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| The Last Veteran: Harry Patch and the Legacy of War by Peter Parker Harry Patch's history confounds stereotypes, says Nigel FountainOn 9 November 1920 Britain's Unknown Warrior, having been duly saluted in Boulogne by Maréchal Foch, supreme commander of allied forces on the western front, set sail on a Royal Navy destroyer for Dover. Three months earlier David Railton, a frontline padre, had sent his idea for what Peter Parker calls "this representative of all the dead" to the Dean of Westminster, who had put it to George V. The king didn't like it, but the prime minister, Lloyd George, did, and having claimed the scheme as his own, got it through Cabinet that October. On 7 November, four unidentified bodies were exhumed from battlefield cemeteries and one randomly selected for a state funeral, at Westminster Abbey, on 11 November, 1920. Thus was a caravan set in motion that rolls to this day.The Unknown Warrior provided a chance for the Church of England to reassert itself, writes Parker in his meditation on 90 years of British remembrance and commemoration of the first world war. The focus of grief at the 1919 anniversary of the armistice had been Sir Edwin Lutyens's temporary plaster Cenotaph in Whitehall, the permanent stone version of which was unveiled by the king, en route to the Abbey. The Cenotaph had seemed, writes Parker, "distressingly pagan" for the Anglican hierarchy – but it remains a place where dead Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Chinese, Zoroastrians, Hindus, agnostics, atheists and other children of the empire, heretics all, can at home, for ever.The Imperial War Graves Commission was already providing permanent resting places for a few of the 1,104,890 imperial dead when the ceremony took place. Yet it was the Unknown Warrior who initiated one tradition, which has now surely ended with the death, after 111 years, on 25 July 2009, of 29295 Private HJ Patch, poor bloody (Duke of Cornwall's Light) infantryman, plumber, sometime amateur geologist and pig-keeper, and hater of war. After his funeral at Wells Cathedral, Patch received a private burial in Monkton Coombe, in his home county of Somerset.The Unknown Warrior's views are known only to God. The views of Harry Patch on such ceremonials were brisk – at least until near the end, when public acclaim for sticking around tempered his opinion. Patch had dismissed 11 November ceremonials as "show business", eschewed membership of the British Legion – until, says Parker, his last year, when he was "bribed with a bottle of whisky" – and never talked about his war during the more than half a century of his first marriage.Patch's life, and those of other veterans who made it to the 21st century, punctuate Parker's narrative. "Most of them," the author writes, "were perfectly ordinary people." Yes, but then "ordinariness", as Parker demonstrates, evaporates under close scrutiny. The gregarious Royal Naval Air Service veteran Henry Allingham was at his death, a week before Patch, the world's oldest living man, and perhaps better copy, but Patch, splendidly oblivious, confounded stereotypes.He did not do his bit in 1914. He continued plumbing, until conscription in October 1916. On 16 August 1917, he joined the third battle of Ypres, Passchendaele, setting out with his C company for the German lines, just under a mile away. En route the sight of a Tommy "ripped open from his shoulder to waist by shrapnel . . . lying in a pool of blood" begging to be shot seared itself, he wrote nine decades later, into his mind. Thirty-seven days after that incident, a shell exploded over his head, injuring him and killing, as he found out in hospital, the rest of his gun crew. Thus did 22 September become, for ever, Patch's private remembrance day.It was HMS Verdun (surely the only RN ship named after a French victory) which bore the Unknown Warrior across the Channel. The destroyer emerged, writes Parker, from heavy fog as it approached Dover. My perceptions – most people's, maybe – of that war are rooted in mist, fog and, of course, mud. But Parker sketches out how attitudes have changed, from the interwar years, through the dismissive 1960s, and into today. I remember autumnal visits to another of Lutyens's cenotaphs, in Watts Park, Southampton in the 50s. Beyond the trees, in a mist, lay a dark world, still exerting gravitational pull on our family, on families across the globe.The book bears witness to hurried completion. The ILP was the Independent rather than the International Labour party, the author's account of the British nuclear deterrent is spectacularly mangled, the awesome role of women on the western front is largely ignored, and no proper explanation is forthcoming of how, after the 60s, remembrance – or Patch's "show business" – came back into fashion. New wars helped.But The Last Veteran also illuminates; it is full of fascinating detail, replete with ironies. It had never occurred to me how Alan Clark, diarist, minister, quasi-fascist and author of The Donkeys (1961), his wildly popular (and critically demolished) denunciation of the 1915 British high command, helped lead the left off to embrace the facile certainties of everything from Oh! What a Lovely War (1963 and still reviving) to Blackadder Goes Forth (1989 and still repeating).I picked up a 1921 book by one General Huguet, late chief of the French mission to the British Army, about this country. "There is not a country in the world," he wrote, "where the dead are so quickly forgotten. Funerals take place without ceremony, pomp or oration." History, once again, would prove a general wrong.Nigel Fountain's World War II: The People's Story is published by Michael O'Mara/Readers Digest.HistoryNigel Fountainguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Little-known novelist vies with big names for Costa prize Christopher Nicholson's The Elephant Keeper goes up against Hilary Mantel, Colm TóibÃn and Penelope Lively in shortlist for £5,000 awardA touching story of an 18th-century boy's love affair with an elephant, which has so far attracted little critical attention, has this evening found itself pitted against three literary heavyweights for one of the UK's leading book prizes.Christopher Nicholson, a former community development worker, has been shortlisted for the Costa novel award alongside Penelope Lively, Colm TóibÃn and this year's Booker prize winner, Hilary Mantel. The shortlist was one of five announced for this years Costas, awards that unashamedly reward the year's most enjoyable books across different categories: novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children's book.Nicholson's The Elephant Keeper was one of the most eye-catching. The judges described his book about a stable boy who develops a deepening relationship with Jenny, an elephant, as "an unusual and absorbing story – a real discovery." It was one of a record number of 155 entries for the category with Mantel's bestselling doorstopper about Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall, unsurprisingly one of the four shortlisted books.Many will be pleased to see TóibÃn's Brooklyn nominated after it just missed out on the Booker shortlist, and there will be a similar reaction for Lively. She was one of several former Booker winners who was not even longlisted for the prize this year, although her novel Family Album was warmly praised by many reviewers including Joanna Briscoe in the Guardian, who called it "one of her most impressive works".Nicholson's novel, written in the language of the period, has slipped under many critics' radar. He admitted: "It's a surprise, I didn't even know my publisher had entered it." He described The Elephant Keeper, his second novel, as a historical fairy tale – "it's not asking the reader to implicitly believe everything" – telling the story of 12-year-old Tom Page and his strengthening feelings for the elephant, which he chooses above his girlfriend.Nicholson, who also spent 15 years as a producer for the BBC World Service, said he was fascinated by elephants, "one of the most powerful of all animals and yet one of the most empathetic."For the first time there are two posthumous Costa nominations, one of which is for Siobhan Dowd in the children's book category for Solace of the Road. Judges said they were captivated by Dowd's story of a troubled teenager who embarks on a road trip back to her mother. Dowd died of cancer in August 2007 and all royalties now go to a fund for disadvantaged young people set up in her name.Also on the children's shortlist is a novel that tackles a big, controversial subject: Anna Perera's Guantanamo Boy tells the story of Khalid, from Rochdale, who is arrested on a visit to Pakistan and soon finds himself in the US detention camp. Perera, who is married to Dire Straits founder David Knopfler, said she felt honoured to be shortlisted. "I didn't sleep a wink last night, I was completely flabbergasted."She was moved to write the novel – her first for teenagers – after attending a gig for the charity Reprieve where the plight of child detainees at Guantánamo was raised. "I didn't know they were held there and the idea of a book went through my head. I started to research the subject and came across millions of pages of information on the internet." The more Perera found out, the more scandalised she became. "It is almost laughable, extraordinary and inhumane that juveniles are held there."The other two contenders are Mary Hoffman for Troubadour, and Patrick Ness, a regular Guardian reviewer, for The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking: Book Two).The other posthumous nomination is curmudgeonly playwright and novelist Simon Gray for Coda, the last volume of his freewheeling "smoking diaries" in which he writes of life after his diagnosis for cancer (although he died of an aneurysm).Other biography nominations are Graham Farmelo's account of the life of Paul Dirac, an outstanding yet extremely weird physicist; William Fiennes' memoir of