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Authors: Ysenda Maxtone Graham
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coming home.
This was a house Joyce grew to love. Robert, her youngest child, was born here in 1931. (Anne Talbot mentions this birth in her diary. Her use of the neuter pronoun gives an idea of the distance between grown-ups and babies: âJoyce has had a baby. It is going to be called Robert.â)
Joyce was now the mother of three, and the nursery floor pattered, as it was designed to, with tiny feet. Distant sounds of crying and coaxing trickled down the stairwell. Inspired by an imagined ideal of a family house, she made a playroom, with a stage and curtains, and put a canvas paddling-pool on the roof-garden, with an outdoor toy-cupboard.
âModern Home Making. Husband and Wife Each Design a Room.â The Daily Telegraph, The Queen and the Evening Standard devoted a âHomeâ page each to Tony and Joyceâs modern way of dealing with âthe difference between the sexesâ. âMr Maxtone Graham, in the dining-room, has chosen a waterlily-green table, cellulosed so that hot plates can be put upon it with impunity, and marks wiped off with a damp cloth.â âThe drawing-room, entirely planned by Mrs Maxtone Graham, might be a room in a pleasant country house. The walls are painted Devonshire cream yellow, and cheerful notes are introduced by the red painted radiators. Built in under one windowsill is the loudspeaker of the radio-gramophone, the control of which is over by the fireplace. Each chair is provided with its own little table, ash tray, and box of cigarettes â a detail which perhaps only a woman would have remembered.â They were being held up as examples of the new-style husband and wife: equals in the home, neither in thrall to the other.
Now the parties could be bigger and better. âI went to Wellington Sq.,â writes Anne Talbot, âand found Tony and Joyce preparing for their drinks party. Preparing for festivities is one of the most delightful occupations to find people at, and I realized the heavenliness of that moment.â The dinner was âexcellentâ, the wine âsuperbâ, and later everyone went down to the ping-pong room for a competition organized by Tony. The party ended with scrambled eggs at 2.30 â this on a Wednesday evening.
The dining-room at Wellington Square, designed by Tony
Joyce retired early to bed at her own parties. Towards the end of a party â just as towards the end of a foreign holiday â she ceased to enjoy what she was supposed to be enjoying, and longed to be unwatched. At these moments, when she mentally withdrew herself from the chatter of her surroundings, she attained the sudden sense of perspective and clarity which gave her the overwhelming urge to write.
Of all emotions, she perhaps felt the emotion of missing most acutely. At a party, she missed solitude. Abroad, she missed home. Cut off from her children, she longed to be with them again. When she was, she longed again for solitude. The raggle-taggle gypsy in her head beckoned her to escape.
Chapter Four
Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
âGainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free, with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness the power of the truth.
Verse 3 of J.Sâs âWhen a knight won his spursâ, from Songs of Praise
Â
I T WAS PERHAPS because Joyce was so unholy that she wrote such good hymns. She could stand back from Christianity and express its essence with childlike simplicity and refreshing vocabulary, from a distance.
Canon Percy Dearmer, though attached to Westminster Abbey, lived with his wife Nan near Joyce, in Embankment Gardens. He and Joyce met in 1929 and had a long talk about hymns, and which were their favourites. He later suggested she write a few hymns for his new enlarged edition of Songs of Praise, and she asked if she could write one to the Irish melody âSlaneâ. She sat down one morning and wrote âLord of all
This was a house Joyce grew to love. Robert, her youngest child, was born here in 1931. (Anne Talbot mentions this birth in her diary. Her use of the neuter pronoun gives an idea of the distance between grown-ups and babies: âJoyce has had a baby. It is going to be called Robert.â)
Joyce was now the mother of three, and the nursery floor pattered, as it was designed to, with tiny feet. Distant sounds of crying and coaxing trickled down the stairwell. Inspired by an imagined ideal of a family house, she made a playroom, with a stage and curtains, and put a canvas paddling-pool on the roof-garden, with an outdoor toy-cupboard.
âModern Home Making. Husband and Wife Each Design a Room.â The Daily Telegraph, The Queen and the Evening Standard devoted a âHomeâ page each to Tony and Joyceâs modern way of dealing with âthe difference between the sexesâ. âMr Maxtone Graham, in the dining-room, has chosen a waterlily-green table, cellulosed so that hot plates can be put upon it with impunity, and marks wiped off with a damp cloth.â âThe drawing-room, entirely planned by Mrs Maxtone Graham, might be a room in a pleasant country house. The walls are painted Devonshire cream yellow, and cheerful notes are introduced by the red painted radiators. Built in under one windowsill is the loudspeaker of the radio-gramophone, the control of which is over by the fireplace. Each chair is provided with its own little table, ash tray, and box of cigarettes â a detail which perhaps only a woman would have remembered.â They were being held up as examples of the new-style husband and wife: equals in the home, neither in thrall to the other.
Now the parties could be bigger and better. âI went to Wellington Sq.,â writes Anne Talbot, âand found Tony and Joyce preparing for their drinks party. Preparing for festivities is one of the most delightful occupations to find people at, and I realized the heavenliness of that moment.â The dinner was âexcellentâ, the wine âsuperbâ, and later everyone went down to the ping-pong room for a competition organized by Tony. The party ended with scrambled eggs at 2.30 â this on a Wednesday evening.
The dining-room at Wellington Square, designed by Tony
Joyce retired early to bed at her own parties. Towards the end of a party â just as towards the end of a foreign holiday â she ceased to enjoy what she was supposed to be enjoying, and longed to be unwatched. At these moments, when she mentally withdrew herself from the chatter of her surroundings, she attained the sudden sense of perspective and clarity which gave her the overwhelming urge to write.
Of all emotions, she perhaps felt the emotion of missing most acutely. At a party, she missed solitude. Abroad, she missed home. Cut off from her children, she longed to be with them again. When she was, she longed again for solitude. The raggle-taggle gypsy in her head beckoned her to escape.
Chapter Four
Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
âGainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free, with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness the power of the truth.
Verse 3 of J.Sâs âWhen a knight won his spursâ, from Songs of Praise
Â
I T WAS PERHAPS because Joyce was so unholy that she wrote such good hymns. She could stand back from Christianity and express its essence with childlike simplicity and refreshing vocabulary, from a distance.
Canon Percy Dearmer, though attached to Westminster Abbey, lived with his wife Nan near Joyce, in Embankment Gardens. He and Joyce met in 1929 and had a long talk about hymns, and which were their favourites. He later suggested she write a few hymns for his new enlarged edition of Songs of Praise, and she asked if she could write one to the Irish melody âSlaneâ. She sat down one morning and wrote âLord of all
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