Darling Pol

  Beecham, Alec: National Liberal MP for West Cornwall (including Boskenna), admirer of Mary

  Bernsdorf, Bridget: English friend of the Siepmanns who entertained Mary in the family schloss in Prussia, married to Hugo, Nazi and wartime member of the SA

  Bernsdorf, Thora: cousin of Hugo

  Bertaux, Pierre: Republican commissioner for the Toulouse region when Eric was posted there in 1944-5

  Blessing, Dr. Karl: director of the Reichsbank under the Nazis, later president of the post-war Deutsche Bundesbank

  Bolitho, Billy: wealthy Cornish landowner who first recruited Mary for MI5, Toby’s godfather

  Bonham Carter, Lady Violet: sister of ‘Puffin’ Asquith and talkative Liberal party eminence grise

  Boothby, Robert: Conservative politician, lover of Harold Macmillan’s wife Lady Dorothy, friend of Winston Churchill and Eric

  Boscence, Joe: a retired dealer in antiques, living outside Penzance, a misanthrope who was fond of Mary

  Bowra, Maurice: Oxford academic and wit, friend of both Mary and Eric

  Cassou, Jean: French academic and Resistance officer, friend of Eric

  Crossman, Richard: millionaire Socialist cabinet minister, once Eric’s resentful fag at Winchester

  Curtis Brown, Spencer: founder of the literary agency and briefly Mary’s agent for her unpublished early work

  Dalby, Hyacinthe: Mary’s beloved grandmother, wife of Sir William Dalby, a distinguished surgeon

  Eady, Toby: literary agent, second son of Mary, grew up in Boskenna during the war

  Farmar, Hugh: Mary’s elder brother, m. Constantia Rumbold, daughter of Sir Horace, pre-war British ambassador in Berlin

  Farmar, Mynors: Mary’s father, professional soldier, wounded and decorated veteran of Gallipoli and Passchendaele

  Fleming, Ian: managing editor of Sunday Times, later novelist

  Gates, Pauline: sister of Robert Newton, introduced Mary to Eric, m. Sylvester, chairman of the British Film Institute, school friend of Eric

  Gluck: successful painter living with Edith Shackleton

  Gow, Nancy: once Eric’s secretary at BEA, became a close friend and loyal supporter of both Eric and Mary

  Grant, Mrs: merry widow of Penzance, close friend of Mary

  Green, Wing-Commander ‘Paddy’: ace fighter pilot and wartime lover of Mary

  Greene, Felix: pacifist cousin of the novelist Graham, once employed by Charles Siepmann at the BBC

  Grenfell, Alice: housemaid at Boskenna who took over the nursery and helped to raise all Mary’s children

  Grimond, Jo: youthful leader of the Liberal Party, his wife, Laura, was the daughter of Violet Bonham Carter (q.v.)

  Handley, Michael: security service officer in Hong Kong, later director-general of MI5

  Hill, Paul: Penzance solicitor, friend of Col. Paynter and second husband of Betty Paynter

  Hughes, Maj. Glyn: owner of the Beverley Court Hotel in Chagford where Mary and Eric sought refuge from Phyllis Siepmann

  Ingrams, Leonard St Clair: merchant banker, aviator and friend of Eric; father of Richard Ingrams

  John, Edwin: painter son of Augustus, living in Mousehole with a collection of his Aunt Gwen’s paintings

  Keswick, Sir John: taipan of Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong, friend of Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai, wartime agent for SOE

  Kingsmill, Hugh: writer and humourist, friend of Eric

  Kirkpatrick, Sir Ivone: British High Commissioner for Germany, 1950-53, head of the Foreign Office, then chairman of the Independent Television Authority

  Knox, Mgr. Ronald: Catholic convert, brother of leading Bletchley codebreaker, friend of the Asquith family, translated the Bible

  Lee, Raymond: louche French SOE agent and friend of Mary

  Maisky, Mikhailovich: wartime Soviet ambassador in London

  Mangan, Father Richard SJ: Jesuit priest based at Farm Street who instructed and received Mary and Eric into the Catholic Church

  Masaryk, Jan: exiled Czech politician, close friend of Heinz Ziegler

  Melikof, Boris: French communist resister and lover of Mary

  Micklem, Nat: theologian, academic, politician and friend of Eric

  Mitford, Nancy: novelist and pre-war friend of Eric

  Morris, Claud: lover of Betty Paynter, later radical printer and publisher

  Muggeridge, Malcolm: journalist, briefly editor of Punch and friend of Eric

  Mynors, Sir Roger: godfather to Mary’s son, Roger, twin brother to Sir Humphrey, dep. governor of the Bank of England

  Newton, Robert: prominent actor and film star, grew up at Lamorna Cove as a tenant of Col. Paynter

  Norman, Montagu: governor of the Bank of England, friend of the Siepmann brothers

  Paynter, Betty: daughter of the colonel, heiress of Boskenna, close friend of Mary

  Paynter, Col. Camborne: eccentric landowner and generous host

  Paynter, Sonya: Betty’s only child, grew up with Roger and Toby at Boskenna

  Portal, Sir Francis Bt.: chairman of Portals (manufacturers of banknote paper), school contemporary, later employer, of Eric

  Quennell, Peter: critic and author, Oxford contemporary and friend of both Eric and Evelyn Waugh

  Rodd, Peter: adventurer and conman, Oxford contemporary and long-time friend of Eric

  Schacht, Dr. Hjalmar: German economic genius and war criminal, friend of both Eric and Harry Siepmann

  Shackleton, Edith: last lover of both Gluck and WB Yeats, wartime visitor to Boskenna

  Siepmann, Bill: Mary’s third son

  Siepmann, Charles: second son of Otto; BBC producer, later American businessman

  Siepmann, Harry: first son of Otto; economist, director of the Bank of England

  Siepmann, Otto: exile from Bismarck’s Germany, master at Clifton College and leading language teacher of his day

  Siepmann, Phyllis: née Morris, peppery and vindictive second wife of Eric

  Siepmann, Ricardo: cousin of Otto; Hamburg businessman with a finger in every pie

  Stopford, Richmond: Bachelor MI6 officer who became a family friend of the Siepmanns

  Strauss, Dr. Eric: notable West End psychiatrist who treated both Eric and Phyllis

  Sutherland, ‘Geordie’, 5th Duke of: ladies’ man and frequent visitor to Boskenna

  Swinfen, Carol, 2nd Baron: Mary’s first husband, kindly and generous father to Roger and Toby

  Swinfen Eady, Roger: Mary’s eldest son, grew up at Boskenna, later 3rd Baron Swinfen

  Waller, Lady: pompous neighbour at Thornworthy, sister of Mary’s landlady

  Waugh, Evelyn: Oxford contemporary and lifelong contemptor (sic) of Eric

  White, Antonia: author of Frost in May and pre-war lover of Eric’s, Catholic godmother of both Mary and Eric

  Woodruff, Douglas: Catholic polemicist, journalist and author, editor of the Tablet

  Ziegler, Heinz: Czech economics professor, later rear-gunner in RAF, killed in action in 1943, natural father of Toby

  Ziegler, Paul: brother of Heinz, banker, later Benedictine monk

  1. Mary Farmar, aged 24 in 1936, shortly before her engagement to Carol Swinfen.

  2. Eric Siepmann, aged 20 in 1923, a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, shortly before abandoning his studies.

  3. Mary writes from Boskenna in July 1945. (See corresponding letter here.)

  Mary and Eric’s correspondence was in manuscript. Mary invariably wrote her great looping hand in pen and ink.

  4. Eric writes from Chagford in September 1958.

  Eric usually wrote in pencil, in the neat, exact handwriting in which he wrote all his books, until the inevitable moment arrived and he destroyed them.

  Mary kept all their letters in chronological order, in shoeboxes, until the year she died.

  5. Twelfth of May 1937: Lord and Lady Swinfen, robed for the Coronation of George VI.

  6. Some of the children of the wartime nursery at Boskenna: (l.to r.) Toby, Ann Bailey, Nicky and Roger.


  7. Colonel Cambome Paynter JP on the lawn at Boskenna in West Cornwall, with Paul Hill, second husband of his only child Betty. Together the magistrate and the solicitor ran the local black market.

  8. Heinz Ziegler, alias ‘Flying Officer Henry Zetland’ of RAF Bomber Command, rear gunner and professor of economics, secretly Toby’s father.

  9. Wing-Commander ‘Paddy’ Green DSO, DFC, night-fighter pilot and one of Mary’s wartime lovers.

  10. Father Paul Ziegler, Heinz’s younger brother; banker, anti-aircraft gunner during the Blitz and finally a Benedictine monk. The Ziegler parents were deported from Prague to Auschwitz.

  11. Going into battle – Eric’s first wife, Phyllis, arriving at the Divorce Court in July 1951. She was a champion skier who drove Eric out of three jobs, punched Mary in front of the children and bit a hotel keeper in the leg.

  12. July 1954: Eric at Broughton with Pebble and his son Billy, born in 1953.

  13. Toby, Sonya and Mary. Sonya Paynter found refuge from her mother’s rackety life with Mary, who loved her as a daughter.

  14. Toby, Roger, Mary and Eric, the golden days before the crash.

  15. Roger, a regular officer in the 1st Royal Scots, leaves Mary in 1959 to join his unit.

  16. Mary, alone and broke in an unheated cottage on Dartmoor, after Eric’s death.

  17. Cullaford Cottage, Dartmoor, last home of Eric and Mary. The thatcher said that Mrs Siepmann paid him in cash, and was the only customer who always paid him on the nail.

  18. Mary Wesley, on a summer holiday during her years of fame.

  19. Mary and Sonya at a publication party in London in the 1990s. They are in the arms of David Salmon, a good friend and Dartmoor neighbour, who Mary could always count on for a Christmas joint.

  20. Bogan Cottage, Totnes, where she wrote The Camomile Lawn. The shelves by Mary’s bed in the room in which she died.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks are due to the literary executors of Mary Siepmann and Eric Siepmann for making the publication of this correspondence possible. I am particularly grateful to Toby Eady, a steadfast friend and for many years my agent. As a veteran of the wartime nursery at Boskenna, his help in identifying many of the inhabitants, human and otherwise, of the Siepmanns’ circle has been invaluable. I must also thank Xin Ran Hue Eady for her high-spirits and encouragement, and Kate Ganz, a close friend of Mary’s, who gave permission for the use of several of the photographs.

  I would also like to thank Veronique Baxter of David Higham Associates. At Random House, I am grateful to Rachel Cugnoni, Beth Coates and Kate Harvey for first recognising the potential of these letters, and to Mikaela Pedlow for seeing the book through the press. My original editor in this project was the late Penelope Hoare. Penny continued to provide invaluable guidance with her habitual enthusiasm and good humour despite suffering a painful illness. She worked on the book with great courage until the week before her sudden death in May 2017.

  INDEX

  The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

  Allen, Phyllis, 14, 51

  Alsace, Robert d’, 88, 88n, 89

  Anouilh, Jean, The Lark, 204n

  Apollinaire, Guillaume, 45

  Aragon, Louis, 6, 6n, 13, 30–31, 82

  Armstrong, Bill, 65, 66

  Arnold, Father Gabriel, 279, 281–282, 284

  Asquith, Anthony ‘Puffin’, xxii, 12

  Asquith, Arthur, 187n

  Asquith, Herbert Henry, xxii

  Asquith, Margot, xxii

  Asquith, Susan, 187, 187n

  Astor, Bill, 232

  Astor, David, 146, 162, 169

  Austen, Jane, Emma, 208, 214

  Balfour, Patrick, 165 see Kinross, Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron

  Bali, Indonesia, 186–187

  Bankes-Jones, Edith (née Siepmann), 86, 103, 251, 251n, 286, 288

  Bartlett, Vernon, 106, 106n, 108

  Basclose Farm, Otterton, 276, 278

  Bates, H. E., 125

  Batten, Jean, 54

  Baumer, Lewis, 125, 125n, 127

  Beaumont, Jimmy, 58

  Beddington, Jack, 232, 235, 253

  Beddington, Rosemary, 232

  Beechman, Nevil Alexander (‘Alec’), 6, 6n, 7, 14, 15, 18, 20, 28, 33, 35–36, 52, 57, 74, 76

