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The Townend Family Letters

Correspondence from the 1930s - 1940s between members of the Townend family
HPV + LJT Letters 1942 to 1944

1943 December

Air Graph from LJT to Romey

(pencil addition at foot of letter – Dec 1st 1943)

My darling Romey: Letters 120 & 121 of 12/10 & 19/10 & Personal of 25/10 about Og, reached us to-day.  Your news was not a great surprise, as Og has figured so much in your letter of late.  My poor Pet!!  What a complicated set of problems you have to face!  This at least is clear.  If you have found the man you really love & want to marry, considerations of the family should not stand in the way.  Remember “Foresaking all other, cleave only unto him”.  This is the important thing for each new generation, & each generation of parents has in turn to learn the lesson.  BUT a general liking, friendship & community of tastes are not ground enough on which to start the adventure of marriage.  They are good foundations, but you want the essential superstructure of being whole-heartedly in love.  Inevitably that experience will come to you some day, & tragedies occur when people tie themselves to-gether without that great emotion, & later find they have it for someone else.  Helen’s advice is good.  Stay over the winter in W’peg & find out what you really feel about Og.  He sounds a very nice person, with wide interests.  As for the sort of life he has to offer you, if you do not love him enough to accept whatever his career happens to be, then you don’t love him enough to marry him.  Looking at it from an outsiders point of view I think the advantages & disadvantages of a schoolmasters life about balance out.  The long summer vacation would perhaps give you a chance to get to England, when travelling becomes possible again.  It is a pity that both accomodation on boats & the ban on sending money to Canada make it out of the question for us to visit that country yet awhile.  We are trying to get home in March or April, but it will be impossible to find out till much nearer the time what our chances of getting passages will be.  We may have to wait for months.  You age does not worry me at all.  As you perhaps know, I was engaged when I was eighteen and married when I was 20.  Neither do I think the fact that Og is 9 years older than you are matters.  The danger is to let feeling of pity run away with you & marry him because you are fond of him & don’t want to hurt him.  When I was seventeen I awfully nearly said “yes” to a man 15 years older than myself, because he was such a nice creature & seemed to be cut up at the idea that I would not have him.  Naturally it will be a deep disappointment to us not to have you in England, & Aunt too, will miss you sadly, but we all have the sense & the understanding, I hope, to know that the right marriage for you is so much more important than our pleasure in your company.  From a broad “Commonwealth of Nations” attitude it should be a good thing.  England is over full.  Canada still has plenty of room & fresh opportunity, & I think you are well-suited for life in the newer countries.  Also you went to Canada young enough to have got over the difficulty of adjusting yourself to its ways without much difficulty.  We should like to hear something more about Og.  Are his people alive, & where do they live, & a few things like that.  Also, if possible, it would be nice to have a snap shot of him.  Helen speaks highly of him, & I think his character has come across to some extent in your letters.  I wish I were with you, & could help you & talk to you, but after all, only you can know what your feelings are, & they will have to be your guide.  Dismiss any idea that we shall be disappointed that you may not have a ‘Career’.  A happy marriage, & being a successful wife & perhaps mother, needs just as much skill & intelligence as any other sort of job.  Talking about dismissing subjects from the mind, don’t talk nonsense about the typewriter.  That is yours for keeps.  You have well earned it by being so good over writing letters, so when you see something you want, you spend our graduation present on it.  I’m writing to H & to Og, though I don’t yet know what I am going to say to him.  Best love & blessings From

Air Graph from LJT to Helen Magill

Mrs Townend.  c/oStandard Bank.  Cape Town      Dec 1st   1943

Dear Helen: your and Romey’s letters of Oct. 25th about Og, reached us this morning.  Of course the news brings rather a mixture of feelings.  It was not altogether a surprise, for Og has figured so much in Romey’s letters of late.  His character stands out in them more than any other person’s has done, & he sounds a really nice person.  It is such a comfort that you are at hand to help & advise.  Romey is evidently so fond of you & values your advice.  What you suggest seems very much the best solution of the problem for the present.  It is so all-important that Romey should not marry Og unless she is really in love with him.  If she is, then no considerations about seeing us or Grace & Barney, should stand in her way.  This I have written at greater length to her.  It will naturally be a big disappointment to us not to have Romey with us when we get home, & a certain sadness that she will spend her life so far away, but that may be what fate ordains, and what is best for her and for the next generation is what is important.  Perhaps when the worst of the post-war emergency travelling is over, it will be possible for us to come to Canada but I am afraid it will be some time ahead.  I am writing to Og, as I feel is should like to be in touch with him & let him know what we feel.  Romey’s age does not worry us at all, once she is sure of her own feelings.  I was only 20 myself when I married, & managed alright.  Thank you so much for writing to us & for being so wise about it all.  Also all thanks to you & Susie for being willing to keep Romey on with you.

This business of not granting her an exit permit to go to Jackson, does certainly seem short-sighted of the Selective Service, but as things are it may turn out to be best for R.  It seems that you are becoming an important person in the broadcasting world, travelling here & there on the C.B.C’s business.  I hope that you are a bit less tired than you used to be.  Herbert still suffers so much that way, that we are both able to sympathize with you.  We had a letter from Judy not long ago, telling us that they have decided to stay in Jo’burg for the summer vacation.  I wish they could have got away to some quiet sea-side place.  A throughly good laze in the open air would do them both good.  I shall certainly ask if they will lend us “The Unknown Country”.  I am sure they will, for Ed is generous in lending his books.  He let me borrow his precious books on the Kruger Park.  It has been a joy meeting those two.  It seems to have drawn the two families closer.  I am so sorry that Ed has slipped out of touch with Carleton & with Harvey Jones.  We can see so easily how it all happened, built up by a small series of mis-understandings, of which I feel perfectly sure Peter Carleton Jones is totally unconscious.  P.C.J is a most interesting man.  He told us a good deal about the French Canadian problem on which you touch in your letter.  He was at the University at Quebec (or was it Montreal) & had experience of wars & truces with the French students.  Broadcasting in this country is poor.  Gossip says that the man at the head of the S.A.B.C. is keen to keep his job whatever happens in the political world, as he wont tolerate any sort of talks or information that might annoy the opposition, since he wants to keep his job even if they come in to power at some future election.  Whether this is true or not, I cant say, but there is seldom anything worth listening to, except the Symphonic Concerts by the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra, relays from Daventry & gramophone records.  There used to be a clever thing called “Snoek Town” by Cecil Wightown.  He is an amazingly clever impersonator of (rest of letter missing)

Air Graph from LJT to Og (Ogden Turner)

Mrs Townend.c/o Standard Bank. Cape Town.     Dec.2nd     1943

Dear Og: Romey’s letters, telling us that you want to marry her, arrived yesterday morning.  It was not altogether a surprise, for you have figured so largely in her letters for some months past.  From her letters we have the impression that she is very fond of you; that you have a community of tastes, but she is not sure whether she is “in love” with you.  Perhaps she does not yet know what being in love is.  It would be the gravest mistake for her to marry you, if she is not, as I am sure you must realize for yourself.  Helen’s suggestion that she should stay over the winter in W’peg, & see how her feelings develop, is wise.  If in the course of the next few months she finds that she loves you in the right sort of way, & feels no further doubts that you are the person with whom she wants to pass the rest of her life, then no consideration of our feelings, or of her beloved Uncle & Aunt in England, who have so largely brought her up, should stand in the way of your marriage.  The fact that you get a long summer vacation is a help, for it might make it possible for you to come to England to visit us, as soon as travelling becomes easier after the war.  We could probably help financially, beginning by putting aside the expenses that R. would have incurred coming home in the ordinary course of events.

Helen tells me that you have a good post, & would have an adequate income to support a wife, though in your profession one does not make fortunes.  Romey has never had extravagant tastes and has always been shrewd & economical in her spending.  Helen gives you a good character, which naturally is a most important thing to us, since we so far away.  Perhaps one sees ones own children through somewhat rosy spectacles, but I think you will be a lucky man if Romey marries you.  From the time she could toddle, she has always been unselfish & thoughtful for other people.  Also from a very early age she has been a most dependable creature, & the soul of truth.  Neither my sister or I found her the least trouble to bring up.

I don’t disguise the fact that it would, or will, be a disappointment to us not to have her with us when we get Home, & a certain sadness if she is so far away, but we know that must not weigh against yours & her happiness, & the proper pattern of your lives.

Her age does not worry us at all.  My own opinion is that if you have not enough sense to marry at twenty or thereabouts, you never will have.  There is a lot to be said for marrying young too.  It is easier to fit into one another’s ways, & if one has children it is a great thing to be still young with them.  I married young myself, & I would certainly do the same if I had to live the same life over again.

From Romey’s letters I gather that you & your circle of friends are interested in “music & the arts”, & that you get involved in discussions on all sorts of social & political problems, so it does not look as if Romey’s mind will be allowed to go to seed, of which I am very glad.  She has been brought up in homes where intellectual interests played a great part, & it would be a pity if she slipped into a circle where clothes, bridge & the cinema were the only subjects of conversation.

Its rather shameful how comparatively little I know about Canada.  I must read more, and make myself more familiar with your background.  We should very much like to hear from you.  Maybe by the time this reaches you Romey will be more sure of her own mind.

Kindest regards from us both, & best wishes.  Yours

Airgraph from LJT to Annette (addressed to Miss Annette Townend. P.O. Box. 111 Bletchley. Bucks. England)

No 24 Dec 2nd 1943

My darling Annette: Thanks for A-G of 2/11 rcd 30/11. So glad you liked old Sir F. Noyce. He has always made the moves about keeping in touch with us, so I think he must be fond of Dad, in spite of the fact that he used to say Dad was very cheeky to him & kept him in his place. My dear friend John Hunt, I recently discovered, is a great climbing crony of one of Sir F’s sons. It was John who introduced us to Gwen.gof-ishaf (I’ve forgotten how it is spelt) The young airman I met at the Mt Club & who came to supper here last week, knows the farm & all that country well, & Sir Roger W. has the most lovely book of photos of it. How wise it was of you to put up with the tiresomeness of Mr Evans during the early part of your stay in Bletchley, for, on the whole you have got on well with Mrs E. haven’t you: It certainly was a compliment that she trusted you & Irene on your own. My dusky little Lucinda (The Cape Coloureds go in for v. grand names) is shaping quite well. She is not what you would call brilliant, but she begins to remember better, & is doing quite a lot of the cooking more or less on her own. It is a pleasure to me to have a little more time for writing & sewing. I’ve done precious little reading lately. We generally wait up to hear the 10.45 news, & by the time I am in bed I am too sleepy to read. In the morning I am sleeping till 6.30, & find that the quarter of an hour till its time to get up, passes in thinking out the meals & the duties for the day. We have not done much since I wrote to Aunt on Saturday. We had tea with the Harveys at Kenilworth on Sunday. They are kind, restful people, but not exciting in any way. Their house has a v. different atmosphere from Eileen Forsyth’s where we were again for late tea & drinks on Tues. She had invited, amongst other people, a journalist & told Dad that she wanted him to tell the said journalist all about the famine. The gentleman in question did not come till we were just gathering ourselves to go, & it was not possible to tackle the hurculean task in the space of ten minutes, especially to a man whose previous knowledge of India & its constitution was almost nil. Eileen is like that. She has perfect confidence in her own ability to understand & solve the most intricate problems in a trice. She knows exactly what should be done about each of Africa’s enigmas. Its sometimes fun, but sometimes rather annoying, especially to a civil servant like Dad, who knows the importance of verifying facts. Dad has not so far noticed much improvement from the new medicines, but the doctor warned him that they might make him feel a little worse, rather than better to begin with. The French doctor who treated him for liver years ago in Dinard, warned him of the same thing. I went to see the same doctor on Tuesday, because from time to time I get twinges of rheumatism. Its difficult to spot any cause, but I have medicine to take for a month, & then after resting for two or three months, take another months course, & so on. Also I am to drink the juice of half a lemon in a glass of water every morning. Lets hope these precautions keep the pest away. I should not have dreamt of consulting a doctor, but that I have heard so many people say that they neglected early warnings, & went to doctors when it was too late. Letters from Romey yesterday. It seems she is not getting her exit permit but plans to stay in W’peg through the winter. I am sorry she is not going to the States. Ref. your query about H.E. & Winsome & your 21st birthday present, I should think it was a pure oversight. They were both desperately busy at the time, and we were away in Java so it must have slipped their minds I think. They always speak with affection of you. Will the sheepskin gloves be useful? Best love Mother

Family letter from HPV

c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
December 3rd 1944. (stet) Monday (stet)

My dear Annette, (name handwritten)

Among the good things of south Africa is the Applegoose jam. But it has the disadvantage that the jingle “With my crossbow I shot the applegoose” keeps running through my head. The which remark coupled with the epigram of which Dr. Tomb thought so highly (of the lady who called the poet a louse and elicited the retort that “ladies will talk of what runs in their head”) makes me to think of a visit to the museum today and of the seeing of the life-history of the tick. Never exactly a supporter of the tick, now I have definitely turned against them. It appears that the little colourless things which caused us trouble and the Mountain Inn were larvae; that the bigger things seen occasionally and regarded by us as outsized are nymphs; and that the adults which I have never seen on me or mine are comparatively huge. Indeed there is one type of South African tick (of which apparently they think highly because there is no rival to it in size in the world) which grows, adult female, to the size of my thumbnail.

The applegoose is comparatively static; it is the Africaans for apricot. If one yellow applegoose should accidentally fall there’d still be several applegeese hanging on the wall.

I went a walk early because it is hot and there will be no chance of going out this evening owing to guests coming in. Out before nine, and that is by suntime before seven. Gaiety among the birds; less among the squirrels who seemed still sleepy. I watched the cages of South African birds which we have often mentioned as one of the high-lights of the Public Gardens; they get spring-cleaned daily and I was delighted to see not only the walls but the tortoise scrubbed down vigorously with a brush. When the cleaning is going on all the birds come out and sit close-packed on the hanging perches; and there is an incessant process of moving along the perch towards the right so that the end bird has to fly off and get on at the further end. Later I met two squirrels who ended by getting up on my knee, the older because he was a tough and the younger because he feared that the older would get everything – and he did anyhow owing to his adroitness and willingness to bite his friend.

An interesting letter from my pal who farms near Chinsura; and to me it is strange that the censor passed his remarks about the difficulties of transport during the famine; I shall not therefore repeat them though they deserve repetition, as explaining in large part the failure of the government to get food distributed. It is with the figures in his farm-reports that I have been laboring; and labour is no word for it. I evolved a formula for discovering how many men were paid 7 and how many 8 annas when the total number was known and the total sum paid known too. It didn’t work; I thought perhaps that the cause was my having reduced the men to annas or words to that effect; but after acres of calculations I disovered the correct figure by trial and error and then realized that my formula was first-class as long as I abstained from making 6 times 15 into 80. Emboldened I went on to tackle the next problem of the same kind and applied the formula; it refused to work, giving the ridiculous result that there was a minus number of men paid 8 annas. Defeated I went sadly to bed; and as I lay awake (my custom these days) it occurred to me that there must be a mistyping in the report; and lo! next day when I tested this it appeared that the figure for total men was 323 instead of 233. My half formed conclusion that I was becoming rather good at figures was dashed by the consideration that I had taken about three hours to get out results which any of my offspring and even my brothers would have secured in ten minutes. It reminds me that I read recently of a headmaster somewhere who set in a general knowledge paper as questions all the things which Macaulay in his Essays remarks that “Every schoolboy knows . . . .” I could not answer one of them.

I have not done much this week, having spent an undue proportion of my time slouching on my bed; in the morning as well as in the afternoon. No luck in the books taken out. One on Evolution by Julian Huxley was, I think, good but every page had on it five or six words of which I did not know the meaning and I renounced it. In another, a ridiculous detective story, I found a discussion of a surrealist picture about which Eileen Forsyth had been discoursing; tripe in the discussion but it had been tripe also in the discourse though they took opposite sides; I mention the thing because it is confirmation of the dictum that you can learn about anything if you read enough detective stories. Pig-breeding, acrostics, the culture of orchids, the proper colour of the privities of prize bulls, the use of wind-tunnels, the time taken to decompose town rubbish . . . . . Which reminds me that Mr. Cramer Roberts told how in a town in Syria or Lebanon (?Beyrout) they convert their waste into an innocuous fertile brown powder in five days by pushing it into a tower and blowing air through it with a rotary pump.

Much love
Dad


Family letter from LJT No 46

6 Victoria Court
Cape Town.
Dec 5th 1943.

My Dears,

There are letters to thank for this week: three from Romey & one from Helen, posted 25/10, which took over five weeks to reach us by air-mail, which is quicker than has been usual of late. An A.G. from Romey sent on 3/11 took precisely a month. Letters of 15/11 from H.D. & Winsome reached us yesterday. Much thanks to all concerned. You know what keen pleasure we have in letters.

For the moment we have the illusion of quite a settled life. In fact, as our Belgian friend wrote after his return to Elizabethville, we have made “our little life normal and dear habitudes”. I have my daily shopping after breakfast, & am usually busy with letters, sewing and cooking for the rest of the morning. Herbert works at his papers during the early part of the morning, and later walks to the Library via the Gardens, feeding his friends, the squirrels on the way. After lunch he rests, and on three days a week I run off to office, getting back a little after five. H. makes his own tea. I have a cup in office.

In the evenings we generally go for a walk, though this week we have had people to tea on two days; we went to tea with Eileen Forsyth at Sea Point on one of my off days, and yesterday we visited a charming collection of Dutch & Flemish pictures, which were presented to the City of Cape Town by the widow of Sir Max Michaelis in 1923. They are housed in the old Town House, which was originally built in 1755. Its a beautiful old Dutch building, which went through many vicissitudes, and was finally reconditioned to house this collection. The work has been excellently done, and kept completely in the early Dutch style. We only had half an hour there last night, but we intend to return. Its only five minutes walk away from us. We were looking at rather different pictures in the morning. A group of artists from overseas, including the daughter of my friend Mrs Cramer Roberts, held a small exhibition, & we felt it was up to us to be there for the opening. Privately I do not think most of the stuff was good enough to exhibit, especially the work of the woman who showed the largest number of pictures and who considers herself a professional. As we were coming away, we met Miss Gill going up. I returned with her, and we ran into a man I have been hoping to meet; a S. African artist of the name Peers, who befriended friend s of ours when they passed through Cape Town en route for India. I delivered messages about the warmth of their memories of his kindness, & received an invitation to go up to his studio with Miss Gill one day soon.

Our two tea-parties were rather amusing. Sir Stewart & Lady Symes (ex-governor of the Sudan) through whom in a round about way we got this flat, were coming on Thursday, so I asked Sir Roger and Lady Wilson to meet them, & added a charming young Mrs Fleming, from Cyprus, who is a keen mountaineer to meet Sir Roger. They both know & love the Swiss Alps. The Symes arrived, but there was no sign of the Wilsons. Mrs F came from the office where she works, but still no Wilsons. We chatted happily enough, but I was sorry, for it would, I thought, have been better as a little party. Fearing Lady W. had made a mistake in the day, I rang up later, luckily, it so happened, for she had written it down for Friday. Herbert volunteered to entertain them till I got back from office, and managed everything very nicely. The woman who is the chief and originator of the S.A.W.A.S., Miss Lucy Bean, came along after office too. She is likewise a mountaineer, and wanted to see some of my Himalayan photos. She is a journalist by profession, a S. African, but she has travelled a lot, and is a most intelligent and efficient person. She has been loaned by the Cape Argus for which she works, to the S.A.W.A.S. for the war. The original idea was that she should do the S.A.W.A.S. work in the mornings, and the newspapers work in the afternoons. The newspaper has gradually been crowded out, and she says she is often in her office there for only about half an hour or so a day. We not only talked about mountains but Herbert gave her a lot of information about Bengal and the famine. How different it is talking to someone with a keen mind, who takes in & seems to digest what is being said! I think she must have been happy with us, for she stayed till nearly seven o’clock.

At Eileen Forsyths on Tuesday it was a nice little party: late tea in the garden with glimpses of the sea in front of us, on a most perfect day, and only two or three other people. Eileen had invited a newspaper man, and instructed Herbert that he was to tell him “all about the famine” in India, rather a tall order, and it did not come to very much, for the said man did not arrive till about ten minutes before we wanted to go. The man himself was a little distrait since his arrival had been delayed by the necessity of dealing with some poor creature who was suffering from D.Ts. Eileen is a great person for bringing together people whom she thinks can give one another information, and I must say it makes her parties lively, so long as she does not overdo it, and crowd too many people into her tiny rooms, or small garden. We went out a little early to Sea Point and had a short stroll by the Sea, which we dont often see at close quarters these days, though we get glimpses of it from the slopes of Signal Hill, just behind us, where we sometimes take our evening walks, or lovely views of it from high up on the mountain when we go further afield.

Seeing all my friends in new summer frocks, brought to head the feeling I have had for sometime past that I should have to get a new afternoon frock. What I think of as my two “tidy” silk frocks, both purchased in 1937, have got to the stage when they have to be darned here and there. To salve my conscience, which has a guilty feeling of extravagence, I suggested that Herbert should give me a dress for my birthday & Christmas present, which he is doing. The shops have much better stocks this year than they had six or eight months ago. Quite a lot of the very pretty artificial silk frocks come from Switzerland, and some from America & possibly Canada. Moreover there were quite a good choice in my size, & I have chosen one that should be very useful and last well. The thin wool one I bought in Jo’burg is being most useful, for till the last day or two the weather has been coolish, and light wool has been more suitable than silk or cotton, especially if one is going to be out after 5.30 or so.

In many ways the shops are better stocked than they were. Glass and crockery of the simplest description is now obtainable at a price. A plain white dinner plate is 2/9, and a ditto cup and saucer 3/6. Not being able to buy a pudding bowl anywhere, I got two white pint-size bowls with a simple pattern on them, price 3/9 each. I wonder how these prices compare with what in being paid in England. Its something to be able to get things at all! I think I shall bring home the 4 plates, 2 cups and saucers and 2 bowls I have had to buy to eke out the supply in the flat, with me, in case they are difficult to get in England.

By the way I forgot to mention an AG from Annette written 2/ll and rcd by us on 30/11. I’m sorry Romey cant get down to the States, and since she had waited so long in Winnipeg, its just as well she should try for a war job there till the spring comes, I think. If she does come home then, I would like her to get the chance either to see some of the Stairs family, should she come by Halifax, or to visit my friends the Rankens in New York State, should she be able to go via New York.

My best love to you all
LJT

(added handwritten at bottom of letter to Romey)
My darling Romey,

In the excitement of your last letters, I see I have skipped over some things I meant to mention in earlier ones. What is “the Bay fifth floor dining room wagon service?”

How did the bleaching and dyeing of stockings go? I greatly fear disappointment for you. I have had so many hopeful shots at dyeing things myself, but have seldom been very successful.

We were enchanted to hear of Og making “useful pots” using an old gramophone record as a wheel. That is just the sort of thing Dad would like to do. No more time this morning.

Bless you,
Mother

(hand written addition at end of letter to Annette)
No time for an extra note this week – so here are just my love and thoughts
Mother


Family letter from HPV

c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
December 6th 1943 Monday.

My dear Annette

Breaking away from all precedent and perhaps from the way of common-sense I went out this morning at 9 o’clock for a walk on Table Mountain; tramming up as far as the Nek, and then mounting steeply up a ridge to the path at the foot of the cliffs, along which Joan went yesterday. An hour and a quarter walking 15 minutes tram and a half an hour waiting for the trams. Object to see a marvellous show of wildflowers, like imitation gladioli to the uninitiated, . . . and to get out while feeling fresh instead of waiting till jaded by the morning’s doings and a post-lunch lie-back. It was a mistake in that I had to walk with my face to the sun and missed the beauty of the colouring of the hillside; and more so in that it left me tired and I have wasted the rest of the day.

Yet this is to be said that I was less tired than I have been after the evening walks. Also I have done two full mornings’ work on my rice figures this week, plus some more in the evenings. And there have been some feelings of energy in the mornings. Credit to the new doctor? maybe. That my tongue lacks the higher beauties may be over looked.

One of the sadnesses of living in a furnished flat is the bluntness of knives, though I have done some useful work on a couple of them with my pocket-hone, which dates back to the days when I was buying Richard his first tools at the Onslow Court Hotel. So difficult is it to dismember a wing of a chicken and to remove the flesh from it that the other evening I fetched a pair of nail-scissors and did the job with them. This, I suppose, has never before been done by anyone.

A mass of Statesmen from Calcutta have come in this week together with a note enclosing a letter from Irene King - Irene Daniloff that was, the Russian girl who made up her feet as well as her face and for whom I had affection in the days when we were at Cossipore and maybe before; she showed kindness to Rosemary in Vancouver. Illiterate and incoherent; undated, so that we do not know whether it was written this year or last. Joan suggests that she must have been off her head; but I think that it is merely inability to write. She asked if the allegation in the August “Time” about neglect of refugee children in India can be true; but I cannot find the thing although I have examined the numbers for both this August and for last. The man whose name she give as the author was a very competent Rockefeller Institute Public Health doctor in Calcutta, known to me; and probably if he said such a thing it was so; but it does not follow that conclusions drawn from his facts are justified. (Stickiness in the typewriter here)

In these copies of the Statesman there are summaries of speeches made in the Bengal Assembly about the famine. Also of a speech by a Member of Government of India which indicates that the Secretariat believes last year’s harvest to have been normal; which is howling idiocy after a cultivation season of which the first two (and the most important months) were short of rain. I wish that I could get my tongue onto the men who make the forecasts of the crops; it would be as in 1935 when the Bihar jute forecast was placed permanently on a new basis after one letter of criticism from me. It looks as if no one ever examined these crop figures. It is significant that no one even pretends that they are accurate except in a crisis when the utmost harm results from the pretence.

A correspondent in the Statesman writes that as a remedy against famine all should use a widespread herb, which Aryabhishak the famous book on Indian medicine claims to have been used by rishis and sages of old. (A rishi is a sage.) If rice is cooked in the juice of this herb, the person who eats it will not require food for nearly six months. . . . . . . . I do not know which is worse. The futility of the man who can write this tripe, believing it; or the cynicism of the Statesman editor who printed it, knowing that it will be believed by many. You would think that a man would try it before advocating its use; but that is now how their minds work. (I wish that I could find out why the ribbon sticks)

For the culture of the toes I have adopted the artificial device of hammering them with a bit of split bamboo; vibrator-like. Can one get the upper hand over one’s toes? I believe that I am in the way to do it.

Interesting though not very well written is “Farming Adventure” by J. Wentworth Day 1943; it describes a 2000 mile ride round the Eastern Counties including Essex and deals with many places near Chelmsford and Colchester.

(handwritten addition) Our applications for leave to depart in March have been returned with intimation that it is too early to apply, as the permission is valid for only 60 days! Inconsiderate when all arrangements re housing and journey by rail have to be made months in advance. And I do not know now whether to draw pension here or in London.

Much love
Dad

Air Graph No 24 from LJT to Aunt (GCT)

Mrs Townend.c/o Standard Bank. Cape Town.   Dec.7th  1943

Dearest Grace, Just as I am beginning to feel nicely settled, the necessity arises to think about arrangements to be made after leaving this flat.  We cannot have it after Feb. 1st.  The Settlers Club can let us postpone our booking with them till late Feb. so we are enquiring about going to a Guest House at Elgin for two or three weeks after leaving here.  After March 1st we must be ready to go at 24 hours notice.  If you get a cable from us saying “changing address” you will know what is happening.  H. does seem to be benefitting a bit by the new medicine, though I cant say there is any marked change.  That we can only hope for.  He has been doing a lot of work on the figures connected with his method of forecasting crops from the rainfall figures.  The real summer seems to be here now.  On Sunday afternoon Sir Roger Wilson called for me at 2.30, & we went to Kloof Nek (walking a good part of the way as the buses were all full).  Then we climbed up to the base of the cliffs, & walked by the high contour path right along the north face, on underneath the saddle which joins T.Mt to the Devil’s Pk, & on again round the Devil’s Pk, dropping down at last to the Rhodes Memorial, & through the gardens of Groote Schuur (Rhoses’ house) to the main rd, where I lept straight on to a bus at 5.30 p.m.  I thought of you many times during the walk; you would have loved it, especially the masses of ?watsonias (gladioli) in full bloom, which in places filled terraces& whole slopes of the mountain side with thousands upon thousands of rose pink blooms.  They were a marvellous sight.  Our little maid Lucinda, is picking up the methods of cooking I like, & manages a good deal on her own now, so I have had a little more time for other things.  I went out on Friday morning to buy myself a silk afternoon frock as a Christmas & birthday present from H.  There are plenty in the shops now, pretty ones too, & not quite the outrageous prices they were only six months ago.  At last I have found a little dressmaker, who is going to turn ???? my black satin evening frock of mine into something short & useful to use in the evenings & at hotels.  We are going to use the wrong or dull side of the satin.  I hope it will be ????????/be so glad to have a useless evening frock used up.  How exciting the ????????the last of dys with accounts of the meeting of the great leaders in N. Africa & then in Persia, there has been a good deal in the papers here about Smuit’s speech.  Unlike himself, he seems to have been guilty of more than one breech of tact, or a transparent attempt to insert the thin edge of a wedge for S. Africa to  ????? control over the African native territories & mandates.  No one who has been in S. Africa would be in favour of giving the Union control of any further territory with coloured inhabitants, I should imagine.  They have made such a ghastly mess of the problem, & give the coloured people such a rough deal.  When coming home it may be possible to bring a case of groceries.  It was permitted six months ago.  If so, please send me an air-graph saying what would be the most useful things, in case I can bring them.  I have sent off parcels for you & A. Mrs Roscoe & Christina Drake to-day.  Stterford’s say they have nad no information about the April parcels going down, so I don’t know what happened to them.  Through reading books about soil & humus, H. is becoming interested in farming, & his mind is full of queries & theories.  He feels that Barney’s “useful little pot”, to which there was such public objection should have much more general use.  You have done well with your vegetables, have’nt you?  The Labour Party’s idea of nationalizing all the land, which came over the radio last night filled him with gloom.  The only hope for the land is the good squire, he thinks.  Its sad that Romey could not get down to the States.  Best love to you all


Family letter from LJT No 47

6 Victoria Court.
Cape Town.
Dec. 12th 1943

My Dears,

This has been almost a blank week as far as letters are concerned, though it brought us one interesting one from Australia. Most of you will remember a dear couple Mr & Mrs Tonge with whom we made friends years ago in the South of France, & who were hospitable to us in Sydney. This letter was from Mrs Tonge, & it was interesting to hear of the same little difficulties of fetching home ones own goods, & thetime it takes: of shortages of this and that; of discontent with politicians; but Mrs Tonge says, one can put up cheerfully with all that, its the strikes that make one see red! Her three sons, one daughter & husbands of other daughters are scattered over several fighting fronts. One son-in-law, who was a planter in New Guinea, has been organizing native carriers for the army. He’ll have some interesting tales to tell, I should think.

To make up for lack of letters, we have had some grand war news, to keep us cheerful, ---if only one does not think too much of the wounds and the deaths and the suffering.

Smuts’ speech to the British M.P.s has caused a lot of talk, especially amongst the English people living temporarily in S. Africa. Last Sunday afternoon I went for a most lovely walk with Sir Roger Wilson, leaving here directly after lunch, and walking from Kloof Nek right along the North Face of Table Mt and round Devil’s Peak by a height contour path. We talked much of S. African ways and of Smuts and of his speech. It has greatly undermined my admiration for Smuts, not only by the unstatesmanlike references to France and to Russia, but still more by what he said about the Colonies and their discontent with the Colonial Office. It seemed to me so crafty. He stated that they all grumble, which is probably true, just as its true that we grumble at the India Office, and then he left it, obviously, or so it seems to me, with the idea of giving the impression that they would all love to come in under the Union. In practice, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. I should think scarcely any Englishman who had been in S. Africa, would tolerate the idea of putting any more coloured peoples under their control. We are all so shocked at the treatment they have received in the past, and doubtful, in spite of all the talk that is going on, whether much is going to be done for them in the future. The same topics were under discussion at the Symes where we went for drinks on Friday. Sir Stewart was Governor of Tanganyika before he was in the Sudan, and the only other guest who arrived more or less to time was an ex-governor of Ceylon, one Sir Herbert Stanley, so we were all people who have been long trained in the idea of ruling native races for their own good, and not to get the maximum labour out of them for the minimum return. We like the Symes very much, and they are the most friendly and unsidy people. Sir H. Stanley has a grand bow-window and might well have stepped out of an illustration to the New Yorker.

To revert to Sunday’s walk, I must tell of the beauty of the Watsonias, a type of gladioli, which are now in full flower on the mountain. In places we looked up to terrace after terrace, rose-pink with thousands of blooms, and over sweeping slopes covered with them below. In the woods on the East of Devil’s Pk arums still linger on in the shade, but most of them are done. The different heaths are coming out now, and lots of small lobelias in different shades of blue, as well as a member of the borage family, rather like our English Viper’s Bugloss, but with no reddish colour in it. In the gardens the Hydrangas are looking magnificent, and so are the agapanthus, which are great favourites in cultivation as well as growing wild on the mountains. The roses in The Gardens are coming into their second blooming and give us much pleasure as we pass to and fro on our errands to the town. We also enjoy the splendid show of lotus and water lilies of different colours on the various bits of ornamental water. It is really an advantage to have such a pleasant walk every time we want to go to the city shops, the library, and my office, and such a nice place to go for an evening stroll, when we do not want a more strenuous walk.

We made rather a mistake yesterday in thinking we did want to go for a more strenuous walk. We had some tea at 3.30 and took a bus to Kloof Nek. There we decided to walk round the Lion’s Head. There had been a strong wind blowing all day, and we had thought it would be cool. Unluckily it dropped just about the time we went out, and we found it oppressively hot walking. Of course we are two hours ahead of sun time here, so we were walking at about the hottest time of the day. High summer is definitely here, & I have not thought of putting anything on but the thinnest clothes, while Herbert has been wearing the palm-beach coats brought from India.

