Italian letters
1988
‘Horse committee have been to see my banner for the Palio. General excitement – and approval’
20/01
Thanks…for the Naples book, which I keep on reading, since I covered much of the same ground as Norman Lewis, and at the same time. I therefore recall many of the events described – eruption of Vesuvius (was there); the armed gangs of deserters (met them); the hospitals (was in two of them); the black-market (was part of it); etc., etc. He writes very well I think and the book certainly captures the atmosphere of the time, which was both depressing (and exhilarating for me, because of the architecture, the landscape, the sunshine and the art). It is rather interesting that I recall an Italy that many Italians now are too young (relatively) to remember, or never experienced.
[Madeleine] has probably told you that we have become involved with the Jesus freaks here, so that I am having to read all about Henry the Eighth and the break with Rome – something that appears to obsess and even worry them. “Was the separation a matter of the heart, a matter of love on the part of Henry – or was it political?” asks Don Paulo, the priest. A tricky one, that! Lady Diana and Prince Charles run this question a close second – and the fact that the Queen is our Pope – is this very important to us? I thought, NOT very important, but it is a recurrent question here.
Whilst on the matter of the clergy, I meant to ask you to look out [on a visit to Brazil] for the Reverend Walkie, who disappeared in the Amazonian jungle in search of Colonel Fawcett, back in the nineteen-thirties. Walkie lived at a wooden Indian-style bungalow on the road to St. Buryan from Penzance. He was an Evangelical, with a wry-neck and a twisted mouth, like some Eskimo mask. He may even have have had an odd eye like Marty Feldman, but I can’t now be sure. He ran a summer school for displaced children of the clergy, such as myself, when my parents went off to Venice, without me. All that I got out of the incarceration was having my hair shaved off, the first treat; having to spend Sundays in cutting out religious texts from sheets of plywood, to make pipe racks; attending frequent services in a bell-tent, accompanied by a harmonium and Mr. Walkie’s bellowing voice, and swimming in a small and freezing-cold stream at the bottom of a miniature jungle that fringed, and still fringes the property. Mrs. Walkie’s rice-with-curry-and-large-raisins made me violently sick and I have never felt the same about curry since, and X–, one of the eight Walkie children, hurled a large rock in the air, which fell on the centre of my head and probably explains a lot. My father was of the opinion that Walkie (who was a committed missionary at heart, and who walked around in khaki shorts throughout the year), was now being held by a cannibal tribe, and worshipped, for, as he remarked, “you know how the natives either worship or summarily execute all the deformed”. One of Walkie’s sons, Y–, was a doctor. Perhaps you met HIM???
29/03
Thanks for the cutting about poor R–. I don’t think I knew her, and it is quite possible that she was in the Foundation Department, which the papers probably thought was Fine Art. Over the years we had quite a lot of students who met untimely ends – one hanged in Epping Forest, one eaten by cannibals in Africa (missionary, of course), and one found dead from an overdose in F–’s flat, whilst he was skyving off in London, and didn’t come back for a week! When he did, he found a corpse, which sobered him up for a time.
Lionel Miskin, whom you may or may not recall, and whose chief claim to fame was that he made a life-size gingerbread figure of himself for the critics to devour at one of his London exhibitions (he is also a close friend of Colin Wilson, which tells you all), arrived from Cyprus where he now lives, en route to Cannes where his aunt lives, and then on to his ex-wife in Devon… Miskin is also a sad figure, who has wasted a good brain and has very tiresome views about everything, so I took him round to see Nigel, and they got on famously of course, although he (Miskin, that is) thought Nigel very odd……….
21/04
Have just had one of those inexplicable visits from someone we’ve never met before, and almost certainly will never meet again, and for no apparent reason whatsoever. The lady, about nine feet in height, was called Hilary Brown, presenter of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp’s “Newshour”, Middle East correspondent as well (although how she combines the two we never found out), and married to John Bearman (pronounced Beerman), whom you may recall as a BBC foreign correspondent. He now writes books, currently one on Louis Napoleon. She, it seems, met John Le Carré when she was in Israel, interviewed him, became friends, then was sent by him to meet John [Miller] and Michael [Truscott] at Sancreed, who sent her to meet us! She brought with her another lofty female called Susan Toledo (it all sounds made-up but it’s true), who lives in Borgo San Iacopo in Firenze, right by the Ponte Vecchio. Ex-archaeologist or something, and also a Canadian. Last year you may recall we got friendly with two members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra who were having their sabbatical in Firenze – Harvey and Martha. They lived in Via Santo Spirito, which is an extension of Borgo San Iacopo. Of course, it turned out that this Susan knew them well. Long arm of coincidence again, and the small world of expatriates. “I don’t believe it etc……….” Since this lady seems to have time on her hands and lives right near the only small gallery that I have seen in Firenze that might show my work, perhaps she will be able to make some enquiries for me…
Kevin Crooks, who directed that “Early Newlyn” film, shown at the Barbican, and for which I wrote the script, rang me to say that his wife wants to come out to Nigel’s “Wonderful World Of Art” next week. Since Kevin never even told me that the film had won an award in New York (can’t think why!), and since he has never been in touch with me since the time we filmed it, I felt a trifle aggrieved. John Miller also never let us know that this Hilary Thing would be descending, or why; and Donna Smith’s son, Stephen (Donna being Hassel Smith’s wife you may recall), telephoned us asking for information about buying property in Umbria. I obliged with a sizeable packet of useful stuff, since when we have never heard a word, although he said he would be calling to see us, immediately after Easter. (He is a TV designer). Anyway, I think the Canneys will cease being useful, from this point on. Too aggravating.
