A LITTLE CROPPING
I've come across a letter in manuscript form (thank-you John Howard Wilson, an initiative he took back in 2011) from Evelyn Waugh to Gillon Aitken of Chapman and Hall, dated January 29, 1964. It's about the illustrations that Evelyn was contributing to A Little Learning. He says 'I have asked Gerson to delete the two outside figures in his enlargement of the Lundy Island group, here included. That should not be difficult.'
It's difficult for me though. Because that is Richard Plunket-Greene and Elizabeth Russell or Liza, Richard's wife to be. Who were they? Let me tell you. But first let me say that in the above photo, Evelyn Waugh is lying down in front of (putting aside Richard and Liza) Olivia Plunket Greene, Gwen Plunket Greene, David Plunket-Greene and Terence Greenidge.
Richard was the first person that I resuscitated and brought to Castle Howard in 2020 for a Brideshead Festival. I chose him because Evelyn and he had been such good friends in their twenties. Here is the link to that essay. However, I will pull out a few paragraphs so that you don't have to ping about too much in cyber space.
Evelyn first met Richard at Oxford in 1924 when Evelyn was in his final year and Richard, two years older, had already gone down, though he was still living in Oxford. Evelyn became very friendly with Richard's sister, Olivia, and he joined the Plunket-Greene family on a holiday on Lundy Island over Easter, 1925. Which is where the above photo was taken.
This is how it was reproduced in A Little Learning:
Now you could suggest that Waugh had cropped the picture so that it would be effective as a portrait image, the same shape as the page. But some of the images in the book are printed at right angles to the text. In other words, the reader has to turn the book 90 degrees to view four of the pages containing images. So that can't be the reason for cropping this particular one. Evelyn didn't want Richard or Liza in his book! Something must have happened in the later part of their lives to destroy the mutual love and respect they had for each other. The following paragraphs are written from Richard Plunket-Greene's perspective, as they are in the aforementioned essay.
*
'Evelyn had been working for one term at Arnold House in Wales by then. Indeed, it was when saying goodbye to him before he travelled north to Arnold House for the first time that Liza and I decided to get married. It was nearly a year later before her parents agreed to the match, and by then Evelyn and I were working at the same school. At Aston Clinton, so much closer to Oxford than North Wales!
'After just one term living-dreaming-drinking together with Evelyn at Aston Clinton, I applied for a better teaching job at Lancing College, which took me to the south coast and the school where Evelyn had been educated. Of course, before leaving Aston Clinton, I fixed Evelyn up with his own transport: a motor-bike. With me gone it was even more important that Evelyn could get back and forth to the pubs and colleges of Oxford. In some ways, I wished I could have stayed on at Aston Clinton, playing with Evelyn and venturing every weekend either to Oxford or London with him. But I needed the better job to impress Liza's parents. Or at least I thought I did.
'It was getting married to Liza that materially changed my life. First, I could buy a racing car. And pretty soon I owned Frazer Nash, the company, and was racing their cars. Evelyn married Evelyn Gardner and wrote Decline and Fall. Then that marriage went wrong and while in the middle of writing his second novel - and in palpable pain - Evelyn got in touch and he joined me for the Belfast TT in August, 1929. That was great fun. Even more fun was appearing in the long chapter towards the end of Vile Bodies. Well, it was Agatha Runcible that was the reserve driver of the Plunket Bowse. But the reserve driver in Belfast was me all right.
'That was my last race (how time flies, especially for a racing car driver) and I disposed of my interest in Frazer Nash, having helped that company sort itself out. Liza and I were living in Holland Park soon after and Evelyn was itinerant, staying in one or other of the Guinness houses. But he often stayed at our place, for the odd night, and when we were out of town, and often enough we drank together as in the good old days. But we hardly saw each other after he converted to Rome (with the help of my mother and sister) and went to Africa in autumn, 1930. Soon Liza and I were running a market garden at Angmering-on-Sea, on the south coast, not that far from Lancing. I remember reading Black Mischief and A Handful of Dust with amazement. The books were so funny and so worldly. Evelyn using his extravagance of character, his curiosity, his vulnerability, his tenacity, to great effect. I remember wondering if I'd ever see him again. Wondering if I was by then worthy of his company.
'Liza and I published two detective novels that we co-wrote. In 1932, Where Ignorance is Bliss came out. And two years later, Eleven-thirty to Twelve. Evelyn read the manuscript of Where Ignorance is Bliss, and gave us encouragement in our literary endeavours. Is that true or did I just make it up? I should try not to speculate, but stick to what I know to be the truth. What's more, I published a book of my own, The Bandits, also in 1934. It didn't do well though. And as my thirties went on, I kind of gave up on any literary ambition I had. And so did Liza.
'I did see Evelyn again. But it was a strange meeting. This would have been in 1939. Randolph Churchill and his wife were also there, and the talk was predominantly of the coming war. We all know what Evelyn got up to in World War Two, thanks to his war trilogy I served in the navy, on two ships, the Saltarello and the Prospect. Yes, I was all at sea for several years and Liza and I divorced in 1943. We had one son, Alexander. He married Mary Quant, who I recall taking for a spin at Brands Hatch. I may have given up on writing but I never gave up on my driving.
'It was a shock reading Brideshead just after the war. My life had changed so much. Charles Ryder looking back on his youth of the 1920s, could have been me thinking of my time at Oxford. Indeed, there were several parallels between my life and the book. Charles Ryder making friends with a well-to-do family, paralleled Evelyn falling in love with we Plunket Greenes as well as the Lygons of Madresfield, though we had neither grand house nor fortune. In the second half of the book, Charles Ryder's first marriage falls apart and he pursues Julia. That could have been me too. After the war, in my early forties, I married for a second time. With Fifi I had another son, David. I then became an estate agent, moving to Barnstaple in North Devon where I continued sailing and driving. Occasionally, Evelyn came to mind, as when the war books appeared, and The Loved One. But I'd lost touch with him by then, and couldn't tell him how much I admired his writing and valued the memory of our friendship.
'In 1964, Evelyn published his autobiography, and in A Little Learning he generously remembered me. A paragraph about my being piratical in appearance and prone to passionate obsessions. Though I found it odd that Liza and I were cropped from the Lundy Island picture. Had he intended that? Surely not.'
*
So that is us up to speed.
And it's back to me, Duncan McLaren, as the narrator. As Richard says, the text to A Little Learning is nostalgic about Evelyn's relationship to the whole Plunket-Greene family. And he doesn't betray any bitterness towards Richard or Liza.
I think something must have happened. A signed first edition that went unacknowledged, perhaps. Though surely that wouldn't have been enough in itself. Apart from Alastair, in his singular lifetime, Evelyn had been drunk more often with Richard Plunket-Greene than any other individual. But then Evelyn lost touch with Alastair as well. Maybe it's hard to keep up such intense relationships, fuelled by immense drinking, through the decades. But hang on, there is another section to my earlier essay that investigates Evelyn, Richard and Liza via The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh. Again what follows is from Richard's point of view.
*
'I have The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh with me. Not that I need to quote them directly. I know them for 1925, inside out. I had a new car at the beginning of that August. Evelyn described it as very shabby and noisy but quite fast. I suppose that was fair comment.
'By the middle of August, Evelyn heard that he'd got the job at Aston Clinton. That Friday night, me and Elizabeth and Olivia and Alastair had a jolly meal together. Evelyn was in a funny mood, I recall, a bit withdrawn. As if securing the job had sealed his fate. Neither Alastair nor Olivia, both of whom loved him dearly, thought he should be within a hundred miles of a schoolroom. Nor did Evelyn. But he needed the money.
'On Thursday, 24 September, accompanied by Liza in her car, we drove to Aston Clinton for the beginning of term. The car was affected by 'wheel wobble', which Evelyn referred to as 'woggle', and we arrived very late for dinner. Evelyn wrote in his diary how we sat down in silence in front of a prodigious ewer of water. After a poor dinner, we took my car to have its wheel mended and the three of us sat huddled over the fire in the Bell. Evelyn wrote that all three of us were deeply depressed. If that's true, it was because Evelyn's mood so affected those around him. When Evelyn was down, the world sank to its knees in sympathy. Elizabeth then drove back to London leaving us to return to the cavernous school, which I saw afresh through Evelyn's eyes. A house full of echoing and unlit passages leading to a single, horrible common room.
'Then term started. 'Taught lunatics. Played rugby football. Drank at Bell.' Is what Evelyn wrote in his diary. 'Taught the poor mad boys and played football with them.' But actually we had a very active social life as well. I would fetch Evelyn's cousin, Claud Cockburn, from Tring. Alastair would drive down from Barford. My brother and Elizabeth were within easy travel from London. And Oxford wasn't far away either. We drank every night. We were up late on Thursdays, when we would shoot down to London for the evening, as we had an easy teaching day on Friday. And the weekends were, of course, our own.
