The perfect summer

"The English are famously bad at dealing with high temperatures, and for those alive in the summer of 1911, even the rich, conditions became intolerable. Just as the petals of an English rose in June prepare to fall at the very moment when the flower is at its loveliest, so the apparently flawless beauty of the summer weather wilted in its own heat. A succession of cloudless days had given people confidence in an unbroken pattern of continuing sunshine. Yet there were unmistakable signs of perfection overreaching itself, as the rumble of thunder and several dramatic storms interrupted the sunny constancy of those months.

And as the unpredictability of the summer weather unfolded, so the country was brought to a near-standstill by industrial strikes and the breadth of the chasm between the privileged and the disadvantaged became ever more obvious. It was a summer when, as the Countess of Fingall put it, ‘We danced on the edge of an abyss.’ There was a sense of urgency about that summer. Socialites crammed in their gaiety as intensively as the poor made their grievances apparent. It was as if time was running out."

Granted, a lot of the urgency is sensed many years later when the surviving participants of those days looked back on them and saw the events in very different ways. I was reminded of ancient Rome or 18th century France, whose aristocracies lived wild, dissolute lives - and paid for it in the end. For the British aristocracy, the party did not appear to have an end - things would just go on like this forever. Of course, it would all come down with a huge crash, just like a stack of cards built too high.

The younger (and some of the older) aristocrats were behaving like high school or college kids - let's party until someone makes us grow up! - and no none did. It took a war three years later. As I said along, I just thought, "What a complete waste!" I'm all for fun, but you have to be serious, too, and they weren't. It's just parties after another. Parties like the one where Clementine Churchill
(Winston's wife) shows up dressed as a nun - despite the fact that she is nine months pregnant.

To give an example of the lavish lifestyle:

"At Chatsworth in Derbyshire some 260 people worked on the estate; there were two full-time rabbit catchers, 44 woodmen, 55 under-gardeners, and a resident fireman. This figure was added to when the Duke and Duchess were in residence, bringing with them their ‘travelling’ staff who included a considerable number of personal footmen and maids. Arriving for a hunting weekend at Blenheim, Churchill’s friend F.E. Smith would bring with him not only three grooms to look after his own two hunters, his wife’s two hunters and his children’s ponies, but also two nurses, a maid and a valet. In the house, 40 indoor staff prepared for guests, and there were five electricians and a couple of full-time florists. The night-watchman patrolled the Palace with his especially trained Airedale police dog, and throughout the summer a professional cricketer was available to give guidance and instruction."

With all the bed hopping that went on, there were apt to be mistakes:

"Lord Charles Beresford became particularly vigilant after leaping with an exultant ‘Cock-a-doodle-do!’, onto a darkened bed, believing it to contain his lover, only to be vigorously batted away by the much startled Bishop of Chester. At six in the morning a hand-bell rung on each of the bedroom floors gave guests time to return to their own beds before the early morning tea trays arrived.

Yet while the upper classes partied, things began to change for the lower classes. It was no longer the case that you would follow your parents' profession. You could go for something entirely different:

"The head of the carpentry shop at Knole near Sevenoaks in Kent was in despair when his son announced that he did not intend to carry on in the family woodworking tradition. In tears, the older man explained to Vita Sackville-West: his son wanted ‘to go into the motor trade. What is engines? What’s screwing up a nut beside handling a nice piece of wood?’ Unable to understand the state of mind of the coming generation, the carpenter concluded that his son was ‘giving up a sure job for a shadow. It seems to me that everything is breaking up.’"

Everything WAS breaking up - it just took a war to be the catalyst.