235
Max Beerbohm (1872-1956), English caricaturist.
236
Ronald Firbank (1886-1926), English novelist.
237
Lady Florentia Sale,
Journal of the Disaster in Afghanistan, 1841-2.
238
Loelia, Duchess of Westminster (1902-93).
239
E.C.: âI had a parrot before I was married and gave it away and I moaned and groaned so Bruce got me an African grey. It hated men, and Bruce couldn't go anywhere near it â even if it saw Bruce through the window it would shriek. I gave it back to the vendor.'
241
Margaret Mead (1901-78) American anthropologist. Her daughter Catherine Bateson had been at Radcliffe with Elizabeth.
242
Friends of Teddy Millington-Drake. Ginette Camu, a famous Belgian beauty m. to Bernard Camu, banker and bon vivant; William L. Bernhard, who bought a ruin in Patmos; Stephan von Watzdorf, brother of Thilo who worked at Sotheby's.
243
A poncho with checker-board patterns, sold to finance Chatwin's journey to Patagonia. The feathers were a rectangular hanging of blue and yellow parrot feathers, possibly intended for an Inca temple, discovered in an earthenware drum near the River Ocana in Peru. Bruce and Elizabeth had bought the feathers in New York with their wedding money.
244
J. L. Bruning,
Biological Clocks in Seasonal Reproductive Cycles
(1968).
245
Ron Gurney, Quaker banker; Chatwin had met Penelope Betjeman at his house near Wantage.
246
Clem Wood married to Jessie, daughter of Louise de Vilmourin, shared a house with the Welches on Spetsai.
247
Iain Watson (
b
.1942) m. in 1967 Miranda Rothschild (
b
.1940). Miranda was, in her own description, âa tragic young widow'. In 1964 her previous husband, an Algerian, had been assassinated as a gun-runner. âI found him in a charnel pit.' Rescued by her mother, Barbara Ghika, who discovered her in a hut living off worms, she went to live in Athens with her two-year-old daughter, Da'ad Boumaza.
248
Maxime Birley (1922 â 2009), fashion model, food writer and mother of Louise (âLoulou') de la Falaise (
b
.1948), m. to John McKendry, curator of prints and photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who influenced Robert Mapplethorpe to take photography seriously.
249
Irina, elderly Greek woman who lived by herself.
250
A Mogul, jade-handled dagger.
251
A Napoleonic campaign bed, supposedly âMarshal Ney's steel campaign bed with its original lime green hangings'.
252
Oliver Hoare (
b
.1945), with whom Chatwin shared 9 Kynance Mews. B.C. diary: âV restless as myself, v likeable and attractive.' He later achieved celebrity as one of the Princess of Wales's lovers.
253
Monica, a dressmaker, who lived on the top floor at Holwell.
254
Agnes Jean Magruder (
b
.1921), Boston-born daughter of American naval commodore, m. 1st Arshile Gorky 1941 â 48, Armenian artist who coined the nickname âMougouch', which meant âmy little powerful one' in Russian; 2nd John C. Phillips Jr in 1950; 3rd Xan Fielding in 1979.
255
Turkish dish with aubergine.
256
E.C.: âHe liked fountain pens. Like books, they had to be guarded.'
257
E.C.: âA beautiful ikat chapan from Afghanistan, a man's silk coat put on over garments, as worn by Hamid Kharzai.'
258
Martin Buber (1878 â 1965), Austrian-Israeli philosopher.
259
(Sir) Patrick Leigh Fermor (
b
.1915); author, living in Greece; m. 1968 Hon. Joan Eyres-Monsell, photographer (1912-2003), whom he had met in wartime Cairo.
260
E.C.: âHe had an infection of the jaw. Eventually, I sent him to my London dentist, Russell King, who sorted him out.'
261
E.C.: âEverything having been paradise on earth suddenly turned into the biggest bore. It happened everywhere, except the Black Hill.'
262
Barbara (âLlama') Hutchinson (1911 â 89) m. 1st 3rd Baron Rothschild, 2nd Rex Warner, 3rd Nico Hadjikyriakou-Ghika, painter and sculptor; mother of Miranda Rothschild.
263
Ferdy Mayne (1916-98) owner of Kyance Mews studio leased by Chatwin; MI5 informant and German actor, famous for playing Count von Krolock in Roman Polanski's 1967 film
The Fearless Vampire Killers
.
264
A bargeboard from a Polynesian hut that had belonged to the actress Sarah Bernhardt, who used it as a bedhead. On 30 June 1968 E.C. wrote to her mother: âBruce has swapped the Greek head for a fantastic piece of Maori sculpture, for which he has already been offered more than twice what he paid. It belonged to Sarah Bernhardt: she brought it back in 1902 when she made a tour of New Zealand & she bought it from an already old collection then.'
265
London antiquities dealer, sentenced in January 2005 to two years in prison; he served seven months.
267
Nomadic shepherds inhabiting the northern Greek mountains and central Balkans.
268
Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis and her younger sister Lee Radzwill. E.C.: âDerek knew everybody.'
269
Monica, the dressmaker, had married a policeman.
270
To cover running costs, the Chatwins had loaned Holwell Farm to Linda Wroth, a girlfriend of John Michell. Chatwin had walked with her in Wales; on 13 December 1969 he described Linda in his diary as having âthe wide staring intense eyes of the American intellectual initiate'.
271
Desmond Fitzgerald married Olda Willes in 1970.
272
Sandy Martin, dealer and one-time partner with John Hewett.
273
Union des Transports Aériens, French airline.
274
Silk from Afghanistan.
275
Margharita had made Chatwin a tweed overcoat. E.C.: âShe did eventually make him one that fitted.'
