1939 August
Family letter from LJT
Chinsurah
Bengal
August 1st 1939
My Dears,
I am starting my letter early this week, for I don’t know how much time I shall have to-morrow and on Thursday. To-morrow I had arranged to go to Calcutta at tea time with Mr and Mrs Bennett (Manager of Dunlop’s) to do the business of introducing them to the Committee of the Saturday Club for which they are going up for Election. Yesterday evening Arthur Moore, Editor of “The Statesman” rang up and asked if I would lunch with him, to meet Mr and Mrs Armand Denis, two American Explorers, who have been as far along the new China road as they could get, taking films, and who now want to go to Tibet or some other Central Asian place, to take more pictures. Twice lately I have refused interesting invitations from Arthur Moore, and I don’t want to make him feel that I will never go in to his parties, for I always meet such interesting people at his house, and there is nearly always amusing talk, with a good deal of ‘meat’ in it, so I accepted. The said American Explorers are actually coming out here to see me this afternoon. An American I had met with Edward Groth the other day, rang up in the afternoon, to say these two wanted to meet me, and might he bring them out. I shall be very interested to get some first-hand information about the new Burma-China road, the building of which has fascinated me very much. I shall be glad too, to have some fresh and reliable news for that Charming girl, Mrs Smeeton, who drove down here from Quetta a few months ago to get equipment and porters for an attempt to climb Tirich Mir, is arriving here on Thursday morning, en route for China, and she said in her letter that she had great plans for trying to go over-land. I feel that it is a foolishly risky thing to do under present circumstances. Actually I don’t for a moment think she will get permission, but I would be quite glad to have reliable opinions to back my own against her attempting it.
Meeting this American couple should be interesting. Mrs Denis was a Roosevelt, - - I should think probably a cousin of the President. Several of the family have been keen explorers. In a way it is rather a pity that we have Idris Matthews and two Ordanance men from Simla also coming to tea this afternoon. They are all out at Dunlop’s Factory to-day I imagine, enquiring into the manufacture of the rubber portions of the gas-masks which are being made there. They are to have tea here on their return journey to Calcutta. I have therefore asked the Americans to come here as soon as they can after lunch, so that we can talk “shop” about where they are to go next, and study maps, before the others arrive.
We have had quite a party for the week-end, Walter and Kitty Jenkins and their younger daughter, who is out from Cambridge for the long Vacation and the new young I.C.S. magistrate from Serampore, between here and Calcutta, and who is a nice lad. On Sunday we also had Mr Wooler, the I.C.S. man from Barrackpore, which is across the river from Serampore, and who is a keen rock climber. He went with us for a trip in Sikkim in the Autumn of 1936. We have been having tremendous rain since I wrote last Thursday. The sun has not shown at all, and it has actually rained for the greater part of the time, but kindly cleared after tea on Saturday and allowed us to go to see Tribeni, one of our local Pilgrim spots and groups of ruins. It was beautifully cool and we enjoyed walking about.
On Sunday morning Kitty took her daughter and Mr Rogers to see Bandel Church, while I waited in to greet Mr Wooler. It gave me a chance of having an interesting talk with Walter Jenkins on Education.. He does not talk very much when his wife is there! The weather was again kind and looked reasonably clear at lunch time, so we decided to carry out our plan and take tea up to Pandua one of these old Hindu-Mohammaden-Conquered towns, about fourteen miles away. I thought it would be so boreing for the young people to be indoors all day. Actually, though there was no sun, it was a pretty and pleasant day, with banks of grey and white cloud banked up in the sky and good reflections in the flooded rice fields, where the young green plants were springing up, and covering the country-side with that wash of brilliant verdure which I do not think any other crop can out-do. Catherine saw a typical Bengal country, with its paddy fields, its clumps of bamboos and palms, and groves of mangoes, tamarinds and jack-fruit. We climbed to the top of the old “Tower of Victory” at Pandua and on the topmost gallery, the breeze was strong, cool and delicious. We had a look at the three or tour ruined mosques, and then had our tea on the verandah of the little Government Rest House. Afterwards we went a little further in the car, and then walked to the tank where the sacred crocodiles live. It was full of tall pink lotus all round the marge. We found the Mohammaden man, who calls the crocodiles. He stood on the edge of the tank and called “Ao (pronounced ‘ow’ and meaning ‘Come’) Miow! Kali Ma-“ Now that struck us as extremely odd, for Ka li is the great Hindu Godess the universal mother (‘ma’) We could only suppose that the crocodiles were originally Hindu, and refused to answer to any but a hindu name. After some minutes we saw the two bulges above the crocodile’s eyes and tip of its snout above water, coming across the lake directly towards the man. It came on into the lotuses about twenty yards away, and then seeing that we were not going to provide it with a live chicken, it refused to come any further. Accounts of how many crockodiles there are in the lake vary from two to fifty!
We got home a little before seven, just in nice time for drinks and baths before dinner, and just before the rain started again.
I must go and tidy myself up now in case my guests arrive, and I will add a little to this on Thursday.
Aug. 3rd.
There has been a lot doing since I left off writing this Tuesday afternoon. Mr and Mrs Denis came out on that afternoon, and we had a tremendous confabulation about where they could go during the next two months to find sunshine and subjects to photograph, plus some sort of continuous thread to hang their groups of pictures on. My information and advice were mostly of a negative character, but perhaps helped to clear their minds, though it was not exactly cheering. I arranged to take them to see some of the Geological Survey men the following afternoon, after lunch with Arthur Moore, the Editor of the Statesman, where we knew that we were to meet again. We had an interesting lunch, with a lot of mixed talk and over night they had evolved one of the same ideas that I had in mind, which was that they should hang a series of pictures of life, tribes, industries and so on on the thread of “The Grand Trunk road”. We spent over an hour at the Geological Survey Office leaning over a big map, in company with four of the Geological Survey people, getting all sorts of information about weather, roads, and subjects, and Mr and Mrs Denis finished up with quite a sheaf of notes, and I think they were really grateful and felt a cheered after the rather blank wall of the adverse weather in the whole of Eastern India at this time of year.
