#david blaize

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The Mapp and Lucia Novels by E.F. Benson Edward Frederic Benson OBE (24 July 1867 – 29 February 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian and short story writer. Arguably best known for Mapp and Lucia , a series of novels that feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British characters in the 1920s and 1930s, who vie for social prestige and one-upmanship in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Benson was an intensely discreet homosexual. At Cambridge, he fell in love with several fellow students, including Vincent Yorke (father of the novelist Henry Green), about whom he confided to his diary, "I feel perfectly mad about him just now... Ah, if only he knew, and yet I think he does." In later life, Benson maintained friendships with a wide circle of homosexual men and shared a villa on the Italian island of Capri with John Ellingham Brooks; before the First World War, the island had been popular with wealthy homosexual men.

In his novel Across the Stream, written in 1918, Fred writes about a character who receives communications from the spirit of a dead brother he had never been told about. His mother then tells him, 'Your father never loved anyone like he loved him.' [Source 'EF Benson, his family and friends', Gwen Watkins.]

Fred did in fact have an older brother, Martin, who died tragically young at the age of 17, when Fred was 10 ten years old. His father, we are told, never got over this death. It seems he was everything his father had wished for in a son, hard-working and pious. The above pictures show his memorial in Winchester, where he died.

Imagine the impact on the younger siblings of knowing they could never live up to this paragon of virtue, and were destined to be an eternal disappointment to their father.

Below is a rare family picture showing Martin (the child on the right)

I know that Fred wrestled with father and son issues in many of his novels, and even used Martin's name sometimes. There are also many incidents and real life people who infused 'David Blaize'.

And I definitely sense a hint of Martin in there. Fred does not tend to go in for detailed physical descriptions, but we are in no doubt that David is blond. Martin had a shock of blond hair, just like his father. And he shared another feature with David, his stammer. In fact, the name 'Blaize' is a variant of 'Blaise', the French name derived from the Latin 'blaesus', meaning lisp, or stutter.

But there is another, even more extraordinary, parallel with Martin's death. The cause was not the same, but the age is identical, and although the younger children were not present, there was a deathbed vigil by his parents.

I cannot help thinking that Frank's legendary powers of healing were very deliberately framed. His presence at David's side is sanctioned by the Doctor, and the aspect of their relationship he draws on most heavily is the paternal one. Coached by the Doctor, he is able to guide David because David has total trust and faith in him, and he can be trusted to use that power for good.

It is the father - son relationship Fred never got and in David Blaize he shows the redemptive power of love in opposition to the hollow religiosity of his father. His blond child is not pious or industrious, or needing to justify his existence. He is simply good, and inspires goodness.

Now I know how Frank Maddox felt when David showed him the Keat's second edition he'd found by chance in a tray of old books:

"[...] Have you been buying something?" "Yes, but only an old Keats," said David, holding it out to him. Maddox looked at the title-page, which was intact, and his eyes grew round. "My goodness, you lucky beggar!" he said.

I made Penguin Classics covers for some old gay novels.