1944 January
Family letter from LJT No 1
6 Victoria Court
Cape Town.
Jan. 2nd 1944
My Dears,
We have had such a splendid lot of letters, and enjoyed them enormously. Let me send thanks in this till I have time to write to each seperately. The following all arrived on 29th & 30th:- Grace’s No 27 of 5/10: Annette’s No 2 of 16/10 & air-graph of 10/11: May’s of 10/10 with delicious lavendar enclosed: Mona’s, with a very nice calendar for H. And most useful envelope “stickers” for me: Susie (Green)’s of 18/10. And several from friends, including Herbert’s two faithful old friends, Mr Cape and Father Low. On the 30th we got no less than four letters and two air-graphs from Romey, & a greeting telegram on 31st. Also an interesting mail from India on that day, with a long letter from H.D.. We have been lucky that so many of you have found time to write, & we are very grateful.
The Christmas-New Year week has been somewhat marred by the fact that Herbert has been sleeping very badly & consequently has been terribly tired. Some nights have been a little hot, and there are a few mosquitoes about, one or two of which always seem to find their way to his bed & sing in his ear, banishing sleep. I am glad to say he has had two rather better nights and is a trifle less weary to-day. Luckily we have not had a great many engagements, and most of those he was able to cut without upsetting anyone. For instance on the day after Mrs Pierneef’s arrival we had arranged to take them out to tea at the Pavilion at Sea Point, and he just stayed behind, for they are understanding people. On New Year’s Day we were going to visit the Harveys at tea-time & then to a cocktail party at the Symes (houses near one another in the suburb of Kenilworth) & H looked so tired I persuaded him to stay and rest. It was just as well, for the trains were hot & packed both ways. We did go to a tea party at Eileen Forsyth’s, to which she asked us to take the Pierneefs, and with the usual rush of excited talk and too many guests for the chairs, he was very tired after it. I was pleased to meet again a very nice woman journalist, who was at the Fleming’s the night we supped there. Mr. Pierneef had invited us to go to supper with them at the house where they are staying. It is a most interesting place; built in 1782 and formerly the Parsonage of the old Lutheran Church which is next door to it, it is one of the few old houses in the Dutch Colonial style still standing and used as a living house in the city. Its name is Martin Melk House, and it, with two or three neighbouring houses, is run as a sort of boarding house. The rooms are very large, and are all arranged as bed-sitting rooms. Like most Dutch rooms, they are beautifully proportioned. There is a nice old court and bit of garden at the back, with an ancient fig tree and some of the biggest and oldest oleanders I have ever seen. They are in full flower now and look most attractive with the white plaster of the house and the grey stone of the court. In this fine weather all meals are served in the court-yard, and it was delightful having dinner out there. The very good-looking woman who runs the place is an old and dear friend of the Pierneefs, so she was asked to have dinner with us. After preliminaries leading up to it, she asked if Herbert ever had any relatives at Camberley. It turns out that her father was the Mr Irving, who ran the Prep school where several of the Townend family went to school! They had great times remembering boys who were there, & all sorts of things, and Mrs Bowater has promised to come & see us when the holiday rush is over. That evening we seemed to be in the atmosphere of Old Cape Town, for we walked home along a street which must once have been a good residential quarter, but the old houses with their excellently placed and proportioned doors and windows, and remains of the high stoops in front of them, are now mostly warehouses. We came into a great empty Square, called after Jan van Riebeeck, the leader of the first European settlers to land in S. Africa. It reminded me of some of the big empty squares in small old French towns. Abbeville, as far as I remember has one such. The same old world houses still stand round most of the square, but “African Theatres Lts“ have put up a big modern building, which takes up half one side. Its not bad in itself, but one rather wishes they had built it somewhere else. From the square on, one is in the Malay quarter, which also has old small houses, and quite a character of its own. It is said that the Malays are a much more respectable and tidy people than the Cape Coloureds, most of whom live on what are known as “The Flats” in a notorious quarter of the town, District Six, where, it is said, the police prefer to go in pairs.
