1941 November
From LJT to Annette
Nov. 1st 1941
8, Theatre Road,
Calcutta.
My darling Annette
How much more the weather must matter to you all in War Time than ever before. The long blacked-out evenings must be a very great trial – and in places – such as Bletchley, recreation much more difficult to find on dark, wet and cold days. Our weather is just beginning to get really nice, and I often think of you and wish you could have a taste of it. I was talking to Francesca Gurner on the phone this morning and I thought how little she has had to “endure hardness” compared to you – She is teaching in the kindergarten of the New School and I hear she is keen and doing very well. She does not seem to have got at all spoilt – Having a job almost from the time she arrived and being keen on it, has saved her, I expect – She is a pretty girl – very like her mother Linette has improved in looks a lot – She has lost some flesh and with it, that lumpy look, she used to have – Aurial is quite nice looking and as far as size goes, she and Linette might be twins – They are both, apparantly hard workers at school, and often, when father suggests an outing, they turn him down, saying they have work to do.
Helen Gourlay is an old St. Monican, you know – and Winsome rang up last night to say a Mrs “Somebody” – could’nt catch the name also comes from our old school and wants to meet me – Winsome has arranged a meeting for Wednesday evening next Its a bit sad to think that the school is all broken up. I wonder whether it will revive after the War –
I suppose the nearest thing to a sacrifice doing this war work entails upon me, is having no time at all for reading – I realize very strongly how difficult it must be for a man with a long office day, to supervise a household and keep check of all his private affairs – The family accounts are the thing that are bothering me at the moment. I did not balance them up at the end of last month – and here another month has come round!
Helen Gourlay was saying the other day that she needs eight or nine hours sleep and likes a rest in the middle of the day. She is a perfectly healthy normal person – and I cant help wondering how much of this idea is imagination, plus habit. If she used her will power to make herself do a good full days work – I believe she would soon get hardened to it. I believe a lot of people think it does them harm to be tired – but when the tiredness is the result of “hones work” – I dont think that’s so.
Best love from
Mother
Family letter from HPV
(handwritten pencil note at top of letter) My personal letter to you is going by sea – Best love Mother Have sent 2lbs of tea to you via Army and Navy Stores.
Calcutta
November 2nd 1941
My dear Annette (handwritten name)
It looks as if the cold weather has come. It is a beautiful morning with just a nip in the air. If this keeps up there is a chance that we shall be feeling fit and even vigorous before long. Last night it was not only a lovely night but the moon was within an inch or so of Mars, so that excitement ran high. Winsome phoned up to ask what star it was, and also to ask whether Mars or the moon was the nearer.
Yesterday we went out to Tollygunge Club for tea and a walk. On the way out the driver called to us excitedly to see: and there in front of us on the carrier of a bicycle there was a large terrier of sorts, sitting with dignity and calm, as such a mode of conveyance was the most ordinary in the world. For some reason this pleased us much. In the old days brother Roy, seeing such a thing, would have scored at least 30-love. The walk did not come off. When we reached the lawn we fell in with people known to us who asked us to sit with them. They introduced us to an old lady of 86 who is wandering about the East and who at first looked as if she might be interesting: and then they said that they must be off to their golf and left us. It was hardly possible to forsake the old lady who turned out to be very dull (because she had formed her ideas forty years ago and held to them still) and so we had to sit there till it was time to move.
The excuse was that we had to see the lad in hospital. He is much better. It was not enteric. Probably only malaria. He had to have injections of glucose for some days, but they have been able to stop this. Miserably thin, he is yet plumper than he was: and barring depression which is extreme is doing well. Maybe it would be better if I abstain from going to see him, for I am scarcely to be numbered among the gay.
Joan said at breakfast that she had started a book to record the cheerful things that I had been saying. There are no entries in it yet. The comment is no doubt justified.
The rush of holidays is at last over, thank Heavens. Now it will be possible again to get some work done by the clerks. It is debilitating to know that others are not working and I doubt whether in spite of sticking to it I did so much work during the holidays as I should have done if they had been working days. They enabled me to clear off all accumulations, but there may be new ones now with the clerks, that will be dumped upon me suddenly. The other members of the Tribunal are away from Calcutta and I am unable to fix dates for hearing appeals. Annoying because the men concerned want to know where they stand.
I have returned to the study of the figures about outturn of rice, gathered at Chinsura: the annoying thing about trying to do extra work of this kind is that I forget what I was driving at last time I touched it and waste a lot of time foraging about and picking up the clues. Besides there is any amount of stuff that I have worked out at one time or another and that I might as well have left undone, since it is not accessible to others. Not that they would look at it even if it were.
My “broken ribs” progress. The left arm can be used now without causing me to wince. I still have the strapping on my chest, but probably a doctor would have it off if I saw one. The sore places are still a bit tender but better.
My typing does not progress fast. Too tired in the evenings to put in any real practice. My attempts to learn the numerals have made little difference except that I hit the numeral keys more often by mistake than I used to. I have added to my collection of alphabetical sentences half a dozen from books: they lack the joyous fantasy of mine. It is annoying that when I go back to the six original sentences in the book given to me by Hal, I still make mistakes though perhaps not so many.
(handwritten addition) Some time now since we have had a letter from you. Perhaps this makes us think of you the more often: perhaps not
Bless you
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 40
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
Nov. 2nd 1941.
My Dears,
We are having another long pause without letters from England. As I write that, I have a sneaking hope that the magic will work, and that some will come in by the next post.
Apart from work, I suppose the most important thing for us this week has been the start of the Cold Weather. We no longer need fans at night, and not much in the day time. One can walk and move about without getting all sticky, and its much easier to think. That is one of the things that is often taken no account of in hot climates. When its very hot, ones brain does not function so well, and its much harder to concentrate.
Our poor young guest, Robin Ross, had to go off to hospital on Monday morning. On Sunday we had news from Dehra Dun that some cases of enteric had broken out in the camp where he had been living, so the doctor thought it best to get him away to hospital, where all the tests could be done free of charge to him. Its better for him to be there from every point of view. I was glad we had booked a room for him, as he collapsed on Monday morning early, and the night nurse sent for the doctor about 6.30 a.m. It seems the lad almost died of pneumonia, contracted on winter manoeuvres about a year ago in England, and he confesses that he has never felt really well since, so I suppose he was in the condition to take anything he got very hard. I am thankful to hear that the tests are negative to enteric, and the doctor is pretty sure that what he has is a bad attack of malaria, and that he is badly run down. Herbert or I try to visit him each evening, and various other I.C.S. people, including the Chief Secretary, now back from Darjeeling, have been dropping in to visit him too. All the invalids are going on well. The Drivers wife has passed the crisis and should be alright now. Bhim Das is much better. I must try to go see him this evening. I was terribly worried about him last week.
We dont see much of our guests, the Gourlays, except at breakfast and dinner, but Helen has been a great help in doing shopping for me that I had no time to attend to myself. She has been doing a lot of shopping, both for herself and others, and for Madras’ “Victory Shop”. She says the shops are so much better here, and also China Town can produce all sorts of attractive little trifles, which cant be bought in Madras. She has spent about Rs200 in the China Town shops, and is confident that in Madras they can sell the things at quite a handsome profit.
Have I told you that in office I am known as P.S. (Private Sec:) Files have noted on them “Put up to P.S.” or “PS’s verbal instructions are - - -” Esprit de Corps is an odd thing. I notice that I begin to feel it quite strongly with regard to our Department. I am conscious of a feeling that we are really more capable than the other branches we deal with. I am anxious that we shall spare no pains to make ourselves so. When I go into the huge office where the clerks of the whole section work, I look with pride at our group, and think they are really better than the others! I find Mr. Amarnoth, our Office Supervisor, a much nicer person than the Office Supervisor of our twin Department, the Directorate of Ordnance Factories. Their man is a Sikh, with the almost universal name, as far as those people are concerned, of Singh. He is a handsome looking fellow, but I like Sikhs. I’ve never met a Sikh yet who gave me the feeling that he was trustworthy. I dont like them at all!
The garden is getting no attention at all from me. I just have had no time. Luckily the head mali has been here for years and is a good man, so I have just told him to do the planting out of the annuals as best suits the situation. It’s funny for me, who have always given so much time to the garden, and been a thorn in the flesh of so many malis, now to give one of them carte blanche to do as he likes!
Herbert and I went to the Zoo last Sunday evening. He is now one of the Governors, and the gate is thrown open for us, and our car allowed to drive in. We were sad to see that the whole place has degenerated so badly. Until a few years ago, there was a certain Mr. Dodds, who for many years had been on the Governing body, and had made the Zoo his great hobby. He lived in a house adjoining it, and I think few days passed that he did not go in to see some of the animals. Now he is no longer there, everything is getting slack. I think the whole place is badly over-stocked. The same thing seems to happen over and over again. Directly any concern is made over to Indians entirely, all the detail of it gets slack. The one exception I know is Dr Biswas at the Botanical Gardens, who has improved and brisked the whole place up since he took over a few years ago.
Government is back from Darjeeling, and when we went out to Tollygunge for tea and a walk yesterday, we saw quite a number of old friends. As a matter of fact we never got our walk, for we joined some people who had a very old lady with them. They went off to play golf, and somehow we felt it awkward to leave the poor old girl alone. She the Hon Miss Kinnaird, aged 86. She has spent much of her life and her large fortune on the Y.W.C.A. and has always wanted to come to India. I thought she was going to be interesting, but she turned out to be rather tiresome. She had got certain fixed ideas, and would not listen to any other point of view. Unfortunately some of the ideas had been put into her head by Indians, and were definitely not true, but she got quite angry when we suggested that there was another side to the case. She has been stuffed up to believe that Indians are not allowed to trade, “are not given licenses”. Well, it just is not a fact. Indians trade on exactly the same terms as Europeans. If they are refused a license, it must be for some very good reason. There were several other subjects on which she was just as obstinate and unwilling to listen, so we were glad to get away from her at last.
Herbert was dining at Government House on Tuesday, a men’s dinner in honour of Gen: Wavell, - - but he did not actually have any talk with the C-in-C for which I was sorry.
The Symons cleared out the remainder of their furniture on Tues: so I had to do some readjusting. We still have things belonging to another couple here, and I’ll be glad when those have gone to, and I no longer have to keep thinking about furniture, and moving things about. Those of you who remember them, will be amused to hear that I am still using the flowered pinkish cretonne curtains that used to be in the spare rooms and on the landing at Roslyn House. They are a bit shabby now, but in war time they must do for my second spare room.
You can guess how eagerly we watch the news from Russia.
Best love to you all
LJT
Added to bottom of letter to Romey
My darling Romey,
It would be funny if this reached you exactly on your birthday, but I think it is rare for letters to take only a fortnight. I hope you had a nice day and some sort of treat!
Dad has not told you of the white horse that Idris saw yesterday, painted all over with yellow spots about 3 inches in diameter, and with a big yellow V on its side. It was pulling a Babu’s carriage. Idris played this as a knock-out card at breakfast, so we were pleased to have the sight of the dog riding on the carrier of the bicycle (see Dad’s letter) to play against it. Idris allowed that our card was nearly as good.
Yesterday I had a postcard from Edward Groth who was spending a holiday at Lake Louise, Alberta. It does look a lovely place. Helen Gourlay made a tour through Canada and America and she says that she has never seen anything like the flowers in parts of the Rocky Mountain regions. I hope you will get a chance to see that great Range before you leave Canada.
The Gurner family are back from Darjeeling. I was talking to Francesca on the phone. She has been teaching in the kindergarten of the new school ever since she came out here, and I hear that she is doing well. It seems to have saved her from getting spoilt, which is the fate of so many girls who come out here. She is pretty and very like her mother. The other two girls have much improved in looks. Linnette has lost the rather lumpy look she used to have. Report has it that they are both ken workers at school, and scorn their father’s offers to take them here and there, saying they have more important work to do. This is probably a somewhat exaggerated account of the state of affairs, but I have no doubt based on fact.
Best love to all in Winnipeg, Mother
Family letter from LJT No 41
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
Nov: 9th 1941.
My Dears,
This will be the scrubbiest of letters. Fate has decided to put every sort of obstacle in the way of writing. We have struck a patch of bad luck in the way of illness, not for ourselves, but for friends and dependants. Robin Ross was to have come back to us to-day, had a return of fever and they are keeping him in hospital a few more days. Its rather a relief to me, for Helen Gourlay woke up with a shocking headache and a temperature yesterday morning, and the doctor is pretty sure it is dengue, which means at least a week in bed. She and G.B. were to have left to-day. He is staying till Tuesday, for he wants to be sure what it is before he goes, and I dont know when Helen will be well enough to travel. The bearer is getting slowly better, but I doubt whether he will ever be fit for work again. The driver, who is threatened with a duodenal ulcer, was having a lot of pain, poor chap, and that combined with the fact that his wife has typhoid, made him ask to go home for a month. He has supplied a reasonably adequate budli, but he’s not a man who can do all the little jobs our own driver does to help me, - - - shopping and what-nots.
Since I started this I have had a long interruption. The little Anglo-Indian man who undertook the repairing, painting and polishing of our much battered furniture, after starting excellently, has failed badly. I have been giving him a tremendous dressing down this morning. He makes the excuse that he got a lot of unexpected work at Government House. I have just been telling him that that does not mollify me in the least. He made a business deal with me, and he has not been carrying it out. His slackness has given me a lot of extra work, and what is worse, a lot of irritation. I hate having to be really angry with people, and I feel more exhausted now, than after a good days work.
Are’nt I full of grumbles this morning? Its rather nice to get them off ones chest to someone thousands of miles away, who will obviously not be perturbed by them. A sad reflection engendered by little Bowers, ( the furniture contractor) is about the sad inadequacy of the average Anglo-Indian. If Bowers had carried on this work for us as he started, I would have recommended him to several people. I believe he could build up quite a flourishing little business, if he made himself absolutely reliable, but like all the rest, he lets opportunity slip, because he cant keep anything up.
* * * * * *
There was a pause here, while we went out to lunch, to meet the husband of one of the girls who used to come out into the mountains with me, and helped me with Girl Guides and all sorts of things before she went home in about 1936. She was then Marnie Atkins, her husband is Ramsay Chase. He has just arrived in India in the R.E.s. He is an architect by profession, as also is Marnie. He and another architect friend who is with him, have both been taken into the army and brought out here with the idea of using them for construction work, especially building temporary camps and barracks. Marnie, he tells me, is almost in the R.E.s herself. She is in the drawing office of one of the big depots in England. He seems a very nice fellow, and his friend equally so. They are likely to be in Calcutta for some time, so I hope we shall see something of them. I’d like them to use this house as much like their own home as possible. Its such a big place, that it is suited for that sort of thing. If I am busy I can retire to my own writing room. Herbert has his own sanctum too. From what I have heard, many men like to be able to have the run of a house where they are not entertained, but can just sit about and read or write or listen to the wireless, as the fancy takes them. The tennis court will be ready for play any time now, and they could use that if they wish, on the days when the New School does not want it. I must find out from the school how much of my offer of the Court they want to accept. I had another letter from a lad to-day, who has just arrived in a camp on the outskirts of Calcutta. He is one Gordon Lloyd with whose parents we shared a flat one Cold Weather when Annette was born. He is now in the Artillary. It looks as if we may have quite a collection of young men, glad of a home to come to. Gordon had found the name Townend in the telephone book, and had written to Winsome, who handed the letter on to me. As he was at Oakley Hall Winsome also feels an interest, and kindly said she should write and tell him to look them up too.
Calcutta is very much coming to life again after the holiday season, and my all too brief time for writing and doing my Himalayan Club work and attending to our various private affairs, is being much cut into by going out to see people, and entertaining them here. I love to see old friends and to meet interesting new ones, but it means still more adjustments for me. I have been racking my brains to think of someone less busy than myself, who would take on the Secretaryship of the Himalayan Club. Apart from the fact that it is so difficult for me to find time for it, it would be a good opportunity to train someone else in the job. Our Chairman has just gone over-seas, and some members have suggested that I should be Chairman. That would be splendid if only I could find a Secretary, for I could guide and advise, without having all the work to do. That was the way G.B. taught me the work back in 1933.
Talking of meeting new people, the Rankins gave a little dinner-party on Monday for me to meet the new American Consul. He’s a pleasant square-faced man, but I dont think he will ever become such a crony as Edward Groth was. Edward, by the way, has been sending me the most lovely pictures of the Canadian Rockies. I wonder whether I will ever see them?
Again on Wednesday evening, I met some extremely nice new-comers to Calcutta. The wife, Mrs. Muriel, was not at St Monica’s, but is an intimate friend of several of the girls who were members of the original school, and were head and prefects when I was there. We had a great chat, and I was then passed on to her husband, who was equally charming, and asked many questions about Australia and N.Z., giving every appearance of being really interested in the answers.
The Gourlays gave a little dinner party at the Saturday Club on Friday night, at which I met some old friends I had not seen for a long while, and yesterday Herbert and I had to go out to a wedding at a place about fourteen miles out of Calcutta. A young I.C.S. man was marrying the daughter of the missionary couple, who run an excellent school.
The wedding was extremely simple, and rather charming. The ceremony took place in the primitive chapel, built in the style of the Bengal country huts, that is thatched roof, with wide eves, making a sort of verandah all round, beaten mud floor, mud walls, half way up, and above that, bamboo open lattice work. On my side I looked out across a pond, and past a little group of thatched huts, to a wide stretch of rice fields, still bright green with groups of bamboos and coconut palms in the background - - - - in fact, a typical Bengal scene. In connection with such things as weddings, I like complete simplicity. The only thing I would have liked altered was the extremely wheezy harmonium, shockingly badly played by an earnest looking young missionary. I remember a year or two ago, going to a wedding in Dum Dum, where all the incidental music, wedding march and so on was made by a gramophone with amplifiers.
Work goes well, except that Idris has not been at all well this week. I have a suspicion that he has had a mild attack of Dengue, but he would not confess to it. I am satisfied to find that I am being accepted by men from other departments, as a responsible person. When first I joined up, they would look into the office, and if Idris were out (He spends two whole mornings a week at the National Service Labour Tribunal )- - - they would just go away. Now very often, they come in to me, and say “Can you tell me - . - ” Its the same over the phone. Instead of saying “Oh! I’ll ring again in the afternoon,” they ask me their questions, and very often I can give them an answer. One of the important parts of my job, is checking every morning that important letters actually have gone out. The best of babus have a passion for holding things up for the most trivial reason. Thus I look through the letter pad of the previous day, soon after I get to office in the morning, and consequently I am well up to date even about the matters I do not handle myself.
We get some gems from applicants for jobs now and again. As this; “I spent two years in Edinburgh, but came back without obtaining any degree or diploma: in fact no academic hallmark.” Or this: “Engineering side not doing well, but have now started jack-pot machines, which are showing good profit” - This perhaps is better still: “I am two scores and two young, with neat and healthy habits”. There are several more which I have noted for your enjoyment, but I’ll keep them for another week.
A letter came in from Gwen Petrie yesterday, so I am full of hope that there will be more home mail.
Best love
LJT
Family letter from HPV
Calcutta.
November 9th. 1941.
My Dear Annette (name handwritten)
This may be described as the third instalment of this letter; the first was the address written this morning before Winsome arrived to stop me, and the second the date, written this evening just before G.B. suggested a walk. It is now five to eight and it is a certainty that I shall not be able to finish more than a few lines before there is another interruption.
There is always a bustle and a noise on Sunday morning, because everyone thinks it a good day to get hold of the mistress of the house and often there are callers seeking something from me. Today there was more of a fuss than usual because all were disorganised by the multitude of invalids and the shortage of chambers. My caller was seeking not only a job for himself but as well jobs for his two sons. Such things are not easily come by: but I should be glad to help him, for he is the old gentleman who fainted with nervousness some years ago when I suddenly let out a few curses against Porter for his doings during my absence on leave.
As a token of appreciation I assured G.B. that I freely gave to him all my rights in a disreputable tomcat that has been prowling round. He was not grateful. Interruption while the bearer brought whiskey. The prescribed pre-dinner dose. Its efficacy would be the greater if I liked the taste of it. I suppose that it is the Protestant drink of all drinks; mortifying the flesh by attention to the spirit. I wish that the doctor had said that sherry which I quite like was the tonic to be taken daily.
To avoid the greater chance of green fly falling into my hair, I am sitting at the end of the verandah, with no light near to me and I cannot see what I am writing. It will be a nuisance if the whole thing comes out scrambled. Lately I have not been practising; for I have been typing each evening a letter to our New Zealand guide, Harry Ayres, who astonished us by writing a long letter in answer ti ibe wguch my dear Hia ---- cyraem ---- curse! see how my right hand slipped one space to the right, no . . . to the left, along the keyboard . . . . . . in answer to the one that my dear Joan had written to him months before when she sent him a pair of socks to replace those which he burnt up in the oven at Defiance Hut on our Mount Drummond climb, I think. Writing letters does not to my mind count as practice, because there is not the same attention to regularity of beat and to accuracy. I use a rubber on the letters, and have shown some cunning in cleaning up the regular family letter which is much easier to deal with than this because the larger type gives more space. But why the blinking thing should slip as it did then, I cannot imagine.
The wedding was a very good little wedding. It was not the Church of England service and I was left with a vague idea that they were therefore joined together in sin, but so long as they don’t think of it that way it makes no odds. However there is sufficient resemblance between the Baptist service and the “real thing” to make me remember that I had myself promised and vowed on a similar occasion. It was a bit of a shock to realize how much of it had been a slip-up and I think that it was a bit unfair to put in the parts about being cheerful, a matter beyond the conscious control of man. Incidentally, there was no rice throwing and no confetti; and this I think was unfair to the couple. The rice is to take the place of a brandishing of marriage lines; for when two people arrive at a hotel with every appearance of consciousness of not being married, the rice is a sort of passport or guarantee of respectability.
What pleasure it gave us to see a push-cart in the road turn suddenly without any warning, so that the stick-out bit in front transfixed the spokes of a push-bike! What pleasure also it gave the sub-human cooli who was pushing the push-cart! A strange accident that could happen nowhere in the world except Calcutta, because carts of that shape are known nowhere else. No harm was done, no malice engendered. In fact even the biker was apparently pleased.
I wish I knew how some men manage to do a Commissioner’s job without being overworked; I seem never to have any leisure. Of course having no vitality I am dead beat by four o’clock each day, whereas others are tough and enjoy their evenings. But it is a fact that they do less work too, if I may judge by my predecessors: and I ask myself how they set about subduing the conscience enough to be able to sit back and let bad stuff pass out of the office. One way of having less work to do is not to attend all the meetings of boards and committees of which one is a member; but this seems immoral. So I have reached the end of my paper. And I am still wondering how it is that it has worked crooked.
Much love Dad
(to Romey) I am told that I have to send this off at once, so no personal comments!
Much love, Dad
Family Letter from LJT No 41
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
Nov. 9th 1941.
Darlings all!
There seems no chance of writing a letter to each of you, so I just rattle off something for the three of you, just a degree more personal than the family letter.
Hope is high in my heart that I shall get letters from England soon! Thanks to Romey for two telling about the first days in the Botany Lab. I’d like to do and to see some of that work of making sections of things. Professor Crew told me that when H.G. Wells was a student doing biology, he had the most marvellous hand for making sections, and could have been a first class biologist had he so wished. Odd what tags of information one picks up from people. H.G. Wells is one of the people who infuriates Dad. Likewise G.B.S., and sometimes I have to remind him that I remember a time when I first knew him, and these men were something in the nature of little tin gods to him.
Does Richard remember Gordon Lloyd? I dont expect him to remember him from the age of two, when they used to live in the same house, but he was at Oakley Hall for a while. He had to leave for financial reasons.
Dad behaved pretty well at the wedding yesterday, though he did occasionally murmur that he had forgotten different promises he must have made when we were married. Also, while the bride and bride-groom were signing the register, he leaned across Walter Jenkins, who was sitting between us, and whispered, that he would give me a certain rather mangy pie dog, which was engaged in searching itself for fleas on the Bank of the pond outside. Do you remember the silly game we play with Idris of giving one another presents of things we happen to see or that hang about the house and garden? I dont know if anyone heard the whisper. If so they must have thought us a little mad.
I am looking forward to the two young men, the Sappers I mention in my family letter, just out from England, who are coming to spend the evening with us to-morrow, for I think we can hear a little about life at home from them. I’m lucky in that I do hear a good bit in the home letters, but its nice to get someone to talk about it and answer the questions one asks.
Ismail, the new bearer, who has replaced Bhim Das, is hovering and repeating, what he told me half an hour ago, that is that My bath is ready, so I suppose I had better go and have it.
Best love to you all, dear ones
From
Mother
From LJT to Annette
8 Theatre Rd
Calcutta – Nov 13th 1941
My darling Annette
Aunt’s letter of 24th Aug, with an enclosure from you, was a delightful surprise, for it was concealed amongst a whole packet of dull things like bills, receipts and circulars. I hope you had reasonably good weather for your holiday in Scotland. I know Aberdeen and Inverness and have had lunch in Montrose, otherwise I dont know the East Coast of Scotland. When you look back over the time since you left Oxford does it seem a sort of eternity? There is something about war conditions that seems to make one feel like that, even as far away as India. One begins to wonder whether it can be true, that there once was a time when the war was not going on. Looking forward too, seems just as unreal – The news has been a bit more cheerful the last few days. I wonder whether life in Germany is much more dislocated than it is in England.
I am sure the departure of Mr Evans must have been something in the nature of the lifting of a cloud for you – Its hateful having to be in contact with someone who is always taking offence and “blows up” at the slightest excuse.
Have you ever noticed how often if you get some information about something from one quarter, you often get more information from some other direction? Just before you wrote the description of the Quaker wedding, we had a young man dining with us who married a Quaker girl just before he left England a short while ago – He described the ceremony just as you did, and does not seem to have found it unduly embarrassing. I sometimes think I would like to revert to being a Quaker if I felt a real urge to belong to any religious community I am quite sure I like simplicity in any sort of worship. The words “Lift up your hearts” and the answer “We lift them up unto the Lord” – always gives me a bit of a thrill” –
16-11-34 As far as I remember, I was interrupted by a rather down-at-heels Anglo-Indian trying to get a job – and I hav’nt had a chance to go on since – Another lot of letters from England has come to cheer us – One way and another your letter has been a very long time on the road – It is dated July 19th – Aunts letter enclosing it was dated 8/8 – She had not written the day before – but asked Winsome to pass on a letter from her.
I hope you got “Insanity Fair” – I think its a better book than “Disgrace Abounding” – They are both interesting – They and Mowrer’s “Germany puts the Clock Back” are the three best books I have read on the immediately pre-war Europe –
So glad Christina has got a First – Please give her my congratulations if you can remember when next you write or see her – Its good of you to go over to see Mokes. I am glad to get news of her – What a strange unfulfilled sort of life she has had. I wonder whether she will get another chance and do better in another incarnation.
Thinking of the day when Romey was born, I suddenly had such a clear picture of you “in colour” as I remember you that day – Nannie had knitted you leggings coat and cap in sort of cocoa-coloured wool and you had bright bright pink cheeks and were a little puzzled about how this small live thing had arrived I think. I seem to remember some tale of Nannie’s about hearing you ask Richard whether Romey had come done up in brown paper –
You are a good child to give blood again and I like the story about the “intimate personal question – “ I can never understand this dislike for giving ones age. Anyone is welcome to know mine –
Best love, my dear from Mother
PS It will be lovely to have photos of you – If the cheap ones are not a success, will you have some decent ones done at my expense, for I do want a good picture of you –
Family Letter from LJT No 42.
8 Theatre Rd.
Calcutta. Nov 16th 1941
My Dears,
Tomorrow is Romey’s eighteenth birthday! Good luck to her!
At last I am really in sight of having the furniture in this house settled. The repairs and repainting are all finished, and Hubert Graham, who had left some things here, is back from leave in Africa, so I shall be able to find out whether he wants to take them away or not. It really will be a relief to be properly settled.
It was pretty clearly dengue fever that Helen Gourlay was suffering from, and she felt pretty bad on Sunday, so G.B. postponed his departure till Tuesday, rather to my relief. Luckily Helen was so much better on Monday, that the doctor allowed her to travel with G.B. on Tuesday evening. He reserved a carriage, so that Helen could lie down at once and be looked after by him and the bearer. It seemed a better way for her than waiting a few days, and then facing the two days and two nights in the train alone. As the Gourlays went, Robin Ross came back from Hospital, and is with us till to-morrow. He is terribly run down poor lad, and gets dreadfully worried and depressed. It is so easy to tell people not to make mountains out of mole hills, which is what he is busily doing, and apparantly so hard not to do it, if you have his sort of temperament. I think he was brought up very quietly in a Scotch Manse, and at St. Andrew’s University. From what he tells me, they don’t have a bit the same sort of life as at Oxford and Cambridge. He has a year at Oxford (I dont quite know how that fitted in), but in spite of that he still seems not to have found his feet very confidently in the great world. He’s a sensitive sort of lad, and always thinking he has done or said the wrong thing. Gordon Lloyd, the boy I mentioned last week, who had written to Winsome, in mistake for me, is the same age as Robin, but he has been brought up in a London flat, by a mother who had to divorce his father, and the contrast between the two young men is most marked. Gordon knows his way about the world, is confident of himself, and evidently accustomed to making decisions. Life is going to be much more difficult for Robin Ross, I should guess. Gordon told us quite a lot about life in London during the Blitz period. He was stationed at Woolwich then, but often got up to London. He was one of the sort who says it was rather fun when you could not get home from dancing in some underground ball-room, and all had to doss down on mattresses and cushions on the floor till morning. I suppose youth and confidence and not too much introspection are a great help in times like that.
We have been having rather too much of guests in the house for Herbert’s comfort. He had been building up tiredness, and on Monday I had invited Mrs Stanley as well as the two I met at lunch last Sunday (insert ‘young men’ after the word ‘Two’ above, please!) to come to dinner with us. I had told them all to come about 7 o’clock, and have drinks and talk before dinner, and go home soon after dinner, as I explained Herbert gets so tired. They came alright at 7 o’clock, but Mrs Stanley made no attempt to go afterwards, and stayed till almost 11 o’clock. Unfortunately we had had a string of visitors from the moment we arrived back from office, with the result that Herbert was just dead with fatigue by the time he went to bed. His digestion all went to bits, and he could not sleep. He looked and felt wretched the next day, so on Wednesday I persuaded him to stay in bed till after lunch, living on glucose and water for the first part of the day, and then on fish quenelles, and such like soft and easily digested food. He has been resting as much as possible and living on a very light diet ever since, and is now somewhat restored. This incident has made me realize that I must be constantly careful about his diet, and that I must not have people to dinner, unless he is away from home. He is going off to Jessore on Saturday, and it seems odd that I am not going with him. I had to excuse him from a cocktail party on Wednesday, and took Robin Ross with me instead. It is rather curious. In order to feel that they are not really giving parties in war time, people write little notes, saying “do come and have a drink with us on such and such an evening”, and when you get there you find that its just the ordinary big cocktail party, of which I, personally, am not at all fond. I found this one a waste of time. I did not have any lucid conversation with anyone I really wanted to talk to, and was conscious of all the things I would have liked to be doing at home! The evenings this week have been busy. I had people in on Thursday, taking the precaution to send Herbert to bed, or at least to lounge on the couch in his dressing-room, and have his dinner there, so that he would not be exhausted by too much company. I, myself, was out on Friday dining with a member of the Himalayan Club who is going to show us some colour films of Sikkim next week, and who wanted to show them to me first. They are nice people, and the films are good, so I enjoyed myself. Our new High Court Judge, who has just arrived from Madras, was there, and says that he is well impressed by Calcutta. This, he says, is a city, whereas Madras is a country town.
It was nice to have a quiet evening at home yesterday, with young Ross out at the pictures with some other friends. I am really looking forward to having the house empty again from to-morrow on. It sounds dreadfully inhospitable, but for six weeks now we have had some one in the house all the time, and it just makes it so difficult to get on with all the things one has to do.
We had quite a little party at Tollygunge yesterday afternoon. The New Zealand woman who lived in Chinsurah, and gave us introductions to her dear uncle and aunt, the Grangers, with whom we stayed in Wellington, brought her two daughters aged about fifteen and five respectively, to tea with us, and we were later joined by the Gurners with their three daughters and three large dogs. It was nice having tea out on the lawn, and got quite chilly before we left. On these cool lovely mornings we are getting now, I long to have a horse to ride. Its just as well I have not, for I should not have any time for it.
Today Herbert and I were to have gone to lunch with some people who have taken a house out in the country beyond Tollygunge, and are running a bit of a farm there. They are keeping cows and making their butter. They grow the crops for feeding the cows, and they are also growing soya beans, and various other things, as well as vegetables, and fodder crops for the boys’ ponies. I think they moved out there chiefly because they wanted a country life for these two small sons they fetched out from England. I am sure it must be a much nicer life for the boys than living in the town. I thought it would be tiring for Herbert to go out, and I was also afraid of his having the wrong sort of food, so made excuses for him, and again took Robin Ross in his place. The Forsyths are both very intelligent people, and its always a pleasure being with them. There is too much, rather than too little, to talk about with them, and it’s generally stimulating and profitable talk.
Winsome sometimes pays us a visit after church on Sundays, and she came in this morning, looking so sweet in a greenish frock and a dear little round white pill-box hat that suits her so well. She calls it her bicycling hat, because it does not blow off. I had mentioned to her the other day that I regretted buying a bicycle so quickly, because having taken on this job, I now have no time or opportunity to ride it. This morning she came to ask whether I would sell it to her. She bought one, rather small so that Charlotte could ride it. It has now arrived that Charlotte wants to ride with Winsome, so the only thing to do is get another bicycle. This fits in wonderfully for me.
The office work continues to interest and satisfy me. I can manage more and more on my own, without constant reference to Idris. By the way, I was going to tell you some more bits out of applications for jobs. These are quite good. “You do not mention the number of testimonials that have to be sent with each application” And this: “I have been trying to get foothold on stair of prospective life but all my attempts have been spoiled by class with mischievous heart.” Also: “I was doing well in 1933 in the Insurance line, but married an Englishwoman and got the sack.” Many such things as these lighten the seriousness of the office work, as also do a pigeon who is considering the advisability of building a nest in the rolled up grass screen blind on the verandah, and a young crow who brings his treasure culled from a dust bin or stolen from his pals, and eats them on top of the same blind. The Jewish girl I was instrumental in importing in place of the young Madrassi who was acting as stenographer when first I went into the office, is a great success, and gets through about five times the work that Mahadavan ever did. Encouraged by this, our office Superintendant, who is an Indian, has taken on an Anglo Indian girl as a typest-clerk, so we are getting quite a large female element in our section.
There have been many interruptions to this letter, so excuse me if I have been disjointed. Love to you all
LJT
From HPV to Romey
Calcutta, November 16, 1941
My dear Romey,
More evidence to confirm your belief that St. Francis had no advantage over me in the matter of being beloved by birds. You may remember how that bird used to batter at the window panes in order to get into the room where I was sitting? Now a dove went one better. Lying on a bed of sickness, asleep in fact, I was roused to life by the dove’s alighting on my shoulder. So far the evidence is convincing enough, but I have to add that with every appearance of alarm the dove moved off onto the floor and thence onto a box, where it remained with every appearance of despondency. It was a baby and scarcely able to fly. The crows had been mobbing it and I arranged for the bearer to catch it and take it to that part of the garden from whence it had come.
The Tollygunge expedition was yesterday. It is my first outing for some time. A lovely afternoon with the feeling in the air that the cold weather was not far away. Spoiled for me by the necessity for talking shop with Mrs. Henderson, who is Chairwoman of the Women’s Red Cross etc Committee; there is no sort of organization about the work, largely because she has never turned her attention to it before and there is a lot of annoyance among the women, who do the actual work, because they are not consulted or if consulted, have no authority. I come in as Chairman of the main joint Committee of the Red Cross and St John’s Ambulance; needless to say, I know nothing about the whole matter. The cry is for immediate action, whereas if I take it on me to do anything without making sure that I have authority to make changes, there may be a cry of protest. Mrs. Henderson failed to get things clear, and I was too tired to make much of an effort to understand.
I saw brother Harry and the two dogs, but dogs at Tollygunge are a nuisance, for they insist on giving loud yelps and barks when they see enemies or friends. Max lifted up his nose and produced a long wail when I came near, though till then he had been sitting as quiet as mice. Then Archie came in with excited barks, to my shame. There were other dogs making worse noises, notably two flea-sized dogs of the Hendersons, but that makes things no better when one is oneself involved.
Not a good week for me. Sworn to leave soon after dinner, our guests one evening stayed on and on and on; and I drooped with fatigue. So much so that when they left, I was too tired to get to sleep and too tired to abstain from having perhaps the worst attack of indigestion that has ever been my lot. Since then I have been without the necessary snap or intellect to tackle the ordinary affairs of life or the demands. Whenever I begin to look as if I should get my work up to date, a disaster of this kind falls on me. One result has been that I have not touched the typewriter for several days, and now I am making every possible mistake and annoying myself very much.
The silver lining has been the arrival of two sets of letters from home. They gave me much pleasure. Restoring confidence in the comparative normality of things. Out here everything is so much as it always was that it seems unreal. Now I shall retire to my bed, not to sleep, for it is not much past twelve, but to rest my back.
Much love,
Dad
From LJT to Romey
8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
Nov 16, 1941
My darling Romey,
It would have been nice to have written actually on your birthday, but if I wait to do that, something is sure to crop up to prevent it, so I begin sending you my love and good wishes now. How cold it was in Darjeeling the afternoon before you were born! I went for quite a good walk, and enjoyed the clear beauty of the snows. I remember Nurse Jefroy arriving eighteen years ago today, and laughing when I told her you would be born the next morning. It was good of you to back me up and prove me right! You have been a good punctual child ever since, as far as I remember. It will be nice if you have a Degree by the time you are nineteen, and pray heaven the war may be over by then, and that we shall be able to see one another again.
We were made sad on Friday night by the news of the loss of the Ark Royal, but what a mercy so few lives were lost! How interesting it is watching the working up of American feeling to preparedness for giving more and more help. It seems to me that mental and spiritual things grow in ways not unlike physical things. So constantly I come up against examples of the real ‘kismet’, which is that every action bears its fruit, sooner or later. I feel rather as if I would like to read some philosophy, but it won’t be able to get further than feeling! Some day I’ll have an orgy or reading, unless indeed I’ve lost the habit.
I feel a bit worried about this young man who is staying with us. He’s so fearfully introspective, and takes everything so seriously. It’s hard to know how much to urge people in his frame of mind to buck up, live a little more in the present, and not brood so much over difficulties, which as often as not, turn out to be imaginary. He has been pretty sick, poor lad, and fever makes one pretty depressed, but he could not be showing quite so much of this moodiness if he were not inclined to it at other times.
It was grand to get letters from home -- two lots this week. I am so glad that Aunt has managed to settle down into a fairly comfortable regime over the housework, and that Annie got away for a holiday in Scotland. They write cheerfully from home don’t they? It seems sad to hear from Aunt that Uncle G had moved to Parkstone. It seems so long since we had the sad cable about his death.
Ismail, the man who has taken poor old Bhim Das’ place as bearer, is a nice looking fellow, and quite a good needleman. He can even use the machine and has done several jobs of a simple nature with it, and managed them very well.
I especially like hearing about your botanical work, and it makes me rather envious. I would like to do some proper botanical study. This is a poor letter, but it must just go with, as always, my dearest love to you, and loving greetings to Cousin Susie and Helen and John.
Bless you, my darling,
Mother
Family letter from HPV
At Jessore (on tour)
November 22nd 1941
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
The mistakes are not typing mistakes but aberrations. My mind must be failing. Also I am a bit tired; tired before I started on the 74 mile motor drive, I was more so before I arrived. But the journey does give me something to write about for a change.
The road for most of the way was good as roads go in Bengal, and for that matter would not have been bad for a road anywhere, except for the last twenty miles or so. But any sort of decent average speed was out of the question, because there were any number of bullock carts and toe-gangers as well. None moving out of the way till the last possible moment. Of animals sitting in the middle of the highway the most important naturally were bullocks; of those who preferred to sit in lines across it I may mention men children dogs. Among obstructions a jovial market; crowds of bullocks carts, some yoked up and some merely left on the sides of the road so as to leave passage for one vehicle only, when that vehicle was by chance not a lorry. And it was a lorry that was stuck ahead of me when we reached this market. It took ten minutes to get through it; but the work and the nerve strain fell on the lorry crew, who appeared to be familiar with the place and to be able to use the more suitable abuse in consequence.
A strange type of pony-cart gave me pleasure. It was like a two-wheeled palanquin. A long box balanced on an axle and full of women and children peeping through shutters: drawn by a little horse, out of a box itself. To all appearance.
In a way a pretty road. Most of the way passing through avenues of big trees; huge trees some of them. But avenues of trees are monotonous. Also there was much jungle on either side for much of the way. The harvest had much of it been cut and more was being cut now; I should have thought it rather early, but I am a stranger in these parts.
To me unknown before in Bengal were the bridges constructed of boats. Two of them. Uncouth things, naturally. No attempt made to have decent approaches to them. One went down to water level and then climbed up steeply onto them, much as one has to climb onto a ferry. In a way fun. This is a decadent district. It is so because of interference with the waterways very largely, and so there has been resistance of late years to any schemes for contracting them by building bridges. If memory has not misled me, I myself managed some eight years ago to kaibosh a scheme for replacing one of these very ferry bridges by a proper bridge. As I rolled along I looked with despising eyes on the passers and thought how but for the perverse opposition of them and their like I might have been able to get the projects going that would have caused them no more to be dwellers in decadence. Which reminds me that I had meant to bring out the spelling book with me to improve my mind: but in the hurry of departure I forgot.
The countryside was beautiful with masses of water-hyacinth in flower. Rarely have I seen such fine plants of this pestilent weed as there are in these parts. The task of exterminating it of which the Ministers speak so glibly is not one likely to be put through while the war is on. I sometimes wonder whether the people like to look at its blossoms. Perhaps if one is used from childhood never to see water not covered with water-hyacinth one doesn’t mind it: the later generations are in this position and there must be comparatively few, seeing how short-lived people are hereabouts, who remember the happy time when one could use a boat or see clear water.
Cartloads of huge radishes lined the roads in places. Not the really huge kind that we used to see in Contai, but big enough from any European standard. Say about 18 inches long and four inches thick. Sometimes they were in the middle of the road instead: but wherever they were they lent colour to the landscape and a carnival air to the people near them. Green red and white: like confetti.
How noble the badli driver feels when driving my car! How grandly he pushes out his open hand against approaching cars to indicate that he will by no means give way! And how vexed and mortified he was when a tram swept past without caring what he thought or how he gesticulated!
There has been an interruption. The District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police have been in and since then I have had a bath and dinner.
There are many mosquitoes and it is colder here than in Calcutta lately; perhaps it is colder in Calcutta too this evening for it felt like the beginnings of cold weather there this morning.
All this is about today. Of the past week there is not much to be said. I lacked energy to go to the movies though the lad Ross said that a film was good: and I lacked rather energy for work. Be it mentioned that my Broken Ribs are better and my Belly ache is slacking off, I hope. In this Circuit House there is a notable pot, resting on a nest bracket on the wall of the bathroom like a holy water stoop. It must have been put in specially for the Governor, who incidentally is an R.C.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 43
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta
Nov. 22nd 1941
My Dears,
It feels quite strange, and rather like a holiday, to have this big house all to myself. Herbert went off in the car after lunch. He is going to spend ten days inspecting Jessore, a dull district, E.N.E. of Calcutta. Its a seventy mile drive along an almost straight road. Often I have followed that road in the air, and once Idris and I circled low over Jessore and landed on the emergency landing ground, just to see what it was like. That is the extent of my acquaintanceship with the place, and except that I should be company for Herbert, I am not sorry not to be going there now. About 3.45 Idris left, with only just time to catch the train for Delhi. He has to attend conferences, and all the members of his office spent the morning getting orders about what to do while he is away. The work of the office will stop to some extent, but it will be an opportunity to have a grand clean-up. I think it will do Idris good to get away from his office for a week. He won’t be able to work so hard in Delhi, and the weather should be lovely there now. I have plans to get all sorts of things done while the men are away. I always seem to have much more time when I am alone in the house. Its funny how, when one is busy, the thought of some uninterrupted time alone, is such a joy.
Herbert’s health has seemed very much better the last few days. I have written to the Collector at Jessore, asking him not to ask Herbert out to any meals, and to ask other people to be kind enough not to do so, because he must stick to his diet, and also not get overtired.
Of course our minds are full of the new campaign in Libya. One is constantly busy about other things, but the thoughts and the prayers are there all the time, ready to pop up directly the surface part of consciousness is quiet for a moment.
We have done little in the social line this week, but most evenings we have had people dropping in between office and dinner-time. Robin Ross left on Tuesday evening, and I had a nice letter from him yesterday saying he arrived at Mymensingh without any mishap, and that he is glad to find that it really exists, for he had been expecting to go there for so long, that it had begun to take on a sort of dream-like quality. Poor lad! I hope he will pick up his strength there, while the weather is cold and pleasant, and be quite fit before the hot weather comes round again.
There has been so little but office and the ordinary house-keeping round, plus some Himalayan Club work this week, that I dont seem to have a great deal to write about. I am feeling my feet more and more in my work now, and deal completely with lots of people whom I should have handed over to Idris a few weeks ago. There was one very amusing interview this week. We had an enormous application from an Indian gentleman, claiming many degrees and distinctions in Engineering, saying that he had invented many things and is prepared to invent almost anything we want, and that he is most anxious to do part time honorary work for Government, to help the war effort. He is a well dressed, neat, plump, rather robin-like man, with a stutter. Idris asked him some leading questions about his various inventions, but the little man found it so difficult to get out the answers, that each time Idris could not resist helping him, and when he had gone Idris said, “Why, Dam it! I supplied the answer every time, and I still dont know how much he knows”. On one occasion the man was trying to say the word ‘quinquennial’, and he quacked like Donald Duck, and could not get it out. We have come to the conclusion that he must be a bit cracked, though he must have some brilliance too, for his scholastic distinctions seem real enough. The problem is what to do with him. We just have no niche into which he could fit. One of my jobs next week is to get into touch with the Institute of Scientific Research, and see what they could do with him.
Before I end, as I shall do on this page, I must tell you a nice little story of a very vague, very excitable and very Scotch lady. She was invited to a meeting in support of Moral Re-Armament, and went. She sat confusedly through it for some time, and then whispered to a friend – “My Dearrr! It seems this meeting is about M.RRR.A., and I thought it was to be about A.RRR.P.”.
A delightful letter has just come from Mary Ow Wachendorf from America, with a splendid description of her journey by Air from Java to Honolulu, and to America by steamer (Funnily enought the same boat on which we crossed from New Zealand to Australia) Mary has a marvellous turn for description and a keen sense of humour.
Best love
LJT
From LJT to Romey
8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
Nov 22, 1941
My darling Romey,
With two letters from you to answer, the map of Winnipeg spread on the table before me, and no one to interrupt, I have been very happy for the last half hour, but have not got on very fast with the business of answering your letters. Apropos of the map: I have been trying to find the University. Does it come into this map? Fort Garry is right on the edge. Also where is “the City”?
I’ve noted down such a lot of things to talk about that there is danger this letter will become nothing but a string of comments. Before moving onto anything else, will you forgive me if I make some comments about your typing, fully realizing that I share your faults, and appreciating the fact that you give a lot of your small stock of spare time to writing these excellent and altogether enjoyable letters to us. First, don’t be quite so economical about ribbons and carbons, because the faint imprints are sometimes so difficult to read. Next I notice a favourite fault of my own. When writing capitals, I don’t keep the shift key down long enough, with the result that the letter flies up in the air or down below the line. Next, I notice that your touch is very uneven. Many letters don’t print, or are so light that they are almost invisible. I don’t suppose anything will cure this but practice and attention. I think one should use ones fingers with the same sort of action that one uses on a piano. It is worthwhile making the effort to cure these faults, for if you always let them slide you will never get out of the habit. I am a bit like that with my faults. I admire Dad, who when he notices that he is doing something badly, invents an exercise and works at it, till he thinks he has cured the fault. I am terribly sorry now that I did not make a more determined effort when I was young to cure my spelling. I even had hopes of improving it by studying the book Dad bought for me soon after we returned to India, but I have scarcely had time to open it.
You seem just about as busy as I am. The Sorority doings must take up quite a bit of time, but I suppose Mrs. Gibson’s visit was rather a special occasion. I was awfully interested to hear about the Exhibition of pictures of the Fire of London. How strange that you should have met the man from Essex there, and it’s nice you found him a pleasant companion. The movie, “Here comes Mr. Jordan” is being advertised in the papers here today, as “Coming Shortly”. I must go to see it.
The account of how Polo and the beavers fell for one another, has delighted Idris and various other people. I wonder whether beavers and dogs always get on, or whether this was a special case.
It’s nice to hear a bit about your clothes now and again, for it makes me feel sort of near you. It’s cute of you to have thought of having those dresses made into skirts. I hope they will be successful.
The letter from Mary Ow Wachendorf, which I mentioned in the family epistle, is really so interesting. In it she mentions that she and her mother (who is American) did a round of visits during the Summer, and got as far north as Vermont, on the borders of Canada. She thought often of you when she was there, and wondered whether you had got through your exams. She is rather dreading the cold of the American winter, and says she does not think she could endure Winnipeg’s 40 below! I wish you could meet her and Baroness Giskra (her mother) some day. They are both such darlings.
Dad has been in rather good spirits the last few days, and he and Idris have been full of nonsense. I’m terribly impatient to see your portraits! I do hope they are good. It will be lovely to have some new pictures of you, and perhaps soon of Annette as well. By the way, did I tell you how interested the Gurner family were to see a lot of the snapshots you have sent to me? There are lots of other things I had noted out of your letters to talk about, but there’s not going to be any more room.
Best love to Cousin Susie and Helen and John. Oh! I suppose I ought almost to be sending Christmas wishes. I do with all my heart. Special love to you my darling daughter,
From Mother
From LJT to Annette No 43
8 Theatre Road. Calcutta-
Nov 231941
Darling Annette
How odd that date looks! I let my mind wander, and my fingers ran straight on!
In spite of being alone in the house, I’ve left your and Dicky’s letters rather late, but I’ve had a grand morning of turning out! There is a store room here, and we have also stuffed a lot of boxes into a go-down. I have had a general review of all these things, and a great re-arranging of the store room and store-cupboard. I have also superintended the washing of two green and white floor rugs out of Dad’s room. They are wool with a coarse pile. Washing them is very like washing a terrier. We spread them out on a cement floor, made them thoroughly wet, and then rubbed soap on them, and worked it about with our hands, and oh boy! (as Uncle H.D. would say) were they dirty!
I am enjoying being alone, and by great luck I only had one visit this morning. That was from the man who was Dad’s Personal Assistant in Chinsurah. He is a nice, very old fashioned, orthodox Hindu.
My thoughts keep rushing off the Libya. I meant to catch the news this morning, but missed it. I’ll miss it again this evening, as I am going to the pictures at 6 p.m, but as I am going with the Editor of the Statesman, he will be able to supply the latest bulletin.
Robin Ross left one of Buchan’s books here; “Sickheart River”. I took it downstairs to read during dinner time, and found I was quite enjoying it, so I read a bit more at lunch, and when I have finished these letters, I shall lie down for a little and read some more. Its simply ages since I read a novel, and its rather fun to be taking interest in someone else’s life story again.
By the way I asked Robin Ross how he came to be at Oxford, when he had taken his degree at St Andrew’s, and yet had not sat for the I.C.S. exam. This is the explaination. He was given a scholarship to study Classical manuscripts, but asked to be allowed to take Greats instead, which was granted, only the war came; - - - - -
He was much enchanted by Francesca Gurner, whom he met at Tolly yesterday week ago. She is a charming creature, I must say, Her eyes are her very special beauty, just as are her mothers’, but she has grown up into an exceedingly nice girl. Walter Jenkins says she is a most capable kindergarten teacher. She was supposed to help a thoroughly trained woman, but the woman has been ill most of the time since the New School started, and Francesca has carried on alone.
The School certificate exam comes on early next month, and the two younger girls are busy working for it. I dont know what their standard of brains is. I know Cyril has always envied us you. He longed for a son or daughter with really scholarly tastes, which he evidently considers you have, from what he hears. He grows more eccentric each year, I think. He has been very ill lately poor chap. He had a sort of sudden collapse when he was on holiday in Darjeeling, due to very high blood pressure or something of the sort.
Finding how tremendously busy I am, I really am glad that I have not got the two school boys living here. It would have been hard to find any time in which to cope with them.
Its amusing to me how much Idris and Dad play to-gether. They are always at their game of finding faces in photos and pictures, and they have had a whole new field for it lately, for I had a whole lot of pictures of Japanese poets, which my father had had put away, for years and years, framed, and hung on the dining room walls. Their incredibly elaborate garments hold all sorts of animals and faces according to these two ridiculous men. They indulge in all sorts of verbal absurdities too. Something was said about a kite on a tree sitting on a “horizontal spot” “Would’nt that be rather stretching a point?” said Idris! Its nice that they get on so well.
How strange to think that you will get this after the turn of the year, and have begun looking forward to the spring.
Well, I shall write to Dicky now, and then rest and read awhile, a real Sunday treat.
Best love, my dear.
Mother
P.S. Please give my love to Anne. I hope she is still near you.
Family letter from HPV
At Jessore
November 29th 1941
My dear Annette (handwritten name)
It seems as if months had passed since I came to this place, a week ago really as I can see from my engagement book. The monotony of inspection is deadening. My routine has been much of a muchness each day: after breakfast letter to my dear Joan and not much of a letter either. Then files. Then the stenographer, and the dictating of a few official letters and of the results of the inspection of the day before. An annoying performance because my stenographer, an Anglo-Indian, knows none of the ordinary official jargon and pretends to know no Bengali expressions even those commonly used in every office whether official or commercial. At eleven inspection begins; a wearisome affair of looking through page after page of registers or of case-records or of correspondence, much of it in illegible handwriting. Lunch at one or one-thirty or a quarter to two according to the time of my breaking off the inspection, ten minutes on my bed in a swoon of sorts, and then again inspection from 2.30 to 4.15 or any time up to 5 o’clock. Tea is followed by half hour’s walk, sometimes; and at 5.30 or 6 by another visit of the stenographer.
He has gone sick today. And tomorrow he will return to Calcutta. I have failed in my design of getting my inspection notes typed up to date the day after the inspection. Because he has failed to deliver the stuff. And if he speaks the truth when he says that he has had fever for three days it is not his fault. He thinks that it is malaria because this has a reputation for being a most malarious hole; but this idea is bunk because it takes more than six days for malaria to develop after one is bitten by the mosquito and he arrived only on Monday. I have no luck in my stenographers; though I admit that I must be a devilish person to stenog for, because I expect the stenographer to have intelligence.
It is a pity that I did not ask the miserable Peggy to come out and work for me. I abstained for the two reasons that I thought that it would destroy her chances or hopes of marriage: and that the idea of asking her never occurred to me.
The cat has visited me again in a lordly way. To it has been added a dog; I was worsted by the dog in an encounter. It lay in a spirit of obvious ownership on the verandah in plain view from my bed; and after shooing it in vain I arose and went out to chase it. It got the better of me by rising, advancing, bowing and saying that it was pleased to make my acquaintance. None the less I shooed it off by means of a genial blow with the book in my hand; and now it looks upon my appearance in its neighbourhood as that of some old friend.
Walking this evening I was pleased by the adroitness of a bullock which by the simple device of bowing its neck from under the yolk caused the driver of the cart who was sitting on the shaft near it to fall in the dust.
There is an absurd sundial here in front of one of the offices. It consists of a low wall joining two side walls about six feet high to a central wall parallel to them: this central wall is a gnomon and its shadow falls on the connecting and side walls upon which the hours are marked. Why anyone should have built this huge structure (comparatively) merely to tell the time instead of making a small sundial the Lord knows: there is nothing about it in the District Gazetteer.
Carter the Judge at Barisal in our time built himself a series of sundial, of which the smallest was a cigarette tin and the largest the house in which he lived. It had a cement drain round it and he marked the hours along the edge of this so that the shadow of the house falling on it did the necessary trick. But who would wish to go out at all hours of the day to discover what the hour was? Moreover, the time when one most wants to know the time, is in the night, and no sundial is much use then, except as a contemplation piece.
Moreover the time when one most wants to know the time is in the night and no sundial is much use then except as a contemplation piece.
The paper is shifting round as I proceed and is going fan-like. Four sheets of paper and three carbons. Is the typewriter defective or do I do something wrong with it?
At intervals with a thud whitewash or plaster falls from the ceiling onto the floor. My friends the singing sparrows, of which I may have told the family or may not defile the verandah in a similar manner. Obviously this house is of great use to the animals even if not occupied by man.
The palace guard greatly enjoy presenting arms. I have to go out before breakfast to be saluted thus and when I am at the Magistrate’s office I am asked to walk about twenty yards and down some steps before the treasury in order that the guard there may salute me also.
This evening I went out for a walk and visited the river in front of the Magistrate’s office although this is where I go twice a day on business; and I gazed with envy on the massed ranks of water hyacinth waving happily in the breeze. If only I had had it at Chinsurah for my humus heap.
Much love
Dad
Family Letter from LJT No 44
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
Nov 30th 1941.
My Dears,
Some English letters have come in during the last few days, and I have been full of hope, but so far only one from the Bank has arrived. We have had letters from Romey, “the quickest ever”’. They were posted Nov 9th and reached us on Nov 26th. It is good that she seems so well and busy.
Herbert is still away and does not come back till Tuesday. Idris got back last night in time for dinner. He looks well, compared with what he did when he went away, but has lost weight. We talked shop unblushingly all through dinner and after, as we had no one to complain against it. Herbert writes that his indigestion is distinctly better. The officials have been good and have not worried him to go out to parties, so though not exciting, his stay in Jessore should not have proved too exhausting. Inspecting must always be tiring, I imagine, for the whole point of it is to be constantly on the alert.
Far from having little work to do while Idris was away, I have been busy right up to five o’clock on every day except Friday, when I found myself with nothing special on hand by 4.30. Yesterday I did not get home from office till 1.45. I am well satisfied that there is work I can do without having Idris at hand the entire time.
Last Sunday evening, I had an odd experience. I was out with Arthur Moore, the editor of the “Statesman”, and we went to the Six-O Clock Pictures. Arriving five minutes late, we were surprised to see the lights full on. The audience soon began to get impatient and started to clap. The Manager came before the screen and said there had been a break-down, but it would be repaired and the show would go on in five minutes. A few minutes later he came again and said it would not be possible to have the show. By this time it seemed too late to try another cinema, so we went back to Arthur’s house and talked and listened to his beautiful electric gramaphone till dinner-time, really, a more pleasant way of spending an hour or so, than watching a rather indifferent film.
Monday was a busy day for me, as there was a Himalayan Club lecture in the evening. The show was of coloured films of Sikkim, and it was a successful evening. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and glad to meet to one another, and the party did not break up till midnight. I had a little party here on Thursday, Rex Fawcus, my two architect friends from Fort William, whom I have mentioned in the last few letters, my New Zealand friend, Gwen Wright Nevill, and Elaine Mackenzie, whose parents were at Chinsurah with us. It was just the sort of evening I like. Everyone seemed interested in what the others had to say, and there was lots of entertaining talk. Both Ramsey Chase and Tom Hewitson are possessed of a pretty wit, and we did a lot of laughing. These two young men rang up at lunch time yesterday to say if I was prepared to make my invitation to tea at Tollygunge some time, good for that afternoon, they would get a taxi and drive me out there. I was delighted, for the only barrier had been lack of car, since ours is away with Herbert. We had a delightful afternoon, and were joined by the Gurners after tea. Tom Hewitson made us shake with laughter at his descriptions of how his bearer is training him in the proper “Dustoor” of this country. What a boon to be able to enjoy the humour of such simple happenings, and other people enjoy it too! We went quite a good walk round the golf course as the players began to tee off. The weather is so lovely now, and its nice to get out into the country.
One evening I went to dinner with Harry and Winsome, and had a happy time with them and the dogs. Maxie always gives me such a nice greeting, and often comes and lies squeezed against my feet. Charlotte now goes to the New School, and likes it very much. It is just opposite Harry’s house. When the bell goes at the end of the school morning, Winsome says both the dogs spring up to go and fetch Charlotte home.
When I was talking about the office, I forgot to tell about the new pins in my pincushion. I sent for some. Presently the Orderly came round the screen with such a smile on his face, and placed the pincushion in front of me. On top he had done a splendid “V” flanked by a star on either side, while round the edge in a fair copperplate hand was traced in Pins “Mrs Townend”.
Best love to you, my dears
LJT