Blanche Girouard’s speech to launch the Girouard Fund
Speech by Blanche Girouard at the Launch of the Girouard Fund at Toynbee Hall, London on 15 December 2023
When Elizabeth told me that the SAHGB needed to start a grant-giving fund for architectural historians and that they had decided to name it after my father I was delighted.
My experience of the writing practices of architectural historians is, I suspect, rather singular. My father wrote his books on the sofa – sitting with his bottom at one end and his feet at the other, writing with a black biro on white sheets of A4 printer paper, which he rested on an A4 diary. The resulting manuscript was typed up by my long-suffering cousin, Liz, and then it was back to the sofa to make corrections. Only later did he start making corrections on a laptop and that was miserable for all of us – hours of one-fingered prodding and howls of frustration when – for some reason we never could work out – the screen would crash or his corrections disappear.
His was a life of industry. My father was never idle. Never indolent. He didn’t have a radio or television. He didn’t go out much in the evening. He spent his time reading and writing. Reading and writing. He worked at the weekend. He barely took holidays. And Christmas – from his perspective – was just an opportunity to work on his book. He was lucky that he could spend all his time researching and writing books and articles. But this chance to devote his life to what he loved also meant he could help others. And that he did.
In the years in which I shared a house with my father two figures particularly stood out. Manolo Guerci and Kyle Leyden. Manolo Guerci had been given David Watkin as a supervisor, when he started his PhD, but David Watkin said he didn’t know much about his field of interest and sent him to talk to my father. From that point on, my father was his mainstay and for the next 22 years, he came regularly to Colville Road. Manolo told me that my father was ‘always available’. Always welcoming. Genuinely curious and interested in whatever he wanted to discuss and unfailingly generous with his knowledge. Even better, after every visit a letter would arrive with a list of ideas and suggestions for further reading and, even, a photocopied article.
Kyle Leyden – who was brought in – towards the end of my father’s life – to help get the Biographical Dictionary off to press – remembers the challenges of working for my father. He would write notes and instructions, Kyle remembers, ‘on the back of old envelopes and bills, scrap pieces of paper and even the tattered remnants of ancient book dust covers’, leaving them ‘scattered around his rooms, tucked inside books, used as coasters under mugs or re-used to leave notes for Blanche or take notes from a telephone call.’ Finding them, he says ‘was often an investigative operation worthy of Sherlock Holmes. But beneath this surface chaos there was ‘a truly great, active and organized mind. No note was ever forgotten nor any task left undone and ‘often’ he was left ‘utterly flabbergasted when, upon asking Mark about a particularly obscure entry in the dictionary, he could immediately recall not only everything he had included about the subject of that entry, but also everything he had left out, including myriad life stories and tales of those to whom the artificer was related’. ‘Mark’s was a mind’, writes Kyle ‘which burned with a flame just as bright at 90 as it did at 19. I could only stand back in awe.’
Both Kyle and Manolo stressed my father’s brilliance and originality – when they talked to me – but they also spoke – movingly – about his concern for them and kindness. Kyle wrote: ‘He really did care about what happened to all those he knew and wanted to use the great influence he had acquired across his career to help everyone he possibly could and share his own success’.
My father and his books changed people’s lives. It was reading ‘Life in the English Country House’ at 16 which sparked Kyle Leyden’s interest in architecture. It was coming across ‘Robert Smythson’, in New College Library, which set Lucy Worsley on her path. ‘Victorian Architecture’ is cited – by Simon Jenkins – as one of his foremost influences. And the list goes on. It’s a source of great sadness to me that so many of his works are now out of print. Works which could still have so much influence. And it’s a testament to his work – and the influence which an architectural historian CAN have on the general public – that people often ask me – when I introduce myself ‘Are you related to Mark Girouard?’
This is why I am so glad that his name is being attached to this most important fund. Because my father is testament to the fact that architectural history matters. It has the power to open people’s eyes and make them care about our heritage. And we need that more than ever – in this era of crass development and demolition. So I thank the SAHGB for forming this fund and urge you to donate to it: so that, in this way, my father’s work can continue – in supporting those who have a passion for architectural history and bringing their work into the light.
Read More: Manolo Guerci’s recollections
Read More: Kyle Leyden’s memories of working on Girouard’s last publication
