Author: Rosalind Bassett (Page 1 of 3)

Two final visits remained on my Broadstairs agenda. The first was Upton Lodge, home of Louisa Noott, Lady Fox’s mother, where Denton took tea. Hopeville (then Hauteville) in St Peter’s was my second destination, once the residence of Walter Sickert, with whom Denton also took tea towards the end of his time in Broadstairs. The essay describing his visit to the eccentric, elderly artist was Denton’s first published prose, appearing in Horizon magazine in August 1942. It was to bring him to the attention of Edith Sitwell, prompting her oft-quoted declaration that Denton is a born writer.

I cannot tell you how much my brother Osbert… and I enjoyed your alarming experience with Mr Sickert. We laughed till we cried  – though really in some ways it was no laughing matter. But one thing came out very clearly and that is, that you are a born writer.

But let’s visit Aunt Louisa first. Upton Lodge is a five-minute walk from Southcourt, on the way to the church that fascinated Denton so much. 

Louisa Noott was really no relation at all. She was the mother of Lady Dorothy Fox, who became the second wife of Denton’s uncle Harry in 1905, who was first married to Denton’s aunt Josephine, who was his mother’s sister and who died in 1900. All clear? Splendid!

Denton leaves Southcourt and is soon approaching the house that he last visited aged six, recognising the grove of ilex trees that screened the garden from the road. He reaches the entrance, which was a “plain little Gothic revival porch painted cream colour”. From there, a covered walkway made of spindly cast iron led to the front door.

The Gothic arch no longer stands. Instead, tall, solid gates with a push-button entry system block even the tiniest peep of the house. Looks like the ilex trees are still there, though.

Happily for us, Upton Lodge is now a holiday rental, and you can see several pictures of the interior and exterior of the house as it looks now here. Denton remarks that 

Outside the oldest part of the house was a narrow verandah under a tin pagoda roof, delicately curved. There were square French doors on the ground floor, but the upper windows had slight Gothic decorations at the head. These and other details, together with the pillars of the verandah, were picked out in black

The ‘narrow verandah’ that Denton describes still stands, but most of the garden has now gone. If we compare the size of Upton Lodge’s grounds on a contemporary Ordnance Survey map with an aerial view of Upton Lodge today, it’s clear that the “wide lawns” and the underground bunker that Denton enjoyed visiting are long gone. Louisa Noott died in 1936, not long after Denton left Broadstairs, and the age of the buildings around Upton Lodge suggests that they were built around then. Perhaps the gardens were parcelled off and sold separately as part of the disposal of Aunt Louisa’s estate.

A little diffidently, Aunt Louisa tells Denton about her weekly meetings with her medium, and the deep comfort she draws from the messages from her son. Mervyn (Malcolm in AVTAC) was killed in action in WW1 on 20 October 1914, aged just 24. His name is immortalised in the memorial East Window of St Peter’s-in-Thanet church, and also in the 1971 comedy All Gas and Gaiters. Frank Muir, the author, was so taken by the name that he bestowed it upon the character of the Reverend Mervyn Noott, played by Derek Nimmo. 

Later that day, as he is undressing for bed, Denton realises that the worn, stained bottle-green velvet smoking jacket bestowed upon him by Louisa soon after his arrival at Southcourt had belonged to Malcolm.

I had been wearing it for months without thinking; but now, if I put it on, surely I should feel something, know something of him! All of him that was left in the world above ground lingered in the coat.

But, sadly for Denton, despite his vivid imagining of the medium’s appearance and motivations, nothing happened. Diligently burying his head into it and breathing deeply, the only smell was camphor. 

I left the gates of Upton Lodge and walked to St Peter’s, past the Roman Catholic church (yes, that one) and through what feels like an endless middle-class housing estate. The road finally ends at a T-junction, where the church that honours the memory of Mervyn Noott in its East Window stands. Heading right along the skinny pavement, navigating my way past a steady stream of oncoming pedestrians, I took an immediate dislike to St Peter’s. Its narrow main road is bordered by houses that come right up to the pavement on both sides, giving no room to widen the road for two-way traffic. Rather than deter traffic from driving through the village, the road is widened where it can be to allow traffic to pass, but there’s no traffic management. It’s every motorist for themselves. So long queues of cars sit idling, engines revving, enveloping pedestrians in their fuggy emissions. The drivers are ready to leap off the clutch at the first opportunity, indignant horns blaring every few seconds. Don’t visit St Peter’s, readers. It’s a polluted, noisy village. 

In a very few minutes I saw Hopeville on the other side of the road.

I imagined the taxi pulling up to deposit Denton and Gerald, then imagined their mix of discomfort and excitement being at a bohemian tea party where little of the usual etiquette was observed. If Denton was so horrified at Gerald accompanying him to tea uninvited (which I suppose reflected on Denton’s own manners, as his hosts would likely presume that he extended the invitation), it’s not surprising that he found Sickert’s departure from etiquette so disconcerting and difficult to respond to. I wondered a little at Edith Sitwell and her brother finding Denton’s account of his visit so side-splittingly hilarious. Whilst I delight in Denton’s dry humour, I don’t remember ever laughing out loud. I decided that it was probably because of the then-shocking behaviour of someone they knew being described, pitch perfect, in print. 

