The Real Mrs Miniver (44 page)

Try Anything Twice
published

Writes 60 fourth leaders for
The Times

Photographed with the family in 1939

Outbreak of war

Mrs Miniver
articles collected and published as a book

Meets Dolf, they become lovers; photographed at Brighton

Dolf sails for NYC

After the fall of France, Tony urges her to take Janet and Robert to USA; and she is urged to go there by Sir Frederick Whyte to aid war effort

Sails to NYC, and gives up name Joyce in favour of Jan

Reunited with Dolf

Joins
Information, Please!

First lecture tour; longest tour; a tour described; last wartime tour

MGM film of
Mrs Miniver
mooted; film rights sold

Holidays with children; with Dolf

Broadcasts

Dentistry

Première of film

Moves to Central Park South

Corresponds with Eleanor Roosevelt, stays at the White House, and meets the President

To Los Angeles for the summer; photographed with Dolf

Exhaustion and depression, ‘the Jungles'

Gastritis

Honorary degree of D. Litt at the University of Pennsylvania

VE day; leaves NYC; the Halifax riots

Sails for England and is reunited with Tony

Irritated with Tony and
vice versa

To Appin for a stressful holiday with the family

Photographed with Robert's cairn terrier

They move back into Wellington Square, and give a dance for Janet

Tells Janet of love for Dolf

BBC radio and TV broadcasts

Marriage floundering; Tony and J agree to a divorce

Last week at Wellington Square; buys house in Alexander Place

Sails to NYC and lives in a slum area

To UK for the divorce hearing in Edinburgh

Returns to NYC

Consults various doctors, then Dr Kubie

To England for Christmas

Accepts Dolf's marriage proposal; they marry

Visit to UK and Paris with Dolf

Back to NYC; worst depression

Unable to write acceptable poetry or to finish autobiography

Five months at psychiatric sanatorium

Photographed at a picnic with Dolf in Canada

Broadcasting again

The Miniver Story
made by MGM, who settle her claim for damages

To England with Dolf

Agricultural tour of US with Jamie

Depression again

Cancer diagnosed; mastectomy

Her self-assessment; work-shy

Photographed in her NYC garden

Last visit to UK, with Dolf

Decline in her writing, but still enslaved by
Mrs Miniver

Medical check-up; to Cape Cod; sick and incoherent

Returns to NYC; brain tumour diagnosed

Her death, 20 July 1953 at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital; funeral at 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church, NYC; her ashes interred at Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire

BOOKS
by Jan Struther, in chronological order:

Betsinda Dances and Other Poems,
OUP

Sycamore Square and Other Verses,
illustrated by Ernest Shepard, London, 1932

The Modern Struwwelpeter,
illustrated by Ernest Shepard, London, 1936

When Grandmama was Small,
London, 1937, verses written by J adapted from the Swedish of Ingrid Smith; pictures by Mela Broman

Try Anything Twice: Essays and Sketches,
London, 1938; articles quoted

Mrs Miniver,
London, 1939; New York, 1940; many later editions; translations and editions in many countries. Columns for the Court page of
The Times
suggested to J by Peter Fleming; J's invention of the name ‘Miniver'; first of J's anonymous articles published in 1937; some articles quoted; change of style to letters from ‘Caroline'; articles collected and published in UK as a book by ‘Jan Struther'; UK reviews; UK sales; published in USA, and became Book of the Month; US reviews; US best seller

The Glass-Blower and Other Poems,
London, 1940; New York, 1941

Women of Britain: Letters from England,
edited and with an introduction by J, New York, 1941

A Pocketful of Pebbles,
with decorations by Aldren Watson, New York, 1946 (a collection of poems, articles and speeches)

HYMNS
published in
Songs of Praise
(enlarged edition, OUP, 1931, often reprinted). First lines: Number 63, High o'er the lonely hills; Round the earth a message runs; Sing, all ye Christian people!, When Stephen, full of power and grace; When Mary brought her treasure; Unto Mary, demon-haunted; O saint of summer, what can we bring for you?, God, whose eternal mind; Daisies are our silver; When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old; Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy; We thank you, Lord of Heaven

POEMS
, individually quoted or mentioned:

‘The Accompaniment'; ‘Advice to a Future Granddaughter'; ‘All Clear'; ‘The American Way of Life'; ‘At a Dull Party'; ‘At Sea'; ‘Audit'; ‘Betsinda Dances'; ‘The Blue Peter'; ‘Body, Beware'; Cigarette advertisements; ‘Cobwebs'; ‘The Cul-de-Sac'; ‘Dedication: to A.M.G.'; ‘Dedication: to an Unknown Reader', xiii; ‘Dialling Tones'; ‘Displaced Persons'; ‘Evening'; ‘Fidelity'; ‘Going Home'; ‘Green Warfare'; ‘High Tide'; ‘Immortality'; ‘Intimations of Immortality in Early Middle Age'; ‘Kalbshaxen (Veal Shanks)'; ‘A Londoner in New England, 1941,'; ‘Only Man Can Make an Ode'; ‘Prayer'; ‘Pome'; ‘Small Countries'; ‘Stevenson's Speech'; ‘Thoughts after Lighting a Fire'; ‘Variation on an Old Proverb'; ‘Wartime Journey'; ‘You Need not Envy'; ‘Westbound Voyage'

UNFINISHED AND UNPUBLISHED BOOKS
:

Autobiography intended to cover J's life up to 20 years of age; commissioned by Harcourt Brace; unfinished, so advance returned to publishers

‘Cactus and Columbine', mainly about travel in the USA, but reintroducing Mrs Miniver, to be published by Harcourt Brace

THE MGM FILMS OF MRS MINIVER
(screen plays not written by J):

Mrs Miniver,
MGM, 1942. Film mooted; payment to J for film rights; limited similarity to the book; progress of film production; Dunkirk scenes; scenes showing Greer Garson; publicity; opening and record run at Radio City Music Hall, NYC; US reviews; attendance figures, millionth ticket; grossed nearly $9m; opening in London, and UK reviews; success in other countries; wins Oscars

The Miniver Story,
MGM, 1951. Made without J's approval; opened in London and NYC; a flop, losing MGM $2m; they paid damages to J, who chose never to see the film

SOME TOPICS
characteristic of J, or on which she expressed opinions, or experienced by her, including likes and dislikes: on going abroad; on adulthood; likes and dislikes of America; on American politics; on Anglo-American relations; on antiques; her appearance; ‘cute as a bug'; weight; at age; on art galleries; on ballet; beachcomber; bedbugs and cockroaches; bed-time; bicycling; black people; on blood sports; on books; botanist; on Tony's business friends; camping and picnics; card games; carpentry and handicrafts; boatbuilder; Tony's attempts; cars: her Baby Morris; journeys; on car bores; Tony's ‘Bluebird'; her second-hand Plymouth; US gasoline rationing; on childbirth; on childhood; relationships with her children; on visiting churches;
and see
religion; cinema-goer; her clothes; on colonels; contraception; on country house visits; on cricket matches; dances; dirty jokes; dogs and cats; ‘dogs with friendly faces'; her kittens; on education; learning the facts of life; on fellow-guests; on flowers; food and drink mentioned; on watching games and sports;
and see
golf; on gardening; on genealogy; on geography; glue-making; dislike of golf and golf bores; on grammar; on grand houses; graphology; guilt at leaving England in 1940; gypsy influence; taught handwriting by her father; on Highland games; on history; holiday sulks and sourness; horses, etc.; dislike of housework and housewifery; on humour; on inanimate objects;
Information, Please!;
as an interior decorator; on isolationists in America; love of jazz; sympathy with the Jacobites; her jewellery; sympathy with Jews and Jewish minorities; jokes in bad taste; junk shops; loved RLS's ‘Kidnapped' of which she edited a version for schools in 1933; described as ‘kittenish', ‘child-wife'; juvenile knitting; knots and splices; two fingers to ladylikeness; languages: German; Yiddish and Russian; eventual hatred of lecture tours; legal cases: her divorce; against her landlord; against MGM; love of London; her lovers (‘Friends' with a capital F); on failed marriages; in wartime; attitude to men; money and shortage of it; moving house, ‘favorite indoor sport'; on museums; love of music; relationship with her nannie; changed attitude to the Nazis; liked being a ‘New Girl'; the
New Yorker
magazine; on ocean liners; on parental visits to schools and university; relationship with her parents; on party-giving and -going; ping-pong; paper-games; poacher; on poetry; her own; politically left-wing; on possessions; practical jokes; on psalmodic rhythm;
Punch
magazine; on racial intolerance; radios and radio-gramophones; attitude to religion; love of the Royal Tournament; use of rude words; fascination with Rural Free Delivery and US mail boxes; love of Scotland; her self-assessment; sexuality; dislike of sightseeing;
and see
churches; shooting with shotgun and rifle;
and see
blood sports; her sleeping bag; sleeplessness and sleeping pills; smoking; wrote cigarette advertisements; snake, alligator, etc. (Robert's pets in NYC); on social class consciousness and distinctions; dislike of solitude; on sunglasses; dislike of tea; tennis in Egypt; on the theatre;
The Times,
London; a tomboy; her toys; liked most train journeys, train watching, and toy trains; support of war charities, etc.; ‘Winstonian' energies; attitude to women; ‘in love with the world'; writer's block described

Sudeley, Charles, 4th Baron 1840–1922, J's maternal grandfather and his wife Ada, née Tollemache, 1848–1928

Sudeley, Merlin, 7th Baron, born 1939, the author's cousin

Talbot family of Chelsea:

Anne Meriel (interior decorator, of Tite Street, born 1899, died unmarried 1979)

Evan Arthur Christopher (her younger brother, 1903–75, of Walpole Street, stockbroker)

Cynthia, his wife (Felicité Annette Cynthia, née Long, died 1985)

Temple, Shirley (Black) (born 1928, child actress and later diplomat)

Thomson, Janet (fellow pupil)

Toddington, Gloucestershire, J's grandparents' house

Tony,
see
Anthony J. O. Maxtone Graham

Townsend family, of 1 Beekman Place, New York City:

Rachel (née Maxtone Graham, J's sister-in-law, 1897–1977)

Greenough (her husband, executive with United States Lines Inc., 1895–1962)

Anthony Maxtone Greenough (their elder son, born 1928)

David Graeme (their younger son, born 1930)

Travers, Henry (1874–1965, actor, played the station-master)

Vienna;
and see
Placzek family

von Ustinov, Iona ‘Klop' (journalist, and Nadya his artist wife, of Redcliffe Gardens, parents of Peter)

Ward, Cleveland, J's cleaner, NYC

Ward, Sir Edward, 1st Bart, KCB, KCVO (1853–1928, of Wilbraham Place, Sloane Street)

Warrack, Guy (1900–86, of Wellington Square, Chelsea, composer and conductor), and his first wife Jacynth, née Ellerton, later Mrs Donaldson-Hudson and Lady Lawrence, died 1987

Watt, A. P. Ltd, literary agents

Webb, Harry Murton, Tony's fellow POW, of Knettishall, Diss, Norfolk

Welsh, chauffeur at Cultoquhey

West, Claudine (a screen writer of
Mrs Miniver
)

Wheelis, Dr Allen B. of Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire

Whitehead, ‘Frankie' (Frances Edith Marian, of King's Court North, King's Road, later Lady Bowman, 1903–1992, lifelong friend, Janet's godmother)

Whitty, Dame May, DBE (1865–1948, actress, played Lady Beldon)

Whyte, Sir (Alexander) Frederick, KCSI (1883–1970, Head of American Division, Ministry of Information, 1939–40)

Wilcoxon, Henry (1905–84, actor, played the vicar)

Willkie, Wendell, L. (1892–1944, presidential candidate)

Wimperis, Arthur (a screen writer of
Mrs Miniver
)

Wolff, Miss, teacher

Wright, Teresa (born 1918, played Vin Miniver's wife)

Wyler, William (1902–81, the director of the film
Mrs Miniver
)

Ysenda, née Maxtone Graham, J's sister-in-law,
see
Smythe

Yugoslavia

Other books by the author

The Church Hesitant

THE REAL MRS MINIVER
. Copyright © 2001 by Ysenda Maxtone Graham. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Illustrations for
Sycamore Square and Other Verses
(1932) and
The Modern Strewwelpeter
(1936) copyright E. H. Shepard, reproduction by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd., London

www.stmartins.com

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

ISBN 0-312-30826-4

First published in Great Britain by John Murray (Publishers) Ltd

First U.S. Edition: November 2002

eISBN 9781466870970