TAKING THE BISCUIT

I think it must be all those biscuits. Many of my admirable Scots compatriots were recently horrified to learn that we are the second most overweight and obese nation in the developed world – the Palme d’Or going to the unrivalled kings of consumption, the United States. We Scots surpass in heft the English, the Irish and especially the lean and mean Welsh. I am tempted to cry “Well eaten, Scotland!” although I suppose there are quite a few negatives and the quacks lecture us earnestly about “lifestyle choices” and the dire ill effects on our ravaged bodies.

The lure of the biscuit is very potent. Just as a hapless addict trembles as he awaits his next fix, I confess to wobbling with cupidity at the glorious sight of an unopened packet of McVitie’s Dark Chocolate Digestives, a delectable mouthful in any language. One biscuit soon becomes 3 and closure only comes as 5 disappear down the red canal. After some winter months in London, with biscuit temptations abounding, I tip the scales at a secret figure comfortably in excess of 18 stone. Many summer months in Greece lie ahead and I promise to nibble lettuce, radishes and raw carrots, take some gentle exercise in my local pool, reducing my weight to a more respectable, if still jelly-like 17 stone. Greek biscuits are but a pale imitation of the real thing, though there are other tasty distractions.

The greatest Biscuit in my World

Biscuits, in the sense I rhapsodise over them, are rather a British thing. My biscuits are bis (twice) cuit (cooked) hard bakery products – our American cousins would call most of them “cookies” – first created by the Romans; there are a thousand variations in continental Europe which I will ignore. The British developed this historic product as it kept well and was an ideal food for sailors on long voyages, hence ship biscuits, also known as “hard tack”

 As the British Empire expanded and prospered, commercial companies spotted the market opportunities and made the biscuit more palatable. Arguably the first global brand name was Huntley & Palmers, whose factory in Reading was established in 1822 pioneering the use of metal biscuit tins. From Kingston to Nairobi, from Poona to Singapore, the British colonial settler or official could be seen clutching his biscuit tins with exotic or sentimental pictures upon them and devouring the sweet or savoury contents within, air-tight and impervious to cold, damp, sun or tempest.

                                                

A typical Huntley & Palmers Biscuit tin picture

In Scotland the inventive firms of McVitie & Price and Macfarlane Lang competed and in time merged to form United Biscuits. McVities had invented the iconic Digestive Biscuit and the Rich Tea, invariably proffered if you were invited to “a nice cup of tea”. The United Biscuit brand list is dazzling, taking in traditional spicy Ginger Nuts, wonderfully oat-crunchy HobNobs and toothsome Penguins. My favourite Chocolate Digestives were introduced in 1925 and Britain consumes 71 million packets per annum, equal to 52 biscuits per second. I am doing my bit, Mr McVitie!

The aristocrat of Scottish biscuits is undoubtedly Shortbread. Crumbly and delicious, the ingredient list demanding heroic proportions of flour, sugar and butter gives heebie-jeebies to the dietician. The stalwart family firms of Walkers and Patersons specialise in this ambrosial product.

                                                        

Shortbread Fingers

I must apologise that the above discourse will be in some ways incomprehensible to my numerous and cherished American readership. We are famously two nations separated by our common language. You say “pants” and we say “trousers”: vest/waistcoat, suspenders/braces, coat/jacket – the list is long – and so it is with Biscuits, often rendered as Cookies across the Pond.

But there are still mysteries. Guy Mitchell in the 1950s warbled in his ditty “Pretty Little Black-eyed Susan” I like Biscuits soaked in Gravy. To British ears this sounds unappetising until they learn that in America a “biscuit” is a soft item rather like a scone, in our parlance a type of bread or cake. The clouds of misunderstanding easily disperse. Then we had irredeemably cute Shirley Temple trilling about “Animal Crackers in my Soup”. To us Brits a cracker is a flaky, crisp wafer often eaten with cheese. In America crackers are more widely defined and apparently include hard-baked animal-shaped food for children.

 But in your soup?  Now that takes the biscuit!

Shirley Temple and her Animal Crackers

                                        

SMD

28.05.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013

BRITAIN IN EUROPE; COMMON SENSE AT LAST

It has been rather a good month or so for those, like me, who want Britain to forge an entirely new relationship with the European Union. UKIP polled a strong 23% in the local elections mainly in the English shires; two respected Tory cabinet ministers, Michael Gove and Philip Hammond have said they would vote to quit the EU if a referendum on membership were held now; David Cameron repeated his pledge of an in/out referendum by 2017 if he won the 2015 election and encouraged a private members’ bill to enshrine this in law; as usual the EU in Brussels shot itself in the foot by having to withdraw ill-considered and draconian new banking capital adequacy rules, not to mention a humiliating retreat after absurdly trying to ban restaurants using olive oil jugs.

Nigel Farage celebrates

                                    

Anti-EU sentiment in Britain, fuelled by Brussels’ appalling mismanagement of the Eurozone crisis, is running high and UKIP is the immediate beneficiary. Farage beats his populist drum with some gusto and he personally has much appeal. Already having won 11 of the 71 British seats available in the European Parliament, thanks to proportional representation, UKIP will surely at least double this number in the forthcoming 2014 elections. Yet that may be the apogee of UKIP. Farage has been a useful gadfly, hassling Cameron and delighting the Greeks and others by being extremely rude to van Rompuy, Barroso, Rehn and all the Brussels gang. Yet in a 2015 British general election, the first-past-the-post system squeezes the smaller parties: UKIP is a one-issue party, despite contrary efforts, and few know or care about its stance on other issues save on the sensitive matter of immigration. The Tories will gain most of the votes dropped by a fading UKIP. 

David Cameron’s hand has been much strengthened by recent events. The rise of UKIP lends credibility to his insistence on EU reform as does the explicit euro-scepticism of Gove and Hammond, let alone past Chancellors like Healey, Lawson and Lamont. As a democratic politician he must respond to the public mood: all he can do at present is to promise a referendum – he can handily blame his euro-fanatic Liberal Democrat coalition partners for the delay. The private member’s bill will fail to get its majority but Labour and the Lib-Dems are forced into a decision on the timing and wording of the referendum. Their manoeuvres to wriggle out will alienate the electorate and lose them votes. This is good politics on Cameron’s part; he can claim to be the steady champion of Britain’s interests. By late September 2014 he will have seen off the SNP challenge with the rejection by referendum of Scottish Independence. The Tories will be well placed to win the 2015 election outright with the Lib-Dems splitting into Clegg and Cable camps and Labour’s Ed Miliband failing to enthuse voters with his ineffable collection of ancient Hampstead nostrums.

David Cameron, playing a long game well

                                       

Cameron is right that the 2015 election will be won or lost on confidence in the revival of the economy and on key domestic issues like welfare and educational reform. The trend on all three is in his favour. After a shaky period, Cameron is taking a grip on these matters: his managerial skills far surpass those of the Opposition.

The Tory Party is famously “a broad church” and keeping this fissiparous entity on song is a great trial. The Tories have long been criticised for “banging on about Europe” but it is an issue central to the nation’s future. Cameron’s strategy of a renegotiation followed by a referendum to resolve Britain’s position is rational, and most fair-minded British voters would give him his chance.

Geoffrey Howe, arch-defeatist, opines that no substantive concessions from Europe will be forthcoming. Well, we will see. I expect Cameron to say that Britain wants the closest possible cooperation on trade matters, the repatriation of many powers and no British participation in banking, fiscal or political union. If the response from Brussels is not positive, Britain may well opt for withdrawal. 

In time Cameron will be roused to give us his vision of Britain outside Europe. It should be inspirational. Our native talent, our commercial and financial expertise, our global connections earn us a proud place in the world. After over 40 uneasy years in Europe, Britain will be living in her own skin again, thinking and acting in her own distinctive way and creating her own exemplary destiny.

SMD

26.05.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013

JAMES GIBBS, ARCHITECT

James Gibbs (1682-1754) was a highly influential architect of Hanoverian Britain, whose buildings beautify and adorn the nation. He had the good fortune to be born into the merchant class of my home town, Aberdeen, in Scotland. He attended Aberdeen Grammar School, preceding Lord Byron (and me!) and studied at Marischal College, then one of Aberdeen’s two universities, at a time when Scotland had five and all England could only boast of two.