According to his Wikipedia page, Walter Sickert was ‘cosmopolitan and eccentric’, and extremely interested in Jack the Ripper. According to the author Patricia Cornwell,  Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. Cornwell went as far as comparing Sickert’s mitochondrial DNA with that found on one of the hundreds of letters that Jack Ripper purportedly sent to Scotland Yard. Her claim has been celebrated and dismissed with equal fervour. I wondered if they discussed Jack the Ripper. I wondered how thrilled and horrified Denton would have been to know about Sickert’s obsession with, and possible involvement in, serial murder. However, he found himself utterly unable to respond to Sickert’s disconcerting questions and comments, so it’s unlikely that he would have found the presence of mind and composure to engage in conversation on the topic.

Without a pavement directly in front of the house to safely take more pictures, feeling my lungs filling with car emissions, I strode briskly on without attempting to cross the road and thankfully left St Peter’s behind.

Sorry that my time at Broadstairs was coming to an end, I wandered back towards the train station, and was astonished to come across a flint tower that had no apparent purpose. Astonished, because Denton declared himself longing 

…to go somewhere unknown, see some new sight, feel the world filling me…

How odd, then, that he didn’t mention the Crampton tower, which was built in 1859 to hold drinking water for Broadstairs. However, although it’s quite a tall building (perhaps the height of a modest church tower), it’s not built on elevated ground, so it’s possible that Denton didn’t see it at all. I found myself oddly saddened by the thought, and all the fancies that he could have had about it.

It was time to head home. Happy to have walked in Denton’s footsteps and seen so much of Broadstairs as he had seen it, I wondered what my next project should be. It would be exciting to see Shanghai, but travel isn’t really an option right now, and Shanghai – indeed, China – is utterly changed from Denton’s time there. Perhaps more archives are beckoning…

My first Denton odyssey was complete. I checked the time – a couple of hours before dark, enough to walk back into Broadstairs by the coastal path to see if I could identify any of the other places that Denton refers to. 

Western Esplanade sweeps north into Broadstairs from Corlismore, separated from the coastal footpath by 100 feet or so of luxuriously green grass. Unsurprisingly, the footpath is lined with wooden benches. Even with the bitingly bracing wind, it’s a lovely place to sit and lose yourself in horizon-gazing thought. More surprisingly, every single bench is in memoriam, making them feel slightly disrespectful to sit on. It feels a bit like sitting on someone’s gravestone. And they’re not socially-distanced benches – they’re jammed along the path arm to arm. This is clearly a Broadstairs Thing. The nearest cemetery is in Ramsgate, two miles down the coast, and this is a lovely, local way to remember. Buy a bench, engrave it and install it on the sea front so you can sit in contemplative thought, feeling close to a loved one. I wondered what I would inscribe on a bench dedicated to Denton (feel free to make suggestions in the comments!). Broadstairs wasn’t somewhere he was terribly happy, but it was an important place in his life. Given that Denton never had a grave, it would be nice to have a memorial to him in some form.

A ten-minute stroll towards Broadstairs brought me to Viking Bay, and the path wound past a curious building.

Inaccurately called the Clock Tower (clock, yes; tower, nope), it’s squat and oxidised, with a clock box, then a weathervane, perched incongruously on top of two different roof designs. Here was an indecisive architect who clearly favoured a kitchen sink approach. Underneath this very busy roofage was a partitioned structure, providing lots of socially-distanced seating. Wikipedia informed me that the Clock Tower was erected to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, burned down in the 1960’s, and was rebuilt to almost the exact specification (why?!) to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. 

Beyond the Clock Tower was the promenade proper, benches still jostling for position. I sought the Royal Albion Hotel. The first time that Denton goes out without Dr Easton, he takes a bus into town and heads straight into a chocolate shop. A man after my own heart. 

“Then I walked down the narrow lane between the Royal Albion Hotel and the shop which showed in one corner of its window small boxes decorated with many different shells.”

The Royal Albion Hotel is still there, as is the shop, now a tourist gift shop. It’s not such a narrow lane, but the building does look as though it was there in 1935. Denton stops to look at the shells, then moves on to the “glass pavilion on the edge of the cliff”.

Was the pavilion still there? Glass structures aren’t terribly robust, so my hopes weren’t high. At the bottom of the lane between the Royal Albion Hotel and the gift shop, the Pavilion Hotel is a short walk to the left, from whence the road climbs steeply up the cliff. I walked along to check it out, wondering if the hotel had been built on top of Denton’s pavilion, or perhaps took its name from one that still stood in its grounds. However, given its Art Deco glasswork, and its integration with the buildings around it, the Pavilion hotel has clearly been there some time, and it has no grounds to contain a namesake pavilion. I donned my mask and went in for a cup of tea, asking my server if he knew anything about the history of the building, and whether there was an original pavilion. He was very keen to be helpful, flagging down other members of staff to ask about it, and allowing me to peep into their function room, which was lined with pictures of old Broadstairs. The consensus was that the Pavilion hotel wasn’t connected to an actual pavilion.

Glumly, I toiled up the cliffside path towards Bleak House (yes, THAT Bleak House). No pavilion, no room for a pavilion, and would Denton have been capable of that steep climb? Doubtful.

I returned to the bottom of the lane and headed off to the right. The promenade is quite wide, but it seems unlikely that it would once have been obstructed by a pavilion, and indeed, contemporary aerial pictures show nothing at the edge of the cliff in 1935. In a few minutes I found myself back at the Clock Tower. I sat down to consult ‘A Voice Through A Cloud’ to refresh my memory on the description of the pavilion.

“It was a damp, weighted, early November day with almost warm mist blowing in from the sea, and when I reached the pavilion I found someone already sheltering there from the watery vapour. He was pressed close against one of the glass partitions with his head sunk down between his hunched shoulders.”

Glass partitions? I’d been picturing a sort of cricket pavilion-cum-greenhouse, an enclosed building. But they wouldn’t have had glass partitions. The Clock Tower, however, had several glass partitions. It was at the edge of the cliff. It was there in 1935. Readers, I had found the ‘pavilion’ without even realising it! Bitterly regretting my lack of chocolates to smilingly offer a fellow pavilion inmate, but exultant at my successful detective work, and now very happy that the Clock Tower had been rebuilt to the original specification, I decided to call it a day.

Day two in Broadstairs, and I was off to church. As Denton grew stronger, he had a sense of “unused energy and restlessness”.

“I would long to go somewhere unknown, see some new sight, feel the world filling me”

A few minutes walk in the opposite direction to the railway bridge from Southcourt

“I could see a new church, twentieth-century Romanesque, built carefully of sliced flints, and with a shallow roof of crinkling pantiles.”

The church is Our Lady Star Of The Sea Roman Catholic Church. Finished only with boards when Denton saw it, it’s now complete, with a matching church hall which opened in 2012 now standing opposite the main door. To my great sorrow, neither building was open, and there was no sign of life. The noticeboard outside informed me that mass would remain online until further notice. 

I walked all around the church, working out from the architecture what was where. I identified the location of the altar, the little recesses in the north and south walls, and of course the bell tower. I sat on a bench to read Denton’s account of glimpsing the boy in the belltower through an open door.

“In the dim light it might have been a boy, a girl or a dwarf… there was something strange about it… It seemed very intent on its work and did not look once in my direction… I saw that it was a boy, perhaps nine or ten years old. He was wearing a curious helmet seemingly padded or covered with dark velvet. It was this helmet which had given him the strange appearance of a dwarf or some medieval knight, whose limbs had shrunk, but whose visored head had remained as large and threatening as ever.”

Nurse Goff later told Denton that the boy had been knocked out by the bell crashing down the bell tower and fracturing his skull. Against the odds, the boy survived and returned to his duties. 

“It was amazing to me that the boy could be back now, ringing this same bell. Did it never terrify him? Did he never feel the weight of it swinging far above him – the bell that had his blood on it? I thought that when its clapper tongue clanged in the hollowness, swelling the tower with its vibrating drone, he must feel terror at its violence. But his face on that afternoon when I first saw him was smoother than any sea-ground pebble.”

I wonder if Denton compared himself and the boy. Both had been terribly, life-changingly injured by the carelessness of others. The boy was back doing what he presumably loved, what gave his life meaning. Denton desperately wanted to do the same. I wonder if the boy inspired him in some way, renewed or accelerated his determination. Normal, independent life was slowly starting to feel a little more within his grasp.

Lockdown started easing. The sun started shining. I raised my head from three months of nonstop work, and decided awarded myself some long-overdue Denton time. I hopped on a train to Broadstairs.

Denton’s second biographer, James Methuen Campbell, describes Broadstairs in 1935 as “known almost exclusively for providing two different types of service: the education of the young sons of the wealthy and homes for the recuperation of the sick…  The air was bracing.”

And bracing it is! Now a town of some 25,000 souls (roughly double the population of 1935), I liked it so much that I spent an hour of my final afternoon gazing into estate agents’ windows and doing sums in my head. But I was there for the Denton experience, specifically to do four things. I wanted to retrace Denton’s steps on his dramatic odyssey to prove his independence; to visit the ‘flinty church’ where a young boy bravely returned to his campanology duties having recovered from the bell falling on his head; to track down his aunt’s mother’s house, where Denton took tea, and to visit Walter Sickert’s house as Denton did in ‘Sickert at St Peters’.

Armed with my JMC biography, ‘A Voice Through a Cloud’ and some extremely helpful information from Steven, the marvellous author of Denton’s Wikipedia pages, I first sought the location of Southcourt nursing home, where Denton was sent in October 1935 to convalesce after five months in hospital. He had (sort of) family there – Sir Harry and Lady Fox, Denton’s uncle and aunt, at Corlismore, and Lady Fox’s mother, Louisa Noott, at Upton Lodge.

Southcourt was just three minutes from my airbnb – hurrah! Off I went, wondering if Gerald Mackenzie had taken the same ten-minute walk from the train station, or if he had hopped into a taxi. Unlike me, Gerald didn’t have Apple maps to help him navigate, and the first A to Z wasn’t published until 1936. Easier all round to hop into a station taxi, especially in later trips where Gerald generously brought Denton some painting paraphernalia.

With a few exceptions, I knew from the 1934 Ordnance Survey map that the houses I passed on Swinburne Avenue were all there in 1936, so I was looking at houses that Denton would have recognised. I felt unexpectedly emotional seeing the world as Denton would have seen it.

The large building that was Southcourt Nursing Home is on the junction of Swinburne Avenue and Ramsgate Road. It’s now been converted into flats, and, thrillingly, a ‘For rent’ sign was jammed into the bushes that crowned the boundary wall. Almost jumping up and down in my excitement, I eagerly checked the estate agent’s website to see if I could book a viewing. Sadly, the flat had now been rented. A small girl was sitting outside the front door of Southcourt with a dog, eyeing me suspiciously. I smiled at her and sidled around the corner, out of sight, to take a forensic look at the website pictures. The newly-rented first-floor flat was on the the east side of the building, nowhere near Denton’s room. I hadn’t missed out on any Denton vibes.

JMC’s biography places Denton’s room in the west wing, on the ground floor. A comparison of the pictures shows that the french doors have been replaced (probably several times since 1935) and practicality won the day, replacing the wooden balustrade of the walkway above Denton’s room with metal railings.

Now that I’d found Southcourt, I wanted to recreate one of the most emotional events of A Voice Through A Cloud; Denton’s desperate walk to his aunt’s house following his brother’s visit. It hadn’t been a good experience for either of them. Denton was painfully aware that Bill was simultaneously anxious to both please and escape. After Bill’s departure, Denton realised that visitors made him feel like a prisoner, sapping his sense of agency. 

I felt that the room, the house, the garden and the strip of road outside were as poisoning as ironspiked walls. I must get out and away from them. I must go down to the front and see my aunt and brother again… If I could do that, the rat that was gnawing me inside might stop. It seemed the only possible thing to do.

Could I still walk the exact route that Denton took 85 years earlier? It seemed doubtful. So many towns have been reshaped in the name of development. But there was no harm in trying.

In AVTAC, Denton puts on his gloves and coat, grabs just one stick, and calls to Matron that he’s going out to practice walking. 

There was a bridge over the railway station outside the nursing home. I crossed it now and looked down into the deep cutting. Far below me the steel rails, like never-ending stilettos, seemed to pierce into the grey, veined, bulging heart of the future. They were for me a symbol of sharp tingling excitement, everlasting inquisitiveness and fierceness.

The bridge is indeed right outside Southcourt, a matter of a few moments’ stroll. I was surprised that JMC described it as being several hundred yards away in his biography. 

Across the bridge, the road curves around to the left, there’s a new-ish development to the right, and straight ahead was a rough footpath. Could it be the one that Denton describes?

I started to walk down the track which led to the front. On the left was a hedge, on the right a wooden fence and scattered houses with undeveloped gardens, and mournful strips of field still unbought.

Yes it could, and, to my amazement, yes it was. The track is still there. It’s clearly had a desultory application of tarmac at some point, but it’s very worn and it’s still very much a rough, uneven track. I shuddered to think how dangerous it would have been for Denton to shuffle along it had he been making his odyssey in the dark. It was a good five-minute walk to the end of the track for me – how much longer it must have been for poor Denton, every step a Herculean effort of will. The track is now hedged on both sides, with nowhere to rest.

About half way down I clutched the fence and leant against it. My body was crying out for stillness and relief, but my mind said contemptuously, ‘Go on! Get down! Don’t fall to pieces here!’

The track is long and straight, and for the first few minutes appears to stretch endlessly ahead. I completely understood this nightmarish scenario for a feverish, physically weakened young man.

I began to see my aunt’s house as a goal – a goal like the Cross in that child’s prayer book picture, where a woman with streaming hair is shown clinging to the base in utter exhaustion, while storm clouds part, the sun breaks through and one sees the terrible length of her pilgrimage.

…

When I came out onto the road behind the houses on the cliff, a tram was just passing…

No tram, but this is what Denton would have seen (minus the yellow car!) as he approached the end of the lane and emerged on the road.

It was another five-minute walk down the hill, past large, beautiful dwellings, some of which would have been there as Denton passed by. However, I doubt he stopped to notice them on this occasion.

… I was close to the house I had gazed at every day on my walks with Nurse Goff, and now I was through the gate with its rose arch…

Denton’s uncle and aunt, Sir Harry and Lady Fox, lived in a grand house called Corlismore, at 23 Western Esplanade. I’d had so much luck so far – everything was almost as it had been in 1935. Would my luck hold? Would Corlismore still stand?

Sadly, no. Apparently the only house of its contemporaries to have been demolished, it’s now a modern building of very expensive apartments.

I can’t think of anywhere more beautiful to live – perched on a clifftop overlooking the North Sea, although the sea view is now marred/enhanced (depending on your aesthetic) by the 100 turbines that comprise the Thanet Windfarm, seven miles offshore. The penthouse apartment is the most expensive property in Broadstairs, currently valued at £1.3m. I checked my purse – sadly, I was a bit short, so I walked on.

What a treat to have had the opportunity to walk once again in Denton’s shoes! I crossed the road to continue strolling along the blowy seafront, marvelling at his courage. My walk took place on a sunny, crisp spring afternoon. Denton trudged that mile, alone and on the verge of collapse, on a ‘grey and sullen’ November afternoon. It was a turning point in his recovery. Although it resulted in two weeks confined to his Southcourt bed, he now knew for certain that he could, and would, live an independent life again.

My next visit was to the church that Denton visited as his strength returned. More on that next time…

“Death seems so far away; it recedes and becomes more and more impossible as one grows iller”

journal, 10 august 1948

Today marks the anniversary of Denton Welch’s death, and, once again, I find myself consulting his two biographers for insight. Denton’s early death is a tragedy, but feels like an anticlimax in both accounts. James Methuen-Campbell’s description of events ends the biography abruptly, leaving it feeling curiously unfinished. Michael De-la-Noy describes the day briefly and differently, even though both biographers had a first-hand account of the events of 30 December 1948 from Eric Oliver. 

MDN reports Denton’s death coming as something of a surprise, Eric only realising that his friend was dead when he tried to lift him; he had rallied so often before. In a somewhat fuller description, JMC reports that Eric had been sleeping on a mattress in Denton’s room for a few weeks, realising that the additional medical complications poor Denton was suffering probably meant that he was close to death. On the morning of 30 December, Denton was “distraught, crying out in fury and frustration that he was not ready to die”.

