Hello Oscar,

I went along to an exhibition at Chortleton Manor College today, and simply had to write to tell you all about it. A singular part of that dubious tradition of public schools in what is now called the United Kingdom (probably Great Britain in your day, but not so ‘great’ now!): an ex-country pile converted into a fee paying boarding school some time in the eighteenth century, desperately holding on to its vestiges of privilege and standing. How the British love to pretend that things are still the way they were!

Of course, as minor public schools go, it is doing rather well, attracting a lot of foreign money, I believe; seems to specialise in the oriental student, and the Asian princeling, among all the solid, upright, and oh so British members of its community. If you have enough money, you can attend, that is about the sum of it – although connections do help, and family history, and being a part of the exclusive club. All about ‘rubbing shoulders’, although low on the national stage – not exactly an Eton, or a Rugby, or a Winchester.

It is a place that echoes and reverberates to the marching of its war dead (you have missed both of the ‘great’ wars of the twentieth century, Oscar, (more greatness that the UK has to contend with!) and a jolly good thing too – such squandering of youthful manly beauty). There seems to be something of a cult of hero worship for the sacrificed – all strong young men led by the nose into slaughter, with little regard for their individual plight. Almost as if it were to be expected; born to die. It still goes on today; preparing young men to obey orders no matter how absurd those orders might be, even at the cost of life itself, for usually vain-glorious outcomes. The college reveres this tradition.

Today was ‘A Feast of Fickle Craftsmanship’. You see in this day and age, Oscar, anyone who does anything that is remotely manual is seen as ‘artisan’, is celebrated for doing something other than pushing buttons, guiding machinery, or shuffling electronic documents. Strange to say that what you would have seen as ordinary and not worthy of much comment, is now held in the highest regard and given a rarity value far outstripping its actual worth. It happens in every sphere. Mechanisation has taken over the world, and so if somebody actually does something it is deemed worthy of note, and celebrated.

I cannot help thinking, and you would concur, that the craftsmen themselves would have been finer to inspect than the wooden objets d’art and pieces of extraordinary furniture, that they have been able to produce. Upright young men, well educated, but supported, usually by dreaming parents, to step away from the pressures of the everyday, and to create in woodsheds and outbuildings pieces of art with a functional quality. Such is the level of decadence nowadays that all sense of practicality has gone. Doors open with hidden handles, lights are concealed to illumine surreptitiously, angles are softened or made more acute, and what is valued everywhere is the reality of pieces of wood, with actual grains, gleaming beneath what I am sure is a polypropylene (you wouldn’t understand – we have pursued chemistry to the point of self-annihilation) varnish.

Basically, even the real is subsumed beneath the fake. You see, Oscar, there are no servants anymore who would be willing to polish lovingly the wood of a bureau, or who would encourage dust simply to roll off – not even to settle in the first place! And the tools of this craft are now so far advanced that I believe you can programme in your design and they will cut all the angles required, follow the grain of the wood, buff and polish to an extent that now exceeds what is purely humanly possible. The work reflects the privilege from which the craftsmen stem; things that look a little different, have poor functionality, but exist for show, for showing off. You would love it, I am sure. A chest of drawers that looks like an egg with room for three pairs of socks and a pen, secretly unlocked with a feather shaped key – what more could be desired.

I got the impression that most of these craftsmen, and definitely many of the visitors, were ‘old boys’ of the College itself. That this was a sort of self-perpetuating bubble of existence, feeding itself with extravagance and distraction. You could tell from the way they comported themselves; they had that air of being in control, and of being right, which comes from a public school education – of entitlement. There was no room for criticism at all, and the polite hushed tones, the church-like atmosphere excluded all of those who might laugh, or mock, or take umbrage. And everything was so expensive – huge amounts of money being asked for desks and chairs and cupboards and chests of drawers. More than a month’s salary for most of the populace for something that ought to be practical but now had become a whimsy.

Oh, and there were nudes of course – wooden statuettes for corner displays and alcove decor – ghastly exemplifications of imagined womanhood, wearing pointed stiletto heeled shoes and nothing else, like weird trophies, pert and fulsome! Oh, and also a black man, with a penis bigger than his head, in a kneeling position with his arms outstretched. Disgusting. Something to take home and own and put on display in risque cabinets for others to envy and admire. Really, it was all too absurd, but easy to play the game of being a connoisseur of fine furnishings, opening drawers and cupboard doors, and muttering ‘resin’, ‘burr walnut’, ‘acanthus leaf’ to my companion. What struck me was that you would have been quite at home there, even after all these decades since your earthly departure. You would, I am sure, have noticed nothing unremarkable, and approved in some level of complicity with all that was on display. Apart from the updating of music systems and electricity supplies, and security measures, you would have wandered around seeing and registering only things, and people, whom you already knew.

There was all the smiling and fawning of the over polite punters, and the ‘busy-bodying’ of female curators. A rude young man, not good looking, took money on the door, and everyone wandered around reverently, treating all objects with wonderment and surprise, and speaking to nervous artists with no clear intention to buy. Much had been sold, the place reeked of money and privilege, and of a world that had advanced in no way since you were here. The old boys, as they always did, had gone off to make their fortunes in the colonies, or in the City, and now they were back to indulge ‘taste’. You have to laugh at the pretensions of the bourgeoisie, because that is exactly who these people were. One or two of them may be Viscount this or Baron that, but in actual fact they were just people with money – not so rough trade – out to make a splash. You would have eaten them up like so many anchovies, and I would have enjoyed the show. But I wonder how much you would have rocked the sleepy boat; as feeding frenzies go, this was a table at which to gorge. I get the impression that you were something of a gourmand, not able to say ‘no’, or ‘enough’, or ‘I won’t’.

With love to you, Oscar, for reminding me, again, of human foible, for all that you were, and all that you are.

Today I shall be your devoted acolyte,

Your friend, and mine,

Algernon B. Duffoure.