Spurred on as I was, in the beginning, by my distaste at two comments in print about Cameron: waspish and grab-arse pansy, long dead of Aids** eventually I came to realize how central he had been, not only to the lives of his friends but central also, if not to my life, then to much of my thinking. Given that I've concentrated on the positive aspects of his character as related by his friends and, in two gratifying instances, by people who had worked for him, what I have written borders, perhaps, on hagiography but, to be honest, I've never been interested in writing an exposé.
"For almost all of us here this morning in the Grosvenor Chapel - a building he must have particularly admired - the death of Roderick Cameron marks the end of a very long friendship, which made a great addition to our lives. My own friendship with him began just after the end of World War I, and lasted nearly forty years. When I first met him, he was living with his mother in London at nearby Lees Place; and he and Lady Kenmare used sometimes to attend the delightful dinner parties given by the famous Anglo-American hostess Lady Cunard (who for some reason hated to be called a hostess) on the seventh floor of the Dorchester Hotel. I remember him in those days as a tall, elegant, but rather quiet young man, somewhat overshadowed by his resplendent mother, a celebrated beauty of the pre-war world. And it was only a little later, when I stayed with them at their house in the south of France, that he seemed quite to have emerged from the chrysalis of youth and to have become a completely individual character."
Among his earliest achievements, I suppose, was to redesign his mother's house, La Fiorentina, near St. Jean, Cap Ferrat. Before the war it had been a large Edwardian villa; but during the German occupation it was half-destroyed, and Rory completely transformed it on the classical lines of one of the splendid villas Palladio built near Venice. This was an important feat, since in later years, La Fiorentina was the harmonious background against which he exercised his gift for friendship. Rory Cameron was a man with many friends - that is a point I should like to emphasize; and, besides being himself a Man of Taste, he always loved to share his taste. It was not only for himself but for his friends' benefit that he both collected pictures and smaller objects of art, and at the same time laid out a glorious garden overlooking the Gulf of Beaulieu - it once included, I recollect, a pool covered with bright blue water lilies he had brought back from Australia, which, alas, a greedy fellow-gardner eventually stole.
"Rory's generosity was a keynote of his character. So was his hospitality; and among his guests were many writers. I remember Cyril Connolly (for whom La Fiorentina was an anticipation of Heaven) sunning himself upon the terraces. Rory's neighbours were William Somerset Maugham and Jean Cocteau. He was deeply interested in literature; and though he was conscious of having had a somewhat neglected education, he felt, himself, a keen desire to write. His subject was often his own travels; and his first book, 'My Travel's History,' which dealt largely with a visit to Egypt, was spotted by a clever publisher's reader, and accepted and published by Hamish Hamilton. He gave us - and I personally much enjoyed - no less that eight other books, mostly dealing with his impressions of foreign lands, from India to Australia, the continent where his mother had been born and brought up. And in each of his books I noticed the same quality. He had what I can only call a painter's eye. He could bring an exotic landscape or building to life by his evocative observations of line and colour, and his discerning sense of beauty.
"I have said enough, I hope, to suggest that he was no mere leisured dilettante, but had a true creative impulse. He worked hard, was always ready to accept criticism, and aimed at perfection in everything he did, whether he was writing a book, rebuilding a house, planting a garden, or placing a picture he had discovered and acquired exactly where it should be hung. His tastes were catholic, and he exercised them generously. In his personal life, as I have already said, he had an extraordinary gift for friendship. It is both as a friend we valued and as a creative spirit we respected that we are bidding him goodbye today."
Peter Quennell's "eulogy at Rory's memorial service, November 1985."
I first came across Roderick Cameron, merely a figure in a landscape - territory fascinating and as yet unexplored by me - in an article published in The World of Interiors twenty-seven years ago. I had no idea who he was - all I knew was that his house, Les Quatre Sources, at Ménerbes, impressed me no-end. The photographs and his description of what was his last house house stayed with me for years - his phrase the silver-green of the back of an olive leaf has assuredly been a touchstone for my own aesthetic. I look around our flat, sparely but not sparsely furnished, and can see colors, muted but not diminished, responding well to the early light from the east and to the golden light of the westering sun.
As the Celt and I head to Manhattan for Thanksgiving, let me offer my thanks to all of you who have over the past two years, contributed to and commented on my journey of discovery of Roderick Cameron and his circle. It has been, and continues to be, a delightful odyssey. Thank you all for coming along for the voyage.
*Click on Roderick Cameron's name in sidebar "Topics"
** The link for this quote seemingly is inactive.
Photographs of the Grosvenor Chapel where Roderick Cameron's memorial service took place from Wikipedia Commons.
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