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The Townend Family Letters

Correspondence from the 1930s - 1940s between members of the Townend family
HPV + LJT Letters 1936 to 1938

1938 August

From HPV to family

Chinsura
Saturday August 3rd

Caris Omnibus (Latin)

I am trying a device to keep the paper from flopping in the breeze of the fan, and I am not saying that it shows signs of success. It is so far efficacious that it prevents the paper from rolling properly when I turn it up at the end of each line. I am on the other hand sitting plumb under the fan.

Disaster has overcome merit; when today, a couple of months late I sat down to writing my notes about the Suri inspection, I found that I had lost my rough notes about some of the departments; and having inspected three exactly similar offices since I can by no means remember what I meant to say or what was wrong. Did I flinch? I did; but I also wrote without blenching that I had pointed out the minor defects verbally and did not think it necessary to record them; thus I shall gain the credit of being kind to the miserables. But it is a blow.

Not the most prosperous of days. As I settled down to work quite happy as I count happiness in came a rather nice old boy with his own trumpet which he proceeded to blow vigourously in the hope that thus he might induce me to recommend him for some form of title. I refrained from anger of any kind and we played a little game of pretending not to know what was the real object of the visit. No Indian is ashamed of saying how much better he is than his fellows and of course this is very plausible if you know the fellows and do not know him. Then there came in the P.A. with a file; a moan from the Accountant General about some doings by Dash and Burrows when they were in this job last year or maybe Martin and B. Of course I had to confute him and confute I did (as I think) after ploughing through old tour diaries of the Burdwan Collector and looking up endless trains so as to see if really he saved time by going in a car.

Then a pleader came in to move a motion and then it was lunch time with practically nothing done all morning. I took the trouble to look up the Commissioner’s old tours too and I see that I have done twice as many days’ touring up to date as Burrows did last year up to the end of September. By way of annoying Government I wrote to say that for the touring in connection with the Forest Committee they ought to pay me T.A. besides the fixed T.A. because it would mean extra tours; but there is no sense in this really.

Why I do physical jerks when my deads-cutting obviously exercises the tummy muscles ferociously is beyond me. I made a great effort to get topsides of the gaillardias this evening and perhaps did so as far as the great mass in the river-bed (which does not mean what it says; bed along the river is indicated) is concerned; but there are many others and darkness fell before I got round to them; by that time I felt as if my waist-portion had been put through a mangle and my back is fair broke at this moment.

Have I lamented my nose-skin? If not it is strange that so favourable a grouse-topic should have been left unessayed. But why has my nose turned red and swollen not to say (by which of course I do say) inflamed? It is as if I had hung it out over snow in the sun. But except for a very few minutes when I watched physical jerks at the Howrah School I haven’t been in the sun at all; unless I have strolled out to sharpen a pencil over the drain as I found myself beginning to do this morning. Well, if it is not sunburn it is some foul disease; the inflammation is less today but when gently out of curiousity I pressed a bit of scabbiness in the middle of it there came out yellowness; would that happen from sun-burn? I poured peroxyde on it on the off chance and as I had to bottle out took the opportunity to pour some into various mosquito or ant bites that have raised little watery volcanoes on my ankles – but I do not know when I got these bits. Let it be said however that there has been less belly pain these latter days. Winsome says that all Calcutta is known to be ailing with wind; how known? all the women run round and tell it perhaps. For not many people proclaim it to all-comers as I am wont to do.


From HPV to LJT

Chinsura
Bengal
August 3rd

(note at top of letter reads)
Grindleys report £96 refund of income tax = £106 odd less 10%

My darling Joan

I am sad tonight. This morning a letter came from Alice telling of Leilie’s death and a couple of hours later another arrived from her niece with details. She died four days before I got her last letter. I have just been writing to the niece to thank her: and also (I hope you dont mind) I have written to the Eastern Trust Co to send the 50 dollars, which I had told them to send to Peter, to the niece instead to meet the doctor’s Bill and such. And this has made me feel most depressed. I wish my last letters had reached her.

Another hard day. I finished writing orders on the 5 appeals and heard another one. Tomorrow there is another and another the next day. I have crowded them up so as to be able to get away to Bankura on Sunday – or rather on Monday for I shall spend Sunday night at Asansol so as to avoid the night journey round by Midnapore. These last few days I have been more serene in a way: but I hate and detest this being behind hand and working against time.

What have I to talk about. That letter of mine is like the humus heap: all sorts of rubbish goes into it and gets mixed up with fungus and bacteria and such. I am left with no thoughts at all after writing it: not that I have written any of it tonight. Actually my letter to Parpie re humus (directions for making up -) has taken me quite a time. I have hardly been near the pit lately: for what to do? Is it worth turning it if the rain is going to come dolloping down.

The 2nd mali has returned. Marriage has not suited him. He says that he has had fever and certainly looks rotten. Yesterday I paid the servants and realised that the mesalchi was sick. It is callous of me but I hadn’t thought of inquiring about him since I returned from Burdwan. He asked for an advance: he had expended money on a homoeopathic doctor and medicine. He says his daughter is very ill with fever and he wants to buy medicine. It appears to be malaria. This morning the bearer produced the dispensary slip about the brother in law’s wife: she is being given Easton syrup (bought by her husband) and a liver mixture apparently: the slip shows that a blood test was made for kala azar and proved negative. The bearer has paid off the whole of the 40 rupees advance taken for the wedding of the adopted daughter, having drawn only Rs 10/- for each of the past two months. Triumph of the driver. I send him into Calcutta today and after going to T.I.Thompsons, Martins(?) and the Army and Navy he finally got new cogwheels for the mowing machine: also oil for the car. Did I tell you that all that was wrong with the refrigerator was not having the burner in the plumb centre of the chimney. A polite letter from Catto thanking me for various letters that I have forwarded. He asks me to let you know that he has definitely arranged for Editorial comment upon the Himalayan Journal by the Statesman and has written to Brown asking him to give news when the new issue is sent out for review so that wordsworth can be reminded to see to it. I replied telling him of your primula; “Macrophylla macrocarpa” – it sounds enormous but I suppose is a tiny thing. The photo of Smythe and Shipton I send merely because Smythe looks so well and Shipton so haggard. The invitation to the wedding because you may like to go to it or may not. I never told you that in a passing car on the Monday (11th July) when I was called into Calcutta I saw Van Buren looking really very well, I thought.

Ganga came past today quite close to the house with three barges abreast. Ganga is like Raidah but different: consider however how close it was that I could read the name bare-eyed – Fayl Huq comes on Saturday
But no more
Bless you my dear
Much love
Your
Toto


Family letter from HPV

Chinsura
Bengal
Thursday August 4th 1938

My dear (hand written) Joan

This is mail day; but last mail day. I write because during the whole of next week I shall be in Bankura, and if my visit to that place at all resembles my visits to the others where I inspected there will be little time for letter writing. Let me say before starting that it adds beyond measure to the interest of the geographical journal to have met so many of the people who are always turning up in the articles and accounts of discussions. If I were not all things considered a person of amazing health and even more amazing self-control I should have apoplected this day. Apart from the fact that I had to hear another appeal (and there is another tomorrow) there was one interruption after another all day long. Starting with Stein with a file about another row between Sen the District Magistrate of Midnapore and Wood the Fat policeman there, well deserving the capital. Sen had made some caustic remarks about the Bengali Additional Superintendent of Police; but as I told Stein he had provocation which would have drawn fire from a sponge. All this trouble at Midnapore is due to the habit of writing long notes to one another instead of walking across and coughing up bits off the chest. Also Stein had some remarks to make about the Suri boy caning and nose pulling case. It is said that the S.P. drew out his revolver and flourished it at the crowd that collected; as evidence that he was the s.P., he says; but it sounds rather as if the statement that he started beating the boy’s father too and drew a pistol when the man tried to seize him by the arms was true. It will be a nuisance now whatever happens. How amazing are these Bengali Officers! But it is I think a fact that all the police have a much higher idea of their importance and of the respect that they should be accorded than have the other services of themselves.

Talking of self respect how many of the family even remember 1100? and how many practice the lesson embodied in it? I can answer the two questions in one and the answer will probably be correct. I have had a vision of Richard draping himself over this and that; of Annette hunched over a book; and of Rosemary slouching around by way of showing that she too when pressed can curve her back. All of which is a great disappointment to me at a time when I have resumed the habit of touching the ground behind my head after bending in turn every joint in the spine. A departure from back-straightening that makes it all the dearer to me. A review of a Bengali system of exercises says that for disobedient children not discipline but standing on the head for varying periods is an almost infallible cure: quoting from the book: the reviewer adds on his own account that he thinks diet is more important – and the world said . . . . . ? What, I am unable to suggest. However I do urge a reversion to the back stretching since this alone carries me through the days. Unless it is Muller or even Hornibrook. No one would be less of a fussy man than I if there were not so many files started as I conceive and as is indeed obvious for the deliberate purpose of annoying me and perhaps others . . . . . but mostly me. I believe that word has gone round that here is a mut, let us file appeals before him. I have noticed that Fawcus dealt firmly with appeals simply chucking them out; and also that he seems to have been declared wrong in doing so as often as not which idiomatically means more often. And glancing back I perceive that I have misled you all into the belief that I touch the ground behind me when standing with my head or hands; not so, I refer to the young girls’ exercise of lying flat, lifting the legs and touching the ground behind the head with the feet.

Today there arrived seeds from Calcutta; and we have planted in the most unpromising looking dusty mixture of sand lime and ordinary earth slightly moistened cabbage, lettuce cabbage, tomatoes, cauliflower, and beet. Lancaster says to put a thin layer of leaf mould very fine over the top of the seeds, but I denied myself this indulgence. The best part is putting the pots out after the planting and syringing water into the air to fall gently on them.

The mali is much distressed because there are no Brussels sprouts and indeed they did last on for an amazing time into the hot weather. I have told him that he can go on ten days leave. He was to have gone some weeks ago but gave way to the second mali’s wish to get married; for I said that I was not going to have everyone going on leave at the same time.