'In its way, it was Heaven. I did not appreciate this at the time, as half my mind was full of anxiety as to whether Liza and I would ever be able to get married and whether my clapped out car would get us from point A to B without breaking down. But time has soothed my nerves. We were in Heaven that autumn. To adapt Brideshead: 'The autumn term at Aston Clinton passed quickly and sweetly - perhaps too sweetly; I was drowning in honey, stingless.'
'I remember that first Thursday when I drove us down to London after school. We went to my mother's place. Olivia had gone to Eton for the day, so Evelyn and I talked to mother and Liza before Evelyn went shopping on his own for plaster casts for 'the mad boys' to draw. He had dinner with his father and I drove to Hampstead to drink beer with them. Evelyn and his father had eaten partridges shot by the author, Samuel Hoare. An excuse for Evelyn to describe the shooting lessons he'd given the mad boys that morning. The wind gauge had been registering a hurricane, but even once they'd put the guard up over the foresight, the boys had failed to hit the targets. Of course, Evelyn made it all seem hilarious, but his tone-deaf father expressed his bafflement. We got back to the school at 2am, according to Evelyn's diary.
'We couldn't do without our London trips. So the next Thursday I drove us up to town again, despite Crawford (the Head) trying to stop us. First, we went to Evelyn's parents house for lunch, where Liza joined us. We split up that day, Evelyn to get his haircut and me to learn that I'd inherited £100! Determined to celebrate in style, I tracked Evelyn down to the Spanish Restaurant in Swallow Street where he and my mother and sister were eating dinner, and left a telephone message that I was at the Café Royal. Evelyn had been drinking absinthe in the afternoon, with John Sutro at Betty Holmes's Club, but that didn't stop him from getting stuck into the red wine with his usual gusto. When the Café Royal closed, we went to Manson Place. My brother David turned up later, seeming to be very drunk, noticeably worse than us. Home at about 3a.m., on this occasion, after a refreshing and FAST drive on empty roads. The next day we felt weary, but Crawford ordained a half-holiday, so that justified everything.
'The Thursday after that, Evelyn and I decided to host a dinner at the Bell, having tested the water at Oxford on Monday evening. Lots of people said they would come, but no-one did turn up and the dinner was a disaster. My brother and Liza's brother came from London, but no-one came from Oxford. Evelyn was funny, but not as funny as he would have been if we'd gone to London. And, of course, it had still been exhausting. The next day, by tea time, Evelyn and I were both asleep at opposite ends of the sofa in the common room. A Rolls Royce belonging to my brother David's beau turned up, laden with people we knew, and we went to Oxford for the evening.
'After that, things got out of control, rather. We were drinking a lot of vodka which, according to Evelyn, accounted for the marvellous dreams he was having. On Tuesday, October 20, Evelyn cracked. I was busy with school, but he had the afternoon off and took the bus into Oxford. That took two hours, but he had The Brothers Karazmazov to keep his mind occupied. I went in as soon as I could, and caught up with Evelyn. He told me about our friend who, while drunk at the wheel, had had another motor accident, killing or at any rate seriously injuring a child. That set me drinking to forget the conversation we'd just had. First champagne, as much as we could get our hands on. Later, we went to a party at 69 the High and drank large quantities of an oblivious-making mixture put together by the host, which consisted of champagne, gin and absinthe. By then we were raging drunk. Evelyn fought someone, which was hilarious. He declared it a pathetic party. I drove us off but had to stop the car just outside Thame. I was sick as a dog and lay at the side of the road, alternately dozing and vomiting for hours. I had to keep reminding myself that I hadn't run anyone over. No child had died under my wheels! Evelyn states in his diary that he 'sheltered as best he could under the broken hood of the car'. I wonder what he meant by that, given that he didn't know the bonnet from the boot. I do remember Evelyn sitting up against the tyre, alternately dozing and vomiting, just as I was.
'A nightwatchman passed by. At least Evelyn thought he was a nightwatchman. "Nightwatchman, watch the night," he called after him. "Nightwatchman, watch the night," he kept saying.
'We were terribly tired the next day. Evelyn was all right, as he had soccer all afternoon. How did he get through the morning? The same way as I did, I expect, fobbing the mad boys off with rote learning.
