Too Close to the Sun (45 page)

Tania buried him in the indifferent soil of the Ngong Hills, under the grass where he once lay looking at eagles.

Henry Finch Hatton, Denys’s father (family collection)

Nan Finch Hatton with her three children (family collection)

Denys and his mother (family collection)

Toby and Denys at Haverholme (family collection)

Denys golfing (family collection)

Topsy and Denys (family collection)

Haverholme Priory (family collection)

Julian Grenfell and Denys (courtesy of Lord Ravensdale)

Denys as a teenager, photographed by his mother (family collection)

Toby and the Haverholme gamekeeper (family collection)

Denys at Eton (family collection)

Nan, Henry, and Margaretta in 1919 (family collection)

Denys, Nan, and Henry at Haverholme in 1922 (family collection)

Toby, Ossie, and Denys (family collection)

Toby and Denys (family collection)

Denys in 1910, before departure for Africa (family collection)

The Mara Triangle (courtesy of Eco-resorts: www.eco-resorts.com)

Nine hundred and fifty-three elephants (Peter Beard)

Denys with Rose and Algy Cartwright at Lake Naivasha (family collection)

Nairobi in the 1920s (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

Denys, Jack Pixley, Tich Miles, and Lady Colville (by kind permission of the Estate of Elspeth Huxley)

Denys with buffalo, Lake Jipe, 1927 (family collection)

Cole’s Scouts watering, 1915 (Lord Cranworth,
Kenya Chronicles,
1939)

Berkeley Cole and Tich Miles (courtesy of Miles family)

Denys interrogating an
askari
during the East Africa campaign, 1915 (private collection)

Tania with Dawn and Dusk (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

Tania and Blix on the farm (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

Tania in Denmark before leaving for Africa (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

Tania and the owl Minerva (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

Kikuyu
moran
outside the farm in 1922 (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

Tania and staff (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

The farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

The beach house at Takaungu (author)

Denys on safari with Patterson (Frederick B. Patterson)

Denys driving through a swollen river (family collection)

Denys and Edward, Prince of Wales, on safari in 1928 (family collection)

Beryl Markham (by kind permission of Pollinger Limited and the proprietor)

A
ngoma
on the farm, 1928 (Archive of the Rungstedlund Foundation, Royal Library, Copenhagen)

Elephant photographed by Denys (family collection)

Denys in Kenya in the 1920s (family collection)

The Gypsy Moth (family collection)

All books published in London unless otherwise indicated.

ABBREVIATIONS

ARCHIVAL SOURCES USED IN NOTES

INTRODUCTION

“the paradise section of ”:
Introduction to
WwtN,
viii.

“Charm…is the great”:
Evelyn Waugh,
Brideshead Revisited,
1945, 260.

“The man with about”: KC,
190.

“exceptionally scanty material”:
C. Hordern and H. Stacke,
Military Operations in East Africa
(
History of the Great War Based on Official Documents
), vol. 1, 1941, iii.

“We found accounts of ”: KC,
180.

“It is worth having”: Letters,
168.

“No one came into”:
Ibid., xxv.

CHAPTER 1. OUT OF TRIM

“I saw him first”:
Llewelyn Powys,
Black Laughter,
1925, 168.

“like one of his”: Evening Standard,
May 15, 1931.

“But if a man”:
Harold Finch Hatton,
Advance Australia!,
1885, 88.

“only white man who”: Who’s Who,
1897–1904.

“getting out of trim”: The Times,
August 22, 1864.

“so many imputations of ”:
Ibid., November 24, 1864.

“began to ‘take soundings’”:
Edith Craig and Christopher St. John, eds.,
Ellen Terry’s Memoirs,
1933, 127.

“He has remained with”:
John Craigie, “Memories of Denys Finch Hatton,” dictated to Seton Gordon 1969, private collection.

“Everything in the family”:
HFH, Diary, January 1, 1887, Northampton.

“to see to things”:
Ibid., January 23, 1887.

“Alack, HP is a”:
Ibid., February 10, 1887.

“No sale is possible”:
Ibid., April 20, 1887.

“Hurrah at last!…No”:
Ibid., May 10, 1887.

“My darling Nan”:
Ibid., August 15, 1887.

“Never had so much”:
Ibid., November 12, 1887.

“So ends 1887, and”:
Ibid., December 31, 1887.

“Poor dear old W.”:
Ibid., June 15, 1887.

“the succession led to”: The Times,
September 8, 1898.

“Chix having a fine”:
AFH, Diary, June 30, 1891, family collection.

“I wish us all”:
AFH, Diary, January 1, 1892, family collection.

“Il faut à la”: inscribed by King Leopold in 1861 on a paperweight he presented to the anticolonial Belgian finance minister. Paperweight now in Tervuren Museum.

“Oh…all the time”:
Christopher St. John, ed.,
Ellen Terry & George Bernard Shaw, A Correspondence,
1931, 104.

“She was so unselfish”:
HFH to Michael Williams, July 3, 1924, family collection.

“locus vastae, solitudinis et”: Les Gostick, “The Story of the People of Ewerby & Haverholme,” n.d., unpublished, 80.

“My God, man”:
Michael Williams, conversation with author, July 2002.

“Last day, last walk”:
AFH, Diary, January 1896, family collection.

“Horrid cold place. It”:
Ibid.

“the ‘Avunculus Hector’ whose”:
anon.,
Eton College Chronicle,
May 21, 1931, 1060.

“Imperialism in the air”:
Beatrice Webb, June 26, 1897, published in
The Diary: 1892–1905—All the Good Things of Life,
1983.

“a sympathetic, fatherly and”:
Mark Hichens,
West Downs,
Durham, 1992, 9.

“Please, sir, may I”:
Ibid., 15.

“Toby had great charm…a wonderful family, quite…He had such understanding…immense reserves of affection”:
correspondence between Michael Williams and Errol Trzebinski, 1975, RH.

“The Dog was wild”:
Rudyard Kipling,
Just So Stories,
1902.

CHAPTER 2. TAKE YOUR HAT OFF, HATTON

“Did the sun always”:
anon.,
Eton College Chronicle,
May 21, 1931, 1060.

“Most of us know”:
Robert Skidelsky,
John Maynard Keynes, 1883–1946,
2003, 57.

“So the blow has”:
Wilfrid Blunt,
Lady Muriel,
1962, 27.

“was something in which”:
Osbert Sitwell,
Left Hand, Right Hand!,
vol. 1,
The Cruel Month,
1945, 241.

“a gust of Tathalmic”:
anon.,
Eton College Chronicle,
May 21, 1931, 1060.

“he might have been”:
Peter Stansky,
The Worlds of Philip and Sybil Sassoon,
2003, 26.

“that family of fabulous”:
L. E. Jones,
A Victorian Boyhood,
1955, 93.

“Is it peace?”:
Evelyn Waugh,
The Life of Ronald Knox,
1959, 62.

“Very grave news. Come”:
Jones,
A Victorian Boyhood,
179.

“without doubt the handsomest…dressing-gown—an unforgettable Antinous”:
Julian Huxley,
Memories,
vol. 1, 1970, 52.

“in full sunshine crossing”:
anon.,
Eton College Chronicle,
May 21, 1931, 1060.

“Keir Hardie in his…but it could never…to be an island”:
Jones,
A Victorian Boyhood,
219.

“The headmaster used to”: KC,
190.

“Denys was a great…of him like that”:
anon.,
Eton College Chronicle,
May 21, 1931, 1060.

“It is very nice”:
Blunt,
Lady Muriel,
35.

“I remember Denys so”:
Oliver Wynne Hughes,
Every Day Was Summer,
Llandysul, 1989.

“special bond”:
Michael Williams, correspondence with author, 2003; correspondence between Anne Williams and Errol Trzebinski, 1975, RH.

“rotten social life”:
correspondence between Michael Williams and Errol Trzebinski, 1975, RH.

“a breath of fresh air”:
Michael Williams, correspondence with author, 2003.

“There is no good”:
family collection.

“Even as a boy”: Evening Standard,
May 15, 1931.

“Take your hat off ”:
Errol Trzebinski,
The Lives of Beryl Markham,
1993, 88.

“the roomy, uncrowded years”:
L. E. Jones,
An Edwardian Youth,
1956, 41.

“Remember, you are playing”: KC,
190.

“He did not appear”: Evening Standard,
May 15, 1931.

“I had myself been”:
Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen),
Seven Gothic Tales,
New York, 1934, 256 (page number refers to Penguin Classics edition, 2002).

“The Hon. Finch Hatton”: Eton College Chronicle,
April 6, 1905.

“a tiara of hair”:
Craigie, “Memories of Denys Finch Hatton.”

“Oxford was always a”:
Waugh,
The Life of Ronald Knox,
53.

“The only time I…idle for a moment”: Evening Standard,
May 15, 1931.

“Denys was such a”:
Craigie, “Memories of Denys Finch Hatton.”

“the 52nd heir to”:
Ibid.

“It’s ’arf past seven”:
Ibid.

“In a long life”:
Ibid.

“romance was the star”:
Daphne Fielding,
The Rainbow Picnic,
1974, 13.

“the only true bohemian”:
John Julius Norwich, conversation with author, 2004.

“was a romantic, and”:
Ivan Moffat to Errol Trzebinski, May 30, 1975, RH.

“Denys has taken a”:
Nicholas Mosley,
Julian Grenfell,
1976, 139.

“for matches”:
Craigie, “Memories of Denys Finch Hatton.”

“With his grand physique”: KC,
191.

“It is surprising how”:
Bertrand Russell,
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell,
vol. 1, 1967, 70.

“crowd and heat appalling”:
GFH (Toby), Diary, May 20, 1910, family collection.

“England is small, much”:
correspondence between Michael Williams and Errol Trzebinski, 1975, RH.

“What do we mean”:
A. C. Benson and H.F.W. Tatham, eds.,
Men of Might,
1892, 257.

“The thirst for the”:
H. Rider Haggard,
King Solomon’s Mines,
1886, 18.

“It was simply splendid”:
Blunt,
Lady Muriel,
48.

CHAPTER 3. INTO AFRICA

“London always seemed rather”:
Alan Parsons,
Evening Standard,
May 15, 1931.

“a railway through the”:
Charles Miller,
The Lunatic Express,
1971, 587.

“Don’t waste time turning”:
Elspeth Huxley,
White Man’s Country,
vol. 1, 1935, 155.

“destroying any old or”:
Ibid., v.

“He had seen what”:
Frederick B. Patterson,
African Adventures,
New York, 1928, 19.

“Great success though personally”:
GFH (Toby), Diary, February 2, 1906. This volume of the diary has gone missing from the Northampton archive but was read and noted by Errol Trzebinski in 1975.

“hoping to find Denys’s”:
GFH (Toby), Diary, July 20, 1912, family collection.

“Went to see ‘Post’”:
GFH (Toby), Diary, January 11, 1913, family collection.

T
HE FLOODGATES OF REVOLUTION
: Daily Mail,
August 11, 1911.

“Everything went very well”:
GFH (Toby), Diary, February 5, 1912, family collection.

“panelled slum”:
Viola Parsons, ed.,
Alan Parsons’ Book,
1937, 50.

“beautiful and happy chaos”:
Ibid.

“He’s such a tonic…on champagne and caviare”:
Mosley,
Julian Grenfell,
202.

“the Valhalla of Julian”:
Parsons, ed.,
Alan Parsons’ Book,
294.

“smelt of the sweat”:
Powys,
Black Laughter,
53.

“With his vast talents…Once I remonstrated…finally have yielded to”: KC,
192.

“an unusual outburst of…sick of being treated”:
Ibid., 83.

“The very best of ”:
Ibid., 191.

“the economic conquest”: Leader,
Nairobi, April 9, 1911.

“a sop to the”:
Ibid., March 14, 1914.

“I believe…that even”:
Ibid., October 7, 1911.

“Nature had endowed him”: KC,
192.

“At all times, however”: The Times,
April 11, 1934.

“Things very flat…Russia”:
GFH (Toby), Diary, February 7, 1913, family collection.

“very good”:
GFH (Toby), Diary, March 7, 1913, family collection.

“fly upside down…wonderful”:
GFH (Toby), Diary, September 3, 1913, family collection.

“By Allah, I will”:
Charles Chevenix Trench,
Men Who Ruled Kenya,
1993, 64.

“True solitude”:
Gerald Hanley,
Warriors,
1993 edition, 3.

“I have never in…more distinction of mind”:
Malcolm Elwin,
The Life of Llewelyn Powys,
1949, 126.

“It seemed that Galbraith”: The Times,
October 12, 1929.

“You will imagine the”:
GC to Adrian and Christine Cave, September 14 [1914], PRONI.

CHAPTER 4. HUNS IN THE JUNGLE

“Finch Hatton could best”:
Powys,
Black Laughter,
168.

“Men are requested to”: Leader,
August 8, 1914.