Hove in the Past: Good-Bye To All That (and Hove)

Judy Middleton 2022

copyright © Mr G. Osborne
The Graves family lived at 11 Seaside Cottages from December 1918 until October 1919,
(number 11 is the last building in the terrace, later renamed 11 Western Esplanade)

Robert Graves (1895-1985) is such an iconic figure today that some of his books remain in print including his autobiography Goodbye to All That (1929, updated 1957, reprinted 2000). This book, together with one written by his friend Siegfried Sassoon Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, are regarded as the two finest memoirs of what life in the trenches was really like during the First World War. (Incidentally, Siegfried Sassoon had family members living in Queen's Gardens, Hove.)

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Graves stayed at Hove only briefly but it is of critical importance because he managed to survive a bout of Spanish flu that felled so many people. He was in more danger than most because of his war injuries and damaged lungs and the expectation was that he would die. Graves commented in a matter-of-fact way that it was the third time in his life that doctors had given up on him. Even the Welsh maid could not hold back her tears when she dusted his bedroom, thinking of the poor widow and fatherless daughter.

In January 1919 Graves was serving in the military in Ireland when he began to feel unwell, but he determined not to be ill there, and hastened back to his wife and daughter in Hove. No doubt they were pleased to see him again but he passed the disease on to them; fortunately baby Jenny only had a light attack. The Welsh maid escaped infection, probably putting down her good luck to the potent charm she wore around her neck – the leg of a lizard tied up in a bag. But Graves’s mother-in-law, Mabel, and his brother-in-law, Tony both died of the flu the year before in 1918.

The doctor was brutally frank with his patient, informing him that there was not much chance of his survival since his illness had progressed to septic pneumonia; at one time his temperature was 105. It is fascinating to note that Robert Graves decided to exercise mind over matter, and indeed he fully accepted that it was his grim determination to re-write his poem that kept him going. While fighting for his life against an overwhelming infection with the sound of waves on Hove beach in his ears, he wrestled his way through no less than 35 drafts of his experimental sonnet The Troll’s Nosegay which he had first penned in March 1919. Even then, he was wont to say that a poem is never finished.

The possibility of finding a nurse to help the family was unlikely due to high demand, and so they had to be content with two ex-nurses. One was quite competent, but was frequently the worse for drink. She also had a nasty habit of rummaging through wardrobes and removing items she fancied and placing them into her capacious bag.

The other nurse was incompetent but sober. She also had a peculiar trait that made her stand before a window and bellow, with arms outstretched, ‘Sea, sea, give my husband back to me.’ Quite why the sea was involved is not clear because her husband was unfaithful, but he had not drowned at sea.

copyright © Mr G. Osborne
The Graves family lived at 11 Seaside Villas (the villa on the left, later renamed 11 Western Esplanade)

It was Sir William Nicholson who ‘took a house’ at Hove in December 1918 for his married daughter Nancy so that she could give birth there in comfort to her daughter, Jenny on 6 January 1919. The house was in fact 11 Seaside Villas (later renamed Western Esplanade).

Sir William and his son Ben Nicholson were both famous artists and were familiar with the area already. In 1909 Sir William purchased Rottingdean Vicarage where he continued to live until 1914 when he sold the house which he had re-named The Grange. From 1920 to 1923 he rented North End House, once the home of another notable artist, Edward Burne-Jones.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museum, Brighton & Hove
Rottingdean by Edward Fox (1839)
On the right is The Grange, Sir William Nicholson and his family's home from 1909 to 1914, on the far left is The Elms, Rudyard Kipling's home from 1897 to 1902.
(The Grange now houses the Rottingdean Library, Museum & Art Gallery)

Early Life

Robert Graves was born in London on 24 July 1895. In 1907 he won a scholarship to Charterhouse, which proved something of a mixed blessing for him because he did not enjoy his time there. Two famous contemporaries of his were Woolfy Barnato, who later served with the British forces in Palestine and became a millionaire racing driver, besides playing cricket for Surrey (Woolfy's mother lived in Hove's Adelaide Mansions), and George Mallory of Everest fame. Mallory was a master at the school, but he and Graves shared a love of climbing, and in the Spring of 1914, they were part of a large party climbing in the Snowden area. The two remained friends, and Mallory was best man when Graves married. Mallory was one of the most skilled climbers of his generation and it was Graves’s opinion that he did indeed reach the summit of Everest.

Graves left Charterhouse in 1914 and landed a classical scholarship to St John’s College, Oxford. Perhaps by then, he had had enough of studying Latin and Greek because while the family was enjoying a holiday in Wales, he decided to volunteer, and received a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers – Graves was always most particular of the ‘Welch’ and not ‘Welsh’ because the Royal Welch had such a wealth of battle honours and traditions.

Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves

by Lady Ottoline Morrell, September 1920
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Graves was sent to France in 1915, and by an amazing coincidence he found that Siegfried Sassoon was also an officer in the Welch Fusiliers, and they became firm friends, enjoying their discussions about poetry. At that stage, Sassoon thought that war should not be written about in a realistic way but Graves told him he would soon change his mind after a spell in the trenches.

