Among the various autobiographical writings of the Powys
family, Littleton Powys’s The Joy of It tends to be the
most overlooked. One obvious reason is that Littleton was not a
‘writer’ and left no significant body of literary work that
would attract a readership or otherwise compel attention.
Perhaps another is that he was not interested in the sort of
self-mythologising and shape-shifting at which his brothers were
so adept, as evidenced in John Cowper’s Autobiography,
Theodore’s Soliloquies of a Hermit and Llewelyn’s Skin
for Skin (and just about everything else). Littleton spoke,
and spoke out, plainly and inoffensively, and precisely for this
reason The Joy of It is an invaluable text to gaining a fuller
understanding of the Powys family, and as a balance, if not
corrective, to some of the views not only of John and Llewelyn
but of early Powys biographers like Heron Ward and Louis
Wilkinson.
Indeed, among the half-dozen reasons Littleton gives in his
Preface for writing these memoirs are to counter comments in the
press and other books that he felt distorted the truth about his
parents and siblings, and to compare his own temperament
specifically with that of his elder brother as expressed in
Autobiography. He was especially close to John, despite the
latter’s secretiveness in certain matters relating to his
personal life, from their shared childhood and schooldays to the
Norfolk trip they made in their late fifties, and into their old
age when Littleton would visit John in Wales. The divergence in
their lifestyles was really set in train at Cambridge, where, as
Littleton wrote, ‘John’s ways were not my ways, nor his thoughts
my thoughts, nor (with two or three exceptions) his friends my
friends.’ From university Littleton, unlike his brother, went on
to become a pillar of the community, and if in consequence he
was occasionally the butt of family humour, it’s worth
remembering that without their pillars communities tend to
collapse. It is not difficult to see why he was his father’s
favourite or why John addressed him as ‘Best of the sons’: in
addition to his sense of public duty, Littleton displayed a
familial responsibility not always in evidence in some of his
siblings, often coming to their financial rescue.
The frequent designation of Littleton as the most ‘conventional’
of the brothers brings with it a suggestion of dullness.
Littleton was anything but dull. In appearance he was strikingly
handsome, always elegantly dressed and with a flower in his
buttonhole, and his deep clear voice was put to especially good
effect when he read the lessons in Sherborne Abbey. If that was
all there was to him he would hardly have attracted in his late
sixties the attentions of the young Elizabeth Myers, who at half
his age became his second wife. But as she noted: ‘Littleton
never fails to tell you something interesting about life and the
world. Every conversation with him extends the horizon of your
mind.’ It is our loss that Littleton’s forte was conversation
rather than literary creativity; in particular, his knowledge of
botany and ornithology, abundantly evident in his book, probably
surpassed that of anyone in the family.
Littleton’s views and lifestyle were antithetical to those of
the family friend and bon viveur Louis Wilkinson, and there was
often an undercurrent of tension between them. Littleton had
objected to certain parts of Louis’s Swan’s Milk and this
tension was probably exacerbated by Welsh Ambassadors,
which appeared in 1936 and in which Littleton, as Llewelyn
thought at least, came off badly. ‘The book does outrage to the
ethos of his circle,’ Llewelyn wrote to Louis, ‘and he will
dislike being in any way involved with it.’ But he shortly
mentioned also that Katie had told him Littleton did not seem at
all personally disturbed by the book. Perhaps he was already
writing his riposte, for in August that year Llewelyn told Louis
that Littleton was reading his autobiography to him, and passed
a judgement that stands the test of time: ‘It is unexpectedly
good – rational, unaffected, charming – objective and
unintellectual. I think it will be mightily appreciated by many
readers.’
Littleton and Louis were to meet six months later, in February
1937, when Gertrude Powys had a showing of her works in London.
Louis immediately wrote to Llewelyn: ‘Littleton was charming to
me at Gertrude’s Private View. He talked with me in the most
friendly manner, and at parting held my hand and pressed it to
his side. I was delighted & amazed. What magnanimity!’ All the
Powyses had magnanimity, but Littleton had it in spades and it’s
one of the many qualities that shine through in The Joy of It.
Another is gratitude for his own happy life and for the glories
of Nature. In many ways Littleton’s is a deeply religious book,
though not indeed in any conventional sense. Not long before his
death he wrote to Ichiro Hara, ‘“He findeth GOD, who finds the
Earth He made” is the background of my Faith’ – and it had
always been so. ‘He was a lover of life,’ Oliver Holt wrote of
him. ‘To have been born into the world at all – a world so full
of radiant and manifold beauties – he regarded as an
immeasurable privilege, and his whole life was an unbroken act
of praise.’
The world evoked in The Joy of It – of gentlemanly conduct and
fair play, of individual responsibility, of a largely benevolent
Nature – may seem sadly remote in an age when we are constantly
encouraged to believe that Britain is ‘broken’ (a view Littleton
himself would have given short shrift). But that world is not
entirely gone. There are still good schools, there are still
well-mannered people, there are still natural beauties in
abundance. What seems to be rarer these days is an attitude –
the shameless capacity for simple delight that Littleton, like
all the Powys siblings, possessed, and that makes his book all
the more remarkable.
This new hand-numbered limited edition of The Joy of It,
the work’s first republication in hardback, is significant for
several reasons. It corrects certain misprints, errors and
solecisms in the first edition; it has a perceptive and
informative introduction by the current Sherborne Prep
headmaster Peter Tait; it is beautifully designed and produced,
with coloured endpapers and marker ribbon; and its striking blue
dust jacket is a perfect frame for the wonderful portrait of
Littleton by Gertrude Powys that adorns the cover and which, as
far as I know, has itself never before been published. It seems
unlikely that The Joy of It will ever again be reissued,
but certainly not in an edition as distinguished as this, a true
collector’s item.
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a book like this even being
written today, a memoir which celebrates childhood and
schooldays, family and friendships, and Nature above all – and
all without a trace of cynicism or bitterness or self-pity.
Littleton maintained his feelings of gratitude even in
bereavement with the loss of his first wife Mabel Bennett from
cancer and then of Elizabeth Myers from tuberculosis, and when
illness and age set in during his last painful years.
Typical of the many incidental but movingly evocative
revelations in the book is when Littleton relates how on
recently opening his schoolboy copy of Horace’s Odes he
noted what he had written in the margin nearly half a century
earlier: ‘Powys minor, and a happy life is his.’ The Joy of
It is a record of one man’s enduring gratitude for that life
and happiness, and it is this quality more than any other that
gives this engaging work its distinctive charm. Whether he was
Mr Powys, headmaster of Sherborne Prep, or ‘Tom’ to his
siblings, or ‘Owen’ in his old pupil Louis MacNeice’s 'Autumn
Sequel', ‘Rejoice, rejoice’ was always Littleton’s motto: '…on
two sticks/ He still repeats it, still confirms his choice/ To
love the world he lives in.’ The evidence of that love is
abundant in The Joy of It and this superb new edition
constitutes a fitting tribute to its author and, through him, to
the whole Powys family.
Anthony Head
The Powys Society Newsletter, No 71, November 2010
Available from
The Sundial Press
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