1942 June
From LJT to Romey
Not dated (June ?, 1942)
My darling Romey,
Apologies for not writing you a personal letter last week. I am sure you would have given precedence to visiting the wounded if you had been in my place.
Still no mail from Canada! I do hope one will come soon. Ray Bos has had another bunch of letters, but mail for the American Army comes by special planes, he says. I have been getting him to tell me a lot about his home in Washington State, near a place called Yokima. It sounds a grand country! It is near the Western mountains I’d like to go and see if I were in the USA or Canada.
The book that Helen recommended “Ariel and all His Company”, I just could not get through and nor could Dad. I think it is the technical side of broadcasting that must have appealed to her. To me it seemed to lead nowhere, and tell chiefly of disagreements and jealousies.
We had many peeps at American University life of the turn of the century in a film I went to see last night, “Three Cheers for Miss Bishop”. Oddly enough that film was running in two towns in New Zealand and also in Sydney, when we were there, but Dad did not fancy it, so we never went. I enjoyed it last night. After several films I have seen lately it was a treat to see people behaving as they might do in real life, and doing brave things, resisting self indulgence, and upholding ideals.
I have been so much wishing I had some young things in the house (you, to wit) to be companionable with the lads who stay here. I have had no time to fix up parties, and anyhow there are few girls about, and most of those working hard. Another thing is that Calcutta’s rather spoilt and sophisticated young ladies would not get on a bit with Ray Bos. I think he would be just dumb with them. He only knows about country things. He said he found it difficult to get on with the girls he met in Melbourne (Their ship stayed a little while in Australia) but in Freemantle there was a girl he “Sort o’ liked. She was a real farmer-girl. We got on awful well together”, he said, “but of course, she’s not quite like my sweetheart”.
We see very little of H.D. and Winsome these days, though we were delighted when they came in to have a late cup of tea with us one evening. Winsome is very busy, for so many people have gone away and others have such difficulty about getting about owing to the petrol rationing, that the Red Cross is running short handed, just when it has a tremendous extra burden of work thrown upon it. It’s lucky we had time to build up stocks before all this Jap trouble happened. Many people have grumbled at stocks being kept here, and said that everything should be sent to the Middle East or Europe. It is lucky that those in authority did not listen.
After a steaming hot day yesterday, a sudden Nor’ Westerly dust storm sprang up just as we were leaving the hospital about 6:30. In a few minutes the temperature must have dropped many degrees. No rain touched us, but there must have been some not very far off, for the coolness continued through the night, and it’s quite cool this morning. I’ve just been to look at the thermometer and it is standing at 84. That feels surprisingly cool when it has been up at 108.
I wonder how your summer plans are going. I do hope you manage to get over to the Coast. I had words with a young Canadian at the office a few days ago. He was a lad from Burma, looked as if he were in his early twenties, and claimed to be a lumberjack. He was not suited for any of our jobs. “But they will want you in the Army.” I said. “they can’t get me”, he said, “I am Canadian”. “Don’t you feel you ought to join up?” said I. “Oh,” he said, “I don’t like the army and I would not make a good soldier.” “So”, I replied “you are one of the sort who like other people to take the knocks while you keep your skin safe. I think it will tell against you when you are looking for a job, and I hope it will. Good day.” He went! I wonder whether I was unfair. It was the way he said it, just glorying in the fact that he could not be called up, that made me mad.
A long letter from Dicky reached us yesterday, which he had sent by sea mail, and which had taken over three months to come. I feel sorry that I had been blaming him rather unjustly for not writing for such a long time. He seems to be worrying a bit because he has been in a “kushy” job for so long. I thank fate warmly for having kept him there as long as she has.
Best love to you. Ask Cousin Susie and Helen to forgive me for not writing. I think they know how little time I have.
Bless you darling,
Mother
Family letter from LJT No 21 (handwritten in margin – Grace’s letter No 10 and Annette’s no 8 – just arrived.
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta
June 6th 1942.
My Dears,
The hoped for letters from Home did not come, but I got a splendid long letter from Hilda, by sea mail, written before she knew where Tim was going. We are still without letters from Canada, too.
All these days there is an ever-present consciousness of the battle raging in Libya. We think we are hot here, but its just child’s play compared with what it must be like in tanks in the desert. I hope we have good news this evening. Naturally we have been thrilled at the accounts of the monster air raids over Germany. On the whole we feel cheerful about Europe, whatever our distresses may have been out here.
All the officers in the Munitions Production Division of the Supply Dept were recently told that they must each take ten days leave. In our branch, our Officer Supervisor went first. Mr Hughes went off last Saturday afternoon, and Idris was to have gone on the seventeenth, but he decided that Mr Hughes should do a tour of the different factories where training is being done, on his return journey, so Idris has put his leave off. As a matter of fact, he has no idea what he wants to do. He feels lost without his plane, which has been taken over by the R.A.F.. Actually I think it will be much better for him to go for a quiet holiday in the Hills, which I hope he will do in July.
Meantime, with the stream of people from Burma continuing, we find ourselves extremely busy, and I have not been leaving office till 6 o’clock on several evenings, and never before 5,30, which has left me little time for hospital visiting, so I think I have only been round once this week, but Herbert has been awfully good, and has been round there on three or four evenings. All the men from Burma in whom we took a special interest, have gone. The men who came here were mostly brought out by plane. That is not happening now, and those who are coming over the land frontier are being sent direct up country in hospital trains, as far as possible. We still go to see others we adopted, such as the American sailor who was poisoned by the fumes from diesel engines in a blacked-out ship, and a lad who was badly wounded in one of the ships that was sunk in the Bay of Bengal early in April.