I have been asked to paint the banner for the Palio this year (Casole Palio that is), and everyone is smiling at me. I think it will turn out rather “Cubist” and heraldic, which it ought to be.
21/05
Thought you might like to know that we still just about exist, although still staggering from the financial crash of last year. We had another crash – with the car this time, nearly a case of two corpses in the morgue – but perhaps I told you how I ran into a concrete post on the edge of a thirty-foot sheer drop. Anyway – no injuries, but a bill of £1,000 to repair the “Panda”. Then Madeleine broke her wrist. Then she found a lump in her breast…it turned out that all was well.
…For our annual village Palio I am painting a seven-foot-long heraldic banner (by request of the “Horse Committee”), but am having a terrible time with the Virgin Mary, not to mention the Baby Jesus, who at present looks either like Winston Churchill or a drug addict. Amazing what a touch here and there will do to a face, but I don’t think I feel drawn to portraits as a result.
Visitors have started again, and we expect Joe Tilson and wife to call next week. He’s just had a very successful show in London, and another at the National Gallery in Melbourne (I think) with Kitaj. Feilers have been in Venice, but we didn’t see them, although they were in this area last year… Then there have been people sent by someone else – a very curious habit this, no doubt inherited from the Americans. Who wants to meet and be bothered by someone one has never met before, and will certainly never meet again, and for no particular purpose? We are now getting rather rude and unavailable to such visitors. It’s a case of “self defence”!
31/05
“Horse Committee” have been (like the Welsh band in “Decline and Fall” – huddled nervously and muttering) to see my banner for the [Casole d’Elsa] Palio. General excitement – and approval. Greatest thing since Duccio frescoed the church, apparently, and much bigger than anything they’ve had before… [as it featured in a local newspaper, below]
We went to annual “British in Tuscany Benefit” (put on by British consul and wife) at Castello di Vicchiomaggio. They had an art show and I contributed a picture for the day. Awful exhibition, but we did meet a Hungarian/British sculptor and an energetic painter/graphic designer living near Lucca – also a public school (Eton?) idiot who painted. It was a truly dreadful gathering (one of the Guinness family there – silly Etonian ass with spotted bow tie and yellow Armani suit). Shan’t go again. Truly dreadful people.
22/06
[From Madeleine] We are now confined to the apartment again, as Michael has pulled a muscle in his back, but fortunately not before he had completed the banner for our Palio, which he was asked to do this year. He has produced a tremendous effort, basically de Stijl, with images of the Madonna, horse, and Casole superimposed! I think it’s very successful, and it was much approved by the Bishop of Volterra and our parrocchio, Don Paolo, when I showed them a photograph of it, and also by the mayor, who wants to find a special place to exhibit it. Michael’s own work is going ahead well, but it is rather nice to think that he is also fulfilling to some extent the original role of the artist.
18/07
I am happy to have reached the age of 65 at last, as the helpful chest physician whom I consulted in 1951, when I first had “T.B.”, told someone that I only had a year to live! “These cases always have a fatal relapse,” he said. He was, of course, a Christian.
The investment magazine has been a great help… Reading between the lines, it does seem that R–, as my advisers, were a trifle remiss in losing us £25,000 at a blow, when they could have actually made us some money instead. M– had left them by the time of “Black Monday”, so he was not to blame in any way.
After the Lerici experience, it is obvious now that holidays or days out during July and August are a thing of the past – which is what I wrote to [Paul] Feiler, when I told him that we would not, under any circumstances, be meeting him in Bologna in August. We shall be staying at home in future. In any case, it is too hot now.
A John Miller catalogue…has arrived. He has kindly put us in his writings again, revealing to the tax-man that we have left the UK, and settled in Italy! Done with the best of intentions I’m sure. He is now writing a book, shortly to be published under the title “A Brush Full of Life”, in which we shall again feature, I’m sure, since it is all about his life in Cornwall and his friends. If it is like the title we shall have to change our names.
10/10
[From Madeleine] The banner that Michael designed for our local Palio this year was a tremendous success, and announced in the Piazza as having been done by “our fellow-citizen, M– C–”, which seemed a very graceful gesture.
15/11
A [Peter] Lanyon [painting] is selling for £24,000 at the New Arts Centre, so Denis Mitchell tells me, and [Paul] Feiler says that the dealers are combing Cornwall for pictures from the fifties – “even the studio scrapings” he says kindly, meaning “YOUR rubbish” of course. He seems a little diminished as we received a strange card that mentioned “going for local trips within a fifteen mile radius of Kerris”. He has after all, lived there for over thirty years! Come off it!
