1938 January
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta.
Jan 2nd 1937.(should be 1938)
My darling Annette
Like your last letter from the hairdresser’s, this letter is really being written not from the address above, but from the United Service Club – I am waiting for Herbert and Lili Richter to come to tea with me here. They leave India, unfortunately, in a few days time – Herbert had the Hell of a row with his Consul General a few weeks ago, with the inevitable result that he is being transferred and goes back to Berlin. Its sad that this should have happened just before he got married, so that instead of settling down here Lili should have had to begin packing directly they got back from their honeymoon. She is a sweet girl and I’m really sorry that they are not going to be here.
Later The bride and bridegroom have been and gone and I now await Herbert and our two Professors, who have are at a big tea party, given by one of the leading Indian Doctors here. Its really marvellous having P.Crew in the house. He has the most brilliant, sparkling, unconventional and all enquiring mind and he loves talking! He says that talking helps him to think – brings up ideas from his subconscious mind – Of course, as you know, I adore exciting talk, so you can imagine how much I am enjoying myself – The only difficulty is that it distracts me from things which I ought to be doing and thinking of. Truly I think I am choosing the better part in imitating Mary rather than Martha – but I can help remembering now and again the letters there are to be answered – the account books to be made up and a dozen other things to be done –
I’m glad you got through your viva alright – It must have been pretty sickening for the ones who failed What does that mean? Can they try again next term or do they get pushed out?
It must have been awfully difficult getting about at Christmas time with snow and fog and all the frightful things you see to have had. If hope it did not prevent you doing any of the really nice things like getting to dances and so on –
The Richters have been asking whether you are going to Germany next year and if so where. If you pass through or go to Berlin, you are to be sure to let them know. Address will be sent later – Have you given this matter any attention or thought?
As its now just on 6 I think my party must be back in a short time; so I will finish this off – Best love, darling from Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Jan 5th 1938
My dear Annette.
Dialogue between high court judges.
“I don’t let my wife dance with any man – except, of course, Edgely.”
“I wouldn’t trust any woman with Edgely; not even your wife.” (Edgely with any woman - ? Yes)
Edgely is a third high court judge: harmless and to be trusted with anyone of course: but B detests him and loathes A. The retort I call good: nice all round, smack or spit in the eye for everyone.
No letter to you last week – you missed it? No? I thought so. Anyhow I was overcome with the realisation that engagements seemed to be pressing upon me and that I must at all costs (even at the cost of bereaving you of a letter) get on with my “Note on the assessment of the Damodan Canal area under the Development Act.” By Gum! What light and cheerful stuff I do write. Even I can scarcely get through my analysis of rainfall figures. However it is done: and I hope printed by now. I heard today that the crop-cutting results in the Canal area show that the charge made is reasonable. In spite of the fields selected for the crop cutting having been visited before and, as you might say, plucked a bit by villagers who wanted to make things appear worse than they are.
I doubt whether at any time I have passed such a fortnight of hectic gaiety. (Hectic in the right sense of being held, not changing, not flagging.) All very humble, in a way. Though I suppose that some people would sweat with emotion if asked to the Government House Ball and such. This week the Viceroy’s Garden Party. Among those present were Mr and Mrs Townend. There were other parties. I am a member of the Reception Committee of the Science Congress (This means that I paid Rs 50 towards it) and they have given me a silver tinsel star to wear in my button hole! Hurrah! Indeed I wore it (1) to the lunch from which I fled, in dudgeon, before it started and (2) at the Opening Ceremony. A dull show this. Viceroy dull, Vice Chancellor dull, Sir James Jean dullest. He read out his speech in a flat voice. Only item of interest the sudden flight of the old Bishop after the Viceroy’s effort. A voice “He ought to have lasted out longer than that” but he had fled because someone had just told him that the R.C.s were moving a resolution at a meeting after the ceremony which would mean all the surplus Education Dept grants being earmarked for their schools only.
Beautiful weather. The mynahs become more and more bold against the crows and more and more stupid. The owls and the parrots do nothing. The Java sparrow has not been seen for days. 25 or so coppersmiths out together in the tree outside my window yesterday, just as once last year; though usually they hide in the recesses of leafy trees. The frogs have retired. The squirrels seem to more timid. And the dahlias are beginning to flower.
Me. I am very well except that I am weary. And I am swollen with wind. But how much better than with pride.
Also the car is in a horrid state. Springs, magneto, engine (carbonised), running board, catels (?).
Yes I am not lucky with my handwriting.
Much love
Dad
But what exam was it that you were doing last term? I become bewildered.
