A Companion to Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour

Chapter Eleven

Unconditional Surrender

660 Unconditional Surrender
This is the original title of the third book of EW’s trilogy, of course. Its final, short chapter was simply called Epilogue and subtitled Festival of Britain.

660 a Festival
This was the Festival of Britain, open through much of 1951. It was intended firstly, to show that Britain was coming out of the period of enforced austerity that had continued after the war years; secondly, to celebrate the centenary of the first world exposition, the Great Exhibition of 1851; and thirdly, to demonstrate that British industry and invention were as robust as they ever were.
EW and conservatives like him thought the whole idea a panegyric to socialism and modernism, and resolutely refused to celebrate, especially as many government controls had not yet been relaxed though the war had finished six years before. When a Conservative government came to power in October 1951, it had as a priority the destruction of the festival site on the South Bank in London, with the result that some of the more interesting exhibits, like the Dome of Discovery and the Skylon, were obliterated.

660 National Theatre
EW never lived to see the National Theatre opened on its permanent site in 1976.

661 lost his seat in Parliament in 1945
The General Election that year saw a Labour landslide victory with 396 seats to the Conservatives’ 189. A large number of politically-minded young officers like Gilpin found themselves, perhaps unexpectedly, in the House of Commons. Their radicalisation of the people and the armed forces had been wonderfully successful and, in EW’s eyes, was merely a parallel to the coup in Yugoslavia.

661 impudently presented themselves in dinner-jackets and soft shirts
EW was appalled to find such unsuitable garb at his own daughter Teresa’s coming-out ball in 1956. (He did not notice that the Duke of Devonshire, no less, was so clothed!) He would have expected to see full evening dress, the men wearing tails and boiled shirts.

661 under-secretary
That is, Gilpin has been given a post in the government, though of the most minor status possible. Nevertheless he must have modified his extreme left-wing views somewhat to be given an office in Clement Attlee’s government at all.

662 can’t afford to live in England
because taxation of income was so high. EW himself thought the level ruinous (as indeed most later economic thought agrees) and for some time thought of quitting the country. He liked to avoid taxation on his foreign income, partly by keeping that money out of the country (using it often for charitable purposes) and partly by demanding payment in kind.

662 Ludovic’s factotum
A factotum is a jack-of-all-trades who works for an employer. One suspects that the relationship between Ludovic and Padfield is more intimate than that word implies.

662 and the boy?
In US this is given as and the children? See my last entry below.

662 slosh
See my note to page 487.

663 Pity they haven’t any children of their own. Domenica …
In US they had. The passage there reads : Now they’ve two boys of their own. When Domenica isn’t having babies she …
EW was distressed to find that many people thought that the ending in US was a happy one. In giving Guy children, he had intended to underline the charitable bleakness of Guy’s position. He has recognised as his heir a child who was not his even though he had children of his own. He resolved to cut out the legitimate offspring in later editions so that the position is absolutely clear, though to this day US is published with the original ending. No such flaw afflicts SH.