I must say I felt chilled reading Francis’s account. It reminded me of the penal colony in Berkshire to which my parents sent me at a similar age, a particularly grim experience called Horris Hill. If Ellerslie was run by a single sadist, Horris Hill had three, all brothers, called Stow or Stowe.
Luckily the Ellerslie House story has a happy ending: it was demolished. The playing fields are now full of detached white stucco houses, also mock Georgian, funnily enough, and the top field now has a new Ellerslie House, the delightful rambling home with a view belonging to Manu and Snah Patel, who have been very helpful with my research and very hospitable on my visits.
Francis aged 3
Francis’s home was the Old Rectory at Shirwell, five uphill-and-down-again hedgerowed miles north-east of Barnstaple, where his father was the vicar at St Peter’s. That part of North Devon is remote now; it would have been remoter still a hundred years ago, not so much the middle of nowhere as the end of nowhere. It is steeply undulant, verdant English countryside and a paradise of nature in which to grow up.
It was also Chichester-shire, a county within the county of North Devon. The Chichesters had prospered and multiplied there for 650 years after a middling squire from outside Wessex, a certain John Chichester, married the heiress Thomasine Raleigh; through her side the family can be traced back to the West Wessex of Anglo-Saxon times. The first knighthood was bestowed on the family by King Edward III for services rendered during the Siege of Calais and the Battle of Poitiers in 1346 and 1356 respectively.
Although North Devon was packed full of Chichester cousins, and although they intermarried determinedly, there was very little danger of inbreeding due to the sheer abundance of Chichesters extant. Of a dozen Chichester stately homes and parkland estates in the area, Francis’s branch of the family was centred on two: Youlston Park and Arlington Court. The former, after a recent chequered career as a ‘country house experience’ and film location, is now once more a rather gloomy private house set in a woody hollow, and the latter is a beautiful National Trust attraction. Luckily Arlington Court is run by the Chichester historian David Gibbons and to his wise offices I quickly repair.
‘It all seems so eccentric by today’s standards’, says David, a skinny 46-year-old enthusiast with jet-black hair. He looks up from pouring the tea, ‘but a hundred and fifty years ago it was only natural for the Chichester widower of Youlston Park to marry the Chichester widow of Arlington Court, which is exactly what happened. Sir Arthur of Youlston Park married Sir Bruce’s widow Rosalie Amelia from Arlington Court. Lady Chichester of Arlington Court remained Lady Chichester of Arlington Court, she kept her title, name and home, only she gained a new husband.’
Later, Francis’s great-niece Angela Chichester gives me a memoir from Ann Laramy, the granddaughter of Youlston Park’s butler, from which:
Sir Arthur was a widower for several years. Then Lady Bruce of Arlington Court became a widow and they decided to get married; but they never lived together. Each evening Sir Arthur and my grandfather would leave Youlston for Arlington, have dinner and then leave at 10.00 pm for home. On Sunday Lady Chichester and daughter Miss Rosalie joined Sir Arthur’s family for lunch at Youlston and then leave at 4.00 pm for home. This went on until Sir Arthur’s death.
‘So take me through Francis’s immediate ancestors’, I ask David.
‘Francis had a very powerful grandfather, Sir Arthur, the eighth baronet. Powerful in the sense of being a big man with a big personality. A big love of life. A great white hunter.’
‘And Francis’s grandmother?’
‘Well, to put it kindly, in those days Chichester women were expected to be sausage machines and not much else, and she was both. She bore him fourteen children. Eleven survived, about average for the time, I suspect. And of course she herself died early from it, bearing the fifteenth. But then they did, mothers died from the constant rearing.’
‘And where did Francis’s mother or father fit in to the pack?’
‘Father. His mother, unusually enough, wasn’t a far-flung Chichester. Far-flung meaning somewhere else in North Devon. No, it was his father. Shall we take a look at the tree?’
