I think that Susan will agree with me when I say that in one respect the British remain unequalled. In the production of eccentrics we have no peer! Many such examples in times past were drawn from the nobility and ruling classes. If one were charitable this might be said to derive from a certain amount of inbreeding, and possibly the British public school system. I should perhaps explain to any American readers that the term ‘public’ in ‘public school’ in the UK generally refers to a private school, as opposed to a state school. Although technically open to anyone, the fees required by such notable examples as Eton or Marlborough generally rule out all but the wealthiest parents.

Anyway, I digress. The subjects for this month are Lord Berners – 14th Baron Berners of Faringdon House (now maintained by the National Trust), and the Hon. Maurice Baring.

Lord Berners (1883 - 1950)

Lord Berners (Gerald Tyrwhitt), a product of Eton, is a truly great example of the English eccentric. He was a distinguished diplomat, writer and composer, and also indulged in unorthodox collecting. In this particular case it was other people’s calling or visiting cards. The reason for this was as unusual as the collection itself. When he loaned his house in Rome to friends, he would select from his collection the cards of the most notorious bores in London society. His butler in Rome was then instructed to deliver one or two of the cards each day. By this means the guests would spend much of their holiday diving for cover every time they heard someone at the door!

At Faringdon House he kept whippets, which were decorated with diamond collars, and his doves were dyed in various pastel shades – harmless vegetable dyes actually provided in 1937 by Vera Sudeikina, later to become the wife of Stravinsky - a tradition I am pleased to say, repeated each Easter by the National Trust.

Notices around the Faringdon estate read:

although of course they weren’t.

In 1935 he constructed the Faringdon Folly, a 140-foot tower of his own design in the parkland surrounding his home. When asked what purpose it served he explained: ‘The great point of the tower is that it will be entirely useless’. To discourage anyone who thought of one obvious use for it, he put up a notice reading: 

 

Lord Berners also trained a parrot to walk across the floor of Faringdon Hall beneath a bowler hat, so that it seemed to visitors that the hat was moving about by itself. This did not bother his aged mother in the least, as by then she probably knew her son's proclivities fairly well. A biography was published in 1999, 'Lord Berners: The Last Eccentric' by Maurice Amory.

Lord Berners was undoubtedly talented. When he wished to paint a portrait of a horse however, he did not bother to go to the stables – the horse came into the house! He had a small clavichord installed in the rear of his Rolls Royce to enable him to compose while on long journeys. Some of his music is commercially available – his output included both orchestral works and ballets – having listened to some of it, I can report that it is pleasant enough, if not a little ‘odd’ - which is perhaps how it should be. He also composed the music for the 1947 Ealing film of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby.

The Hon. Maurice Baring (1874 - 1945)

A contemporary of Lord Berners, the Honourable Maurice Baring, was a member of the famous banking family, poet, diplomat, essayist, war correspondent and a noted ‘leafomaniac’. Baring did not collect books, he collected pages from books. If he came upon an interesting passage he would simply tear out the page and paste into a notebook. It should be said that at least his habit was confined to his own books and not volumes from the local library. However, once he had extracted what he wanted he simply gave the books away. Every time he moved house he gave away his entire library and started again. No doubt the recipients were somewhat bemused to find several of the pages missing from each of the volumes…
 

In fact Maurice Baring took this carefree attitude to all of his posessions, not only his own library. On one occasion while travelling by train on the continent, he was chatting with a friend while trying to put his new overcoat into his suitcase. Finding that is would not fit inside, he threw it out of the window – then continued his conversation…

He was fond of non-sesequitorial humour, and once bought some postage stamps in Florence, insisting that they be 'freschi' (fresh) since 'they were for an invalid'.

Baring was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1909, which he described as 'the only action in my life which I am quite certain I have never regretted'. It does seem to be a guarantee of eccentricity, if G.K. Chesterton and Evelyn Waugh are anything to go by. In his last years he owned a blue budgerigar named Dempsey, who would perch on his bald head whilst he talked with somewhat disconcerted visitors.

He died in 1945, eleven days before Christmas, and a friend wrote of him, 'I cannot but believe that at the General Resurrection Maurice Baring...will be the most warmly greeted of the greatest number and variety of his fellow creatures from every country and continent...'

It is interesting to note that Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, also used to tear out the pages that he wanted from a book, and then just put the bulk of the book in his attic. He did not have a library, as much as a vast set of papers and pages pinned together. For anybody who loves books, the practice seems incomprehensible.

Continuing on from 'The Legend of Towednack Church Tower'...

People from Towednack are invariably known as 'cuckoos' to the residents of other parishes in the area. Towednack Feast occurs on the Sunday nearest to April 28, and is sometimes called the 'Cuckoo Feast', as it is then that the cuckoo is first heard in the district. Tradition relates that there was a local farmer who decided to hold a feast on an inclement day in April. To warm his chilled guests he threw some faggots on the fire (or some furze bushes), out of which a cuckoo flew, calling "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" (here we have shades of the mallard!). It was caught and kept and he resolved every year to invite his friends to celebrate the event.

It was unkindly said at nearby St. Ives that that Towednack people had built a hedge around the cuckoo to stop it flying away, so they might have summer all year round; to this the Towednackians responded with the allegation that St. Ives fishermen had whipped a hake through the town to teach its fellows not to steal pilchards from their nets. To this day the townspeople of St. Ives are called 'hakes' - an appellation they do not greatly appreciate!

There are numerous other nick-names for the residents of many of the small villages and towns of Cornwall, many of them not at all complimentary. The reason for many of them is now lost in antiquity. The villagers from the small, delightful fishing village of Mousehole (pronounced 'Mowzel' ), are known locally as 'cut throats' (especially to the natives of nearby Newlyn) - the reason for this is that centuries ago Newlyn was afflicted by some sort of infectious disease - possibly cholera or typhoid (they were common enough in those days). The inhabitants of Mousehole, fearing that they too would succumb to the disease erected barricades across the roads and footpaths to prevent anyone from Newlyn entering their village. They threatened to 'cut the throat' of anyone from Newlyn who attempted to pass. The Newlyn folk never forgave this action and so the label 'cut throat' was appended to anyone from Mousehole from that day to this. 

Nowadays, people travel many miles from all over Cornwall and further afield to see the marvellous 'Mousehole Lights'. Not only are the houses and cottages decorated, but even the boats bobbing in Mousehole Harbour - every year a new 'set piece' is added which enhances still further the spectacular scene.

There will be a recipe for Star Gazzy Pie, as well as other Cornish recipes, on the 'Recipes' page of the Christmas Annual.