The Party’s Over

This article was originally published on the Spectator’s Cappuccino Culture blog. It is republished here because it relates to last week’s episode of the gripping if smaltzy adaptation of William Boyd’s Any Human Heart, the story of one writer’s journey through the twentieth century. The second episode begins with the outbreak of the Second World War, the party interrupted. It airs at 9pm tonight on Channel Four.

Without need of an occupation, a small band of the well-born lit up the 1920s with mischief and indolence. The last of their number, Teresa Jungman, died aged 102. Many of the dilettante Bright Young Things went on to ‘Great Things’ – William Walton composed, Cecil Beaton photographed and Rex Whistler painted. Teresa Jungman, or ‘Baby’ as she was known, retired to obscurity in Gloucestershire with her sister, where they delivered meals to the needy and occasionally (very occasionally) received visitors from their past – James Lees-Milne and Evelyn Waugh.