Graves was injured during the Somme offensive and at High Wood received wounds that had him stretchered away to a dressing station. The injuries were caused by fragments from two different shells. One piece went in beneath his shoulder blade and exited though his chest. Another piece of metal went through his thigh, quite high up. Then there was his finger wound, which split the bone plus a chip of marble that went in above his eye. Graves reached England aboard a hospital ship and was taken to Queen Alexandra’s Hospital in Highgate.

Meanwhile, his family thought he was dead, and a death notice appeared in the Press. Sassoon was delighted to hear that it was a mistake and he was still in the land of the living; he was himself in England suffering from lung trouble. The friends decided that when they had recovered, they would spend their leave together in Harlech, which they did.

The Wife - Nancy Pryde Nicholson

A Bloomsbury Family by Sir William Orpen (1907), depicts the artist William Nicholson and his family. Nicholson's wife, the painter Mabel Pryde (died of flu in 1918), is standing by the door. Sitting at the table from left to right are the Nicholson children: Nancy, who became a painter and fabric designer and married Robert Graves in 1918; Tony (died of flu in 1918) and Ben, who would become Britain's foremost abstract artist and married Barbara Hepworth in 1938. Standing in the foreground is Christopher or 'Kit', wearing a type of frock often worn by young boys at this date. He became an architect. Sir William Orpen himself is reflected in the convex mirror.

There seems to be an opinion that Graves was unhappily married. But this was not so at the outset, and indeed he specifically states that he was in love with his young wife; it might have been financial worries that soured their lives. They had a mutual understanding about the Almighty; Graves ceased to have religious beliefs after his experiences in France, while she, standing up for women said, ‘God is a man, so it must all be rot.’ But she was very young and extremely innocent – indeed their wedding night was something of a nightmare because they were both virgins, and then the arrival of Zeppelins put an end to romance with the hotel in uproar.

Graves first met Nancy Nicholson in April 1916 when she was on holiday from school and just 16 years old, while in the same year Graves celebrated his 21^st birthday. Graves was fond of all the Nicholson family, and was friends with the painter Ben Nicholson whose asthma prevented him from military service. In 1917, when Graves came back from France, he made a bee-line for Chelsea to see the Nicholson family again. Nancy was wearing a black velvet dress with a coral necklace. She had a wartime job working on the land. She also liked to paint, and showed him some of her work. Graves wrote ‘She was ignorant, of independent mind, good-natured and as sensible about the war as anybody at home could be.’

Robert and Nancy married in January 1918 at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, she being 18 and he was 22. She wore a blue-check wedding dress, and he wore his uniform with field-boots, spurs and sword. She was woefully unprepared for the married state, and indeed she had only read the marriage service through on the actual day. She was horrified at what she found, and being a feminist, resented the lack of status in a married women. She refused to be called Mrs Graves, and when her daughter was born she was registered simply as Jenny Pryde Nicholson.

When Nancy was pregnant, Graves assumed that her mother or another female would have informed her of the mechanics of giving birth. But this was not the case, and the experience so appalled her that it took her a while to recover. However, the couple went on to have three more children amidst on-going money troubles. Their son David joined the 1^st Royal Welch, and in March 1943 was killed by the Japanese on Arakan peninsular.

It took ten long years before Graves was able to free himself from flash-backs of the dreadful experiences he endured in his first four months of trench warfare in France; the flash-backs lasted until 1928. Perhaps setting it all down on paper helped his mind to break away from the horrors. Graves and Nancy parted on 6 May 1929, and later divorced in 1949, but he had already met Laura Riding in 1925, and they departed these shores to live in Majorca. Nancy was left to bring up, Jenny, David, Catherine and Sam, the four children of their marriage alone.

The Hove born daughter - Jenny Pryde Nicholson (1919-1964)

As mentioned above Jenny was born at 11 Seaside Villas (11 Western Esplanade) on 6 January 1919. Her mother, Nancy Nicholson a lifelong feminist, insisted that all her daughters were to be given her surname while her sons would take their father’s surname.

Jenny followed a career in the arts, working at various times as an actress, journalist and author. Jenny collaborated with her father, Robert Graves on several projects, notably a film script for I Claudius to be filmed in Rome and a musical Solomon and Sheba, but neither of these ventures came to fruition. Her first book was Kiss the Girls Goodbye (1944) a semi-humorous account of women’s military service during World War II.

In 1945 Jenny married Alexander G. Clifford, an author and the war correspondent for the Daily Mail. Jenny was the co-author with Alexander of The Sickle and the Stars (1948), an account of their travels in the USA and the Soviet Union.

In 1952 Alexander Clifford died and later in the same year Jenny married her second husband Patrick Crosse, the Deputy General Manager of Reuters whom she had met and married while living in Rome.

Jenny Nicholson Crosse died on 2 February 1964, aged 49, Jenny's mother Nancy died 13 years later in 1977 in Wiltshire at the age of 78.

Sources

Graves, R. Goodbye to All That (1929, revised 1957, reprinted 2000)

O’Prey, P. Robert Graves’ Favourite Poem? The One that Saved his Life

Mr G. Osborne

National Galleries Scotland

National Library of Australia

National Portrait Gallery

Royal Pavilion & Museum, Brighton & Hove

Stallworthy, J. Anthem for Doomed Youth (2002)

Journal of the War Poets Association: War Poetry Review 2020

Hove in the Past

Pages

17 September 2022

Good-Bye To All That (and Hove)