This is one from my books-about-authors shelf – more particularly, my books-about-authors-by-people-who-knew-them-a-bit shelf. It’s one of my favourite genres, and the king of it has to be the memoir of being Ivy Compton-Burnett’s secretary, by Cicely Greig. Well, Sir Russell Brain was not a secretary, but he did become friends with Walter de la Mare later in life – and Tea with Walter de la Mare (published in 1957, the year after de la Mare died) is an account of that friendship.
More particularly, it’s an account of the various times Brain and his wife (and sometimes children) went to visit de la Mare – and he clearly rushed straight back to make notes afterwards. Incidentally, I didn’t know who he was – but all the info you might need is on Wikipedia. It really amuses me that he was a scientist, with the surname Brain… As for his companion – I suspect de la Mare is chiefly known for ‘The Listeners’ and ‘Fare Well’ (“look thy last on all things lovely”…) and perhaps Memoirs of a Midget, but is no longer the literary giant he was at the time of his death. And he’s also related to my friend Rachel, so she tells me.
And the book? I enjoyed this insight into knowing de la Mare (‘W.J.’ to Brain), but it has to be confessed that Brain isn’t particularly good at writing. You can only enjoy this as you might enjoy a series of index cards. His accounts are often more or less “and then he said this… and then he said this… and then he said this”. It is a jumble of topics and thoughts, from the deeply philosophical to the frivolously anecdotal. Brain faithfully records it all, and retells stories in the most pedestrian way possible. Here, for instance, is a story sapped completely dry:
Janet told him a ghost story she had heard of a man who went to stay in the house of some people whom he did not know very well. He was visited in a dream by an ancestor of the owner of the house, who revealed to him some facts which the family did not know, and which ultimately proved to be correct.
Isn’t that almost a satire of how not to tell a story? I picked it because it was amusingly bad, but it’s not a huge outlier. Though there was at least one story I very much enjoyed:
He told us about the only occasion on which he had sat on a jury. It was a slander case before Lord Reading – so good-looking. He spoke so well, and was so polite. A butcher was suing the local medical officer of health. When the jury retired, there were at first ten, and then eleven, for the medical officer, but one stood out for the butcher. He said he knew what medical officers of health were. All the rest of the jurymen argued with him in vain. finally W.J. said: “We must get this settled: I’ve got to catch a train.” Whereupon the recalcitrant juryman said: “Oh, well, if it’s a question of a train, I am with you.” So British, thought W.J.!
So, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. It’s a little frustrating that a much better book was hiding behind this one – had Brain been a better writer, this could have been a wonderful gem of a book. As it was, I enjoyed flicking through it – but in much the way that I’d enjoy reading a list that gives me a taste of a period and a man, but not an enormous amount else.
But… it does smell really nice. It’s maybe the nicest-smelling book I have. So, there’s that.