On Tuesday, one of my “off” afternoons, we thought the Michaelis Gallery would be a nice cool place to spend part of the evening, and so it was. We enjoyed it again. I have lost my heart to a painting of plums green and purple - and leaves, by one van Heem, who lived during the last two thirds of the seventeenth century. It is an exquisite bit of painting, both colour and pattern, and is not in the least an arranged still life group. The gallery’s great treasure, a Frans Hals portrait, is hidden away somewhere for safety, and so is a Hobbema, but oddly enough their one Rembrandt is out. Its an interesting thing, an old woman plucking a duck, with his usual delight in queer angles of light, but it is not on a par with his great pictures.

On my other “off’ afternoon I took Mrs Harvey to see “Five Graves to Cairo”, which I had seen well written-up in some paper, but which I did not think specially good. However it was’nt too bad, and we quite enjoyed it. At tea afterwards she asked me what I thought of Smuts speech. She is British S. African, from a family that has been here for several generations, but her husband is Australian and has been a civil servant under the old Milner tradition, which looks so askance at the present methods. With what tact I could, I told her what I thought. It was an angle she had not considered, and evidently did not think unreasonable. Its sad for the people who belonged to a well run civil service of decently educated people, to see the poor calibre of the present men. This I say not as an outside observer, for I have not had much opportunity to judge, but because I have heard the complaint from so many S. Africans.

Our plans have taken shape again. We go to a Guest house in Elgin for three weeks when we leave here at the beginning of Feb. On the 25th of that month we have a room booked at The Settlers’ Club, and because we shall be waiting for a boat, we can stay there up to two months. Let’s hope we shall be lucky, and get passages before the time is up.

Thoughts of going home have encouraged Herbert to replace some clothes that were getting much worn, pyjamas, and sports shirts. He got nice ones and the prices were not as outrageous as I expected. With the same idea in my head I also purchased two pairs of shoes, ones that I do want, but might have managed without for another month or two, had I been going back to normal times in England, when I could have bought them much better there. Thus, you see, we already think about being home again. Still I cant feel that it is real. We have been away so long and so much has happened. There is the greatest variety of opinion about likelihood of getting away, and the truth is, nobody knows, and no precedent is of any use, for situation changes from day to day.

Herbert has finished the course of medicine given him by the doctor and I think he has benefited to some extent. He is to go to see the Doctor again early this week, and I hope it will be found that the state of the liver has improved. He has been doing a lot of work at figures during the past two weeks. He is going through a mass of stuff relating to rain-fall and rice yields in different years, which were prepared for him by clerks in India, but he thinks they never grasped what he was after and have made some mistakes. Its necessary, therefore, to check all the material before making use of it to uphold any arguments.

Our love to you all, as always,
LJT

(handwritten addition at end of letter)
My darling Annette – I’m sorry you could not get the Gerald Heard books – I shall wait to hear what Foyles could do, and if you draw blank again, I will consult Edward Groth when he comes down here in Jan. and see if he could arrange to have them sent to you from New York – I could probably give him the cash here, which would make it quite simple – He is acting as Chargé d’Affaires, since the Minister was transferred and the new man is not expected here before the Government move to Cape Town in mid-January – It will be nice to have him here again.

This past week I have really begun to feel that we shall be getting home in the appreciably near future, and I find my mind taking that fact into account in all sorts of ways – I think I shall feel almost sick with excitement when we do at last reach England.

I always think your job must be trying in winter – having to turn out at all hours and in all weathers – Hope you have escaped the ‘flu’ epidemic we are reading about in the papers – Best love – Mother


Family letter from HPV

c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.

December 13th 1943. Monday.

My dear Annette, (name handwritten)

A year ago yesterday since we landed! and how far the reality has fallen short of my hopes then! Much stronger of course than when I arrived I am none the less still not to be numbered among the energetic or robust. But it was not a real hope: a wish rather.

I have been plugging away at the rice figures, working out or checking averages of output, and the number of men needed each year for each separate process of cultivation and harvesting. It is annoying to have to plug like this over figures which for the most part had been worked out by clerks at Chinsurah. In particular by the genial Sadananda Babu who ended by being filled with a frenzy of enthusiasm for my irrigation schemes and went off on a proselytising expedition in the villages near his home in the interior. I found that some of the averages set down by him were double what they ought to have been and so had to go through the whole lot. Now I have a double sheet of fullscap covered with columns of figures and am wondering why I take the trouble to work on them. The Statesman reported a speech by one of the Ministers which referred to a big programme of irrigation works to be undertaken immediately; but it is probably eye-wash, for any such works worth doing are too big to be taken up at a moment’s notice. But a mention of the use of pumps for irrigation filled me with such curiosity that I wrote to one of the Irrigation Department engineers to ask what they were up to. When in 1935 I suggested that to drain the embanked basins in the southern areas they might use pumps as in the Nile Delta the irrigation men treated the idea with scorn. If they have recanted and intend something of this sort, and if the pumps can be obtained now (which seems unlikely), some good might follow: but if their scheme is merely to use pumps to put water onto the fields which could be irrigated by flow instead it will fail because the expense will be prohibitive. When the Ministers funked charging 5/8 per acre for financing my schemes they are not likely to accept a rate of some 15 per acre for pumping for paddy.

It is an index of better health that I should have spent so many mornings and evenings on these figures. Otherwise my activities have not been great. We went out to tea with the Harveys at Kenilworth and to drinks with the Symes near by; on the evening of the Symes’ party our absence from the flat caused us to miss the excitement of a big fire near by; three houses were burnt and the account in the paper next morning was so alarming that Mrs. Harvey rang up to ask if we were safe. I saw the damage when I went along to the Museum (to get out of the way while the vacuum cleaner was being operated) but it did not show much as the walls were still standing and apparently the downstairs rooms were still inhabited. Much more impressive was the show of water-lilies in the garden opposite; white, yellow (not the little button yellow that we knew at Sandhurst but big flowers) deep red, blue and pink; superb. A daffodil dance business. I had another look at the Blue Fish. I dislike it; to me it seems to be making an affectation of superiority to remain unchanged since Mesozoic times, when every thing else has had the modesty or decency to try modifications.

My reading has been dull. A book on the life of an American maker of telescopes and optical instruments which would have been fascinating for me perhaps if the writer had had the courage to give some technical details of the telescopes etc made. One interesting sidelight on Carnegie, who was discouraged by his partners from returning to Pittsburgh from Scotland for the great strike (the Strike to end all Strikes, they called it) because he was accused of taking the side of the working man reasonably or unreasonably. Otherwise I have been ploughing through a book on Food; vitamins and Calories. (did you know that a Calorie was 1000 calories and that ignorance of this distinction has led to confusion? what I should like to know is how the two are distinguished when one is merely talking about them); interesting bits but dull on the whole - maybe because the print is so small. How admirable is the scientific mind! discussing the experiments of one Dr. Carl Röse who for 15 years lived on a diet of practically nothing “the world’s record for this type of self-mortification” and admitting that he did not suffer from the monotony of his diet, the writer goes on “but to keep on deliberately limiting his diet for nineteen years, to measure his food and carry about bottles for excreta even when climbing the Jungfrau, he must have been above such mundane things” as monotony.

Have I told how I have obtained a smack-stick wherewith to beat upon the soles of my feet and the sides of my toes in the interests of stimulation?

Much love
Dad

Airgraph from LJT to Annette (addressed to Miss Annette Townend. P.O. Box. 111. Bletchley. Bucks. England)

No 25 Dec. 14th 1943

My darling Annette; Now that we are looking forward to coming home as a definite possibility, I want to know what sort of article of clothing you would like as a present. The stocks in the shops are much better now, & prices not so high. Artificial silk dresses (crepe-de-chine type) are pretty; & plentiful, or would you prefer underwear or an overcoat? They look alright in the shop windows, but I have not handled any of them. There are also plenty of stockings, though the rayon ones look rubbishy to me. Lisle seem a better proposition. The stockings would be an extra, not the main present. Also send me the size of your shoes, as I should like to bring you a pair of “veldt-schoon”. These are shoes made of hide that looks like thick rough suede, & they are useful for country wear. Please pass this to Aunt, as I want information from her on the same points. Our arrangements at Elgin are fixed. We go to the guest House there from Feb. 4th till 25th. Luckily we can stay at the Settler’s Club up to 2 months if we are waiting for a boat, & lets hope we shall get passages before that time is up. I find the thought of going home constantly coming into my mind apropos of all sorts of things, & it begins to make the present a little unreal. We have had the first really hot weather. Sat. & Sun. were scorchers. Unfortunately there was a deceptive wind on Sat. which induced us to think it would be a good evening for a walk, so we bussed to Kloof Nek, & went round Lion’s Hd by the high path. How we dripped! & how the flies teased us! It was not pleasurable, but one could comfort oneself with the thought that it was probably healthful. On Sunday we stayed in our nice cool flat all day & went for a stroll after supper. Luckily the wind got up & clouds came by yesterday morn. I like it much better when it is cooler. After office yesterday, I went to the Blood Bank to donate blood, a thing I have been meaning to do for ages. When I went to offer myself a few days previously, the young woman in the office was so tactless & over-bearing that I almost walked out, but was caught & smoothed down by an older woman. I still think some of the arrangements stupid. To begin with they lump donors for plasma with the people who are willing to register for direct transfusion. The tests etc for the latter are much more elaborate, & may easily frighten away those who would give for plasma. For the first time for ages I went to a cinema last week. I took Mrs Harvey to see “Five Graves to Cairo”, & was disappointed in it. We went to a sherry party at the Symes & met some nice people. Smuts speech to the British M.Ps was a great topic of conversation, as indeed it has been in most gatherings of Britishers from overseas. I think it is a pity it was published. It has certainly slightly tarnished the admiration many of us have for him. As to reading, mine has been almost nil: a Reader’s Digest, a copy of “Beaver”, the quarterly mag. Of the Hudson’s Bay Co, which Helen sends us, & Sarah G. Millin’s “South Africa” a small popular thing, which is quite good. Dad has moved from soils & grasses to diet, & brought back a thick book in small print on the subject. There was interesting stuff in it, specially facts to prove that tinned foods lose little in value & are better than stale “fresh” things. Tables of the amounts of calories used for supplying energy to do this or that have made us feel conscious of the cost of walking to the post or writing a letter, in a way that I am sure is most undesirable, & which we must quickly forget. Dad is pretty well. We think the new medicine is doing him good. It will be a great thing if we can find something to keep his liver in order without upsetting him otherwise. He has been doing a lot of work at his figures on rice crops etc. Best love from us both, & bless you. Mother Parcels for you, Mrs Roscoe and Christina sent last week.


Family letter from LJT No 48

6 Victoria Court.
Cape Town
Dec. 19th 1943.

My Dears: Great joy yesterday morning, when an English mail arrived!

Thanks to Grace for No 26 of 21/9, to Annette for No 1 of 1/9 (etd & posted on 8/9), & to Joey for hers of 11/9. I’m so glad to hear that the parcels dispatched for me by Dot Bromley, arrived safely. It seems such an age before one hears.

