All in One Basket

by Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire

  The house is in a private road. The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, taking no notice of the resident of a cottage opposite who challenged him with the classic, ‘Can I help you?’, meaning, ‘What are you doing in this private road?’, gazed lovingly at it through its shrubbery. The straightforward, unfussy square building of local lion-coloured stone is roofed with stout stone tiles, and, he said, fits the landscape as naturally as if it had been hewn from the living rock. (It was.) He wondered if it was put up for ‘some minor Cavendish functionary or the assistant engineer in a new-fangled Victorian water company’. He thought it had the self-confident respectability of a nineteenth-century vicarage, and he liked the fact that it is all of a piece.

  Its simple shape was decided upon after looking at a number of drawings of one-sided, over-glazed houses with all the other strange variations which make a building look as if it has had a stroke. When presented with a drawing of a house like this one, planners are apt to say this is all right, but what we should like to see is a Good Modern Building. Anyway, I am very glad Mr Hattersley likes this house. So do I. We built it in 1972.

  Camellias

  At Chatsworth you can find examples of most styles and dates of gardening represented somewhere in its 105 acres. Our situation on the edge of the Pennines, 500 feet above sea level, and the resulting harsh climate, dictate that only the hardiest plants succeed out of doors. For this reason, the glasshouses are of vital importance. Nowadays they are best known for the Muscat of Alexandria grapes in the autumn and camellias in the early spring.

  The spring here is often disappointing. Even in April there can be frost and snow so it is then that the frost-free ‘cold’ houses full of camellias come into their own; their brilliant colours and perfect form, untouched by weather, are an ever cheering sight. When you go through the glass door and get out of the wind you find yourself in another world; ‘the eternal calm of the greenhouse’.

  Camellias have been grown here for over 150 years. Joseph Paxton, gardener, engineer and builder, was appointed Head Gardener at Chatsworth in 1826 when he was only twenty-three. He was an innovator and passed on his enthusiasm for all things new to his employer and friend the 6th ‘Bachelor’ Duke of Devonshire. The Duke describes himself as having been ‘bit by gardening’ and was easily persuaded to finance expeditions to the east and to America to bring back plants, many hitherto unknown in this country, to furnish his greenhouses. Among his favourites were camellias.

  The stars of the collection are a pair of C. reticulata ‘Captain Rawes’ variety – called after the East India Company captain who brought them back from China. They were planted in the 1840s in the central and highest part of Paxton’s Conservative Wall (so called because it conserves heat), a glass case which runs 331 feet up the hillside. At a height of 3 feet the trunks are 2ft 5in in circumference, and the camellias reached the 26-feet-high glass roof many years ago. Who knows how tall they would be had the roof grown with them. Between them is the pure white double C. japonica ‘Alba Plena’.

  In early spring the huge semi-double rose pink flowers of these camellias, with their waxy petals and gold stamens, look so exotic you wonder if they are real. People stop and stare and I have often heard them say, ‘They must be plastic.’ In a good year the wall seems to be solid rose pink, so close are the flowers.

  Andrew and I were married in London in April 1941. The air raids were very bad during the week before our wedding and the windows of my father’s house, where the reception was to be held, were blown out. The rooms looked bleak, but my mother nailed up folded wallpaper as mock curtains and my mother-in-law sent a mass of these astonishing blooms which, thankfully, saved the day in drab wartime London.

