IDINA LIVED WITH A MAN BUT HE WAS ONE MORE TO GO AWAY

By 1933, Idina Sackville had decided that Chris Langlands would make a good boyfriend.  He had wanted to marry Beryl Purves, now Markham in her second marriage, and was likely already in a ménage of some sort, but Beryl, an pilot, lost interest in him when he crashed a plane trying to show off to her. Chris owned a charter pilot service. As well, Idina and Chris met when he flew a guest over to Idina's house, Clouds.  Now that small planes were providing the transportation in Africa, the isolation of farms and ranches far apart had been breached, and friends didn't necessarily need to drive for hours to go to a weekend house party. Chris and Idina took off on safaris flying from location to location. 

She was living openly with a man without being married to him.

When I think of Idina and her life, I think she married too quickly in every case. For a woman to live openly with a man without being married to him in the 1930's was daring, even for a woman who was already shunned for divorces and deserved the reputation as a seductress.  The pressure to be married is still strong and I'm aware that many couples who decide to live together a while in order to make a decision to marry are often pressured by parents and others to make that decision.  (As well, in many states in the United States living together for seven years is called Common Law Marriage.)

Then, like now, marriage was associated with permanence and having someone to be with in old age.  So, this time Idina was the one to suggest to the man that they get married. But by 1936 Chris was also gone from her life.

What had happened to the Happy Valley Set, with all their entwining friendships and sexual adventures?  Sadly, the scene had diminished as people aged, as people did decide on someone that they stuck with, and drug addiction - especially morphine - and alcohol had consumed some of them.

EXCERPT: " The weekend parties with the old crowd were starting to become, even for Idina, a little unhinged.  The 'sheet game' took a new turn.  A sheet was strung up across the room. One gender would hide behind, a single representative of the other would grope in a sort of blind man's bluff, to work out which of the figures on the other side was who and select a partner.  As cocktails were sunk, the game developed further. Holes were cut into the sheet. Hands, feet, elbows, noses were struck through for identification.  More cocktails were drunk.  A new sheet was pulled across the room.  New holes were cut. The men unbuttoned their trousers..."  (Page 226 of the paperback.)

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne