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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

1941 September

From LJT to Romey

8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
Sept 1st, 1941

My Darling Romey,
Thank you for the splendid batch of three weeks letters, plus a personal note, which arrived a few days ago. It was a great treat to get them, for it seemed a long time since we had had any letters. Stupidly I left the last I received in Australia in the suitcase that is following us by sea, so I can’t check up to see whether there has been any gap, but I don’t think there has. Your letters were about your work, the other members of the chemistry class, tennis and the hot weather chiefly. I am awfully glad that the Summer School is working out more agreeably than you expected it to do. It sounds as if you are managing to put in quite a lot of work as well as fun. I really meant to put that the other way and say “quite a lot of fun as well as work”, but as so often happens when one of the servants comes and asks me a question, my fingers go on tapping out something ahead of the place they have really got to!
Taking on this war job is going to make it necessary for me to readjust my scheme of life a great deal. I have always been accustomed to looking after all our family affairs, as well as running the house and social side of our existence. All these things will have to find place, and I shall have to be very systematic if I am to cope with them all. Inevitably I shall have to cut down my letter-writing a bit. Perhaps it will be a good thing, for I think I am inclined to be verbose, and drift along, writing at considerable length, because it is easier than making things concise.
I have been thinking a good deal about Christmas presents for Cousin Susie and Helen and for you. I am going to try to find some engaging little trifles to send, but I want to give you each, and John as well, some decent present, and I don’t want this to come out of your ordinary money. I am therefore asking Dad to sign a paper which I will enclose, telling the Eastern Trust Co, to send you so many dollars, (the sum to be filled in by you) from the credit balance which was in hand after your allowance had been paid at the end of last year. I would like you to get Susie and Helen each some really nice thing costing say five or six dollars each, or a little more if it means getting something you think they would really like. I would like you to get yourself a nice present round about the same sort of price as well. I am sending a letter from Dad and a couple of snapshots of ourselves that way, and it should reach you in plenty of time for Christmas shopping. If its late, just write and ask for the money yourself. The Eastern Trust Co were instructed to pay it to you at your request, so there should be no difficulty.
A climate like that of Winnipeg, where it is nearly always either too hot or too cold, must be very trying in many ways, and it must be so difficult to build the houses so that they are suitable for either sort of climate. I hope you will get away to the Lake of the Woods again for a little while before the new term starts.
An amusing thing happened about the snapshot of you in your fur coat. I had been carrying it and one of Annette about in the same cellophane envelope with the professional photos of Richard. I sent Richard’s photos off to the little Babu shop where they always frame things for me, with a note asking them to frame then enclosed photos. When they came back there were not two, but five pictures, for there the two little ones of you and of Anne, and also an enlargement of the one of Dicky as a blue jacket with his arm round your shoulders! However I am glad to have them all framed. They are standing on the top of my writing bureau, so that I see them all the time.
The prospect of this job is exciting me very much. For so long I have been wanting to do something. I do hope I should be a success, and able to take quite a good bit of work off Idris Matthew’s shoulders.
You can’t think what a relief it is to hear that our trunks from Australia are almost here. I began to feel they would never come. In this extremely hot and sticky weather, one has to change ones clothes so constantly, that it is tiresome to be on short commons. I had worn most of my cotton frocks down to the last possible appearance before I left, so had to get some new ones and am glad I have managed to get them made before my work starts. Best love, my darling daughter, Mother


From LJT to Annette

Sept. 4th 1941

8 Theatre Road.
Calcutta.

My darling Annette

There is a pause in the office work – Idris away at a meeting and I am waiting for some files and references before I can get on with anything so I take the chance of writing to you, for I can see that it is going to be very difficult to find time for letter-writing, now I am in office all day. This is only my third day in office and so far I like it, and find it quite a rest cure after the job of unpacking and moving into our new home. So far I am chiefly noseing round and finding out what all the work is about – Every person and every department is known by a string of letters and at first its a job to memorize all these – Still I have been able to do some work – and by the time I have had a week or two’s experience, there will, I am sure, be a very full day’s work for me here. I have always rather envied the people who could do their work in offices, so that servants, private phone calls and casual visitors were not butting in all the time – and I do like working under these conditions very much. I have an idea, too, that working under some one else’s directions, is much less exhausting, than being responsible for all decisions, which, in a sense, I have been all my life, for Dad will so seldom give an opinion.

For the time being I see little prospect of reading anything much outside the daily paper – In Chinsurah I used to get almost an hour’s reading in the early morning, but that time I devote partly to writing notes and partly to reading the paper while I drink my cup of tea. People have been in every evening, and either stayed rather late so that we have not had dinner till 8.30 or past and by the time we have settled down afterwards I am too sleepy for any thing, but a little knitting and listening to the news and then bed at 10.o’clock. This hot damp weather makes one very sleepy of an evening.

In a sense this summer seems to have passed so quickly – and I hate to think of the long dark evenings ahead of you –

Best love, my dear.
From
Mother


Family Letter from LJT No 32

8 Theatre Rd

Calcutta.  Sept 6th 1941

My Dears,

Since Tuesday I have been working every day in office.  Even without any knowledge of the work, there has been plenty for me to do, and odd times when there is not anything immediate on hand, I read up the files of various matters which are under consideration, so that bit by bit I shall get a good working knowledge of the work.  Dealing with the preliminaries of people who come for interviews, or taking down what they want to know when Idris is out at one of the several tribunals he has to attend, and answering telephone calls and sending phone messages, is in itself, a function that does save Idris’ time.  Some mornings I go with Idris, leaving here at 9.10 a.m., and other days I go with Herbert at 9.45 a.m. The later time suits me better, as it gives me time to attend to my household, telephone orders to the shops, and give ear to the dozens of small affairs that crop up in an Indian menage.  I take my lunch to office, partly because I think it much less trouble than coming home, and partly because of the petrol rationing.  Idris suggests that I lunch with him at one of the neighbouring restaurants, but I think that would be all wrong.  Secretaries, however “honorary” they are, or respectably advanced in years, should not lunch with the employer they serve.  Moreover, the idea of having lunch in a restaurant every day is repugnant to me.  Its an invitation to eat too much!  Herbert phones from his office about 4.15 p.m. to let me know when he is leaving, and that gives me about five minutes to collect myself and go down to the entrance to join him.  His apparantly short office hours, are explained by the fact that he does a lot of work in his office here.  Idris seldom leaves office till after 7 o’clock, works all Saturday and on Sunday mornings.  I hope that when I get hold of the work a bit more, I shall be able to take more off his shoulders, and a man in one of the Insurance Offices here, has volunteered to do a few hours work each morning, so that ought to relieve the pressure a bit.  I have always thought I should like working in an office, where the work is the thing, and not treated, as it invariably is in a house, as a thing that can be pushed aside for any casual visitor, or any trivial household affairs, and I certainly do like it.  After my first day, Idris enquired if I did not feel tired, but I had found the days’ work in office almost a rest cure after the couple of weeks during which I have been getting this house in order.

The outside work means considerable adjustments in my usual method of life.  For instance the time I generally devote to letter writing will have to be much curtailed.  To some extent that will happen automatically, for there won’t be so much to “write home about”.  When I get home in the late afternoon, I enjoy my home, and feel a strong inclination to stay there, and not go out.  I have scarcely been out at all this week, but a lot of people have been in to see us in the evenings.  My dear Louise Rankin and her husband had dinner with us on Thursday.  Louise is also very busy compiling a Cookery book, which is to be sold for War charities. It is to be “American Dishes for the Indian Table”.  She always has lovely food in her own house, and the book should be interesting.  At last our boxes have come from Sydney, and it is a satisfaction to have all our belongings about us again.  It is not true to say “all”, for we have still three suitcases and a hat box coming from Brisbane.  They contain mostly warm clothes and thick boots, which we do not much miss at the moment.

Sept 7th  Last night I had to stop in order to change and go out to an evening of delightful music.  A young man from the Dunlop Rubber Co near our old Chinsurah home, is going off for military training on Tues. and he came to spend last night here.  When I asked him what he would like to do, he suggested listening to the gramaphone records of “The Marriage of Figaro”, which belong to a Judge friend of ours.  Mr Arculus and I had listened to “Don Giovanni” before I went away, at this same house, and he had loaned his complete set of records of “The Magic Flute” to the judge.  All was arranged.  We got to the house at 6.30.  There were a couple more guests.  We listened to half the opera before dinner, and the other half afterwards.  The records are most beautifully done. They were made by the Glynebourne Opera Co.  This morning Herbert and Idris and I had to go to a special service in the Fort at 8.30.  The staff work was so bad that it threw Herbert into a raging temper, and the service itself was not at all impressive.  It was in the open air, and to be impressive out in the open, a thing has got to be on a large scale.  There was a terrible muddle about car arrangements, with the result that we were not home to breakfast till past 10 o’clock.

Later in the morning we had an unexpected visit from an old friend who retired from India a good many years ago, and has come back because of the War.  He is a man called Renwick, for long years head of a Sugar Mill business in central Bengal.  His wife used to bring their beautiful English horses up to Darjeeling in the Rainy season, and I used to help her to keep them exercised.  Actually he came to see Herbert about some official matters, but we had a lot of family talk too.  In this way the morning passed, pleasantly, but without my touching any of the writing I had intended to get done.

Idris and I went off to a film the other night, just on a sudden whim, but the choice of films this week was not good.  We plumped for “Neutral Port”, thinking that Will Fyffe and Yvonne Arnaud are both good, but alack!  The film was too silly for words.  No one had bothered in the least to think out the possibility of making the story or the characters credible, and they were not in the least real.  However we saw some really interesting pictures of the Russian Army, and enjoyed Donald Duck’s antics.  Added to which I met my dear old friend, Mr van Manen, whom I had been wanting to see.

The house is gradually taking shape, so to speak, but I shall be glad when I get rid of the strange furniture, and have my own installed.  There are a lot of things I want to do in the garden, but have had no time to tackle them.  There is a good tennis court, the use of which I shall offer to the school, since Herbert and I do not want to play, but a tennis court is always an awful nuisance during the rains, for its almost a full time job for two men to keep it weeded, and pick out all the coarse grass that comes into it, about which one does not worry on an ordinary lawn.  My heart yearns for all the nice things I put into the garden at Chinsurah, rose trees, lily bulbs, small cypress trees and lots of bourgainvillias.

Idris Matthews came into residence here last Sunday, and it seems so natural to have him living in the house.  I think he is happy to be here.  He had got tired of living in the Club and tired of the Club food.  The petrol rationing will curtail his flying very greatly, though most of what he has been doing since the war started has been for Government in some way.  He has acted as a target for anti-aircraft guns, and he has given some preliminary training to one or two young men.  Its a long way for him to get out to the areodrome from here.  From Cossipore it only took ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.

The men with whom I was dining last night were asking a lot of questions about Australia and the Australians, and one of them told a story I liked.  He was on a boat with a lot of Australian passengers.  Lord Inchcape was also on board, and somehow made himself unpopular with the Australians.  One day he was pointing out the Southern Cross to a group of passengers, and saying in rather a loud voice what a beautiful constellation it was.  An elderly Australian who happened to be passing, asked him if he really thought it beautiful.  He replied that he did.  “Well” said the Australian, “God will be pleased”.  Another tale I have just heard is slightly rude, but made me laugh.  An Anglo Indian girl was had up before the judge because she had been guilty of indecent behaviour in the Eden Gardens.  “Why did you behave  like that in the gardens, young lady” asked the Judge.  “Oh!  You see” said the girl, “Father gets angry if I do it in the house”.

Charlotte and Nurse have gone to Darjeeling, but I have not heard any news of their doings there yet.  Oweing to my having undertaken the job in the Dept. of Supply, I shall not go up at all.  The Dept. will keep on working through most of the Puja holidays, or at any rate, part of the staff will.  In a way I am rather glad not to have to plan for more travelling when we have so recently settled down after months of it.  Herbert will go up for the Commissioner’s Conference from Oct 6th to Oct 11th.

Time for tea, and so I’ll say good-bye and bless you all

My love to you

LJT

Family letter from HPV

8 Theatre Road
Calcutta.
September 6th 1941. Saturday

My dear Annette

All this week to tell the truth my temper has been execrable. It has been most apparent in office, where I have a most inefficient and self-satisfied set of clerks, sufficient to induce displays of rage in the mildest (provided that the mildest was not prepared to tolerate inefficiency), but not altogether suppressed in the bosom of the home. It is poisonously hot and sticky these days. Many are not so calm as once they were. It is becoming obvious that confusion is rife and that if things are to be pulled together more energy than I can raise at this season will have to be shown. Lament for me the small probability that I shall ever find the time to write my agreeable Guide to the Development Act. The smaller probability that anything will at any time, war or no war, be done under it is also lamentable: but one thing at a time and at this time the grief is the obstacle to preparing the Guide without which it is sure nothing will be done. I should like to leave all things ready in case a change of heart comes over the pleasing Bengal politicians and they come to pay some regard to the fact that scarcity and disease in the province are with us because they look on them with indifference. But such things are.

Daily my dear Joan takes her little nose-bag and sallies out to office. She is taking under her wing that branch of the munitions work that falls to the lot of Idris Matthews; and if I know anything of her enthusiasm and disposition she will before long be managing chunks of it. She has her lunch in a small suitcase. This is a knife thrust into my back; for I have struck against the lunch in office these many years and her happy acceptance of it is a tacit criticism of my manly refusal to submit to any form of discomfort. However I have renounced the habit, enjoined by the New Zealand doctor, of lying down after lunch: shortage of petrol forbids much use of the car and a double trip to take me back here and then to return to fetch her is out of the question. So instead of bringing back work to do in the house I work in office in the afternoons and pick her up as I come back.

There is less to do here in a sense, than in Chinsurh where if all else failed as it always did I could cut deads in the garden or prune or visit my manure pits. Here one would have to walk heavily along grubby streets in the absence of petrol for the car and somehow this prospect does not appeal greatly. Cycle? that ought to be the solution, but with heavy black clouds threatening it does not tempt. I have walked round to the Saturday Club several evenings to get books. Blood and thunder books. Dull; but bearing no relation to reality and so not causing gloomy thoughts.

We have had people in some evenings. Pleasant people too but in the evenings, when the evenings are as hot as these, I am tired and not over-anxious to talk with anyone. It was rather a relief to have yesterday free; at least though people came in their purpose was to talk about a particular expedition in Sikkim and take notes, so I sat afar and practised typing. Not much of this, of late, but in spite of making a mistake just then at the thought of what I was going to say, I do believe that the practice of tapping rhythmically on the space bar as advised by Hal’s book has had some good effect. Fewer failures to hit the space bar hard enough. Louise Rankin who came in to dinner the other night was encouraging about this: she has typed for years and was at one time a secretary but still finds her little fingers weak - so that she entered with relish into the discussion of exercises to be composed for the special purpose of strengthening them. Such as the one about the prospecting opposite Oporto. But there is not much opportunity of getting hold of this machine for the purpose of practice; for on many occasions I am too tired and on more I select a time when the typewriter is wanted by its owner. Tonight Joan has gone out to listen to opera on a gramophone, and to dinner; so I have a free hand with this and am already rather tired of it.

Dinner over I resume. Matthews also was out and I ate in quietude, reading a book. It was a holiday today and I did not go to office. But I had no more peace here than I should have had there, for there came in first a young Bengal I.C.S. officer to discuss some perfectly futile suggestions that he has put up to Government about providing rural credit and after him a subordinate magistrate against whom charges of using pressure to raise war-funds have been brought by various Congress supporters. The odds are more or less even whether the charges or the denials are lies; a good deal on both sides, probably. It was a pity that they came in and that I have a sufficiency of kindness to listen to them; there was much that I might have done otherwise. There is a holiday also on Monday, so I shall have a clear day or half of one to make up the arrears which still exist as a legacy of my tour with the Governor. The afternoon will be devoted to a meeting to discuss what must be done by way of precaution against panic and such after air-raids; we were discussing this before I went on leave last October, discussing it in June for that matter. Much has been written since and I wonder if anything has really been done. The difficulty is that in the opinion of many there will be panic if we start telling people about what raids are likely to be like and what they should do during them; and if panic then loss of labour needed for war material. The difference to India after the war is over with all these men newly trained as mechanics should be stupendous - and that is a word that I have used merely because I hit the wrong key.

I have seen little of the Hal-Winsome family of late. Do you call them the D.T.s? Initials in our family work out fairly well for descriptive purposes, but for madness natural or induced by drink Hal has no bent and the label is unfortunate. We meant to ride out to Alipore to see them last Sunday but they turned up here in the car. He goes down to office in a bus which has been hired or bought by a number of business men to make a special trip, carrying a crowd, to their offices each morning. So though his petrol allowance is no more than mine he can use some of it for social purposes. I cannot go by bus because there is none such for this area and besides I have to drag around an armed guard in case some terrorist has a crack at me, unlikely though that is. Hence some difficulty about going down to office on a bicycle or on a tram or on foot; not that this last appeals to me, for it would probably in this weather break me up. No one apparently goes down to office on foot; but some walk back in the evening.

Have I mentioned that I had a bathe the other evening? With the partial black-out (but the Government of India is very emphatic that this should be called an obscuration) the bath is somewhat gloomy; also there was no one there whom I knew and very few people in all. Moreover, as I might have expected, I have lost so much of my skill in diving that I had little pleasure in my own efforts and came away soon. This may be just as well; for bathes are exhausting if carried through energetically. Joan is debarred from joining in such pastimes by not having a proper cap; none large enough is to be had. Without this aid she does not enjoy bathes. For since she has allowed her hair to grow somewhat once more (so as to be able to deal with the modern hat) she finds that to let it get at all wet is a fearsome nuisance.

Perhaps it is time to stop. It is past ten and if I keep on typing till just before I go off to bed I shall not find it easy to sleep. Often in New Zealand and Australia I used to see the keyboard when I closed my eyes (and that is funny because I do not look at it at all when typing) and do exercises on it till I became much peeved. Really, I do not look at the keys: for instance I sat typing in the dark last night. Curious that it puts me off so much to tie a handkerchief round my eyes while it does not do so to close my eyes tightly.

The servants say that there are many rats in this house or in the godowns attached to it which is much the same thing.

Tomorrow early we go to an open-air service in the Fort. Seems to me rather futile in weather as vile as this but it is supposed to look well. Maybe I should look on such exercises with more favour if I could sing.

Much love
Dad


From LJT to Romey

8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
Sept 9th, 1941

My darling Romey,

It’s best to get into the habit of writing the personal letters at odd times through the week, for the time has gone when I could set aside a whole day for letter-writing. It gives me a satisfied feeling to be doing a reasonably useful whole time job. It is really what I have been hankering after since the beginning of the war. At present I don’t find the office work at all boring, and I like the regular hours.
Dad is finding work terribly trying. Things are getting more and more difficult for the permanent British officials. The Ministers, who are now the Government, turn everything to politics, and into the racial problem, and the whole efficiency of the governing machine is put out of gear. I wonder whether there is any other country in the world that talks more about public spirit and does less! Anyhow it is tragic for the older Civil Servants, who have given so much of their lives to trying to give help and justice to the people, and to endeavoring to improve their conditions.
On Sunday evening we thought of going to the cinema a t 6 o’clock, but there was no film we felt we wanted to see. A visit to Harry and Winsome proved impossible, for they were going out, so we decided to go for a walk across a corner of the maidan, and round the gardens of the Victoria Memorial.
Here, Dad took over. One of the great amusements was seeing all the dogs out for their evening walks under the charge of their sweepers, who lead them by two-and-three, as a Babu might say, beaming on their surroundings if they are bull-terriers and such, and lamenting their boredom if they are vulgar dogs, prone to wandering. Some merely sit, scratching, while their sweepers squat and talk. At any moment, there might have been rain, but there was none. There had been, and the drains and the air were full of puddles. I (your dear father, who found this unfinished on the typewriter and idly continue it) am not fond of walking. It was clammy. But I think that I enjoyed this Sunday walk, although I felt next day that to try it again, would be too much.
Sunday started inauspiciously for me; we went to an open-air service, all of the arrangements for which were really bad. Reflecting on the impossibility of destroying Hitler during my lifetime if the staff of the Army were no more efficient than this would indicate, I fell into gloom that resembled in its symptoms, and may have actually been, a black rage. Also, I thought poorly of the service and of the sermon. My brother Hal, who was there with his chin out, in the ranks of the uniformed, without his spectacles in order to look martial, and so unable to see anything, thought well of the sermon. He knows little of such things.
My efforts to get a Government typewriter have failed, not having been at any time strenuous; there is a certain temptation to buy one for myself, but it would be an extravagance. Consider how I bought a gramophone to learn French, and how little I have used it since it was stolen, and I bought a second. An Irish sort of remark, but clear enough. Nowadays I become so tired in the evenings that typing does not really appeal. I am typing in the dark, or rather in the thick dusk, which makes it impossible to see results. This does not matter much, for one can feel more or less when one makes a mistake, except when there is an interruption, which makes me forget what word I have just typed. I am not sure that I am not typing the wrong line of keys.
There is a great idea abroad that preparations for dealing with air-raids should be made. It is infuriating to deal with people who refuse to settle down actually to do anything, and merely talk or write. The petrol shortage means that it is difficult to get around and fix things up in all the municipalities; but probably this will have to be done before any real results are obtained. The papers about such matters are in a real muddle, because so many different people have been having a whack at them. I spent much of today merely sorting them and seeing what there was to be done.
Also I went in to see the Secretary, who deals with Irrigation, wishing to discover what was happening about the Development Act. The Governor had made a remark in a speech which to anyone who knew anything about the subject, meant that the whole financial basis of the Act had been found to be unsound; but it would seem that no such thing had happened. The explanation was that the composer of the speech, or the compiler of the notes on which it was based, had no idea of the meaning of his own words.
Sept 14 To continue my letter, which Dad took on:--- Will you do something for me if it is possible? We have just received the August Reader’s Digest, with a notice that our subscription runs out after September’s copy has been sent. It is a tremendous performance to get permission to send any dollars from here. I don’t know whether there are the same bans on sending dollars from Canada or the U.S.A.. If there are not, would you send five dollars to the Reader’s Digest. Pleasantville, New York, with a request that they continue our subscription for two years, addressing the magazines to #8 Theatre Rd. I say for two years, because it saves a dollar on the two years subscription, but if you are short of money, then send the three dollars for the one year. Dad thinks you will not be allowed to do this. Don’t worry if you can’t. We rather like seeing the little paper, but there is nothing more to it than that.
And now, what more? Dad went on with my news. He wanted me to leave the letter, and see if you could guess where the change of style came, but I have already put a note in the margin. He is hankering after a typewriter of his own. It so happens that he so often feels moved to type just when I happen to be using the machine. Though in a way it would be extravagant to buy another machine, Dad so rarely wants anything for himself, that I feel inclined to get him one. He has been talking about interviewing the agents for the same machines that you have got.
We are giving ourselves a treat today, and going out to Tollygunge in the car, where we shall walk, and then bathe, and come home via Alipore to visit Harry and Winsome. Barring going about half a mile last night to the cinema, we have only used the car for going to office and back, and Dad has used it for two Government jobs, so we think we might use a gallon on our pleasure.
I am rather disappointed that I have not used my bicycle more. Being in office all day, does not give me much time. At present I feel nervous of riding after dark in the dimly lit streets, moreover, neither of our bicycles are equipped with back lamps, which they have to be.
This will have to end, for I want to take it to Uncle Harry for posting.

Best love darling,
Mother


Family letter  from LJT No 33 (Personal letters written by hand – so no copies to send

8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.

Sept. 13th 1941.

My Dears,

Almost inevitably you will find me writing about “shop” these days, for I shant have so very much else to write about.  There is one thing about a job like this I am doing.  It is full of human interest, for all the time it is dealing with people, and people of enormously varying qualifications.  At the one end we deal with the most highly skilled engineers and chemists, and at the other with the training of semi-skilled labour on a large scale.  Some of the applications that come in from young Indians who want to be trained as artisans are very funny.  The following is an extract from one letter, which is too long to quote in full, but which was all funny.  “That the petitioner being an orphan is poor, destitute, and much afflicted, and the chill penury has stunted his genial growth of prosperity, and thus left him in despair.”  The sad plaint would be more moving if other parts of the letter did not show that the said petitioner is a hale and hearty young man of twenty-one.

The office clerks have given me some lessons in the Government filing system, which is difficult to follow, till you know how it works.  I still feel consciously happy to be doing a job, and glad to find that there is a full day’s work for me, and that I have been accepted quite cheerfully as part of the office regieme by all concerned.

We had an unexpected pleasure last Sunday morning.  An old friend of ours, Mr. Renwick, who retired from India some years ago, turned up to see us.  He has come back to help with the business, sugar mills out in Central Bengal, and release younger men for service.  All his sugar mill people are great horse lovers, for much of their work is done on horseback.  Mrs. Renwick used to bring the children and three or four of their best English horses up to Darjeeling for the Rains, and she always stayed at Ada Villa, where we spent so many summers, and where Rosemary was born.  She invited me to help her keep these horses exercised, which was always a great joy to me.  We were fond of her and her husband, and enjoyed seeing him again.

Our Sunday evening did not come to much.  There were no films that attracted us.  Harry and Winsome whom we thought of visiting, were going out, and it was too showery to go out on our bicycles, so we set out for a walk past the cathedral, and a corner of the Maidan, to the gardens of the Victoria Memorial which are extensive, open to the breezes, and nice to walk in.  We were entertained by the enormous number of dogs of all sorts out walking with their attendant sweepers.  Some were beauties, and some so comic to look at.  After ten months in countries where labour is so expensive, it seemed strange to see some dozens of men, spending probably a couple of hours exercising dogs.

My only other outing this week was the Chamber music concert, to which Walter Jenkins kindly took me, and which I much enjoyed.  The only sad thing about it was that the head of the School of Music, Dr. Sandré, an old Frenchman who has been here for years, seems suddenly to have gone to pieces in the last few months, and much of his playing is definitely bad.  As he takes it as a matter of course that he plays the first violin, in every item where a violin is wanted, it is becoming extremely awkward.  To tell the old man bluntly that he is passed playing in public would almost break his heart, but people wont continue coming to the concerts if he goes on messing up several of the items.

Lots of people come to see us in the evenings.  Two young I.C.S. men arrived about 7.15 last evening and stayed till 9.15, making our dinner rather late!  Luckily Herbert had taken a rest after his bath, and did not mind.  They were both from up-country places where people often stay at the Club till 9 or past, so it probably did not occur to them that they were doing anything at all odd.  They were from Burdwan and Asansol respectively, and had lots to tell us about these places which were under Herbert’s charge when he was in Chinsurah.

Vainly I have been trying to buy a bathing cap, but nowhere can I get one that will go on to my head and hold my hair inside it.  My hair is only kept just long enough to roll at the back, but it still makes quite a bunch inside a cap.  Having hair to get wet, and not knowing whether with the hole cut through into my antrem, it is wise to dive, are combined circumstances which have rather put me off bathing in swimming baths.  The game does not seem worth the candle.

Herbert and I are just going off to the six o’clock pictures now.  We are going to see the Australian film, “Forty Thousand Horsemen”, which we heard a good deal about in Australia.  Most Australians say it is the only decent film they have produced so far.  Best love

LJT


From LJT to Annette

8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
Sept – 13th 1941.

My darling Annette

The chief drawback to my new mode of life is that, as far as I can see, I shall get little or no time for reading, but after all – its a small thing to give up “for the duration” if one can do some work that helps knock Hitler.

The explanation of the non-arrival of the Reader’s Digests is that H.D. just did not send them on. I cant make out why, for it seems obvious that we should have been glad to have them – He kept them all safely and the ten months issue were all placed in our room when we arrived. We are browsing through them and I don’t think I’ll attempt to send them on to you –

The person I want to have some long talks with, is Louise Ranken, but though they dined at the H.D.s one night and came to us last week, the conversation was general and mostly rather superficial – Louise always thinks so much about what is going on in the world, and keeps herself in close touch with a good type of American thought. She comes of University people and belongs to that sort of mental atmosphere.

Richard’s last letter was interesting. He wrote chiefly about music and how he had recently discovered that it was possible to enjoy music, without concentrating furiously on it, and trying to understand it. He used rather a good expression – He said he found he could use music as a “cushion for the mind” – He blames us as parents, with some reason, for not giving you children any music when you were young. I have realized that rather sorely but never knew how to tackle it. I cannot sing or play myself and Dad would never have a gramaphone in the house, until he discovered the use of one for the linguaphone records – He says that the gramaphone was only brought into the house then on the strict understanding that it should never be used for music records. This I deny. No conditions were put forward at the time! He has thought of this long after! I am very glad you found pleasure in music for yourself and that Richard is now doing the same. I am sorry that Dad has an antipathy for most music. He says so much of it jars the spine. It seems, from what the spine-massage man (cant think of the right name) said, that the vertebrae at the top part of Dad’s spine are too close to-gether, and have scarcely any of the pads of sort of gristle which should seperate the bones – This lack would make him super-sensative to noise and vibrations of all sorts – which perhaps explains why so much music almost hurts him – I think ther must be psychological reasons too – It would be interesting to find out what they are –

Walter Jenkins took me to a Chamber Music Concert on Wednesday – The thing I liked best was a piano and cello Sonata – (op 40) by Boellmann – It is a lovely thing and was beautifully played – The cellest is a Senor Gabarro from Firpo’s orchestra. He looks English enough. I dont know what his nationality is – but he’s a fine musician. Walter Jenkins has annoyed me very much the last twice he has been here and I have been out with him, by talking at great length about mistakes made by the British Government and the Military authorities – Its a type of talk I detest. Its unsettling and undermines confidence and faith – I cant see any point in it. Everyone who is not a fool, realizes that mistakes have been made here and there, but what is the good of rolling in them and gloating like a dog in muck? If he asks me to go out with him again, I shall only accept on condition he promises not to talk like that. G.B. Gourlays firm in Madras, have a sweet and sugar factory and are making up parcels for home, including a lb of tea. I have ordered a parcel each for you and for Aunt –

Best love, my dear – from Mother


From LJT to Annette

As from 8 Theatre Rd
Calcutta
Sept 19th 1941

My darling Annette

Actually I am writing from office in the lunch hour. Its a nice quiet place between 1 and 2 o’clock – Every one goes off to lunch from the offices and the orderleys take off their khaki coats and pugerees, deposit them on their benches and trot off to “drink water” – Our head orderly keeps his own glass and a little packet of food of some sort in a cupboard on the outer side of Idris’ table – The custom has now arisen that I give him the lumps of ice out of the wide-mouthed thermos jar in which I bring my butter and cheese – At first he felt he should not appear without his coat, but now he evidently realizes that I do not object to it in his rest hour.

Dad wrote – typed – a letter to Mary Ow-Wachendorf last week, and asked me to look at it and say whether I thought his typing has improved. To my surprise he had told Mary about this job I am doing, adding that he felt it was a great nuisance to him – Of course I asked him why, since he is out all day – He says he does’nt know why, but he feels it all the same. He just likes to know I am about in the house – I suppose, though the least possessive of men, there is still lurking somewhere deep down in the depths of his subconscious mind, the feeling that the frmale should always be waiting about in case she is wanted!

Dad always calls for me on his way back from his office and yesterday we went in to Kodak’s to see the film that Cousin Susie had taken of Rosemary and John for last year’s Christmas greeting to the H.D’s and ourselves – There seems to have been rather a lag between her thought and the fruition, as far as we were concerned, but H.D, who did not receive it till January or Feb – rightly thought it better not to send it on to us – Between you and me, these amature films, or ordinary people, very self-conscious and taken in curious little snatches, are not satisfactory and vertainly not worth the money they cost. It seems to me that to be satisfactory at all, they must either be taken by an expert, with time and patience to know what to snap, or else, with children of Romey and John’s age, a plan should be made of what they are going to do. As it was there were only different versions of playing with the dog – very scrappy and not well taken and a little bit of John riding his bicycle down the road. Of course I appreciate Cousin Susie’s thought tremendously and would’nt for the world let her know that we don’t think much of the film. She and Helen are both so awfully good to Romey and John.

We are getting very hungry for letters again – It must be nearly a month since we had letters from you and Aunt and Romey (whose letters should theoretically come regularly every week).

Its just 2 o’clock and I am drawing conveniently near to the end of my paper. I still like working! I wonder when I’ll get tired of it.

Best love, darling from Mother


Family letter from LJT No 34

8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta.

Sept 20th 1941.

My Dears,

The adventure of starting on office work, has now become a well-known routine.  I find it best to go up just after nine o’clock with Idris, for Herbert is so often caught by visitors, and does not get away till past ten o’clock.  The time between 9.15 and 10 o’clock at the office because interruptions have not begun, and Idris is able to review the work and hand over jobs to me to do.  Most days I have been very busy right on till Herbert calls, and this week that has been about 4.45 on most days.  This morning I was a little slack, for such a stream of people came in to see Idris, men from other departments, I mean, that he had no time to hand out work to me.  I genuinely like working in office all day, and dont find it in the least boring.  Actually its quite the reverse, and I find the work far more interesting than most of the parties of which Calcutta is such a hot-bed in normal times.  We have not been quite without our parties all the same.  Idris and I were to dine with the Rankins, our American friends last night.  We duly arrived at 8 o’clock, to find that they had expected us next week!  It was confusion of thought over the telephone evidently that caused it.  Louise was just dressed.  Everett had not changed, for they were due at their party at 8.30, so we stayed for a drink and a chat with Louise, and then went to Firpo’s and had a fish grill and ice cream, and listened to the excellent orchestra for a while.  It turned out a very pleasant evening.

How much have the English papers noticed the resignation of certain of the Muslim Premiers of the different provinces, from the Viceroy’s Defence Council, in obedience to the order of Jinnah, President of the Muslim League, I wonder?  Naturally it has been a much talked of affair out here, and the attitude of our own Premier, Fuzul Haq, has been specially interesting.  He delayed action for some time, and then resigned from both the Defense Council, and from the Muslin League.  It looks rather as if in his efforts to stay on top of the fence, he has slipped and got cut in two, one part sliding down each side.  However it is something that he had the courage to write a long letter to the newspapers saying that he thought Jinnah had entirely overstepped his powers.  It is bad enough that India is full of Communal difficulties, but what is going to happen to her if the religions split again and engage in internal strife?

The campaign in Iran cant have been romantic for the people enduring the rapid marches in the heat and the dust, but it makes romantic reading.  I have been gathering up in my mind many of the things that people who visited Iran in the last few years have told me.  There were a dear old American couple with us on the first part of the voyage to Australia.  Dr Jordon had been working at the University of Tehran for something like forty years, and had been its Principal for a long while.  The Shah suddenly decided that he wanted all the posts filled by Iranians, and out the Americans had to go, to the great distress of the Iranians already on the staff, who said they were not yet fit to run a University on their own.  The Jordons said that the Shah was terrified of not being able to keep up his dignity.  A small example of his strange reactions to things was the following.  Mrs Jordan was asked to translate some English folk and fairy tales into Persian for Children’s Reader’s.  In one or two of them, which she sent to the Education Minister, the characters were the King and the Queen, the Prince and the Princess and part of the action took part in a palace.  The Minister sent back the tales, saying that they were very nice, but would she change the royal titles to “Nobleman” etc, because no mention of royalty was allowed by the Shah, and the Minister might easily lose his head if he allowed the tales to be printed as they stood.  Another example of his exaggerated insistence on his own importance, was told by Edward Groth.  He come out via Persia a few years ago, and was travelling from Teheran down to Bushire by car.  He stayed for a night or two at Ispahan, but on the morning he was to start for Bushire, news was given that the Shah and the Crown Prince were coming up the road, and that no one was to go down it till they had passed.  Everyone was held up at Ispahan the whole day, and Edward Groth had to motor all through the night in order to catch his boat the next day.  All these kinds of things must eventually make a people of any but a slave mentality, restive.

Herbert has had a whole mass of A.R.P. work put on to him, in spite of the fact that there is a special A.R.P. Officer with a number of Assistants.  It has been decided that the Civil Guards, and Relief Work for people who have been bombed or burnt out of their houses, is not to come under the special officer, but to be under the District Officers.  The whole thing was in a fearful muddle.  Each District Officer had ideas of his own, and the Central Government at Delhi keep on sending down notes and directions, which are not suitable to this province.  No one seems to have sat down and tried to visualize what would happen if bombs and incendiary bombs were dropped on Calcutta or any of the big Mill Areas, or any big Native Town for that matter.  Herbert is now doing that himself, and making out a scheme from the bottom up.  There are problems which would seem almost incredible to you in England.  For instance, imagine purdah women who have never been outside their houses, who have never been spoken to by any man except husband or near relative, who may not on any account speak their husbands name, and who veil their faces and turn away when any one speaks to them.  Imagine having to try and deal with them, if they were separated from their husbands or guardians, and in the midst of what would inevitably be panic, for the Bengali populace are mostly cowards, and have no self control.  Imagine this again complicated by caste and class and the fact that many people have the vaguest address, and are simply known by local repute, as in English rural areas.  Add on to the top of all this the fact that almost everyone is dishonest, and will be on the look out to make capital for themselves out of any sort of relief work, whether they are receiving it or administering it, and you will begin to get a little idea of the difficulty of the problem!

One or two evenings this week I have spent a little time in the garden, planning for the Cold Weather planting.  The mali made me irate by telling me what I must do, and adding, when I had said I did not intend to do it that way, that “So-and-So Memsahib had always done it that way”.  I turned on him and told him if he thought he could tell me how to run my garden and tell me that I must follow other peoples’ customs, he could just step upstairs the next morning at 8 p-m and take his pay and go!  This sobered him somewhat, and I was reinforced by the Driver, who is a great agriculturist, by Mogul, who is a great know-all, and one of Herbert’s armed-guards, a nice up-country-man, who is always glad to squash a Bengali or an Ooryia (Nearly all the malis in Calcutta come from Orissa).  They poured out tales of the great gardens at Cossipore and at Chinsurah, and enlarged on the hundreds of cart-loads of humus we made at Chinsurah, and the green manure we grew in the vegetable garden, leaving the mali a much deflated person.  If he goes on been troublesome I shall be tempted to call my old mali from Chinsurah, who is a nice little Bihar man.

We have had letters from New Zealand and from Australia this week.  The Graingers, those dear people we stayed with in Wellington, have had no news of their younger son, who escaped from Greece, and who has been listed as missing.  They are full of hope that he is alive.  Poor darlings!  I feel so sorry for them!