  Thanks to the people who look after them, Chatsworth has had many successes at the RHS Camellia Show in London. Competition is getting hotter every year, but Ian Webster, who is in charge of the greenhouses, wins his share and more of first prizes. A regular winner is the blood red ‘Mathotiana Rubra’‚ a variety which is difficult to strike from cuttings, so we see our small tree as producing rather rare flowers. I have known this plant for fifty years and it never fails to perform in March. There are a bewildering number of varieties now. New ones are listed every year, but I still like the old ones best. The simple white flower of ‘Alba Simplex’ is the essence of purity. I love the old-fashioned pink and white striped japonicas and the precise way the petals of the formal doubles are arranged, like flowers in a Victorian bouquet. Andrew’s favourites are ‘Jupiter’, a single japonica of intense red, and ‘Mrs D. W. Davies’, blush pink with waxy flowers six inches across. The aptly named rose-form doubles could easily be mistaken for the striped Rosa mundi – till you remember the time of year. The earliest to flower is C. sasanqua. It is a welcome sight in November and has the advantage of being slightly scented. A succession of camellias are the only decoration we have on the dining table from December to April, but such is their beauty and variety that you could never tire of them. They are arranged on a silver plate so you look down into the flowers. We use a round table when we are alone, but if there is a party we put several plates of flowers down the length of the bigger table. They make a brilliant effect, with the pink and red tones picking up the colours in the curtains and carpet of the dining room. Ian Webster arranges them in a one-inch layer of oasis in the bottom of the plate, adding just enough water to soak it. He covers the oasis with camellia leaves then cuts the flowers with just enough stalk to go into the oasis so the blooms rest on the leaves. (Be careful when handling the flowers, by the way, as they bruise very easily.) Small trees in tubs also come indoors but for short periods only as they’re not keen on the dry atmosphere in the house.

  Jean-Pierre Béraud

  10.viii.1956 – 13.x.1996

  Last year on one of those rare October days which take you back to summer and make it impossible to believe in the coming winter, Jean-Pierre Béraud was killed in an accident. He was forty.

  His death had a chilling effect on Chatsworth. People went about their work in a daze. For a long time we could not believe that so vital a man had gone forever. One cannot imagine what this tragedy meant to Diane, their boys, his French family and his loyal staff.

  Jean-Pierre made an unforgettable impression on everyone he met. The proof of the loss that was felt was the number of letters I had from my family, friends, acquaintances and strangers. The Prince of Wales, the Lord Lieutenant, the High Sheriff, the Chief Executives of companies who had dined in the Carriage House, heads of local government, distinguished chefs and people I have never met wrote to me as if I had lost a member of my family.

  The story of how a young man from the suburbs of Paris came to England and made his name and his home at Chatsworth is an unlikely one.

  My daughter, Sophy, and others, were disappointed with our food. She said, ‘Why don’t you ask Aunt Diana [Mosley] to find someone in Paris who might like it here and who can really cook?’ At that time my sister had a flat over a famous restaurant, Chez Pauline in the Rue Villedo. She asked the patron if he knew a young cook who would consider the job. No, he did not. A week later he told her a boy called Jean-Pierre wanted to go to England – but he had already left. My sister got his home address near Paris and strangely enough his parents lived not far away from her.

  Then Jerry comes into the story. Jerry Lehane is an old family friend, who has been butler/driver with the Mosleys for over forty years. He guessed the Bérauds would have no telephone and took a note from my sister to their flat in Palaiseau. Madame Béraud gave him the address of a hotel in Portman Square where Jean-Pierre had found work. My sister and Jerry were to go to London the next day. Jerry wrote: ‘Lady Mosley and I went along to the hotel one afternoon to see if I could find him. They said he was on duty but after some persuasion they went and got him. He met Lady Mosley outside the hotel in the car and it was arranged that when he finished his duties I would return and pick him up and take him to Chesterfield Street to meet you. The rest I am sure
you know. Going up to Chatsworth must have seemed a million miles for Alan [Shimwell, my long-time driver] and Jean-Pierre – not being able to have a conversation.

  ‘The next time I saw him was at Chatsworth where he had laid out a wonderful tea tray in his room and I could see from the happiness in his face that he had fallen in love with Chatsworth: Shasworth as he used to pronounce it, with his French accent and his lisp. He talked and talked about Shasworth and the Duchess and Duke. I only wish I had had a tape recorder that day. After that meeting we became good friends. He told me something which I always remember. He said he was having difficulty with somebody and he was longing to discuss it with the Duchess. He compared it to if you wanted to see God – you had to get St Peter’s approval. So he said one day he had decided why go to St Peter when he could go straight to God!

  ‘The last time I saw him was at Mrs Jackson’s11 funeral. We had a chat and he was still delighted with how Chatsworth was developing. He said he would talk about it again, but…’

  When Jerry brought Jean-Pierre to Chesterfield Street for the interview one of my sons-in-law came to translate because, to my shame, I can’t speak French. I learnt that he had worked in some of the best restaurants in Paris since he was thirteen years old. He was now twenty-two. I asked him if he could make sauce Béarnaise. He gave me a pitying look and I realised I had made a gaffe.

  In spite of this unpromising start, he agreed to come to Chatsworth for three months. I think he would have clutched at any straw to escape from the hotel kitchen where there was not one Englishman – and he had come to London to learn English.

  From the day he arrived we were reminded what good food is. I had to act ‘cabbage’ and everything else till he learnt enough English for us to communicate the essential to each other.

  His ambition was to go to America and seek his fortune. We talked about it and, through my sister-in-law, I found what seemed to be a suitable job for him. He left Chatsworth and we missed him. Soon after he had started work in New York and the Bahamas‚ the Queen and Prince Philip were coming to stay. I rang up his employer and said, if I pay his fare, can Jean-Pierre come back and cook for them? It was arranged. The food was perfect and all went well.

  On the Monday morning following, Jean-Pierre came to see me. ‘I’m not going back to America,’ he said. ‘Oh you MUST, it is Mr X’s busy season and he’s depending on you.’ ‘I want to stay here,’ he repeated. After some argument he did go back, but not for long. The reason was simple – he had fallen in love with Diane.

  Life with Jean-Pierre wasn’t all plain sailing. In the early days he used to burst into my room saying why couldn’t he have this and that AT ONCE, why was everything done so slowly here…Derrick Penrose remembers not dissimilar occasions – but Jean-Pierre’s temperament and his passion for getting things done made it impossible for him to be calm and wait, it must be NOW. We used to laugh about it afterwards.

  He saved the Farm Shop from closure when it was making losses, setting up the kitchen which turned it to profit, laying the foundation of what it has grown into today. His energy was by no means expended by cooking for two old people and their occasional guests. So, long before he became manager there, he made all kinds of things for the Farm Shop and kept exact accounts of every ounce of flour and every minute of his time. One winter he made 3,000lbs of marmalade by hand to be sold and then stormed into my room saying he would never cut up another orange. (Mind you, I hadn’t asked him to do it.)

  When we took the Devonshire Arms Hotel at Bolton Abbey in hand, Jean-Pierre was chef there for some months. There were no proper pots and pans. He didn’t wait for a budget from the directors, but dashed to Leeds and bought a batterie de cuisine on my personal account. Then he took over the catering for the visitors to Chatsworth – first in the inconvenient west and north bits of the stables. Later Bob Getty and he designed new kitchens and made the Carriage House into what I believe is acknowledged to be the best restaurant attached to a house which is open to the public.

  Bakewell Rotary Club made him a member – a rare honour for a foreigner.

  He saw a demand for cooking lessons and, ever thorough, he attended courses at Prue Leith’s in London and the famed Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons near Oxford to see how it was done. His lessons were soon booked up and his pupils returned again and again. Filming for a television company was to have started in January…

  So often I used to say ‘What ARE we going to do?’ about whatever was concerning me and the answer was always the same: ‘DON’T WORRY’ (to rhyme with ‘lorry’).

  As well as looking after our kitchen and the Carriage House (which soon made a mighty contribution to estate overheads), he had thriving businesses of his own in Matlock, Bakewell and at Carsington Reservoir. He was on the crest of a wave.

  After the disaster, among the marvellous letters I received was this from Peter Day – ‘Cookery is an art but not so much a fine art or an applied art as a performing art, like dancing, acting or singing. It is of the moment and then gone, and has to be spot on.’