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Jan 6th 1938
My dears,
We are having great fun with our professors. I feel so mentally stimulated by the stream of new ideas, and the lively discussions that are constantly taking place, that it has been quite an effort to give my mind to all the petty detail connected with the Himalayan Photo Exhibition. Its been a busy week socially too. There have been things of some sort on every day. On Jan 31st there was a Horse Show on at Tollygunge, for which occasion we were lunching with friends, and spent a pleasant day there. Our Professors were glad of a quiet day in which to prepare their addresses etc for the Conference. Finding that professor Crew was fond of dancing, I arranged a small party for the Fancy Dress Dance at the Saturday Club. I go Walter Jenkins, and Cecil Reid and Bunty Daniel. Cecil does not dance, so I fixed up with Percy Brown to meet him and Mrs Stanley, there. its always a wild night of Carnival at the Saturday Club, and we had a merry evening. Pr. Crew dances like an angel. I have not danced with any one I found so good for ages. We finally staggered home at 4.15 A.M., and I had to get up again at 6.30 A.M. to accompany Herbert to the 1st of jan Parade. I confess that after lunch that day I fell on my bed and slept for an hour and a half. We took our Guests to two cocktail parties that evening, one at The Maharaj Kumar of Burdwan’s and one at the American Consul Generals. At the second we met Mr van Manen, the Secretary of the Asiatic Society, whom I wanted Pr Crew to meet. We luckily found a table and a group of chairs on a quiet verandah, and there we sat ourselves down, with a supply of egg nogs (It was called an egg nogg party) and plunged into the most thrilling talk - - - - the two men talked and I listened, while biology took on a garment of romance. There we remained for practically the whole of the hour we spent at that party.
Sunday the 2nd was the day on which the British Association and Foreign delegates to the Science Congress arrived in Calcutta. It was nice to feel that our guests were already old friends. We all lunched at the big party to greet the Delegates. I sat between two quite interesting men, but the real thrill of the day was meeting and talking to Jung, the great psychologist. Pr Crew had promised to introduce me to him if he got the chance, and he very kindly made the opportunity. Jung is a stout man, with charming manners. We had a little talk about Darjeeling and the mountains, and then about ten minutes on the subject of psychology. He tells me he finds the standard out here very disappointing. Knowledge of the subject seems slight and behind the times. Professor Crew introduced me to one or two other men who he said were great people, but we only had a few words to-gether. As Herbert and Pr Crew had to go to a big tea-party given by one of Calcuttas leading doctors (Indian) and I had Herbert Richter and his bride coming to tea with me at the U.S. Club, we went there and read and talked, till it was time for them to go to their party, and Herbert and Lili joined me, to make their farewell, for they left Calcutta a few days later.
The Belvedere garden party filled Monday afternoon (I had had an extremely busy morning getting the screens put up for the Picture Exhibition), and in the evening I dined with the Podewilzes, the German Consul General and his wife. it was a nice party. I had interesting men to talk to. We fed off silver plate, which was a new experience for me, and we had a number of different wine glasses into which appropriate wines were poured with the different courses. Altogether a nice party.
The following day I was busy with hanging my photos practically all day, and in the evening Pr Crew and I had a grill dinner at the Saturday Club and danced, in the intervals of his giving me a very vivid account of his work and the new worlds it is opening up. It was altogether a strange and interesting mixture of an evening.
Yesterday I was again busy most of the day titling and arranging photos for the Exhibition, and in the evening Pr Crew, Idris and myself dined with Percy Brown before the HC. Photographic Exhibition. We had a lot of people here, and I was much congratulated on it, but I do not feel quite the same satisfaction in it as in the one we had two years ago, for it did not seem to me to have the same mountain soul in it, though I think the quality of the photos was better. At the moment Charles Crawford is the only true mountaineer we have in Calcutta, though we have plenty of keen members. Then we had G.B. gourley, Reggie Cooke, Richard Gardiner, and by chance, the main body of the everest Party, and discussion ranged round the photos about the best routes to try, and whether the route attempted had been the best that could have been chosen, etc etc. The show is open again at 6 o’clock this evening.
We have not seen nearly as much of Pr Gates as we have of Pr Crew, for he has kept in touch with a number of his old Indian Students, and besides being here as a representative in the Botanical Section, he is also keenly interested in the anthropological section, and he has been attending great numbers of meetings and has been out to dinner nearly every night. He is a quiet little man, and definitely earnest. I think I did tell you that he was Marie Stopes first husband did’nt I?.
The Professors go on Sunday night, and on Monday I plunge into an entirely new set of activity, as Assistant Quarter-Master of the All India Training Camp. Thank goodness I had the strength of mind to stand out against it.
I am sorry to hear news of such bad weather in Britain.
Best love and greetings to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Jan 11th 1938
My darling Annette
It was with real regret that we said goodbye to Professor Crew last night – In the 10 days he had been with us he seemed to have become such a part of the household – I am grateful to him for the time had has spent talking to me and telling me about his work, and I have become so fascinated by biology as presented by him, that I am greatly looking forward to the book on biology which he has promised to send me –
It was quite difficult to reorientate myself from this scientific world in which I have been living so warmly, and concentrate my thoughts on the preparations for the Girl Guide Training Camp this morning. Preparations have been going on to-day and I have been there from 10-30 till 5.30. The Guiders arrive to-morrow – and will be here till the 19th.
From your last letter it would seem that you had gay enough Christmas holidays. I’m glad you get plenty of dances –
Best love, my darling from Mum
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Jan 11th 1938
My Dears,
It was a tremendous contrast to swing over yesterday from the world of ideas in which we have been living, to the humdrum details of Guide Camp Quatermastering. (By the way I see that I left out part of a sentence at the end of my letter last week. I said I was going to be an Assistant Q.M. but thank goodness I had had the strength of mind to stand out against it,. I should have said against be Q.M. as they wanted me to be.
Last week continued to be a round of parties, chiefly for the Scientist and of long talks in between whiles. Herbert and I had to dine at Government House on Thursday evening, and we went to the before dinner show of the Himalayan Club Photos first. There were not as many people there as on the previous evening, but it was nicer, because people were clumping round the photos and discussing them. It was gratifying to find that some of the Science Congress people came because their friends who had been the previous night had told them it was such an interesting show.
We were both lucky at government House. I was taken in by the Italian Consul General, who is a most charming person, and though Herbert took in rather a dull woman, he had Sir James Jeans on his other side. We had been told that it is difficult to get Sir James to talk, but Herbert succeeded very well. He advised him to drink as much champagne as he could get, with the result that when one of the A.D.Cs brought Sir James up to talk to me after dinner, he was chatty as could be, and he described to me how he had been unable to get into his own lecture the previous day. The lecture was timed for 6.30, but such huge crowds wanted to attend it that they had to shut the doors at 5 o’clock, and nobody recognised Jeans when he arrived. Having heard that there were going to be such huge crowds there, and that he was a dull lecturer, I had not attempted to go, and I am glad I did not, for Idris went and had to stand outside on the lawn and merely listen to the amplifiers, without seeing the lecturer or the slides. Moreover he says that Jeans said nothing that is not in his popular books. However his is a great man, and I am glad to have had quite a long and interesting talk with him.
On Thursday afternoon we all attended a garden-party given by the Governor to the Scientists. Professor Crew had to go and sit at the Royal table, but we collected rather a nice little party round a table, of mixed scientists and Calcutta hosts, where we had some good talk. We took our professors along to the U.S. Club for a drink afterwards, as Crew had nearly an hour to put in before addressing a medical society here at 6.30. Gates and Herbert and I went out to Cossipore to change, and the Professor and I cam in to Calcutta again, he to dine with friends, and I to meet Crew, with the idea that after dinner at the Saturday Club we were going to a musical soiree which had been arranged for the delegates. However he did not get back from his medical discussion till past eight, and by the time he had changed and we had dined, it was getting late and we thought the charms of the Saturday Club dance outweighed those of the musical soiree. We had a charming evening, and evidently chose the better part, for many other people brought their Delegate guests to the Saturday Club later, having crept away from the soiree which they said was extremely boring.
Pr Crew expressed a wish to see the experimental work which has been going on for some years on the improvement of silk-worms, and by chance I know the two women who are doing it very well. Their place is right out in Tollygunge, a long drive from here, so we set off immediately after breakfast the next morning to pay them a visit. It was quite pathetic to see the pleasure of the two Miss Cleghorns at having a visit from so great a man, for in their world of animal genetics I suppose he is one of the biggest stars in the firmament. He had to attend a session at 11.30 and I did a spot of Himalayan Club work, and met him again for lunch at Firpo’s. Herbert picked us up a little later in the afternoon, and we went home for a quiet tea in the garden. At 6.30 Crew was giving his big public lecture in the Senate House, and I took him along, and I listened enthralled to the lecture, to which he gave the strange title of “The Biology of death”. His huge audience were spell bound after the first few minutes, and you could almost have heard a pin drop. He is blessed with a fine presence, and a singularly beautiful voice, which he uses to the best advantage. The matter of what he said was challenging and extraordinarily interesting. I confess I felt very proud of being in charge of him, so to speak! When the lecture was over, a wave of signature hunting students surged over him, and at last I forced my way in amongst them, and insisted on taking him away. He complained that I was cutting short his one experience of feeling like Greta Garbo, but came not too unwillingly. We were going on to attend the big farewell dinner to the Delegates at the Grand Hotel, where we picked up Pr Gates again. There were 600 people at the dinner, and the food was not good, and the speeches were too dull for words, so we were glad to escape and spend the rest of the evening dancing once more.
Sunday morning we spent in a most delightful way, visiting Dr Law’s aviaries. pr Crew keeps huge quantities of birds for his experiments, not luckily having to kill them, but experimenting with all sorts of cross breeding for certain characteristics. he was entranced by Dr Law’s place, but said he could almost weep to think of the marvellous scientific opportunities being missed there, for the birds are kept under such ideal conditions, that it would be a wonderful thing to have the opportunity of working there.
The afternoon was taken up by a farewell tea-party given by the University of Calcutta. It was somewhat spoilt by the little patch of wet days which usually arrive about now, so that we had to have tea in various lecture rooms instead of in the garden – I was pleased to find myself sitting next to Sir Arthur Hill, the head of Kew. He is a gentle and delightful person. Later in the evening Pr Crew had to leave to catch the special train to Madras. We said good bye to him with much regret. His thanks for our hospitality, was I felt not needed at all, for his had given us so much of his knowledge. Pr Gates has broken loose from the main body, and did not leave till last night, so on Sunday he and I went to dine with Walter Jenkins, and attended the symphony Concert. I feared I should sleep heavily through it after so many late nights, but luckily I did not.
Now, as I have told you I am immersed in the Guide Camp, and shall be till the 19th. I have been firm about taking duty from 10.30 A.M. till 3.30 p.m. daily, which does leave me a little time for doing other things. I came straight home this afternoon, changed, and have been writing letters ever since I came in.
Herbert has just finished changing and come into this room, so I think I will stop this hammering on the typewriter.
Best love to you all
LJT
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Jan 11th 1937 (38?)
My dear Annette
Boike on Friday declared that I was in fine shape and that really there was no reason why I should continue to go to him. (I had gone in a tophat and morning coat – and that probably means that he will double his charges.) Three days later my nose watered and produced muckings: I suspected and treated myself for antrum: which shows how much belief really I have in Boike, for if his theory is true and if I am as to spine and neck in fine shape it is impossible for me to have antrum trouble – or bad sight either, I suppose.
One consolation about my cheerless existence is that I have worn my tophat six times: and before the season closes I ought to wear it twice more: so I have had my money’s worth. The little scientist possessed no head gear but a sola topi (sola means pith, by the way) and he wore this when going out at night “to keep his head warm”. The other, Crew, howled with laughter and invented the conceit that the object was to avoid sunstroke when returning in the early dawn after a night out. Which was really a merriment-cause to any who had seen the little man. Virtue with a capital at each end.
Mr Matthews is doleful. So I have this day given him (besides the crows, the blue bottles and three piedogs previously bestowed) all the bloated buffalo corpses which float down the river. He became even more gloomy and gave me in rapid succession a fat woman whom he dislikes, a young pudding or porridge faced lump of a girl whom I have not seen, and a tough gold digging Swedish pseudo countess who has been buzzing round Calcutta. Which I consider undignified as well as useless and a betrayal of his awful past.
We have had rain. Heavy rain. No breakfasting in the garden these two days. The mynahs feel hurt. All but two who know about coming into the verandah. The two professors are gone: one for good, one on a trip to Ranchi which ought to break him up. I did not treat myself to much of the Science congress: I went to the opening ceremony which was dull and to two teas, besides the lunch from which I fled. The Statistics conference I supported better: to wit I went to a meeting. After the first speaker (1 hour), the great man Professor Fisher got up to speak when Mabalavolis announced “Perhaps it would be better to hear Mr Townend first” – though I had not intended to speak and knew nothing about statistics: though the subject was agricultural statistics, economic – and I do know a little about the snags of those.
More in the other people’s letters
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Jan 19th 1938
My darling Annette
Dad chuckled very happily over your letter describing Christmas Day at Highways. All the bits about the Aunts are so typical. It was awfully disappointing for you not getting to the Holcrofts dance. I felt quite sad and put out about it even at this distance. I also felt definitely envious of you seeing our friend “Ignace” again – I must make an effort to remember that his name is really Fernandel.
