On the winning submission, one judge commented, “[T]he best essay to me was ‘Guy’s Qualitative Journey towards True Vocation in Sword of Honour,’ by Robert Sherron. Much the most interesting, original and the best written.” Another stated “First rate: sober, accurate, perceptive, and in Catholic terms informative to me. Written with authority.”

Our thanks go to all who submitted an essay. One judge found the quality of the submissions as a whole to be the best he has seen in the time he’s been involved in the contest: “Just great.”

Mr. Sherron’s winning submission will be printed in the next issue of Evelyn Waugh Studies and also posted here.

An announcement regarding the 2012 Evelyn Waugh Undergraduate Essay Contest will be made later this year.

[The program] features prominently both Waugh and his nemesis Lord Lovat. Waugh’s diaries for 1940-41 are quoted to illustrate the shambolic nature of the early commando units. Lovat is given credit for addressing the problems described by Waugh by organizing special training for the commandos after their formation in 1940. This was first centered at Inverailort and Loch Ailort, but was later set up on much larger scale at Achnacarry on the estate of the Cameron of Lochiel. Most of the program is devoted to the course of rigorous training offered at Achnacarry. To support a point made in the documentary’s audio commentary about the realism of the training, the program quotes from Waugh’s diary entry for Sept 28, 1942 in which he mentions that a man in the first group of trainees (made up of ex-policemen) had been killed during an exercise a few days previously.

As an example of the success of the training credited to Lovat and Achnacarry, the film cites the raid on Dieppe in 1942. I had always thought this was an unmitigated disaster, but not so according to this version. Two commando units (one lead by Lovat) participated in successful preliminary raids to knock out gun installations east and west of Dieppe, raids which the program suggests demonstrated the value of the hard training given the commandos. The raids were intended to soften up the Germans for the main thrust undertaken by Canadian forces, but that part was indeed a disaster. Although not mentioned in the program, I think it was Lovat’s order to assign Waugh to basic training at the Achnacarry depot (and Waugh’s efforts to thwart Lovat’s orders) that lead to Waugh’s sacking from the commandos (see Stannard II, 85-86).

This interesting, well written, and well-edited documentary contains interviews of commando veterans who trained at Achnacarry intercut with black-and-white training films from the war and talking heads pronouncing on the events described.

The program is available for five more days at the BBC program archive. Viewers outside the UK will need to use a proxy server to watch it.

Thank you for sending me Catch 22. I am sorry that the book fascinates you so much. It has many passages quite unsuitable to a lady’s reading.

See Letters of Note for the full text of Waugh’s reply.

Both author and protagonist describe alcoholic hallucinosis – a relatively rare complication of prolonged alcohol abuse which involves the development of psychotic symptoms. In heavy drinkers the disorder tends to occur in the tailing-off phase of a binge rather than on stopping completely, and is characterised by auditory hallucinations, occasionally with visual components.

Also at the RCP, “Creativity and Mental Disorder,” a paper in which psychiatrist Dr. John Morgan reflects on the link between creativity and mental health. Evelyn Waugh is one of the writers considered, along with Iris Murdoch and Marcel Proust.

In a follow-up post, David Blackburn examines Sword of Honour and Waugh’s Yugoslavia experiences more closely.

A television adadaptation of Bella Fleace was broadcast in the US in 1955 as an episode of the series Robert Montgomery Presents.