Caroline Blackwood and her daughter

Caroline Blackwood, who lived from 1939 to 1996, was a Guinness heiress, who became known for three main reasons:

1. She eloped away from her privileged background to marry Lucian Freud and was the subject of some of his best paintings
2. She later married Robert Lowell (who died in a taxi while returning to his ex-wife, a Freud portrait of Caroline in his hands)
3. She wrote a number of books, one of which was nominated for the Booker prize

I'm going to read some of her books but currently I'm reading the memoir of one of her daughters, Ivana Lowell, Why not say what happened? It's a good read, a fascinating story of three generations of Guinness heiresses, all with amounts of money that meant they never had to worry about the price of anything, and all with a dangerous attraction to alcohol.

Caroline's mother, Maureen, once got so pissed that she passed out in front of the Queen Mother, fracturing her tiara. Caroline died of cancer at the age of 64 after a short lifetime of booze (whenever she opened a bottle of vodka, she would throw away the cap). In Ivana's book she comes across as a very loving, if utterly chaotic mother.  Robert Lowell, a famously difficult man, appears sane and sympathetic in this setting. Third gen Ivana recounts in detail her own experience of rehab.

I'm going to get hold of some of Caroline's writing. She wrote a few novels, and some non-fiction, including a study of foxhunting, which earned the disapproval of her then-neighbours in Leicestershire, and an apparently very sympathetic study of the women's camp at Greenham Common.

In the meantime I've found some of her writing online. In particular this extended anecdote about an early meeting with Francis Bacon, written after his death in 1992. As I read it, more and more of it sounded familiar and it turns out Ivana has lifted it, almost word for word and planted it in her own book. Here's how the story starts.

Caroline in 1992

Ivana in 2010

I was then eighteen, and I was invited to a formal London ball given by Lady Rothermere, who was later to become Mrs. Ian Fleming. Princess Margaret was among the guests and could immediately be seen on the parquet floor wearing a crinoline and being worshiped by her adoring set who were known at the time as “the Smarties.” She was revered and considered glamorous because she was the one “Royal” who was accessible. Princess Margaret smoked, and she drank, and she flirted. She went to nightclubs and she loved show business and popular music.

She was then eighteen, and was invited to a formal London ball given by Lady Rothermere, who was to become Mrs. Ian Fleming. Princess Margaret was among the guests, and she immediately spotted her on the parquet floor wearing a crinoline. My mother said Princess Margaret was being worshipped by her adoring set, who were known at the time as "the smarties". She was revered and considered glamourous because she was the one "Royal" who was accessible. Princess Margaret smoked and she drank and she flirted. She went to nightclubs, and she loved show business and dancing to popular music.

The whole piece by Caroline is retold over three pages of Ivana's memoir. She has shamelessly plagiarised her own mother and got away with it too. I've read a few reviews of the book and no-one mentions this.

Does it matter? Or is just another example of inherited opportunity? With all poor little rich girl stories there's a suspicion that the advantages of family connection – social capital – are a bigger contributor to success than any talent. Ivana obviously has some talent as a writer, but the talent on display here is undoubtedly her mother's. And inheritance is not theft, perhaps.


References:
The New York Review of Books, SEPTEMBER 24, 1992 • VOLUME 39, NUMBER 15
Ivana Lowell, Why not say what happened? London, 2010, pp 71-74