Of All Faiths & None
and
A Remembrance of Death
by Andrew Tweeddale
A Remembrance of Death
Out in 2024 the epic new novel from award winning author
Andrew Tweeddale,
Of All Faiths & None is a stunning tale of faith, duty, and the brutality of war. A Remembrance of Death carries on the story to Nuremberg and the concentration camps of the Mau Mau.
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Links to Purchase Of All Faiths & None:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/of-all-faiths-and-none/andrew-tweeddale/9781739612207
https://www.amazon.com/All-Faiths-None-Andrew-Tweeddale-ebook/dp/B0B7X4XV7N
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/of-all-faiths-none-andrew-tweeddale/1141953407
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Of-All-Faiths--None-by-Andrew-Tweeddale/9781739612207
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Of All Faiths & None
Of All Faiths & None begins in 1910 as the famous architect, Edwin Lutyens, receives a letter from Sir Julius Drewe for the commission of a castle on Dartmoor – Castle Drogo. The design of the castle marks a departure in style for Lutyens and represents Britain in a state of flux. Edwin Lutyens’ fourteen-year-old daughter, Celia Lutyens, is enamoured with the project, romantically dreaming of heroes and of living in a castle. Sir Julius, a vain, self-made millionaire, sees the castle as an enduring legacy for his sons, Adrian, Christian and Basil.
Of All Faiths & None is at its heart a romance telling two love stories in parallel. The first story revolves around Christian Drewe, Rose Braithwaite, a nurse, and Peter Hall, an engineer who worked on Castle Drogo but was dismissed by Sir Julius Drewe. It starts in 1914 when Christian Drewe returns from Austria where he has been working as an artist and meets Rose Braithwaite. The second story arches across the whole of the novel and is between Celia Lutyens and Adrian Drewe. It commences with a young girl's infatuation that over the next six years develops into a much deeper love of equals.
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Against the backdrop of an unrelenting war the relationships between the characters develop and are then shattered.
The new novel
by
Andrew Tweeddale -
To be published in Autumn 2024
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A Remembrance of Death is a story that spans a generation. In 1917 Basil Drewe and Celia Lutyens are both grieving the loss of a loved one. A marriage of convenience, a string of affairs, remorse and forgiveness. A Remembrance of Death is a beautifully crafted story about hope and love that proves that love, like rain, cannot choose the grass on which it falls.
A Remembrance of Death
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A Remembrance of Death takes Basil Drewe and Celia Lutyens on a journey that spans their lives. It's a story about death, grief and humanity. It is about the difference between infatuation and love. Both Celia and Basil find themselves with a common cause that requires them to work together with love, perseverance and forgiveness. It takes the reader on a voyage that starts at the dreaming spires of Oxford, to the beautiful farmlands of Ojai in America and then to the the inauguration of Lutyens' masterpiece, New Delhi. The book then descends into the horrors of the Second World War, the courtrooms of Nuremberg and finally to the prison camps of the Mau Mau in Kenya and the villages where the Kikuyu tribe were forced to live.
It s a novel that describes the end of the British Empire, with the pomp and circumstance that went with it mixed with brutality and indifference. Most of the characters suffer difficulties and struggles as they try to negotiate their way through a life where the certainties of what they believed were true are taken away one by one.
About the Real Characters and Castle Drogo
Of All Faiths & None is an historical fiction / romance novel. It is set between 1910 and 1917. While many of the characters in the novel are wholly fictitious there are some that are based on real people. However, the story that is told is one of fiction and a creation of the author. In the section below I have included photographs of actual people who appear as characters in the book and a short accompanying narrative.
Castle Drogo
Castle Drogo was commissioned in 1910 and construction started in 1911. It was said about Castle Drogo that "The ultimate justification of Drogo is that it does not pretend to be a castle. It is a castle, as a castle is built, of granite, on a mountain, in the twentieth century." In the novel, Lutyens invites Sir Julius Drewe to view a wooden mock-up of the castle. This was something that Lutyens did when Sir Julius Drewe was having doubts about the design. The photograph shows the mock-up of the barbican and the outer walls, which were later omitted, as well as half of the castle.
