This Much Is True

It was reported in the Oxford Mail, and Mummy was badly advised by a solicitor who persuaded her to make a settlement, telling her: ‘If you go ahead with this case and you lose it, you’ll lose everything. If you make a settlement, at least you’ll keep something.’ As I said, it was about £18,000, so it was a considerable sum, but not an utter fortune. Anyway, Mummy listened to this solicitor and so the case never actually went to trial. The whole matter was eventually settled but the judge told my mother that she had not been well served by her solicitor. He actually said that in court.

It was a dark time; and afterwards I didn’t have much of a relationship with any of my Tosh cousins. For over fifty years we didn’t speak. I never forgave my uncle for accusing my mother; he knew very well she had been a loving daughter and there was no foundation for the charge. He didn’t like my mother because she thought he had been a bad husband to her sister.

I found my cousins again because I wanted to sort out my family history. I couldn’t do that if I didn’t speak to them, and so I went to see Gusta’s daughter, Buffy, who had a dress shop in Conduit Street in London, right next to the Westbury Hotel. I walked in one day and said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ She looked at me and said, ‘Oh, my God. Of course I do!’ And since then, we’ve been the closest of friends. She’s in her nineties now and I love her.

Throughout my childhood and most of my adulthood, we were not a united family in the wider sense. We three — Mummy, Daddy and me — had to be together. My mother wanted us to be open only to each other and to nobody else.

Of course, by writing this book, I’m doing exactly the opposite. Mummy often quoted her grandmother’s warning, spoken in a German accent: ‘Never trust anyone until hair grows in the palm of their hand.’ As we all know, hair never grows in the palm of your hand. It’s a shocking lesson to teach a child, and sadly it is one that I have accepted. I trust everyone until they let me down, and then I never trust them again. But I don’t close myself off from people and I never have. Mummy and my father always felt that we were surrounded by enemies. I don’t agree. I’ve accepted that there are enemies, but I’ve always known that my friends are my fortress, and for that I’m grateful.

Showing Off

I used to have huge pashes on people; we called it being ‘cracked’ on someone. The violence of the language is completely appropriate, as this was much worse than a mere ‘crush’ — it was a pulverising experience. I even wrote a little essay in 1954 on the subject entitled, ‘People I Have Been Cracked On (or rather, People On Whom I Have Been Cracked)’, which, happily, like my mock obituary, has been preserved for posterity in our handwritten form magazine.

Nobody minded these infatuations of mine. We didn’t know much about lesbians. We didn’t know what lesbians did, although we speculated about the home life of Miss Mather and Miss Tilston. They were known to be a couple, but what that actually entailed was never specified; we didn’t talk about it much, we just knew that they did things that shouldn’t be done by women to each other. We giggled about it because we knew that sex was something you giggled about. Miss Mather taught German and Miss Tilston taught chemistry. Miss Tilston was pretty and had red hair and a bad temper. Miss Mather was dour, with a triangular face and an extraordinary hairstyle — a version of a 1950s Victory roll at the side of her head. She really did look quite strange. I promise a chapter on lesbians later.

My life revolved around school and my school friends and I was very happy. Despite my continuing naughtiness, I was elected Form Leader one term and when we got to the sixth form I was made a prefect. I couldn’t understand why the dons’ daughters, who seemed cleverer and much better behaved than me, were not afforded that honour. But I wasn’t going to argue. Perhaps they thought that they could turn the naughty person into, well, a good person — and it would be a clever way of controlling me. The scheme worked: I became as bossy as any gauleiter, ruling with a rod of iron, demanding complete silence when the bell rang.