The Postcard
A Valentine's Series postcard that was posted in Dorking on Monday the 27th. June 1904 to:
Rev. Conrad S. Green,
Trinity Parsonage,
Buxton,
Derbyshire.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Stone House,
Dorking.
We arrived here
comfortably on Saturday
morning. Not overtired.
Very glad of the wet after
so much going about.
F. G."
Alastair Hugh Graham
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 27th. June 1904 marked the birth of Alastair Hugh Graham.
Alastair Hugh Graham was an honorary attaché in Athens and Cairo, an Oxford friend of Evelyn Waugh, and, according to Waugh's letters, one of his "romances".
He is, together with Hugh Lygon, considered to be the main inspiration for Sebastian Flyte in 'Brideshead Revisited'.
Alastair Hugh Graham - The Early Years
Alastair was born to Hugh Graham (1860-1921), of Barford House, Barford, Warwickshire, and Jessie, daughter of Andrew Low, of Savannah, Georgia.
Alastair's father was the younger son of Sir Frederick Ulric Graham, 3rd Baronet (1820–1888), of the Graham Baronets of Netherby, and of Lady Jane Hermione Seymour (1832–1909), daughter of Edward Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset.
Jessie Graham, a cotton heiress, would later appear as Lady Circumference in 'Decline and Fall' and as Mrs. Kent-Cumberland in 'Winner Takes All', both by Evelyn Waugh.
Alastair Hugh Graham and Evelyn Waugh
Alastair was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he met Evelyn Waugh around Christmas 1923.
At Oxford Graham was part of the Hypocrites' Club with Waugh. Graham sent Waugh a nude photo of himself near a waterfall, asking Waugh to:
"Come and drink with
me somewhere".
The Graham family's early 19th.-century country house, Barford House, Barford, Warwickshire, was where Alastair entertained Waugh as a guest. Graham was Waugh's closest friend from 1924 to 1929.
In 'Brideshead Revisited', Waugh has Charles Ryder revisiting Brideshead Castle, and remembering:
"I had been there before, first with
Sebastian more than twenty years
ago on a cloudless day in June...".
According to Philip Eade and others, Waugh is here remembering his own love affair with Graham, started at Barford House in 1923 when Graham was 19.
In his memoirs, Waugh stated that Graham was the inspiration of Lord Sebastian Flyte even more than Hugh Lygon. In the manuscript of 'Brideshead Revisited', the name "Alastair" sometimes occurs instead of "Sebastian".
In Waugh's autobiography, 'A Little Learning... an Autobiography' (1964), Graham appears under the name of Hamish Lennox, and Waugh said of him he was:
"The friend of my heart".
When Waugh left Oxford one term short of the degree requirements in August 1924, he went to live with Graham in a caravan in a field near Beckley, and from there they went on holiday to Ireland. It was after this trip that Graham converted to Roman Catholicism.
When Alastair went to visit his sister and her husband in Kenya in mid-September 1924, the friendship between Graham and Waugh took a step back. However in August 1926, Graham, his mother and Waugh went to Scotland; and on their return, Graham and Waugh went to France together with Richard Plunket Greene.
Around this time, Graham, who owned a small printing press and was then apprenticed at the Shakespeare Head Press, printed Waugh's essay 'P.R.B.: An Essay on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 1847–54'.
Alastair Hugh Graham was an honorary attaché in Athens between 1927 and 1929, where Waugh visited him for the Christmas holidays. In Greece, Graham lived with another attaché, Mark Ogilvie-Grant. In 1929, both were transferred to Cairo with Vivian Cornelius until 1933. During World War II, Alastair was attached to the US Navy.
The Death of Alastair Hugh Graham
From 1933 Alastair lived as a recluse on the Welsh Coast, at Plas-y-Wern Lodge, Gilfachrheda. He died on the 6th. October 1982 at the age of 78.