The castle was finally completed in 1930 and was about one-third of Lutyens' original design. It has been described as "one of his [Lutyens] finest buildings." After Sir Julius' death on 10 November 1931, his wife Frances and Basil Drewe continued to live in Castle Drogo. During World War II part of the castle was occupied by "The Waifs and Strays Society". There were probably about 30 - 50 children living at the castle at any one time, looked after by a Matron who was a trained nurse. Castle Drogo was finally given to the National Trust in 1974 by Anthony Drewe, Basil Drewe's son, and Dr Christopher Drewe, Basil's grandson.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on 11 May 1895 and died on 17 February 1986. He was a philosopher, speaker and writer. The Theosophical Society, believed that he would become a 'vehicle' for the World Teacher and it was claimed that he had a perfect aura. He was looked after by Lady Emily Lutyens when he came to London to be educated. In later life he disavowed the idea that he would become the World Teacher and returned much of the money that had been donated.
Together with the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, Krishnamurti was declared by Time magazine to be one of the five saints of the 20th century. The irony would not have gone unnoticed by Krishnamurti, who spent his life disavowing the idea of organised religions with their relics and idolatry.
Krishnamurti once said: “You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”
Edwin Landseer Lutyens
It was said about Edwin Lutyens that: "Never since the days of Sheridan and Goldsmith has a man of genius been so widely beloved… Lutyens possessed the faculty of making everybody feel much younger. He adopted an identical attitude of bubbling friendliness whether he was talking to a Queen Dowager or a cigarette girl, a Cardinal or a schoolboy." The correspondence between Edwin Lutyens and his wife is a full of warmth and wit and in Of All Faiths & None I wanted to recreate that feeling with anecdotes and stories.
Adrian Drewe
Towards the end of the war, at 6am on the 12th July 1917, Major Adrian Drewe was killed at Vlamertinghe near Ypres. He was 26 years old. In Of All Faiths & None Adrian does not have a sister but only two brothers. He did in fact have two sisters, Mary and Frances. Mary wrote: "…after my brother’s Adrian’s death…the joy of life went out of life as far as my father and mother were concerned and things were very much quieter".
Adrian's mother, Lady Frances Drewe, created a memorial room at Wadhurst Hall for her son. When the family moved to Castle Drogo in 1930, Lady Frances recreated the memorial room. The room contains some of Adrian's personal possessions, school photographs and college trophies along with a portrait showing him in military uniform and a bronze figure of Winged Victory.
Sir Julius Drewe
The real Sir Julius Charles Hendicott Drewe appears from anecdotal evidence to have been a much nicer character than that portrayed in the novel. He was the son of an evangelical clergyman. At Wadhurst Hall, Sir Julius taught Sunday-school to the senior boys. In 1931 he died and was buried in the churchyard at Drewsteignton. There is a simple but modern looking memorial that is dedicated to him,which was designed by Edwin Lutyens.
Lady Emily Lutyens
Lady Emily Lutyens had numerous causes. These included the state regulation of prostitution. She was also a visitor to the local lock hospital (a hospital for the transmission of sexual diseases), a member of the Moral Education League, and a supporter of women's suffrage. From 1910 she became an obsessive follower of theosophy and a believer that Krishnamurti would become the World Teacher. She was also an vegetarian and her granddaughter remembered: "Never a meat-eater, Emily became a doctrinaire vegetarian, subsisting on nut cutlets disguised as lamb with a piece of macaroni wrapped in a paper frill instead of a bone".
In later life Emily Lutyens became a prolific writer, publishing numerous books.
See the blog for other information about Lady Emily Lutyens
Barbara Lutyens
Miss Barbara Lutyens, known as Barbie, was the eldest daughter of Edwin and Emily Lutyens. She was married to Captain David Euan Wallace. The photograph was taken while she was working as a nurse at Lady Lytton's war hospital in 1918. In Of All Faiths & None neither Barbara nor her sister Ursula appear but are instead replaced by the wholly fictitious character of Celia Lutyens.
Basil Drewe O.B.E., M.C., Q.C.
Basil Drewe was in reality the second son of Sir Julius and Lady Drewe and was born in 1894. He inherited Castle Drogo on the death of his father. Basil was deeply involved with Castle Drogo and advised on the hydroelectric installation at the castle in 1927. He also had input into the design of the gardens.
