[tes3m]

Из мемуаров известного театрального режисера Питера Холла: «Когда я учился в начальных классах, учителем истории у меня был Вивиан Ричардс. Он был близким другом Т.Э.Лоуренса, его истории о нем были похожи на эпизоды из "Boy's Own Paper". Тогда они волновали, потом надоели. Мне не нравился Лоуренс. Я в него не верил. Было в нем что-то ненастоящее. Вивиан Ричардс, тем не менее, вселил в меня непреходящую страсть к архитектуре. Он водил группы мальчиков вокруг кембриджских колледжей и учил нас читать здание как исторический очерк. Средневековые здания наконец перестали меня пугать. ...
Теперь я понимаю, что Вивиан Ричардс был геем, и предполагаю, что он был влюблен в Лоуренса. Удивительно осознавать, как много среди моих школьных учителей, должно быть, было геев. В те дни это, конечно, была запретная тема — уголовное преступление, которое могло разрушить карьеру. Некоторые из моих учителей жили добропорядочной буржуазной жизнью, деля дом с каким-нибудь бизнесменом или чиновником из местных органов власти. Это были хорошие люди, вполне справлявшиеся со своей работой. И хотя моя мама с многозначительным видом характеризовала то одного, то другого из них "ну, это не дамский угодник", она явно никогда не видела необходимости как-то меня предостерегать»*.
*Цитата в оригинале, включая и пропущенный мной при переводе отрывок о граммофоне: "In my very early years at the school, my history master was Vivien Richards. He had been a close friend of T. E. Lawrence and his stories about him were like episodes from the Boy's Own Paper. They excited at the time, but then palled. I disliked Lawrence. I didn't believe in him. There was something about him that wasn't real. Vivien Richards, however, instilled in me a lasting passion for architecture. He took groups of boys round the Cambridge colleges and taught us how to read a building as a piece of history. Medieval buildings at last stopped threatening me. He also asked us to his lodgings to listen to records. He had a collection of classical music which he played through an enormous black horn. He used fibre needles, of which he was very proud, and the gramophone itself was clockwork, wound by hand. No electricity for him. Four or five boys No electricity for him. Four or five boys would group around the mouth of the horn and listen to the music, sipping cocoa in an untidy room that was stacked with 78 rpm. records and books. I realise now that Vivien Richards was homosexual and I suppose had been in love with Lawrence. It is curious to realise how many of my school teachers must have been homosexual. It was, of course, a hidden matter in those days — a criminal offence that could destroy a career. Several of my teachers lived solid bourgeois lives, sharing a house with a companion who was a business man or a local authority official. They were good men who just got on with their jobs. And though my mother would designate one or other of them as 'not a ladies' man' with a meaningful look, she clearly never felt the need to warn me" (Making an Exhibition of Myself: the autobiography by Peter Hall, Sinclair-Stevenson,1993, pp. 46-47).

@темы: окружение ТЭЛ, быт и нравы эпохи

Comments

[moody flooder]

Спасибо, интересно!

Мне не нравился Лоуренс. Я в него не верил. Было в нем что-то ненастоящее

Интересно, это он про Лоуренса как Лоуренса - или про образ, который подавал Ричардс?

[tes3m]

moody flooder, Я думаю, и про Лоуренса в рассказах Ричардса и вообще про тот официально одобренный образ Лоуренса, который преподносился школьникам. И не только школьникам, конечно, но тут уж явно был идеализирован до неправдоподобия. Ричардс, может, и сам не замечал, что в его рассказах — видимо, только о подвигах и гениальности — что-то не так. Он-то знал живого Лоуренса.

[FleetinG_]

Он водил группы мальчиков вокруг кембриджских колледжей и учил нас читать здание как исторический очерк. Средневековые здания наконец перестали меня пугать. Очень тронуло
А вот еще один ученик - и вся эта идиллия в духе Баден-Пауэлла
Vyvyan Richards, one of the masters at Bancrofts School in Woodford, had a small hut on Pole Hill built of wood before the Great War. Richards established a school cadet corps to develop character and initiative in the boys, some of whom stayed on Pole Hill occasionally. A small camp was also established at Knighton, quite near to the school. Richard s' friend from his university days at Oxford . T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), also visited both camps from time to time, as Roy McKenzie-Smith recalls:
Richards obtained permission from Edward North Buxton for a bell-tent and a camp-fire to be established on the parkland, some 300 yards from Knighton house and garden. We gathered there after football or cricket on a Wednesday or Saturday afternoon to grill sausages and make tea. Occasionally we were joined by T.E. Lawrence, a long-standing friend of Richards, and subject of
considerable hero worship among young Bancroftians. My recollection of Lawrence was as a little man, quite short, like Richards. He and Richards used to walk up and down deep in metaphysical conversation, but he wasn't averse to joining us boys around the camp-fire and talking with us too.
I remember Richards' hut on Pole Hill. It had a copper canopy over an open fire, with the chimney going up through the roof, and a whole lot of emblazoned shields around the top, maybe a dozen or so. However, that hut was burnt down in 1921. I had left school and was at college but I went up to Bancrofts during the summer term and saw Richards, who told me all about it. He said some idiot had set fire 0n the grass and the hut was destroyed. He was very despondent as he wasn't insured, and that was his home, apart from his rooms at Bancroft s. The next thing I heard, Lawrence had bought the land on Pole Hill and they were going to build a press there to print "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" in the tradition of William Morris. It didn't work out like that, though.
However, the schoolboys helped Richards to build another hut on Pole Hill and I remember sleeping in the right-hand wing of the building in a loft, which we reached by a ladder. As far as I know, Lawrence never lived in Richards' hut , but he did have a room in the old army barracks building. The last section at the southern end was partitioned off for him and it had next to nothing in it by way
of furniture, just a bed, a sheepskin rug and a well-known charcoal drawing of Lawrence by Augustus John hanging on the wall.
Dick Richards also remembers Richards' hut:
Our scout troop was allowed to camp in Vyvyan Richards' back garden. There was a little swimming pool there and he had planted some fruit trees - some of them are still growing there now. I think he or Lawrence may have planted the three poplar trees on the top of Pole Hill too. It was much more open then and you could see right across all of London. We used to pitch our tents and stay for the weekend. There was a crows nest, a very tall telegraph pole with a sort of box on the top, and we'd climb up there and get a wonderful view. How long.that stood there after Richards left, I couldn 't say. Richards' first hut was more of a shanty with a veranda, and it burnt down in 1921. The second hut was L-shaped with mullion windows. This was eventually taken down and is in the Conservators' yard at the Warren.
Eventually Lawrence took a cottage in Dorset, Richards moved to live in Wales, and so in 1930 the land owned by Lawrence on Pole Hill was added to Epping Forest. Richards' hut lay derelict in the Warren yard for many years, but in October 1986 the Conservators of Epping Forest gave permission for the Epping Forest Centenary Trust to repair the building and use it as a storeroom and workshop for their schools' conservation project.
© Georgina Green ~ Keepers, Cockneys & Kitchen Maids (1987)www.friendsofeppingforest.org.uk/ggkeepersetc.p...

[tes3m]

FleetinG_, Спасибо!))))

и вся эта идиллия в духе Баден-Пауэлла