1935 November
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
November 6th 1935
My dear Annette.
I have just ceased writing portentously to Richard. Now it may be known what a heavy father feels or looks like. It is to my custom of writing solemnly to him about my Schemes that his seriousness, mentioned in your letters probably, is due. People speak of my job as “Uplift”: jargon of the worst: I have abstained from seeking to bring about anything of the kind in Bengal – but the atmosphere obviously hangs about my letters – or, say, the taint of it. And thus Richard has got it in the neck, like mumps.
It has been a week of toil: dealing with figures, all most confused. Eventually reduced to clearness after many fumblings, they proved one thing clearly – that they were self contradictory and that no reliance could be placed upon them. And thus I extracted Rs 5000 from the Finance Dept: the argument being that if they insisted on waiting till figures so unreliable proved something, they’d miss the bus altogether: the bus being revenue collections for which staff was needed. Thus I have spent two days’ holiday: though in addition I have revived my scheming about a more prosperous Bengal. Everything has crumbled to pieces lately – all the assumptions on which the immediate schemes were based: and now it is a case of evolving new combinations. It will be a matter of nobbling the Governor. Interesting in its way. Curious how hope triumphs!
Your mother has her horse back: really her horse now. She has bought him. Also she is now doing running dives and stamping with some vigour on the end of the board: rather bent in the middle (diagram inserted) but the graceful curve may come: she certainly gets some height into the air now. But we have not been constant in our visits to the baths. It has been chilly-ish in the evenings: though the water to us newly from Darjeeling feels quite warm like: 69°: cold for the Calcutta stay-at-homes.
Last night saw me out to dinner: on the understanding that I returned as soon as the meal ended: but they were so late in starting dinner that it was a quarter to eleven before we got back into the drawing room. Trust no fair words
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Nov 7th
My darling Annette
Your letters about your visits to the Aunts have been great fun – Now we wait most anxiously for next mail to know whether you burst out with the “plague” in those last remaining 6 hours you spoke of –
I have really no time left to write. I ought to be washing and changing, ready to go out to lunch with Mrs Gurner, even now! – but I’ll scrimp the washing a bit –
Dad has been in great form lately and is always saying funny things and making me laugh – often I fear they are vulgar as well as being funny – Looking at the red toe-nails of a lot of the girls at the Saturday Club he said – “Well I don’t know why they don’t gild their navels – That really would be amusing” –
I must fly! Best love, my darling
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Nov 13th
My dear Woodle.
A thing which I have called only a few people like brother Roy and my dear wife before this: it is by an error that I have written it.
Today there was a darbar: presenting of decorations and titles. I wore my uniform with the gold lace and the (?)Jemuina(?) boots: but forgot the medal. Why they gave me the futile thing I cannot think. The ceremony went on for 1 ½ hours. There was miscellaneous pleasure to such as me: I should say I. Seeing that the Chief Secretary was wearing spurs, which belong to a different uniform, and generally thinking or exchanging chit chat. At the Armistice show on the 11th there is a rough stand with planks to sit upon and in front enclosures with arm chairs admission by ticket: high officials always have the chairs and subordinates the planks. This year we found that all our tickets were for planks and the subordinates were given the chairs. A mistake by a clerk. Ministers and Members of Government wandered vaguely: ordinary officials sat cheerfully on the planks, in friendly groups, quizzing the new comers and delighting to see the pompous grow angry at their having no chairs. It was a revelation of character. Some showed up: most not. The French consul and the Japanese consul were furious – suspecting insult: the others laughed seeing the funny side of it.
The Russian lady, Mrs Hawes, hearing that we had been sun-bathing on Sunday morning said “I see you are Brown”: I said “only the face” and pulled my shirt a bit open to show the white skin: whereat she said “Why! you have no fur!”
Lots of work. Government have accepted my Waterhyacinth Bill and it will go to Council. Not a thing that I’m keen about. It’s the Governor’s stunt. My solution though of the puzzle. It is over fifteen years since they started agitating for a law.
Much love
Dad.
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
Nov 14th 1935
My darling Annette
It is really a joy to know that you are back at school again, after all your troubles and trials and missing so much – Are you going up for the School Certificate Exam next month?
New bathrooms must be a boon – “Washing down” is always rather a bother and has none of the pleasure of a bath attached to it.
Each year I am shocked to find that almost as soon as we have got back from the Hills, we are involved in the Cold Weather rush – with the Christmas Mail just ahead and dozens of things that have to be squeezed into the Guide world before the holidays begin. There is so much too much to do in Calcutta both in the world’s of work and play, not to mention social duties.
Mr Groth, the American Consul, who came from South Africa last year, has just brought me some of those wonderful African Lilies called “Chingiricheese” (at least that is what it sounds like – I don’t know how it is spelt) which last for weeks and weeks – These were picked in Africa seven weeks ago and still look quite fresh and pretty – I wish we could grow them out here – where most of the flowers fade so quickly.
Dad’s tiger skins, which have been packed away since Spring of 1930 are just being unpacked and I am full of excitement to see them –
x x x x x x x x x x x
Pause here, while the wrappings were undone and the skins unrolled – Praise be! They are in perfect condition – not a whisker out of place – How vividly the scenes when they were shot come to mind. The one you saw shot the first time you came out – in the thick jungle above the Murthe Mukli,when there was a rhino in the beat, is spread on the floor in the bow window glowering at me –Its a beautiful skin – full winter coat – Do you remember how he just put his head out of the elephant grass and Dad shot him clean through the skull – so that he just folded up and fell where he stood! and do you remember Mr Evans sliding down off his elephant to pull the tigers tail and see if he was really dead – before anyone had had time to think?
Would’nt it be fun if we could go on a shoot at Christmas time? I mean if by some magic you could be here too – I’ve been thinking so much about mountains lately that its quite funny to have my mind taken back to tigers and jungles and I feel I must get out my book of photos and look at them –
Now – I wonder what I was going to write about when the tiger-skin incident came on – Mogul is thrilled at seeing them again and recalling incident about them and where they were shot – and how Rosemary Baba watched the skin being taken off this one – and how she said that one smelt much nicer than Mr. Anerson’s – and so on. I hope Mogul will never get ill or leave us before we leave India – I should feel absolutely lost without him – He’s a perfect treasure house of memory and tradition – like those old mahouts in Jalpaiguri who used to amuse us so –
After this wild wandering of a letter – I must collect myself and write to Auntie and Rosemary –
Best love, darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
November 20th
My dear Annette
Among the interesting things are stereoscopic views of the snows from Darjeeling. Sam the Darjeeling photographic gave to your mother for the Himalayan Club ten pairs of photos: and on Monday when we had people in to see the photos (and the movies) of our trip we had a stereoscope and look at these. Marvellous is no appropriate word. To make the far hills stand out they had taken photos with two cameras feet apart. So the near hills stand out when looked at through the lenses as if cut from cardboard and one sees among the distant snow peaks details which to the distant eye simply do not exist. As you may by now have deduced I was much impressed. I have expounded to Richard a scheme for using a periscope, on its side, to get the same effect by direct vision. You may guess what the verdict is: you have probably passed it yourself. (“Oh, Dad is a poop.”)
The pictures were interesting as seen on the screen. The movies took me aback. I had not before seen myself thus represented: it is only to hoped that it was a travesty. It had not before struck me that I indulged in quaint jerky gestures or walked with a swagger – by gum it was like Herbert Irving trying to put tragedy across! It was a mistake to wear the double Terai hat: for beyond a doubt that was enough to introduce an element of gnomishness into anything.
The tigers are out. Four of them. And looking very well too: after some six years tinned up. There is nowhere in this flat to display them and they are now lying on the floor and proving a treacherous nuisance in so much as we all trip over them as we go about our doings. Your mother has gone out this evening: she did so last night too. I cannot manage it. Work has been fierce: what your aunt calls hectic – yet it has been hectic too for there is no abatement. The Indebtedness Bill comes along on the 26th: today is the date for notices of amendments. When I went along to put in my lot (47 of them) at 3 o’clock I learnt that about 600 had already come in. We had as many for the last Bill – but this time (since they cannot give me proofs of them till Saturday) there’ll be only two days in which to tackle them with a view to obtaining Government decisions. So I am near to mutiny. I begin to feel that they are taking advantage of my ability to improvise.
We flew on Sunday. I twenty minutes: your mother only ten. Her arrangement: she goes up fairly often. She of course likes it. I don’t, at least I like it well enough but am not keen on it. There is an ever present fear that I may be sick: a thing most ignominious – and there is no thrill because I don’t really expect a crash.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
Nov 21st 1935
My darling Annette
How history repeats itself! I can so vividly remember going to dinner with Miss Heath Jones to meet “Eminent Persons” (I cant now remember who!). I had been pretty well trained in dinner-party etiquette for from quite an early age we had always spent our summer holidays with the Quilters at Bawdsey Manor and as they always had large house-parties and as everything was done in the grand manner with a butler and several footmen, we had sort of gown up to that kind of thing.
I felt sorry for an unfortunate woman at the big dinner at Government House on Friday. She was the wife of the Chilian or some South American Consul and she apparantly had no language in common with the men on either side of her. When – ever I looked across the table in her direction, she was gazing at me with very large, rather stupid dark eyes like a cows. As I did not know her, I could not even wink or make a grimace to comfort her – The immense table at G.H. with 50 people down each side, looks very fine. The flowers were all pink on Friday last – and masses of them. They looked very well.
Dr Jenkins is trying to egg me on to do some writing – I want to – but don’t know how to get out of all my jobs and find the time for it – I really mean to try – I have definitely resigned the Girl Guide Commissionership from the end of this term – and shall be very firm about taking on extra jobs –
I have refused to be on I don’t know how many committees during the last few weeks. Lor! Its past 12-30 – I have not written to Rosemary – and have to be changed and out to lunch at 1 o’clock!
Good-bye – my darling
Love
from
Mum
Family letter from LJT
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
Nov 21st 1935.
My dears,
We have had a great grief this week in the death of Mr Williamson in Lhasa. We had been feeling anxious about him, for news came that he was ill, and an appeal to endeavour to send an aeroplane to bring him down to lower altitudes came to the Governor. There was no aeroplane that could work at such altitudes, and nothing could be done. The news of his death came to me in a telegram from H.H. the Mahrajah of Sikkim, asking me to arrange for wreaths of artificial flowers to be sent to Gyantse for the funeral which takes place on the 25th. What a nightmare of a journey for his poor wife! They have an English doctor with them, and Mr Williamson’s personal assistant, Rai Bahadur Norbu, is a charming Sikhimese gentleman, who will I am sure, be a tower of strength to Mrs Williamson. I have wired to her that if I can be of any help I will go to Gangtok and help her pack.
This telegram arrived just as my guests were coming in to a cocktail party on Monday evening, at which we showed some picture of our trip on the Epidiascope, and Marian Atkin’s film. It made a nice little show, and people seemed to enjoy it. Out of the huge collection of photos taken on the trip we were able to pick out a fine series illustrating the whole thing.
Herbert had one of his few co-called, “late nights” of the year on Friday, when we dined at Government House. it was one of these huge dinners with about a hundred guests. I always think them rather fun. I was taken in by a retired Bombay Civilian, presumably a Bengali by birth, since he now lives in Calcutta, when not attending the sessions of the Legislative Assembly on which he represents one of the Bombay constituencies. He was an interesting and amusing man. He told me a tale of the Willingdons which I had not hears before. Lady W had insisted on her husband doing something which he did not in the least want to do, and he turned and murmured to a friend “I thought I was marrying a brassy, but I find I have married a driver”. - - My dinner partner, the Hon. Mr Ghoshal, knew Ray Gibson very well. He says it must be a great disappointment to Ray not to have been made Governor of the new province of Sind, as he was well in the running for it. Herbert also had an amusing dinner. He was not given a lady to take in, but sat next to a Home Civilian, Mr Laithwaite, who is out here on some special committee. Apparantly they plunged into hot argument immediately and both enjoyed themselves no end. Mr Laithwaite has rather idealistic ideas about conditions in India, which Herbert at once set to to destroy to the best of his ability. Mr Laithwaite was still burbling with amusement when he was brought up to talk to me after dinner, and i met him again at a dinner-party on Tuesday, when he returned to the subject once more with evident enjoyment.
The press of Cold Weather engagements has already begun. I have been out every night since last mail day, except Monday, when we had our cocktail party. Its never any use making a dinner engagement if one has a cocktail party of ones own, for they seldom break up till between 8.30 and 9.o’clock, and then one generally fells a little exhausted, for its the sort of party at which the hostess must keep going, so to speak.
Dr Jenkins had a pleasant little dinner and dance party at the Saturday Club on Saturday evening. Herbert came for the dinner and slipped away when we began dancing. Saturday nights are often short ones for me. I was not in bed till about 2.30, and was out at Regents Park, Tollygunge to ride with G.B. by seven o’clock. The weather is perfect now. The early mornings have a decided nip in the air, and before the sun is well up, there is a thin blue mist about, which looks very lovely with the bright green-turning-yellow of the rice fields. G.B. and I went south across Tolly’s Nullah, lost ourselves in some bamboo jungle, found ourselves again, and made our way across country to a lake we are rather fond of, where we dismounted and had a few minutes rest. On the way home we covered a good part of the distance at a steady gallop. The horses are all feeling very buckish with the cold weather and Tip-It-Up did a few fine kicks. We got back to Regent’s Park just two hours after we set out, so we had a good morning’s exercise. I was doing Himalayan Club work most of the morning, for G.B. and Mr GEE our Equipment officer came in to look over the remnents of equipment from the last Everest Expedition which I brought down from Darjeeling. After we had finished that job, we started looking at the photos of our trip, and G.B. stayed till almost lunch-time, for he always gets frightfully fascinated by mountain views.
One of the first events of the Calcutta Season is the opening of the Symphony Orchestra concerts, and the first one took place on Sunday night. Alas! My enjoyment of it was a bit spoilt by lack of sleep, for I had scarcely any time to rest on Sunday afternoon. We left here at 3 o’clock, to go out and see Idris Mathews garden at Cossipore, have tea there, and then go to the Flying Club at Dum Dum for a little flit round. Idris took Herbert up, and I went up with Capt Westbrook, with whom I had such a lovely flight just before I went to Darjeeling. We could not stay up long as we had got there rather late, and it began to get dark, but it was nice to be in the air again. It was only the second time Herbert had ever been u. I dont think he truly likes it. All the sensations that I find especially nice, such as vertical turns and so on, he does not enjoy. He says he does not like feeling as if he has left his stomach behind!
I am feeling very slightly jaded this morning, for I was at Barbara Griffin’s birthday party last night. Her father and I were, as she said, the only two real “grown-ups” there. That is to say the other twelve were all under thirty, and most of them not much over twenty. I was very complimented that she specially asked me. We had a gay dinner at the United Service Club, and then the men were given a card each, on which they were told to find a special partner, and set off on a treasure hunt. One of the older young men, who has just married one of Barbara’s great friends, was my partner. There was a terrific scuttling to get into cars, and tea off to different places to pick up clues, and finally to find out the answers to several questions, and take them to “The Hall of the Sons of the Kings”. One question was the name of the head khitmatgar of a certain night club called the Moulin Rouge. Mr Duttson and I were a bit stumped by this, for though we had heard of the club we had no idea where it was. However we had the bright idea of dropping into the U.S. Club and ringing up which we did. The manager did not seem at all surprised at being asked the name of his head man, and it afterwards appeared that Richard Gardiner and his partner had already been to the Club, and had bribed the khitmatgar to give a false name to everyone else, and asked the manager to back him up. Richard was first in at Prince’s Cafe anyway, so won on all counts. We danced at prince’s till it shut at Midnight, and then went on to another of these odd and not very inspiring night Clubs, called “the Rex”. Our own party was in such high humour that we were capable of making almost any place gay, and we must have been a very welcome addition to the clientele.
About 1.30 I thought it was really time to go home, as all the lads had to be at work in the morning, and though there were cries of “shame” I think they were all about ready to go home to bed. Mr Griffin and I agreed that the young people had taught us quite a lot about the night life of Calcutta.
I have been ridiculously busy in the days. I have been making the arrangements to take my Guide Companies for a picnic to the Botanical Gardens on Saturday, and there is quite a lot of Staff Work connected with it. I have three new young Guide officers just joined up, and I have been seeing them and showing them what to do, and what uniform to get and a variety of details like that. On Monday I made my four-monthly sacrifice to vanity, and had the sides of my hair permantly waved, busily drafting letters for the Himalayan Club meanwhile. Getting these wreaths of artificial flowers for the Maharaja of Sikhim, and also for the Himalayan Club to send for Mr Williamson’s funeral took me almost the whole of one morning. They were such unusual things to want that it was not easy to get what I liked. You may guess what is coming after all this. I have not written one more word of the Dzongri Journal. I am sorry, but there it is. It is not that I have been idle, for I have scarcely had time to read the newspaper, much less a book of any sort.
Herbert is getting rather rushed with the preparations for the next Session of Council. He had two Bills on the tapis. One is the Indebtedness Bill which has come back from the Select Committee stage, and the other is a Bill to deal with the curse of water hyacinth, which I told you about last week. Council starts on Monday, so I am afraid it will mean a very tired Herbert before the end of next week.
I must get on with the personal letters I have to write now, as I am going out to lunch.
Best love to you all
LJT
Family letter from LJT
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
Nov 28th 1935.
My Dears,
Not quite time for Christmas wishes, but I am told that the last day for posting Christmas mail by the sea route is next week. Our idea of spending Christmas with the Williamsons in Gangtok has been knocked on the head by his tragic death in Lhasa. I wanted to get Herbert away from Calcutta for Christmas, but he does not like any plan I suggest, so I shall have to resign myself to staying here. The great point about getting him away is that if he is in Calcutta he will inevitably work, whereas if he is away he wont. I wish Herbert were fond of riding, for we might have done what G.B. suggested, and taken horses to Ranchi or Madupur or somewhere not far off where there is good riding country, and just spent our time riding and lazing about.
At last I have got someone to promise to take over my Girl guide District Commissionership, so I hope not to be quite so busy after Christmas. I am desperately behindhand with all the work for the Himalayan Club Journal. I have promised short accounts of both my trips, and an article on the flowers, and I have not touched any of them yet, or done my annual report which has to be in Delhi by Dec 15th. I would like to have a hermitage where I could go and hide away and be quiet. On Friday I thought I was going to have an uninterrupted morning in which to deal with the final arrangements for the Girl Guide picnic, and to write up the minutes of the Himalayan Club Committee meeting which we held on Thursday evening. About 10.15 Col Wheeler, the Assistant Surveyor General, rang me up to ask if I could spare time to see and advise an eminent traveller, one Mr d’Arcy Weatherbe, who had just arrived in Calcutta and had a fortnight here before getting a boat to Africa. He wanted to see something of the Sikkim mountains. He arrived soon after 11 o’clock, and stayed till nearly one. He is a tall elderly man, a little like Aubrey Smith to look at. He has apparantly been travelling in out-of-th-way places all his life. I should think the travelling comes first in his interest, but he also goes in for shooting and for photographing big game. Amongst other things, he once walked from Pekin to Burma. He has wandered all about in what we think of as “KingdonWard’s country” on the China, Burma, Tibet frontiers, and has also travelled extensively in Africa and South America. He mentioned that he had crossed the Andes seven times at different places. He neither lectures nor writes books, and I suppose that is why we do not know his name. We drank tea, and studied maps and photographs, fixed on the tour that would suit him best, and wrote off to our Darjeeling Secretary to make arrangements for him. It was very interesting but rather knocked my morning’s work endways.
We had a great day on Saturday with the Girl guides. I left this house at 8 o’clock and got back here about 5.30, so we had a good day of it. One of the firms here let me have a launch to take us all down the river to the Botanical Gardens and bring us back again for the sum of £1. There were 55 children and eight officers. We made good use of our day for taking tracking and stalking tests and fire-lighting. Many of the children had never been on a boat before or visited the gardens, so you may imagine how excited they were. It was heavenly to have a bath and lounge in an arm-chair reading the newspaper when I got in. Luckily I had no engagement for the evening which is a rare thing on a Saturday night, and it was heavenly to get into bed about 10 o’clock. There was a thick white cold weather mist lying over everything on Sunday morning, and when I drove out to meet G.B. at the Gharia Hat bridge at 6.30 a.m. I had to go dead slow to avoid bullock carts, looming up through the fog. G.B. and I had the most perfect ride, and stayed out for 2 ½ hours, riding pretty fast and covering a lot of ground. We explored a section of country of which we know the four boundaries, but into which we had never plunged before. There were heaps of jolly paths and roads, and everything looking so pretty in the early morning light with whisps of mist still lying about. The horses thought it a silly game for on several occasions they thought their noses were turned for home, and then we switched off and went south or east again.
Visitors again took up most of what was left of the morning, and we had a lunch-party for Sir Bijoy Singh Roy. I always take care to ask people who are good talkers to meet Sir Bijoy, for he is a quiet rather shy man. There was certainly plenty of talk going on, and if Bijoy was silent no-one noticed it.
This is the season of the year when old friends from up-country who have been on leave, turn up on their way out from home. An old planter friend from Jalpaiguri rang us up on Thursday, down to meet his wife and daughter, due out on Saturday. He dined and went to the pictures with us on Friday. It was a film Herbert specially wanted to see:- Gordon Harker in “The Lad” I persuaded him to come home and rest for an hour before dinner, and by this means he survived the evening well and it did him good, for he had been working like mad getting his Indebtedness Bill with some seven hundred amendments, ready for Council on Monday, and he had it so on his brain, he could not stop thinking about it. He enjoyed the film too. It really was extraordinarily funny! We took the Skeens (this family) to bathe and have tea at Tollygunge on Sunday. Its a thing that visitors to Calcutta always like doing.
This is the way the days go on, but is is boring to go on enumerating the little social doings, golf and cinema, and dancing at the Saturday Club and things like that, so I shant write any more!
Best love to you all
LJT