Do the arts, with all their oddity and intricacy, have a peculiar resistance to being discussed in the frame of reference known as policy? Consider a September afternoon in 1939 on which was hatched what the Times Literary Supplement of January 2, 1987, dubbed “The Plot to Save the Artists.”
A group of civic-minded English men and women are lunching at the home of Sir Ralph Glyn, at Ardington under the northern slopes of the Berkshire Downs. The poet John Betjeman and his wife Penelope are there, and so are Lord and Lady Esher. With the Second World War imminent, the talk turns to the terrible loss of artists, especially of a generation of English poets, in the First World War. Did this have to be repeated in the war about to begin, Lord Esher wonders aloud? Would it not be possible to have people of informed opinion put together a list of those writers, painters, and musicians of military age who ought to be saved and place them, unbeknownst to themselves, in safe military jobs away from the killing fields? Commissioned to look further into the matter by his friends on that afternoon, John Betjeman begins by inviting a small number of people to send him names of artists worthy, in effect, of being saved. The plan is to have recognized authorities then go over these names, subtracting some, adding others, and then present the list to the British war office for approval.