These Coloured People, who, so the papers, Members of Parliament, charitable bodies and others who can make their voices known, are always telling us, live under most miserable and unsanitary conditions, are extremely fond of drink. A great deal of illicit brewing and distilling is done, and District Six is said to be full of shabeens. The New Year is one of the greatest occasions for these people, and seemingly it is commonplace that a great deal of fighting goes on during New Year’s night. Herbert and I were amused at an article in yesterdays paper, which reported, it seemed almost with regret, that the city had been quieter than usual, and that at a late hour the city ambulances had only answered 35 calls, “most of them minor assault cases”. When Lucinda arrived yesterday morning (very late!) she said, “Oh, Madam! There must have been a bad fight just outside the gate. There’s ever such a lot of blood about!” She got quite a pleasurable thrill from such doings, I fancy. It seems to me disturbing that such things should be accepted as being quite normal, just as drunkenness is regarded with a tolerant smile.
Its odd that fate should have thrown us in contact with so many artists, in a country where I suppose there are really comparatively few. When the Pierneefs and I came back from Sea Point Pavilion, I went to Martin Melk House with them to meet Professor Roath, the head of the Art School here, and a man who has some reputation as an artist in Cape Town. To me he seems to paint in a somewhat woolly and undistinguished style, that was so much in vogue at the end of the last century. He is however, a jovial personality, and we all enjoyed ourselves at the expense of the surrealists, in whom Eileen Forsyth has suddenly become passionately interested. The following morning I went out with Mrs P. who was taking some of her husbands’ to an art-dealer here. The gallery in question is run by a woman, and I had the somewhat unusual experience of hearing a buyer say to a seller that her husband was not charging enough. I enjoyed the half hour we spent in the gallery, where there was some interesting stuff, both good and bad. Mrs P said to the woman (whose name I cannot remember) “But why do you have such an awful picture as that!” In my heart I agreed, and so evidently did the woman, for she answered that it was simply because some people went to buy that sort of thing and wont take anything else. Next we went on to Argus Galleries, where people hold exhibitions, which is also run by a woman, and quite a young and attractive one. She, an old friend of the Ps, had with her an artist from Johannesburg, also well known to Mrs P, and there were great greetings, and much talk. It was quite an amusing atmosphere. I am interested to find women doing so much of this sort of thing. May Pierneef then came back to lunch with us here, and stayed talking most of the afternoon. Mickie was away at the beaches with a party of young friends. They both came to tea here yesterday, and are charmed with our little flat. It makes me a bit sad to think that we have started on our last month here. On the other hand I like to think of seeing our friends in Elgin again, and I still more like to think about getting nearer to coming home.
The Christmas and New Year war news has certainly been a tonic! The naval battle of the sinking of the Scharnhorst seems to have been in the classical British style. It is the sort of thing that makes one proud to be British. I also feel quite proud to have known Admiral Burnet! In the pictures there have been of him in the papers he does not look much different from what he did when we used to call him “The Vicar”.
Best love to you all
LJT
(handwritten addition at end of letter)i
My darling Annette – It was fun reading about your Yorkshire holiday. I agree with you that a walking holiday is one of the best, especially if it can be in rather wild mountain country. I’m interested to hear that Pam and Betty like that sort of thing too – Pity Pam got blisters – Here is a good tip for breaking in heavy boots or shoes for climbing or tramping – Get them absolutely soaked with water and walk in them, wet like that for an hour or more. It makes them mould themselves to the feet. The other is to put sticking plaster round any toes you think might blister, especially if you know there is a lot of steep down-hill. Its sad that my parcels posted in April have disappeared. I hope those I sent last month turn up alright.
Best love - Mother
From HPV to Annette
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town
January 2nd. 1944 Sunday
My dear Annette,
The hymns from the Church opposite are grinding away, the cat which has just kittened copiously and, as many think, too soon after her last effort is howling with the idea of drawing attention to her achievement; and I am extremely tired. An ill-omened moment to start writing; there will be many mistakes – there have been several already; and why I choose this as a fit time to write to you after weeks of failing to do so is beyond me.
