1937 November
Letter from LJT to Annette undated
The Towers,
Cossipore
My darling child
You were a sport to write by Air Mail and thank you for it – So glad Oxford goes well for you –
Acutally I am forsaking duty and going off to lunch with two young mountaineers – so there is no time for a real letter –
I expect you will forgive your fond parent, wont you?
Best love
Mum
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Nov. 3rd 1937
My darling Annette
It was great fun getting your first letter from Somerville and I was so glad to hear that you felt at home immediately – Novels are so fond of painting vivid pictures of the new undergraduate feeling terribly lost and shy for the first week or two – I did’nt really expect you to feel particularly shy, but its nice to know that you did not feel strange and that you have a nice room with tidy furnishing – Also I’m glad you have found a congenial companion to go about with – On the whole it seems to make people more amusing when they have knocked about the world a bit.
Its good of you to spare your first Saturday for taking Romey out. I expect she was enormously pleased. I also think its very nice of the Eliots to ask you out so quickly, for the connection seems to me a very long way off. I can really not remember Gertie Walesby, who is the link, so to speak. I do know what she used to look like, but I’m not sure that it is’nt just from seeing photos of her, that I have a sort of image in my mind. I gather from Richard that she was one of the party when you went to tea.
Dad has simply plunged himself in work again. its splendid that his health is so much better, but what does worry me rather is that little by little he has given up all his hobbies and amusements and really if he is not working now, he does not know what to do, but anything I suggest he rejects. In a way its rather a pity we are living out here, because perhaps I might have persuaded him to take up golf again had we been living in Calcutta. its a devil of a long way from her to Tolly Gunge. We are seven or eight miles out to the north and Tolly is the same out to the South. There is a small nine hole course, belonging to the Factory, just at our door here, and when first we came out here I hoped Dad would start golf again on it, but he wont look at it!
I have started doing my “Muller” again regularly and was very stiff the first few mornings after the exercises, but have lissomed up again now – Are you persisting with your? Its much more difficult in England for its so dashed cold
Best love, my dear
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Nov 3rd 1937
My dear Annette.
My spirit faints like that of Keats or some other well known poet. For I begin to realise that to keep Government up to the mark about my irrigation schemes when my real work is entirely different is an enterprise beyond the strength of a reasonable man. I have devoted all my time when I was not actually working to making 35 graphs of the rainfall in Burdwan over 35 years, six months of each year, ten days rainfall the unit; and five or six explanatory or check graphs of the amount of rain in each month (or period) needed in theory for a good rice crop. Whose theory? – there is the rub: there are different theories which it would be advisable to reconcile. The graphs are perhaps a luxury: they give the information which was given by the columns of figures that I was studying in the last fortnight at Highways: they have shown me that I made at least one mistake (in my logic) there: but to analyse them fully will be quite an affair – If it were not that when an impulse seizes me I usually stick at it till I get some result (usually failure) you would be safe in saying that in two days or so I should cease to worry further about the matter – yet it makes me mad to think of my so splendid schemes being lightly discarded: first because it is a blow to my vanity, and secondly because it is shame to think of all the miserable Bengali children reduced by malaria to a life of sickliness. Maybe they’d be poor stuff even if they were fit: but it is abominable to leave them as they are – the which our Prime Minister will cheerfully do if he gains one vote by it.
News of the week; I have reverted to Boike. Not altogether because of the stiff neck: there was a feeling that originally he said “In three months, perhaps there’ll be a cure” and that I went to him only for six weeks; maybe more of the treatment might do good: your mother suddenly asked me tonight if I realised that I had not bought any medicines for months past. That was not quite true, but I have taken practically none: some soda mint, and twice at her suggestion Carters Liver Pills; no tonics though and nothing like Enos or Kruschen. Boike gave my neck a twist that for the moment made me all skew-wiffy: and half an hour later I feld as limp and as rotten as anyone well could: but maybe that is a symptom of the treatment. It was while jolting back here in the car that it came on and perhaps these roads are not the best form of aftertreatment when one is having a severe form of cure.
Yesterday a bathe: but no one else was in the bath and I felt no activity or pleasure in the exercise: the bathe was notable chiefly because I felt the water to be warm whereas others referred to it as cold. My circulation must now be better than the ordinary Bengal circulation.
Weather still hot. Mosquitoes not infrequent though not so bad as last year. My temper not very good. Your mother flourishing: she moves mountains in the garden.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Rosemary
The Towers,
Cossipore Calcutta
Nov 3rd, 1937
My darling Rosemary,
It was a very good picture of a “Prawn” church that you sent us this week, but it isn’t St Janet. Certainly it is very like!
Anne writes most happily from Somerville and says she felt at home at once. I am glad that she was going to take you out and I hope you saw Dickie, too.
The University Parks are very pretty, aren’t they? If you ever get a chance, go and have a look at the Botanical Gardens. It is a bad time of year now, of course. The late spring is good, for there is a lot of rock garden there and late spring is its best moment.
Do you remember hearing about the two mynah birds who used to come to attend our breakfast in the garden each morning? They have discovered that we are back, and though its been too hot to have breakfast in the garden yet, they have come on to the verandah and shouted at us from the door sill of the dining room. This morning a grasshopper came in to the dining room on the fruit dish. He hopped off and sat on the table thinking for a very long time. Suddenly just as a mynah had arrived and given a squeak to attract attention to itself, the grasshopper gave a leap and landed just about 2 inches in front of the mynah’s beak, and the mynah quickly gobbled it up, no doubt giving thanks to us for the elegant banquet! It was a sad little incident, I thought, but I can’t make any moral out of it.
Dad works and works. He is doing masses of graphs of the records of the Rainfall in Burdwan district for years and years past. I don’t know what he is going to prove by them, but I wish he wouldn’t spend all his spare time on them, for its very exact and detailed work and I am sure it must be tiring!
I hope you are not finding the work too stiff for you. Have you started biology and if so, do you like it?
Best love, my darling,
From Mum
From HPV to Rosemary
The Towers,
Cossipore Calcutta
Nov 3rd, 1937
My dear Rosemary,
Thank you for the pictures. What can there be in the air in Brittany which makes them delight in steeples of the queer shape. If I ever built a church I should prefer towers. Five towers, or maybe seven: two at the west end, one in the middle by the transept and two or four at the transept corners buttressing the middle one -- solid.
Fireworks pop or roar off in all directions. The Feast of Lamps: every Hindu illuminates his house these two days because once the Goddess of Good Luck, being lost, was attracted by the lights of a house in the jungle and, staying there for the night, left prosperity behind her, and the same fortune may come to anyone whose illuminations attract her now. The fireworks are added for the fun of them. They are let off everywhere -- on the roof, from windows, on the pavements, in the streets. I saw a youth on a verandah turn a golden rain thing on to the head of a man passing below him, and crackers are thrown between the legs of the people walking on the pavements to make them jump or just because they happen to be there. At the shops you can buy a fire balloon and send it up then and there. There were half a dozen overhead as we drove home last night before dinner, and the biggest ever seen went across the sky at tea time today. Red: twenty feet across, it looked, an ugly shape. In the evening people brought down the images of the goddess and threw them into the river with howls and music, a band playing English tunes, strange to say. All should have been very gay and cheerful but an Indian in a Bengali crowd never succeeds in seeming really cheerful. Noisy but on the rancorous side, and discourteous, rather -- no making way for the weak or old.
The mynah birds which we used to feed at breakfast in the garden obviously remembered it, for they turned up in the verandah making loud noises to draw attention to themselves. We are not yet having our breakfast outside in the garden. It is amazing that they remembered because they never became really tame last year. One of them is now lame. This evening when we had tea in the garden it came across (not its real side of the lawn, it trespassed on another’s beat) and chattered till I threw it and two others some bread and butter. But that was the end, for the crows came down a minute later and then the kites, drawing every other bird away. The mynahs were running no risk with the kites and cleared off altogether.
I found two huge frogs in the pond last night among the lilies, as big as soup plates, (bottoms of) and much resembling dead leaves -- they have a line down the middle of the back and are brown -- but astonishing chiefly by remaining absolutely motionless. Bull frogs. They think the pond made for them.
Much love,
Dad
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Nov 4th 1937
My Dears,
We have quickly settled back into the routine of our life out here. Herbert is looking forward to the return of Government from the Hills, which takes place this week, so that he will get a better idea what he is being kept in Calcutta for, and what his duties are. He has been spending all his spare time on graphs of rainfall in the area where his experimental canal and irrigation are situated, back over a large number of years. The graphs are to be used to push the case for going forward with this work. I deplore his habit of working in all his spare time, but I cant prevent him doing it!
The most interesting thing I have done is meeting an American who has been up in Tibet since just about the time I went home, living in the monasteries in Gyantse, Lhasa, and Shigatse, as the honoured guest of the Abbots. I was asked if I could give this young man any introductions to help him to get to Lhasa, or could give him any advice. I said I should be very glad to meet him, and give him any advice I could but that I did not think anything I could do would help him to get into Tibet. We spent about an hour to-gether a few days before I left for England, and Mr Bernard seemed to me to have such an extensive knowledge of Buddhism, and to have prepared himself so well for the work he wanted to do, that I believed his own character and interest would take him into the religious world of Tibet as no political introductions would do. So it has proved. He got the permission to go up to Gyantse, which is the last outpost of British influence on the Trade route to Lhasa, and to which it is fairly easy to go, and there he made friends with the Lamas. He stayed at the great monastery as the guest of the Abbot, and after some weeks he was given permission to go to Lhasa for three weeks. The permission was extended indefinitely, and eventually Mr Bernard was given free permission to travel where he wished, and to go to Shigatse, where he also spent some weeks in one of the great monasteries. He has collected masses on information about the Lamaistic form of Buddhism, and has brought back a large collection of manuscripts. He deserves the success he has had, partly because I think he is absolutely genuine, and partly because he has taken such infinite pains to prepare himself for what he wanted to do. He started studying Tibetan in America, and spent six or eight months at Kalimpong, near Darjeeling, working away at the language, before he attempted to get into the country. He says he has been interested in Eastern religions and in Yoga since he was a boy, and that his father was before him. He very cleverly recognised me when I was lunching at the Great Eastern Hotel on Friday, with another Himalayan enthusiast. I confess I would not have recognised him if it had not been for his beard, and that I had seen in the paper that he had just arrived in Calcutta (Dash! I don’t know why this machine is jumping letters like this!) He invited me to lunch with him on Saturday, and we talked for two hours. We started about Tibet, and finally got on to the subject of Yoga, which is one that interest me tremendously. I am sorry that he was leaving India to-day, and that he had a lot to do this week, so that he could not spare time to come out here, to show me some of his photos. However he says he is sure to come back to India again, so I hope we shall meet once more.
After spending two hours with Mr Bernard on Saturday, I went to see Mr Groth, the American consul, who came back from a few months leave, shortly after we started ours, and who has been almost all round the world in his few months away from India, finally returning across Persia - - I beg its pardon! - - Iran. Percy Brown and I are planning to come home that way at some future date, so I was especially interested to hear about it, and delighted when mr Groth offered to lend me a copy of the Journal which he had written for his father. I brought it home and spent the whole evening reading it with keen interest.
Idris Matthews had fever all last week. He came down to dinner for the first time on Saturday, and got up for tea on Sunday, resuming work, and a more or less normal life on Monday, but he is pulled down and a bit depressed. I hope he will soon feel more himself again. For one reason I want to go up in his new plane! He has already begun planning places we can go in it!
To Idris’ great disgust we are having a visit of ten days or a fortnight from Brigadier Tute and a Major Costello, who have been put on a special job in connection with the reorganizing of Ordanance Factories. Tute was down here last Cold Weather, and Idris is not fond of him. He is a genial old boy, with a great eye for the girls, and Idris does not see eye to eye with him in the matter of work, nor has he a very great opinion of the Brigadier’s brains. He’s quite a kindly old chap and easily amused, so I don’t think he will be too much of a nuisance. The other man is a stranger to us, but looks quite nice. They arrived this morning. I don’t mind having men who have work to do, in the house, because they don’t need looking after and amusing. Its idle women who take up so much time!
Work in the garden, picking up the threads of the Himalayan Club, getting my own papers and accounts and the general household arrangements in order have taken up most of my time. Percy Brown arrived back on Monday- He has also been on leave, and we had tea to-gether at the Saturday Club on Tuesday, and I heard about his travels since he arrived in India a week previously. He always takes the opportunity of visiting some ancient city or temple, on his way to and fro to Bombay. On this occasion he went to Jhansi, and from there travelled out to a decayed city some twelve or fifteen miles away, which he says is still magnificent, but about which singularly little is known. I am looking forward to seeing his photos of it.
The garden is coming on well. The weather is getting cooler from day to day, and every week brings fresh batches of people back from their holidays. I am having tea with Phyllis Gurner to-day, to find out who are in Calcutta and where they are living, so that I may get on with the business of calling. I am venturing to a Girl Guide party on Monday, but don’t intend to be caught to do any serious work for them.
I am just reading a book called “A Doctor’s Odyssey” by Heiser, which Herbert found most interesting, and which I also find very fascinating.
There is really not much more news to give you. We have been leading a very quiet life.
Our love to you all
LJT
From HPV to Romey
The Towers Cossipore, Calcutta
Nov 8th, 1937
My dear Rosemary,
Two days still to mail day, but your mother who is out for a meeting and for dinner tells me in a note that there will be guests tomorrow night and that we drive out on Wednesday. I am annoyed, because though she asked if I minded the Wednesday dinner and though after some hesitation I said “no”, she didn’t tell me that there was to be a late night tomorrow, too. There will be two dinners and a lunch later in the week, official, their last function and not to be dodged.
Dr. Borke, who dealt with me again today said something about returning “for the last time” on Monday next, so it looks at if the back is all right. All that ails me is having too much work, and most of that I make for myself. They have made such a muck of my development schemes-- irrigation and such--that it seemed essential to buckle to and pull them together, in my spare time, but I doubt if I can manage that.
Sad to hear that one eye of yours is a bit short-sighted. Do not by any means neglect to exercise it. Use it without glasses separately to read stuff which you know so well that you don’t have to strain over it, and make a point of looking at each letter. If you don’t strain, the eye will cure itself by being used, pretty soon. And try the exercises in the book which I gave Richard.
1) making the Union Jack ie looking up and down, then left right, diagonals etc
2) gazing with each eye separately first at your thumb held out and then at something 30 feet away.
3) swinging backwards and forwards, or rather sideways, with your eye fixed on the horizon till it goes all dreamy-like.
If done every day, these have an effect. But one of the most important things is not to run the eye down the middle of the page when reading, so as to get the general sense. All our family do that and it strains the eyes and is silly. One should look along every line when reading -- and look at the full stops, focus on them.
It is a good thing that you appear to be enjoying the new school, or shall I say “tolerating it”.
Much love,
Dad
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Nov 10th 1937.
My Dears,
As to-morrow is Armistice Day, and I shall be going into Calcutta to attend the service at the Cenetaph, I thought I had better write my mail to-day. (I am sorry about that mess up above. I don’t quite know why the paper did not move.)
Our lives have been slightly over-shadowed this week by the presence of Brigadier Tute, who is the most profound old bore, and, like all bores I suppose, serenely unconscious of it, and believing that he is an admirable conversationalist. The man with him, Major Costello, is quiet and pleasant, and very much absorbed in his job. They will have been here a week to-morrow, and we don’t yet know how much longer they are going to stay. We wonder how Major Costello endures the constant companionship of the Brigadier. We notice an expression of far away long-suffering on his face some times, when his chief is holding forth.
We went to a nice dinner-party given by the American Consul General and his wife on Friday night. Mrs White is a most delightful person, and she has a wonderful way of vitalising a party, and making the talk sparkle. The German Consul General and his wife, Count and Countess Podewits, who succeeded our friends, the Ow Wachendorfs, were there, having just that day returned from Nepal, where they had been to confer a German Order on the Maharaja. They had an extraordinarily interesting time, and even saw the unfortunate King on two occasions. I had always thought that the King of Nepal was a religious figure head, and kept apart from everybody as a sort of sacred object. Herbert Richter, who was in Nepal with the Podewitses says that is not so. That there is nothing religious in his isolation. He is simply some sort of political symbol, and in reality the puppet and prisoner of the Maharaja. Herbert Richter thinks there was a strong atmosphere os this on the two occasions when they saw him. But were no allowed to speak directly to him He thought the situation very pathetic, and he says the kings sons look completely degenerate. Edward Groth, the American Consul, was sitting on one side of me, so we were able to talk quite a lot more about Persia. I don’t think we shall find the Podewitses as congenial as the Ows, but they seem nice people all the same. I must go and call on them. We went on to the cinema after dinner. and saw a film called “To pper”, in which the route idea was amusing, but it was not sufficiently well worked out to sustain the interest through a full length film.
Did I tell you that our friend Herbert Richter is back in Calcutta? He has had a number of experiences since he left. First of all he was in the Foreign Office in Berlin, which he did not like at all. Then at three days notice he was sent off to Addis Ababa to take the place of the Consul General, who had gone down with heat-stroke. he flew from Italy. He says it was interesting being in Abyssinia, but not comfortable. it is not safe to move outside the patrolled areas, and it is difficult to get quite ordinary things, and decent food in Addis Ababa. He says it is still rather like living in a state of war. He wanted to visit some place near the City, and asked permission from the Italian authorities, who said it was unsafe to go alone, but they would supply a military guard. He pictured a couple of armed men to go in the car with him, and was rather horrified when two lorries full of soldiers turned up. He said he did not do much sight-seeing after that, for it seemed a little too cumberous. He did manage to visit Lake Tana. He flew up in an Italian Military plane, and had a most interesting time. he says that the idea that the Italians were going to divert the water of Lake Tana from flowing into the Nile, and turn it on to the Abyssyinan lowlands, cannot be anything but a newspaper stunt for they would have to tunnel about a hundred miles through a great mountain range. All this rather interesting talk we had out at Tollygunge on Saturday afternoon, when we made our first appearance there. From Adis Ababa Herbert Richter was sent to Colombo, much to his annoyance, but it all worked out for good, for there he met and became engaged to a German girl, who is coming up here to marry him on the 15th of next month. Meantime Count Podewits, as he himself told me, was bombarding the Foreign Office in Berlin, with requests to have Herbert sent back here Finally the request was granted and Herbert came back here which was what he had always wanted.
My Herbert and I went to Dum Dum with Idris on Sunday afternoon, and we each went up for 25 minutes in the new plane. It was a great triumph that Herbert felt inclined to go, and that he did not feel sick or have a headache. He went out south west of Calcutta to look at a swampy area that he wants to drain. I went north and circled round the house at Chinsurah which will probably be our home in the spring. The new plane is very nice indeed. The two seats are side by side, enclosed in a cabin, the sides, front and roof of which are almost entirely made of one of these new flexible materials that look like glass. The visibility is wonderful, especially forward. One can see far, far more than in the open plane. Its very interesting seeing all the instruments too. I am sure that for longish flights she will be far less tiring to travel in than A.A.D. Luckily our guests like both golf and tennis, both of which are available out here at the huge club belonging to the Ordanance Factory. Various of the other Officers take them off for these pass-times most afternoons.
I have been doing a good deal of shopping, Himalayan Club work and looking up various people. I attended rather a good Guide Meeting on Monday evening. It was a special meeting of the Guider’s Club. Phyllis Carey Morgan gave us an excellent adress, followed by a discussion of the problems that are always cropping up in relation to guide Officer’s work, and later the famous Sarojini Naidu spoke to us. She is a woman who first became famous as a poetess, and alter took up the cause of the emancipation of Indian women, and also embraced Swaraj very warmly, and became a well known speaker in both lines. She does speak extremely well and in the early parts of her speeches, she says interesting, illuminating and often helpful things, but towards the end she works herself up into a great flow of oratory, pouring out a stream of high sounding words, which alas, don’t mean very much when one analyses them. The Bengalis adore that sort of thing. They far prefer words to deeds, I think – The first three quarters of Mrs Naidu’s speech the other evening was well worth listening to., and it was an excellent thing to have got her to come to our meeting for she has a great deal of influence with the Indian and especially with the Congress world. From the meeting I went straight on to the Saturday Club to meet and have a “grill” with Charles Crawford a young man in Imperial Chemical Industries, who came to Calcutta just about a year ago, with introductions to me from General Bruce. Charles immediately joined the Himalayan Club, and became quite one of the intimates of our house. He was lucky enough to get some leave this May and went with Freddie Spencer Chapman to try to Climb the virgin peak of Chomolhari. Freddie got to the top, but Charles had to turn back at the eleventh hour because his leave was up, at least that was the first reason. There were others, such as shortness of food, because the approach to the mountain had taken so much longer than they expected, and a sick porter, who had to be got down the mountain. He wanted to tell me, and I wanted to hear all about it, and to see his photos, and we spent a very happy evening over it. Chomolhari is half in Tibet and half in Bhutan, and towers up in the most lovely cone of snow above the Phari plain. I have crossed a shoulder of it on my way to Gyantse, and have always admired it enormously.
I see this paper is nearing its end, and I don’t think I have must more to tell you about. We had a dinner-party for the Brigadier last night, which went off quite well. Our guests were mostly officers from the Factory
Best love to you all.
LJT
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Nov 10th 1937
My darling Annette
Is is nice to get such cheerful letters from you. I’m awfully glad that you and Richard took Rosemary out. I expect the first part of this term was a bit difficult for her. Do you think she has settled down pretty happily? I should be interested to know what she thinks of Headington compared with St. Monica’s. She probably talks to you much more freely about it than she would write to me. Is’nt is odd about her eye? I should never have suspected Rosemary of short sight. I think Dad is going to urge her to try doing exercises for the short sighted eye. It will be a great thing if she can improve the sight of it.
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in your letter. Your bargains at the auction certainly seem good and I’m glad you did not try to get things before you went up. It will be very interesting to see how your standard of work compares with your contemporaries - The ability to think oneself into the true phrasing of another country’s language is an odd thing – Dr. and Mrs. Visser are an example of that – Dr Visser, who speaks English with the greatest fluency and has lived with English people for years and years, still constructs his phrases with a slight foreign turn to them – but Mrs. Visser never does. I don’t think she has had greater opportunities than he has. It must be some ability to hear or to listen or unconscious mimicry that helps people. Herbert Richter still uses German construction very frequently. I hope, by the way, that his prospective bride speaks English. He is very well disciplined and does not allow himself any license in describing his fiancé or his feelings for her – It would be rather a good thing for Herbert to throw his hat over the windmill and go a bit wild now and again, I think. He is always so frightfully well behaved – Mary Ow and Baroness Giskra are sorry that his bride comes from Bremen, because they say that the north Germans have no sense of humour and that they think it would be very good for Herbert to laughed at and have his leg pulled a little! Elizabeth looks a nice girl in the snap shot he has of her – I hope we shall find her congenial.
Mrs Gurner and I drove to and from the Guide meeting together the other evening and we talked mostly about you and her children and St Monica’s and schools generally. She is always very interested in you, partly I suppose, because Francesca is likely to be doing or wanting to do the things that you have done, in a few years time.
I gather that the Autumn has been too fine for the gardeners and the rugger player’s taste! but I’m glad it has been dry and fine for you to get some walks under reasonably pleasant conditions – Its nicer to get to know a place under favourable circumstances – If one has learned to love a place already, one can bear to put up with vagaries from it later on. We used to walk or play games from after lunch till 3.30. when I was at day school and its the best time in an English winter. Its always funny when first one comes back to India and finds activity in the way of games and amusements beginning so late in the day.
How are the clothes planning out? Have you got the things you need? Its hard to tell what a new sort of life is going to demand.
Its 4.0 clock, at which hour we said tea was to be produced and I have just heard the Brigadier’s somewhat weighty step on the stair – so I must go and give my attention to him. Best love, my dear – from Mum
From LJT to Romey
The Towers,
Cossipore, Calcutta
Nov 10, 1937
My darling Rosemary,
It is bad luck about your eye, and very surprising to me. I should never have suspected you of shortsight even in one eye. Probably Dad will write and tell you about eye exercises. So many people we know have been helped by them and if by taking trouble now you can make the eye normal and not have to wear glasses later on, it would be a great thing. Don’t worry about the price of the glasses. That is the sort of thing that is found to crop up now and again and can’t be helped. Actually you have cost us singularly little in doctor’s bills. You even came into the world free of them! The good nurse Jeffroy attended upon you and we did not bother the medical profession.
I am very glad you went to Grey Owl’s lecture. Never hesitate to go to a reasonable number of reasonable priced things like that during the term if the opportunity arises. I should hate you to miss things because I am too far away to give you an answer quickly. I envy you hearing Grey Owl. I should very much like to hear him myself.
Anne seems to be settling very happily and quickly into the life at Somerville. I am glad you had an entry with her and Richard.
Nov 11th I was summoned to tea yesterday and had no opportunity to write any more last night. Uncle Harry (H.D.) arrived yesterday and we met at the US Club at 6:30 for a little chat before Dad and I had to go on to the Saturday Club for drinks and then back to dinner with some old friends. He is looking very well and is going to live in the Bengal Club. He brought the news of Gavin’s appendix trouble, which he had heard by an Air Mail from Auntie Winsome. I am thankful that the offending appendix was nipped out satisfactorily.
We have been to the Armistice Day Service at the Cenotaph today. As a rule, I have been on Parade with the girl Guides. It is much cooler being able to wear a thin frock and sit on a chair except when the ceremony is actually taking place.
Best love my darling,
From Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Nov 11th 1937
My dear Annette
At the club yesterday I met Mr Stein, last seen by me at Shrewsbury and just returned from leave. He is an engineer, P.W.D. He told me that they have just sent their daughter to St Monica’s and asked me about it. I told him fairly enough, I hope, why we moved Rosemary. Needless to say, if I had been deciding matters, I should not have troubled to shift Rosemary: for I don’t know that really the 13 years in-one-place argument strikes me as very important.
Yesterday also I attended a ceremony of distribution of medals by the Governor at Government House, in the Throne Room. It was like the feeding of the three thousand or the five thousand. Except that we filed past the Governor instead of sitting to receive the medals: ten per minute more or less: a card handed to an A.D.C. who handed it to the Chief Secretary who read the name off it while “the recipient” stood in front of the Governor to have the medal slipped on to a hook fixed in the coat: then the recipient moved on, to get the warrant from the Private Secretary and a medal box from someone else. All went like clockwork and it was just about as interesting as watching a clock for an hour. One hour x 10 per minute = 600: I shouldn’t have thought that there were so many. At this rate what with Jubilee and Coronation and the Kings visit, to come, I ought to have a fine show of medals by the time I retire. All futilities.
A lot of work this week: all my spare time, including Sunday, and three whole working days have gone towards the Development Act. Problem; how to put backbone and guts into Ministers on the run? If they would only stand their ground, the matter would be easy: they would in fact show that the backbone and extras were there already. All profess such enthusiasm and then slide from under happily as soon as I am out of sight. It is hard work examining rainfall figures in detail and making graphs. And with the Brigadier [“Tut” – tute or toot by pronunciation] and his coadjutor living in the house time is cut short. Either we go out to dodge him or there are people in to entertain him. A crashing bore, for he esteems himself a wit and holds forth. Uneasily I regard him, wondering if I am like that.
Brother Harry has returned: but owing to the medal affair yesterday evening I have not yet seen him. He arrived in the morning and had to go out to dinner somewhere. He brought news of Gavin’s operation. How sad! I hope that it won’t affect his scholarship chances.
Your letter re Rosemary’s outing and the (?)queer thought transference with Richard was interesting. People used to say that Brother Roy and I invented conversation beforehand, because we used to know so to say what the other was going to say: but it was not no: if not thought transference it was intimate knowledge or fellow feeling.
Much love
Dad.
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Nov. 18th 1937
My darling Annette
Its pleasant to get your cheerful letters, especially when poor Dad is going through a period of gloom as he is at present – He has been alternating between hope and despair as regards his scheme ever since we came out. Certain statements by Ministers at the end of last week have made him give up hope – and this combined with the fact that he has had to go to a lot of parties – that we have not got our car back and he has to drive in a most dreadful old thing lent by Miltons – and that we have people staying in the house have combined to make him feel that life is treating him badly – I am sorry for him over his scheme, for he has put his whole heart and energy into it –
I am glad you were to meet Jean Hogg and the boy too – Jean is a nice girl and always seemed to me a very capable one –
What bad luck that Auntie had such a wet day for her visit – no town is nice in Rain. Joyce will get the impression that it always rains in Oxford, for it did when she came over to see us there.
suddenly I seem to have got too busy again! There are such a number of things that all want to be attended to at once – Its very hard to arrange ones life so that one has just the right amount of work to do and just the right amount of time left over for play.
I must go and dress myself up for a garden party shortly – Oddly enough the sky is cloudy and it looks almost as if it might rain – I hope it wont, as I intend to wear that pretty beige lace dress and I don’t want it spoilt.
I do like hearing about all your interests! I have always had rather that itch to see how other people worship and try to understand why. The mass of religions out here give one good scope!
I hope the rowing will be a success – Must write to Romey now-
Best love
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Nov 18th 1937
My dear Annette
My letter to Richard, just written, was one long moan. A lament over the pigheadedness of ministers who persist in negotiating with opponents, and making announcements, about matters that they do not understand: the latest effort in the direction has hit the possibility of work under my Development Act so hard that I am “quite discouraged”. Anger plus worry plus the unreason of the subconscious has spoilt my sleep and wearied me this week.
There have been festivities: farewell lunch to the Sachses and farewell dinner to the Governor by the I.C.S. in both cases on Friday. We heard yesterday that a farewell dinner to the Sachses was arranged in Darjeeling, all preparations were worked out to the nth degree, and at the last moment it was discovered that the Sachses themselves had not been asked. They had to be summoned by telephone. On Sunday a lunch with the Hoggs, a visit to the zoo, most exhausting, with Mr Fawcus, and a tea to him at the Saturday Club, where we met the Gurners. On Monday a dinner to the Governor given by the Ministers: originally fixed for the Calcutta Club it had been changed to Pelitis but the letter announcing this did not reach us till Wednesday night, yesterday in fact; and we drive round and round searching for the place. There was a good deal of muddle but it was a good show. Our hosts so anxious that it should be a success that everybody worked to make it so. Yesterday the Durbar, which lasted an interminable time: noticeable chiefly for my wearing my new top hat but nobody did notice it. Today a garden party: farewell to the Governor. It is like a death song in an opera, all this ‘farewell farewell’ business.
“I shall preach” said the visiting clergyman “on the widow’s mite”. “Dont do that” said the Vicar, “for we have five widows in the parish who might – and four of them have already”.
With this refined vulgarity I cease.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from LJT
The Towers,
Cossipore, Calcutta
Nov 18, 1937
My Dears,
Unfortunately I am starting my letter this week with a sense of being rushed. I had to be out all yesterday, and all sorts of things have cropped up this morning that had to be attended to. It has been a very busy week one way and another. The Governor, Sir John Anderson goes next Tuesday, and there have been a great many farewell parties to him. The Chief Minister and Cabinet gave a big farewell dinner of about a hundred and fifty people on Monday at Peliti’s Restaurant. The arrangements were rather like everything about the present Government. The place of the dinner was changed at the last moment from the Calcutta Club to Peliti’s, and though notices were sent round, several people, ourselves included, did not receive them, and drove round Calcutta rather dismally looking for our dinner. Then a number of names had been left off the table plan, including Lady Sinha’s, and as she holds first rank as the wife of our only Lord, it was rather a bad break. I was also seatless, to the great distress of Sir Nazimuddin, one of our hosts, who quickly arranged a seat for me at the High Table. In spite of these slight set-backs, it was a very nice party, and I enjoyed myself. We danced afterwards, and Herbert and I slipped away as soon as the Governor had gone and were home by mid-night. During dinner I did a lot of inward giggling, for the previous afternoon I had been to the Zoo with Rex Fawcus, and he insisted on paying a special visit to the Chimpanzi to see if the likeness between him and our Prime Minister, Fazlul Haque was as strong as Rex believed it to be. There is no mistaking a strong similarity of expression and manner, and during the dinner and Fazlul’s speech, I kept on thinking of it. He made a good speech, and he has a nice voice in spite of his simian appearance. H.E. made a pleasant and amusing little speech too. Each was complimentary to-wards the other, and it sounded as if the Indian and European sides of Government were on the most loving terms. I wonder if the secret feelings are quite so warm!
Herbert had been at the I.C.S. farewell dinner to H.E. on Saturday night, and is feeling rather ill treated at having to be up late so often, especially as we had been at a farewell lunch to the oldest member of the I.C.S. in Bengal on Friday. The two functions were arranged for the same day to give Service people out in the Districts a chance to come in to Calcutta, to attend both, so there was a great meeting of old friends. The Fawcuses were down from Darjeeling, and we took Rex and one or two others out to Tollygunge to bathe and have tea.
On Saturday I went out to lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Burrows at Chinsurah, to see my future home, and go through the list of furniture with them and say what we should like to buy. It takes an hour and a quarter to drive from here, or an hour and a half from Calcutta, and Mr. Burrows tells me that it is thirty miles from the centre of Calcutta, which is a little more than I thought. Unfortunately it is a congested road the whole way, for it runs parallel to the river, and is lined with Jute Mills most of the way. A few miles before reaching Chinsurah it runs through Chandanagore, the little bit of French India. It is funny to see the police in different uniform, and notices up in French. The commissioner’s house is a fine one, standing in a beautiful position looking down a big sweep of the Hoogly, and I think we shall like it very much. Mrs. Burrows has taken a lot of trouble over the garden, and it is in good condition. Luckily they have had an offer from the local Raja for their expensive and rather ornate drawing-room suite, and for their equally expensive bed- and dressing-room furniture, which I did not want to buy, and all the other things in the house they are selling at an extremely cheap rate, so that we are glad to take them over. Mogul went out with me and expresses himself very pleased with the servants’ quarters and the kitchen, and especially at the fact that it has a proper house and enclosure for chickens and ducks and a cemented pool for the ducks to swim in.
As a rule we like to stay out here on Sundays, but we spent most of last Sunday in Calcutta. We went to have drinks with an amusing half Russian family at 12 o’clock, and there we met the new Italian Consul General, and Consul, with whom Herbert talked a good deal, and in whom he was very interested, because they were able to tell him a lot about Mussolini’s anti-malaria work. We lunched with our Chief Secretary and his wife, with whom the Fawcuses were staying, and who had a big lunch party of ICS people who were in from the Districts for the farewell parties. It was rather fun. There we heard the news that their son and Richard, who know one another at Merton, were taking their respective sisters out for an evening to-gether.
Rex Fawcus, who has been one of the Governors of the Zoo for many years, and always takes a keen interest in it, spent the afternoon at the Zoo with us, as I have already recorded, and we had a pleasant couple of hours there, followed by tea in the garden of the Saturday Club.
I have been deeply plunged back into Himalayan Cub work, and have spent several hours at the Geological Survey Office where our clerk works. I have also become involved once more in Guide work. I am not taking a company, but I have promised to help with the Quartermaster’s work for the All India Training Camp, which is being held here the 11th till the 21st of January. They wanted me to be responsible for the whole job, but I simply hav’nt time, so I have been very firm, and said I will help with the preparations, and then undertake to be in charge from 11 o’clock till three o’clock each day. We had a meeting to discuss arrangements for the camp yesterday morning, and as the woman who is going to be a quarter-master was not there, time and time again I was almost trapped into allowing it to be taken for granted that I would be making all sorts of arrangements, etc from now on, which I had expressly said I could not undertake!
Its nice that Harry (Townend) is back in Calcutta. We had a grill dinner with him on Thursday night. He was going on to the Centenary Party given by the P&O, which fitted in very well with Herbert’s taste’s for we had dinner and sat and talked till 9:30, and then came home to bed.
We have been having a batch of extraordinarily hot weather for the time of year, but I am glad to say it has cooled down again the last few days, and we ought not to get any more heat now till the end of Feb;
We are hoping to get our car back to-day, which will be a great joy, for Lewis Notley had to reclaim his car from us on Sunday, and we have been dependent on the frightful old car which Milton’s have lent us.
The garden is going on well. We have practically all the seedlings planted out now, and the sweet-peas are being staked today. Bougainvilleas, and some other flowering shrubs are bursting into bloom, and the chrysanthemum buds are very fat.
The rush of the Cold Weather seems to have gripped us already. I have been struggling to get calls done, and must turn my attention to arranging some parties.
Best love to you all
LJT
From HPV to Romey
Calcutta Nov 18th, 1937
My dear Rosemary,
Whether otherwise I should have thought of it, who shall say? But your mother made certain of remembrance by coming into my room saying “Many happy returns of Rosemary’s birthday” and that was that. We wished you well. It should be easy to have a lot of happy days every year if I am wished happy returns of everybody else’s birthday and if wishes work. Efforts to picture your day failed altogether; it is not possible to get an idea of what a day at school is really like from descriptions. What is more, I cannot in the least remember my own 14th birthday. I believe that it was then or thereabouts that I had mumps.
For me not the happiest of weeks. Anger, worry and grief tired me out; to wit, I woke up at night with thoughts running so vividly through my head that sleep became impossible. A Minister has made an announcement which has the effect of destroying the possibility of working my Development Act, if Government stick to it. They will try to stick to it, in order to save his face and at the same time to go on as if it had not been made. But I have given up hope. Since doing so, I have become much less tired.
There has been a succession of farewell lunches, garden parties, and dinners and the Governor leaves next week. These have been teas and meeting with people like Fawcus who have come into Calcutta for these functions. I have seen Harry twice. Yesterday at the Durbar, which lasted an interminable time, I met Col. Kirwin who thanked me warmly for all that our family had done to make the Kirwin family’s visit a success. The cold weather still holds off, though it is no longer very hot. I have not got a fan running at this moment, as I sit on the verandah outside my bedroom in cotton clothes, of course.
Much love, Dad
From LJT to Romey
The Towers,
Cossipore, Calcutta
Nov 18th, 1937
My darling Rosemary,
I thought of you such a lot on your birthday yesterday. I suppose you kept the celebration and the cake till Saturday. I hope you were able to have a nice little party.
Dad and I are both very pleased with the way you are getting on with your work. It is most creditable that you should be able to get 70% when you are working under new conditions.
2.5 seems a very moderate sum for setting you up in books, compared with St. Monica’s prices.
Sad to say I hear that Chinsurah is so surrounded by town that it is scarcely worth keeping a horse there, so I am afraid I shall have to sell Tip-it-Up or give him away. I am very sorry about it. I haven’t quite made up my mind yet. I hear that Col. Vere Hodge, who looked after you when you had measles, kept a horse there some years ago, so I am going to get on to him and ask him about it, before I finally make up my mind.
For me, such a short letter, but I have to go and dress for a garden party.
Best love,
Mum
Family letter from LJT
The Towers,
Cossipore, Calcutta
Nov 25th 1937
I apologise for the way the capitals are running on top of the next letters I must send the machine to be repaired.
My Dears,
The Cold Weather has really come. I have just shut the North East windows of this room, and I am wearing a little wooly jacket over my cotton frock.
We have said goodbye to Sir John Anderson this week, and see him go with regret. Lord Brabourne arrives on Saturday. A minor tragedy happened to Herbert at the farewell to Sir John at Government House. He was wearing his new morning coat and grey top-hat. On entering the Throne Room he put his hat on one of the side tables. After Sir John’s departure, when he went to pick it up, he found that it had been taken, and one far too big for him left in its place. He was unable to discover who had taken it, and yesterday morning there was no news at Government House. I am pretty sure that it will be found on Saturday morning when the same people will have to dress up in the same clothes to meet the new Governor, but meantime it is distinctly annoying.
When I finished my letter last week I was just off to Nalini Sarkar’s garden-party of farewell to the Governor. It was rather a nice party. There were masses of people there whom one knew. The weather is just right for tea in a garden at this time of year. The food was good, and there were some charming little Indian dancers giving a performance after tea was over. The group at our table for tea was tremendously enlivened by the presence of an extremely lively old Madrassi gentleman. His name has 39 letters in it and is quite unpronounceable. It begins with “Vijoy” which is the Sanscrit for Victory. He seems to be spoken of as the Dewan Sahib, or as he says he prefers the ladies to say “Dear One”. He is now in Calcutta as a member of the Sugar Commission but Herbert had met him some years ago in Simla as a Member of the Imperial Council of Agriculture. He seems to have travelled all over the world and has a fund of stories about his experiences, and kept us all in a ripple of laughter.
After having very few late evenings, I had a burst of them on Friday and Saturday, on both of which nights I was not in bed till past three o’clock. On Friday there was what is known as a Ladies Night at the United Service Club, on which the premises usually sacred to men are thrown open to women, and people give big dinner parties, followed by dancing in the Lawn House, as the Ladies annexe is called, and games in the Billiard Room, and sing-songs in the bar. I was a guest of Dr. Heron and met some nice people. The drawback to the party was that each dance was so enormously long. I suppose we started dancing about 10:30 and at 2:15 a.m. we had only got to dance no. 7. After that dance I made a detirmined effort to go home, and reached Cossipore exactly at 3 o’clock. On Saturday I was dining with Arthur Moore, the Editor of the Statesman. He generally has rather interesting parties, and excellent food, and this party came up to scratch in both respects. There were a couple called Forsyth there, who are both active in all sorts of public movements and are both good talkers. There was also a man who has only just come to Calcutta. He was until recently Director of the Government information Bureau at Delhi, and has now joined the staff of the Statesman. He was a scholarly sort of person, and had a great many interesting things to talk about. The party was completed by the young Countess Podewilz, daughter of the German Consul General, who is a pretty creature with star-like eyes, and who, I hear, has two children and has been divorced, in spite of the fact that she still looks about eighteen. We dined and talked, and listened in to London on the wireless. (It was not coming through very well) Then about ten o’clock we went along to the Saturday club to dance. About one o’clock I thought I might be going home, but Mr. Forsythe, who had discovered that I had never been to the Three Hundred Night Club which was started last year, insisted that my education should be completed, and that we should go there, so off we went. Our potions were mild for a Night Club, for four of us drank tea and the other two had beer. The Club was quite a pleasant place, with a very good Polish pianist, but barring the fact that there was not half as much room and air, it was little different from the Saturday Club, and almost all the people there except a few Indians had come on from the Saturday Club. Mr. Forsythe was a founder member. He says the Club was founded with the best intentions of being a place where Indians and Europeans could meet and entertain one another. It has caught on like anything, but not in the least in the spirit in which it was intended. The Indians and Europeans do not mix very much, and though not exactly disreputable, it has developed into a place which stays open all night, and certainly encourages people to drink more and spend more than is good for them.
We had taken a few people out to Tollygunge in the afternoon, and had a nice bathe and sun bathe there. It’s a pity Cossipore is so far away from Tollygunge for Herbert is fond of Tolly. Personally unless one bathes and has a party there I would so much sooner have tea and mess about in the Garden out here, which is infinitely prettier, and in which I can work, or I can sit and write or read or sew.
Idris had a big party at the Flying Club on Sunday to show people his new plane and give them joy rides. He still has not sold the Gypsy Moth, so he asked Mr. Kemp, who is the head of Indian Air Survey and Transport to come and fly one of the machines, and between them they took a lot of people up, while Herbert and I entertained the rest and gave them tea. There were twenty of us altogether, and when most people moved off about 6 o’clock, a small party of intimates remained for drinks and talk.
One way and another I have seen a lot of people and done a great deal of writing and telephoning about all sorts of things this week. I have taken a hold of myself and arranged three parties for next month which are to be on the lines of one I gave last year. That is to say we invite about 40 people to cocktails at seven o’clock, and they stay on to cold supper. It took me the best part of two mornings to sort people out into three groups who I thought would have most in common, and to write out the lists and addresses, though Idris kindly let one of his clerks actually write the cards. These parties will deal with most of the people to whom we owe hospitality, and I shall fee a clear conscience for the rest of the season! I have been getting arrangements for the Himalayan Club Photographic exhibition moving too, and I think we shall get quite a good response for photos.
When I came in the other evening, a delightful surprise was waiting for me. It was a copy of his book “Snow on the Equator” from Mr. Tilman. The book is about his climbs in Africa, and his bicycle ride across Africa, and it looks extremely interesting.
Herbert has only accompanied me on one of my social outings and that was to a big cocktail party at the Bengal Club, where we enjoyed ourselves very much.
Last night I dined with Herbert Richter in China Town, and we had a long and uninterrupted talk about his doings, especially his experiences in Addis Ababa, since he left India.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Nov 25th 1937
My darling Annette
Your letters are really great fun and make College life sound an amusing affair. Its lucky for you and Richard to have each other up at the same time, for it must make life more amusing to meet members of the opposite sex and exchange views. I like the story of the two young men at the Modern Languages Discussion Group who sent a note to ask whether the occupants of the sofa knew what it was all about! Christina Drake sounds an entertaining companion. What a difference it makes to people if they have travelled about a bit and mixed with a wide variety of other people. Your first term seems to promise very well for a pleasant and interesting sojourn at Oxford – I hope the scholarly side will prove as satisfactory.
Was’nt it sad that poor Mrs. Petrie collapsed with lumbago directly she got back from returning Rosemary to store – I am so afraid it must have been brought on by the long wet drive – I wish she had sent Rosemary in a bus –
Its almost magical the way Dad’s health, spirits and temper improve the moment he stops worrying about his work. He has been looking so well this week and has been quite cheerful and full of fun. He and Idris indulge in the most ridiculous flights of fancy, capping one another’s suggestions with infinite pleasure. By the way, it was with a certain relief that we saw Brigadier Tute and major Costello leave last Friday morning – They had not really been much trouble, largely because they were working hard, but its a little bit of a bore having outsiders to meals day after day, and feeling that one must sit and talk to them after dinner instead of reading a book – They both wrote very nice letters of thanks and Major Costello amused us very much by saying that he had throughly enjoyed the “intellectual treat of listening to our conversation!! What do you think of that? Idris was depressed when first he got back here, I suppose because of the attack of fever he had, but he has also quite recovered his spirits now.
Your comment on the fact that Mokes never wants to see anything when she goes anywhere, brought back a thought that I have had before, and it is to wonder what impressions she brought back from her trip to Canada and how much of it she now remembers.
There are such a lot of “play-jobs” that I want to do, and don’t find time for. I want to stick in lots of photo-graphs and I want to mount my collection of pressed flowers (that will be a very long job) and I want to look at all the pictures of the cathedrals we saw on the epidiascope and I want to spend an afternoon with Percy Brown in the Budhist galleries of the Indian Museum –
The last few days I have resorted to a tip given in a book Dad has called “Nerves and Personal Power” and that is to make a list of all the things you have to do and want to do and cross them out as they are accomplished – It really does help when one has a lot to get through. Already I have begun to look forward to lots more spare time in Chinsurah. I wonder whether it will work out so –
I have just finished the November Readers Digest and will post it to you next week. You are the most likely to read it and pass it on to others, I think.
Best love, my dear, and bless you
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Nov 25th 1937
My dear Annette
This week I have left your letter to the last: in consequence it suffers from my feeling that I have already told anything which I write in it, for I doubt if my tired mind will cough up anything new.
Already I have told Richard and/or Rosemary that I have by exchange lost my new top hat (for an old one too large for me) at the Governor’s farewell: that my temper is better and weariness, in consequence, less: that while despairing of my schemes I have yet resumed work on the rainfall statistics about them: that the cold weather is to some extent with us (I wear woollen suits) though it is still very warm: and – I forget what.
Your mother has plunged into gaiety: twice last week out till three: and tonight out to dinner in Chinatown which probably means going on to the Saturday Club though she asked for the car at tea.
What I forgot, vide above, was that the car has been badly mucked about by (?)Miltons who were to have “adjusted” things. We now debate whether we should buy a new one straight away. I have not the cash. It is a nuisance. If we had sold before we went home we should have got some £30 more for it, have saved what we shall have dropped on the Morris and have avoided most of the import duty, by bringing in a used car. However we should not have had room for so much in France, because it is not likely that we should have bought as large a car as that Morris (though I don’t know: it didn’t seem large compared with the Armstrong) and might therefore have spent a good deal more on fares or missed a lot of excursions.
Do you do physical jerks? By all means do: and attain beauty – not that I did but I quote the advertisements. I mention it in order to say that since my return I have plugged away at Muller but still find trousers too tight round the waist. If the Tollygunge scales are right I have however taken off nearly six pounds: which I have not told your mother because she thinks that if I’m fat I’m happy. Having forgotten Boike last week I returned to him this: would that I knew really whether he does me any good or not!
I persevere with the scheme of massaging my eyes twice daily with a shaving brush and boiling water. Symonds said a week ago that they were bluer than ever – so may it works -?
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Romey
The Towers,
Cossipore, Calcutta
Nov 25th, 1937
My darling Rosemary,
Mrs. Petrie wrote by Air Mail to give news of you and says she much enjoyed having you with her. It is sad that she collapsed with a bad attack of lumbago directly she got back from returning you to school. I am looking forward to hearing your impressions of her little house and the pussy and “Pan”. I have only seen the little place in summer time when it is most attractive. If you don’t think the Ballroom dancing is worth taking, I should ask Auntie to write and say so. You could easily have some lessons later on, possibly in the holidays some time. It is certainly a waste of time and money if you don’t get individual attention.
Our two half-tame mynahs seem pleased that we have started breakfast in the garden and are very much less shy than they were last year. This morning a grey squirrel darted round a bush and seized a little bit of toast that one of the mynahs had missed. This has raised great hopes in the breast of Idris, who has always wanted to tame a squirrel. It will be interesting to see if the little fellow comes back tomorrow.
How do you like biology? Never having done any, I have very little idea what it is like. It will be interesting if you turn out to have scientific leanings like Joyce. You seem to be keeping up your average marks pretty well. Will you think me unkind, I wonder, if I mention that that I think your writing is not as good as it was? It may be that the last two or three letters have been written in a great hurry because, you were going out in proper letter writing time, but the letters are not at all well formed and also the writing is not well arranged on the page. You are inclined to squeeze too much in at the bottom or at the ends of lines. Paper is cheap and a letter looks so much prettier if it is not all squeezed up. I should always leave at least a quarter of an inch blank at the bottom of a page. I have just looked back through your letters and I see that the one written on Oct 17th is quite nice both in writing and arrangement, so I expect it has just been hurry that has made the last two not quite up to standard.
Dad seems in much better spirits again this week. His health improves and his spirits go up directly he ceases worrying about his work. I do hope the life and work at Chinsurah will suit him.
At dinner in Chinatown last night, there was a big party of Chinese entertaining a young Chinaman who was walking round the world and had gone through 43 countries, but the news from his own country was so bad that he has given up his project and is hurrying back to China as fast as he can to offer his services in the Army. He was a nice looking young man. We wondered who he could be last night and saw all his news in the paper this morning. Herbert Richter visited China and Japan when he was going home a couple of years ago. He says Japan is very fascinating, but he would not like to live there always because everything is so small. He says the houses, the railways, the people, everything, even the scenery is on a small scale. Little mountains, little valleys, little rivers, almost as if they had been made for an exhibition. Isn’t it queer? I never thought of Japan as being like that.
It seems a horrible long time already since I saw you, my darling! He! Ho! It is a great bother that one has to be out here. I was having lunch with a woman yesterday, who has just brought a daughter out from home, who is a bit your type and it made me quite envious!
Best love darling,
From Mum
From HPV to Romey
Calcutta, Nov 25th,1937
My dear Rosemary,
An interesting letter from Mrs. Petrie about the three of you. It is sad that on her return she should have been knocked out by lumbago. Undoubtedly she is the most hospitable of souls.
Today I was interested to discover that your mother has a keen belief in the eye exercises. She suddenly asked me when I was going to write to you about them. I suppose that I too have belief, but I don’t expect miracles and am not dismayed when, at my age, the exercises don’t make a vast difference. Physical jerks don’t either, that is, they do not restore the lissomness that I had twenty or ten years ago. The snag about the eye exercises, is that to do them requires great strength of mind. I do some of them while going into Calcutta in the car each morning. That journey seems to grow worse. The dust in the roads is thick, and congestion is bad because so many places are undergoing repairs. They have spread sand on miles of road, so that the mounted troops escorting the cars of the two Governor, one who left on Tuesday and the other who arrives on Saturday --- as they go to and from the station and Government House should not have their horses falling and sore throats, and sore eyes. In England, in London rather, the police horses have a rubber pad round the shoes in which the nails go. Easier on the feet in bad footing.
My new grey top hat was taken by mistake for another by someone else at the Governor’s farewell show. I still hope to get it back because the one left in exchange is much too big, and mine must be too small for the taker of it. And mine is new and the other old. I am distressed.
We are now breakfasting out in the garden again. There are two yellow water lilies out in triumph ( though they are really not beautiful) because they have failed elsewhere in Calcutta. The pink lilies of which there are maybe a dozen in the pond are far more lovely. You will guess from the breakfast news that the cold weather is on us. I have given up wearing cotton clothes, though during the day too warm in wool.
Much love,
Dad
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Nov. 28th. 1937
My darling Annette
It is Sunday morning and once more I am sitting under the big banyan tree, looking at the scarlet poinsettia and the magenta bourgainvillia against the silver grey of the River – This year I have added the cerulean blue of the Morning Glory convolvulus, which is so lovely early in the day, but shuts up after lunch.
Dad is fishing snails out of the lily pond – He has been talking about doing it for a long time and we have made great plans for Idris (who has no idea of working in a garden - ) to help! He, however has gone off with Annia Brandt, a little German friend of ours, who is staying the week-end here, to give her a trip in the new ‘plane – just as I was sitting down to write this, they flew over head.
Is’nt it sad about Peg’s engagement being broken off? Its odd that some people – sometimes of one sex and sometimes of another, seem quite unable remain fond of another person unless they see them constantly – Its difficult to spot the sort of people who will be like that too – From everything I was told about Ginny, he did not sound as if he would be the sort of man who would behave like that. Peg has been so completely devoted – Its terribly hard on her – Some people are like that about friends. I have been lucky in my chief friends of both sexes. We can remain fond of one another and in sympathy, though we don’t see each other for years – Mary de Kat and Magda Elliot are both like that. We don’t often write to one another, but we don’t feel any different when we meet.
I’m glad that you and Richard like the Hogg family – I would like Richard to meet Hugh Edgeley who is up at (gap left in letter). His parents are old friends of ours and they are always saying our sons ought to meet. I do owe Hugh a certain debt of gratitude, which he would probably not be best pleased to be reminded about. I really learnt to bathe a baby, through practicing on him! He’s just a few months older than Richard.
Is’nt it odd when one knows that something is going to happen in the future, how one’s focus moves on? Since it seems fairly certain that we go to Chinsurah at the end of February, I find my mind constantly jumping forward and planning things to be done there, and the interveneing Cold Weather Season months here seem to have taken on a “temporary” flavour. I am rather looking forward to arranging the Chinsurah House – At last there will be room and to spare for Dad’s tiger skins –
Did I ask you before what subjects you are doing besides your languages? I know I meant to, but I so often forget things I mean to do!
How tiresome stupidty is? It can be bearable when it is combined with good nature and simplicity, but when a stupid person is pretentious and also a bit acid, they do not make pleasant companions. Idris and I met such a woman out at dinner on Friday night. Her husband is a clever and well known barrister and I suppose she often hears intelligent talk going on and is able to pick up a few catch words, but is quite unable to support an argument – and all the same gives one the impression that she is immensely well satisfied with her own opinions. When Idris and I got into the car to go home we turned to one another with the same remark on our lips “Golly! What a stupid woman!”
Your letters have given me the impression that your first term at Oxford has been a success – Is that correct?
Best love, my dear
from
Mum