This date in 1892 was the birth date of Vita Sackville-West, poet and novelist. 10 facts about her:
Her full name was Victoria Mary. She was called Vita to distinguish her from her mother who was also named Victoria.
Her mother was the illegitimate daughter of Lionel Sackville-West, 2nd Baron Sackville and the Spanish dancer Pepita, one of five illegitimate children who were all farmed out to convents to be raised when Lionel became the British minister in Buenos Aires. When his career took him to Washington DC, he needed a diplomatic hostess and so he brought his eldest daughter over to fulfil that role. She was a popular young woman, who, it is alleged, received marriage proposals from widowed President of the United States Chester Arthur, Pierpont Morgan, Rudyard Kipling, Auguste Rodin, and Henry Ford before choosing her first cousin, Lionel Sackville-West. Vita was the couple’s only child.
Philip de László was commissioned to paint a portrait of Vita when she turned 18. Vita’s mother chose the outfit she would wear because it was appropriate for an eligible young lady. Vita disliked the formal Edwardian look and hid the painting away in the attics at Sissinghurst.
Vita was born at the family’s ancestral home, Knole, which had been had been given to Thomas Sackville by Elizabeth I, in the sixteenth century. Although she loved her home, the law at the time meant she couldn’t inherit it and when her father died the house would go to her uncle along with the title. She would have to marry in order not to be homeless. Knole is now in the possession of the National Trust.
Vita had plenty of men interested in marrying her, some with titles, but she dismissed them as ‘little dancing things in ballrooms’. Her parents would have liked her to marry Lord Grandy, heir to the Duke of Rutland, or Lord Lascelles, future Earl of Harewood, but Vita found them morose and dull respectively. Ivan Hay, one of her dance partners at society events and son of Lord Kilmarnock proposed to her twice and gave her a bear cub as a Christmas gift. Vita named the bear ‘Ivan the Terrible’. In the end, she chose a diplomat called Harold Nicolson, who was bisexual like she was and would tolerate an open marriage. Vita’s parents weren’t happy, though as he only earned £250 a year. Harold proposed to Vita at the Hatfield Ball in 1912. The couple had never even kissed at this point. Harold was so nervous that he pulled all the Buttons off his Gloves. Vita and Harold married in the family chapel at Knole on 1 October 1913 in a small ceremony with just 26 guests.
Vita was somewhat isolated as a child, finding it difficult to make friends. She was a bit of a tomboy, owning a pocket knife and often being punished for “wrestling with the hall-boy.” She started writing at the age of 12 after reading Cyrano de Bergerac. By the age of eighteen, Vita had written eight full-length novels and five plays, some of which were in French.
She published more than a dozen collections of poetry and 13 novels during her life. She was twice awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Imaginative Literature: in 1927 for her pastoral epic, The Land, and in 1933 for her Collected Poems. Nevertheless, she would compare herself unfavourably with her contemporaries and believed herself to be “sluggish of mind”.
Sackville-West was initially taught at home by governesses and later attended Helen Wolff's school for girls, an exclusive day school in Mayfair. It was here that she met her first lesbian lovers, Violet Keppel and Rosamund Grosvenor. Rosamund was a frequent visitor at Knole, but it was Violet with whom she maintained a relationship well into adulthood. After Vita had had two sons with Harold, she and Violet made a pledge never to have sex with their husbands again. They used to run off together and have adventures, with Vita posing as a man named Julian. Their mothers thoroughly disapproved, and on one occasion Harold and Violet’s husband chased after their wives in a two seater plane. Violet was eventually ditched when Vita learned she had broken the pact and slept with her husband.
In 1930 Vita and her family bought Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, which had once been owned by Vita’s ancestors. Perhaps this made up slightly for losing her childhood home. They restored the house and gardens, and Vita started writing again after a six year break in order to pay for the renovations and her sons’ educations. In 1947 she began a weekly column in The Observer called "In your Garden", which was popular until a year before her death, and helped to make Sissinghurst one of the most famous and visited gardens in England. Sissinghurst, like Knole, now belongs to the National Trust.
Vita is well known for her 10 year relationship with Virginia Woolf and it seems they were a positive influence on each other and their writing, as both women were at the peak of their careers and produced their best writing while together.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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