Ramsey Chase came to lunch and spent the afternoon here last Sunday. Then he and I faced the four o’clock heat and went along to the Saturday Club on bicycles, for a bathe, which we much enjoyed. We got back here in time to go to the six o’clock cinema with Idris and to a grill at Firpo’s afterwards; - - a very pleasant evening. The film we saw had the awful title of “The Men in Her Life”, but (for the information of any of you who have not seen it) it is the Story by Lady Eleanor Smith “Ballerina” and has a lot of delightful shorts of Ballet in it, and is well acted and very charming.
Herbert has taken on an extra job in addition to his own. For the last few days he has been interviewing candidates (Indians) for the Army. This is work which was supposed to be done by the Public Services Commission, but it has been badly neglected. The Chairman of the Commission has recently fallen seriously ill and had to go away. The Chief Secretary asked Herbert if he would take over this section of the work, and he did not like to refuse, with the result that he has interviewed something in the region of two hundred candidates during the last few days, and is absolutely exhausted. I see the little extra strength which he has laboriously built up, all squandered again, and I fear if this goes on, he will crack up. I don’t know what can be done about it, but I think some action will be necessary. (handwritten in margin by HPV – 80 only out of 200 to be ???illegible)
Our R.A.F. sergeants who used to come and play tennis every day, are now all at work, and have no time to come here. I am glad that the court was there to help keep them amused till their planes arrived. One of the young officers who has been here for ten days leave, went off on Thursday, and for the moment we have only Mr. Fraser here. Coralie Taylor got back on Monday, and is staying on in Calcutta, as she was offered a military job here, and pressed to take it. She is doing some sort of office work, and has plunged in up to the neck, for it seems the particular office had been running short handed, and had lots of arrears. She throughly enjoyed her little holiday in Darjeeling, but says it felt terribly coming back into the heat. Its still very hot and sticky here, but we are hoping for the monsoon to break at any moment. The first week of June is the right time, and there has been a lot of cloud about the last few days.
Capt Vyvyan Cowan, one of the group of Sappers introduced to us by Ramsey Chase, is being transferred in a few days, and he gave a little farewell party at the Saturday Club, which I much enjoyed. I am sorry he is going, for he is an interesting man, and we have enjoyed his company. These war-time contacts are almost as fleeting as board-ship friendships. There is something stable about the friendship with Ramsey Chase, for I have always kept in touch with his wife in England, and shall certainly see her again when I come home.
As I only wanted to finish a few lines, I used the back of this sheet, and hope it wont be too difficult to read.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Romey #21
June 7th, 1942
My darling Romey,
Still no letters from Canada. The last ones I received were nos 53 and 54 dated 15th and 22nd March. I think they arrived here late in April, but stupidly did not make a note on them, as I usually do.
At Vivian Cowan’s little party the other evening (see family letter ) Francesca Gurner was the only other female guest. She has developed into a charming person, and a most capable one too. She is working whole time at the Hostel for the Troops, and kept us well amused with stories of happenings there. Lately the men have developed a passion for taking photos of ‘The Ladies’, that is Francesca, Mrs. Martyn (wife of the Martyn who lived with us in Jalpaiguri) and a newly appointed WAC. Francesca says when for the fourth or fifth time they are asked to stand out in the broiling sun while cameras are adjusted, they don’t think it so funny! The two younger girls have news that they have both passed the school Certificate exam, but I did not gather what standard they had achieved.
I have had a busy morning today, and carried out a lot of tiresome jobs. There is the Sunday morning duty of washing and setting hair, which is always a bother. The dhirzie brought three dresses, just plain washing office ones, which I had to try on. Then I had to make my tour of the house and garden, and found a lot to find fault with. The servants all tend to get more slack than usual when the weather is as hot as it has been lately, and I am sure I don’t wonder! Still one must keep them up to the mark. Everyone got a ticking off today! Except perhaps the cook, and he had a monster one in the middle of the week. A houseful of people and war prices, make ideal circumstances for pushing up the cost of the daily bazaar to fantastic heights. What a difference it would make in India if only one’s servants were honest.
Our own lives seem rather like a shadow play seen against the background of the great events in Russia and Libya and the great RAF offensive over Germany. Things do look a bit brighter, and one finds all sorts of hopes springing up unbidden in ones mind. How grand it would be if Germany could be knocked out by this Autumn. Surely the united forces of the Allies would not take long then to put the Japs back where they belong!
Sorry. I am having such a lot of interruptions that it is difficult to concentrate. I have had a lot of trouble with the mali lately. There were several changes of under-mali, and he always reported that they had run away. Owing to fear of raids, many malis have run away, so I did not think much of it, till the house bearer, Ismail, a muslim, and the Driver, a Hindu, both came to me. They said that the head mali ill treats the boys, makes them do all the work, from the moment I am out of the house, and beats them if they complain. He is not finding it so amusing now, for I am not keeping an under-mali at all, so he has to do the work himself. I am sorry I have not a little more time at home so that I could slave drive him a bit. I started on this because the last garden boy has just turned up to get his pay. I questioned him, and he says that the mali told him he was only here as a stop gap, and that he was not wanted any more, but he did not run away. He is such a simple creature that I don’t think he has made it up.
After all these people who do as little work as they can, it is nice to come in contact with someone like our typist, Miss Jacob. The difficulty with her is to get her to stop working! She really is a good girl. I am trying to get her a rise in pay, she certainly deserves it. Time to bring this to an end now.
Best love darling,
Mother
From LJT to Annette No 21
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
June 7th 1942
My darling Annette,
The 7th June was Mother’s birthday. I seem to connect it with roses and strawberries and cream, but surely strawberries are not in season as early as this? Were she still alive, I think she would be just over ninety.
This morning has seen me deal with several tiresome jobs. a) The fortnightly washing and setting of my hair. In hot weather one does not know whether to sweat without a fan, while putting in the curlers, or endure the irritation of getting the hair blown all over the place. b) trying on three new cotton dresses just made by the dhirzie. c) Blowing up the mali for laziness, and showing him what a bad state the garden is in. d) blasting the sweeper for not brushing carpets properly, for leaving taps unpolished, for leaving quantities of brass polish in all the nook and corners of the geysers. e) An inspection of the botel karna, entailing blame for keeping odd stale sweets in the bottom of jars and tins, and for having dirty paper on the cupboard shelves. Its strange that Indian servants seem to have no notion themselves of keeping things fresh and clean and neat. One has to be constantly keeping them up to the mark. Earlier in the week I had a great hate with the cook, who is one of the worlds most violent, but least accomplished liars. He had quite sensibly suggested laying in two months stock of coal, since coal is getting more and more difficult to get. Where he made his mistake was in presenting me with a bill written on an ordinary sheet of note paper by a bazar letter-writer, giving the price of the coke (which is what they burn in these open stoves) at Rs 1 .8 per md (80 lbs) The Government controled price is Rs 1 .2 per md. I said I wanted a stamped receipted bill from the dealer. This appalled the cook, for of course, however the deal had been arranged, the dealer would not give a stamped and receipted bill for more than the controled price, knowing full well that if he did he would be run in. The first day the cook said he could not get any bill from the dealer as “it was not the custom”. “Custom or not” said I “It is the law” and sent a government chaprassi with a note from myself on Dad’s Office paper asking for the receipt, whereupon the receipt for correct amount was produced and the cook had to disgorge Rs 12. It must have been a bitter moment for him! With this cheating as a text, I gave him a through dressing down about his bazar prices, which has had a temporarily good effect, but I have no doubt they will soar again in a few weeks. War prices are, of course, a delight to the cooks, and an excuse for everything.
The fact that many weeks have gone by and Calcutta has neither been bombed or invaded by the Japs, has encouraged many people to return. Probably many of them found that it was not so easy to earn a living out in their villages, and perhaps relatives got tired of keeping them. How dreadful it must be to belong to a nation that has no guts, and is not ashamed to cry its fears aloud. I am speaking of Bengalis, not Indians as a whole. From all we hear at first hand from men who have fought through the Burmah campaign, the Indian troops did exceedingly well.
Francesca was one of the guests, in fact the only other female at Vyvyan Cowan’s little farewell party at the Saturday Club the other night. She has developed into a very charming and outstandingly capable girl. She has a pretty turn of wit too, and describes people and incidents with the same sort of humourous sparkle that her mother does. She kept us well amused with tales of the Soldiers Hostel to which she devotes her whole time work. Lately the troops have taken a fancy for taking photo-graphs of “the Ladies”, i.e. Mrs Martin, Francesca and a newly appointed W.A.C. Francesca says they dont find it so amusing when they have to come out of a comparatively cool room, with a fan, and stand in broiling sunshine, while cameras are adjusted!
The two younger Gurner girls have just got the news that they passed the School Certificate exam alright, but I did not gather what sort of standard they had achieved.
With the terrific events moving in Libya and Russia and the huge R.A.F. offensive over France and Germany, ones own life seems rather like a shadow play. One dare not hope too much, but things do look a lot brighter, dont they?
The monsoon is still hanging back. We begin to long for it,
Best love.
Mother
Family letter from HPV
Calcutta
June 7th 1942.
My dears
You may be able to perceive a deterioration in my typing in this letter; and certain it is that I have made a start likely to persuade the casual observer into a belief that my standard is low. One cause is that during this whole week I have typed nothing. Owing to weariness.
Weariness due not only to sin or the equivalent in a previous life, but to extra work flung at me. The miserable Blandy who has been chairman of the committee to vet candidates for Indian Army Air Force and Navy has been smitten with a disease expected to prove fatal; they gave him two months to live and he has already exhausted these; and now they say that he cannot last over Christmas. So some weeks ago I was told that I must take over the chairmanship in addition to my ordinary work of course; it was to two whole mornings a month. But the Government was so slow in getting out orders that there have been vast accumulations of arrears; and it will mean not two mornings but eight to get up to date with the candidates. Also from the number of applications coming in it looks as if there would have to be not two meetings a month but four at least. Annoying when even before I was failing to keep up to date with my ordinary work.
There is a general idea that ordinary work is less these days owing to preoccupation with the war; but it doesn’t work out that way because the district officers are so occupied with war-work that they are fudging the ordinary work and thus appeals multiply.
The vetting of candidates is a weariness. We attempt to get through 40 in a morning, and starting at 10 we finished at 2.15 the first day; the second was better because nearly half the candidates failed to turn up. But I was weary by the time we finished even so.
Ordinary work has had to go by the board; the papers about the candidates were all confusion and there is no means of seeing how many have appeared and what orders passed about the. It has meant that I have had to evolve a filing system without knowing what the routine is and how much work is involved at any stage. Bengali clerks are not good at improvisation and I have allowed several of my best to take war-jobs: so I have had to look into detail myself.
My visits to the hospital have continued though there are gaps. The Burma wounded have moved on: Mr. Colton the last of them appears to have left for Poona on Monday. But I have been visiting the American lad (he looks that though he is aged thirty, he says) who has the bad heart and lungs owing to the Diesel engine gassing. Last week he looked like death but there has been a great improvement during the past three days and he is eating again. Not very much but better than unadulterated white of egg for days on end. Yesterday he actually laughed. He has begun to talk instead of merely answering questions and gave me an account of a debate at a literary in Oregon which, he asserts, is more like Canada than the States. He shot venison, as he says; and at any rate ate it; it is the best meat. The Germans he met in Colorado, sheep are their line, are sure good folk: and they have good cooking. He came to go to sea because when he went to San Francisco (why, he doesn’t know; he was just getting around) he met a man who said the thing was that anyhow you got your eats and your sleep if you went to sea and gave him a telephone call one day just to drop down town with any clothes he had and try it.
The little North-country man with the missing front teeth who was waiting for an operation said that Pindi is the place. He doesn’t dance himself but just stands at the bar but in Pindi a large dame who was drinking gin and lime led him out onto the floor: “I felt so soft”, he said, but she was fine and had no objection to having her feet trodden on. The girls drinking gin and lime stood them better than the men did and sent them home in carriages; otherwise if he could have danced some more that night he would have learnt to dance right enough. To get about in Pindi you have to put an extra tape up; he had two in those days but in evenings pinned on a third: then the military police took no notice. A friend of his borrowed the Staff Sergeant Major’s badge (unknown to him) so as to be able to go to a dance. But there was a private in the platoon who preferred to go to the club with the officers; he just put a crown on his shoulder . . . but he was a gentleman, had money and knew how to say “how de do?” and all that. His own difficulty when shooting is that he cannot shut one eye and so he has to wear his identity disk as a sort of eye shade when shooting. It is all right to have an operation on the nose but the doctor says that it wont be straight again and what about that? I told him that it would make no difference to his looks.
I have finished reading the book on Soil and now wonder how any farmer has the courage to do it. And I have remodeled the little chess board left by Ron and discovered by the wounded to be unusable. My elbow I have fomented till it is tough but it remains swollen. Curious! I evidently have given it a bang but can remember none.
Much love
Herbert
Family letter from LJT No 22
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
June 13th 1942
My Dears,
It was grand to get Grace’s letter No 10 of April 8th and Annette’s no 8 of April 1st, just after I had finished writing last Sunday. To-day I have a short letter from Richard sent on March 16th, which looks as if the Sea mails are taking considerably longer than the air ones. We have still nothing from Romey, which makes me afraid that a batch of mail from Canada must have been lost somehow.
The monsoon still lags, and we have had a week of terribly trying weather. Its been very, very hot with terrific humidity, so that everyone has been dripping the whole time, and almost everybody is suffering from prickly heat. A storm of wind and a little rain in the middle of last night cooled things down a bit, but the sky is fairly clear again to-day, and not only do we long for the rains proper for the sake of coolness, but the country needs them. Late rains mean late ploughing and late planting of the rice, followed as a rule by a crop below average.
Herbert continues to interview candidates for the army, and continues to be dreadfully tired by it. He seems to have had a discussion with the Chief Secretary about it this morning. The job is a far bigger one than the Chief Secretary knew, or guessed, and it looks as if it will not be possible for Herbert to carry on with it when he has to start touring again, as he has to do shortly. I hope something will be done about it shortly, for I hate to see him looking so exhausted, and fear he will collapse if he goes on like this.
Outside work, the demands of which are as heavy as ever, a couple of visits to the cinema and one or two to the hospital have been my only activities. Idris had a cinema party on Sunday evening and we went to see a film that was excruciatingly bad. It was called “I Ask You” or “I Thank You” or some such name, and the producers had just not troubled to fit the stupid ideas that composed it into any sort of comprehensive whole. Herbert went home afterwards while the rest of us went to dinner at Firpo’s. It was not half such an enjoyable party as the previous week, for the two other women were somewhat domestically minded, and wanted to talk about cooks and clothes, while I wanted to listen to the men talking about areoplane designs. The good film I went to under my own steam, so to speak, was on Tuesday, taking Gwen Wright Nevill with me. The show was “How Green Was My Valley”. The attempt to get such a book into the form of a film was well attempted, and the acting and setting were excellent (though I was somewhat worried at the size of the rooms inside the Welsh Miner’s cottage). The chief drawback to my mind was the impossibility of changing the size of the boy, who should have altered from about eight to eighteen.
Herbert has been better than I have about the hospital, and in spite of the fact that he has been so tired, he has been there a number of times and listens patiently to the long and rather rambling tales by the American sailor, which are often difficult to follow, for his voice is weak, and he slurs his words into one another.
In the Birthday Honours, our old friend Walter Jenkins has been given a C.I.E., which he richly deserves, for he has been working tremendously hard ever since the war started, and done many things outside his own job. Several of the other honours we do not greet with such enthusiasm, especially one in high circles in Bengal, which has caused almost universal annoyance. Its the most blatant bit of giving an honour to a person because she happens to be in a certain position, regardless of work accomplished. There is a good deal to be said for the American habit of giving no honours at all.
