I don't remember what I was looking for--probably something to do with Hallam's relationship with Alfred Lord Tennyson--when I came across this wonderfully named person, Hallam Tennyson. Turns out that he spent a few eventful years in Calcutta. I started reading his autobiography The Haunted Mind (London: André Deutsch, 1984) and decided that I must acquire a copy. At a modest price, a second-hand volume was located soon enough, and it has turned out to be one of my favourite autobiographies.
Who was Hallam Tennyson? He was the English poet laureate's great-grandson. Besides the autobiography he has written a novel, a collection of short stories, a couple of volumes on travel, and so on. We don't normally do book reviews in Calcutta Confusion, but for now I'd like to share my experience of reading the book.
When our author was born, he was announced in The Times as Beryl Augustine Evelyn. A great-uncle who was residing in the Isle of Wight intervened and reminded the family that his name ought to be commemorated. Thus, Evelyn was replaced by Hallam--I don't know how the rest of it came about.
HT talks about a deeply troubled relationship with his mother--and the memoirs on the whole, are more reflections and meditations upon life than they are a plain narrative of events. HT's mother, Ivy, also seems to have had a rather interesting affair with Bertrand Russell. Between his relationship troubles with Alys and the beginning of his affair with Lady Ottoline Morrell, it appeas Russell "took time off from the Principia Mathematica" to swoop in to "rescue" the young lady from a certain personal crisis. Remember, Russell also "rescued" Vivienne and Thomas S. Eliot.
Russell remembered Ivy well into her old-age. In characteristic manner he expressed this when HT once met him, as the latter recalls: '"Tell her I never go without thinking of her for more than a--" (and he [Russell] paused in order to consider the exact period of time: then added with great precision and finality) "--for more than a week." Ill as she was, my mother greeted this message with a roguish twinkle.'
Many years back, in the Tennyson family mansion in Farringdon, HT recalls getting into great trouble with his mother when she discovered an unfinished letter by him to a friend, where he was describing her as "horribly bourgeois and irritating."
Hallam Tennyson appears in his autobiography to be quite a remarkable man, given to introspection and contemplation. While at Eton he had several opportunities to explore his homosexuality--something he had never really tried to repress even as a child it seems. But he also experimented with heterosexuality, trying hard to feel attracted by the opposite sex. This he hoped to achieve by sleeping with pictures of Betty Grable and Ginger Rogers.
One of the most amusing characters to have entered into his life was a non-Etonion, who was "dark, clever, handsome and over six feet tall." This young man claimed that he HT had psychic powers and begged to be hypnotised. "Thereupon, in a pretended 'trance', he declared himself passionately in love with me: a declaration which he swore, on 'coming round', that he had completely forgotten." Later this man got himself thrown into prison for posing as a RAF officer and stealing lady's handbags. (Almost out of Wodehouse?) He became a stage actor, a film star, and a well-known writer, "each under a different pseudonym."
With another friend, Roddy Owen, HT started reading Freud in the newly published Penguin edition. "Our shrine, set up in his rooms," he writes, "consisted of a retable with a dove on top representing the 'super-ego' and a teddy bear in the middle representing the 'ego'. I have forgotten (significantly?) whatever it was we used at the bottom to represent the 'id'."
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, HT joined the University Ambulance Unit. The self-proclaimed Marxist, was also a vegetarian. He wore synthetic leather boots, protesting against the unnecessary slaughter of animals, but in characteristic self-deflating style, he mentions that "the soles parted company with the uppers at their first experience of rain, so that gesture came to a sticky end."
HT was to marry a lady by the name of Margot, with whom he spent many years. Margot was of a German-Jewish family, and she had lost every one of them in the War. They "became conscious of each other" some time in 1943 around the bonfire on Guy Fawkes night. Soon after he was sent to Egypt on service, from where he wrote a large number of letters in very small handwriting. The projects he had to manage are extraordinary. As his first assignment, he had to help Yugoslav refugees who had been evacuated off the Dalmatian coast. He describes a few scenes, such as the following:
The couple arrived in India in early 1946 after a three-week voyage. They landed in Bombay and quickly befriended Sachin Chaudhury, a Bengali gentleman, who comes across in the memoirs as a colourful character. Chaudhury was the General Manager of Bombay Talkies and carried with him a large supply of paan which "he had been too shy to chew in England" during a recent trip. With "his mouth stained a brilliant carmine", he offered HT and Margot "idiosyncratic" hospitality. He could quote at length from The Four Quartets. In a most remarkable passage the author offers a description of the whirlwind days in Bombay, which I personally identified very much with.
