1942 August
Family letter from LJT No 29
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta
August 1st 1942.
My Dears,
Just as I was going off to office this morning, a letter came in from Romey. It was No 55, one of the missing ones, and it has taken four months to reach us. The pleasure of getting it is no less and having had Helen’s air mail letter about the scholarship, its now most exciting to look for the news of it in any letter that comes. There have been no other English letters in this week except an Airgraph from the Gage family, who came from Burma, and stayed with us. From America we got a letter that gave us much pleasure. It was from my dear friend Louise Ranken, announcing their safe arrival in the U.S.A. and describing the spring flowers in Charlestown, where they spent the first fortnight of April on Holiday, and giving us their address in Washington, where they expect to be “for the duration”. I miss Louise very much, and am always thinking of things I want to share with her, or people I want her to meet.
Amongst our hospital friends we go from grave to gay. On Wednesday evening young Rey Bos, the U.S.A. Air Corps boy who stayed with us for a fortnight, came in to tell us that he is getting married on Sunday (to-morrow) and to ask us if we will go to the wedding, which we are doing. He felt a little sheepish about breaking the news to us, for he had talked to us about his Sweetheart in America, and we had teased him about not writing to her. “Well”, he said, “That’s just how these things take you.” The girl’s mother said to him “Mr Bos, do you really think enough of my daughter to go through with this?” To which Rey replied (and I wish I could reproduce his slow American drawl for you) “Sure! If I had’nt ‘av meant it, I would’nt have asked”. I greatly fear that the girl may not be pure Aryan, and may be too great a contrast to his Dutch blondness. We shall see to-morrow when we attend the wedding at an R.C. Church, and the reception at The Portuguese Club, an institution of which I have never heard before. Rey has just been promoted to be a Sergt Mechanic, and is now getting Rs 550 per month. That is more than a Pilot Officer gets in the R.A.F. and a good deal more than a 2nd Lieut in the Army. I suppose the dollar exchange has something to do with it.
Rey’s visit made me a little late for an appointment at a neighboring house, where I had promised to go to meet two men who want to go climbing in Sikkim in a few weeks time. I have an idea they are both doing some sort of intelligence work. One of them has done a lot of climbing in Europe and in New Zealand, and knows many of the Everest Climbers. The other, John Blandy by name, knows Ron Kaulback well. We seemed scarcely to have got our noses into the maps of Sikkim when it was time for me to go home, so I arranged for both young men to come round to this house as soon after six o’clock the next day as they could manage. By a stroke of luck I heard the very next morning that G.B. Gourlay was in Calcutta, so I got him to come round to meet them, and stay on to dinner with us. We had a grand time, with maps and photos spread out on the dining room table, and I am glad to say that G.B. concurred in the advice I had already given them. It was really a treat to let one’s mind lose amongst the mountains for an hour or two, and forget for just a little while the fearful struggles that are going on. G.B. is looking much better than when he was staying with us in the Autumn. He told us some most interesting things about the drying of vegetables which his firm is now doing for Government. He is always interested in the processes by which things are done, and masters all the details.
We had the pleasure of the company of another old friend on Tuesday. Reggie Cooke stayed one night here on his way through Calcutta, and needless to say we also talked a good deal about mountains, and even got out my map of North Wales to show one another the places we had been, but whereas I go up all the easy ways, Reggie goes up by the most difficult ones! Reggie has not changed in the least in spite of Red bands around his cap, and bits of red trimming on his uniform!
Life in office has been a good deal more leisurely. On one day I had time to write a private letter in the afternoon, and encouraged by this I took my household account book to office the next day, thinking I might be able to give it some belated attention, but did I have a minute? I did not, and brought it home again untouched.
I have spent quite a time tidying out and sorting all the papers that Idris pushes into the drawers of his desk. He gave me permission to do so, for they were in great disorder, and I have had a great time putting the relevant papers to-gether, and getting rid of rubbish. I have had two letters from Idris, who seems to be enjoying himself in Simla, but evidently did a lot of work in Delhi, for he has just sent us down the tour notes of all his interviews. He is due back in Calcutta on Tuesday and in office on Wednesday.
Herbert and I took the little North-Ccountry soldier, Mr Graves, to see Ginger Rogers in “Roxie Hart” on Sunday at 5.30, and he came back here to dinner afterwards. He did not appear to enjoy his dinner much, as he was so much on his best behaviour and took helpings scarcely big enough for a mouse! How much more sensible was Rey Bos, who simply said “Say! What are all these things for?” when confronted with a dessert plate equipped with a finger bowl and dessert knives and forks. I did not care about the picture at all, but was delighted by some first class pictures of Harold Burroughs in the newsreel dealing with convoys to Russia.
Do you know this First Aid story? Lecturer: “Fainting is due to a fault in the circulation. It may often be cured by getting the head into a position lower than the heart. In a public place, where it is not desired to attract attention, a pretence may be made that one is retying a shoelace”. Earnest lady, with pencil poised above her notebook: “What would be the correct knot to tie?”
Herbert is much the same. He carries on, but is always very tired by the evening, and afraid to attempt anything in the way of going out, or any relaxation of his diet.
We have not seen Harry and Winsome for some days, though we often talk to them on the telephone. I am rather afraid we shall not see them this week end, as we have to go to the wedding at 5. o’clock, and Sunday evening is generally our best chance to pay them a visit.
There has been some good heavy rain this week, and it is pouring hard at the moment, but I fear it has all come too late to ensure a decent rice crop.
Best love to you all
LJT
(typed at bottom of letter)
Aug 2nd 1942
My darling Annette,
It was amusing that a casual question from Reggie Cooke about what my family were doing, should have set us off so happily, studying the map of North Wales, and remembering lovely days. I do so look forward to getting your letters about your holiday, and hope you were lucky in the weather.
A sadness was cast over us last night, for I got a letter from Peter Fraser, one of our late R.A.F. lodgers, saying that Donald Page, who also stayed here, has been killed in an air-crash. Poor Donald had escaped one in Lybia, baleing out over the desert, and walking for four days till he got back to a lorry track. Its when someone one knows is swept away on this awful tide of war that the horror of it comes home to one. If only it could be ended this year!
Have you read “Berlin Dairy” by William Shirer? I read the first few chapters with keen interest, but now I have got bogged. As affairs in Europe built up to the final eruption, I began to feel a disinclination to read about them when I came home from office just a little tired, and with the back of my mind full of anxiety about Egypt and Russia, so I excuse myself and put the book aside in favour of the new “New Yorker” and the new “Readers’ Digest”. There were several amusing things in the New Yorker. Report of a telephone conversation which began by an agitated voice from some town near New York saying “It is’nt true, not a word of it! He’s in hospital here, and no presents, certainly no penguins or mummy cases have arrived for him” After some sorting out the “he” and “him” turned out to be Alexander Woollcott, who was in the local hospital, and was showing great courtesy and consideration to everyone. The denial was of the picture drawn of him in the film “The Man Who Came to dinner”. Another thing that entertained me was a little story of Heifetz. He was playing at a concert somewhere in Texas. During the intermission a lady sent him a note saying that it happened to be her husband’s birthday, and would he play “Happy Birthday”. He replied he regretted that he had not got the Music with him. The things I like best in the New Yorker are the brilliantly funny pictures, which need no words at all to help tell their story, or only the briefest few. I have been seeing the paper off and on now for three or four years, and it keeps up an amazingly high standard. Its book, play and cinema reviews are excellent.
The first letter I wrote this morning, was to Romey. And I found myself complaining of the Sunday morning feeling of being ruffled by my weekly attempts to check dishonesty and keep up the standard of work amongst the domestics, with only one morning a week to give to it. How I hate the innate dishonesty of this country! What an enormous volume of energy must go into the efforts they try to cheat on the one hand, and to counter the cheating on the other. Its curious that no teacher ever arises to preach honesty. Ghandi makes a parade of it sometimes, and blows his own trumpet about having given up all worldly wealth. Its just too easy when thousands are willing to supply your slightest wish. In the same way the poet Tagore, prided himself on eating only fruit. But what happened when he was staying with people? A secretary wrote saying The Poet liked such and such and such fruit. Much of this was not obtainable anywhere but in Calcutta or Bombay, and it was far more expensive to feed him on fruit and far more difficult than it would have been to give him the best of ordinary food. This I had direct from two Indian housewives in whose houses I stayed almost immediately after he had been there.
I had meant this to be a very short letter, but it has slipped over on to the back of the page at some length.
We should be getting letters again soon
Best love
Mother
(at bottom of letter to Romey)
My darling Romey,
Just fancy your letter No 55, written on March 29th not reaching us till August 1st! I’m awfully glad to get it, and hope now that No 56 will soon turn up. I sent John’s letter and the excellent photo of him out of the paper, off to H.D. and Winsome at once.
To get this letter into its proper setting, I reread its predecessor, as well as the two later ones (57 and 58). You were still not quite finished with exams when you wrote the last one, and all through this series the weather was being extremely changeable. It’s odd how we tell ourselves, and others tell us of the changeable English climate, but from my experience most countries which are at all pleasant to live in, have changeable climates. What abut Melbourne, where the temperature may be round about 100 in the morning, with a hot wind blowing from the interior, and if the wind changes to the South on may be shivering and longing for a fur coat by the evening? There seems little indication that anyone can tell in the morning what will happen later. To get a really reliable and equable climate, it seems to me you have to go into the tropics, where the weather is nasty all the time, because it is always too hot, unless, indeed, you happen to be on high mountains, and when there are high mountains, the weather is always chancy.
It is a pity that on Sunday morning I am always disturbed by household matters. I am getting so tired of the constant cheating in this country, and the drawback to doing a whole time job, is that one has no time to superintend things oneself. The only way to make moderately sure that one is not being robbed all the time is to keep stores, oil, coal, motor car oil and so on, under lock and key, and give them out, if possible seeing them put into the places or things for which they are required oneself. It is boring and exhausting, even when one has the time, and so hateful that a whole sub-continent is so profoundly dishonest. At the moment I think I shall love to have a little house I can run myself or with the help of one maid. Probably when I have that house, I shall look back with longing to the days when I had a houseful of Indian servants.
Best love darling,
Mother
Family letter from HPV
Calcutta,
August 1st. 1942
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
There is a fine beginning. It is due to my directly under the fan and too lazy to fetch a couple of paper clips to prevent the paper blowing up under the keys.
Early for me to be starting to write a letter; Saturday evening in fact, just before dinner. I have been reading Joan’s letter, nominally to correct it but chiefly to see what has happened during the week. It occurred to me that to judge from our letters we might be living in different worlds. But I might treat some of the subjects with which she has filled her pages if I did not know that she would be writing.
The week has been notable for my staying solidly in the house on two working days and doing files there. There is a heavy reduction in the petrol ration and I have been saving petrol. I have a bicycle but I do not think that I could ride as far as the office, 2 ½ or 3 miles, without being completely done up. I prefer by far working in office with my stenographer handy and the clerks there in case I want to verify any point. Judgments in appeals I always write at home but early in the day. This breakfast at 8 business and work from 9.30 in office does not suit me; and the days which start with meetings at 7.30 and entail going straight on with work till lunch time I regard as fair destroyers of happiness.
There is one enormous dispute between a municipality and a district board that I am dealing with now which goes back to 1884. It doesn’t look at present as if it would be settled by 1984 unless there is some radical change in the attitude of the two bodies.
It would be vulgar to quote a petition sent in this week from one of the subdivisions. It runs thus:-
“With due respect and humble submission we beg to bring to your kind notice the following complaints against the local Cinema (Ranaghat Talkies) for favour of your kindly taking action.
* * * * * * * * * * *
6. The floors of the upstairs are not well cemented and at times the filthy waters and urines of the babies lick through the floor and besmeres the audience. The present Circle Inspector of Police had one such experience.”
Somehow it is like a thing from Manners and Customs of the Chinese. But how devoted to pleasure the audience must be to visit the place!
Still no practice of the art of typing. It is the weakness of my back that is to blame. By the end of the day I find sitting up straight too difficult. Joan has commented lately on my falling away from the doctrine of exercise 1100: and I suppose not without cause.
One virtuous act has been to write to Mr Gifford, the old gentleman who gave me the star-books in New Zealand. It had to be because one day I said idly that I ought to write to him again and say how much reading I had got out of his books and by a coincidence there was a letter from him waiting our return to the house.
A story in the Readers Digest struck me as good. Ist Darkie, “Are you ready to join the war?” 2nd, “I’m not ready but I’m will to join unready.”
Our four young cats must be the most un-cat like cats in the world. We cannot get used to their habit of settling down for a nap in the rain: or for a good think. Tableau; in the middle of the lawn Thomas with a bone. In front as if admiring her a ring of six crows, hoping. In the background the other three young cats, hating. And domineering over the whole scene Mogul’s cock; he goes on crowing even while he is sitting . . . . and this seems to me a strange thing, stranger even than the rain-defiance of the cats.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 30
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
August 8th 1942.
My Dears,
Romey’s letter No 56 has arrived, so now none are missing. We have also received Annette’s No 13 of May 26th and Grace’s No 15 of the same date. Thanks to you all. We love having the letters.
For me the past week has held the keen pleasure of seeing some of my best liked friends. G.B.Gourlay and Frank Kingdon Ward came in one evening, and dined here on another. On the second occasion Reggie Cooke came in from Barrackpore to meet them, and it seemed like old times to have a bunch climbers with books and maps spread all about, talking of the things they love. On the first occasion another member of the Himalayan Club, now an intelligence officer, in the Army, brought in one Capt Brutton, camouflage officer, who had been hunting all over Calcutta for an epidiascope. The Club have one, and he came to beg the loan of it, to assist him in illustrating the lectures he has to give during the next few weeks. He was a singularly charming young man, and also a mountain lover, though his mountain work has been chiefly on skis. He picked up the epidiascope at our office (I mean the Himalayan Club) the next morning, and brought it round to me in the Supply Dept Office, for me to put in the mirror and lenses, which we always pack away in an air-tight box during the Rains. We finished the job at five minutes to one, and he persuaded me to go and have lunch at the Saturday Club with him. Yesterday I had more young men who are hoping for a short climbing holiday in Sikkim here, and Reggie came in to tell us that he is off to Delhi on Sunday, so we kept him to dinner, as well as one of the Geological Survey men, who is back in Calcutta to write reports after several months of investigating the possibility of getting useful minerals from remote places here and there. All this has been a bit tiring for Herbert, but luckily if we stay in the drawing room, it is a good way from his dressing-room, so we need not disturb him much, and he can slip off to bed when he feels like it and not be kept awake.
Mr Kelly, the I.C.S. man from Burma who was staying with us a week or two ago, is back again, after going up to Simla to try to hurry up his release by the Burma Govt. to take on a job in our office. The appointment is fixed, and it is also arranged that he shall stay with us as a p.g. He cant get a room at either of the residential clubs. The Hotels are crammed and unpleasant as permanent residences, and the only boarding houses that have accomodation available are the ones that are not too good. Mr Kelly lost all his belongings in Rangoon, and the thought of having to rent and furnish a flat, plus the running of it afterwards, appals him. The R.A.F. seem to have arranged accomodation for all their people, but we hear that a special officer is being appointed to arrange billeting of the military people. Apart from the fact that we want to help Mr Kelly, we like him. He is a congenial person, and I would much rather have him here as a permanency, than have a series of military officers whom we might not like at all.
9.8.42 Idris had arranged a little party for the Corps Commander of this area, General Slim yesterday. We were to go to the cinema at 5.30, and the General and Frank K.W. were to come back to dinner here afterwards. General Slim and his wife are old friends of Idris’. Unfortunately at the last minute urgent work prevented the General from coming, but we enjoyed our picture show all the same, and Frank’s company at dinner. Reggie Cooke told us an amusing little story in which General Slim figures. Some where in Burma the military were in charge of the telephones. Chinese Generals had been making use of it as well as the British. General Lo had been talking to General Hi and so on. A voice came over the phone asking for General Slim (who had only just arrived in those parts). The field operator did not know the name, and called out, “Anyone know a Chink General called Slim?” It happened that the General was close by, he stepped forward with a laugh and said, “I’m General Slim, but do I look like a Chinaman?”
Do you remember we were going to the wedding of our little American Air Corps friend last Sunday! Alas! My fears are only too well founded. The girl though extremely pretty, is definitely of mixed origin. Her mother is about “eight annas”. Possibly her late father, an Irishman of the name of Boyle, was really from Ireland. Her step father, and his relations, are frankly of Portugese descent and very dark, but the whole family and their friends seemed to be good self-respecting people, with no false pretences about them. We liked the simple way everything was done, and can only hope that when the girl goes to the farm in the state of Washington she will settle down happily and make a good farmer’s wife. The life will be a bit of a contrast to anything she has known here but as she is only seventeen, presumably she will still be young enough to be adaptable when the war is over.
An honour, or what I consider an honour, has been paid to me this week. The Deputy Director General of our Division of the Supply Dept, rang me up, and said that in recognition of the work I have done during the past year, it is proposed to Gazette me as an officer with the rank of Assistant Director of Factory Recruitment, but before putting the proposal through, he wished to find out whether I would be willing to accept the appointment. Of course it is Idris that has done it, but he says all the officers in our own and the allied departments with which we deal, agree. It is a real satisfaction to know that one has been able to do work useful enough to be recognized by being given official rank. I shall now be entitled to write my own remarks on files and sign interdepartmental letters, and the mass of routine things “For D.F.R.”. I feel fairly confident of my ability to deal with the filing and office routine, as well as the preliminary interviewing of candidates, and the D.O, correspondence with candidates, but I feel dubious about my ability to deal with government files in the requisite way. I often go through them for Idris, and collect the facts for him, and discuss what the decision or note should be, but the real skilled bit remains with him. I must put my back into this side of the work a bit more, now the numbers of candidates are falling off so much. The stream of technical men of all grades was rapidly drying up before the invasion of Burma. The occupation of that country sent us a big stream of men of all grades for many months, but that has practically finished now, and we dont know where many more are coming from. Amongst the ungazetted ranks, our own great training scheme is beginning to send in its supply, and a good deal will be done by up-grading right through factory personnel. It would be interesting to see into the future, and find out the effect of training such large numbers of Indians and Anglo Indians, to be artizans and engineers. It seems that India will have to go ahead as a manufacturing country in the sphere of engineering production in order to absorb her trained men, who will not be willing to go back to the land.
There has been quite a bit of Himalayan Club work going on these days, so in spite of being a little less busy in office, my total activities have been as much as ever.
My new cook although almost as extravagant as the one I got rid of, is a very much nicer man, and he brings better quality things. Mogul’s household have added to the livestock in the compound by his hen hatching out three chicks, two of which have survived.
Did I tell you that I am digging up quite a big bit of lawn to make a vegetable garden? The actual digging is now done, but there was a lot of brick rubbish in the soil, and I think I shall need to get a few cartloads of earth as well as manure. I hope we shall make a success of it. I have not much confidence in this mali. He is about the laziest thing that ever walked, and I dont suppose he knows much about vegetable growing, for he has always been in Calcutta, where few people have vegetable gardens.
It seems I have written about enough for one week, so I send my usual messages of love and remembrance to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette No 30
8 Theatre Rd.
Calcutta.
August 9th 1942
My darling Annette,
Its quite a good plan to make a short break after I have been at letters on the typewriter all morning, for it seems to freshen up the mind a bit. Since finishing the family letter I have been down stairs to Mr Kelly’s room to discuss whether he would like the furniture altered and other details about his meals and so on. If he is going to live here I want him to have everything as far as possible, as he likes. Poor chap! He seems very grateful to us for saying he may live here. It must be horrible to find yourself with nothing but the content of a couple of suit cases, and faced with the problem of setting up house again. He is a young widower. I think he about thirty two. We dont know how or when his wife died - - not I think in the Burma tragedy, or I am sure we should have heard. He told me that one reason why he does not want to live alone in a flat or even a hotel, is that he is inclined to be a misanthrope, and that he knows it is a thing that grows on one, so it will be good for him to live in a house like this with several other people, and odd people always dropping in.
He starts work to-morrow and we have great hopes that he will pull to-gether the section he is going into, because it is the one with which our work constantly interlocks, and at present it is in a dreadful state of disorder. Talking of the office reminds me of my new rank, or what will be my new rank as soon as the next Gazette of India is published. If you have read the family letter you will have seen that I am to be gazette as an Assistant Director. It is to be an honorary appointment. Dad is earning enough money to support us in all the comfort we require, and I dont want to take any more government money, but it rather pleases me to know that even if I was put in on a paid basis at the bottom of the scale, I should get a salery of Rs 900 permonth. Actually, between you and me, I dont think they would have gazette me if it had been a question of paying me, though its nice to know that both Idris and Mr Hughes say that my work is worth quite as much as many of the men in the various sections of the office. In some directions I think it is, but what I lack is experience. What I am sure I need in dealing with rather intricate cases, which go back a good way, and connect with many other things, is the ability to stick on at it, and think right into the thing to the bottom. That is what Idris (and Dad) are so good at. They have the experience to know that it is no use allowing themselves to be hurried over an important and difficult thing, just because there is basket full of other stuff waiting. My useful function, or one of them, has been to go through the waiting basket and pick out what is really urgent, putting it before Idris with all possible relevant information. Of course I shall still do that, but to be worthy of gazette rank, I should be able to deal with cases myself, and I must be prepared to put in the work to try to make myself so. One trouble is that in order to allow the machine of Government to work, one must conform to Government proceedure, and so often it appears useless and stupid, especially when it has anything to do with the Accountant General’s branch. Do you come across this sort of thing in your work, I wonder. No doubt you will if you go into the Civil Service proper after the war.
I feel engulfed in sorrow for Russia, and full of passionate longing that we should do something to help. I know we have to trust those in command, and we cannot know the circumstances that make some things possible and others not, but its difficult not to keep on asking “Why?”
You speak of Bedford. It’s a town I have never been in, but it is a favourite resort for retired people from India. The famous Grammer School, with its cheap but good education, was the main attraction, as well as good girls schools.
I am so glad the cheese and tea from India were likely to come in usefully for the holiday in Wales. I am looking forward to hearing how you enjoyed yourself and what you did. There is not much hope of sending you more cheese for any but country cheese is difficult to get out here, and very expensive. We can get quite country made cheese, a sort of chedder, another called lunch cheese, which is like Brie, and “petit crème”, but they are all soft, and I doubt whether they would travel well. There is not likely to be a shortage of tea in India, for production has been controlled for years, and a good deal more could be produced if required. There is difficulty about sugar in the towns, but that is due to shortage of railway wagons to bring it in. The country produces plenty. How, I wonder, is your allotment. There are always so many things that can happen to growing plants, and nullify all ones work but not so many in England, especially not monkeys!
Best love. LJT
Family letter from HPV
Calcutta.
August 9th 1942
My dears
The news of the week is that Joan has been recommended for gazetted rank, as an Assistant Director of Factory Recruiting. When first she took up the work, I said that it would be a good thing if she had gazetted rank in order to have status and confute enemies if there should be any. Instead, she remained humble and borrowed prestige from the fact that I am a Commissioner. To have solidly earned the rank is something better and she is flattered. It is not only recognition but compliment; like the being elected Vice-President in the Himalayan Club, which was an extraordinary achievement.
It has been a week of many visitors. Strange that we seem to have a veritable steam of visitors whenever H.D. and Winsome choose to come in; and the stranger thing is that the flying lad who was in Sumatra and now rides Coralies’s horse (Lansdale?) always happens to be there. Dullish as a rule, but apparently so lonely that he likes sitting on and on; and does so. Nothing so common (I borrow the phrase from the Anatomy) as to have five or six lads in, talking mountains; and when I say “lads” I do not mean it, for the most of them are men getting on in years. I cannot claim to have done my share of the work of entertaining them.
Pause while I dealt with certain small cockroaches which appeared in a pigeon hole of the desk; and another while I tackled the mould which had gathered on some small notebooks in the pigeonhole. The year has been a dry year as things go out here but there is a lot of damp in this house and the mould gathers quickly. My reation to damp weather is much the same; that word should be reaction. But I am less tired probably than last week. For example it is Sunday morning and nearly 11 o’clock but I have not felt impelled to retire to my couch. The couch is not so favorably placed for retiring as it used to be; for I have moved the furniture round in my dressing room so as to get the light onto this desk at which I am writing now and have incidentally shifted the couch to a place where the breeze from the fan is not felt.
I tried my beautiful white-blobs-on-black-paper star map on Idris; and it is a flop. He did not recognize the constellations appearing in it, though one of them was his favourite Scorpio. There is of course no reason why I should make myself a star-map on lines other than those of the routine maps but it is a setback.
What is amazing about the cats is not so much that they sit happily in long wet grass but that they remain perfectly clean. Whereas if Zan (or Zanna? for it is short for Suzanne) sits even on short grass she is at once mud all over.
The wedding of Mr. Bos was not too gay. The bride pretty in a futile sort of way not likely to last; but nothing to her. Noticeable the fact that the family, Eurasian, was perfectly simple and without affectations; nice folk. Noticeable also that a very bitch-like bitch of the pi variety came in and sat happily and at ease in the middle of the Portuguese Clubroom where the reception was held, beaming around and cleaning up all the crumbs that fell from the wedding cake.
Yesterday I had a meeting at my office at 7.30 a.m. which is to my mind overdoing it. There was no alternative for the businessmen start office at 8.30 nowadays and will not come to the meeting of the Leper Hospital if the time is later. I went to the U.S. Club after it - and it lasted an hour and a half - and had breakfast. Nowadays I find it harder and harder to work through the morning without becoming exhausted; and glucose on which I used to rely for energy has become very scarce and prohibitively expensive.
Need I say that even now after neglect of six weeks at least I have not resumed the practice of typing. Coralie has just had an old typewriter which had rusted as it were solid, having been left standing in a pool of water, overhauled and beautified at a cost comparatively small. I am tempted to get things done to this; for instance, have the roller, now hard as wood, replaced. But the feeling that I may never use the typewriter to speak of puts me off; as does the fact that I cannot enter Remingtons’ place without losing my temper.
Much love
Herbert
Family letter from HPV (not in AMT’s set of letters –this typed by Joan Webb)
Calcutta, August 15, 1942
My dears,
Perhaps you will have realized that I am not typing on my own machine. A week ago Coralie produced her old machine just overhauled by Remington, and after seeing that the cost of new rollers was not excessive, I decided to go a bust and have mine done.
Her machine was of the same type as that on which I had started at Chinsurah to type out the collection of Hindustani words for the household, which I made years ago. So I seized the chance of going on with the task, and to my astonishment, finished it off yesterday. It was just in time, for the typewriter went off to Chinsurah this afternoon, reclaimed by its real owner, Bobbie Taylor.
Many dragonflies hover round the house, why I do not know. This reminded Coralie of their custom at Sardah where the police-training school is; they have a passion for settling on the points of bayonets when men are drilling. To every bayonet its dragonfly; pretty to see.
The real news of the week is that Mrs. Fox, whom we met at Mt. Tamborine has written a letter which gives an account of her last visit to the place. She says that my Guide to Tamborine Mountain, so far from having been cast aside, lives on the counter of the hotel office and is in great demand by the persons staying there. This has pleased me more than you might think. Joan says that it is ridiculous for a total stranger to the place to teach the inhabitants what there is to see in it, but I think that it is usual for guidebooks to be written by strangers.
She thought that this tale, true as it is, was funny. When Indian ministers first came into the Secretariat, they were provided with spittoons, finely made of brass. Then, lest there might be suggestions of racial contempt, every European Honourable Member was provided with one too.
The horrible tomcat prowls round and round; Mogul gave an imitation of him creeping “chupi, chupi, chupi”. The ordinary word is “chup”, as you may know, and the diminutive is quaintly comic.
Joan wanted to discourse on the subject of mock turtle soup, and to do so with the greater clearness wished to know what the Hindustani for turtle was. So she asked Mogul, explaining that it was a beast like the tortoise which he has seen in the Zoo. But she said it had not feet, but flippers. He understood at once, he said, and he started telling the cook all about it. It was an animal such as they had seen at Hagenbeck’s Circus which did juggling tricks with its nose. The cook was completely baffled by the problem of procuring a seal in Calcutta, and Joan by the impossibility of ridding Mogul’s mind of the fixed idea. So the turtle soup was renounced for the time being.
Me, I resumed the enquiry as to the Hindustani for turtle soup, because it occurred to me that the word, which I had put down in my list might after all mean tortoise. I did not get much change out of Mogul, who merely said in a grand way that some people ate one and some another. The thing that differentiates them appears to be ability to pull the head into the shell, but Mogul drifted off into a disquisition about an animal that turned out to be a crab, and I gave up.
Much love,
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 31
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
August 15th 1942.
My Dears,
No letters have come this week, either from Canada or from England. The week has passed much as usual. We look with a certain sour disapproval on the shameful behaviour of the Congress. We have not seen much of their antics in this part of Calcutta, but there have been disturbances, stone-throwing, holding up of trams, busses, and people going about on their lawful, or perhaps, unlawful occassions. I think we are much too soft with the idiots. They are mostly half baked students, of Ner’do-weals, who have’nt the guts to do a good days work. There was a small demonstration in the College where our offices are. A procession of thirty or forty students carrying banners and shouting slogans, marched up the long back drive past the playing fields, and stood about in a formless group in the courtyard. Bengalis in procession are about the least impressive thing that one can think of. Their clothes, the flowing untidy dhoti that always seems to need to be held by one hand, with the European shirt worn over it, tails flying, always has a foolish look, and the sloppy heelless shoes which they favour, makes them shuffle along without lifting their feet. Few of them hold themselves erect and they have not the slightest idea of keeping time. Standing in the courtyard in an untidy huddle, they were dwarfed by four-storied buildings rising on three sides of them, every window ornamented by the grinning faces of two or three Government chaprassis or Anglo Indian school boys, (for we occupy one side of the court yard and the school the other). Further many cars are parked there, the drivers of which far better paid and looked after than they would be by Indians, stood looking on with expressions of derision on their faces, their smart uniforms and big puggeries showing up the sloppy dress of the students. I went and stood on the doorstep next to a young policeman, who was smiling quietly. “Perhaps they will say some different talk if the Jappanies came with their guns,” I said. There was a sort of muffled sound of “Han! Han!” from several other policemen and chapprassis, and having looked at the sorry spectacle, and we returned to our duties.
Mogul amused me. We got the news of the arrests of Gandhi and the other Congress Leaders late one evening. The next morning I said to Mogul “Have you heard that Gandhi has been put in prison?” Dourly Mogul said, “Bahut Achcha” (Very Good) “but it was a pity they did not put him in pickle”. The first part of the sentence was in Hindustani, but he used the word “pickle’, pronounced with a long ‘i’. At first I did not realize what he meant, and said what is the meaning of “Pickle”? “Your Honour knows” said he, “What we do with salt and spices to the hump of Beef.”
There has been a lot of Himalayan Club work this week. The various climbing parties who are going to Sikkim next month, have been coming here to discuss equipment and their more detailed plans. I am glad we have the Equipment which will enable these men to make the use they best like of their holiday. There is no where else in India where they could have got climbing equipment. Besides the prospective climbers, there have been a lot of other people coming in of an evening. In a sense, almost too many, for I have had no free time in which to attend to my household affairs. A young man who used to come to the house quite a lot, one Arculus, is now stationed some twenty or thirty miles out-side Calcutta in the middle of a rice field swamp. He gets in to Calcutta once a week or so, and generally comes straight here for a bath and some food, and there are a few other men about who turn up here when they want to come, so that the cook is always having to stretch the food to feed one or two more than have been catered for.
Observing Herbert, I think he has been pretty well, and reasonably cheerful this week. Idris has been in good form too. His short holiday did him good. Mr Hughes went away on tour on Monday, so we have been extra busy in office this week. Poor Mrs Hughes went down with flu just as her husband left, so I have had to make time to go and see her. She is a nice little woman, but entirely interested in household matters. Curiously enough I was feeling a bit tired when I went round to see her on Thursday evening, and an hours talk about cooks and clothes, and the operations she has had, though not thrilling, was very restful. Most evenings I had had to give my close attention to answering a battery of questions.
16.8.42. We are getting a good deal of rain these days in the form of very heavy showers. During the last few days some districts have reported floods. This unfortunately does not make up for the shortage of rain during June. No amount later can produce the same good crops.
More and more bicycles and rickshaws are on the streets of Calcutta as the petrol rationing gets more severe. The number of army cars about prevent the streets from looking empty, and indeed there must be some black-leg petrol going, for there are still a lot of private cars going about, especially expensive looking ones owned by Indians. From some time next week, I hear that the police are going to stop private cars and find out where they are going, so that notes can be made if it is not on public service. I confess I dont quite see how it is going to work, but it may do some good.
We spent a delightful afternoon with Harry and Winsome last Sunday. There were no other people there except Ramsey Chase, who was spending the day here, and he is so well known to us all now, that it does not feel like having a guest. Since Harry and Winsome moved into the big house, “No 16”, I had never had a chance to go over it with Winsome, to see all the improvements and alterations they have made. Winsome is one of the cleverest people with houses, and has a knack of making rooms both charming to look at, and comfortable to live in. No 16 really gives her scope, for it is a well designed house. It has always been the custom for the firm to pay for a good deal in the way of re-decoration and repairs when a new Head of the Firm takes over. With great foresight, HD and Winsome bought most of the materials for new curtains and chair-covers when they were in England at the beginning of the war. The house was formerly crowded with far too much furniture. They have got rid of a good deal of it, and have had a lot of good teak-wood furniture which had been varnished a dark brown, or almost black finish, scraped, and repolished in its natural colour. How Winsome has managed to do it all so beautifully while she has been working so hard and so stead-ily at the Red Cross, I really dont know. She and Harry are hoping to get away to Simla for a little holiday next month, and are talking of bringing Charlotte back with them. She seems to be happy and well in Simla, and is doing well at school.
Walter Jenkins came to dinner last night, and took me to the cinema afterwards. We saw Wallace Beery in “The Bugle Sounds”, and both throughly enjoyed it. For those of you who have’nt seen it, I give you the information that it is the account of the turning over of a cavalry regiment to tanks, and the reactions on one of the old sergeants, Beery, to wit, as Sgt Doe. I enjoy an occasional visit to the pictures. It is a relaxation.
It was a year ago last Wednesday, that we got back to India from Australia. It has passed quickly, in spite of the terrific events that have taken place, both close to us, and in all other corners of the world.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette No 31.
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
My darling Annette,
Your letter comes at the end this week, and so my mind feels a bit empty, in spite of sucking a bit of barley sugar, and taking a walk round the drawing room, indulging in a few minutes conversation with the young R.A.F. Sergeant, who stayed last night here. He had the odd experience of coming out of hospital, and finding that his squadron had been moved from Calcutta. Expecting to find his own place and belongings, he found the house swept and ungarnished. Luggage, furniture, everything had gone. At the local R.A.F. Hdqts he was told when his lot had gone and that he to join them to-day. He was further told to find himself a lodging for the night. He has been riding Coralie Taylor’s horse fairly often and having tea here afterwards, so rang up to know if he might come to say good-bye. He came to tea, and it suddenly occured to me to ask if he had anywhere to stay. As he has not, we took advantage of Coralie’s absence at Chinsurah for the week-end to put him in her room. He has been amusing himself most of the morning with the atlas, looking up all the places he has been stationed at, and seen during the past two years. He was in Libya and later in Sumatra, where some very odd things seem to have happened by way of mistaken identity. There have been many odd mix-ups in Burma too, for the Ghurkas, the Burmans and the Japs, are sufficiently alike to be difficult to distinguish except by their uniform from a little distance, and the Japs seem to be great hands at getting hold of enemy uniforms and useing them.
Did I tell you that I was putting on too much weight? I am doing a little mild banting. I have given up potatoes, and butter, except at lunch, (for then I make my meal in office off bread and butter and cheese, and fruit.) I am also doing ten minutes exercises, in my bathroom each day. I think it has had a little effect even in ten days. I should hate to get fat and soft! It gave me a shock at the Blood Bank when they called out my weight “Twelve Stone”.
I find myself feeling impatient with the authorities for not being firmer with the Congress rioters. Free speech is one thing, but when the citizens of a nation try to force the will of a small part of the community on to the rest by force and sabotage, the time seems to me to have come to treat them rough.
I see its almost one o’clock, so I must go and make myself tidy. Ramsey Chase is coming to lunch and bringing a friend. He spoke to Herbert over the phone last night, and Herbert does not know who the friend is. I think it may be Marney’s Chase’s brother, who wrote recently to Ramsey saying he might be coming down here for some leave.
Best love, my dear
Mother
From LJT to Romey
8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
August 16th, 1942
My darling Romey,
We do so want to get your later letters, telling us about your Scholarship. I wonder when they will come.
Did I tell you that by being weighed at the Blood Bank, I found I was putting on too much weight, so I have given up potatoes, some butter? (I take it at lunch, for my meal in office is bread-and-butter and cheese, and fruit) and sweets. I think it has made just a little difference in ten days. I am also doing a few exercises in my bathroom before my bath each morning. I used to feel I could not spare the time, but like most things, it is a question of making up one’s mind to it. I don’t suppose I spend more than ten minutes at the outside on the exercises, and I can afford that now that we don’t go to office till 8:45am. I’d hate to get fat and soft. I must try to get back to eleven stone again.
I keep on wondering what sort of views of the Rockies you got, and what you thought of them. They look superb in their photos. I wonder whether I shall ever see them. My mind has been running rather much on mountains this week, as I have had to act as advisor to so many people. It is rather nice to have to concentrate on something not in any connected with the war, and strange to be able to do so, when such terrific things are happening.
There has been some botanical talk going on in this house lately with Frank Kingdon Ward popping in and out fairly often. The funny thing is that in casual talk he is not always very accurate, and Idris, who is meticulously accurate in everything that he does, has caught him out two or three times lately. It is unsafe to make any statement to Idris that you are not very sure about, for he has all kinds of odd stores of knowledge tucked away in his head. Actually, he is quite an accomplished botanist, and when he was a young man he did quite a lot as a hobby. He and a friend of his discovered some extremely rare plant that I believe was thought to be extinct in England, at some place in the New Forest. They always kept the exact place a secret so that other people should not go and destroy what little of the precious plant there was. Frank K-W is disappointed because some years ago he found a single scarlet cherry tree, somewhere up in Tibet north of Burma. At great inconvenience he returned to the spot in the autumn to gather seed, which was taken to England and planted. It germinated and the baby trees grew. At last they flowered, and they are all rather a dull pink! This brings up all sorts of ideas. Did he indeed, get the seed from the right tree? He says he is positive of that. Was the tree itself a sport, and has it not transmitted its new colour? Was the colour due to something peculiar in the soil? It is intriguing.
I seldom have any time to look at my flower books in these days, and I thoroughly enjoyed an evening lately when Frank was here, and he and Idris and I pulled out all my botanical books, and got them piled up round us, to help memory, confute argument, and find information. I like that sort of way of enjoying the company of one’s friends. We so often do that with mountain people too, but then it is maps and photos that are pulled out and consulted.
We had a young RAF Sergeant staying in the house last night. He has been riding Coralie Taylor’s horse, and has often come in to tea afterwards. He rang up yesterday afternoon to say that he was leaving Calcutta and might he come to say goodbye. He came to tea, and it turned out that he had been hospital with heat stroke, and when he came out and went back to the house where his Squadron had been billeted, he found they had all gone, and taken all their furniture with them! He went to the neighbouring RAF Headquarters, and was told he was to follow them today, and must find himself lodging for the night. Luckily we discovered this, and as Mrs. Taylor was away, we put him into her room for the night.
Best love darling, Mother
From LJT to Romey
August 20, 1942
My darling Romey,
It was lovely to get your long letter from Victoria, written just a month ago. Of course we are delighted that you are having a good holiday in a nice place, and taking the chance of seeing fine countries and towns which you may never get the opportunity of seeing again. I don’t think you are at all extravagant, and you have been so good about not spending unnecessary money on yourself ever since you went to Canada. We are quite willing for you to spend a little more, as long as it is there to spend.
By the way, I have been trying to think of something I could send you from here for your birthday, but I can’t think of anything, and have no time to go and hunt around the shops and markets. Perhaps it’s a bit early to mention it, but one never knows what is going to happen to letters in these days, so I want to tell you now to spend a couple of pounds or so on buying something you want for your birthday present from us. Winsome is already sending off a parcel of Christmas presents. She is a much cleverer shopper than I am, and also, although she is doing a tremendous amount of work, she is not tied to time as I am. Not leaving office till five o’clock or past, it really is a great effort to me to get to the shops before they shut. To tell you the truth, I am not hopeful of finding half such nice things as you can probably find in Winnipeg. I shall therefore get you to do what you did last year, and buy presents, really nice ones, for Cousin Susie, as well as for John and yourself. If I happen to come across anything I think any of you would specially like, I shall just send it as an extra.
I have slipped a bit of Benares brocade, which I actually bought in Benares, into Winsome’s parcel, in case you can make use of it. I thought it would do for a bag. Winsome says you will probably make a hat of it! I suppose she is having a dig at the famous hats that you made out of bits of your skirt!
Dad shivers with horror at the thought of the cold water in which you bathed at Victoria. As you know, he likes the sea to be very warm before he goes into it. His susceptibility to cold is due to his low blood pressure, the doctor says. It’s most unfortunate for him, and is going to make winter life in England very hard. We shall have to get a little house with central heating in it when we come home.
It is interesting that Mrs. Grainger’s friend, Mrs. Lorimer wrote to you about two N.Z. boys. I don’t remember either her name or those of either of the young men. There was an idea that a nephew of Mrs. Grainger’s was going to Canada, and I told her if by any chance he went to Winnipeg, to tell him to look you up. I hope the lads won’t have gone before you were able to get in touch with them. I’d love you to meet some of the New Zealanders who, at any rate, are friends of the people who were so good to us.
You know much as I hate missing all these years of seeing you, I am glad you did not come out here. So many of the girls who came out at the age of sixteen have got awfully spoilt. Francesca is a shining example to the contrary, but all the same, you would not have a chance of a “varsity career”, with the hope of a degree at the end of it. We owe an eternal debt of gratitude to Cousin Susie and to Helen for inviting you to Canada, and for being so good to you. It’s awfully hard to express gratitude properly. I do hope they realize how profoundly we feel it.
Some day I would like you to make out a little tree of the family. I get a little confused about the various members, which are married and have children and where they live. It would be nice to see it clearly put out in the form of a tree. I would like it if possible to include Cousin Susie’s brothers and sisters, some of whom befriended you and John on your way across Canada. I am always meaning to study the Stairs Family tree in the Family History, but there always seem to be so many other things to do. I like knowing something about one’s ancestors, don’t you? I believe there is a lot more continuity than many of us understand or believe, in character and habits of mind.
Here’s the end of the paper. Best love, darling, Mother
From Grace Townend to Annette
Highways,
Gt. Leighs,
Nr. Chelmsford.
Aug 20th 1942
My darling Anne
Uncle had a letter today from the officer commanding Dicky’s station which makes us feel a bit more hopeful. He says two planes were lost that day – one definitely must be considered a total loss, but of the other nothing is known and they don’t know which was which. He says they consider there is a good chance of the crew of the latter being prisoners and hope Richard may be one of these. Please God we may hear soon that he is alive. Of course another possibility is his being picked up by an outgoing ship. A lad turned up in Witham last week after being “killed” a month ago, having been rescued by a Portuguese ship and taken down there. So don’t let’s depair.
I have cabled to India and Canada saying “Richard missing. North Sea Patrol Aug. 9th. Still very hopeful” Poor darlings! It is hateful to think of their having this shock and anxiety ahead of them. Susannah has been quite certain that he will come back and has been a great comfort to me.
Indian letters again today very quick coming.
Love.
Come home soon
Aunt
Family letter from LJT No 32
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
August 22nd 1942.
My Dears,
It was an excitement last evening to get a letter by Air-Mail from Romey, which had been posted in Victoria, and had taken a day under a month to come. Our impressions are still like those received in the films, which show a scene and then jump back in time to display what led up to the situation. From Helen’s letter we knew that Romey had gone to the Coast. Romey writes in the belief that we know all about her visit: how she got there: whom she stayed with and so on, but so far we are in ignorance of all these things. There are still no letters from the family from England, though a few have come by sea, including one from Mr Cape and another from Bill Townend. I hope we shall get some soon.
The world excitements have thrown any small interests of our own into obscure shadow. Winston’s visit to Russia and the Middle East; the shifting of Generals in that part of the world; the daylight Raid on Dieppe: and the awful struggle going on in Russia, keep our minds when they are free from work, speculating on what is going to happen next. Even the serious troubles in India herself seem small compared with these other things. There was stone throwing, rowdyism, and a good deal of destruction of property, and interfearence with the public services in the Northern part of Calcutta, and some of the other predominantly Indian districts, but after putting up with it for a few days, the authorities did what everyone thought they should have done in the beginning: they had lorries of armed police patrolling the street as well as files of soldiers in battle dress. The rowdies disappeared like snow before the sun. There has been worse trouble in some other towns, but it seems as if things are quieting down now. It is a pity we have not got a spice more ruthlessness in our methods.
The peace of our Saturday afternoon was disturbed by an Air Raid warning today. It did not last long, and we think that most likely it was a practice, because we have not had one for so long that it is just as well to test that everything is in order.
We have had interesting people about this week. General Slim had dinner with us one night. He wanted to meet Frank Kingdon Ward, whom he had not come across in Burma. He told us some interesting things about the Burma campaign, and gave especial praise to the Ghurkas. I have heard the same thing from many other sources about both Burma and Malaya. It was comforting to hear from General Slim that in spite of the fact that we were retreating, we managed to kill very large numbers of Japs. Probably the Ghurkas did more, man for man, than anyone else in this line, but some of the Scotch regiments got pretty good bags too.
He was amusing about his own name, saying that not only does it afford great scope for fun-making, but no one can ever hear it over the telephone. He was ringing someone up the other day, and got on to a young officer. The lad said, “I’m sorry Sir, the connection is very bad. I cant hear your name.” The General repeated it, and the reply came back, “I’m frightfully sorry Sir, but it sounds just like Slim”. But the best thing was the order that was published recently when General Broad was still in this part of the country. It read: “Generals Broad and Slim will be at the aerodrome to meet H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester.” We were all pleased with General Slim, for he has completely avoided that heaviness and portentousness of manner which seems common to so many of them. His manner is as natural as if he were an ordinary citizen of no rank at all. General Lindsay, who was here a few years ago, was just the same, but our present local area commander has the red face, the eyeglass and the grand manner that are so typical of rank!
Frank K-W has been in and out here several times this week, and on Tuesday Idris and I went to the early cinema with him and to dinner at the United Service Club afterwards. The film “Ball of Fire” was amusing and far better than its name would indicate, and there was good talk at dinner and afterwards. When F.K-W, Rex Fawcus, Idris and myself get to-gether there is a tendency for the talk to become somewhat botanical, and I am afraid it may have been a bit boring for the other woman in the party. We made occasional attempts to bring ourselves back to subjects which might interest her, but the bias was too strong and ideas galloped back to what the majority of us were interested in.
G.B. Gourlay is still here and came in to dinner one night, with Robin Ross, who has been staying on in Calcutta to have massage for his damaged back. Robin has grown a bit less introspective, I think and hope. He will be a much happier man as he grows older if he can stop thinking about his own reactions to things all the time.
23.8.42. Today is the twenty-ninth anniversary of our wedding day. For a wonder we both remembered it. I had tried to buy a book for Herbert, which I thought might interest him, but it is not available in Calcutta. He also tried to get a book for me, and failed, so we have only been able to give each other the thought, but it does very well!
I am trying to find time to give some attention to the garden, but its most difficult, for lately we seem to get people coming in every evening, and I just have not been getting any time to attend to my own affairs. Being such a big party in the house, meals take much longer than they do when only Herbert and I are here, and I found that if I dont check the cook’s account carefully, prices begin to soar unreasonably. This means that I have to devote twenty minutes or so to giving the cook orders and checking his account and writing up the store book after dinner each evening, and only get upstairs just in time for the 9.30 news. After that I dont feel inclined to sit down to letter-writing of any sort. I am planning quite an extensive vegetable crop. It will be a great help, for good vegetables are a bit scarce and expensive, and anyway it is always nice to have your own.
The four small cats still amuse us. They have one fault, says Mogul. When their stomachs are empty, they come directly they are called. When their stomachs are full, they take no notice. It is a fault they share in common with many cats, in my opinion. Mogul’s descriptions of things are often good. There is an extraordinary house next door to us. It is a large place, inhabited by a number of Armenian or Anglo-Indian families. Sometimes we hear the most terrific shoutings going on, especially on Sunday mornings. I thought this was probably the patriarch of the house, who possibly indulged in a very gay evening on Saturday, and took it out of his servants on Sunday morning. Last Sunday morning the shouting was specially loud, and Herbert went out on to the top of the steps which lead down from my bathroom, the only place from which we can see into the next house and garden, for the only windows on that side of our house, are bath-room ones high up in the wall. From this vantage point he found himself looking into the gentleman’s room at short range. The man was dressed in a shirt only, and had three or four servants in front of him, at whom he was bellowing in a voice loud enough to drill a regiment. The servants, says Herbert, appeared quite unmoved. Hearing the shout going on one evening when Mogul had come to my writing room for orders, I said to him “What kind of a sahib is that, Mogul? Does he get drunk?” “No” said Mogul “he does not get drunk, but he is ‘ek rakm ke Sahib’”. (One sort of a Sahib) There is a subtle meaning attached to that phraseology that is very expressive.
We had a very enjoyable visit from Winsome the other evening. She still cares for the cathedral linen, and had come on her bicycle to see to various things there. Being so near, she came on and had tea with us, and luckily no one else was in so early, so we were able to have a nice family gossip. We are hoping to do the same to-day, for marvelous to relate HD and Winsome have no one in the house at the moment, and they have summoned us to tea, with the special hope that there will be no outsiders there.
Its high time I got on to personal letters. I have left little time for them, as I started late this morning through having a lot of household affairs to attend to.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette and Richard No 32
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta
August 23rd 1942
Beloved children,
Since I have not got letters from either of you to answer, and since I am short of time, as usual, I am writing you a small joint letter this week. There is so much happening in the war that one feels a sort of tensity, and yet its remarkable how essentially unchanged most of us are in our feelings. For those actually in the battle line, for the wounded and the belongings of those who have been killed or taken prisoner, it must be different, but for people like myself, for instance, I dont suppose I am happier, or worried, or depressed for longer periods of time than I was before the war. The surface of life has changed quite a bit, but such a lot in the way of clothes, food, amusements, and work, can be altered without making any difference to the personality who experiences these changes.
Dad is busy copying a plan of this house I found in a file, with the idea that it may amuse all of you at home, to see how the house is laid out and how big the rooms are. It has gradually developed into a “home”. It seemed at first that it never would, with other people’s furniture in it, and somehow lacking the imprint of one personality or one couple’s personality. Sometimes we get just a little tired of having the house always so full of people (except Idris, we never mind him) but it suits a house this size to have a lot of people in it.
Dad is keeping fairly well by dint of taking great care of himself, but on days when he cannot get back to lunch and have a short rest after it, he is frightfully tired by tea-time, which is about 5.30 p.m. for us. He is keeping reasonable cheerful, though, which is a great thing.
We are hoping a big batch of letters will come soon. There has been such a long gap.
Best love to you both
Mother
Family letter from HPV
Calcutta
August 23rd. 1942.
My dear Richard (handwritten name)
Our 29th wedding day; notable chiefly for the fact that I did not forget it. Hearing the news at breakfast, Coralie said “You must have a party” and I abstained even from good words out of sheer contempt for so inauspicious a suggestion. Joan in good fettle and reconciled to having committed herself so long ago at a tender age to a union that involved among other disadvantages spending her life in Bengal.
The typewriter has returned, and on the whole I think that the work has been not badly done. Bits of it look quite smart; and that has psychological effects on the writer. In particular the alteration in the alignment of the keys or of some of them has been an improvement; this letter will show whether, as I venture to hope, the new rubber rollers will have removed the habit of smudging the carbon copies.
The return of his machine has stimulated the belief in the heart of the aspirant to skill in typing that by exercises improvement may be affected. That is the style in which the book is written. And indeed I have made the definite attempt each evening this week to do something on it; it is a gnawing regret that unworthy folk, so to speak, like Peggy whom I mention in all affection, should turn out stuff looking like a lithograph whereas my results are like first efforts of an illiterate Bengali to set up type in a printing press.
Bobby Taylor today was speaking of steps to deal with the Civil Disobedience movement in Mymensingh some ten years ago. There was a revolutionary who set himself up as a Dictator of the district; he was arrested, taken to the police station, “given a severe warming” by the Police Superintendent himself, and allowed to go. Such the wording of the official report; which did not mention that before he left he lost in some strange manner all his clothes and that a crowd of Mahommedans outside the police-station were unsympathetic.
Coralie rode in a race at Tollygunge yesterday, and had no luck. The horse would not start and went round and round till all others were well away. Kicked in the ribs by a bazar pony this morning on the maidan, her own mare was reduced to shame. Had it been I, there would have been grief and teeth-gnashing but she is cheery and resilient.
Very heavy rain has been a feature of the week; to the vast improvement of harvest prospects but to the worsening of my spirits. It is difficult to maintain any pretence of equanimity when the air is saturated with moisture; energy disappears and gloom increases. Religiously I have been doing exercises (just a few) each morning, though the doctor was not much in favour of them last time I saw him, a good time ago after all; it was impossible to bear the thought that I might be growing a pendulous stomach, though I eat so little that the object has no real encouragement to indulge in growth out or down. There has been no relish in my work. I haven’t been to any movies, partly because there is nothing tempting and partly because the shows are too long and I grow tired before the real feature of the evening comes along.
Letters from Rosemary, Brother Bill and H.J. Cape this week. The last tells of digging up countless sets of false teeth in his garden; not two nor four nor twenty sets but many, as he says. Bill quite friendly, but that is his way when writing to anyone so far off that there is no present risk of a meeting.
One thing that they have done to this machine is to adjust the back-spacer (which enters largely into my typing) in such a way that it backspaces two instead of one; to my utter confusion. But I have been fumbling badly over the whole of this letter and looking often to the results in a manner bound to produce wholesale defects. However I have attained to more proficiency than I hoped for when first I started on H.D.’s book.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from HPV
Letter headed: From H.P.V. Townend I.C.S.
8 Theatre Road
Calcutta
August 29th 1942
My Dear Annette (name handwritten)
The news that Richard was missing came on Sunday evening soon after we had returned from a visit to H.D. and Winsome, in grim contrast to the restfulness of it. I shall not write anything about our feelings.
Strange to say we have had four letters from him since the news came. None from anyone else in England. Two were airgraphs; he had been enjoying himself, and he wrote with a comforting serenity.
There were two long letters yesterday from Rosemary - or perhaps the day before. I much admire anyone who has the physical strength to type so much even if she was looking at the keys; and the more because she kept it all alive. When I type an awful deadness descends on everything.
Joan’s gazetting is now accomplished and she is a great one among the officers: I hope that all realize what an achievement this has been. Governments are not ready to recognize services lightly.
The plan of the house which is being sent out to the family might have been neater; but it does give some idea of the scale of the houses of old Calcutta. The drawback to these enormous rooms is that the lighting of the remoter corners is always more or less bad. The drawback to these enormous houses apart from the enormous cost of the many servants is that there evidently is much more chance of there being a leak somewhere in the roof. In spite of the war they repaired our roof this year; last year water poured through. In the plan where there is a line drawn across a door that door is kept by us permanently closed. On the first floor the rooms are some 18 feet high; the doors are 9 feet high. Those downstairs are “quite a good bit” lower to quote Joan. We spend most of our sitting time either in the north end of the drawing room (there are fans there and windows on three sides) or on the upstairs verandah. The verandah below is merely a passage way and a place where the mali arranges flowers. It looks out on that part of the garden where the cats like to sit in the rain. Joan spends a lot of time in her study and I a good deal in my dressing room where my desk and my dressing table stand back to back in the middle of the room so as to get the benefit of the fan and of the windows.
You know that I erected two barricades of sandbags in my office room for the protection of the servants who stay there during air-raids or (so far) air-raid alarms. They have always had the disadvantage of smelling real cruel as jute usually does; but now there is the added disadvantage that a small rat has taken up its abode in the midst of one of them. Not to be dislodged unless the whole is taken down. Mogul being consulted (which means that I shirked giving him direct orders to put down poison) delivered himself like an oracle; “This rat is small and has a pink nose: the rats near the dustbin which the kitten shikars are big and have black noses.” He added with equal helpfulness that no cat could kill the rat in the store room; “it is a rat only to be killed by Swanker”. As it is nearly 20 years ago that Swanker departed this life, things do not look very hopeful. A great ratter was Master Swanker; especially when bitten on the nose by a bandicoot. A great catter also, alas; though he was living with Hugh Carey Morgan on the unfortunate occasion when he bounded from the car when Hugh was calling somewhere and in a flash killed the family cat on the front doorstep.
After twenty-five years’ enquiry at intervals, I have discovered the Hindustani for magnifying glass. Ismail when asked assumed the airs of a wise one and said, “In Hindustani we call it gilass”. Mogul was spurred by this to reveal that it was a Halabi, which turns out to mean a glass from Aleppo. By way of good measure he added that some call it the equivalent of sun-glass because it brings down the sun to set fire to paper. And then he told an interesting thing; some also call it “chuckmucky a,ina”. Now “chuckmuck” which is not spelled like that really is Arabic for steel; and the Hindustani in the sense of flint and steel and a chuckmucki stone is a flint. So a chuckmucki a,ina (a, ina means plate glass) is a glass that acts like flint and steel in that it makes fire; and our friend General Chuckmuck in Turkey is the equivalent of Stalin.
The last three inches of this ribbon are good. What a difference it makes to ease of typing!
Much love,
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 33
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
August 29th 1942
My dears,
It is under a sad cloud of grief that I write this week. The cable telling us that Richard was missing reached us last Sunday evening, the 23rd. We dare not hope too much, and yet we needs must cling to some shred of hope. Whenever my mind is free (and luckily for me that is seldom) it leaps back to thoughts of him, and all sorts of conjectures as to what may be happening to him, if he has escaped death. Its trying to know that this letter will reach you all so long after it is written, but I must put down something of what we are feeling at any rate in the upper layers of our minds. Mercifully for us we were alone in the house when the news reached us, and all the other inmates were out to dinner, so we had a little time to regain our balance, before we had to face any outsiders. I could and can manage alright so long as people do not speak about it, and then something in my throat and the back of my eyes gets, or almost gets out of control. I put little notes on the tables of our “lodgers” and they have all been splendid, and helped us to carry on in a perfectly normal way. Walter Jenkins has been a great help too. He happened to come in on Monday evening, and we told him, and I asked him to let some of our special friends and people we were likely to meet, know our sorrow. It has been of the greatest help to me to be engaged on a job which demands my close attention all day, and to have so many other things to attend to during the remaining waking hours, they I quite truly dont have time to think much. I am not going to write more about the great anxiety now, and will stop for this evening, and try to write you a little more of an ordinary letter to-morrow.
30.8.42
A secraphone message came from Delhi early this week asking on what day I would take over my new duties as Assistant Director of Factory Recruitment, as the information had to go into the current gazette. Actually my duties continue to be exactly as before, except that I can now note on files, and sign official letters to other departments. It is satisfying to know that I have made good at this job, for I think gazetting me a an officer definitely means that. It has also pleased me that several of the Supply Department people have rung up or popped in to congratulate me. We have certainly been busy in office, and I am still getting quite a bit of work to do for the Himalayan Club.
There has been another slight upset in the domestic staff, but it so happens that it is satisfactory to me. The mali is said to have been here for nineteen years, but during that time he has made himself acquainted with every possible way of shirking work, making illicit profit, and apparently selling the flowers out of the garden. Several of the other servants, especially the Armed Guards, told me this, but I said I could do nothing except warn him, unless they could catch him and his accomplices in the act. This they did last Sunday evening. A procession came upstairs. One of the Guards, a stalwart up-countryman with a bristling moustache and a flashing eye, dragging along the culprit by the wrists. Ismail, the bearer, holding a mass of flowers which had been concealed in the thief’s umbrella. Bhim Das, who is now our door-keeper, and the Driver, both of whom had been informers against the mali, though both are Hindus. The mali was summoned. Herbert gave a crisp judgment, and told the guard to let the man go, but that next time he was caught he would be put in prison, and that the mali would also not be charged, and could stay the night in the compound, but would get his pay and go first thing in the morning. The Guard could not resist the temptation, and as he loosed the wrists of the thief, he caught him a sounding smack, first on one side of his head and then on the other. Later Ismail came up with a smile on his face, and said, “Guard woh admi khub mara” (the guard that man has well smacked) Now I am able to do what I had wanted to do for a long time, and that is get my second mali from Chinsurah. I sent a note up to Mrs Halder, who is kindly allowing me to have him, and he starts work here on the 1st Sept. He knows a good deal about growing vegetables, and the old man did not. Also he will not object to suggestions and collaboration from the Driver, who is very knowledgeable about agriculture.
As usual there have been people in and out of an evening, and last Sunday we went to tea with Harry and Winsome, riding out to Alipore on our bicycles. Harry took some snaps, which have been sent to Highways. We enjoyed the ride. It was a coolish evening after rain, with splendid mountains and pillars of cloud in the sky. We went all over the house again, as Herbert had never seen it, and again I admire Winsome’s genius for house arrangement. Winsome likes bicycling so much that she suggested to Harry that they should ride part way back with us, and they did so. In many ways Calcutta is an ideal place for cycling, because it is perfectly flat, and not very windy.
We have had a slight break in the rains during the week and consequent rise in temperatures, but there was a deluge last night, and it is pouring again this morning. It cant be much fun for the troops who are out under canvas. I hope it is causing a lot of discomfort and inconvenience for the Japs too.
The town seems to have settled down to normal or fairly normal life after the bubbling up of Congress disorders.
Best love to you all
LJT
LJT to Romey added at bottom of family letter
My darling Romey,
The sad, sad news that Richard is missing, will be a tremendous grief to you I know. It gives me a feeling like a sort of indigestion of the soul and mind. Though I have not much time to think about it, the thought is there like a dull ache all the time. How wonderful it would be if by the time you get this, we had heard that he is safe somewhere. I dare not count too much on the hope, and I am not going to write more about it just now.
Thank you for your letters, nos 63 and 64, dated 24/5 and 56, the second one giving a splendid description of your holiday at the Lake of the Woods. Disregarding the Airmail letter written by hand from Victoria on 22/7, there is a gap of nearly five weeks and four of the regular numbered family letters missing. I do hope they will turn up. Possibly one of them contains the news of your scholarship.
The Lake of the Woods does sound a lovely place for a holiday, and I like hearing about the canoeing and swimming. It must have been fun meeting your friend Eric Crossin again. I am glad you have not adopted the glamour-girl --- boy-friend attitude. It always seems to me so vulgar and so pointless. There are so many sorts and degrees of friendship and it seems to me such a pity to spoil the magic of falling in love by mimicking the thing in these surface friendships, which don’t mean anything much. Likewise it is stupid to think that you can’t have delightful companionable friendships without putting a romantic streak into them.
I am also glad that when you learnt to ride, you were taught or somehow picked up something of the art of being a horse-master. I like to hear that you have the knowledge and patience to make a horse do what it does not want to do.
It sounds as if the mosquito plague might be worse with you than with us. We don’t often get them in the day. There is only one sort that comes on in the daytime, and it breeds in tanks and cisterns in the house, so it is fairly easy to eliminate. Do you get the sand flies, which are such a pest in the daytime in parts of New Zealand?
It is most interesting to hear that the “glory” dress is being made use of, and the knickers coming into bring it up to date. You have an economical mind about your clothes, and make good use of what you have got.
I wonder how long this new air-route for letters via Lagos will take. You will let us know won’t you?
In a file about the fittings etc of this house, we found a plan of it, and Dad has made two copies, one for you and one for Highways, as we thought it might interest the family to see what a big sprawling house it is. You won’t be surprised that in these days, when the town is so full, I feel we ought not to keep so much space to ourselves. I love my little narrow writing room, with its three big windows. On the top of my writing bureau, which stands between the first two windows, I have two of your photos, and two frames with three of Annie’s pictures in each. Hanging on the wall above, I have two of Richard, and the enlarged snapshot of you, which I took in 1937 at Highways. You are in your riding things, with the little terrier who had to be got rid of, jumping up to greet you. On all the other walls I have big pictures of snow mountains, that have been given to me at different times. Facing the writing table on the inner wall, is a bookcase where I keep my reference and cooking and gardening books, and a few of my pets. A couple of easy chairs, the half-cupboard, which I had made to hold the Himalayan Club files, and a big cupboard for oddments at the end of the room, blocking the door into the bathroom, and an odd table or two, complete the furnishing.
Best love, darling,
Mother
Airgraph from LJT to Grace Townend
(Addressed to Mrs ABS Townend, Highways, Great Leighs, Nr Chelmsford, Essex, England)
8 Theatre Road, Calcutta, India
August 30th 1942
Dearest Grace,
Your cable about Richard reached us last Sunday. Though the hope that he may be safe grows fainter as the days go by we still cling to it, but dare not build too much on it. In case he is still alive somewhere I shall go on sending letters for him for a while. He had become so nearly your son as well as mine, that your feelings are probably much the same as mine, and don’t bear much speaking of. My thankfulness that he had you and Barney always at hand with your unfailing love and kindness, is now, if possible, greater than ever. Two letters and two airgraphs from him reached us this week and told of spending peaceful leaves with you. He also told the good news that Gavin has a “first”. Congratulations to him. I hope some satisfactory solution to his problem has been found.
In all my thoughts of Richard it is such a comfort to know that he lived so well and so truly. The fact that when he had a holiday he went straight back to you and enjoyed the simple things he has always loved, instead of wanting to and spend riotous days and nights in London is a comfort too. Strange that only last Sunday I had written to him and to Annette, saying that until a personal grief touched one it was strange how little the war altered the daily level of ones feelings. I was fated to know what that personal grief can do very soon. Thank God I am absorbed in a job which needs my close attention all day, and so busy in the remaining waking hours that I truly have no time to brood. There is too much to do in getting on with winning the war.
This should reach you at the beginning of October, the month of birthdays. Would you distribute cheques or cash on my behalf as usual to your family and mine? I forgot Peggy’s birthday and Gavin’s this year. Will you give them a belated ten shillings each from me, and the same to Joyce when her November date comes along. Please spend the usual five pounds on yourself, and get Barney something in the region of one or two pounds. I am sorry to put all this on you, but any attempt to get parcels to England at a given date is impossible.
We had two long letters from Romey a few days ago. How happy and well she seems. I fear the news about Richard will be a heavy grief to her, for she was very devoted to him. Did I ever tell you of the brave new Zealand woman I met who had just lost one of her sons in the R.A.F? Her courage has helped me much this week. Best love and constant thoughts to you and Barney and Annette.
Joan
From Grace Townend to Annette
Highways. Gt. Leighs
Chelmsford
Aug. 31st 42
My darling Anne,
I hadn’t written because I thought after you had the bandages off on Tuesday, they might let you come home, but I suppose there has been a delay – so here are todays Indian letters – as you may notice, written a month earlier than what came last Monday. Gav arrived yesterday. I am thankful to have him to take a few jobs off my hands, as I am flooded with plums and see myself doing three big jam days this week.
He – Gav – has written at my request to his friend who was at Dicky’s station, to ask if any news has come through of any of the crews of either plane. One might glean a bit further information that way. How sick at heart this waiting does make one.
We had a cable from Susie Mcgill saying she had send our cable on to Romey in Vancouver. I am glad Helen is with her to help her bear it. Poor lamb. It will be a sad blight on her holiday. Peg seems quite recovered but still dosnt quite know when she goes back to Michael.
No news – the trivial round takes all my time –
Much love, darling
From
Aunt