For years Herbert has wanted to see “A Hundred Men and a Girl” and it is on as a morning performance at one of the big air-conditioned cinemas at 10.30 to-morrow morning. We tried to get Harry to go with him, but he is playing golf, so I am trying to hurry through my letters, so as to be free to accompany him. I hope the film wont turn out to be badly scratched and old.
We still hang on news from Libya. How the men fighting can endure the heat, I dont know. Having had so many men who had been fighting in Libya here seems to have made it a little more real to us. The lad who is with us now, has flown over and fought over, all the country, before he was fighting in the air over Burma.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette No 22
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
June 13th 1942
My darling Annette,
It was grand to get your letter No 8! Dad was pleased with your anger at Lord Halifax’s Speech patting women on the head for doing their part. He has always been a strong critic of Lord Halifax and never approved of his policy when he was Viceroy out here. I am much in sympathy with your attitude, and both felt and expressed your sort of rage, at the way so many people were talking in Calcutta a month or two ago, saying that all the women ought to go. I thought it most insulting and said so. Why it should be thought that I (and all the other women) are not capable of working sensibly, enduring hardship, and if need be, dying for our country or if you prefer it, for the cause of world freedom, I dont see. One reason I like working for Idris is that he seems to regard me as a person, and not as a female. Another person who pleased me in that way was Professor Crew. I never had any feeling that his conversation was altered or toned down because I was of a different sex from himself. Of course as Dad says, there are an awful lot of women about who are nit-wits, but there are a good many men one could put into the same catagory. Truly I dont think there are as many, but the difference may be that men on the whole get better training to do jobs than women do. Another question I am not sure about, is whether, when women fall in love, they do not let it obsess them, and prejudice them more than is the case with men. This is speaking generally on averages. One can pick out individual cases to prove the opposite for both sexes.
* * * * * *
The thread of my thought was broken here, as I went out for a walk on the maidan with Dad, and have since bathed, spread powder on my prickly heat, which covers a good part of my person now, and read one or two letters which were waiting for me.
Films, you talk of in this last letter. I agree about “Little Foxes”. Probably I wrote home about it when I saw it. Strange how many people go to the Pictures to escape from life. Dad does. He reads books for that purpose. On saying to Idris the other day that I wanted to go to see “How Green Was My Valley”, he replied. “Why do you want to go to see a thing that is just like life”. I felt a bit dumbfounded for the moment, for I value books, plays and films, largely for what they show me about life. I like farces and witty Reviews only when they illuminate the weaknesses and comicalities of life, not when they make an unreal hash of absurdities. I wonder why people want to forget life, and see something unlike it. The more I can see of life, the better I like it, even when it is sad things. I do like some thing to make me forget the war now and again, for it rests the mind from anxiety, but a book or film that is true to a life that is not connected with the war, is the best thing for that. I hope you will see (or have seen) “Three Cheers for Miss Bishop”. Walter Jenkins and I enjoyed that immensely.
Tim Bevington has written me two or three letters since he came out. He has rather a pretty turn of phrase, and tells amusingly of his first impressions. I hope life in the army has toned him down a little and softened his accent! I wonder whether he will came over to this side of India presently. I’d like to have him here for a visit.
Lately I have collected so much work, that I could do with a typest stenographer all to myself. I had to leave three or four letters undone to-day and several new applications unscanned, and my “Day Book” of candidates not written up. Besides which I have been trying to find time for days to work out a chart to pin on the wall, showing the progress made with the different steps our candidates have to go through before we actually get them appointed. The sort of letters I have to write usually mean checking up a lot of papers in files, so take a good deal longer than the sort of thing one can dictate straight off. The thing I find most difficult is when I try to write a D.O. letter from Idris to someone he knows and I dont. I can catch his official style, but there is something fundamentally different in the way we express ourselves informally. With people I know or almost know, I dont attempt it, but say he has asked me to write for him. There are one or two bodies who might take umbridge at his Secretary writing instead of himself, and those are the ones that make me chew the end of my pencil, so to speak.
I suppose my office work, this dealing all the time with people is much more interesting than much office routine, but I certainly like doing it far better than just messing about with household things.
Best love from Mother
Family Letter from LJT No 23
(handwritten at side of letter – I have sent an Airgraph to Richard and asked him to pass it on to Annette – no time for other personal letters – Love and thanks for letters from Mother)
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta.
June 21st 1942
My Dears,
Thank goodness the Rains have begun, and it has been cool by comparison this week. So far we have only had heavy showers, and not downpours lasting for hours, which is the way the monsoon sometimes comes. The late arrival of the rain meant luck and a fine trip for the two R.A.F. men whom we helped with advice about trekking in the mountains. They got back at the end of last week, and phoned to know whether they might come in one evening to return the equipment we lent them, and show us their photos. They are delighted with the Darjeeling Himalayas, and brought back some excellent pictures. After a long talk about our mountains, the New Zealander brought out a handful of photos of his mountains, and we had a happy time going through them. I am sorry to say that he and his Australian friend were both due to leave Calcutta the following day, but neither of them have gone very far, so we may be able to meet again.
We have just had another reminder of N. Z. Coming back from the cinema last night, Herbert remarked that he must write to the old astronomer Mr. Gifford, who was so hospitable to us in Wellington. When we got home, there was a letter and a little booklet on the stars for us, from Mr.. Gifford! He was the charming old man of eighty, who looks and behaves as if he was sixty, and who besides his studies of the stars, gets much pleasure from a belief that Shakespeare was really written by Lord de Vere.
Herbert developed a heavy cold early in the week and was in great discomfort for a few days, and running a temperature. Ismail (our very nice bearer) said that massage with mustard oil was the thing and for three or four days he gave Herbert a complete massage each evening when he got back from work. I think it did do him good, and anyway it seemed to soothe him. Ismail is a man of many parts, for besides being an excellent servant, he sews well and can even use a sewing machine. He now appears as an able masseur, and the other day when the driver had to go out to Chinsurah for a Court case, Ismail said it was a pity he had no license, otherwise he could have driven the sahib to office! Old Bhim Das, whom most of you must know by name, has settled down happily as the Dirwan or gate-keeper. Most of his day is spent sitting about at or near the gate, gossiping with passers-by, an occupation which suits him admirably. Now and again he takes messages for me, especially taking presents of fruit to men in the Hospital.
To revert to the subject of Herbert’s health, now that he is getting over the cold, I have the impression that he is better than he was last week. He is still interviewing candidates for the army, but is probably going to be relieved of the job very shortly. Now that he has got the thing in order a little I dont think he is finding it quite so exhausting.
My letter last week was written on Saturday, so that I was free to go with Herbert to see Deanna Durban in “A Hundred Men and a Girl” on Sunday morning. After this long time, the film still retains its charm. The entire theatre was full of soldiers and Chinese. I have never seen any number of Chinese in a cinema before, and should like to know why they were there. There are two reasons which may combine to cause it. Shops of all nationalities are now closed in Calcutta on Sundays. The cinema tickets are half price on Sunday mornings! For some time now the Bush Shirt has been made the regulation dress for Officers on all ordinary occasions, so that they can now dine and go out in the evening in reasonable comfort in the Hot Weather. They are supposed to put on long trousers instead of shorts in the evenings, but that is partly an anti-malarial precaution.
Such a lot of the people who have walked in from Burma have gone down with fever, for they were mostly sleeping in the open, and none of them had nets. A young Anglo Indian was in our office a day or two ago who had just accomplished the difficult journey from Myitkyina (pronounced Mitch-i-nar) a trek of between three and four hundred miles over several mountain ranges. He did not appear to have a specially good physique, but he looked much less worn than most of the people I have seen who have done that journey. I asked him about it. He said that he had managed to supply himself with quinine, and took some every night, and so escaped getting fever, which knocked so many people out. Of course many people undoubtedly had no opportunity of getting quinine, but it is strange that when quinine is available, so many people refuse to take prophylactic doses. Bill Tilman, moving about in that very country, lost a porter, and very nearly lost his own life and that of his other two servants, through neglecting the precaution of taking quinine.
We are still getting a big flow of candidates from Burma, many of them men who were trapped in Myitkyina, and have survived this journey to India on foot. There has been a recrudescence of applications from Indians since the original scare, that sent so many of them running to other parts of India, has settled down, and Calcutta has not been bombed. We have had some very over-busy days in office, when it has been difficult to keep up with routine because there have been a stream of candidates to attend to from morning till evening. Mr. Hughes arrived back from his tour yesterday, and things will be easier now he can do a lot of the interviewing. It gives Idris a chance to attend to the many other important parts of his work.
I have had two pleasurable outings during the past week. Ramsey Chase came to lunch last Sunday and stayed on for a siesta here, as he often does, and after tea, we went to the Zoo, armed with bags of fruit and nuts. The driver went and bought the things in the Market while we were in the cinema in the morning, and obtained an incredible amount of nuts, bananas and little plum-sized tomatoes for the sum of eight annas. The Zoo is specially nice these days, for scarcely anyone goes. It was the Mecca for all Indian tourists and visitors to Calcutta and a favourite resort for European children, but there are scarcely any here now, so the animals are vastly interested in the few people who do go, and do their best to be ingratiating and get food. One of the camels kept us amused for quite a time by the awful grimaces she made at me, believing herself to be fascinating! A shower of rain in the afternoon had laid the dust, cooled the air and freshened up the foliage.
My other pleasant evening was spent attending a chamber concert in aid of war funds. Mrs Blank, the pianist who runs these concerts, is getting in touch with the musical elements amongst the Army and Air Force, and the artistes were strengthened by an R.A.F. man with a delightful voice, who sang a group of songs, and another, who in normal times is one of the First violins in the B.B.C. orchestra. We gave a lift to one R.A.F. man, who, it appears, is passionately fond of music, and who was mourning that just as he had got in touch with people with whom he has tastes in common, he is being transferred.
* * * * * *
My writing was interrupted here a visit from one of Herbert’s sub-divisional officers, who is in charge of the country lying between Diamond Harbour (South of Calcutta) and the Sea. He is a young English-man, with a rather charming young French wife.
Actually I think I have talked to you for long enough. We have had the pleasure of letters from Home recently. One from Grace, dated 24/4, enclosing one from Annette, d. 13/4 and one from Barney d. 14/4 all received on 18/6. On 19/6 we had two from Richard, d. 30/3 and 5/4 but these had come by sea, and took a bit longer than the air ones.
It is nice to hear of the English Spring. There is nothing out here that approximates to it at all. There is certainly a charm about the trees when they get their new green leaves, but the weather is already hot when that happens. Field or woodland flowers scarcely exist on the Plains. There are little tiny flowers of this sort, and that, but they make no show, do not catch the eye, and are no use to pick and take home. Perhaps there would be more if all “edges” were not used for grazing cows and goats.
We still have not any letters from Canada. I am longing for news of Romey.
Best love to you all
LJT
Family letter from HPV
Calcutta,
June 21th 1942.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
The beginnings of this effort have been inauspicious. Thrice interrupted: by my going off to play with notes on paddy (making little pictures of the weather over 15 years on the Makalpur farm) by my being massaged all over and by the arrival of a young officer now posted to this Division. It was to have been a morning (curse) of leisure.
My cold is there still; and elsewhere, for “there” last week meant in the nose and now it has descended. It was to deal with the cold that Ismail suggested that he might massage me; and although I had a temperature and it is known to be bad to have massage under such conditions I accepted. He went over me from head to foot applying mustard oil the while and now I fear that I smell like a Bengali. Pretty good; “he knows his greengages” and he succeeded in leaving me a good deal less tense than when I started. Most evenings since then the operation has been repeated. And this morning because I missed it yesterday.
I arose from my bed on the first morning of my cold after the temperature had almost disappeared in order to hear an appeal. Really six appeals but they all turned on the same point. Three pleaders argued; at interminable length. When they ended one said “Led us thank you, Sir, for listening with such patience.” To this I who had been sunk in gloomy apathy replied “Am I patient? You do not know what is in my mind.” And they went off bewildered. Joan says that this dialogue was worth record; to me it seems ordinary enough.
The massage includes oil between the toes. Better than mud maybe.
“The league of the aching elbow” would be a good title for a Conan Doyle tale. In real life what would one think if one heard in a few days of four persons each with a swollen left elbow? that has happened in our family, of which I sometimes think that it is not quite real. First Joan; then me, and mine is still swollen; then Idris, though I doubt if there was anything wrong with it; then a man on the staff of Idris’ office: and then one Charles Heape who has had an operation on his elbow and been cured of an abscess. Why the left elbow? It is a strange form of bug to select that one part of the body for its attacks. Me, I abstained from going to a doctor. An effort was made: to wit, Joan happened to meet Col. Murray and asked him if he would be up this way. Asked what was wrong she said that I had water on the elbow and he exclaimed “Water on it! tell him to take more in it.” And that was a slander.
Have you been told ever how, to secure more air, we draw back the curtains at night and how, to prevent ourselves from waking early in consequence, we blindfold our eyes when we sleep? Joan’s idea. Though to blindfold the eyes was one of my cures for sleeplessness. If you want eccentricity there is the appearance of it anyhow. What do the two of us look like with our noses sticking up to heaven from beneath the handkerchiefs side by side? Memories of Abu Hossain the Wag.
Work accumulates. It is beyond dealing with. The candidates pour in. With what hatred I look at the posters and advertisements calling on youths to volunteer! Apart from the solid fatigue of interviewing candidate after candidate for three or four hours on end there is the labour of writing comments on those passed. It is like an examination in translation. Notes “From left nose twisted, from front straight. Weak mouth. Sickly smile. Pointed ears. Jerks his hands. Cheerful. Self-satisfied. Fluent.” What to be said when the other members say “Good enough”? Actually I write “Seems to have character” and give no details whether good or bad.
The pictures of the weather are little histographs in red and green. Red for no rain and green for rain applied variously according to defect or excess or appropriate season. Experimental. An attempt to reduce vague general descriptions of a year’s weather to comparable graphs. No great success so far.
Another week of no typing. I have done a lot of lying on my bed in a stupor owing to my cold
Much love
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 24
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta
June 27th 1942
(handwritten note –No personal letter for A. this week as I sent an Airgraph)
My Dears,
The gloom which must have been cast over the English speaking world by events in Libya, has been heavy on us. One cant help questioning “Why?” If all the aircraft which came here from Libya, and which almost certainly saved us from a Japanese attempt at invasion, had been left where they were, would they have turned the scales? Was it more important for them to be here? And so on. It is all specially bitter to the men, like our lodger, Peter Fraser, who fought all through the last campaign, and helped to regain all the country we have now lost. Idris has been so depressed that he has forgotten to ask for the sinking of the two Jap battleships, on which he has set his heart.
As to personal matters, they dont seem very important. The routine of life has gone on. Herbert has not yet shaken off his cold, nor has he yet been relieved of the job of interviewing candidates for the army, though arrangements are supposed to be under way.
The monsoon is hanging fire, and we have had little heavy rain. The lack of water begins to be serious on account of the crops. Its extra important to have a good rice crop this year, for it will not be possible to draw on the Burma crops.
Quite an unusual thing happened on Wednesday. I went to lunch at the Saturday Club with two women friends, and enjoyed it. The Club is only about five minutes ride on my bike from our office, or perhaps less. One of my friends is one of those rather delightful people who always knows the latest news about everyone, and tells it most amusingly, but she is never in the least malicious. I hear so little about the fortunes and doings of my friends and acquaintances these days that it was rather special fun to be regaled with so much.
Mr Hughes, Idris’ Assistant, got back from his tour last week-end, so we have not been so rushed in office, and I have been leaving at five o’clock or even a little before. I am glad to have just a little spare time to attend to my home affairs.
On Sunday we made another visit to the Zoo with Ramsey Chase, who brought a friend of his and his wife’s to see us. They came to tea, and chose the Zoo as a good way of spending the evening. Ramsey was having dinner with us again on Monday, to meet Milly Chaudhuri an old friend of his wife’s, who was out of Calcutta when first he was here. Milly is always an amusing talker, and was in good form that evening. I know few people more calculated to destroy the popular notion of the sweet cloistered Indian woman than Milly, with her sharp witty tongue and frank speech. She has two sons in the Air-Force, and a third, who is a regular officer in the Indian Army, with a good many years service to his credit, has gone to America as A.D.C. or something of the sort, to some general who is there on a military mission. Both he and his mother were pleased at the prospect, but she says that he is much dissatisfied now that war is so close to the borders of his own country, and is aching to get back to his regiment.
The time has come round for my third donation of blood, and I was bled of fourteen ounces on Wednesday evening. It looks a good jar full when one sees it, and it seems strange that one can lose so much without feeling it at all. The Indians are, on the whole, strangely unwilling to give. Our Indian doctor says that they are always frightened of losing blood, and that it is often one of their chief concerns when an operation is suggested. They enquire anxiously whether they are likely to lose much blood. This conversation running on, Dr Bhattachayya told of the great prejudice that had to be overcome before Brahmins like himself could become doctors, because they could not touch a dead body. He declares that when the first Brahim Student took a knife to dissect a dead body, a gun was fired from Fort William in his honour! I wonder whether there is any ground for that tale? The Blood Bank is functioning in our office next week. We are in the new wing of the big R.C. college, and I asked the Rector whether some of his staff would volunteer. Twelve have done so, most of them bearded Belgian Fathers. They say that when the College boys come back in about ten days time, they think we shall get quite a number of volunteers from them. They are mostly Anglo Indians. At present only the school boys are working, and blood is not taken from anyone under eighteen.
Idris and I went out to the Pictures one night. I did not think any of the pictures sounded very attractive, but he was keen to go, so we chose “Texas”. It was a good old fashioned wild west tale, in which all the villains get shot off most satisfactorily, and I quite enjoyed it.
Best love
LJT
Family letter from HPV
Calcutta.
June 27th 1942
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
Let me tell you straight away that I am undone with weariness. Not all due to the examination of those cursed candidates; last night was one of the bad nights so far as sleep went. It was hotter than it should have been and there was one who enjoyed the fan being on somewhat fast; but to me the breeze brought a toothache and a jaw-ache and so sleeplessness. In the end I left the bed and slept on the charpoy in my dressing room, with my pillow and sheet and with the fan going slow. But it was an hour or more before the aspirin got the aches into some kind of subjection and I was waking till past one o’clock; which is too late for one tired to start with.
It is now a month since I did any typing save the actual letters to the family. A sad falling off. Yesterday however I did take a scrap of paper and remodel one of the sentences which always had irked me as being too frigid and artificial.
For twenty years and more Bhim Das has remarked morosely that Mogul has never been seen to say his prayers; and indeed I have myself never seen him do it. Judge of the excitement when yesterday I saw him prostrating himself on the lawn. Just after sunset, the time for evening prayers. Alas! appearances deceived. It came to light that he was bending down to cut grass from the flower-bed edges for his precious goats.
In a bad detective book there was a remark by a fool girl that pleased me. In New York. “He is just Damon to my Runyan.” Annette may perhaps see that this is funny.
And Idris the other morning hearing it said that some man had spent three years with lorries on the Burma road said “Chunking along, I suppose?” That is the worst yet: and the previous examples of drivel were bad enough. He likes puns and the other members of the household encourage him. They fill me with gloom and increase weariness.
H.D. has been having air-raid practices in his offices. All the durwans have been taught how to deal with bombs if such fall and they have a practice every week. This week they came in deputation to the man who has been made responsible for their control and said that though they enjoy the practices and will gladly continue doing them they must make it clear that they refused once and for all to have anything to do with real bombs. He harangued them and ended “Are you with bodies of lions prepared to have souls like mice?” and they all said at once “Yes, sahib”.
That I call good. It reminds me of my admirable speech to the Union Board Presidents wherein I appealed only to the ties of common funk. Like Kipling. Coralie Taylor is astonished beyond measure by the family habit of being able to quote tags out of books.
I renounced the massage, being tired in my bones and wondering if an all-in massage is not equivalent to several hard sets of tennis. Item. Finding that for stiffness I could not touch my toes in the bath the other day, I touched them by way of exercise before I went to bed; with the result that now I suffer from worse stiffness due not to old age only as at first but to the revolt of the muscles.
We dealt with candidates today. A stream of them. It is difficult to find new questions to put to them by way of testing their common sense and readiness. Joan is annoyed with me for asking one of them who said that he was a Boy Scout first whether he had a cookery badge and then how to make an omelet. He did not really know but came well out of an exchange of backchat; and largely on this account we passed him. For one of the members of the committee said it takes guts to stand up to that kind of talk. Of course the lad had the advantage of believing me to be cracked.
I have finished my pretty pictures of the weather. Now there is the problem of using them; for unless I can sit down to analyse the expense figures there will be no chance of seeing how the weather influences costs. Yesterday being too tired to do anything else I got out some of my old figures of rainfall in the middle of last century and conned them, with regret that when I wrote my notes I did not know as much as I know now. But it was all lost endeavour anyhow.
Joan is working too hard but keeps reasonably fit.
Much love
Dad