We were just off to see the film “Forty Thousand Horsemen” when I wrote last week.  I was interested to see it, but we both thought it rather amateurish.  With a little tightening up, pruning of the love interest, and planning to avoid the repetition of the same situation over and over again (ie Anzacs riding through the desert and storming trenches) it might have been excellent.  I met the mother of the man who produced it in Australia, Lady Chauval.  She is the chief Commissioner of Girl Guides for the State of Victoria.  Her husband was a distinguished soldier in the last war, and is high up in the Australian Army now.  They have two sons in Indian Cavalry regiments, and evidently thought it odd that this other one should take an interest in the cinema.  The mother was a charming woman, and not by any means fulsome in her praise of the film.  The parts of it we liked best was the occasions when the Australian troopers were talking, and the Australian expressions came out.

Its wonderful how little I personally have felt the petrol rationing.  I go to office with Idris and Herbert fetches me away, and when I get home I have lots of things to do, and dont much want to go out.  Herbert feels it a good bit more I think.  Even if he does not want to go places, he likes to feel he can!  In consequence of the rationing, we went walking on the Maidan yesterday evening, and saw a superb sunset.  Its alright walking on the big open grass spaces, but directly one gets on to paths or roads, ones nose is assailed by horrible odours.  This is chiefly due to the Indian habit of using all gutters and corners as latrines.  I suppose they are so used to the smell themselves that they dont notice it.

The sorting out and settling of the house is going on slowly.  Another lorry load of furniture is coming in to-day, and some cases of books.  I am going to have my books unpacked next - - no, - - this week, for I feel too lost without them.

Best love to you all

LJT


From LJT to Romey

8 Theatre Road, Calcutta
Sept 21, 1941

My darling Romey,

It seems such ages since we had a letter from you. I stupidly did not note the date of the arrival of the last letters, but it was just after we moved in here and that is over a month ago. I wonder what is holding up the mails.
At last Dad and I have seen the film of you and John and Susie! Doesn’t it seem absurd that there should have been all this time lag? It was great fun seeing you moving and running about. Polo looks quainter moving than she does in her still photos, but then, of course, she was only a pup when that film was taken! Thank you all for it. I must write to Cousin Susie and tell her how much we enjoyed it.
The more people I meet who have brought boys or girls about your age out here, the more grateful I am that you have gone to Canada, for they nearly all find many difficulties about “finishing” education. (A tiresome form of expression, for education is never finished) Life for English people out here has developed no niche for growing up children, because normally speaking, they are not here. It would take a year of two for the niche to be made, and by that time the necessity for their being here will have passed, we hope!
I wonder how we shall get on with our school boys when they come. Their parents are passing through Calcutta next week, and will be coming to see us on Sunday, so I shall be able to get all sorts of information about what the boys like and what the parents like for them. It will quite liven us up to have some young things in the house, and Dad will have to be a little more guarded in his conversation than he is as a rule! I don’t suppose the lads will be accustomed to his style of talk, for their parents are rather serious folk, and not at all given to flights of fancy.
Did I tell you that Dad has adopted a cat with a black tail and face and a white body, and Idris one with a ringed tail, and a pale grayish tabby body? They talk of them as “My cat” though actually the cats never come near us, and are seen chiefly sleeping or walking on the roofs of the go-downs, of which we get a good view from the verandah where we nearly always sit. Because of the cat population in the garden there are no squirrels here, which is a disappointment to Idris. He hoped there would be some here he could tame. It is odd that he is so fond of other animals, but definitely afraid of dogs.

I do hope we get letters from you soon. Best love,
Mother


Family letter from HPV

Calcutta,
Sunday Sept 21st 1941

My dear Annette (handwritten salutation)

A few days ago I made a list of things that might be said in a letter, by way of a typing exercise. They might have made a letter then but now they look absurdly dull; inspiration is not in them. Did Joan tell how I lost my knife and after buying another found the thing had engraved on it a list of the Kings of England with their dates? This for some reason not apparent to the wise she thought extremely funny. I did not; it was not funny, but merely a sign that I am growing very short-sighted. I had my glasses on but they were the ones which I was told to abandon about four years ago; I had stuck to them because I feel that with every change to stronger glasses my eyes get worse. Now I have taken to the substitutes; but these also give little comfort. Sight is mostly a matter of general health with me and presumably my general health isn’t too good: I tire. Knives are not too many in the shops; there is small choice among English makes. Yet I should have avoided an educational knife if I had seen what it was. Now I am carrying it in a note-case in the hope of avoiding its early loss; and it is too much trouble to fish it out of the note-case, so I get no use out of it. It is perhaps a symptom of weariness that I have done no more than dally with the thought of buying myself a typewriter, so that I may press on with my study of the art. If I ask for catalogues, the shops will send round worriers and then I shall lose my equanimity and shake off the dust against them, thus being left with all markets closed to me. Remingtons I renounced years ago because of the stupidity of their salesmen: they must have lost sales worth at least Rs 1500 on account of that, if they but knew it.

We went to see a movie. That is an item of news on my list above-mentioned. With the comment “what can be said of it?” ?Very little, to tell the truth. The heroine was a pain in most parts, why mention only necks in this context? her neck was perhaps the best part of her. Hero rather engaging; we met men rather like him in Australia. The most interesting thing about the film was that the Australians were so like Australians: they were Australians, but self-consciousness might have made them seem otherwise. I so obviously like nothing but wisecracks (and nice legs) in films that I should not go to any. I was pleased with the one remark in this “If it’s dirty I’ve heard it already, and if it isn’t I don’t want to hear it”. How true . . . . . but some Australians seem to like hearing things several times.

Have I told you that I am chairman of a Leper Hospital? where the very worst cases of Calcutta go. Not too pleasant to see; and I am lost in admiration of the Italian nuns who do the nursing. Some have been at it without a break for fourteen years. It is a hopeless problem. We are manufacturing new lepers faster by a thousand times than we are arresting the disease in cases; for it is improper to speak of a cure. Ultimately the spread of it is bound up with malnutrition, and unless the lack of fertility of the leprosy districts is remedied the disease will go on spreading. Maybe it will spread anyhow now that it has such a hold. The remedying of the lack of fertility is dependent on carrying out my Development Act schemes. And a few days ago the Governor made a speech saying that they would be carried out. This would be the more pleasing if it had not been accompanied by remarks which show that his advisers have no idea of what they are talking about and which would prove that the whole financial basis of the schemes is wrong - if the remarks really meant what they say. Having dropped into the Irrigation Department to find out what was behind all this I met the new Secretary, a really charming Bengali, and found that he had never heard of the Development Act and had no sort of knowledge of the problems which it was designed to meet. That then is that. It is hopeless trying to educate a series of Secretaries in this sort of thing, and I have not the time or the strength.

I have lost pleasure in heaving and stretching by numbers or freehand; in physical jerks in other words. This is a deprivation.

I am continually being greeted by women whom I do not recognise and asked to give messages from them to Joan. A shame to me. Living in a town house is an almost insuperable obstacle to seeing the stars; and I can no longer raise an interest in them. A grief. There is another grief, and a real one. The Subdivisional Officer of Asansol came in a few days ago and told me that the present members of the Mines Board of Health are destroying the organisation that I designed when I was there twenty-four years ago. Which will mean if it comes off that the last of my efforts not yet put to shame will have been put to it. Ichabod.

Much love
Dad


From LJT to Annette

8 Theatre Rd
Calcutta
Sept 26th 1941

My darling Annette

We have had three letters from Romey – one last week-end and two on Thursday, but still nothing from England*. You will have seen Romeys letters. She seems to have settled completely in to the Canadian pattern of life. There’s a sort of earnest heartiness about it, which I think might be a little trying, but perhaps I only look at it like that because I am oldish and Romey and her friends are young. Anyway the great thing is that she seems to have enjoyed the Summer School, as well as doing a reasonable amount of work, and to have had a throughly healthy holiday at The Lake of the Woods.

