My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyneighbouring town of Yeovil. His adventurous nature was then calmer, but he had stillon occasion to be restrained from diverting his guests by standing on one side of thebalustrade at the top of the house which surrounded the deep well and jumping acrossto catch the opposite rail with his hands; a habit of his youth. His Albanian brigandswere reputed to have enlivened the rural countryside before the war by gallopingthrough the villages, shooting their revolvers in the air as a warning to theirneighbours, because they suspected that a fusillade of guns from an adjacent shootingparty was an ambush. Aubrey was reticent when rallied on these old stories.He was a fine character and always on the right side in opposing all mean and crueldealings, like the Coalition Government's treatment of the Irish after the war. Throughhim I met also my chief Conservative colleague in that early and tough fight of myparliamentary life, Henry Bentinck; a brother of the Duke of Portland, he was cast inthe generous and courageous mould of traditional English statesmanship. He couldafford to laugh when in the heat of an Irish debate Lloyd George, in reference to hisancestors coming over with King William, called him a 'bloody Dutchman' (SpeakerLowther, like all great occupants of the Chair, was often tactfully deaf), for it was oneof his family, Lord George Bentinck, who advised the Conservatives to tolerateDisraeli on the ground that every gentleman's team required a professional bowler.Godfrey Locker-Lampson, the elder of two M.P. brothers, was one of the mostindustrious members of this group, which became attached to the two Cecils, LordRobert and Lord Hugh, as we developed the Irish battle. It was the Foreign Officewhich first brought me into contact with these able men of fine instinct and character.Other well-known figures were then also connected with this service, though ourpaths later diverged. George Lloyd was much occupied with the Foreign Office at thattime, but only indirectly with our department; he was still an M.P. Mark Sykes spentmuch time in our company, which he invariably diverted as well as informed. Likemost of these men, he was an expert on near-Eastern affairs, and his death throughillness at the Peace Conference was a real national loss. He had exceptional charmand was an extremely gifted mimic. His chief turn was a charade of Mr. Churchill'sexpedition to Antwerp. It began with Churchill's alleged address from the steps of theTown Hall: 'Citizens of Antwerp, the might of the British Empire is at yourdisposal'—and ended with the alleged escape of Mr. Churchill's stepfather, GeorgeCornwallis West, on a borrowed child's bicycle. These men were intermediatebetween me and an older generation, and their attitude was strikingly irreverent. Thedramatic performances of Mr. Churchill evoked the liveliest sallies of their merriment,but their attitude to Mr. Lloyd George was much more severe. They detested him, andalways called him the goat; a reference to his slight legs under the massive torsosurmounted by a magnificent head which did in general effect rather suggest the greatgod Pan; but Pan at his best, using his most seductive pipes. I differed from themstrongly in later years concerning the character and capacities of Lloyd George, forwhom I had a warm regard when I got to know him well.No account of the work in the Foreign Office during this period need be given,because it consisted chiefly of the routine fulfilment of duty at the centre of a waradministration which now belongs to history. It was later that the rise of Russianpower with the aid of British policy supplied a good quota of the professional traitorsof communism to this classic department, which had long been a pride and distinctionof British administration. An important and indeed essential ingredient in my75 of 424