It was with some difficulty that I got in to Calcutta at all yesterday. About half way there the road was so deeply flooded for a couple of hundred yards that even the buses, with several inches more clearance than we have, were getting stuck. We enquired of local people standing about if there was any other road, and were told that there was one to the East going through various bazaars, but there would probably be water over that too. I took a constable from a little branch police-station as a guide (much against his will) and we set off creeping over ruts and trying to skirt round the deeper holes in the road, and winding in and out through narrow little streets where there was only just room for the car to get along. Presently we were confronted by a stretch of road some three or four hundred yards long, which was flooded, but a man who had just walked through said it only came about half way up the calves of his legs. To be on the safe side we made the constable get out and walk in front. This is not quite as heartless as it sounds, for he was not in uniform, but wearing a dhoti, which can so easily be girded up into a loin-cloth, and walking barefoot is the natural habit of the country. I was glad we got through without sticking, for there was a sporting chance that we might fall into a pot hole and get stuck. After about three miles of wandering we got back on the Grand Trunk Rd, and to Calcutta without any further trouble. It had been pouring all the previous day and night and early morning, but cleared a bit about ten o’clock, and we hoped that the weather was going to change, for there are serious floods all over Eastern Bengal and Assam, and will soon be here if it goes on as it is doing to-day, for after keeping fairly fine most of yesterday, so that I was just able to come home up the main road, it has rained steadily and hard ever since. I got up at Six o’clock to go and meet Mrs Smeeton at Bandal at 6.45 a-m. Luckily she has been so busy that she is quite glad to have a day in the house, and write letters and consolidate her plans a little. It turns out that she has once before walked, ridden, bussed and boated from China into Northern Burma, and now she wants to get through much further south into Indo China and visit Anker Wat. She says travelling by big boats on the sea is such waste of time! Were it not now the height of the rainey season, I have not the slightest doubt but that she would get through, but the great rivers in flood, and paths melted into mud, may I fear, prove too much for her. We shall make enquiries of all sorts in Calcutta to.morrow. We hoped to start doing so by phone to-day, but the appaling weather has upset the wire.
The roof is leaking all over the place, especially in the drawing-room. The furniture is concentrated into a few dry spots, and the rest of the room is ornamented by bath-tubs and buckets. Luckily the bed rooms, except one leak close by the bathroom door in our room, seem to be fairly water-tight, and so does my sitting-room. Most of the servants quarters are leaking. I offered to have the boxes etc, cleared out of the extra room and bath room down-stairs, and to let the women and children come and camp in there, but they prefer to dodge the leaks in their own rooms. What says the bearer grandly, have they to put up with compared with the people in the mud huts of the villages, which may collapse at any time in weather like this, which of course is true, but my feeling is that if one can make the people in ones immediate neighbourhood more comfortable, why not do so?
This has been written in the midst of many interruptions. I hope it is not so disjointed as to be unintelligible.
Best love to you all
Yours
LJT
Forgive no personal letter this week – Mrs Smeeton has much to show and tell me and much of future plans she wants to discuss – so I want to send off the letters and be free to give my attention to her
Mother
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
Aug 8th 1939
My darling Annette
Your last letter from Paris, which incidentally, was not in the least smudged, was a gay affair telling about evenings in cafés or night clubs, which seem to be the sort of thing one so often hears about in Paris, but does not come across when rushing through as a tourist – “Should I have liked it?” said Dad. “Not at all”, said I. “It would be much better for you to go home to bed” – This made him laugh a bit, though he has been rather in the dumps lately – He was awfully tired when we got back from Calcutta on Friday, so I persuaded him to go to bed after lunch on Saturday and stay there all Sunday – which has helped to set him up again to a certain extent. I am feeling more and more in favour of his retiring in the Spring. I hate to see him always tired and if, as I believe, the secret of it lies in his own mind, he will never get at it as long as his life is just a grind at his work, followed by hours of leisure in which he is too tired to allow himself to think. Some sort of not too strenuous manual labour that will allow his mind to flow along easily, is the most hopeful thing to cure him I believe. I suspect that cynicism must have been much the fashion in the universities in Dad’s day – There had to be a detirmined effort to throw off the fetters of dogmatic religion and of what was considered correct Victorian behaviour, I suppose. The pity of it is that with the dogma and the social correctitude, many of them tried to break up spiritual values as well – This I conceive to be impossible, and my guess is that they were therefore firmly banished down into the depths of the Unconscious, where in some people they lie bound and fettered still. That I am coming more and more to believe, is Dad’s trouble. If he would allow himself the simple luxury of believing that there is some power that informs the Universe – some patterns into which we all fit, much of his sadness and his weariness would drop away from him. The problem is how to set his spirit free – All reference to it is completely taboo, which makes it extremely difficult, but I believe it will happen eventually.
It is with great pleasure that I find myself in a week, free of visitors and without commitments to go to Calcutta. Quite definitely as I grow older, I desire plenty of quiet for reading writing and working at what ever happens to be on hand – Last week I had two visits to Calcutta and otherwise people here all the time, so that I had no leisure for my own affairs – and I don’t like that.
Paris seems to have been a success – I hope “Le Varoncier” will be equally so – Best love – Mother
Family letter from LJT
Chinsurah
Bengal
Aug 10th 1939
My Dears,
Looking through last week’s letter, which I did not have time to read before I sent it off last Thursday, I see that I did not correct a mistake I made in thinking that Mr Armand Denis was American. He is not. He is Belgian, but seems to have spent a good deal of his time in the States. I wonder how they are getting on, and whether they have found sunshine further up the Grand Trunk Road. There has not been much here, though the continuous downpour of last week has tailed off into weather of a somewhat Aprilish description, only the storms of rain are more violent that those of more temperate climates. Its pleasant weather for the rain keeps it cool and there have been strong breezes most of the time, so that on many days I have scarcely used a fan. There are severe floods over a great part of Bengal. Its hard to say yet quite how much damage they have done to the young rice crop. Its sad that the weather cannot be better regulated. There are so few years when there is not either too much or too little rain.
The Grand Trunk road was impassable for cars and even busses and lorries last Friday, when Herbert and I and Mrs Smeeton all had to go in to Calcutta so we went by train. Even the train services were much upset. It seems that we caught a train that was really the one before, if you follow me, and instead of taking 50 minutes to get in to Calcutta we took one and ten minutes. I had borrowed two cars, so we were not put to any great inconvenience. Herbert went to his meeting, and Mrs Smeeton and I took different cars and went our several ways as we each had a good deal to do, meeting again for lunch with the Reggie Cookes. We stayed so long with the Cookes, looking at the photos of the attempt to reach the summit of Tirich Mir in Chitral which Mrs Smeeton and her husband and two other men have just made, that we had not much time before we had to be at the Saturday Club to meet a series of different people whom I had asked to meet Mrs Smeeton and advise her about her proposed trip. Major Heaney of the survey of India confirmed my own opinion that it would be foolish to try to carry out the first part of her plan which was to go over quite a well known route from Imphal in Assam on to the Chindwin river, and so by country boat and steamer down to Rangoon. There is no difficulty about it in the Cold and Hot seasons, but now malaria is one menace, and floods another. Dr Heron luckily knew the next section fo the journey which she wanted to perform, and was able to give her fairly detailed advice. She goes by train from Rangoon to some rail head up in the southern Shan States. From there there is a macadam road for a long distance, along which there are bus services. In the cold weather the road is motorable right through to a rail head in Siam, but at this season the section of road over a mountain range will have to be walked or ridden, not any way difficult, and then there is another section of macadam road to the rail head, and finally a train to Bangkok. From Bangkok I believe it is only a matter of some sixteen hours by train and car to Ankor Wat, and then there are ways into French Indo China and an areoplane service from Hanoi to Hongkong, which is Mrs Smeeton’s objective. She wants to see her brother and meet his bride. It is a journey which I should be a bit dubious of backing most pretty young women to embark upon, but Mrs Smeeton will sail through it somehow and enjoy it too, I am sure. She was a little loath to give up the Assam-Burmah bit because had she done that, she would have been from Hongkong to England and back overland (except for the English Channel) However it was obviously not worth while waiting for weeks on the bank of a flooded river, and dyeing of malign tertiary malaria meanwhile.
She made us laugh over some of her experiences. On her journey from China she travelled in some train or boat with a little Turk, who became very friendly, and told about his late wife who had been a Russian. Mrs Smeeton, all sympathy, said “Was she very beautiful?”, to which the little man replied “She was just like you! Very large, and very white!” He then proceeded to offer to build Mrs S a house in Wei-Hai-Wei, but she never discovered if this was an offer of marriage or not, for she told him that she was going to India to meet the man she was going to marry.
It was a most interesting conference and I was sorry to have to break it up at 6 o’clock and go off to pick up Herbert at the Saturday Club and go to the station to catch our train. Trains outward from Howrah were alright, for that is their starting place, so we left to time and arrived at Chinsurah to time. Mrs Smeeton and I sat talking later after dinner long after Herbert had gone off to bed. She is one of those vividly real and perfectly un-selfconscious people whom one so rarely comes across. Those are the qualities that keep her safe and make friends for her amonst all nations and all classes, I suppose. She left after breakfast the next morning, for she had things to do in Calcutta, and wanted to catch the Rangoon boat at 7 a.m. on Sunday, so she had arranged to stay the night with the Cookes.
Herbert was so tired that I persuaded him to go to bed after lunch on Saturday and spend that afternoon and the next day in bed. It was a good plan and he feels the better for it, though still far from being on the top of his form.
We had two young couple up to lunch and tea on Sunday, one pair being the Mr Martin who was Herbert’s Assistant and lived with us for a time in Jalpaiguri, and who has just brought a bride back from England. She seems a nice girl, and is pretty to look at. The other man, also I.C.S. takes marvellous bird and animal photos, and he brought some of his latest to show me. The star ones amongst them were a series of several dozen taken at frequent intervals from Sept to March, of a pair of Fish Eagles nesting in a tall tree near his house at Khulna in the Sunderbunds. He had a “hide” constructed in a neighbouring tree, comparable in height and shape to a tall elm, and used to have himself pulled up into this to take his photos. They are a complete series of nest building in all its stages and rearing the young. Most fascinating! The four young people went to see Bandal Church and the other sights after lunch, and I stayed gladly at home on the excuse of not leaving Herbert, for I had had practically no time to myself the previous week, and much as I enjoyed meeting both Mr and Mrs Denis and having Mrs Smeeton to stay, I do like having part of the day for my own affairs. Its therefore with some pleasure that I am now enjoying a perfectly free week, with no guests and no visits to Calcutta. I have been able to do the greater part of the checking of my Botanical collection with the borrowed volumes of Hooker’s Flora of British India. There only remain those plants which are in Vol 3, the only one not available out of the 7 at the moment, because it is being rebound. There is a great pleasure in doing a piece of work that is mechanical to a certain extent, but at the same time interesting. Its a thing I so seldom get the chance of doing. I have also been reading with keen interest two books by Middleton Murry, one written recently called “The Price of Leadership” and the other a reprint of a collection of essays, written some time ago, with a new preface, some of which I found quite thrilling and inspiring.
There has been a lot to do in the garden after the heavy rains. We spent one evening balanced on stools twining the Morning Glory Creepers which had raced up to the top of a high fence and were waving wildly in the wind, back in and out of the railings.
Rather regretfully I am planning quite a mild trip on the Tibet trade route for the puja holidays, for I am sure it would not be wise to take Herbert anywhere where he could not ride, or where he would have the discomfort of sleeping at high altitudes in small tents. The journey over into the Chumbu Valley is very beautiful and Herbert has never done it, so that is what I have settled on, instead of the bit of exploring I had hoped for
Best love
LJT
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
Aug 14th 1939
My darling Annette
Dad has been feeling so poorly this week that a renewed wave of eagerness for him to retire next Spring has swept over me and I have been busy most of the day making estimates, checking figures and so on – The first thing I started on was to make out a clear statement of Income, so that I can go to see the Income Tax expert in Calcutta and find out from him what we shall have to pay – So many people are caught under Income Tax in some way they do not expect, that it seems worth a small fee to get sound advice.
Now I am going to both you again about your future arrangements –
Suppose we retire in the Spring of 1940 and go abroad the following Oct to March to avoid paying English Income Tax, do you think the following proposals about your future would be sound and not cutting you down too low – You would get your usual allowance of £90 from us in April – You finish at Oxford at the end of June – For the 6 months – July 1st to Dec 31st would it suit you to come holiday making somewhere with us in July or August – and then settle down to work on your own at Highways? We would be responsible for your living expenses – and give you an allowance of £30 for the half year – which I reckoned roughly as follows
Clothes £15
Amusements £5
Rly Fares and Buses £5 (We should be responsible for fares if you come away with us.)
Books £5
Total £30
Supposing we are in France or Switzerland in winter and have enough money, perhaps it would be possible for you and Romey to join us – or supposing you wanted a little extra money to go for Winter Sports or something special, I expect we could find it.
For the first 6 months of 1941 – I made a rough plan and reckoning as follows
£
2 months at Highways
Board and Lodging 8 weeks and 3 days £16 17 3d
4 months in London
13 ½ weeks at £3 per week = £40 15s
Crammer’s Fees for 4 months
(Based on what Mr Christie told me) - £60
Clothes, Amusements. Rly Fares Books - £30
Total £ 137 12s
If you preferred living at Highways and going to town daily – the difference of £1 per week, would probably square out with the cost of Rail and Bus Fares – or we may be settling in to a house in April, sufficiently near London for you to live at home and work in London – Those are details which could be adjusted.
Please don’t think that by writing all this I am wanting to rush you into feeling you must try for the Civil Service – I don’t want you to feel that at all - All I want is to be able to present fairly comprehensive plans and estimates for Dad to see – for though he detests making plans himself, he does not like committing himself to any course of action unless one can show him what it is going to cost.
Do you think the allowance I am suggesting would be enough for you to manage on with out feeling uncomfortably pinched? and do you approve of the idea of going to a “Crammer”.?
Now I want to find out whether you can get some opinions for us about the probable cost of living in France – I have the accounts of the trip that Dad and I made when we spent 6 months in France from Oct 1931 to March 1932 – I see we averaged between 4,000 and 5,000 Francs a month, which at the then rate of exchange worked out at the average of £15 a week – We were wandering with the car – staying in fairly good hotels as a rule and we spent some money in doctors fees at Dinard and a good deal in medicines.
Exchange from the English point of view was very bad then. The Pound had just gone off gold and we were only getting about 70 Frcs for it.
I imagine that though, from the French point of view things have grown more expensive, taking the excellent exchange rate for us, into consideration, we could live in the same sort of way now, quite a bit cheaper.
Do you happen to know what the Swiss exchange is?
I do really hope Dad will retire next year – I feel so sad for him never really enjoying himself – I believe I could only get him to go to Switzerland in winter he would soon get keen on skiing and things – The difficulty would be to get him there.
Back of all this I know there is the constant menace of the International situation – but one cant go on not making plans because of the series of crisis that keep on taking place and in the awful event of War, all plans would of course, have to be thrown into the melting pot and one would have to judge afresh whether it was the stronger duty to stay out here or volunteer for work at home.
You have seen a copy of Goebbels reply to Stephen King-Hall’s letter I suppose? I wonder how it reads to a German. To us it seemed almost pathetically futile – Once one begins raking up old misdeeds of ones country’s past, we could probably find things every bit as discreditable in German History – but it does not help the present situation What matters is the mentality of the nations now and how they are likely to handle their responsibilities – There was plenty of material for him to make out a good case for Germany too – but he scarcely touched on the things that are real excuses or reasons for some part of Germany’s behaviour. I am lunching with my friend Anina Brandt on Thursday and I shall take the letter to show her and ask her what she thinks of it. She will, I know, give me a fair answer.
(letter finishes here with no parting salutation)
Family letter from LJT
Chinsurah
Bengal
August 16th 1939
My Dears,
A delightfully peaceful and fairly cool week, has only been marred by Herbert’s increasing feeling of illness, so that on Monday I Called in the doctor, who, after the necessary tests, diagnoses amaebic dysentry. Strange to say Herbert is almost pleased. He says it is much better to be suffering from a definite disease, which can be treated and cured, than from general decay oweing to old age and long years in the Bengal climate which was what he thought was wrong with him. He has not got to stay in bed, but to take things as easy as he can, diet carefully, and take the necessary drugs, so I hope we shall have him well again reasonably soon.
I have practically been nowhere and seen few outsiders since I wrote last week. Herbert and I went for a drive up the Grand Trunk road on Sunday evening to have a look at two flooded rivers. it was a lovely evening- cool aster rain storms, and with good cloud effects, and consequently fine reflections in the flooded fields. The Hooghly is brimming and yesterday at high tide, it slopped over into part of the garden, topping the eight foot wall which raises us above the ordinary tide level. The boats, which are especially active on the river at this season, often look as if they were going to sail right into the garden. They are jolly to watch with their bands of rowers standing and swinging from one foot to the other with the motion of the big oars, or with their great square sails full of the south wind. They are fond of bright colours, and we see lots of reds and blues, and different chrome-yellows and rusty reds. The malis have been putting up breakwaters of bamboo stakes, with banks of brick rubble behind them, to save the foundations of the brick pillars, I had built last year to support the bourgainvillia at the top of our little landing stage. it seems quite an effective piece of work. There was a tremendous thrill yesterday morning when a roped up sack evidently containing some sort of body, was stranded close to the ghat. The servants all thought it was a corpse, so I phoned to the police, and they sent a man to be present at the investigation. The body turned out to be that of a calf. The servants explain that if a calf dies, the owner has to pay 6 annas to the local dom to take it away, and to save the money they put the body into a sack and throw it in to the river by night. Were it done publicly, they would lose cast. How incredibly difficult the people of the country have made life for themselves, especially considering their poverty. They even have to pay some one else to shave them and cut their hair and nails!
Maxie much enjoys the old cocoanuts which he finds on the river bank. He rushes with them on to the lawn and “kills” them with the utmost vigour.
Consequent on Herbert’s illness I have had a new wave of enthusiasm for retiring next year, and spent most of yesterday working out budgets, and thinking out possible plans, for though he hates making plans himself he is never willing to commit himself to any course of action unless one can present all the data to him. I also want to be in possession of as many facts as possible before going to see an expert on Income tax in Calcutta since it seems hopelessly difficult to find out for oneself what one will be liable for. When I allow myself to brood on the thought of retiring, I become quite excited!
