‘Just wondering, sir,’ he said, as I approached, ‘how your legs were.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
The fellow gestured up the footpath. ‘You got to have a good pair of legs and a good pair of lungs to go up there. Me, I haven’t got neither, so I stay down here. But if I was in better shape, I’d be sitting up there. There’s a nice little spot up there, a bench and everything. And you won’t get a better view anywhere in the whole of England.’
‘If what you say is true,’ I said, ‘I think I’d rather stay here. I happen to be embarking on a motoring trip during the course of which I hope to see many splendid views. To see the best before I have properly begun would be somewhat premature.’
The fellow did not seem to understand me, for he simply said again: ‘You won’t see a better view in the whole of England. But I tell you, you need a good pair of legs and a good pair of lungs.’ Then he added: ‘I can see you’re in good shape for your age, sir. I’d say you could make your way up there, no trouble. I mean, even I can manage on a good day.’
I glanced up the path, which did look steep and rather rough.
‘I’m telling you, sir, you’ll be sorry if you don’t take a walk up there. And you never know. A couple more years and it might be too late’ – he gave a rather vulgar laugh – ‘Better go on up while you still can.’
It occurs to me now that the man might just possibly have meant this in a humorous sort of way; that is to say, he intended it as a bantering remark. But this morning, I must say, I found it quite offensive and it may well have been the urge to demonstrate just how foolish his insinuation had been that caused me to set off up the footpath.
In any case, I am very glad I did so. Certainly, it was quite a strenuous walk – though I can say it failed to cause me any real difficulty – the path rising in zigzags up the hillside for a hundred yards or so. I then reached a small clearing, undoubtedly the spot the man had referred to. Here one was met by a bench – and indeed, by a most marvellous view over miles of the surrounding countryside.
What I saw was principally field upon field rolling off into the far distance. The land rose and fell gently, and the fields were bordered by hedges and trees. There were dots in some of the distant fields which I assumed to be sheep. To my right, almost on the horizon, I thought I could see the square tower of a church.
It was a fine feeling indeed to be standing up there like that, with the sound of summer all around one and a light breeze on one’s face. And I believe it was then, looking on that view, that I began for the first time to adopt a frame of mind appropriate for the journey before me. For it was then that I felt the first healthy flush of anticipation for the many interesting experiences I know these days ahead hold in store for me. And indeed, it was then that I felt a new resolve not to be daunted in respect to the one professional task I have entrusted myself with on this trip; that is to say, regarding Miss Kenton and our present staffing problems.
But that was this morning. This evening I find myself settled here in this comfortable guest house in a street not far from the centre of Salisbury. It is, I suppose, a relatively modest establishment, but very clean and perfectly adequate for my needs. The landlady, a woman of around forty or so, appears to regard me as a rather grand visitor on account of Mr Farraday’s Ford and the high quality of my suit. This afternoon – I arrived in Salisbury at around three thirty – when I entered my address in her register as ‘Darlington Hall’, I could see her look at me with some trepidation, assuming no doubt that I was some gentleman used to such places as the Ritz or the Dorchester and that I would storm out of her guest house on being shown my room. She informed me that a double room at the front was available, though I was welcome to it for the price of a single.
I was then brought up to this room, in which, at that point of the day, the sun was lighting up the floral patterns of the wallpaper quite agreeably. There were twin beds and a pair of good-sized windows overlooking the street. On inquiring where the bathroom was, the woman told me in a timid voice that although it was the door facing mine, there would be no hot water available until after supper. I asked her to bring me up a pot of tea, and when she had gone, inspected the room further. The beds were perfectly clean and had been well made. The basin in the corner was also very clean. On looking out of the windows, one saw on the opposite side of the street a bakery displaying a variety of pastries, a chemist’s shop and a barber’s. Further along, one could see where the street passed over a round-backed bridge and on into more rural surroundings. I refreshed my face and hands with cold water at the basin, then seated myself on a hard-backed chair left near one of the windows to await my tea.
I would suppose it was shortly after four o’clock that I left the guest house and ventured out into the streets of Salisbury. The wide, airy nature of the streets here give the city a marvellously spacious feel, so that I found it most easy to spend some hours just strolling in the gently warm sunshine. Moreover, I discovered the city to be one of many charms; time and again, I found myself wandering past delightful rows of old timber-fronted houses, or crossing some little stone footbridge over one of the many streams that flow through the city. And of course, I did not fail to visit the fine cathedral, much praised by Mrs Symons in her volume. This august building was hardly difficult for me to locate, its looming spire being ever-visible wherever one goes in Salisbury. Indeed, as I was making my way back to this guest house this evening, I glanced back over my shoulder on a number of occasions and was met each time by a view of the sun setting behind that great spire.
And yet tonight, in the quiet of this room, I find that what really remains with me from this first day’s travel is not Salisbury Cathedral, nor any of the other charming sights of this city, but rather that marvellous view encountered this morning of the rolling English countryside. Now I am quite prepared to believe that other countries can offer more obviously spectacular scenery. Indeed, I have seen in encyclopedias and the National Geographic Magazine breathtaking photographs of sights from various corners of the globe; magnificent canyons and waterfalls, raggedly beautiful mountains. It has never, of course, been my privilege to have seen such things at first hand, but I will nevertheless hazard this with some confidence: the English landscape at its finest – such as I saw it this morning – possesses a quality that the landscapes of other nations, however more superficially dramatic, inevitably fail to possess. It is, I believe, a quality that will mark out the English landscape to any objective observer as the most deeply satisfying in the world, and this quality is probably best summed up by the term ‘greatness’. For it is true, when I stood on that high ledge this morning and viewed the land before me, I distinctly felt that rare, yet unmistakable feeling – the feeling that one is in the presence of greatness. We call this land of ours Great Britain, and there may be those who believe this a somewhat immodest practice. Yet I would venture that the landscape of our country alone would justify the use of this lofty adjective.
And yet what precisely is this ‘greatness’? Just where, or in what, does it lie? I am quite aware it would take a far wiser head than mine to answer such a question, but if I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it. In comparison, the sorts of sights offered in such places as Africa and America, though undoubtedly very exciting, would, I am sure, strike the objective viewer as inferior on account of their unseemly demonstrativeness.
This whole question is very akin to the question that has caused much debate in our profession over the years: what is a ‘great’ butler? I can recall many hours of enjoyable discussion on this topic around the fire of the servants’ hall at the end of a day. You will notice I say ‘what’ rather than ‘who’ is a great butler; for there was actually no serious dispute as to the identity of the men who set the standards amongst our generation. That is to say, I am talking of the likes of Mr Marshall of Charleville House, or Mr Lane of Bridewood. If you have ever had the privilege of meeting such men, you will no doubt know of the quality they possess to which I refer. But you will no doubt also understand what I mean when I say it is not at all easy to define just what this quality is.
Incidentally, now that I come to think further about it, it is not quite true to say there was no dispute as to who were the great butlers. What I should have said was that there was no serious dispute among professionals of quality who had any discernment in such matters. Of course, the servants’ hall at Darlington Hall, like any servants’ hall anywhere, was obliged to receive employees of varying degrees of intellect and perception, and I recall many a time having to bite my lip while some employee – and at times, I regret to say, members of my own staff – excitedly eulogized the likes of, say, Mr Jack Neighbours.
I have nothing against Mr Jack Neighbours, who sadly, I understand, was killed in the war. I mention him simply because his was a typical case. For two or three years in the mid-thirties, Mr Neighbours’s name seemed to dominate conversations in every servants’ hall in the land. As I say, at Darlington Hall too, many a visiting employee would bring the latest tales of Mr Neighbours’s achievements, so that I and the likes of Mr Graham would have to share the frustrating experience of hearing anecdote after anecdote relating to him. And most frustrating of all would be having to witness at the conclusion of each such anecdote otherwise decent employees shaking their heads in wonder and uttering phrases like: ‘That Mr Neighbours, he really is the best.’
Now I do not doubt that Mr Neighbours had good organizational skills; he did, I understand, mastermind a number of large occasions with conspicuous style. But at no stage did he ever approach the status of a great butler. I could have told you this at the height of his reputation, just as I could have predicted his downfall after a few short years in the limelight.
How often have you known it for the butler who is on everyone’s lips one day as the greatest of his generation to be proved demonstrably within a few years to have been nothing of the sort? And yet those very same employees who once heaped praise on him will be too busy eulogizing some new figure to stop and examine their sense of judgement. The object of this sort of servants’ hall talk is invariably some butler who has come to the fore quite suddenly through having been appointed by a prominent house, and who has perhaps managed to pull off two or three large occasions with some success. There will then be all sorts of rumours buzzing through servants’ halls up and down the country to the effect that he has been approached by this or that personage or that several of the highest houses are competing for his services with wildly high wages. And what has happened before a few years have passed? This same invincible figure has been held responsible for some blunder, or has for some other reason fallen out of favour with his employers, leaves the house where he came to fame and is never heard of again. Meanwhile, those same gossipers will have found yet some other newcomer about whom to enthuse. Visiting valets, I have found, are often the worst offenders, aspiring as they usually do to the position of butler with some urgency. They it is who tend to be always insisting this or that figure is the one to emulate, or repeating what some particular hero is said to have pronounced upon professional matters.
But then, of course, I hasten to add, there are many valets who would never dream of indulging in this sort of folly – who are, in fact, professionals of the highest discernment. When two or three such persons were gathered together at our servants’ hall – I mean of the calibre of, say, Mr Graham, with whom now, sadly, I seem to have lost touch – we would have some of the most stimulating and intelligent debates on every aspect of our vocation. Indeed, today, those evenings rank amongst my fondest memories from those times.
But let me return to the question that is of genuine interest, this question we so enjoyed debating when our evenings were not spoilt by chatter from those who lacked any fundamental understanding of the profession; that is to say, the question ‘what is a great butler?’
David Dabydeen
[1955–]
David Dabydeen was born on a sugar plantation in Berbice, Guyana (formerly British Guiana). His work is greatly influenced by the racial violence of the early 1960s that he observed during his childhood. When he was twelve years old, Dabydeen moved to England, where, after his parents’ divorce, he grew up in the care of the local authorities. He attended the universities of Cambridge and London, and received his doctorate in 1982.
Dabydeen’s career has effectively been a blend of writing and scholarship. His academic appointments include a research fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford, and a lectureship at the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick, where he is now the Director of Studies. He remains dedicated to raising political and personal consciousness through his teaching, and his poetry exhibits similar goals. In 1984 he published Slave Song, a series of poems narrated by sugar-cane cutters and ironically presented by Dabydeen under a cloak of Scholarly’ translations and notes. Through these dramatic monologues, Dabydeen expresses the ‘erotic energies of the colonial experience’ and the spiritual and physical suffering of his characters, who long to possess the ‘ideal’ characteristics they see embodied in whites. Slave Song earned Dabydeen the 1984 Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the Quiller-Couch Prize at Cambridge.
In 1985 Dabydeen edited The Black Presence in English Literature with Paul Edwards. Hogarth’s Blacks: Images of Blacks in Eighteenth-century English Art was his second academic publication, a book which can be read in conjunction with his work Hogarth, Walpole and Commercial Britain (1987). Both are studies of the painter William Hogarth and the relatively progressive depiction of blacks in his art. In 1988 Dabydeen published his second collection of poetry, Coolie Odyssey, In this volume he evokes the experiences of East Indians in both Britain and the Caribbean, and comments on the effects of colonialism.
Dabydeen’s first novel, The Intended, was published in 1991 and won the Guyana Prize for Literature. It is an autobiographical account of the author’s boyhood in Guyana, and subsequent emigration to England, and illustrates Dabydeen’s personal struggle to replace feelings of self-loathing and inferiority with a sense of pride. In 1993 Dabydeen published Disappearance, which is narrated by a young West Indian engineer who has been employed to rescue a deteriorating village on the Kent coast. Turner: New and Selected Poems was published in 1994 and his third novel, The Counting House, in 1996.
Memories of colonial exploitation are always close to the surface in Dabydeen’s work. His poem ‘London Taxi Driver’ (1988) is typical of his impatience with the damage that the metropolitan world continues to inflict on the psyche of the immigrant. Without the warm mythological sense of Britain that seemed to form an important backdrop to the work of earlier generations of West Indian-born writers, Dabydeen’s juxtaposition of present-day Britain with remembered ‘home’ is disturbing,
LONDON TAXI DRIVER
From Tooting, where I picked him up, to Waterloo,
He honked, swerved, swore,
Paused at the twin-tubbed buttocks of High Street Wives,
Jerked forward again,
Unwound the window as we sped along,
Hawked and spat.
The talk was mostly solitary,
Of the new single, of missing the pools by bleeding two,
Of some sweet bitch in some soap serial,