growing up in a magical, moated castle, The Music Room; and Caroline Moorehead's Dancing to the Precipice about the fabulously named 18th-century Versailles noblewoman Lucie de la Tour du Pin.In the poetry category the Australian wit Clive James is nominated for a volume of verse he wrote over five years, Angels Over Elsinore. Then there is Katharine Kilalea for a debut book, One Eye'd Leigh and two other well-established poets: Christopher Reid for A Scattering and Ruth Padel for Darwin: A Life in Poems.The final category is for first novel and the shortlisted writers are Ali Shaw for The Girl with Glass Feet – longlisted for the Guardian first book award – Rachel Heath, for The Finest Type of English Womanhood; Peter Murphy for John the Revelator; and Raphael Selbourne for Beauty.In total, 592 books were entered for the Costas, previously known as the Whitbreads. The category winners will be announced on January 5, each winning £5,000, before the main prize – won by novelists Sebastian Barry last year and AL Kennedy in 2007 – is presented on January 26.The shortlists have been decided by five three-person judging panels with a diverse range of names including actor Neil Pearson, broadcaster Fiona Phillips, crime writer and poet Sophie Hannah, historian Robert Lacey and writer William Nicolson. The final judges will be made up of one member from each panel and four other people announced next month.The 2009 Costa book award shortlists in full are:Novel award:Penelope Lively for Family Album.Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall.Christopher Nicholson for The Elephant Keeper.Colm TóibÃn for Brooklyn.First novel awardRachel Heath for The Finest Type of English Womanhood.Peter Murphy for John the Revelator.Raphael Selbourne for Beauty.Ali Shaw for The Girl with Glass Feet.Biography awardGraham Farmelo for The Strangest Man The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius.William Fiennes for The Music Room.Simon Gray for Coda.Caroline Moorehead for Dancing to the Precipice.Poetry awardClive James for Angels Over Elsinore.Katharine Kilalea for One Eye'd Leigh.Ruth Padel for Darwin: A Life in Poems.Christopher Reid for A Scattering.Children's book award Siobhan Dowd for Solace of the Road.Mary Hoffman for Troubadour.Patrick Ness for The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking: Book Two).Anna Perera for Guantanamo Boy.Costa book awardsFictionHistoryChildren and teenagersAwards and prizesMark Brownguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Despite Ray Bradbury’s Efforts, a California Library Closes A library branch in Ventura, Calif., closed depite the efforts of the author. feeds.nytimes.com |
An Appraisal: Starting With Lines, but Ending With Truth David Levine’s genius was really that he wasn’t like anybody else. feeds.nytimes.com |
Up and Down Stairs by Jeremy Musson Kathryn Hughes welcomes two books that restore domestic servants to their rightful place in historyDomestic servants continue to tug politely but firmly at the silk sleeve of historical imagination. The current craze for genealogy might be partly to blame, for it turns out that the majority of Britons have ancestors who toiled in the scullery or potting shed, doing someone else's dirty work. The history of the servants' hall, complete with red hands, sore knees and a burning sense of resentment, turns out to be the story of us all.It didn't start out like that. In the middle ages, going to work in someone else's household was the standard way for a young man of gentle birth to learn the practices of privilege. Jeremy Musson adds little to existing narratives of life in the great medieval house, but he retells the story at a cracking pace. We are reminded that all kinds of likely lads, including Chaucer, started out as paper pushers and cup bearers.The Paston letters are pressed into service once again to illustrate the full range of administrative and commercial functions carried out by servants in the 15th-century manor house. Large sums of money are chaperoned anxiously between the Pastons' East Anglian HQ and London, and all hell breaks loose when the trusted steward turns out to have been carrying on with the daughter of the house.For extra colour, Musson fillets John Russell's much-recycled Book of Nurture (c1460) for its reminders to servants about not picking your nose or spitting in the soup. The reward for this restraint was, by the Tudor period, a spruce uniform in shout-out colours which announced to the world that you were connected and protected.From the 17th century the country house started to divide its internal space to reflect the family's desire for privacy. The staff, increasingly purged of its young gentlemen, was banished to the cellar and the attic and became both plebeian and female. Back stairs were now installed to ensure, in Mark Girouard's famous formulation, "The gentry walking up the stairs no longer met their last night's faeces coming down".With these new ways of Âbeing came fresh perplexities. The firm boundary