I was sad that I couldn’t make it to a day celebrating Beverley Nichols recently – but Karen did and emailed me about it. I thought her report might appeal further afield, and asked if I could share it here. Photos also from Karen; thanks Karen!
On Sunday, a day which would have been his 120th birthday, I went to Glatton to the Beverley Nichols celebration weekend. It was wonderful! The Fenlands Trust and a local village man who enjoyed researching the local celebrity had put a lot of work into it.
The literary exhibition of his work was comprehensive and the hall was beautifully decorated with photographs, posters, mementos – they even had a video playing of Evensong. As well as novels, plays, poetry, autobiography and music scores it included ephemera such as a guide to Brighton, a review of the Coronation, adverts for menswear, introductions to many other works, and even the set of cigarette cards of which he was a featured writer. They had some letters, some journalism, such as his imagined, self-penned obituary (Here lies… Beverley Nichols, a column published in the Mirror in 1937 – very interesting if you can find it), his essay on euthanasia in the Spectator in 1975, copies of Woman’s Own, the Sketch magazine – I scarcely had time to see all of it. I practically squealed with delight when I found a summary of the Sweet and Twenties quoting my very own goodreads review of it. (Simon’s note: WordPress is doing that annoying thing of rotating pictures… but you get the idea.)
It was very much a village affair. The WI did teas and cakes, and lots of village people bustled about fetching more chairs when the village hall filled up. They had a small selection of books for sale (I picked up three titles I hadn’t already got, only £10 each) and then they handed out a free apple each from Beverley’s garden. One local lady told me when she moved to Glatton 40 years ago, she met someone who had known him. People should be banned – seriously, banned – from dropping this sort of teaser and then failing to elaborate ;).
There was a speech about Nichols’ life with lots of anecdotes and pictures of him at various stages followed by a church service celebrating his talent (a fine piece of irony given that he was hounded out of Glatton by the villagers who were growing ever more intolerant of his fast and loose metropolitan set and their wild parties, as well as the publicity his books were generating).
Officiating was the Bishop of Huntingdon who had read Nichols’ Christian polemic The Fool Hath Spoke in preparation for his address, claiming it raised only the occasional episcopal eyebrow. I saw the lovely stained glass windows in the church and then the unveiling of the plaque at the crossroads of the village. The local paper sent a photographer and hopefully there will be a picture in the local paper at some point of the episcopal robes, crozier and a bunch of diehard grinning Bev fans around the plaque.
The whole day was wonderful and the exhibition was totally absorbing!
How wonderful! Thank you for sharing that with us, both!
Oh, I’m so jealous! I was gutted, as they say, that I couldn’t go. But at least if I’m ever in the area I can stop and look at the plaque. Thanks so much for sharing this with us!
Thank you so much for this post. I love his books although there are a few that I have yet to track down.
I would have gone to this – been a BN fan for the last dozen years after being a fan of his children’s books as a child – but only just heard about it. I visited Glatton a few times over the last decade and on my first visit, aimlessly wandering (the church was locked) and wondering what exactly I was doing there, two women chatting on the green asked me if I needed anything. When I mentioned BN, the one woman said she lived in his house, and she invited me to come in and have a look around – even into the room with all the autographs on the wall. I was thrilled to bits and can’t quite believe she was kind enough to let me in.