  Beerbohm, Max, Seven Men, 214

  Benda, Julien, 24, 24n, 70

  Bennison, Geoffrey, 35

  Berlin, Germany, 133–135, 141–142

  Berlin Airlift, 130, 133, 142

  Berners, Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron, 76n

  Bernsdorf, Bridget, 176, 177, 184

  Bernsdorf, Hugo, 184

  Bernsdorf, Thora, 198, 198n, 208, 213, 257

  Bernstein, Sydney, 90

  Bertaux, Pierre, 24, 69, 69n, 166, 166n

  Blackwood, Bill, 73, 73n, 74

  Blackwood, Diana, xix, 20, 65, 66, 70, 77

  Blackwood, Nicky, xix–xx, 10, 21, 68

  Blessing, Dr Karl, 173, 173n, 183, 184, 244

  Blitz, London, xv, xix, 38

  Blum, Leon, 109

  Blunt, Sir Anthony, 171n

  Bolitho, Billy, 48

  Bolitho, John, 48n

  Bonham Carter, Violet, 247, 247n

  Boothby, Evelyn Basil, 187, 187n

  Boothby, Robert, 81, 81n, 168, 168n, 169

  Boris, George, 17, 17n

  Boscence, Joe, 76–77, 76n, 79

  Boskenna, Cornwall, xvii, xix, xx, 207, 207n

  Bowra, Maurice, xxii, 45, 45n, 58, 125, 202 Bracken, Brendan, 81, 81n

  Bradley, Dennis, 8, 8n, 12, 13, 27

  Bridie, James, It Depends What You Mean, 8, 8n, 11–12

  Brinckman, Mary, Lady (née Linton), 39n

  Brinckman, Rosemary (née Hope-Vere), 28, 28n, 38–39, 48, 53, 57, 76, 78, 107

  British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 31, 271, 272, 273

  British Council, 33

  British European Airways, 113, 117

  Buckfast Abbey, 276, 285

  Burgess, Guy, 171n

  Burma, 187

  Carnock, Frederick, 2nd Baron (‘Lord Puff-Puff’), 9

  Cartland, Barbara, 37n

  Cary, Joyce, Prisoner of Grace, 185, 185n

  Cassou, Jean, 108, 108n, 158, 162n, 163

  Cattier, Michel, 214, 215, 217, 219, 223, 224, 226, 229, 231, 236, 241, 245–246

  Charles, Nicky, 199, 234, 237, 239

  Churchill, Winston, xxiii, 121

  Clark, Norman, 142

  Clifton College, Bristol, 286

  Cobb, Carolyn, 123, 127, 129, 209, 212

  Cobbold, Cameron, 155, 155n

  Cockburn, Claud, 108, 108n, 225n

  Cockburn, Patricia, 108, 108n

  Cohen, Harriet, 120

  Coleman, Emily Holmes, 260, 260n, 282n

  Colman, Ronald, xxiii

  Compton-Burnett, Ivy, 121, 284

  Cooper, Duff, 17, 17n

  Cooper, Lady Diana, xxii

  Coward, Noël, 98

  Cox, Geoffrey, 274

  Crossman, R. H. S., xxiv

  Curtis Brown, Spencer, 41, 63, 88, 115, 115n, 117

  Dalby, Hyacinthe, Lady (née Wellesley), xvii

  Dalby, Sir William, xviii

  Dalton, Hugh, 115, 115n

  Davenport, John, 225, 225n, 227–228, 230, 231

  David, Gwenda, 225, 225n, 227, 230, 231, 231n

  Dawnay, George, 78

  Devos, Mrs, 85, 85n, 89

  Dibelius, Martin, 198, 198n

  Dieppe, France, 30

  Djilas, Milovan, 163, 163n

  Döhnoff, Marion Grafin von, 176–178, 176n, 180, 185

  Donegall, Arthur Chichester, 6th Marquis of, 33, 33n

  Donne, John, 127

  Downing, Tony, 100

  Dunlop, Sir John, 173, 177, 178, 180, 181

  Eady, Toby: banking career, 254, 25
7n, 259, 265; at Boskenna, xix; childhood, 7, 10, 14, 34, 35, 68, 76, 92, 96, 98, 101, 104, 138, 159; education, 128, 130, 267n; paternity, xvii, 4n, 124, 259n, 267–270, 278; reading, 272, 273; and religion, 261; at Thornworthy, 252, 253, 262

  Eliot, T. S., 16

  Elizabeth, Queen (the Queen Mother), 255

  Elliott, Denholm, 147n

  Emanuel, Ronnie, 57, 58, 70, 116, 142, 160

  Emanuel, Vera, 48, 48n, 50–51

  Farmar, Captain George, xvii

  Farmar, Colonel Mynors, xvii–xviii

  Farmar, Constantia (née Rumbold), 13, 13n, 59, 65, 66, 101

  Farmar, Hugh, xviii, 10, 13, 13n, 55n, 59, 65, 66, 77, 237n

  Farmar, Major General William, xvii

  Farmar, Susan, xviii, 14

  Farmar, Violet (née Dalby), xvii

  Fedden, Robin, 90, 90n, 93

  Fiertag, Gisele, 215, 217, 219, 226, 228, 229, 241, 245, 250

  Fleming, Ian, 130, 131, 145, 146, 163, 163n, 169

  Fleming, Peter, 246

  Fry, Christopher: The Lark (translation), 204, 204n; Venus Observed, 147, 147n, 148

  Gabbitas Thring (employment agency), 202, 202n

  Gargoyle Club, 86

  Gascoyne, David, 92

  Gates, Pauline, xxi, 4, 4n, 6–7, 11–12, 28, 52, 63, 67–68, 74, 75, 85, 173, 227n

  Gates, Sylvester, xxi, 4n, 13, 52, 63, 67

  Gaulle, General de, 36, 107

  George, Prince of Hanover, 232, 233, 242, 247

  Germany, division of, 143, 143n

  Gielgud, John, xxiii, 41

  Gillie, Darcie, 36, 106, 108

  Glass, Ann, 171, 171n

  Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein), 61–62, 61n, 66, 67, 70, 98

  Gollancz (publisher), 193, 194

  Gordon, George, 161, 161n

  Gordon Dadds (solicitors), 28, 64, 159, 164, 165

  Gow, Nancy, 116, 116n, 117, 159, 160, 205, 208, 220, 272