The Exquisite origins of ‘Anthony Blanche’ – my dears!
(The mobile version of this feature got rather tipsy - there's a more moderate helping here:https://medium.com/@nuromanca ) “ Do you realise, Harold – please pay attention to this – that you and I are going to have a rather famous career at Oxford?” It could so easily have been a line from Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. And so distinctly attributable to Blanche – should a prequel scene at Eton have arisen. However the pledge was conveyed from one impending member of Waugh’s social set (and fodder for future novels) to another. An elegant pair who would converge to form “an aesthetic bugger who sometimes turns up in my novels under various names.” (1) They were Harold Acton and Brian Howard: both of whom led a relatively rebellious sixth-form existence. At a particular theatre performance: “ Brian and Harold walked into the stalls, in full evening dress, with long white gloves draped over one arm, and carrying silver-topped canes and top-hats, looking pe