#napier alington

[corallapis]

Olga “Oggie” Lynn (1882-1961), born Lowenthal, was a singer and singing teacher, who, despite being somewhat older than most of the Bright Young Things, was a staple of their circle. She was “short,” “dumpy,” and “jolly,” and would often host tableuax vivants for charity or sing at parties with “a rather sweet, pure little voice” when she wasn't giving lessons. She “was inclined to get into situations with which she could not cope and was always being helped by her friends,” chief among them Oliver Messel.

For a time, she lived together with Gladys Cooper, Lady Idina Sackville, and Tallulah Bankhead. According to Chips Channon, she and Tallulah Bankhead were “the queens of London's wickedest world — la haute lesbie [coterie of smart lesbians].” Her girlfriend, Maud “the Admiral” Nelson (1904-1969), though “unable to type,” was secretary first to Napier, Lord Alington, and then Cecil Beaton. It is undoubtedly Maud Nelson to whom Anthony Powell refers when he describes the mixed make-up of the parties of the age:

At one end of the scale there'd be quite smart people, Diana Cooperish sort of figures and so on. At the other there'd always be a lot of these girls who were sort of living on the margin — you know, they'd do a little modeling; at the same time they were not quite tarts but they were being half kept. And then it would tail off into the queer, almost criminal world — lesbians dressed as admirals, that sort of thing. (emphasis mine, qtd. in Taylor, Bright Young People)

As a Christmas present, in 1933, Baba and Cecil Beaton gifted Olga Lynn a scrapbook filled with signed photographs of their friends, giving us a glimpse of her social circle. It included Lady Idina Sackville; Violet, Duchess of Rutland; Gertrude Lawrence; Lady Diana Cooper; Napier, Lord Alington; Sir Michael Duff; Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie; and Viola Tree.

[deviatesinc]

"got in the sack together."

[corallapis]

Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Vol. 1), 1918-38, entry for 9th April 1923

—

Monday 9th April — Hackwood¹

Have been spending a few days here … a simpatico party … Lady Curzon, glittering, gracious and a supreme hostess, all the Duggans;² Lady Patricia Herbert³ (the very nicest girl in London, although Lady Mary Ashley⁴ runs her neck and neck …) … Mrs Vansittart,⁵ an affected American, Paul of Serbia⁶ …. Lord Curzon is away doing a Coué cure⁷ for the benefit of his leg or brow beating some important conference for the welfare of civilisation … I forget which. Lady Curzon told us of a conversation she had with Lord Balfour⁸ a few evenings ago. He was unusually playful and she depressed and discouraged, she is subject to unaccountable fits of Weltschmerz,⁹ which result, I think, from something unsatisfied in her.¹⁰ He tried to console her and talked to her beautifully about life and all she had to live for … her husband, the world’s most striking and brilliant man … her children charming … her friends many … her beauty unsurpassed. Next day he wrote her an inimitable note to say how much he had enjoyed being next to her. She, delighted, said to Lady Cunard¹¹ as she read it: ‘AJB is an angel — I should like to kiss him on the forehead’. Maud repeated this to him and his only comment was: ‘Why the forehead?’ Maud Cunard motored to Hackwood with Serge Obolensky¹² for what she calls ‘the day in the country’ on Sunday. They arrived at six o’clock. She pretended never to have seen plus fours before and said ‘And what has little Paul got on? And Chips¹³ too what are they?’ She made us rock with laughter for two hours with stories about herself and her hatred of the country, etc. She said that all Nancy’s troubles were due to the fact that her father ‘my dear at the age of 12 had put her … put her on a horse, a four-legged horse’. As she was leaving we loaded her car with guns, tennis racquets, golf clubs, etc. She was much flustered at this or pretended to be and shook hands with a footman and ‘bobbed’ to the butler and was amazing but delicious … all pink and white, like a sweet, and dressed in a costume de sport made by Vionnet.¹⁴ Serge was anxious to return as he is wooing Alice Astor.¹⁵ I introduced them … I shall now have this new romance on my conscience.

