Letters of Antony Lytton: Chapter II

 

Antony as a Cadet

Knebworth House Archives

Antony started at Eton in 1916 and his first two years at the school were spent while the country was in the grip of war – fires were few and far between, and food greatly restricted.  In his first letter home, he wrote

“I am radiantly happy here…. The food here is fine…. I adore this place, it is glorious.  We haven’t done any work yet except a little history.  We had sardines for tea and boiled eggs and cake.  My bath has come.  One only gets one can full of water and that fills it to about the depth of ½ an inch. There was early school this morning.  It is bitterly cold and my hands and feet are icy.  How I love this place.  At least I do at present. We have the most wonderful teas ever known.  We had two poached eggs each today which may amuse you.  We have finished the Gentlemen’s Relish and the potted meat (which we can get for 8d a pot here) and the sardines which are very welcome.  There are still loads of Fortnum & Mason caramels left.  I didn’t know there were so many in the world.  I have 52 every day, so does David, and Furze 42, and there are as many left as there were at the beginning!  I am writing this in David’s room between prayers and supper….. I play short (sudden change of subject but I must write it before I forget).  I have just finished an extra work.  We have lots of spare time here – Prayer bell – there is goes.  Goodnight, Antony.”

The correspondence between Antony and his mother, and his father, continued to reflect his enjoyment of life at Eton and by 1918 he exclaimed

“My God! What a place Eton is!  There’s nothing like it in the world.  You were quite right in say that it was worth being a boy for the sake of going to Eton.  I am most radiantly happy”.  

By Michaelmas Term of 1918 he had joined the Officers Training Corps, but the greatest event of that year was the signing of the Armistice in the November, and the dispersion of the war cloud which had overshadowed the whole of this school life.  Victor, Earl Lytton, had been asked by Lord Beaverbrook to go to Paris as Commissioner of Propaganda involving him in discussing the terms of the armistice.  Victor himself wrote to Antony saying

“We are all on tiptoe of excitement here, hourly awaiting the announcement that the Armistice has been signed.  The situation in Germany is very desperate – a starving population in open revolution, and a beaten army in full flight.  Before you receive this letter it will be all over.  I wonder what form of rejoicing you will have at Eton.  I think everyone will go mad with joy……..The punishment of the Germans will be terrible.  The soldiers who for 4 years have exercised their brutal tyranny over the unfortunately French and Belgians are now being driven out with the execrations of the entire world ringing in their ears ,and for them there will be no home and no peace to return to for years to come.  At first they will find hunger and revolution, and then they will have to submit to the occupation of their country by foreign troops until they have paid for all the wanton destruction they have caused.  But it is always so in this world, with nations and with individuals.  The most pitiless judge is the Nemesis of one’s own acts”

At the same time, Antony was writing about his own experience of the armistice at Eton:

“I must write you an accurate account of everything that has happened here lately, because it is very thrilling….. On Monday 11 November.  Everyone seemed to know that if the armistice was signed, fighting would stop at 11.10.  I don’t know how everyone knew but they did, or thought they did.  There were all sorts of rumours that the armistice had been signed, and we all agreed before 11.0 school that if Blacker led it we would all cheer at 11.10.  Eleven fifteen came, and then Blacker got up and said ‘It is 10 minutes past 11, hip hurrah’, and no one backed him up……. When I came out of school I found a huge crowd assembled outside the school, and the headmaster stood on the steps and gave out, ‘French official wireless. All fighting ceased at 11’.  There was a pause and then he went on, ‘There will be no parade or work this afternoon, and tomorrow will be a non dies’.  Then Eton went mad and yelled themselves purple.  First of all I went to tap and ate till my money ran out.  Then I got hold of Frank Stacey, and we went down to Selling and Clifford and bought a flag about the size of a pocket handkerchief for 2/-.  Led by Armitage and Shirley with a gong, we rushed all over Eton yelling.  We stopped outside Chitty’s, and sang ‘God save the King’ with someone rolling a drum. I got hold of the lid of a tin and broke a bit of box on my fender, and beat it furiously.  Finally Armitage got up on the steps outside Chapel and said ‘We’ve made enough row now lets go home’, and we all went….”