Our second meeting with William Sitwell
was more informal. Sitting in the kitchen of his office (he works in
‘Food’) drinking tea, eating peanut butter and jelly cheesecake that had
just come back from a photo shoot, discussing Edith and various
eccentricities of her family and upbringing. (More of this, another
time…) On mentioning our plans to raise some money to develop our
production through Crowd Funding, William
jokingly put in his bid for a cut. When we said he’d be lucky, he
rightly pointed out that we had eaten a lot of his cake.
We arrived at our third meeting with him at Weston Hall
(Northamptonshire), late, but armed with an abundance of cake. Simon
and I had both worked until late the night before, had a typical early
Friday morning M25 drive, and would’ve been even later if I hadn’t put my foot down at the last minute.
Nevertheless cake was received gratefully, and the ever charming Mr S proceeded to show us around Weston Hall, which is described as ‘a medium sized, old english manor house’. Edith spent a lot of time here with her youngest brother Sacheverell Sitwell, his wife Georgia, and children Francis Sitwell and Reresby Sitwell. She stayed there during the Second World War,
‘knitting for the troops’ and christening herself the ‘Pullover Queen’.
As manor houses go (not that I’m familiar with many) this one is
lovely, light and very feminine, which was explained when we found out
that since 1714 seven of the nine owners were women.
The
best floor of all was the attic. (Attics, I am familiar with. Quite a
connoisseur, in fact). Wooden beams, creaking stairs, Victorian doll’s
houses and rocking horses. And then a whole room devoted to clothes.
Simon and I laughed; it looked like our intended set for ‘Edith, Elizabeth, and I’.
But the contents of the clothes rails and hat boxes here weren’t hand
me downs from a drama school wardrobe, these were the real McCoy and
many had belonged to Edith herself. Heavy dresses of velvet and brocade,
tall hats, wide brimmed hats, hats that looked like raffia baskets. I
recognised them from photos- but they were even more interesting close
up.
William had to make some calls, so he left us there, and as he went down the stairs, he called up:
‘Try things on if you like’. I stood there with my mouth open, but like lightening Simon rummaged
through boxes and rails, passed me hats and gowns, and started snapping
away, having his own Cecil Beaton moment.
Whilst at Weston, we also went to Edith’s grave- with a bronze plaque by Henry Moore, and on it, engraved words from one of her own poems, ‘ The Wind of Early Spring’
The past and present are as one-
Accordant and discordant, youth and age,
And death and birth. For out of one came all-
From all comes one.
Looking
out over the Northamptonshire countryside, I wondered if Edith was
watching over us, and what she would think of this project.
Two
days later I received (my first ever) speeding fine, for our last
minute dash to this appointment. Perhaps she was watching, and with her
sharp and twinkly-eyed humour, decided I should pay for the hat trying
on session!