There was some remark in the Sanskrit book which I read for the I.C.S. exam, the Hitopadesha, about Self-comparison being the means to understand all others; which is obviously bunk since all do not feel as one does oneself and to think one-self into the position of such is to be misled. More on occasion is to be gained by self-contrast, and the Pharisee was so far in the right of it by being glad to be unlike other men. Another instance of that being Glass the Marine; “if I open my eyes, I shall be sick” he said, etc. How admirable the words etc. are! what fine use is made of them in the Anatomy; which used to be a solace to me but is so no longer, having lost its charm. Remarks extracted from me by yours about the attitude of Betty and Pam. Pam and Betty. Of which your dear mother has made mention in her last letter, I believe from some remarks which she made to me while writing.
It was not in my mind when I referred to the Pharisee; but I do believe, - now that I come to think of it, - that one does feel comfortably superior to the others with whom one contrasts oneself on such occasions. I feel quite comforted to think that anyone can have a serene belief that things will go on as before after the war or for that matter will go on at all in any tolerable form. How fine and brave of Pam and Betty to have faith! how finer of Bous, for I presume that if he were not serene also his daughters would be less so! and for that matter how nice of the six men who have been presented with peerages not to reject them with contempt as unlikely to be anything but a mockery within quite a short time!
Unconsciously I had come to take it for granted that no one could look forward to anything good when the war ended. Once has to be bold to neglect the probability that England is now in the position which Holland fell into at the end of the long wars with France; victorious but tired out and beyond recovery. Or the further probability that her markets for manufactures will be closed to her; Australia, Canada and South Africa all with their own new industries which they will have to protect whether they wish it or not, Atlantic charter or no Atlantic charter, because there will be internal breakdown if they do not. India with its administration corrupted and brought to inefficiency by the “reforms” and with its people hostile to England not only for all the old reasons but because the reforms have failed to bring the benefits hoped for and the only explanation that the people can see is that the English must have deliberately spoilt everything. But why should I attempt to depress you by a recital of unpleasant possibilities?
It seems to me that the destruction of the upper classes and the middle classes in England is an error of the worst; it is easy to resent the public school type and to assume that without it we should be without a whole lot of bad things, but the fact that it proved capable of providing a series of honest and comparatively competent public servants is no small thing. One realises what it means when one stays in a country where the public servant is assumed as a matter of course to be dishonest and as often as not incapable. Like the civil servants in New Zealand, a place sufficiently far off to be mentioned without fear of hurting feelings. Strange also that the desire to replace the public-school type with the type of person who has had nothing but a technical education is accompanied also by the desire to increase the power of the civil servant, by abolishing private enterprise and having state factories and state distribution of goods. It beats me how anyone who has ever had dealings with civil servants (e.g. customs officers or any officer doing non-routine work) can want to hand over control of everything to their like. Inertia and lack of initiative generally would be features of any socialist state and even though at the outset it might be possible to show good results by cashing in on the accumulated ideas of private persons, as Mussolini did to start with in Italy, there would be stagnation after those were exhausted; such stagnation as Mussolini sought to avoid when he ran short of other people’s ideas by launching out on his overseas empire schemes.
Perhaps the tendency towards state control is not so strong in England as it might appear from the telegrams in the papers in India and south Africa and in the wireless discussions. Perhaps also the habit of the English of never pushing anything to its logical conclusion may be a safeguard; but the precedent of the destruction of agriculture in England by the application of the death duties and by allowing competition of overseas dumped foods makes one somewhat to doubt whether this will be of much use.
Sill to drift off into such discussions; in a casual letter one does not say enough to make what is said look sensible; and the reluctance to inflict gollm an excellent variation for “gloom” on the reader causes one to omit all the evidence which might to some extent make it look otherwise. But one is always portentous on the typewriter. Not having left the Union within 12 months of landing, we shall have now to pay duty on the typewriters. I do not grudge it; have I mentioned that they do not charge income tax on any money not derived from sources within the Union? I have not contributed anything therefore to the running of the S.A. government except what goes to war funds; and I am not sure that even from this source the government get any relief.
It is now Monday; we went a walk yesterday among the woods on the slopes of Table Mountain; pleasant because no so hot. Sad however to see how the new houses are creeping up the hill side and to think that before many years are over the woods will be replaced by a mass of little houses or big houses for that matter.
Last night when a mosquito woke me at three o’clock and kept me awake for some time I heard the loud singing of anthems by deep men’s voices; and curiosity has been strong upon me ever since. Was it some wireless let loose at that hour by one lacking sense of neighbourliness?; does the church opposite indulge in anthem singing when others sleep, indulging a secret vice? but there had been singing there during the day and one would have expected them to be satiated. I am pleased with your dictionary extracts. There were some such in the Liddel & Scott; vulgar though, not merely ignorant. In the Bengali phrasebook I liked the remarks “Let us mock the old man made after marriage” and “She has curly hair; live or die, I must marry her.” – both very useful to foreigners in Bengal. Your Japanese sayings “To reflect on oneself three times a day” and “to week for fun” are as it were descriptive of your father’s ailments. If you had studied Japanese instead of Russian you might have had a store of such good things by now. If for that matter you had studied Sanskrit, you might have made use of my books; and it would have been just as useful. It occurs to me that I have told many persons by now a lot of false-hoods about the state of proficiency that you had reached in Russian; but they may become truths at any moment, and anyhow there is no catching up with them. The Readers’ Digest article about learning to read pages at a glance was for those who spell out their reading; anyhow it is pernicious advice since there is nothing worse for the eyesight. I haven’t met Joyce’s Frank; but it always seems from references to him in any letters including hers that he is halfbaked and puffed up in consequence; even more so than Gavin. It is a strange thing that when any policy fails, no one says This has failed and we must try something else; instead they say This has not succeeded yet because it has not gone far enough. It is a strange thing too that the British Government should continue to apply to India the policy which brought on the war in Europe and everywhere else; with the best intentions. The Let’s-pretend-that-everyone-is-high-souled is the most dangerous of the futilities because there is no stopping until it is too late. Not to mention that it must be an unhealthy strain to the pretender; for who could otherwise imagine that any politician was highed souled or any-souled for that matter? As to your remark about all having to do something with the plough, my view is that the best thing most can do with it is to sit back and let those more competent get on with the job. Two out of three persons concerned with government are actively impeding or destroying the work done by the third.
See. I have covered a letter’s length of paper; and was it worth it? Question starting with num. A quaint way of showing affection.
Much love
Dad
Airgraph from LJT to Grace Townend (addressed to Mrs A.B.S. Townend . Highways. Great Leighs. Nr. Chelmsford. Essex. England)
No 1 Jan. 6th 1944
Dearest Grace: The three missing letters, 27, 28, & 29 have all turned up, as well as A’s No 2 of 16/10 & her air-graph of 10/11. We had such a huge mail in yesterday that I had to leave most of it unread till after office, & really it has been such a pleasure. There were letters from so many of my old friends, including Bernard, from whom we had not heard for some time. Just after Xmas we had three letters (in one envelope) 2 air-graphs & a greeting wire from Romey, so I ought to have enough to content me for some time to come. I wonder how much you realize what pleasure it gives us to hear about all the doings in house, garden & village at Leighs. Sometimes people say we had much better stay in Africa that after all, after being away from England for so long, we shall find ourselves just as much strangers there as anywhere else. It is so difficult to convey to them that we are kept in such close touch by you & the children that we dont feel strangers at all when we get home. Its most heart-warming that you greet the idea of having us at Highways so warmly. Its not every brother & sister who would extend the same open hospitality. Oh I do hope we are lucky and get away fairly soon! My ideal would be to get home early in May. Before I fill this letter with chat, here is a little business note. H has written to Grindlay’s to tell them we are hoping to get home, & asking them to duplicate all letters & statements to us, & post one to S-A & one to you. Will you keep all such letters for us, & also Romey’s letters, of which I know she sends you a copy. I think I mentioned that the Readers’ Digest will go to you & please be preserved for us. We also told Grindlay that we have asked you to let them know as soon as you have any news of our movements. H. thanks Barney much for letting him know about the Canadian investments. The E.T.Co seem very careless about the way they conduct their business. So interested to hear that Frank is changing his job, & hope the new venture