The way we really were

When Virginia Nicholson delves into the past, her focus falls on the lives of ordinary folk rather than on the famous figures of the day.
Her detailed research into the decades of the 20th century has taken her down often untrodden paths, exploring the everyday memories of those who lived through the changing times. The result has been six books which are brimming not just with immense detail and perceptive observation, but are full of emotion and character – opening a window onto the past as it really was.
Writing has always been in Virginia’s blood. Her father was the writer and art historian Quentin Bell, acclaimed for his biography of his aunt,
Virginia Woolf, while her mother, Anne Olivier Bell, edited Virginia Woolf’s diaries.
Named after her famous great aunt, Virginia believes she is incredibly lucky to have been born into such an enormously talented and unconventional family and alongside her work as an author, she devotes much of her time to supporting Charleston, the lovely house at Firle which was once the home of her grandmother, the painter Vanessa Bell and other members of the Bloomsbury Group.
Now an internationally-renowned museum, Charleston pays a wonderful tribute to the distinguished artists, writers and great thinkers who worked and resided within its remarkable walls. When Virginia was a child, she spent many happy holidays there with her grandmother.
For almost 30 years she has lived with her husband, screenwriter William Nicholson, in a historic farmhouse at Barcombe, not far from the place which was such an inspiration to the pioneering Bloomsbury Group members who believed in debate, creativity, beauty, innovation and truth – and which continues to inspire future generations and all who visit it.
Virginia was born in Newcastle and brought up in Leeds and although it was not until she was 12 that she came to live in Sussex, she already knew the county well and embraced the change to a quieter life in the countryside.
“We came to live in Beddingham which in those days was just a little hamlet, a much sleepier place than it is now,” she recalls. “But before that I’d spent every summer holiday at Charleston, my grandmother’s home, and though I was a city child, I absolutely loved being in the depths of the countryside.”
Following the family move to Beddingham, Virginia attended Lewes Priory School and after a gap year working in Paris she went on to study English Literature at King’s College, Cambridge. She then spent a year living in Venice, teaching English and learning Italian, before returning to the UK in 1979 and working for Yorkshire Television as a researcher for children’s programmes. Four years later she joined the documentary department of BBC TV and she says her work as a television researcher taught her about other lives and other worlds, as well as persistence, something which has stood her in good stead as an author.
“When I got married in 1988 I continued working as a documentary maker and researcher but once I had our son in 1989, there was a big decision to be made,” she says. “Would I continue in television or use my stock in trade as a linguist? I decided to chuck it in and shortly afterwards we moved to Sussex, so my life as a writer is really
a second career.”
Virginia’s first book, Charleston – a Bloomsbury House and Garden, was co-authored with her father and published in 1997. She went on to chronicle her Bohemian grandparents’ generation in Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939, published in 2002.
This was followed by books which charted women’s history in the first half of the 20th century, with Virginia approaching social history in the same way she had worked as a television researcher, talking to people who could tell her what things were really like for them and giving her an insight into their world.
“It’s the only way to find out about things in living memory, talking to people who can remember them,” she explains. “I never wanted to write fiction and I have a very factual approach to my writing. I’ve been very fortunate, my writing has won a lot of praise and acclaim.”
Virginia’s latest book, How Was It For You? – Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s, has just been published and gives a fascinating insight into a decade of which she herself has vivid memories. But it doesn’t portray the stereotype image so many people have that it was all about sex, drugs and rock and roll.
“I was five when the Sixties began and 15 when the decade ended. The book is more personal than most of my books, because I’ve included some childhood memories.” she says.
“The cliché of the Sixties is that it was a very racy time, and of course I’ve included that. But Swinging London types were in the minority, and I’ve tried to give a more balanced picture by showing that people all over the country were also living quite conventional lives.
“There is a general assumption that the era was a time of amazing permissiveness and liberation and in fact in some ways it was a very puritanical decade and the whole explosion of sexual freedom was actually at the expense of women. Women’s Lib didn’t come about until later.”
When she isn’t researching or writing, Virginia continues to work to support Charleston and she is now President of the Trust, having taken over that role from her mother who passed away last year at the age of 102.
“I’m very proud to have taken on my mother’s mantle. This is a very exciting time for Charleston with the complete refurbishment of a beautiful 17th-century barn which provides a café and performance space. In April we held our first classical music concert there – and we also have amazing newly built galleries.
“We’re open all year round now and get about 35,000 visitors a year from far and wide.
Charleston is of international stature, very important. Charleston has never been just about the visual arts, and now there’s scope to demonstrate what an inter-disciplinary place it has always been. It’s an incredible place and we continue to pull in the crowds.
“I’m incredibly lucky to be part of a slightly unconventional family who were so involved with Charleston and the Bloomsbury Group. As a child you take it for granted but as you get older you start to realise how exceptional and special they were.”
And what is life like for Virginia, sharing her home with another renowned writer, her husband William?
“He’s fiction, I’m fact, so we have very different approaches to our work,” she says. “We both have our own study and it’s a good working relationship with each other as we do share ideas. I’ll sometimes pick him up on a very pedantic little point and he’ll sometimes tell me something I’ve written could be more narrative. It works well as we both bring our own strengths to each other.”