 

James Gibbs

                                                           

In an era of religious discrimination Gibbs was born into a Catholic family and all his life he practised his religion privately and discreetly. On the death of his parents, he lived with an aunt in Holland, travelled in France, Flanders and Germany before going to gloriously Baroque Rome to study architecture. Returning inspired to London in 1709, he enjoyed the early patronage of the Scots Earl of Mar and that of prominent Tories on domestic commissions. He soon progressed, meeting Wren and Hawksmoor before winning his first church project, a new Church on the Strand later known as St Mary-le-Strand. It was to be a signal triumph for Gibbs.

 Gibbs was never quite fashionable all his life and this can partly be ascribed to his Catholicism – the first Jacobite rebellion of 1715 compromised his friend the Earl of Mar, as it sought the replacement of the Hanoverian dynasty with the descendants of Catholic James II and the Stuarts. Gibbs’ Tory patrons were a diminishing band too, as from 1721 the Whigs under Walpole entered into their long 40-year ascendancy in British politics. The two factions had their own artistic cliques. In architecture the Whigs could admire Lord Burlington (the apostle of Palladianism and creator of Chiswick House) and another Scotsman, Colen Campbell (architect of Walpole’s Houghton Hall and a sharp rival of Gibbs). Gibbs’ classic Wren-like style was favoured by Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford and the Tory maverick Lord Bolingbroke.

St Mary-le-Strand, completed in 1717, is on an island site in the middle of the Strand, then as now a very busy street. Gibbs designed it as an Italianate church with a modest tower but was forced to erect a much more prominent tower to replace a campanile whereupon a statue of Queen Anne was to perch; this part of the project was cancelled and Gibbs had to use the expensively bought stone elsewhere! His large steeple is very imposing, if somewhat unbalancing. The church itself carries all the baroque influences, especially in the East end, of Rome and Flanders and is internally lavishly decorated in the Italian style. Nowadays it gracefully complements the grandeur of Somerset House by Sir William Chambers, the arc of The Aldwych and brings distinction to the modern purlieus of Kings College, London.

                   

St Mary-le-Strand

                   

St Mary-le-Strand interior

Gibbs throughout the 1720s and 1730s worked as a very busy architect. He had many aristocratic commissions such as the Octagon for Orleans House, the design of Ditchley Park and of Antony House in Cornwall and the remodelling of Wimpole for his patron the Earl of Oxford. He also produced some delightful ornamental follies for the park at Stowe. He worked on the Senate House for Cambridge University and also there on the Fellows’ Building at King’s College.

In 1721, Gibbs won the competition for the rebuilding of the decrepit St Martin’s in the Fields in what is now Trafalgar Square. His striking design, known to all visitors to London (although many lazily assume it is by Wren) dominates the area. A Corinthian colonnaded temple to the front and sides is topped by a large steeple placed exactly behind the pediment. This was not how Gothic or Wren steeples were usually built; they were separate structures, not integrated within the church walls. There were critical objections but Gibbs’ design caught on and St Martin’s is the blueprint for Anglican churches the world over, notably in the USA. It is ironic that a closet-Catholic should have created so recognisably Protestant a style.

St Martin's in the Fields

                                       

One further Gibbs masterpiece remains, The Radcliffe Camera at Oxford. This was first sketched as a circular domed building by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1715, but was never executed. Gibbs worked on an entirely new design and the Camera, a university library, was built between 1736 and 1749. It is part of a splendid ensemble of buildings, including All Souls, Brasenose College and the University Church within a cobbled square.

The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford

                                              

The classical exterior evokes the profile of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice while the interior is a place of scholarship and convenient beauty. The Camera is a great cosmopolitan building adding lustre to the University and confirming the high reputation of James Gibbs.

Gibbs never married but he was sociable knowing naturally enough the great architects of his time, Wren, Hawksmoor, Archer and Vanbrugh. He was painted by Hogarth and knew the matchless poet Alexander Pope. Gibbs was generous, waiving his fee for extensive work renovating St Bartholomew’s Hospital. In a gesture of filial gratitude he worked without charge in remodelling the Nave of the large Kirk of St Nicholas in his native Aberdeen. He died in London in 1754 and was buried at St Marylebone Parish Church.  He left the bulk of his estate to Lord Erskine, the son of his first patron the Earl of Mar, whose kindness was not forgotten and whose own lands had been forfeit after the Jacobite rebellions. He also made bequests to Barts Hospital, (of which he was a governor) and the Foundlings Hospital.

Kirk of St Nicholas, Aberdeen, recipient of Gibbs' benificence

                                     

Gibbs’ buildings are conservative, classic and reassuring. He may not be strikingly original and his work demonstrates an abundance of talent rather than genius. We are comfortable in his company which explains his enduring popularity.

SMD

17.05.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013

IN PRAISE OF MARYLEBONE HIGH STREET; London's Finest (5)

About 40 years ago, Marylebone High Street was an unregarded corner of Central London. There was a useful but dated Express Dairy, some long-established if fading shops, several rather down-market pubs and a bourgeois population besieged by nomadic and careless short-term tenants. The district had a shabby-genteel air and it was decidedly unfashionable. What a transformation today! I have  stayed at my son’s flat on the Street intermittently for the last 9 years and I have no hesitation in proclaiming that Marylebone High Street is the most dynamic, agreeably affluent yet relaxing area in Central London.

St Marylebone Parish Church

At the North end of the Street is stately Anglican St Marylebone Parish Church built in 1817 by Thomas Hardwick. Its tall gold-painted steeple is particularly imposing. There has been a church there since at least 1400 and it gave its name St Mary “by the bourne” (a small stream) to the adjoining village – not St Mary-la-Bonne (the good) as frequently misstated. Byron was christened, Sheridan married and James Gibbs was buried here.

Other faiths are well catered for – St James Spanish Place nearby is a long established Catholic church as the present Hertford House was the site of the residence of the Spanish ambassador. Methodists can enjoy the cavernous Hinde Street Church (Charles Wesley is buried in a garden further North) where Donald Soper preached, while the growing number of Muslims can worship at the splendid Regent’s Park Mosque, designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd in 1969, a brisk walk away.

But Marylebone High Street is essentially dedicated to Mammon. The improvement in the area has been steady, no doubt much helped by the enlightened principal landlord the Howard de Walden Estate who has planned the creation of an up-market retail Marylebone Village. Howard de Walden is a survivor of the great families, like the Dukes of Portland and Devonshire, or the Earls of Oxford who brought their family names, Harley, Cavendish, Wigmore and Wimpole to the area they developed in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Shops and Flats at Marylebone High Street

The great retail magnet is the Waitrose supermarket, opened in 1999, packed full of well presented quality goodies with excellent meat, fish and cheese counters. The lunchtime rush sees locals anxious for a tasty snack and Waitrose obliges. Opening hours are conveniently long closing at 10pm most days. La Fromagerie dispenses delicious cheeses, FishWorks sells fresh fish and oysters (a good restaurant behind) while more modest tastes are met by the Farmers Market behind Waitrose every Sunday. There are several chocolatiers and patisseries including Valerie’s, (a popular tea-room too), Paul and Rococo. A Tesco Express has been radically upgraded, while takeaway and sandwich shops abound.

The selection of fashion shops is stunning ranging from The White Company to Dream Looks but including L K Bennett, Brora, and Eileen Fisher. For unusual gifts Brissi beckons as does the Conran Store. New design ideas can be found at Divertimenti and at Skandium. One of my favourites is galleried Daunt’s Books, a browsers paradise,

Inside Daunt's Bookshop

For the lady who has everything, Alexandrov and Cox and Power purvey fine jewellery and there are fancy bags at Aspinal of London, while the kiddiewinks can be decked out at Petit Bateau or The Little White Company. Delectable fragrances can be found at L’Occitane or at Ortigia while chic shoes abound at Mascaro.

Exhausted by retail therapy or simply by a hard day at the office, the locals go out to eat. If a modest meal is all that is necessary The Golden Hind sells perhaps the finest fish and chips in London. Topkapi produces tasty Turkish mezes. The Relais de Venise, otherwise L’Entrecote, sees queues for its wildly popular steak dish. The Providores sells tapas and Getti gives you elegant Italian while Terence Conran’s Orrery offers high-class French food. These are all on or about Marylebone High Street but it is a very short walk to the lively pavement bistros of St Christopher’s Place, catering for all pockets.

Marylebone High Street is not just shops and restaurants. The adjoining streets have attracted many nationalities, Arabs, Greeks, Turks and South Americans. With the sharp rise of house prices over the last decades, house owners have become seriously rich. The area is highly affluent and the parade of Bentleys, Rollers, Mercs, Beemers, Jags and Astons addles the brain of any Motorhead. A gentler pleasure is the regular weekend parade of roller-bladers or cyclists on a rally, sometimes in period costume.