proves a success. Fun to have news of Jane too! I made good use of my weeks holiday from office, & was doing some little thing almost every afternoon, mostly with Mrs Pierneef & Mickie. We had a little sherry party here for them to meet the Gills, both parties being great friends of Edward Groth’s. The Pierneef’s old friend, the Sculptor, Eloff (Nephew of Kruger’s) & his nephew, who are on holiday from Pretoria, came too & I asked the young artist, Franck, to complete a rather arty party. It was fun, & we got Mr Eloff talking about all sorts of art movements in Paris, were he has spent most of his life & done most of his work. Young Franck who has never been out of S-A was enthralled! H is still tired & not sleeping too well, so he has cut one or two outings. There are not many mosquitoes here, but just the odd one or two chose to buzz in his ear & keep him awake. The weather is hot, of course, like v. hot English summer & though he thinks he likes heat, I think it makes him flag. I certainly have not nearly as much energy when its hot. Office started again on Tuesday & I have started dealing with the files & am going every afternoon, or if I specially want to do something in the afternoon, I will go for two or three hours in the morning. Lucinda can manage the cooking quite well now. I keep on thinking of things I want to know. Are you still short of cold cream? There is quite good stuff made locally available here how. Does B. know whether carbon paper & typewriter ribbons are hard to get? There was such a good photo of Robert Burnett in the paper yesterday, looking so much the same as when I remember him. What a thrilling action the Schornhorst affair was, & what marvellous news we are getting from Russia! I so often wonder how you are getting through the winter & hope that you are spared ‘flu’ & have enough fuel to keep you warm. Love to you all. Joan
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
January 9th 1944. Sunday
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
Limp is no word to describe my state after finishing or stopping a letter to Louise Rankin which ran to five of this-sized sheets, three about Bengal famine; not wasted if she can put any U.S.A. journalist right about it or less wrong. How reply to complaints that rice was being used to make starch for conditioning jute during manufacture in the mills near Calcutta at a time when people were starving? Difficult; but jute was essential for war-purposes and without sacks for carrying grain foodstuffs could not be transported. Like saving seed for the next crop instead of eating it all at one go. Not that I discussed this in the Louise-letter.
Whenever I go near the tree where the bottles were found, I gaze upon it: as the Lama gazed upon the ground in case the River of Healing should burst forth, so I upon the tree, in case a new bottle should appear. As the burnt cat the milk, (?scalded?), as the burnt child the fire, even so and not otherwise did Moses look upon jungle after the burning bush affair? the connection of thought being that finding things in woods is faintly reminiscent of the Old Testament. And I may mention that something is sticking again in this machine. Yesterday we had a field day picking fluff and misc. muckings out of a borrowed sewing machine; and our success makes me wonder whether it would do good to this typewriter to fish around with the packing needle in its bowels.
My resemblance to St. Francis is now doubted; the love of animals is less obvious than it was. Instance the sober approach of an Oliver Twist kind of dog, which I conceive to be an old-fashioned bulldog, in the street from a group of Malay children, not to show affection as you and I assumed at once, but to seize my shoe in its teeth and give a sharp nip. No harm done except to feelings. And again, returning down the Avenue, (an avenue of oak trees leading past the Gardens into the head of the chief street of the Town) at dusk, I was pounced upon and barked against by a nondescript woolly dog of a considerable size, who was however sufficiently civilized to retire in confusion when rebuked with the word “Fool” by me and not by its owner whom I refrained from addressing lest the same word should escape. It is with dogs as with bees; the owner may be judged by them. I learnt this re the bees in a book which should be read; “Concertina Farm” by Erick Berry and Herbert Best. Writers, they were led into taking a farm in Vermont and the book tells of difficulties with goats, cows and the like. By way of teaching manners to bees it is well to place the hive so that the entrance of the bees is obstructed by a tree; thus accustomed to having to dodge, they do not so resent the stepping forward of humans in front of the hive. Much good stuff in the book though if falls short of nobility in its attitude towards compost; mentioning Adco and not mentioning the use of the cowdung of which they must have had much. Read also One Man’s Meat by E.B.White, essays by another American writer who took a farm on the sea-shore in Maine; many of his doings made me homesick (if I may say so without impertinence) for Highways. Yes, I laughed till I cried about the doings of the pullets, not that they were funny really as Joan remarked; they reminded me of Roy who would have laughed too.
You remember how I got the degree of D.F.S.? Now I have proved how justly. With one shrewd blow of the swatter I killed not seven but eight flies in the kitchen; and depressed others. However the mosquitoes few though they are have me beat; almost every night they wake me and keep me so.
I have been dealing with the Customs, trying to pay duty on the typewriters which were admitted free originally on the understanding that I might not stay 12 months in the country. Of the difficulties experienced by the officials in understanding their own regulations I say nothing; though I offered, in order to avoid trouble, to assume that the highest rates were payable; but this I must repeat. As I left the building, the porter approached and said “Excuse me, but are you from the Brazilian consulate?” Why? I ask myself. Me from Brazil! me whom the Frenchman described as “truly English, with my cheeks of brick cooked” etc. as in the Dame.
In the Gardens according to an attendant they have to remove the notice boards “Keep off the grass” and so on each night lest the roughs and toughs hurl them into the lily ponds; “they hurl all sorts of things in” said the attendant “bottles, papers . . . . and they even bathe in the top pond; the coloured folk who live up at that end. And they are so dirty they turn the fish black”. The most astounding statement that ever I did hear. It reminds me that Bernard who has written most agreeably about this and that has failed to solve my problem; I asked who was not to gaze on Swans, in Pepys’ song, and why not?
Looking through this letter I feel that I must go back to typing exercises.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 2
6 Victoria Court.
Cape Town.
Jan. 9th 1944.
My dears,
On the fifth another huge batch of letters arrived. Grace’s 2 missing Nos 28 & 29, written in Oct. were there, & the copy of Len’s letter enclosing the children’s photos, which interested me v. Much. Yvonne has changed much more than John. May’s present, “Atlantic Meeting”, was there, & letters from many old friends, including Helen Hamilton: Gwen Petrie, still working at her hospital driving in Cheltenham, & giving news that Christina is expecting a baby; Poppy Dunn still in her tiny London flat & working at home for the Red Cross; (repairing books is her chief job) Bernard Tennant, who is interested in the notion that while Herbert & I have travelled to Java, Australia, India & South Africa, he could count the times he has been more than a few miles from his village, on his fingers; (He & his family are all well & happy) Then there were letters for each of us from Arla & a greeting air-graph, as well as a letter from Susie. That exhausts the ones that are likely to be of any interest to the recipients of this letter. It so happened that I had a lot of things to do on the morning of the fifth, & office in the afternoon, so I could not do much more than look at the envelopes, till I came home in the evening, and then I had a lovely time. It must have taken a couple of hours to read the whole lot. I am grateful to everyone concerned.
The holidays are over, & office started again on Tuesday. I am going every afternoon now, as I have got a sizable job to do, more or less on my own. I think I mentioned in an earlier letter that I am going through all the S.A.W.A.S. files since their inauguration, discarding rubbish & putting everything in order. Its the sort of work I enjoy. As I specially want two afternoons off this week, I shall work in the mornings instead. Lucinda can be left to do the cooking quite well now.
In the first issue of the Cape Times after the New Year holidays, a leader was devoted to the unusual quietness and sobriety of the people. In another part of the paper, to wit the centre page, a double column with a big heading “A Peaceful & Sober New Year”, told how well-behaved Cape Town & other districts had been. As Herbert said when he read the last paragraph, “The Rand had done a bit better”. It mentioned that in the district of which Jo’burg is the centre, there had “only” been one murder, two killed by stab wounds, two or three (cant remember which) by motor cars, one by a railway accident, and one man arrested, killed himself during the night by unravelling the mat in his cell, and hanging himself by the rope so made. Superficially one laughs at the lack of proportion, but really how tragic it is!
