Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  Porchey was away in Kenya for about seven weeks. As well as hunting in the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti, the group spent time in Happy Valley visiting the Delameres and other friends. It was evidently just what he needed: sunshine, relaxation, distance from his troublesome memories and time to reflect on them.

  On his return to Highclere at the end of March, he carefully prepared photograph albums to give to the others as mementos of a wonderful trip. In due course Safariland Ltd, outfitters of safaris and scientific expeditions, despatched two cases of trophies packed for Lord Carnarvon but including items for Captain and Mrs Kellet and Mrs Hoyt. Porchey presented the stuffed head of a waterbuck he had shot in Tanganyika territory on 26 February to the Mayor of Newbury. It was probably well received at the time, but both the poor beast’s head and the plaque that bears its details have long since been gracefully retired from the municipal offices.

  When he was writing his cheerfully robust if somewhat unreliable memoirs, nearly half a century later, Porchey assured his readers that he was quite in agreement with the modern mindset that ‘wild animals should only be shot with cameras’, but one senses that he didn’t quite mean it. He loved to shoot all his life and was proud of the quality of the shooting at Highclere. One suspects that Porchey probably continued to regard a waterbuck or two as fair game, much like the pheasants he shot at home.

  Porchey loved Kenya, so it is tempting to wonder whether he sang its praises to his old friend Sir Henry ‘Jock’ Delves Broughton, and whether that conversation prompted the thought that would lead, eventually, to tragedy.

  Sir Jock had been a prominent figure in the racing world for years, and had helped Porchey to build up the Highclere stud. He had always been a frequent visitor for race meetings, but by mid-1937 the baronet was in serious trouble with his gambling debts. He had already sold most of the family land and possessions and, being still in terrible debt, had started to look around for possible escape routes, should the need arise.

  Unfortunately, Sir Jock’s problems would only get worse. In 1939 he was suspected of insurance fraud after claiming for the theft of his wife’s pearls and some of her valuable paintings. Shortly after that the couple divorced and, following a hasty second marriage, Jock decided it was time to get out of England for a while. He and his new wife, Diana, picked Kenya, and arrived in Happy Valley early in November 1940, where they threw themselves into the whirl of drugs, drink and wife-swapping that characterised the leisure time of the Happy Valley set. Less than three months later, Lord Erroll, with whom Diana had been having a highly visible affair, was found shot in the head in his car at a junction outside Nairobi. It didn’t take long for the police—and indeed everyone else—to conclude that Jock Delves Broughton was the obvious suspect.

  When Porchey heard the news, he defended Jock’s innocence to everyone who would listen, on the grounds that Jock was a lousy shot who could never have killed anyone. When Delves Broughton was acquitted for lack of evidence, Porchey sent him a telegram. ‘Hearty congratulations understand you won a neck cleverly. Regards Porchey.’ But Delves Broughton never got over the ‘White Mischief’ scandal. Abandoned by his bride, shunned in Kenya, he came back to Britain alone in December 1942 and committed suicide a few days later.

  In 1937, though, Porchey had no reason to feel anything other than fondness towards Kenya. It had been the tonic his low spirits required. Not even the news that there had been a fire at Highclere in his absence could shake him. Fortunately, despite the fact that three bedrooms in the northeast corner of the castle were completely gutted, no one had been hurt. As Porchey reported to his sister, Eve, Penelope had been staying for a few nights and was sleeping upstairs when the fire broke out. Her room was on the opposite side of the castle, thank god, and Penelope was ‘quite cool and not the least bit frightened’. Porchey set about the repairs and took the opportunity to completely overhaul the castle’s electric lighting, at a cost of £130.

  In this buoyant mood, Porchey allowed himself to be persuaded by his brother-in-law Brograve to buy stock in a technology company. The firm was French, based just outside Paris, and had developed a heat-resistant copper cable. Bro had recently acquired the licence to develop it in the UK and was planning to finance the patent and set up a factory in Newcastle to produce it. He just needed to secure a little more backing. Porchey invested £12,000. The British company was christened Pyrotenax and during the Second World War its product became an essential component of a great deal of military equipment. When it floated, in 1954, it netted Porchey £360,000 on his initial investment. Porchey was always a gambler but, not only did he know his limits, he also had good instincts.

  This particular venture into industry would prove to be of a different order of return to most of Porchey’s investments, which were designed to be solid earners. Throughout the 1930s he sold off assets such as the Carnarvon Arms pub and bought shares in basic industries and utilities. But the stock market was definitely considered the safest bet and it certainly far outstripped anything that could be achieved from farming on the estate. Marcus Wickham Boynton, Porchey’s agent, concentrated on cutting costs by trimming the number of gardeners and letting the forestry workers go because increasing revenue was virtually impossible. By 1937 the larger farms that might have had the potential for redevelopment had been sold and there were only a few smallholdings left at Highclere. While the tenants continued to pay their rents and to farm for themselves, Porchey never seems to have regarded agriculture as a serious proposition. In this he was probably right. Britain was an import economy when it came to food (a fact that would cause enormous problems when war broke out two years later). It brought in three quarters of its wheat from abroad, virtually all its butter and the large majority of its meat and barley. Throughout the 1930s farmers found it harder and harder to make a profit, as global prices for wheat collapsed. Porchey was perhaps sensible to prefer that the old way of small-scale tenant farming should be allowed to continue.

  The more positive outlook and the tranquillity that characterised both Porchey and Catherine’s new, separate lives in the summer of 1937 could not have been in more stark contrast to the international situation. Barely had the financial crisis of 1929 blown its way through the already fragile post-war economies than the political situation in Italy, Germany and Spain began to shift in response.

  The roots of European fascism lie in post-First World War disillusion with the nationalistic ambitions of democratic governments, ambitions that had led millions to slaughter. They lie in the horrified reaction to Russian Bolshevism and the resentment of the punitive demands imposed on the beaten nations, particularly Germany, under the Treaty of Versailles. But the sense of injustice and disappointment prevalent among ordinary Europeans was fuelled by a great economic depression. When this combustible mixture started to burn there was nothing to check it, or the many political leaders eager to fan the flames.

  In Italy, Mussolini had been in power since 1922, following his staging of what was essentially a coup d’état with the March on Rome to oust the democratically elected Prime Minister. By 1927 he had established a one-party state. By 1929 he was ruling as ‘Il Duce’. Right-wing dictatorship had arrived, and was showing an example to other European fascist parties, and their leaders.

  Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 when his Nazi party won enough votes to be the largest party in a coalition government. From there, Hitler used emergency legislation passed in the wake of an arson attack on the seat of government to justify suspension of basic liberties and the brutal suppression of all political opponents. In March 1935, and in direct contravention of the Treaty of Versailles, he announced that a new Air Force was to be developed and the other armed forces were to be massively expanded. Almost exactly a year later, in another contravention of the terms of the post-war settlement, German troops reoccupied the demilitarised Rhineland, a buffer zone between Germany and Belgium. Three years before Nazi Germany began its programme of acquiring mo
re Lebensraum (living space) through the invasion of neighbours, there was serious worry in some quarters in Britain and France about what seemed to be its vigorous preparations for war.

  But another major current of thought, the dominant one throughout the mid-1930s, was that Germany had legitimate desires to reindustrialise and rearm, that she could not be punished indefinitely in the wake of the Great War, and that to try to do so would give more grist to the National Socialists’ mill. With the benefit of hindsight, the policy that came to be known as appeasement seems tragically naïve and misguided, but the fact is that at the time it was supported by the vast majority of citizens across Europe and was based on a sincerely held belief that war was the evil that must be avoided at all costs. The other fatal mistake was in believing that Hitler’s ambitions to expand German territory were limited and could be contained. The events of 1938 and 1939 would show that this was not the case.

  In the October of 1937, at a moment when the new British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was adamant that Hitler was a man of his word and war a distant possibility that could be averted through diplomacy, Porchey hosted a weekend party that was, for him, unusually political in character. And the political mood was nowhere near as sanguine as Chamberlain’s.

