called to the bar by Inner Temple. He worked for Maitre Suzanne
Blum, the Paris lawyer of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and wrote
six books about the couple. His other biographical subjects include
Joachim von Ribbentrop, Frederick Matthias Alexander and Jeremy
Thorpe. He is James Lees-Milne's literary executor and has completed the
editing of his diaries.
Praise for James Lees-Milne
'This book has been eagerly awaited by addicts of James Lees-Milne's
diaries, and they will not be disappointed ... It is not merely a rehash of
the diaries, but brings to life the mercurial and delicate intelligence that
brought them into being'
A. N. Wilson, Country Ufe
'A pleasing, rounded picture of the upper-class muddler who was the
greatest English diarist of the twentieth century ... conveys the contradic
tions of character and circumstances out of which this complicated, elusive
but attractive personality evolved towards late-flowering celebrity'
Rosemary Hill, London Review of Books
'Very funny indeed' D.J. Taylor, Independent on Sunday
James Lees-Milne is well served by this crisp, comprehensive life'
Peter Kemp, Sunday Times
'A creditable achievement ... Bloch succeeds in dropping us off safely at
the gates of a minor, but convincing, national treasure'
Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph
'Michael Bloch has resisted writing a pompous, laborious tombstone
of a book about this long, busy, well-documented life. His biography is
disciplined, compact, elegant and tender'
Richard Davenport-Hines, TLS
'Superbly written and enormously entertaining ... In all respects, Bloch's
is an admirable and fair biography which should encourage many more
readers to the delights of the diaries'
Christopher Gray, Oxford Mail
'Bloch's vivid and sparkling biography successfully avoids the pitfalls of
writing about a subject known to the author and one who had already
written so extensively about himself ... Lees-Milne emerges as a complex,
benign and multi-faceted character. That he escapes the shadow of his
diaries is the ultimate achievement of this admirable book'
Matthew Dennison, Herald
'Bloch has dug deep and told all about his indiscreet, emotional, wrong
headed, infuriating, yet curiously disarming subject . . . The result is
an absorbing and faintly disquieting example of the contemporary
biographer's art'
Anne Chisholm, Spectator
'Bloch has served his old friend well. delivering a book every bit as well
written and entertaining as the diaries'
Robert O'Byme, Irish Times
'A bible of bisexuality' The Economist
'"What is the point of those Lees-Milnes?" the Duke of Beaufort once
wanted to know ... Michael Bloch has triumphantly proved the point of
James Lees-Milne'
Petroc Trelawny, Catholic Herald
'Michael Bloch's biography of one of the most colourtul - and waspish -
characters to have worked for the National Trust gives a unique insight
into the workings of our charity in its early days'
National Tmst Maxazine
'Bloch's enjoyable biography incidentally relates a conservation epic,
Lees-Milne's virtually single-handed rescue from catastrophe of the finest
portfolio of country houses in the world, those of the National Trust'
Simon Jenkins, TLS Books of the Year
'For devotees of the Diaries, Michael Bloch's biography is essential ... a
dignified achievement'
Anita Brookner, Spectator Books of the Year
'I wasn't sure I wanted to read a full-length life of my hero since he never
stopped writing about himself I couldn't have been more wrong. Michael
Bloch, Lees-Milne's last great love, combines admiration and affection
with a beady eye'
Jeremy L!!wis, Oldie Books of the Year
'For those of us still lamenting the fact that James Lees-Milne has gone
where no diaries are published, it is some relief to have this moving
biography as a final fix'
Richard Holloway, Herald Books of the Year
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James Lees-Milne
_The Life
MICHAEL BLOCH
JOHN MURRAY
To Charles Orwin
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by John Murray (Publishers)
An Hachette UK Company
First published in paperback in 2010
© Michael Bloch 2009
The right of Michael Bloch to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Apart from any use pem1i11ed under UK copyright law no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system. or tr,msmitted, in any form or by any means without
the prior writtl"n pem1ission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
covl"r other than that in which it is published and without a sin1ilar condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British library
ISBN 978-0-7195-6550-2
Typeset in Bembo by ~is Fil~~.tport, Cheshire
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Printed and bol$l-:.,:)q- ,~iys~l~~.J'~ pie
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John Murray policy is to use pap~rs that•~ nltura~~;:~-•\·l/i•iri_.>,d recyclable products and made
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from wood grown in sustainable fores~. ~re~fn~~...arutnutrrinyg processes are expected to
confom1 to the env,ronm_e~~ of origin.
John Murray (PUbltsl!~r
]38 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
www,johnmurray.co.uk
Contents
Illustrations
IX
Preface xi
1. The Dreaming Boy
2. Further Education 29
3. Patrons and Patronesses 53
4. Anne 73
5. The National Trust 90
6. Soldier Blue 119
7. 'The Man Who Saved England' 134
8. A New World 167
9. Alvilde 194
10. Married Life 213
11. Mid-Life Crisis 241
12. Alderley 258
13. Bath and Badminton 286
14. Struggling On 314
15. Grand Old Man 333
Publishing History ofJ ames Lees-Milne's Diaries 353
Notes 355
Index 383
vii
Illustrations
I. Wickhamford Manor, Worcestershire
2. On Aberdovey beach,June 1914
3. WithTyke
4. At Eton
5. Desmond Parsons
6. With his mother in Provence
7. With Diana Mitford
8. Lord Lloyd
9. Harold Nicolson
IO. In Switzerland with Kathleen Kennet and her son Wayland
1 I. Riding with Penelope Berjeman
12. With the Johnnie Churchills and Anne Gathorne-Hardy, 1935
13. At the National Trust
14. Stourhead: the house
15. Stourhead: the park
16. Robert Byron
17. James Pope-Hennessy
18. Stuart Preston
19. With Rick Stewart-Jones, 1938
20. Holidaying in Italy
21. West Brompton Detachment of the British Red Cross, 1939
22. West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
23. Eardley Knollys and Desmond Shawe-Taylor at Long Crichel
24. Alvilde Chaplin with her Pekinese, Foo
25. Portrait by Derek Hill, 1954
26. Dining on the Riviera
27. The view from Alvilde's garden in Roquebrune
28. Vita Sackville-West
29. John Kenworthy-Browne
30. Alderley Grange, Gloucestershire
31. Strolling in the lime alley
ix
ILLUSTRATIONS
32. Lansdown Crescent, Bath
33. In Beckford's Library
34. Essex House, Badminton.
35. Jim and Alvilde reconciled in old age
Credits: the author (1. 14. 15. 2.2.. ::!.7. 30. 34); Heinecke Rare llook Jnd
Manuscript Library, Yale U111wrsity (2.. _l. 13. 17. 18. 19. 2.0. 2.1. 2.3. 2.4. 2.6):
Nicholas Robinson (4. <,. 7. IO. 2.5. 2.9. 31, p. 35); Lord Rmse (5); National
Portrait Gallery. London (8. 2.X); G1:tty lma~es (9): Mrs Snnon Fr,1zer (11.
12); Estate of Robert Byron (16); Derry Moore (33).
X