now installed between a family and its servants acted, perversely, as a kind of erotic tease, sometimes with catastrophic results.Take the case of Lord Castlehaven, who liked to dally in the servants' hall for all the wrong reasons. He slept with several of his footmen, and paid a couple more to service, possibly rape, the countess. Yet in this particular Wiltshire country house, cross-class desire clearly flowed both ways. In the course of the subsequent trial it emerged that two of Castlehaven's senior flunkies had tried it on with both his daughter and daughter-in-law, with one even marrying the former. Confusingly, these men had also slept with m'lord and his lady. Only the hanging of Castlehaven and two of the footmen in 1631 ended the bed-hopping.This is not only good stuff, but also illustrates a wider point about how seriously the crown took any signs of domestic disorder in its increasingly shaky kingdom. As with much of the material in this book, Musson has not gone back to the original sources, but instead depends on secondary Âaccounts such as Cynthia Herrup's excellent A House in Gross Disorder (1999). There's nothing wrong with that as long as you acknowledge the provenance of your material, which Musson does scrupulously.The problem with his lack of curiosity becomes more apparent once the story of domestic service enters the 18th century. For here Musson mines the plethora of how-to household manuals which poured on to the market, aimed at a dual readership of ambitious servants and insecure employers. Most were written by former domestics who had turned to authorship to escape from someone else's kitchen, and they were designed to entertain, flatter and inspire as well as to instruct. Yet Musson treats titles such as Elizabeth Raffald's The Experienced English Housewife (1769) or Hannah Glasse's The Servants' Register (1761) as if they were solemn transcriptions of what went on behind closed doors. This is like using one of Nigella's cookery books as a faithful record of how the British middle classes live.No such complacency about source material hangs over Carolyn Steedman's Labours Lost: Domestic Service and the Making of Modern England (426pp, Cambridge, £21.99), a study of domestic service in the 18th century. Steedman worries away at court transcripts, parish records and domestic account books, shaking out the human stories hidden in their folds while refusing to take anything on trust. Typical of this forensic approach is the brilliant use she makes of servant tax records. From 1777, as a way of raising Ârevenues for the wars with America and France, new taxes were imposed on the Âemployment of domestic servants. The more footmen and housemaids you had, the more you paid. Servants employed in business – dairyhands, apprentices and shop assistants – were exempt. This was to be a charge on "elegant conveniences" rather than on hard-pressed enterprise. Appeals came thick and fast, with householders keen to show that it was impossible to make a clear distinction between footmen and farmhands. In "middling" homes a ploughboy might regularly serve at table, a dairymaid watch children or an apprentice clean shoes.Steedman, though, wants to do more than simply revise our ideas about who did what in the Hanoverian household. Her overarching aim is to put domestic servants back into the grand narrative of British class formation. EP Thompson, taking his lead from Marx, left them out almost entirely from his classic The Making of the English Working Class (1963), concentrating instead on the industrial proletariat. Such an omission seems particularly glaring when you consider that the vast majority of the general workforce in 18th-century Britain was composed of servants rather than Âminers and factory hands.What's more, Steedman suggests, thinkers as disparate as John Locke and William Godwin sharpened their ideas about selfhood, labour and political rights by thinking about the people they employed in their own houses. So to ignore domestic labour is to be left with a skewed sense of how the British state developed during the crucial final third of the 18th century.All this sounds worryingly abstract and, in truth, you need to have a clear head to keep up with Steedman. But, just when you long for Musson's easier approach, she gives you something to catch hold of – namely, a dirty nappy. For underpinning all her theorising is Steedman's desire to make us think about what historians call "materiality" and the rest of us call "things you can touch, see and smell". By writing out servants from his account of the history of England, she suggests, Thompson created a world where chamber pots were automatically emptied and no one changed the baby. Her job, as she sees it, is to put that unlovely work back into the story of how Britain emerged into the modern world.Kathryn Hughes's The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton is published by HarperPerennial.HistorySocietyKathryn Hughesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |