The Knox Brothers - Penelope Fitzgerald

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      The Knox Brothers

      Books by Penelope Fitzgerald

       Edward Burne-Jones

       The Knox Brothers

       The Golden Child

       The Bookshop

       Offshore

       Human Voices

       At Freddie’s

       Charlotte Mew and Her Friends

       Innocence

       The Beginning of Spring

       The Gate of Angels

       The Blue Flower

       The Means of Escape

      Copyright © 1977, 2000 by Penelope Fitzgerald

      First published in Great Britain in 1977 by Macmillan.

      This new edition, corrected and reset, first published in the United States of America in 2000 by Counterpoint.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

       Fitzgerald, Penelope.

       The Knox brothers : Edmund 1881–1971, Dillwyn 1884–1943, Wilfred 1886–1950, Ronald 1888–1957 / Penelope Fitzgerald.

      p. cm.

      Originally published: London : Macmillan, 1977.

      Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

      ISBN 978-1-61902-269-0

      1. Knox, Ronald Arbuthnott, 1888–1957. 2. Knox, E. V. (Edmund Valpy), 1881–1971. 3. Knox, Wilfred L. (Wilfred Lawrence), 1886–1950. 4. Knox, A. D. (Alfred Dillwyn), 1884–1943. 5. England—Biography.

      I. Title.

       BX4705.K6 F57 2000

       941.082'092'2—dc21

      00-055492

      Book design by Amy Evans McClure

      on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute z39–48 Standard

      COUNTERPOINT

      P.O. Box 65793

      Washington, D.C. 20034–5793

      Counterpoint is a member of the Perseus Books Group.

      FOR MY FATHER

      “Evoe”

      OF PUNCH

      Contents

      III. “We imagined other people might think we were peculiar”: 1901–1907

      IV. Knoxes and Brother: 1907–1914

      V. Brothers at War: 1914–1918

      VI. The Twenties: 1919–1929

      VII. “The Fascination of What’s Difficult”: 1930–1938

      VIII. The Uses of Intelligence: 1939–1945

      IX. Endings: 1945–1971

       Bibliography

       Index

       (With two exceptions, noted below, the photographs are from the personal collections of the author and her family.)

       following page 176:

      Mrs. French in the Punjab

      Ronnie and his mother

      Two of the Knox boys, Wilfred and Ronnie

      The Knox family, c. 1903

       (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin)

      Dilly, by Gilbert Spencer, R.A.

      Wilfred on his motor-bike with his fishing tackle

      Eddie (“Evoe”)

      Ronnie with the Waugh family

       page 223:

       Enigma

       (Royal Signal Corps Museum, Dorset)

      IN THIS BOOK I HAVE DONE MY BEST to tell the story of my father and his three brothers. All four of them were characteristically reticent about themselves, but, at the same time, most unwilling to let any statement pass without question. I have tried to take into account both their modesty and their love of truth, and to arrive at the kind of biography of which they would have approved.

      When I was very young I took my uncles for granted, and it never occurred to me that everyone else in the world was not like them. Later on I found that this was not so, and eventually I began to want to make some kind of record of their distinctive attitude to life, which made it seem as though, in spite of their differences, they shared one sense of humor and one mind. They gave their working lives to journalism, cryptography, classical scholarship, the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church. Since I wrote this book twenty-three years ago all these professions, all these worlds, have changed. If the four of them could be reborn into the twenty-first century, how would it treat them? I can only be certain that they would stand by the (sometimes unexpected) things they said. Evoe, my father, muttered to me, on the way to my wedding, “The only thing I want is for everyone, as far as possible, to be happy.” Dillwyn: “Nothing is impossible.” Wilfred: “Get on with it”—also “Why should we not go on, through all eternity, growing in love and in our power to love?” Ronnie: “Do the most difficult thing.” I miss them all more than I can say.

      I should never have got any way at all without the help and encouragement of my family, and the notes, letters and photographs which they lent me. I should like to begin by thanking my stepmother, Mary Knox, for all that she did, my brother, Rawle Knox, and my cousins Christopher and Oliver Knox, Tony Peck and Julian Peck.

      Lord

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