Since the papers & broadcasts have been full of news of the flu’ epidemic, I have been wondering so much how all of you have been getting on. Apart from the general misery of an attack, its such a problem when most households have no “help”. We have been turning on the radio as often as we get the B.B.C. broadcasts, to get news of Winston. Thank goodness he seems to be on the upgrade now. It was amazing to hear of the hours he worked during the conferences. I imagine that more even than the actual hours of work, he was giving out so much of himself all the time. What a debt we owe him!

Well! We passed the anniversary of our arrival in S.Africa last week-end. I suppose we hoped Herbert would be rather stronger than he is after twelve months rest in a good climate, but I think we need not be too disappointed, for the difference in him is great. On Thursday, we lunched with a Col and Mrs Pim, who were on the boat with us coming from Bombay. They have been living near George all this time, & have recently come back to Cape Town to be ready to embark directly opportunity arises. When they saw Herbert, they exclaimed that he looks quite a different person. They are staying out in a suburb which is still practically country, but which will probably be developed after the war. It is Milnerton, lying northwards on the shores of Table Bay. There has been little development in that direction for several reasons. The sea is cold; the country behind is flat, and does not compare for beauty with the lovely coast of the peninsular; it lies beyond the slum district of Salt River, & across the railway yards, so the drive to it is not especially pleasant. The big new reclamation of land, on the foreshore near the harbour, will be developed as part of some major scheme, & when that is done a “Marine Drive” will run out from the central area of the city. Since one of the big race courses is out at Milnerton, it possesses a good hotel, where the Pims are staying. Not only were we pleased to see them again, but we were interested to go out to Milnerton, for it was unknown ground to us previously.

There have been some very hot days this week, so that one has not been encouraged to do much walking. On Wednesday we visited a beautiful old XIIIth Cen Dutch house, which until fairly recent years was the home of a wealthy family, who bequeathed fine collections of furniture, china etc. to the city. The house was purchased in 1913, & now houses the collections, with other things added. It is a charming place. The Dutch had a knack for building well, & creating lovely rooms of exquisite proportions, no matter what local style of architecture they partially followed. We found it in Chinsurah. You see it in Batavia, and in a marked degree out here. There is far too much in the Koopmans de Wet House to see in one visit. We must go back again. I was most interested in the things made under Dutch supervision in the Cape, but there are lovely things from Europe, China and other parts of the East, making one realize that in those days, Cape Town was on one of the highways of the world.

After a scorchingly hot day, a strong wind gets up, and cools things down again. Thus Thursday, when we went to Milnerton, it was blowing a gale, out of a clear blue sky. Friday was the hottest day we have had; so much so, that when I got back from office, I suggested that we should stay in our cool flat till after supper, and then go for a stroll, which we did. The wind was up again yesterday, so we had tea in good time, and then boarded a bus which passes our door, going up to one of the districts on the actual foot of the mountain. It landed us almost at the edge of the town, &d a few minutes walking took us up into pine woods, where it was delightful, shaded from the sun, and protected from the too great violence of the wind. I had intended the walk to be a mild one, but whenever the track through the woods forked, Herbert always wanted to take the branch that went up hill, so eventually we found ourselves right up on the motor road which leads past the lower cable-way station, and taking another track we know, came down to a different bus route. We were out for an hour and three-quarters, about an hour and a half of which was steady walking, including a considerable climb. We should have been hot, had we not been kept cool by both shade and wind. It was delicious under the pines, and we got lovely views over Table Bay, and upwards, of the great cliffs of the Mountain. Herbert rightly remarked that there is something Gothic, about the huge buttresses, and massive rock walls. Its a most impressive thing, especially when seen from close underneath.

Two of our friends have got husbands arrived on leave after long partings. One, a young Mrs Fleming from Cyprus, invited us to drinks and to stay on for supper last Tuesday. Both she and her husband are keen climbers, as well as being good talkers, and keen on all sorts of “movements”, both political & social. Other guests were Eileen Forsyth, who, as I must often have mentioned, encourages a riot of talk in her vicinity, by making outrageous statements, and supporting them by even more outrageous arguments, - - and another woman journalist, who was interesting and less wrong-headed than Eileen. This woman, Mrs Heard, came out to S. Africa many years ago and married a S.A. journalist on one of the Jo’burg papers. She says he was practically forced to resign because he insisted on saying what he thought about the native question & other matters. It seems that the Chamber of Mines has a strangle hold on most of the news papers and magazines in this country, and also controls the one or two distributing agencies for S. African publications, so that if anything is published that they do not like, they quietly get all the copies put away. There are two books which frankly criticize many things, to which that has happened recently, but luckily not before the libraries had got copies. One book is called “A South African Doctor Looks Backwards and Forwards” or some title to that effect. The other is called “Smuts and Swastika”. Mrs Heard is working for some independent paper in the Cape. I think her husband is away with the army. I was interested in what she had to say, and should like to meet her again.

The other husband-returned-wife, is Mrs Cramer-Roberts. Her husband was chief irrigation engineer in Egypt, and Herbert has been looking forward to seeing him. They come to drinks with us on Wednesday, and have kindly asked us to go to Christmas dinner with them. It will be nice to be with them, and we shant be expected to work up a lot of forced gaiety.

When I rang the Doctor up last Wed. to say that Herbert had finished the medicine, he made a few enquiries, & gave instructions for H. to repeat the medicine, & see him when the second lot is done. We think it is benefiting him, by slow degrees.

A lot of my time this week has been taken up by writing letters and post-cards to various people who have shown us kindness. Luckily I brought a dozen little printed Indian silk handkerchiefs with me from Calcutta, as well as a number of post-cards of the Snows from Darjeeling. These latter I intended to send to friends in New Zealand last year, but did not get them off. They have come in most usefully this year.

My new frock, the Christmas present from Herbert, is back, and I find that the little locket surrounded by stones of many colours, which belonged to Mother goes perfectly with it, picking up all the colours in the frock. The bodice of the dress is gathered into a ring about two inches in diameter, & I have arranged for the pendent to hang just in the middle of this. It looks very effective.

I had my first air-graph from N-Z the other day. It took six weeks, but that is a lot quicker than letters.

We shall be thinking of you all on Christmas Day, especially when we drink to “Absent Friends”.

Love and good wishes to you all
LJT

(added below) Darling Romey,

The thrilling parcel containing your Christmas present book has just arrived. It looks fascinating and I am longing to begin reading it at once. It is tantalizing to know that I shall have “ to Mrs. Harvey. Edward Groth looked at the pictures with pleasure.

(hand written addition to letter to Annette)
20/12/43
My darling Annette – Your Air-graph greeting has just arrived – bringing such a nice little glow of pleasure – Thank you for it – A book from Romey has just arrived too. “Saddle-bags for Suit Cases” – An account by a girl of her journey right across Canada on horse back. It looks good –
I am a little puzzled that you make no mention of the arrival of a parcel of butter, chocolate and barley-sugar which should have reached you at the same time, as others reached Aunt, Joey and Mr Cape – ie about Sept 9th. It was sent to your old London P.O Box address, but I hope that the explanation is that an Air-graph of middle Sept, which is the only one missing from your fortnightly series, is one of those which were lost and are being re-done – It would naturally be the one in which you would acknowledge it.

We enjoyed your letter, No 1, written partly at Highways and partly from Bletchley, very much – Dad and I are defeated by Pim’s new name – Was there a famous character called Pontaqueuel? Or is it a name that sprang straight from the sub-conscious like “Victoria Frogwell” Cake – that stuff in pink and yellow chess board pattern – which was so known in the Townend family. The name was pure inspiration, but Dad says everyone immediately recognized the suitability of it –

The gloves are sheepskin – and you may picture them as having grown on the Karoo – that 2 acres-to-a-sheep country – where the flat plains stretch between strange flat-topped hills – and the dry sandy ground is dotted with the blue-green sage bush – Love as always. Mother


Family letter from HPV

c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
December 20th 1943. Monday.

My dear Annette (name handwritten)

After announcing so triumphantly some weeks ago the discovery of a method of securing matter for letters for all my correspondents without confusing myself about news already given, I have fallen from virtue by not even keeping jottings of doings and items of possible interest that have occurred during the week. The result of feeling a bit less glum; I have daily waded through calculations of averages of paddy costs and outturn, leaving myself little energy for other activities and neglecting letter-writing almost altogether. The progress of the calculations is an almost infallible index to my state of well-being or otherwise; when I have to do all the calculations three times and get the result different every time at that, it indicates that I am weary. The Chinsurah office’s calculations of cost of each operation connected with the cultivation of paddy are practically infallible; a contrast to their results as to man-days - and I judge therefore that they never really understood what “man-day” meant. Only five or perhaps six more years’ figures remain to be checked.

It is a nuisance though that there should have been price inflation in Bengal; the rate of agricultural wages will probably have changed for good and no one will believe that any conclusions can be drawn from variations year by year in cultivation costs.

Incidentally, while typing out the results, I came upon a pretty trick with the machine. To get agreeable signs for references in notes at the foot of a statement has always been not too easy; one *, or two, or three* (not bad this last) are in a way good enough but errors are likely when one shifts the carriage, as on this occasion, alas! So I tried the effect of holding down the space-bar, striking the asterisk, depressing ever so little the shift-key and striking the asterisk again. The result was fine; pretty in fact, as I have already said. I probably have failed to convey the effect: there should have been more elbow room for it. ** (typed vertically) That is better. But it was a setback to hear that full-size typewriters do not work while one is depressing the space-bar. This put a stopper to further experiments with more or less shifting of the shift-key so as to get a longer stroke in the exclamation mark. “!” as contrasted with “!”

Osler whose life I am reading (a portentous tome but interesting in places) says that give him a man’s letters plus his cheque book and he will tell you what sort of man he was. I should not like to have undergone the test. My cheque book doesn’t show much. He forgot that some men leave the expenditure to their wives. And I am led at this stage to wonder how long the card-table on which I have the typewriter now and on which we spread all our meals will stand up to the strain: it waves as if in a high wind.

Joan condemned my green (brown Joan says) hat, which has faded to a yellowish hue; but I have secured a reprieve for it by having it cleaned and re-ribboned. I have three hats still: greatly reduced in this respect since the throw-out when we left Calcutta. The climate in South Africa is hot enough to cause trouble with perspiration through hatbands. Perhaps this was the reason why the Dutch in Java tended to go about without hats even in the hottest time of the day. Here many it is true go without them but not particularly the Dutch element. The objection to the practice is the glare; flies too, especially when one walks on the hillsides; there is much correspondence in the newspapers complaining of the negligence of the health authorities though it would seem that general indifference to cleanliness, as is not unnatural in a place with a large coloured and native population, is mostly to blame.

Joan’s letter tells of the complaints raised by various writing folk about the alleged tendency here to suppress through the use of influence any writings that fall foul of the gold-field magnates and the like. They were more bitter still about the use of the censorship against mention of criticisms of the government, as they declared. Easy to allege such things. You may remember how the same sort of complaint was made by many in New Zealand. I doubt their truth. The clever-clever in this world are prone to suspect without much reason. It struck me as curious the other day how the Nazi is the Samurai of H.G. Wells Modern Utopia; and how Wells has never thought the less of himself when facts have disproved or shown up his fancies.

Dingaan’s Day on Wednesday. Strange that this festival should be named after the villain of the piece. It is as if All Saints’ day were named All Devils’. The day commemorates Dingaan’s defeat. It is much honoured by those whom one would have expected to resent it; the “natives” - a word which in South Africa does not mean those born in the country but those belonging to African tribes; “coloured” means “of mixed European and African descent” - the natives plunge into its celebration day with enthusiasm. It felt like another Sunday to u; and it put me out. I spent much of it in reading a book “The Glass Giant of Palamar” about the 200 inch telescope in the U.S.A.; a book which would have enthralled me if I had been able to read it in the days when I dreamt of making a reflector myself. And even now I found it very interesting. It gives a lot of technical detail about the difficulties experienced in casting the big glass discs and about the failure to make the quartz discs which had been promised so confidently by the papers. But it also summarizes most of the astronomical work of the past 30 years, and if only it was not written in a jerky Journalese I should recommend it to one and all, old and young.

My own studies of stars have been of no account these latter days; ever since we returned to Cape Town I have omitted to scan the heavens. It would mean walking out somewhere into the open; houses, trees and Table Mountain shut out the stars. We saw a magnificent meteor the other evening.

We found a milk bottle cast away in a bush the other day; and home rejoicing brought it. Till then we had had difficulty about keeping the milk in our tiny frigidaire. Joan says that she is rather ashamed of the incident; but I do not see why. On the other hand I refrained from climbing through a barbed wire fence a few days later to retrieve a beer bottle which someone had cast from him. Snobbism.

I have broken a cup; it came away in my hand. Perversely it was not the cracked one; and it was one belonging to the flat. A major disaster. The maid has broken an ashtray. She said that it was always like that. A hideous jackal or maybe dog looking into the tray; irreplaceable . . . thank God, so to speak.

This morning (Tuesday) going out immediately after breakfast at nine, which by suntime is seven, in the bright freshness of one of the best days ever known, I found myself prancing along on the rejuvenated feet with a lightness of body almost floatable. Despised by the squirrels who are most independent these days. But otherwise no blemish. Strange after a night much broken by mosquitoes (Joan’s was too; she caught two of hers, but I failed; reduced to trying the New Zealand trick of drawing them into the bed by a sudden lifting of the sheet and then rolling on them; has it ever worked?) and after a stinking hot day. The roses and the water lilies this morning give forth a smell; like the Song of Songs. It is a drawback that this makes the walkers in the garden to pucker up their noses the better to smell it with, my dear.

Among the novelties is the giving up of eggs for breakfast; with the idea of subduing the liver. But the benefit is offset by the production of coffee at 10.30 when I drink (not at breakfast) so that I may have the nutriment provided by milk. (Rubbish, says Joan. Milk has no such phur in it.) There is a dilemma. To keep the liver from poisoning me I have to cut down foods so much that I have no strength; but if I am not suffering from liver I feel impelled to energy and need all the strength going. Really so much depends on the barometer that I need consult that rather than my feelings to know how I progress from time to time. My pretty tie, the cone that I rescued from scrapping by removing all the silk stitching from it, has suddenly split upon me and is in the waste-paper basket; better things I have regretted less. And, a thing akin to this, I have suddenly lost interest in the smack-stick.

Joan has misled everyone in her remarks about the walk and my leading her on to heights undreamt of at the start; I chose the upward path wherever there was a choice because her description of the objective was so phrased as to make me think that she aimed at coming out of the woods near the level of the motor road round the Mountain and not well below as she afterwards declared. Pleasant pine woods; they gave one a Fennimore Cooper feeling. He turns out to have been a great one apart from any of his books. He appears often in the life of Morse “The American Leonardo” (!) through which I have worked in honour of the young Californian who was so homesick at Pretoria (“away from home for a whole year”) and who was a grandson or grandnephew. Abstain from reading it. On the other hand the Osler Life contains a whole heap of good things. I like his dream about a friend who had grown a huge, a magnificent beard and who had been paid for twenty years a bribe of 5000 dollars a year not to grow it lest it should be better than the beard of another friend.

Have I told you of the young squirrel who tried to show off by leaping from a tree into a small bush two feet away and missed? he fell flat on his back, and looked round at me in the most sheepish way before making off into the shrubbery.

Much love
Dad


From LJT to Annette

6 Victoria Court.
Cape Town.
Dec. 22nd 1943

My darling Annette,

It has been a special pleasure to get your long personal letter No 3 written on 16th Nov. Fancy getting letters through in just over a month! Dad said this morning “Funny how talking to people makes one realize ones own attitude sometimes”. “Is that apropos of your talk with Mrs Fleming last night?” I asked. “No” he said, “Annette’s letter”. Now that I consider a genuine compliment, for it’s the best of letters that give one that feeling. It has set a whole flood of ideas working in my mind. Its collecting ones ideas before writing, that takes so much time, as you justly remark. I have been trying to do that now, & find they jostle one another, so that I should almost like to make a draft of what I want to say, before I write. Often I just sit down & begin letters without any idea of what I am going to say. Something flows out, but it often tends to be confused & and long winded. Still there are many occasions when if one took the time to compose the letter first it would exhaust all available time, & the actual writing would never get done.

Reading has been almost a vice with you & Richard, as it is with Dad, but it’s a good sort of vice. I suffer from it a bit myself, but sometimes realize with a shock, how little, how slowly and what rubbish many people read. There are enormous numbers of people in the world, women especially, who are mentally idle.

I have noted the title of “Time, the Refreshing river”, and will try to get hold of it. To me, Frank was much more alive and interesting, in spite of the fact that I do not agree with all he advocates, than my dear brother Bous and his family. Like you, I feel myself in a slightly unreal world with them. Conversation has to be kept on well trodden ground, inside the park railings, so to speak. Roy & Eleanor are people I am completely at home with. We speak the same language, and as I have wandered about in life, every now & again I have met people, often belonging to what one might call the less well educated classes, to whom I felt close in mind & outlook. Years ago when you were a baby & I spent a whole summer in Witham, I found that the tradespeople were much more in touch with reality and much more interesting than the gentle-folk. To be honest though, they were the few exceptions with whom one could discuss interesting things, and that holds o f most places. New Zealand is a country where one sees the advantages and disadvantages of State Education. Its true that the Hall Porter, the Stevedore (known as Waterside-Workers South of the Line) and shop assistant or the farm-hand can discuss things on equal terms with one, so long as they stay in the realms of practical everyday life, but its not so easy to find people who can move with ease in the rather higher realms of the scientific, scholastic or literary world. In a country where there is no slum population and work for everyone, and that not because of the present Labour Government, but because a decent type of settler went to N.Z. and the country could support all that came by its primary products, - - state education has been fairly successful, but the few who rise above being ordinary or mediocre, complain that there is nothing to build up outstanding intelligence in any field. If that is so in a country so favourably constituted, what can be expected in countries with huge slum, or very low class populations? It seems to me that there will be more dragging down the higher layers, than building up of the lower, if private schools are done away with. It is noticeable out here that the children who go to the State schools, pick up the rough accent, say that they are considered “pansy” if they speak well, and are looked down upon if they work hard at their books. T be ‘tough’ is the thing they aim at. Even in the better private schools there is something of that spirit. The Head Master of the best boys school in the Cape Province -

24-12-43 (Here I was interrupted by Eileen Forsyth & her family coming to tea – and owing to the fact that I had to truss in finish plucking a chicken after supper, I did not get back to this yesterday.)

As I said, this Head Master in a speech said that he did not approve of boys taking their School Cert’ or matriculating early, because then there was nothing for them to do during the rest of their time at school – Dad and I were profoundly shocked. If the cream of the educational world in this country feels like that, what can be expected of the rest?

Years ago, when we were in Chinsurah, I am sure I must have mentioned a book of essays by Middleton Murray which struck me much. Unfortunately I cannot remember the title of it, but it had one essay in it called “Ladders” – There was a description in that book of the narrowness and dullness of M-M’s early life and education, which made real to me how many thousands of people must have that same dull youth. M-M’s father was a small clerk in some government office, and lived in one of the cheap suburbs – M-M was an only child – His parents worshiped respectability and did not approve of his making friends with the children of the neighbourhood. No guests, friends or relations ever came to the house, nor did they ever go visiting. It seems tragic to compare that sort of youth with the sort of home I had, through which passed a constant flow of people from all over the world, or the sort of youth you had, with varied contacts and quite a bit of travelling. I should imagine that Frank to some extent suffered from narrowness of his circle of friends and has not come in contact with the sort of people who have to administer countries and look after diplomatic affairs, so he has a sort of simple faith that if only everything is run by the State, all will be well. Alas! It is so often the very reverse!

Another thing that makes one feel little surprise that some people are bitter against the “upper classes” is the man’s outburst in “This Above All”, when he tells the girl what England has meant to him. I thought it a most tragically moving thing.

Its not that I have any doubts that I want every one to have an equal chance, it is an inability to see how it is going to be worked, that gives me little faith in a communist or socialist state. If all the individuals in the world were ready for it, one could believe, but such vast masses of them are so far from it. There are such an array of questions that crop up. Without private enterprise and private fortunes, who is going to support the arts, research and all the things that private wealth has previously made possible – Would the State really pay for these? And could it ever work in the same way? There would surely be a danger of the artist having to work to a pattern for a State order, in the way that happens very much now when Governments do give orders to artists.

It’s a great comfort and satisfaction to me to feel that you and Romey are prepared to adapt yourselves to whatever sort of a world develops after the war. Even if life pitch-forked you into Russia, I can imagine you fitting into the scheme of things quite well and quite cheerfully, in spite of your remarks about it being distasteful to bestir oneself from the pleasant lethargy of living for ones own pleasure. You have had precious little time to do that in your life up to the present. Except for brief periods, I don’t think it would satisfy you. I know I have a sort of gnawing conscience which does not let me feel really happy and serene unless I am spending part of my energies working to help other people in some way, or doing something useful to my little corner of the world. On the other hand when I find the day being ‘eaten’ up by what seem to me the trivialities of housecleaning, shopping and cooking, I feel a little resentfully that the time – or any way part of it, would be so much better spent reading, writing, listening to music or exchanging ideas with some intelligent person. That seems to me one of the big rubs of the future – How to make a satisfactory pattern of living that will allow of decent living, clean surroundings and wholesome food and yet leave time over for work, for reading, for thought and for talk. The New Zealanders have gone a good way in that direction, but still the “mother of the house” has little time for anything but domestic work.

Your summing up of Pam and Betty, I guess, from what I knew of them before, to be shrewd and probably quite just. Their parents have kept them much too closely tied to the parental side. Though its sad for us and we have missed a lot by being so far apart through so much of your life, I think it may have had its benefits for you.

That your future plans are uncertain, is scarcely your fault. The war took you and you have worked loyally in your appointed job. It should lead to something in a fairly reasonably way –Very often I wonder what the future holds for you – One reason I am so anxious to be home is in case I can help you in any way, by putting you in touch with people.

Have you ever thought of trying to get work connected with any of the great international conferences and such which are bound to go on for many years after the war and will surely need people of intelligence and with a knowledge of languages? Have you abandoned the idea of trying to get into the Home Civil Service as a permanent officer?

Esther’s notion of being “on the shelf” if not married by 24, scarcely impresses me. The more worth while, and the more highly developed mentally people are, the less likely they are to marry young or fall in love very easily. If a woman has a big enough brain and character, there is even something to be said for remaining a spinster – but if I follow up that line of though it will land me on controversial ground! I certainly have known many charming and clever people who have not married till they were nearing thirty or past it – and many little nincompoops, both pretty and plain, who have married at an early age and developed into bores of every degree!

This letter is growing too long and must stop – We liked hearing of the activities such as Scotch reels, fencing and Russian, which you manage to squeeze into your limited spare time – Talk of clothes reflects my own attitude and I laugh to think I sent you a dress in bits – the nigger brown one – If likely to be of use to you, take it home sometime and get the dress-maker at Felsted to make it for you, and Aunt to pay the bill with my money –

Some time ago you said your new eye was not very satisfactory – What happened about it? Did you have to get another? There are lots of things I would like to comment on, but I grow sleepy and must go and make our 10 p.m pot of tea – Love and again thanks
Mother


Family letter from LJT No 48 (actually No 49)

6 Victoria Court.
Cape Town.
Dec 22nd 1943 (date must be wrong – see contents of letter – must be 27th as LJT says it is her birthday))

My Dears,

The Christmas mails were well arranged this year. We got a number of airgraph greetings on the two or three days preceding the 25th. They included ones from Highways, Peg, Annette, Hilda, & several friends. Letters also came in on the 21st, having taken only just over a month. Thanks to Grace for No 30 and to Annette for No. 1. Also to Len for his nice long one. A book arrived from Canada, from Romey, and other books from our faithful old friend George Pilcher. It was sad that Foyles made a mistake and send us Ann’s Spanish books instead of what she had ordered for us, but we appreciate the thought, & hope perhaps the books will arrive eventually.

That dear little person Miss gill has sent us a small coloured woodcut of a group of aloes as a Christmas card. Knowing how terribly busy she is, I do think it kind of her, and I am so glad to have this little sample of her beautiful work. Oh! I forgot to mention that a cable from H.D. & Winsome reached us on the 24th, which acknowledged ours to them & and seemed to make a close contact.

The hot weather has continued right over Christmas, & a large part of Cape Town’s population spent most of the holidays at the bathing beaches. I was busy in office all Christmas Eve afternoon. We had several last minute requests from Service men for Christmas hospitality. One pretty good bit of work was done for a young R.A.F. man, who came off a train from Bulawayo about 3.30. Came to the S.A.W.A.S. office, and by a little after 4.p.m. was dispatched to a hospitable house for the Christmas holidays. What a blessing for these boys to have some organization which can and does, arrange hospitality for them I private homes.

It was so hot on Christmas day, that we stayed in all day, merely having conversations with a few friends over the telephone. Eileen Forsyth wanted us to go out to her in the morning, but she had a lot of people going, and we feared that it would make Herbert tired, so that he would not be able to enjoy the evening. We caught a bus at 6 o’clock to go out to the Cramer Roberts. En route a petty officer, a bluejacket and a lad in civilian clothes got on, the latter, I regret to say, very drunk. The two sailors were merry, but quite steady on their feet. The bluejacket was the last of the three to get on, and as he walked down the bus, he gripped each passenger by the hand and said the one word “Season”. He and his friends then set to and sang “The More We Get Together”, not too badly, so there was a certain festive air about our drive. The only pity is that so many people have to resort to drink before they become festive. There is a lot of drinking in this country, and the Coloured People are bad that way. They make a great affair of Christmas. For at least a day before, they discard ordinary headwear, and put on carnival paper and cardboard hats. I let my little Lucinda have the day off. I regret to say that she was very late arriving to work yesterday. When I reproached her, she said -”Oh madam! I over slept myself” and from the yawns she kept on giving, I dont fancy she had had very long in bed.

The evening with the Cramer Roberts was just right for us, cheerful and friendly, without straining after merriment which we did not really feel. Before we started dinner, we drank to our children (Mrs C.R. has a son somewhere away in the Middle East). Herbert has discovered a table of the Sun-time at big cities all over the world, so we had been able to work out what you would all be likely to be doing. Romey we guessed would be having breakfast, and the folk in England would be thinking of tea. (If you do any calculations, remember that with Summer-time, Cape Town is living 2 hours ahead of sun-time). We drank to Absent Friends at the usual time, and such a gallery of people flashed through my mind!

All last week it was hot, and it so happened that we had people in to tea or drinks each afternoon or evening, and did not regret that we were so prevented from going for walks. The Pim family had tea with us on Tuesday, and Eileen Forsyth brought her children on Thursday, after a visit to the Museum. Young Mike Pim enjoyed his tea & ice cream, but the Forsyth children are a joy to feed. When told to help themselves they really get on with it! I knew that they have a passion for ice-cream, so had arranged with a shop a few doors down the street, that I would send Lucinda for a supply. I ordered two for each child, and when Eileen (the mother) refused hers, Thalassa said, “Oh Mother, I can easily eat yours! And did with apparently no ill effect. The other little parties were after supper ones, coffee and drinks.

Yesterday I abandoned Herbert for the whole day and went out on the Mountain. Edward Groth’s friend, Marischal Murray asked me to join him & two other friends. He picked me up just after 9.30 & we went up to Kloof Nek, where we left the car. Then following the pipe-line along the west side of the massif, we struck up from it by a little track through low scrub. Before long we got into the shadow of the mountain, which made climbing pleasant, and was lucky, as the gradient steepened, and we had some short stretches of rock where we had to use our hands. The other woman is a skilled rock climber, but the other man was Sir Duncan Mackenzie, lately Resident in Hyderabad. He has been doing jobs for the Red Cross and other things, and is a nice old boy, but I really think he would not have come on this expedition had he realized how strenuous it was going to be. We had to have several rests to allow him to get his wind, and took about 3 ¼ hours to make the top. Here we met a few of the people who had gone up by cable-way, and had the enterprise to walk more than the few yards to the restaurant. Having filled our billies, we dropped down on to a ledge that runs right round the bluff on which the upper cable house stands, and found a shady spot, where we seemed to hang above the world, with a magnificent view spread out below. Away to our left the cliffs of the West face, with the Twelve Apostles beyond ran down to the sea. Half right we looked down on the Lions Head, and completely right we looked across the City of Cape Town to Table Bay, which was a deep brilliant blue.

We had a leisurely lunch, after boiling the Billy and making first class tea, and then we lay on the thick tuffety grass against the rocks, talking for an hour or so. Mr. Murray is an interesting man and Miss Rainier is also an interesting person, who like Mr Murray, is prepared to discuss S.A from many points of view. They are also very much in the literary world. Miss Rainier’s brother has written books, which seemingly are well known in this country. Only the previous day I had been urged to read them, especially “Green Fire” about the emerald mines in Colombia, where he spent twelve years. Two earlier books are “African Hazard” and “American Hazard”.

I had been a little apprehensive about the route by which we were to descend, for though Mr. Murray declared that it was mild rock climbing, & that he was certain I could manage it quite well, others had told me that there were some rather nasty pitches. Actually I throughly enjoyed it. In the places where one had to lower oneself face to the rock over edges, there was always a nice wide shelf below so that one did not have that nasty empty feeling of hanging over space. It is comforting to have someone who is intimate with the route below to direct where to get foot-holds and hand grips. It took us a good while getting down. We dropped from the top at 3,500 ft (not the highest point) to Kloof Nek at 750 ft. It was somewhat of a comfort to me though I was not fast, Sir Duncan was much slower.

To-day I am a little stiff in the legs and body, but most so in the arms, for I have been using my legs a good bit for steep hill walking during the last few months, but I have not been taking the weight of my body on my arms as I had to do yesterday. It was great fun, and only tarnished by the fact that Herbert could not be with us.

Perhaps some of you will have remembered that today is my 51st birthday. I think I am lucky still to be able to clamber about mountains and do things of that sort. I am so glad middle age in our time, does not mean sitting or strolling in a dignified manner, and abandoning all the more violent forms of exercise. Directly after lunch Herbert and I are going off to the station to meet Mrs Pierneef and Mickie, who arrive for their month’s holiday to-day. We are so looking forward to seeing something of them again, dear things!

On the mid-day South African news, we have just heard the reported destruction of the Scharnhorst. I hope its true.

Best love to you all, and good wishes for 1944, which is so close upon us.
LJT

Air Graph No 25 from LJT to Aunt (GCT)

Mrs Townend.c/o Standard Bank. Cape Town.     Dec.22nd   1943

Dearest Grace: lots of letters & A.G. greetings to thank for, giving us such a nice warm Christmassy feeling.  Nos 25 from you & 1 from A. came on 18/12 & 30 from you & 3 from her as well as AG. Greetings from you both, & letters & A.Gs from friends & relations, including Les and Hilda, arrived yesterday.  You see these letters have taken only just over a month.  There of 3 of your missing, which will probably turn up soon.  Thanks to you all.  I hope our cable reaches you about the right time.  We are having dinner with the Cramer-Roberts.  We have been v.friendly with her since we met at Elgin last year.  Her husband has just arrived on leave from Egypt, & is coming to “sherry” with us this evening.  I hope we shall like him as much as we like her.  (Dinner means Christmas dinner).  A great bit of excitement for us is the news that Mrs Pierneef & Mickie are arriving for a month’s holiday in Cape Town on Dec. 27th.  Henry did so well at his exhibition that he presented his wife with a cheque to take Mickie away for a holiday.  I wish he were coming too!  The weather, on the whole, is really hot summer now, but since there was a strong wind on Sat, we went walking on the Mountain after tea, discovering that by taking a tram that passes our door, we can get to the edge of the town on the slopes of the Mt in about five minutes, & from there can walk through pine woods most agreeably.  Luckily this flat is wonderfully cool, & we only get the sun in the early morning.  H. is pretty well & doing quite a lot of work at his rice figures.  We have had several little outings, such as supper with some friends from Cyprus one night; lunch with people we met on the ship coming from Bombay & who are now staying in a suburb of the city on Table Bay.  We gave them a return party yesterday, when they brought their 11 year old, & v. charming little son in to the Museum, & came to tea here.  It was a busy evening as things go for us, for we had a young airman to supper, & our Cyprus friends joined us afterwards.  All 3 guests are mad about mountains, & my Himalayan photos had to come out again.  I had a specially busy day in office on Monday, for the Secretary was away, & I had to answer the phone, interview all the men who kept on coming in about Christmas hospitality, & in fact, do the best I could with her job.  I would have liked to have stayed an extra hour to have disposed of some letters, but the caretaker came with his broom, & obviously wanted me out of the way so that he could clear up.  H. has been to another place which deals with the priority rating for passages, & they think it will take us some time to get away, but I think that its mostly chance.  If a ship comes the people who are on the spot & can go on board at a few hours notice, stand some chance of getting off in fairly reasonable time.  Please refer my A.G. 25 to A. about the presents of clothes I want to bring home.  What would Barney like?  Shirts?  Pyjamas?    Send his size, please.  Also size of his feet for a pair of “veldt-schoon”, the traditional S.A. footwear.  I have found out that we are each allowed to take 25 lbs of food stuffs home with us.  Is custard powder useful?  There are practically no cereals to be had except pearl barley & cornflour.  Plenty of tinned fish, meat & fruit: jam, all sorts of dried & crystallized fruits, tea, coffee, cocoa, sweets, haricot & butter beans.  Congratulations on Great Leighs splendid jam-making effort !  I do think its wonderful!  We are so interested in news of all members of the family, health etc, & the doings of the neighbours.  We feel anxious about the flu epidemic, & hope you have not suffered badly.  Thankful to know that Winston is on the mend.  What a wave of anxiety must have rushed round the world when we heard of his illness.  Other news seems good, especially from Russia.  Best love & thanks for all good wishes.


Family letter from HPV

c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
December 28th 1943. Tuesday

My Dear Annette (name handwritten)

Joan has taken all the news for her letter and I suspect that my gleanings will be poor. I shall have to fill up with the doings of the Pierneef bari.

Among the great events I count the finding of a small milk bottle. You have heard how we found in the tangled roots of a tree in the Gardens a pint milk-bottle abandoned by someone long before and how we bore it home rejoicing. Similarly, in the same tree but in a different part of the roots, I found on Sunday while Joan was climbing on Table Mountain a half-pint bottle. Filthy with encrusted dust but in fine condition; I rescued it and spent much of the day washing bits off it. There is a certain feeling of shame during the actual rescue process; but I regret the beer bottle seen in the jungle and not rescued, for when airmen come in to be entertained we find difficulty in giving the essential beer because we cannot present an empty to the shop. On such occasions Joan appeals to their sense of the good and borrows a beer bottle on pledge of early return; “their” – the shop-people’s. I add out of honesty that no use has been found for the ½ pinter.

Household misfortune fell thick on me. My breaking of a cup was bad; but I followed it up by breaking the only wine-glass while fly-swatting at lunch. It is a queer thing that there have been fewer flies noticed by me since then. Much correspondence about the prevalence of flies in Cape Town ended with a letter enumerating the various degrees held by the Medical Officer of Health and deducing that any suggestions from men not so qualified were contemptible. The flies remain unimpressed by the degrees.

Joan remarked this morning that I look less tired. This refers to the setback due to the arrival each night of assiduous mosquitoes seeking not blood but sport; they are satisfied to fly round and sing. Broken nights; but since the hot and humid weather broke in its turn I have slept better. The singing habits of the mosquitoes must be due to the climate; for the dwellers in the neighbouring flats share them, meaning no harm but determined that when they sing or listen to singing all those near should listen to them or it.

We have indeed that a surfeit of carols and Christmas hymns. For days past one or other of the wireless services has been able to give at any time of the day a chance of listening to carols (or almost any) but on Christmas Eve there was the direct expression from the neighbouring church several times plus the bursting into song of the flat-dwellers themselves (all but ourselves), and supreme efforts by the wireless filled in any gaps. As night came on the excitement rose to heights of frenzy; the general question was Can this be kept up till past midnight? – and the answer, approved correct, was yes, with a comfortable margin. When midnight struck, there was an exchange of gifts and of loud kisses, as we, lying on our beds and vainly hoping for sleep, could hear through the windows. Christmas was the same; a gramophone concert of carols on the lawn, good records but outrageously loud, and the reproduction of old popular songs at intervals. Quite interesting; a “Roy used to sing this” sort-of-thing. Also a thing unparalleled; the singing of the main part of “Daisy, Daisy” and not merely of the chorus.

I have forgotten to mention that the Government of Bengal by way of economizing have taken to using thorns instead of pins for fastening sheets of letters together. They are effective too.

A feature of the Cramer Roberts Christmas dinner was a huge home-made spider (composed of a walnut body, a small nut head, long twigs for legs and pieces taken out of a clothes brush for whiskers) let down from the ceiling; grisly, although it was two legs short owing to Mr. C.R.’s ignorance of the make-up of spiders, and it reminded me of the Bui which Richard had when maybe three – a black spider with legs made of thin wire springs; when first he left India. Mr. C. R. had displayed his ingenuity further by mending an armchair; Mrs. Had bought a sofa and there was a disreputable remnant of an armchair in the same lot; the auctioneer would not let her leave the latter behind when she took delivery of her purchase, and it was a triumph to have the remnant made into a quite comfortable and quite presentable armchair. Also he undertook in our presence to draw the cork of a sherry bottle; not so triumphant; the cork broke, the corkscrew broke, and the penknife broke when he was reduced to cutting the thing out. Great pleasure among one and all, old and young. The young consisted of the two C.R. girls and the Wren Daphne, other name unknown though we have in a book the full details. Mr. C.R. told how after he had been in the Army nearly five months a decision came down about his pay which had not been fixed when he was hurriedly appointed because he knew every inch of the Nile Delta of which he had been in irrigation-charge for about fifteen years. The decision was that as there was no appointment on the cadre to which he could be appointed he could have any pay at all. So he left a P.P.C. card on the desk of his superior officer and sent in to Headquarters a letter asking to whom he should make over; and, as the letter came to the notice of the Commander in Chief, Middle East, who was a personal friend and whose idea it had been to utilize his special local knowledge, all ended as it should.

On the occasion of the tea to the Forsyth, Mrs. F. produced a typed half-sheet of note paper with some criptic remarks on it which indicated the 13 exercises for fallen arches prescribed for Timothy. He demonstrated them there and then. On Sunday I wrote down a description of the demonstrations and yesterday I typed them. Meanwhile on Sunday evening, not having been out except for a stroll in the Gardens (because I was tied to the house in the evening by ignorance whether Joan had or had not her latch key with her), I walked up the hill to the Flemings’ to lend him a booklet on erosion. I found them both in pyjamas, because they had been out on the beaches on the other side of the Peninsula and had been severely bun-burnt; his feet were in fact swollen, puffy, and inflamed. I congratulated him on the excellence of his toes and refused even to look at her’s lest they turn me; and I promised her copies of the description. I find that if one assumes that everyone met anywhere suffers from weak or fallen arches it is a bond; for even if they do not they fear that they do. In this house there is a great stirring at the time of the wireless; off come the shoes and the toes start wagging. Some of the music is good for this also; but I find that wireless or maybe any music puts my spine on edge after a little and whenever possible I turn it off. When we walk and remember to perform, we peel the feet off the pavement: hoping that no one is led to suppose us mad.

Mrs Pierneef is full of talk about the failure of the flower shop which, you remember, was to have provided a living and a career for Micky. There were two partners in with her and their idea was that they should each turn up at the shop two or three days a week; the first illusion gone was that a business could run itself without supervision. Then one of her friends disliked the old lady who was selling them the business, and drove her out; so nothing came of the scheme that the old lady should stay for six months and teach them the work. Then it was awful hard work; it meant that if there was a rush of orders all had to sit up all night making wreaths. Also the wastage was appalling; flowers not sold are sheer loss, and it was worse when all were sold and orders had to be refused. And the partner-friends were quite different as partners than they had been as mere friends. One in particular offended by ordering the others about. And she insisted on Micky’s coming down to the shop to work instead of staying on at school; but Mr. Pierneef declared that never would Mickie go into the shop. - - - - - so she sold; to the overbearing friend; and got her money back in full. All ended well. And since flowers mean hard work, she thinks of establishing Mickie on a poultry farm! ! !

What more? Lots. Artie, that cunning dog Artie, has disappeared. So has the invaluable Yakub. He took a fortnight’s leave three months ago and never returned. To do the work of the house, since she had lost her maid (the one who is enormously fat and is always having illegitimate offspring), Mrs. P took on three maids. One really to do the work, another to help her and a third to help the helper. Edward Groth called them the Three Chocolate Drops. She did not maltreat them or be cross to them; but one day when everyone was out all three packed up and went off; stealing nothing but leaving no explanation. Without maids what could she do – and without Yakub? what but announce that William and Santi must intervene; and the upshot was that the whole household moved down to Edward’s for all meals. She had to do something to console the poor man; and so they have built him a sun-bathing enclosure and a star-gazing tower above his bedroom. He wanted these. At least it was a nuisance that whenever he sunbathed he used to put out William and Santi as guards to turn away either Mrs. P or Mickie if they chose that moment to visit the garden the upkeep of which is under their charge; “as if we should have minded” said Mickie grandly, with some confused tale about the falling down of the pyjamas of the American who was in the house while Edward was in Cape Town. They haven’t finished the swimming bath and have renounced the idea of having a new rondavel on the terrace which they were building next to Mickie’s; instead they will build a big one for the two of them behind, effacing itself into the kopje. “It is too much always to have to sleep in the drawing room with the servants always coming through” says Mrs. P; having suddenly woken to it, presumably. While Edward was away they had wild times; dancing in the long drawingroom (from which the guest removed the coloured photo of the Wisconsin hills as being hideous) although William objected to it as likely to mark the polished floor; “what” he asked Mrs. Pierneef “shall I say to the Signor if they scratch his fundament?” thus as translated directly by her. Yes: they see life. But not as I should like it.

Much love
Dad

Airgraph from LJT to Annette (addressed to Miss Annette Townend P.O. Box 111. Bletchley Bucks England)

No 26 Dec 28th 1943

My darling Annette, Many, many thanks for Xmas air-graph & Nos 1 & 3 all received shortly before Xmas Day. Did we let you know that a parcel of Spanish books came from Foyles? It was obviously a mistake, so Dad posted them back to you. We were disappointed, but could not help laughing when we opened the packet! Needless to say you were much in our thoughts on Xmas Day. At dinner with the Cramer-Roberts, we all drank to our “absent children” before we sat down to our mal. It has been v. hot weather over the holidays. Xmas Day was a scorcher, so we stayed in the flat all day, leaving for the C-Rs about 5.45. Eileen Forsyth wanted us to go to morning drinks with her, but we feared going out to Sea Point would make Dad too tired for the evening. The evening was just right for us: a cheerful family party, and none of the forced merriment which we did not really feel, & which some people seem to find necessary on such occasions. On the 26th I left Dad to the tender mercies of Lucinda, & had a day up the Mountain with Marischal Murray, Ed. Groth’s friend. We were a party of 4. We made the ascent just round the corner up the West face, by an interesting route with a little mild rock scrambling. The day was not so hot & most of the way up we were in shade. From the top, which we reached in 3 ¼ hours, we dropped down a little to a wonderful shelf which runs round under the cliff on which the cable house stands. There we boiled our billy had lunch, & reclined & talked for an hour or more. The descent was great fun. There was some real rock work, but not difficult or frightening. You would have loved it! I only wished Dad could have been with us. In my absence Lucinda had baked some excellent cakes, which I did not know she could do. I am a bit stiff in the legs, but much more so in the arms, after hanging by them down rock faces. Yesterday afternoon Mrs Pierneef & Mickie arrived & we met them & spent most of the afternoon with them. There is something almost Russian in the way they always live in a state of high drama, except that their drama is always turned to merriment & gales of laughter! I have spent a good time this morning on the phone fixing up for them to meet various people, & finding out about bus times. We plan to bus to Camps Bay for tea to-day & perhaps Mickie & I will bathe. I want to do all I can for them here, for they were so good to us in Pretoria. I have a holiday this week from office but when it reopens next Tues. I am going to be quite busy, for I have undertaken the job of spring-cleaning the S.A.W.A.S. files since their inauguration, & destroying rubbish. There is to be a big conference in Feb. to review past work & plan for the future, especially post-war work, & Miss Bean & staff want to refresh memories about what has been done. Your last letter was most interesting & I have written quite a long reply. It is strange when one meets people who take it for granted that once the war is over they will slip back into the same comfortable little groove. I am going to try to get “Time, the Refreshing Stream”, but I have been reading so little here that I have not joined the library. I shall probably do so when we come back from Elgin to the Settlers Club. Dad was v. tired last week. We had people in on several evenings, & he was bothered at night by a buzzing mosquito, or mosquitoes, which kept him awake a lot. He seems more rested again now. I think the v. hot weather may have had something to do with it. It has been getting cooler since Xmas Day, & there is a strong wind this morning. The Christmas mails were wonderfully timed this year, & we have many letters from overseas. Friends in S.A. have been kind too & many greetings have come in. Romey has sent me a book, which I am enjoying, by a girl who rode across Canada. It’s a simple tale, but about the sort of things I enjoy. Thank you again for all your thoughts & messages. Best love from Mother