After Peter Pan came a children’s
play called Where the Rainbow Ends . It contained a wicked dragon king – wickedness was easily discernible in the theatre since the subject was invariably bathed in bright green light.
Then there was an Indian fairy story called The Golden Toy . It was the first time I saw Peggy Ashcroft, who played the princess. I still remember the moment when the lovers are made to swear
that they will part for ever, because of the way she said, ‘I swear: for both of us.’ Subsequently I saw the famous 1936 production of Romeo and Juliet with Laurence Olivier and
John Gielgud alternating the parts of Romeo and Mercutio, Peggy Ashcroft as Juliet, and Edith Evans as the Nurse. Carol and I were mad about Gielgud: we’d both been taken to his Hamlet as well as the Romeo. She actually met him, or perhaps her father did – anyway, pangs of hopeless jealousy assailed me. I was allowed to see several other Shakespeare plays, but nothing
else.
The same strictures applied to the cinema. The films that my mother deemed suitable seem to me now very strange choices: The War of the Worlds , for instance, full of
destruction and terror, and, even more odd, only the beginning of The Private Life of Henry VIII – the part where Anne Boleyn is executed, which I found frightening and awful. The rest
of it was reputed to be too ‘full of sex’ for a young girl.
It must appear extraordinary to people now, but at fourteen and for some time after I knew nothing whatever of sex. This was partly the result of not going to school and partly a sheer lack of
interest in the subject. I was extremely interested in love, and anything from Jane Eyre’s vicissitudes with Mr Rochester to Viola’s unrequited passion for Orsino both gripped and
touched me. But I saw it all as romantic passion.
Carol was of fastidious disposition: in all our endless chats, and teas and walks and earnest discussions about life and art, neither of us mentioned sex. When I was fourteen I began to
menstruate and, having no idea what was happening, I thought I was bleeding to death. I staggered into the drawing room where my mother was having tea with someone high up in the Red Cross and
asked her to come out of the room to speak to me. When I told her, she simply gave me some pieces of towelling, a belt and two safety-pins and said that this was an unfortunate thing that happened
to girls – they became ‘unwell’ every month, but one didn’t talk about it. Her evident disgust with the subject – and with me for having raised it – was so clear
that we never said anything more. I did ask Carol, as she was slightly older, whether it had happened to her, and she said yes, years ago. The only other piece of information I gleaned from her was
that she used bought sanitary towels and her mother provided them for the servants as well as themselves. I envied this as I battled with the rags that had to be stuffed into a special bag and sent
to the laundry every month. My mother told me also that I must not swim or ride during these times, but the headaches and appalling stomach cramps were never touched upon and I used to dread them.
My mother made it plain that everything to do with bodies was disgusting and the less said about it thebetter. If my mother labelled someone as having a lot (meaning too much)
of SA (sex appeal), it was done with a kind of facetious distaste. And, as I knew by now that Grannia couldn’t be seen either going to or coming from the lavatory, I realized, even then, that
it ran in the family.
From my earliest years I had been assured of my father’s love. He always seemed pleased to see me, to spend time with me, to laugh at my jokes. He took me to Hampstead
Heath and Richmond Park. Sometimes we’d drive to Sussex together, and I’d sing him all the songs I knew and he would just drive and listen, and when I glanced at him there was always a
small smile beneath his moustache. He called me Jinny and
play called Where the Rainbow Ends . It contained a wicked dragon king – wickedness was easily discernible in the theatre since the subject was invariably bathed in bright green light.
Then there was an Indian fairy story called The Golden Toy . It was the first time I saw Peggy Ashcroft, who played the princess. I still remember the moment when the lovers are made to swear
that they will part for ever, because of the way she said, ‘I swear: for both of us.’ Subsequently I saw the famous 1936 production of Romeo and Juliet with Laurence Olivier and
John Gielgud alternating the parts of Romeo and Mercutio, Peggy Ashcroft as Juliet, and Edith Evans as the Nurse. Carol and I were mad about Gielgud: we’d both been taken to his Hamlet as well as the Romeo. She actually met him, or perhaps her father did – anyway, pangs of hopeless jealousy assailed me. I was allowed to see several other Shakespeare plays, but nothing
else.
The same strictures applied to the cinema. The films that my mother deemed suitable seem to me now very strange choices: The War of the Worlds , for instance, full of
destruction and terror, and, even more odd, only the beginning of The Private Life of Henry VIII – the part where Anne Boleyn is executed, which I found frightening and awful. The rest
of it was reputed to be too ‘full of sex’ for a young girl.
It must appear extraordinary to people now, but at fourteen and for some time after I knew nothing whatever of sex. This was partly the result of not going to school and partly a sheer lack of
interest in the subject. I was extremely interested in love, and anything from Jane Eyre’s vicissitudes with Mr Rochester to Viola’s unrequited passion for Orsino both gripped and
touched me. But I saw it all as romantic passion.
Carol was of fastidious disposition: in all our endless chats, and teas and walks and earnest discussions about life and art, neither of us mentioned sex. When I was fourteen I began to
menstruate and, having no idea what was happening, I thought I was bleeding to death. I staggered into the drawing room where my mother was having tea with someone high up in the Red Cross and
asked her to come out of the room to speak to me. When I told her, she simply gave me some pieces of towelling, a belt and two safety-pins and said that this was an unfortunate thing that happened
to girls – they became ‘unwell’ every month, but one didn’t talk about it. Her evident disgust with the subject – and with me for having raised it – was so clear
that we never said anything more. I did ask Carol, as she was slightly older, whether it had happened to her, and she said yes, years ago. The only other piece of information I gleaned from her was
that she used bought sanitary towels and her mother provided them for the servants as well as themselves. I envied this as I battled with the rags that had to be stuffed into a special bag and sent
to the laundry every month. My mother told me also that I must not swim or ride during these times, but the headaches and appalling stomach cramps were never touched upon and I used to dread them.
My mother made it plain that everything to do with bodies was disgusting and the less said about it thebetter. If my mother labelled someone as having a lot (meaning too much)
of SA (sex appeal), it was done with a kind of facetious distaste. And, as I knew by now that Grannia couldn’t be seen either going to or coming from the lavatory, I realized, even then, that
it ran in the family.
From my earliest years I had been assured of my father’s love. He always seemed pleased to see me, to spend time with me, to laugh at my jokes. He took me to Hampstead
Heath and Richmond Park. Sometimes we’d drive to Sussex together, and I’d sing him all the songs I knew and he would just drive and listen, and when I glanced at him there was always a
small smile beneath his moustache. He called me Jinny and
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