the other girls. She is pleased to be sitting next to Zoe, worried that Noreen is absent, and looking
forward to the Bandarlog , a school activity involving amateur theatricals. She chucks blotting paper pellets in class and throws herself into the dancing lessons, despite
admitting in the diary that she is by far the worst. However, after only a few days, she develops a sore throat and temperature and, on the doctor’s advice, is again off school and back at
Knowle. She then does not return to school for seventeen more days. The last few days, when she’s better, she goes hunting with Will, the Knowle groom. Unfortunately her mare Kitty falls on
her and injures her leg – resulting in another delay. She finally returns to school on 10 February, and is soon writing of how glad she is that her leg is better – now she can play in
the school team in a lacrosse match. She still often dreams of her heroine – I do want a green ostrich feather fan like Lady
Ann’s and admits – I never felt any attraction to any of the male sex . . . I only think of boys as friends and no more . . . in fact as a whole I utterly scorn
men and boys. I suppose I am very odd and old fashioned or stupid but I can’t make myself feel any different, I am sure I can love too, because
I have always had love affairs, only with women, never men. Isn’t it odd?
It is clear from the innocent tone of this that Anne sees no reason to be ashamed of her attractions towards other girls. And indeed, because of her comparative isolation, she probably does not
know that many girls of her age experience them.
She does, however, perceptively guess that her negative attitude to men may arise from her experiences of her stepfather: I should hate always to live with one man, they’re so
boring and fussy, of course Chownie is the example I have of this, he drives me mad always, I can hardly bear to be in the same room with him sometimes and he has hurt my feelings dozens of times,
once at a dinner party at Aunt Lin’s, I shall never never forgive him for
that.
Again, I felt sorry for her never having known her own father. It was unlikely that she would have regarded him as boring and fussy. I knew from various cousins that Chow had been irascible, and
my mother’s former playmate Angela had told me that the young Anne felt constantly undermined by her stepfather’s criticism. My grandmother once confided to me that she had hoped that
her second husband and her daughter, both interested in the arts, would have that in common. But Anne, I realised, perceived her stepfather as controlling and harsh, and he could not get anywhere
with her.
I have a photograph of little Anne at her mother’s wedding to Chow, where she was the only bridesmaid. I showed it to my son when he was twelve. He looked carefully at the little girl in
her white dress, with her artificially curled hair, glaring at the camera, then declared, with absolute conviction: ‘Your mother was away from love.’
My mother, at only five, had lost her father and her little brother. She had then lost her mother to a stranger – a man.
Chapter 8
I n April 1930, Anne holidays in France and Italy. She and her mother go from Dover to Calais on the Golden Arrow boat – the
Canterbury
– then, in France, meet up with my grandmother’s sister Dita, Dita’s husband Jay, and their daughter Peggie. All five of them then travel on the famous fast
‘Train Bleu’ to Cannes. There they lunch and bathe, and try to visit Grandmoods, who is renting a villa near Monte Carlo, but she is out. Later Anne’s mother goes with her sister
Dita to see their mother while Anne, Peggie and Anne’s Uncle Jay explore the town.
That evening, my grandmother and Peggie, who puts a photograph of a youth called Gordon Douglas out each night in her hotel bedroom, try to get Anne into the casino at
Monte Carlo. Anne, cross-questioned at the entrance about her age, pretends that she can’t understand
forward to the Bandarlog , a school activity involving amateur theatricals. She chucks blotting paper pellets in class and throws herself into the dancing lessons, despite
admitting in the diary that she is by far the worst. However, after only a few days, she develops a sore throat and temperature and, on the doctor’s advice, is again off school and back at
Knowle. She then does not return to school for seventeen more days. The last few days, when she’s better, she goes hunting with Will, the Knowle groom. Unfortunately her mare Kitty falls on
her and injures her leg – resulting in another delay. She finally returns to school on 10 February, and is soon writing of how glad she is that her leg is better – now she can play in
the school team in a lacrosse match. She still often dreams of her heroine – I do want a green ostrich feather fan like Lady
Ann’s and admits – I never felt any attraction to any of the male sex . . . I only think of boys as friends and no more . . . in fact as a whole I utterly scorn
men and boys. I suppose I am very odd and old fashioned or stupid but I can’t make myself feel any different, I am sure I can love too, because
I have always had love affairs, only with women, never men. Isn’t it odd?
It is clear from the innocent tone of this that Anne sees no reason to be ashamed of her attractions towards other girls. And indeed, because of her comparative isolation, she probably does not
know that many girls of her age experience them.
She does, however, perceptively guess that her negative attitude to men may arise from her experiences of her stepfather: I should hate always to live with one man, they’re so
boring and fussy, of course Chownie is the example I have of this, he drives me mad always, I can hardly bear to be in the same room with him sometimes and he has hurt my feelings dozens of times,
once at a dinner party at Aunt Lin’s, I shall never never forgive him for
that.
Again, I felt sorry for her never having known her own father. It was unlikely that she would have regarded him as boring and fussy. I knew from various cousins that Chow had been irascible, and
my mother’s former playmate Angela had told me that the young Anne felt constantly undermined by her stepfather’s criticism. My grandmother once confided to me that she had hoped that
her second husband and her daughter, both interested in the arts, would have that in common. But Anne, I realised, perceived her stepfather as controlling and harsh, and he could not get anywhere
with her.
I have a photograph of little Anne at her mother’s wedding to Chow, where she was the only bridesmaid. I showed it to my son when he was twelve. He looked carefully at the little girl in
her white dress, with her artificially curled hair, glaring at the camera, then declared, with absolute conviction: ‘Your mother was away from love.’
My mother, at only five, had lost her father and her little brother. She had then lost her mother to a stranger – a man.
Chapter 8
I n April 1930, Anne holidays in France and Italy. She and her mother go from Dover to Calais on the Golden Arrow boat – the
Canterbury
– then, in France, meet up with my grandmother’s sister Dita, Dita’s husband Jay, and their daughter Peggie. All five of them then travel on the famous fast
‘Train Bleu’ to Cannes. There they lunch and bathe, and try to visit Grandmoods, who is renting a villa near Monte Carlo, but she is out. Later Anne’s mother goes with her sister
Dita to see their mother while Anne, Peggie and Anne’s Uncle Jay explore the town.
That evening, my grandmother and Peggie, who puts a photograph of a youth called Gordon Douglas out each night in her hotel bedroom, try to get Anne into the casino at
Monte Carlo. Anne, cross-questioned at the entrance about her age, pretends that she can’t understand
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