1933 June
From LJT to Annette
Rockville Hotel
Darjeeling
7.6.33
My darling Annette
After such a long interval and two weeks letters to answer I must sort myself out so to speak, to know where to begin. Congratulations on the French “Concours” though I gather it means you don’t actually get a prize – still – there’s the honour and glory, which is what one should mind about more. Congratulations also, on writing a letter in French and only making one mistake in it. I am sure it is more than I could do.
Your school life seems full of all sorts of activities besides actual lessons. I shall think of you doing your Elizabethan Pageant on Saturday next. I wonder whether Auntie will be able to go down for it.
I have been scratching round in my mind to try to remember whether I have ever read any books by D.K. Broster – but cant bring any to mind, though the name seems to stir some chord of memory.
How do you like the Miss Heath Jones memorial tablet? Does it look nice – I subscribed to it, for I was very very fond of her and feel I owe her a great deal. She gave me what, for lack of a better word, I can only call “vision” – a sense of the universality of things and the mutability of things – and got quite away from the sort of limited outlook of own home and the little day school I went to in Portsmouth. She made me see somehow that one cant judge and condemn other people and other nations for having different laws – different ideas and different standards. What matters is the way they support their laws and the way they live up to their ideals.
What a lot there will be for me to see at St. Monica’s when I come home. I hav’nt seen the Common Room or the Swimming Bath.
I don’t a bit grudge the two guineas for tennis coaching if you make good use of it. Remember the two things I told you – “mind on the game and eye on the ball”. I should be rather interested to know how much coaching you get for the two guineas. Do you have so much time regularly each week, or how is it arranged?
Francesça is probably back now so you will know all about her. She did fall off her horse and it was feared that she had cracked her skull. Mrs. Gurner thought she might have to go home to her – but she did not – and I hear that Francesça is much better and going back to school at half term. Sorry that June has been poorly again –
Best love, my darling from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Darjeeling
June 7th
My dear Annette.
I’m glad that you continue to do well at French. Stick to it. I myself have of late neglected it. Too much work. When I have too much work I lack the energy to read any of my French books: though it would be a good thing to learn pages by heart. Suitable basis for conversation – one page memorised on each subject. I did something like that in France.
This letter is a race with the ink. There is so little in the bottle that I can’t manage to fill my pen with it: and though it is always possible to dip at one minute intervals, yet each time I dip I get the pen dirty and have to wipe it: it is definitely an ink bottle and not an ink-pot.
I have had the beginnings of a cold and sneezed it or walked it away. I have been to a King’s Birthday Parade a State dinner in knee breeches and such. The chief topic of conversation at the latter and at the reception afterwards is the appearance of different peoples’ legs in stockings: and in breeches: for some look quaint. At the parade the great sight was the march past of the Rifles. They had not their own band; they had abused the Band which was for not playing their quick step quick enough; and at the actual parade the bandmaster took the march so quick that the Rifles had to twinkle past – three hundred steps to the minute so to speak: I don’t know how many: but they couldn’t have moved their faster. They did it very well all the same.
Your mother next day went to stay for a night with the Boileaus – while I got rid of my cold by walking slowly round Birch Hill (i.e. not racing) and breathing deeply.
Stretch your neck (1100!) and give me news of your tennis.
Much love
Daddy.
From LJT to Annette
Rockville Hotel
Darjeeling
13.6.33
My darling Annette
Your letters arrived at such a nice moment this week. I was sitting out in the garden on a bench in the sun (for once we had not gone out for a picnic and perversly it was a lovely fine day) I am glad that you have had some fine weather and were able to start bathing so early in the year. I do so wonder whether you had a fine day for the Pageant on the 10th which was last Saturday. I thought of you lots of times.
Its amusing to hear that you feel a hypocrite when you write French compositions. I feel the same when I write letters to my French friends. Actually I don’t think one need feel that one is a hypocrite, because because although what one writes seems so flowery when put into English – it does not seem so to French people, who take it as ordinary good manners. Did you remember to put anything about “hay fever” and biting animals and bits of hay getting down inside ones clothes and making one feel all itchy – in your essay on “La Fenaison”?!! I suppose the last time I sat about in the hay, was when we went over from Chagford to spend a day with the Jolls. Do you remember?
I am sorry to say I have not read “The Three Muskateers” in French – but Dad says it rattles along and that Dumas French is very easy to read. Did I ever tell you the story that the Count St. Foix told me about the elder Dumas? He used to write standing at a desk and shooting the pages off on to the floor as he finished, when it was his secretary’s duty to pick them up – correct and arrange them. As you know – he has a tremendous gallery of characters in his books and he wrote at a terrific pace straight on and on. In order to prevent mistakes, he used to have a lot of little dolls, dressed and named as his characters, arranged on a box on his desk – and when anyone was killed, he would throw out the doll – or when anyone was put in prison it would be popped into a different box. I think it is rather a good idea.
You were talking about a religious discussion last week and how after talking for a long while you seemed to have got no further. Thats true in a way of most religious discussions, but at the same time I think they do serve a useful purpose. They make one clarify ones own ideas in order to express them to someone else – and they open ones eyes to other points of view. I always enjoy a religious discussion – and in India one often gets the opportunity of debating with people of different religions Many people hold the attitude that religious discussions should be avoided, for fear of hurting peoples feelings but I don’t agree at all. It naturally depends on the spirit in which the discussion takes place. If one party scoffs or mocks at what the other holds sacred, of course its a mistake, but if one talks with a real desire to find the truth or the aspect of truth that best suits oneself, then I don’t think offence is given. I feel the same over what are often looked upon as “delicate” subjects, between ourselves and Indians. If they give me an opening I always talk politics with them, because how otherwise are we to get to know each others points of view. I had a most interesting discussion on the subject of “mixed marriages” with the Raja of Santosh the other evening at dinner.
I was glad to hear that your seeds were coming up. I suppose by this time they are large plants, bursting with bloom!
Best love, darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Darjeeling
June 13th 1933
My dear Annette.
A lot of rain: but a lot of sun too by snatches: and it is much warmer. We went a ride on Saturday and got drenched: at least I did, as to the knees because my mackintosh is less effective than might be: your mother’s, double canvas, was bone dry. A jolly ride with a superb rainbow to look at: look down at, for it was in the valley. Never have I seen one so bright.
I don’t know that I like the Three Musketeers. They lacked the instincts of gentlemen whatever their manners may have been. But Dumas has the knack of making a story vivid, hasn’t he? What I read French for is for the phrases which strike my fancy: and Dumas has not got so many of those. The “Romans policies” are more useful from that point of view. I learn little bits by heart still – but for no particular reason: not choosing them for their utility. And not often. We near the end of our stay in Darjeeling – and I have still not tackled masses of stuff which I brought up with me from Calcutta. Never seem to get round to it. A silly trick of always taking on something else. In a way I shall be glad to get away from Darjeeling. I shall bathe again! I wonder if I can make time to take up golf once more. I haven’t really played since I was laid out.
Curious that you should have struck a patch of untidiness or carelessness or whatever you may choose to call it. Like me. I find that if I let myself become lost in a thing, everything else is forgotten. “One thing at a time” – but it’s not that, properly.
Ask Rosemary if she neck stretches – in memory of her father
Much love
Daddy
From LJT to Annette
Rockville Hotel
Darjeeling
21.6.33
My darling Annette
It will be interesting to see the snap shot of you and Peggy and “A.N.Other” (as they put in football or cricket teams when they don’t know who is going to play.) I hope it will come next week. I’m awfully afraid your letters will come here next week and have to be sent after us to Calcutta, as I told you we should be in Darjeeling till the end of June.
I vaguely remember the name “Colville” in Calcutta but don’t think I knew the people. They probably knew Uncle Harry or Uncle Ted Townend. Uncle Ted was in a firm called Carrit Moran’s who are tea-brokers and Uncle Harry is in Shaw Wallace & Co.
The French jazz songs sound as if they must have been rather amusing. I am sticking steadily to reading French history in French for half an hour before breakfast every morning and quite look forward to it. I am also trying to learn some botany in my spare time. It seems that it is really the only way to become any good at spotting different flowers and plants. Superficial characteristics are so misleading.
I am awfully glad you are having nice hot weather in England – not only because it is pleasant, but also because it means you will get much more swimming which I am very keen about. Its nice to think that I shall probably get a swim on Sunday evening!
I am putting so much work into the “Tours in Sikkim” book, that I don’t believe there will be much of the original left, by the time I have finished. I found that not only were a great many things in it out of date, but that there were also a great many errors, which I have been getting people who were better up in the different subjects than myself to put right. I get very fascinated with it and don’t want to go out and leave it. I can quite understand how people who write books, like to shut themselves away and not be bothered with outside people. I wish I could shut myself away and try to write. I have always wanted to write. “True tales of Bengal” founded on real things we have come across from time to time but “the cares of this world” always seem to push in and fill up my time.
I have had a long interruption this morning from a visitor and must hurry over the rest of my letters.
Best love, my darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Darjeeling
June 21st
My dear Annette.
Warm mists. Rather oppressive. I don’t know what to wear. Not having more than one thin suit.
Rather a jolly walk on Saturday, straight (which means zigzag) down the hill eastwards into the valley: then on horse back along and up to Lebong(?) and so back by the cart road and Birch Hill. The pony that I had didn’t trot but ran with much waving of his stern. I couldn’t rise in the saddle to it but had to sit down tight and be shaken. It made me laugh helplessly but was not very comfortable.
On Sunday I went out for a walk. Car to 3 mile bustee beyond Ghoom, then up the hill through the forest to Senchal down to Ghoom and home by car. It rained, it poured, it soaked. There were leeches. But none got further than my boots. Also there were dozens of wild strawberries: but not worth eating. No taste, no sweetness even: merely bitterness. Mrs Wylie who was with us ate a lot. I wonder if she had tummy ache later.
We go down on Saturday. I shall be glad. Living in a hotel is not pleasant. And working without access to one’s books and without being able to get things done at once is no joy: if anything goes wrong with work up here, one has to send down to Calcutta about it and then nothing happens for days. It’s a poor lookout that I should go down from Darjeeling dead beat.
Much love
Daddie.
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
29.6.33.
My darling Annette
The excitement of the week is that Auntie Winsome has got a new baby – a little daughter, who is to be called Charlotte. She was born just after 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon – and though I have not seen her or Auntie Winsome yet, I hear they are both very well. I started the morning by rushing out in the car to the Market to get Auntie Winsome some flowers – and since then I have had one interruption after another mostly in connection with the servants. Poor old Mogul had very bad toothache yesterday and with great difficulty I persuaded him to have the two bad teeth out. He got relief from the pain, but has been rather bothered by bleeding from the places where they were taken out – so I have been ringing up old Jimmy Hyde – (You remember him at Frank Ross’ in Darjeeling?) to find out what to do for it and then sending for the stuff. Previously I had hunted in every book I could think of and could find no information. Its a useful thing to know what to use. It is “steel drops” a little on a scrap of cotton wool, laid on the place. Next the bearer came about two things, which took a lot of time – and here I am only getting down to my letter-writing at 11 o’clock – Luckily I wrote the family letter yesterday afternoon. The weather is not so fearfully hot, but very very sticky so that one drips all the time and I think it makes ones mind feel very lazy. Dad seems to prefer it to Darjeeling – I cant say I prefer the climate, but I do like being back in my own house. Dad is still working furiously at his “Note” on improving crops and preventing malaria by irrigating the whole of Bengal with the river water carrying silt. He keeps on getting hold of new facts and more figures, until I begin to think that the “Note” will never be finished. Its always rather difficult when he is doing anything like that, because he hates to be asked about anything else that needs a moment’s thought – However, I suppose that is the way that big things are done.
Your letter this week went up to Darjeeling, as I was rather afraid it would, for I had told you we should be there till the end of June and we came down a little earlier. Your description of the hot weather and of longing to get out into the garden reminds me so vividly of hot summer days I spent at St. Monica’s, which always seemed a degree more lovely than those I spent anywhere else. I am glad that you have the swimming bath this hot summer. It makes make a lot of difference to your pleasure. Dad and I have managed a swim every evening but one since we have come down. He really seems to love diving. I am trying hard to get a better position in the running dive. First I am trying to learn to stamp much harder on the board, to get thrown up higher in the air – and next to look up and keep my head up at the beginning of the dive – only ducking my head at the last moment. I cant get rid of the feeling that if I don’t duck my head at once I shall go flat on the water – but I must fight it hard, for it is not true.
This afternoon I am starting golf again and have a fear that I shall have forgotten what little I had learnt. I am playing with Mrs. Carey Morgan, who says she is very bad and who, anyway, is a kind sort of person. To-morrow I am playing with another friend, who also says she is very bad – I hope she will be kind too!
Oh dear! I am so glad to see my books and pictures and everything again and nothing seems to have suffered while we have been away. Mogul was standing smiling on the door step to greet us when we arrived. By the way – directly he heard of little Charlotte’s arrival, he began to count up the days of the week – and when he found it was Wednesday, he beamed and said it was a good day on which to be born. Also I have just read in “Kim” that Wednesday is a good day on which to start a journey – so little Charlotte is beginning her journey through life under favourable circumstances.
Good-bye, my darling – Thank you for your letters and all the news.
Best love
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
June 29th 1933
My dear Annette.
My scraps of news I have used up on Rosemary: while to Richard I have talked shop. But you may be mildly interested too to hear that I have discovered Logarithms. Uncle Harry obliged with a discourse on the: so far as they are shortcuts to multiplication and division. To think that all these years I have laboured, every now and then working out enormous long division sums when there was this short cut to results lying unknown to me. Uncle Harry says that when they take on new staff in his firm he tells the applicants to divide something by ten: and if they do it by long division he wont employ them. It is annoying that my schools should have kept me in ignorance of practical things like that.
To think (also) that still you have not told me which of the French books you read in the holidays! unless you only read that one. As to girls who comment on your reading Dumas in French, out upon them. This house is full of small cockroaches – I class your girls with them.
Tennis – how goes it? Diving – are you an expert. Can you crawl or trudge. – why in fact am I kept in ignorance of all the better things.
Life is a skurry scurry – I cannot remember the word. Any how, a rush or hustle. If only one kept calm and counted ten. However I have had my office colour washed and all the photographs removed: and the furniture shifted so as to give me more room.
Much love
Daddie