Derek Jarman: A Biography

6. A Subtle Terror Rules

6 A Subtle Terror Rules The house assigned to Lance and Betts on their return to Northwood was still in the process of being built, which meant that for the first few months they had to lodge with Betts’ brother Teddy and his wife Pegs. If the wait in any way whetted their appetites for their new home, they were in for a disappointment. The house was as dreary and unprepossessing as all the patch’s other brick-built, two-storey residences, all standing to predictable architectural attention in row upon neat row, all filled with identical furniture: the single settee and two armchairs, the oak table, the regulation glasses, cutlery and brown lino. Although Lance’s work was not without importance or excitement – in April 1955 he was in Nevada as ‘official observer at eight atomic explosions at Yucca Flats . . . including the atomic explosion to trigger the Hydrogen bomb’1 – he seldom flew any more and being deskbound did not suit his temperament. With only the fierce weekend sailing of his Firefly on the Welsh Harp, the Neasden lake that was the nearest strip of water, to compensate, he began to close in on himself, building such a high fence around the new house – a virtual palisade – that he earned himself the nickname ‘Davy Crockett’. As a housewife, and someone who had never been a fan of Northwood, Betts was even more cruelly affected by the move, which must have felt like a repeat of her childhood return from colourful Calcutta to the relative impoverishment of Manor Cottage and 10 Chester Place. Acquaintances noticed that, despite her sunny disposition, like her husband, she kept herself pretty much to herself. The main beneficiaries of the move were Derek and Gaye. After years of rootlessness, they once again had a ready-made community of children with whom to play, and – most important, this, certainly for Jarman – there was the added attraction of a garden. Taking his inspiration jointly from Miss Pilkington of Curry Mallet, who had had an Aloe variegata on her windowsill, and the final chapter of Beautiful Flowers and How to Grow Them, Jarman was soon turning his back on the lobelias and pansies of early childhood and using the unpromisingly clay-like Northwood soil for the cultivation of a new, more grown-up obsession: cacti. In equally grown-up fashion, he was packing his trunk with a new set of uniforms and boarding the train for Canford. Situated some five miles inland from Poole, surrounded by what had originally been three extensive deer parks and flanked by the River Stour, Canford Hall – home of the school since its foundation in 1923 – had grown up over many years. At its core was the mediaeval John of Gaunt’s building, part of the manor house of Thomas de Monteacute, Earl of Salisbury. Buttressing this were various substantial Victorian additions: some by Edward Blore, architect of Buckingham Palace, others by Charles Barry, who turned his attention from designing the Houses of Parliament to adding, among other flourishes, a most impressive tower. Opinions on the architecture of Canford Hall vary considerably. For Pevsner, the tower is ‘is one of the best things Barry ever designed’.2 Jarman, a future pupil of Pevsner’s, is less flattering: ‘a mad jumble of ambition and folly, with ornate ceremonial staircases, smoking rooms, billiard rooms, panelled and painted in the Assyrian, Roman, Tudorbethan, Gothic and Modern styles. And the heart of the building, deep in the kitchen: rows and rows of bells, still numbered and named.’3 42 Derek Jarman As a school, Canford had had something of a chequered history. In the thirties, under the relaxed headmastership of the Reverend C.B. Canning, it had been regarded as little more than a dumping ground for the Common Entrance rejects of other, more illustrious institutions. Known as ‘Canning’s Country Club’, its principal recommendation had been the quality of its horse riding. After the war, a new headmaster made a determined effort to raise standards. John Hardie was a formidable figure – the boys nicknamed him Yahweh – who entered the school in a gruelling race to better itself. Within this driven and cocooned environment, Jarman had the misfortune to find himself in Monteacute House. One of the lowliest of seven houses, Monteacute had no distinct territory of its own. It shared the Beaufort building, built around the time of the school’s foundation, with the...