Merry Hall (Beverley Nichols Trilogy)

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I am glad I did not see it, as it was, for the image is held in my mind forever, of that beautiful old house as it must have looked, that autumn day, through the copper beech. He ghostwrote Dame Nellie Melba’s "autobiography" Memories and Melodies (1925), and in 1966 he wrote A Case of Human Bondage about the marriage and divorce of William Somerset Maugham and Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo, which was highly critical of Maugham. Between the early 50’s and early sixties, I was a Choirboy, in Crosby, Liverpool – at the St Luke’s Parish Church where Beverley’s Brother, Canon Nichols was the head man. He pretends to direct the same wit against himself, but tends to be kinder toward himself than toward others.

I suspect, particularly after the ending of his third book, that he was in fact very reluctant to leave his Tudor cottage although he seemed to have put down new roots in this second property. Pages are bright and clear with light foxing and tanning to text block edges, pastedowns and free endpapers.To me, the old house used to feel like a second home, for I often stayed there in the days of dear Mr.

What Beverley objected to was the terrible way she tortured her flowers and her total lack of any aesthetic sense. Father Figure, which appeared in 1972 and in which he described how he had tried to murder his alcoholic and abusive father, caused a great uproar and several people asked for his prosecution. I also would have liked to join in with the End of The Month View with Helen at the Patientgardener blog, but, no chance. Women are always present in his books and he always describes them with humour and affection, although mostly they infuriate him too.

I am reading James: The Portrait of a Lady for my book group and Nichols is a great relief from page- long paragraphs! Nichols is best remembered for his books about his homes and gardens, the first of which was Down the Garden Path (1932), in which he describes the difficulties and delights of maintaining a Tudor thatched cottage in Glatton, Cambridgeshire. Though I don’t think this in any way matters; they are funny and charming and Nichols never let pesky reality get in the way of being funny and charming! One of the garden’s previous owners Mr Stebbing for whom Oldfield worked for many years, has in Nichols opinion committed some quite unpardonable crimes. I had a very successful garden this year, mostly because we were blessed with a record amount of rainfall during August, which is normally as arid as the Sahara.