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First Childhood
Autobiographical accounts of Victorian childhood tend to fall into one of two camps: life was either golden or it closely resembled something straight out of the Brontë sisters. Gerald Tyrwhitt, a.k.a. the 14th Baron Berners, was an unusual memoirist for his day and age, chiefly because he eschewed both nostalgia and sentimentality, preferring instead to depict his youth in wry, frequently hilarious terms. Berners has been called "the last eccentric," and indeed in his adult life he would have given Auntie Mame a run for her money. Although this book ends with Berners's teetering on the verge of adolescence, it serves as prelude to the life that would follow: already the future baron was enamoured of art and dismal at sport--a situation frowned upon by the fox-hunting, grouse-shooting, cricket-loving upper classes into which he was born. Sent away to school at the age of six, he soon became aware of an even more frowned-upon proclivity: an attraction to other boys. Berners relates the events of his early life with humor and dash; who knew that the life of a prepubescent boy could be so entertaining?
233 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1934
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About the author
Lord Berners
28 books2 followersGerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners, was an English composer, novelist, painter and aesthete, as well as an accomplished eccentric.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 7, 2008
Any man who let his horse run free in his living room is a friend of mine. Lord Berners is the last of the great British eccentrics. So out there he could be a character in a PG Wodehouse novel or story. But alas he is a real man, and an incredible writer. The fact that he's so unknown is a crime against literature.
This is his memoir of his childhood, already gay and with a zest for life. Essential reading for those who have dull lives.
This is his memoir of his childhood, already gay and with a zest for life. Essential reading for those who have dull lives.
August 27, 2019
By now, I have read enough childhood memoirs to have considerable difficulty rating them. I need a different kind of scale. This was a well-written, sometimes humorous recollection of an interesting childhood, with odd family members and dynamics. My only quibble is that for me it is not so memorable. I can't explain why that is. Rating a memoir feels too close to rating someone's life, I wish there was a better way.
December 9, 2023
Fluid, witty, easy-going – the talented and eccentric Lord Berners delivers these reminiscences of childhood and early schooldays with quiet charm and vitality. One critic notes that the book is “alive with unforgotten terrors and unforgiven indignities”, but one could add a few juvenile triumphs too, as well as the occasional regret. If only – after a first cigarette on a dormitory roof, when the older boy of his dreams leant forward to fold him in his arms – he hadn’t thrown up.
Privileged, of course, and set in the 1890s, but the anecdotes and observations are fairly timeless. Here’s a headmaster encouraging tolerance and respect:
And here’s a memory of a maths teacher:
First Childhood is not going to make you howl with literary adulation (it's too lightweight for that)...but it was a pleasure to read.
Privileged, of course, and set in the 1890s, but the anecdotes and observations are fairly timeless. Here’s a headmaster encouraging tolerance and respect:
“’Boys,’ he said, ‘There are two new-comers this term who are a different creed to the rest of you. One of them is a Roman Catholic, the other is a Jew. Now boys, you are not to allow this fact to make any difference to your treatment of them...it is through no fault of their own that they have had the misfortune to be born into families who are not Protestants and, in the case of one of them, not even Christians. You must behave to them with kindness and courtesy. You must forget that in bygone days Roman Catholics used to make a practice of burning Protestants at the stake, and that the other boy belongs to the race that crucified Our Lord.’”
And here’s a memory of a maths teacher:
“I have recently discovered an English musical critic, whose name cannot be mentioned, as he is unfortunately still alive...who is an almost perfect replica of the Mathematical master at Elmley...There was the same anaemic earnestness, the same superior disparagement of things that escaped his comprehension, the same milk-and-water voice upon which a University twang lay like a thin layer of vinegar.”
First Childhood is not going to make you howl with literary adulation (it's too lightweight for that)...but it was a pleasure to read.
June 13, 2020
First Childhood is an obscure, funny, and strangely compelling memoir of the author's Victorian childhood. There's no real arc, it's just a series of memories of his life as a born misfit in a family obsessed with appearances and fox hunting. Lord Berners went on to be a noted eccentric and about as openly gay as you could be in the early 20th Century, so it's not surprising his anti-establishment tendencies are on display from his youngest days. His ability to write about his homosexuality is a marvel of plausible deniability, and his witty irreverence is the highlight of the book. From a chapter entitled "The Bible Throwing Incident":
“I was not sufficiently cultured to be able to appreciate the beauties of biblical language, and the numerous copies of the Bible that my grandmother had thrust into my reluctant hands had been, all of them, cheap, ill-bound editions. The ugly, common bindings, the villainous print and the double columns were not calculated to arouse æsthetic interest, while the rigid numbering of the verses seemed to impart an unpleasantly didactic tone to the contents. Having been told that the book had been written by God himself, I often wondered why One who had shown himself, in most respects, lavish to the point of extravagance should have been so economical in the presentation of his literary efforts to the public.”
