Life in Squares: the truth about the Bloomsbury Group and their families

A new BBC series portrays the relationship of David 'Bunny' Garnett and Angelica Bell. Liz Hodgkinson talks about her friendship with the family

Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Virginia Woolf, David 'Bunny' Garnett and other members of the Bloomsbury group in 'Life in Squares' (BBC) Photo: BBC

By Liz Hodgkinson

The Telegraph  11 Aug 2015

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Bloomsbury Group drama series, Life in Squares, is the relationship between David ‘Bunny’ Garnett and Angelica Bell, a story that has now passed into legend.

Bunny, then aged 26, was present at Angelica’s birth on Christmas Day 1918, where he uttered the – now immortal - words over the day-old baby: ‘I think of marrying it.’ 24 years later, true to his word, he did marry the illegitimate daughter of Vanessa Bell and his own former gay lover Duncan Grant. (Vanessa’s laid-back husband Clive Bell agreed to assume paternity).

The couple quickly had four daughters: Amaryllis, Henrietta and twins Nerissa and Frances. And so the Bloomsbury dynasty continued.

So what happened to these daughters of a truly exotic parentage? I am in a unique position to reveal this information as the Garnett girls were among my best friends at Huntingdon Grammar School. Even our surnames were almost identical as my maiden name was Garrett, only one letter different from Garnett.
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