'Evelyn records that my car then broke down three times in a week, starting with the chain snapping. Then the miracle happened. Liza's parents gave us permission to get married and I immediately became rich. I bought a new suit and a bottle of white rum to go with it. Liza stayed at the Bell under the supposed chaperonage of a friend called Julia, and we were all jubilant and drunk and making love and happy. In our ecstasy, Liza even kissed Evelyn. Well, why not, we all loved each other. And Evelyn commemorated the kiss in his diary:
"Say I'm weary, say I'm sad
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm getting old - but add
Liza kissed me."
'Then on 4th of November, we had another go at a party. This time people came down from Oxford. We drank a good deal at the Bell and pranced about. Later, when everyone had gone, Evelyn and I discovered that no-one had left any money and that we were left with an enormous bill. Well, I knew I would have to pay it, which was fine really. But having money takes a bit of getting used to.
'Friday 6th of November. Back to Oxford. A day of heavy drinking. Evelyn was acting in The Scarlet Woman, part of the time, finishing off the film for Terence Greenidge. Drinking champagne cocktails, we got separated. Liza and others spotted Evelyn and pursued him. But Evelyn, behaving very oddly by his own admission, got paranoid, and, to avoid them, took refuge in the Clarendon Bar. Liza and co. followed him in there, so Evelyn climbed out of a window and fell heavily on his ankle, breaking it.
'What with Evelyn being indisposed, we tried to cut back on our drinking, but didn't entirely succeed. Evelyn notes that, a few days later, he and I drank masses of brandy to Liza's health. A few days after that, he drank masses of rum, though I wasn't there. Evelyn kept drinking until I got back late at night in a none too sympathetic mood.
'At the end of November I went to London to talk to Frazer Nash about my 'dark horse' the very beautiful steed that I have at my disposal today. I was able to buy it in part exchange for the GN. Not sure how I got away with that, as my old car was such a wreck. Indeed, in 1928, after I'd bought the company, I was shown a letter of complaint from the motor dealer who had ended up with the GN, describing it as totally worn out and barely running.
'Ah well, out with the bloody old, in with the brand new.
'Evelyn notes in his diary that my new motor car employed most of my time. That, and preparations for the wedding. Evelyn bought some trousers for himself in Aylesbury and I bought him a waistcoat which he very fulsomely thanked me for. My new car broke down, would you believe. But it was going again by the 23rd of December, the day that Liza and I got married. Evelyn was best man - who else? He and I drank at lunchtime and were a tad late at the church. But all was well, and Evelyn was given money to tip various servants, which he did rather indiscriminately. Liza and I drove away in the Frazer Nash - this Frazer Nash - and Evelyn went on to party with the other guests.
'Let my happiness burn through the decades that separate that winter day of 1925 with this summer day in 2020.'
*
Back to me, Duncan McLaren, your 2025 narrator.
I remember how thrilled I was in 2024, when a reader sent me reproductions of images from her father's photo album. Pat Grinling had been a pupil at Aston Clinton School when Evelyn and Richard had been teachers there. In this way, I was given access to several more photos of Evelyn on the motorbike that Richard had introduced into his life. And there were couple of photos of Richard and Liza. So I suppose by reproducing these, I am putting back the pair into Evelyn's autobiography. Here we go then.
Photo by Pat Griinling. Courtesy of Rupert Grinling and Sue Willis.
The above photo shows Richard (left) and Liza (right) looking nothing like as exuberant as they did in the Lundy Island group at the top of this page. By the way, that's Pat Grinling in the middle so for all I know, Evelyn Waugh might have taken this photo.
And here they are again. Only the two of them this time. Thinking fondly of Evelyn, I like to think. Thinking sadly of the hypothetical circumstances that might see him drop out of their lives without visual trace. 
Photo by Pat Griinling. Courtesy of Rupert Grinling and Sue Willis.
Friendships come and go. Which of us doesn't have best friends - truly trusted souls - from the open and curious time in our life, who in the end we don't make time for. In neglecting them we may be true to our mature selves, but we are not true to the unique experience of our innocent selves.
Shall we put Richard and Liza back in the picture? There are lots of ways that could be done. We could have Richard and Liza, their heads bowed in solemn respect, looking in towards the rest of the group on Lundy Island, in place of their cheerier selves.
Or we could have this next image. Sphinx one being Richard Plunket-Greene. Sphinx two being Liza Plunket-Greene.
Mark Gerson, Evelyn Waugh (detail), 1963. Photo available from Bridgeman Images.
How does it feel, Evelyn? To be cropped out of your own life? Making a rubbish heap out of shared youth and mutual joy.
Next essay.
