Alan Milne gave the poem ‘Vespers’ to Daphne as a present. He told her that if she liked to get it published she could keep the money. She sent it to Vanity Fair in New York. It appeared in January 1923 and she received $50. Over the years, ‘Vespers’ proved the most lavish present Milne had ever given his wife. (One remembers that Walter de la Mare is supposed to have sent a son through Eton on the proceeds of ‘The Listeners’.) The following winter Milne would be invited to provide one of the tiny books in the library of Lutyens’s elaborate Queen’s Dolls’ House, which was to be shown at the Empire Exhibition at Wembley before finding a permanent home at Windsor. The whole scheme was ‘ineradicably silly’, Arthur Benson suggested, but it was in the nature of a royal command. It seems only George Bernard Shaw refused and ‘in a very rude manner’, according to Princess Marie Louise; Milne dutifully copied out ‘Vespers’. At least it was short. For many years afterwards there would be copies of ‘Vespers’ hanging in nurseries all over the world, with the words at the bottom: ‘Reprinted by permission from the Library of the Queen’s Dolls’ House’. Milne was already, though he did not yet know it, on his way to becoming some sort of poet laureate of the nursery.
3
WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG
There was a house party in north Wales in the summer of 1923. Milne had agreed to share with Nigel Playfair the cost of the lease of a house belonging to Clough Williams-Ellis, who would soon develop Portmeirion nearby. It was Plas Brondanw at Llanfrothen near Portmadoc. It is in a peculiarly beautiful part of Britain. The Londoners looked forward to walking up Cnicht and Snowdon, to exploring Harlech Castle and to bathing in Cardigan Bay.
Playfair was feeling rich and generous as a result of his production of The Beggar’s Opera and issued lots of invitations. Frederic Austin, who had adapted the music for Gay’s entertainment, was there, and Grace Lovat Fraser, the wife of the designer, and Joan Pitt-Chapman, aged sixteen, whose father had played Macheath but had died during the run. There was also a woman called Mrs Malcolm, whose husband had recently been accused and acquitted of murder. There were others, too, coming and going. The novelist Richard Hughes and his mother came to supper one evening and found themselves warmly welcomed by Mrs Playfair – ‘Oh do come in, Mrs Beard and Mr Beard.’ It was the way the family were accustomed to refer to them, for no better reason than that Richard Hughes had a beard at that time. The rest of the evening was a little sticky. Everyone had heard the welcome.
It was a strange house party. All might have been well if the weather had been good and the planned expeditions had been able to take place. But ‘it rains all day in Wales’, Milne wrote gloomily to Swinnerton. All day and almost every day. Giles Playfair, aged thirteen, took some photographs with his Kodak Brownie on one of the three fine days and glowered at the assembled company. ‘I disliked everyone who neglected to take the trouble to interest themselves in me. Very few people did. Certainly the house-party in Wales (the Milnes included) found me a silent, sulky, dull and stupid boy.’ His brother Lyon shone in comparison, writing a play about Perkin Warbeck and reading it aloud one wet afternoon to his audience’s amusement. Milne sat down there and then to write a preface.
Nigel Playfair made tremendous efforts to keep everyone’s spirits up as wet day followed wet day. He was determined people should enjoy themselves. His son Giles remembered:
While he was about, everyone was laughing despite their depression at the persistent climatic gloom. He always came down last to breakfast. Before he arrived, no noise emerged from the dining room save the desultory clatter of knife and fork on plate. But his entry was invariably a signal for an outburst of wild merriment which continued unabated until the meal was finished.
He made us all play an absurd game called ‘I met a sheep’. The rules of this game were simple. You said to your next-door neighbour ‘I met a sheep’, who replied, ‘What did it do?’ You then waved both hands and explained, ‘It went, “ba, ba, ba”.’ The game continued until everyone round the table was intoning, ‘ba, ba, ba’ and waving both hands. The sight of young and old, diffident and superior, famous and obscure, all indulging in this curious ritual was irresistible.