 |
THE LIFE OF JAMES LEES-MILNE
page
4
1968-75: By the late 1960s, JLM and Alvilde had achieved
a modus vivendi, living as a devoted couple at Alderley, yet leading separate
lives. In his sixties, he finally began to achieve recognition as a man of
letters outside the field of architecture. His autobiographical novel Another Self appeared in 1970, and was an
instant success; two further novels followed, giving fascinating insights into
his imagination. Ancestral Voices, the first volume of his wartime
diaries, was published in 1975 and proved a succès de scandale.
Meanwhile, in 1971, he had resumed a regular diary for the first time since the
1940s. This portrays him as the contented literary squire he essentially now
was.
During the early 1970s, JLM and his wife began to take a gloomy
view of the state of the country and their personal finances, and decided that
the effort of running Alderley was too great for them. She sold the property at
the end of 1974, and they moved to a maisonette in Lansdown Cresent,
Bath. Its great feature was the library of
William Beckford, which
JLM lovingly restored. Soon after the move, he was invited to write a short
book on Beckford - his first biography. Despite the boon of the library, the
Bath property proved too cramped for them, and the garden too small for the
exercise of her horticultural talents. When a late 17th century house on the
Badminton
estate, with an attached acre, became vacant, they were able to secure the
tenancy thanks to their friendship with the Duke of Beaufort's heir David
Somerset and his wife Caroline. They moved there at the end of 1975, Jim
retaining the Bath library for his work.
| 1976-91: Despite the eccentric behaviour of their landlord,
the hunting-obsessed 10th Duke of Beaufort ('Master'), which provided priceless
material for JLM's journal, the Lees-Milnes led a contented life at their
Badminton residence, Essex House (dubbed 'Bisex House' by a waspish observer).
During this period, JLM wrote his three major biographies - of Harold Nicolson
(1886-1968), Reginald, Viscount Esher (1852-1930), and the Bachelor Duke of
Devonshire (1790-1858). The last of these was undertaken at the request of his
lifelong friend
'Debo', Duchess of Devonshire, youngest of the Mitford
sisters, whom he often |
 |
visited at
Chatsworth. In 1979, aged seventy, he embarked on a
platonic friendship with a young man of twenty-five; this briefly disturbed his
marriage, but he and Alvilde drew close to each other as she nursed him through
serious illnesses in 1984 and 1988.
 |
1991-97: JLM struggled bravely through his eighties,
despite declining faculties and the spectre of cancer. His National Trust
memoirs People & Places, written
at eighty-three, is one of his most eloquent works. His diary became
increasingly elegiac, as in old age he reflected upon the modern world and its
ways. Alvilde's health broke down in 1992, and he devoted the next two years to
looking after her. Her death in March 1994 at first left him disconsolate; yet
he soon began to enjoy life again, experiencing a freedom he had not known
since his marriage, and revelling in his status as a grand old man of letters
and conservation. He remained lucid and active almost to the end, dying in his
ninetieth year on 28 December 1997. |
|
|
 |
 |
This site has been created by Michael
Bloch, James Lees-Milne's literary executor, who is currently editing his later
diaries and writing his biography (to be published by John Murray). He may be
contacted at MAB@jamesleesmilne.com.
Many
of James Lees-Milne's papers are in the Beinecke Library at Yale. Their
catalogue can be accessed
here
James Lees-Milne's copyrights are managed by
Bruce Hunter of David Higham Associates, London. Enquiries may be addressed to
him at brucehunter@davidhigham.co.uk. |
 |
|