I enjoyed the holidays, especially as they coincided with the arrival of Mrs Pierneef & Mickie, but I was quite glad to get back to office again. Herbert has continued to be tired, & went to see the doctor a few days ago. The doctor says that looking at Herbert’s medical history, one cant expect miracles, and that it will take him a long time to build up strength again. He has given him a different medicine, and told him to take a course of vitamin pills, which he had stopped taking for some while. Mrs Iron, who is now in Cape Town and had not seen H. since we left White River, thinks he is looking distinctly better. She says his eyes are brighter and his skin looks somehow more robust. I hope she is right.
On Monday, the last day of the holidays, we had a little sherry party here, for Mrs Pierneef & Mickie to meet Dr and Miss Gill (the Museum and bird-book man, who is an old friend of Edward Groths). We added to the party Mr Eloff, nephew of old President Kruger’s, who is an old & dear friend of the Ps, & happens to be down here on holiday. He is a sculptor who has spent most of his life and done most of his work, in Paris. We asked, as well, his young nephew, who is one of Mickie’s best boys. Young Franck, the artist & climber whom we met & liked, completed the party which went off very nicely. Mr Eloff is an interesting talker, and we got him going on the various “movements” that came and went during his years in Paris. This was apropos of having a crack at the Surrealists, in whom Eileen Forsyth has become so passionately interested. She has been trying to convert Mr Francks, but I think he is too sane and healthy a young man to be so easily carried away by new ideas which he has not tested.
The S. African sherry, by the way, is inexpensive and quite a pleasant thing, but it does not taste much like sherry.
The days are creeping by, and unwillingly I have to think about packing up & moving from this dear little flat. We plan to pack all our books and papers and get them sealed by the censor before we leave for Elgin, so that if the miracle happens, and we get passages quickly, they will be all ready. When we came into Africa, we were allowed to bring our two typewriters and H’s gramaphone and language records free, if we only stayed a year. When our year was up, H wrote to ask “what more?” After long delay a reply came, and he went down to the office. The men there are appalled at the problem,but after two visits, it has at last been settled to the tune of 2 odd. Would you believe it, duty on typewriters is charged by their weight, not by age and value! I carried ours down to the butcher to get them weighed, for the customs have no scales! This lack of ability to organize anything on practical lines is apparent in so many phases of life in this country, and I find it interesting to see exactly the same thing in the history of “The Great Trek”, which I am just reading. The early voortrekkers seem to have disagreed just as much amongst themselves as they did with the British or Dutch governments. In the early settlements in Natal about a hundred years ago or a little more, they showed no flair for organization, & quarreled constantly among themselves. I get the impression that they lacked a sense of humour. One cant imagine any of their leaders having the comic ideas that Abraham Lincoln sometimes produced, or with his gift of wit and repartee.
When first we came into the flat I found the shopping a nuisance, and disliked it. Now that I know all the places in Long Street, I rather enjoy my morning’s purchasing. There is a certain attraction in the street itself, if one lifts ones eyes from the immediate surroundings. Looking up it, the cliffs of Table Mt seem quite close. Looking down it, there are glimpses of cranes and ships’ masts and funnels. Looking up the side streets opposite to us, one sees them run steeply up onto the slopes of Signal Hill, through the narrow Malay Quarter. The most amusing shop is the Russian delicatessen shop, where I go daily to buy rye bread, & where I also get ham, bacon & cold meats. Madam looks as if she might easily have been a grand duchess. She is temperamental, and if she does not like you, is said to be very fierce. She has always been most friendly to me. Her English is still broken, and when she talks to her husband I can only distinguish the one word “da” (Does that mean “yes”?) There is always amusing and dramatic talk going on in the shop. Yesterday cutting cold tongue, she ate the first little sliver that fell, and rolling her eyes in the best operatic style, exclaimed, “Delicious!” The Weiner bakery which makes the most delicious cakes and breads, is said to be run by Austrians, but as it has been there for years, let’s hope they left Austria before Hitler was thought of. Then at the laundry depot there is a handsome and pleasant Jewess, certainly continental, and not S. African, who is an ardent admirer of all things Russian. Some shops, such as the dairy are solidly South African, and the green-grocers, and several of the grocers are Indian. In these shops the wives and daughters work alongside their men-folk, the older women wearing a veil over their heads, generally tucked back behind the ears. This is the last salute to Purdah, and perhaps they have already forgotten that it is a relic of the time when women’s faces must not be seen by the outside world.
