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The Townend Family Letters

Correspondence from the 1930s - 1940s between members of the Townend family
HPV + LJT Letters 1939 to 1941

1939 June

From LJT to Annette

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 1st 1939

My darling Annette

I re-read your last few letters which I was driving into Calcutta on Monday. They give a picture of a large variety of activities. I am glad you and Dicky and Gavin get on with one another and on the whole like each other’s friends. The word “activity” is entirely alien to my feelings at the moment. The weather is extremely nasty, and makes one feel physically and mentally lethargic. The Monsoon apparantly came up into the Bay of Bengal, cocked snooks at all the people who are eagerly awaiting it, and has now retired again to some mysterious spot, from which we all hope she will reappear shortly. Meantime the damp has come, but not the coolth. We sweat the moment we move from under a fan and the intense humidity makes one lazy in every way. I don’t mind telling you that I have a strong inclination now to go and take off what few clothes I have on, and lie on my bed under a fan and read a book! However I must cling to duty, and finish my letters before going off.

I gather from Aunt’s letter that you are thinking of spending part of the vacation in France. I imagined that Germany or Austria would be a little too difficult.

We have had people in to see us, or had to go out to visit others practically every evening this week, except the two evenings I was in Calcutta, so I have not done much reading. I am still busy with Count Keyserling. Its a long book. He picks everything he meets in India and further East, to pieces to try to find out its value, religions, and philosophic ideas, are what I mean, not carpets or jewels, - - and I think it is useful to me to be reading some criticism since I have been reading lately mostly books by enthusiastic believers or converts. Its wholesome to have a look at the other side of the picture. I have just been telling Richard that I wish I had someone else reading the book, for there are a lot of things in it I should like to discuss, several of them ideas with which I do not think I agree.

Barring the fact that one of the chaprassis has cut his eye badly which chopping wood, and is wearing a huge bandage over it, and that the bearer has had a return of the water-on-the-knee which he got falling into a deep drain at Cossipore last year, the domestic staff have been fairly calm. The Doctor said he would like to X-Ray the bearer’s knee and old Bhim Das was highly alarmed, - - enquired whether it hurt very much and if it meant that the doctor would cut it. After the photo had been taken he came back highly delighted and told me all about it. He is still more pleased because they are now giving him electric massage at the hospital. When servants who have been service as long as he has, and his father and grand-father before him, are as childish in their outlook as the B is, one really does wonder about the minds and capabilities of the simple peasants of India, who are being asked or allowed, to assume such heavy political responsibilities.

Dont forget to let me know about addresses,
Best love
Mother


Family letter from LJT

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 1st 1939

My Dears,

Since I wrote last week we have had some poisonous weather. The Monsoon seems to have receeded, and we have been left with little breeze and a hot-house atmosphere more like the usual September weather in the plains of Bengal. I had to be down in Calcutta on Monday and Tuesday, and dripped constantly. Walter Jenkins, whom I met in the Swimming bath on Monday evening and I could not refrain from re-making the old joke that the only place one felt dry was in the bath, for it is so true. I do think that an hour immersed in cool water keeps one cooler for the rest of the evening. I was staying the night with Harry and Winsome, but did not get to their house till 6 o’clock, for I was busy all day over Himalayan Club affairs, until I fled to the Saturday Club to bathe at about 4.30. From 6.15 till nearly 8 o’clock I was discussing Himalayan Club affairs with Reggie Cooke, for we had a committee meeting the following day at which we had some rather important affairs to settle, and Reggie, who is our Chairman, wanted to be well up in everything before the meeting. When G.B. Gourlay was Chairman I used to coach him in all the matters that were coming up for discussion, while we were out riding of a morning, which was most convenient.

I had a nice quiet dinner with Harry and Winsome and we sat out in the garden in the moonlight afterwards, enjoying such coolth as was to be had. Herbert phoned up to say that he had been summoned into Calcutta the following day, but he would not let me send the car for him. He was busy all morning, and so was I, and we did not meet till after lunch. Dr Heron took me to lunch in the air-cooled restaurant at the Great Eastern Hotel, where we spent about an hour and a half. They have adopted the excellent plan there of not making the temperature too low, but of useing fans as well as the air-conditioning. Its really delightful, though a little bit of a shock when one comes out into the hot atmosphere out-side. How ever all the early prophecies that every one would get chills from the variations of temperature, have not been fulfilled.

Herbert and I went along to the Saturday Club for a swim about 4 o’clock and enjoyed it very much. I then went back to my committee meeting and later to dinner with my German friend Anina Brandt, where I also met Idris Matthews. Anina has a small flat in the tower of a big block of flats, and she has a charming roof, where she nearly always dines in the hot weather. We got a splendid breeze up there, and there’s a fascination in looking down over the roofs of a great city, especially when it is as brightly lighted and as well trimmed with trees as the European residential quarter of Calcutta is.

There had been no rain or storm in Calcutta but as we approached Chinsurah on our homeward drive, we saw that there were puddles all over the road, and many branches of trees lying about. It turned out that there had been a heavy thunder-storm during the evening, and several big branches had been blown off trees in our compound. The storm was a blessing for it has made the weather less unpleasant, and has benefitted the garden. We are busy re-planting all the cannas. I brought some back from the Victoria Memorial Gardens. Its nice for them to have rain, though its hard to kill cannas in this country!

My mind is always wandering off to the subject of the garden. There is so much I want to do in it. A good many of the plans wait on the arrival of the monsoon.

One of the things that has taken up quite a bit of time this week has been writing an enormous letter to the party of New Zealanders who are coming to India next year to try to climb Kangchenjunga. They wrote about three pages of questions, which I am in a good position to answer as I now know Sikkim so well, and have been in such close touch with so many mountaineers who have climbed in there. Some of my information about prices was two years old, so I had to write to various people in Gangtok to get revised costs. I think the New Zealanders should be pleased when they get my reply, for it is a regular young guide book.

Herbert has been tired and depressed this week. The reasons are partly the weather, partly the fact that after a week away in Darjeeling he found a mass of work piled up, and partly the sense of futility which sweeps over all the permanent officials from time to time, with regard to the incompetancy of the present government. Herbert is suffereing from a feeling of frustration about his Irrigation schemes. Even now, if he could concentrate on them he thinks he might get something accomplished in spite of the Ministry, but with the work of the Division demanding the major portion of his time, he can only give odd moments to the Irrigation work. The people are so futile, as well as their leaders. They keep on saying that they would do anything to get water and insure good crops, but the next moment they say that of course they are not prepared to pay anything for the priviledge. Water is the gift of god to man, and government has no business to charge a tax for it. What can you do with a people with a mentality like that? It has grown largely out of the stupidity of the electioneering speeches of all parties. Exaggeration amounting to untruth is unfortunately not too uncommon in Great Britain, a country where we do have a regard for truth. In India where there is no regard for truth, electioneering speeches are a grave menace. The illiterate population have no means of testing the truth of what they are told, and simply believe that “The Raj” has unlimited funds at its disposal, from which all benefits can be paid for. The truth that the money for everything must originally come from the people, is still far from their comprehension. Meantime Herbert frets. On Tuesday he was seeing the Minister in charge of Irrigation about a small local irrigation scheme which has been proposed in Midnapore. In itself its quite a good plan, but if it is carried out it may stimie the big scheme when the time for that arrives (if ever!!) The Minister, i-e The Maharaja of Cossimbazar sat at the head of the table, sweating great drops in his effort to understand the issues at stake; according to Herbert’s account, - - but quite unable to grasp any plan with far-reaching results, in fact really only interested in matters likely to keep him and his co-ministers in power a little longer, so that they can continue tod raw the fat salaries and wield the power, so dear to their hearts, of having many appointments in their gift. Its a sad situation!

The two small cats are becoming comparatively human, and run about in the house now. I’m afraid they are going to be ugly little brats.

this evening I have a cocktail party, which I hope will be out on the lawn under the light of the full moon, unless there are storms about. I wanted to have a party to which I could ask some of the Indian ladies who are only partially emerged from the purdah, and not quite yet up to dining in English fashion. However one way and another all those of that description cannot come. I am left with about 26 guests, all of them Europeans or throughly sophisticated Indians, which, of course, will make the party much easier to run.

Herbert has been doing great works in the garden. We have done some major pruning operations, at least Herbert has done the work, and I have advised and held the saw or the secators, or steadied the base of the ladder. There is a big scarlet bourgainvillia which goes up the garden end of the servants’ quarters, and it had grown out of all bounds this year, trespassing all over the roof, so it has been thinned out and cut back most severely. In another place two big creepers had left their proper place on a high wall and gone ramping up a group of palms. it was a fearful job disentangling them, and we chose a frightful evening to do it. paper running out! Best love to all LJT


From LJT to Annette

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 8th 1939

My darling Annette,

My attention is much distracted by a thunder-storm which sprang up, worked up to a pitch of fury, and has now slightly subsided. Its splendid to hear, smell and see the rain. Since this storm came from the south West, and the wind has now swung round to the South East, I am hopeful of monsoon, for the Hot weather storms all come from the north.

I am truly grateful to you for being so good to Rosemary and taking her out so much. Her letters are full of it. Oxford “going out” is much more fun than St Monica’s “going out”.

Richard gave an entertaining account of the Somerville Dance (Dash! I’m writing on the verandah, because the light got so dim in my room, and now the wind is blowing always and blows the top of the paper into the place where I want to type).

I’ve just been so angry with the chapprassi for not coming up to see about taking in cushions and chairs from the verandahs, and shutting the windows, that I feel quite perturbed. I was surprised to find myself so angry. its a bad thing. I don’t often lose my temper, but about four times in the last few weeks, this man has played the same game, and when summoned he arrives saying that he had been going to come! Poor dolt! I suppose he has not much more intelligence than a cow, and far more responsibility, - - probably hook-worm and malaria as well, so I must not be too harsh.

Its been fun having Winsome here. I find her easier to talk to these days. She has become such a keen gardener, which is a bond, of course, and she seems to me to have become much broader in her general outlook.

Two of the old cotton frocks which I am hoping to wear out by the autumn, have split, so now I almost begin to wonder whether those I have will last! I don’t really mind if they don’t for I have two lengths of tabralco or something of the sort waiting to be made up.

Reading has rather gone to the wall this week, with other distractions to keep me busy in the evenings. I am still much absorbed in Count Keyserling. I’m in a, to me, specially interesting section now written when he was in Benares, and was thinking much about Yoga. He thinks that the Yoga systems of mind control far exceed anything that the Western world has ever evolved. He thinks that Western minds are better than Indian ones, and put forward the belief that if the West can learn from the East how to control mind, the future may produce men of a mental and spiritual stature such as we have never known. He says that to criticise Yoga on the ground that it has not accomplished anything that the western world looks upon as interesting, is beside the point. The East has not produced anything that we think useful, because they were not trying to. They have always used the amazing mind power that undoubtedly some of them have developed, to take them on to another level of existance, or debased it for magical purposes. Keyserling sees no reason why either of these ends should be the ones aimed at. And it seems reasonable to think that his is right.

I am sorry that all these subjects are so disliked by Dad. One really cant discuss them even with anyone else in his presence. Winsome says that harry is the same about Roman Catholicism.

Enough! Enough! As Richard used to cry when as a small boy he dictated letters to his father

Best love
Mother
Forgive this battered paper – and remember kindly it has been done by the first monsoon storm!


Family letter from LJT

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 8th 1939

My dears,

The monsoon is still coquetting with us. It gives us a day or two of cloudy skies, - an evening storm with a great deal of wind and a little rain, and we think the Rains must surely be here, and Lo! the next morning we wake to almost clear blue skies. Its annoying for us, and becoming serious for the country. There will be scant crops in this part of India unless there is rain soon.

On the evening of my cocktail-party, which was last Thursday, the sky was clear, and it looked as if we could safely hold our party in the garden under the light of the full moon. Chairs and tables were put out for our thirty guests, and all went to plan for a while. A little after 7 o’clock ominous black clouds appeared in the North. The Strong south breeze failed, and it looked as if a storm would come. I said I thought we had better move indoors, and called to a servant to go and light the lights and turn on the fans. Guess my horror when word came that lights and fans were off! By this time the malis had come to carry the chairs in and guests were helping too. I asked if they would mind staying a little while in the garden without chairs, while the servants lit our two petrol lamps and some candles – Just as the first spots of rain fell, a cry of gladness went up. The lights were on again! The party went off reasonably well, I think, though that sort of party in a place like this, where one has to ask everyone whether they are amusing or not, and whether they have anything in common or not, never fulfils what one would like a party to be. Our new Collector, Mr Bannerjee, was one of the most helpful people there. He has got the real “Party-sense”, - - moved about himself from group, and helped me to get people to circulate, for the very fact that we have so much room, gave a tendency to allow people to sit down and remain in one place.

Herbert had to go to Calcutta on Monday to meet Sir John Woodhead who has come out to act as Governor of Bengal till they can find some one to take on the job. We had to be at Howrah Station just after ten o’clock and we had a pleasant ten minutes gossip with the other officials till the train came in. It was nice seeing Sir John again. He is a genial man who has always been popular out here. it was an awful day, frightfully hot and damp. Herbert had to spend the morning at the Secretariat, and luckily for me I had not much shopping to do, but spent most of the morning working in the Geological Survey Office. I lunched with Reggie Cooke in the air-cooled restaurant of the Great Eastern Hotel, and then met Herbert at the Club, and we went to see Irene Dunn and Charles Boyer in “Love Affair” (also in an air-cooled cinema) Its a simple story and would be somewhat cloying as acted by the average movie stars, but these two gave it charm. Emerging from the cinema at 5.30 into the hot sticky atmosphere of Calcutta, was not pleasant, but it was reasonably cool in Harry’s house where we went for tea, later bringing Winsome back here with us for a little visit. She has left us this morning, and we have much enjoyed her company these two days. Luckily it has been cooler (We really thought the Monsoon was on us) and we were able to wander round the garden after breakfast with comparative comfort, and do a little mild sight-seeing in the evenings. Winsome listened patiently to my plans for the garden. As a reward for her long suffering, we are going to make her cuttings of quite a lot of things out of this garden. She was very intrigued by our mad birds who bang on the windows. I am sure I have told you about the “Seven Sisters” who have been doing this for some time, but I may not have mentioned the Crow who has taken to it more lately, and makes the most frightful din. I cant imagine why he does not smash either the glass or his beak. He really is a great nuisence, for he sometimes starts at 5 and wakes me up.

Herbert was sleeping so badly at the end of last week, that I felt worried about him. It may have been partly the heat, but I think he was also worrying about his Irrigation scheme. Some Report came in making it obvious that nothing has been done during the past year. This depressed him considerably, and he made up his mind to go and have a long heart to heart talk with the Secretary of the Department concerned. I believe he was really brooding over this. It was annoying when he went to Calcutta to find that the said Secretary had been called up to Darjeeling. However something, whether it was the removal of the immediate need for composing a strong case to put to the Secretary or what I do not know, seems to have removed the tension from his mind, and he has been sleeping comparatively well since we came back on Monday evening.

Dr Biswas of the Botanical Survey was spending the day here on Sunday, and I enjoyed his company very much, and got a lot of information. he cast rather a blight upon our spirits in the evening by telling us that all the soil in the garden is rubbish and that the earth from the river bank below the tide level, which I had thought to be so full of all that is good, is rubbish also. I wonder whether he is right! I wish I could get the soils analysed, to find out just how bad they are and what is needed to make them better.

There has been so much correspondance going on the for Himalayan Club that I never seem to have time to get round to writing my private letters. Of course the beginning of the month always brings a certain amount of accounts, paying and checking bills, checking up stores and so on. My plans of writing some articles on Old Chinsurah seem to come no nearer, and the list of my friends to whom letters are due, remains unaltered day after day.

The Public Works Dept are repairing the servants quarters and Kitchen and I am constantly chasing out after them, for they never do anything right or anything properly unless chivvied. The dishonesty and graft throughout the Department is beyond belief, - - no that’s the wrong expression, - - for we do believe it after long and bitter experience. Perhaps you will scarcely be able to imagine it.

Herbert and I were supposed to be attending part of the marriage ceremony of his Confidential clerk’s daughter on Saturday evening. I hurried home from a visit to old Miss Baboneau so as to be changed and ready to leave the house by 6.55 p-m- I called down to ask one of the chapprassis where the house was in which the wedding was taking place, and he went off to enquire. A little later he came back with the news that the ceremony was taking place in Calcutta! Thus we were saved from what would have been a very hot and trying hour or two. Dr Biswas when he came the next day, said he had been there, and that it was terribly hot. He stayed for the feast which lasted till 1 a-m- He says there about 2,000 guests. Just imagine it! A man in the position of a clerk drawing at most two or three hundred a month, feeling compelled to give a wedding on that scale to his daughter. As lately as last cold weather he had to borrow money to pay the expenses of a serious illness that his wife had. Now I suppose he will be sunk in debt from which he will never be free. What fools they seem to be to us, don’t they?

News I am afraid is not very plentiful or very exciting this week. Perhaps the poultice like atmosphere is to blame for it. Ones mind does not feel very lively in the damp heat.

Best love to you all
LJT`

Family letter from HPV (carbon, ‘My dear Annette’ hand written in ink)

Chinsurah,
June 11th 1939.

My dear Annette

This day is notable for an unusual thing; I got up at 4 o’clock. At that hour the air is stale and there is darkness. The sun rises at five and a breeze stirred at half past. We had spent the night at Cossipore in anticipation: had we started from here it would have meant getting up at three. The occasion was the departure of Sir Robert Reid who has been acting as governor here since Lord Brabourne’s death. He went by Imperial Airways – seaplane. We attended at the quay from which the launch goes off. Twenty minutes to wait, which passed pleasantly enough because all present to see him off were well known to us. Then a little ceremony of hand-shaking and farewelling; and maybe another twenty minutes wait while the launch went out to the seaplane which was at some distance and while the sea-plane manoeuvred and took off. We came back here instead of staying in Calcutta. I knew that I’d be dead-beat by breakfast time and I was. It would have been agreeable to go off and hog it all the morning, for I had been tired out yesterday also: but there was a long report to get off which had been delayed be-cause one of the districts magistrates did not let me have his stuff in time: and I had a weary morning. However I slept all the afternoon except when the crow hammered too violently on some window within hearing: and the mad birds also were hard at it, though on the other side of the house. They have become a problem.

We went into Calcutta for tea yesterday and saw Deana Durbin in Three Smart Girls Grown Up. The preliminary films were beyond belief bad but I enjoyed the Deana Durbin one, although it is silly in places and hole-picking would be easy. It is a sad thing that she herself is bow-legged or something-legged; but it is only fair that she should lack something and it may keep her humble. An amazingly cool evening, after heavy rain which we dodged. It is cool today also after a downpour. Steady quiet rain which certainly looks like the monsoon. It will be a good thing if it is the monsoon (provided that the early start does not mean an early break) because there is distress owing to the loss of the crops which usually benefit by rainstorms during the hot weather, this year in defect.

My spirits are dashed quite a lot by the reading of a Government file about the Hooghly Irrigation scheme: not that anybody has expressed an adverse opinion or criticized: worse – no one has done anything at all. A whole year wasted without action. Which means apathy in the Secretariat on the part of the officials and not only of the Ministers. That is bad, because when the I.C.S. officers lose all sense of duty like this it means collapse of the whole Government machine. Out of habit I wrote to the Secretary, urging action, but it seemed hopeless. Then by a co-incidence, two days later, there came in the Chairman of the District Board who said that he and other big land-owners were determined that the scheme must go through and asked advice how to set about bringing pressure to bear. I have promised to go to a meeting on the 24th and answer all questions and criticisms. Whether anything will come of it, who knows? The odds are heavy against it but they have been heavy against me all through and up to a point I have beaten them.

Monday, June 12th.

A cool day. My exercises revealed that I was suffering from unseemly wind. So that for fear I ceased them. This symptom is one familiar after fatigue; or after bad temper; and, to confess, my temper had not been too good after my discoveries as to the perfidy of secretaries. It was a sad day when I conceived the thought of restoring Bengal to health and prosperity; night rather. Yet in a way I have had a lot of mixed fun out of my efforts. The sadness is the resenting of the final failure, which is absurd; like grudging the loss of a match.

The two kitten-cats are no pleasure, being slinky and suspicious; and they have discouraged the squirrels. One comes fairly regularly, more regularly to lunch than to breakfast which is the proper time for them. But shy. The angry chattering which it keeps up at frequent moments during the day is a hindrance to work; strange to say when I go out and say stop it, it does stop it but it glowers at me in an unfriendly manner and I doubt whether it knows me. Squirrels spend most of the day swearing; Donald Duck cannot compete. There is not much of interest these days in the bird-line in the compound.

I have done some pruning and slashing in the evenings. No touring of late, because I am toiling at the arrears --- the same arrears. I do not get round to them; a form of funk or laziness. It will be a load off my mind to get rid of that Forest Committee; but that cannot be till well into July. And even when I am through with it, I shall be capable of becoming angry because these knockabouts will not do anything about it.

Your mother brought back a P.G. Wodehouse book for me to read which contained the to me unfamiliar and charming phrase ‘allergic to curates’; to how many things and persons I am allergic! Lately I have been reading a variety of stuffs. One by Ashmead Bartlett (?) contained a story of the virginal looking Virginian sister of a newspaper man who visiting Berlin was led to cast off her shyness by the drinking of (unfamiliar) beer till she was shaken in her chair, says our author, by an enormous belch; ‘do it again’ cried the correspondents but the Virgin replied in soft southern accents ‘You can’t gerk without gas’. I wouldn’t put it past our family if they set their minds to it but the remark is true for most.

Goodnight everybody.

Much love
Dad.


From LJT to Annette

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 1939

My darling Annette,

What a magnificent great budget of a letter it was that we got from you yesterday. it is a source of wonderment to Dad, and pleasure too, I think, how much you and Richard do, and how much you enjoy yourselves at Oxford. He says he practically never went out anywhere. Its true that he had very little money, but it must have been partly temperament, because H.D. who had no more money, yet managed to go out quite a lot. Both your letter and the one received from Richard this morning give me rather the sort of feeling that I used to get sometimes in Calcutta, and that was that there was more going on than I could cope with. Of course in Letters things get telescoped up, so that they give an effect of being more crowded than they really are.

The visit to the German Professor and his wife must have been interesting, and life at Highways a good training for the sort of talk that you describe as taking place there, not the matter of it, but the manner. At Highways one has to be quick off the mark to get ones word in. Did you notice what P. Zimmer’s tankas represented? Most likely they were both Budhas. Such a large proportion of the tankas are.

Its seems a good idea for you to go to Madm Blok for a while. Do give her my very warm greeting if you do. I have been carrying a letter from her about with me for a year or so, intending to answer it, but never have. It does’nt really demand an answer, but I just thought I would like to write “when I had time”, and you know what delay that means! Yes! I consider you perfectly entitled to some of the £2 per week which you would be costing us were you staying at Highways – all of it if necessary. I will mention it to Aunt in my letter, and ask her to let you have some money if you need it. Its a pity Germany is out of the question this year, but perhaps with every place so full of refugees you will be able to get someone to talk German with you.

Every now and again I think I must try to make myself type faster and then I get the most frightful results as I am doing in this letter. I still have to look at the keys, which is very bad after all this time, and my little fingers are weak so that I often strike “a” and “P” too lightly. Its lack of concentration I suppose. I must strive with my morning practice in concentration, which I am afraid has not made much progress. There is one thing I can say for myself, and that is that the intruding thoughts are mild and harmless, being almost always something to do with the garden.

I am still deep in count Keyserling’s book, but I don’t find the sections on China and Japan nearly so interesting as that on India. There are interesting facts and ideas all through the book, but in the parts about China and Japan he seems to me to repeat himself, and to keep on altering his ground. He is now off to the South Seas, and then to American. The book is between 700 and 800 pages of close print, and the matter such as its useless to read unless you digest it, so its not surprising that it is taking me a good time to finish it.

I have succeeded in having one or two conversations with Dad about the plans for either coming on leave next year or his retiring, but he has a genius for leading me off the point, and getting away without having arrived at any sort of plan or conclusion. I have just been writing down a lot of questions about various points on which we need information before making a decision, but I expect it will take a good time to get him to write to the Secretariat for the answers. I am uncertain whether it is wiser to try to persuade him to retire next year, or to take leave next year, and come back to India for eighteen months or two years, or, not to take leave next year, but to stay on one more year in India. There is so much to be said for each course, and much depends on health, and on how this wretched Government carry on. Dad still dreams of his schemes, but I feel there is not a dog’s chance of getting any big scheme or long-sighted policy going under the present raw, dishonest, nervous and inexperienced Government. One great comfort is that Uncle and Aunt and Highways are there, so that you have a home whether we come soon or not.

Thank you for sparing so much time for writing to us. I do appreciate it, and realize what a lot of precious time it represents.

Best love and good wishes for a pleasant vacation
Mother


Family letter from LJT

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 15th 1939

My Dears,

This has been one of the nice peaceful weeks which I enjoy so much. Save for a visit to Calcutta on Saturday afternoon, and staying that night at Cossipore, in order to be as near as possible to the Flying Boat base from which we had to see the Governor and his wife off on Sunday morning, we have been quietly at home, with no visitors. How unhospitable that sounds! I don’t mean it that way. I like people and I like having friends here, but an occasional few undisturbed days do give one a chance to get a lot of things done. The long list of letters and jobs, which I had on the note-pad on my writing table, is almost cleaned up. I fear that does not include a lot of private letters that have been oweing for ages. One of the things I have been doing is to see various people about the possibility of turning the Darjeeling Natural History Society into the Bengal N.H.S. The old chap who has run the D.N.H.Society since its inauguration in 1927, is depressed because it is so difficult to collect stuff for the quarterly journal, and also because membership is falling off. He is old and rather deaf, and never comes to Calcutta. When I was talking to him in Darjeeling, I made the suggestion of turning the Society into an all Bengal one, and promised to consult Dr Biswas of the Botanical Survey, Dr Bini Prasad, who is the Superintendent of the Indian Museum, and a few others. Yesterday I sent all their opinions up to Charles Inglis in Darjeeling. I am sure the Society could take on a new lease of life by enlarging its scope, but the difficulty will be to get Assistant Secretaries in different parts of Bengal. I’d gladly do Calcutta were I not so busy already.

By the way, the Monsoon has really come. Its funny how soon one forgets previous weather. We were still hoping for it this day last week. We have had rain every day since, and heavy rain too. The temperatures have dropped, and are mostly now down in the lower half of the nineties, and in the evenings after the rain storms, we often don’t need a fan. The rain generally chooses to come just after five o’clock when we are setting about some ploy in the garden. We wish it would come later, as it kindly yesterday, allowing us to work out of doors till nearly seven o’clock. I’ve five men working in the garden now. We have finished all the canna planting, and I am preparing the places for about 100 flowering shrubs which Dr Biswas is sending up to me from the Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately most of this garden has been terraced up on old brick and rubble, so that wherever I dig, I find we have to clear out the rubbish and fill the place with good earth. It makes the whole thing a very much bigger affair than I had anticipated. Our motor driver is turning into a sort of “Overseer” and does a lot to help me. Provided I do not ask him to do anything derogatory to his dignity, I think he likes having something to do, in weeks like this when we scarcely use the car. He has so put it across the Public Works Department men, who are doing the repairs to the servants quarters, that they speak of him as the “Driver Sahib”. He is the leader of a little gaming party that takes place most evenings under the covered-way that leads from the house to the kitchen. There is a pendent light there, and the pachesi board is spread beneath it. Its an old old Indian game. The board is in the form of a cross with arms of equal length. The game seems to be a sort of halma, and looks pretty dull. They use cowrie shells for gambling on it. It is this pachesi board which is laid out in the marble floors of some of the Mogul Palaces, and the story is that the Emperors used to play, with living girls for pieces.

The post has just come in and brought me a letter from Herr Grob the Swiss climber, and his two friends, telling of how they have climbed the 24,089 ft virgin Peak, “The Tent”, a great lump of a mountain near Kangchenjunga. They are an amusing trio these men! Whenever they write to me they all sign the letter.

I have’nt yet told you about our visit to Calcutta. We went in in time for tea on Saturday, and saw the 6 o’clock performance of “Three Smart Girls Grow Up” with Deanna Burbin as the attraction in it, and she still is an attraction, and remains wonderfully spontaneous. Once or twice I confess I felt just a tinge of anxiety that she was beginning to “act” her own style. I hope she wont fall into this pit-fall. It will be very difficult for her not too. We loved the old father, and enjoyed the show, though the film wont stand much pulling to pieces. From the Cinema we went out to Cossipore, and had dinner with Idris, who, now he has at last got his sailing boat back into the water, after talking about it for the last two years, has become frightfully keen. He and Herbert revived all sorts of the nonsense they used to indulge in when we lived at the Towers, and the evening passed with a good deal of laughter. We had to have our early tea at 4 a.m. and leave the house a little before 5. o’clock, to be at the Flying Boat Base at 5.15, to say good-bye to the Reids, who are going home on leave, while one of our other ex-Civilians, Sir John Woodhead, has come back here to act as Governor till a new man can be found. There were little collection of Officials on the jetty, to speed the parting Governor, and it had the advantage of being much pleasanter than waiting about in a Railway Station. Their Excellencies arrive to time, and chatted to us for a few minutes before boarding their launch to be whisked off to the great Sea-Plane, lying so peacefully on the water. Little did we think that that very evening this place would be the scene of the tragic landing of another such boat. Perhaps I use the word “tragic” wrongly, for after all n-one was injured severely in the crash, but it is sad to think of a beautifully built craft being broken in a few seconds. Its also an anxious thought that even these monsterously powerful and efficient creatures, are so at the mercy of a bad storm.

We had resisted Idris’ invitation to go back there to breakfast, and to go out sailing. I knew that after getting up so early, Herbert would want to have a quiet day and plenty of sleep, so we came straight on home, and were in this house by 7 a.m. It seemed quite natural to me to get up at 4 a.m. at “The Towers”, for Idris and I have so often done so when we have been off on one of our flying expeditions. I am sorry I so seldom fly with him now. It seems so difficult to fit in somehow.

India seems to be becoming more communally minded every week. The Bengal Government have now raised the number of Mohammadens who are to hold posts in the Public Services to 50%. This may sound fair enough but actually there are so few decently educated mohammadens in Bengal, that it means inevitably that men quite unfitted to hold certain jobs will be put in to them. Every sort of private bribery and intimidation is being used by the present Mohammaden Ministery to force those Hindus whom they cant oust (such as Indian officers in the I.C.S.) to favour Mohammaden candidates in place of Hindus. Its no wonder the Hindus who have remained loyal to the British Government feel disheartened. The Bengali Mussalman is such a despicable creature on the whole. Our Mohammaden servants are all from up country. There is no doubt that the gentlefolk and the intelligensia of Bengal are the cast Hindus. Its a tragic tragic business!

And so I end on rather a sorrowful note. Still I suppose the country has got to learn, If the Hindu majority will not co-operate, the minority must suffer under the Sons of the Prophet.

Best love to you all
LJT


From LJT to Annette

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 21st 1939

My darling Annette

Its such a wet, wet evening! Not the sudden stormy kind of down pour that we have had up to date, but steady straight rain falling through a grey world. Its rather agreable and restful – were it not for the temperature, it might be November in England – no, that’s not quite true, for the trees are all fresh green, scarcely past the exuberance of early spring –

There’s a peaceful feeling that one need not go out to garden or work or visit anyone, so, having finished the first novel I have read for ages, I now write to you –

Looking through your last letter again, my mind was caught by your references to the case you put up for reforms in the Womens’ Colleges and your comments there on – Apropos of being allowed to entertain men in your rooms at any time, you said “If people intend to be immoral, they will be anyway” – That’s true, so far as it goes. If people really intend to be “immoral” (a description which I don’t much like) they will find a way however difficult and possibly dangerous it may be – but for one, or should we say two people who intend to transgress the particular code of behaviour which we as a nation, professing certain religious principals and moral rules, have chosen to set up, there are dozens and dozens who don’t “intend” anything, but will slip into easy indulgence of one sort of another if its made easy and safe – Rules are made to support the weak, much more than to prevent the strong. It has distressed me much to see out here lately, how many girls have taken to drinking more than is good for them and in one or two cases habitually get quite tipsy at any party, not because they are vicious or because they “intend to” – but simply because its too easy and they are weak and drift into it – The difficulty is to support the weaklings without putting too much of a curb on the people of strong character - Edward Groth and I had an interesting discussion last night, when I was dining with him before driving home, which I now see fits in with this, though it was on a slightly different plane of ideas – From talking wold and American politics and morals all through dinner, we got on to the subject of Krishnamurti, with our coffee – Mr Groth asked me whether I had heard Krishnamurti speak when he was in Calcutta in January – I had been disappointed not to be able to do so – In case you don’t know, Krishnamurti was the boy who was chosen by Annie Besant, the leader of the Theosophists, - or perhaps I should say “recognised” – as the new Messiah. He was trained up with the utmost care, educated in Europe and prepared in everyway that she and her associates could think of, to fulfil what she believed to be his great destiny – He came back to Adigar (the Theosophist centre near Madras) – He was to be the leader of a great society called the Society of the Star – Money poured in – but suddenly Krishnamurti refused his pedastal. He said he was sorry – but that none of it was true – They must take back their money. He did not want to be and could not be the Leader. I don’t know the detail of what happened then or afterwards, but I know that now and again Krishnamurti addresses meetings of people here and there and that he has written a good deal, none of which I have ever read – Well, Mr Groth went to hear him and was so impressed that he saught an interview with him. Its rather interesting to picture the two of them – Groth, the tall square shouldered, square faced, polished cosmopolitan American diplomat, and Krishnamurti in his white muslin shirt and dhoti and cap. Last evening Groth, leaning his elbow on the mantle-piece, looked down at me, and said with his slow deep American drawl “Wael – I don’t want to seem silly or speak like a missionary but I tell you if I have ever been near anything that was like what I seems to me Christ must have been, it was that man. He just was truth and depth and understanding” – (I’m getting rather far from what I started out to say, but its interesting to me to go through this scene and to remember the ideas and maybe it will interest you too.) –

It seems that what Krishnamurti had said in his address had upset some of what Mr Groth described as “nice comfortable theories” he had steeled down with. It appears that the kernel of K - -t’s replies to Mr Groth’s questions was that it does’nt matter what other people tell you – it does’nt matter what philosophy or religion you profess, until you have “realized” a thing for yourself in its deepest and most profound sense, it is of no importance – At long last I come to the little bit I set out to quote.) He continued that forms of religion were only props – systems even such as the aged proved Yoga systems, are nothing but props – so why worry about them – The answer I imagine is yes – true – but that only the strong can stand without props to begin with – The important thing is not to mistake the props for the reality – the life. that has happened to so many people in so many religious systems – but I doubt if the bulk of the people in the world are ready to do without systems of some sort yet, any more than we are ready to do without rules.

Sometimes I wonder what seem to be to me, the most important sins – I think they are doing anything that will hurt other people unnecessarily, especially if it is liable to undermine their character in any way – and the second is to do anything that would undermine, or detract from ones own character –

June 22nd A lad from Dunlops came in to return some books and interrupted me last night – In the cold light of the morning, my evening’s moralizings seem perhaps a little “pi” – but I think they are true – so let them stand – One has to test things for oneself, but knowing what other people think sometimes feeds ones own thought –

Best love
Mother


Family letter from LJT

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 22nd 1939.

My Dears,

The garden is becoming almost a vice with me. Whenever my mind is not actively engaged about some definite thing, thoughts about the garden creep into it. To-morrow is the exciting day when the shrubs arrive. Once they are in, we can plant a few quick-growing annuals in the long bed in front of them, - - and what a true description “quick-growing” is of the things that grow in the Rainy Season here. The speed with which plants spring up is almost incredible.

This week I have paid a little visit to Calcutta on my onw, and stayed a night with Harry and Winsome. I had to give a “talk” on “A Trek in Sikkim” to the ladies club, known as the National Indian ass-n of which I used to be a committee member at one time, but from which I resigned because I thought their policy was so silly. My “talk” depended largely on the pictures with which it was illustrated, shown though the medium of a lantern. Before accepting the invitation, I enquired whether they could be sure of making the room dark by 6 p-m- the time given for the show, since at this time of year it is light till 7 o’clock. They assured me that it could be done, and it was arranged that I should take the lantern and screen round to the Club at mid-day on Monday. I duly arrived, and found no-one to meet me, and none of the of the essentials ready. However the Driver and Mogul dug out some servants, and we got our part of the doings fixed, and the club bearer promised to do something about darkening the windows. I arrived for tea at 5.30, to find that most people had finished their tea, and were already streaming up to the lecture room, into which the evening sunlight was pouring happily. The joint secretaries were quite unperturbed, and nothing would have been done but for Lady Ezra, the wife of the leading Jew in Calcutta, who bustled round and got some curtains hung up as best she could, but in spite of all that it was almost 6.45 before it was possible to show the pictures on the screen. Luckily, as I told Lady Ezra, I knew the N.I.A. and the casual way Bengali ladies run things too well to be either surprised or upset by the general lack of co-ordination. It is rather sad, though, that after all these years, the Indians cant run things decently themselves. The Association was started by Lady Minto about thirty years ago, as a medium for English and Indian ladies to meet, and until about seven or eight years ago, it was run by so-called joint-secretaries, of whom the English one did all the work. Lately an attempt has been made to leave it to the Bengalis, with the sort of result I describe as taking place last Monday. How is the country going to learn to run itself until the women get some idea of organisation, and can pass the idea of it on to their children, or, if they cannot actually organise things themselves, then at least learn to appreciate the value of it. They all believe in improvisation. At almost any large party given by Indians (unless run by a European caterer) there is sure to be some crashing disaster, which would turn a European host or hosts, demented, but it does not upset the Indian. He bungles up something, and his guests help to gloss over the short-comings, and presumably he goes home contented, all else he would surely make some attempt not to let the same sort of thing happen next time.

When I went into Calcutta on Monday, I had lunch with Anina Brandt in her little flat in the tower, high above most of Calcutta’s roof-tops. We had some interesting talk. She is getting more and more disgusted with Germany, and says that in may ways she would like to take British Nationality, but if she does she will lose her house-property and money in Germany, and as outside Germany she is entirely dependent on what she earns, and it would be foolish to sacrifice the support for her old age. After all, Hitler will not last for ever, and who knows how quickly things may change. I always find Anina a stimulating companion. Being a Doctor of Philosophy, and a partly trained psychologist she looks beneath the surface of things. A tête a tête meal with her, with leisurely coffee-drinking after it, is one of the things I much enjoy on my visits to Calcutta.

After my lecture to the N.I.A, I went back to “No 16” to dine and spend the evening with H.D. and Winsome. I feel a little sad that this will be my last visit there for so long. They leave Calcutta on July 5th.

There was plenty of business to keep me occuppied next morning, what with shopping, Himalayan Club correspondance, and choosing eight books from the United Service Club library for Herbert, and after returning to lunch with Winsome, I went to see “Wuthering Heights”. I enjoyed it and was moved by the tragic story (all so sill too) except for the terrible banality of that final shot of the two figures walking mistily away. All the same I don’t think Merle Oberon was a satisfactory “Cathy”. Perhaps out here we are a little too knowing about her, for she was once a slightly dusky Anglo-Indian typist in a Calcutta business office, of the name of “Blackbird o’Brian”, which name she has transformed rather neatly. She is excellent in exotic Asiatic parts, I think, but I can see the Eastern strain in her so clearly, that I found it had to believe completely in her as a product of the Yorkshire Moors.

The Himalayan Club Equipment Officer spent an hour or more with me after he got out of his office, and then I went to Edward Groth’s flat for dinner, before going back to Chinsurah. There is always a lot of news of the Great world to be had from Mr Groth. He has represented his country in so many parts of the globe, and keeps so many friends where-ever he has been, that he always has tit-bits of personal experience from any place where specially interesting events are taking place. The Jewish problem was what we talked about chiefly that night.

Herbert, who had been feeling a little below par, before I left seemed to have recovered by the time I got back on Tuesday night. It was probably a slight chill that upset his digestion a little. His interest in his schemes has once more been keenly aroused by the Chairman of the District Board, a wealthy land-owner, who has come to him beseeching him to get a move on about the irrigation scheme. Herbert tells him that the only thing is for him and his friends to badger the Ministers. If they think they are going to lose the votes of the big land-owners and tennants in these western districts, they may get a move on to set this scheme in motion. There is to be a big meeting here on Saturday, unofficial, in so far as it is arranged by the land-owners, but they have invited Herbert to speak. He is really thrilled at this revival of his treasured schemes which he was afraid were almost dead. It has cheered him up no end, but now my fear is that he will work himself to death over them. It will be interesting if the whole thing finally becomes reality through the expressed wish of the people themselves.

The river is lovely these days. Its colour changes with the weather – The banks and castles of cloud reflect themselves in it, and its pretty to see the boats coming up on the tide, with the wind behind them and the single square sail bellowing into lovely shapes. There is a feeling for colour too. We see quite a number of red and bronze and yellow sails and an occasional blue one, and there is an enterprising passenger boat, with a deep plum-coloured sail. As the boat itself is painted pea green, the total effect, though cheerful, is most improbably. It reminds me of my efforts at colouring the illustrations in Lear’s Book of Nonsense. *Sorry! The machine slipped – I said:- I suppose the words pea-green immediately remind me of the Jumblies – no! It was the Owl and the Pussy Cat who had the beautiful pea green boat – The Jujblies went to sea in a sieve.

Best love
LJT


Family letter from LJT

Chinsurah
Bengal
June 29th 1939

My dears,

We dined out last Thursday with a Major and Mrs Wright Nevill. He is doing special Military Intelligence work, and seems to me an odd choice, for apparantly he has that typical military mind, which runs along in a groove and acts according to orders. As a rule the M.I.Os are the men with originality and imagination, who find it difficult to endure the tedium of the ordinary regimental life. Herbert says that Major W-N’s monthly reports are just what one would expect. However, though dull, they are a pleasant enough couple. I confess that I found it hard to pay any vivid attention to Major W-N’s accounts of how he shoots tiger much better than anyone else, while on my other side there was the opportunity to talk to the Manager of Dunlop’s Rubber Co, a man whom I like very much. He has a lively, quick, and I think, unprejudiced sort of mind, and his interests are by no means confined to the work of his own firm. Herbert, poor darling, was tired and worried, and he hates dining out in this sort of “duty” fashion at any time, but once at a party he is always good company. Just as we were leaving this house, the lights failed, so we took our petrol hurricane lantern with us, and it saved the situation, for the current kept on failing for odd periods of four or five minutes all through the evening. It made our attempts to listen-in to the King and Queen’s arrival at Southampton before dinner and in London later, rather odd!

The man who is Treasurer of the Himalayan Club spent a short week-end here, to a small extent so that we might have time to discuss some of the Club affairs, but chiefly because he has become extremely interested in trees, and wanted to get some help from me in identifying them. It was a nice cool cloudy week-end, and we spent Saturday evening, Sunday morning and Sunday evening out wandering here and there, and enjoyed ourselves very much.

The meeting about Herbert’s Rural Development Scheme took place on Saturday afternoon, and seems to have gone off pretty well. All parties seem to have been represented. There were several of the leading Congress men of the District there. He was undoubtedly tired after the meeting. The success or non-success of this scheme means so much to him. It is the darling of his heart.

Tuesday last was the day of the return of Jagganath to his temple. I had to go to Calcutta on the day when he set out for his yearly change of air, so could not go to see the festival, which is celebrated on a big scale at Serampore, half way between here and Calcutta, - - in fact it is the most important celebration and the biggest car outside Puri, which is the true home of Jagganath. Hindus say that Jagganath is an incarnation of Vishnu, but students say that it seems most probable that he was a fetish god of the primitive fisher-folk of the coast, and that when the cultivated Aryans came from upper India they adopted the local god into the Hindu pantheon, and invested the Vishnu incarnation to lift the local got a little nearer some sort of spirituality. The effort evidently spread his worship all over Orissa and Bengal, but does not seem to have succeeded in elevating it much. Jagganath’s festivals are essentially celebrated and enjoyed by “the People” and there is much connected with them that corresponds to the old-fashioned fair in Europe. The story told to explain Jagganath’s visit to the temple of another god is as follows;- Once a year the image is taken from its temple on to a high platform where it is given a ceremonial bath. It is said that this gives the God a cold or chill, and about three days afterwards he goes for a change of air to another temple, in the hope that it will cure his indisposition. He stays eight days and then returns home. The huge car on which he is dragged in company with the brother and sister of Krishna, Balarama and Subhadra, is built and kept for this purpose only, and as you all know it used to be considered fortunate to be crushed under its wheels.

Well, I had never seen a car festival so I arranged to go down last Tuesday, and I took M. and Mme. Menard from Chandanagore with me. The sub-divisional officer of Serampore who happens to be a mohammaden at the moment, had made good arrangements for us and for a few other guests on the roof of a Government School, which happens to be on the edge of the road close to Jagganath’s own temple. There was an awning over our heads in case of rain, which luckily did not come, and he provided a nice tea, and had even arranged a pull punkha to keep us cool. Our Collector and his wife, Mr and Mrs Bannerjee were there, and the Indian S.P, as well as Mr and Mrs Rawson from Serampore College, of which he is Principal. Mr Rawson is an interesting man. Though he is a Wesleyan Pardre, he is soaked in Hindu Philosophy, and has written at least one book on the Upanishands. It was interesting to have him there to discuss the festival with. We had been instructed to be at Serampore by 4.30, and from the Northern limits of the town we had to take a devious back land to reach the school, for the entire road was blocked by the crowd and the car. The homeward journey started at 3.30 from a temple about three quarters of a mile north of the home temple, but it was 6 o’clock before the car was opposite us, and another half hour before it finally came to rest opposite the Jagganath temple. The car weights 75 tons, and is made mostly of iron. It has four stories each getting successively smaller, and the three top ones having domed cupulas at the corners, while a larger dome under which the god and his friends are seated, tops the whole. Two life sized horses, one white and one dark blue are arranged as if they are prancing in front of the car, and life sized effegies of warriors etc are arranged on the balconies. Quite a numerous living freight is also carried. Some are venerable priests in saffron robes, but many look like ordinary babus, and quite a number are small boys, busily engaged in gathereing up the offerings of money and fruit which are constantly thrown into the car. Herbert was delighted last year to see one of the attendents hit in the chest by a large bunch of bananas. The car is pulled by some four hundred volunteer coolies, dressed in white loin cloths, and wearing a fillet of twisted rope round their heads. They give the main tug, and move the car some ten or twenty yards each time. Anyone else who can get a hand on to one of the huge ropes, pulls too. Herbert having been given a red fillet to wear round his head, did so last year, and M Menard and Mr Bannerjee, went down after tea, and did their share of the pulling. The young English policeman, was on duty just in front of the car, all the time. I though it was interesting too look down and see this one fair boy, the red fillet round his head giving him almost a classical look, in the middle of the hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands of excited Indians, responsible for law and order. The crowd was made up of a great variety of types, and we found plenty to amuse us all the time. I saw little of the simple but profound religious emotion which is such a marked feature of the worshippers at Benares. Mr Rawson says it still exists in Puri, where the main part of the crowd are simple Orriya peasants, or pilgrims who have come because of their devotion. The Sermapore crowd are mostly Mill hands, an industrialised population, who have become somewhat sophisticated, and it was evident that the festival is looked upon mostly in the nature of a through beno in Sermapore.

About 6.30 Mr Bannerjee sent a message to say that the big family opposite whose house the car always lives, and who probably have a vested interest in it, would be honoured if we, (Mrs Bannerjee Mme Menard and I) would go along and take some refreshment on the balcony of their house. The house is an old Danish one, built, they say 300 years ago. I hoped we were going to see the Gods unloaded and carried into the temple, but apparantly they stay in the car till quite late at night. We sat at small tables with spotless tablecloths on them, attended by the sons of the house, dressed in the white silk robes which are worn by well-to-do Bengalis on ceremonial occasions. Large plates of sweetmeats were put before us, but luckily among them were a good many singaras which are little three cornered patties of short pastry, filled with curried vegetable. These were particular good ones, and I ate one with enjoyment and was able to avoid the Sweets which I detest. We went to see the ladies of the house, some of whom could talk Hindi, and had rather a merry time with them, and I finally got home about 8.15, to find Herbert working busily.

I am sorry I am afraid I hav’nt described this festival at all, so as to make you see it. Herbert has gone to Burdwan for the day, and I thought I should have an undisturbed morning, but instead I have had one interruption after another, breaking the thread of thought.

The garden is as exciting as ever. Transplanted shrubs are doing well. My new supply came up from the Botanical Gardens on Friday, and are all set out in their places.

At moments I have snatched some time with my Sikkim plant specimens, and I think the article I intend to write about them is taking shape in my mind.

Best love
LJT


From LJT to Annette

Chinsurah
June 29th 1939

My darling Annette

Interruptions all morning have made me late with my writing – and since the mad crow woke me at 5 this morning and I was up before 6. I now grow sleepy and dull –

If I try to write it wont be worth reading – so I just end my love and blessings –
Mother