When he was offered the Star of India (Second Class) for their work in the Port Canning and Diamond Harbour area, he wrote back saying that any such effort should rather acknowledge the work of one Swarn Sarin. Swarn Sarin was a Punjabi woman, who had surveyed the area and bullied the Ministry into taking charge of the embankment attempts. "Swarn was the only person I ever met who could slowly masticate a large red chilli while continuing to talk about the problems of the jute industry."
In the middle of extensive surveys around Raghabpur, the couple also met Mahatma Gandhi at Ashram Sevagram. "The old man was jumping about on his mat and giggling in a frisky manner--his normal spirits in fact, as we were soon to learn." Continuing his deeply introspective vein, HT offers his analysis of Gandhi's sexuality (and later, of the question of feminism and women in Bengal)--written with nuance and incisiveness that I had not expected even half-way through the work.
After their return to England following a spell of bad health for Margot, Hallam Tennyson eventually served for several years as Assistant Head of the BBC's Radio Drama department and even went on to umpire at Wimbledon despite his general suspicion of sports. (I found quite to my horror that he was found dead in his apartment in 2005, in circumstances that are far from being pleasant.) The autobiography is well worth a read, and perhaps, some day I'll get down to reading the short stories as well.
Who was Hallam Tennyson? He was the English poet laureate's great-grandson. Besides the autobiography he has written a novel, a collection of short stories, a couple of volumes on travel, and so on. We don't normally do book reviews in Calcutta Confusion, but for now I'd like to share my experience of reading the book.
When our author was born, he was announced in The Times as Beryl Augustine Evelyn. A great-uncle who was residing in the Isle of Wight intervened and reminded the family that his name ought to be commemorated. Thus, Evelyn was replaced by Hallam--I don't know how the rest of it came about.
HT talks about a deeply troubled relationship with his mother--and the memoirs on the whole, are more reflections and meditations upon life than they are a plain narrative of events. HT's mother, Ivy, also seems to have had a rather interesting affair with Bertrand Russell. Between his relationship troubles with Alys and the beginning of his affair with Lady Ottoline Morrell, it appeas Russell "took time off from the Principia Mathematica" to swoop in to "rescue" the young lady from a certain personal crisis. Remember, Russell also "rescued" Vivienne and Thomas S. Eliot.
Russell remembered Ivy well into her old-age. In characteristic manner he expressed this when HT once met him, as the latter recalls: '"Tell her I never go without thinking of her for more than a--" (and he [Russell] paused in order to consider the exact period of time: then added with great precision and finality) "--for more than a week." Ill as she was, my mother greeted this message with a roguish twinkle.'
Many years back, in the Tennyson family mansion in Farringdon, HT recalls getting into great trouble with his mother when she discovered an unfinished letter by him to a friend, where he was describing her as "horribly bourgeois and irritating."
Hallam Tennyson appears in his autobiography to be quite a remarkable man, given to introspection and contemplation. While at Eton he had several opportunities to explore his homosexuality--something he had never really tried to repress even as a child it seems. But he also experimented with heterosexuality, trying hard to feel attracted by the opposite sex. This he hoped to achieve by sleeping with pictures of Betty Grable and Ginger Rogers.
One of the most amusing characters to have entered into his life was a non-Etonion, who was "dark, clever, handsome and over six feet tall." This young man claimed that he HT had psychic powers and begged to be hypnotised. "Thereupon, in a pretended 'trance', he declared himself passionately in love with me: a declaration which he swore, on 'coming round', that he had completely forgotten." Later this man got himself thrown into prison for posing as a RAF officer and stealing lady's handbags. (Almost out of Wodehouse?) He became a stage actor, a film star, and a well-known writer, "each under a different pseudonym."
With another friend, Roddy Owen, HT started reading Freud in the newly published Penguin edition. "Our shrine, set up in his rooms," he writes, "consisted of a retable with a dove on top representing the 'super-ego' and a teddy bear in the middle representing the 'ego'. I have forgotten (significantly?) whatever it was we used at the bottom to represent the 'id'."
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, HT joined the University Ambulance Unit. The self-proclaimed Marxist, was also a vegetarian. He wore synthetic leather boots, protesting against the unnecessary slaughter of animals, but in characteristic self-deflating style, he mentions that "the soles parted company with the uppers at their first experience of rain, so that gesture came to a sticky end."
HT was to marry a lady by the name of Margot, with whom he spent many years. Margot was of a German-Jewish family, and she had lost every one of them in the War. They "became conscious of each other" some time in 1943 around the bonfire on Guy Fawkes night. Soon after he was sent to Egypt on service, from where he wrote a large number of letters in very small handwriting. The projects he had to manage are extraordinary. As his first assignment, he had to help Yugoslav refugees who had been evacuated off the Dalmatian coast. He describes a few scenes, such as the following:
In Sinai, following now established practice, I was put in charge of the camp kitchens. The Dalmatians who worked with me were a cheerful, even inspiring, band. They peeled spuds or stirred goulash to the accompaniment of endless folk and anti-fascist songs (the latter based on Slav folk tunes anyway). They all seemed to have this gift of song and modulated automatically into four-part harmony...Singing was indeed the refugees' only form of entertainment and expression(...) (78)Towards the end of the war, HT was sent to Italy to survey the number of Jews missing and to take stock of the total destruction of property. Here he met Bernard Berenson and Leo Stein, brother of Gertrude Stein. Leo Stein had written a book on Art and Psychoanalysis which was largely a product of his memory and imagination since he had no access to a library. Leo was being disguised as his wife's servant in their home some where in the hills above Florence. The manuscript, which he had offered HT to read, got lost in transit. A version written later was published eventually.
The couple arrived in India in early 1946 after a three-week voyage. They landed in Bombay and quickly befriended Sachin Chaudhury, a Bengali gentleman, who comes across in the memoirs as a colourful character. Chaudhury was the General Manager of Bombay Talkies and carried with him a large supply of paan which "he had been too shy to chew in England" during a recent trip. With "his mouth stained a brilliant carmine", he offered HT and Margot "idiosyncratic" hospitality. He could quote at length from The Four Quartets. In a most remarkable passage the author offers a description of the whirlwind days in Bombay, which I personally identified very much with.
He refused to plan anything in advance and we seemed to pass the mornings wondering whether we were ever going to move out of the flat. Then at two o'clock in the afternoon we started weaving across the city by taxi, picking up friends for a lunch party which had only been decided on twenty minutes before A certain museum was chosen for an afternoon visit, but at three o'clock we had still not eaten, leaving two restaurants in disdain because they were unable to provide a sufficient variety of vegetarian food for one of our freshly gathered guests. We reached the museum at closing time but Sachin's charm kept it open for another two hours and afterwards the curator brought out his private collection from a locked safe. (98)In Bengal, their work was mostly surrounding the famine-ridden areas surrounding Calcutta. HT was in Calcutta during the riots in July 1947 and witnessed great brutality in the streets. On one occasion he was mis-recognized as a Muslim person and Hindu Bengalis turned their attentions to him after he tried to save three defenceless Muslims from a gutter. I found his views on Calcutta quite honest--not patronizing in the least and far from romantic.
When he was offered the Star of India (Second Class) for their work in the Port Canning and Diamond Harbour area, he wrote back saying that any such effort should rather acknowledge the work of one Swarn Sarin. Swarn Sarin was a Punjabi woman, who had surveyed the area and bullied the Ministry into taking charge of the embankment attempts. "Swarn was the only person I ever met who could slowly masticate a large red chilli while continuing to talk about the problems of the jute industry."
In the middle of extensive surveys around Raghabpur, the couple also met Mahatma Gandhi at Ashram Sevagram. "The old man was jumping about on his mat and giggling in a frisky manner--his normal spirits in fact, as we were soon to learn." Continuing his deeply introspective vein, HT offers his analysis of Gandhi's sexuality (and later, of the question of feminism and women in Bengal)--written with nuance and incisiveness that I had not expected even half-way through the work.
After their return to England following a spell of bad health for Margot, Hallam Tennyson eventually served for several years as Assistant Head of the BBC's Radio Drama department and even went on to umpire at Wimbledon despite his general suspicion of sports. (I found quite to my horror that he was found dead in his apartment in 2005, in circumstances that are far from being pleasant.) The autobiography is well worth a read, and perhaps, some day I'll get down to reading the short stories as well.
I met HT in 1983 when he came back to India or rather WB to see what had become of the areas he worked in 1946-48. He produced a radio program called 'Return to Lotus Land' on this visit which aired on BBC4 on November 16, 1983. I'm pretty certain my mothers interview also featured in it. Sadly I have not found a recording of it yet. We visited HT in his London flat the next year and stayed with him for a few days exploring London. He was an avid tennis fan and an umpire at Wimbledon.
ReplyDeleteHT was an amazing character. I only stumbled across him again when reading letters my mother wrote to my aunt in 1983...