The SHANE'S Room SHANE (born John)
was the eldest of the four Leslie boys (Norman, Seymour &
Lionel). In this room, inspired by views of the lake, and many
years before his granddaughter Sammy designed and installed the
great gothic bath, Shane wrote many of his best books and poems.
His novel about Cambridge `The Cantab' was suppressed by the
Home Secretary, by mistake! Today Shane?s biographies and works
are considered collectors' pieces and eagerly sort after.
At Kings College, Cambridge, he published the earliest poems
of Rupert Brook in a college magazine and unsuccessfully tried
to exorcise the college ghost. He also changed his name from
John to the Irish Shane, and joined the Catholic Church. He wanted
to become a monk until he was involved in a mild car crash with
our beautiful American mother, Marjorie Ide of Vermont. After
carrying her, unconscious, from the wreck he was so enamoured
that he proposed marriage, and was accepted. But as a father,
he seemed rather puzzled at having children and was never quite
sure what to do about us. Once, on meeting little Desmond (aged
4) on the stairs, he asked: `Hello, who are you?'
When deafness came in old age, we presented him with the latest
in electric hearing aids. He hurled it away in rage saying: `They
can hear me. I do not choose to hear them.' He would have made
a good politician. He did in fact campaign as Nationalist MP
for Londonderry, a seat the Dukes of Abercorn tended to regard
as their personal property. The duke was shocked when Father
lost on a recount by a mere 59 votes. Furthermore Shane he became
fluent in Irish, and would make his speeches in that lovely tongue.
He was also one of the few Anglo-Irish to side with the Irish
cause, even compiling a Latin-Irish dictionary just in case some
Ancient Roman should visit the Gaelteach. All of this was slightly
too much for his staid Protestant parents. Just as his obsession
for inviting droves of elderly clerics to Castle Leslie proved
too much for our poor Mother when she was trying to hold amusing
house parties. He would then order us children to entertain them,
which proved too much for us.
Shane loved trees and planted many thousands at Glaslough and
seldom happier than when working alongside the foresters in our
woods. He was a member of the commission to persuade the United
States to join the Allies in WW1. and became instrumental in
saving Eamon de Valera from being shot by the British after the
1916 rising. Father pointed out that as `Dev' was an American
citizen America would probably not enter the war if he were shot,
`Dev' was spared. What would have happened had Ireland been spared
`Dev' is another matter.
Shane was a tremendous walker and could sustain the Red Indian
jog trot indefinitely, doubtless due to the Iraquoi Red Indian
blood injected by his American mother, Leonie Jerome, sister
of Jennie Churchill, into the sleepy Leslie?s. During one night
Shane walked the full 60 miles from our estate in Donegal to
Castle Leslie, arriving in time for breakfast.
He loved clowning and could be devastatingly funny, often to
the embarrassment of our Mother who failed to be amused when
he entertained us children during our dull Sunday walks through
Hyde Park to Mass at the Brampton Oratory, by climbing up lampposts
and pretending to be a gorilla.
In World War 2 Shane was active in the London Home Guard (Dad's
Army), valiantly rescuing valuable first editions from freshly
bombed libraries. Some of these books seem to have made Glaslough
their permanent refuge.
At one time he even had safe custody of Parnell's love letters
to Kitty O' Shea,. which he would show to his children as if
vouchsafing a glimpse of the Holy Grail.
After a long active life he died aged 89 and was laid beside
his wife in their garden tomb. |
