4 Leaving Trevemedar

Even as Bridget’s life in Cornwall gained in familiarity, the prospect of that time ending loomed. After almost four years without a regular education, Bridget’s and Sally’s academic progress – such as it was –had become an increasing concern. Louise again consulted Mrs Kitton. The older woman had two daughters who were boarders at St Stephen’s College, an Anglican convent school. Based in Folkestone, on the southeast Kent coast, the school had been evacuated to Taplow, Buckinghamshire, at the start of the war. With Mrs Kitton’s support, Louise explored the possibility of Bridget and Sally attending. Having to pay fees would have been a problem and Louise sought help from one of her aunts. As that hoped-for support was unforthcoming, the source of funding is something of a mystery. It is possible that the ever-helpful Mrs Kitton may have spoken to the school about the Riley family’s predicament, and that the school took a benevolent view and waived their charges. Bridget’s new address could hardly have been more different from the home in Cornwall that she left behind. The school was housed in Taplow Court, a large, stately Victorian house that had been the seat of residence of the Grenfell family since the mid-nineteenth century. After it was inherited by the first Baron Desborough in 1867, it became the hub of the family’s prominent social life, and distinguished visitors included Henry Irving, Vita Sackville-West, Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales, H. G. Wells, Patrick Shaw-Stewart, Edith Wharton and Oscar Wilde. Situated within extensive grounds, this formidable mansion comprises four storeys built in red brick in an early Tudor style. The approach to the house is impressive, numerous tall chimney stacks and gables increasing the overall impression of towering height. On arrival, the visitor passes

Following the end of the war, St Stephen’s was re-established at a new location at Broadstairs, a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in east Kent, and Bridget and Sally continued there as boarders. However, the war had disrupted their studies and their father’s return unsettled Bridget further. Her academic progress became an increasing worry to her teachers. Still prone to overexcitement, Bridget remained under close supervision as this was felt to be the most reliable way of checking her nocturnal excursions. Furthermore, the school persisted in relying on sedation in order to calm their unruly pupil. During the daytime, she sat opposite her teacher in order that she could be observed closely. The abiding impression was that Bridget was ‘not good at taking things in’.

During holidays the girls resumed their pre-war existence in Boston and, after Jack’s return, the family was reunited. They now reaped the reward of the austerity they had endured. Holly House had been acquired on a mortgage, but throughout the war years was rented out to local raf people. After the family’s return to Boston, that income enabled Jack and Louise to pay off the mortgage. While living at home, Bridget readjusted to her former surroundings and to the experience of again being with her parents and sister. Viewing the house with older eyes, its considerable comforts were apparent to her. In complete contrast to the cottage at Trevemedar, there were fitted carpets, each a rose colour; heavy padded curtains bound with cords; a staircase; a breakfast room and a luxurious bathroom. The rooms also boasted excellent antique furniture, including many fine pieces inherited from Louise’s father. Bridget’s mother added to that collection with items she acquired from the local rag-and-bone man, but she had a good eye for quality and an ability to recognise the potential for effective restoration, at which she was adept. She also began to add certain decorative touches and had a penchant for Bernard Leach pots. Holly House became Louise’s creation, and it had style.

The sumptuous character of their reinstated home was indulged. But because they had become used to an entirely different way of life in Cornwall, their present accommodation seemed at odds with their recently acquired habits and conventions. In that respect life at Boston had a Jekyll and Hyde character, with comfort vying with a contradictory instinct for simplicity. To Jack’s bemusement, Louise, Bridget and Sally retreated, and began sleeping in an outbuilding at the back of the house. Used as a place for drying clothes, this simple shed was open on one side. It offered a view of the garden, and at night admitted the subtle colours, changing light and delicate fragrance of their surroundings. That direct contact with nature was an antidote to the suburban character of the house, striking a chord that evoked their former rural existence. It seems that through living in Cornwall the trio had merged with the rhythms and character of the landscape to an extent that possibly even they underestimated. Louise and her children missed the countryside and yearned for that sensory engagement.

Although the family was reunited, Bridget was disturbed by this profound change. Delighted to be with her father again, she also had to get to know this unfamiliar man. Transplanted from its previous locus, the family unit had altered. Betty had gone and was missed. Cornwall was receding into the past, and, as a result of the difficulties she was experiencing at St Stephen’s, Bridget’s future seemed uncertain. It was around this time that she took her first steps along the path that would determine her adult life. On the top floor at the back of the house, the room that previously had been a nursery now attracted her attention. She started to use it as a private place to which she would retreat, and it was there that she began to make art. The exact reasons for that important development are unclear. There had been beginnings at St Stephen’s when she had started working with a drawing mistress for a couple of hours each week. She had also commenced drawing there, by herself, this activity replacing the academic studies with which she had struggled.

Bridget’s aspiration to receive a proper art school training was undimmed by the three years she had spent completing her general education. As she saw it, this interlude had been a deferral, albeit one that had been enormously beneficial through the tuition she had received from Colin Hayes. Now the question of which art college to attend loomed larger than ever, and the matter of obtaining a place acquired a growing sense of urgency. Once again living in Boston with her parents, she continued to work in the studio she had set up at the top of the house. Without a mentor to provide guidance, her sense of direction required a new impetus. It was around this time that she made the acquaintance of Dr Booth, whose influence would be highly significant.

The local residents were sociable and formed something of a friendly community that shared news and common knowledge. Dr Booth was a cultivated Jewish gentleman, a practising doctor, whose house was diagonally opposite the Riley family’s home. He had heard of Bridget’s artistic ambitions and, having taken an interest in her talents, invited her to join in with one of the cultural evenings he occasionally organised. These soirées sometimes took the form of musical gatherings, in which Louise had an interest. Living in Boston, she missed the intellectual attractions she had previously enjoyed in London and welcomed participation in the circle that formed around Dr Booth. Bridget was less convinced. No longer a schoolgirl, she was nevertheless desperately self-conscious and shy. However, when it transpired that the evening would involve life drawing and the opportunity to meet people who had art connections, she relented.

Dr Booth chose his guests well. One of the principal attendees was his cousin, Clifford Frith. Born in London in 1924, he was the grandson of the Victorian artist and Royal Academician William Powell Frith, celebrated for The Derby Day (1856–58) and other enormously popular paintings of nineteenth-century life. Then 45 years old, Frith had followed in his illustrious predecessor’s footsteps. Having trained at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, and subsequently at St Martin’s School of Art under Roland Pitchforth and Victor Pasmore, he had served during the recent conflict as an official war artist. A skilled draughtsman and painter, his subjects included portraiture and, like his grandfather, scenes of common life. He also taught art. At the time of his meeting with Bridget, he was teaching at Goldsmiths College, which had only just reopened, having been gutted by bombing during the war. Frith was accompanied by Gerald Kitchin, who was a student at Goldsmiths. This sensitive and gentle young man would form a close friendship with Bridget. Then in his 20s, he had recently taken up a place at the college, having been a conscientious objector and a Bevin boy, working as a coal miner during the latter part of the war. Now he became the subject of one of Bridget’s first painted portraits made from life.

With Frith acting as tutor for the evening, Kitchin sat as a model for the assembled group. Bridget approached the task as Hayes had shown her, looking closely, analysing her impressions, then reproducing her observations faithfully and according to the idea she formed of her subject. Seated on a chair, Gerald was wearing a grey-green jacket, a tie and dark blue trousers. Bridget noted the subtle tonal relations presented by this understated subject and focused on the connection between the figure and the background. Worked in oils on Daler board, the composition was executed relatively quickly and straightforwardly. Finding the process easy, by the close of the session she had produced a small, harmonious painting whose interplay of gentle, greyed colours was an underpinning visual theme. The painting anticipates Riley’s later preoccupation, during the 1960s, with abstract grey shapes in close tonal relationships. But that lay far in the future. For the moment, she was pleased with her efforts, and it won the admiration of her tutor and her model.