The locals congregate happily. Some pubs are more orientated to wine where your group sits with a bottle or two and glasses. The Middle Easterners relish smoking their water cooled pipes in several cheerful Shisha cafes. Yet the traditional pub where you can buy English draft bitter and gossip with friends is still much in evidence and The Angel in the Fields, The Gunmakers and The Prince Regent are all local and excellent.

This is my snapshot of the Street. I know that it is invidious to single out any particular establishment and retail tenant turnover is often rapid. I apologise to those I have through ignorance or lack of space not mentioned. I love London and if I had a spare £2m or so (and I don’t!) I would certainly buy a modest 2-bedroom flat in the area to see out my final years. Harley Street, replete with medical expertise, is a stroll away and if I were ready to turn up my toes (which I am not) I suppose one could do so in luxury at one of the many neighbouring private clinics.

Fragonard's The Swing at the Wallace Collection

More positively, I would wander over, admission free, to the incomparable Wallace Collection in nearby Manchester Square and gaze upon Fragonard’s The Swing. This great Rococo masterpiece with the girl’s shoe being kicked over the head of the smitten lover is a delight and makes one happy to be alive in such a vibrant city.

SMD

7.05.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013

ARTHUR BALFOUR: Scots in UK Politics (5)

Arthur James Balfour was Britain’s Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905 and held high office for much of his long political career. He was born a Scotsman and ruled Britain in its Edwardian heyday but he inhabited his own esoteric and aloof philosophic Cathay. His contemporaries respected but did not understand him: he remains an enigma. He famously remarked: “Nothing matters much and very little matters at all”, not a sentiment we expect from our driven modern politicians.

The Younger Balfour

Balfour was born in Whittinghame House, East Lothian in 1848 with a mouth crammed with silver spoons. He was the son of James Maitland Balfour who was an MP who bought up the land around Whittinghame comprising 25 farms to create a great estate. His own father had made a large fortune in India. Arthur, the first son of eight children, was named after his godfather, the great Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington. His mother was Lady Blanche Gascoigne-Cecil, daughter of the 2nd Marquis of Salisbury, one of the most illustrious aristocratic families in the land - her brother Robert was to become the 3^rd Marquis and Prime Minister of Britain. His father died when he was 8 but his mother was a powerful influence, an evangelical Christian often seen distributing tracts to passengers at nearby East Linton railway station and imbuing Arthur with her religious beliefs and a later rather useful interest in the geography of the Holy Land.

Arthur was predictably educated at Eton and progressed to Trinity College, Cambridge, studying moral sciences graduating with 2^nd class honours in 1869. His interest in philosophy was aroused and there was a conflict with his interest in politics. Smoothly entering parliament in 1874 he worked on his Defence of Philosophic Doubt published in 1879. In 1878 he was for two years private secretary to his uncle Lord Salisbury, then Foreign Secretary, whom he accompanied to the Congress of Berlin to rearrange matters after Ottoman Turkey had lost a war with Russia. Balfour would have seen Prime Minister Disraeli (Beaconsfield) and Bismarck in action, a master-class in diplomacy.

When the Tories lost office in 1880 to Gladstone’s Liberals, Balfour joined Lord Randolph Churchill and two others in the “Fourth Party”, the small Tory group harassing the Liberals at every turn and raising Tory morale.

When Gladstone fell in 1886 over his failed attempt to introduce Irish Home Rule, Balfour joined Salisbury’s cabinet, first as Secretary for Scotland but in 1887 as Secretary for Ireland – an appointment which provoked ribald jeers of “Bob’s your Uncle!”, now part of the English vocabulary. Salisbury had declared that Ireland needed “20 years of resolute government” and to the surprise of his detractors, Balfour provided it. He introduced a Coercion Act banning boycotting,  unlawful assemblies and rural intimidation: the Irish came to call him “Bloody Balfour” and he applied his mind to  schemes for land reform which culminated in the a much improved system to relieve the poor and the streamlining of local government.. Ireland was relatively quiet until the eve of the First War, as the Tories had the support of the Liberal Unionists led by Joe Chamberlain and the Irish Nationalists were split following the disgrace of their leader Parnell.