Basil studied jurisprudence at Christ Church, Oxford and was called to the bar in 1917. He served as a Wing-Commander R.A.F. between 1939-45. He received an O.B.E. in 1943. He became King's Counsel in 1945 and had a brilliant career as an intellectual property lawyer and was cited in numerous cases including Dobson v. Adie Brothers, Limited (1935). He became Master of the Bench of Inner Temple in 1952. He married Ruth Haselden and had three children. The eldest being Anthony Drewe, who gave Castle Drogo to the National Trust, following Basil's death on 9 June 1974.
In Of All Faiths & None and A Remembrance of Death Basil is the third child of Sir Julius and Lady Frances. The events that occur to him in the two novels are wholly fictitious and are not intended to represent him or his life.
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Lady Frances Drewe
Lady Frances Drewe was born in 1871 and died in 1954. She had five children: Adrian, Basil, Cedric, Mary and Frances. Her grandchildren called her 'Ama'. The Castle Drogo, National Trust Facebook page contains a beautiful picture of Lady Frances with her husband, her four children and grandchildren - sadly by this time Adrian had been killed in the war.
Gertrude Jekyll
Gertrude Jekyll was the grand dame of English horticulturalists. She was born in 1843 and died in 1932. She was affectionately referred to as 'Bumps' by Edwin Lutyens 'the mother of all bulbs'.
Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens met by chance in 1889 following an introduction by Harry Mangles, for whom Lutyens had designed a cottage. This resulted in a close cooperation between Lutyens and Jekyll for many years. The two led the Arts and Crafts Movement and the style that they created is still admired 100 years on. One of Lutyens earliest commissions was the design of Munstead Wood, Gertrude Jekyll's own home, which features in the novel.
David Maxwell Fyfe
It is rumoured that barristers of the Northern Circuit sang to David Maxwell Fyfe on his retirement:
"The nearest thing to death in life,
Is David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe,
Though underneath that gloomy shell,
He does himself extremely well."
There is no doubt that Maxwell Fyfe was one of the great lawyers of the 20th Century. He was the youngest lawyer for 250 years to become King's Counsel. He was Solicitor General, Attorney General, Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor. He was Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials and was the principal draftsperson for the European Convention of Human Rights. He was an advocate for a united Europe and for freedom of all people. His reputation was, however, diminished by his public statements concerning the legalisation of homosexuality. However, there is a story that on a sleeper train from Liverpool to London in 1954 he met with John Wolfenden and the two of them set in motion a series of events that would lead to the Sexual Offences Act 1967 being passed and the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. It therefore appears that Maxwell Fyfe's position on homosexuality may have been more nuanced than his public statements suggested.
Of All Faiths & None
An Award Winning Novel
Of All Faiths & None has been submitted for numerous awards and prizes and has won the following Awards
The Outstanding Creator Award
The Outstanding Creator Awards are given to new pieces of writing that show outstanding talent. 'Of All Faiths & None' won in the categories of Historical Fiction, Romance, and Military Fiction and earned a 3rd place in the overall category of Fiction
Literary Titan Silver Book Award
In October 2022 'Of All Faiths & None' received a Silver Book Award from Literary Titan.
The Literary Titan Silver Award is "bestowed on books that expertly deliver complex and thought-provoking concepts. The ease with which ideas are conveyed is a reflection of the author’s talent in exercising fluent, powerful, and appropriate language."
Paris Book Festival
in September 2022 'Of All Faiths & None' received an honourable mention at the 2022 Paris Book Festival and has been listed on the Table of Honor; a new book marketing portal spotlighting the best of international book festivals.
Table of Honor (thetableofhonor.com)
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Impact Book Award
In October 2022 'Of All Faiths & None' won the Historical Fiction category of the Impact Book Awards.
Credits
Photograph of Barbara Lutyens
Copyright: Copyright (c) Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10731692
Photograph of Basil Drewe
Courtesy of Bellido & Bently (eds), Intellectual Property- Oral History Project (www.iporalhistory.co.uk).
Photograph of Edwin Lutyens and David Maxwell Fyfe Photo © National Portrait Gallery and the painting of Gertrude Jekyll. Licenced under Creative Commons Licence CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported). - Sir William Nicholson 'Gertrude Jekyll' 1920. Photo © National Portrait Gallery https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp02411/gertrude-jekyll
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery