Category: Life

Dashing in Denton’s shoes

July 10, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

I recently had the opportunity to recreate part of the journey that Denton makes to Dr Easton’s house in A Fragment of a Life Story. Touchett (Francis Streeten) persuades Denton to see a religious film with him at the parish hall, but Denton loathes the experience. Overcome with “the horror of living”, Denton pushes his way out and makes his way down into the town of Tonbridge. He reaches the “great black station-yard where the trains were shunting and snorting”, but the station-yard is no longer visible from the road; it’s hidden by buildings and the road bridge. However, across the road, the library is still easily seen.

On the other side of the road, outside the public library, a youth stood, whistling mournfully and hunching his shoulders. When the youth glares at Denton for staring at him, Denton lets “the wind sweep me on at once.” He crosses over the train track and heads a hundred yards south towards Pembury Road.

I looked up at the spire of St Stephen’s Church. It appeared to me as a huge sharpened stake, put there by God for an instrument of torture. I imagined a gigantic body hurtling down from heaven and landing on the spike, pierced through the belly, the arms and legs spread-eagled and turning like windmills in their agony.

A policeman sees Denton staring, but Denton hates his friendly greeting and continues south to see the person he loves more than anyone else in the world.

I started to run up the hill, towards the doctor’s house… I pushed through the dripping bushes at the gate; one of them had an aromatic smell which I shall always remember, for, as I passed, I tore off a piece and crushed it between my fingers.

There’s no longer a gate, and, 80+ years on, I doubt that the bush on the left of the photograph is the same bush . A bolder person than I might have rung the doorbell and asked if it was OK to run round to the drawing room window and peep in, as Denton did. Maybe next time…!

Even all these years later, it’s oddly moving to walk in Denton’s shoes. Many of the buildings that he would have known still exist. Looking at them, knowing that Denton would have looked at them too, brings him a little bit closer.

Short stories

July 5, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

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I’ve tried to reflect my thoughts on Eric Oliver a few times now, but they’re still swimming about hazily and don’t want to be captured just yet. So I’ll leave Eric for another time and reflect on the first few short stories in ‘Fragments of a Life Story”, published in 1987; The Vast House (which was previously unpublished), Narcissus Bay, and At Sea, both of which were published in Brave and Cruel in 1948.

The Vast House recounts Denton’s memories of visits to his maternal grandmother in her huge Shanghai house. A wheelchair user, she relied on servants to care for Denton, and he adored the footman, Will. He reflects from his adult vantage about the innocence of a young boy enjoying the sensual contact of boisterous play, staring at Will’s physical form whilst he relaxes over a pipe, and furtively wearing Will’s clothes. Denton also describes for us the “boredom and disappointment” of his grandfather’s solitary life as a result of his grandmother’s lesbian relationship with her live-in friend Emma, their mutual passion and devotion excluding all others.

This is the most sensual of Denton’s stories that I’ve read so far, which is possibly why it wasn’t finished or published. His simple joy in Will’s companionship touches the heart. Was Denton indeed such a precocious, self-aware little boy, or does the adult Denton endow him with those gifts? At Sea seems to be similarly knowing in the retelling. Denton (Robert in the story) describes sharing a cabin with his mother on one of their frequent transatlantic trips, and his appalling behaviour towards Mr Barron, a fellow traveller who invited her (but not Robert) to a party in his cabin. Typically Denton, he describes Robert’s behaviour as matter-of-factly as he describes his protagonists’ appalling behaviour in all of his books, and he presents it without any attempt to excuse or justify. He’s asking an adult audience to empathise with a self-absorbed child who is old enough to know better. It also invites judgement on his mother, to a degree; not many mothers would ask their child to choose their clothes for them, and then wear what they chose even if they didn’t agree with the choice! To a modern audience, Denton’s childhood memoirs are a gloriously-described window on the past, an opportunity to reflect on our own childhood behaviour and values, and an invitation to make value judgements.

Young Denton never seems to grasp that the intensity of his relationship with his mother doesn’t trump the requirement to behave appropriately in public, hence his bewildered outrage when she’s forced to rebuke him in front of others. Rosalind was expecting too much emotional maturity on his part to engage in the complicity of being a little boy in public and a mini adult in private. So to some degree, she reaps what she sows, also inculcating a sense of entitlement to personal power that shows up in Denton’s extreme independence in his teenage years and beyond. This is evident in Narcissus Bay; Denton expects his friends to listen when he wants to speak, to do what he wants to do, and agree with his opinions (although lots of children do this, to be fair!). He patronises the adults in the story, feeling sorry for Adam’s mother because “she was so very benighted and unaware of real things”. He bathes, fully clothed, to demonstrate power over the boy who isn’t allowed to bathe.