276
Sally Perry (1911-91), m. 1945 Gerald Grosvenor, 4th Duke of Westminster (1907 â 67); and companion of Henry Somerset, 10th Duke of Beaufort (1900-84), Master of Queen's Hounds; neighbour of Chatwins at Wickwar Manor.
277
Lenny Ballinger, the Chatwins' tenant farmer.
278
âIt's a Nomad Nomad Nomad NOMAD world' appeared in
Vogue
, December 1970
.
279
Mr Ball, known as Canon Ball.
280
William and Rosalie Fergusson, neighbours at Holwell.
281
John Michell (1933-2009), English author.
The View Over Atlantis
(1969) popularised ley-lines, âreferring to ancient stone circles, menhirs and graveyards which are laid out in lines across Britain,' as Chatwin wrote in
The Songlines
. Chatwin walked with him in Cornwall and Wales.
282
Keith Steadman, horticulturalist neighbour at Wickwar.
283
Hercules Seghers (1589-1638), Dutch painter. Cary Welch owned a Seghers oil painting of a skull.
284
Miniature drawing of a sikh grandee.
285
Giant hogweed. E.C.: âBruce thought you'd get poisoned if you stood next to it.'
287
E.C.: âHe really didn't know anything about animals.' Chatwin's notebook: âHell is a house â house dog is Cerberus.'
289
Fred Mewis, the Chatwins' gardener.
290
Anthony and Doe Bowlby lived at the Old Rectory in Ozleworth.
291
Elizabeth's trust at the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh.
294
Polly Devlin, journalist, married to Andy Garnett, entrepreneur, neighbours at Bradley Court near Alderley.
295
Independent American publishing house, founded 1936.
296
A stoneware firelighter soaked in kerosene.
297
âI love her dearly but she is impossible to be with for longer than two hours at a stretch.' James Lees-Milne diary, 5 September 1972.
298
E.C.: âI still have it.'
299
Ajit Mukherjee's
The Art of Tantra
(1970) generated an interest in Tantric Art.
300
Elms & Sons, the Chatwins' builders.
301
E.C.: âThe water was perfectly all right. The Etheridges, who owned the Lodge after us, had it tested.'
302
E.C.: âI went back to Bombay twice to meet Bruce because he said he was coming. I traipsed back, driving hundreds of miles, and he didn't come, ever.'
303
E.C.: âA half-Siamese ginger cat completely focussed on me. When I left, he went mad and never recovered.'
304
E.C.: âThe sherbet spoon was mine.'
305
Valerian (
b
.15 December 1970), 3rd Baron Freyberg; âmy godson and
perennial
favourite', Chatwin described him in an inscription to
On the Black Hill
.
306
Lady Dorothy (âCoote') Lygon (1912 â 2000); 4th d. of 7th Earl Beauchamp: âI was working at Christie's in Old Masters, making a card index based on early picture sales. I was on the second floor at Blomfield Road, Bruce on the first. He had a beautiful brown silk robe which he said he had bought from nomads in Central Africa. I was very jealous of it. It had voluminous, big sleeves, so he'd put his hands up the opposite sleeve and keep himself warm.'
307
Pale blue silk in geometrical squares and triangles; it had belonged to the Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
308
Arthur Bamber Gascoigne (
b
.1935), author and broadcaster; m. 1963 Christina Ditchburn.
The Great Moghuls
is still in print.
309
Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888 â 1970), Italian modernist poet.
310
Neighbours on spur of the valley.
311
Alun Gwynne-Jones (
b
.1919), Minister in Foreign Office 1964-70; Baron Chalfont from 1964.
312
Dealer. E.C.: âWe lost the boomerang when we moved.'
313
Keeper of Indian and South-East Asian art at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
314
E.C.: âPenelope had lost her camera. The reason we went so slowly is because she would say, “I want the evening light” and spend two nights in every place.'
315
E.C.: âAn
Encyclopaedia Britannica
1911 that I found in Hyderabad. It had quite a lot of holes from silverfish.'
316
Made of wood and bone and lacquer. E.C.: âI bought them.'
317
Susanna Chancellor m. 1958 Nicholas Johnston (
b
.1929) architect.
318
On 20 January 1971, 200,000 British postal workers began a seven-week strike.
319
Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross (1904-76), author, broadcaster, specialist in the Ottoman Empire. âThe dearest old thing in the world,' according to James Lees-Milne.
321
Chatwin's article on Lorenz did not appear in the
New York Review of Books
until December 1979. He was to interview Lorenz in July 1974 for the
Sunday Times
magazine at his home in Altenberg outside Vienna.
322
Gloria El-Fadil el Mahdi, Chatwin's former girlfriend; her son Sedig (Chatwin's godson); and Da'ad Boumaza, Miranda's daughter.
323
Arshile Gorky (1904 â 48), Armenian-born painter and Magouche's first husband.
324
Introductory commission.
325
Michel Straus had worked at Sotheby's with Chatwin in the Impressionist Department.
326
Miranda Rothschild. She and Akbar became lovers.
327
Décoration océanienne
, André Portier and François Poncetton (1931).
328
John Elliott, New York dealer.
329
Jeremy Fry (1924 â 2005), artist, inventor, philanthropist.
330
Natasha Litvin (
b
.1919), pianist, m. 1941 poet Stephen Spender; had a house at Les Baux. From Chatwin's notebook: âA description of the Stephen Spenders.
Il y aura chez lui des personnes qui vous connaissez parait-il trés bien, la femme joue au piano et écrit un livre sur les sensations auditives. L'homme est peintre. J'ai oublié le nom
. . . J-Claude-Roché.'
331
Henri-Pierre Roché (1879-1959), Dadaist whose semi-autobiographical novel
Jules et Jim
was filmed in 1962 by François Truffaut.