1933 April
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta.
Apr 6th 1933
Please send the enclosed letter on to Auntie Doris
7 Clifton Gardens
Golders Green
NW11
My darling Annette
There is quite a lot to answer or comment on in your last letter. First I must congratulate you on getting another mention in the Concours. I wonder what you will get for a prize
Secondly about tennis coaching – I would like you to have some, but am sorry that you did not tell me what it costs – however, as there is no time to get answers to and fro now, I will definitely say that you may have it – and I do hope you will make good use of it. Lessons in games are no good if one does not pay attention and practise. I found I was not getting nearly enough practise after my golf lessons, so I have taken to getting up at 6 o’clock – hastily slipping on a garment or two – and driving myself out to Tollygunge, where I practise from 6.30 till 8 o’clock, when I come home and bath and dress in time for breakfast at 8.45. Its really lovely out at Tolly in the early mornings and not too hot.
I can remember so well finishing Jane Eyre, sitting on the hot water pipes, with my back to the window just at the foot of the stairs up from the Assembly Hall. I was thrilled by it, but then we were not allowed to read so widely when we were children, so I suppose we were more easily moved.
There was a good “leader” in the Statesman yesterday about the Flight over Everest, which I thought might interest you. You know the monks at the Ronbuk monastery have always blessed and prayed for the previous climbing expeditions – as no doubt they will do for this one. It would be interesting to hear their impressions of the areoplanes. Perhaps we shall in due time. They may tell Mr. Ruttledge or some of his party.
To-day is the Bakr Id – one of the great Mohammaden festivals, so the cook and Mogul and the masalehi are all going off to join in the prayers at the Dharamtolla mosque at 9 o’clock I have arranged to have the breakfast laid and I will cook eggs on a spirit stove, while the bearer makes tea and toast.
Our Guide competition went off very well yesterday. Its really on the 2nd Class test – to make sure that the standard is being kept up. Four 2nd Class Guides are sent in from each company and they draw lots, each one having to do three things out of the test. It took place in the grounds of Belvedere and we had different examiners for each subject. Its a good place for birds trees flowers and tracking and there is lots of space and shade – I was sorry in a way that one of my companies did not win, but the XI have won it for eight years in succession and I think its really rather good for them to have been beaten – though it was only by 2 marks – because they had got a little slack and were suffering a wee bit from swelled head.
Do tell me some time, how you do your “rice-chase.” Is it something like a paper chase? I have been writing this before breakfast, as I could not go out to play golf this morning on account of cooking the breakfast. I hear the clocks striking 8.30 – so I think I had better go and see to things. I send this to Highways as I don’t know when your holidays end.
Best love, my darling.
from Mum.
P.S. Sorry about sending the letter to Haileybury
P.P.S. There are a lot of postscripts to this letter! This one is to say will you address letters to
Rockville Hotel
Darjeeling
8.H.Rly. from how on till June 11th when you better begin sending them here again.
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
April 6th
My dear Annette.
In order to be under a fan I have been writing at a small table: but the result was that my letter to Richard was almost illegible and so I have turned to my desk for the purpose of writing this to you. Now with the fan at my back the perspiration is bubbling out over my face and neck. It is hot weather and everyone feels slack.
Council went on for four or five days more than originally fixed and this has played havoc with my work . . . We have published my Bill about the Calcutta Corporation and the Minister expects to be bombed in consequence. The Bill has clauses to prevent persons convicted of offences against the State from being employed by the Corporation: and they may try to get back on the Minister. But I doubt it. The police told him to be careful. They have said nothing to me though, so there can’t be much risk.
A small child here having been to Church and having been much interested in the hymns was heard singing in his bath
“Advent tells us Christ is coming,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.”
The second line had been taught him previously by his father who sand “Fifteen men on a dead man’s Chest. Yohoho and a bottle of rum” though I do not know to what tune. The same child said he liked best the hymn which said “Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!” – which is by interpretation “Praise him, praise him, praise him.”
I wish that I could have had tennis lessons. Here am I at the advanced age of 46 (though it is true that I dropped playing for some five years) and still not able to manage a good forehand drive!
Much love
Daddie.
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
April 10th 1933
My darling Annette
It was a splendid mother and father of a letter that you wrote us from the San last week. I was interested to hear you say that you find it easier to write than to talk. I had one great friend – with whom that was remarkably the case – and that was Mrs. Jameson, whom you may remember – or you may not! Anyhow its a great boon to us, because you do manage to write very like talking and it makes one feel much nearer.
I am glad to hear that you have made a good friend. I hope you will be one of the people who keep your friends and don’t make violent sudden friendships that fade as quickly as they come.
To-night I am tired and sleepy. I have been busy packing most of the day. We are off to Darjeeling to-morrow – and I think I shall post your letters before I leave, for fear of missing the mail there.
You are a lucky young dog to be able to work so quickly. I was a moderately quick worker when I was at school – that is to say at everything except arithmatic – My bad spelling was a trouble to me both in English and in French – and I often had to waste precious moments looking words up in the Dictionary or writing out spelling mistakes.
Dad keeps on interrupting me by remarks about some maps of Darjeeling which I have just bought. The new survey which Major Meade was doing, just after he did the Jalpai one, has been published – and I have bought the four sheets which take in Darjeeling and the country round, at a scale of 1 inch to the mile. I am so pleased to have them, and intend to do a bit more exploring this year – There are lots of Forest roads which I have never ridden or walked along –
Dad is looking rather comic at the moment. He is dressed in a pair of white cotton trousers and a thin white v necked vest – and he is lying back in an arm chair with his feet on a table!
