The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother, and Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

settle down to paint charming corners of the Shropshire landscape. Julia’s diaries mention her only son frequently and she wrote to him with a tone of maternal affection and concern. She always made a note of when she heard from or saw her husband, so there are hints that the family was not as cold or uncultured as they were posthumously portrayed. Indeed, an affectionate letter from Captain Tyrwhitt to his son displays an easy amicability that does not fit Gerald’s story.17
    Whatever the parents themselves believed, and despite certain factual inaccuracies in Gerald’s memoirs, the boy himself did not feel that he was appreciated and loved. This sense of being an outsider was later to be used by him to his advantage, but it may well have been at the root of some of his inherent sadness. The painful boredom associated with his paternal grandmother, Lady Berners (depicted as the ghastly Lady Bourchier in his memoirs), also left its mark. Her puritanical piety and narrow-mindedness surely contributed to Gerald’s largesse, his love of luxury and, above all, his repugnance towards anything dull.
    Gerald adored animals throughout his life. From school, he wrote to his mother, ‘How are cat, dogs, birds, horses, pigs, poultry?’ But his favourites were a different style from those favoured by his mother. Julia was inseparable from her horses and dogs, which included a spaniel, a collie, a fox terrier and a bloodhound, all of which were, according to her son, like her: loyal, rather dull and utterly predictable in their habits. When Gerald grew up, he would have dogs, but they would be decorative ones like Dalmatians, whose necks were hung not with practical leather collars but sparkling necklaces. Far more than dogs, however, Gerald loved birds, and these were the creatures that came to define his style and soothe his soul. ‘At a very young age I became a bird bore,’ he confessed, though as well as pretending to be a bird and making nests in the barn, he knew a great deal about ornithology. His idea of a childhood treat was poring over the weighty volumes of Gould’s Birds of Great Britain, and in later life he told a friend how his purchase of a reproduction of Audubon’s Birds of America had made his day.18 He recommended it as ‘an infallible cure for falling chins and wobbling upper lips’ – symptoms of the melancholy and desolation which always lurked in his shadow. It is eminently appropriate that the Tyrwhitt family legend tells of a distant ancestor who was killed in battle, and how the mournful cries of three lapwings or peewits (also known as ‘tyrwhits’) drew searchers to find his body. The family took the noisy, gleaming-feathered tyrwhit’s name and placed its image on their shield.
    Among Gerald’s earliest inspirations was the screen in his paternal grandmother’s drawing room which, in his memory, was pasted with vivid pictures of unfamiliar, beautiful flowers, hummingbirds, doves of Siam and birds-of-paradise. Many years later he came across the screen in an old storeroom and was bewildered and disappointed to find that he had remembered it wrong. In reality, it was mostly country sporting scenes and political caricatures and the colourful flora and fauna were few and located far from a young child’s viewpoint, near the top.
    Another source for Gerald’s youthful delight in birds and flowers was his beloved Aunt Constance. Handicapped after a riding accident, she had decorated her room with cages of birds, gaily coloured wallpaper and flowers all around. Gerald was transported by the atmosphere and loved helping her undo parcels of dresses and hats sent from Paris and London, and taking a look at her old Court dress and ageing ostrich feathers.
    Like the many exotic birds he would later own, Gerald hoped to fly away from the place he came from and surround himself with beauty. His attraction to jewel-coloured tropical birds and flowers was in direct contrast to the sensible,