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Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood
When Tirzah Garwood was 18, she went to Eastbourne School of Art, where she was taught by Eric Ravilious. Over the next four years she did many wood engravings and these were widely praised and several were displayed by the Society of Wood Engravers. Alas, after she and Eric were married in 1930 a large part of her time was spent on domestic chores. In 1935 she had the first of her three children. In 1942 – the year she was operated on for breast cancer – she wrote her autobiography (in the evening, after the children were in bed); this has now been published with the title Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood.
In The Wood Engravings of Tirzah Ravilious (1987) the novelist and designer Robert Harling wrote: ‘The manifold talents of Tirzah as wood engraver, artist and designer (especially of exquisite marbled papers) were well-known to her friends, but have been virtually extinguished by the steadily growing fame of Ravilious’s achievements. Tirzah was content for this to be so, for she was uncommonly and genuinely modest and a devoted wife and mother, but as far as her work was concerned, she certainly lost out.’
When she began her autobiography Tirzah wrote: ‘I hope, dear reader, that you may be one of my descendants, but as I write a German aeroplane has circled round above my head taking photographs of the damage that yesterday’s raiders have done, reminding me that there is no certainty of our survival. If you are not one of my descendants then all I ask of you is that you love the country as I do, and when you come into a room, discreetly observe its pictures and its furnishings, and sympathise with painters and craftsmen.’
And as her daughter Anne Ullmann observes in the Preface, writing was undoubtedly therapeutic, it enabled her to stand back and look at her life and helped her at a time of adversity to sort out a way forward.’ She concludes: ‘Time and the honesty of Tirzah’s words have made this an immensely important document and it is a valuable primary record of a woman who was at the centre of an important group of artists, and who was herself a very good artist in her own right.’
In The Wood Engravings of Tirzah Ravilious (1987) the novelist and designer Robert Harling wrote: ‘The manifold talents of Tirzah as wood engraver, artist and designer (especially of exquisite marbled papers) were well-known to her friends, but have been virtually extinguished by the steadily growing fame of Ravilious’s achievements. Tirzah was content for this to be so, for she was uncommonly and genuinely modest and a devoted wife and mother, but as far as her work was concerned, she certainly lost out.’
When she began her autobiography Tirzah wrote: ‘I hope, dear reader, that you may be one of my descendants, but as I write a German aeroplane has circled round above my head taking photographs of the damage that yesterday’s raiders have done, reminding me that there is no certainty of our survival. If you are not one of my descendants then all I ask of you is that you love the country as I do, and when you come into a room, discreetly observe its pictures and its furnishings, and sympathise with painters and craftsmen.’
And as her daughter Anne Ullmann observes in the Preface, writing was undoubtedly therapeutic, it enabled her to stand back and look at her life and helped her at a time of adversity to sort out a way forward.’ She concludes: ‘Time and the honesty of Tirzah’s words have made this an immensely important document and it is a valuable primary record of a woman who was at the centre of an important group of artists, and who was herself a very good artist in her own right.’
495 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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188 people want to read
About the author
Tirzah Garwood
3 books1 followerWhen Tirzah Garwood was 18, she went to Eastbourne School of Art, where she was taught by Eric Ravilious. Over the next four years she did many wood engravings and these were widely praised and several were displayed by the Society of Wood Engravers.
After she and Eric were married in 1930, a large part of her time was spent on domestic chores. In 1935 she had the first of her three children. In 1942 – the year she was operated on for breast cancer – she wrote her autobiography (in the evening, after the children were in bed); this has now been published with the title "Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood".
Ravilious, an official War Artist, died in September 1942 in a plane lost over Iceland. Tirzah then focused on oil painting and collage. In 1946 she married Henry Swanzy, a producer at the BBC.
After she and Eric were married in 1930, a large part of her time was spent on domestic chores. In 1935 she had the first of her three children. In 1942 – the year she was operated on for breast cancer – she wrote her autobiography (in the evening, after the children were in bed); this has now been published with the title "Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood".
Ravilious, an official War Artist, died in September 1942 in a plane lost over Iceland. Tirzah then focused on oil painting and collage. In 1946 she married Henry Swanzy, a producer at the BBC.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
June 23, 2018
I love long books about women's lives and I nearly always love persephones, Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden are favourite artists of mine, so I was really excited to read this one, written by Ravilious' wife Tirzah. Sadly I didn't like the style of writing, I found this too rambling, chatty thoughts that could cover netball moves, crushes on older girls and some other unrelated subject in the space of a paragraph. I read a couple of hundred pages and then skimmed through the rest. Tirzah was an artist and I enjoyed looking at some of her prints but sadly it's hard to be good at more than one thing.
February 11, 2017
Graphic artist Robert Harling described Tirzah Garwood as "a slim, extraordinarily pretty heartbreaker, somehow touched by sadness. A gleam of fateful gaiety seemed always to attend her enchantingly fey persona. This impression of carefree sadness was enhanced by her vivacious chit-chat, well-laced with zany throwaway lines, wholly captivating to listeners, especially more susceptible males. And despite her seeming (and actual) fragility, she was always game to the last." This description of Tirzah appears on p. 482 of her autobiography, and truly it sums up the strange but charming appeal of this artist/wife/mother - who had such a short and action-packed life (1908 - 1951).
Much of Tirzah's autobiography was written by her when in hospital; she died of cancer shortly before her 43rd birthday. In the last 15 years of her life she was in and out of hospitals quite frequently, with three childbirths, a mastectomy, a therapeutic abortion (she became pregnant only three months after her mastectomy) and radiation therapy. In addition to these significant physical trials, she was left a widow with three very small children when her husband (artist Eric Ravilious) went missing in an airplane in 1942. But although she does talk about all of these difficulties, and sometimes with surprising candidness, they are not, actually, the predominant impression one gets from reading this memoir. Rather, one is left with the "vivacious chit-chat" and "zany throwaway lines" which were apparently as true of her writing voice as her social persona. I suspect Tirzah Garwood was one of those rare people whose written voice was much the same as her spoken voice.
It took me quite a long time to read this book, but finally in the second half I became totally engaged with it. The writing style is breezy, chatty and often seems littered by insignificant details. To a large extent, she wrote her autobiography for her own children - and perhaps they had an acquaintance with the dozens and dozens of people she mentions, sometimes inserting them in the text with very little context. I found them quite impossible to keep straight, although certain of her friends and lovers did finally form a distinct picture in my mind. In addition to her husband Eric Ravilious, the artists Edward Bawden (a close friend and colleague) and John Aldridge (friend and lover) were probably the most important, and I enjoyed reading more about them after finishing this book.
I'm not sure I've ever read a book with as much precise, interesting physical description of every person in it. Tirzah is also quite precise and colourful in her descriptions of interiors. She really reveals herself as an artist in her eye (and memory) for detail. This description of a "repellent-looking female torso" amazed me, and is typical of her often acid style: "She had flat drooping breasts, wispy Victorian hair, a beak-like nose, savage eyes and wing feathers like hair sprouting from under her armpits." (p. 340)
For me, part of this memoir's appeal is the time period - set mostly between the wars, and within a 'bohemian' community of artists - both of which are special interests of mine. I particularly enjoyed the details of village life in Great Bardfield (Essex) as set against the larger landscape. She is often quite funny when mentioning larger world events. She buys her first car, a Morris Eight, with some Shell stock because she somehow associates her dividends that year with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. She mentions that "we were continually aware of the Spanish Civil War and we went about feeling unhappy and ashamed and filled with foreboding," but she then undercuts this by making various cracks about Communists being ugly and dull on the whole. (She reminds me, at times, of the character of Linda Radlett in The Pursuit of Love.) Her sense of humour, those "zany throwaway lines," is a constant feature - and really one of the chief charms of the book. Here is a typical example: "I had bought the tortoises from Woolworth's to save them from death in the same spirit that we (later) offered our home to German refugees." (p. 315)
Throughout her autobiography, Tirzah does not privilege art above emotional or domestic life, though; instead, all of these aspects of her life are completely muddled up - sometimes charmingly and sometimes quite annoyingly. In one extraordinary paragraph, (p. 335), she describes how her affair with John Aldridge is all mixed up with entertaining and little John (her first child) and marbling. (She was very interested in marbling during this period, and apparently very accomplished at it.) Of course, this is exactly how life is - but usually, within a storyline at least, it is fashioned into something more coherent and linear. Quite often she mentions how, even in traumatic times (such as the period following Ravilious's death), she was just too busy to wallow in or even completely register her own feelings. One of her phrases, that really struck me, was "these crowded years." Trying to be an artist, whilst also running a house (usually without much help, and under fairly primitive conditions), was the major key of her short life. Although she describes her husband as the "most charming and good" of the men in her life, he was always going off on painting trips - and he seemed to be having affairs for the majority of their marriage. His first major affair, with a woman called Diana, is summed up Tirzah in this way: "We never told other people about this; I had a great aversion to being pitied and also it seemed to me bad-mannered to worry other people with your private miseries; and for another thing, sympathetic friends might be far more worried for you than you were yourself." (p. 252-253) So much of her character and approach to life can be inferred by that paragraph. Despite her bohemian, artistic life, her middle-class upbringing was part of her steely core.
Finally, one of the best bits of the book is seeing examples of Tirzah Garwood's work - mostly wood engravings of domestic subjects. Her art, like her voice, definitely appealed to me. This book takes some patience to read, but ultimately I found it rewarding.
Much of Tirzah's autobiography was written by her when in hospital; she died of cancer shortly before her 43rd birthday. In the last 15 years of her life she was in and out of hospitals quite frequently, with three childbirths, a mastectomy, a therapeutic abortion (she became pregnant only three months after her mastectomy) and radiation therapy. In addition to these significant physical trials, she was left a widow with three very small children when her husband (artist Eric Ravilious) went missing in an airplane in 1942. But although she does talk about all of these difficulties, and sometimes with surprising candidness, they are not, actually, the predominant impression one gets from reading this memoir. Rather, one is left with the "vivacious chit-chat" and "zany throwaway lines" which were apparently as true of her writing voice as her social persona. I suspect Tirzah Garwood was one of those rare people whose written voice was much the same as her spoken voice.
It took me quite a long time to read this book, but finally in the second half I became totally engaged with it. The writing style is breezy, chatty and often seems littered by insignificant details. To a large extent, she wrote her autobiography for her own children - and perhaps they had an acquaintance with the dozens and dozens of people she mentions, sometimes inserting them in the text with very little context. I found them quite impossible to keep straight, although certain of her friends and lovers did finally form a distinct picture in my mind. In addition to her husband Eric Ravilious, the artists Edward Bawden (a close friend and colleague) and John Aldridge (friend and lover) were probably the most important, and I enjoyed reading more about them after finishing this book.
I'm not sure I've ever read a book with as much precise, interesting physical description of every person in it. Tirzah is also quite precise and colourful in her descriptions of interiors. She really reveals herself as an artist in her eye (and memory) for detail. This description of a "repellent-looking female torso" amazed me, and is typical of her often acid style: "She had flat drooping breasts, wispy Victorian hair, a beak-like nose, savage eyes and wing feathers like hair sprouting from under her armpits." (p. 340)
For me, part of this memoir's appeal is the time period - set mostly between the wars, and within a 'bohemian' community of artists - both of which are special interests of mine. I particularly enjoyed the details of village life in Great Bardfield (Essex) as set against the larger landscape. She is often quite funny when mentioning larger world events. She buys her first car, a Morris Eight, with some Shell stock because she somehow associates her dividends that year with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. She mentions that "we were continually aware of the Spanish Civil War and we went about feeling unhappy and ashamed and filled with foreboding," but she then undercuts this by making various cracks about Communists being ugly and dull on the whole. (She reminds me, at times, of the character of Linda Radlett in The Pursuit of Love.) Her sense of humour, those "zany throwaway lines," is a constant feature - and really one of the chief charms of the book. Here is a typical example: "I had bought the tortoises from Woolworth's to save them from death in the same spirit that we (later) offered our home to German refugees." (p. 315)
Throughout her autobiography, Tirzah does not privilege art above emotional or domestic life, though; instead, all of these aspects of her life are completely muddled up - sometimes charmingly and sometimes quite annoyingly. In one extraordinary paragraph, (p. 335), she describes how her affair with John Aldridge is all mixed up with entertaining and little John (her first child) and marbling. (She was very interested in marbling during this period, and apparently very accomplished at it.) Of course, this is exactly how life is - but usually, within a storyline at least, it is fashioned into something more coherent and linear. Quite often she mentions how, even in traumatic times (such as the period following Ravilious's death), she was just too busy to wallow in or even completely register her own feelings. One of her phrases, that really struck me, was "these crowded years." Trying to be an artist, whilst also running a house (usually without much help, and under fairly primitive conditions), was the major key of her short life. Although she describes her husband as the "most charming and good" of the men in her life, he was always going off on painting trips - and he seemed to be having affairs for the majority of their marriage. His first major affair, with a woman called Diana, is summed up Tirzah in this way: "We never told other people about this; I had a great aversion to being pitied and also it seemed to me bad-mannered to worry other people with your private miseries; and for another thing, sympathetic friends might be far more worried for you than you were yourself." (p. 252-253) So much of her character and approach to life can be inferred by that paragraph. Despite her bohemian, artistic life, her middle-class upbringing was part of her steely core.
Finally, one of the best bits of the book is seeing examples of Tirzah Garwood's work - mostly wood engravings of domestic subjects. Her art, like her voice, definitely appealed to me. This book takes some patience to read, but ultimately I found it rewarding.
August 28, 2018
Tirzah Garwood was an English artist born in 1908 and died in 1951. She was married to fellow artist Eric Ravilious until his death in the Second World War. This autobiography was written in the early 1940s, mostly just before and some just after his death, while she was recovering from operations for cancer.
It's fascinating if you're interested in life in Britain in the first half of the 20th century. I am, so I loved it :) I particularly enjoyed the early parts, with vivid details of a middle-class childhood in Eastbourne, and growing up. She is wonderfully honest about taboo subjects like menstruation and falling in love with people one is not married to. Some of the middle is more about the lives and visits of various friends and relations that I had trouble keeping track of, but then war approaches and it gets interesting again, though in a less happy way.
It's fascinating if you're interested in life in Britain in the first half of the 20th century. I am, so I loved it :) I particularly enjoyed the early parts, with vivid details of a middle-class childhood in Eastbourne, and growing up. She is wonderfully honest about taboo subjects like menstruation and falling in love with people one is not married to. Some of the middle is more about the lives and visits of various friends and relations that I had trouble keeping track of, but then war approaches and it gets interesting again, though in a less happy way.
