What do you think?
Rate this book
The backbone: Diaries of a military family in the Napoleonic wars
343 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1993
1 person is currently reading
3 people want to read
About the author
Alethea Hayter
21 books8 followersHayter was the daughter of Sir William Goodenough Hayter, a legal adviser to the Egyptian government, and his wife, Alethea Slessor, daughter of a Hampshire rector. Her brother, another Sir William Goodenough Hayter, went on to become British ambassador to the Soviet Union and Warden of New College, Oxford, while her sister Priscilla Napier was a biographer.
Hayter spent her early years in Cairo, Egypt, in the years before the First World War, where the three Hayter children were well taught by a governess. The children’s lives changed dramatically when their father died, still in his fifties, and they returned to England in reduced circumstances. Alethea Hayter was only twelve years old. Her sister Priscilla later described their happy childhood in Cairo in her memoir A Late Beginner (1966). The three all won scholarships for their higher education. Hayter was educated at Downe House School, in Berkshire, then under the headship of its founder Olive Willis, and at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she arrived in 1929 and went on to graduate BA in modern history. Of her time at Oxford, Hayter later wrote "We were conventional and innocent, though we considered ourselves pioneering and revolutionary — not in politics, we were not much interested in them, but in our preferences in literature, the arts, social values... In our Oxford days, none of us could have boiled a potato, let alone made a soufflé, or would have known an azalea from a stinging nettle."
She never married.
Following her years at Oxford, Hayter was on the editorial staff of Country Life until 1938. During the Second World War she worked in postal censorship in London, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and Trinidad.
In 1945, she joined the British Council, and in 1952 was posted to Greece as an assistant Representative. In 1960, she went to Paris as Deputy Representative and assistant cultural attaché, and her apartment on the Île Saint-Louis became a meeting place for writers and artists. Her last British Council posting was as Representative to Belgium, and she retired in 1971.
She was a member of the governing bodies of the Old Vic and the Sadler's Wells Theatre and of the management committee of the Society of Authors.
Hayter spent her early years in Cairo, Egypt, in the years before the First World War, where the three Hayter children were well taught by a governess. The children’s lives changed dramatically when their father died, still in his fifties, and they returned to England in reduced circumstances. Alethea Hayter was only twelve years old. Her sister Priscilla later described their happy childhood in Cairo in her memoir A Late Beginner (1966). The three all won scholarships for their higher education. Hayter was educated at Downe House School, in Berkshire, then under the headship of its founder Olive Willis, and at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she arrived in 1929 and went on to graduate BA in modern history. Of her time at Oxford, Hayter later wrote "We were conventional and innocent, though we considered ourselves pioneering and revolutionary — not in politics, we were not much interested in them, but in our preferences in literature, the arts, social values... In our Oxford days, none of us could have boiled a potato, let alone made a soufflé, or would have known an azalea from a stinging nettle."
She never married.
Following her years at Oxford, Hayter was on the editorial staff of Country Life until 1938. During the Second World War she worked in postal censorship in London, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and Trinidad.
In 1945, she joined the British Council, and in 1952 was posted to Greece as an assistant Representative. In 1960, she went to Paris as Deputy Representative and assistant cultural attaché, and her apartment on the Île Saint-Louis became a meeting place for writers and artists. Her last British Council posting was as Representative to Belgium, and she retired in 1971.
She was a member of the governing bodies of the Old Vic and the Sadler's Wells Theatre and of the management committee of the Society of Authors.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 20, 2025
The bulk of this book is the diaries of John Henry Slessor, a British Army officer during the Napoleonic Wars along with that of his mother and the occasional letter from other family members. The editor, John Henry`s great granddaughter ties together the entries with summaries of the wider war and events.
John Henry was always on the periphery of events, seemingly just missing key events, e.g in the reserves as Waterloo but was clearly an honourable and decent officer, if something of a plodder. This in essence is the title of the book, as the editor explains her family have made up the "backbone" of the military over the centuries, the Colonels, Group Captains, senior officers who never quite make the top.
In his varied career John Henry was well travelled and their are nuggets such as wangling a seat next to Marshal Soult at a thanksgiving service.
There are a few errors in the editors notes, referring to Bunker Hill as Bunkers Hill and "Charles James Fox who was then Prime Minister" (p85), he was Foreign Secretary.
The diaries are interesting but lack verve and sense of drama, interesting and an insight into the world of the late C18th / early C19th but not top drawer.
John Henry was always on the periphery of events, seemingly just missing key events, e.g in the reserves as Waterloo but was clearly an honourable and decent officer, if something of a plodder. This in essence is the title of the book, as the editor explains her family have made up the "backbone" of the military over the centuries, the Colonels, Group Captains, senior officers who never quite make the top.
In his varied career John Henry was well travelled and their are nuggets such as wangling a seat next to Marshal Soult at a thanksgiving service.
There are a few errors in the editors notes, referring to Bunker Hill as Bunkers Hill and "Charles James Fox who was then Prime Minister" (p85), he was Foreign Secretary.
The diaries are interesting but lack verve and sense of drama, interesting and an insight into the world of the late C18th / early C19th but not top drawer.
Displaying 1 of 1 review