Denton’s short stories are wonderful to read. Relatively insignificant daily activities elevated to intense vignettes that stay with you long after the reading. But I don’t want to finish reading them! Next up: The Happiest Time, The Coffin on the Hill, and The Barn.

Comparing biographies

June 21, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

Two hefty Denton books remain to read; Denton’s journals, and his short stories. However, I’m getting myself a bit stuck on his biographies. I thoroughly enjoyed reading James Methuen-Campbell’s version of Denton’s life and times, which was published in 2004. JMC’s attention to detail is astonishing; I’m not surprised the book took him seven years to write! The tiny details that he’s bothered to track down, without the modern godsend of Google, demonstrate his intense interest in Denton and his work. As well as his writing, JMC charts Denton’s artistic career, which is a topic that I know little about and makes me keen to know and better understand that side of his creative output.

I’m now reading Michael De-La-Noy’s biography of Denton, which was published 20 years earlier in 1984. His journalist background shows up in more of a story-telling style, although he relies on quoting large chunks of Denton’s own stories and journals. That’s OK, as he also provides alternative perspectives from Denton’s family and friends. What’s not OK is that MDN sits in judgement in a way that JMC doesn’t; for example, he sneers at Denton’s mother for “mollycoddling” him. His tone throughout is that of an editorial opinion piece, and I’m not interested in MDN’s opinion. I’m interested in hearing a factual account of Denton’s life, insights from his friends and family, and how he was perceived by contemporary commentators.

What exasperates me about both biographies is how often Denton’s activities and motivations are ascribed to his sexual orientation. He was a whole human being, as fabulous and as flawed as anyone else, perhaps more intensely both. As Edith Sitwell said many times, he was a born writer, a great writer. Of course Denton is an important LGBT role model, publishing homoerotic stories pre-LGBT social acceptance and celebration. He gaily referred to himself as a “real, live fairy”, but it broke my heart a little to see one of his letters refer matter-of-factly to “homosexuality and other neurotic abnormalities”. He shrugged it off when In Youth Is Pleasure was displayed in a bookshop under the banner “Of interest to students of abnormal psychology”. But let’s not just celebrate Denton for being a brave and honest LGBT author. He wrote about much more than homoerotic experiences. Gay or straight, his writing is exceptional, full stop.

Both biographies were written when many of Denton’s inner circle were still alive. First-hand accounts of Denton’s life and times, albeit remembered several decades later, add poignance and intensity. MDN does this better, as he met up with Denton’s family to provide context to his early life, and he quotes extensively from Denton’s correspondence with his friends. However, of Denton’s two biographers, I would far rather have a natter over a cuppa with JMC. He celebrates all of Denton’s work. He lets us see Denton as his contemporaries saw him without constantly adding his own two penn’orth. And he didn’t rely on huge swathes of Denton’s own words to tell his story. Thank you, James Methuen-Campbell, for an insightful and respectful Denton biography.

Finding flow

June 15, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

In 1940, Denton moved away from the depressing, functional flat in Tonbridge to a modern concrete box a few miles away in St Mary’s Platt. The war was well underway by now, and Denton was less accessible to many of his friends so his social life shrank. He became quite depressed, and his relationship with Evie came under strain; according to Gerald Mackenzie it was volatile, sometimes even violent, with household items being hurled about.

In September of 1940, inspired by J. R. Ackerley’s Hindoo Holiday and possibly galvanised into action by a bomb exploding yards from his house, Denton made a start on Maiden Voyage. The routine of writing steadily every morning calmed Denton. It gave him a sense of serenity and focus. At the same time, he began his largest art work, ‘Harvest’, which now hangs in the Tate.

I know nothing about art, and I’m a little worried that I won’t do justice to Denton’s once my exploration reaches that element of his legacy. Is ‘Harvest’ any good? I’ve no idea. I have no idea about the artistic merit of any of Denton’s daubs, but he seemed to sell quite a lot of it during his lifetime, albeit for modest sums. The few pieces that I’ve seen online appeal to me greatly – vivid colour, the ordinary made fantastic, nightmarish in an Alice-in-Wonderland-y way. It seems odd that someone who didn’t care for written abstract seemed quite at home with it as an artist.

It’s a great personal sorrow that so much of Denton’s art work is hidden away in private collections and archives. From what I’ve read, though, Denton does seem to have painted with commercial intention rather than to express himself. His paintings don’t seem to have been created with the hope that someone will adore it or cherish it – just buy it. Self expression seems to have been achieved primarily through his writing. I may change my mind about this impression the more I discover of Denton, but his painting and writing are showing up as two very different animals to me.

Starting Maiden Voyage seems to have marked the beginning of a much happier, more settled period for Denton. Despite domestic upheaval at the end of 1941 when the Hop Garden burned down, 1942 was one of the most satisfying years of Denton’s life. He had secured patronage for Maiden Voyage, come to the attention of influential People Who Matter, had some poetry published, and his paintings were starting to attract attention. He reflected on the year in his journal.

“This may all be only a beginning, but it means something, and I must go on and on and on.”

An exotic tropical bird

June 13, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

The few years after leaving Broadstairs were difficult times for Denton. He wrote in his journal of “those endless days and nights of 1936 alone and desperate”. He wasn’t alone, as Evie was keeping house for him, but she was a devout Christian Scientist and didn’t believe that pain existed, so probably wasn’t especially empathic. I keep coming back to, and marvelling at, Denton’s youth. Severely injured, just turned 21, with none of the talking therapies or rehabilitation that would be offered today. Surely anyone would find it very difficult to rebuild body and mind following such a major trauma without love and support. JMC makes a passing reference to a suicide attempt soon after Denton moved into Hadlow Road, and I can quite see how this could come about. I can’t imagine why JMC doesn’t tell the story in the biography instead of mentioning it in the notes. It’s not that I want the distressing detail of a young man’s despair, but it’s a significant event.

Happily, Denton settles down in Tonbridge and builds a circle of friends. Gerald Mackenzie visits regularly. Significantly, Francis Streeton stops Denton in the street to make his acquaintance. Most people in the street today would assume that Francis was a chugger and do their best not to engage, but Denton did. They became friends, but it appears to have been uncomfortably one-sided. Denton was extremely rude about Francis’s idiosyncratic appearance and behaviours, and as far as I can tell Francis was nothing but a good friend to Denton.

Speaking of idiosyncrasy, Ronald Benge, one of his acquaintances, wrote my favourite thumbnail of Denton. Writing to JMC for the biography, he said “One was impressed by his intense interest in everything and everybody. There was, of course, most noticeable this extraordinary vivid quality, compounded by his appearance and high-pitched excitable speech. He was like some exotic tropical bird and his dress was flamboyant, so that some of his acquaintances were embarrassed to be with him in public – the small slight figure limping along and full of spontaneity and laughter”

I love love love this description of Denton! It’s so easy to picture him, perhaps with a cape flying behind him, greeting acquaintances and listening, bright-eyed and inquisitive, to their news. I associate Denton at this time with vitality and activity. Never does he get onto his bicycle and ride it; he always jumps onto his bike and pedals it. I have so much respect for his determination to live life to the full despite his pain and frequent illness.

1940 saw Denton move away from Tonbridge and the embarrassment of his behaviour towards Dr Easton. A new chapter began, quite literally. Denton began to write Maiden Voyage.

Convalescence

June 9, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

After four months in hospital, Denton moved to Southcourt nursing home in Broadstairs. In AVTAC he recounts how his mother’s friend, Clare (Irene Dallas in real life) escorted him in the ambulance from hospital to Southcourt. The journey is around 90 miles, with no motorways, so it was quite the long haul. They call briefly into Denton’s room at Blackheath so he can pick up some essentials. Endearingly, Denton doesn’t even think about clothes – his only thought is “which of my treasures do I want to take with me?”. Clare eventually enters in exasperation and grabs an armful of clothes before bustling him back into the ambulance.

Let’s not forget that Denton is still only 20, AND he’s privileged to have been looked after in one way or another his entire life. The people around him have taken care of practicalities like clean clothes and food. All Denton needs to think about are the only things that can still bring him joy; his treasures. JMC’s biography recounts how, even as a ten year-old boy in Shanghai, Denton’s friend Nancy Quinlan recalls that they had to play in the spare room. They couldn’t play in his bedroom because there were “fans, feathers and shells” displayed on tables and they feared knocking something over. Denton became an extremely discerning collector as an adult, but the thought of that little boy’s bedroom crammed to the gunnells with (probably) cheap tat is adorable.

But, Dentonesque, I digress. He spent a few months in Broadstairs, and probably left sooner than he should. One word (OK, ~~two~~ three words): Dr Jack Easton, who appears as Dr Farley in AVTAC. For an author who loves to embellish, it’s interesting that Denton does quite the opposite when recounting his behaviour around Dr Easton. He makes it all sound very dispassionate and brisk, when in reality his behaviour constituted solid grounds for a restraining order.