Richard, the rascal, has not written to us for three weeks in succession!
The Christmas rush has been going on for too long and I much desire some peace and quiet. I want to read, and to do accounts, and to take stock of the garden and to do heaps and heaps of domestic things. I find it very hard to believe that we have only about another six weeks in this house. It has become so very much our home. The house is going to look so bare when we take our furniture out of it – Idris is sad that we are going, I think, but does not seem to be making any real attempt to find anyone to take our place. I do wish he would marry someone. He needs a good capable body to look after him.
Profess Crew wrote us the most delightful, I think I am not exaggerating if I call it beautiful letter of thanks for his visit here, that I have ever received. When I showed it to Dad he passed it back, saying “You will never get a better letter than that. It might have been written by R.L.Stevenson” – As you know, praise from Dad is praise indeed. In the brief ten days that Professor Crew spent with us he seemed to become a really dear friend. I do hope we shall have chances of meeting again.
Weariness drives me to me bed – not just the after-dinner sleepiness which is such a Bevington family failing, but a real desire to stretch out my body and let it rest. One walks miles at Belvedere, because the camp is so spread out.
Best love, my dear
from
Mum
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Jan 19th 1938
My Dears
Camp goes on, running pretty smoothly, but keeping me busy till about 3 o’clock every afternoon. Yesterday they suddenly asked me whether I would be responsible for running the teas for “Visiting Day” which was to-day. I was not willing to do it, for I had not been able to write any mail letters, and had planned to come straight home from camp, and spend a quiet evening devoted to writing. However, there seemed on one else to do it, so I have had a pretty heavy day. I was able to do most of the shopping yesterday, and took a whole lot of things in in the car this morning, but I don’t think, except for lunch, I have sat down for five minutes during the day. We got home about 6.45, and I changed and now, at 7.30 I embark on my mail, so don’t be surprised that you get rather a scrappy letter.
There has been a lot of Himalayan Club work to do this week, and each day I have spent some time in the Geological Survey Office, working with our clerk. The Survey of India sent me some conundrums a few days ago about the reprint of the map of Sikkim which they are just bringing out, some of which I was able to answer myself, but two about Tibetan names were beyond me, so I took them to Mr van Manen at the Asiatic Society yesterday, and spent rather an amusing half hour with him and his Tibetan clerk, ferrting out the meanings of these words, and proving that they were perfectly good Tibetan, which Col; Jackson, the director of Map publication thought they were not. I am rather pleased to see several of the names I have got corrected, and of which I have found out the meanings, have been incorporated in the new map.
The Maharaja of Burdwan gave rather a nice cocktail party last Friday. It was nice for me because I met people I liked and was able to have long and interesting talks with three or four. We were mostly discussing our impressions of the Science Congress, and all felt that we had received a great deal of mental stimulous from it. I finished the day with rather a dull dinner-party given by the Surveyor General.
Our little guest, Professor Gates, returned to us on Saturday, and we attended a lecture he gave in the afternoon, but found it excessively dull. All three of us (Idris was there as well) had the greatest difficulty in keeping awake. Its odd that a man with all the scholastic qualifications of Proffesor Gates, and one who has been lecturing for so long should do it so badly. His subject was plant genetics, about which Pr Crew had taught me so much, that I was able to ask intelligent questions afterwards. In fact driving home in the car, and while we were sitting having drinks later, we got little Gates talking quite interestingly.
After the lecture we had tea with Lady Bose, the widow of the famous Bengali scientist, Sir Jagadish Bose, who died quite recently. She is a very charming thoughtful intelligent woman, and i enjoyed talking to her and have promised to go and see her again. There were a number of Indians there, very much the intelligencia, and they were all singing the praises of Pr Crews popular lecture on the last night of the Conference, and saying that it was quite the best that had been delivered. In fact I felt myself almost basking in reflected glory, because he had been staying with us.
Pr Gates left for Madras at 8 o’clock that evening, and I took him to Howrah and saw him safely into the train, and so ended the very interesting and enlivening experience of having the professors to stay. The last backwash of the scientific conference was not quite over, for we were invited by Pr Mahalonobis, who is head of the Statistical Laboratory here, to a farewell tea to Pr Fisher (Pr of Eugenics at London University) on Sunday afternoon. The party was at a garden house between here and Barrackpore, and was an extremely pleasant function. We were selected to sit at a big round table with Pr Fisher, two or three Indian doctors, the vice Chancellor of the University, and a couple of Indian Barristers, and the talk ranged widely and well. Education, Party Politics, Public Health, and lots of other subjects cropped up. Pr Fischer gives you the impression that what he says is worth listening to. Pr Crew introduced him to me at the first luncheon party, because he believes him to be one of the most brilliant men among those who came out here.
Sunday was quite a gay day for Herbert, We went in to Calcutta, and went to the Metro Cinema with Charles Holmes, and back to supper with him at the Bengal Club afterwards. The film, an American comedy, Live, Laugh and Learn” was silly but quite amusing and well acted.
Last night we dined with Hugh and Phyllis Carey Morgan, and came home early, as Herbert likes doing. He has been very tired the last two days. He has been concentrating violently on the Police Regulations, the rewriting of which he is supposed to be vetting. Actually the man who has been drafting them has done the work so badly that Herbert says he has almost to rewrite them, and it would have been easier to do the work himself in the first place. He has been so fit for so long that I am sorry to see him getting so tired. I hope it wont last long.
The weather still continues far too hot for the time of year. The garden is coming on, and the English summer annuals are all coming out and the dahlias are looking rather fine. I must give my mind to the question of getting some hot-weather seeds sown at Chinsurah soon. There are so many things waiting my attention directly this camp is over.
Best love to you all
LJT
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Jan 19th 1938
My dear Annette
Do you suppose that I left at “Les ligres Parfumés” and “Voila L’Amérique”? two books on which I spent some labour, dictionary searching: I much regret losing any of the books in which I have marked words: and I thought that I had these two with me. Some day you might cast an eye about and see.
Your mother started laughing the other day at the memory of something which I read out to her casually. Noel Coward sent to someone a portrait of the Venus of Milo with the message: “This is what youll be like if you don’t stop biting your nails”. She said too that it would amuse you. Maybe? But not me.
The mynah which was lame and recovered is going very lame again. I feel quite depressed about it. The crows moreover have become so bold that the mynahs cannot make head against them and it is quite an affair to prevent them robbing the mynahs of the toast scraps which I throw. I feel quite depressed about that too. It is indeed by no means exhilarating weather. Hot for the time of year and muggy. Maybe if I changed to thin suits I should find the temperature pleasant: but then if there were a change in the weather as prophesised by the meteorologist, I should get chills.
Two days ago my weight in thin vest and drawers only was 11 stone 12 lbs: which seems the devil of a lot. However assiduous physical jerking has kept my stomach in subjection so far as flabbiness goes: not as regards various grinding aches which despite Boike’s assurance of my being well remind me that colitis is very hard to cure completely.
Work goes badly. I have gone back to the Police Regulations and find that altering the new edition is more laborious than rewriting completely: dull beyond words and not much use when finished. Yesterday my temper went to rags and I told the Bengali Secretary of the Irrigation Department what I thought of the Ministers in terms which went beyond the bounds of propriety. It is a pity that the Japs didn’t come here – knock hell into this crowd instead of into comparatively harmless Chinese.
What news? I went to a lecture by Professor Gates (poor stuff to one who did not know the rudiments) and a lea given by Bengalis afterwards – pleasant enough but too damned hearty: I went also to the movies and to cold supper afterwards at the Bengal Club with Charles Holmes: and to dinner with the Hugh Carey Morgans followed, thank heaven, not by a charity movie show (?movy) but by a return to bed. Drafting is most exhausting work and I am dead beat every night.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Jan 25th 1938
My darling Annette
You will probably be very surprised to hear that I have made up my mind to come home for a few months this year. I have a great longing to see you all – Dad is in remarkably good health, so its possible to leave him and if I wait till next year, when he has had a hot weather and a Rains down in the Plains, he may be not so fit, and I’ll feel I ought not to leave him – I don’t know if I am being very selfish – At any rate, selfish or not, I have made the decision and am booking a passage on the Viceroy of India, leaving Bombay on May 14th. I’m terribly excited about it!
Now what about your going abroad? Would it matter if you don’t go this year? We shall have to live very economically at home – Vaguely I thought we might perhaps go for a week or two to some farm house in Wales – Cumberland or Scotland, where we could bathe and walk over hills – and spend the rest of the time at Highways.