January 7, 2018
I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the name Tirzah Garwood (though I certainly recognised her work) until Persephone books brought out this title last year. I had vaguely heard the name Eric Ravilious but couldn’t have told you anything about him, nor had I heard of the Great Bardfield artists colony. However, if you haven’t heard the name Tirzah Garwood, and you’re a Persephone fan, who has been enjoying the Persephone Quarterlies and now Biannually, you will, as I did, recognise her work. Many of the illustrations used in the Persephone magazine over several years are from the work of Tirzah Garwood. How fitting that they are now publishing her autobiography.
So, with the Christmas holidays giving me plenty of reading time – I settled in with this almost five-hundred-page autobiography and entered into the bohemian world of Tirzah Garwood and Eric Ravilious.
Born into a family of five children, Tirzah (born Eileen Lucy – Tirzah was a nickname) and her siblings were obliged to move around quite a bit with their parents. Living in Glasgow, Croydon and Eastbourne Tirzah seems to have been surrounded by a lively, loving family who supported her artistic abilities.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
So, with the Christmas holidays giving me plenty of reading time – I settled in with this almost five-hundred-page autobiography and entered into the bohemian world of Tirzah Garwood and Eric Ravilious.
Born into a family of five children, Tirzah (born Eileen Lucy – Tirzah was a nickname) and her siblings were obliged to move around quite a bit with their parents. Living in Glasgow, Croydon and Eastbourne Tirzah seems to have been surrounded by a lively, loving family who supported her artistic abilities.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
May 7, 2025
I give this book 5 stars for various idiosyncratic reasons. I was just in London and was able (had planned as a top priority) to see the Tirzah Garwood exhibit at Dulwich Picture Gallery. She is the wife of the more famous, but still obscure, painter Eric Ravilious, and both were part of the group of artists of Great Bardfield. Great Bardfield, it strikes me, is artistically adjacent to both Bloomsbury artists and writers, and to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement—all in all a tremendous efflorescence of artistic creativity from mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. So I give the book 5 stars for the great pleasure it has been exploring British art of this era and seeing the lovely Tirzah Garwood exhibit.
One might not give Long Live Great Bardfield 5 stars for the writing which is a bit lumpy and idiomatic to a fault. But I do. Tirzah tells her life in a voice as close as your mother or your friend. She is witty, cheerful, self-deprecating, and frank. Tirzah was born in 1908 making her just a few years younger than my grandmother—there any similarity would stop, but it amused me to listen to her frankness about bodies, sex, relationships, feelings and compare that to the reticence of my grandmother’s generation, and my parents’ for that matter. So 5 stars for Tirzah’s charming temerity to tell it like it was for her set of middle class working artists in early 20th C England.
Finally Long Live Great Bardfield gets 5 stars for doing what the best autobiographies can do. That is, it engaged me in the life being told, arousing my passionate sympathies, my dismay, my hope for Tirzah’s happiness. In the end, the best of autobiographies leave the reader with a sense of grief as for someone you know and regret that you can accompany them no further. All this was fully achieved in this wonderful autobiography.
One might not give Long Live Great Bardfield 5 stars for the writing which is a bit lumpy and idiomatic to a fault. But I do. Tirzah tells her life in a voice as close as your mother or your friend. She is witty, cheerful, self-deprecating, and frank. Tirzah was born in 1908 making her just a few years younger than my grandmother—there any similarity would stop, but it amused me to listen to her frankness about bodies, sex, relationships, feelings and compare that to the reticence of my grandmother’s generation, and my parents’ for that matter. So 5 stars for Tirzah’s charming temerity to tell it like it was for her set of middle class working artists in early 20th C England.
Finally Long Live Great Bardfield gets 5 stars for doing what the best autobiographies can do. That is, it engaged me in the life being told, arousing my passionate sympathies, my dismay, my hope for Tirzah’s happiness. In the end, the best of autobiographies leave the reader with a sense of grief as for someone you know and regret that you can accompany them no further. All this was fully achieved in this wonderful autobiography.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 24, 2019
This book was obviously a labor of love by artist, widow, and mother Tirzah Garwood, who started this account for her children and grandchildren while she was recovering from surgery for breast cancer. And it was an obvious labor of love for her daughter and editor Anne Ullmann who pieced together the unfinished manuscript and filled a gap of several years in the narrative using letters from friends and family as well as writing the ending and the introduction.
Tirzah Garwood is an amusing storyteller with a fabulous visual memory and many good stories to tell about her family, artist husband Eric Ravilious, friends, and people she knew, including many other British artists of the time. But there is so much detail about so many people that it breaks the focus of her own story, and some of her own life events just get buried. She does write about her open marriage and the pain (and happiness) this caused her. She writes about her husband’s work, but there isn’t much about her own art, which she largely gave up after her marriage, switching from engraving to making marbled papers. Ms Garwood herself finally takes center stage in the last hundred pages as she writes about her children and her illness.
Although I’m glad to have made the acquaintance of this courageous, honest, and talented woman and her circle, I wish this version of her story for the general reader had been strengthened by cutting 50-100 pages of anecdotes and other tangential material. The finished book is beautifully illustrated with family photographs and art by Tirzah, Eric Ravilious, and others. I did wish a picture of her marbled papers had been included too, but Google turned up a nice sampling.
[About their cleaning lady and Eric Ravilious]: “We found that she couldn’t resist the temptation of finishing off any bottles (of beer) that Eric left about. As it was her only weakness and she never took very much, Eric enjoyed leaving her small quantities and nothing was said.”
Tirzah Garwood is an amusing storyteller with a fabulous visual memory and many good stories to tell about her family, artist husband Eric Ravilious, friends, and people she knew, including many other British artists of the time. But there is so much detail about so many people that it breaks the focus of her own story, and some of her own life events just get buried. She does write about her open marriage and the pain (and happiness) this caused her. She writes about her husband’s work, but there isn’t much about her own art, which she largely gave up after her marriage, switching from engraving to making marbled papers. Ms Garwood herself finally takes center stage in the last hundred pages as she writes about her children and her illness.
Although I’m glad to have made the acquaintance of this courageous, honest, and talented woman and her circle, I wish this version of her story for the general reader had been strengthened by cutting 50-100 pages of anecdotes and other tangential material. The finished book is beautifully illustrated with family photographs and art by Tirzah, Eric Ravilious, and others. I did wish a picture of her marbled papers had been included too, but Google turned up a nice sampling.
[About their cleaning lady and Eric Ravilious]: “We found that she couldn’t resist the temptation of finishing off any bottles (of beer) that Eric left about. As it was her only weakness and she never took very much, Eric enjoyed leaving her small quantities and nothing was said.”
February 9, 2020
Dull and poorly-written. Well below the usual high standard of Persephone Books titles.
March 29, 2025
I went to see the Dulwich Picture Gallery exhibition of Garwood’s paintings (Beyond Ravilious) and, while I really liked some of the paintings and thought they were interesting (esp the quite surrealist ones), I didn’t feel that I learned anything about Garwood’s ideas about art and thought some of the curation perpetuated rather than moved away from her just being Ravilious’ wife and positioned her as childish and disconnected rather than thinking about what she was interested in and responding to. SO I decided I had to read her autobiography, which I really enjoyed in parts, but felt that it dragged a bit in places and also I completely lost track of who people were - I think knowing more about the period would have been helpful. However I thought the two pages which were originally the end when she was in recovery from her mastectomy were some of the most beautiful pages I’ve ever read so she gets an extra star for that (and writing this review about a month later I still am thinking about them)
November 2, 2022
This is such an interesting book. I started reading it because I was interested in Tirzah's first husband, Eric Ravilious, but it was Tirzah herself who I soon became most intrigued by. She has a lovely way of pinning down someone's personality by finding just the right detail about them to describe. She's also incredibly honest about her feelings which made me feel like I knew her and found myself quite choked up at the end with the description of her last illness and death.
October 21, 2022
A lovely book with beautiful illustrations. Such an interesting life and so acutely observed and disarmingly frank. I was surprised at how honest she was about her feelings and warmed by her positive attitude, despite all her hardships.
An awful lot of people and names to keep track of, but a fascinating record of the times.
An awful lot of people and names to keep track of, but a fascinating record of the times.
August 3, 2021
An entertaining and thoroughly idiosyncratic piece of writing. Very conversational in tone, Tirzah Garwood's recollections of her life are vividly and personally laid before us. Written largely during spells of hospitalisation and being bed-bound at home, she brings to life the not always savoury doings of her family and artistic friends, most notably Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden, during the late twenties and thirties. Not a group that I would have liked to share a home with, based on her reflections, but her affection for all of her friends and family shines through. Very interesting reading if, like me, you have a leaning towards this group of English artists.
January 4, 2020
I bought the book when visiting an exhibition of works by Tirzah and her husband Eric Ravilious at the Fry Gallery in Saffron Walden. I expected to dip into it rather than read cover-to-cover but although it is a hefty tome I did enjoy reading it very much. My initial interest was in the Great Bardfield artists but in fact Tirzah's life story transcends the art and it's a fascinating autobiography, of a period covering the first half of the twentieth century.
January 6, 2017
Written in a warm and chatty style, this autobiography gives an interesting picture of aspects of domestic life in the first half of the twentieth century as well as providing insight in to the lives of those in the Great Barfield artists' colony.
September 4, 2018
Fascinating read. Unusual mix of reminiscences and frank reflections. Another piece in the jigsaw of this intriguing period.
May 29, 2020
Fascinating autobiography with so many tiny details of the lives of Tirzah and her husband and friends.
September 30, 2024
We are lucky Tirzah Garwood wrote this book, rambling as it is, as it seems to recount the days of a group of artists between the wars: including her husband Eric Ravilious and his friend Edward Bawden. These two have become very popular.