Whatever the reality of that Middle Orchard Christmas, Denton’s sheer tenacity and capacity to work through his final months is the reason that his literary legacy includes a third full-length book. Many people would have simply given themselves up to their illness, but not Denton. The almost-finished manuscript of A Voice Through A Cloud sits within easy reach for when he can manage a few sentences through the post-morphia morning fog.

Whilst JMC finishes his biography abruptly, MDN provides a delightfully gossipy epilogue about Denton’s funeral and what happened to the key players in his life. No doubt Denton fans will have read this – to add to the insight, I was recently fortunate to acquire two letters that were written by Eric Oliver a few weeks after Denton’s death, and I’m delighted to be able to share them with you. The first one, dated 12 January, is short and charming:

Dear Mrs Easdale

You must think me very rude not answering your kind letter before this – only I have and still have so much to do. There is Denton’s unfinished novel and a book of poems, short stories and his journal to be seen to. Graham Sutherland is very kindly helping me to get the V and A museum to accept Denton’s Dolls House and other things of his. And the Vicar of Wateringbury is keen of [sic] having Denton’s Angles [sic] – with an inscription, of course. I do hope something comes of this because I feel sure he would have wanted something like this. As far as I can tell I shall be here till 25th March and then hope to find a flat in T. Wells. Eve can’t make up her mind whether to stay with me or go back to Clacton – she wants a bit of both.

I have had the most wonderful letters from V. Sackville-West in sympathy and praise of Denton’s great talent. Please thank Trot and Pru for their kind words and say when they come back I should like to come and tell them about Denton.

Thank you so much for writing.

Yours very sincerely

Eric Oliver

I don’t know who Mrs Easdale is – please enlighten me in the comments, anyone who knows! I’m guessing that she could have been one of Denton’s cousins, as she clearly replies to Eric’s letter with a request for a specific painting. Eric replies in an undated letter:

Dear Mrs Easdale

The picture you want, I fear, is in Shanghai – Denton sent it to his brother Paul who lives there about 2 years ago. However, there is another, of a horse that I think you’d like – only it is unframed. There are curiously few recent pictures of Denton’s because he sold them so well in the last few years.

Edith Sitwell has written and says ‘If she can feel the right words she will send something to the Times’. I have sent her the story Denton wrote 1½  years ago about her that was for an American publication that fell through – so it was never published.

I have been offered a cottage at East Peckham – no water or electric light etc., and very small, I am not terribly keen but if the worst comes to the worst, I shall go there – as at least, it would be somewhere to house all Denton’s lovely things. Noel can’t make her mind up whether to sell M.O. or let again – but I couldn’t afford to stay here. I am sure Denton would like you to have a picture of his – so let me know, if, you’d like me to send or keep it for you.

Yours very sincerely

Eric

Please tell Trot and Pru we will write soon to thank Trot for the lovely bouquet. It must be lovely living by the sea. Very kind remembrances from E.S. 

As part of the archive that included the two letters from Eric, I acquired a letter that Denton himself wrote in April 1948. It’s a short covering letter to accompany a story that he is submitting for publication – which story, and which publication is, alas, unknown. Needless to say, it’s now my most treasured possession.

I’d like to end by thanking you for reading my blog this year. The silver lining of the UK lockdown and furlough was having time and space to discover Denton, and to create this website. Although returning to work from furlough severely curtailed my reading and blogging time, my New Year resolution is to fulfil the original vision of the website, with full content and more regular blogs. Happy New Year, everyone, and may 2021 manifest itself as Denton wrote in January 1945:

“My life is a great unfoldment with many marvellous things about it.”

I closed Denton’s “what I did on my holidays” photograph album, looked at the time and squeaked in alarm. I’d spent so much time poring over his account of the summer of 1930 that I’d drastically limited the time available for the rest of the archive.

I was sitting in blissful solitude in the reading room of Exeter University, reviewing the only significant Denton archive that I can find in the UK. Having immersed myself in the summer of 1930, I turned to a small photograph album.

It was bound in soft, dog-eared, greenish grey card. Written in the corner in silvery fountain pen was ‘W.A. Welch Oct [unreadable year]’. Bill Welch, Denton’s brother. One photograph to a page, it’s a memoir of the family home in Shanghai. It starts with three exterior pictures of the house from different elevations, all covered in a rich, dense creeper. 

Three pictures of the formally laid-out garden from different perspectives follow, with industrial-looking buildings directly behind the house, which was a surprise. I had imagined acres of land around such a large and lovely house, but the buildings seem quite densely packed. The garden shows a swing boat next to a gazebo smothered with climbing plants, comfy-looking benches just visible inside. I could imagine little Denton playing in the garden, racing between the swing and his beloved mother whilst she chatted with visitors over tea in the gazebo. To my sorrow, there was no sign of the little play house that he loved so much.

Inside the house, there are two pictures of the drawing room from opposite perspectives, one picture titled “Dining room not looking its best, matting on the floor” (it looked delightful to me!), and two taken on the verandah. One of the pictures, titled “Tiffin on the verandah”, appears in James Methuen-Campbell’s biography of Denton. It shows a relaxed and happy-looking eight year-old (ish) Denton cuddling his dog at the table, having just taken tiffin with his parents. Oddly, there’s a second picture of exactly the same scene, but another woman beams at the camera from Denton’s seat (and half-finished food), and Denton has moved into another chair. There’s no clue who the woman is – she seems to be about the same age as Denton’s mother. I don’t think Wooly, Denton’s nanny, was with the family in 1923, so perhaps it’s a friend or family visitor.