“I was not sufficiently cultured to be able to appreciate the beauties of biblical language, and the numerous copies of the Bible that my grandmother had thrust into my reluctant hands had been, all of them, cheap, ill-bound editions. The ugly, common bindings, the villainous print and the double columns were not calculated to arouse æsthetic interest, while the rigid numbering of the verses seemed to impart an unpleasantly didactic tone to the contents. Having been told that the book had been written by God himself, I often wondered why One who had shown himself, in most respects, lavish to the point of extravagance should have been so economical in the presentation of his literary efforts to the public.”
January 5, 2021
This memoir of Lord Berners' early life is highly engaging and entertaining. His wit is evident and his shrewd analysis into the motivation and behaviour of others is very insightful
May 24, 2025
Good style, witty, fun. May remind me somehow of some books by Nancy Mitford. I will read the next books about Lord Berners’s youth.
October 13, 2016
Wonderful, touching memoir by Lord Berners covering his early years (up to about age 10). A very evocative description of coming of age in the late Victorian era (1870s and 1880s). Apparently Lord Berners was a composer of some renown in the early 20th century, but I know him as Lord Merlin in Nancy Mitford's "Love in a Cold Climate." This book fits in the genre of memoirs by thoughtful, sensitive British men of letters about their uniformly miserable (pre-war) school days, including Roald Dahl ("Boy"), C. S. Lewis ("Surprised by Joy"), George Orwell ("Such, Such Were the Joys ..."), Robert Graves ("Goodbye to All That"), and Cyril Connolly ("Enemies of Promise").
This autobiography was first published in 1930. Every few pages I had to look up a word or two, which is always fun, and reminds me that we have lost some of the richness and precision of our language (comminatory? minatory? and he even distinguishes between nauseous and nauseated). I am on to his follow-up book, "A Distant Prospect," dealing with his years at Eton and beyond. I will definitely be re-reading these books. He has a way of describing how, as a child growing into a young boy, he made sense of the world around him that is magical and thought-provoking. An example chosen pretty much at random (there are gems on every page):
"Small boys are apt to be romantically disposed, and they often display considerable ingenuity in extricating food for romance from the squalid ashbin of school life.
"The monotonous sequence of events was, from time to time, enlivened with mysteries, strange rumours and tales of horror. The whole school would be kept agog for several days by some hidden crime. ... "
Edit: I just started the sequel; here is a passage from the first pages of "A Distant Prospect":
(leaving his prep school, age 14):
"I had not experienced much happiness at Elmley. I loathed the headmaster. I had made few friends. I ought to have felt an infinite relief at bidding farewell to the place for ever. Yet, as I gazed for the last time on a scene that, in the last years, had grown as familiar to me as my own home, I was overcome by a sense of melancholy which culminated almost in tears. I realized that, in spite of the many humiliations, disappointments and hardships I had suffered there, I had acquired a genuine affection for the place. Its personality, at the moment when I was about to leave it, seemed to have detached itself from its inhabitants and all the human memories associated with it, and to have become endowed with a friendly charm of its own.
"In addition to this, I experienced for the first time in my life the sensation of growing older, and for the first time I was conscious of the poignancy of bidding farewell to a period which, unpleasant as it had often been, could never be re-lived."
This autobiography was first published in 1930. Every few pages I had to look up a word or two, which is always fun, and reminds me that we have lost some of the richness and precision of our language (comminatory? minatory? and he even distinguishes between nauseous and nauseated). I am on to his follow-up book, "A Distant Prospect," dealing with his years at Eton and beyond. I will definitely be re-reading these books. He has a way of describing how, as a child growing into a young boy, he made sense of the world around him that is magical and thought-provoking. An example chosen pretty much at random (there are gems on every page):
"Small boys are apt to be romantically disposed, and they often display considerable ingenuity in extricating food for romance from the squalid ashbin of school life.
"The monotonous sequence of events was, from time to time, enlivened with mysteries, strange rumours and tales of horror. The whole school would be kept agog for several days by some hidden crime. ... "
Edit: I just started the sequel; here is a passage from the first pages of "A Distant Prospect":
(leaving his prep school, age 14):
"I had not experienced much happiness at Elmley. I loathed the headmaster. I had made few friends. I ought to have felt an infinite relief at bidding farewell to the place for ever. Yet, as I gazed for the last time on a scene that, in the last years, had grown as familiar to me as my own home, I was overcome by a sense of melancholy which culminated almost in tears. I realized that, in spite of the many humiliations, disappointments and hardships I had suffered there, I had acquired a genuine affection for the place. Its personality, at the moment when I was about to leave it, seemed to have detached itself from its inhabitants and all the human memories associated with it, and to have become endowed with a friendly charm of its own.
"In addition to this, I experienced for the first time in my life the sensation of growing older, and for the first time I was conscious of the poignancy of bidding farewell to a period which, unpleasant as it had often been, could never be re-lived."
March 30, 2010
The first of several volumes of autobiography by "the English Satie". I haven't laughed this hard at a book in a very long time... Beautiful!
March 12, 2021
Available at Open Library:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15433...
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15433...
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews