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.
Our teachers were from the generation who could have lost their boyfriends in the war. We speculated endlessly about their lives outside the school gates. Miss Davis (History) was mimsy and prim and wore white, ill-fitting blouses and a skirt. To our great delight, she had the habit of storing her hankies in her knickers — we kept an eye out for their swift retrieval when she had a cold. She was the epitome of a spinster. Her passion was Charles the First. She described his execution so vividly that we saw his shirt blowing in the breeze as he ascended the gallows outside Whitehall. When she evoked this scene, all her juices flowed and she sparkled. I think it’s because of Miss Davis that I’ve always been a royalist, even though my broader politics tend in the other direction. She made me see kings and queens as real people, as flawed, interesting characters and not as the representation of privilege and repression.
Our music teacher, Mrs Archer, was a burly, formidable woman, one of the school’s few married teachers. Her husband ran a profitable removal firm, Archer Cowley, so she didn’t need the money, but taught for the sheer joy of it. Every morning, she would oversee hymn practice. I have always been tone-deaf, which Mrs Archer spotted. I was told firmly to mime during hymn practice. Despite that, Mrs Archer liked me — I think she appreciated my wildness and saw me as a free spirit.
English was always my favourite subject. Our first English teacher was Miss Bartholomew. She loved Shakespeare so much that little beads of spittle formed into froth at the corners of her mouth when she read the plays aloud. She taught Dame Maggie Smith, who remembers her well. When she left Oxford High School she became headmistress of Norwich High School for Girls. I was in touch with her until she died, a most splendid woman.
Joan Gummer succeeded her — tough shoes to fill, but she was also an excellent teacher. In different times in her life, she had been both a nun and an actress. She still looked like a nun, with a pale face, an ethereal expression and light blue eyes. She had studied at RADA, had a keen sense of drama and she directed the school play. I had a rapport with her, I think because she could sense that I was a performer and not just a show-off. Miss Gummer had a big influence on my attitude to the theatre, because she loved it too, although being deeply religious she had renounced it. She was a devout Catholic and truly believed in its dogma and its strictures, but her single-mindedness, her focus, is what I will always remember. She talked with flair and joy about Keats and the Romantics and we inherited her enthusiasm. She had a curious custom: when she quoted poetry or read from a play, she would turn her head and expose her noble profile to us, gazing into the middle distance. We would giggle, because it was a self-conscious gesture that must have come from her time as an actress. Perhaps somebody once told her, ‘Goodness, you’ve got a sensational profile.’ It was a dramatic thing to do, though I don’t know if it would work in church. She was inspirational.
I once described myself as ‘extremely unintelligent’, but I no longer think it’s sensible for me to say that I’m extremely unintelligent. I can’t do intelligence tests and I’m completely innumerate, for example, but I can remember telephone numbers easily, so perhaps a more accurate self-assessment would be that I am a little bit thick. I did have some talents, though. Liz says that they all knew that if there was a public speaking competition, our house at school (East) would win because of me. I loved public speaking. And I always wanted to win — desperately. One year my speech was about Deirdre — the Jacob Epstein bronze torso that stood above the pool in the courtyard outside the staff room. I thought my speech had been very poor and I was in a paroxysm of despair, but we still won the cup. Apparently, I did it almost without notes and that was how I first realised that I could entertain by talking, and that was pleasing.
In the sixth form, there were often soirées at Liz’s house. Even the teachers would come to the Hodgkins’ parties and do charades. I have a strong memory of Miss Jackson saying, ‘I don’t mind being a camel.’ But charades made me nervous. I felt that a spotlight was shining on me because I was supposed to be good at acting, and the expectation spoilt it for me.