1937 December
From HPV to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Dec 1st 1937
My dear Annette.
I have a chill: I lie in bed: I am incapable of writing coherently. First the physical difficulties of writing when one has to lie restfully: secondly a sort of laziness due to being subnormal after a little fever.
The book lent to me is French. La Route des Indes, by one Paul Moroud. All French men say the same things about the same places: but use different words. This one, to show that he has been there, uses the native words for as many things as possible: leaving his readers in agreeable ignorance of what it is all about. Why do French writers strain so hard to be clever? And why do they all talk so much about Cleopatra when they deal with Egypt? Or Aden? (“The elephants of Cleopatra came down to drink at the tanks”!!!! – from (?)re(?????)
However it is readable and uses a lot of words which I have not met before.
No, there is no real news.
Much love
Dad
From HPV to Romey
The Towers,
Cossipore, Calcutta
Dec 1st, 1937
My dear Rosemary,
Pride comes before a fall. On Tuesday I was announcing that I had not been so fit for years and years, at a cocktail party when asked “How are you?” I replied, “Can’t you see at a glance?” ---- and two hours later I was smitten by a cold. Next morning, yesterday, I had a temperature and it continued all day. This morning I have practically none, but as you may suppose, I am not feeling particularly full of punch.
I have found the frogs again, or one of them. There were two huge frogs in the lily pond. They lay out on the water lily leaves in the evening, hard to see because their markings imitate the leaves most cunningly. The other day I gave them to your mother; not that they were mine, but I surrendered all my rights as discoverer and chief interpreter. And from that moment we saw no more of them till on Sunday evening. I saw the head of one among the weeds at the side of the pond. My proprietary rights extend also to a Java sparrow which appeared in the garden the other day: red beak, white cheeks, grey and cinnamon body. Very handsome, but not belonging to this country--a cage bird escaped. I spied it on the grass and adopted it. But we have given Mr. Matthews sole rights to the crows and major rights to the squirrels, after all they come and feed out of his hand sometimes.
We were amused the other night on Central Avenue to see that some great man was giving a show on the pavement, a couple of hundred feet of it had been covered with a tent and there was a dinner going on, people sitting on the ground and being fed. If you can imagine the pavement in the Strand in London being used for a private show, you have the analogy. And it is the less astonishing when one considers that on occasion one sees people building fires and cooking meals on that same pavement -- holy men and wandering folk like gypsies.
No news this week. On Saturday we went out to tea in DumDum pleasant enough but nothing to write home about. On Sunday I spent the morning on a snail hunt. The water snails are thick in the lily pond and eat the lily leaves. They cluster in half dozens on the cement edge and I scooped out hundreds if not thousands and threw them into the Hoogly. When I had finished the pond looked very respectably clear of snail, two days later they were as thick as ever! Apparently they cover the mud at the bottom and do not merely hang on to the sides. It is a little hard because it was back-breaking hanging over the edge of the pond which has many bushes preventing easy access and scooping up the beasts.
There was rain two nights ago and chill. Hence my being overcome. Night before that and again today the weather was and is lovely.
Much love,
Dad
Family letter From LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Dec 2nd 1937
My Dears
There is not much to write about this week, rather luckily for me, because it is the Christmas mail week, and I have a lot of individual notes to write, so am going to make this a very short letter.
A cyclone in the Bay of Bengal has upset our weather, and we have had several cloudy days, and two nights of heavy rain, which made it really cold. Herbert contracted a chill in consequence, and woke with a temperature yesterday morning. I kept him in bed and he slept nearly all day, and has woken this morning almost himself again. The weather is itself again. Its heavenly this morning, bright and crisp, with bri (Sorry! I have torn the top page, hence this gap, but it will take as long to take all the paper and carbons out and rearrange them, that I am just carrying on) - - - - - with brilliant sun. The garden has benefitted tremendously from the rain, and the young plants are simply leaping ahead.
I have been busy with things to do with our three cocktail-supper parties, preparations for the Himalayan Club Committee meeting which takes place to-night, and matters concerning the Photographic Exhibition. Most of yesterday I spent on writing short messages in Christmas cards and addressing them. I had a party of ladies to lunch, and they found it so pleasant sitting in the garden that they stayed a long time. The lad who helped me with the cataloguing for the Photo Exhibition two years ago, came to tea to talk over the plans for the year’s show, so I did not have as much time as I hoped to get on with my Christmas mail.
We are planning a quiet dinner-party here for Christmas night, which will include Percy Brown and Mr van Manen. Harry has to dine with the senior partner of his firm, so cannot be with us I am sorry to say. He came out about 6.30 on Sunday and stayed to dinner with us. His leave must have done him a lot of good. He is looking so well.
I have been out to lunch a couple of times and we have been to a couple of cocktail parties. I spent a delightful afternoon with my charming little American friend, Louise Rankin, on Monday, looking at her pictures of their last tour in the Hills, and showing her my pictures of our Egyptian trip. Later I went on to see the old Seventh Day Adventist Padre, who takes such marvellous photographs of the Hills, and whom I must have mentioned from time to time in my letters. He has been away in Burmah for two years, only paying occasional visits to Calcutta. I am glad he is back here now, because not only am I very fond of him, but he has the most wonderful store of lovely mountain photos, which will be the making of our Exhibition.
Quantities of invitations have been pouring in to all sorts of Cold Weather parties. I am glad we fixed ours as quickly as we did, for the days get so quickly filled up.
We have Sir Henry and Lady ap Rhys Pryce coming to stay on Monday and they are going to be with us for twelve whole days, which is going to be a bit of a tie. He is Idris’ burra sahib, so Idris felt we had to ask them, but we felt confident that she would’nt come, so it was quite a shock when she accepted.
Herbert attended the arrival of the Brabourns last Saturday morning, and thought they looked nice people, but Lord B does not look as if he has the force of character of Sir John Anderson.
Forgive me if I don’t write more.
Best love to you all
LJT
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Dec 9th 1937
My Dears,
We had the first of our series of cocktail-supper- parties yesterday, and it seemed to go very well. I feel just slightly jaded this morning, for there was a good deal to do in preparation for it, since it was out of the ordinary. There well not be half so much to do for the two next week, for we can leave most of the things in place, and the servants having done it once will know the drill net time. A great many of our guests were people belonging to the Himalayan Club, or people whom I know to be interested in mountain matters, and the excitement of the evening was added to by the arrival of a letter by the evening post from John Hunt, who with Reggie Cooke has just arrived back from two months climbing in Sikkim. Their main object was to reconnoitre the South-Eastern approaches to Kangchenjunga, which I gather are not very promising , but they climbed the Nepal Peak, 23,500 ft, got to within 700, or 800ft of the North Col of Kangchenjunga. Reached to within 400 ft of the top of the Sugar Loaf, which is 21,400 ft, and did a lot of exploring of various cols and gaps, and so have collected a great deal of valuable information about possibilities of getting from one great valley to another. The Hunts arrived in Calcutta yesterday themselves (They did not know where I was, so the letter had been forwarded by Grindlay) and rang me up last night, so I am greatly looking forward to meeting them to-day, and have already put out my Kangchenjunga maps, the accounts of both of Paul Bauer’s magnificent attempts on Kang’ and several photographs of the part of the world they have been in, with which to illustrate and illuminate our talk.
The ap Rhys Pryces arrived on Sunday evening, and rather luckily they have a lot of people to see in Calcutta, and he, of course, is busy with his work, while she has a lot of shopping, and a lot of writing to do, so they do not take up quite so much time as I feared, but sShe is one of those people who take a long time to make up their minds about anything, and being a most confused thinker, is always changing it! I was not in to greet them on their arrival, as I was dining with Walter Jenkins, and going to one of the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra Concerts, which I enjoyed very much indeed.
There have been quite a lot of happenings this week. My old horse, Tip-It-Up has come back from Jalpaiguri. He arrived on Sunday morning, and I went over to see him at Dum Dum, where he is staying in the Chummery where he used to live. He is looking a bit thin, I think, but otherwise seemed fit. I think I have found a lad who would like to take him over. He was going to try him to-day or to-morrow. I am very sorry to part with the old boy, but it is useless extravagance to keep him if the riding is no good in Chinsurah.
The Carey Morgans are just back from three weeks in Delhi, Agra, and Rajputana. They are tremendously enthusiastic about the whole thing, and keep on saying we must go there before we leave India. I went to see them before lunch on Saturday, as I was lunching at a chummery near by, with Charles Crawford, who came out to I.C.I. last year, and this year nearly climbed Chumolhari with Freddie Spencer Chapman. Herbert was to have lunched there to, but the chill I mentioned last week turned out to be a mild attack of Dengue fever, so he had to keep quiet for a few days, and did not go back to office till Monday.
My old Padre friend and his wife came to lunch on Monday, and brought a great mass of his mountain photographs from which to choose those we want to show in the Exhibition. I had several card tables put up in the drawing room after lunch, and we spread photos all over the room. Mr. Hamilton takes most of his pictures on half plate plates, and enlarges them up to 12 by 14 and larger, so they are real pictures. We spent practically the whole afternoon over them, and I have kept a magnificent selection. I think the Exhibition this year ought to knock spots off the one two years ago for the quality of its photos. I have just heard from Dr Wigram by Air Mail this morning, that he is sending out 15 large pictures of the different Everest Exhibitions, and about which I am very pleased, as I was not at all sure that we should be in time to get anything.
(Pause here while I went to answer the telephone, and have had a long talk with Reggie Cooke, who arrived down from Darjeeling this morning, and who wants me to go and lunch with him at 1 o’clock. Of course I must, for I think he has only got about one day in Calcutta, though I shall have to cut my letter writing a bit short.)
All this has made my head so full of mountains that I find it difficult to think about anything else, and had better stop.
Best love and a happy New Year to you all
LJT
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Dec 9th 1937
My dear Annette
How noble of you to send an air mail letter when you missed or forgot the post: now if I on the other hand fail to write by ordinary mail in any week I abstain from further action. It will be an evil day when there will be three mails per week by air: not that I dread the possibility of letters being lost owing to air-crashes, but that there will be no compulsion to write on any particular day and therefore no incentive to write on one day rather than another, which is by interpretation “at all”.
This morning – how lovely a morning it is! A slight haze over the river gives it mystery and beauty and the boats slide up the stream as if in a looking glass. Behind me five small green parrots crack the silence with occasional frantic screams; and at that moment a tug started away from the wharf below the garden and by it puffing and its making of waves destroyed all the illusion of enchantment in a trice. What is a trice? Define its relationship to a cockatrice and give reasons.
This morning, I am recovering from (which is English for “suffering from”) the effects of a party. The party was full size. Forty people in all: 37 guests then: but two failed at the last moment. Cocktails at seven – and one guest arrived then: others at any time from then till 8.30 – and dinner, supper at 8.15 which meant actually 8.45. Your mother does these things well. The ten little tables each with its light looked admirable and the foraging for food at a centre table worked without a hitch. My feet felt fit to fall from off me by the finish. However I was in bed by ten to eleven.
My chill was dengue fever: the rash appeared on the third morning and faded away without my knowing it according to the habit of that disease. It left me flabby but less despairing than it often does.
Work does not go particularly well. How infuriating are statistics if you do not take the figures at their face value!
Much love
Dad
From HPV to Romey
Calcutta, Dec 9th, 1937
My dear Rosemary,
From you only of the family a letter by this mail, though one from Annette who had forgotten to post turned up by air mail. One has one’s ups and downs in Form and an occasional week of bad marks is not really a matter for much lament. Though do not suppose that I am advocating slackness.
Last night we sat down to supper 40 in all -- no, 38, for two people didn’t turn up, owing to illness. There are many colds about. The idea was that they should come at seven for cocktails, have supper and go off reasonably early in view of the comparatively long and essentially unpleasant journey back to their homes through north Calcutta. Incidentally, the traffic appears each week to grow more confused and less easy to traverse, and the journey to and from the office is no joy.
The party went off well enough, though it was a beastly evening with a semi-fog hanging about and creeping into the house. We had the three sitting rooms open for the guests and they also strolled onto the verandah. This was an error; we should have done better to use two only of the rooms, so as to keep people more crowded together in the cocktail period. It is the essence of a cocktail party that there should be a scrum, for in this way it is easy to change partners. If there is lots of room, you find two people stuck on a sofa in a corner wondering each how to move away from the other.
My chill last week was really Dengue fever. This was proved by a rash which came out upon my chest in the third day and which vanished just as suddenly. I went back to office in Monday which turned out to be a holiday, for the end of the Mohammedan fast, the month Ramadan, during which they do not eat or drink from dawn till sunset. The chief effect of dengue is depression, but I have not been more depressed than I often manage to be on my own account, so I hold myself to have escaped lightly.
Much love,
Dad
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Dec 15th 1937
My darling Annette
Your letters are always cheering – What a boon it is to be born the sort of person who can enjoy life! May you keep the ability always.
Last night at dinner I sat next to Col Kirwin and we had an interesting talk – We both find the world – and our own bit of it specially, so full of things we’d like to learn about and write about, but lack the time to do it all and wish we could steal some of the idle hours from the many people who have to kill them by playing bridge every morning – Col. Kirwan is ugly but interesting – I had never really talked to him properly before – It was a contrast to the talk I had with the man on my other side with whom conversation had been just the manufactured sort of stuff that does well enough to keep the social ball rolling, but is’nt of much interest and does not leave one with a feeling of something gained. Col Kirwan has just performed an operation which he believes has never been done successfully before – He has grafted the pupil of the eye of a man of 60 into the eye of a totally blind girl of 20 and she has got perfect vision with it. Is’nt it amazing? We got up from the table just then and I did not have time to ask him, but I suppose they take the pupil from someone immediately after death –
Herbert Richter’s wedding yesterday was very charming – Elizabeth is a sweet looking girl with blue blue eyes and tremendous sweeping long dark lashes. She has a beautiful speaking voice and is obviously intelligent and I think has quite a well developed sense of humour.
After the reception I went back to Percy Brown’s Flat for a short time and with great chuckling he described how he had asked some lady to come up to his flat some day and see his figure! He said she looked very startled till he explained that this was a Greco-Roman Antique he had picked up somewhere – Its a lovely thing, but I was too busy to ask him about it yesterday.
Other letters demand attention – so good-bye my dear.
Love from
Mum
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Dec. 15th 1937
My darling Annette
We hope that this will reach you about Christmas Day and we send with it our love and greetings and best wishes – and also our present in the form of a cheque – I hope you’ll get some fun out of spending it –
My mind is somewhat distracted by a variety of things – Our guests – Idris’ sickness and wondering whether I ought to get in a nurse to look after him – H club letters which are overdue for attention and so on – This is a bad time of year if one has any duties to attend to for there are such an awful lot of social things going on. Its bad of me to neglect letters to you children on any account – They should come first but sometimes so many interruptions come and a sick person on the spot and needing attention seems to take precedence of anything else –
Happy Christmas – my dear – and love from
Mum
From LJT to Romey
The Towers,
Cossipore, Calcutta
Dec 15th, 1937
My darling Rosemary,
There’s lots of news in your last letter and I was awfully glad that Anne took you out again for a birthday treat. You seem to have done well in the food line that day. Oxford must be much more amusing to go out into than the surroundings at St Monica’s, isn’t it?
I’ve just come up from lunch, which I had alone, the Pryces being out and Indris in bed. I was much absorbed in Tilman’s book “The Ascent of Nanda Deul” and not thinking about the mynah birds at all. Towards the end of lunch I looked up and there, close beside one another on the doorsill of one of the doors on to the verandah, were the two mynahs, patiently waiting and not saying a word. They hopped about so happily when I threw them some scraps.
We are already having rather a surfeit of parties and the pace does not slacken, but rather grows quicker as time goes on and Christmas comes. We have to go to a garden party this afternoon. I think Dad is glad he bought the new grey morning coat and tall hat. He has had to wear it quite a lot already and he looks very nice in it.
Idris’ grey squirrel came and fed out of my hand at breakfast yesterday. He always pretends that the last thing in his mind is to come and take toast out of one’s hand. He gallops this way and that, nibbling a grass seed and so on and zigzagging here and there -- and at last the last he makes a run, seizes one’s hand with his tiny paws and tries to pull the toast away. If one holds on tight, he stays, clutching one’s hand and eating the toast there.
Dear - dear - I’ve to go and dress for the party in about ten minutes and I’ve still to write Uncle Bous.
Best love, darling,
From Mum
From HPV to Romey
Calcutta, Dec 16th, 1937
My dear Rosemary,
It is to wish you a Happy Christmas and New Year that I write by Air Mail today and that means your getting no letter from me by ordinary mail a fortnight hence. But I feel far from Christmas-like. I am in the verandah, it is ten thirty in the morning, the sky is bright blue, the sun shining, the air is balmy. The birds cavort and all the tugs of Calcutta (I should think from their number) are sporting in the river, which is full. It feels like midsummer and I cannot realize that you have been having snow and cold and have to rely on the warmth of your dispositions for any comfort that you may extract from circumstances.
The Christmas rush is starting here. What those do who go to everything I cannot conceive. For I, who do not go out much, owing to the skill with which your mother perspires herself on my behalf, have yet begun already to jade somewhat with the little that I have had to do. Today there has not even been time to go to the pond and see the frog, which is a daily ritual. Yesterday it obliged by plunging into the water in an elegant way. Usually it merely lies on the edge like the front end of a crocodile (for it is enormous) and the only satisfaction about it is to feel that it is there. However your mother has renounced interest in it.
The other animals have been very gay, especially the parrots and the squirrels. But we get a lot of fun out of the mynahs, too. It is amusing to see how bold they have become against the crows, which descend to steal the offerings. The mynahs bound against them with open defiance. Yet if they were a few feet further off from us, the appearance of a crow would send the mynahs off in sudden flight.
Much love,
Dad
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Dec 16th 1937
My Dears,
This has been an extremely busy week. I have had a lot of business connected with the photo exhibition. People are responding most nobly. Dr Wigram has arranged with the Geographical Society to send me out 15 selected enlargements of Everest Pictures. Paul Bauer wrote by Air yesterday to say that he is sending photos by Air of Nanga Parbat and of Siniolchu, as he was afraid ordinary post would not be in time, and members in India are turning up trumps. Young Richard Gardiner, who used to be here, went out a trk with us, and has got into the Survey, has sent a packet of photos of Gurhwal, and asked me to select any I think good enough or interesting enough, and he will have enlargements made, so Walter Jenkins and I had a sitting over the small prints, and have picked out 8 beauties for enlarging. I spent almost the whole of Monday morning looking through his plates with Padre Hamilton, and we chose a number of good things. The Sappers are going to let us have the lights from the Fort, and there now only remains the method of hanging to decide and arrange for, about which I am going to spend some time with Percy Brown on Saturday. I am really touched by the way the people from home have responded. Even Mr. Tilman, busy as he must be, is going to try to let us have some pictures of Nanda Devi.
It has been rather a “mountainous” time altogether, for I rushed off from my English Mail last week to lunch with Reggie Cooke and John and Joy Hunt, and spent the whole of the afternoon and early part of the evening with them hearing about their two months climbing in Sikkim and looking at their photos. The Hunts went off to England that night but Reggie Cooke was here till Monday, and came out to lunch with us on Sunday, and we went in to tea with him at the Saturday Club, and had a very interesting time looking at his photos. He has been appointed to Lahore. I am awfully sorry we are loseing him from Calcutta, and I shall miss him very much.
Our cocktail parties, followed by cold supper, on Monday and Tuesday went off well especially the one on Tuesday. I am glad to have done that bit of entertaining. The sad thing was that Idris was in bed with flu or something of the sort. It began on Saturday evening, and he is still very miserable. He’s a bad patient, for he is full of theories about the actions of different drugs, and never believes that the doctor is giving him what is good for him. He is also inclined to get dreadfully depressed. Having him in bed has taken up quite a bit of time one way and another, and left the ap Rhys Pryces almost entirely on my hands, though they have been going out a fair amount, and I secretly arranged with friends of mine, who know them too, to ask them out to lunch on the days of my two parties. They and I dined out with the Blandys on Saturday, and danced at the Saturday Club afterwards, and had a pleasant evening. I had dined there the previous night with Walter Jenkins, and been to see the film “Souls at Sea”, which is interesting up to a point, but annoying in detail, and spoilt by an absurd little ass of a heroine.
Idris had a tea-party at Dum Dum on Saturday, and kindly let us ask two of the young I.C.S. men who have just motored all the way out from England. They are an extremely nice pair of lads, and it was interesting to hear about their trip. They have gone odd to their respective districts now, after puzzling all the authorities about their “joining time” leave. One is always supposed to join a new appointment ten days after arrival at the first port one lands in in India, and these lads did not land anywhere, so the Babus were put into a great state to find some rule that would cover their case.
Herbert Richter was married yesterday. It was a nice little wedding in a side chapel of the Cathedral and there was a reception afterwards. No time for more.
Best love,
LJT
1937 December Part 3
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Dec 23rd 1937
My Dears,
It’s been a frightfully busy, but not very interesting week. The ap Rhys Pryces went off on after lunch on Saturday, and I must say I breathed a sigh of relief to see them go. There have been a great many parties on and also a lot of things to do with the Photographic Exhibition to arrange. When Dr. Heron wanted me to run it at the beginning of January, I foresaw, that it was going to make a frightful rush round about Christmas time, but I suppose it is worth it to have it while the British Association people are here. Of course having Idris in bed has made a lot of extra work for me. He was entanbled in a mass of engagements, and I had to spend an awful lot of time ringing up to let people know that he could not come. He was up for the first day yesterday, and is rather surprised to find that he is feeling a bit weak and shaky, though I warned him that he would.
The Sheriff, Dr Law gave a nice garden party in the Agrihorticultural gardens on Thursday last. Those sort of parties are always a good opportunity to meet ones Indian friends and acquaintances, and they are so suitable for the Indian Climate. After the Garden party I took the Pryces to the Saturday Club at their own request to see a very dull Cabaret. I had seen it the previous night, and told them it was dull, but someone had told Lady P that it was good and she set her heart on seeing it. Luckily we fell in with Percy Brown and Mrs. Stanley just leaving the Club after changing their Library books, so we made them return with us and their conversation made up for the not very interesting show.
There is a marvelous old professor out here, Sir William Holdsworth, who was a Don at St. John’s in Herbert’s time, and we were bidden to lunch by another old St John’s man to meet him and his wife at lunch on Sunday. He and his wife are like people out of the previous century. He has a massive bow front, and an enormous moustache, the two sides of which never never seem to match, so that it looks just as if it had been stuck on. His wife matches him beautifully. She is a solid lady with hair arranged a la Queen Mary, and she was wearing a large white terai hat. She exclaimed with surprise when she saw me in my little pill-box hat, for we were all going on to the Flying Gymkhana at Dum Dum, but having told her that she was probably wise to wear a terai, as she did not know how sensitive she might be to the Indian sun, I went on to explain that no women took any notice of the sun in Calcutta in the cold weather, and that men were doing so less and less. Herbert would have fainted at the idea on not wearing a topi during the day time a few years ago, but now he cheerfully drives about in his open car, with the hood down in a felt hat.
It was bad luck for poor Idris not being able to attend the Flying Gymkhana, for he is streets the best amature pilot here. He lent his old machine, and allowed the new one to be out for inspection. It was a pleasant show. There were some amusing stunts, and the Instructor did some lovely acrobatics --pardon--aerobatics. There were hundreds of people there whom we knew, and we had an excellent tea. Later we went on to a big cocktail party in DumDum, given by some charming people who have a big house there, in which about 150 guests had plenty of room to move about.
Monday was the sort of day I like. I was able to stay in all day and polished off a lot of writing and household work, and then went in to a Cocktail party about 6:30, and straight on to dine with Percy Brown and go to the Ball in Aid of the S.P.C.A. We were a party of eight, and all such nice people. P.B. told some marvellous stories and made us rock with laughter at dinner, and the rest of the evening went merrily too.
We went to another huge cocktail party on Tuesday, and last night was the Viceroy’s Ball at Belvedere. Rather luckily we had not arranged a dinner-party here, for Idris was not fit to go, so we got a friend to come and spend the evening with him, and we dined with friends in Calcutta. The Linlithgos looked very nice, but they don’t join in the revels in the way the Willingdons did, and don’t make you feel that it is their party in the same way.
Best love,
LJT
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Dec 23rd
My darling Annette
Do you suppose that drinking some white wine at dinner and two glasses of champagne at the Viceroy’s Ball is what has made me feel irritable this morning – for something has! I’ve been very scratchy with all the servants but comfort myself with the thought that its good for them to get it in the neck now and again for most times I think I am a little too easy going – It may be not that mocker – wine, but simply a little overtiredness. I have been living in a constant state of rush – no pressure, is a better word – for the last two weeks and having Idris in bed has complicated everything so much. He is the world’s worst patient – He’s full of theories and disbelieves his doctors – I delighted with each new medicine for about a day and then gets sick of it – He’s up and about now, but rather gloomy and depressed.
An urgent Air Mail letter came from Col Kenneth Mason two days ago, saying that he is frightfully worried because so little stuff is coming in for the 1938 Himalayan Club Journal and would I ginger people up? As he wants the stuff by the end of January, I thought I had better get down to it and wrote about 6 letters of appeal yesterday and must do a couple more to-day or to-morrow. its curious what a lot of boosting most people need to get them to do anything outside their routine job or routine play.
I have had amusing letters from Professors Gates and Crew, who are to stay with us for the Science Congress. I am rather looking forward to having them.
Our date for going to Chinsurah is fixed. Mr Burrows leaves on March 11th and he suggest that we go there two or three days before. Really I’m quite looking forward to it.
Thank you for your Christmas wishes and for your kind thought about a present – Presents are always difficult things, and I beg you not to worry about it.
Best love
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Dec 23rd 1937
My dear Annette
I have used up all my stuff on a letter to Richard: to wit gossip about the birds in the garden (a matter of no earthly interest except to one actually watching them) and a list of cocktail parties and such. For there have been many.
Thank heaven that we do not try to work in two or more in the one evening. Last night the Viceroy’s Ball. Dinner beforehand with the Pattersons who were at Barisal with us: you remember? [no?] Next to me a youngish American woman sufficiently intelligent to understand my brand of nonsense talk and sufficiently simple to be bewildered by it. So that was all right and I prattled about the Readers Digest and life in the States as viewed by the Frenchman and so on. At the dance (Ball) there was more talking than dancing for me: as there would be even if I danced the whole time: maybe. And not too much searching for partners when dances started; though a good deal. I met a consul: Belgian? Danish? I don’t know what. In the supper room, bar or whatever you call it. He lamented the absence of onion soup: it was towards the end of the evening and we were eating bacon and eggs. In Hambourg there is the best onion soup: it is the only restorative: you sleep well after it: and what is more – “if you have had already thirty pegs before it, you can” [with a fine rush of enthusiasm} “have forty pegs after – and feel nothing bad.” Hurrah! But he said “it is difficult to make. I have tried and have not made it.” The American young woman was enthusiastic. She too knew the soup: knew it also as made in Hambourg: and regretted it. She is wife of a consul. He comes from Los Angeles. I expounded to him how interesting an experiment it was to collect at Hollywood all the beauties of the world, men and women, and how beautiful a race would result. Coldly he responded that also they are collecting all the uglies and all the toughs and the odds are just as strong the other way. In fact they breed not only for beautiful bodies but for hairy chests. Very sad.
Enough. For such. (Incidentally I gave a brief and misleading lecture on Oxford Groupism to a Jewess)
Yours. With love
Dad.
From LJT to Romey
The Towers,
Cossipore, Calcutta
Dec 23rd, 1937
My darling Rosemary,
Thank you so much for your good wishes and for the hankies, which are most acceptable. The envelope had broken open a bit, but the contents were safe. We did not have to pay anything on the packet.
Idris Matthews is very funny when he is ill -- in many ways he is so like a small boy. I don’t think he believes that anyone has ever felt so ill before, or that quinine has really given people a buzzy head! He’s very sorry for himself now he is up, because he thought he was going to feel quite well, and of course he’s weak after nearly two weeks in bed.
There’s been a sad affair with the malis this week. The servants reported that the malis were cutting a lot of the maidan and other fern out of the compound and selling it, so I had them up and gave them a wigging and also sent for the Jemadar Constable who is in charge of the sentries at all the gates of the estate. I told them that his sentries were to see that nothing is taken out of the compound by the malis. How sad for them just when they were looking forward to making a nice little bit of money over Christmas. Sometimes one gets tired of not being able to trust people in this country. It’s a pity they are nearly all so dishonest and such liars.
Isn’t it odd I can’t find a home for Tip-It-Up? Everyone either has a horse, can’t afford to keep one, is going home in a month or two, or wants to get a young horse to train for polo. I hope something will turn up soon, for all this time I am paying for his keep and I really can’t ride from here at this busy time of year.
Best love, my darling,
From Mum
From HPV to Romey
Calcutta, Dec 23rd, 1937
My dear Rosemary,
Percy Brown recounted the following story about a gushing lady (in India of course) who said to the young man caller “Oh! You must come into the compound and see my beautiful white buttocks.” Solution will be obvious to anyone who knows Hindustani.
Cocktail party on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Lunch on Sunday. Dinner on Wednesday. Ball on Wednesday. Work every day, not enough of it and results not very good. Breakfast with the mynahs and the crows each morning. Constant and screeching strife between the parrots and the owls in the old tree.
Of the cocktail parties one was a huge success, one a flop and the others fair -- from my point of view. Which depend on my finding agreeable folk to talk nonsense to and on meeting friends. Miss Townsend, who is rather fat, or at least fatty, and who has been greeted as my daughter or Harry’s niece all over Calcutta (to her annoyance, she resents the loss of the ‘s’ far more than we its addition) afford me commendable amusement in a quiet way. But am I not always quiet?
After the Ball of last night I am faded, was late for breakfast, and now late for office and must stop now.
‘Buttock’ spelled “Batukh” is Hindustani for “duck”!
Much love,
Dad
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Dec 29th 1937
My darling Annette
The first few times one goes back to school are great fun – There’s a sort of charm in still retaining some sort of flavour of ones school importance and yet bringing with one a little bit of romance of a wider life – My first return to school a few months after I had left, was specially delightful for my great friend, Magda Salversen, had stepped into my shoes as Head Girl and was still there. I’m glad “Cap” was pleasant to you.
It was fun getting your wire on Christmas Eve. In some odd way it does give one a feeling of nearness when you know that the wish has been sent only a few hours before.
We have been lucky in the Professors we have got to stay with us. I must say I throughly enjoy being with quick minded people, who have a great store of ideas to talk about – I’m sorry for the people who feel themselves dull and say “Oh! I’d be terrified of him! He’s much too clever for me”. It seems to me that a very moderate amount of intelligence and an ability to listen well, carries one along and one can generally get the “great man” to talk –
Later This morning started off so well before breakfast and I thought I was going to have a really quiet morning, but the telephone has been going the entire morning – I don’t really think I have been able to sit down for five minutes – It turns out that Professor Crew who is extremely good looking and very charming, adores dancing and would love to go to the Sat Club New Year’s Eve Dance; to which Walter Jenkins and I were going on our own – so I have been telephoning all round the place too, to fix up a little party.
Dad sends his love, but feels very distracted because he has a job of work to do and forgot it was mail day etc. etc – so please forgive him
Best love from
Mum
From HPV to Romey
Dec 29th
My dear Rosemary,
Very many thanks for your Christmas present which arrived safely, but only just. The envelope had burst and been enclosed in another by the Post Office people. It amused me to see from your letter to your mother that you expected the envelope to burst when you sent it off --- but, my dear, what sense was there in taking the risk? Another quarter inch tear and the contents would have been floating round the bottom of the mail bag and then no one would have taken the trouble to bring them all together again.
On Christmas Eve I went to Borke for the back management and such and he said that there was something a little off, but nothing to worry about. Then we went to the movies to see “Shall We Dance?” at which I laughed notoriously. There was a Mickey Mouse (Cleaning the Clock) film beforehand, which was pure genius. We were very late getting home but early to bed. Christmas went well. I fiddled or frittered away the morning. We lunched early and went to the polo. Very good though not of the highest class. Dinner to a fair number of people, pleasant, no attempt at riotous gaiety. Your mother showed some photos of Egypt and Nepal afterwards and most of the guests fell asleep.
On the next day much the same. I went again to Polo by myself, because your mother was busy over Himalayan Club photos, not too exciting. Next day the Government House Ball after a dinner at the Farmers. Next day lunch with a cousin of your mother, Polo (superb) and tea at the Saturday Club. Yesterday lunch out, arrival of the two scientists.
Quite a lot of fun, but I am growing desperate, for it becomes more and more difficult to get some work done, which must be done within the next three days if all of the previous work done is not to be useless.
Much love,
Dad
From LJT to Romey
Calcutta, Dec 30, 1937
My darling Rosemary,
Your handkerchiefs are a great success. I used one at the Viceroy’s Ball and one at the Governor’s Ball and they looked very pretty. We had a very nice Christmas, the only lack being not having our children with us! We loved getting your telegram of good wishes and thought of you a great deal on Christmas Day.
I still haven’t found a home for Tip-It-Up. Isn’t it a nuisance? A man is going to try him on Sunday, whom I hope will take him.
Dad is most amusing over the animals in the garden now. The mynahs know his call quite well and come hopping to it, but unfortunately the crows know it too and are immediately on the alert, so that great cunning has to be exercised to throw bits of toast so that the mynahs will get them and the crows won’t.
Sorry, darling! I am completely distracted. Our two Professors and Idris Matthews are making a lot of calls on the phone just outside this room, which has only a half-swing door, so that I can’t help but hear all they are saying. I’ve got all behind-hand with my letters again and am not going to write any more of this.
Best love, my darling,
From Mum
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Dec 30th 1937
My Dears
We have had a very pleasant Christmas week. Herbert is so well that he has been able to enjoy the Christmas parties and only feel reasonably tired after them. Our Christmas dinner was a pleasant function. Our guests were all people we are fond of, and most of them very good talkers, so we needed little in the way of extraneous amusement. After dinner I showed them my Egyptian photos, and Percy Brown showed us some excellent slides of Nepal, on the Himalayan Club epidiascope.
It was a great pleasure to get the telegram of good wishes form Highways, which was waiting for us when we got back rather late for dinner after the cinema on Christmas Eve. Another came from Arla and Ron on Christmas Day, and Harry got one from Roy and Eleanor. Of course we rapidly passed on the respective wishes to each other over the phone, and felt very close to you all. On Christmas night we drank the King’s Health, and then that of the Queen of Holland (out of compliment to Mr. van Manen, who was dining with us) then “absent friends” and lastly all our children, mentioning their names, for we all knew the offspring of the others. We reckoned that it was about three o’clock in the afternoon with you.
The Viceregal Ball last Thursday was a charming function. The Linlithgows are a good deal less stiff this year, and she is a good-looking woman. The Brabournes are an extremely nice looking couple, and she is always so beautifully dressed. They have easy friendly manners and stroll round and mix with everyone. We dined before the party with one of the High Court Judges and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Patterson, who used to be in Barisal with us, and we remembered how, about fifteen years ago, we had a huge dinner-party on Christmas night, and so did they, and they brought their guests across to hour house after dinner, and we did the most successful charades that I ever remember, going on till about one o’clock in the morning.
We took H.D. and Walter Jenkins to the cinema at 6 o’clock on Christmas Eve. It was a good programme, with an admirable Micky film called the “Clock Cleaners” or words to that effect, which made us laugh till we ached. There were some other good short films and news and then Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in “Shall We Dance?”
H.D. parted from us after dinner, but Walter came back to stay the night. He and I spent most of Christmas morning writing the titles for the photos which are going into the photographic Exhibition, and then we had an early lunch and all went off to see the semi-final of the Indian Polo Championship. It was beautiful polo, but not a wildly exciting game, for Bhopal were too strong for the composite British team against whom they were playing. The real thrill was the final on the 28th when Jaipore, who have been the winners for years, played Bhopal. They never got a lead of more than one goal, and in the last of the six chukkers they were leading 4-3, and Bhopal were up pressing round their goal the whole time, and several times nearly got the ball through. We had Winnie Daniel’s daughter and Cecil Reid (Aunt Blanche Currey’s nephew) with us. Cecil retired from the I.C.S. some years ago, but is taking Bunty for a trip about the world. He wrote and told me they were in Calcutta and asked us to go to lunch with them and we took them on to the polo. I am so pleased to meet Cecil again, and to see Winnie’s daughter, who seems a very nice girl.
It was the Government House Ball on the 27th and again we dined out first with a nice party, and enjoyed the dance very much, Herbert made no attempt to want to leave before the end, in fact it was I who was doing the pushing to get him to come home.
There have been one or two big cocktail parties, that have been quite good fun, especially one given by H.H. the Maharaja of Tripura in his lovely new palatial house in Ballygunge. Everyone was there and there were the most delicious Champagne cocktails flowing.
I am so sorry! This morning started well, but since breakfast there have been nothing but interruptions. We were expecting two professors who have come out here with the British Association delegates to the Science Congress, to arrive here on the 2nd, but yesterday morning I got word that one of them, Professor Gates, did not want to go to Darjeeling with the main party, and would be arriving yesterday. I went to the station to meet the special train in which the 110 delegates are traveling round India. I found Professor Gates quite successfully, and was just thinking that I might exchange greetings with Professor Crew if I could find him, when he found me, and confessed that he was so tired of traveling (they have been on the move for a fortnight since arriving in India) -- that he would dearly like to cut the Darjeeling trip and come back with me if we could have him. I said we should be delighted, so he hustled off to get his luggage and tell the authorities that he was forsaking the train, and away we came. Professor Gates is a nice middle aged, quite ordinary looking man, and holds the rather doubtful distinction of having been the first husband of Marie Stopes. Professor Crew is quite different. He is tall with iron grey hair, both good-looking and distinguished, and he has a vivid and charming personality. His only concession to being professor-like was his get-up. He was wearing light trousers, a brown cauderoy jacket, and a soft black felt hat, but actually he looked more like a successful artist than a professor. He is a witty and amusing talker, and loves dancing and “the Pictures” and so on, so I consider that we have struck oil, for we might so easily have had a couple of ancient grey-bearded gentlemen, who would not have been half so amusing or easy to entertain. I have just been busy fixing up a party for the fancy dress dance to-morrow night. Walter Jenkins and I had decided to go on our own, but I have succeeded in getting Cecil Reid and Bunty Daniel to come, so that we can take P. Crew too.
Our Professors have told us many interesting things. Sir James Jeans who has come out as President, is no good at his job. He is so shy that he simply can’t make himself move about and talk to people, and if you do have a talk with him you have to do all the talking, so to speak. You would scarcely expect that from his books would you? Jung, the great Austrian psychologist, they say is delightful, -- very cosmopolitan, a bon viveur and a witty conversationalist. It is a pleasant change getting into this scientific atmosphere. Rather amusingly, Gates, the botanist, is riding his great hobby of “blood Groups” and scarcely talks about plants at all. He likes to take a drop of blood out of a bodys ear, and find out what group of peoples he belongs to.
At 6 o’clock this evening we are going to see William Powell and Moyna Loye in “Double Wedding” which we are told is very good.
Just lunch time, and I’d like to finish this off.
Best love to all
LJT