30 Gscene BERTHA VYER - ILLUS: TRACY GILCHRIST
made everyone want to read it and copies were smuggled in from France. On August 2, 1932, they began a two-month stay at the Royal Crescent Hotel at 100–101 Marine Parade. They were living in Rye at the time but were having a break in Brighton as Una was recovering from a hysterectomy. When John wasn’t pushing Una along the seafront in a bathchair, she was writing a collection of short stories entitled Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself. Miss Wilhelmina Ogilvy is a nononsense middle-aged spinster who prefers to be called William – I’m sensing a theme here. There are, of course, times you just need to relax, unwind, and spend some alone time with your new lady friend. In February 1944, the painter and stylish gender-rebel Gluck checked in to the Beaufort Hotel at 21 Brunswick Place with their new journalist chum Edith Shackleton Heald. Gluck had been a very popular artist in the 1930s – the Queen had attended one of their exhibitions – but they had fallen out of fashion by this time. Edith had just helped Gluck organise a ‘oneman show’ of their paintings at Steyning Grammar School before they came to Brighton. It was to be their last exhibition aside from the retrospective towards the end of their life.
Historical Holidays & Gay Getaways Recovery, relaxation or recreation? With illustrations by Tracy Gilchrist, Alf Le Flohic looks back at queer icons who visited our queer streets to heal, hang loose or have a ball that people like us come to when they want to get away for a little. For centuries in fact. Sometimes it’s been for recovery purposes, sometimes simply to relax, and of course we all like a little recreation from time to time. Firmly in the recovery category are our first couple of visitors: author Marie Corelli and her constant companion Bertha Vyer. They stayed at the King’s Hotel (139–141 King’s Road) in 1899, while Marie recuperated after a serious operation. She wrote The Master Christian during her stay there. It concerns the immorality of priests and features the second coming of Christ as a street urchin called Manuel. Seriously. An eccentric character, she pretended she could speak Italian and insisted any photographs of her were touched up to keep her forever 21. Her writing was just as quirky, mixing weird science, religion and romance. In her first novel, A Romance of Two Worlds, the soul of a female pianist explores other realms by ‘personal electricity’. Her books also frequently featured erotic descriptions of
female beauty and to quote the same novel: “I embraced her fondly, and our lips met with a lingering sisterly caress.”
But Gluck and Edith’s blossoming relationship survived that experience and later that year they moved into Chantry House in Steyning. They remained there together for the rest of their lives.
Bertha was a talented painter in her own right, but gave this up to support Marie’s career. Marie was one of the UK’s most successful writers before World War 1 – indeed, Queen Victoria was said to be a fan. However, she later became a figure of fun – author EF Benson acknowledged her as the inspiration for his 1920s comic character, Lucia. And Oscar Wilde from Reading Gaol is quoted as saying: “Now don’t think I’ve anything against her moral character, but from the way she writes she ought to be in here.” Our second couple is author Radclyffe ‘John’ Hall and sculptor Lady Una Troubridge. While Marie and Bertha may have been simply loving companions, John and Una were as ‘out’ as you could be in the 1920s and ‘30s. Radclyffe Hall is famous, or should that be infamous, for her 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness. Its open portrayal of the butch lesbian life of Stephen Gordon caused uproar and it was banned in the UK. Amusingly that
MARIE CORELLI - ILLUS: TRACY GILCHRIST
) Brighton has long been one of the places
They enjoyed a week’s holiday on the coast, visiting the local area and having tea at the Royal Pavilion. Gluck was getting over their long-term affair with the married philanthropist Nesta Obermer, who lived in Plumpton. Apparently, Nesta called Gluck on the phone every night during their stay at the hotel, which sounds decidedly awkward!