Balfour as Prime Minister

Balfour had won his spurs and held various senior offices in Salisbury’s ministries, notably Leader of the House of Commons. It was no surprise that Balfour succeeded his Uncle Robert when Salisbury retired as Prime Minister in 1902.

Balfour inherited a strained exchequer after the cost of finally winning the Boer War. In conjunction with his friend and Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne, Balfour approved the closer links with France known as the Entente Cordiale. He had also inherited a coalition arrangement with the Liberal Unionists led by the mercurial Radical Joseph Chamberlain, in cabinet as the Colonial Secretary. When Balfour introduced his sensible Education Act replacing school boards with local education authorities and increasing finance to Anglican and Catholic education, his government was split as Chamberlain was viewed as the champion of the Nonconformists, who often served on school boards and resented financing faith establishments. The Act passed but with many misgivings.

Much more serious was the schism caused by Chamberlain’s espousal of the cause of Tariff Reform. Chamberlain argued that Germany and the USA already protected their industries with high tariffs: Britain and its Empire should do likewise and the new revenues could finance many radical causes. The great parties had hitherto supported Free Trade and risked an electoral. rout if they allowed food to rise in price. Winston Churchill defected from the Conservatives to the Liberals on this issue and there were many other unhappy Tories. Chamberlain was allowed to leave the cabinet and barn-storm around the country in the Tariff Reform cause, but he did not prevail. Balfour’s position weakened, and believing he could win a subsequent election he resigned in 1905 handing over to the Liberal leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Balfour had miscalculated as CB’s rivals unified around him and in 1906 the Liberals won a stunning electoral triumph. Tory representation melted and Balfour lost his own seat, though he soon returned to Parliament, remaining Party Leader.

The Liberal tide was irresistible and the only way Conservatives could fight back was (unwisely) using their built-in majority in the Lords to veto Government legislation.  In Lloyd George’s phrase “The House of Lords is not the watchdog of the Constitution, it is Mr Balfour’s Poodle”. A crisis broke over the “Peoples Budget” and after two more elections, the power of the Lords was much curtailed by the Parliament Act of 1911. Balfour had failed and resigned the leadership to Andrew Bonar Law.

Balfour with Chaim Weizmann

But Balfour’s political career was by no means over. He rejoined the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915 and then served as Foreign Secretary from 1916 – 19, in a momentous period. In 1917 Balfour signed the letter now known as the Balfour Declaration, stating that the British Government was in favour of the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, then occupied by British forces. It has been alleged that  the Declaration was just a cynical exercise aimed at moving US opinion to join the War or another British land-grab on the lines of Sykes-Picot. The truth may be simpler; Balfour had known and befriended Chaim Weizmann (then a Manchester University academic) since 1905. Weizmann became the President of the World Zionist Organisation - and much later Israel’s first President. Balfour admired the Jews as a talented biblical people and believed they had the right to live in their ancestral home and took due cognisance of Arab rights. Much good and much evil flowed from this Declaration.

Balfour loved being at the centre of affairs, attending Versailles, and remained in Lloyd George’s coalition cabinet until 1922; he lingered on as an elder statesman, and an Earl, in Baldwin’s cabinet, usually as Lord President of the Council, up to 1929. He managed to visit the Holy Land in 1925 narrowly missing the attentions of an angry Arab mob in Damascus. Ill-health dogged him in 1928 and he died of phlebitis aged 82 in 1930. Nominally an Anglican he insisted that his funeral be at Whittinghame according to the practices of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Tall and impressive, Balfour never married; a beloved cousin died early and Balfour communicated with her through mediums. Bizarrely in a philosopher he was heavily involved in the affairs of the Society for Psychical Research. His long friendship with Lady Elcho has been noticed and Lord Beaverbrook, a satyr himself, called Balfour a hermaphrodite. Suffice it to say, Balfour led a private and discreet life.

Balfour the Elder Statesman

Balfour was not indolent. He had a Scotsman’s passion for golf and was an enthusiastic tennis player. He wrote a serious philosophical work The Foundations of Belief in 1895 and delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures in 1915 on Theism and Humanism. He had a refined mind, yet he could be genial to voters and party workers. There was an element of noblesse oblige in this geniality and probably in his inner heart Balfour believed he was superior to such people. This superiority was real and yet our democratic spirit makes it hard for us to acknowledge such inconvenient truths.

SMD

6.05.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013.