We walk along what would have been Arlington Court’s servants’ quarters and through a door into the family part of the house. Visitors are being shown around by guides in each room; all is gentle and orderly, respectful of property, polished parquets, muffling carpets, fading tapestries, maturing refinement. The National Trust as we know it. We walk into a small withdrawing room that has been made into the Chichester travels memorabilia room. Occupying most of one wall is a family tree rendered in beautiful calligraphy, tracing family lines back to the Restoration.9 By the time we see Francis’s father we are on the bottom right-hand twig of the tree.
‘So here we are’, says David. ‘Francis’s father was Charles. So he was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, the ninth of eleven. The sixth out of seven sons, which is a more relevant way of looking at it.’
‘And Charles’s brothers, Francis’s uncles, how did they fare?’
‘The eldest, Arthur – he would have been groomed to take over Youlston and the estate – died before having an heir, so the title passed to Sir Edward. The usual arrangement was that the eldest son took over all the estate, which is why many of our big estates have survived. Our famous primogeniture. The second and third sons joined either the Army or Navy and the fourth or fifth sons either the Church or politics.’
‘And any interesting uncles?’
‘Well yes, this Sir Edward, the ninth baronet, was certainly one. He went on to become an admiral. They say he kept the German and American fleets from going to war in Manila in 1898 during the Spanish American War. He won the CMG10 for that.
‘The other interesting one was the next son, Henry, who left to seek a fresh fortune in California, where he was promptly shot dead.’
‘Then we have Charles, Francis’s father. What do we know about him?’
‘He went to Oxford, to Brasenose College. Then when another cousin, Revd John Chichester, died his father arranged for Charles to step right into his shoes. He became the local vicar in one of the family parishes, Shirwell. There’s nothing to suggest that he was ever remotely religious. But then why would he be?’
‘And what’s that?’ I ask, looking up at a large wooden relief.
‘That the family crest,’ replies David, ‘a heron catching an eel.’
‘Looks rather pleased with himself,’ I say, ‘the heron.’
‘That would be right,’ agrees David, ‘a good Chichester heron, that.’
Francis’s father, the martinet Rev. Charles
Later, back in his office for more tea, this time with chocolate digestives, I dig out my bashed-up copy of Francis’s autobiography The Lonely Sea and The Sky. Here’s what Francis remembered about his father:
I have been told that he was ordered by my grandfather to enter the Church on the old principle of one son each for the Army, the Navy and the Church, but my father told me that he had wanted to enter the Church. I think, however, that he was unsuited for it, and that if he had been in some other profession, he would have made his mark. He was continuously fighting against his possibly unconscious wishes and using up his nervous energy in a tremendous effort to do the right thing. In the end he became a Puritan of the severest kind.
In the house he seemed to be disapproving of everything I did, and waiting to quash any enthusiasm.
Great-niece Angela remembers how her father used to go to the Old Rectory for supper on Sunday after services and how strict it was there, while Ann Laramy wrote:
We often went to the Rectory to see them and to have tea, and it was here I met Francis on one of his rare occasions home. After Grace, you were not allowed to speak, and ate your tea in silence until the Rector thanked God for tea and friends.
Another visitor to the Old Rectory was Ruth May, granddaughter of another Youlston Park butler and daughter of the local seed mercha
nt. She dreaded delivery trips to the Chichesters:
My mother was always invited to tea on these occasions, as a result of her connection with the family, and when I was about five I was also invited. I hated it because after Grace you were not allowed to speak until the Rector had finished his tea.
Back in the public rooms, we are standing in front of the Sir Francis Chichester showcase in one of Arlington Court’s halls. ‘It’s a funny thing’, says David, ‘but most of the visitors’ first questions are about Francis, although his connection here was quite remote, only through his spinster aunt, Rosalie, thirty-five years his elder. That’s his mother there.’ We look at a black and white family portrait taken outside the Old Rectory. Francis is about seven and the next in line, his sister Barbara, about two. Between them stands their mother, Emily, looking very prim and trim in long white lace with a thick, dark waistband and flower-trimmed bonnet. She is petite and pretty. Quite how and why she became involved with the Chichesters is unclear, as she came from a middle-class, musical London family and not the usual Chichester distant cousin marrying pool. I can only presume they met at Oxford. Francis’s father sits in a reclining chair, formally dressed in black, a thick-set, not unattractive-looking man, considerably larger than his wife.
The Old Rectory now, converted into two houses
‘Do you know he doesn’t mention his mother once in his autobiography?’ I ask David.
‘That’s rather unusual.’
‘Unique,’ I reply, ‘I can’t think of another autobiography when the mother isn’t even mentioned. We know she was the organist at the Shirwell church and she gave music lessons.’
Ann Laramy remembers her thus:
Starting at the age of 2, I was taken to Shirwell Church for the Easter morning service. We went out from Barnstaple with horse and carriage. On arriving at church, the Rev. Charles Chichester and his wife stood each side of the font to welcome the congregation in, Mrs Chichester holding her prayer book in both hands.
I was puzzled that my mother curtsied; I had never seen this before, and wondered why. I was told you always did this when you met either the Rector or his wife in the village. As I got older I wondered what with would happen if I did not curtsey, and tried it out. Never again! Mrs Chichester’s prayer book crashed on top of my head, never to be forgotten.
Miserable family: Barbara, Emily, Francis and Charles Chichester
In fact it was Aunt Rosalie, the chatelaine of Arlington Court, who was to be Francis’s proxy mother, in much the same way as Francis was the childless Rosalie’s proxy son. Among other letters in his archive, David has a very affectionate 1937 Christmas card sent from Francis and Sheila in New Zealand to Aunt Rosalie, with a photograph showing ‘some of the one million trees we have planted since 1927’. Planting trees and land conservation were by then Rosalie’s passion: by then she had made Arlington Court into a nature reserve, before bequeathing it all to the National Trust.
Arlington Court
David gives me his biographical notes about this true British eccentric, from which:
She inherited Arlington Court when she was sixteen…. Possibly because of her geographical isolation, but also undoubtedly because of her deep and abiding love of her home, Miss Chichester never married but instead remained at Arlington Court. Hers was not the life of a lonely recluse, though: she had a lively interest in many fields including art, music, inventions, astronomy and politics.
She won prizes for photographs that she developed and printed herself and wrote regularly for the Daily Sketch. She also personified the archetypal inquisitive Victorian, amassing huge collections of shells, model ships, pewter, stuffed animals, greeting cards and objets d’art in a private museum.
Miss Chichester loved to travel … The National Parks she visited on her two world cruises and 1921 visit to Australia and New Zealand inspired her to open Arlington Court to the public.
Unusually for the time, she was vehemently opposed to hunting and had a fence built around the estate to preserve the deer. She became a successful breeder of Jacob’s sheep and Exmoor ponies … Polly – her late father’s parrot – flew freely about the house and peacocks were permitted to walk unhindered into the house itself.
To get some idea of Francis’s home life we turn to Bill Wilkie, son of the family retainer. He was one year older than Francis and both were cut off in a remote corner of the Devon countryside. They only had each other to play with. Even so, Bill had to call Francis ‘Master Francis’ and Francis had to call Bill ‘Wilkie’. Bill himself grew up to have a distinguished career and to become Mayor of Barnstaple. When Sir Francis was granted the Freedom of the Borough of Barnstaple in October 1967, it was his only childhood playmate, Bill Wilkie, who made the presentation. The mayor opened his speech by saying: ‘Today is a great day in the life of Sir Francis. It is a great day also in the life of the borough of Barnstaple, for we are presenting Sir Francis with the greatest gift we have to offer.
‘I say with great humility that the little I have done in my life is small indeed compared with the great achievements of Sir Francis.’
He then went on to recall some childhood memories: ‘He was very much an individual. At times he was very badly behaved and always very determined. At times his nanny had great trouble to restrain him…. We used to play with his airgun and if he could not hit the target he would get in the devil of a temper – he was always striving for the best…. He particularly disliked his elder brother John. They we remarkably dissimilar and used to fight like cats.
