Editing Evelyn Waugh (section)

== Childhood ==

=== Golders Green and Heath Mount ===
[[File:Evelyn Waugh 1903 - 1966 writer lived here.jpg|thumb|upright|[[English Heritage]] [[blue plaque]] at 145 [[North End Road, Golders Green|North End Road]], Golders Green, London]]
In 1907, the Waugh family left Hillfield Road for Underhill, a house which Arthur had built in [[North End Road, Golders Green|North End Road]], [[Hampstead]], close to [[Golders Green]],<ref>Hastings, pp. 19–20</ref> then a semi-rural area of dairy farms, market gardens and bluebell woods.<ref>Waugh, ''A Little Learning'', pp. 34–35</ref> Evelyn received his first school lessons at home, from his mother, with whom he formed a particularly close relationship; his father, Arthur Waugh, was a more distant figure, whose close bond with his elder son, Alec, was such that Evelyn often felt excluded.<ref>Stannard, Vol I pp. 34–35</ref><ref>Hastings, pp. 27–28</ref> In September 1910, Evelyn began as a day pupil at [[Heath Mount School|Heath Mount]] preparatory school. By then, he was a lively boy of many interests, who already had written and completed "The Curse of the Horse Race", his first story.<ref name= S40>Stannard, Vol. I p. 40</ref> A positive influence on his writing was a schoolmaster, Aubrey Ensor. Waugh spent six relatively contented years at Heath Mount; on his own assertion he was "quite a clever little boy" who was seldom distressed or overawed by his lessons.<ref>Waugh, ''A Little Learning'', p. 86</ref> Physically pugnacious, Evelyn was inclined to bully weaker boys; among his victims was the future society photographer [[Cecil Beaton]], who never forgot the experience.<ref name= S40/><ref>Hastings, p. 44</ref>

Outside school, he and other neighbourhood children performed plays, usually written by Waugh.<ref name= H30>Hastings, pp. 30–32</ref> On the basis of the [[xenophobia]] fostered by the genre books of [[invasion literature]], that the Germans were about to invade Britain, Waugh organised his friends into the "Pistol Troop", who built a fort, went on manoeuvres and paraded in makeshift uniforms.<ref>Hastings, p. 33</ref> In 1914, after the [[First World War]] began, Waugh and other boys from the Boy Scout Troop of Heath Mount School were sometimes employed as messengers at the [[War Office]]; Evelyn loitered about the War Office in hope of glimpsing [[Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener|Lord Kitchener]], but never did.<ref name= Stannard42>Stannard, Vol I pp. 42–47</ref>

Family holidays usually were spent with the Waugh aunts at [[Midsomer Norton]] in [[Somerset]], in a house lit with oil lamps, a time that Waugh recalled with delight, many years later.<ref>Waugh, ''A Little Learning'', pp. 44–46</ref> At Midsomer Norton, Evelyn became deeply interested in [[High church|high Anglican]] church rituals, the initial stirrings of the spiritual dimension that later dominated his perspective of life, and he served as an [[altar boy]] at the local Anglican church.<ref>Hastings, pp. 39–40</ref> During his last year at Heath Mount, Waugh established and edited ''The Cynic'' school magazine.<ref name= S40/>{{refn|In 1993 a [[blue plaque]] commemorating Waugh's residence was installed at Underhill, which by then had become 145 North End Road, Golders Green.<ref name='EngHet'>{{cite web|url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/search/waugh-evelyn-1903-1966 |title=Waugh, Evelyn (1903–1966) |publisher=English Heritage |access-date=4 August 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140820151307/http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/search/waugh-evelyn-1903-1966 |archive-date=20 August 2014 }}</ref>|group= n}}

=== Lancing ===

[[File:Lancing College (1392998994).jpg|thumb|left|[[Lancing College Chapel]] in [[West Sussex]]]]
Like his father before him, Alec Waugh went to school at Sherborne. It was presumed by the family that Evelyn would follow, but in 1915, the school asked Evelyn's older brother Alec to leave after a [[homosexual]] relationship came to light. Alec departed Sherborne for military training as an [[Military officer|officer]], and, while awaiting confirmation of his [[Commission (document)|commission]], wrote ''The Loom of Youth'' (1917), a novel of school life, which alluded to homosexual friendships at a school that was recognisably Sherborne. The public sensation caused by Alec's novel so offended the school that it became impossible for Evelyn to go there. In May 1917, much to his annoyance, he was sent to [[Lancing College]], in his opinion a decidedly inferior school.<ref name= Stannard42/>

Waugh soon overcame his initial aversion to Lancing, settled in and established his reputation as an [[aesthete]]. In November 1917 his essay "In Defence of Cubism" (1917) was accepted by and published in the arts magazine ''Drawing and Design''; it was his first published article.<ref>Gallager (ed.), pp. 6–8</ref> Within the school, he became mildly subversive, mocking the school's cadet corps and founding the Corpse Club "for those who were bored stiff".<ref name= StannardODNB>{{cite odnb |last=Stannard |first=Martin |title=Evelyn Arthur St John Waugh (1903–06) |id=36788 |year=2011 |origyear=2004 }}</ref><ref>BBC Radio, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qmbsc</ref> The end of the war saw the return to the school of younger masters such as [[J. F. Roxburgh]], who encouraged Waugh to write and predicted a great future for him.<ref>Waugh, ''A Little Learning'', pp. 160–161</ref>{{refn|A biography of Roxburgh (who went on to be first headmaster of [[Stowe School]]) was the last work given a literary review by Waugh, in ''[[The Observer]]'' on 17 October 1965.<ref>"Portrait of a Head", first published in ''The Observer'', 17 October 1965, reprinted in Gallagher (ed.), pp. 638–639</ref> |group= n}} Another mentor, Francis Crease, taught Waugh the arts of [[calligraphy]] and decorative design; some of the boy's work was good enough to be used by Chapman and Hall on book jackets.<ref>Sykes, p. 25</ref>

In his later years at Lancing, Waugh achieved success as a house captain, editor of the school magazine and president of the [[debating society]], and won numerous art and literature prizes.<ref name= StannardODNB/> He also shed most of his religious beliefs.<ref>Sykes, pp. 32–33</ref> He started a novel of school life, untitled, but abandoned the effort after writing around 5,000 words.<ref>Slater (ed.), pp. xvi, 535–547</ref> He ended his schooldays by winning a scholarship to read Modern History at [[Hertford College, Oxford]], and left Lancing in December 1921.<ref>Sykes, p. 35</ref>