1939 July
From LJT to Annette
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
July 3rd 1939
My darling Annette
Your letter written on June 23rd from Highways was a magnificent effort, and full of interest. Its satisfactory that you got good reports from Miss Starkie, especially that you did well in “essay” which you did not expect to. Its quite possible that your work may have more “meat” in it than Anne’s though hers seems more amusing, and as one grows older (as I suppose Miss Starkie is doing) one often prefers meat to mirth.
Your last week at Oxford seems to have offered a wide and interesting choice of entertainments. I envy you the ballet, and in a lesser degree “Elektra” and the “Insect Play” I have never seen one of the classical dramas and, at risk of being bored, I should like to.
Its interesting that you met Margaret Waight. I saw her nearly two years ago in Chittagong. Her parents thought she was being misunderstood, or needed special care of something, and fetched her out to India. I thought her rather an odd child, - - a queer mixture of being very old and very young. I rather suspect she has suffered from being over-brought-up- Mrs Waight has always been full of theories about bringing up children, and I think has found it difficult to leave them in peace to grow as I think Aunt has done with such admirable success. The news that you and Margaret used to quarrel much, is new to me!
How does Audrey Hamilton get on with a crowd of young people? She seems a bit quiet like her mother. Dad always says he finds Mrs Hamilton one of the most restful people to be with. There is something about her personality that seems to sooth him.
Dad has somewhat recovered his poise after the excitements of first revival of hope in his scheme, oweing to public demand that it should be put into practice, - - next the deep despair that some announcement the ministers made would destroy the whole thing, followed by a revival of hope oweing to reassurances by the zemindars, and a successful meeting, and then rather a flat period of exhaustion, and depression at the amount of routine work that had accumulated while he was preparing special stuff about his scheme for the meeting. There were moments when I thought he might resign at any moment, and that I should have to start packing and planning for a last departure from India. it all seems to have smoothed out more or less now. I want him to go and have a few spine massage treatments from Dr Boike this week, for they always do him good, and quiet his nerves. its a great pity he gives such a power to external happenings and circumstances to hurt and upset him. It is I suppose, because he is always hiding from himself. It is a pity that Homer Lane did not succeed in untangling whatever complex it is, that makes him unwilling to look at or so to speak, live with, himself. It has made his life difficult for him to live.
Do you like the sort of manifesto that the Workers of Britain have sent to the Workers of Germany? I do. I think it is a good expression of the spirit that has saved the world from war again and again in the past year. I am sure it is the concentrated wish and will of the peoples which has prevented a flare up. Pray goodness it may continue to do so! If only the rest of the world can get in touch with the people of Germany it surely would be an immense help.
Its just on 1 o’clock and Idris will be coming over from the office in a minute, so I will finish this – Best love Mother
Family letter from LJT
The Towers
Cossipore
Calcutta
July 6th 1939
My dears
Oweing to the fact that Dr Law rang me up yesterday and asked if I could go to his country house between here and Barrackpore, this morning to see the new birds he collected in the hills to the north of Jalpaiguri district, I am afraid you will get only a short letter to-day. Most of this week seems to have been spent in Calcutta, for we had to down on Friday for a meeting of the E.I.Rly Advisory Committee of which Herbert is a member, and we came here on Monday and stay till to-morrow evening. Herbert has been working hard, and worried with his Forest Committee, and he has not been sleeping well and consequently is tired and a bit depressed. These days in Calcutta have been set aside to consider the Report of the Forest Committee and, if possible, get it signed. The members are being terribly slow, the fact being that few of them have troubled to read the draft report, before coming to the meetings, and several of them came on none or few of the tours or attended the initial meetings, and now wish to have all the work done by the committee explained to them so that they may get the kudos with none of the trouble. I am enclosing a cutting from this morning’s paper which will give you some idea what the modern politically minded Indian is like to work with. Yesterday I met Milly Chaudhuri who said that she thought the strikes that are taking place in Mills all over the place, are disgraceful, and because in most cases the men do not know what they are striking for, and the scandal is that the so-called Labour Leaders and Strike Leaders, formally men with little or no money, are all building themselves fine houses in Calcutta and buying expensive cars. Certainly a country ought to develop a high standard of public morality before it goes in for Democracy. Public morality seems to be almost non-existant amongst the Indians at present. They concentrate on the family.
We are wondering what our new governor, Col Herbert will be like. The papers could not find much to say about him, except that he is a good pig-sticker, which does not seem to be an ability of outstanding use in governing Bengal, especially as rough methods are not encouraged under the present regime! Sir Stanley Jackson, who came out here with the reputation of being a good cricketer, was probably the least successful governor Bengal has ever had. Let us hope another sporting reputation will not be followed by equal lack of success.
It has been fun having several days in Calcutta, and I have had time to see a number of friends, and do several things I wanted to. Idris and I went to the AgriHorti-Cultural Gardens on Monday afternoon, and enjoyed ourselves looking at all the flowering shrubs. Hearing a band playing I said to Idris “Is that band in the garden? I did not know they treated us to music here.” One of the garden Babus who was passing heard my question, and said “Madam, that is not music. That is the Highland Regiment playing its instruments”.
Gardens have been rather in our line, for we went down to the Botanical Gardens by boat on Tuesday afternoon, but spent most of our time in the Herbarium. I was questioning the specification of some of my rhododendron specimens, and I also wanted to find out the name of a tiny blue flower whose leaves made a tight cushion, covered entirely with these blue blossoms, upon which I inadvertently sat when short of breath, climbing at between 16,000 and 17,000 feet in Sikkim. I had thought it might be an Androsacae, but was not sure if they were ever bright cerulean blue. It turned out to be a forget-me-not, Myasotis Hookeri. One of the specimens they brought out of the Herbarium had been gathered by Hooker at just about the same altitude as that at which I found mine. It was on the original sheet of paper on which Hooker had written the description of it, and the date and place at which it had been found. Later botanists gave it the name “Hookeri”. I put out my hand and asked to touch the sheet of paper with its neatly dried and pressed plant, as a sort of gesture of respect and admiration for Hooker. We also had out the splendid book with the reproductions of many of Hooker’s paintings of the Sikkim rhododendrons. Most satisfactorily for me as I turned out to be right in my doubts about some of the specifications of rhododendrons, so we really had rather a thrilling time, and the trouble taken is a contribution to my collection of information which I hope will one day form an article on the flowers of Sikkim. We had rather a hurried tea with Dr and Mrs Biswas, because we could not tear ourselves away from the Herbarium, and we had to catch the last boat from the gardens at 5.20.
Herbert and I met at the Saturday Club and had a swim, before having dinner with Harry and Winsome, who were in the last throes of packing. Herbert slept so badly on Tuesday night that I persuaded him to come home here directly his meeting finished yesterday and have a quiet evening and go early to bed, instead of going to see Harry and Winsome off from Howrah at 8 p.m. and then have dinner at The Bristol, and go to see the Calcutta Amature Dramatic Society doing “The Best People” in aid of the Rufugee Fund. My plan worked well, and he slept better and is much more rested to-day. Young Ronald Townend took me to Howrah, and we had an amusing time seeing the family off in the Air conditioned train. Charlotte, was of course, very excited. Nannie was a bit sad at parting from her beloved Maxie, the Dachshound, whom we had taken charge of the previous evening. He has been a little puzzled, but not unduly sad. He is a friendly dog by nature, and knows me well. He has already started the performance of sitting so close under my feet that whenever I get up I step on him.
I took Ronald to dine at the Bristol as well as Idris, but he went home after dinner, as he has just bought a horse, and is getting up to ride early every morning, so he like to be early in bed, sensible lad!
“The Best People” which I remember seeing years ago in London has dated rather badly. The attitude of mind which it was designed to show up, has had so much strong light cast upon it in the last twenty years, that it scarcely has any colour left in it. However there is amusing dialogue, and it was reasonable well acted, to. I am glad to say, a full theatre.
Dr Law’s birds were most interesting. At last I begin to have some sort of idea of the types of birds that belong to the different families, though at present the idea is weak and apt to go astray! Besides his new collections, we had the pleasure of seeing one of his white peacocks dancing on the lawn, to an apparantly bored hen, who twisted her head over her shoulder and idly preened the little feathers on the back of her neck. Two of the Greater Hornbills who live wild in the garden, and must surely rank amongst some of the oddest creature that Nature has produced, were engaged in picking minute cherries off a tree, with their fantastic beaks, large enough to accommodate a prize pumpkin with ease, and a party of Damozel cranes were dancing, not far from the peacocks. I came away with a great bundle of cuttings from Dr Laws large collection of rare hibiscuses. He has a lovely pure white one, with pale stamens and pistol, and another I has never seen before which is deep mauvish-purple, and highly double.
Every meal-time has been an opportunity for seeing friends, and the usual work with Probodh Babu, and odds of shopping, have filled up any spare moments, as well as a long interview with the Secretary of the Red Cross, who has partially accepted the offer of a certain man in Chinsurah whom I know to be incapable and suspect of being dishonest, to be the local secretary and start a local branch. its a slightly awkward position.
Young MacLeod of the Cameronians, spent the week-end with us and we had a busy time going through the material already collected for a route Book of Eastern Himalayas, which he is going to edit.
Best love
LJT
Family letter from LJT
Commissioner’s House
Chinsurah
Bengal
July 13th 1939
My Dears,
Once again I seem to have spent a good deal of the past week in Calcutta. Last week I wrote from “The Towers”, where we spent four nights, rather spoilt from Herbert’s point of view by the fact that he was sleeping so badly. However I went into Calcutta on the Thursday afternoon and went to see Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers in “The story of the Castles”, which we both enjoyed enormously, and would willingly see again. We were both busy in Calcutta till tea-time on Friday, and then went back to Cossipore and picked up our luggage, and so home here in time for dinner. Even after so few days away, it was exciting to see the garden in the morning. At this season things grow with such absurd speed. I believe I am going to have a wonderful show of bourgainvillias next year. All the layers I look last year have grown into flourishing young trees, and they generally flower splendidly their second year.
Maxie, the dachshound seemed to understand that this was going to be his home, for the moment he got out of the car he started off on a trip of exploration, in and out of the rooms, up and down the stairs, in quite a different way from what he behaved at Cossipore, where he was a little shy, and made his investigations little by little. I wished he could have told whether he recognised his own furniture. He gave no special indication that he did. One of the kittens, the so-called “lal wallah” is very frightened of him, and flies at sight, but the black and white Tom kitten is interested, and if he could summon up a tiny bit more courage, would like to play. Unfortunately Maxie is inclined to chase him, not ferociously, but with a bounce and a small bark, enough to make a kitten feel it would be safer elsewhere. it seems quite odd to me to have a dog always pattering after me, and sitting just where I want to put my feet. it is so long since I had one. Evidently Maxie feels I am the one settled point in a changing world, for when we had to go down to Calcutta on Monday afternoon he retired to the sofa in my room, pulled an old felt hat down off the end of it, and sat upon it till Herbert got home just before dinner. Being deprived of the hat, he carried one of my shoes on to the sofa, and retired there when ever not attending meals or out in the garden with Herbert, until I returned from Calcutta at mid-day yesterday. I may add that he is not supposed to sit on the sofa at all! He is very good about the squirrels. We have taught him to sit on a certain chair at the inner end of the dining-room, which he does beautifully, and makes no attempt to get off and chase Herbert’s beloved little animals.
The reason for this second visit to Calcutta was that I had to be in Calcutta on Tuesday for a Himalayan Club lecture by Mr Macleod. Herbert had to go down for a meeting of the Jute Advisory Committee on Monday afternoon, and I thought I might as well go down with him and stay. I spent Monday night with Mrs Stanley, the woman who used to be head of the Women police, and is now Head of the S.P.C.A. out here. She is a woman I like very much and find most interesting, but its difficult to see much of her for she is working in office every week-day till 6 o’clock, and that is the time when Herbert and I go into Calcutta at which we so often either start home or go to the pictures. I enjoyed my evening wither. We dined quietly in her attractive little flat, and sat out on her roof-terrace afterwards, talking till nearly midnight. I had an extremely full day on Tuesday, made unexpectedly so by the unexpected arrival of Mr Tilman and of the party of German explorers who have been up to Lhasa, and other places. Mr Tilman set off a couple of months or so ago, with four Sherpa porters, to do a season’s exploration and survey on the Tibet-Assam Frontier. To get to his objective, he had to travel through some low fever-infested valleys, and evidently he and his men all picked up malaria. When he got up into the high places, two of his men went down with sharp attacks of fever, and as they got better, he succumbed himself. He got better and they struggled on, and established a base camp, when the two porters got fever again. Mr Tilman left them in charge of the third porter, who seemed unaffected and went off with the other fit man to Lake Beleek(?) round from a higher point, and went down again himself. As soon as he was able to walk, he and Ongdi, his porter, went back to the base, where they found the two sick men better but very weak, but the man who had been fit, was unconscious. Ongdi hurried down to the nearest village, and managed to collect some men and a rough litter, and a few yaks, and took them back, but by the time he had got there the unconscious man had died. Ongdi himself was by this time getting slight fever, but no so bad that he could not walk. Mr Tilman and the other two were terribly weak, so they abandoned most of their provisions, and were carried or rode the yaks back to the nearest civilized point in Assam, where the doctor said that Mr Tilman and they two men had got malignent tertiary malaria, and Ongdi had the ordinary milder or “benign” form, while the unfortunate man who died probably had the deadly cerebral malaria. Mr Tilman said he felt as weak as a kitten. He took his men back to Darjeeling and put them under the charge of the Civil Surgeon. As soon as he felt a little better himself he went off the reconnoitre Pandim and see if it was climable, but after investigating it from all sides, he decided there was nothing doing, at any rate at this time of year, and returned to Darjeeling. However a week or two in the mountains seems to have put him right, and he now looks quite fit, but is disappointed at the failure of all his plans for this season. He leaves for England to-day. Luckily I had not made any engagement for the afternoon, and was able to meet Mr Tilman at the Saturday Club at 3 o’clock, and we talked (and drank tea) till 5, when he had to leave.
I managed to get in touch with Dr Schaefer, and invited him and his four companions to the lecture in the evening, to which they cam accompanied by one of the German Consuls. Dr Schaefer is a friend of Ronald Kaulback’s. He says Ron was very good to him in London, and did much to help him, making him a member of the Central Asian Society, and introducing him to Sir Percy Sykes. he has promised to give us a lecture on the 25th of July, which should be interesting.
Although the lecture was not outstanding, it was a good evening. People stayed on talking long after the lecture was over, and several people asked to join the Club. I went back to stay the night at Cossipore and the next morning loaded up the car with all sorts of plants, and got back here in time for lunch.
Herbert, I am glad to say, has got over his insomnia, and is sleeping pretty well, and looking much better. On account of the sleepless nights he had been having I begged him off dining with the Bannerjis on Saturday night, and went without him. The party was a bit dull. The talk never really got any depth or any spice in it. I don’t quite know why. Mr Bannerji himself is a good and an interesting talker, but I think the proportion of conversational duds there was too high, and it seemed impossible to do anything but have general conversation on the simplest lines. when I lunched with Milly Chaudhuri on Tuesday, it was a different story, though the party consisted only of Milly, her 23 year old daughter and two of the daughter’s friends. Milly, of course is rather a brilliant woman, and the girl and her friends all had quick and rather witty minds, so that we found more to talk about than there was time to deal with. The girls went off after lunch and Milly and I had a long talk, both about the present difficulties in India and in the world. One of the tragedies for Milly is that she can see her own people’s faults so clearly, and though she would like India to be independent, she realises that the people are not ready for it.
We are getting a lot of rain, and all my transplanted shrubs are doing well. Best love LJT
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
July 13th 1939.
My darling Annette,
Thank you for your first letter from Paris, which arrived yesterday. I, too am very sorry to hear of Mr Jahier’s death. Though I had not met him, he and his wife seemed to come so much into your life in Paris, that I always felt grateful to them. How sad for her being left alone, poor thing. She is’nt of any great age is she?
I was intrigued in your letter, to hear that you were choosing wall-papers for the new flat one day, and expecting to move in before the end of the week. Were the new papers to be hung in that time?
I am very glad that one of my recommendations of Madame Blok has born fruit. A Mrs Graham I travelled out with last voyage, was very interested and asked a lot of questions, but I think her daughter is a little young to go yet. I must send her Madame Blok’s change of address.
The Jenkins’ daughter, is out for the long vacation. She has just finished her first year at Girton-Cambridge. She is a nice girl, and rather pretty. Its a treat to meet a young girl out here, other than an Indian, who can talk intelligently. Most of them are quite dumb with older people, and have no conversation, and presumably no interests, except clothes, games, parties and the little doings of their special set. I suppose its the ones who have not much brains or character who came out here, with a few exceptions.
Weeks spent mostly in Calcutta are enjoyable in their own way, but I like getting home to some quiet days. I have recently been asked the same question “Chinsurah is such a dull place. What do you do all day?” What I am longing for at the moment is the leisure to settle down to work on my article on the Flowers of Sikkim, but each day that I have been at home time has been full of “immediate” things, either household, or letters, that had to be attended to. At intervals, chiefly in the early morning of the days we were at The Towers, I have been reading an interesting book lent me by Louise Ranken. It is called “A Modern in Search of Truth” by S.T. and is published by Stokes and Co. New York. Its not a long book, and very readable (At least I found it so) and has some valuable ideas in it for all of us. If you can get hold of it, I advise you to do so. This book is only one of many things that has been bringing home to me what a tremendous re-testing of values is going on in the world. If one could get far enough away to look at the alteration in opinions and beliefs almost all over the world, it would be surprising to see how their form and colour has changed, even since the days of my early youth. We were questioning then, and demanding the right to be allowed to examine everything for ourselves and not take ideas on trust, and we were constantly told how dangerous it was to adopt that attitude – Actually I don’t believe most of us are half as full of fear as the Victorians were. We are much more prepared to take what comes, and make the best of it. To begin with their hope of Heaven was more than outweighed by their fear of Hell, and they had all sorts of fears about not being able to keep up appearances, not being “in Society”, and so on, about which we do not greatly worry now. The important thing is not to leave a vacuum where those things were but to form for ones-self some sort of philosophy of life, and some sort of guiding principals. Krishnamurti is probably right when he says if one examines and criticises ones beliefs, ideals, hopes, reasons for ones actions, in fact everything that one is conscious of, with sufficient honesty, and clarity of thought one will realize what are the true values, and one will inevitable act in accordance with them, and that action will be right action. There will be no need to make any rules.
The snag is that its not easy to make this examination of all that makes up ones life in a perfectly genuine way. The point he is getting at, though as far as I have read he has not definitely expressed it, is that possessions both physical and mental, do one no harm if one has clearly realized their true value, and understands that they are the helps and support of life, but not the essential reality. I have expressed that badly, but don’t know how to do it better. I wonder if I should have been at all interested in this sort of thing at your age. Its possible that you wont be. Dont bother to read it if you are not. The writing down of ideas, or attempting to do so most inadequately, helps me to think them out for myself, so the time is not wasted in writing this.
Lately I find that I can concentrate on a single idea much better than formally, though I don’t know that I have improved much in keeping my conscious mind empty of ideas. Its the garden that invariably creeps in!!
I must write to Romey now. This is an important day for her - - the first day of the School Certificate exams.
Best love to you, and my warmest greetings to Madame Blok
Mother
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
July 20th 1939
My darling Annette,
Many thanks for your second letter from Paris. It gives the impression that you are putting in a good bit of work. I love the easy and casual way the move from one flat to another seems to have been accomplished. How do you like the new flat by comparasion with the old?
My mind is very full of plans. Dad has been so tired lately, quite apart from his bout of Insomnia, that we are once more seriously considering the possibility of retiring next year. I have been trying to make detailed estimates, and I think that by not embarking on the expense of setting up house till 1941 and by spending the winter abroad so that we do not have to pay English Income tax till March of that year, we ought to be able to manage without running any of you too short. I am wondering whether you have matured your plans any further. Supposing you decide to try for the Civil Service, you will not be able to sit for the exam till Summer of 1941. In the interim you will want to work at something like History and economics, I suppose. Would you propose to stay on another year at Oxford? or would you take a course at London University? or would you go to a Civil Service Crammer? If there are other careers that you would prefer to try, what extra preparation would you need for them? or when would exams take place? It would be a help to me in making plans if you could give me any of this rather varied information. I imagine that you will not be able to very easily while you are still in France. There is no desperate hurry. Dad will say that he will take leave next year, and he need not decide about retiring till the time almost comes. I ask you now because it is in my mind. If an extra year at Oxford would be a lot more expensive that the other alternatives, without any marked benefit except the fun of staying on in the place you know and like, I do think it worth giving serious consideration to other methods of preparation for the Civil Service exams. As far as I can make out, after income-tax has been deducted, we shall have an income of somewhere between £1,000 and £1,100. If Dad retires next year, I think we should have to settle down and get a house in 1941, and settling into a house is always an expensive thing, so that we must consider reasonable economy. At the same time we are willing to make all possible arrangements to give you a good chance for a satisfactory career, even if it meant sacrificing a little capital. Both your brain and character make it amply worth while doing all that we can to help you to get a job that is both interesting and financially worth while.
Rosemary is still quite an unknown quantity. She will presumably be leaving school either at Easter or Summer 1941. Unless she develops very rapidly, I doubt whether she will want or be mentally of the quality for a University career. Probably the next year will show both her and us more clearly both what she is fit for and what she is inclined to do. We must, I think, be prepared to have some money going out for her further training. I am going to encourage her to learn short-hand and typing, for whether she takes up any sort of a career or not, its useful to have those two abilities. An idea has just come to me that she might have a chance of getting a job in the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I was staying with the head of the S.P.C.A. out here (Oh! You met Mrs Stanley with me at R.E.S. after the wedding we went to), and she mentioned that she had an assistant coming out from home this autumn. The girl’s people are out here, and she had done a Secretarial training. Mrs Stanley has arranged for her to do a period of six weeks or so in the Police-Dept where they deal with offences against animals, and another period with the S.P.C.A. headqts, learning the hang of the work. It seems that something to do with animals would suit Rosemary, and its worth enquiring whether there might be work of this sort available in England. Actually I think Romey would probably make a good hospital nurse, bit I would not suggest it to her, and would I think be a little divided in my feelings, if she said she wanted to take it up. Its a dashed hard life, but taken at its best, it a fine one. Well, we must wait for time to show what will turn up.
Sorry the last page has got mauled at the top. There is a wind blowing through the house, and every now and again it blows the top of the paper, under the hammers.
Best love, my dear, and I hope my writing about Romey’s future does not bore you.
Mother
Family letter from LJT
Chinsurah
Bengal
July 20th 1939
My dears
This has been a peaceful week, without any visits to Calcutta. It has been pretty busy all the same. I dined with the Judge and his wife on Thursday, having excused Herbert on the plea that he had been sleeping badly and was tired. It was a dull dinner. Mr Chanda is reasonably interesting if one can get him going, but I think he is accustomed to resigning himself in company to talk to people who are not interested in the things that he is interested in. Mrs Chanda, except for appearance and manners is not a good example of the emancipated Indian woman. She has one of those fluffy superficial minds, that catch any oddments that happen to be flying about in the way of ideas, and pour them out again, without having grasped in the very least, the import of them. Attempts to get her to discuss anything, simply result in putting her out of her stride, so that she has to start again, and talk hard, in order that she shall not be interrupted and asked to give reasonable backing to hwat she says. The other guests were the Wright Nevills, who are not very interesting. His mind, though cast in the slightly different military mold, is of something the same quality as Mrs Chanda’s. His ideas are fixed and run in a groove, out of which it seems impossible to jog them. If one tries to present a different point of view, or the other side of the case, one can tell from the way he looks at one, and labouriously begins to repeat what he had said before, that he merely thinks you a bit of a fool, and that you probably have not heard his last word on the subject. If he were in Chamberlain’s place, of course, all difficulties would be cleared up in a twinkling!! It was lucky that Herbert was not at the party, for a wireless was booming loudly when we arrived, and continued to do so all the evening, without anyone paying the slightest attention to it!
We had a party of friends to lunch and tea on Sunday. The real reason of the party was Mr Senior White, the malaria expert in the Service of the Bengal Nagpore Rly. With him came his wife, his mother-in-law, and his step daughter. He is an extremely interesting man, whom I do not often see, but always enjoy his company when I do meet him. Herbert wanted to explain his Development Scheme to him. Mrs S-W is a genial, slightly vulgar but very good-natured and amusing woman, and her mother and daughter are pleasant people. Our own doctor joined us for lunch and stayed most of the afternoon while a general discussion was going on about malaria.
The only other Social engagement was the opening of a bridge at a place about ten miles beyond Chinsurah on the Grand Trunk Rd. One of the Ministers, the Maharaja of Cossimbazar, came to perform the ceremony. He is one of our present Rulers who is more or less bone from the neck up, but otherwise not an unpleasant person. It was luckily a lovely morning, with a strong cool breeze, sunshine, and handsome white clouds blowing across the sky. The previous week it had rained almost the whole of every day. Leaving here at 8.30 a.m. we had a nice drive, and found most of the Engineers and the various policemen already there, so that we had company to talk to while we waited for the Minister, who was, of course, late. There were speeches in a Pandal, the cutting of the ribbon, the walk across the bridge, and down a little prepared path, to look at the construction from below. Then tea, cold drinks and sandwiches in the Pandal, and so home by 10.45. Its odd that an early morning function like that always makes one disinclined to settle down to work afterwards. Both Herbert and I felt that it ought to be a holiday!
(I have stopped off for a while here to read a very long and very interesting letter from Richard about his first long trip in the Pandora.)
When I said that there had been no other social functions this week I entirely forgot one extremely social one, and that was the French National Day, July 14th, at Chandernagore. The Menards had an At Home beginning at 5.30 p.m. and going on indefinitely. Herbert had been to a similar function last year and said that he went at 6 but that most of the Europeans did not come till a bit later. We ordered the car for 6, but I had become so entranced with killing the black and red catapillers that were engaged in eating my white lillies, that I forgot to go and dress till summoned by Herbert (Quite the reverse of our usual procedure) so that we did not start till 6.15. However we were in ample time, and drank champagne, and said “Vive La Republique” “A la belle France” and so on with great pleasure. Otherwise it was much like any cocktail party. There were all the local people, and a sprinkling from Calcutta. A little variety was supplied by fireworks, but a wet day, followed by an evening when it was inclined to drizzle, had damped them down a little and the rockets did not go off with quite the vigour with which they should have. Great pleasure was given to the onlookers when one fell rapidly to earth almost hitting the policeman in his new blue tarbush, who was on duty rifle in hand at the gate. he jumped to avoid the rocket, and his new hat rolled in the mud. Odd how that sort of a misfortune always pleases a crowd.
Herbert is distressingly tired again this week, not that he has been sleeping badly, but just that he feels incredibly weary, and finds his work a burden. As always when he is in this state, our minds go to the possibility of retiring next year, and I spent yesterday evening working out figures to see whether we could afford to do so without cramping the finish of the children’s education. With care, and by spending the winter of 1940/41 abroad, so that we do not begin paying English income tax till Spring of 1941 I think we could do it, and at the moment feel inclined to urge Herbert to chuck next April. I expect it will finally depend on how things go with regard to Herbert’s scheme.
It was wet all last week, which suited me well, for I brought a lot of plants from Cossipore and from Dr Law’s garden, for which rain and grey skies were just what I wanted. Since Sunday we have had a break in the rains, and have been busy airing clothes and books and boxes. Its gone on about long enough now, and we hope for Rain again soon.
One of the things which is taking up some of my time at the moment is making investigations to see whether it is possible to start a branch of the Red Cross here, and open a Welfare Centre. I had the lady Doctor and the Assistant Surgeon from the Hospital, and the two doctors who are respectively Municipal Health officer and District Health Officer and another Indian Doctor who gave his services to the local hospital all here on Monday evening to Discuss the subject. The great barrier is that the women here are so backward, and except for officials wives, there seem to be no women who would help with the work. When I go to Calcutta next week I shall have to go and report to the Red Cross Secretary in Calcutta what information I have gathered.
There is a good deal in the Indian papers about Subash Bose and the Congress. There seems to be a big rift, ever widening, between the Left and Right Wings of the Congress, Subash representing the extreme Left. There are also columns daily about the internal affairs of the Native States which it has always been the policy of the British Government to ignore unless they became an open scandal. Urge for reform is coming from within now, and Ghandi has taken up the cause of the people with all the intensity of his remarkable personality. The days of the Princes sucking their states dry, and spending the results on gross extravagance and debauchery in India or Europe, have gone, I imagine. Their own people are now calling them to order, and very rightly too. I’m glad of it. I don’t think I told you the story I heard that the young Patiala sold his fathers widows when he can/when he succeeded to the rulership of the State, and got good prices for them. Whether there is any truth in the story I don’t know. It seems to me improbable, but amusing, and a good side light on the morals of Indian princes.
The dog Max has settled into a happy routine. He knows his chair in the dining-room, and lies on it as good as gold, never attempting to chase the squirrels. At dinner-time he wakes up directly the desert plates are brought, and waits the invitation to come and get his sweet. While we garden in the evening the under-sweeper plays ball with Maxie, and I think enjoys it just as much as Max does. He is a humble individual, who, I suspect, is of low grade intelligence, and as he plays with the dog he gives little giggles and little soft whistles. Maxie, I am afraid, recognises the humility of his play-mate, and is in complete control of every situation, until the moment comes when he is put on his lead and taken to have his feet and stomach wiped, before coming into the house, but then I fancy, the lead is the symbol of authority, rather than the man!
Best love to you all
LJT
Handwritten letter HPV to Annette
Chinsurah
July 20th 1939
My dear Annette.
Your letters are none the less interesting because I fail to answer any of them. Would that I could keep track of all whom you mention and whom that Richard mentions for that matter. A bright panorama of Christian names with about as much solidity (to me) as characters in a morality play leaving me a little dazed but not all astonished. Your doings leave me planted. Never should I have had the enterprise for such things. As for Richard’s voyage into the channel, I am much relieved because he escaped imminent death but more impressed for the very abandon of his devotion to sea sickness.
These latter days have reduced me to dull despair. It is of course a bad time of year. Rains. Hot: damp. But even so to get up tired and be dead beat by lunch time is overdoing it. My gloom was much lightened by remembering that about this same time last year I fell into such fatigue as to seek refuge in a film in Calcutta: the only time I have been to a film on purpose, so to say.
I dreamt of the League of Nations: I attended a meeting of it: there was no one there. Afterwards there was to be an exhibition of trick mountain climbing by Italian ponies: and multitudes of English boys and English girls came on ponies to see this but being eager to get vantage points they climbed on their ponies all the mountains which the exhibition was to tackle.
I dreamt that I was going to lunch with a Bengali Minister in the slums of Calcutta. And I wore an immaculate Black Top Hat, an old tennis shirt open at the neck, an old pair of grey trousers (worn like Gavin’s) and a very dirty old Burberry. Your mother said that you would relish this but, me, I see no point in it.
I dreamt that I went to see Dr Branden, who was at breakfast, and said to him “doctor I have skin disease”, pulling my shirt off therewith: to his guests who disposed themselves to go I said you needn’t go – there is no chance of infection: I have varnished myself. And a lot more which I spare you.
Apart from dreaming I work. Or toil. It goes on and on. At intervals I burst in to liveliness and harangue some unfortunate on the beauty of my schemes and the pleasure that it would be to them all to pay taxes for them. But that is transient. It has occurred to me that with me detective stories have been a substitute for drink: I have drowned sorrow in them. Of late I have read few. Your mother fetches me books: for I never manage to get one out of a library: massed in shelves they seem to me quite unreadable. She chooses biography and such. It is interesting. Hard on her for I read out gobbets. Luckily I forget the strange things thus discovered: for they would not do my mind permanent good.
Much love
Dad.
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
July 27th 1939
My darling Annette
Whether by intention or accident, your letters arrive most aptly on the mornings when I am writing my mail. I do like having a letter to answer – You must have been pleased to get your essay on Pascal planned – I hope the writing of it has flowed well. I know little about him myself, except that I have a vague idea that he was connected both with mathematics and also with religious writings. This much I probably gleaned from you last year.
I your previous week’s letter, referring back to one of mine, you discuss the proper use of the word “immoral” and I suppose you are right – The reason for my disliking it in connection with sex matters is, I think, that is has been so over used in that direction until it has in a sense tainted the whole subject in may people’s minds – Of course there does come a point in rules of conduct, when they may be so out of date, and so generally disregarded, that they cease to be a prop to anyone. The various Churches are suffering badly from that complaint, I fancy –
I’ve just started a book by Middleton Murry called “The Price of Leadership” - The first section deals with education and the problem of producing the right sort of people out of which to compose the “ruling cast” – I hav’nt even finished that bit yet, but it seems to me to be written with common sense, proper attention to historic value and an agreable ability to look at things as they are, and not as one – or some other theorist, would like them to be.
I stayed Tuesday night with Gwen Graham in Calcutta – you remember she was the “Mother of the Bride” at the wedding we went to in Calcutta? Her husband, who is a couple of years younger than Dad, and who used to be at Merton, always asks questions about you and Richard and what you are going to do. He says stoutly, that he is sure (He is one of those people who always is sure) that if you want to try for the Home Civil, you will do much better by borrowing notes on history, economics or whatever subjects you want to swat up, from your friends, who have been doing them, and work at them at home, going to a “crammer” for six weeks or so before the exam – I wonder what you will think of that idea.
I have never forgotten the grossly overfed feeling I had after dinner in that Paris Restaurent when Dad was so annoyed because I said I only wanted one dish! I don’t think I have ever felt so stuffed! I’m glad the young men found you. It would have been sad had they been side-tracked by an infuriated concierge. It will be interesting to hear Paul Mayhew’s impressions of Germany when he gets back. I was sorry I did not have a chance to have some talk with Dr Schaefer about the German point of view. I felt he was a man who would be able to talk without anger. Her Grob has just sent me some superb photos of their climb of “The Tent Peak” – They give the most marvellous impression of being on top of everything – It seems to me that all the Germans I meet are extremely easy to get on with. Even Baron Richthoven of the Consulate here, who is said to be the Nazi spy set to watch the others, I cant manage to feel any active dislike for – He has the courtly hand-kissing manners of the aristocrat – and he has odd very very pale blue eyes, over which he nearly always keeps the lids half dropped. It does give rather a strange impression of slyness.
Curiously enough we have not heard anything about the text of the letter by King Hall, supposed to have been sent to people in Germany – only the bare fact of the fuss about it – Has the text of it been published in Europe? Really the “Statesman” gets worse and worse about European news, and presents the Indian news pretty badly these days. There will probably be something about it in this week’s “Weekly Times” which I have not seen yet.
Dad likes the account of the cat with short coat and Persian tail, so that it looks like a squirrel!
This will probably have to be sent on to you from Paris – I hope the country holiday will be a success.
Best love
from
Mum
P.S. I’ve always meant to tell you that the little bottle of Eau de Cologn you gave me has been most useful – and so have the broach – It goes so well with the cotton frocks in which I more or less live here.
Family letter from LJT
Chinsurah
Bengal
July 27th 1939
My Dears,
I’m just back from two busy days in Calcutta. On Tuesday we had a Himalayan Club lecture given by Dr Schaefer, the leader of a German scientific expedition which spent last summer in Sikkim, and the winter and the early part of this year in Tibet. They were a party of five, all scientists of one sort or another, and with the throughness of their race, they have brought back marvellous collections, as well as photos and cine films. Unfortunately Krause, the botanist, who was the one I most wanted to talk to, was the only one who could not speak English. However Schaefer, whom I asked to dine with me before the lecture, was most interesting. He said they had been greatly entertained from time to time, to hear over their wireless, reports that they were searching for and had found deposits of gold and of oil, which would no doubt presently be used to further Hitler’s plans. He asserts, and I see no reason to disbelieve him, that they had no geologist with them, and made no search for minerals, because he had been in the Eastern end of Tibet some eight or nine years ago, and knew that the one thing the Tibetans will not tolerate in digging minerals out of the earth. They have a belief that it annoys the gods. That is a thing that has caused trouble again and again on British Expeditions, and is well known to us.
He gave us a magnificent lecture, really interesting and often amusing and his large collection of slides were excellently chosen, and gave (as he expressed it) an good cross section of their various activities during about twenty months of travel. Some of the most amusing slides were pictures of the ethnological work they did. It took them a long time to get on to friendly terms with the shy forest-dwelling inhabitants of Sikkim, the Lepchas, who are rapidly dying out. They live chiefly now in the unfrequented Talung Valley, and its branches. Eventually they gained the confidence of these people, so that they allowed measurements of their skulls, jaws, noses, etc, to be taken, and the process apparantly always aroused extreme mirth amongst the onlookers if not in the person who was being measured. They also took plaster masks of them. The photo of mask making, was of one just being taken off, not a Lepcha, but one of the merry and friendly Tibetan inhabitants of Lachen in North Sikkim. [I have just realized that this was amongst the later moving pictures, and showed the whole process very well indeed.]
One of the most exciting things in the lecture was the account and set of pictures of their discovery of an animal, previously unknown to science, though always figuring in the folk law and mythology of the Lepchas, known to the local people as a Shapé (Pronounce final e) and was said to live in some mountains not far from the main mule track up through Sikkim. No Europeans, as far as we know have ever been up on to these mountains, because their lower slopes are wrapped in the dense rhododendron jungle, which is so terribly difficult to get through, they are extremely steep, but not high enough to attract mountaineers, when there are so many more dramatic peaks close by. Having made friend with the Lepchas, and heard many stories of the Shapés from them, Dr Schaefer detirmined to make a great effort to find out if this mythical animal really existed. After a while the Lepchas consented to act as guides and porters. For days they had just to cut a path up through the rhododendrons. Then they came to a series of rock precipices, which looked as if they would stimie their efforts, for they were not mountaineers and had no climbing rope with them. The Lepchas, nothing daunted and having from time immorial been accustomed to living entirely on what they could get out of the jungle, made some sort of ropes of bamboo, and some how the whole party managed to get themselves and their baggage up the difficult places, and eventually arrived on the snow-covered tops on the edges of which the shapes live. These animals are a species of large mountain goat, most closely resembling the Himalayan Tahr. They had fine moving pictures of one that they managed to rope. One saw him slithering down a snow slope and then wrestling with a Lepcha who got hold of his horns from behind. Schaefer says that the specimens they got (two or three) weighed about 250 lbs each. They are rather dignified looking animals. Moderate sized horns, sweep backwards and upwards, and they have no beards, but tremendous mantles of hair falling from chest and shoulders to within a few inches of the ground. I have just looked up the Tahr, of which I have often seen heads, in a natural history book, and it says that it, with an allied species from the Nilghiri Hills and one from Arabia, are so odd that they are not classed in with the goats proper, but given a class by themselves. I gathered from Schaefer that they are approaching the bovine type. Fancy what a triumph to find a new animal in country as close and as much travelled in as Sikkim.
Well! I’m afraid I have spent a lot your time on the Shape, but I was so thrilled by it.
There was some interesting talk at dinner. Schaefer told us that he had been exchanging some letters with Frank Smythe on the subject of the state of affairs between England and Germany, and Smythe had suggested or possibly challenged Schaefer to write him nine letters which would be published in the Times, and that Smythe would reply to them and his letters be published in one of the reputable and widely read German papers. Schaefer wrote to Germany for permission to accept the challenge, and rather to his surprise has received permission to do so, so after he gets home, the exchange of letters will begin! I wonder whether the German paper will really publish Frank Smythe’s letters as he writes them! As John Auden who was one of the party at dinner said, one could wish it were someone a little better balanced than Smythe who was going to write. Do keep watch and notice if letters from Schaefer do appear in the Times, and if its possible keep them and send them out to me. I should so much like to see them. Had I had a chance to have a quiet talk by myself with Schaefer, I would willingly have discussed politics with him. I should much like to have heard his views. Gossip in Calcutta says that he is an advanced Nazi, but at any rate he seemed to me a man so able and so well balanced that I feel his views would be worth listening to and considering, of whatever shade of politics they happened to be. As it was round the dinner-table we kept carefully off dangerous subjects.
We had an almost unprecedented attendance at the lecture and had to keep on adding extra chairs at the back. After the lecture, there were about twenty minutes of most excellent film, much of it showing wild animals such as the well-known Himalayan mountain goat, burhel, and the Tibetan kiangs or wild asses. I should think these films must be unique. They must I imagine, have been taken with a telephoto lense, for the animals appeared to be quite close to the camera.
My other activities in Calcutta were much as usual, and I got back in time for dinner last night, much to the delight of Maxie, who, having made a terrific fuss of me when I got out of the car, seized one of his bits of knotted up rag (known as mimers) and rushed madly round the house with it. Herbert’s pleasure at my return, which I like to believe existed, was not so visibly demonstrated.
We had Mrs Stanley, the head of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in India, here for the week-end, and enjoyed her company. She is an interesting and amusing woman, and somehow always seems to know a lot about all that is going on in Calcutta. When taxed with it, she says she thinks it is partly old habit continueing from the days when she was head of the women police in London, and it was her job to know everything, and partly the fact that her Inspectors are always bringing her back-stairs gossip that they come across in the course of their work.
Plans for coming home next year, anyway on leave, have now taken shape. Herbert has informed Government that he wants to go on leave, and I went to Grindlay’s yesterday and told them to let me know what accomodation they could get for us on the Strathnaver, leaving Bombay on April 13th. Taking action makes it begin to seem real
The garden is beginning to look pretty again. I sacrificed its appearance to replanting activities at the beginning of the rains. I am taking a good deal of trouble to get things sown or planted that will be in bloom early in the cold weather, if possible by Christmas. One can do this if one has kept ones own seeds and can make successive sowings if an earlier lot fail. Its an expensive game if one has to buy all the seeds.
There have been so many interruptions this morning that I have been slow and disjointed over this letter, and I must now get on with writing some individual ones, and a few urgent ones for the Club.
Best love to you all
LJT