Blogetty Blog 2: What’s In a Name?

Soon after I was born my father decided to move his family from Warnham Court, my Grandfather’s house in Sussex, to London where he rented the house at 32 Walton Street. He had resumed his career as a stockbroker when the war ended and had been obliged to spend part of each week staying at the Bath Club, but he no longer wanted constant separations from his family. My grandfather hated his departure and schemed until he succeeded in luring him back to Warnham Court for my first Christmas. The Old Manor, a comfortable large house in Warnham village was empty and naturally rent-free: perhaps the persuasive consideration. Anyway my grandfather won his case. Father returned to his commute and spent some evenings each week practicing his billiards, at which he excelled, at his Club: winning the high-level stock exchange championship more than once.

According to the album of photographs and records kept by my mother it was only a short time before we left the Old Manor and were back in Warnham Court itself. One photo shows me sitting on my grandfather’s knee on the stone parapet of a circular garden pond but I have no memory of it or of him. So it was a revelation when I learned recently that a video featuring his life at home – including a touching sequence with his bee-keeper – is available at Screen Archive South East: it revivifies him in a way I would never have believed possible.

In the mad world of ‘Alternative Fact’ and ‘Virtual Reality’ actual records assume a new importance. It is difficult to believe Orwell’s fears will be realized to the extent he forecast, but it is alarming to think it may in fact become impossible to distinguish between truth and falsehood in public life. 

Click here to see the video. It will take you away from this page, so please don’t forget to come back and finish reading! The beekeeping sequence with my grandfather starts at 8.01. You might also enjoy the rest of the video footage: cars and family arriving at Warnham Court, my father and uncle playing golf, tennis and cricket! Honestly, it is incredible to see the life my family lived, even for me, even though I grew up in that world.

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I do not mean this commentary to be confined to my childhood experience so I shall interrupt that subject with relief. Three years ago I was surprised to find a single 10 inch tall bougainvillea in Home Depot’s Poulsbo garden center. The possibility of a bougainvillea surviving in the Pacific Northwest seemed so absurd that I laughed aloud – and immediately bought it. ‘Barbara Karst’, said the label, ‘rose red’.  I have transplanted Barbara from pot to larger pot, fed her, and nursed her indoors through the winters.

Her current plastic home, 23” wide and 20” wide, is heavy to move in and out but she is clearly happy in it because Barbara the bougainvillea is 8 now feet tall and 5 feet wide and has been sensational this summer – covered with gorgeous red flowers from July through September. I have just moved her indoors from her spot beside the front door to a well-lit corner of an enclosed balcony where she is dropping hundreds of spent flowers to form a red carpet. “Flowers” is the wrong term because what look like petals are truly bracts and the actual flowers are the tiny white centers. I claim Barbara is the most northerly bougainvillea in the country. Any challengers?

Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), after whom the bougainvillea was named, was a captain of dragoons who served in Canada as an aide-de-camp to Montcalm during the French and Indian Wars. When France finally gave up its claim to all land east of the Mississippi he held a variety of posts in the Paris government. In 1766 the King gave him permission to circumnavigate the globe with a large exploratory expedition. It was a prestigious necessity for other nations to follow in Captain Cook’s wake. The two crowded ships and party of 330 persons, complete with naturalists and geographers, made important discoveries including Papua New Guinea where a principal island is named Bougainville. He was preempted from being the discoverer of Tahiti by one year but was thrilled by the island and described it as an earthly paradise where men and women lived in blissful innocence far from the corruption of civilization – strongly influencing Rousseau’s ideas of the ‘noble savage’. (More to come on Tahiti in due course.)

He served with the American forces 1779-1782 when France supported the Revolution and made a considerable nuisance of himself to the British, especially during the naval engagement with the French at the Battle of Chesapeake. At first this seemed a minor affair – a muddled and inconclusive skirmish. Time revealed it as immensely consequential for the British failure to break the blockade of the bay led in time to Cornwallis’ inescapable surrender of Yorktown and in turn to the loss of the Colonies. It is impossible to speculate on the likely result of a defeat of the Revolution beyond saying the obvious that world history ever since would have been different. The outcome was in the balance more than once.

Once again I ask – What secrets lie in a name? Who looks today at the stunning beauty of the bouganvillea – white, pink, red, yellow and fawn in boundless variety – and recalls the significance of its namesake? Returned to France, Louis Antoine de Bougainville escaped the Reign of Terror by retreating to his estate in Normandy until Napoleon made him a Senator and Admiral when he was Consul of France. In 1808 he was honored with the title of Comte de Bougainville. He died in 1811 aged 81 – a great age in those days after his adventurous life.

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