Showing posts with label Upper Classes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Upper Classes. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

The British at Home

Introduction from The British at Home by Pont of Punch (London 1939) written by T.H. White (author of The Sword in the Stone.) The cartoonist Pont illustrated about 6 books, all amusing. His real name was Graham Laidler (1908-1940). He told White 'I do not try to draw funny people. I have no sense of humour. I try very hard to draw people exactly as they are.' White deconstructs one drawing, although how he knows these people are posing for The Tatler is a mystery.

Look, for example, at the family group on page 19. The 'Country Folk' are evidently posing for a photograph in The Tatler. But who are they, and what sort of person would each be to meet? My belief is that that paterfamilias is going to be a Governor General – hence the photograph for The Tatler – and that he will be a good one. He does not understand very much, dear fellow, but he has had a sound classical education at Harrow (yes Harrow: you would have thought Eton, but look at the tie) and his family mottoes show the extent of his learning. They are Mensa, Mensa, Mensam and Palam, Clam, Cum ex and E. No doubt he is interested in pigs or roses. His eldest son in the riding boots is at Oxford, and he does not understand very much about things either, for he has inherited his father's eyes. I doubt he is even good at polo. 



His wife was an actress, or else a famous debutante case, for she still considers herself a reigning beauty and spends all the time making herself up.