When I was 8 and living in London, a new girl started at my school, the Fox Primary School in Notting Hill Gate. She had 2 brothers and they had all left private schools, because their father had decided it didn't fit his socialist beliefs. I liked her. She already knew a couple of girls in my class, because she lived in a house on Holland Park Avenue, which was painted lemon yellow "Daddy's favourite colour." I also felt a sort of solidarity with her, I think, because I seem to remember she had a Marks & Spencer's kilt, as I did, although in a different tartan.
Anyway, Melissa Wedgewood-Benn (they hadn't dropped the double barrel in those distant days) was friends with girls I was friendly with at school (although I didn't go to most of their houses). I never went to Melissa's house, but one day, in summer1966 we were on holiday in Scotland - we went to the Mull of Kintyre a couple of times to stay in a house there - and a strange car full of waving children appeared in the "garden" (a green place, filled with bracken and grass and not much else). It was Kate and Melissa and Kate's mother, summoning me to come and play. Kate's grandmother was the local laird, Naomi Mitchison, the writer and socialist and African chieftain, who lived at Carradale House - I remember the house as a great early Victorian white house with a croquet lawn and a fantastic cedar tree and a path down to the nice sandy beach, that we normally accessed (except at high tide) by crossing the stepping stones in a fast-flowing burn, or in our Avon rubber dinghy. My memories of the interior may not be perfect, but I think I visited a couple of times. On one occasion we made cheese straws in the large kitchen. I think there was an Aga, I hadn't seen one before. On one occasion (perhaps the same one) my parents collected me and were invited in for drinks.
The adults gathered in a squarish sitting room, full of squashy chairs, smoke hanging somnolently in the air, but I didn't really notice or recognise any of them, except Kate's parents, whom I knew (I'd been to a party at her house I think). Amongst the smoking adults were Tony & Caroline Benn - but obviously I wasn't introduced.
It was quite a thrill going to the house, because Elena, the owner of the house we stayed in, was implacably opposed to Naomi M - I'm not sure why, but perhaps because Elena was a deeply opinionated, irrational and emotional person, it wouldn't have been difficult to find something to argue about. Elena was a dance teacher and I have some vague idea it was some disagreement over the use of a hall owned by NM where E taught (Scottish?) dancing.
Three months later I left that school, and my parents dragged me to the provincial misery of Slough - 20 miles away, and to Catholic primary school whose cultural distance from that of Fox cannot be measured. So that group of friends and connections became another "Lost Domain". Sometimes my life seems to be a series of minor train crashes, in which I become uncoupled by accident, and sent off into a siding, while the rest of the train moves on.
I often see Melissa's journalism, it's very good, and we seem in broad agreement, as feminists of a certain age often are. Tony Benn went on to be a dominant British figure, someone with whom one could often agree wholeheartedly. He was obviously much loved, and seems to have been a pretty good egg on the whole. Often when people die I feel a sense of loss, that I wish I'd met them, had a conversation with them. Now, as I get older I don't, I shrug - another one bites the dust, he was 88 (I think) it was going to happen. What I feel sad about is a sense that a whole swathe of people is going, with certain values that are no longer cherished. This I expect is also a feature of old age. As well as old socialists dying off, it's academics, people with the sacred classical knowledge, ancient values and understanding now considered irrelevant - I feel like one of those Romans trying to maintain standards at the end of the Empire, surrounded by Goths and Lombards, but still speaking perfect Latin.
Anyway, Melissa Wedgewood-Benn (they hadn't dropped the double barrel in those distant days) was friends with girls I was friendly with at school (although I didn't go to most of their houses). I never went to Melissa's house, but one day, in summer1966 we were on holiday in Scotland - we went to the Mull of Kintyre a couple of times to stay in a house there - and a strange car full of waving children appeared in the "garden" (a green place, filled with bracken and grass and not much else). It was Kate and Melissa and Kate's mother, summoning me to come and play. Kate's grandmother was the local laird, Naomi Mitchison, the writer and socialist and African chieftain, who lived at Carradale House - I remember the house as a great early Victorian white house with a croquet lawn and a fantastic cedar tree and a path down to the nice sandy beach, that we normally accessed (except at high tide) by crossing the stepping stones in a fast-flowing burn, or in our Avon rubber dinghy. My memories of the interior may not be perfect, but I think I visited a couple of times. On one occasion we made cheese straws in the large kitchen. I think there was an Aga, I hadn't seen one before. On one occasion (perhaps the same one) my parents collected me and were invited in for drinks.
The adults gathered in a squarish sitting room, full of squashy chairs, smoke hanging somnolently in the air, but I didn't really notice or recognise any of them, except Kate's parents, whom I knew (I'd been to a party at her house I think). Amongst the smoking adults were Tony & Caroline Benn - but obviously I wasn't introduced.
It was quite a thrill going to the house, because Elena, the owner of the house we stayed in, was implacably opposed to Naomi M - I'm not sure why, but perhaps because Elena was a deeply opinionated, irrational and emotional person, it wouldn't have been difficult to find something to argue about. Elena was a dance teacher and I have some vague idea it was some disagreement over the use of a hall owned by NM where E taught (Scottish?) dancing.
Three months later I left that school, and my parents dragged me to the provincial misery of Slough - 20 miles away, and to Catholic primary school whose cultural distance from that of Fox cannot be measured. So that group of friends and connections became another "Lost Domain". Sometimes my life seems to be a series of minor train crashes, in which I become uncoupled by accident, and sent off into a siding, while the rest of the train moves on.
I often see Melissa's journalism, it's very good, and we seem in broad agreement, as feminists of a certain age often are. Tony Benn went on to be a dominant British figure, someone with whom one could often agree wholeheartedly. He was obviously much loved, and seems to have been a pretty good egg on the whole. Often when people die I feel a sense of loss, that I wish I'd met them, had a conversation with them. Now, as I get older I don't, I shrug - another one bites the dust, he was 88 (I think) it was going to happen. What I feel sad about is a sense that a whole swathe of people is going, with certain values that are no longer cherished. This I expect is also a feature of old age. As well as old socialists dying off, it's academics, people with the sacred classical knowledge, ancient values and understanding now considered irrelevant - I feel like one of those Romans trying to maintain standards at the end of the Empire, surrounded by Goths and Lombards, but still speaking perfect Latin.
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