1934 June
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
June 7th 1934
My darling Annette,
In answer to your letter, I think the first thing to do is to talk about the plan of your leaving school a few days early to meet me. I am sorry to disappoint you, but there are a lot of things to take into consideration. To begin with I shall probably not know what day I shall arrive in London, till I get to Marseilles. I may stay one night in Paris with the Murets, if they are there and invite me to do so, as I am almost sure they will (if they are there, which I rather doubt!) To go on with I think it is rather a pity that you should miss the last of the exams. I think the best plan will be for me to come down to St Monica’s directly I arrive, and stay a night, either at the inn, or with Auntie Florrie if she could have me. I could then go back to London for one or two nights to see a few people, and do a little shopping, and then meet you and Rosemary. Miss Capstick might allow you to come home directly the exams are over, without waiting for the final reading out of results etc. I shall write to her about it this morning. I am sorry if you feel I am not sufficiently enthousiastic. It is not that, but partly that it would suit me to have one or two days in London, and partly school is such an expensive thing, that it seems a pity to waste days unnecessarily.
I am so glad you had a patch of decent weather, but I gather it did not last very long.
Its a pity your Guide Company don’t seem to be keen. I had an awful dose of that before I disbanded my 11th Company. They just would not get a move on about anything, and were always ready to complain about things. That sort of thing is most difficult to deal with, and its hard work when one has got to bear other people’s burdens as well as one’s own. I hope your sale of food to earn money to send unemployed Rangers to camp, was a success, for I think it is a good cause. I have just been reading about the Scouts doing a smiliar thing for unemployed men
A thunder-storm has just rolled up, and rain is pouring down. I had to get up and look to see how the garden is enjoying it. Heavy rain is always rather exciting when one has not had much for many months.
I am still reading the book about Queen Anne, called “Anne of England” and find it very interesting, for I know disgracefully little about that period of history.
Is “the Bird of Dawning” which you mention in your letter, a poem or a novel? I don’t even know it by name.
It is ten minutes to one, and I still have to write to Richard so I must stop this.
Best love, my darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
June 7th 1934
My dear Annette
Lying for long on one’s back has the most deleterious effect on the intelligence. Apart from my losing count of the days of the week and so missing last mail, I am devoid of thoughts or interest. To office for two hours each morning; otherwise little doing: I lie down after each meal and go for a duty-stroll at Tollygunge each evening. Also I have these three days been to the hospital to be X-rayed.
Despair is gathering: at this rate I shall never get anything done in connection with this new job: and my name will be mud. It will be a shameful business explaining matters to the Governor when he comes down from the hills. Besides its so futile to have nothing to show for these last weeks after all the talk in the papers.
I fished out the roman policier which I read so industriously at Ste Maxime and learnt the first two pages of it by heart yesterday. Why, I cannot say except that some of the phrases amused me when first I read it and still amuse. But it is rather stupid of me, because from internal evidence the book would appear to be written by a Belgian and Monsieur Muret told me that it was in bad French. However bad French is better than my French: and most of the words are all right even if the style is bad. After all M. Muret selected as a phrase that no Frenchman would use one which I found in quite a good French novel afterwards. The French have a curious trick of denying the existence of phrases not academic in the strictest sense – even though they themselves use them.
I must now go off to be X rayed again.
Much love
Daddy
Family letter from LJT
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
June 7th 1934.
My dears,
I feel much more cheerful than when I wrote to you last week. Herbert is getting slowly better, though he has been rather tired the last two days, because he has been having a series of X ray photos taken, and has only been able to have a very light meal at 7.30 a.m. and then nothing but the odd stuff, which they give before taking the photos (which he says looks like paste,) till tea-time. He is still on very strict diet, and taking various medicines. He is only allowed to go to office in the mornings, and has to rest for an hour after each meal.
The affair of the horse has faded into the background, and I have had a tremendous piece of luck. One of the men who lives with G.B.Gourlay asked me if I would like to take on his horse for a month. Its a very nice animal which he races at Tolly as a rule, but he happens to be working particularly hard just now, and has not had time to train it. Its quite a young grey waler, and takes a bit of holding when its galloping along side another horse, but otherwise is quite quiet. You will be amused when I tell you that G.B. and I had more trouble with mud and water last Sunday morning. Out to the South-East of Calcutta there is a great stretch of country, which is under water most of the year. At this time of year big stretches of it are dried up, and one can get a splendid gallop over it. We had a grand gallop, and then decided to follow along the Railway which bounds one edge of it, and cross under the line by an arch through which G.B. had been a few days before. We came to the arch. There was some water lying there, but we neither of us thought anything of it, and made the horses step into it. One step and the horses were floundering in deep mud right up to their stomachs. My first thought was to jump off and get my weight off the horse’s back. Directly I did this, he began scrambling out, but round in front of G.B. so that I, almost stuck in the deep much and unable to move fast, had to let go the reins, or they would have got round G.B.’s neck. The horse then started for home at a steady walk, and the faster I walked after him, the faster he went. Even when G.B. having extricated his own horse, went after him, it took some time to catch him. You never saw such sights as we looked! We were both caked in smooth black mud to the waist, and fairly well smeared with it above. The horses likewise were covered in mud. G.B. was all for avoiding meeting anyone if possible, and we hurried home by the smallest little field and woodland paths, just avoiding a big party of riders by the skin of our teeth, when we were nearly home. We cast off our muddied garments at the chummery and washed off the mud, before going to bathe at Tolly, and how we enjoyed that swim! Luckily neither of the horses are any the worse for the escapade.
Cyril Gurner took me to see Greta Garbo in “Queen Christina”, one last week, and we thought it very good, and Garbo enchanting. I think she knocks spots off Marlene Dietrich as an actress. Cyril and I also went out to-gether on Saturday evening, dancing at the Saturday Club. It fitted in very well, for he dined here both times, and we did not have to go out till almost Herbert’s bedtime, so I did not feel I was neglecting my invalid. Most afternoons I have kept free to sit or stroll with Herbert, at Tolly or on the Maidan, and one pleasant evening we spent with the George Morgans in their garden. Having provided Herbert with a companion for Saturday afternoon, G.B. and I went down to the Botanical Gardens on the other side of the river to get plants for his garden. They don’t sell plants and trees there but the Superintendent is allowed to distribute the surplus, and as he very pointedly said, he decides what the surplus is. Anyhow we had a most successful evening and came back with about 50 young trees, plants, and shrubs, in pots in the back of the car. We are now praying that the rains will break soon enough for me to see to the planting of them, for the mali will inevitably put them all in the wrong places.
The weather is getting quite “monsoonish”. We are having a lot of cloud sweeping up from the South, and occasional thunder-storms. Its cooler, but very sticky most days. Luckily last night was wonderfully cool after a fairly heavy shower, for there were special dinner and dance nights at the Saturday Club and at Tolly to celebrate Derby Night. Tolly made an attempt to catch the broadcast of the race, which began at 7.39 p.m. Calcutta time. Oweing to the thundery weather, they could not pick it up.
It was delightful dining in the Garden of the Saturday Club, and not too ferociously hot dancing afterwards. There were crowds of people there, in fact late comers after dinner found it difficult to get seats where they could see the cabarat turns, which came on at intervals through the evening. Of course there was a big preponderance of men, as there always is at this time of year, but there was a good turn out of woman-kind too, all looking and seeming very gay, and one did not get at all the impression that Calcutta was wilting under the last days of the hot weather and gasping for the monsoon to come.
My days have been pretty busy with the new Girl Guide constitution, further work on the Sikkim book, (The indexing takes a long time) and odd things to do with the Himalayan Club. We have just got corrected estimates and plans of the huts we intend to build in Sikkim. It will take a bit of time checking all that and deciding whether we like the small changes the Sikkim State Engineer suggests to our plan. Looking at it quickly G.B. and I think we still prefer our original plan, but we shall have to go carefully into the details. I am also begining to look over things in preparation for leaving the house for 4 months in the monsoon. Herbert will be in it, but I am going to put away a good many curtains and my best chair and sofa covers, since he never uses the drawing-room in the Rains, and I am getting them all mended and washed this week.
Not worth starting a fresh page
Best love
LJT
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
June 12th 1934
My darling Annette
It was energetic of you to write such a long letter to me and a noble epistle to your papa in French – Mr Gurner was here just after the letters arrived and showed so much interest that we let him read your French letter and he thought very well of it and was surprised that you were able to express your thoughts so freely in French. He always likes to hear about you children. It give him an idea of the sort of atmosphere in which his own children are living, I suppose.
There is a chance that Dad may be coming home with me. The doctor very strongly recommends it. He says it will be very difficult for him to pick up strength and get cured at this time of year out here, especially if he is working – To my surprise Dad gave in quite meekly and has written asking for leave. Whether he will get it, we don’t yet know – but he most probably will. Wont it be fun to have him with us? It will be an enormous relief to me if he does come, for I was hating the thought of leaving him when he was not well, and yet I equally much hated the thought of disappointing you children and myself by not coming home –
Forgive me if my writing is rather wobbly – Its very sticky to-day – though not exactly frightfully hot as heat goes out here – Being afternoon, I have retired to my room and am lounging on my bed lightly attired in a vest of the very thinnest discription and a small pair of knickers – in which garb it is pleasantly cool under the fan.
How disappointing of the weather to break just on Sports day – I am glad you saw Mrs. Gurner and Mr. M Edwards and Mrs Miller – and I’m sorry you had none of your own folk down there –
Plans of one sort and another have been rushing through my head, since the doctor gave his decision on Sunday morning. I am most anxious to sub-let this flat – as its rather expensive and if Dad goes away we immediately drop our Calcutta house allowance. There are quite a lot of things about the servants and the car and so on to be thought out. I must dress now ready to go and play golf with Dr Richter – who is incredibly bad – worse even than I am – and before I go out I have to have an ?intrie it? conversation about plants with the Indian superintendent of the Botanical Gardens.
Best love, my darling
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
June 14th
My dear Annette.
Thanks for your letter. In French. And a good one so far as I may judge. I should respond in kind: but I lack the energy. This lying down for so much of the day is debilitating and makes for flabbiness of the will. I doubt if writing a letter is so easy as conversation. First, in conversation you merely have to hesitate and the other person suggests a word; secondly the other person does a lot of the work of composition anyhow: and there may be other points which I do not choose to search out. Consider though whether the ordinary person finds it easier to talk about a thing or to write an essay about it: and a letter is as it were an essay or string of essays. However, do you suppose that I can converse in French with ease? Not so. Now probably I couldn’t get along in it at all: at any time it was an adventure, so to speak, and a joke. It is only when one cannot do a thing that one talks with pleasure about how to do it – or when one puts oneself into the position of one who cannot do it – as when an expert lectures a beginner, and usually the expert doesn’t. Luckily I am not expert at anything and so there is no check upon any branch of conversation for me – except lack of interest.
I have committed to memory some six pages of “La Dame” the first of the French detective stories in yellow: which is a mine of words and phrases and which, badly written, repeats itself and indulges in phrases difficult to pronounce because clumsy in themselves: e.g. “sur ce cercuit” causes me to stumble
You behold me not pleased: the secretaries responsible have not put up to Government even yet my scheme which the Governor in April ordered to be expedited. And the doctor hasannounced that if I stay on here I shall not get fit for months and months, and that I must take leave. It is a knock out really
Much love
Daddie
From LJT to Annette and Rosemary
14/1 Rowland Rd.
Calcutta.
June 18th 1934
My darling Annette and my darling Rosemary –
This letter has a lovely surprise for you both and also what may be a tiny temporary disappointment. The doctor says that Dad had much better take short leave and go home for a few months, as it will be so difficult for him to get cured of his colitis out here during the Rainy Season, and while he is working hard. Dad has asked for leave and got it and is coming home with me – Is’nt that lovely?
Well now, for many reasons, it will be better for Dad and myself to go straight to Dinard in Brittany and wait for you two and Richard to join us there, which means that I shall not see you till probably a week later than I thought I should – There are three chief reasons for my making the decision to go direct to Dinard – The first is Dad’s health – He is very pulled down and easily tired and it seems a pity for him to do more travelling than need be. The second is expense. We shall be on half pay part of the time Dad is home – so must be careful about money and it will be quite a big saving if we do not come to England and then go back to France. The third reason is accomodation at Highways. I do not know where we could stay, as Dad does not like the rooms over the shop. If we have our holiday in France first, it will give Auntie more time to fix things up. Also I have a vague idea that Uncle Harry and Auntie Winsome are taking a house for the latter part of the holidays, and possibly they will be able to put us up – I don’t know a bit – but three weeks in France will give us time to think of things – The detailed arrangements about sending the three of you across to St. Malo (which is just across the harbour from Dinard – see your map.) from Southampton, I must leave to Auntie and Miss Capstick. My idea is that someone (Auntie Do – perhaps) should take you down to Southampton and put you on the boat and that I will meet you at St. Malo. You just cross during the night, sleeping on board – and it will all be perfectly easy. If you all feel very brave perhaps you will come from London alone – Richard in charge, of course – but all that, as well as the dates, I must leave to Auntie – I feel very excited about it all!!
Bless you both, and my dear love to you
Mum
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
June 21st 1934
My darling Annette,
Many thanks for your letters and for the Grand Concours paper, all of which interested us very much. Both Dad and I thought we should come out poorly if we had to do that papers. We throughly enjoyed the “howlers” you told us, and various of our friends have enjoyed them too. also Mademoiselles story. I know the opposite version of that story – see margin – (A girl, asked if she had slept well – said “no – because she had “trois mousquetaires” in her bed all night – You may turn it into French!) Dining out on Monday night, the conversation turned on Hindustani howlers, and one or two rather amusing ones were recounted. One lady seeing a cow on her tennis court, shouted to the bearer “Woh dudh ke chiz lejau” (That milk thing take away). The old yarn of “Kitma bajji for the sheep’s topi (What time for the sheep’s hat, instead of “How much for the sheep’s head) was brought up as a new one, and to my surprise quite a lot of people had not heard it.
There are certain things I want you to bring over to France with you. I will make a little duplicate list, one for you and one for Auntie. I always like to have a little saucepan in which to heat up the early morning coffee, because it always get cold on its way up to the bedroom I think. I shall have my tea-basket but that only has a kettle in it.
I have been coping with such a lot of things, that my brain feels quite exhausted, or as Percy Brown says when we have been working on the index of the book for about an hour “B.O.F.” which means “Brain on fire” and indicates that we must knock off for a bit and have a drink. I am rather worried about this flat, which I so far have not succeeded in sub-letting, and we are considering the advisability of getting rid of it and taking another when we come out. I have to go and talk it over with Mrs Hance, when I have finished writing My letters. There are infinite complications about the servants, the car, the Himalayan Club Equipement, (which I have in a spare garage here) and all sorts of things. Forgive more, as I wrote to you only three days ago
Best love
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
June 21st 1934
My dear Annette
A good letter (in French) from you this week. Amusing too. It deserves an answer in French: but I am not up to it. Any energy that I have, I use on the little work that I can do: and find it not enough to carry on with.
Last week I started learning by heart the first chapter of “La Dame aux Rubas(?) Mauve” – a description of a motor race: and I find it not so easy to keep in my head as might be. I have more or less mastered seven pages: its bad French too: better than any of mine though. As I drive in the car I murmur bits of it: so too as I take my bath. The driver probably thinks me cracked.
Government are giving me leave. And I have ceased to resent its necessity. Yet I do not look forward to it particularly: even though it allows me to renew acquaintance with my family. The mauvaise troupe. I have reminded your mother of letting you have back the examination papers. Some of the words that you did not mark as unknown to you were unknown to me, I must confess. What a subject to choose for an unseen! But examiners are always like that. And of course if one knows a fair amount one is annoyed if questions of no particular difficulty are set.
Now I rouse myself, off the couch, (for I have been lying down since breakfast for the digestions sake) to go to office
Much love
Daddie
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
June 28th 1934
My darling Annette
I’ve rally no time to write you a proper letter, as I have taken so long over the family one This is just to say thank you for your last week’s letter and send you my love, and tell you how excited I am about seeing you so soon. I do wonder on what day you will cross to France. Ought I to be giving you a lot of advice? I don’t think so. As far as I know you will want just the same things in France as you would at an English sea-side place – the hotel at St. Jacut advertises tennis, so you may as well bring your rackets. We are bringing ours. When you pace, remember the customs people will open your boxes, so arrange them so that everything will not fall out at a touch as Ralph Lynn’s belongings always do on the stage.
I do hope we have fine weather and that Dad will be feeling much better
Best love
Mum