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The Townend Family Letters

Correspondence from the 1930s - 1940s between members of the Townend family
HPV + LJT Letters 1933 to 1935

1933 February

From HPV to Annette

Calcutta.
Feb 1st 1933

My dear Annette.

Thank you for the letter – the one with the smudges which I mention for its ready identification and not by way of renewing the distress caused to you by them at the time. They looked to me as if the paper had been poor stuff. Busy times, your holidays. If not one think then another. “I knew” said Leggatt “that if something didn’t happen, something worse would.” Who was Leggatt? have I spelt him right (I was putting two words into one there!) and where did I find that remark?

I have been up to Ranchi this week end for some meetings. A night’s journey by train. It is much higher than Calcutta: and cold. But stimulating. And the place is beautiful. Stumpy hills – crags – all rock. Grey rock: but the country is red: a soft red stone called laterite which is fertile where it has weathered. Very parched though: no green except the trees. It is in Chota Nagpur. Going there to me, who am accustomed to Bengal and who find it in no ways strange, is like going into India.

Tonight I have been round to see John. He had his supper in a high chair, and I drew on the black-board. A big ship in three colours, though not very distinct colours: each thing added after discussion. “No” says John “I don’t want that.” “Ho!” say I “you’re going to have it.” Also I drew Nanny in Nickers. Spelt like that.

I have just stopped to blow flit around and see what it has done to the paper! The ink won’t take. That is a warning that I ought to stop. Last night an electric light fuse blew out while I was working and I had to leave office an hour earlier than I had meant to.

Much love
Daddie.

From LJT to Annette

14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
Feb 2nd 1933

My darling Annette

This letter should reach you on my reckoning, a day or two before your confirmation. its almost unnecessary for me to say how much I wish that I could be with you on that day – for you must know that already. Its a solemn moment when you take upon your own shoulders the promises to do your best to live up to the Christian ideals. I was having a long talk the other evening with a man who is deeply read in many Eastern religions and we both came to the conclusion that, though many religions can set out a fine system of ethics and are full of beautiful ideas and ideals – there is not one that produces the same high standard of character and honesty amongst the average people belonging to it. Saints can be found in all religions – but it seems to me that the merit of a religion must be judged by its general effect. I hope you will think hard too, about your school motto “Sanctification and Service”. Service of ones fellow men is such a great thing in life – and out here so few a the girls seem willing to give up anytime to work for the good of others. I have noticed it particularly lately, as I have been trying very hard to persuade some of the Girls to join up as Guide Officers – but they seem afraid to tie themselves down to giving up even one afternoon a week to work for other people. I hope you wont grow up like that. Try to get the habit of doing things for other people and gradually you will find that you do them naturally – that so to speak – you cant help doing it. You remember how Christ said “Whatsoever you do unto the least of these little ones ye do it unto me.”

The time when you are being confirmed is a splendid moment to take stock of your character and make up your mind to see your weak points and try to make them better – Remember, nothing is done in a moment. Characters don’t suddenly alter because ones makes up ones mind to try and improve some bit of ones-self any more than ones body suddenly alters if one makes up ones mind to improve it – but it is done by constant effort, till it grows in the right direction – Do you see what I mean? Supposing a person has been in the habit of stooping badly – Their back will not become straight in one day through an effort of will – but a constant effort over weeks and months, will make the back straight, so that the inclination to stoop has gone – We have our actual example of this in Dad. Well! Its just the same with a fault like – say, selfishness or conceit – or anything you choose.

I shall be thinking of you and praying for you on the 23rd. I do so wonder whether Auntie will be able to be with you.

Thank you so much for your last letter. I’m most awfully pleased and happy that you and Richard write us such long newsy letters. We really do love them – and they do so much to bridge the gap between us.

Auntie tells me that you had a satisfactory visit to Sir John Parsons and that you are to have the operation on your eye at the beginning of the summer holidays. I am sorry you have to wait so long –

Forgive a joint “newssheet” again – I’m awfully short of time

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This week has been an enormously busy one for me. I have been taking over a lot of new Guide Work and have had to go through a lot of registers and papers and get a good deal of information about people, companies and schools. Also I am still running two companies with what “casual” help I can get and it means a lot of thinking out and preparing for the rallies and coaching my helpers in what I want them to do. Now I am having to shift my mind from Girl Guide work to the Health Week. I was at the Museum, in the gardens and verandahs of which the Health Week Exhibition is being held, practically all day yesterday and for some hours the previous day. The work could have been done in half the time if only ones Indian helpers would do what they promise and produce things to time, but none of them do and I have spent ages chasing after people and things and finding half the things not done, though full instructions were given six weeks and in some cases as much as two months ago. I must confess by the time I left in the evening, I was in a state of extreme irritation and wondering more than ever how India is ever going to govern herself. The Indian has a cheerful belief that things will be alright “on the day” – or that at any rate things will come right somehow and that his own slackness and inertia will be glossed over – It is an attitude that is maddening to the European, who likes things done properly and to time.

All this means that I could not come home yesterday afternoon to write letters as I intended. I stayed at the Museum till 6 o’clock and then picked up Dad at the U.S. Club close by and we came home and had a late tea – and I had a look at the paper, after which Uncle Harry and Auntie Winsome came in to see us – and I had to leave them to Dad to talk to, while I went and dressed to go out to a dinner-party to which Dad was not going.

Even this morning I have spent over an hour ringing people up and writing various notes about things which should all have been sent to me yesterday – and now I am scribbling like mad to get my English Mail done.

I played my first game of golf on Thursday last and beat my opponant – who as you may guess, is not very good though she has played for years. I out drove her quite easily every time. We played eleven holes, and luckily I did not muff any of my drives – but I was very much as sea over the short approach shots and putting - However, I liked it all very much and am only sorry I have not been able to play again this week and am looking forward to next week –

On Friday I had rather an interesting morning of contrasts – I drove up to office with Dad – and then went on to a place where some charts of Physical Exercises were being made for my Health Exhibit – There I met an Indian doctor who had been superintending the making of a model of an Indian peasant’s house for me. I went with him to see it. We drove out into the native quarter of North East Calcutta and presently left the main road and dived into a maze of small lanes. After a little while we had to leave the car and walk, as the lanes were too narrow for the car to pass. We turned in at a doorway and found ourselves in a courtyard about 2/3 the size of a tennis court – with verandahs or open fronted sheds opening off three sides of it. Various young men and youths were squatting about making models and statues in white clay plaster of Paris and so on. A skeleton was hanging up in a corner of the verandah and all over the place were casts of limbs and different parts of the body. My model – made of wood, bamboo straw etc – in fact just the same things that the peasants make their houses of – was practically finished – All this may seem rather dull – but I am coming to the interesting fact, and that is that all the workers there, except the man who runs it, are deaf and dumb. The head of it is or was a doctor who happened to be good at modelling – He made a few models for one of the hospitals here and was asked to do so many more, that he conceived this idea of teaching deaf and dumb boys, who find it so difficult to earn a living, to do this work and many of them become extremely good at it. I thought it a splendid, practical work. The surroundings were Eastern – primitive and untidy – and we drove straight from there to the brand new offices of the big Indian paper – the Statesman – of which George Pilcher used to be editor. – They were only opened about a week ago and are the very latest thing in design and equipment – as modern, I suppose, as anything you could find in London. It was a strange contrast. I went there to get some photos for my Health Exhibit and the Editor insisted on running me over the offices, though I protested I had no time I would rather come back one day when the presses were working and the newspapers streaming out from them. Mr. Wordsworth said that of course I must come and see the presses working – any day I liked – but he still went on taking me round the building.

Next I visited the Government School of Art – a strange mixture of Eastern and Western methods with live Guinea pigs running about in the vestibule – pigeons flying everywhere and a red and green parrot sitting screaming on a perch – I went to see a picture representing “Health” which was being painted for my Exhibit – and was interested to see all the students at work. Dad went off to Ranchi that evening – and Mr. Carey Morgan (Uncle Hugh) came to dine with me and we went to see some amature theatricals that were rather good.

I had quite a gay time while Dad was away. The Vissers came to tea with me at Tollygunge on Sunday, bringing their huge Tibetan mastif and after tea we took him for a long country walk, down jungle paths beyond the Club.

In the evening I dined out and went to a dance at the Saturday Club. On Sunday I lunched out and had to tear home and change into my Guide Uniform for the Annual Service at the Cathedral, when all the Companies parade with their colours. It was really quite an impressive ceremonial. I brought a few people – other Guide Officers back to tea and we sat talking for a long while – mostly Guide “shop”. In the evening I again dined out and went to a very nice concert by the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra –

As Dad was away, I thought Monday morning would be a good opportunity to do a thing which I have been meaning to do for a long time and that was to go round the gardens of the Victoria Memorial with Capt. D’Auvergu who has planted practically every tree in them and loves them like his children – He has a lot of rather rare flowering trees there and I very much wanted to improve my rather shaky knowledge of Indian trees. I got to the gardens at 7.30. It was a heavenly morning with a fresh north wind blowing – I spent two solid hours in the garden – I took a book I have on Trees and a note book and imbibed a great deal of information. I spent most of the morning going through and arranging my notes, as I felt sure if I left it, I should have forgotten so much. Tennis with Uncle Harry and Auntie Winsome that afternoon – and a “mountineers” dinner-party in the evening, when I had various people who are keep on the mountains to meet Mr. Ledan La. We had a pleasant and interesting evening.

Tuesday, Dad came back and I gave practically my entire day to Guides except for an hour or so in the morning when I went to see that the furniture was being properly placed for my Health Week Stall.

I have told you about yesterday – and last night I dined out. I refused to go to the Museum this morning, as I said I must write to my family – but I must go after lunch – and this evening we dine at Government House.

The Mohammaden fast finished on Saturday with the festival of the Id. There is a huge mass service of prayer on the Maidan about 9 o’clock in the morning, followed by a feast and the giving of presents and sweetmeats to one another. I had breakfast at 8 o’clock and then let all the servants go telling them to leave some cold lunch ready on the table for me. When I had finished my cold meat and salad, Mogul, my old khansamah appeared in his new clothes and his eyes done up with kohl and with a dish of the pillau and curry which they eat, as a complimentary offering to me. It was very good, but really too peppery hot for me – However I felt I must eat it, though I felt the beads of perspiration starting out on my forehead. Mogul stood by smiling happily and watching every mouthful I took with pride.

We have been having the most beautiful weather very unusually cold for Calcutta, with fresh strong north breezes. It has been really cold in the mornings and evenings and we have been glad of our electric radiator. I suppose it is bourn to turn hot before long. [end of carbon copy]

From the papers I see that England has been having very cold weather and hard frosts. I wonder whether you got any skating. What fun if you did!

Best love, my darling – and my blessings on you
from
Mum

From HPV to Annette

Calcutta
Feb 8th 1933

My dear Annette.

Two letters from you again this week: one for each of us. Two thanks in return: squared: two from each of us.

The calculations about the weight of sweets I didn’t follow. I suppose that you are only allowed two ounces. Buying sweets at Mrs Jennings is pure Alice in Wonderland. Sheep behind the counter almost? Pins, if not knitting needles, in the hair? I never went in: but I looked on from a distance. It is like the ghostly story by Algernon Blackwood of the town where all the people were witches and turned into cats whenever you took an eye off them.

Why, why², and why³, trouble to read Monte Christo in bed when there is nothing, O perversity (or Lulu), to prevent your reading it in high day? How long will the battery last? Might as well use it that way as let it slowly go dud. Not under the bed clothes, I hope. Do not, my dear, strain your eyesight: like your father.

What more? Lots of work these days. Physical jerks in the morning: lots. Weariness in the evening. Sum total, I remain very fit. Rather, I confess, bad tempered or say short tempered. The weather grows hotter. And moister. But we’ve had a luck cold weather. Colder than a (hot) English summer: lots.

Much love
Dad.
Say eleven hundred to Rosemary, from me.

From LJT to Annette

14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta.
Feb 9th 1933

My darling Annette

It has been fun hearing at such length from you and Richard about the Christmas holidays – You have all made them sound great fun – even Rosemary in her rather short little letters. What luck it is that you have a real home with Auntie and don’t have to be parked out with different relations each holidays and go to places where you have not got your own belongings.

What a “wicked” you were to read “the Count of Monte Christo” in bed by torch-light. I hope you did not strain your eyes. It must have been rather an expensive method of reading too – as you must have used up batteries very quickly. Do you remember the Island with Chateau D’If on it in the harbour at Marseilles? We did not go out to it, as we had not got time, but it always rather thrills me to see it there. I must go out to it some day.

Lately I have had no time for outside reading, except the newspaper. Now that I have taken over 2 companies of Guides, which include a lot of senior girls, who are just going in for their first class and as I have only two completely new lieutenants to help me, I have to work hard to keep myself up in all subjects and ahead of the girls I am teaching. I like the work and really enjoy it. In some ways its more difficult than it is in England. One cant take ones company out into the woods and fields. There are no field flowers to speak of on the Plains of India – at least in Bengal – For fire lighting one must supply the wood etc. because one cant go out into the woods and collect it. Luckily the school where my two companies are has a huge compound, with great stretches of rough grass and a great variety of fine trees – so it is easier for us than for most. Now I go on to the “General News”.

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Ever since I wrote my mail last week, I have been immured in the Museum from 9.45 till 7.15 each day, with a break of about 1 ½ hours for lunch. To be immured in the Museum sounds rather queer – but the Calcutta Health Exhibition was held there on the big verandahs and in the central quadrangle. It has certainly been rather exhausting but one felt rewarded for ones trouble, because such enormous crowds came and seemed really anxious to learn. The authorities reckon that we had at the very least 20,000 through each day.

From what I had heard, I was prepared for a certain number of people to be offhand or to come to mock, but I found – and so did all my helpers, that every one from the simplest coolies to the high class Indian gentlemen, were most polite and grateful. My stall or stand represented “Women’s Health”. I had an Indian doctor helping me – and also 12 medical students, who came on duty in shifts of 4 at a time. They were such nice lads and all most helpful. We had a spirometer, which was enormously popular. Everyone who came near seemed to want to measure their breathing capacity – and at times it caused quite a block in the traffic. I devoted myself more or less to the part of the exhibit dealing with exercise and gave impromptu lectures on the subject, useing the pictures and charts I had as my texts, from morning till night. Lots of Babus asked me what were my consulting hours and whether I was available for private consultation or would give private instruction! Rather amusing, was’nt it.

We had one special day for ladies and in the afternoon it was strictly purdah. We turned out all our men helpers and got Indian ladies to help. Crowds of Mohammaden women came – arriving covered from head to foot in their borkas – which they threw back when they got inside – They are so much more strict about purdah than the Hindus.