—

1. Hackwood Park, near Basingstoke in Hampshire, rented by Lord Curzon from 1906 until 1925.

2. Lady Curzon’s children by her first marriage: Alfred Duggan (1903–64), who became a minor novelist; Hubert Duggan (1904–43), Tory MP for Acton from 1931 to 1943 and anti-appeaser in the 1930s; and (Grace) Marcella Duggan (1907–95).

3. Patricia Herbert (1904–94), by courtesy Lady Patricia Herbert from 1913, daughter of the 15th Earl of Pembroke and 12th Earl of Montgomery, married in 1928 William Henry Smith, 3rd Viscount Hambleden (1903–48). She was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth from 1937 until 1994.

4. Lady Mary Sibell Ashley-Cooper (1902–36), daughter of the 9th Earl of Shaftesbury, married in 1928 Napier George Henry Sturt (1896–1940), who in 1919 succeeded his father as 3rd Baron Alington of Crichel. He died on active service in Egypt during the Second World War, though of drink rather than in action.

5. Gladys Robinson-Duff (1892–1928), daughter of General William C. Heppenheimer of the United States, married in 1921 Robert Gilbert Vansittart (1881–1957), who would be Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1930 to 1938, and who would be raised to the peerage in 1941 as 1st Baron Vansittart. Vansittart was also an accomplished novelist, playwright and poet.

6. Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (1893–1976) had known Channon at Oxford and would remain one of his closest friends, and be Prince Regent of Yugoslavia (the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) from 1934 to 1941 during the minority of Peter II. He was the nephew of King Peter I and married Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark (1903–97), sister-in-law of Channon’s other closest friend, the Duke of Kent. After treating with the Germans in 1941 Paul was forced from Yugoslavia and forbidden ever to return; the post-war communist regime stripped him of his property and proclaimed him an enemy of the state. Until 1945 the British authorities held him in Kenya under house arrest. Serbia rehabilitated him posthumously in 2011, after which he was reburied with Princess Olga and their son Nicholas.

7. A psychotherapy-based cure featuring auto-suggestion, fashionable but heavily criticised at the time, developed by Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie (1857–1926), a French psychologist.

8. A. J. Balfour, raised to an earldom in 1922.

9. World-weariness.

10. Curzon was desperate for a male heir (he had three daughters from his first marriage) to the earldom and marquessate he had obtained; various medical procedures had been followed to help Lady Curzon conceive, but no child resulted and the marriage was strained accordingly.

11. Maud Alice Burke (1872–1948), born in San Francisco, married in 1895 Sir Bache Cunard, 3rd Bt (1851–1925), grandson of the shipping line’s founder. They had lived largely apart since 1911, Cunard basing himself in Leicestershire where he enjoyed field sports. In London with their daughter Nancy Clara (1896–1965), Lady Cunard – who after her husband’s death became known as ‘Emerald’ – established one of the leading salons of the era, which thrived until the Second World War. After separating from her husband she became the mistress of Sir Thomas Beecham, the conductor, and funded many of his musical projects.

12. Prince Sergei (‘Serge’) Platonovich Obolensky Neledinsky-Meletsky (1890–1978) had been educated at Oxford and became part of the Russian diaspora after the revolution. He emigrated to America and became a successful businessman.

13. The first time in the diaries that he refers to his nickname.

14. Madeleine Vionnet (1876–1975) was one of Paris’s leading fashion designers of the interwar years.

15. Ava Alice Muriel Astor (1902–56), daughter of John Jacob Astor IV. She and Obolensky married in 1924 and divorced in 1932. She would marry four times before her death at the age of 54.

[corallapis]

oh :(

[deviatesinc]

My head is exploding from the sheer volume of Interesting Dead Queers mentioned in just one sentence. 'Teddy' was a "hard drinking, promiscuous adventuress with a drug habit" and also, naturally, an actress ; Cecile and Gabrielle (Enthoven, who you just met) were a couple; Naps was a bisexual dandy who had a long affair with Tallulah Bankhead; Mary Rumsey you can read about here; Poldowski was a composer whose life deserves a biopic.

I need to (metaphorically) put the book down now and process all of this.