  I was struck by this, even awe-struck, in Jean-Pierre’s case when the staff and their families were invited to see the big table in the Great Dining Room with all its silver and special decorations ready for the great dinner for the Society of Dilettanti, to which Andrew was host. There amid all the wide-eyed admirers strolling round the table were Jean-Pierre and his family – only a minute or two before he had to go down to the kitchen to cook this mighty meal in prospect! I think I vaguely thought everything would somehow have been prepared days in advance. But I realised then with a shock how much Jean-Pierre’s work (or art) was like going on stage for a great performance and giving his audience an evening of pleasure, a transport of delight – something to get right on the night, every night.

  In his case his whole life and character were like this, immediate and direct, all passion with no side, front or anything else to come between him and others. Everyone who knew him knew that storms were followed instantly by sunshine. Jean-Pierre could not have been more at one with the lively art of which he was master, and memories of him will never be other than vivid.

  Another letter which put the thoughts of all of us into words was from Simon Seligman – ‘I know that you have lost a kindred spirit, a brilliant, creative and original man. He was like a blazing comet in my life, even in the few years I knew him, so I can imagine some of the loss you must be feeling.’

  Jean-Pierre was one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. He was a true friend to Chatsworth and to me.

  HOT SOUP says the notice on the road outside the Post Office in Edensor, the village within the walls of Chatsworth Park. This notice covers the rough lane from Bakewell which brings walkers past the cottages, built from a Victorian pattern book, to the public road which runs through the 1,000-acre park.

  Hot soup and teas in the winter, ice cream and teas in the summer are a major part of Nigel Johnson’s business as a sub-postmaster in a small village. Now, like to Eleanor Rigby’s grave, nobody comes.

  The Post Office is part of a suddenly forgotten landscape, put voluntarily out of bounds to the thousands of people who come here from Sheffield, Chesterfield, Nottingham and further afield to walk in all weathers at all times of the year and to the thousands more who come from all over the world to see the house and garden. Not since 1967 have I looked out of my window to see no one on the bridge, the focal point of the park, the place where people stand in the afternoon sun to stare at the golden windows which light up the west front of Chatsworth. The bridge is halfway between the north and south entrances to the unfenced acres of grass where children and dogs are welcome, people can run and shout and play games or picnic by their pram under a tree. This is how it has been during the sixty years I have known the place and now, suddenly, it is empty, like an early morning photograph before anyone is about.

  I hardly dare write it, but there is no outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the immediate neighbourhood, yet this place i
s changed out of recognition.

  Our house and garden should have been opened to visitors on Wednesday. There has been the usual rush to get everything ready, the place looks immaculate, clean and shining, a new exhibition of twentieth-century works of art has been set up, restoration of sculptures and redecorations are there to be seen, the shops are full of new and exciting things, the restaurant ovens are waiting to be heated up. But the doors are shut.

  The seasonal staff, 166 of them, have been put off, 15 people in the gift shops, 70 catering staff, 66 ticket sellers, car parkers and wardens. The Farm Shop in Pilsley is open because it is not in the park, but is as quiet as it would be in a January snowstorm and 15 assistants have had to go. The free car park in Calton Lees is bound by one of those unclimbable wire builders’ fences, almost an insult to the thousands of people who usually use it.

  Statistics stare us in the face, but the difficulties affecting the people who are made redundant are as different as the individuals themselves. They depend on the employment generated by the half million visitors who come here over the seven months from now, yet these people are miles away from the farmers whose stock is lost and spirits are crushed. All the same, the lives of these Chatsworth employees have been cruelly disrupted.

  How long will it last? How long will people stick to the rules? WHAT ARE THE RULES? No one seems to know. Mixed messages fly through the air. One minister tells us not to go into the country. Another suggests tourists should go to the north-west, presumably to see and smell 80,000 rotting carcasses. What a way to run a country.

  People have been exemplary in respecting the notices asking them not to come to the park, but on a fine weekend when the birds are singing the longing to be out of doors and to let the children loose on the grass may soon be too strong a temptation for our neighbouring city dwellers wanting fresh air and freedom; till now these precious commodities have been available here in endless quantity.