Report of the Sixth Meeting of the London D. H. Lawrence Group 

Dudley Nichols

Lawrencian Locations

 

Thursday 27^th February 2020

 

New College of the Humanities, 19 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3HH

 

6.30-8.30 pm

 

 

ATTENDERS

 

Liza Belozerova

Catherine Brown

Jane Costin

Alex Korda

Pat Korda

Dudley Nichols

Jane Nichols

Anthony Pacitto

Sue Reid

Hugh Stevens

Nahla Torbay

Colin Yeates

Alexander Vasilkov

 

THE PRESENTATION

Dudley’s presentation took around ninety minutes, and was followed by questions. It centred on a Powerpoint presentation of over a hundred photographs taken by himself and his wife Jane of locations known to Lawrence between 1905 and his death, as visited by the Nichols over the past fifteen to twenty years. His accompanying commentary was based on the more than five and a half thousand extant Lawrence letters, Twilight in Italy, autobiographies of various people who met Lawrence, and the papers of his Aunt Louie Burrows (1888-1962), who was engaged to Lawrence between November 1910 and February 1912. They had met at the pupil-teacher centre at Ilkeston, after which she became the headmistress of several Leicestershire primary schools. The presentation both opened and closed with discussion of her relationship to Lawrence; otherwise, it moved chronologically through Lawrence’s adult life. It underscored Lawrence’s restless energy for travel, finding new accommodation, and moving on again – despite all the greater arduousness of travel (especially when on a shoestring) of his day. It also struck me in what modest dwellings in what extraordinary locations with what extraordinary people Lawrence spent his life.

 

Early photos included ones of St. Catherine’s Church, Cossall:

 

St. Catherine’s Church, Cossall

 

the Cossethay of The Rainbow – and the neighbouring Church Cottage where Will and Anna Brangwen lived: