To Gertrude Chanler
119a Mount Street | London | 24 June 1966
Â
Please don't have a fit. We'll survive, and before you know it Lib will be turned into a SCHOLAR!
102
I'll write soon: I'm sorry it's all so precipitate but its no use chewing it over and over once one's decided to take the plunge.
With love, Bruce
To Gertrude Chanler
119a Mount Street | London | 6 July 1966
Â
Dear Gertrude,
I am sorry that we took you by surprise the other day with my decision to give up Sotheby's and read archaeology. The fact is that I have been chewing this idea over for at least four years. When I took up the partnership in April I had got no further and was content to let the thing drift. The main difficulty was that in this country you cannot read prehistoric archaeology as such, but have to take a first degree in classics or some such subject, and then go on for another three years with a doctorate in archaeology; the other alternative is a rather ineffectual diploma which takes two years and is not much good nowadays vis-Ã -vis a job at the end of it. During the last week in May I met Professor Stuart Piggott
103
who has the chair in Edinburgh; he has recently reorganised the department and has a four-year honours degree; he has hardly any students to start with and will be able to take the whole thing tutorially, and he is also one of the finest archaeologists in the world. I took a very rapid decision, and it is arranged that I start in October. Over the last fortnight I have been talking to the people at Sotheby's and although they at first wanted me to stay on for another year, they now understand that it would bring no advantage either way. By putting it off another year would be of no particular advantage financially this end either. The cost of living in London looks after all my salary and more each year but there is a definite possibility that I can get what is called a mature studentship
104
which is enough to live on each year. We shall be able to spend more time at the house
105
because the terms are only seven and a half weeks.
Until last year when my salary went up I was only paid a pittance, and have always had to earn my living in a number of different ways. In fact my income since becoming a partner has gone down because I did not have a free hand.
106
My view is that the subject is so vast and complex that there is no time to be lost, and I believe that Peter Wilson at least sees this point of view, because he is gifted with a great deal of imagination and spirit. I am afraid that the art world, at least the world of art dealing, is coming to a grinding halt. It is no longer the reasonably civilised occupation it was five years ago. At any rate, it was making me extremely miserable and I feel that what I am doing is the right decision. Elizabeth does, and it was to a certain extent her firm mindedness that encouraged me to see the last few weeks through.
I shall surrender my shares in September when I leave. I am working until October 1st; we intend to take the car to France during the second half of August returning in the first week in September. The house is coming on fine, but slowly and I'm afraid we shall not be in before Christmas at the earliest.
107
Could you let me know into which account you would like the share money returned?
108
It is just possible that David Nash, to whom they are being allotted, will want to make the payment directly in America, but this is an accounting problem, and there is no immediate hurry.
With love to you all, Bruce
Sorry
To Derek Hill
Postcard, skull of Cro-Magnon man, Les Eyzies | Paris | France | [August 1966]
Â
Overleaf is one of Elizabeth's
many
relations whose loss was a terrible blow to us. We hate to think of you going the same way but just wait till you come and stay with us. Love B and E
Â
Michael Cannon had shared a room with Chatwin at Marlborough. This postcard was photocopied by Chatwin's secretary, Sarah Inglis-Jones. âHe gave it to me in Modern Paintings and said “Post this”, as he was rushing off somewhere. He was always, always rushing somewhere in a drama, rushing from behind his desk. So I photocopied it thinking he might be well-known one day.'
To Michael Cannon
Sotheby's | 34 & 35 New Bond Street | London | [September 1966]
Â
You may not have heard that I have LEFT Sotheby's to read a degree in archaeology at Edinburgh. Change is the only thing worth living for. Never sit your life out at a desk. Ulcers and heart condition follow.
CHAPTER THREE
EDINBURGH: 1966-8
Sotheby's kept Chatwin to the bitter end, not releasing him till 5 p.m. on the day before Edinburgh University required him to register. That night he took the sleeper to Edinburgh. No digs existed for married students.While he hunted for an unfurnished flat, he lodged for £10 a week at the Avondale B & B on the main road south out of the city.
He had arrived in high spirits. He was part Scottish and coming back to his roots, the land of his forebears, the Bruces; and of his maternal grandmother, the gypsy-like Gaggie from Aberdeen. He was enrolled to study the discipline of his great-uncle Philip; the profession claimed by Robert Byron when he had sought admission to Mount Athos.
Archaeology was a four-year course. It was arduous work. Chatwin attended from ten to fifteen lectures a week, which went on till seven in the evening; and was expected to write a weekly essay.Prescribed texts for the autumn term covered eighteen subjects, from the barbarian kingdoms of Western Europe to the uncertain frontiers of the Mongol horsemen. He also chose to learn Sanskrit.
But, as at Sotheby's, disillusionment set in.
He was away from the bright lights; no wine or food in shops; he had to work hard; and as an older student he did not fit in. Here was someone who had been twice to Afghanistan, to the Sudan, to Istanbul; others, fresh from school, found him shy or stand-offish.
Nor was archaeology the discipline he thought it was.âTotally bewildering to me,' he wrote in notes for his first lecture, on 8 October 1966, featuring a cairn at High Gillespie. âTwo middle chambers only really indicated by depressions in the earth.' Four days later, he scrawled âTerrifying' â underlining the word three times. He was repeating himself, his repellence with âthings'. As his friend Robert Erskine put it: âHe went into archaeology thinking he'd be the next Howard Carter, walking into a room of Egyptian antiquities â and not spending his time with his bottom in the air, in the mud, groping around a megalithic site.'
He would last two and a half of the four years; he described his period here as his
âsaison en enfer'.
To Ivry Freyberg
Department of Archaeology | 19 George Square | Edinburgh | 24 October 1966
Â
My dear Ivry,
I have just had the immeasurably sad news that Raulin is dead.
109
You must try to forget these past few years with their sense of impending tragedy. Instead you must try and imagine that some invisible power has carried him off as he was â open, fair, free-minded and ruthlessly honest. He was one of the very few really remarkable people I have known and for that I shall always be grateful.
with love Bruce
Â
While Chatwin studied, Elizabeth rented Lower Lodge at Ozleworth Park in order to oversee the renovations at Holwell Farm. She wrote to her mother: âBruce sends his love. I don't think you'll ever make a correspondent out of him . . . he hardly even writes to me when I'm not here, and then only scribbles giving orders etc.'
To Elizabeth Chatwin
Avondale | Edinburgh | 30 October 1966
Â
Sat
Dear E.
Tried to ring you but this is cheaper.
1. Will you come straight here next Fri as I won't be able to meet the plane?
Will try and get hold of James Dundas.
2. Daddy should deal with the Burnley
110
.
3. Can you bring typewriter if it's not too much trouble.
4. I'll pay Feaver but only when Sotheby's pay me my pension etc.
5. Dagger
111
must wait till I've had a proper search. Am telling F.N.
112
to keep Lloyd Williams
113
informed.
6. Suggest 6x6 square tiles, not the octagonal ones as they'll look a bit corny
114
.
Am seeing Eddie's
115
friend Peter Davis
116
today after beagling (!) with Bill Spink
117
. We're now in a tiny room which is sad.
XXX
B
p.s £6-10-0 is a sleeper to Edinburgh
To Stephen Tennant
Avondale | Edinburgh | [October 1966]
Â
There is a great friend of mine here called Peter Davis. He is one of the leading botanists of the day and is embarked on a complete Flora of Turkey, in 14 volumes! He is also one of your fervent admirers. He bought a picture in your London exhibition and is desperately keen to have another or more. Do you think he could buy one? I seem to remember that there are two in Sotheby's, and maybe he'd like one of those. But then I couldn't know how much to ask. Do let me know if you can spare one, one with Lascars? He really is terribly keen and asks constantly.
Yours ever, Bruce Chatwin
PS The weather is unbelievably horrible here, but at least one breathes fresh air which is a change after London.
Â
On 1 November, Chatwin took a three-year lease on an apartment in the Royal Mile.
To Derek Hill
Avondale | Edinburgh | 8 November 1966
Â
We have a flat . . . but I do not think we'll be in it by November 20th. Address is c/o Dept of Archaeology, 19 George Sq, Edinburgh, but no phone. We had the Chanlers here. Great dramas over regular feeding
118
times. Considerably recovered after that horrible auctioneer had nearly drunk the last drop, but will I pass the exams? B
Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 30 November 1966
Â
Tuesday
Term will soon be over and I'm in a state about exams. At least they can only chuck me out at the end of the year. Had a very funny lunch on Sunday with the Talbot-Rices
119
who you'll love. She is a big Russian version of Penelope Betjeman
120
, and he beams. They live at Fossebridge and so we are going over to see them soon. Otherwise nothing but the orange linoleum. I think I've changed my mind again about the floor and want plain pine again. I want to experiment with dirt and caustic on a piece. When I come back through London I'll make some enquiries. I thought I might stay with old Simon Snell
121
for two nights. I also want to see about getting some crushed terracotta for painting the house. I think the Rokeby
122
colour needs toning down a bit for Glos. Would the Victorian curtains
123
be nice in the back bedroom? The only place for them. Had just remembered how nice the Persian textile will look in dining room. Redman
124
sounds a real menace. Terrible dramas about getting a painting by Stephen Tennant for Peter Davis. S[tephen] T[ennant] writes illuminated letters to the Department and tells me he has dedicated a poem to me called the âSupreme Vision'.
125
One can only pray to God it will never be published. He also says that he has been asked to go to the University of Wisconsin to give a seminar on Willa Cather.
126
If he does it would be one of the spectacles of the century, and we ought to go and write a book about it. Peter Davis is giving a dinner party for the Southern blonde and her husband on the Thursday. Sotheby's kept my pension and contra-ed it which I thought was rather forward of them without asking. One can't complain really and I shall take even longer to pay the rest off. Very patronising letter from Llewellyn. âWith each day that passes, the fatter their arses.'
xxxx B
Â
In November an illuminated letter had arrived from Tennant at the Archaeology Department to say that he was writing a play set in Aix les Bains,
Madame is Resting
, which he hoped to sell as a brisk farce. âEdinburgh must be very handsome in sombre autumn. You do sound studious: what period are you studying? Boadicea? Camelot? Constantine? Bion?'
To Stephen Tennant
Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 24 November 1966
Â
Dear Stephen,
I have never been so overworked in my life. Even duchesses take up less time than history essays. It really is a most extraordinary sensation going back to school. I have learnt never to offend the second-year students, who are immensely full of their own self-importance. One second-yearer leaned across my shoulder and asked me why I was reading a particularly devious book, and then said that first-year students were not able to understand its mysteries. A rigid stratification divides the years and the twain shall never meet let alone for a conversation. There are some anti-conventional characters as well. There's a wonderful young man with carrot-coloured plaits who wears a red plastic coat and no shoes even though there's ice on the pavement. I have only once been out of Edinburgh and that was to stay in Traquair; the hills above Glen were covered in snow even in October. May I come shortly after Christmas or else immediately before on about the 20th. I have to take exams here which I feel sure I shall fail, and will be in need of cheerfulness.