The mistris have not been so much in evidence but they are still here and prove it at intervals by the noise of glass crashing down from windows. What they are doing I do not know except that they are still working in the dressing room. There is another set underpinning the river wall. At five this morning I woke and saw the river looking a deep misty blue with the electric lights opposite still shining all gold. The tug Shiva came past today; these high tides make the traffic more interesting because the big boats also come cutting across the bend where it is shallow instead of sticking to the deep channel on the other side.

I have just been reading again the Living Garden but with much less enjoyment perhaps in part because so little of it has stuck that I realise the hopelessness ever of remembering anything about plants. Also I found the seed planting tedious; but perhaps if I had done it myself instead of stage-managering the mali it might have been less so. There is something about this garden which prevents me from doing things in it myself, except cutting deads. Brother Parp has told me that nothing came of the raspberries or the loganberries this year: he ascribes it to the drought but somehow I doubt that. When I was labouring with them last year I had a premonition that I was doing them in. Killed by kindness, you might say of them.

There have been practically no flying ants this year.
Now I shall go to bed.
I wish I had some nice brainless book to read. I have soured on my French books. That comes of going to Chandernagore. Strange that after the first week or so I have ceased even to try to do the gramophone records. Perhaps I stay longer in the garden each evening. Today I worked for a bit from 6.45 till 8. But that is not the cause. Nor have I as intended learnt to type.

Friday August 5th. 1938

I started off well in the work line and then followed misfortune; Dr Jaffri came in. He is most tedious with his assertions about his honesty and ability and tales of the intrigues against him, which may well be true seeing that they are to the discredit of Bengali Muhammadans for the most part of whom anything is possible. There is a certain sum usually paid to the Imambara mutwali or manager which he is; recently the Committee protested to Government that he ought not to be given it, and two months ago the decision was reached against them; the order however said that they were to issue the Cheque – and by way of doing him down they first said that it must be signed at a meeting, then postponed meeting and then refused when they did meet to sign the cheque; so he is still without the money. I spoke about this to the Secretary concerned in Calcutta a month ago and wrote again about it two or three days back – so there was nothing that I could do now. But get him to go I could not – short of rudeness. Then there was the appeal. And by that time it was almost one o’clock and my morning which had started so well ended in nothing done. Hartley came in during the afternoon and we got through a fair amount but not things which are of urgency. I got rid of one judgment; and after tea when rain prevented my going into the garden I typed a letter to Carter about average outturns of paddy and the report of the Settlement men on the Hooghly Howrah area. In a way not a thing that matters as being urgent; but if I don’t mention it no one will and if I put it off I should never have done it. Four sheets with a lot of statement work – columns of figures which are difficult to type neatly as one has to calculate spacing and divide the page into columns.

I have not done the accounts in any month yet though I have jotted down all expenditure somewhere, but not always sensibly – i.e I have used scraps of paper on which servants have presented bread and milk bills and the like for entering other items on and have not noted the dates; now all such papers have been mixed up and I shall probably have a job to sort them out by their months. Did I say that I gave Rs 10 towards the cost of the team which entered from here for the Shield in Calcutta? They were knocked out in the first game; and Hartley commented that it was lucky for us because if they had gone far there would have been another beat-up for funds.

The hideous noise in the compound is a blue-jay. Strange that their ordinary flying, to get to the other side sort of thing, doesn’t dhow off the blue of their wings. Strange too that butterflies do not seem to mind the rain, merely sitting on branches with their wings folded instead of seeking cover. The malis have merely cast the water hyacinth on top of the humus heap and have cast other garden refuse on top of it without mixing in anything good. It will have to be dealt with. The vegetable garden has all been dug up and all been weeded. There is no possibility of extending the beds because everywhere there seems to be cement; I might buy a pick-axe but the thought does not attract me. I believe I did not say that I told Mahar that I did not mind his keeping the Excise launch that is being sent here for his use with the idea of doing down the Chandernagore smugglers off this compound. There has been a diplomatic incident in Chandernagore because an Excise man from British India went into the town and watched a “French wineshop” so as to be able to put his pals onto any smuggler seen by him to be buying spirit there; a smuggler had the bright idea of putting the French police on to him and they became very excited about the honour of France and such, although this had been safeguarded by the man’s turning his badge inside his dhoti. Which seems a ridiculous antic. However there are different ways of showing respect in different countries and if a man thinks that to tuck things into his trousers (as you might say) is a mark of respect to the French Government they might I think take it in the spirit in which it was meant. Baron told Hartley today that he has been recalled to France but hopes to be able to come back. Hartley wonders whether he has got into trouble, saying that the Governor General of Pondicherry has been recalled in disgrace and that this recall of Baron may be concerned with it. But the Governor General is probably in disgrace owing to the riots and the shootings and I cannot see that our nice Monsieur Baron can have any concern with those.

A letter from Annette yesterday. Alas that it should have been raining! What I should have done was to announce that I was going away and then stayed secretly so as to be able to get some work done without interruption.

This day I shall write no more. In a previous life I was some sort of spidery beast spinning long threads out of my own innards. I am astonished to see how I go on and on in these letters without one thing to write about.

I do believe Tightrope was buzzing about on the other side of the river tosay. Raidak has not been up for ages.

Saturday Aug 6th 9.55 pm

It may have been Unicorn; I had forgotten the name yesterday, and I was never able to distinguish them. Coquette tugs. Stumpy, a merit in a tug; as I think. Also the rain I alased about was the rain in Wales not that here which leaves me unmoved.

It is late to start this. I have been doing files since dinner. And before dinner too till 8.15. In preparation for the journey into the wilderness tomorrow. Several interruptions today but not long ones; the two strong men knockabouts who desire to start an athletic club; previously promised a subscription, donation rather, if they collected a substantial sum towards the Rs 25 which they estimated to be needed, they brought in the list and claimed fulfilment of the promise; their total was Rs 2/4. It is a pathetic little enterprise; they say that the local gentlemen disapprove of athletics, i.e. muscle control and iron eating or bending; and seeing how constipating has been their effect on the intelligence of these two leaders I do not wonder. I regard them with benevolence as one might bull-dogs; after all they must have worked with amazing perseverance at their stunts. At four I had to chuck work and prepare for the College 102nd anniversary celebrations; which meant speeches to and by Fazl Huq. I regard him with benevolence too. His boredom was so heartfelt and so poorly concealed. He had sent a telephone message to say that he would arrive at 4.15 and though I said “that means five” I went at the proper hour as did every one else. John Bottomley and Mrs. (who is looking faded) arrived at 4.20; he has been less afflicted recently by asthma but is wearing a shoe with a heel running in one solid piece flat under the instep, having wrenched his ankle two months ago on the steps in Darjeeling. The letter q is perhaps my chief cause of grief on this typeq (there is goes) writer, pushing itself up when I want an a or a w; no also is a nuisance intruding when I want a space; worse still is the / which goes down with such a jerk when I hit it by accident instead of the backspace that I leap in my chair; but all these are natural and the bewildering thing is why I should invariably start by hitting an e instead of an o in “ago”. Another by-thought is the excellence of the non-existent words that one forms by accident on the typewriter through hitting the wrong keys. This boring digression will have prepared you for the news that Fazl Huq turned up at 5.10. No apology to the College people though he told me afterwards that he was sorry; no explanation. However they rattled through the entertainment. An old gentleman got up and said that he had been coerced into speaking because he was the oldest ex-student; though I had heard him myself asking to be allowed to; however he was brief. Another arose and said that he had been asked also, though clearly he had not; and he made no bones about producing three typed sheets and reading them in a high pitched gabble that went beyond anything in my experience; Holman collapsed in splutters of laughter; the very worst of the Council speech-readers was an orator compared to this old chap. He stopped suddenly beamed round and descended from the platform happy. So we didn’t grudge it. Fazl Huq was clean! The speech reader was from Bansberia and said that he had met me at a Govt. House Garden Party two years ago. I suspect him of being some relation of Deb Mahashoy whose book of speeches was stolen by Azizul Huq. Maybe this was one of those very speeches. There was tea afterwards. I returned here at 6.45 and at once had three cups more. Then the files. I have cleared off in a sense all but three; and in addition to the three the inspection notes on Suri and on Burdwan. If I could but manage those . . . . ! But that is a phantasy of grandeur as Bernard on whom be peace would say. Yet perhaps I could do them tomorrow; in the train or after lunch? You may have two guesses whether I do so or not and will still be as near knowing as I am. Very noticeable of late is a growing inability to spell or even to know if a word is a word. In part age; but in part also long association with Babu English. I rebuked them the other day for using the word drawal (from withdrawal, I suppose) and behold it turned up in a new Bill a few days afterwards; it may be legal English.

So ends this typing as for this week. For I shall not take the typewriter with me.

Bankura. 8.8.38 Monday
Your first guess was right.

(handwritten addition to Annette) Good of you to write, my dear: and I find your letters interesting. Would that I could manage to write some letters to you individually but I haven’t the strength after the big typing effort.
Love Dad


From HPV to LJT

Bankura Circuit House
Monday August 8th

My darling Joan

I arrived here this evening. The train for Asansol left Bandel at 10 railway or rather at 10.10, being a bit late. It was a lovely day. The early morning over the river was gay: sun, blue sky with podgy clouds, a stiff breeze and boats racing up. I felt sorry that I had cried off the motor journey to Asansol but 5 hour’s car against 2 ½ by train were rather daunting. I looked out of the windows a good deal – lamenting the Damodar canal neglect: but the crops didn’t look so bad. At Asansol Chambers met me, and it then became known the the S.D.P. no longer lives in our house that was. I felt sorry because I had looked forward to seeing it again: but it was condemned fifteen years or so ago, and when a two storied house on the maidan fell vacant owing to a mining lecturer being abolished Chambers jumped at the chance of moving into his house – a two storied building which struck me as not particularly commodious but they say that it is much lighter and more conveniently arranged. Mrs Chambers to meet whom (but she had not arrived) we were invited to the Sachse’s cocktail party 18 months ago is a plump agreeable looking girl, obviously not fit. Quite a short time ago she had a baby which died almost at once and she has not yet recovered from it. He is to be transferred, joining the new Accounts-Finance Dept of the Government of India, on probation.

Asansol has grown. The main portion of the Grand Trunk Road looks more crowded and dirtier. Just over the bridge on the camping ground there is a cluster of Babu houses on the north side of the G.T. road, built as a spec by Apscar who gave Government the polo ground in exchange. Alongside the S.D.O’s bungalow of our day is a large but shed like building, which is the Imperial Bank, partly in front of the Circuit House, and behind the said S.D.Os house down the slope is the Police Barracks. A road runs along there now parallel to the road to the office. The old S.D.O’s house is thickly overgrown with trees. It looks as if all the trees which had been planted had grown up and none ever been thinned out. The garden is a wilderness, as is natural after being deserted for three months but I doubt if it had been kept up even before that time. There are new buildings up towards the Chola Nagpur Club – Mines’ Board of Health, Subjudge’s office (now occupied by whatnots attached to the S.D.O’s office) new Civil Courts really large: then a tarred road turning sharp left in front of the club, and sharp right along the edge of the polo ground and on it, roughly parallel to the railway, are Tombs bungalow as was occupied by Dr Sen his successor and looking at it the policeman’s bungalow and then the S.D.O’s, a tiny compound but no attempt has been made at a garden probably because Mrs Chambers has been more or less on the sick list ever since they moved in. They gave me lunch, then I talked shop with Chambers and then I went up to my room and wrote letters to Harry and about the car. Then lay down for an hour: and at 4.15 Chambers took me out to Buripur the Steel Works town to tea (and shop) with Peeling the superintendent. After tea, Chambers went off and Peeling took me round the town and the works site (I didn’t go over the plant, that is) to see places where land is being acquired for the new works and for quarters. The works are going to be enormous: one shop looks as if it would be four or five hundred yards long. They are held up for want of the land: acquisition was delayed by the machinations of that pipsqueak Mitter of the Faroqui election fame. The works are apparently slap on the spot where Swanker used to try to drown pigs in tanks: the the whole area has been altered so that there is no recognising it: huge earth erections with a plateau on the tops and tanks like lakes containing 400,000 gallons or was 400,000,000? Anyhow they are big. The road to it is up the right hand side of the polo ground (where a small tank used to be) then in a sweep leftwards past the Indian Waggon Works a big factory, under the railway between two new tanks, and round parallel to the railway: and thence an offshoot goes back over the railway into the Steel Works: which are huge. But I don’t know that they make any steel. Pig iron. The new words will be more than as large again. The “town” is well laid out – rows and rows of decent little bungalows with a street of big bungalows on the south: and northwards rows upon rows of “lines” with a big one storied hospital under creation and a company’s hotel. The Gupta man from Dacca with the American wife is in charge of the hotel and of the town. Afterwards a drink at Peeling’s (which I didn’t want) and then he sent me back in his car: it is a couple of miles. He came in to dinner which was pleasant enough, but it didn’t start till 8.45 railway time: so you can easily believe that it was after twelve when I got to bed. A soft bed: but I slept well. It is a nuisance that I cannot get rid of windiness: however Peeling remarked that when he saw me he thought me to be the fittest looking person he’d seen for months. There is electricity in the house. This morning shop after breakfast: then a letter, and then I went to the office and inspected some case records – to get an idea of what the deputies were like: didn’t learn much. At 12.30 came back to the house and did files: at 1.15 lunch and at 2.30 nearly was taken by Chambers in his car to the station. He insisted that there was plenty of time and indeed I caught the train with a minute to spare but there was a general feeling of rush. This circuit house where I arrived at 6.15 is rather like the Midnapore one in design and has no electricity: it is a hot night.

People met. Jacobs (husband of Sophie) at the station on arrival. Ram Birich who came to pay his salaams, extraordinarily unchanged: he sent salaams to you and blessings to the children. My old peshkar now decrepit and him I did not recognise. Three pleaders, two whom I remembered and one who had changed out of recognition: a fourth whom I recognised and called by name at once (as I did Jacobs and Ram Biriich): and of course Hein. A much subdued Hein who said his greetings and went off at once.

People heard of: Mackie or Mackay of Nassamunda is now at Ramnagar near Ruth and is Chief Engineer for the Iron and Steel works coal mines: a Rees is under him (Rees of Benali with the Reynaud car) Mrs Mackay or Mackie is said to be dead. Forbes is somewhere: his wife is dead. Two Cretes and two more Cretes who have risen up at their expense. No others. The road that Mansell Young and I made round the town has disappeared except for a section built up when the Governor opened the waterworks. Mrs E.C. rules the Aqabeg family with a rod of iron: I cannot remember her. Sadie Aqabeg is said by all to have renounced Christie when they were engaged because she “would ruin his career”. Nobody else of our time is remembered even. The distillery is to be removed to the Sugar factory which the firm have created in Nadia. There is a golf course on the polo ground. Peeling who was run in by some strikers during the strike for assault is annoying the police because he refuses to plead “not guilty”, saying that the case is true and he is not going to do all about it. It seems to me so obviously the right thing to do.

Very tiring weather at Asansol: partly because the Chambers keep their electric fans running so slow that they seemed to give no breeze at all. I shall send this off tomorrow to be on the safe side.

Much love, my sweetheart
Yours
Toto


From HPV to LJT

At Bankura
Thursday
Aug 11th 1938

My dear Joan.

I had a letter from you yesterday and another the day before: sent on from Chinsura by peon

What a nuisance for you about the boots! But how lucky that it was not the other way round! I do not mean lucky that the bearer packed the left boots instead of the right or vice versa, but that I didn’t carry off one of your boots to England, leaving you here. For I shall not be going a trip into the hills and do not really mind whether I have the boots or not. Of course I was five kinds of a fool to buy then, for the odds against my ever using them are great. It is analogous to my getting that book on diving: for, having got it, I have not dived since; not seriously. I call these boots in fact as punching balls. Do not send out the boot by post: the Customs would charge me full duty on it. If Mrs Stanley can bring it conveniently, very good: but let her not in any way be worried. In no event should I have had the energy for a trek but the Government have settled the matter by fixing the Commissioners’ conference immediately after the Poojahs: so, if I went, I should have to scuttle. Incidentally I do not know that I should like to risk my belly-aches on a trip. Boike is said to have left Calcutta – someone told me so: but in any event I doubt if I should have gone to him again. Did I tell you of the story told me by Harmer of Burn and Co: that when the Xray of him taken by Boike was examined it showed him as having false teeth which he has not got? May be so. Though I should have thought it most unlikely that any man faking Xray photos (i.e. substituting stock photos after printing names on them) would be so careless as to risk exposure thus, by so simple an error.

No electricity here. Hot nights. No breeze. But chilly in the early mornings after rainstorms. I may have caught a chill, for my insides have not been good and I have been running a slight temperature. Only one degree on Tuesday and barely above normal since: I took two quinine pills (but what filthy mould discoloured stuff Government quinine is!) and two aspirins: then it occurred to me that it might be tummy only, and I desisted. Not too energetic: in my feelings: for I have plugged away at work just the same: or maybe more. In a circuit house, it is just as restful to work as to do anything else. There is one petrol lantern which hisses away by my side and one oil lamp, not too good. On Tuesday night I had dinner with the Collector, Bupat. He has married a daughter of G N Roy’s. I saw the photo of G.N. Roy in the drawing room but did not ask about it on the general ground that it is best not to. And later she told me he was her father. She is quite a pretty little woman, though one can see her mother’s features in her. English who is policeman here was at the dinner. I am dining with him tonight. He looks ill. One of the deputies here worked under me when I was rice-controlling: I am ashamed to say that I had not the least memory of him: a nice chap and seems capable. He is the senior deputy and in a sense has been running the place: for there have been three collectors in a year. A subdeputy says that he worked under me at Asansol (quite forgotten) and so also an excise inspector (ditto). Yet Mrs Chambers exclaimed about my memory when I was talking about Asansol people and collieries! It is curious that I should assume it natural to remember them and not to have the least recollection of the Barisal folk – barring the Browns, Da Silvas and such. On Tuesday evening, in came Rai Bahadur S.K Sahana, an old gentleman with a trim beard who was in the old Legislative Council: he was one of those who ratted on the Development Bill and I have always felt some annoyance about it. But regarding himself as an ancient friend he has insisted on sending his car round for me to use. Which is kind of him. Bapat says that he will certainly ask some favour in return. Which reminds me that I am catty by nature. To wit, I can’t help feeling it curious that Burrows having sold 350/- worth of furniture to a zemindar should have left a note for me (written after the sale) recommending that the zemindar should be recommended for a title.

In the new Readers Digest which came yesterday is an account of tackling malaria in a whole countryside by means of atebrin and plasmoquine – much on the same lines as the quinine-plasmoquine experiment which I fixed up for Khambata in Burdwan: but it is claimed that the American effort was a success. Carter has written to me (or rather P.A. has written to me that Carter has telephoned to me) about some of my crop-cutting notes: which may promise well. Incidentally I wrote to Bijoy Mukhejie on the day of his retirement, saying how sorry I was that he was going and thanking him for all that he did for me: and yesterday after a delay due to a wedding in the family he wrote to me sheets and sheets, in which he pours out all his bitterness about the ministers and about the Reforms and the hostility of the I.C.S. to Indians and such: for which I am sorry though I am pleased enough that he should have sufficient liking for me to write it.

Friday August 12th

Dogs play a sort of last-across or rather last through the bungalow, to judge by the noise of barking and of chasing by domestics: but the record is held by three goats which made their way at a gallop through the pillared anteroom (or Durbar hall), the drawing room and the dining room into the verandah and the outer air while I was at lunch. I could have smacked them as they passed, had I thought of it and had I been addicted to smacking. But the circuit house is on the whole clean though hardly gay. Why are easy chairs in a circuit house so uncomfortable? Dinner yesterday at English’s quite a pleasant meal. My belly ache which had been acute so that I feared public rumblings went off after a cocktail. Present the Bapats, the Assistant Magistrate whom we met on the Strathmore (?I have forgotten the name already) and Hatch Barnwell, whom we or at any rate I met a year or may be more ago. He has been here but is now S.D.O. at Vishnapur: late in getting a subdivision because late in passing his departmental. Back at 11.45. My new blue pyjamas (in the sense not worn) and I slept better in them than in the tight Chinese things though those are so much lighter. Up early (ie dressed by 8.15): because I am doing no excercise these days for fear of the tummy plus the temperature. At 9 out to the house of Rai Bahabur S.K. Sahana. He bought a patch of laterite plus gravel some years ago and is engaged in transmuting it into agricultural land. Ploughing green manuring and such. He has dug three big tanks on the hillside and proposes to pump water into them during the rains from a stream at the bottom of the valley. I suggested that a ram might do the trick but I know little about rams and may be one would not pump up enough to be worth while. Filling a cistern and filling an acre-tank are different things. He had a manure heap, so I preached humus to him. He says that he has introduced cabbages and cauliflowers and certain Indian vegetables into the district, so that imports of them which were considerable have ceased. Napier grass, flax and monkey nuts are what he is doing at the moment. Quite interesting. He has a so-called breadfruit tree with fruit bigger than footballs – but says that it is not a real breadfruit because the fruit is not edible. I was delayed by all this but put in an hour inspection before lunch and two hours afterwards. At 5.30 there was a tea to me at the “Club”: about 50 people there with Boy Scouts from the Borstal school, thorough toughs by the look of them and not over bright either. The superintendent used to be jailor at Jalpaiguri when I was there. The tea ended in long formal speeches at which I was slightly peeved. Everybody seemed pleasant but Bapat says that really they are split into two parties hating each other. The Rai Bahadur drove me round and showed me the outskirts – largely leper hospitals it seemed though there are only two. And on my return I did some work, had a slow bath and then read for a very little before dinner. Since dinner I have been writing this. It is now 9.30 and I shall go to bed. I leave here tomorrow and shall be glad to go. This business of being spied upon as a curio wherever I go on tour gets on my nerves: and a full punkha with an idiot punkha wala in attendance (or say simple) does not make for rest. The train goes at eleven tomorrow and gets me into Howrah at 6 Calcutta time. Then I shall have breakfast with Harry.

Saturday Aug 13th

Rai Sahib Gyallsen Kozi or whatever might be his name wrote to ask (a) if I were going on a trek (b) if he could make my bandobast and (c) when you were coming out. Biswas wrote to inquire when you would be returning and what was your address other than the one you gave at Edinburgh.

It rained and it poured during the night. And it poured after breakfast. A nuisance because I have undertaken to go over the borstal Institute. I took a mackintosh but not an umbrella because I did not realise that the Institute was housed in the old Jail buildings. Everyone had spoken so well of it that I really expected to see something good: but it struck me as half baked: boys being taught industries by instructors who couldn’t do the jobs with real efficiency themselves. The product seemed to me very shoddy. I was told that the boys are able to make a living for themselves when released: and I hope that they do. During the morning after that I did files. That stenographer who has done practically nothing all the week announced when I started dictating a real letter that he felt ill: and of course he may just as I did my first days here. None the less I was peeved because he always seems to go seedy if I dictate more than scraps to him. It should have been announced that my temperature was below normal today when I woke and my insides seemed all right so I did exercises.

Islam is an irritating person to be waited on by. He never waits to listen to an order but runs round and round like a frightened rabbit. I have finished changing and paying sweepers punkhawalas chowhidar and khamsamah. But first I repacked the suit cases because Islam had carefully divided dirty clothes into two lots and distributed them through both suitcases.

I finished inspecting this afternoon. Only half the office in all. The difficulty about inspecting is all the interruptions. When I shall write inspection notes is not clear. This bott fly of a stenographer obviously may be ruled out of consideration.

Monday August 15th

My darling Joan

It occurs to me that I may as well send this off today. Yesterdays doings are dealt with in the family letter.

Harry asks if Richard has a good watch. This is with reference to his 21st birthday. An alternative idea was what you called a toilet roll
Much love
Your
Toto


From HPV to Family

Chinsura.
Sunday, Aug. 14th.
1938.

My dear Family,

Back from my week’s tour; it is after dinner and I arrived at 7.15. I shall make no attempt to cover any of the news of my doings at Asansol or Bankura in this general letter, having used it for the manuscript letter written during the week to the Mother of the Family and being tired of it. Only this is to be said, that I left Bankura last night soon after eleven and reached Howrah this morning at about a quarter to six. The car had not yet arrived but it turned up before the luggage was on the platform. I went to Brother Harry’s where i had to nursery to change in after shave and bath and tea; clearly I should have gone to sleep again, but it was out of the question because I had woken completely at about five. Breakfast on the verandah at 8.45. Harry and Winsome both looking much better. After breakfast we merely sat and talked in a desultory but pleasant way till past twelve when I said that I must get some spirit (chiefly for ears) and tooth paste; and so we all wnt out. At this stage I became aware that I didn’t feel too energetic; however after my purchases we went to * thatvis a mistake and so is the v --- we went to 1 Alipore Lane and went over the two new houses which have been run up in the compound; interior decoration is going on. The old house has been remodelled. Then lunch and then we all lay down. I slept for a bit more than an hour. At 3.45 we all went up to Upper Circular Road and down a lane near the Science College to the house of Mr P.C. Chowdhury, my rice control friend, where we went to the wedding two years ago; strange to say there is a big tank behind it and there the guests fished. To wit, Lutyens, the Stokes and Winsome; Harry and I abstained. Winsome caught a 4-pounder while I was there and Lutyens and Stokes caught smaller specimens which were returned to the water. All my sympathy was with the miserable fish; and I should not have taken a rod, even if it had not appears that the pastime was dullness itself. Fishing with a float. At 5.30 after tea (very nice tea with no excess of cakes or anything) I left; soon after Seoraphuli Station I said to the driver that I thought the engine was running hot and after the next level crossing I saw that it was steaming; almost all the water had boiled away. I sat for a long time waiting for the engine to cool enough for more water to be added, since I did not want to crack the engine block, and then we came in. I suppose the locally repaired pump has given up work. I had just had the front screen glass replaced. It was silly not to buy a new car while on leave; but even now if within any fairly short period I chuck it will prove wise not to have done so. A mass of letters and files awaited my return. It is true to say that I feel quite discouraged; but this is probably the result of the poor and short night’s rest in the train last night. It is only 9.30 but I shall go to bed.

Monday Aug. 15th 1938

To this extent the day has been inauspicious that two visitors came in this morning, with pretexts and excuses but seeking favours for sons, one from Kalna and one from Contai. I abstained from anger; also from good words. It was as most days are after my return from a tour – with a poor output of files. The garden shows the result of my not being here to cut deads for so many days; but there was quite a gay show in it when I sallied out to search for mosquito breeding places this morning; mostly cannas, zinnias (though among these there have been many casualties) sunflowers and are they gaillardias? I have been calling them that, I believe, in my letters but may be quite wrong. Some of the big yellow daisy things on which I spent so many hours of de-deading are still struggling on. The various shrubs that I cut back are sprouting furiously. The seeds have germinated well. The mali has not returned; his house is in Malda, strange to say and he has sent to another mali a message that there are three feet of water in it; as may be true for the papers have been telling of floods there. The other two point out that the cabbage seedlings have shot up too weedy-like and suggest transplanting into other pots; and knowing nothing of what should be, I have told them to get on with it.

I assumed that the boot sent home by mistake was one of my new boots, never worn. But on check I find this not to be so, unless indeed the boot-maker threw in a spare. I have told the bearer to produce my others tomorrow; but I thought that my trekking boots were out so greatly on the Lhonak trip that I have them to a porter. Maybe the errant boot is one of that pair that pinched my feet.

The river is high with the floods in Central Bengal; the water came up into the kanna-bed near the kitchen drain today and left two old coconuts there. Water hyacinth races down the stream; there is the deuce of a current when the tide is going down just now.

On a file today I found a letter of 1902 about this house. The then commissioner objected to the road passing through his verandah as he put it. The public road then ran straight down what is now the drive, straight through what is now the new wing, along the river, round the barracks, past this end of the church and so inland. It was impossible to get any quiet, says the Commissioner, either in the house or in the Church, since to send out peons to bid people be quiet merely let to unseemly brawls. He also pointed out that for a Commissioner’s house to have only two bedrooms and two dressing-rooms one of which was not usable was undignified. We should respect the memory of the man, for till his time all Chinsura used to bathe where we made the first humus heap and the noise was past bearing. All the compound from the house to the west of a line between the house and the corner where the frog-pit has been built was maidan in those days.

The Reids are giving a cock-tail party on Thursday evening to meet Calcutta people who were at Oxford; in some sense I suppose that it is a thing not to be refused, for the Governor is the Governor and I support him on principle, but it will be a blow to my principles of a much more sincere kind if it is an excuse for touching me for a subscription. Gurner who is in some way connected with the society for touching couldn’t come round to H.D.’s yesterday because he had flu; whereat Winsome expressed gladness; but I seeing this example of one tolerated and barely tolerated for his wife’s sake meditated on the matter and took it to heart. She is very annoyed because often Gurner speaks to her as Winifred; Mrs. Gilchrist on the other hand is equally so because he addresses her as Winsome.

Winsome was taken aback because yesterday in the middle of a discourse and with no change of tone, I said “I am glad to see you keep worms”; Harry on the contrary not blinking an eye – do you “blink an eyelash” as I was going to write? or “blink an eyelid”? – replied, gazing at the wall, “only two, as yet” for I had spied the earth-nests in which the sphex stores maggots for it young to be; two separate ones, which is not so common. They produced a paper which they said was an English equivalent of the Readers Digest; and very poor stuff it was. Also she gave me a pot of Tiptree Little Scarlet.

I have not heard what was wrong with the car; the driver took it today to the local mechanic who tinkered with it previously. Probably the part that he made for the pump has given way. This evening I worked for half an hour after labouring in the garden and now I feel tired. The Statesman has published five exercises guaranteed to give a woman of forty the figure of a girl of twenty, so I did them this morning on the offchance; then when I retire I could double Jessie Matthews so to speak. But of course Hornibrook holds out no encouragement on such points. To Harry I remarked that Bernard was like Port Said, because it was impossible really to believe that he went on like that the whole year round and not only when one happened to be there; this I mention because it is a profound thought and might be worked into a philosophical paper. The reason why one always makes a second typing mistake if one makes one is inattention due to incredulity.

My very dear Family, I have today received letters from certain among you which I have read with intense relish. I should have started by noting that this is the next day; it is Tuesday and the date is August 16th. The time is 9.25 p.m. I have been slouching on my back to give the wind a chance. Yes, Archie, wind has always been my ruin. How many hours do I not spend favouring it so to speak! Or do I mean “Do I”? I lay down for ten minutes at a bit after three; being fagged out. The ten minutes became 50; and maybe I went to sleep. And during 40 of those 50 Mr Banerji from Birbhum to whom I had given an appointment for three o’clock was waiting downstairs. The chaprasi said that he was afraid to disturb me. I was angry with myself, for doing inadvertently what many Bengalis would have done on purpose.

Soconi and Nadia came past abreast with four or five lighters each; quite close. Fussy like. I heed them not at all, for they fail to be numbered among the proper tugs. The current is swifter than is good, and the small boats scud past, as if racing dangers. The deads have indeed got the upper hand of me. But there is none the less a fine show of colour in the garden. Know that the chief dishes among the Persians are two Pilao and (this is the new bit) Chilao; much of a mucness (insert an h in that word), but the ingredients of the former are mingled together by the cook while those of the latter are mixed at his pleasure by the eater; I took council with Mogul who says that the latter as a dish is unknown but one talks of pilao-chilao. Judge that I have been reading one of the books out of the bookshelf, once Williamson’s; but he had not read it for all the pages were uncut. A readable book; but humiliating. Why should such dull-looking people (for his gives his photograph) be able to learn languages fluently in a few months? Turkish, Arabic, Persian with dialects and Hindustani. Otherwise the only ones to do this were Henty heroes. It occurs to me that all my disgust with my abilities and attainments results from having nurtured myself on those tales of persons with superhuman ability to do this and that. K I hit that K by mistake but feel that it should now be used Know then that I have not even at this age determined how best to shave. I bought some Gillette blue blades in Calcutta because local opinion has it that they have a supreme merit; and it, the one tried, has cut all the high spots off my face. The whole art of shaving, barring such trifles as washing the face carefully beforehand and lathering before cleaning the teeth and having a sharp blade and so on, is to avoid sweating during the process so that it becomes possible to stretch the skin; which cannot be done if the hand slips; therefore no one can shave properly when touring unless he wears gloves, which brings us back to the position adopted by the Dodo though for other reasons. I omitted to say Boil the razor, because lately I have failed in this. During a tour also spots rise on the face; because the mercury ointment which keeps them in depression cannot travel, being in a jar with an illfitting lid. This does not explain the redness and soreness of my nose; I must have hung it out in the sun. Today a catalogue of rams from Griffin; and it looks as if my idea was not so fantastic after all. I put on my big trekking boots for the first time this evening and went gardening in them; they feel as if indeed they would be waterproof; in fact they are the devil of a weight and are really unwearable without the thickest of socks. Needless to say now I do not want the errant boot to be sent out by Mrs Stanley or otherwise. I asked the bearer’s explanation; he asserts that it must have happened that way, which is probably in a sense not untrue though not helpful.

Have I said that the house struck me as unusually clean when I returned: Perhaps in contrast with Circuit houses; perhaps because they have white-washed the office room. Would that I had not accepted the invitation to tea with the Utterpara Zamindars! For they cannot refrain from writing and sending envoys about it; and today of all amazing antics they phoned to ask if I could let them have a photograph. Does this mean that Burrows distributed photos of himself on all occasions like Bradley Birt?

From HPV to LJT

Chinsura
Aug 17th 1938

Joan, my beloved:

It was in my mind to be clever and to delay writing to you greetings for our wedding day until a day which would bring you them on or almost on the date itself. But I suspect that I have been much too clever and have delayed too long. Your letter of the 7th reached me on the 16th. Why have I been under the impression that the airmail took only four days actual flight. I regret this very much for I am not one who remembers times and seasons, and when I did remember this (but I had to verify the date) on account of its excellence I should have been glad for the achievement to have had some effect.

Darling woman, I have done few good things but among them I put the spraining of my ankle without which I might not have met you. “Two met who were to meet.” If not true it is as if true. And though 25 years may be a long time, it has not been so for me with you. I am sorry for having so often been curmudgeon, and more so for the certainty that I shall be so again. I wish that I could be as sure that you were wise when you married me as I was when I married you. However the marriage service was right and it is true that “with my body I thee worship”.

It is sad to think that I shall spend the anniversary working rather harder than usual, since I have fixed several appeals for Monday and the judgments will have to be written the next day. This morning I cleared off about everything and settled down to write the inspection notes which are long overdue: but after lunch misfortune! First Hartly, then the vice chairman of the Municipality, then someone about a Charity Match for Tuberculosis, then the Personal Assistant, the someone else – interruption after interruption, while the workman banged away breaking down a wall and the stenographer was incessantly dithering. He will not go as soon as I finish dictation. However a small matter. Anyhow I got no work at all done this afternoon though I was hard at it throughout. Hartly looks fine drawn.

I was a bit late with tea. Afterwards I laboured cutting deads – and really it is a labour. There is a regular tangle of them: and by the time that it was too dark to go on I felt weary and my eyes were glazed so to speak. I am doing the full set of physical jerks again each morning: twenty minutes hard and the tiredness was not of the dead beat sort.

Dinner has intervened. I have started reading Smythes’ “Camp six.” It gives a better impression of him that his other books that I have read. Did I tell you that on the Bankur trip I took Alexander David Neel’s visit to Lhasa book? Now there is a personality that doesn’t appleal to me in spite of so much admirable. For me I should never have gone to Lhasa or to the South Pole. But then I should never have gone out by night after an elephant: and yet I did. Strange that I make no effort to get books here: and that I make no effort to read anything really good already in the house. I suppose that I do work very hard. Much of it might be dodged, perhaps – or almost certainly. Maybe if I hadn’t my own schemes and hadn’t the prospect of the Forest Committee I should be having a not-difficult time.

Yes I am tired after all. It is no use my going on with this because the result would be heaviness.

Much love my darling woman,
and thank you for 25 years
of loving care
Your Toto

Thursday
A long letter from you this morning – dated Aug 10th. Many thanks. It is a holiday today but so far and it is 12.15 I have not been able to settle down to work owing to one interruption after another.

Much love
Toto

Handwritten letter from HPV to Annette

Chinsura
August 18th

My dear Annette

The family letter idea fails to relieve conscience. When I get a letter from you I feel that I have not answered it, unless I write separately. As I cannot do. There is not enough to make separate letters. It might be said that handling papers under an electric fan is infuriating, that workmen hammering hard all the morning and sneezing at intervals (how irritating is a sneeze!) made me ready to scream and that to have a holiday like this lost for working purposes owing to interruptions is beyond endurance. But why tell such things to the young, giving them ideas above their station? Moreover I confess to having been irritable all the week, so that perhaps I have not recovered from the fatigue of touring in Bankura. This afternoon I go to the south of this district ¾ of an hour by car to tea with a zamindar, and afterwards on to an At Home at Government House, which will probably be an occasion for screwing money out of us. This is not gay.

I enjoyed your last letter. Continue by all means. Daily I find writing more and more difficult: writing legibly that is: it requires unremitting attention to avoid the short cuts which the hand adopts out of perversity, such as “ing” for “ing”, (g not properly formed in first ing) and I see that one of these crept in three lines above in spite of such attention. un is difficult to write. My idea of doing copy book work again, as advocated by Richard, comes ever to nothing. Look at the last “g”! Disgusting, or should I say monstrous?

Much love
Dad


Family letter from HPV

Chinsura,
Friday, August 19th. 1938

My dear

The only time that there is a breeze that can be felt is when I am trying to fit the carbon papers and these flimsy typewriting papers together for the purpose of this letter and those like it. But before all else let me give a message from the old Rai Bahadur at Bankura; he writes with gratitude about the information as to rams and humus and ends “hoping that this finds Mrs Townend, the children and yourself in health and cheers . . . “ and I hope it too. I have this evening set out by deputy the second lot of seed; five pots. That makes one lot each of the Agri-Horticultural seeds and two of the beet. The first lot have done pretty well though there are a good many casualties due to damping off at ground level. The under-malis now say that just a little of the humus was mixed in with the earth for the first lot although I said nothing but whatever was ordered in the note left which did not include leaf-mould. However I don’t think that it has done any harm. First a telegram and then a letter from the mali saying that the floods get deeper and deeper and asking more leave but as he gives no address except Malda I have done nothing; but it looks as if I could rely on doing without him for some long time; and the problem will arise what to do with the seedlings. But why have I not procured Brussels Sprouts? for though I have a sort of sneaking belief that they are poisonous because they go the same colour as the paralysing peas which Mrs Moberly used to have served (though she remarked each time that they would cause paralysis) yet there is no doubt that they lasted splendidly into the hot weather, and it may be to this or to the Muller-Hornibrook combination or to the Bel sherbert or indeed to eating mangoes that I remained in a twisted sort of way so very fit through that period. Still I cannot understand why if they regretted so bitterly the lack of any live food as Smythe calls it they did not try sprouted gram on the Everest show; sprouting it in Thermos flsks or flasks. I should not take it myself.

Yesterday. Letters in the morning. Alas the morning! A holiday and I counted on clearing off at least a lot of the undone inspection notes; so of course interruption after interruption and I did not touch the inspection notes at all. After lunch I worked for a bit and then lay down flat for 15 minutes exactly before getting up and dressing for the party. Uttarpara is just above the Bally Bridge, and in order to be on the very safe side we allowed over 50 minutes; I went with Hartley because it seemed likely that by myself I should have difficulty in finding the house, which though enormous is up a miserable side street. Trmendous ceremony. (E omitted from tremendous.) We were led upstairs and into an enormous hall or drawing room in which a stage had been erected and were sat bang up against it; then there were introductions – uncles endless, brother in law, nephews, son of a revolting fatness, brother and the grand daughter who did the garlanding (9 years old) and who was extremely graceful and had nice features. I cannot speak Bengali but I essayed a few remarks to her as she sat beside me and her grandfather on the big sofa; and this inspired her to ask to be allowed to perform after tea – a little song plus hand harmonium effort which seemed to me knowing nothing to be as good as others’ efforts. Things went somewhat stiffly. Welcome-song after a long wait; they had not finished arranging the stage and coolies drifted about attaching electric bulbs and such. Wordsworth appeared with a lady of a certain age whose father had been a Commissioner in the Panjab. After the song there was tea. We sat at a big table with two or three Indians sufficiently modern to drink tea and hangers on stood three deep all round gazing. Then a return to the performance – the grand-daughter’s song, a dance by the daughter of a local zamindar about sixteen or seventeen years old, very amateurish; and then two Calcutta professionals – a loathsome looking greasy-haired youth from Benares and a dancing girl or woman with more brazen self-assurance than one would have been believed possible. Bengali dancing, as one of the hosts said, with every gesture full of conventional meaning; probably a dirty one to judge by the looks of the man. But the dancing was full of animation and snap. Part of its merit appeared to lie in more and more rapid foot movement. I have seen nothing of the sort before; but of course I dodge that kind of show. The two danced in turn and each applauded the other at the end of the turn; as each prepared to begin, there was a prelude; advancing suddenly and waving the arms each shouted a series of syllables, very sharply; and I was told that to those who knew the notation the precise form that the dance would take thus became apparent; each letter of each syllable had a conventional meaning. Of course when I got up to go there was a reason why I had to stay a little longer and I got away a quarter of an hour after the time that I had given and at the precise time at which I had reckoned on going. Into Calcutta through Howrah, which is the quicker way although more tedious. To the club first; there I met Stein who told me that Blomfield is pretty bad. After being being better a fortnight ago he was seized with new pains and vomiting about four days ago, has been since then in the Woodburn ward with a “Patient not to be seen by anyone” notice outside the door, and has been wandering a bit in the head. All the symptoms of duodenal ulcer except the X-ray indications. Murray was going to consult Anderson yesterday whether or no to operate; but he says that Blomfield’s determination that he is done for unless they operate is a bad sign; and his intense weakness another. Stein obviously had the impression that there is very little hope. He funks writing to Mrs Blomfield. I told him that it was much better to do so and not to have any nonsense about sparing her feelings, for it would be much worse for her if she had no sort of warning. So rather goomy which is an accidental and expressive variant of gloomy, to the At Home. (At Home at Government House given by Sir Robert Reid to all ex-Oxford men.) It ws not precisely gay; there is no real reason why people should wish to get together merely because at different Colleges and at widely different dates they were at Oxford. However I met Ben Kindersly, talked shop to Carter who obviously has not the least understanding of my new crop-cutting system, had a word with Mrs Gladding who says that Gladding has been having continued low fever and that they are going down to Singapore for the sea-trip, met Mr Isaacs who is the only other St John’s man in Calcutta and talked for quite a bit to Gurner. Who says that the talk of London is the admirable courage with which Mrs H.P.V. Townend stormed the P.&O. Office. That mark was experimental to see if superimposing those three signs would give a sort of dagger by which reference could be made to a foot-note; not that I want a footnote but just in case. Decision, it won’t. Gurner says that he will have to postpone leave indefinitely. His job is usually a three-year job; but by mistake no limit was fixed in the notification appointing him; so long therefore as he sits tight they will leave him there, but as soon as he applies for leave some Muhammadan politician will start intriguing for the post on threat of going over to the opposition. He agreed with me that the thought of inspecting indefinitely as one does in a Commissioner’s job is enough to turn one to retirement-thought. From which compound you will have guessed that I picked up the translation of the Hitopadesha yesterday – and found it dull. What is alarming is that find all my French books dull, which is a sign that really I despair ever of speaking the language. Sad. (series of typewritten symbols) More experiments. The last should do, maybe That one is rather good too. And that perhaps better; but it takes four biffs to make it. Gurner has had dengue; he is moreover almost slim and was genial. I failed to find anyone who would have a grill with me, and eventually had dinner at the U.S. Club. Only four people in that big room, though there had been a few others – I didn’t get there till 8.50 – but it was quite an amusing meal. The others were habitués and were I think to some extent woken up by having someone new at the table. The trip back with the car open (all that had been wrong was a leak) was pleasant and quick; a beautiful evening. I except the several places in the towns where there is the strong smell of sewage, stronger than usual too. Four tins of kerosene oil made cracking noises. Only once have we succeeded in getting the oil locally; this time the man said that “he forgot” and we were down to enough for one day only. To bed by twelve; and overslept, till 7.30. Moreover half way through the afternoon I became aware that I was too tired to go on; and I lay swoony like for half an hour.

Saturday August 20th. 1938

No wonder the Everest climbers after a time feel that they cannot abide the wind. It has come over me with bitterness that there is no fairness about life in the hot weather where if one is not in a wind one droops. Judge that I have just been labouring with the carbon papers. Which are indeed detestable things. My stenographer said that he would like to speak to me some time about a personal matter when I was at leisure; I told him that that would be never by the look of things and that he might as well tell me at one but that if he were merely going to maunder on about his being seedy I should not listen, though if he had anything definite to ask he might; so he started by saying that he often felt that he couldn’t go on. Somewhat sharply I said “Right, then retire because I am not going to put you into the office at the head of a department when you are not fit to do the work” and I had guessed right; that was what he was after; being led astray probably by the sweet things that Burrows had said about his work. It annoys me much that I have not got that genial lack of scruple which was such an asset to Burrows; the thing to do would be to push the fellow into the job that he seeks and then to sack him in a few months for incompetence. But I am not sufficiently Indianised for that. I mention this as an illustration of the annoyances which crop up during the day. It has been a strenuous day; true, I lay flat for half an hour soon after lunch but it was not a restful rest. I have been making a big push to write out the Bankura inspection notes; all day has gone on it except for some frantic intervals when I have raced through the files so as to prevent their piling up on me. A letter from Simmons the Forest man which mentioned that the Hon. Minister had told him that he expected that we would produce the report of the Forest Committee by the end of November; so I wrote to Symons saying that he might tell the Minister that so far as I was concerned it was impossible and to Simmons to say that I had done so. The undeveloped pimp! I am annoyed about the whole thing. So far from putting a man on to work up the case, they have not even left Simmons free to do it in his spare time but have put both the Forest jobs on to him. Shebbeare has gone; I meant to cut the paragraphs about his farewell dinner at Darjeeling out but failed.

Matthews flew over today fairly high but I could see him waving. I ought to write to him to thank him for putting up my car as I suppose he did over the Saturday night. Winsome has insisted that I should stay with them while I am at Calcutta for the Howrah inspection. I should have preferred not in a way, because when inspecting I am too tired in the evening to feel polite and then there is the letter writing. The thought of the feather bed deterred me from asking Percy Brown to put me up. But I have not seen him for ages or heard of him; so that I should have felt a delicacy about foisting myself onto him.

The valiant plant to which I have referred so often near the carnations in the pots has succumbed at last. There is yet one of its fellows left but it was clearly useless to de-dead it. The gaillardias along the cow-wall have almost finished. But I did cut off all their deads on the offchance. Some of them in a woebegone way are still flowering. After labouring till it was dark, I came in and having bathed went down and slogged away at the inspection note for an hour till dinner time; and maybe that is why I am rather peeved with my thoughts about things. Yet I have taken every precaution; besides throwing in three of the Statesman beauty culture exercises this morning, I have chewed with considerable industry in case this should have a favourable influence on the windiness and oppression after meat which is a permanency with me these days. Tomorrow there is an unveiling of a portrait but no speech by me (“we have to unveil the portrait quickly because when the new municipal commissioners get in they will say that he was not distinguished enough to have a portrait at all”) followed by a charity football match. Alas.

(row of various symbols at top of page)

Sunday August 21st 1938.

None of the new experiments are to be commended; the first of course was an accident.

The unveiling lasted half an hour; started quite well but two extra items put into the programme were a blemish – the reading of a poem and a speech by a gentleman present. It is always the same speaker who is asked to make a few extempore remarks on each of these occasions, and so I feel that it is not so extempore as might appear. All of us tell each other afterwards how eloquent he has been, but he was not nearly so eloquent as the little and bashful vice-chairman who spoke afterwards and who had nothing to say because the gentleman present had poached all his materials. The sadness came afterwards; it was announced that we were expected to have tea. About a dozen out of the hundred or so present. And the tea was ready mixed in a kettle – with milk and liberal quantities of sugar, so liberal that, strangely, the concoction tasted strongly of marmalade. Hartley came in the car with me when we went off, in order to talk shop; of which this much is of interest that he is almost certain to be shifted at the Pujas; and so I shall be left with no white Collector at all in this division. No white judges, one white doctor, and three white policemen plus the D.I.G. which makes four. However as I never forget to remind myself Parliament was promised that the British character of the administration will be preserved; it would have been helpful if the great Sir Samuel had said how. One illustration of the keeping of this pledge is the fate of a Deputy whose good-looking wife refused to go to the house of Mr. Kirpalani I.C.S. when summoned and who escaped from persecution only when he managed to get a false medical certificate that he was too ill to work; another is the transfer of Kennedy because he released a girl who had been kidnapped by Mr Ahmad not I.C.S. but a relation of the Prime Minister. None the less I have no reason to be peeved, because one white Collector made no odds anyhow. Hartley and I had a cup of tea here before going on to the football match. A charity match in aid of the anti-tuberculosis fund; amateurs from Calcutta who proved their status by insisting on being given new shorts and shirts before they would come; if I had known of this beforehand I should not have agreed to go to see it. However I went and sat in the rain under an umbrella between two umbrellas and behind six; for as is customary in Bengal a crowd swarmed in front of the reserved and expensive seats and when the rain started they put up a hedge of umbrellas. A lot of jute-mill people were there, attracted by the fame of several of the team from Calcutta; but the local team won. Several of the local team turn out to belong to famous Calcutta teams themselves, including the second sub-inspector of the Chinsura police-station who plays in every match for the Police in Calcutta. Frankly I regard watching football as one of the dull performances; and my temper suffered for having to pretend interest and pleasure. I presented medals to both teams afterwards! Last time I was at the Committee meeting where the arrangements were discussed and tactlessly I pooh-poohed the giving of medals; but it is clearly a recognised feature of such a show. After dinner news was brought five cows had been captured in the compound and had eaten all the kannas; then later the chaprassi appeared with a tale that the poundkeeper would not accept them because it was after dark and he would be accused of having stolen them. This morning a letter from the stenographer to say that he was too ill to work and had retired to bed and asking if I would ask the Civil Surgeon to see him; which is an impertinent attempt to get the Civil Surgeon’s services for nothing. I was somewhat annoyed, especially as his illness is almost certainly nothing but annoyance at being told that he could not be wangled into a job at the expense of the deserving man. Further two Armenians turned up from Asansol, armed with a letter from MacPherson who said that they were deserving because one had had a liquor license, and wanted to lease some land. The redeeming features of the day were a letter from my wife, half an hour’s reading the newspaper upstairs and an hour snoozing in the afternoon. I put in an hour and a half on the inspection note which was a mistake. Bapat is being moved here as a Sub-judge and I am irritated by the thought that it is my duty to offer to put them up till they can find a house.

Monday August 22nd. 1938

Know all that I am a one for acquiring merit. Apart from the fabulous amount that I gained in connection with the Japanese earthquake to which or to the relief fund after which I fully intended to make a handsome contribution (though I never actually got round to giving anything) there is this hospitality extended to the Bapats; all the merit and none of the doings; for as I ought to have known it is to Burdwan that he is going and not here after all. Apart from satisfaction at the thought of my generosity and proper feeling I have the relish in things appropriate to one acquitted.

This day I got out the home-preserved seeds and had nine varieties planted; one had “plant in Sept” on the bottle and so I followed this advice instead of going by the general direction of the box “end of August” or rather middle of . . . . The beet seedlings are damping off fast; fading away at ground level. The under malis have been watering them, but as the air is a bath in itself this was probably a mistake.

I have lost interest in the humus, because the iron rod with which I test its heat disappeared while I was at Bankura. However I looked at it yesterday and even if it is not what it should have been (I doubt whether it developed the white fungus as it should have done) it looks like being good stuff. Two of the five cows escaped, which probably means that their owner paid the domestics; the pound receipt for the other three was duly delivered to me. The kannas eaten were some by the river. I worked hard dedeading the gaillardia in that portion of the garden this evening; they seem to go clammy on the stem before fading – and it is really no wonder seeing how much rain there has been of late. My back was fair destroyed with bending; I did most of the work to start with standing on the little wall and bending below ground level. Be it understood by the family that have not seen this place that that bed may be likened to one side of a ha-ha, if one can have a ha-ha a foot deep only.

An appeal today, conducted in a curious atmosphere of geniality by the pleader, as if the whole thing were some subtle joke. Tomorrow I shall have my work cut out to clear up before I go off to Calcutta. Last night I must have been more tired than I thought, for after falling to sleep almost at once I woke up with a jerk, doing files in my head, and lay awake for some time. After lunch today, or rather after half an hour’s work after lunch, I came up and lay flat with no pillow and succeeded in doing what I rarely even come near to doing, - seeing black. When the telephone brought me down I felt really fresh, and therefore believe that I had really relaxed for once. The miserable stenographer is said to have fainted away last night; it is said that he will have to have leave till the Pujas. I am sorry for the poor bird, because apart from his having had a bad fall before Burrows left he has been suffering from diabetes; and I am far from denying that I am not easy to work for.

I finished the inspection notes of Bankura today; now remain those of Birbhum and Burdwan to which will quickly be added Howrah, since I start there tomorrow. Of course I ought to dictate the notes on each day’s work that same evening while the memory of it is fresh; but al all three places I was much too tired, apart from the failings of the stenographer.

What passed this morning but my dear Raidak? not seen for ages so that I had begun to doubt whether she had actually been in these parts at all. I had forgotten that she was so ugly and undistinguished a craft. My pleasure in seeing her is merely in recognising her from afar. I believe that there are not more than a couple of dozen country boats that use this river, although one talks of the hundreds of boats passing; they go up and down again a lot.

Yesterday I had all the cobwebs cleaned out of the front hall. Every one took a hand; at least everyone came and watched the sweeper toiling away. To the top of the 18 foot broom was fastened a split bamboo and to the top of the split bamboo was fastened the top of a palm leaf trimmed down into a broom; a devil of an unwieldy thing to handle, and the stairs and hall were strewn with whitewash and mucking afterwards.


From HPV to LJT

10 Alipore Road
August 24th 1938
Wednesday

My dear Joan

I remembered our wedding day as I drank my morning tea and I wished you well with more heartiness than I wish most things. Then as I came out of the room on my way down to breakfast the bearer advanced with your telegram. Sweetheart I was much touched. Tears stood in my eyes. And as often I remembered how far inferior I am to you in merit. First I never thought seriously of sending a telegram, secondly if I had I should never have got round to it and thirdly I was convinced that you would look on me as a sentimentalist if I did – Also I have a pronounced inability to send a telegram unless forced. – Warm at heart and cheerful I descended to breakfast which was ten minutes late because the two clerks in my office and the stenographers have stopped. My day was like most days except that there were no interruptions except by chaprassis bearing files – and I did a great deal. At four tea, and then I was to start: and at that moment files came in, in bunches. I stopped to deal with them and got away at 5.15. Hood down and a pleasant drive through sun. And what should I see near the Bally bridge but Unicorn? As Winsome had phoned that Harry would be leaving at 5.45 and I got in soon after six I stopped at the club, where I met an irrigation man who told me that Mazumdar the Chief engineer Irrigation Dept had stopped the collection of information essential, for the amendment of the Development Act, if the Hooghly Howrah Scheme is to be taken up. What inconceivable stupidity appears to be needed before one can be made a Chief Engineer! It may still not be too late to save the day. But I became extremely angry. On here after delay caused by this encounter. Winsome in. Almost at once Cyril Gurner arrived looking almost clean, and very genial. I was tired and had no energy for letter writing. Incidentally I didn’t sleep particularly well, perhaps through annoyance with Mazumdar.

Item Atile Panzbierta has written to say that he is returning to Germany in September and must resign the Himalayan Club: he adds expressions of thanks to you and to the Club for the assistance given to all German Himalayan expeditions. I quote from memory. Item, Harry says Kama Paul sent his respects. He told me this when I saw him a week ago. Harry has been suffering from a curious stiffness of the back when he wakes each morning: unable to move for a bit. It came on after the flu: but Brandes says that he thinks a ligament is misplaced: and exercises appear to have done it good. I was in Howrah by 8.55 receiving visitors: till 12. Then I did files till 1.15. Lunch at the Mashed’s. Then from 2.30 till 5 inspection. After tea at the U.S. Club to the Saturday Club to meet Eden Hawkins who wanted to talk shop about the Asansol distillery. And there I met Green Armitage looking unchanged and full of messages of greeting for you. He said that he had been reading about you in Hanbury Tracy’s book - ?the Black River? He also asked after you a lot. He had been to Singapore to perform an operation and dropped in on the way back. The Mealings were with him and the Dunlops. The former sent messages.

Winsome has gone out to a concert with a lad from the office. And I retired under my ned soon after they went. But it is not a good place for letter writing – nor is after an inspection a good time for it.

Much love my darling wife
Your
Toto

From LJT to Annette

Highways
Aug 24th 1938

Dearest Annette

This must be rather a telegraphic letter, as its 5.30. and I want to catch the post at 6. o’clock –

We often think of you and wonder what the weather is like for the sailing – and how you are enjoying yourselves. Peggy Williamson wrote that certainly you may both go to her, though Richard may have to sleep out and that she was writing to you – so we shall expect you home here sometime on Sunday evening.

Phyllis Gurner is going to Muriel Graham’s wedding, so I have said that we will meet her in John Lewis’ refreshment room at 1.30. for lunch – Shall I make an appointment to go and see your “eye” people that morning? Seems to me it would fit in very well. I think you need a new eye for day wear and I want them to make you one with a much larger pupil to wear at night? Auntie has the address –

There’s tennis at the Ogears (?) for you and Richard on the 8th and a dance at the Robertsons at Totham on the 10th. We are trusting that Richard will fit his visit to Norfolk in before those dates.

Mrs. Williams has sent my knickers and has also sent your keys, which you left behind. The photos are not bad –

The household here are all flourishing – I shant attempt to give you family news as its time to shut and stamp the letters and take them to post.

Best love to you and Richard and my blessing on you – Love also to the Hamiltons and Rob.

from
Mum

Mrs. Nealey with whom I had tea yesterday sends kindest remembrances to Mrs. Hamilton.


At 10 Alipore Road
Calcutta
Sunday August 28th. 1938

My dear (handwritten) Joan

No one is going to have much of a letter this week. I had kidneys this morning for breakfast; but that is not the cause. It is impossible to write letters and to put in a fuller than full day’s work unless one writes them after dinner; and one cannot write letters after dinner when staying in another’s house.

It was on Tuesday evening that, after a frantic rush to finish off files outstanding and those brought in while I loitered on the threshold, I came to Calcutta. Of this I wrote last week. The news that the Chief Engineer had cancelled the collection of materials essential for preparing the amended version of certain sections of the Development Act did make me mad; and the morning after next after interviewing 30 (round number) non-officials at Howrah I nipped over to Calcutta and saw MacPherson the Irrigation Department Secretary. While the words were yet hot in my mouth in came the Engineer. So he got the benefit of the words; the poor ill-used spittoon excused himself by saying that he had not been able to see how the information could possible help the preparation of estimates, and howling aloud I fled because I had to bet back to Howrah for the inspection and was already late. However I have decided that I was very wise some months ago to refrain from telling all to MacPherson; be it remembered that I did not tell him what a this and that of three sorts of an ass he must be to say what he had said; and now he is doing all that he can to put things through.

Maybe it is a mistake now to have stayed in the Howrah Circuit House for these inspections. True it is one of the gloomy holes but it has electricity and would not be too bad. There have been really high tides these days with the Hooghly in places overflowing its banks and with the Howrah Bridge (a Floating Bridge) standing up on end at either extremity. This has made getting across at lunch time a slow business. They have pulleys and ropes to ease the descent of the buffalo carts; primitive but effective. Wednesday, interviews to Officials from 9 to 12.30 in the Howrah Circuit House; lunch at the Morsheds’ – he is Collector at Howrah; inspection of his office from 2.30 till 5.15. Tea at the Club. Return to the house because Winsome was going out to a Concert, but I had got things wrong and might have delayed my return; for she was not going out to dinner after all and had the youth who was escorting her, a new assistant from the office, to dinner here. Dead beat I went to bed almost immediately. As I have said before interviews are knock-out drops. Next morning Harry back from Jamshedpur; I have not said that my interview times necessitated my having early breakfast; it was so this day also, a bad thing because thus one starts the day under a manifest grievance. Again on this day at the Circuit House, non-officials from 9 till 1 plus, then the rush to the Secretariat, lunch and back to Howrah to inspect. Seeing Tightrope by the Howrah Bridge doesn’t count, I suppose, especially when she was tied up to a buoy with six other craft on account of the high tide. Inspections till 4.55. Then a washup and then out to Lillooah to tea with J.M.Chatterjee the Deputy Magistrate now retired whose mother gave Rosemary the mango slices; the old lady turned up at the end and enquired about the children and sent messages. The Morsheds and the Bengali Labour Compensation Judge with a rather pretty and quick-witted wife. Mosquitoes thick as soon as dusk fell; but I had already been bitten sufficiently in the office. Back here at 7.15, exhausted; I took some barley sugar and lay on the bed for 15 minutes. Firday was a free morning; that is, I reached the Circuit House at 9.30; dictated a lot of letters did files in a hurry and at 11 hurried off to the meeting of the Railway Advisory Committee. Then to the Secretariat, where I saw three Secretaries and the Surgeon General. Lunch at the Club and back to Howrah, much delayed by congestion at the Bridge; a traffic block. Inspections till 5.15 and then as I got into my car the dictated letters for signature were handed to me. The little badli stenographer had got little of them right though he had dredged his imagination for thoughts and words that I might if quite uneducated have used and after some attempts at correction which took some time I abandoned or renounced the effort and came away. Tea at the Club at nearly six; and soon afterwards return here. Not so soon afterwards after all (I make good use of the word after) for I had to change almost at once to go off to dinner at Howrah with the Morsheds’; the other guests were the Advocate General whom I like, another lawyer in the same line, i.e. A Government Advocate of some kind and in the know, the Hills of whom he is almost inconceivably white-haired and she becomes more effaced estompé at each seeing-time, and – no more guests but there was a Governess an English girl horse-faced but pink. The Advocate General says that the Raikut has gone to a debt-settlement Board composed of his own tenants and filed an application for settlement of his debts running into lakhs and covered by High Court Decrees; the most unscrupulous bit of unscrupulous Minister-craft that ever was. An item of news that to the generality of the family will not be intelligible or of interest but I may tell them that to me it was both. Luckily the Advocate General did not wait for the other lawyer’s wife to make the move; at 10.45 he got up and went and then all others followed. Yesterday to Howrah by ?.45; files papers and two visitors; at 11 inspection (and the office is difficult to inspect,, being inefficient; I wonder why two commas are not used instead of a semicolon) at 1 o’clock visit to a school and at 1.45 lunch. After lunch at which Hutchings talked in an interesting way about sailing flying and ski-ing, which he said in essentials to have the same technique, I had a lie-back. That is, I read a murder story for nearly three quarters of an hour before having a haircut and returning to the house. I lay down for twenty minutes; then up and changed and out to Tollyganj for tea. Winsome had asked Ronald Townend to come along. He has apparently fallen on his feet all right. Everybody at Tolly almost has changed; also the women’s shorts are shorter; about the length that Richard’s were at the age of three. Legs on the other hand were no slimmer. We forgathered with Cyril Gurner; he said “I won’t have Herbert next to me because he’ll do nothing” he said “but talk shop”. I learnt him “Not at all, laddie, I said; I am not going to talk shop – I’m going to tell you something; YOU VE GOT TWO BUTTONS SHOWING.” And . . . . . like all that I say, it was true. However the man has manners: he said “Thank you” and concealed the buttons.

Wednesday August 31st. 1938.

What more? They have done the dirty on me. Know that they have changed mailday from Thursday; weeks ago; and I have continued to hurry to catch the post on that day most conscientiously. Winsome told me.

I am back at Chinsura. Monday morning went on the typing, till 11.30 and then till 1.20 discussing crop-cutting with Carter who is the new Director of Land Records. It is interesting enough in itself; but he knows absolutely nix about it or about the Development Act or the Schemes and it was tedious having to attempt to put him wise as we went along; I doubt if much good has come of it. After lunch the family W and H.D insisted on going out in the car to see the high tides; I protested because the real highness of them would be an hour later and the preliminary stages not worth the effort; however I trailed along. Interesting enough but not so high as we had seen the day before. Interest was added to the sight by an item in the Statesman to say that on Saturday this garden here had been flooded; to anticipate let me tell you that little harm was done. The flower beds along the river were swamped but most of the flowers have survived and those that didn’t were done for anyhow. Next on our return a lie-back till 4.15. Tea. A drive round the Lakes; Gurner has annoyed Winsome by putting in shrubberies and two grotesque cacti, all hidden by cumbrous bamboo fencing; also by having pigeons on one of the islands, in a pigeon-cote made to look like a Doll’s House; on top of a pole. Indeed he is an ape; but no need really to be peeved. Thereafter we went to the Movies; a Happy Landing, which I thought quite good. Anyhow we laughed. I still have not remembered the name of the film that I couldn’t remember, the one Brother Parp wanted to know; and Winsome has forgotten too. Dinner. Went to bed earlier than usual or that H.D. By dint of taking off my pyjama jacket and putting my feet on the pillow I went to sleep not too long after retiring.

Early to Howrah next morning. Visited the hospital; rather a terrible place – not as to its buildings or equipment but in the patients. All sorts of too-far-gone-to-be-cured cases; a lot of slum patients too, under-fed. Then to the Circuit house to do files; visitors came. Then to the office to inspect. Lunch at Morshed’s. Inspection again. Tea, late, at the club; and after tea, to the Woodburn Ward to see Blomfield; he didn’t die after all, they didn’t even operate, in fact they do not know what is wrong with him (but he doesn’t know this) and he looks bad; he is cheerful though; they say that he will have to stay there for three weeks at least. Thin and naturally feeble. I doubt whether my visit was cheering; I was too tired to make the effort. Return to the house. Barley sugar, bath and dinner; bed. Yesterday breakfast last. Meeting of Excise committee at Howrah; discussion with the Police Superintendent and the Magistrate; then with the Magistrate only. At 12.15 to the Secretariat where I had an hour’s discussion with little Mr Mullick; irritating; he is being unreasonable beyond the wont even of a Minister; an amicable talk though I told him bluntly that what he had been doing in general and what he was going to do in this particular case were wrong and bound to ditch him before long. Lunch in a hurry. More inspection and at 5 after running round to the Circuit House to settle my electricity bill and give tips final departure to the Club and tea. Then half an hour’s talk with my hosts before it was time to change and go off (to Howrah – I began to hate the place) to dine at the Morsheds’; a cheerful dinner with the Symons there. After dinner it was revealed that the idea was to go to a movy; but I cried off on the ground that I had to get back to Chinsura; I had the car loaded up with luggage and should have been collapsed if I had waited till nearly 12 before starting the drive back. So it worked out rather well. I was back here by 10.45 and in bed not long after; tired even so.

Today a lot of work but few interruptions. I planted out the Brussels Sprouts purchased in Calcutta. Discussed the seedlings with the mali who has returned; most of the last lot have failed – none of the striped grass has come up. Visited the humus heaps. Cut some deads. And then came in and worked till nearly 8.

Seen in Calcutta. Two bulls pushing one another between two taxis on a taxi rank or stand; the front taxi started up and backfired like a pistol shot under the chin of one of the bulls; and the animal fled the field obviously persuaded that the other was a real strongbreath.

There are a lot more alterations at Tolly. The balustrading and the paths in front of the club have been replaced byturf sloping up to the wall. Which means that the flower beds on both sides of the path and the baskets have gone. Also the urns. Workmen are busy pulling down the staircase and throwing it into the centre room. A dwarf wall rather ugly now separates the before-breakfast-sitting-out place from the bunkers guarding the last green. Me, I ‘ates improvements.

Enough, enough, it is 11 o’clock. Letters today from my dear wife and from (for that matter my dear) Annette. Pleasant.

Much love
Toto