Garnett

DAVID GARNETT (1892 - 1981)

A member of a distinguished literary family and associate of the Bloomsbury Group, David Garnett was the author of the fantasy novels Lady into Fox (1922) and A Man In the Zoo (1924). He had first come north in 1919, to see his friend Harold Hobson, an electrical engineer who supplied power to mines and factories in Durham during World War I. Garnett failed to change at Darlington and ended up in Kirkby Stephen. He was so captivated by the scenery that he spent most of his holidays in the area over the next thirty years. Garnett eventually reached the Hobsons encamped by the Tees:

For a fortnight of lovely weather the strain of the war years and my worry about the future was wiped out. I seemed to have stepped back to the summer of 1914. We bathed in shallow pools, fished without success and cooked meals... One day we saw the daughter of a farmer in whose field we were camping, slicing curd to make Cotherstone cheese. I bought one of her cheeses and sent it to Charlestone. It was richer than Wensleydale and softer and more delicious than Stilton.

Garnett saw a demobilised man looking unhappy while the band played in Gainford on Peace Day, and wrote a story called 'The Old Dovecote', later published in The English Review. he considered it the best thing he had done up till then.

It was during later excursions with his first wife, Ray [the illustrator Rachel Marshall] that the couple decided to buy 'Duke Mary's' cottage above Low Row in Swaledale. Ray died of breast cancer in 1940, and in April 1942 Garnett married Vanessa Bell's daughter Angelica (26 years his junior). They had four children before separating.They bought a farm called Ridley Stokoe with three hundred acres near Tarset on the North Tyne. Garnett writes: 'At the moment the [tenant] farmer and his wife (who talk English rather like foreigners because they roll their Rs) have some women sheltering from air raids on Newcastle.' Garnett looks forward to T.H. White coming to fly hawks at the grouse, shoot pheasants and 'watch me gaffing salmon'. Garnett edited the letters of T.E. Lawrence and, in 1968 did the same for his own correspondence with the extraordinary White ('Tim'), to whom he wrote on 10 May 1942, two days after his second marriage, from the Crown Inn, Falstone:

That woman at the inn here makes wonderfully good bread with a mixture of brown flour and oatmeal - the best bread I've ever eaten. The river is almost empty - the chance of catching trout is very slender...There are curlew, rock doves on crags, wood pigeons in the birches, pheasants searching for acorns, rabbits everywhere. The first thing we saw was a mounted figure coming through the wood below the moor with a dog fetching in sheep with lambs. When we got to the farm it turned out to be Mrs Hedley, the farmer's wife.

Curiously enough, it was at this time that the South Shields poet James Kirkup was working for the Forestry Commission as a conscientious objector at Falstone. He too remembered the wonderful bread. Garnett himself had been a conscientious objector during World War I.

T.H. White is known nowadays for The Goshawk (1951), an account of the training of a hawk, the children's classic Mistress Masham's Repose (1947) but above all for his Arthurian sequence The Once and Future King (1958) of which the first part The Sword in the Stone published separately in 1937, was a great success. White was deeply affected by Sir Thomas Malory (v. ARTHURIAN LEGEND). A pacifist himself, he regarded Le Morte d'Arthur as 'a quest for an antidote to war.'

On 30 July 1943 Garnett wrote to him again from Ridley Stokoe: 'It is boiling hot. The Hedleys are making hay: she driving the clipper with the two horses: he mowing those places where the machine could not go... One is high up - with the moor rising at one's back and the North Tyne below and one can see up beyond Kielder, probably into Scotland. I think I shall bury Ray's ashes there. She stayed in this valley and often talked about it.' On 20 September Garnett again rhapsodically describes Ridley Stokoe and says White will become one of the Border people and 'learn to play the Northumbrian pipes (the Border music is very beautiful, quite unlike the Scots.)'

Some time after September 1945 White was at Ridley Stokoe with Garnett, and though not everything ran smoothly, he enjoyed the beauty of the place, the people and the wonderful air. He went on to stay at Duke Mary's, the cottage in Swaledale, from 7 October 1945 until around May 1946, writing splendidly funny letters to Garnett.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
DAVID GARNETT (1892 - 1981) A member of a distinguished literary family and associate of the Bloomsbury Group, David Garnett was the author of the fantasy novels Lady into Fox (1922) and A Man In the Zoo (1924). He had first come north in 1919, to see his friend Harold Hobson, an electrical engineer who supplied power to mines and factories in Durham during World War I. Garnett failed to change at Darlington and ended up in Kirkby Stephen. He was so captivated by the scenery that he spent most of his holidays in the area over the next thirty years. Garnett eventually reached the Hobsons encamped by the Tees: For a fortnight of lovely weather the strain of the war years and my worry about the future was wiped out. I seemed to have stepped back to the summer of 1914. We bathed in shallow pools, fished without success and cooked meals... One day we saw the daughter of a farmer in whose field we were camping, slicing curd to make Cotherstone cheese. I bought one of her cheeses and sent it to Charlestone. It was richer than Wensleydale and softer and more delicious than Stilton. Garnett saw a demobilised man looking unhappy while the band played in Gainford on Peace Day, and wrote a story called 'The Old Dovecote', later published in The English Review. he considered it the best thing he had done up till then. It was during later excursions with his first wife, Ray [the illustrator Rachel Marshall] that the couple decided to buy 'Duke Mary's' cottage above Low Row in Swaledale. Ray died of breast cancer in 1940, and in April 1942 Garnett married Vanessa Bell's daughter Angelica (26 years his junior). They had four children before separating.They bought a farm called Ridley Stokoe with three hundred acres near Tarset on the North Tyne. Garnett writes: 'At the moment the [tenant] farmer and his wife (who talk English rather like foreigners because they roll their Rs) have some women sheltering from air raids on Newcastle.' Garnett looks forward to T.H. White coming to fly hawks at the grouse, shoot pheasants and 'watch me gaffing salmon'. Garnett edited the letters of T.E. Lawrence and, in 1968 did the same for his own correspondence with the extraordinary White ('Tim'), to whom he wrote on 10 May 1942, two days after his second marriage, from the Crown Inn, Falstone: That woman at the inn here makes wonderfully good bread with a mixture of brown flour and oatmeal - the best bread I've ever eaten. The river is almost empty - the chance of catching trout is very slender...There are curlew, rock doves on crags, wood pigeons in the birches, pheasants searching for acorns, rabbits everywhere. The first thing we saw was a mounted figure coming through the wood below the moor with a dog fetching in sheep with lambs. When we got to the farm it turned out to be Mrs Hedley, the farmer's wife. Curiously enough, it was at this time that the South Shields poet James Kirkup was working for the Forestry Commission as a conscientious objector at Falstone. He too remembered the wonderful bread. Garnett himself had been a conscientious objector during World War I. T.H. White is known nowadays for The Goshawk (1951), an account of the training of a hawk, the children's classic Mistress Masham's Repose (1947) but above all for his Arthurian sequence The Once and Future King (1958) of which the first part The Sword in the Stone published separately in 1937, was a great success. White was deeply affected by Sir Thomas Malory (v. ARTHURIAN LEGEND). A pacifist himself, he regarded Le Morte d'Arthur as 'a quest for an antidote to war.' On 30 July 1943 Garnett wrote to him again from Ridley Stokoe: 'It is boiling hot. The Hedleys are making hay: she driving the clipper with the two horses: he mowing those places where the machine could not go... One is high up - with the moor rising at one's back and the North Tyne below and one can see up beyond Kielder, probably into Scotland. I think I shall bury Ray's ashes there. She stayed in this valley and often talked about it.' On 20 September Garnett again rhapsodically describes Ridley Stokoe and says White will become one of the Border people and 'learn to play the Northumbrian pipes (the Border music is very beautiful, quite unlike the Scots.)' Some time after September 1945 White was at Ridley Stokoe with Garnett, and though not everything ran smoothly, he enjoyed the beauty of the place, the people and the wonderful air. He went on to stay at Duke Mary's, the cottage in Swaledale, from 7 October 1945 until around May 1946, writing splendidly funny letters to Garnett.
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