Full Description
Evelyn Waugh described the Cliftons of Lytham Hall as "all tearing mad" during visits in the 1930s. Join him and Harry Clifton on a journey of love, friendship, excess and liberation as they fight to be free of the sexual, dynastic and religious expectations the world demands of them.
With a mix of fact and fiction, join us for this journey to a land that might-have-been as we meet the eccentric Harry Clifton and his family, and his adventures with friends Bertie Pemberton-Billing and Evelyn Waugh at Oxford in the 1920s, whilst an undergraduate at Christ Church. Discover their association with the Hypocrites Club and the notorious private drinking clubs that revelled in hedonism and sexual liberation. Harry and Evelyn were both eventually sent down from Oxford without degrees.
Harry's irresponsible decisions, after the death of his father, and his wanton disregard for his family's heritage and reputation, and his obsession with the occult and mysticism, that led him to rely on the White Goddess and the Ghost of Hollywood to guide him with disastrous financial decisions. His darker side inspired by his favourite author and poet Edgar Alan Poe.
From an equally disastrous marriage to purchasing Imperial Faberge Eggs, private suites at the Ritz Hotel and Claridge's, and the squandering of eye-watering amounts of money, a doomed foray into film producing with Brian Desmond Hurst, his journey continues through the 1930s as his reckless behaviour threatens hundreds of years of his family's reputation and heritage.
On the eve of WW2 it all comes crashing down. Evelyn Waugh decides to separate from his friend but do the seeds of that friendship with Harry influence Waugh's character Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited? His most famous novel was finally published in 1945 much to the displeasure of Harry's widowed mother Violet Clifton. She never spoke to Waugh again.
Contents
Prologue: Emery's Hotel - Brighton, 1979
1. Destiny - 1923
2. Finding the Past - 2023
3. Conforming - 1926
4. Evelyn Waugh & Christ Church
5. Bertie & The Hypocrites Club
6. Lytham Hall - 2023
7. Hedonism
8. Death & Duties
9. An Errant Heir
10. Evelyn Waugh - End of the Roaring 20s
11. Putting On The Ritz - The White Goddess
12. Lytham Madness - 1930s
13. We're In The Money - The Ghost Of Hollywood
14. Lilian Lowell Griswold
15. Insanity
16. KIldalton Castle - 2023
17. Storm Clouds
Epilogue: Parting
18. Aftermath
19. Decline & Fall
References: Page 298
Images: With grateful thanks to Lytham Hall, who kindly gave me permission to use various images of the Clifton family for this book. All images subject to copyright of Lytham Hall (LH); David Slattery-Christy (DSC); Royal Collection (RC).
1. Harry Clifton - pages 27 & 288 (LH)
2. Evelyn Waugh - page 280 (Alamy)
3. Clifton Family: John Talbot, Easter Daffodil, Violet, Michael, Harry - page 11 (LH)
4. Lillie Langtry - page 100 (RC)
5. John Talbot Clifton - page 296 (LH)
6. Violet Clifton - page 295 (LH)
7. Lilian Clifton - page 287 (LH)
8. Avia & Daffodil Clifton - page 297 (LH)
9. Grand Duke Michael Romanov - page 294 (RC)
10. Daffodil & husband Gerald Baird (LH)
11. David Slattery-Christy & Rajat Mathew Bose - page 8 (DSC)
12. Ritz Hotel Restaurant - page 299 (DSC)
13. Renaissance & Rosebud Eggs - page 300 & 301 (Faberge Museum)
14. Austin Car & David Slattery-Christy - page 302 (DSC)
