Daily Mail, Friday, September 6, 2019 Page 53BOOKS
MAN WITH A
BLUE SCARF
by Martin
Gayford
(Thames
& Hudson
£14.95, 248 pp)
ART critic Martin Gayford
had known Lucian Freud
for almost a decade when,
in 2003, he suggested to the
artist that ‘if he wanted to
paint me, I would be able to
find the time’.
He thought the response
would be non-committal,
but Freud asked if he could
manage the following
week. So began the exact-
ing process of creating
the portrait known as
Man With A Blue Scarf and
a subsequent etching.
During the sittings,
while Gayford worried
that Freud would record
his jowls and hairy ears,
the painter spoke reveal-
ingly about his own work
and that of other artists.
Freud died in 2011, but this
vivid, affectionate book is a
remarkable insight into the
mind and working habits
of one of the greatest of
British painters.MEG, JO,
BETH, AMY
by Anne Boyd
Rioux
(W. W. Norton
£11.99, 288 pp)
LOUISA MAY
ALCOTT’S classic novel
Little Women has just
celebrated its 150th
anniversary, and it remains
as popular as ever.
Stars from Katharine
Hepburn to Winona Ryder
have starred in film adapt-
ations, and, this Christmas,
another new movie is due
for release, with Saoirse
Ronan as Jo and EmmaWatson as Meg. In her
study of the Little Women
phenomenon, Anne Boyd
Rioux explores how the
novel came to be written
and its enduring influence
on generations of women.
Rioux notes that the
four March sisters —
motherly Meg, ambitious
Jo, self-sacrificing Beth
and beautiful Amy —
represent four contrast-
ing models of womanhood
still relevant today: ‘Meg,
Jo, Beth and Amy challenge
us to consider the many
different ways girls can
become women.’A FATA L
INHERITANCE
by Rachel Rhys
(Black Swan
£8.99, 416 pp)
THE year is
1948, and Eve
Forrester is a bored wife
— trapped in a gloomy,
suburban house with little
to do all day but wait for her
dreary husband, Clifford, to
come back from his office.
But everything changes
one morning when she
receives a letter from a
firm of solicitors. A myster-
ious benefactor called Guy
Lester has died and left her
an undisclosed legacy.
To find out more, she
must visit his lawyers in
the south of France.
So Eve leaves behind
drab, post-war England
for the sun and sea of
Cannes, to find out more
about the enigmatic Guy
and her inheritance.
Among the languid
Riviera sophisticates,
she meets a hardbitten
U.S. novelist, a Hollywood
starlet and a seductive
Frenchman who quite
takes her mind off Clifford.
Rachel Rhys’s atmospheric
novel mixes glamour with
tantalising intrigue — and a
dark hint of dread.
JANE SHILLINGthan 30 events for ages two to teens,
including brain-busting quizzes and
games with Blue Peter’s Konnie Huq,
crafting with The Golden Acorn
author Katy Hudson, Julian Clary
with the latest in his Bolds series,
and a writing workshop with A Pinch
Of Magic’s Michelle Harrison. Plus,
McFly’s Dougie Poynter will help
children wage war on plastic.
There’s story time with Dennis The
Menace, the Moomins, and Little
Miss Inventor. Last but not least, X
Factor host and Radio 2 presenter
Dermot O’Leary is returning to the
festival with his latest children’s
book, Toto The Ninja Cat And The
Superstar Catastrophe.
There’s plenty to enjoy for politics
enthusiasts: take a timely look
behind the scenes of the famous
black door with No 10’s Researcher
in Residence Jack Brown, anddiscover the inside story of Margaret
Thatcher’s downfall from Caroline
Slocock, the first female private
secretary to any British PM.
Finally, MP Anna Soubry, a recent
defector from the Conservative Party,
will be taking part in a discussion of
the state of British politics.
For boffins, Steve Jones — a leading
name in science writing — will talk
about the sun and how it makes us
what we are; professor of maths at
Oxford, Marcus du Sautoy, will be
examining The Creativity Code; and
scientist and journalist David White-
house will talk about his book Apollo
11, marking the 50th anniversary of
the first moon landing.
O To Book tickets go to
henleyliteraryfestival.co.uk or
call 01491 575948.Bookworm: Ex-PM Theresa May SARA LOVEJOY
PICTURETHIS
MUSTREADS
Out now in paperback
greatest successes were with the
generals at Trent Park. The more
senior they were, the more they
knew (and could unwittingly reveal)
about the German war effort.
Many of them were eccentric,
arrogant parodies of the Prussian
officer class. One, Lieutenant-
General Gotthard Frantz, wore a
monocle at all times, even under
sunglasses, and went to bed with
all his medals on.
Some seem a little stupid. ‘We
have the best generals and we are
losing the war!’ one was heard
to exclaim in utter bafflement.
As Fry wryly comments: ‘Clearly,
talking too much within earshot of
the hidden microphones may have
had something to do with that.’
Others, more sensitive and
intelligent, became severe critics
of the Nazis — although toasts
were still raised on Hitler’s birth-
day. ‘Pity it has to be English beer,’
remarked one of the generals.R
IvALRIES developed
at Trent Park between
pro-Nazis and those
utterly disillusioned
with the progress of the war.
Kendrick’s methods of dealing
with the generals was unusual, to
say the least. As well as listening in
on their every conversation, he took
to wining and dining them. There
were even lunch trips to Simpson’s
on the Strand.
When Winston Churchill found
out about this, he was furious and
had them stopped — so Kendrick
relocated the lunches to The Ritz.
Helen Fry likens the atmosphere
at Trent Park to a traditional
London gentleman’s club.
Living a life of relative luxury,
with their egos stroked and sense
of self-importance encouraged, they
relaxed — and played straight into
Kendrick’s hands.
However unorthodox his operation,
it worked. His listeners never set
eyes on a single German PoW, but
eavesdropped on more than 10,000.
They picked up enormously
valuable intelligence on the
secret weapons programme that
produced the v1 and v2 rockets; on
battle plans and troop positions;
and on U-boat bases and new
aircraft technology.
‘You have done a Herculean task,’
Kendrick was told towards the end
of the war.
It was on a par with the better-
known work at Bletchley Park.
Helen Fry’s richly researched
book, brimful of surprising and
fascinating detail, will bring
the secret listeners some of the
attention they deserve.decent thing. If you don’t, I will.’
His original listeners were British-
born, but fluent in German. Soon,
because of the variety of accents and
dialects they were encountering, he
needed native German-speaking
emigres, most of them driven into
exile by the Nazis.
They were the ‘King’s Most
Loyal Enemy Aliens’, as one man
sardonically described them.
Kendrick also used ‘stool pigeons’
— fake fellow prisoners who joined
real PoWs in their cells and subtlyencouraged them to talk. One of
these, a fluent German speaker,
was the father of singer and actress
Olivia Newton-John.
Another, whose name has never
been revealed, was a former inmate
of Belsen, imprisoned for his political
views. After release, he had been con-
scripted into the German army and
then captured by the British.
Unsurprisingly, his loyalty to the
Nazi regime was non-existent. He was
one of the first to reveal the horrors
going on in the camps. But Kendrick’sA CLOUD A DAY
by Gavin Pretor-Pinney (Batsford £20, 368 pp)
WHO hasn’t looked up at the sky and proudly announced
that they know exactly what weather is coming? Our
fascination with clouds doesn’t stop with meteorology,
either. Constable agonised over capturing them exactly
as they were, Anish Kapoor moulded huge silver mirrors
so we could see them without craning our necks, and
Turner gave us his glorious swirling skies. This fabulous
book, by the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society,
aims to inspire us to spend a moment each day with ourhead firmly in the clouds. (^) KATYA EDWARDS
PICTURETHIS
Picture: BARBARA LLOYD
Genius: Thomas Joseph Kendrick
led the secret operation
ticket at Henley...