Have you found that there are some people who are about a thousand times more interesting to talk to tête a tête – or possibly in a three some, if the people concerned are just right? Louise Ranken is one of those. She is completely satisfying to talk to and to discuss things with in the intimite atmosphere or one or two people, but she’s not so good in a group – For this reason I have been disappointed since I came back to India, for I have only managed to see her three times, plus the one occasion on which Idris and I went to dinner on the wrong night, and each time it has been a small dinner and somehow we’ve never broken through the superficial to talk about things that really interest us – I want to tell her about the social habits and out look of people in NZ and Australia and compare them with America. Now that I am working, its hard to know when I can get her to myself, for I’m only free in the evenings and at week-ends, when our men folk are there.

I felt a little sad last night, to have to refuse the loan of books from Louise. She always has such interesting ones – Its no use my borrowing books, now, because I know I wont get through them – May be when I get the house settled and the weather gets cool again, I will find some time to read in the evenings – Up to the present there has been so much to think out and arrange about all these furniture problems – There are all those little things like getting our curtain poles and brackets altered to fit this house and repainted cream (which the colour of all walls and paint in this house) The garden is crying for thought and attention and I’ve had little time to give to it – During the next two weeks I must get seeds and have them sown. I wish some one who knows about gardens and really loves them, had taken over the Chinsurah garden in to which I had put so much. Mrs Halder does not know one plant from another, and they keep the minimum of labour and wont spend any money on manure and other general up-keep. Few Indians have grown a garden sense yet, though here and there one finds one who is keen – and gardening on the grand landscape style of Versailles, was a great feature of the Mogul Palaces.

Its becoming increasingly difficult not to think too much about the war in Russia and the appaling slaughter and suffering that is going on. I cant imagine what Hitler’s mind must be like – To any normal person, the knowledge that he, personally, had caused the appaling mass of suffering and misery in the world would surely be beyond bearing? It seems to me true that this War has been his individual work to a far larger extent that any other war in modern times has been the work of one man – No! I suppose Napolean was equally responsible for his wars.

Best love from Mother

* Sept 27th Letters have come! Its grand to have news again – thank you!


Family Letter from LJT No 35

8 Theatre Rd.  Calcutta.

Sept 27th 1941.

My Dears,

Such joy!  Letters again at last, but I greatly fear that some must have been lost, for there is a gap of a month.  G.C.T’s last one was dated June 4th, and this is July 6th.  However there is still hope that missing ones may turn up, for they dont always come in sequence.  It was specially nice to hear from the family assembled for a week end at Highways, and busy picking fruit.  It makes my mind run back over a whole series of summer fruit pickings at that happy house, dating back to Romey aged three, standing under the now defunct cherry tree, and holding out her little blue check frock to catch the cherries dropped by Barney, and saying “Oh, tank you, Uncle, tank you!”

Really it is queer that when letters take so long to come, they should still bring a sense of nearness so vividly.  This envelope contained two back numbers from Annette and Richard, which had travelled to New Zealand and back, before starting out here again, but they are still interesting.  We told the bank in N.Z. to go on forwarding letters till the end of July.  Maybe they ran out of funds, and thought that sending on by sea mail would not reach us in Australia in time.  Still that does not explain why they did not send them to India, for they had that address and had sent money there for us.

I am thinking so much about you all at home, that I find it quite hard to turn my attention and tell you something about the past week out here.  We are now in the middle of the Durga Puja holidays, and everyone who can, has gone away to the hills.  Herbert did not fancy going off alone, and I think he was glad to have a little time to go into the intricacies of the A.R.P. work, and look into other things which the rush of daily routine had prevented his doing before.  The Supply Department is staying open through the holidays, and the only difference it makes to me is that I come back from office on a tram.  Herbert and Idris think this must be dreadful, but I rather enjoy it.  I see bits of life I dont ordinarily come across, and am struck by the good manners of the Babus in the tram cars.  They are very polite to me and very polite to one another.  It was amusing the other evening to hear two youths probably of student or just post-student age, talking big to one another across the tram, in English.  It was a pure example of youthful showing off, and the elderly Bengalis looked on with evident disapproval.  Meantime I dropped my penny, and a youngish babu grovelled for it and returned it to me with a nice salaam.     

It has been a busy week in office.  I am getting the hang of the work and of Government methods of procedure, and am rapidly finding that I am becoming an expert at summing up the qualifications of engineers, chemists and storekeepers, though I scarcely know one end of a hammer from another, hav’nt the first idea of what a chemist does, and can only guess at the methods of storekeeping.  We have had three such queer blokes in the last two days, that we wrote to the police for their antecedents.  One man who was in this morning seems singularly uncertain what he has been doing for the last twenty years.

This week has seen another improvement in the office.  We have got rid of a singularly incompetent stenographer, and in his place got an Anglo-Indian girl (partly Jewish, I think) who sits in the office, and who is worth half a dozen of the Madrassi.  She is quick and keen, and has been accustomed to doing personal secretarial work, and card-indexing, and at last we are getting our card-indexing kept up to date, and properly done.  Also immediate letters are typed and sent out at once, instead of taking hours wandering round the office.  The senior Babu clerk, Mr Chatterji, an excellent man, said to me last night “See, Madam, how few files left on the D.F.R.’s (that’s Idris) table!  It has made a great difference since you came to help.  Formally he used to sit on his files for a very long time!”  It is satisfactory to know that I am able to help, and make a difference to the work.  It is also satisfactory to know that the babus like my being there, and do not resent it.

Well I’ve probably written too much about the office, but my mind has been so much occupied with it or with the problems of house-arrangement and furniture, that, except for the news, and the ever present background of consciousness of the war, I have not given much attention to other things.  We have our moments of absurdity, of course.  I think I told you that Herbert and Idris have each adopted one of the stray cats who live in the garden, and now and again they put forward claims for the excellence of their respective animals, who, incidentally, will not come near us!  These two comparatively sober and respectable men, are fond of inventing ridiculous games for themselves.  Herbert is still getting slight temperatures in the afternoons.  I’d like to find out the reason.  He looks well, but is very tired by the time the day’s work is over.

It seems that we are not going to have the two boys here after all.  The headmistress of the school, my old friend Mrs. Hance, rang up a couple of evenings ago to say that a big house close to the school had been vacated by some Japs, and the Governors of the school had decided to take it immediately, for the boys boarding house, since there were many difficulties and drawbacks to getting the children all boarded out.  I am sorry not to have the moral satisfaction of having the boys here, but in some ways a little relieved, for I find myself so busy these days that the comparatively small amount that would be left for me to do for the boys out of school hours, would still have taken a bit of fitting in.  Another factor is that their mother was already proving tremendously fussy and had written me two letters about them, in one of which she said that, as the boys would be sleeping on the ground floor, she would like a servant to sleep outside their door!  Can you imagine the feelings of boys of rising sixteen and thirteen if they knew that their mother wanted them fussed over in this way!  One thing I think Sister Grace and I can truly say, and that is that we have not fussed unduly over our children!  I’d find it hard to start fussing over other people’s now, especially over big school boys.  I have a perfect horror of children being made dependent on parents and guardians.  I think they ought to be encouraged to stand on their own feet just as soon as it is possible.

You remember Idris and I went to dinner with the Rankins on the wrong night last week?  The real party took place this Friday, and as it was holiday time, Herbert came too.  One always finds pleasant company and intriguing food in the Rankin’s house, but I look forward to a tête-à-tête with Louise, and never get a chance of it, for we have only met at small parties so far.  I want to find out from her how some of the Australian and New Zealand habits compare with American ones, and how the politics compare too.

We had another load of furniture and boxes in from Chinsurah last Sunday, and the rest comes next Friday.  The Symons have arranged to have theirs taken away.  I shall be so glad to get my own stuff settled at last.  With other people’s furniture all about, it does not seem quite like our own home.  I shall have to take a holiday from office on Friday afternoon to see all the furniture placed.  We unpacked Herbert’s tigers the other day, but its a job to find wall space for them, though the house is so big.  Its one of those typical old Indian houses, which is all doors and windows.  At present two of the skins are spread on the dining-room floor, and gave pleasure to a small two-year old boy who was here for tea to-day.  His father is on his way through from the Tea Association’s Assam experimental station, to one of the High Explosives factories on the other side of India.  He came into the office this morning to say that he could get no accommodation for himself, his wife and baby on the train.  Seeing that they had to wait till to-morrow and knew no one in Calcutta, I asked them to come and have tea with us.  Dr. Roberts is a chemist and an interesting man.  He was telling Herbert how much he appreciated working out here, where a young man gets the chance to do original research work, such as he would not get till he had added a decade or so to his age, in England.

This has been a good week for letters, for we got a double supply from Romey and nice long ones too.  This influx of mail has made me feel so satisfied and content.  Harry and Winsome visited us yesterday evening -- no-- on Thursday, to bring us letters* which had gone to their address.  We had a visit from them on Sunday evening too, which we enjoyed.  They will soon be going up to Darjeeling for a little holiday, and will be up there next week when Herbert is up there for the Commissioner’s Conference.  I am especially glad that they will be there, as I am not going up with him

 Love to you all my dears

From

LJT

*Romey’s


From LJT to Romey

8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
Sept 27, 1941

My darling Romey,

This has been a wonderful week for letters. One came early in the week, and two more on Thursday. I’ve let the H.Ds have the first one to read, so can’t tell you the date, but it was written just before you sat for your chemistry exam. Of the two later ones, the first was written from Winnipeg on the 17th Aug, and the second after your return from The Lake of the Woods. It is annoying that the posts should be so irregular and in some cases so slow, when the cost of the letters is so heavy. I must get hold of some of my American friends here, and ask them if they can think of any reason. The delay makes me feel that I ought to be beginning to send you birthday wishes already, and go on doing so for the next three weeks, so that they are sure to arrive in time.
I hope you will buy yourself a nice present from Dad and me. I have looked round a little here, but I don’t see things which I think very attractive. I had a Chinaman in here this morning, and he had really lovely embroidered linen things. I bought a set of table mats for Cousin Susie, and some fine embroidered handkerchiefs for Helen, and must see about getting them packed up and dispatched. I want you to get the other presents I told you about as well, for I did not send anything last year. I don’t know why. I suppose it was because I was moving about.
It’s just a little premature to congratulate you on passing your exam, before you have the official notification that you have got through, I suppose, but I am glad it seems as if you have got through. I am delighted that the Summer School was such a success, and that you enjoyed it. The Camp holiday at the Lake of the Woods seems to have been very good fun too, and you should have come back from it in good training, for you seem to have been on the go the whole time. I liked hearing about the canoeing and getting across the pole like a sloth, and that kind of thing. That’s the sort of holiday I like. I have never been able to understand what people want to go to towns for Summer holidays. Those huge seaside towns which are scattered all round the English coasts are dreadful places, I think. The liking for country things, as opposed to town ones, seems to be born in people, and the town folk can’t understand what the others find to do in the country.
Such nice letters came from Dicky and from Aunt yesterday. They were about a weekend at Highways, and everybody had to set to and pick the currants. It made me feel quite homesick! What a wonderful “home” Aunt has made at Highways, not only for her own family, but for us too, till we scarcely know that we are not one family. It is nice that Richard and Annette speak so well of Michael Pringle. Richard says he fits so well into the family pattern.
By the way, I’ll be awfully thrilled to get a photo of you, I mean a ‘studio portrait”. I hope you will, or have already carried out your plan of having one done. I would so much like to have one of Annie, too.
I scarcely dare let myself think too much about the war. The appalling suffering and slaughter that is going on all along the Russian front makes ones heart simply ache when one thinks of it. Winsome, with that common sense which is such a feature of her mental make-up, said “Yes! But how lucky that they are Germans and Russians who are being killed, and not the English.” I suppose we do all feel that a bit, but still I feel this deep aching sorrow for the suffering. If humans do have to expiate their crimes till they have paid off the debt of guilt, it will surely take eons for Hitler to rid himself of the burden. Even Napoleon, or the worst of the Roman Emperors can never have carried such a load of wickedness. The Germans still seem appallingly strong. I wonder how long it will take them to exhaust themselves.

Love, Mother


Family letter from HPV

Calcutta
Sunday September 28th

My dear Annette (name handwritten)

It has been revealed to me that it is now or not at all this week. The middle of the afternoon is not altogether a favourable time for letter writing, and I am without ideas. It has not been a good week for news on the whole: though I have just remembered that I have two good things to repeat. From a report by a young sub-deputy. He was hearing witnesses about charges of bribery against a Chairman of a Debt-Settlement Board, and “it seemed from his impotent murmurings when charged tha the Chairman had not as white legs as he claimed himself”. Further when it came to the defence, the Chairman failed to produce any answer to the detailed charges and the Sub-deputy thought that what he did say was “a later thought and too omnibus to be believed”. Curious that after all these years I should for almost the first time run across this sort of thing.

The Puja holidays are here; they bring me no joy. It is wholey impossible for me to sit back and relax while Joan is going each day to office to work. Apart from the feeling that it is a sin to be sitting back while there is a war on. There is of course work to be done, and because it is a holiday I find myself getting very little done at all. For October I am to be Chairman of the Exemption Tribunal because the real man has to go off to the Punjab; and it is strange how much time I have had to waste over the preliminaries. Two appeals have come in and owing to the holidays and the consequent lack of a stenographer I have had to do the correspondence myself. Foolishly I tried to type the letters, and after spending much time on one and producing a perfect specimen at last I had to scrap it because news came that one of the members would be going away and the dates to be devoted to hearing the appeals would have to be changed. It would seem that I have lost skill in the art, not that I had much; perhaps it is because I have not been doing any actual exercises lately. Writing letters is not the same thing in spite of the assertions of my brother Harry to the contrary.

The chances of my getting a typewriter of my own are receding. My stenographer says that a Remington portable costs about 225 and so all will be somewhere it that region. It stands to reason that I shall very certainly never have 20 worth of typing to do and so to spend that amount would be outrageous. In a book that I picked up yesterday (A Friend of France) it said that the important psychological thing if one wished to avoid weariness was to avoid like the plague all day-dreaming (in an appendix: little to do with France: but the Star Atlas from which I derived sustenance last year or the year before, had an appendix on shooting tiger in Burma), and so I thought that if I carried around the portable which I might have bought, I might have used it as a shield against day-dreaming. Another book by a German had a pleasing thing in it. He was a volunteer in 1917, and was about 17 years old: ordered to join his regiment at the front he said, by way of jest to some soldier man controlling traffic somewhere behind the lines in France “Can you tell me where to find the war?” and got the answer “Laddie, we’ver lost the blinking war, and we don’t want to find it again”.

Stinking weather. The rains are still with us. I do not want them to be over because if they stopped now there would be distress with crop-failure and much work for me. But this does not prevent it from being stinking weather. It is annoying always to be hitting the i instead of the e, when it follows any consonant on the right side of the keyboard.

The streets of Calcutta stink so heartily of sewage that I have not the heart to go out walking in them. In my opinion there was a time when the European quarter did not stink but Joan says that this is a phantasy. It is merely that for years and years we have been careful never to walk, she says, and now that the petrol-rationing drives us to use our legs and brings us nearer to the gutters we mell a mell. It is wrong to stay indoors as I do now: in Chinsura at least I used to go into the garden, but here there is nothing to do in the garden and I do not use it.

I suppose that I am too late with birthday wishes to you also? Of course I forgot to write to that Dickon in time. It was pleasant to read your letters and his that arrived yesterday.

Much love
Dad