  Brendan Bracken was born the son of an Irish Republican stonemason but moved to London via Australia and Cumbria, and reinvented himself en route as a magazine publisher and a Conservative MP. As was the case with his friend, Max Beaverbrook, his business and political interests overlapped continuously. He was a big man with tousled carrot-coloured hair who talked a million words a minute. He was also an accomplished autodidact of enormous charm who, aged nineteen, had passed himself off as a fifteen-year-old Australian orphan and talked his way into Sedbergh School, an ancient and prestigious independent school in Cumbria. Bracken was determined to acquire both the education and the trappings of English middle-class respectability. He had been an ardent supporter of Churchill from the 1920s and was invited to join the exclusive Other Club, Churchill’s political dining society for the ‘estimable and entertaining’, which met once a fortnight at the Savoy hotel for drinks, dinner and ferocious debate. Bracken’s loyalty to Churchill would be rewarded in due course with his appointment to the post of Minister of Information in 1941, but at the time of his visit to Highclere he was a mere backbench MP, albeit one with excellent business and political connections. Porchey had invited him primarily because he was amusing, which tended to be his main criterion for inviting anyone.

  Porchey had known Max Beaverbrook, proprietor of the Daily Express and the Evening Standard—and consequently one of the most powerful men in the country—for years. Anyone who was anyone in Britain between the wars knew Beaverbrook, such was his political clout (it was said he could break anyone or anything) and his taste for socialising. He had certainly been regaled with stories by Porchey’s friend Sibell Lygon on several occasions, and had in fact encouraged her to write a column for him. Sibell contributed a few pieces to Harper’s Bazaar and the Daily Express, but it was eventually revealed that Beaverbrook had written most of her material himself. He was flexible like that: it was her aristocratic name that would sell his newspapers, the rest he could furnish himself. Lord Beaverbrook had never before been to Highclere, but now he thought he might make a foray into racing, and was keen to take Porchey’s advice.

  The other principal guest that weekend was Porchey’s old friend Alfred Duff Cooper, who had frequently, during the course of his ten years as an MP and a government minister, had reason to be outraged by some stance or other taken by Lord Beaverbrook’s newspapers.

  Duff Cooper was at that point serving in the National Government—a coalition of Conservatives, Liberal Nationals and National Labour—as First Lord of the Admiralty. Like Bracken he was far more a Churchill man than a natural supporter of Chamberlain’s. He had in fact spent most of the previous year pleading fruitlessly with Chamberlain, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, to allow him the budget to reform the Army and start recruiting. Consequently he expected to lose his cabinet post when Chamberlain took over from Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister in May 1937 but, in the event, he was moved from the Ministry for War to the Admiralty. Duff Cooper’s experience at these two military ministries meant he was in a good position to substantiate his long-held view that the British armed services were in a parlous state. Duff Cooper was convinced that it was folly to allow them to shrink in size when the Germans had spent the last five years aggressively rebuilding theirs. With Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, the virtual collapse of the League of Nations, the recent outbreak of civil war in Spain and Hitler’s 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan, he and Churchill stepped up their calls for a programme of rearmament to meet the possibility of imminent war.

  But Churchill was still regarded as a maverick and a pugnacious alarmist by many in the Conservative Party, the National Government, and in particular by the Prime Minister. In the course of a political career that had already spanned forty years, he had acquired as many detractors as friends. He had committed the ultimate political sin of switching parties, not once but twice. He had been condemned for the failure of the Gallipoli campaign during the First World War, and had alienated as well as impressed people by his capacity for brilliant speeches and equally brilliant insults. In 1937 he was still three years away from leadership and the country was in no mood to listen to his warnings that war was now inevitable.

  The tone of the political conversation that weekend at Highclere must have been gloomy, but Porchey’s guests were all by inclination convivial men, and Ernest Grimes, his excellent chef, could be relied upon to provide distractions from even the greatest cares of state. Porchey also had a very smart new toy to show his friends. He had decided to buy a new car and his great friend, Captain Kellet, had discovered a Rolls-Royce Phantom III in London. It was the last of the great classic-era motor cars, with a beautiful long chassis and a V12 engine that purred almost noiselessly. Resprayed in his colours with his silver jockey and horse on the front, it cheered him up whenever he so much as looked at it.

