Muriel Gantry

Muriel Gantry , born Agnes Muriel Cox (born November 24, 1913 in Prestwich near Manchester , † 2000 in Sible Hedingham , Essex ), was an English costume maker and writer.

Life

Agnes Muriel Cox was born in Prestwich, a suburb of Manchester. The family soon moved to Cheadle Hulme in the county of Cheshire and lived in the Lady Bridge Road 85. At the age of nine years las Agnes all about the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun , whose grave in 1922 by the British Howard Carter discovered. After graduating from first grade, Agnes joined the Convent of Mary Immaculate High School in Stockport at the age of eleven . The girl grew up in modest circumstances. His father ran a Singer sewing machine business after a period of unemployment in 1929 and the family moved to New Millsin the county of Derbyshire . In April 1936, Agnes met actor Ivor Novello , who was performing at the Manchester Opera House , and she decided to become a theater costume maker. At that time Agnes was already very interested in Greek antiquity .

In 1938 Agnes Muriel Cox decided to change her name to Muriel Gantry. Muriel Gantry worked on novels in the evenings after her theater work or - after the outbreak of the war - her work in the armaments production. In the early 1940s she moved to 180 Drury Lane in London. Through her neighbor, Veronica "Veka" Vassar, Muriel Gantry met Savitri Devi in 1946 , who had only recently arrived from India and was accepted as a lodger in the neighboring apartment. A central common interest of the three women was their fascination for ancient Greece, which Gantry dealt with more systematically from now on.

Muriel Gantry and Veka found out about Savitri Devi's Nazi beliefs after a while, and both women were shocked. However, since their friend was now very close to them, they saw no reason to part with her - Muriel Gantry himself was completely apolitical. For her part, Savitri Devi spoke openly about Hitler from now on.

Through Savitri Devi, Muriel Gantry met the Indian dancer Ram Gopal in 1948 . That same year, Gantry began working on her historical novel, The Distance Never Changes . At the end of 1950 Muriel Gantry first traveled to the continent and visited Savitri Devi in France ; At the beginning of 1953, the two of them drove to Greece together and visited many historical sites that would later provide the backdrop in Gantry's novel. In 1961 a third trip followed with Savitri Devi, again to Athens .

In 1965 Muriel Gantry's historical novel The Distance Never Changes appeared , which received good reviews, for example by Mary Renault . Gantry came to terms with the London hippie scene, starred in plays and films and participated in demonstrations of the emerging counterculture . In 1972 Muriel Gantry found a cottage in Sible Hedingham and bought it. In 1978 she gave up her apartment in London and moved entirely to the country.

In 1982 Savitri Devi, who had meanwhile had a stroke, visited her friend in her cottage. Here Savitri Devi died shortly after midnight on the night of October 21st to 22nd. Muriel Gantry took care of the cremation of Savitri Devi and gave a short (apolitical) farewell speech at the coffin.

The rest of Gantry's life was serene. She corresponded with some of Savitri Devi's friends without being interested in their political views.

Writing

Muriel Gantry published only one historical novel in her life, The Distance Never Changes (1965). At times the author planned to expand the work into a trilogy, but that never happened. She completed other works of fiction, but they never left her drawer.

The 32-page autobiographical typescript from 1995, CURRICULUM VITÆ of Muriel Gantry: All you ever wanted to know and a great deal you probably didn't , provides information about her own life and, above all, about her decades-long relationship with her good friend Savitri Devi . This script was first published in 2005 - in a German translation and greatly abridged.

Muriel Gantry was a diligent letter writer. Most of the correspondence, however, was destroyed by Gantry's estate administrator - who particularly found the letters Savitri Devi and Muriel Gantry exchanged from 1946 to 1982 to be "offensive". Part of the gantry correspondence that has survived in other sources is to be published in English from 2006 onwards as part of the Savitri-Devi research.

literature

• The Distance Never Changes. Hutchinson, London 1965.

[The book contains a printed dedication to "Maximiani", di Maximiani Portas alias Savitri Devi.]

• Valhalla, not Elysium: My friendship with Savitri Devi. In: DAR Sokoll (Ed.): 100 years of Savitri Devi. Regin, Straelen 2005, ISBN 3-937129-23-5 , pp. 24-47

[Autobiographical text "CURRICULUM VITÆ" in German translation, abbreviated. Reprinted there (p. 48): Gantry's words on the occasion of the cremation of Savitri Devi's body.]