Shuttlecock

[17]

Subject: Z, Arthur Leonard.

Born, June 12th, 1921; Hemfield, Nr East Grinstead, Sussex. Only son of Hon. Sir Geoffrey Robert, D.S.O., M.B.E., formerly Captain, Royal Hampshire Regt (born, Jan. 25th, 1894) and Katherine Elizabeth (née Phillips, born, Oct. 2nd, 1897).

Educ.: Oakwood Preparatory School, East Grinstead; Tonbridge School; Wadham College, Oxford (Law: 1937/8).

University career curtailed by outbreak of war. Joined R.A.F., 1940. Trained as fighter-pilot. Sqdns 80, 225; N. Africa, 1941–2. Grounded after accident in training exercise in which one flying officer killed and subject injured. R.A.F. Intelligence, London, 1942–5. 2 applications for retraining as pilot refused. Air Ministry, 1945–6.

Left R.A.F., 1946. Did not resume law studies (apparent cause of family dissension). Applied unsuccessfully, Foreign Office (subject spoke good French), 1947. Entered Home Office, 1947. Subsequent career of distinction. Married Yvette Simone (née Debreuil, born, May 10th, 1922; family from Chambéry, France) July, 1947. Resident at 19, Clifford Terrace, Kensington till 1950, then at 8, Peele Gardens, Putney (till suicide of subject).

Sir Geoffrey appointed K.C. 1938. Assisted at Nuremberg War Trials, 1945–6. Judge of the High Court of Justice, 1948. Chaired/Adv. Cttees. of Inquiry (Legal Rights of Prisoners; Aspects of International Law) 1959, 1960–61, 1962–3. Retired, 1964. Published: Sword and Pen (memoirs of military and legal career), 1965; Reasonable Doubt (critique of English jurisprudence), 1967.

Katherine Elizabeth victim of long and complicated illness from 1964. Operations for cancer. Died 1967.

Sir Geoffrey died 1968.

Richard Geoffrey, son of subject, born, July 22nd, 1949. Educ.: Westminster School, London School of Economics. Present occupation, journalist.

Elaine Elizabeth, daughter of subject, born, March 14th, 1951. Educ.: The Lodge High School, Putney; Camberwell School of Art. Formed liaison with Karl Lageröf, Swedish commercial artist, 1970. At present resident in Stockholm.

Only the details on Z so far. The information on X ‘in preparation and to follow’. Impossible, therefore, to look for connexions. So why do I linger over these potted facts? Is it because I have obtained them by my own initiative and ingenuity, proved how easy it is for one person, with neither the right nor the authority, to secure for himself the private history of another? Or is it that there is really something arresting, something appealing about these bare bones of a life (how many such skeletons have I cursorily pieced together at the department?) when it is you yourself who have scooped them up with your net? Those little tokens of dignity and esteem. The father’s military and civil honours. ‘Sword and Pen’. ‘Career of distinction’. Z cursed by an accident. The daughter running off with a Swede. ‘Family dissension’. Those place-names of imperturbable gentility: East Grinstead, Tonbridge, Peele Gardens, Putney. Suicide; war-crimes; ‘long and complicated illness’.

Or does something particular strike a chord? Debreuil? Wasn’t that the name of the firm of engineers with which Dad worked before the war, building embankments on the Rhône and road tunnels in the Savoy Alps — and where he learnt the fluent French he would put to use in the years to come? And Z’s Christian name: Arthur, Arthur … Why does that suddenly have an echo?

It is gone midnight. Marian is in bed. I sit in the living-room looking at these notes which I have smuggled home with me against all the rules, not even daring to look at them in the office. The window is open, an occasional breeze lifts the papers in front of me; and I remember Dad, sitting up late at Wimbledon, working on his book. Mother asleep in the big bedroom. Getting up once, in summer, to fetch a glass of water; pausing at the half-opened door, the desk lamp on inside, and seeing him suddenly start.

And now, when I turn to the other sheet — ‘Details of Subject’s Private Connexions outside the Home Office’ — which I have also requested, some last incidental entry makes the echo come loud and clear.

… Hon. Sec., The Putney Rotary.

Clubs: Oxford and Cambridge; Civil Service. Sports and Recreations: Golf. The Glade Golf Club, Wimbledon.