1936 May
From HPV to Annette
Darjeeling
May 5th 1936
My dear Annette
Tuesday but no mail letters yet owing to the delay to that P&O which went ashore or rather aground at Gib. It has not been an eventful week. I have gradually returned to a state of greater equanimity, having bought a bottle of the liver mucks in sheer despair. The weather has changed for the worse. Rain. There was a big storm down in the plains after the gruelling heat of last week. 110 or so. And we are getting the fringe of it. I woke up to hear thunder and howling of the wind with heavy rain on the tin roof: and soon I was conscious of an intermittent thud which meant heavy raindrops falling on to the spare bed. Luckily it stopped raining before the tin mug which I put under the leak filled up. But why mention this? it was some days ago.
I have walked. Twice (I think) during the week: once merely a card-dropping affair which was hardly worth the doing: once round Birch Hill. Then on Saturday over the top of Jalapahar, down onto the Auckland road near Ghoom and so home: six miles perhaps. On Sunday 10 or 11 or even more but in two dollops. We set out in a motor omnibus hung about with red crosses for it is also an ambulance on state occasions amid general applause and hearty merriment. Two miles beyond Ghoom we started walking, steadily down through forest and then sharply up. A large lunch – sandwiches are filling things: perhaps it was not really a large lunch. Then a walk back through the forest by another path. This completely destroyed me and I could scarcely move next morning for the stiffness of my calves.
There are people up from Jalpaiguri whom we know: and the result has been a considerable waste of time. Also there was a lunch yesterday undodgeable: with a cat sitting on my bed and on my clean shirt when I went in to change for the lunch. Also there is a cat with kittens above the ceiling. A collection of woes.
Learn also that work goes badly. But if the weather brightens up, I shall also
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
The Club
Darjeeling
May 5th 1936
My darling Annette
The mail is very late this week, and we have not yet got your letters – I think it must be the boat than ran ashore in the storm.
I have seen one or two of your old friends up here – Do you remember the Pliva child? A very pretty girl about your age or a little older, daughter of the Darjeeling confectioner? She had a pretty name too – which I cant remember. She has left school and is working in the shop. I recognised her and had a little chat with her the other day – She asked after you – Do you remember the Marsh children, two girls whom you first met at the Jalpaiguri camp, and with whom you afterwards spent a day on their tea-garden below Lelong – The girls are at home, but I have seen Mrs. Marsh once or twice and we have compared notes about our daughters. She is thinking of bringing them out next year. I should think it is a pity to have them out quite so young, even if they don’t want to have scholastic careers. The little chowkidan from the Rainbow came skipping along the road after me the other day asked after the Miss Babas – and so did the old cook from Ada Villa. This place is full of memories of you and Rosemary and Richard as small children – Dad and I have been walking about both on Birch Hill and Observatory Hill and we constantly remember incidents or general haunts connected with the different paths and places.
It would be interesting to know how clear a picture you have of Darjeeling in your mind –
Without your letter to answer it seems quite difficult to write
Best love, my darling
Mum
Family letter from LJT
The Club
Darjeeling
May 6th 1936
My dears,
The present seems rather unreal, because my mind is thrown forward all the time to the trip on which we start a week from to-day. The last three days have been very wet, but I am hoping that it is only a small depression, and that the weather will clear again before we start. It is not the monsoon yet.
On Sunday morning I had a real thrill. I was called to the telephone and the N.C.O. who is doing the wireless work in Darjeeling for the Everest Expedition, said “I have a message for you just come in from Mr Ruttledge”. It was just a message of thanks for the telegram I sent them on the day they were leaving Gangtok, and word that so far everything was going well and the weather was good. It seemed to bring them so near. I asked him to send back word that all their friends in Darjeeling are thinking of them constantly, which is quite true. I suppose being so near, and so many of us knowing so many of them, brings them continually to mind.
Mr Cooke and his wife arrived up here on Saturday, and on Sunday we took them out for a long walking picnic. We did about ten miles on lovely forest roads, and lunched in a dear little forest bungalow. Mrs Cooke only did half the distance, and returned from the lunch place by car picking us up where our forest path joined the hard tarmac cart road. I had thought Herbert might be too tired to walk the whole thing, but he is always afraid of being sick in the car, so preferred to walk, and was tired and the next day, very stiff. He has been feeling a bit tired, but is looking very well.
I was our all day on Monday too. It was the annual flower show, and I was helping to judge. The Judging took all the morning, and then the Judges were entertained to lunch by the committee. I spent the whole afternoon looking at the exhibits, for during the morning I had only been able to see the eight or nine things that we were judging. There were three exhibits from which I took a great many notes. Two were collections of high altitude indiginous plants, and the other a big collection of local jungle flowers and trees. There were heaps and heaps of old friends in from all over the district, and after the show was over, Herbert came along to the Gymkhana Club where it takes place, and we spent the rest of the evening with an ever changing party of people in the lounge.
While Walter Jenkins was up here I spent a lot of my time having lessons in photography. He is lending me his Leica Camera to take out on this trip, and has been awfully good instructing me in all its ways. We walked out to Ghum on Wednesday afternoon and had tea at the little hotel there, and took a lot of photographs en route. He took the spool of films down to Calcutta the following day, and writes that they are good and the exposures quite correct. I was using a neat little exposure-metre which I am taking out with me. We also went to the Club dance after dinner that night, and I enjoyed it so much. The band up here is far better than any of the bands in Calcutta in my opinion. There was plenty of room on the floor, and Walter dances extremely well. when I go to a dance with just one partner like that I always wonder why one ever does anything else. Its undoubtedly the way to enjoy dancing.
Since then I have not been out in the evenings, and have at last started sticking my big collection of mountain photos into albums. Its a job I can do quite nicely after dinner, and I dont fall asleep over it as I do if I try to read. In the cold weather in Calcutta I never have time to tackle it, and in the hot weather it is almost impossible for the fans blow everything about.
Mr Tilman got off at last on Friday morning, after waiting more than a week for his pass. When the pass did come it said he might spend six weeks in Sikkim provided he did not climb a “major Peak”. Evidently there is something going on in Sikkim, that is making them sticky about giving passes. I expect I shall find out what it is when I pass through Gangtok next week.
Have you heard the following tale? A young soldier was going to return from leave by areoplane, and when he got to the areodrome he found that the seat he had booked had also been, by some error, engaged by a girl, and as she had some urgent reasons for going quickly, he gave way to her, and wired to his colonel, “have given berth to girl in areoplane. Returning to-morrow”. In transmitting the message “berth” was changed to “birth”. The Colonel wired back “Your next confinement will be in Barracks”. I think its rather neat.
You will probably have a very scrappy letter next week, and then nothing for three or four weeks.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette
The Club
Darjeeling
May 12th
My darling Annette
Mrs Petrie wrote me such a nice letter about you – describing you as she sees the difference from two years ago. She says she loved having you to stay and she hopes you will go again when-ever you want to – and I’m sure she really means it –
I’ve really two mails to answer this week – for you remember last weeks was late – It really does seem to make you and Richard grown up young people, when I hear of you motoring up to town to an evening theatre and driving back in the middle of the night – It must have been good fun –
Numerous things have eaten up the time I should have spent in writing letters – I have been packing for the trek, all morning – Somehow one never can do it till just the last and then I like to exercise extreme care – for it makes such a difference when one is out, if one knows just where every thing is and how to get at it. By a good deal of experience I have learnt all sorts of tips about packing a suitcase so that anything can be got out without disturbing the rest – and small oddments are sorted into their “classes” and packed in several of those little coloured grass woven top and bottom wallet things that one gets in Colombo – One has toilet things – one medicines one bandages – plaster etc – one such things as pens, pencils – rubber – paperclips elastic-bands – and one for a few sewing things.
I don’t think I’ll have time to write a family letter this week – but I have not done much to make an interesting one, except going up to visit the Everest Wireless Station – I’ve been working a lot and gone for several long walks to get myself and my boots in training – but I have avoided social doings as much as possible, though its true I did go to a big dinner and dance on Saturday.
Sorry to send a short and dull letter – I’m not a bit in the mood for writing –
Best love, my darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Darjeeling
May 13th 1936
My dear Annette
A notable occasion. In a few minutes your mother starts on her 28 day trip in Sikkim. The main body of porters went off yesterday: one man remains to accompany your mother and Mrs Martin today, carrying coats tiffin and cameras. I arose early in order to see and to participate in the departure. Which was scheduled for eight o’clock. But now at 8.25 Mrs Martin has not arrived and your mother has disappeared bent on the purchase of apples. I move from this room into the one vacated by your mother
Interruption to talk to a man who came to see the party off. Now a quarter to nine and still no sign of Mrs Martin. And this is the more distressing because I want to settle down to letter writing and particularly to work. It is mail day and the general atmosphere of expectation and uneasiness is destructive of thought. No error is greater that that of friends who turn up to see an expedition off. There are always urgent matters which crop up at the last moment and a circle of friends is then an encumbrance. How often have we felt that at Victoria when leaving for India!
News of the week. An improvement in the weather has brought an improvement in both health and spirits to me. It is now less misty and less chillsome. Last week an unwise attempt to push through calculations necessary for my note about fees on Debt Settlements brought me to very of destruction. It became necessary to refuse to walk on Saturday or on Sunday (as is our habit up here) and instead to lie on my bed. Working against time is always exhausting: and doing figures against time, for a person of my type is a fair knock out.
We went to the pictures on Friday (a wash-out) and have been to the Club two or three evenings. It is not particularly lively these days.
The voyagers have just started; an hour and ten minutes late. Mrs Martin rolled up at nine with not a word of explanation as to the delay.
Curious.
Much love
Dad.
From LJT to Annette
San RH
Sikkim
May 15th 1936
My darling Annette
This is not going to be much of a letter, as an account of the trek up to date, will reach you shortly – but I thought you might like a line to let you know that I am alive and well – and enjoying myself enormously – Its grand to be out on the road again and I’m longing for the days when we get up into the high mountains. The weather has been marvellous. We were jolly lucky not to start last week, when it rained all the time.
Forgive this brief line – Its only meant as a sort of greeting.
Best love
Mum
Typewritten family letter from HPV
Darjeeling
May 19th 1936
Hullo, Everybody!
Joan has sent in from Gangtok the first instalment of the diary of her new trek, asking me to have it typed by my stenographer and sent round to the family. In a letter to me from there she says that all has gone well up to date; though (my word) there were two missionaries, very chummy, in the rest-house. Also it appears that there were three others, mixed military and tourist, or perhaps these were coming the next day; the letter was obscure. At Song Bungalow, the next after Temi? they drank marwa to such effect that Helen Martin spilt hers and they had hysterics. The last-minute cook is an adept and willing; the jail-bird a treasure. But the admirable Keeta who was so attentive on last year’s trip and who has been specially selected for the French expedition was a plain fool until he did six month’s hard for lambasting an Excise Inspector and profited much by this Eastern equivalent to higher education. Mr. Kydd who runs the Darjeeling porters for ordinary trippers and who has been made by Joan local secretary of the Himalayan Club came in very worried soon before the start and announced that Joan couldn’t take one of her men because he ‘had done time for knifing a man8. That 8 represents an inverted comma. She replied that it was good to have a stout fellow and that if anyone attacked them on the road he would prove useful.
If the Everest people have been held up by snow it seems probable that the Borom La which Joan counts on crossing will be under snow; for we have been having rain here and the clouds have passed in that direction. It would be a pity if she could not get across because it looks as if the path passed just below a mountain peak that cannot be seen from anywhere near in the ordinary routes. Also there is a thrill about doing a pass which no one save the local folk has done before. She must be a tough nut to manage to write so much each day on top of the marches that she does; for although these few to Gangtok are not hard, they are abominably hot and the ordinary person is wishful for nothing but a loaf when he gets to the bungalow in the evening.
As for me I emulated her example and walked. Four miles on Friday but more strenuous than it sounds, on account of the downs and ups. On Saturday I walked round by Ghum, out by the old Calcutta and back by the Auckland Road, in two hours and a minute and collected the finest set of blisters round and under the feet that anyone has ever managed in a like time. Next day I was a cripple and stayed about the club till the evening when I crawled fifty yards to the Town Hall and saw a movie. First a girl. Punk; but it made me laugh without stint till near the end when it attained solemnity; and I got rid of vast quantities of metaphorical black bile. It was disappointing that the heroine did not escape suspicion by displaying a hairy chest (which should have been easy enough to improvise) like the impersonator at the King’s Theatre in 1911 – though it is true that he disgusted us much; but that would have been art. Item I went out to dinner at Government House on Thursday; staying myself with flagons; in fact I danced one dance afterwards under duress. And last night I went out to dine with Mrs Vere Hodge, not having been able to think of an excuse in time to get out of it: and of course on the way I met everyone with whom I have refused to dine for months past on the ground that I never do, and was unable to answer their queries as to my intentions. (Joan said before she left that I would do well to be entangled with a minx during her absence so that I might be cheered; but that was not the reason for my outing.) Result I was abject this morning.
Farewell.
Dad
From HPV to Annette
Darjeeling
May 20th
My dear Annette.
No: you did not miss the post. And I can’t send you your report because I have no idea where it is. It was a good one: as usual. Do not however become a proud poppet.
Your dear papa is importunate about noises wherever he goes. Like the Princess: I can hear through ten mattresses and nine eiderdowns so to say. But would not anyone grieve to be wakened twice by cats screaming love songs in the loft above his bedroom? as I, last night. Almost I regret the kittens which formerly lived there: till I suggested their removal: owing not to the noise but to fear of stenches.
You and the poor Richard have all my sympathy. I marvel that he didn’t twist his tail round and sting himself like a scorpion. Blind rage and dumb exhaustion alternate on such occasions: the perversity of inanimate things. (I refer to the car breakdown, the vain attempts at diagnosis, and the walk home funing).
Lastly allow me to say that I am glad to hear of your finding a satisfactory eyemaker.
As to my non news – see printed bills: see (as the movie advertisements say) the circular letter typed laboriously last night and enclosed. It says nothing: but allows you to guess that all goes on as it went on.
Many say they never saw me look better. And if I were not unable to do a decent job of work, could refrain from jumping like a bullfrog when disturbed, and had any guts for anything, should be better.
No more.
Much love
Dad.
From HPV to Annette(?)
Darjeeling
May 27th 1936
My dear
A solid melancholy downpour. It suits my mood which is low. Misfortune fell upon me. Having slept badly of late I had devoted care and patience to winning sleep, and for two consecutive nights had succeeded. Again last night – almost. But at 4 am. in burst Puffer, Mr Kindersley’s old spaniel. The door was closed but all fittings in this club are so ramshackle that, when she threw her weight against it, it opened. I was wakened by a crash and a bang and thinking “Anyhow that can’t be my door” composed myself to sleep: but there was a fierce rumbling which grew and grew – I thought suddenly “Tomcats in my bedroom” and switched on the light. And there sat the old beast, gazing on me affectionately, stumbling and grunting and indicating that she was soaked through and wished to be dried. I devoted the bath mat to this and afterwards went downstairs to ascertain the number of her master’s room and up again to let her into it. Returning I thought now I shall go to sleep at once – but it was ;not so. I lay awake till it was broad daylight: and now feel limp.
Work apart (and how bad it has been), not much doing. A walk late one evening to see a man who lives at the bottom of Birch Hill. Another which cut itself short because I took Puffer who after initial manifestations of joy resisted passively and broke my spirit. Another, quite vigorous, on Sunday afternoon round Birch Hill. Two evenings running down to the Sanitarium to see the youth mentioned in the circular letter: the first time to no effect because he was still under the anaesthetic, and yesterday successfully. Also on Sunday before dinner I went to “Sylvia Scarlett” which had been praised to me but seemed very poor stuff. And I have been along to the Gymkhana Club to change books several evenings. It all sounds a lot; but wasn’t.
Why, oh why, cannot i do simple arithmetic without vast strainings and copious errors?
Much love
yours
Dad