Review ↠ eBook, PDF or Kindle ePUB Ô Diana Holman-Hunt

Free read ↠ My Grandmothers and I 107 Review ↠ eBook, PDF or Kindle ePUB Ô Diana Holman-Hunt Hunt was shunted between her wealthy Freeman grandparents in Sussex and a life of privation with the eccentric Edith Holman Hunt 'Grand' in Kensington Brave and resourceful she soon learnt that adult affection was conditional in the country on her ability to entertain she was constantly exhorted to 'utter' and in Melbury Road Kensington to take in and cherish anecdotes relating to the Victorian art world and her grandfather in particular Holman Hunt fulfilled both roles but ultimately tired of Grand's canonisation of the great pa Review originally published here tracked down a copy of this after a good bit of searching it was the author surname that caught my attention I find the lives of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood interesting in a rather morbid sort of way as I doubt that the name Holman Hunt is particularly common And indeed I was correct Diana Holman Hunt was the granddaughter of the famous painter but born three years after his death arriving into the world in the bed that the Great Man died in With a father who is mysteriously absent for than the first half of the book and who proves himself utterly inadeuate for the remainder and a mother who is never mentioned Diana spends her childhood being ferried between the homes of her two contrasting grandmothers an upbringing which she chronicles in this entertaining and deeply affectionate memoirHolman Hunt s two grandmothers are known as Grandmother and Grand with the former being Mrs Freeman a distant relative of John Everett Millais and then the latter being Edith Holman Hunt fortunate enough to be widow to the Great Artist to put it in her own words The Freemans live in a tightly run household in Sussex staffed by a full complement of servants and where Grandmother Freeman s word is gospel Diana s days are governed by tasks and nothing less than perfection is acceptable By contrast Grand wafts around her frowsty dark home with only my good Helen to serve her and Helen is truly good for very little producing inedible meals refusing to tidy and generally remaining monosyllabic Grand s Kensington home is of a shrine to her late husband than a house the tea set is labelled with the names of the great and the good who drank from the cups although Diana objects that they can t have ever all sat down together Diana returns from visits to Grand with unwashed hair and wrinkled clothes and a general state of hungriness Grandmother Freeman is always appalled and the passive aggressive correspondence between the two has a humour of its ownDespite Diana s date of birth being 1913 this memoir has a distinct Victorian theme I read it with the voice of Lady Bracknell in my head Diana is called upon to utter in the drawing room and then instructed at another point to enter a room with the word prune as it will make her mouth appear a better shape The child Diana gallops into the room dressed in her classical dress as a Greek goddess shouting the word There is also the unfortunate tennis incident that leave the child with a black eye My Grandmothers and I is a nostalgic piece reflecting back to childhood when things were simpler but also for these grandmothers themselves Grand s home is a mausoleum full of mementos of her marriage and her husband s fame and her conversation full of those who are dead Having read The Model Wife it was interesting to hear the Millais Ruskin scandal from a contemporary perspective Diana is ordered to forever defend the reputations of Euphemia and Uncle Johnny her grandfather s close friend There is a humour to how Diana parrots her grandmother s words but the grief and loss behind them is undeniableThere is a deeper shame though behind Grand s constant chatter Edith Holman Hunt was second wife to the painter with her sister being his first wife Edith and Holman Hunt had to go abroad to Europe in order to marry due to laws against marrying the sister of one s deceased wife Florence Holman Hunt died in childbirth her marriage to the painter was short but there is such tender tragedy to the aging Grand s muted panic that in all these years of her widowhood her sister has been reunited with Holman Hunt in Heaven The author s love and warmth for all of her grandparents is obvious while her cousin breaks her shell collection and is a spoilsport her father does little for her other than posting her a leper skin for her fifth birthday it is the grandmothers who are clearest positive force in her lifeThere is the muffled panic in the background of the Freeman household that Grandfather has lost his sight and is almost blind the worst happens later when he has the dreaded fall plunging his wife into the despair that has hovered over her for so much of the book Grandmother abstractedly tells Diana that from now on she cannot live with them that it is fortunate enough that she will be married in a few years which to the adolescent Diana is clearly alarming She is assured that thanks to Grand Diana will be an heiress but instead she is sent to an inferior boarding school before being rescued by her father several years later Yet with his reappearance Diana s father is finally revealed as the worthless individual that he truly is leaving her abandoned almost penniless and having to take a low paid job in order to support herself all the while living in the sualor of Grand s decaying home Grand and her father are reluctant to allow her to visit her now widowed Grandfather and when her father finally vanishes for good Diana finds herself unwanted by her other relatives who make their excuses to abdicate responsibility The loveliest moment of the book comes however when Grand unexpectedly dies hit by a bus and she received a note from her Grandfather incapacitated by his earlier accident but to her obvious relief able to offer her a place to go It is tempting to wonder with a memoir such as this to what extent the author is holding back Certainly she never explains her mother s whereabouts The characters are drawn so large larger than life that one wonders about the accuracy but again My Grandmothers and I captures the way in which a child perceives the adult world The older Diana in the second part of the book has a different perspective she can see Grand as a far diminished figure some vulnerable who needs to be protected and these figures who were once so omnipotent particularly Fowler and the other servants from the Freeman household who were so omnipotent in the eyes of her younger self they too become fallible and faded My Grandmothers and I has of the feel of a novel than a memoir though she most certainly was not starved for material and indeed in having sung her family s song in so beautiful a way she is carrying them forwarrd to another generation just as her Grand would have wanted

Characters My Grandmothers and I

Free read ↠ My Grandmothers and I 107 Review ↠ eBook, PDF or Kindle ePUB Ô Diana Holman-Hunt Inter Diana Holman Hunt's late flowering gifts as a writer owed nothing to formal education From the ages of eight to 14 she was sent to an inferior boarding school in Eastbourne and continued her studies in Florence Germany and at art school in Paris Grand was killed by an omnibus in 1931 unexpectedly leaving nothing in her will to Diana Her first book‘My Grandmothers and I” became a best seller the year after her second husband’s death from cancer in 1959 She was working on her autobiography when she died on 10th August 19 An account of an extraordinary Edwardian upbringing As so often with memoirs the early years are the best but it s a riveting tale of past times

Free read ↠ My Grandmothers and I 107 Review ↠ eBook, PDF or Kindle ePUB Ô Diana Holman-Hunt PRE ISBNText below extracted and largely copied from accessed 21 April 2011BORN 25 October 1913 in the bed in which the Pre Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt had died three years before the writer Diana Holman Hunt was to inherit her grandfather's exceptional memory and gifts as a raconteur These were cultivated by an extraordinary upbringing which Holman Hunt brilliantly described in her first book My Grandmothers and I 1960An unwanted only child whose father Hilary was employed in the Public Works Department in Burma Holman An extraordinarily entertaining and thought provoking read The image of irresponsible parenthood one builds up in one s mind of Diana s absent father Hilary in the first part of this book is amply justified through the evidence of his presence in the second part One can but speculate as to the exact nature of his employment in the Public Works department in Burma Meanwhile Diana lives with and is brought up by her grandparents At this point one feels that the obvious caveat should be added This book is a memoir of the author s As such only the author d 1993 knew how she selected and presented her materialDiana s wealthy maternal grandparents the Freemans in Surry were closely related to Sir John Everett Millais one of the founders of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood Grandmother Freeman is a perfectionist Save for their acts of competitive grand parenting the Freeman grandparents appear to be relatively normal Strangely Diana s mother dead divorced insane unmarried is never mentionedAt that time in common with children of her class Diana spends time with the Freeman servants than with her Freeman grandparents As an only child she is close to her cousin Priscilla who is of a similar age In Chapter 5 Diana s uncomprehending grandfather speaks firmly with her after Mr Duncan the vicar catches Diana and Priscilla rolling about the graves giggling in an unseemly indeed he said in an hysterical manner Later on the same afternoon he Mr Duncan heard noises in the church He opened the door uietly and an extraordinary spectacle met his eyes you two children wearing peculiar confections on your heads prostrating yourselves at the altar in front of a dead rabbit His first reaction was one of horror at what seemed like desecration of the church you should know it is a consecrated building On closer inspection he was gradually convinced that you were both praying devoutly He confessed himself strangely moved at the sight of two kneeling children their eyes closed and their hands clasped in earnest supplication He uietly withdrew It appears you left the rabbit on the altar and he gave it to some deserving person in the parish He declares that you and Priscilla have returned several times to repeat this extraordinary performance Edith Holman Hunt Diana s paternal grandmother known as Grand is the real star of the book Living in Kensington London she was clearly an extraordinary character a woman very rich in material possessions but one who rarely shows any understanding that such wealth could let alone should be spent She does not maintain a number of staff commensurate with the uality and grandeur of her house However when Diana is identified as having acute appendicitis Grand doesn t think twice about paying the bill for the risky but necessary private operation Grand identifies herself and her purpose in life to the nth degree by her marriage abroad in 1875 to William Holman Hunt OM one of the leading artists of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood She conseuently moved in high circles of artistic society William Makepeace Thackeray and his children played round this tree is but one example of many throwaway remarks Now in widowhood her social circle appears to remain well stockedEdith was the sister of Holman Hunt s first wife Fanny who died in childbirth in Italy Such marriages contrary to Church Law were not legalised in England until 1907 the deceased wife s sister Act Diana describes the precarious balance of Edith state of mind resting between the triumphalism of her success in marrying the man she loved and desired was yet racked with jealously Holman s death in 1910 parted her from him but alas also reunited him with his first wife in heavenOne of my favourite passages in the book much as I loved it all occurs in Chapter 4 when Grand takes Diana to St Paul s cathedral London for Sunday morning service After the service ends Grand walks over to Holman s second painting of The Light of The World 1900 and embarrassingly for Diana keenly tells the gathering crowd of tourists all about that very famous masterpiece I have the honour to be the artist s widow There could be no stopping her now After this the verger unlocks the door to the crypt so that Grand may pray devoutly at her late husband s grave and ponder in a tearful but maudlin manner the reunification of their mortal remains As an observer Diana s own thoughts are somewhat frivolousThis book may possibly challenge and bemuse a reader who is unfamiliar with the British class system of the first half of the twentieth century However I would urge such a reader not to give up too easily and perhaps to find books to read round the wider subject of the mid to late Victorian and Edwardian periods ie those years which shaped the characters of Diana s grandparentsI would also urge potential readers to seek out an edition of the book such as the 1960 edition which contains five photographic plates The first plate opposite the title page is titled Mr and Mrs Holman Hunt leaving Windsor Castle after a Royal Garden Party It is an extraordinary image After seeing that nothing contained in Diana Holman Hunt s book should come as a surprise to the reader