Odd this day
On this day 79 years ago, Evelyn Waugh was being a bloody awful father.
The space for alt text isn’t long enough, so just in case: that’s an Evelyn Waugh diary entry for 26 December 1945.
Marie Teresa and Bron [his children] have arrived; he ingratiating, she covered with little medals and badges, neurotically voluble with the vocabulary of the lower-middle class — ‘serviette’, ‘spare room’. Only on points of theology does she become rational… We managed to collect a number of trashy and costly toys for the stockings. We had a goose for luncheon and a tasteless plum pudding made for us by Mrs Harper, a bottle of champagne. By keeping the children in bed for long periods we managed to have a tolerable day. My only present, a very welcome one, a box of cigars from Auberon. I have seats for both Bath and Bristol pantomimes. The children leave on the 10th. Meanwhile I have my meals in the library.
Mind you, just less than a year later, he was still a bloody awful father, so maybe — just maybe — this wasn’t a one-off.
Once again, in lieu of alt text:
Evelyn Waugh diary entry, 23 December 1946: The presence of my children affects me with deep weariness and depression. I do not see them until luncheon, as I have my breakfast alone in the library, and they are in fact well trained to avoid my part of the house; but I am aware of them from the moment I wake. Luncheon is very painful. Teresa has a mincing habit of speech and a pert, humourless style of wit; Bron is clumsy and dishevelled, sly, without intellectual, aesthetic or spiritual interest; Margaret is pretty and below the age of reason. In the nursery whooping cough rages I believe. At tea I meet the three elder children again and they usurp the drawing-room until it is time to dress for dinner. I used to take some pleasure in inventing legends for them about Basil Bennett, Dr Bedlam and the Sebag-Montefiores. But now they think it ingenious to squeal: ‘It isn’t true? I taught them the game of draughts for which they show no aptitude.
Ah, well. On a happier note…