My dear – I am so sleepy – I must really go to bed. I’ll add a little to this to-morrow if I have time.
11.4.33
I am taking a short rest on my bed after finishing the packing and before going off to my last Guide Rally – I am going to enrol 11 Recruits, belonging to 10 companies this afternoon. I have never enrolled anyone before and hope I shant make any mistakes.
Packing is a tireing job. My feet are the weariest bit of me, and I am writing as I lie on my bed in order to rest them a bit.
It was a holiday last Friday and Mrs. Jones and I again went to the Races at Tollygunge and once more I won on three races out of four. Dad came out later and Mr. and Mrs. Carey Morgan and we all bathed The next day we took the Janvrins and Joan Little out there for tea and a bathe – and we bathed there again on Sunday morning, before a breakfast party –
I still have Richard’s letter to write and if possible one to Auntie – so I shall have to stop this
Best love, my darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
April 11th 1933
My dear Annette
Today we are off to Darjeeling. It is now or never therefore as regards writing you a letter for this week: and, even if now, it will be a poor one. First because I have a hurried feeling and secondly because these last two days have seen me somewhat dull. Maybe a slight chill on the liver as happens not infrequently under the electric fans in the hot weather.
I am sorry by the way that you should have had a cold and been compelled to retire to the san. Santé! Miracle perdu! But not for long, I hope. It is good of you to have troubled to write to me as well as to your mother: it was the record letter to her, you may remember.
One afternoon’s tennis. Three bathes. A better record for the week’s exercise than usual. And a lot of work. - But why go on?
Much love
Your’s
Daddy
From LJT to Annette
Rockville Hotel
Darjeeling
April 26th 1933
My darling Annette
Such fun – getting the end of term and beginning of holiday letters! The excitement seems to travel out here with them! Thank you for sparing time to write at such length. We do love having your letters. Your marks seem very good again this term. I am glad you have done well. As well as working well, are you trying to be a little less self centred and to think of other people before you think of yourself? I hope you are Your account of the Guide Competition is very good and I am going to make a note of it. I like the little poem you wrote.
Lovey had lunch here yesterday and we talked a lot about you children. She always loves hearing about you and said she had had a nice letter from you. Is’nt it splendid about Joey? She seems to have done most awfully well – and Uncle and Auntie must feel very proud of her.
I am glad that Richard has grown taller than you. I don’t want you to be too tall and did want him to grow bigger.
How tiresome having your scissors taken out of your work-basket. Some people have no conscience at all about scissors and cheerfully go on useing someone else’s. Its a good idea to keep a cheap pair for school. Dad is most interested in your French reading – and says he is sure Mademoiselle will have the poorest opinion of the books he reads, when she hears the titles. I say I expect you remembered what he says about finding all the most useful every-day words in those sort of books. I do think that is very true. I have just started reading a French History of Europe and in the introduction, there is the following splendid remark. “L’interdépendance des nations est tell que quand le parti travailliste anglais, par example, crache en l’air, cela retombe sur le nez de tous les peoples d’Europe” Dont you think that is amusing? I am feeling very sad about Uncle Jacks death – I was absolutely devoted to him as a little girl – fonder of him than of anyone else. I have not seen much of him for very many years now – but I hate to think that I shall not see him again in this life – and feel so sorry for poor Auntie Hilda.
This appendicitis business is awfully worrying for Auntie Doris and June – I wonder whether June will have it out.
There’s no time to start another sheet, my darling – so here’s my best love and kisses to you
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Darjeeling
April 26th
My dear Annette.
I regard it as a personal insult that the weather should be cold and the skies cloudy most of the time. At this moment too. The chill is creeping up my legs. But it is probably better for me than Calcutta.
Are you not a one (Vous etes un un, n’est ce pas? – Punch) to escape reading Round the World when I had established to my satisfaction (1) that you’d improve your mind with it and (2) that it would be lying about the house for me to read when I got back. Is it not also a sad attitude to treat those so easily read trash novels as a holiday task? Also, will not the French Mistress despise me as one without civilisation when she hears what the novels were. I hope that you didn’t select the most blood and thundery of them! I imagine that by now you know far more French than I do. The difficulty about speaking French in the dining room is probably the presence of your companions. Take from me a tip – “un tuyan” which I believe also means a drainpipe: is it slang? Decide on a topic beforehand: look up a passage in a book just before you go in, memorise a few sentences and phrases, - and there you are! the conversation will be carried on chiefly by Mademoiselle after that. Ask her what in her opinion are the characteristics of the English people, like the gramophone record – which you have not heard. It is one in the second course, which I have not, tried even: only 5 records – 5 lessons. Alas, the gramophone!
News. I pursue my studies. How much water is needed, at what times, and can it be spread through our new canal in Burdwan, on to the rice fields, so as to justify our putting on a tax of how much per acre? It has become a passion with me. But other departments are so slow with the figures.
Work: still woefully behindhand: but the minister is away and life comparatively is a pleasure.
Play: we went a walk round Ghoom on Saturday and I felt as if my feet were falling away at the ankles. Stiffness was no word for it. Next day we walked down to the Smith Osberns, lunched, and played tennis. I felt as if my ankles had fallen off with my feet. Motored back. Also on the Wednesday I tried skating. Child, I shall not recount the pains of it. Your mother held me up. I have forgotten the art. My eyes became glazed with fright.
That’s enough, I think.
Much love
Daddie.