  Nineteen thirty-eight brought no let-up in terms of worsening European politics. In March, Hitler’s armies marched unopposed into Austria to unite the country with the German Third Reich. Though this action was expressly forbidden under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, international reaction was muted. An editorial in The Times likened it to the union of Scotland with England three hundred years previously. Chamberlain told the House of Commons that the government ‘could not regard the development with equanimity, that it was bound to lead to greater uncertainty in Europe.’

  There was peace and quiet at Highclere, though. For much of the summer Lord Carnarvon was absent, travelling to the States, spending time in New York and Florida with friends. Despite the mounting bad news abroad, there was still fun to be had. Years later, Porchey recalled in his memoirs that when he crossed the Atlantic in the summer of 1938, two of his friends, Randolph Churchill, son of Winston and occasional visitor to Highclere, and Noël Coward were on board. They didn’t much like each other. One night, over a cocktail, Noël told Porchey he had just delivered a note to Randolph’s cabin. ‘Dear Randolph, if you are free I hope you will come to the first night of my new show in New York. I enclose a brace of tickets so that you may bring a friend, if you have one.’ The following morning Porchey was treated to the other half of the correspondence by an indignant Randolph, who evidently lacked none of his father’s gift for a witty put-down. Randolph replied, ‘Dear Noël, unfortunately I am engaged on the opening night. Nevertheless I shall be delighted to come on another night, if you have one.’

  Meanwhile Porchey had left Highclere in good hands. He had engaged a new secretary for the estate office, Miss Stubbings, in May 1937, and she noted that her employer left a great many things to his staff.

  It was an attitude for which Robert Taylor had reason to be thankful. Despite Lord Carnarvon’s telling him that he should be
sacked if he couldn’t manage a telephone message, and scarcely six months after arriving to work as a footman, Robert had proved his worth during Smith the butler’s illness. In January 1937, just before his departure for his mother’s nursing home, Lord Carnarvon had called Robert to his bedroom. ‘Lady Evelyn tells me you have done a very good job, Robert. I hope you have been happy here, and if you have, I’d like to suggest that you stay another season, stand in for poor Smith.’ Robert was thrilled that his work had been so appreciated and readily agreed. That was the first significant exchange between Porchey and Robert Taylor, the first of a lifetime’s worth.

  Robert was just twenty-three years old when he found himself appointed acting butler at Highclere. He managed the crisis of the house fire in Lord Carnarvon’s absence and, when Smith returned to his post in late spring, made no fuss about resuming the duties of a first footman. His calm, competence and good humour meant he was well liked by everyone and marked him out as the up-coming man.

  Robert’s qualities recommended him to the local girls as well. On one of the Highclere staff’s regular Saturday-night outings to a local servants’ dance, a particular young lady caught his eye. Robert implored his friend, Ruby Benson, to introduce them. Ruby was a housemaid at Highclere and knew everyone for miles about, on account of her father running the Pheasant pub in the village. Ruby duly introduced Robert to Johanna, who was always known as Joan. She worked in one of the other local houses, and Robert put to use the foxtrots and waltzes that he’d been learning in the servants’ hall. Joan was evidently sufficiently taken with him to agree to meet him at the next dance, in two weeks’ time, and the one after that. They were officially an item.

  In May 1938, Almina’s second husband, Ian Dennistoun, died at Alfred House. They had been married for fourteen years and Almina had devoted herself to caring for him, moving house on a regular basis, always looking for a spot where Ian might be as comfortable as possible. They had tried Scotland (his family was Scottish), Somerset and the Isle of Wight (for its healthy sea air). With each new house, Almina had swept in, undertaken extravagant renovations and decorations with no idea of any sort of budget and then, bored or distracted, embarked on the next house that might be just the thing for Ian’s health. One imagines that after a few of these moves, Ian might well have preferred to be left in peace.