Tirzah begins with an account of her middle-class childhood. She was one of many children and with her father an army officer, posted to different places, she and her siblings were often parked with aunts and uncles and grandparents. This was often done when parents were posted to the colonies. Eventually the family settled in Eastbourne, and Tirzah went to a school there which she seems to have enjoyed, and also been a Girl Guide, which she loved, because she loved outdoor pursuits and was always physically capable and spirited. She is always very frank about such things as her painful periods. Her brother tells her at one point that she's been brought up all wrong (because she mentions these unmentionable things), and there is an aspect of Tirzah that's really eccentric. For example, she takes off her skirt in front of her uncle (which I wouldn't do) and he is shocked and never returns. She never explains why she does this, or expresses regret.
She goes to art school in Eastbourne and becomes friends with one of the teachers (Eric Ravilious) while she has another boyfriend. It seems important that Eric and Tirzah are friends first, before they fall in love, they know they like to go about together and to work together. When they marry, they believe they will keep their vows, but sadly Eric falls for someone else, and is quite ruthless in his pursuit of the other woman, and Tirzah minds this, but also somehow accommodates it. They have a son, and then it's Tirzah's turn to fall madly in love with another man, and this is clearly a great bore to everyone and also very destructive of her friendships, and something she returns to over and over again to worry over in her account of her life.
She takes a huge step down in her standard of living because although Eric is fairly successful, they are never comfortably off, and he doesn't stand to inherit money. They live in a shared house in an Essex village, presumably because there's a lot that Edward and Eric want to paint there and it's cheap, but it's very primitive domestically and Eric isn't that helpful when he invites people to stay and there's no spare bedroom. You can tell that Tirzah would like to keep house well but she also works - she does her prints and she makes wallpapers. She values her work and considers herself lucky to have it as she gets absorbed in it. Eric likes to work and he also likes to go to the pub and meet people. They move very frequently to different places which must have been very hard work.
These are all the highlights but I am going to be critical and say that the book is a bit of a jumble and maybe needed further editing. People are mentioned in passing and you wonder if they have already been introduced -should you refer back? But then you find they are introduced in the following chapter. Tirzah had a large number of friends who were very important to her and it's very difficult to keep track of them all. I suggest the reader puts in post=it notes with the names on so that one can refer back to the initial sketch of the person and then forward when they do something later on. TG is very good at describing people.
She is very interesting about clothes, because she has strong, but odd, opinions about clothes, and then third parties describe her taste in clothes in very non-flattering terms.
TG has three children with Eric and then the war comes, and so does tragedy. At the end of TG's life the narrative is taken over by other writers. This is very sad and we miss her gossipy voice, making the best of things as she does. I really liked her book, and her gallant attitude. I also love her pictures and I really enjoyed looking them up on Google.
Tirzah begins with an account of her middle-class childhood. She was one of many children and with her father an army officer, posted to different places, she and her siblings were often parked with aunts and uncles and grandparents. This was often done when parents were posted to the colonies. Eventually the family settled in Eastbourne, and Tirzah went to a school there which she seems to have enjoyed, and also been a Girl Guide, which she loved, because she loved outdoor pursuits and was always physically capable and spirited. She is always very frank about such things as her painful periods. Her brother tells her at one point that she's been brought up all wrong (because she mentions these unmentionable things), and there is an aspect of Tirzah that's really eccentric. For example, she takes off her skirt in front of her uncle (which I wouldn't do) and he is shocked and never returns. She never explains why she does this, or expresses regret.
She goes to art school in Eastbourne and becomes friends with one of the teachers (Eric Ravilious) while she has another boyfriend. It seems important that Eric and Tirzah are friends first, before they fall in love, they know they like to go about together and to work together. When they marry, they believe they will keep their vows, but sadly Eric falls for someone else, and is quite ruthless in his pursuit of the other woman, and Tirzah minds this, but also somehow accommodates it. They have a son, and then it's Tirzah's turn to fall madly in love with another man, and this is clearly a great bore to everyone and also very destructive of her friendships, and something she returns to over and over again to worry over in her account of her life.
She takes a huge step down in her standard of living because although Eric is fairly successful, they are never comfortably off, and he doesn't stand to inherit money. They live in a shared house in an Essex village, presumably because there's a lot that Edward and Eric want to paint there and it's cheap, but it's very primitive domestically and Eric isn't that helpful when he invites people to stay and there's no spare bedroom. You can tell that Tirzah would like to keep house well but she also works - she does her prints and she makes wallpapers. She values her work and considers herself lucky to have it as she gets absorbed in it. Eric likes to work and he also likes to go to the pub and meet people. They move very frequently to different places which must have been very hard work.
These are all the highlights but I am going to be critical and say that the book is a bit of a jumble and maybe needed further editing. People are mentioned in passing and you wonder if they have already been introduced -should you refer back? But then you find they are introduced in the following chapter. Tirzah had a large number of friends who were very important to her and it's very difficult to keep track of them all. I suggest the reader puts in post=it notes with the names on so that one can refer back to the initial sketch of the person and then forward when they do something later on. TG is very good at describing people.
She is very interesting about clothes, because she has strong, but odd, opinions about clothes, and then third parties describe her taste in clothes in very non-flattering terms.
TG has three children with Eric and then the war comes, and so does tragedy. At the end of TG's life the narrative is taken over by other writers. This is very sad and we miss her gossipy voice, making the best of things as she does. I really liked her book, and her gallant attitude. I also love her pictures and I really enjoyed looking them up on Google.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2024
This is a difficult book to assess. At first I enjoyed reading the childhood reminiscences and anecdotes, even though I am not particularly interested in most of the people involved. But then it appears that some of the people who do interest me, such as Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, turn out to be not very pleasant. Things become darker still when we reach Tirzah's affair with John Aldridge and her nasty comments about Aldridge's wife, who was clearly distraught when she found out about her husband's infidelity. It seems as though Tirzah Garwood believes arrogantly that everyone should feel and behave like Tirzah Garwood and that anyone who does not is inferior. As for Aldridge, he seems to believe (like Ravilious) that it is his right as a man to sleep with any available woman, regardless. There is also the almost inevitable undercurrent of class prejudice; servants, tradespeople, 'Woolworths girls', are patronised or derided.
But, but, but... Having said all that I have to admit that Garwood writes with extraordinary honesty and fulfilled her commitment 'to truthfully write in the way I had felt at the time'. And as social history the book is utterly invaluable, especially because Garwood writes about topics - lavatories, menstruation, sex - that most writers of the period avoided. She was clearly a remarkable woman and she knew some very remarkable people.
But, but, but... Having said all that I have to admit that Garwood writes with extraordinary honesty and fulfilled her commitment 'to truthfully write in the way I had felt at the time'. And as social history the book is utterly invaluable, especially because Garwood writes about topics - lavatories, menstruation, sex - that most writers of the period avoided. She was clearly a remarkable woman and she knew some very remarkable people.
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June 18, 2025I wanted to read this as I went to the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery earlier in the year, which showcased her woodcuts, collages, marbled papers, model houses and paintings alongside some works by her better-known husband Eric Ravilious. I’m also trying to read as many Persephone books as I can, of which this is one. The autobiography has been pieced together by Garwood’s daughter from writings left after her death with gaps filled in by letters and the diaries of people who knew her. There are many enjoyable details about Garwood and Ravilious’s lives and work as artists, the Second World War, their outing to the Chelsea Arts Club ball and other bits and bobs. I did think the book could have been trimmed down a bit, Garwood left it in a draft state and at times it is a little repetitive and rambling. I also got a bit lost trying to keep track of their wide circle of friends and all their many complicated love affairs! However I admired her stoicism in the face of a major difficulties including war, serious illness and the loss of Eric Ravilious in action in 1942 and she ultimately emerges as an interestingly unusual and attractive figure.
June 20, 2025
Tirzah Garwood is better known as the wife of the artist Eric Ravilious, but she was finally given an exhibition of her own at the Dulwich Picture Gallery this year, which prompted me to read her autobiography. Written in the early 1940s when Garwood was recovering from a mastectomy, this is an incredibly honest account of her life, written for her children and future grandchildren, rather than with publication in mind - her daughter Anne edited it many decades later.
Garwood's writing is delightfully chatty and informal, and she has a wonderful eye for humorous detail. From being shunted about between various relatives as a child during the First World War, to moving to London where her etchings first started to earn her a living, through to marriage to Eric and the move the Great Bardfield with Edward Bawden, children, affairs, and the onset of war again... It is an epic of a memoir and I only felt sad that such a creative life was cut short by cancer. How lucky for us that she recorded it all.
Garwood's writing is delightfully chatty and informal, and she has a wonderful eye for humorous detail. From being shunted about between various relatives as a child during the First World War, to moving to London where her etchings first started to earn her a living, through to marriage to Eric and the move the Great Bardfield with Edward Bawden, children, affairs, and the onset of war again... It is an epic of a memoir and I only felt sad that such a creative life was cut short by cancer. How lucky for us that she recorded it all.
August 14, 2018
This book was such a great read that I want to go back and turn some other five-star books into four just to set my place.
Not for everyone--but if you are interested in:
British artists between the wars; Eric Ravilious and gang; WWII England; female artists who put their careers aside for male artist husbands; the many ways women love men; women who live happily ever after following tragedies; marbled paper, collages, woodcuts, watercolors and oil paintings; the lasting effects of growing up in a proper household even if you become a quiet revolutionary; what people are really thinking when on the outside everything is ordinary; then this is a book for you.
I ordered from Amazon to save a few dollars, but the Persephone Books edition didn't come with beloved bookmark doing it that way. Next time, straight back to Persephone.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to get to the Fry Art Gallery to see things she may have actually touched.
Not for everyone--but if you are interested in:
British artists between the wars; Eric Ravilious and gang; WWII England; female artists who put their careers aside for male artist husbands; the many ways women love men; women who live happily ever after following tragedies; marbled paper, collages, woodcuts, watercolors and oil paintings; the lasting effects of growing up in a proper household even if you become a quiet revolutionary; what people are really thinking when on the outside everything is ordinary; then this is a book for you.
I ordered from Amazon to save a few dollars, but the Persephone Books edition didn't come with beloved bookmark doing it that way. Next time, straight back to Persephone.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to get to the Fry Art Gallery to see things she may have actually touched.
April 28, 2020
Tirzah Garwood was an artist herself and the wife of another artist Eric Ravilious. She started writing this for her possible descendants while recovering from a mastectomy in 1941. It is a fascinating account of growing up an upper middle class girl in Eastbourne (with a class consciousness she was never quite able to lose), studying art and marrying Ravilious. Tirzah's writing is full of sharp pen portraits of friends described with an artist's eye but the really striking thing is her honesty as she describes her feelings towards her friends, husband and lovers. Marriage to Ravilious wasn't easy and they were both unfaithful but his wartime death left her stunned. The later parts of her story are filled in with letters and shorter extracts up to Tirzah's death from cancer in 1951. The writing is at times a bit disjointed and I couldn't always follow who everyone was but there were so many moments of vivid description and emotional honesty that I found it an engrossing read.
July 28, 2024
I bought this book as I have always (or at least first saw one of them in 1985) been so fond of Eric Ravillious’ paintings. However, I now think that Tirzah Garwood, his wife , must have been the more interesting person. So sad that they both died so young.
I think that this book was mainly written for her children and grand children to read, not so much for the general public, which excuses a few difficulties for the present day reader. For example, there are a great number of people mentioned. In the end, I gave up on them, especially as several of the more important were called John! At times it is a bit heavy going, at others sheer delight. And did anyone think that sex was invented in the sixties?!!
I think that this book was mainly written for her children and grand children to read, not so much for the general public, which excuses a few difficulties for the present day reader. For example, there are a great number of people mentioned. In the end, I gave up on them, especially as several of the more important were called John! At times it is a bit heavy going, at others sheer delight. And did anyone think that sex was invented in the sixties?!!
April 15, 2025
First published in only 2012 this book was edited by Anne Ullmann, the daughter of Tirzah Garwood and Eric Ravilious.
This is a very honest, warts and all autobiography. Tirzah tells you all about Eric’s infidelity and her own with a frankness that might surprise some people as she wrote her biography for her children and any children they might have.
The book reads like Tirzah is talking to you, and the whole thing reads like it’s you and Tirzah sitting down over a drink. It makes the whole book feel very intimate as if you and Tirzah are best friends.
It’s a very moving book, not least because I know what happened to both Eric and Tirzah.
Just a lovely book.
This is a very honest, warts and all autobiography. Tirzah tells you all about Eric’s infidelity and her own with a frankness that might surprise some people as she wrote her biography for her children and any children they might have.
The book reads like Tirzah is talking to you, and the whole thing reads like it’s you and Tirzah sitting down over a drink. It makes the whole book feel very intimate as if you and Tirzah are best friends.
It’s a very moving book, not least because I know what happened to both Eric and Tirzah.
Just a lovely book.
October 10, 2024
I really enjoyed the book but there were so many names and places mentioned in it that it was difficult to keep track of them all. Eric Ravillious and Tirzah seemed to condone each others' affairs and other peoples'. A fictionalised version of their relationships(s) may have made the story more engaging. The book lacked drama partly due perhaps to Tirzah's relentless optimism and cheerful good nature. Even, when Tirzah is pregnant Eric tells, rather callously that 'You know very well I've been making love to Helen' she
July 29, 2022
Thank you Anne Ullman, for bringing your mother’s autobiography to the greater public. I have enjoyed your parents art for quite awhile and now to read your mother’s words, at times heartbreaking but many times joyful, bring more enjoyment to their art.
Tizah’s writing style is a bit jumpy but so wonderful she shared her life with you children and now the public.
This book is an insight into the live and times of the early to mid 20th century.
Tizah’s writing style is a bit jumpy but so wonderful she shared her life with you children and now the public.
This book is an insight into the live and times of the early to mid 20th century.
May 4, 2025
Tizah Garwood was an exact contemporary of my grandmothers, so it was lovely to read of the world they lived in. A good historical document, plus I adore her art. The copy is a beautiful book to own as it is illustrated with her prints and photos.
December 28, 2024
Interesting, ultimately a little eggy to read but very interesting.
May 29, 2025
I found this really tedious in the main. The good bits were few and far between.
April 7, 2017
This was the book that spurred me to order six Persephone titles from England in the early winter. I've read four of the six and this was the only disappointing one of the group. Since I am a big fan of Garwood's work as well as that of her husband (Eric Ravilious) and many of the Great Bardfield artists I was looking forward to Garwood's memoir with great anticipation. Turns out she is not a particularly talented or evocative writer. I had not realized that she wrote this after the fact rather than at the time events happened, nor that she was so reticent at describing her feelings. I feel like a will need to go elsewhere to really get a good look at her career and marriage to Ravilious. I made a number of notes as I was reading, but more often than not it was because Garwood used unfamiliar words or names etc. She described many people in strange ways that I eventually decided was related to the eugenics concepts of the 1930s. Note that this book has the typical Persephone grey cover. This red design is the endpapers in the book and is a Garwood illustration from 1935.
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