1942 September
From LJT to Annette
8 Theatre Rd
Calcutta. 6/9/42
My darling Annette
Your letter about your holiday in Wales reached us this week, and I did so enjoy it. I took it to office and read it in the luncheon hour and then I studied it again after dinner with the map. I can remember all those walks so vividly. It needs very little stimulous to bring the pictures back before my mind. What a delightful bit of luck meeting Mrs Williams in Bethesda! Its nice to hear news of her and her family. Ogwen Cottage must be a splendid centre for climbing, because the 1 ½ or 2 miles from Gwen-got-isaf were a bit of a nuisence sometimes. Next time I go to Wales, I should like to stay on the Snowden side of the massif and explore the other side of the Glyders and peaks further south. It would be a great thing if you could get into a party of “mild” climbers sometimes and try things a little more adventurous than we did. Its wonderful what one can do with a guide to point the way, as I found in New Zealand. Do you remember what a wonderful day we had for the circuit of the Carnedds? It was the most beautiful day of any we had, I think.
My curious writing is due to the fact that I am lying in bed, suffering from a mild attack of flu or dengue fever. (Its hard to tell them apart unless the attack is severe, which mine is’nt). I cant remember when I last spent even a day in bed – I think it must have been when I had the operation on my nose in 1938 – but when I last stayed in bed because of any sort of illness, I cant remember! Well! Its given me some precious time to get my accounts into some sort of order to attend to a lot of Himalayan Club business – and to think out a “Talk on Sikkim” which I am to give to officer guests of the society on the 22nd. I spent rather a happy time last evening going through a lot of packets of photos to select illustrations for it.
Its great luck that Coralie Taylor is here to see to the housekeeping for me, as poor old Mogul has also got this complaint, which is all over Calcutta – and he is the servant who keeps the house together, so to speak.
We had a grand lot of letters from Romey this week – Our picture of her life since early may is now rather like a partly done jig-saw puzzel, because there are a series of gaps in her letters – She has almost too much of a conscience about some things, so I am glad that Dr Macleods advice to take her holiday to the coast, turned the scales, and she went off there, instead of spending her whole vacation doing routine work in the Labs. Its strange how many women there are still in India who do not seem to feel it in any way incumbant on them to do a job of work for the war. I wish there were some way of calling them up and setting them to tend machines, where the grease and the friction would soon wear down their long talons and strip the varnish off them. Winsome and Harry are going to have a short holiday in Simla shortly and intend to bring Charlotte back with them. (I am not sure whether its wise to bring children back to Calcutta yet – There may be a flare up and some bomb dropping, before we move the Japs out of Burma –
Best love, my dear – from Mother
From LJT to Romey
8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
Sept 6th, 1942
My darling Romey,
The dengue fever, or flu, which is going all round Calcutta, has smitten me down. Unless one has either complaint severely, it is hard to say which it is, for the basic symptoms are so much the same. Dengue can give one higher temperatures and much worse aches in the bones if it is a bad attack. I felt a bit odd, headache, and no appetite on Friday morning, and when I came up from breakfast, I took my temperature and found it was between 99 and 100. For once I took the wise course, told Idris I would not go to office, and retired to bed with 10 grams of aspirin. It ahs been worthwhile for the highest my temperature has been was 100 when I woke up from an afternoon sleep yesterday. It was lower early this morning and normal when I took it about 10 am. I hope I will be fit to get up tomorrow and go to office on Tuesday.
These days at home have been useful to me from a personal point of view, for I have got my accounts into some sort of order, and I have done a good bit of Himalayan Club work, and booked out photos to illustrate a talk on Sikkim, which I have to give at the Asiatic Society on the 22nd. The Society, which has become rather moribund lately, is trying to run weekly teas, followed by half hour talks on Indian subjects for officers in Calcutta.
Well! Now to turn to the wealth of letters we have had from you. On Tuesday, Sept 1st came an Air Mail envelope from Victoria with Nos 69 and 70, dated 4/8 and 10/8, also a personal letter. The next day we got two sea mails with Nos 60 and 61, dated 7/5 and 10/5. We also had a very nice Air Mail letter from Helen, enclosed in H.D.’s. It is really grand to feel in close touch with you again. Fancy the Air Mail only taking a bare three weeks. Your history can now better be compared to a jigsaw puzzle, than to one of those films like “Citizen Kane” which show a few incidents and then skip back in time. Now we just have holes in the picture. Letters Ns 59 and 62 are still missing and 65 to 68. We still don’t know anything about the Scholarship. Thank you for the nice photo of you and John Averill. I’ve just been going through the 4 letters from you and have made some notes.
First and foremost, I am tremendously glad that you did not stay at the University to do routine work sorting mosquitoes right through the vacation. It would have been a thousand pities if you had missed the chance of seeing something of Western Canada. I am sure your next year’s work will be of far better quality, after a good break and I am grateful to Dr. Macleod for giving you wise advice.
It is a bit annoying for you that the Army people did not think again before taking up the time of a lot of 2nd year Science graduates, by starting to teach the telegraphy, when all the time there are other branches of Government that want them to finish their course and then take up jobs for which their Science work has fitted them. If the war is still dragging on next year, I should certainly try for a Science job in Ottawa. It would probably take you ages to get fitted into anything in England, except making munitions. It would be very interesting to spend some time in Ottawa. Harking back to the research work on sleeping sickness, I did not know it was prevalent in Canada. I thought it was an African disease and carried by the tsetse fly.
There is not perhaps so very much to comment on in your letters from Cherrybank. They give an impression of happy holiday days. I wonder what “beaching” is like there. I expect it is more like the beaches in Australia and not much like St. Jacut. Do you know I had an idea that John Averill was going back to England to join up. You mention that he took you out to dinner and the cinema to celebrate passing his exams. I am full of curiosity to know what exams. He’s grown into a nice looking young man. I mustn’t write more, as it would make the letter too heavy.
Best love darling, Mother
Family letter from HPV No 34
8 Theatre Road,
Calcutta.
September 7th 1942
My Dear Annette (name handwritten)
An unusual thing: Joan is in bed. With flu or maybe dengue, for the symptoms are much the same. So I am substituting for her. I have taken the precaution of asking her what has happened during the week and shall write in diary form.
Letters received from (1) Grace; No. 16 of 16/6/42 received on 1/9/42 (2) Annette; No 14 dated 9/6/ but posted with Grace’s. Of this I am to say that the walks in Wales, followed on the map, were to Joan of the greatest interest. To me not knowing the places they were of less, though I read of them with my wonted benevolence. (3) two air-mail from Rosemary Nos 69-70 and two sea-mail 60-61 (4) Helen; dated August 8th and (5) May dated 10/7/42. Grammar went to pieces therewith the usual result that I began to make mistakes in my typing.
What was wrong was that the bottom sheets of paper had twisted themselves round the roller. I have never before tried typing with six carbons.
Sunday, August 31st. Kingdon Ward to lunch. Nothing notable about it. He has been stealing in most evenings to learn Combat Tricks from Idris ( not on any account to be called Jiujitsu tricks - and apparently much dirtier) . . . . and now he is laid up with flu. In the afternoon we cycled to Alipur, and had a pleasant tea with H.D. and Winsome who were alone, having lost their lodger. The new grass on the reconstructed lawn has come on well and the garden will soon look human.
All through the week there has been heavy rain. Real rain, soaking down day and night and relieving my mind of fears of bad crop failure. It has been trying weather and everyone looks more or less fagged; the intense humidity is what does one down.
Monday. There came to tea a Mr and a Mrs Mahar. He is a stolid and bulky retired Excise Superintendent; we mentioned him in letters from Chinsurah as being a great hunter of tiger, one of which clawed him in the Sunderbands and took a piece out of his skull. After his retiremen, he married this wife (she had two large perfectly round blodges of rouge on her cheeks, “because of the drains” perhaps) and they went on a trip to America. And to Hollywood where he became one of the popular with the great, including Charlie Chaplin, because of his tiger-shooting lectures to travel-clubs. Arriving at 5.30 for tea with us they left at 8 after an enjoyable evening, they said; and meanwhile there came in Peter Fraser our erstwhile lodger, Air Force, who indeed was expected; Ramsey Chase and his brother in law, Sinclair Atkins; and Wing Commander Smythe, who sought information about tours in Sikkim where he hopes to climb.
These left me broken; and all the carefully accumulated energy and cheerfulness of the previous week of which I may have boasted in my last letter departed from me; they haven’t returned. By a sad coincidence the change to Bengal time took place that night; clocks went forward one hour and I was done out of an hour’s sleep, after failing to get off to sleep for some hours after I went to bed. Two and a half hours of callers, on top of a day’s work are a magisterial knockout to quote the Dame aux Rubans Mauves, a work which I have neglected for weeks.
Tuesday; notable chiefly as the day when Kelly developed high fever in office and had to come home; he has ever since been in bed. It amazes us to see what he eats in spite of his illness; not for him light meals of slops . . . but I suppose his doctor has approved.
Wednesday; nothing happened except that at breakfast my temper was so vile that I had to announce myself a little ray of sunshine. Memories of days when Arla and G. were self-styled “Sunbeams” and attempted to prove the fact by writing letters to the poor; who surely could not have welcomed them. Also unless memory has betrayed me the chief reaction was that we were adopted by a family of begging-letter experts in the slums of Portsmouth. But that may have been an invention of those who scorned to be Sunbeams. Howbeit, the announcement restored serenity to myself and to others. How vile my temper can be! and is, very often in this weather.
Thursday; Bobbie Taylor turned up very bedraggled after some days’ chasing round after Congress rioters in Birbhum (this word cut out by censor in AMT’s version). Details would be interesting maybe but I abstain from saying anything that has not been published. That evening I spent a comparatively peaceful half hour correcting my Hindustani house-keeping words; and I was late for dinner. G.B. Gourlay in and very nice too. But there was much gloomy conversation about the weakness of the government and the failure of certain officers to do what was good. And this made me irritable and on edge; they might leave dinner free from such annoyances. G.B. told us afterwards about his firm’s pottery works (they have works of every kind apparently) and mentioned that there is an old potter of 65 with a beard who does nothing but stand about and who knows absolutely less than nothing about their tunnel furnace (these words cut out by censor in AMT’s version), but whose presence is essential to its proper working. Whenever he goes on leave, the furnace(this word cut out by censor in AMT’s version) goes wrong. This pleased us much, but it did not prevent my lying awake till well after midnight, or my growing more and more peeved with every passing hour.
Friday; Joan announced that she would not go to office, although her temperature was only slightly up, because she did not want to be seized there with a temperature of 104 as happened to Kelly. She stayed in bed and has escaped the worst; her temperature has not gone above 100.5 at any time and this morning is normal. It was flu all right however, for she had the headaches and also painful glands in the neck which is one of this year’s symptoms. Kelly also is better this morning.
Saturday; many came in about teatime and after; first, Mr. Goodfellow, nice man, to change a Himalayan Journal, and he would not stay. Almost at once the Frenchman from Digboi expressing grief because he had somehow heard that Joan was out of sorts; she had him in and advised him on his projected climb in Sikkim. Meanwhile Walter Jenkins, who stayed a very short time. And then one with the strange name of Tostevine, ex-Education Service in the C.P. who stayed a long time talking mildly interesting shop till I was weary. It was however on Friday that I had a hair-cut, an event because it gives me something to do in the evening twice a month maybe instead of merely going to change books at the Saturday Club.
Sunday; this morning Walter Jenkins has been in. H.D. has asked me to go this afternoon to the movies. The cook has forgotten to get in coal, so that there is doubt whether we shall today have food. Joan is still keeping her bed and saying that she is enjoying herself: she has done accounts, written letters and meditated the framework of her lecture to be given on Sikkim. It is raining furiously. Even the cats who normally sit in the rain on the lawn meditating, have gone in; and all the gutters on the roof are spouting.
Much love
Dad
Airgraph from LJT to Annette (addressed to Miss Annette Townend. P.O. Box 222. S.W. 7 Howick Place. London. SW1 England)
8 Theatre Rd
Calcutta.
13th Sept 1942
My Darling Annette. Many happy returns of the 22nd Oct: from us both. These airgraphs which are supposed to take less than a month have been taking longer, but I hope this wont be late. Aunt has been asked to send you a cheque with our love. I hope you will be able to celebrate your birthday pleasantly. Thank you for letter no 15. We much like to hear about the garden patch. You will be hearing about mine before long. Seeds have been ordered, and a second digging is going on. I am anxious for more news about your eye. I do hope that you have not hesitated to go to the best doctor you could hear of and have not bothered about expense. Aunt knows that there is a reserve for any emergency. Its sad to hear that Sir John Parsons house has been bombed, but I am sure he must have retired anyhow by now. Poor Anne! What a lot of trouble you have had to put up with over your eye. I wish one could help more. You ask about tea and coffee in Australia. The tea was excellent everywhere, and never stewed. Billy tea on picnics is the best ever. The leaves being dropped into the pot full of boiling water, seems to bring out flavor at its best. As for coffee. I did not know that it is made entirely with milk, but I do know that they bring it ready mixed, and generally so weak that you can scarcely taste the coffee. The attack of dengue from which I have just recovered, and which kept me away from office for six days, gave me a lot of precious time for doing accounts, attending to a mass of Himalayan Club work and household affairs, as well as thinking out the scheme for a talk on Sikhim which I have to give to the royal Asiatic Society next month. In fact except for an hour’s sleep each afternoon and a short period when my temperature was 101° I was hard at work all the time. People came to see me and kindly brought me books, but I did not read an awful lot for I had so much else to do. Just on the last day I got “How Green Was My Valley” out to read again, and am taking much pleasure in it. Perhaps my air-mail letter in which I talk about our grief and anxiety for Richard will have reached you before this. It will be a heavy blow to you. Its hard to speak much of it. We may cling to a little shred of hope for a long while still, though I fear the shred is a thin one. Whatever is happening or has happened, it is good to know what fine stuff Richard was made of. Should he by chance be a prisoner I think he has enough in his own mind to keep him from going to bits. I am so glad you shared some of his last leave. Best love Mother
Many happy returns Dad
Airgraph from LJT to Grace (addressed to Mrs. A.B.S. Townend. Highways. Great Leighs. Nr. Chelmsford. Essex. England
Mrs H.P.V. Townend
8 Theatre Road.
Calcutta
India
Sept 13th 1942
Dearest Grace.
This may reach you in time for your birthday and before an air mail on that subject. Best wishes and greetings from us both. In the A.M. I ask you to give yourself the usual cheque for £5 from us. To send Anne a cheque for £2 and to spend a pound or two on a present for Barney. Since writing the airgraph in answer to your cable about Richard, I have been laid up with an attack of dengue. I had to stay six days away from office, on four of which I was in bed, but not feeling ill enough to prevent me carring on with all sorts of jobs. As with most illnesses I only had this mildly and feel none the worse for it. May writes accepting our offer of help. I cant remember what I said, and cannot lay my hand on a note about it. I think it was £1 or more if necessary, per week. You probably have my letter dated about April 25th. If it is not too much trouble for you I think the easiest thing will be for you to send a monthly cheque on our behalf. I am shotly sending some more money home, an will tell Grindlay’s that you may want another five pounds per month. In case the reserve £100 has been drawn on for an operation on Annette’s eye, I will tell them to make good the reserve before putting money into war loan. I am anxious for news about Anne’s eye. I hope you will send me an airgraph about it. So glad to hear that Teresa’s cardigan reached you safely and that you think it will be useful. It’s a bit bulky but warm. I hope you are getting the Kashmir material decently made up at my expense, and that Annette is doing the same. I never get to the shops out here, so don’t know what the position is about stockings. I would like to send you some, but just now is a bad time for the rainy season spoils silk stockings badly. We much enjoyed your letters 17 & 18 of early July. You must have been rushed off your feet when Richard came on leave Anne and her friend too and May Mac. Richard appreciated the fact of all you were doing and so did Anne. I don’t know how you cope with all the jam making and fruit bottling single handed. I am just planning making marmalade from sweet oranges with a mixture of lemons as we canot get Seville oranges. Marmalade is almost impossible to get in Calcutta now. We are short of sugar too, not because supplies in the country are insufficient but because it is badly distributed. Herbert is not very grand. He has been sleeping badly. I don’t know whether it is due to his grief and anxiety about Richard. He is finding having the house always full of people trying, but I don’t know how to get out of it.
Love, good wishes, and thanks to you and Barney, and Birthday greetings
Joan
Family Letter from LJT No 35 (Herbert used the family serial number last week)
8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
Sept 13th 1942
My Dears,
The attack of dengue passed. It definitely was dengue, for had the two parts or crisis. I thought I was well on Monday, and moved into my writing room for breakfast, and spent most of the morning there writing and doing accounts, but by about twelve o’clock I realized I wasn’t feeling exactly well. I took my temperature and found it over a hundred. By after lunch it was over 101° and I had an extremely painful throat from swelled glands. However fever mixture “Coué” and some sleep brought the fever down by tea-time, and I was quite comfortable again by five o’clock. I had no fever on Tuesday, but spent the day in my writing-room in an easy chair. On Wednesday I wanted to go to office, but was no allowed by Herbert and Idris. A whole day in the house was most valuable to me and I was able to tackle all sorts of problems concerning food and other household matters which ordinarily I have no time for. From Thursday, I have resumed my normal life. It was odd to go back into office after 6 days away, and for the first hour or so I felt a little lost, trying to pick up on what had been happening in my absence. As is usual when I do get any complaint, I had dengue far less severely than most people, and dont feel at all pulled down by it. Many people have been really very ill with it.
The Royal Asiatic Society is arranging weekly meetings, tea, followed by informal talks on subjects connected with India, with the idea of giving officers and N.C.O.s a chance of coming in contact with different subjects of topical interest and the people who know about them. I am to give a talk on Sikkim in October. Last Thursday Frank Kingdon-Ward talked about “The Burma Frontier and Beyond” and I left office a few minutes early to go to hear him. What he told us was interesting, but he is not a good lecturer. He relies too much on notes, and somehow does not manage to put his stuff across.
We have been having a tremendous amount of rain till the last two days, and now it is clearing somewhat and giving us a taste of the usual September weather, which is like a steam bath. Two of the mountain climbing parties I have been helping with advice, have started for Sikkim. I do hope they will get fine days for their actual climbing. There is still a good deal of work going on in connection with the Club. It is a pleasure to do it in a way, and yet it makes me rather too busy.
Winsome was a frequent visitor when I was in bed, and it was so nice seeing her. She and Harry have gone off for a little holiday in Simla now. Lots of other people came in to see me. In fact I could have done with fewer people talking to me, for I was well enough to be writing and reading, and so glad to have a little enforced leisure in which to do it.
Herbert is not very grand. He has been sleeping so badly again lately. I dont know if it is anything to do with the grief and anxiety about Richard. I suppose the only hope now is that he might be a prisoner, and if that is so we should not get any news for months and months.
There does not somehow seem an awful lot to write about this week. We have had a delightful lot of letters. Grace’s No 18 of 8.7, May’s of 10.7, reached us on the 7th. Grace’s no 17 of 2.7 and Annette’s No 15 of 19-6, with Richard’s Airgraph of 31.7 all came on the 8th and Romey’s No 59 (Sea-mail) of 26.4 came on the 9th. Thank you all for thinking of us and giving so much time to writing. It does make me so happy and content when I get plenty of letters and hear all the things, both little and big that you are doing. One of the gaps in Romey’s series of letters is now filled up, but we still have’nt got a letter telling us about the scholarship.
My old 2nd mali from Chinsurah has been installed here since the 1st Sept, and I like him so much better than the old man.
Best love to you all
LJT
LJT to Rosemary, on back, Sept 13/42)
My darling Romey,
So the first gap is filled! Your letter No 59 is largely taken up with debate about whether you ought to join the C.W.A.C.’s. I am glad you decided not to. I am sure it is right for you to finish your science course. I don’t feel at present that there can be a shortage of people who either have graduated, or who never will do so, to fill the army jobs. It’s been nice getting so many letters from home this week. I do like the feeling when I have had lots of letters, and you all seem quite close. How hard it is to imagine what it well feel like when the war ends! How I should like to go home via Canada and pick you up en route, but I don’t for a moment suppose it will be possible. The dollar restrictions will stay on for some time I expect, apart from the fact that shipping space will be so urgently needed, that it will be desperately hard to get passages, and one will have to take the shortest way.
This had been such a tiresome morning. I had to change cooks again. The one I got, we think must have taken opium or ganjur, and I just could not get on with him. The present man was for ten years with friends of ours, I.C.S. people who retired a few years ago, and he seems a nice man and a good cook. He only started work a few days ago and he took for granted that we had breakfast at 9 o’clock on Sundays, instead of the usual 8:15. Breakfast was twenty minutes late, and bore signs of hasty cooking. It was particularly tiresome, as Bobby Taylor was here and wanted to get away at 8:45. Then Mr. Kelly, who generally has breakfast in his own room, appeared in the dining room, and a place had to be laid for him. Then he was called to the telephone and it turned out to be for Bobby. Altogether it was a most disturbed meal, with none of the feeling of relaxation and peace that should pervade the Sunday morning breakfast table. The rest of the day has been peaceful as far as I have been concerned, though Dad had long visits from two of his Indian District Magistrates. We had no guests for lunch or tea, and Dad and I are in alone to supper, which is a great pleasure to us. We are so seldom alone.
Having Frank Kingdon Ward in and out of the house lately, has revived memories of botanical matters, and I have been drawing up into my mind again names and histories of plants. They are restful and pleasureable things, good to think of in spare time, when the world is in such an uproar.
Idris, as you have probably gathered long before this, has a scientific mind and training. He appears to me to have a deep knowledge of many of the natural sciences. Dad though he has had no such training, is interested and has picked up a lot of odd bits of knowledge in the vast miscellaneous reading he has done. We often talk of plants and stars, of chemical maters, and odd facts of geology. Mr. Kelly has evidently paid little attention to such things, but is chiefly interested in philosophies and mysticism. He is an ardent Roman Catholic. He does not join much in the scientific talks, though he seems to pay attention to them, and as for other talk, the time the poor fellow likes to get going is at about 10:30, just as we all go off to bed. I stayed up a couple of nights talking to him, but then that keeps Dad awake. You see when I go out to the cinema and know that I shall not be back till midnight, Ismail puts my things in Dad’s dressing room and I undress there and can keep quietly into bed without waking him.
Somehow I feel I ought to be doing more to make Mr. Kelly feel cheerful and amused, but it is awfully difficult when I am so busy. In normal times, I would send him round to call on people with whom I think he would get on, having warned them that he would be coming, and in that way he would soon make a circle of friends of his own. In war time people don’t call, and everyone is too occupied with work and one thing and another to do much in the way of arranging parties. He is obviously a bit out of tune with life. He lost his wife, I don’t know how long ago or under what circumstances. He has lost all his possessions in Burma and his life has been turned completely upside down, so it is no wonder that things don’t seem too bright to him, but he is only in his early thirties so should have enough resilience to build his life up again.
My thoughts dwell so much with Dicky, though I can’t talk a great deal about him. I find myself going through all the details of his life.
Best love, my darling, and thank you for writing so much.
Mother
LJT to Susie Cowan
8 Theatre Rd, Calcutta
Sept 14, 1942
Dear Cousin Susie,
When I think of all you have done and are doing for Romey, I feel ashamed that I do not write to you more often. It’s not lack of thought, you know, nor entirely lack of time, though I am always short of that commodity these days. I suppose it’s partly that one feels it must be rather a bore if one goes on saying “thank you” too much, partly the knowledge that you probably hear more than enough news of us via Romey.
You and Helen seem to have done wonders for her in training character, habits, and looks. It is interesting looking back through her letters to see how her attitude has imperceptibly changed, and how much she now identifies herself with Canada, and especially with Winnipeg. I know one is induced to get a bit tired of outsiders in the home, and I do so hope that you are not finding the responsibility you undertook so spontaneously, too much of a burden. The war years drag on, and one hopes that each will be the last. Meantime you and Helen have had these two young things to cope with for a very long time.
Quite apart from personal debt, we owe you for giving Romey peace and safety. I think you have done a splendid job in giving two growing young things the chance of growing up in a normal peaceful (more or less!) atmosphere.
The deep anxiety about Richard will be heavy on Romey, I fear. They were very devoted to one another. It is impossible to analyze my own feelings. Since the beginning of the war, I have tried to face the fact that this might happen. Perhaps that effort is something of a help now that the trial has come ----- Without daring to build too much upon it, we still cling to the tiny gleam of hope that he may still be alive somewhere. If fate has decreed that he had to go, I can only take the comfort of knowing that neither he nor I would have wished to escape this at the cost of running away from duty. That mankind can only progress through sacrifice, seems to remain true, however old the world grows. God grant the appalling sacrifices taking place now, will bring their reward eventually.
There were many fine things in Richard’s character and he was not very closely tied to the earth. He thought a good deal about the possibility of another life, and was better prepared to go to it than many older people.
It is getting late and the paper comes to an end. Will you give Helen my love and thanks for her last letter? With my love and never-ending gratitude,
Joan
Family letter from LJT No 36
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta
Sept 20th 1942
My Dears,
Time is popularly supposed to fly on leaden wings when one is worried and anxious, but I cant say I find that true. The weeks and months fly by at an astonishing rate.
On the first few days in office, I felt a bit lost and out of touch, since one of my functions is to know everything that is going on, but this week I have been comfortably back into harness. The Gazette of India with my appointment in print, circulated round the office a few days ago. It looked funny to see a “Mrs” amongst all the men.
The monsoon has returned with a vengeance! We have had very very heavy rain almost every day this week. It will help the crops, which is the most important thing, but I am sorry for the people who have already started off for their holidays in the Hills. I’ll be a bit relieved when the leave season is over, for the necessity for attending to the Himalayan Club business leaves me so little time for any of my private affairs. An R.A.F. man came to us for advice early this week,, to whom we have taken a great fancy. He came to dinner last night, and encouraged by the advice I give about emergency medical kit in my guide book, he brought the emergency kit he has designed and the booklet of advice he has written for crews flying over jungle country. Herbert and I both think the kit and the booklet excellent. This man, F/O Clinton, after flying in England, Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, Lybia and Burma, is now doing an office job on the ground for a while.
The most unusual incident about the past week, was an evening’s shopping. I left office at 4.30, and took a taxi up to the market, where I spent about an hour and a half hunting for various things that I could not get just by writing chits for them. The necessity for a shopping expedition has been hanging over me for weeks, and I am glad I coped with it. A lot of things which come from overseas are now difficult or impossible to get, but there is an effort to make country substitutes. I have always felt that we do not use country produce half enough. Lots of people buy bottled pepper prepared by some English firm, instead of getting the fresh peppercorns in the bazaar and having them ground. The shops are all out of English mustard, but country mustard is obtainable, and seems to me to taste just the same, though it has not quite the creamy smoothness of Mr. Colman’s preparation. I was glad to find country oatmeal, and country rolled oats from the Punjab and have brought home some to try.
My mali imported from Chinsurah, has dug up still more lawn to make vegetable garden. Now comes the problem of getting manure for it. The soil is not up to much, and without some assistance, it will not grow creditable vegetables. Its not much use attempting any manuring till the heavy monsoon is over, for the strength will be washed out of the stuff. I have a fear that growing vegetables in Calcutta may not be much of a score, for it is not unlikely that many of them may be stolen.
The young magistrate from one of Herbert’s subdivisions and his wife are in Calcutta for a few days leave. I thought it was up to us to do a little something for them, so they came to dinner on Friday, and I took them to the cinema, to see “Reap the Wild Wind” - - a good story spoilt by over production, over emphasis, and over emotionalism, but presented in most successful colour.
One afternoon during the week, an R.A.F. sergeant, the chief spokesman of the men who used to play tennis here, called in, and had a chat with Herbert. He was only here himself for a few hours, but he told us that two other sergeants, who used to come here, are in the British Medical Hospital. I went to see them yesterday evening. One has a broken tibia, and hopes soon to be walking again. The other one crashed in Burma, and walked out. He has a broken forearm, and had a dislocated shoulder, and a gash on his chin. They both seemed cheerful. The Canadian, who walked out of Burma, says it was not bad. They got some food from the villagers, and once they got in touch with the British Army, they were well looked after. “Pretty country” he commented, so evidently his sufferings did not blind him to the landscape.
Best love to you all
LJT
LJT to Romey (on back of Sept 20/42 family letter)
My darling Romey,
Here at last is letter No 62 of May 17, telling about your Scholarship. Thank you for the letter, and again many congratulations on the Scholarship. The fact that it is awarded on general merit makes it all the more valuable, and I think it is a tremendous credit to you to have succeeded in winning it, coming as a stranger and starting on second year work. Both Dad and I are very pleased about it, and proud of you.
Your idea of getting appointed as a demonstrator is good, but I hope you won’t take on too much, especially just for the sake of the money. It is just as much of a mistake to overwork in your student days as it is to be idle. If you indulge in the first, you are apt to crack your health. If you are guilty of the second, you usually crack your chance of a career. The middle way is, as always, the wise one. Don’t think from this that I do not appreciate your wish to help pay for your college fees, because I do. I contrast it, with gratitude, with the attitude of many girls I have known out here, whose chief use for parents is a source from which to extract more money!
You tell of your first ride and the pest of mosquitoes; of Martha’s departure for her wedding, and of how you and Cousin Susie liked “Fantasia” so much that you sat straight through the second round of it! I would like to hear it again now, but I don’t think I could have lasted out a second round straight off. Do you agree that the early items were much the best?
Did I explain to you before that the Tiger bone is not a rib? It is a little floating bone in the shoulder allied to the collarbone in some way. A tiger’s rib would be a huge thing.
The series of your letters runs smoothly now, complete up to No 64. There is a gap then from surface mail, till the first airmail starts at #69. No letters are missing so far this year, which, considering all the troubles and upsets in the world, seems to me rather wonderful.
When Idris is talking of scientific matters, I often wish I had the scientific training that you are having. Have you ever heard that sometimes in India, a wealthy student manages to pass his exams and even get a lot of his work done by proxy? His family pays the expense of some poor boy who has good brains, and he does the work. Idris caught out a young man who must have used this ruse, when he examined him in Simla. A son or relative of some important Indian Official, wanted to be taken on as an Assistant Works Manager under training for the Ordnance Factories. Instead of sending him down to Calcutta to be interviewed, Idris said he would question him in Simla. The young man was said to have taken a B.Sc Degree, with Honours at one of the best Indian Universities, a year ago. Idris was given to understand that Maths was his best subject. He could answer nothing! He said “Oh!” He had forgotten!” Somewhat surprised, Idris asked him what his next best subject was. He replied that it was Physics. Questioning revealed the same complete lack of knowledge. Idris had one more try, and asked for his third subject. The young man brightly said Botany, evidently thinking that Idris himself would know none. Oh what a fall was there! Idris thought he would start him on something really easy and asked him what a cryptogram is, and he could not even answer that!
Dad reminds me of a case reported in the paper a few years ago, when a young man’s tutor actually went into the examination room, disguised as his pupil. Unfortunately his moustache was not stuck on tight enough and heat and perspiration loosened it, so that presently the breeze from the fan blew it off. These things sound fantastic, but they are not considered specially odd out here.
Two things I want to ask you One is about the photo of you in the fur coat when it was new, --- the very nice one with Polo jumping up. I had the print you sent me framed, but it is fading and turning yellow. Could you have another print done for me, or better still have it enlarged to half plate size? I think the frame it is in is about half plate; it is 5 ½ by 3 ¾ . It is such a nice picture of you.
The next thing is the book, “As for me and my House”, which you recommended me to read. I can’t get it in India. I don’t think there is any way of getting books published in Canada or America, unless the firms concerned have money in those countries. If you could send me a copy, I would be grateful. Perhaps it is old enough now for lending libraries to be selling second-hand copies. If it is possible to get it that way it would do perfectly well. Mind you I don’t want this to be a great nuisance to you, for the need is not so very urgent, as you may guess.
Since dealing with these two points, I have thought of another. When the time comes to reorder “The Reader’s Digest” for next year, would you manage it? We do enjoy it, and so do lots of others, including Harry and Winsome. It has been coming alright, though it takes rather a long time.
By the same post that I got your letter, I had a postcard from Louise Rankin saying that they have been moved to New York. Their address there is 150 E 49th Street, New York City (Or c/o Standard Oil Co). I want you to keep the address by you in case you should ever go to New York. I know Louise and Everett would welcome you and do anything they could to help you. I see I have left out the first bit of the address. It is Apartment 4C.
My love to Cousin Susie, and Helen as well as John, and special full measure to yourself,
Mother
From LJT to Annette No 36
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta
Sept. 20th 1942
My darling Annette,
Thank you for the family letter No 16, written from Highways in July, and more specially still, for the personal one of the same date.
One of the great personal disappointments caused to us by this war, was that it prevented Dad from retiring, and consequently from having a home in England, which would have been a centre for all of you, and a pleasant place to which you could bring your friends. We can still hope for it after the war, but everything will be on a much reduced scale I suppose. I must say I do like an atmosphere in which people can put forward what opinions they like for discussion. Aunt says frankly herself that she has never been mentally adventurous. She does not like having settled opinions disturbed. Inside that she is remarkably tolerant, but its not an attitude which encourages exciting talk. You would love that faculty in my darling Louise Ranken. Louise was not only an investigator of the new, or so-called new, but she was a student of the Wisdom of the Ancients, bringing what she could learn from antiquity to bear upon modern problems. I wish she had not left Calcutta. I miss her greatly. I had a post-card the other day, to say that she and Everett have been moved to New York, and that she is becoming adjusted to life there again, and busy writing once more. I wonder whether she will be writing for the Readers Digest. She has been doing something in the writing line for a long time past, apart from her excellent Cookery-book, but she always said it was all experimental.
Its strange that the Australian girl should get so worked up about her people. I dont think it is a common characteristic of Australians, for outside the towns life is much more of a gamble that it is in England or Europe in settled times. So much depends on the season. Drought may spell ruin and risk. Good rains may bring a fortune, and it appeared to me that the people as a whole were strong enough to face such risks, without appearing too concerned. I am indeed thankful that you do not get worked up about us. When the whole world is in this war, or very nearly so, the only sensible attitude, is to make up ones mind to do ones own bit to the best of ones ability, face the risks that come, and not fuss!
You discuss Gavin’s attitude and so does Aunt in her letter written a little while after yours. I felt much more sympathetic with Gavin before he wrote me a letter setting forth his views about a year ago. There was a lot of blither about the world or the country oweing him a peaceful life. It seems to me to take the attitude that the world or your country owes you anything before you have given it a fair quota of work, is absurd. If he bases his ideas on any such claim, I think the sooner and the harder he gets up against realities the better. We are having a good example now of the way “Non-violence” works. The way it works in spite of all Mr Ghandi’s high-souled words, is in outbreaks of mob violence all over the country, in many cases accompanied by acts of beastial cruelty. Mobs several thousand strong have attacked isolated police stations, post-offices and railway stations, stealing, burning, killing and torturing. This is not hearsay. It is actual fact. I could give you names and dates, but they would convey nothing to you. One Indian sub-inspector of police was actually burnt alive, and there have been many attempts to do likewise. The acts are being done in the name of the Congress which preaches non-violence.
It seems to me that the people who talk so much about liberty should justify themselves by going to places like the far north of Canada, Central or Northern Australia, where men have to be dependent on themselves and a law to themselves. If they stay where people of civilized mind have banded to-gether to live under a law that protects them, and subscribe to a government, which carries out the necessary services to make life as decent and as safe and pleasant as possible, then they have no business to claim to shirk the duties that devolve on any one who is a member of such a community. (This is apropos of some remarks of your about Barbara Orton’s husband and his impressions of the school he is at.)
Aunt, in her letter written a week later than yours, tells me about your eye. I wonder whether it has been done by now. I do hope they make a good job of it, and that the operation was not too painful.
At last we have got Romey’s letter telling about her scholarship. It is a most creditable performance, dont you think? She seems to have shaped very well. I hope she wont over-do the demonstrating in the Labs, and tire herself, but the spirit in which she wants to do it is laudable.
Oh! Pensions! The Widows and Orphans Pension Fund of the I.C.S. is not paid for by Government, but by contributions paid in by every member of the I.C.S. all through his service. The money is administered by Government, a watch being kept on them by the I.C.S. Association.
It was found some years ago that the Government was making a profit out of it, and the pension rates were raised slightly. If the time ever comes when you are given this pension, you need have no hesitation in taking it, for it has been subscribed for this very purpose.
I would very much like to read Aunt Arla’s book on spiritualism. I had many talks with her about it. I have always been vaguely interested. I know people who have had messages from sons at the moment of their death thousands of miles distant, but in those cases the message might have come through just before actual death took place. I am sure that mind can communicate with mind directly without words given the necessary circumstances. I have experienced it myself several times about things of no great importance or even emotional content.
Spiritualism and Christian Science are two things which infuriates Dad, and which it is impossible to discuss with him. He is always afraid that if one reads about anything, one is a convert to it, and nothing I can say will induce him to react differently.
Glancing at your letters, I see you have been reading “The Riddle of the Universe”. That is a book that Rex Fawcus has always been keen on. For some reason which I cannot now remember, I bought Haeckel’s “Evolution of Man” just before I came out here, but I have never tackled it. Possible because some of the modern scientific books by Huxley, Professor Darwin, my friend Professor Crew, and others are so much more attractive.
Would you send me your measurements for a dress as fully as possible in case I ever get a chance to have one made and sent home to you?
I must write to Aunt and to Romey now. I think so much of Richard, though I dont keep writing about him.
Best love from
Mother
Family letter from LJT No 37
8 Theatre Rd.
Calcutta.
Sept 27th 1942
My dears,
Grace’s Air Graph telling us more details of the circumstances under which Richard was missing, reached us last Tuesday. If, by the mercy of Heaven there is any more news to come, I suppose it will not be for many months. It is curious having to put ones feelings into a sort of long winter sleep, while nothing can be known.
I have already got letters from Romey, written after she got the news about Richard.
There has not been very much doing in the social line this week. I had a quiet dinner at the Saturday Club with Ramsey Chase last Tuesday. He is a nice restful person to talk to. One of those who is far more interesting when he is with one person, than when he is in a crowd. When there is a flow of conversation from other people, he tends to sit and listen. One of the small chamber music concerts in aid of war funds took place on Thursday, and I went to it in company with Rex Fawcus, Walter Jenkins and Ramsey. It was a pleasant evening, but I am always rather sorry that the chief item is usually a long item on two pianos. I would rather hear one piano. Two tend to become slightly confused, to my mind. After the concert we had a late grill at the Saturday Club, and some rather interesting and amusing talk, so that we did not make a move to come home till past 11 o’clock.
(The next paragraph has been cut out (ie censored) of the letter in AMT’s set of letters – this version typed by Joan Webb) Last night I was out at the cinema, “H.M. Pulham Esq”. It was a fairly good film, and we had the added excitement that a smoke bomb was let off in the front of the stalls by some idiotic Congress wallah, just as the interval started. There was a bang, a flash and clouds of smoke. The audience was quite undecided what to do till the smoke came circling up and began to get into our throats, when there was universal agreement that we should go out! The exit was perfectly orderly. We all stood and sat about in the bars and vestibules, while the cooling plant was put to work at high pressure. In about twenty minutes the theatre had been cleared of the fumes and the show was able to go on.
There is still quite a bit of rain going on. Consequently it has been the coolest and least trying September I ever remember. Maybe we shall have to pay for it in October.
My Chinsurah mali, full of enthusiasm for digging for Victory, is taking a big bit more of the lawn into use for vegetables. The drawback is that there are only about eight inches of soil over most of the area, and beneath that, brick rubble. I dont know that what we can do about it. It is difficult and expensive to get soil. I think we shall just have to use this piece for shallow rooted things like lettuce, parsley, and so on, but it is a bit disappointing.
The Himalayan Club work continues, and people pop in and out for advice. I think the first mountain-climbing party are due back to-day, or to-morrow morning, and so now we shall get people coming in to report on their doings.
Herbert is not very fit I am sorry to say. He is always tired and I often wonder how long he will be able to go on. Life is a dim and boring business, when it is a great effort to accomplish the routine work, and when there is no energy left for the smallest sort of diversion. I have arranged for him to see the doctor again this afternoon, to see what he advises.
The Congress troubles are still simmering hotly in various places, and being even more nuisence to reasonable minded Indians than to the Europeans. As far as I have heard the Congress only attempt violence when they have odds of at the very least a hundred to one. It is more often several thousand to ten or twenty. “Fine courageous people, no doubt.” as the typical Babu might say!
Our office grows no less busy, for as candidates become less, other problems crop up to be delt with.
Best love to you all
LJT
LJT to Romey on back of family letter
Sept 27/42,
My darling Romey,
We have had a splendid lot of letters from you this week. Nos 71,72 and 73 written from Victoria and from the Culver’s house in Vancouver, reached us on the 23rd, and the personal one from you with its companion from Irene King, turned up the next day. It is lovely hearing about all your doings. I spent almost an hour yesterday afternoon re-reading all those letters, for there seemed so much to take in from them. Later I spent quite a while with the atlas studying the Coast and your route home to Winnipeg. It looks as if you passed very near to Mount Robson, of which Edward Groth sent me some beautiful pictures last year. I wonder whether you got a view of it.
I am so glad you got in touch with Irene King, and that you seem to have got on well together. Her mother and stepfather will be glad to get some independent news of her, for they have been very worried about her, ever since she was so ill. Her stepfather, George Hawes, works in our office, you know. He is a dear man, with one of the kindest hearts I have ever come across. It so happens he is away on tour at the moment, but we are expecting him back any day.
Irene was an exceptionally pretty girl, in an exceptional style. Her character was out of the common too. She was not content with just the social round in Calcutta and nothing else, though she liked parties and such, and always took a great deal of trouble over her looks, and spent much time and energy on make-up. She is really a town-bird, and also did not seem to get on with the New Zealanders at all. I am a country bumpkin at heart, and love things to do with farming, so I got on well in New Zealand. Like poking round farms and seeing how the animals are kept and bred, and how crops are raised. I like talk about farming, too. It does not bore me at all, but I don’t think Irene is the least interested in that sort of thing. I wonder whether she has got away to England yet.
Dad and I most thoroughly approve of your return via Prince Rupert. I do hope you had some fine weather there, and good views as you went through the mountains. I envy you that trip. It was a pity that Uncle Tim was away while you were in Vancouver. Since you were within a day of leaving when you wrote, and did not mention him again, I conclude that he did not return in time to see you.
The key letters telling us how you went to the Coast, and giving the key to the different people who figure in your accounts of your doings, are yet to come, and we look forward to them very much, as indeed we do to your account of your journey back to Winnipeg.
It was quite right of you to carry on as usual, in spite of the anxiety about Richard. To have cancelled the rest of your holiday and gone back to Winnipeg would have been foolish, and he would have hated you to do it. I have no strong conviction about whether he is alive or dead, and can only wait and hope and pray! To begin with I found it terribly hard to speak about him without getting a tremendous lump in my throat, but I have got more self-control now. Getting over the first shock, and determined practice in self-control will help, I suppose.
I suppose in one of the letters-to-come there is the news of what John Averill is doing. I had an idea that he was going into the Army as soon as he was old enough, but it sounds from what you say as if he is doing an apprenticeship in some shipyards.
Walter Jenkins, who takes an interest in your career, and who is a Science man himself, says that demonstrating is a most excellent thing, probably teaches more than the actual course or lectures. That’s good.
Best love my darling,
Mother
From LJT to Annette No 37
8 Theatre Rd. Calcutta
Sept 27th 1942
My darling Annette,
Letters from aunt and you have not arrived during the past week but we have had quite a spate from Romey. There were such a lot at one “go” that I could not sort them out in a single reading, especially as they delt with so many different people; with moving from Victoria to Vancouver, and from one part of Vancouver to another. I spent about an hour lying on my bed re-reading them yesterday afternoon, and then studying the geography of “The Coast” on our not especially good map.
I’m glad that Romey, like you, has the knack of making friends. She seems to know someone in every town she goes to, and picks up more after she arrives. I wish you could have a holiday of something the same sort as she has done.
I am getting more and more worried about Dad. I really feel he will have to retire. He gets so terribly tired, and only just manages to keep going living a routine life at home. With the cessation of the Rains, he will have a great deal of touring to do, and I just dont think he will be able to stand it. The other thing I fear is the possibility of air raids on this city or other parts of the great tract of country for which Dad is responsible, which might mean that he would have to do long hours of emergency work or touring. We are going to see the doctor this afternoon. I am inclined to think that Dad could do a useful half-time job, in some place where he could be settled, and without the weight of responsibility compelling him to be on the spot if trouble arises in some corner of his division. It would advantage him enormously to be in a dry climate. Perhaps the best thing for us to do would be to clear out to South Africa! Dont comment on this till you hear more. I should be very sorry to have to retire from my job, and I hope that if we do have to go I shall be able to get some real work for the war in whatever place fate may take us to.
It’s a pity in a way that I never have time to talk to Mr Kelly although he lives in the house, for he has queer and rather antiquated ideas about many things, and he likes discussion. His ideas seem to me to be rather a jumble, and he gives the impression of being out-of-joint with the world. What a queer thing contentment and happiness is. Mr Hughes, Idris’ other Assistant Director (Dont forget that I am one!) has had an awful lot of trouble with his children. One had some mysterious illness when she was a baby out here, which no-body could diagnose. Its now thought to have been sleepy sickness. It left her very undeveloped, both mentally and physically. She is in some special home in England, and they say she will eventually get much better, but I dont think even the parents dare hope that she will be a perfectly normal person. Another child had infantile paralysis and is still scarcely able to walk. She is being looked after some-where else. Mrs Hughes has just had to have a severe operation, but in spite of all these things, he is habitually cheerful, and spreads a genial atmosphere round him. I am sure he believes that life is worth living, and is not always mourning because of some belief that things are not as good as they used to be! It makes him nice to work with.
Reading “How Green Was My Valley” has made me ponder on the inability of American producers to achieve simplicity. Simplicity is the key note of that book. Sarah Algood achieved it in her acting and so did some of the other individual players, but the production as a whole missed it. It seems as if the producers have throughly urban minds, or perhaps I should better say, suburban minds. Dad and I always remember a film produced in France or Switzerland in the days before the Talkies, which achieved the sort of simplicity I mean perfectly. It was called “Mother”. It delt entirly with the life of a group of peasants in a village in the Alps. And its range of thought and presentation never went outside that. It was full of the dignity and wisdom that can go with simplicity of the right sort. A proof of its excellence is that we have never forgotten it, though we saw it in the days when we were living in Kings Rd. Chelsea.
There are more letters to write.
Best love and blessings
From
Mother
Family letter from HPV
8 Theatre Road
Calcutta.
September 28th 1942
My Dear Annette (name handwritten)
Not much to write about this week for I have lacked the vitality to do or to take in anything. There has been much rain and the air has been thick with moisture; and this is always exhausting. I might tell you about our cats, still sitting in the rain or just out of it in damps spots: they have been joined by a tom so exactly like them that we suspect him to be one of the same family -- for, as you may remember, two out of the original six kittens disappeared before they forced themselves upon us. This tom is civilised; advancing it strops itself against the legs of those who threaten it. The four cats look upon it with extreme disapproval but we fear the worst; the servants have told us an interesting thing -- the tom will not eat off the ground but only off a plate. Thus they show that in spite of all orders they have been feeding the tom, and its continued presence and the eventual corruption of the four virtuous cats are thus certainties.
In the house next door there must be a flute kettle. A thin whistle breaks our peace every so often. Memories of the Chief Engineer on the Klipfontein expounding he meaning of the Dutch wireless message that the Dutch were like flute kettles which make no noise till they come to the boil
In spite of being dead to the world, or perhaps because I have felt too tired to walk out to the Saturday Club in the evening to change books and have therefore stayed more in the house, I have done some research into Hindustani housekeeping in that I have reverted to the reading of the Urdu cookery book. Inspired thereto by writing to Louise Ranken about the comment of a young French wife of a Young English I.C.S. officer that Louise’s cookery book was her bible. It led me to look at the cookery book and then to look up the Urdu volume to see if it had anywhere a particular phrase which Louise’s book often uses. I have held discourse with Mogul and collected some more words that were missing in my list. A futile pastime because Joan has no interest in them, I shall never use them myself because I do not deal with cooking, and no one else will ever see them. It is a sort of obsession.
Like the composition of al- the-letters-of-the-alphabet sentences for the typewriter. To this also I reverted; and I composed four more, bringing the total to 47 apart from those in the books of which there are some twenty in all. However I do not practise what I compose and it does not look from this letter with all its confounding of e with i and failures to hit the space key with enough vim as if I should ever be beyond the need of practice.
By way of economy I have turned the typewriter ribbon; so that the side which the keys used to smite now is next to the paper; it has brisked up the writing considerably but I managed to get the whole thing twisted up somehow and had to spend over half an hour smoothing out the ribbon and getting matters to rights.
Joan has just come in for a gâterie, to wit a piece of barley sugar; the only time when she takes such a thing is when she has been typing mail letters. It was Madame Muret who used to bring in gâteries at Ste Maxime, to reward us for giving them rides in our car; such as marrons glacés and those pinecone pips which have no taste at all and are popular in the south of France. Alas for the Murets! I do hope that they got away to Switzerland.
There have been many visitors this week; on Thursday evening in particular I had no luck for the man from Burma whom Joan had told to drop in any time dropped in just as she was going out to the concert and stayed till eight o’clock. I do not normally do my fair share in entertaining callers. And I certainly have not done enough in the way of entertaining my officers, who ought by rights to have been looked after by me and encouraged to do good.
It has been decided by Joan that this afternoon I should go and see the doctor and that therefore I must lie down before lunch. So I am off. But the lying down does no particular good, I find.
Much love
Dad