The rooms are all crammed with highly-polished, heavy wood furniture; tables, sideboards, butteries, dressers, chairs and sofas. I wonder what happened to it all – whether any of it is now a much-loved antique in a modern Shanghai home, shipped elsewhere in the world, or simply broken up and tossed onto a bonfire.

I amused myself for a few minutes working out how all the rooms related to the exterior of the house, then looked at the few remaining pictures. There’s a picture of “Daddy, self and Denton at the Races 1925 Nov”, but, confusingly, the picture is of Denton with both his parents and nobody who could be Bill. Presumably Bill took the picture. There’s a picture of “2nd cook, Coolie, Cook” showing three stiffly unsmiling young men standing in a line, all dressed in white with black slip-on shoes. Then there’s a picture of Nanking Road, showing very ornate buildings that look to be crumbling away. The photograph album ends with a picture of a large boat with quilted-looking sails, navigating imperiously across a bay. 

I closed the photograph album with regret. It’s a beautiful Denton treasure, but I wish there had been more interior pictures of the house.

I turned to Denton’s 1938 notebook. It was a hardback, dark rose notebook, quarterbound in dark rose leather. Across the two front pages, Denton has drawn his name in what we would recognise as Times New Roman font, four lines high, and carefully coloured in with pencil. His name, quite literally writ large. The book is mainly written in pencil, with a great deal of crossing and scribbling out. There are no dates on any of the pages except one: on Christmas Day, 1938, Denton wrote this poem:

The silver sided birch believes
That beauty only lives in leaves

The book is chiefly poetry, with many sketches and doodles. Denton occasionally switches to a purple pencil or a black fountain pen. There are floor plans of houses, and a list of authors inside the back cover. Here and there, pages have been carefully cut out – I would love to know why, and by whom. It’s a messy scrawl of a book, and it was utterly thrilling to browse it!

Then there were a few modern photographs of Denton locations, a picture of Denton apparently sketching on the balcony of Middle Orchard – it’s from the same reel as the photographs of Denton with his angels and with Eric – and a few letters between correspondents talking about Denton’s will and copyright.

With 20 minutes remaining of my time in the reading room, the kind librarian brought me the final item – a bright pink, hardcover box, embossed with gold lettering that proclaimed itself to hold the final chapters of Maiden Voyage. Reader, I have no idea why anyone would want to store Denton’s work in this gilded bubblegum monstrosity. Is this a Thing that publishers did? Produce luridly-coloured boxes to hold original MSS? And how on earth did it get separated from the rest of the originals to escape transportation to Texas?

Inside the box, there were two soft-backed school exercise books. I wondered if Denton minded writing in these, or whether austerity limited his options on what to write in. I could easily imagine the aesthetic Denton appreciating and luxuriating in a Moleskine notebook. 

Turning the pages gently, all that went through my head was “DentonwrotethisDentonwrotethisdDentonwrotethis”. This is Denton writing his first novel. His original words, with all their crossings out and spelling mistakes and misplaced apostrophes. I longed to compare them to the published version, but I’d been allowed nothing but a pencil and a notebook in the reading room. I read, in Denton’s writing, the final words of Maiden Voyage – the lingering taste of Cointreau, and Vesta’s tearful farewell. Then, as if nothing of import had happened, Denton launches into normal journaling, doodling, poems, and – adorably – endlessly practising his signature. D Welch, D. Welch, Denton Welch. Practising for fame. Signing and signing and signing until the book was full.

My time was up. Regretfully, I took the pink box back to the librarian, thanked him for his help, and headed back to the train station. All the way back to London, I wished and wished that I could have something connected to Denton. I wanted to hold on to the teenage excitement and awe that I’d experienced by seeing and holding items that he had seen and held.

Then, quite unexpectedly, I got my chance. I’ll tell you about it next time…

I recently had the great good fortune to browse the few items of Denton’s archives that weren’t shipped across the Atlantic when the University of Texas acquired Denton’s copyright shortly after his death. A small archive is held in the Special Collections department at the University of Exeter. 

When I say small, I mean small. 

Universities are mysterious and full of promise to me. I was never a full time student, choosing to go straight into work instead, and studying for my degree through the Open University. So I was excited to soak up the student buzz, but as it turned out (and unsurprisingly, I guess) I saw very few people on my walk to the Old Library, and I had the reading room to myself. Having puffed my way up the hill from the station, I was met by the incredibly helpful librarian, who waved his hand at a trolley behind him and said “I believe this is what you’ve come to see?”

It was a sturdily flimsy-looking grey box, about the size of an Amazon delivery box when you’ve ordered a pen refill but the packer fancies giving you a mile of scrunched-up paper to make sure it doesn’t break. About two feet by three feet, and about a foot high. I stared at the box over the librarian’s shoulder while he asked me lots of security / COVID questions and explained the rules of accessing the special collection archives. One item at a time – I can’t have the whole box because it’s shared with another archive – I can only take a pencil and a notebook into the reading room with me – I can’t take any pictures of anything – I must wave at him when I’m ready for the next item.

Hugely disappointed that I couldn’t take any pictures, I shuffled round the librarian’s desk to peer into the box and choose my first item. It all looked so innocuous – files and notebooks. This could be a box of old school books in anybody’s loft. But this was Denton Actual Welch’s Actual archives. I had no idea what I was going to see. I was too excited to think clearly, so I decided to start from the top and work down. This meant starting with three photograph albums – one large, one medium and one small. Like Goldilocks, I didn’t think twice about the first photograph album I wanted to see – I went big. 