The good doctor decides to move to Tonbridge, 60 miles away, to progress his career. Denton can’t countenance life without Dr Easton and decides to move to Tonbridge too. In AVTAC, he presents this as a logical decision – this doctor knows me and my case, so I’ll move to be near him. Of course! Who wouldn’t?

Two days after Dr Easton’s departure, still barely able to walk, he gets on a train and arrives at Dr Easton’s house in a state of near-collapse, requiring a stay in a Tonbridge nursing home to recover. Not the pleasant house hunting day trip with Evie depicted in AVTAC, although the unfinished book ends in the middle of that day. Who knows how honest Denton would have been about his subsequent behaviour had he completed the book? He lurked in Dr Easton’s garden, peered through the windows, broke into his house on at least one occasion, and called him at all hours of the day and night. This obsession lasts for three years.

Three. Years.

Dr Easton finally writes a much more polite letter than Denton deserves to tell him that their friendship and professional relationship must end.

The surprise is that Denton is normally as brutally honest about himself as he is with his opinions of other people and their behaviour. Disagreeable and vulnerable by turn, he doesn’t flinch from presenting himself in an unflattering light. What prevented him from being so honest on this topic, I wonder? From his journals, it sounds as though 1936 was (understandably!) a desperately unhappy year for him, so perhaps it was just too painful to acknowledge the reality of events.

Happily, life gets better…

The collision

June 2, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

Two police officers are directing onlookers away from the scene of a car crash and discussing how it had happened. PC Butterman is looking puzzled.

“Why can’t we call it an accident?”

“Because accident implies there’s no one to blame”, comes the grim response from PC Angel.

Whenever I see Denton referring to his “accident”, it reminds me of this scene from Hot Fuzz, and frankly, reader, it gets my dander up a little. It wasn’t an accident, it was gross negligence. On 9 June 1935, Denton Welch was knocked off his bike by a careless driver. It was a quiet stretch of road with no apparent reason for anyone to lose control of a car. However, Annie Huntley did, and Denton’s body was ruined for the rest of his life.

Denton’s description of his experience in hospital is horrific. The nurses were dismissive of his pain; they inflicted casual torture upon him by binding his terribly injured leg cruelly tight before it was put in plaster; they expected men to be stoic in the face of life-changing injuries and death. The social context is relevant, of course; the Great War was still in living memory, and the appalling injuries and suffering of soldiers in the trenches. I do wonder if Denton exaggerated the inhumanity of the nurses for greater effect, but it seems that everyone agreed he was in a particularly awful hospital. However, he couldn’t be moved for a month because of the severity of his injuries.

Eventually ensconced in a Broadstairs nursing home, along comes Dr Jack Easton. There’s a photograph of him in JMC’s biography (hooray!) and Denton’s description did him great justice. Dr Easton is the first person to acknowledge the suffering that Denton had endured for the last few months – no wonder Denton fell for him! Simple gratitude towards a member of the medical profession who at last acknowledges that Denton has more than a slightly grazed knee.

Denton never returned to live in London. Several commentators have suggested that, dreadful though it was, being forced to relocate out of London to recuperate allowed Denton’s genius to flourish as it otherwise may not have done. Alan Bennett, for example, speculates that if Denton had continued at Goldsmiths he would probably have ended up as part of the Soho or Fitzrovia set, indistinguishable from all the other London creatives anxious to make their name. Edmund White wrote that Denton’s gift was refined by suffering and illness into a “white-hot flame”.

Denton, however, doesn’t (yet) strike me as someone who was particularly ambitious to make a name for himself. He does mention in a couple of letters to Eric Oliver that he thinks he might be about to become well-known, but doesn’t seem to be particularly excited by the prospect. On the contrary, he talks glumly about the people who write to him asking if they can visit, and he feels that he needs to say yes to some of them. Does anyone these days write to famous people saying “I’d love to meet you, when can I drop by?”, and expect them to say “Yes of course! See you for afternoon tea on Saturday next!”. Unthinkable now – a matter of courtesy then.

But back to Annie Huntley. Denton doesn’t mention her at all in AVTAC. He vaguely refers to Bill taking care of some legal matters. Maybe he talks about it more in his journals, but the further I read into AVTAC, the more I wanted to know what had happened to the driver who had been the cause of so much suffering and a life changing course. I know that there was a court case, and Denton was awarded £4,000 in damages (approximately £280,000 today) which allowed him to live independently, but what happened to Annie? Did she go to jail? Was her driving licence revoked? Did she express remorse? Did she apologise? It’s commendable that Denton didn’t allow himself to dwell on it (again, the journals may contradict this perception when I read them) but how could he have not thought more about it? He seems to have just accepted that this was his life now, and not thought with resentment of the person who caused it.

Next up – the convalescent stalker.

