The unforgiving minute: Some confessions from childhood to the outbreak of the Second World War

by Beverley Nichols

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 21, 1978

About the author

John Beverley Nichols (born September 9, 1898 in Bower Ashton, Bristol, died September 15, 1983 in Kingston, London), was an English writer, playwright, actor, novelist and composer. He went to school at Marlborough College, and went to Balliol College, Oxford University, and was President of the Oxford Union and editor of Isis.

Between his first novel, Prelude, published in 1920, and Twilight in 1982, he wrote more than 60 books and plays on topics such as travel, politics, religion, cats, novels, mysteries, and children's stories, authoring six novels, five detective mysteries, four children's stories, six plays, and no fewer than six autobiographies.

Nichols is perhaps best remembered as a writer for Woman's Own and for his gardening books, the first of which Down the Garden Path, was illustrated — as were many of his books — by Rex Whistler. This bestseller — which has had 32 editions and has been in print almost continuously since 1932 — was the first of his trilogy about Allways, his Tudor thatched cottage in Glatton, Cambridgeshire. A later trilogy written between 1951 and 1956 documents his travails renovating Merry Hall (Meadowstream), a Georgian manor house in Agates Lane, Ashtead, Surrey, where Nichols lived from 1946 to 1956. These books often feature his gifted but laconic gardener "Oldfield". Nichols's final trilogy is referred to as "The Sudbrook Trilogy" (1963–1969) and concerns his late 18th-century attached cottage at Ham, (near Richmond), Surrey.

Nichols was a prolific author who wrote on a wide range of topics. He ghostwrote Dame Nellie Melba’s "autobiography" Memories and Melodies (1925), and in 1966 he wrote A Case of Human Bondage about the marriage and divorce of William Somerset Maugham and Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo, which was highly critical of Maugham. Father Figure, which appeared in 1972 and in which he described how he had tried to murder his alcoholic and abusive father, caused a great uproar and several people asked for his prosecution. His autobiographies usually feature Arthur R. Gaskin who was Nichols’ manservant from 1924 until Gaskin's death from cirrhosis in 1966. Nichols made one appearance on film - in 1931 he appeared in Glamour, directed by Seymour Hicks and Harry Hughes, playing the part of the Hon. Richard Wells.

Nichols' long-term partner was Cyril Butcher. He died in 1983 from complications after a fall.

Reviews

[Trisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered Beverley Nichols by accident years ago while browsing through the garden section of a used bookstore where I came across the absolutely delightful, Down the Garden Path, about the garden he created when he moved into the little English village of Glatton in the 30’s. It’s a charming book whose appeal had as much to do with Nichols’ talent for entertaining his readers with descriptions of the villagers who kept turning up to complicate his life as with his gardening expertise. He continued to write about the same village and the same garden in A Thatched Roof and A Village in a Valley. Equally enjoyable were the three books he wrote about his adventures renovating a Georgian manor house after WWII - Merry Hall , Laughter on the Stairs and Sunlight on the Lawn.

What I didn’t know was that Beverley Nichols was a prolific writer, playright, newspaper and magazine columnist, musician and public speaker who was in great demand at the height of his career. He was an undeniably snobbish socialite who seemed to know just about anyone who was in the public eye between the two world wars – including politicians, members of the nobility, actors, actresses, theater people and a vast assortment of fashionable men and women of the age. He was also openly and unabashedly gay at a time when the general public was far less tolerant than it is now.

He wrote six autobiographies, of which this one was the last to be published. Subtitled “Some Confessions from Childhood to the Outbreak of the Second World War,” it’s a fascinating glimpse into the private life of a man who led anything but a conventional life. Even though it’s written in the same breezy, lighthearted and sometimes schmaltzy style as his garden books, he doesn’t shy away from the darker side of his life, including the struggles he had with his father as well as a mental breakdown that resulted in his hospitalization for a lengthy period of time.

Looking back over his own career as a prolific writer, he had this to say: “ I have written at least ten million words. All of them have been written by hand…and of those words approximately fifty percent were written for love(or in anger) twenty percent were written for laughter and the rest for money... The heart of the matter is that there are a great many pleasanter ways of passing the time than sitting at a desk putting words on paper.” Given how much I’ve always enjoyed his books, I’m glad he chose to spend all that time at his desk.

[Squeak2017 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nichols was the most environmentally conscious writer who ever lived: he recycled everything into both fact and fiction.

This autobiography – one of many – covers his early years – again – and fills in some detail. It has by turns an angry tone, a flippant one, and finally a rather plangent one. Nichols views his life with cold eyed honesty, a forerunner of today’s oversharers, observing his luck and his shortcomings, successes and failures, though he still holds back in places. It would have been nice to have him explain more fully, for example, the causes of his nervous breakdown, or spend more time acknowledging the supporting role of his lifelong friend. He is right that his journalistic drudgery made his oeuvre second-rate; his ongoing metaphor of work as prostitution shows he is fully aware of this. Yet his essential decency means that he doesn’t lose our respect, or his own, or not completely. His weakness was the high life, the parties, the celebrities, the glamour, the theatre actresses, the High Society grandes dames, and the endless champagne. He lived well given his social background, and such pleasures must be paid for not just with constant hackneyed journalism and books based on his life and hurried into print. He paid with the besmirching of his soul, and suffered for it. I wonder if it was worth it?