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From Clare Hopkins on (Commentary)

Happy New Year Patrick! Sorry to hear you have been laid low by flu.
I was interested in your two possible explanations for George’s statement that he could not visit William Rothenstein because of Kittie. Either that – after almost losing him in battle – she had become emotionally dependent on having him safe at home beside her. Or that – given her ongoing poor health – he felt too responsible for her welfare to leave her even for a visit to Gloucestershire.
But surely there is a third, simpler, explanation. Is not George just bringing out his wife as a polite excuse because he does not actually want to stay with William Rothenstein at all? Using his impeccable Edwardian manners he gushes, ‘I treasure your invitation to come and stay with you: a thing I should like to do of all things’ — but then brings out a cast-iron reason why he can’t come. No chivalrous gentleman could object to a husband staying at home to care for his wife. George ends his letter with a promise – to visit at ‘a more peaceful time’ – that is so vague as to be meaningless.
Does this mean that George is exaggerating Kittie’s fragile mental and/or physical state? Are there other possible reasons why he didn’t want to visit his old friend? I have no idea… How glad I am that I am not a biographer – what a difficult business it is!

2015/01/04 at 9:12 pm

From Patrick Miles on (Commentary)

My dear Clare, it’s lovely to hear from you again, and I wish you and yours a very happy New Year!

As always, this is a very fine comment; and much appreciated. Thank you. My immediate reaction was: ‘Oh goodness, yes, Patrick, you are suffering from biographer’s tunnel vision again (or the flu), you can no longer see the wood for trees, always go for the simpler/more obvious explanation!’ For, indeed, your explanation is the more direct one, and your analysis of his ‘impeccable Edwardian manners’ syndrome faultless.

Yes, certainly, he did not want to go to Iles Farm, Far Oakridge, in deepest Gloucestershire, either with or without Kittie… I’m sure you’re right.

But I wouldn’t want followers to think this was because he didn’t like the place, or had turned against the Rothenstein family. In April 1914 George wrote Alice Rothenstein a long, ecstatic letter (definitely not just ‘Edwardian gush’) after staying with them. In November 1914 Rothenstein wrote George two long letters, which I couldn’t quote on the blog as they are not out of copyright, from which it’s clear that their personal relations are as close as ever. Kittie was also a tremendous fan of Will and Alice.

I think probably, on balance, George’s description of Kittie’s need for him at home and her medical fragility, is true. However, I think your comment about his fob-off promise to visit ‘at a more peaceful time’ is also bang on. I don’t think he thought how that phrasing might sound to Rothenstein, because his mind was so completely focussed on the ‘immediate task’ — getting through the medical, receiving a commission, and going to the most dangerous part of the Front he could find…

This explanation produces what I now realise would be a typical Calderon paradox. He wanted to cherish Kittie and support her, so he couldn’t leave her to go to Gloucestershire, yet he was actually using every minute he was at home to get back into the Army and leave her! This is unfortunately what soon happened, and as I hope to convey over the next few weeks his and Kittie’s closest friends felt he shouldn’t be doing it; that he was ignoring the effect it was having on Kittie.

Well, writing biography may at times be like ‘chewing barbed wire’ as Churchill described the Western Front, but how pleasant it is when, with finesse, your commentators make it more digestible for you!

2015/01/05 at 3:03 pm

From Clare Hopkins on Complex, yes

Oh Patrick! I can see that being George’s biographer/blogger requires very similar levels of staunchness and stoutness as are being displayed by poor, long-suffering Kittie. Thank you on behalf of your readers for enduring all the slaughter, the destruction and most especially the stupidity of war in order that we can experience George’s life in such a vivid way. I for one appreciate your daily blog entries enormously.

I have to put my hand up and admit to being that historian (I’m not really, but thank you) who accused George of ‘prancing around on a horse’ when he could have been doing something useful like his old college friend, Laurence Binyon. I may even have used the words ‘he should have acted his age.’ In fact, as soon as George crossed the channel, my views on him started to change. This is very early for any man with no military background to be serving on the front line – surely almost all the other officers on active service in 1914 were either career or territorial army officers. So all credit to him for his determination to achieve his goal. And as your blog title reminds us, he was a writer – I am now willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that he wanted to go to war not just to have fun but in order to write about it. And to do that properly, I can see why he wanted to fight rather than interpret from the sidelines. I hope somebody, soon, will refer to him as ‘that good egg”.

And as for Binyon – at the present date in the blog, he is strolling to work every day in the British Museum, and returning home to tea with his wife and daughters. He will not volunteer to scrub floors in a hospital in France until the summer of 1915. Perhaps it will be the example, or even the death, of his old friend George that inspires him…

2014/10/31 at 5:51 pm

From Patrick Miles on Complex, yes

Dear Clare, I hugely appreciate this; thank you so much! So as GC’s stocks go down a bit with me, they rise with you…you have restored the balance,then, with your judicious comments. You’re so encouraging. And I am extremely grateful to you for telling us what Binyon is doing ‘in parallel’. (I have put my parish mag. piece in the post to you today.) I think the story of George’s stay in hospital over the next three weeks will bear out your wise comment about it being ‘very early for any man with no military background to be serving on the front line’… All best as ever.

2014/10/31 at 7:06 pm