Now, before I forget, Cecil Reid, the man who has been out here this cold weather, who is a cousin of the Curreys on the other side. (His mother and the woman who married my Uncle Percy Currey were sisters) wrote me a farewell letter from Bombay and asks whether I think you would like to go and stay with him in his little house on the River – He seems to spend a good deal of his time and money “giving a good time” to his various nieces – He says they go to stay with him and take their friends. At Easter time he will have Cedric Currey and his daughters there. He told me where his house was, but I have forgotten. At any rate he said he would write to Grace and to you. He remembers seeing you as a small girl in Darjeeling. His London address is 19 Iverna Court London. W8 I think it would be rather fun for you to go and meet some of the younger generation of Currey cousins. Bunty Daniel, daughter of the eldest of our Currey cousins, who was out here with him, was an awfully nice girl. Cecil Reid was in the I.C.S. out here in Bihar and when I paid my first visit to London as a grown up young lady of seventeen, he happened to be home on leave and took me about quite a lot so I have always had a kindly memory of him. (Sorry to change the paper, but I’ve finished the other block).
The letters were great fun this week, telling us all about the Christmas holidays – Richard, to make up for three weeks silence, wrote a specially long one. Great Leighs certainly does not seem to be a dull place to live in, does it? Compare poor Betty Bentley, the same age as Richard, who has never been to a dance – It really seems pathetic.
I’m glad the Annexe is such a success and that the boys let you go and work there – It must indeed be a boon to have a decent quiet room, away from the telephone and the wireless and the general bustle of the house –
Peg has written me a couple of plucky sensible letters – Poor girl! It must have been a bad time for her, but if the young man is of such a fickle temperament, its just as well she found it out before marriage instead of afterwards. She also writes in a very complimentary manner about you and the boys at dances! Madame Blok has sent us a letter of good wishes with some flowing compliments about you. It was nice of her to write and I must send a reply.
Best love, my darling
from Mum
P.S. My vague plans for home will be to spend most of June staying wither with Gwen Petrie or with Evelyn Pilkington during mid-weeks and to pop into Oxford for week-ends, so that I could see something of the three of you – July I think I shall give to visiting some of my own friends in Cheshire – Newcastle Edinburgh and Helensborough – and if you feel you ought to go abroad for a bit, do you think you could fix it for July, and then come back so that we could be to-gether in August. The decision about where you ought to go or not is, of course, entirely yours –
I’ve had the enclosed photo for ages for you and always forgot to send it
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
Jan 27th 1938
My dear Annette.
A misty morning and the river looks like watercolours of Venice. I wonder why the thought of going to Italy has always been repugnant to me. Dislike of (?)Virifiration(?) and of being done? Reaction from praise of the place by people too eager to be endured? I don’t know: but the nearest I shall get to Venice will be seeing Top Hat: having seen it, I should say.
The 30 Bishops whom I believed to be present at yesterday’s garden party given by the Bishop in the Cathedral compound turn out to have been eleven, according to the “Statesman”. This diminishes the glory of the occasion: but even so in purple cassocks and with an air of sanctity strange to anyone who has only seen Bishops in England they made a show. I honoured the occasion with a tophat but might have saved my pains for only the Government House party and a few others were thus arrayed. Brother Harry whom I met afterwards regarded it with admiration and at once tried it on. He says that Winsome is opposed to his wearing a top hat: an unworthy prejudice: though, I must say, I regard them as rather silly instruments except in a street fight (vide Rodney Stone) or in the hunting field (as they say).
Bellyache was my portion all last week. Saturday was a day off and Sunday: but it started again in the middle of the night, and continued. It depends largely on my temper and on the state of the car. Though I did not know it at the time the car went out of action on Sunday night – short circuit of the magneto: also some time on Tuesday a bracket supporting the engine broke – half of it. It will be a relief when, next week, we can get various ailments of the car seen to. Springs retempered or replaced:- new running board:- engine decarbonised maybe: and a general tightening up.
Your mother’s decision to go home makes it lucky that we have not bought a new car for I don’t know where the money would have come from. I don’t know where it is coming from now for that matter. We have not saved anything this cold weather.
Good letters from you all this week. Our thanks to all.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
Jan 27th 1938
My Dears,
There’s a surprise for you this week! I have decided to come home for a few months to see the children. The idea is not new to me. It really has been circulating about in the back of my head since I said good-bye to them, but I tried to push it away and take no notice. However when so many of my friends were planning their annual visits to their families, and many of them began to question when I was going, my resistance to this idea began to weaken, and I began to tell myself all sorts of arguments in favour of it. One is that Herbert is so fit this year, that I can quite well leave him, whereas, after he has had a hot weather and a Rains in the Plains, and has been at work out here for eighteen months, it is very likely that he will be in a state when I shall feel I ought not to leave him alone. The upshot of all this was that I put the idea to Herbert last week, and though a little surprised, he took the matter very kindly, and says if I want to go, I certainly should. It is good of him, for I know he hates to be left to look after all his own affairs. I have booked a passage on “The Viceroy of India” which leaves Bombay on 14th May, doing an express voyage, and arriving in Marseilles on the 25th May. You can imagine how excited I am feeling. I only wish my joy, and what I hope will be the children’s pleasure, did not mean some months of lonliness for Herbert.
It has really been a great joy the last few days, to go upstairs into my lovely sitting-room after breakfast, and know that I had not to rush out immediately and be away all day. The camp finished on Friday, and I had a pretty busy morning, arranging bundles of food for the various Guides to take on their long journeys, checking crockery, knives and forks, and generally attending to the many details that always crop up to be delt with when anything is being wound up. I left about 2.30, and went straight to the hairdresser’s where I had my somewhat obstreperous half grown hair “permed”. It was restful to know that for three hours I was just a puppet in the hands of several charming young women, and I sank into a pleasant self indulgent trance, sometimes reading and sometimes just sitting. A lucky chance attended me when I came out about 5.45. The car was not waiting at the door, and as I stood on the pavement looking up Chowringhee to see if it were coming, another car stopped and out stepped Freddie Temple. I had heard from him that he would be coming out to Calcutta about the end of January, but I did not expect him, nor did he anticipate that he would be here so soon. Our car arriving at that moment, I carried him off to tea at the United Service Club where I was meeting Herbert. Freddie, whom I must often have mentioned to you, and whom you may remember as being the brother of the Arch-Bishop of York, retired last year, but has come out for a short time now, on some engineering consultant work, and has been touring round south India. We enjoyed seeing him again.
I have already described what a pleasure it was to stay at home on Saturday, and all day I wrote letters, and balanced up accounts, and attended to all the things that I had been forced to leave undone till the camp was over, till Herbert came home in the middle of the afternoon, and we messed about and had tea in the garden. I went in to Calcutta a little before dinner, and met Harry for a drink at the Saturday Club, and then dined there with Walter Jenkins, and went on to an absurd film, called “Over She Goes” at which we did laugh quite a lot, but actually it was so absurd I don’t know how it ever got constructed. We drifted back to the Saturday Club for drinks and a dance or two, and noticed that the press of dancers on the floor was distinctly less than the previous week, so realize that the peak of the season is past.
Sunday was another nice peaceful day. We had a few old friends to lunch, and in the evening I went to the Symphony Concert with Freddie Temple. Monday was even more peaceful, for I stayed out here all day, and got through such a lot of work for the Himalayan club.
It was the Annual Police Sports on Tuesday, which is always a good show. Idris and I lunched with one of the senior policemen, and spent a pleasant afternoon watching the extremely well arranged events, and talking to many nice people. Herbert turned up at tea time, and later he and I went on to have drinks with some nice American people, a charming little party, where there was room for everyone to sit down and talk in comfort. The standard of charm and intelligence amongst the American women in Calcutta is very high. I think they must be specially selected for export! There were four there that evening and all of them quite outstanding.
Yesterday I attended about the only Committee outside of the Himalayan Club that I have allowed myself to stay on. It is the Hospitals Division of the Red Cross. We have the allotting of about 25,000 Rupees for “comforts” to the miserably poor hospitals of Bengal, and its quite an intricate piece of work, and a very useful one. Phyllis Gurner carried me back to lunch with her, and we enjoyed having a long tete a tete, for we had not seen one another, except at parties for a long time, and we happily swapped impressions of our children, and so on.
The annual Synod (I think that is the right word) is in session in Calcutta, and the bishops from the whole of India are here, so the Bishop of Calbutta gave a garden Party in their honor yesterday, to which Herbert and I went, and which proved a pleasant function. The bishop of Lucknow was at oxford with Herbert, and they always enjoy meeting again. We also saw dear Father Hubbuck, now Bishop of Assam, who used to be in Barisal with us, and who christened Rosemary, addressing her as a male creature, till he came to the names “Rosemary Joan” when he realized his mistake.
The garden is at its best now, with all the English annuals, including the dahlias in full bloom. There is always work to do cutting off “deads”, a job of which Herbert is luckily very fond.
The move to Chinsurah begins to loom up as a thing that will soon have to be planned. Luckily it is a simple one, and can be accomplished by motor lorry and trailer.
Harry is just starting off on an extensive tour round India, a business tour, and will only be back here a few days before Winsome arrives.
This I think about exhausts my news. It has been quite a change to write this letter without an eye on the clock!
Best love to you all
LJT