JAMES MacDONALD TAKES A NEW, CRITICAL LOOK

A Review

Chips a/k//a Lord of Hosts

Lord of Hosts—The Life of Sir Henry “Chips” Channon By Richard Carreño [Philabooks|Press (2011)]

Bestowing the nomenclature 'Lord of Hosts' on Sir Henry “Chips” Channon has to be done with the lightest of touches, given the sphere in which he operated. ' Noel Coward with Clout' is another way of describing the man who moved with bon vivant ease through the portals of pre-to-post war power. It was Channon himself who assumed the title at his first lavish party after the war. He might not have thought he had the whole social world in his hands. But it showed confidence of the rarest sort to throw a party for the newly betrothed Princess Elizabeth and Navy Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten and then to crow the blasphemous boast when guest Somerset Maugham whispered, “This is the apogée of your career.”

The story behind this extraordinary ascent and its place in British socio-political history forms the nexus of Richard Carreño’s astonishing glimpse into an American takeover of Britain, second only to Wallis Simpson’s subversive assault on the Monarchy and looking forward to whatever on earth Donald Trump has in store for Britain’s battle-weary post-Brexiteers.

Carreño approaches his task less as a standard biographer than as a polished detective in search of the true identity of the diarist whose entries recorded supposed scandalous deeds, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal. The complete diaries have yet to appear in print. But Alan Clark, a famous diarist himself and Carreño’s first interviewee, concluded their meeting with the disclosure that the unpublished diaries had been stolen. “I’d give…£100,000 for a look at those,” Clark confessed.

The man who inspired this declaration was born on Chicago’s near northside in 1897. His Anglo-American parents were well-to-do; in fact they were charter members of America’s first ever country club. Channon major acquired his wealth as a shipowner. His wife Vesta encouraged their son’s aesthetic side, and Henry was enrolled in the fee-paying Francis Parker School, where he nurtured “a self-conceived genius” for refined living and association with the upper crust. Soon after graduation, he decided to emigrate permanently, to claim his father’s birthright at Oxford and later in London’s exclusive Belgravia. “I hate the lower classes,” he openly admitted. His one measure of plutocratic generosity was when he volunteered as a Special Constable during the general strike of 1926. Little is known of his actual duties. Otherwise, he was perfectly equable about using his family’s fortune to the fullest extent.

This may have been the central motive behind Channon’s entire existence. Carreño draws parallels between Channon and Jay Gatsby. But Gatsby’s quest is romantic. Channon’s was reinforced by the notion that the rich ought to govern, something the louche Mr Trump would certainly endorse.

Channon’s permanent relocation to Britain in 1920 was preceded by a stopover in Paris where he was dined by a “satyr” like Proust whose current residence at the Ritz must have inspired the neophyte Chicagoan. With apparent insouciance, Channon enrolled at Oxford where he read French and came down to assume a privileged “post-graduates” life in the company of fellow Oxonians George Grubby Gage and Prince Paul of Yugoslavia in Knightsbridge. Wealthy enough to live well without working, Channon nonetheless wrote three published novels in the vein of Max Beerbohm and Elinor Glyn.

The defining event of this period was Channon’s marriage, in 1933, to Guinness heiress Honor Dorothy Mary whose grandfather founded the Dublin brewery. She and her four sisters cut a dash on the London social scene, but their strict Catholic upbringing gave Honor a relatively modest attitude to opulence and an interest in business that lent gravitas to her husband’s pursuits. Channon’s foray into political life was doubtless through Honor’s example. And though this never amounted to a political career, Channon did enter Parliament as the MP for Southend-on-Sea in 1936, a seat he held up to his death in 1958.

More importantly, Honor transported Channon into fatherhood, blessing him with son Paul who was destined to become the most cherished person in Channon’s life. According to all the evidence, too, Paul was the recipient of model devotion—evacuation to privileged housing on the Hudson during the war and a place at Eton once war was over. Paul even grew to inherit his father’s seat, despite loud charges of nepotism. Every wish was granted him, with familial warmth and ease.

This is the more remarkable, considering Channon’s sexuality. Gay activity is commonplace at British boarding school—what the French call la vise anglaise. There is no reason to suppose that Channon did not enter the kingdom a virgin. But at Oxford, “being queer was chic”, and he was, foremost, a dedicated follower of fashion. More surprising, perhaps, was his interest in women; but clearly he wanted a son and heir, and Honor would have seen procreation as the prerequisite of conjugal intimacy.


Exactly how Channon managed this complex side of his life takes some thought. Obviously, he did not cease to have male partners. His affair with playwright Terence Rattigan led directly to the Channons’ divorce in 1946. But homosexual acts were illegal in Britain until 1967, and the homosexual world was clandestine up until that time. In light of this, Carreno liberally refers to Channon’s partners without being specific about how these relationships conducted themselves. Rattigan’s plays, much like Tennessee Williams’, translate gay experience into a heterosexual equivalent. This was noteworthy in Channon’s case because, of course, he was flouting the law throughout his sexually active life, a fact that becomes more significant when considering the explosiveness of the diaries. In any case, readers may find it startling to read Rattigan’s complaint, “Do get him drunk so that I don’t have to sleep with him.” And his enduring romantic relationship with Peter Coats provides a unifying thread throughout the various strands of Channon’s full and textured life.

Carreño is especially illuminating on the minutiae of Channon’s sartorial elegance (accoutred at Lesley and Roberts to resemble a 19^th century dandy) and on the redecorations of his post-nuptial townhouse at 5 Belgrave Square (which cost more than his five-year lease on the property). His arch conservatism drew astonished criticism even among the Establishment. He was Von Ribbentrop’s guest at the 1936 Olympics and supported Edward VIII at the time of his abdication. Three years earlier, he seemed to confuse National Socialism with more familiar Bolshevism and to caution against it accordingly. But pride of importance goes to the diaries, their origins and subsequent fate.
 

Strictly speaking, Channon began keeping a diary 1918, aged 21. A three-volume edition is due to be published in September 2020, though Carreño is mainly concerned with the diaries written from 1934 to Channon’s death. By his calculations, there are fifty-five volumes amounting to three million words and lodged in the vaults of the British Museum. Their preservation alone is the stuff of wartime intrigue. Channon began storing them there before hostilities erupted in 1939, and they were included as part of the treasure trove smuggled to safety by underground passage after the Battle of Britain in 1940. Lord Clark’s hushed intimation that some volumes were stolen and then held at auction may have been fanciful mystic-making. But there is little doubting their sensitive nature as a source of embarrassment to the people they concern. By nature, diaries have always been intimate, more private than a photograph. In one sense, diary entries are the equivalent of structured thought. As the precursor of today’s social media, they set the mold for gossip and intrigue. In one sense again, the diaries can be seen as the memoirs of London’s leading butterfly.

Full disclosure has yet to be made, and Carreño was denied access to the volumes, although the embargo expired in 2018. As Channon’s only biographer, he deserves access, especially in view of the sympathetic light in which he casts their author. Boswell and Johnson are not an incongruous parallel. Perhaps, if the volumes become available, Richard Carreño will treat us to another portrait of an intriguing a unique chronicler of his life and pertinent times.

James MacDonald is a writer and playwright who lives in England. He is the author of Russia, Freaks & Foreigners.

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