‘Most of his free time he spent in the fields around Shirwell, usually armed with a butterfly net to catch moths and butterflies or collecting birds eggs, frogs or lizards. Every autumn he used to help my father and his workmates cut up logs for the winter fires. He loved being outdoors, hated being indoors.’
Elsewhere, Bill recalled how Emily was a ‘dutiful wife’ but there was never any affection shown in the house; Bill remembered the emotional temperature as ‘being like a refrigerator’. There were four children: John, five years older, then Francis, then Barbara, five years younger and then Cecily, three years younger still. By the standards of the fast-breeding local Chichesters Emily was a slow burner, presumably held back by lack of visiting rights.
Bill also recalled: ‘When Francis came back from New Zealand after ten years in 1929 he arrived in his own plane, a Gipsy Moth, at Youlston Park. He took my father and my wife up for a ride. He hadn’t seen his father for ten years. He caught a sleeve on a wing and said quietly “Oh damn”, or some such, mild. Then he saw his father nearby and immediately said, “So sorry, sir”, before shaking him formally by the hand.’
Bill doesn’t mention if Emily was there or not; probably not.
I am lucky enough to be shown around Francis’s home, the Old Rectory, by the current occupiers, the Rhind family. Alexander and Lucy, both in their mid-twenties and in the media in London, down for the weekend, are my gracious guides. After a full tour we chat over Earl Grey tea and just-made chocolate cake. The rambling old house is handsome and heavy, solid, late-Georgian in style although early Victorian in date. It had already been divided in two by the time Alexander’s grandmother bought it forty years ago and now the Wilkies’ old quarters have been converted into three flats. The garage is now the office of Jonathan Rhind Conservation Architects and the old stable is now an annexed house. In Francis’s day the rectory had eleven bedrooms and even now the Rhind’s half of the grounds are big enough to host their drove of donkeys, led by the un-Eeyore-like Sunshine. The Old Rectory has finally become a happy hamlet.
Even if Francis grew up with no affection and considerable cruelty, he didn’t lack for space inside or out. But as Bill Wilkie remembered, it was the space outside the forbidding walls that Francis loved. The house, with its deep Georgian windows, looks out over particularly beautiful, rolling, expansive countryside, with sheep and mixed herds scattered among the rolling pastures, as indeed Ellerslie must have done a hundred years ago. In t
he abundance of North Devon Francis found an escape from home and school that would later come to define him:
I made no friends at school and had none of home. I had two sisters, but the older, Barbara, was five years younger than me and we hadn’t much in common in the way of adventure. I gradually drifted into the habit of setting off on my own into an escape world of excitement and adventure.
No Francis research in Devon would be complete without a visit to St Peter’s Church in Shirwell, just up the hill from the Old Rectory, which played such a large part in his family’s life. The church itself remains unchanged from his earliest impressions of it, and may well be little changed since it was founded in 1267. From the plaques we learn that the first Chichester to be rector here was in 1513 and that there has been a steady stream of presumably willing and unwilling third-, fourth- or fifth-born Chichesters, such as Charles, in residence at St Peter’s and its various rectories until the present day.
I visit at Harvest Festival and try to imagine myself as young Francis, sitting on the hard front-row pew, listening to his father droning on about hell and damnation and watching his mother summon up the netherworld on the organ. It proves impossible: the current rector, Rt Revd Alan Winstanley, is a twenty-first century man – and not even from these parts. Youngish and dapperish, he arrived in Shirwell from a twelve-year missionary stint in Peru and originally hails from Leigh in Lancashire. The accent remains, Lancastrian not Peruvian, and the liturgy is light-hearted and breezy, with the words of the hymns and readings displayed on a big screen via PowerPoint. Of course, there’s the usual hugging and kissing you have to embrace these days too; the only surprise, after all the glad-handing and bonhomie, is Alan’s insistently creationist message, as if the Bible was meant to be understood literally and not as it was written, metaphorically. Hey ho.
Never Fear Page 3
