Figure 1.Here is a snap shot of Michael's father as a boy and his family in the 1910. Put the cursor on the image to see the family a couple years later in a 1912 formal portrait. |
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Michael Holroyd has written a wonderful book about his family andcrelations. It is a kind of combination autobiography and family menoir. His Basil had a older brother Kenneth and an older sister. This delightful book includes amusing glimses of ecentric relatives. It is just me are do English families seem to be especially well endowed with delightful ecentrics. Holroyd is of course a well-respected biographer (Lytton Strachey, Augustus John and, George Bernard Shaw). And for a writer, a nutty family is a gold mind of potential material. He begins the book by admitting that his literary career has been in part an effort to distabce himself from his relatives. He tells us, "My career as a biographer probably arose from my need to escape from family involvements and immerse myself in other people's lives." It is always fascinating to look at parents to see how their background has influenced the children. The Holroyds were not a typical English family. In fact, they were only half English.
The father Basil Holroyd was descended from a once-notable family. The pariarch was the 19th-century Earl of Sheffield who made his fortune in India. The by Michae;'s time family was in decline and so was Basil who attended Eton. He had a annolder brother Kenneth and an older sister.
It is always fascinating to look at parents andcfamily to see how their background has influenced the children. The Holroyds were not a typical English family. In fact, they were only half English. And the parents were very different people. The mother Ulla Knutsson-Hall was Swedish, very beautiful and not very serious. Her father was a Swedish military officer who liked the ladies. Her mother in contrast was very straight laced with an almost icy edge. They met in a boat on the Baltic.
Michael was born in in 1935. Mother and father differed on just about everything and separated. He was raised in the "Home Counties" by his paternal grandparents as well as a tennis-mad aunt.
His strongest memmories warring relatives, a large deteriorating house, and upper-class sensibilities. His parents come and go in his life. This grandfather runs away with a younger women, but soon returns hime
We see images of Micael's father basil and his aunt and uncle as children.
In the two pictues Kenneth is shown wearing a dress. It looks quite fancy for a boy. He also wears also wearing white ankle socks and white strap shoesI think these pictures were taken on the same day.
Basil wears short trousers, a tie knee socks and black strap shoes. He is shirt is white with a Peter Pan colour His tie looks to be a woollen knitted one.
Holroyd, Michael. Basil Street Blues: A Family Story (Little Brown and Company, London, 1999).
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