Happy days at Goldsmiths

May 31, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

Portrait of Denton Welch by Gerald Mackenzie Leet, 1935

Today, I’ve read James Methuen-Campbell’s account of Denton’s time at Repton and China, and I’m delighted to have seen him through different eyes. Denton’s account of Repton in Maiden Voyage left few insights to be gleaned from his biography, other than he had teachers called Snape and Tonks. It tickles me to think that JK Rowling’s characters of the same name might have been inspired by JMC’s biography!

Delightfully, JMC’s account of Denton’s time at Goldsmiths is all new information. Denton was clearly very happy there. He finally achieved the independence he’d wanted all his life, moving into a room of his own at 34 Croom’s Hill aged 17. His landlady? Evie Sinclair, with whom Denton lived for most of the rest of his life.

From a slow start at Goldsmiths, Denton built up a circle of mainly female friends, which calls into question my previous comments about his misogynist leanings. Denton’s friend and classmate, Helen Roeder, told JMC that Denton liked to have dumpy little girls around him, which made me smile, and he was seen as very protective and caring. He seemed to feel most secure when he was around women.

In the middle of the Goldsmiths chapter appear some photographs. One of the best parts of any biography is the photographs. I gaze and gaze at them, trying to peep beyond the borders into the space beyond, trying to guess what the people in the photographs are thinking when they’re taken. JMC’s biography includes several photographs of Denton and Eric Oliver in 1946, both individually and together. When you look closely at them, it’s clear that they were all taken on the same day, as they’re both wearing the same clothes in all of the pictures. Presumably Evie is the one taking the pictures*; I wonder what it was about that day that they wanted to remember.

It’s a shame that no colour photographs of Denton exist; by all accounts he was a flamboyant and colourful dresser. His self portraits show him wearing colourful clothes, and Gerald Mackenzie’s 1935 portrait of Denton (presumably pre-hospital) shows him wearing the mustard colour that his mother adored.

Tomorrow’s reading will be difficult. Denton’s unconventional early life made it hard for him to adjust when he finally went to school. After a decade of struggling against fitting in, at Goldsmiths he found security, friendship and ambition. All that came to an abrupt end on 9 June 1935. More tomorrow…

*Update: Gerald Mackenzie took the pictures. He visited Middle Orchard for the day, not long after Denton and Eric moved there, bringing his camera.

First impressions

May 29, 2020 / Rosalind Bassett

I started my Denton discovery with Maiden Voyage. In terms of publication order, this was correct. Had I wanted to read his books in chronological order it would have been:

In Youth is Pleasure – a summer holiday spent with his father and brothers in 1930
Maiden Voyage – the following year, Denton ran away rather than return to boarding school, resulting in a year spent in China with his father
I Left My Grandfather’s House – a novella recounting Denton’s experiences during a walking tour during the summer of 1933
A Voice Through A Cloud – considered to be his masterpiece, this is Denton’s account of his recovery in hospital and nursing homes, having been seriously injured when he was knocked off his bicycle by a careless driver in 1935.

They’re all self-contained books, so it doesn’t really matter in which order they’re read, but in retrospect, I wish I’d read them chronologically. They chart the progression in a few short years of an independent (but emotionally fragile) teenager to a young man who is physically dependent on others – and still emotionally fragile.

His teenage books recount adventures that would be unthinkable to many teenagers today, but didn’t seem anything unusual to Denton or his family in the 1930’s: nights spent wandering an unfamiliar city alone, chatting to strangers; entire days of absence from his family whilst on holiday without explanation, uncontactable and alone, breaking into deserted cottages and chatting to (or spying on) strangers; checking into hotels and guest houses without anyone seeming to think it odd that such a young person was travelling alone and stealthily calling in Social Services.

When he returned to the bosom of his family, Denton was generally greeted with a vague “oh, there you are”, or mild irritation that he was late for dinner. Most modern teenagers would have quite a different greeting: “where have you been?!” “we’ve been so worried!” “why didn’t you tell us where you were going?!”. Of course, most modern teenagers would have a mobile phone welded to their hand, and therefore no excuse for going AWOL, but I still marvel at a world when parents didn’t need to worry about their children in the way they do now.

For this reason, I don’t agree with Richard Hell’s comment that “nothing much happens in his books” – perhaps this is true of A Voice Through A Cloud, but plenty happens in the others. Not in an action-packed, Dan Brown two-pages-until-the-next-cliffhanger way, but in recounting solo adventures that even the Famous Five might feel a little doubtful about getting into. Of course, we don’t know how many of his adventures are fiction and which really happened. I’m looking forward to reading his journals and comparing accounts.