When I said that I spent every day and all day there I was not being quite truthful, for I did rush away from 4.30 till 5.30 yesterday to take my Girl Guide Rally. It was curious flinging my-self so rapidly from the one atmosphere into the other. I have taken on a lot of Girl Guide Work now – but am enjoying it very much.

We dines at Government House last Thursday. It was a huge dinner of over a hundred people and as such shows go, was quite amusing.

The Governor has gone off to-day, to have a few days shooting in our old district, Jalpaiguri. I hope he gets a tiger. He has been working tremendously hard and richly deserves a few days holiday and relaxation.

There were some rather amusing things in the Statesman a few days ago, about the queer ideas children get of the wording of prayers and hyms. One small child was under the impression that “Thy goodness and mercy” etc. was “Thy good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life” and was lost in wonder as to whom she could be.

Herbert is tremendously busy once more over his scheme for giving prosperity back to Bengal by bringing the river water back on to the land. He can think and talk of little else at the moment. I do hope something will come of it eventually. Our Indian spring is coming into full swing. The trees are all hanging out their new leaves except a few which are now showing bare branches – like the Gold Mohur, the Flame of the Forest and the Silk Cottons, but which in a few weeks will be covered with masses of scarlet or crimson blossoms.

We are interested in a pair of kites and a pair of crows who have built – or rather are building nests, quite close to one another, high up in a big tree, just opposite our dining room windows. I am sure there will be tremendous rows between them later on, for crows and kites are never the best of friends. Herbert is very interested in them, especially when a third kite comes to visit the two nest builders. We always wonder whether it is a rival for the affections of the lady.

Our unusually cold weather lasted till yesterday, when the breeze swung round to the south and the temperature immediately went up. I suppose we must expect it to get hot pretty soon now. I have not had time to think of golf this week or go out and practise, even in the garden before breakfast. The three quarters of an hour before breakfast has been the only time I have had to attend to my household affairs.

The servants all asked permission to go and see the Health Exhibition yesterday. I wonder what they made of it. I have not had time to talk to them much about it. They all say it was very good – but no doubt, gradually some more detailed comment will come out.
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The bearer will possibly wait for weeks before he says anything. He’s like that! He sometimes waits a year or more and then makes remarks about something which other people have meantime forgotten. It will be the end of Feb. when you get this – I wonder what the English country is looking like – With all the trees getting their new leaves here, I feel as if your spring ought to be coming too – but I suppose its not! I must remember that our roses and dahlias and hollyhocks and all the English annuals are in full bloom now too!

Have you any plans for your garden this year? I will give you a shilling to spend on seeds if you like – and the same to Rosemary. Will you tell Auntie? I will try to remember to tell her too. I only stipulate that you will tell me what you choose and report how they grow. I imagine the great thing is to choose plants that will flower in June and July – so that you will have the pleasure and benefit of them.

The servants are just coming to be paid. Lots of them had advances of pay last month to buy new clothes for themselves and their families for the festival of the Id so paying out to-day will be more complicated than usual. Best love, my darling and lots of love and kisses from Mum.

From LJT to Annette

14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
Feb 15th 1933

My darling Annette

So you are absorbed in school again and the holidays seem like a dream! What a lucky thing it is that we humans are adaptable creatures. We always seem to be being hurled about from one change to another.

The winter holidays seem to have kept up their reputation for being good fun right to the end. What luck it was that none of you fell victims to the flu epidemic, which seems to have laid so many people low.

Its just after lunch and for some reason I feel most dreadfully sleepy – though I went to bed quite early last night. I fell asleep over my book then. It was a French book by André Maurois who writes so charmingly and such nice easy French to read. Its funny – I don’t get tired – but I often fall asleep if I read books after dinner. Dad get frightfully tired – but I have never seen him fall asleep over a book!

He is working desperately hard again now. Council begins again on Monday and he has to get all sorts of bills ready for it. It worries me when he works so hard and comes home so dreadfully tired. He is looking so well and I am sure would keep so – but for work – too much work I should say.

In connection with my Guide Work, I have been doing a lot of study of birds and trees the last week or two and have learnt a lot – and seen a good many birds I had not noticed before. its wonderful how much you do see when you are on the look out for it.

We had a regular “vaccination parade” yesterday morning before breakfast. There is a good deal of smallpox about as there always is at this time of year in Calcutta. We were done and all the servants, even the tennis chokras –who were so enthousiastic that they brought along a friend as well. Its rather different from the old days in India when it was difficult to get anyone to consent to vaccination.

I have still been practising golf a bit – sometimes in the garden and sometimes out on the Maidan and to-morrow I am playing at Tollygunge with Mr. Hingston. He is retiring and they go home for good next month.

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This week has been a time of catching up with all the things that I could not attend to during the Health Exhibition. I have written innumerable letters paid bills – darned and mended – shopped and also had a good dig in at some of the Guide Work I have taken over.

It had turned hot and stuffy when I wrote last week and the warm wave culminated in a thunder-storm on Sunday night and a few showers on Monday which, as I was giving a very much “duty” tennis party, pleased me quite well. I got Margaret Ogle to come round to an early tea and then we had a delightful saunter in the Agri Horticultural Gardens, where the herbacious border is about at its best, and where there are a lot of lovely trees and creepers in bloom. There is a most beautiful brilliant crimson bourginvillea, which was produced by the Secretary of the Gardens a few years ago and which is now all over Calcutta. It has all the strength of growth and prolific flowering habits of the original magenta one – but is this glorious flaming red. The silk cotton trees are all bursting into flower along their bare gaunt branches and in a day or two will be a mass of crimson bloom. These trees and the call of the coppersmith and the brain fever bird, are supposed to be signs of the approach of the hot weather. Certainly the cold weather has quite definitely gone, but even the hot weather has its compensations – Do you remember that Dad sprained his thumb on Xmas Eve and has not been playing tennis since. He tried again on Saturday – playing singles with Harry, while Winsome and I sat and Talked – I am glad to say that the thumb seems to be alright again.

On Saturday night I went to the Cinema with an old friend of ours here, who amongst many other activities, is the most active Director of the best theatre and picture house in Calcutta – the New Empire. In the interval we went into the Director’s room to vet the notes that were to be given out over the microphone – and looked at all the charts of how films are moving about India – I heard a lot about the methods and difficulties of getting good programmes to-gether – of keeping the standard fairly high and at the same time pleasing the public. It was interesting to get a peep behind the scenes. Another of Mr. Shrosbree’s activities is running and conducting Calcutta’s Symphony Orchestra – which gave an excellent concert on Sunday evening, which I enjoyed enormously.

We had a very successful men’s tennis party on Sunday – I collected six really good men, and the wives came for tea – They included Charles Carey Morgan and two other old Haileyburians – none of whom had seen the new Dining Hall – and who were most interested to hear about it and see the pictures which I have of it.

I am working off hospitality this week with two lunch parties and two tennis parties – so feel I am doing my duty! Its a nuisance when one feels like that about hospitality, but its difficult not to sometimes in Calcutta, where one has such a horde of acquaintances and people with whom one exchanges calls as an official duty. I am daily expecting a wire from Ron Kaulback from Bombay to let me know what day he will be here next week. I wish he were going to have longer in Calcutta. He thought he would only be able to stay one night. There are a whole collection of exploring folk I should like him to meet.
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This seems to about finish (split infinitive!!!) my week’s news.
Best love to you my darling
from
Mum

From HPV to Annette

Calcutta
Feb 15th 1933

My dear Annette

I have been singing to myself – inside my head: not so anyone could hear of course. When I sing, I sing Oh puds and poodles!
oh puds and moodles!!
oh diddle dum! oh diddle dee!!!
those are the words: they are repeated when you get so far but the tune (or ‘toon’ as Uncle Harry calls it) changes a bit. Its lucky that I never get the tune the same twice: because otherwise it might be monotonous.

I have been vaccinated. A lot of people in Calcutta have smallpox. So I said everyone in my office ought to be done and I should be too. Full of pride because I was vaccinated twice two years ago and anyhow I don’t take. So this time I did take: and today Mr Fawcus by was of showing excitement gripped me by the arm, over the vaccination, and I’ve been feeling a bit sickish ever since. Also we had the servants done. After Mogul had been finished, he said “I suppose that it doesn’t matter being done twice” and turning up his sleeve showed where he’d been done last week at the health exhibition. This was one up to him because we’d fully expected opposition. A small boy who had no connection with us came along as well to have it done: he thought he’d missed some treat as all his people had been done the day before.

The hot weather is starting. I wear thin clothes during the day: but it is still fresh at nights and I have a blanket on my bed – keeping out my feet and arms, though.

It is really beautiful weather: but languorous. Energy is not what it might be. But I do heaps, piles, and mountains of work.

John came with his dear parents the other afternoon to tea: but didn’t behave as well as some: he shows off when excited and is a bit of a nuisance then. However he will grow out of it.

Much love
Daddie.

From HPV to Annette

Calcutta
Feb. 22nd

My dear Annette.

On Saturday afternoon we went out to Tollygunge and there bathed. It is getting warm. We stayed in some time. Mrs Carey Morgan just out from England. Mr C.M. was there too but didn’t bathe because he has a bad knee. Two men came in and swung about on the rings over the bath in their clothes: and one of them let his feet drop into the water. Afterwards tea on the lawn. On Sunday we went out for tennis: I with some doubt, not having played for so long. But no need for doubt: the weather settled that. A storm came up and there were 1 ½ inches of rain in about an hour. Also it blew with fury: quite exhilarating while it lasted. Otherwise my week has been a matter of much work. In fact except that I forgot to wind my watch up one night I don’t know that anything much happened. Council is on. I go to bed very early and sleep like a log.

Much love
Daddie.

From LJT to Annette

14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta.
Feb 23rd 1933

My darling Annette

It seems most ungracious of me to answer your very interesting letters, which we enjoy so much, in a hurried and scurried sort of manner, as I confess I am doing to-day. One should be leisurely over these sorts of letters, and write in the same sort of spirit in which one sits down for a comfortable chat – but there it is! Your cousin – Ron Kaulback has arrived a day earlier than I expected, and instead of being able to devote Thursday morning – which I always keep for letters, entirely to mail, I have spent half of it running him about to different places. Luckily I wrote the “family news sheet” last night – I forgot to use my hard pen for the first page, with the result that the 2nd carbon copy did not come off properly and I have had to ink it over as you see.

I was sorry to hear that you found it difficult to shake off your cough and I hope it is alright now. Poor June! She seems to have no luck where illness is concerned, does she?

We are amused at your idea of keeping a special exercise book for writing letters in in prep, you ‘wicked’! I suppose it means you are able to get through your prep pretty easily in the time alloted. You probably work quickly, like Dad. I was quick at somethings, but slow at maths – not at seeing how a problem was to be done, but at working out the arithmatic in it. I am still slow at figures, but don’t often make mistakes. I don’t know what is wrong with me this morning. Everytime I want to write ‘slow’ – I write ‘show’.

My mind is tremendously full of Guide work these days. I find it great fun and do want to get my two companies in really good working order and well “officered”. I have got some very nice people to act as lieutenants now, but they all want training.

Do you know I have done such a stupid thing. I omitted to note down the date of your confirmation and cant find the letter in which you told me about it – but I am almost sure it is to-day – Feb. 23rd and I am thinking about you – wish I were with you!

I see Ron just arriving back in the car and we must have lunch as soon as he is ready – so I shall shut this up and go and wash my hands.

Best love, my darling and bless you!

Mum.

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Looking back over the past week it has been rather a curious one of unusual rain and cloudy days – a few heavy thunderstorms and a regular typhoon on Sunday at tea-time, when an inch of rain fell in less than an hour. Tennis courts have not been fit to play on and I confess to a feeling of glee at having some unexpectedly empty afternoons to do what I liked with. Golf being my new toy I was sorry not to be able to play on Thursday afternoon – my partner came to tea with me and we went off to the 6 o’clock house of the movies – a thing which I can only once remember doing before in Calcutta.

That same day I had a lunch party which turned out a great surprise. I asked seven females simply on the ground that I had not managed to fit into any other party and two of them I had never even seen. The party was quite one of the most successful I have given. They all seemed to get on so well together.

Luckily the weather kept fine for the big military sports afternoon on Friday – though what with the fear of mud underfoot and rain from above, most people did not risk their best frocks. The sports themselves were not very interesting – but there were lots of nice people there – a good band and tea – so it was a pleasant enough entertainment. The previous evening – Wednesday, I went to a thrillingly interesting lecture by Mr. Visser, the Dutch Consul General, on the expedition lasting nearly 2 years, which he and his wife, with two other people and a Swiss Guide made in 1925-26 to explore the Karakorams and then go on into Chinese Turkestan. He has the most wonderful pictures and the whole thing was fascinating. It was a great piece of luck that I was invited to go. He was lecturing for the big Jesuit Collect – St. Xaviers – I happed to see him a few days before and he said “You come! I tell the Father Rector” – so I duly arrived – a white robed father waiting for me ushered me up into the lecture hall where about 150 boys and 50 or so white robed long beared fathers were gathered to-gether. A chair was placed for me next the Father Rector and Mr. Visser began his lecture. “Father Rector, Lady (with a deep bow to me!) and gentlemen!”

On Monday morning the position was reversed on Monday morning, when he lectured to 80 women with no man to support him. It was a different lecture that time, about an earlier trip lasting 8 months, which he and his wife did from Gilghit, exploring the extreme Western end of the Karakorams. it so happened that the Vissers were lunching with me that day, so I was able to get a lot more information from him on points that specially interested me.

I seem to have been going in for lunch parties this week. I had a “mixed” (men and women) one on Sunday and another on Monday.

On Saturday afternoon one court was too damp for tennis so the ?Hugh? Carey Morgans and ourselves went out and bathed at Tollygunge and had tea there afterwards. We were breakfasting there the following morning. Its looking so pretty just now. The English annuals are at their best and there are masses of hollyhocks, larkspurs – flox and all sorts of other things in full bloom. A great many of the trees have just got their fresh green and others are in bloom – so its an awfully pretty time of year.

The tennis courts had dried up by Sunday afternoon but we had only played about a sett and a half when the tremendous storm I mentioned earlier in my letter, came up and put a stop to tennis for several days.

My old friends Enid O’Connor (“Miss Jones”) and I spent a happy hour in the Agri-Horticultural Gardens on Monday afternoon, where not only the English things are lovely, but there are a lot of heavenly flowering trees and shrubs in bloom.

I am sitting up late to get this finished before going to bed, as Ron Kaulback is arriving at 7.30 am to-morrow morning and Thursday morning, which is the usual day for English mail writing, will probably be spent running round the town with him. Not knowing the town and not knowing Hindustani, he would find it a bit difficult to get to the places he wants alone. I rather fear he is only going to be one night with us, but I hope he may be a little more.

Talking of Ron reminds me of the mountains and the fact that I have just become a member of the Himalayan Club. I think I am only the 4th or 5th woman to join.

Needless to say Guides and Guide work are taking up a lot of my time. I am training 4 lieutenants for my 2 companies, which is rather fun, but takes up time.

Herbert is well – rather enjoying the row he is carrying on officially with the Calcutta Corporation. Council started sitting again yesterday, but I gather that they are going to sit only about four days a week this session, so there will be some chance of keeping abreast of ordinary work.
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From LJT to Annette

14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
Feb. 28th 1933

My darling Annette

Congratulations on being made 2nd in your Guide Patrol! I’m very pleased to hear it. I like hearing about your Guide work. Sometimes it gives me ideas for my own girls. Did I tell you that I have just made out charts for my two companies, with all the girls names down the side in groups according to what class they are in – and spaces against their names in which to fill in each bit of the different tests as they pass them. I think it will be a help to getting through the work.

Dad and I were both very pleased to hear that you were so interested in La Tulipe Noire that you almost forgot you were reading French. That means that you are really getting a grasp of the language and it probably means that you will be able to realize what an advantage it is to be able to read and speak in languages other than your own, for it throws open whole new fields of literature – (Things are never quite the same in translation. They always suffer) and also the key to the hearts and minds of other people. I was talking French for a long time yesterday – I had a French lady to lunch and I asked two English friends who both speak French well – We lunched at 1 o’clock and my friends stayed till 3. so we were talking for two hours – and I was glad to find that I was not very rusty. I forgot the word for “foam” – écume – do you know it? I remember finding it in the Guide book when first we went to Ste. Maxime but it slipped my memory for the moment.

If you are going to give anything away in charity I think it is rather nice to have some “special” object like an individual child in whom you can take an interest.

Your cousin Ron was the last person to write on the pad and he evidently presses very hard with his pen for the marks of his writing have gone through two sheets.

I do wish you had all been provided with skates for this cold wether. it would have been lovely if you could have skated.

Now I shall join in the family “news-sheet” –

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Since last week I seem to have lived rather in a world of explorers! Ron Kaulback arrived on Thursday morning at 8 o’clock. He was looking very well and attractive. He had no idea where Mr. Kingdon Ward was and only knew that he himself was to be at Sadiya – the extreme north of the railway and everything else in Assam on the 27th. I took him round to do a bit of shopping and get some money and then dropped him at the Survey Office, where he had to pick up some maps. later he phoned to say he had met Mr. Kingdon Ward there and from then on Mr. K.W. spent practically all his time with us, which was extremely interesting and at which I felt greatly honoured. I imagined that he would be in demand with all sorts of people and much in the public eye – but quite the contrary was the case. He was staying at a small hotel and even the Press had not discovered that he was there. I took him and Ron out to bathe at Tollygunge early on Thursday afternoon and later we were joined by my Dutch exploring friends, the Vissers and Mr. Percy Brown joined us for tea, I felt it a real compliment, that everyone was talking so busily, that no one thought of going home till past 7 o’clock. The Vissers and Mr. Kingdon Ward, all knew each other extremely well by name and reputation and had read one anothers books and had lots of mutual friends – all being members of the Royal Geographical Society. The talk was extra-ordinarily interesting. Mr. Vissers main – or perhaps I should say paramount interest, is glaciers and the study of their formations and movements. Mr. K.W. seems to know a lot about them too – Mr Visser was anxious that Ron should take some observations and measurements for him if he comes across glaciers on this trip – Ron was given all sorts of diagrams and notes. Mrs. Visser, who is one of the world’s most delightful people, has been on all these great expeditions with her husband, as botanist. In a sense, botany is Mr. Kingdon Ward’s great subject – but from a different angle from most people. The geographical distribution of plants and the effect of climate, altitude and geology on the flora is his speciality. I was an entranced listener to the talk that went on. The intimacy with which it swept about the practically unknown centre of Asia, filled me with envy.

Mr. Kingdon Ward dined with us that night, to meet the Fawcuses – Mr Fawcus is the Secretary for the Calcutta branch of the Himalayan Club, which has been able to give Mr. K.W some help over small matters – Harry and Winsome also dined with us, to see Ron and Margaret Ogle to finish off the table nicely, as I told her. Rex Fawcus is extremely keen on and knowledgable about Natural History – and Mr. K.W. was able to tell him quite a lot about the animals of the great gorges and forest tracts through which the Bramaputra comes down from Tibet – which so far have been the main scene of his researches.

The following day I again took Ron shopping and gave him a drive round Calcutta to see such sights as there are – including a visit to the inside of the Fort. We lunched quietly at home and again Mr. K.W. joined us at 3.30 and we took him first for a brief visit to the Agri-Horticultural Gardens and then on to tea with the Vissers – where the talk begining with polites, very soon veered back to the mountains. Mr Visser warned Ron of the fact that at high altitudes things get on ones nerves very easily and one is inclined to quarrel with ones companions. He says that if one knows this beforehand, it does not very much matter – One can keep in ones mind the fact that it is due to the altitude – but if one does not know one may quarrel quite seriously. He gave an example of how on one of his trips, one of their companions grew a beard. “It was a nasty dirty looking black beard” said Mr. Visser in his slightly broken English – “And every time I saw that beard, it came on my nerves”. Then after a few weeks my friend cut off that beard – and I felt quite angry. I said to myself –“Now what a fool – to grow a beard for so long and then cut it off!” – So, said Mr. V. “You see nothing would please me – though I was very fond of my companion and he was a charming man.”

Well! To get on with the tale of our doings – After a bit of talk of rather a technical nature, about glaciers and the geology of the great mountain ranges and so on and so on – we left the Vissers and went to the Saturday Club to show Mr. K.W. and Ron something of the lighter side of Calcutta life. At the Saturday Club we met more mountain people. G.B. Gourlay, who has done some very remarkable solo climbs of 22 and 23 thousand foot peaks in the Himalayas, and Col. Tobin who managed the transport for the Bavarian Expedition to Kinchinjunga. That night we all dined with Harry and Winsome and the following day at mid-day, I saw the travellers off. What a thrill to be going off into Tibet for a year and not even be sure where you are coming out. They are going to work their way up through the forest country of south east Tibet, on to the great plateaus and are hoping to explore a big tract of country east of Lhasa, which has scarcely been touched at all by European travellers, except a few of the Jesuit priests of former centuries, who so cheerfully took their “grips” in their hands and walked across the world.

Having to go out to an extremely ordinary tennis party with some slightly dull Scotch people that afternoon, brought me down to earth again with rather a bump.

We idled away the early hours of Sunday morning in the pleasant pass-time of breakfast out at Tollygunge club, with some agreable friends and played tennis again in the afternoon – Council did not sit every day last week and Dad survived without getting too tired, in spite of the fact that he had had two dinner parties to cope with.

Guide work still takes a lot of my time – I am training two young married women and two girls to help me run my two companies and eventually take them over – and I had them here most of Monday morning – and only shooed them out just in time to receive some guests for lunch. I had a very delightful little French woman here and invited two English friends who speak French fluently. We were all so happy together that they did not go till 3.15 and at 4 o’clock I had a fresh batch of friends for tea. Percy Brown, who is going to England on leave, has persuaded me to take over the job of re-editing and bringing up to date, his handbook on tours in Sikkim and Tibet – and he came to say good-bye and tell me a few things about the book – which luckily need not be ready till the Autumn. Margaret Ogle came too, to try to make up her mind whether she would join Percy Brown in a tour of the Temples of South India or go to Delhi and Agra during the next month, before she takes up a job. She was longing to do the South India tour – but finally decided against it, after a lively and animated discussion. Mr. Visser joined us for tea – while his wife went on to a party near-by and came back to pick us up and take us to see a production of an opera by Robinranath Tagore. Tagore is the Bengali poet and musician who is the idol of the Bengali intelligensia – We were full of curiosity – I don’t think we expected great things, but we expected something worth seeing and hearing – and were bitterly disappointed – The whole thing was acted by Bengali girls and ladies of good family – Heavens! what a change from the time honoured custom in India that no women appear on the stage and all the women’s parts were played by men. On this occasion girls played the men’s parts. It is true that the proceeds of the show were to aid charity – but the performance was in Calcutta’s second largest theatre, and anyone could buy tickets. Actually some of the airs were quite pretty – but there are no harmonies in Indian music and it sounds so thin. Then all the girls sang with the ugly nasal head production of their voices, which is so unpleasant to western ears. – and further-more there was not one who had the slightest idea of acting. They just stood about the stage like so many stuffed pigs. The Highway’s charade troop could give them yards and a beating and so could my girl guides! The only amusing part of the show was Mr. Visser’s comments. Have looked at the heroine for some time, he turned to me and said “Mein Gott! What a cure for love”. Well! That was that! We sat it out, but were not sorry to come away.

The last two days I have been running round with my old friend Walter Boileau, who has come down from Darjeeling to meet his wife – and her boat has been two days late arriving – so she wont get here till Friday. We spent hours in the Agri-Horticultural Gardens this afternoon, as he is a keen gardener. I took him and one or two other people to dance at the Saturday Club last night after dinner, and while we were there a car kindly backed into ours, which was parked outside and damaged the radiator – so the car has had to go into dock for three days, which is a great nuisance.

March has begun – and the weather, though still pleasant, is distinctly getting warm. I have discarded the last blanket from my bed and we have been useing the electric fans a certain amount.

The trees have nearly all got their new leaves out now and are looking fresh and lovely. I want to go down to the Botanical Gardens tomorrow, if I can beg, borrow or steal a car. I think I can do the middle one without much difficulty. I seem to have scrawled over a large number of sheets. Apologies if I have been too verbose and my best love to you.
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Here ends the family part of the letter and I just finish it up for you yourself – I am enclosing a cutting I took out of the paper a few weeks ago and forgot to send you. I thought it was an interesting little sketch of Gen Gordon’s life – and I do like his family motto – “Honour not Honours” – don’t you.

Best love, again, my darling from Mum.