The librarian showed me to my desk. It was all very polite and formal. He thoughtfully gave me a magnifying glass and a large sloping piece of solid grey foam to rest the archive items on, so I wouldn’t need to hunch over the desk all afternoon. He placed the photograph album reverently on the foam. Not wanting to seem ungrateful, I smiled up at him through my mask, even as I waited impatiently to be left alone so I could fall greedily upon my first archive of the day. My fingers hovered over the corner of the album, all ready to whip it open, when the librarian gestured carelessly over my shoulder and said “By the way, that’s Daphne du Maurier’s writing desk”.

What?

A little discombobulated, head full of Denton, I turned to look at the desk next to me. It was all set up as though Daffers had just nipped away to answer the front door. The first page of “Rebecca” lay on top of the desk. As added bonuses go, this was pretty special. But I was there for Denton. I had a three-hour slot to consume everything in the archive. There was no time to waste, and I opened the large, slender album.

Reader, I’d love to tell you that it was a momentous occasion, that it took my breath away, that it felt as though Denton and I had our heads bent together over the same thing. But it didn’t. There was one A4 photograph in the album, and it was a well-known picture of Denton sitting next to one of his angels at Middle Orchard. Seen it. Booooo. Next!

I chose the medium photograph album next. And here it was. Here was my first Find. It was 15 year-old Denton’s photo journal of his summer travelling through England with his father. It was the summer of 1930, the summer in which the events of In Youth Is Pleasure took place. There’s nothing in there that relates directly to In Youth Is Pleasure, but it’s a lovely read nonetheless.

The album has a black, hardback cover. The pages are a nondescript colour that could be grey or could be green, reminding me of Denton coldly correcting Matron in Southcourt nursing home when she compliments him on his nice grey suit. “It’s a sort of greenish tweed”, he tells her in a gruff voice.

Denton has signed his name on the inside cover in fountain pen – D. Welch – and has laid out the album meticulously. There are four pages per town; on the left hand page, Denton has stuck a map of the town centre; the right hand page there are four to six neatly mounted, credit card-sized photographs,; on the third page Denton has written a short description of the town, and the final page has more photographs.

The photographs look professional, rather than holiday snaps. Portable cameras were certainly available in 1930, but perhaps local shops also sold a range of stock photographs for tourists to buy. Denton’s photographs are mounted on printed white frames with grey cardboard corner mounts. But never mind all that – I expect you’re wondering where Denton travelled.

It was a little shock when I opened the album and saw Stratford-upon-Avon was their first port of call. It’s a town I know well, as my parents live there, so it was personally very interesting to see photographs of Stratford 90 years ago, and to see the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre rather than the RSC. Denton writes very neatly in his fountain pen:

“Here Shakespeare was born on April 23rd 1564. His birthplace can still be seen also the old grammar school where he was educated, he was buried in the Parish church. About a mile out of Stratford is Anne Hathaway’s cottage, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582. We travelled here on 29 July 1930.”

As well as Stratford, Denton visited Winchester, Oxford (where Denton’s brother Bill was at university), Salisbury (where readers of In Youth Is Pleasure will remember that Denton stole a lipstick), Horsham (where Denton’s grandfather lived), Chichester, Teignmouth and Brooklands Motor Course. However, he didn’t chart their travels in chronological order; Horsham is dated 13 September, and Teignmouth 26 August.

I’m curious about lots of things. How did this important album escape being part of the archives sent to Texas? To whom did Denton give the album? Why didn’t he include anything about his time at the Oatlands Park hotel? As with most Denton questions, all things I’ll probably never know.

I spent far too long with this album, so the rest of the afternoon was spent flicking quickly through things that I should have luxuriated in for hours. But that’s for next time… The librarian very kindly allowed me an extra fifteen minutes so that I could at least review everything in the archive, if not read it in detail. We grumbled about the main archive being held in Texas – it turned out that the librarian has been to the Harry Ransom Centre, which holds Denton’s archive and many other British authors. We said our friendly farewells (possibly au revoirs), and I headed back out to empty Exeter.

Next time, the small photograph album – and the rest of the archive.

Well, readers, it turns out that going back to work after furlough made quite a dent in my Denton immersion. To rectify my neglect, I made another pilgrimage, this time to gaze at 34 Croom’s Hill. I wanted to see the first and last home where, for a regrettably short period, Denton lived a truly independent life. Fifteen minutes bus ride from Goldsmiths, Greenwich was handy for his student and social life. It was also within cycling distance of family. A Voice Through A Cloud begins:

“One Whitsun holiday, when I was an art student in London, I got on my bicycle and left my room on Croom’s Hill for my uncle’s vicarage in Surrey.”

I was particularly keen to see if Croom’s Hill had changed beyond recognition since the 1930’s (Denton lived there between 1933 and 1935). The houses that Denton knew in Tonbridge have barely changed since he lived there, so it seemed too much to hope that the same could be said of his other residences. Certainly, the house near Manchester Square where Denton initially lodged with Bill to attend Goldsmiths was demolished long ago.

My pilgrimage took place on a hot September Sunday, the day before new rules forbidding gatherings of more than six people came into force in England. I jumped onto a busy-ish DLR at Bank, noticing uneasily how many fellow passengers were talking about getting off at the Cutty Sark. It was my destination too, and with every stop more families squeezed prams into the vestibules. Sure enough, when I emerged from the DLR station, it was like Oxford Street the Saturday before Christmas, the Christmas before COVID. It was months since I’d seen so many people together in one place.

I headed south, navigating as best I could along Greenwich Church Street, noting grumpily that the tourist zombies populating London before COVID remained alive and well. Indeed, they seemed to delight in the renewed opportunity to shuffle slowly along the width of the pavement in trios and quartets, determinedly oblivious to pedestrians who prefer to move slightly faster than snail’s pace. But I digress.

Turning left into Stockwell Street, I escaped the zombies and headed towards Croom’s Hill. The first building on Croom’s Hill is Ye Olde Rose and Crown pub, rebuilt in 1888. It’s presented to look and feel as though it hasn’t changed for generations. I reasoned that Denton would certainly recognise the building, if not the carefully curated contemporary impression of being frozen in the Victorian era. A little research showed that Ye Olde Rose and Crown has a long history of serving the gay community, and a petition was mounted in 2016 to remove a new manager who was decidedly not an ally. I wondered if it has served the gay community since the 1930’s, but I don’t remember Denton mentioning it in his writing.

Walking up Croom’s Hill, I became more and more confident, more and more excited that little has changed since Denton lived here. Greenwich Park runs along the left hand side of the road, and on the right is a succession of lovely old houses, their front doors opening almost directly onto the street. I marvelled at Denton describing Croom’s Hill houses as “charming rather squalid old houses” – I’d happily live in any of them!

34 Croom’s Hill is a beautiful house. A quick peep revealed that the back garden can be seen from the front window, but I respected the owner’s privacy and refrained from pressing my face to the railings for a proper stare! I recognised the house immediately from Denton’s description of his bedroom window:

“The only window, which looked out on to the park, was charming. It was really a triptych – the largest light with semi-circular head in the middle flanked on each side by little slits only three panes high and one across. Miss Middlesborough, who owned the house, said that the little slits had been blocked up when she bought the house; they had only been discovered when her architect brother went round methodically, knocking all the walls with his stick. He heard the hollow sound, tore away the wallpaper and the canvas on which it was stretched, and there were the little openings stuffed with old rubbish and newspaper but still complete with their thick wooden sash frames and old glass. Outside the house the stucco covering had to be taken away; then the old curved glass let through the light again, after perhaps a hundred years.”

I enjoyed the goosebumps of seeing Denton’s home exactly as he would have seen it, then headed into Greenwich Park to find my way home. I wondered how I could amend the title of “The Youth Rang The Bell” to reflect how I had walked in Denton’s footsteps. I particularly struggled with a replacement for “youth”. I’m no longer a youth, and there are few positive words to describe non-youth. Having consulted Google for synonyms, I settled on “The Doyenne Took The Pictures And Peeped Furtively Through The Window”. Mic drop.

Until next time, my friends.

I’ve been stringing it out as much as I can, but I’ve almost finished reading Fragments of a Life Story. It’s an anthology of all the short stories Denton wrote, finished or not. Compiled by Michael de la Noy (Denton’s first biographer), Fragments Of A Life Story presents Denton’s short stories in autobiographical order, irrespective of the chronology of publication. 

I know now that it’s not how I wanted to read them. Denton (presumably) chose the order in which he wanted his stories to appear in their anthologies, and I’d rather have experienced them the way he wanted me to experience them. Luxuriating in a completed story such as The Trout Stream, then being presented with a couple of pages of a story fragment is discombobulating. I can understand why MDN wanted to structure the anthology in this way – we can follow Denton’s life and the people around him – but I’d have preferred the unfinished stories to be presented in a separate section. They were never intended to form an arc.

Having said that, though, it should also be said that some of the unfinished stories feel finished, and many of the completed stories feel unfinished. Whilst he more than makes up for it with his subject matter and peerless description, the one thing that Denton doesn’t always do well (in my eyes) is endings. I’m often still deeply immersed in the story when it abruptly ends. When I Was Thirteen, for example, finishes whilst Denton’s brother is busily hitting him. Brave and Cruel finishes with Denton unable to prevent giggles escaping in an awkward situation. It’s a bit unsatisfactory and leaves me a smidge grumpy, whereas I finish others – The Trout Stream, for example – on a sigh of satisfaction.

Other things I’ve noticed so far: I First Began To Write is the only story that properly breaks the fourth wall, with Denton explaining how he approaches his writing. It put me in mind of Stephen King’s On Writing, and I loved the brief peep into his thought process. Denton’s realisation that he wants to write about how he feels rather than tell stories sheds light on his writing style, and how it evolved into vivid, detailed minutiae about not just his feelings, but his senses and how he experiences the world. In The Coffin on the Hill, for example, we experience with him the excitement of a boat trip through his child eyes. I could taste the brass porthole when Denton licked it so that he could fully sense the boat. I was on that boat with Denton, a fellow eight year-old, delighting in the minuteness of everything, curling up and feeling like a mole, whilst precociously adult in his tastes and observations. It’s astonishing that he can recall sensations and emotions so vividly twenty years after they occurred.

I’ve also noticed that Denton describes places and objects in great detail, but rarely people. For example, he mentions in A Fragment of a Life Story that Touchett (i.e. Francis Streeten) has terrible teeth, but doesn’t describe them in the same detail as he describes, say, Lymph Est, his doll in The Coffin on the Hill.  His description of his grandmother’s library in The Vast House is so vivid that we could probably pick it out from a lineup of photographs, but we’d struggle to do the same with most of his characters.

And now, dear reader, I have a bit of a problem. Having complained that Denton isn’t always great at ending his stories, it feels incumbent on me to sign off with a sizzler of an ending to this post. But I can’t think of one. So, um… bye for now.