The Indian Press is sparing quite an fair amount of space from the European and Far Eastern News for reports and discussions about Subash Bose’ being banned from holding any Congress appointment. I have not been able to bring myself to read much more than the headings. Internal wrangling occuppy so much of the Indian horizon, and seem of so little interest to us compared with world affairs. Like many other nations, if Indians would only practice a little more of what they profess, it would better for their country.
There is great distress in Bengal, Assam and Burmah oweing to floods, and I am sorry to say that we are still getting a lot of rain. It is coming in the form of heavy isolated showers, which is not so bad as the ten days of almost solid rain, which started the trouble, but it does not give much chance to the floods to subside.
Amongst the troop of servants in the compound plus their relations, there has been a good deal of sickness of one sort and another, the ever-present fever, which always tends to crop up when the weather is wet, and people are subject to chills, - tummy trouble, dysentry and lately several cases of the Common Cold. We have ten servants, including the malis, and six of them have their wives in the compound, and between them they have ten children, and then there are four Government chapprassis, so there are quite a party of them to keep in good health, especially in a country where the standard of health is so low. I apologised to the Assistant surgeon at the hospital the other day for sending him a note about someone almost every day, but he seems to take the matter quite calmly. If there were not a hospital just at our gate, I should probably do much more doctoring myself, like I used to in Contai.
The car-driver, besides becoming my sort of “Estate Superintendent” has also become a most useful help in keeping the household belongings aired, which is such a difficult job at this season. I have got two extra little stoves for holding red-hot coke, very much like you see outside the little workman’s shelters of the road-menders. Round these the driver airs books, suitcases and all sorts of things, and at other times the bearer has them for the clothes and linen. I try to have one burning in each room of the house at least once a week. It does make a difference to the smell of mouldiness. My books are all painted over with some stuff called “Yoco” which keeps mould from growing on them, and insects from eating them. I wish I had known of it years before I did. With its help it is possible to keep books in fairly good condition. We had a sunny morning on Sunday, and I had all the trunks brought out and opened in the sun. After lunch the driver came and asked if he should put them back in the box room for they had “Sun well eater”.
Except for the doctor we have seen little of most of the inhabitants of the station lately. The Mackenzies are away on tour. The collector is in attandance on his old eighty year old mother, who lives here, and who has been slowly expiring for the last three weeks, and when that sort of thing happens in an Indian household, all the relations came from far and near, and stay, insisting on being allowed into the sick room, and all wanting to try different remedies. A zemindar who was here the other day, told Herbert that his father’s last illness and death cost not less than 20,000 rupees in the cost of feeding and housing the hosts of relations, and paying the fees of the multitude of doctors they called in. Can you imagine such a state of things? How frightful it must be to be quite such slaves to custom. Of the others the Superintendent of Police lives completely Indian style, and never comes to see us unless I send him a formal invitation, and the Military Intelligence Officer and his wife go and play golf at the Angus Mills Golf Course every evening, and don’t get back much before dinner-time. I have had visits from the Scotch Missionery and the matron of the Hospital, and I go to see old Miss Babineau once a week. There is little station life here in the old sense of the word. With Indianisation going on, I suppose it will die everywhere, until the Indians evolve something for themselves to take its place. We are lucky here for we have Calcutta within reach, but it must be pretty dull for the people in the far-away stations.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Rosemary
Chinsurah, Bengal
Aug 23rd, 1939
My Darling Rosemary,
You ask about the likely date on which you will leave school. You will be 17 in November 1940 next year. I should think it would probably be best for you to stay at school till the following Easter or even end of the summer term, unless you are keen to improve your French, in which case we might arrange for you to leave school at Christmas 1940 and spend six months in France.
If you don’t feel any special leaning towards any sort of career, I should not worry about it. Just go ahead with the ordinary school work and try to fit yourself as well as possible for any practical post you may be called upon to fill. The main point of education, of course, is to teach you to think and to think and reason for yourself. In certain respects so-called education in India has become a parody of itself, for it aims at nothing but memorizing facts and its eff4ct is immediately apparent amongst the general run of the people. There are many sides to education as well as learning to think – but that is the heart or core of it. There is any amount of detail knowledge of facts that is useful, or that forms a background against which to weigh and measure present events, or that opens up fresh avenues of knowledge to explore. One comes across people fairly often, whose education seems to have run off them like water off a duck’s back, and left no impression. They have no vision at all of what great books have meant and mean to the world—or history, or mathematics or pictures. It is an attitude entirely foreign to the habits and thoughts of our family at Highways. It is also a habit which would be difficult to preserve at St Monica’s or at Headington.
For the moment, therefore, I should remain as a “lily of the field” and trust that when the proper time comes you will find the proper thing to do. If one has a special wish to follow a particular line, it is just as well to recognize it, for generally one can shape ones work in the direction that will be useful for it, but for general sort of jobs, a general all round sort of education is the thing.
Maxie has had great pleasure this week because Elaine Mackenzie has been at home for a week and her curious pup, half spaniel and half Irish terrier, have had tremendous games. I wish Penny, for that is the animal’s name, were here always for Max gets about five times as much exercise in half an hour’s play with him, as in an hour’s walk with the sweeper, even with me.
One of the servants found the most extraordinary caterpillar yesterday. It was a green beast about 1 ½ inches long, but by way of disguise it had grown small branches, like tiny sprigs of fine asparagus fern all along its back. I have never seen anything so odd. None of the servants had ever seen its like before and nor had anyone else I showed it to. I wished I could take or send it down to the Calcutta Museum, but as I shant be going again till next week, it seemed too much of a bother . Anyway, I expect they know it.
I get so excited when I think that we shall be home with you next year!
Best love, Mother
Family letter from LJT
Commissioner’s House
Chinsurah
Bengal
Aug 24th 1939.
My Dears,
At a moment like this it is difficult to bring oneself to write of the petty little happenings of everyday life. At the back of ones mind there is the continual consciousness that the fate of the world is trembling in the balance. One knows quite well that the only way most of us can help is by going quietly about our daily business, till we are called upon to do whatever may be necessary. The Statesman was rather re-assuring yesterday, but it is more alarming to-day. What enormous strength of mind and nerve the men must need who are responsible for the policies of the different countries engaged in this appaling struggle. One wishes there were some definite way of putting ones own strength at their disposal in a more personal way than simply by the knowledge that the nation is backing them.
Now I will try to cast my mind back over the week and see if I have anything of any sort of interest to tell you. Herbert and I both had a busy day in Calcutta last Thursday, which is my normal mail-day. I had the usual list of shopping and work to do at the Himalayan Club office, but I lunched with my German friend Anina Brandt, and stayed talking with her till nearly three o’clock. I find her extremely interesting. She herself feels that the Third Reich is built on such rotten foundations that it must eventualy collapse, but meanwhile it can do such infinite harm. Here I am back at politics! Later I went to tea with another old friend, who has been one of the most ardent Groupers in Calcutta since the beginning of the movement out here, and who is now helping with the Moral Rearmament Campaign. Letters came to us here about M.R.A., with the principals of which I agree, and in the faith of which I largely share, but there was nothing in them to make it plain that the movement is closely linked with the Group Movement. Two excellent leaders in the “Statesman” revealed this to me, and, I am sure to many who did not realize it before. These articles gave a fair and true criticism of the Group methods, as I see them, and I wanted to have a frank discussion with Gwen Graham on the subject. Unfortunately we were thwarted by the arrival of some visitors, and our tea-time meeting developed into a pleasant but quite non-commital chat. A subsequent letter about the great M.R.A. meeting in Hollywood, and also about local doings in India, I found completely nauseating in its style. It seemed to be making an effort to advertise God in very much the way the American films are advertised. Quantity seems to impress them for more than quality!
Perhaps I am pernickty, but I turned with relief to a book I have just got out of the Library, and the is “The Bible. To be read as literature” It is arranged by a man called Bates and published by Heinman’s. It is really delightful and has enabled me to read the bible with real pleasure for the first time in my life. I am so pleased with it that I have ordered a copy for myself. It sticks to the Authorized Version for most part, but uses the Revised for the Psalms and Proverbs and a few passages where it is obviously truer to the original. The books have been properly arranged, grouped into subjects and sequence, and each is prefaced by a brief note giving its date and history. Geneologies and obsolete laws have been left out. Poems are printed as poems, and “The Song of Soloman” as a drama. In fact the whole thing becomes a sensible collection of valuable books. The prose, by the way is not all split up into little verses, so as to spoil its swing and sense.
Herbert’s health is improving slowly, but he still feels pretty “poor”. However dysentry is not a thing that can be very quickly cured, and he has undoubtedly made some progress. I hope he has made up his mind to take a week’s casual leave before the Commissioner’s Conference in Darjeeling. We can then go up to the Hills about Oct 3rd, and he can have six or seven days of real holiday. Then there will be the week of the conference, which is not the same sort of grinding work as the daily office round, and after that ten days trek into Tibet, so that we shall be up in the mountain air for more than three weeks, and that ought to do him a lot of good, and set him up for the remaining months before we come home. Apropos of coming home, I presented all my figures to the Income Tax expert when we were in Calcutta on Tuesday, and now look forward with interest to his replies. I am becoming every day more and more firm in my desire to persuade Herbert to retire and leave India for good in the Spring - - (All this of course dependent upon world events) I am sure that it well be much the wisest thing for him, and for all of us.
It was a great pleasure on Tuesday to have tea with Mr van Manen until lately Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society. His flat high up a the top of a tall block, has a splendid view over the Maidan and the River. His three rooms are so full of books, that he sleeps on the verandah, and uses the little bathroom as his dressing-room. Since leaving the Asiatic Society he has brought three cart-loads of books and papers from there, to add to the array, and at present they are piled everywhere. I longed to offer to go and spend a day helping him to get them into order, but I fancy it is a thing that he must do by degrees himself. His library is on such varied subjects, and he arranges his books in related families, so to speak, so that it would be difficult for an outsider to do much. Its hard to see where he is going to find the extra shelf room. I am sorry that the old man is no longer in charge at the Asiatic Society. I hear that he had become terribly lax about the office work, and that it was impossible to go on as he was doing, but in spite of that the Society will now be to me, and I am sure to many others, like a nut without its kernal.
Reggie Cooke and his wife and new baby spent the day here on Sunday. Reggie and I had a lot of things to discuss, and were hard at it all the afternoon while the others took their siestas. Our most difficult problem is going to be to find someone to take my place as Secretary when I go home. There are no suitable women and all the men in Calcutta are so busy. Public work of all sorts is so difficult out here, for you have no retired people and no unattached females, except quite young girls.
The floods are causing great distress. Sir Bijoy Singh Roy was up here yesterday, addressing a meeting about flood relief, and came to tea with us afterwards. Itis rather pathetic to think that he is one of the most experienced of the Ministers, and certainly from the point of view of character, one of the best, and yet he has no notion of public finance. He is telephoning and telegraphing to the District Officers, telling them to give the people everything they want. The Financial Secretary is meanwhile tearing his hair, for the present ministry have been a spend-thrift one, and there just is no money! Bijoy spotted the photo of the portrait of old grandfather Price in the drawing-room yesterday, and wanted to know all about him, what robes he was wearing etc, and such is the power of imagination, he even asserted that he could see a strong likeness between me and the old man!
The garden is taking shape nicely, and all my recently planted cannas are beginning to come into flower. We had a great game moving a long old stone trough from a place under a tree where it scarcely showed, up on to the raised grass knoll or terrace where we have breakfast and tea in the cold weather. It is a very nice old bit of stone, and I am going to plant golden gleam nasturtiums in it. We wonder if it came in a ship from Holland, for there is no stone within hundreds of miles of us here.
Best Love
LJT
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
Aug 24th 1939
My darling Annette
As I believe you planned to be home about the end of August, it seems safest to send this letter to Highways –
Like the rest of the world, we wait with bated breath to hear what is going to happen next. What a fantastic situation it is – Has the world every waited on one man’s word as it waits now for Hitler? Is the power really there – or is it like the house built on sand? I wonder!
I’ve not really an awful lot to write to you about. The political situation seems to make to futile to write about plans or about ones own little thoughts on this or that.
Romey wants to know when she will be leaving school, which has caused me to wonder whether it would be a good thing for her to have six months in France, leaving school at Christmas 1940. She has no idea what she wants to do – Its a question really of whether she will get a better all-round training by staying at school till Easter 1941 or even the end of the Summer term. I’d be glad if you would discuss the matter with her sometime – I don’t see that there is any sort of hurry to make up her mind – or know if there is any reason behind her question, except natural curiosity.
I’ve just borrowed a book on Confuscius from Mr van Manen. I know next to nothing about “The Great Teacher” – and thought I would like to – but this volume looks a bit stiff – I wonder whether I shall really feel inclined for it.
Oh! I forgot to put in the family letter a new piece of Hindustani – which may amuse – My “scullion” came to me the other day and said would I give him 2 “Ice Cream Golli” (balls). I was completely flummoxed! but after some concentrated thinking, I realized that he wanted “Asperin” –
It will be interesting to hear about the latter part of your French holiday – Oh! By the way, Mrs. Gurner wrote for Mme Blok’s address – Francesca leaves school at Christmas and wants 6 months in France. I recommended Mme B. very strongly and said if they wanted more details, I thought you would probably arrange to go and see them one day in London. Auriol has won a scholarship into St Monica’s. Mrs G says “which we are holding just over half” – I don’t quite follow, but suppose she means they have given half the money as they have done to you – Best love – Mother
Family letter from HPV
Chinsurah,
August 28th. 1939.
My Dear Creatures, Creatures.
It is so long since I wrote to anyone that it scarcely seems worth while trying to write. Certainly it is no use trying to write news; it would be like a fragment dug up in Egypt, of no real interest except to professionals. Gloom has been too heavy upon me to make any effort; not only the universal on-account-of-the-state-of-the-nation gloom, but a private and particular gloom centred in the bowels and encouraged by inability to get any real work done. Even when a job is done, I cannot get finished with it, videlicet that abominable Forest Committee Report, finished weeks ago yet still not disposed of because the Members are so slow in signing. It will annoy me if the other futile Committees get their reports out first now; not that it matters, for of course nothing will come of any of them.
Twenty-one large sailing boats this evening cast anchor just below the garden, because tide and wind were both against them, in three lines touching each boat the next. With flags or pennons flying; an obvious fixture for the night. But as I languidly cuts deads in the flower-bed by the river (it has been an oppressively hot day and the dysentery has come back again; so that the doctor has after all decided on injections of emetine , which before he rejected as too drastic) as I did this gazing at heavy slow thunder clouds in the north, of a sudden there was a commotion and a bustle, and the sound of chanties. The clouds raced, the wind blew from the south, hard, and the Armada ser sail. Much heaving up of anchors and hauling up of sails; cumbrous square sails with booms of five or six bamboos (why?), sometimes two to the boat and sometimes one, sometimes taut and sometimes left slack as a bag --- a primitive form of reefing, maybe. It was gay. I felt pleased. What more? I felt benevolent. And I went down to the water’s edge and watched them one by one gather way and go Lurching past, with foamings and heavy gurglings which would have delighted Our Richard and Our Harry. Really it was a merry sight; and I reflected how in just such boats the Thugs used to embark pilgrims a little way down the river, break their backs across the thwarts and slip the bodies out through square ports (tonight the lamplight was reflected from the water below them) into the Hooghly on that side of the boat furthest from the nearest shore. And this quenched my benevolence towards the boats and towards those boatmen.
My acrobats have done not so well of late. Have I told how they, the Squirrels, run up the side of the house from the porch-thing to an iron barbed-wired bracket that supports a small balcony above and thence to the top of the porch-thing above the balcony and thence by a great jump onto a waterpipe and up the pipe onto the roof of the verandah to the east? It is an incredible feat. So I should not be surprised, as I was surprised, to see twice in the last four days a squirrel miss its footing and fall flop some eight feet at the place where they have to traverse out from under the balcony. The cats have been banished; not my decree; I am all for fair play and if we introduce cats where they will terrorise our squirrels, it is not the cats’ fault; but banished they were at meal-times and I have scarcely seen them since. To us it is no loss; for coots are tame in comparison; but it was not fair does. The squirrels have not recovered courage, but the mynah birds are now bold and advancing to the door-step loudly clamour for their rights and defy all others of their kind. It is permitted to that Monster, to dash out when fingers snap and chase the ravens; bold croakers.
In spite of my feeling melancholic I have composed the following sloka (which as you have not heard it I shall proceed to relate)
What shall we call that Monster Macksie?
Sometimes Mucksie and sometimes Sacksie.
Sachse, to be correct. Because of the long and silky ears.
In many ways a melancholy dog; on the other hand he does not cotton to me much. His devotion to the lady of the house, the first substitute as Kipling would have said, is too great; he is ghost-like in his haunting. Two nights ago he was sick on the stairs and felt very thus and thus all day out of shame and remorse. It is not easy to pass the places on the stairs without stopping to make sure that no trace remains. To my mind it was the weather. Easily I could have been sick myself; but once start that sort of thing and where stop?
A message to one of my may-be readers. Many thanks for the picture postcard, thou Lulu or was it Looloo?
One to Rosemary. It looks rather from the photo as if you went out rather too far from the board when doing that jack-knife. You should go almost straight up so that you feel as if you would hit the board: that gives more time and then there is less snatching at it. Not that the photo shows any snatching.
I have been thinking that resentment that there may be war and carnage is really disproportionate; for the great mass of the sufferers old have died in infancy or as children if they had lived under conditions in which such world wars did not occur. Not that the thought gives me the least consolation. Any more than the thought that I ought not to resent this seediness of mine because by rights I ought to have been removed by appendicitis 27 years ago.
My dear Joan seems very well and busily she plans a trip in the hills if disaster does not break upon us. But, I begin to wonder if I shall have the strength for it. She has gone to Calcutta to see some candidates for election to the Saturday Club through interviews with the Committee members. Time that I was in bed.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
Aug 31st 1939
My darling Annette
As far as letter writing is concerned, I feel almost paralysed – Thoughts about war will seem silly if it does not come, and thoughts about anything else will seem beside the point if it does – Its odd how one can go on discussing the pros and cons with such keen interest. My poor Anina, who had been almost demented on Friday, had pulled herself to-gether and regained her poise somewhat by the time John Leslie brought her out here on Saturday.
She believes that Hitler is in for a debacle – For years he has been living on the peoples nerves and she thinks they are just about at breaking point. She rather quaintly described the present situation – She says she thinks he was banking much on this pact with Russia, which has missed fire in that it has not frightened France and England or shifted them from their course, but that it has fallen back, like a badly made rocket, on the people who fired it, and destroyed his anticomintern propoganda which was one of his strongest cards. “He hoped to go to Tannenburg like a successful conjuror” she said “and pulling a white rabbit out of his pocket – present it to the people, saying here I bring you Danzig, with no blood spilt” – Then he thought he would go on to Nuremburg and produce another white rabbit, saying “Here is the Polish Corridor and peace with honour – “ When he found he had no nice white rabbits to produce and that his store of magic seemed exhausted, he was afraid – terrified to face his audiences – Such is her belief – I only hope it is true – She has been saying ever since she came back from Germany last year that she thought the days of Hitler’s power were numbered –
We were pleased to get your post-card, as a nice illustration to Dad’s famous gramaphone record – I wonder with the state of affairs caused you to hurry back to England sooner than you intended In spite of it being a time of great activity, there’s a sort of feeling of suspended life, while all these negotiations are going on – I suppose its the suspension of private plans and enterprises of all sorts, that brings that feeling –
- If there is a war – I wonder what you will do – and Dicky and Gavin – Somehow I feel now that every day’s delay makes it less likely If Hitler meant to fight – surely the quicker the better, before his people had had time to think –
Best love, my dear – Mother
Family letter from LJT
Chinsurah
Bengal
August 31st 1939
My Dears,
It is more difficult than ever to write this week, for the whole background of ones thought has been centreing on the probabilities of war. For some days I put aside letters to do with Himalayan Club matters, saying to myself “If war comes, to answer these is waste labour.” However yesterday, when it seemed that negotiations may go on for some time, I decided to get down to it, and deal with the letters, whether useful or no, with the result that I was at work all day, and did not stop till tea-time, not having knocked off even for a short rest.
Like every other part of the British Empire, Calcutta has been full of activity in the way of organizing auxiliary services of all sorts. A coolness between Germany and Japan would, I suppose, make all the difference to the risk of attack from the air here in India, for the nearest air-base in China under Japanese control is within easy striking distance of India, and they might very conceivably attempt to destroy or cripple Calcutta’s docks, the Ordanance Factories, the Dunlop Rubber Factory, (a few miles north of us) the coal fields and the great Iron and Steel Works in the neighbourhood of Asansol and further on in Bihar. It is measures to safeguard such places, or to deal with possible casualties consequent on air attacks on such places, that are occuppying the authorities. Herbert has been up to his eyes in special work connected with this sort of thing, for a great many of these “Key Industries” are in his Division, and the Indian Collectors in charge of the different districts have not been showing notable common sense. They have what evidently seem to them brilliant ideas, but which bear no relation to practical possibility. One man suggested that Howrah Bridge, which carries the whole traffic from the one side of the river to the other, should be declared as a “Prohibited Area”, which means that no one would be allowed to go on to it, or, he suggested, within 100 yards of the approaches to it without a pass. If you knew the constant thick stream of cars, horse-carriages, bullock carts and foot passengers, which fill the bridge from morning to night, you can get some idea of the congestion and dislocation of business that would follow such a measure!
Life has mainly gone on as usual, in spite of the grave anxieties. There was a concert at the big Wesleyan College at Serampore, half an hour’s drive from here on Friday night, and I took the two ladies from the Scotch Mission and the matron of the Hospital down to it. It was like that proverbial curate’s egg, “good in parts”, in fact two parts were brilliant. They were groups of piano solos at the end of each half, by a young German Jewish refugee, who with her brother and parents, came to Calcutta a few months ago. She is a magnificent pianist. Her reputation has spread from two recitals she gave in Calcutta. Her great ambition is to get enough money to go to America to finish her studies, poor thing!
We had guests here for the week-end, one of whom was Anina Brandt. In her great anxiety, I think it helped her to stay with us, and find that our attitude to her had not altered in any respect. For her war would mean being shut up at close quarters with many of the people holding the political opinions which she left Germany a few years a go, in order to escape. Her hope, as it has been all along, is that the German people will refuse to go on in the path that Hitler has laid down. I hope she is right! It was a terribly hot week-end, and made us feel lethargic. Herbert, who had been feeling a little better, slipped down hill again, so I sent for the doctor once more, and he has been giving him emertine injections, as the drug he was having evidently was not taking effect quickly enough. The truth of the matter is that he ought to be taking more rest, but its impossible just now.
Sad news reached me a couple of days ago. I must have told you that Baron Ow Wachendorf left the German Diplomatic Service in the Spring, since he said that when he joined it he did not expect to have to work for a regime like the present, and he, with his wife and mother-in-law, retired to Java. His wife, Mary, wrote to me that he had a stroke on August 21st, and died 24 hours later without regaining consciousness. She says, poor thing “I try not to grudge him the safety and freedom of death, but its hard to know how to carry on without him”. Those words have so much of suffering and abdication behind them. Werhner must have given up his old family estates, to which he was so devoted, because he could not in honour go on serving the Hitler regime, as well as what should have been an honourable and interesting career. Both Herbert and I feel full of grief at his death, and so terribly sorry for his wife. We were very devoted to both of them, as well as Mary’s mother, Baroness Giskra.
We are putting up the Manager of Dunlop’s and his wife for membership of the Saturday Club, and I went to Calcutta with them on Monday evening to make the necessary introductions to the Secretary and members of the committee. We had rather an amusing evening. I asked Charles Holmes, who has done a good deal of work for the Dunlop Co to join us, and we also fell in with the Dutch Vice Consul, Mr Eckhout, who is just back from Nepal, where he has been with his Consul General, conferring some Dutch order on the Maharaja. It was still and very hot when we left here about 5:30, but on the way to Calcutta we ran through the most terrific rain storms, which cooled things down a bit, and later that night a great cyclonic wind arose and blew for 24 hours, since when the temperature has returned to normal, and its not unpleasantly hot.
Suddenly I come to a stop! How futile this will all seem if war has broken out before this reaches you. There seem a few more gleams of hope in the paper this morning, but the whole position is so highly inflammable that one cannot feel from moment that there is any safety.
Love to you all,
LJT