Herbert and I went for a short walk after the last Sunday, getting a flying start by taking the tram that passes our door and lands us at the foot of the Mountain. It happened to be cool and we walked mostly through the pine woods. Other evenings I have been back from office too late to go far afield. Also we have had people in or been doing some little thing.
We had planned to take Mrs Pierneef up Table Mt by the cableway yesterday morning, staying for a picnic lunch and coming down early in the afternoon, but it was the first cloudy day we had had for ages and the mountain was completely obscured. We put off our outing, and as it cleared in the afternoon to some extent, we took the bus to Kloof Nek, walked down to The Round House for tea, and on down to Clifton on the west coast, where we caught a bus which brought us back through Sea Point. We took a nice young W.R.E.N. with us. Friends from White River had just written to ask us to befriend her.
The news is so exciting and cheering these days, that we listen to both B.B.C. and the S.A.B.C. quite a number of times
Best love to you all
LJT
Family letter from LJT No 3
6 Victoria Court.
Cape Town.
Jan. 16th 1944
My Dears,
After the wonderful spate of letters at Christmas time, it is not surprising that none have come in this week. We have had the excitement of two books: the “Fleet Air Arm” from May, & for Herbert, “A Sense of Humus” from Helen & Susie. What a find! Its amusing us both very much, for though I am not reading it yet, Herbert reads out or repeats, much of it to me. Thanks many times to the kind donors.
The past week seems to have been full to the point of being rather rushed. I have wanted to give as much time as possible to my office work but before I knew there was going to be so much to do, I had committed myself to one or two engagements, one of which was the wearisome business of a “perm”. Herbert and I had also booked seats for the matinee performance of “Watch on the Rhine” by Gwen Frangcon Davies and Marda Vann’s company. Not realising the size of the cinema in which it the company is playing, I booked seats in the circle & we were too far off for a play, and missed any subtleties of the acting. The place was packed. One woman just behind us had brought a little boy of about two, who, of course, began to ask questions. Everyone said, “Shush!” and his mother “shushed” him too, with the result that he began to howl loudly, and was extremely disturbing. His mother did not attempt to take him out, but mercifully he fell asleep. The bank of the seats was not sharp enough for a play, and everyone had to dodge the heads of the people in front in order to get a clear view of the stage, so we did not enjoy ourselves much. I felt I had been such a fool, especially as I had booked the same seats for Saturday, when we were taking Mrs Harvey & a girl who was staying with her. Herbert decided not to go, & Mrs Pierneef went in his place, being fully warned of the poor position of the seats. Luckily the row in front of us was empty, why I cant make out, for it was fully booked when I took our seats. The theatre was not nearly so full, and it made a great difference. The play was “Flare Path”, and being much less subtle than “Watch on the Rhine”, it came over much better, and we all enjoyed it, though I wept copiously. Mrs Pierneef took us all back to tea at Martin Melk House, so that Mrs Harvey’s friend, who has recently arrived from England to take up a job in a school in the Orange Free State, could see an old Dutch House.
But I have somehow jumped to the end of the week before I have told anything of the beginning, and Monday was memorable for two exceptionally nice parties. At five o’clock we went to Dr & Miss Gill’s flat to meet the Professor of Botany from the University & his wife. P. Adamson is a nice person, who does not mind talking shop to an amateur, & moreover we found several mutual friends, including the Professor of Botany at Dunedin, New Zealand, & Frank Kingdon Ward. Mrs Adamson knows India & she and Herbert talked India, while her husband & I talked plants, & the Gills and Mrs Pierneef, joined in now here & now there. We had to leave at 6.15, as Mrs P had a party of her own, drinks at 6.30 and dinner afterwards, to which I also was going. Herbert feared that two parties in one evening would exhaust him too much, & I think he was right. He finds talking to people for any length of time very tiring. It was a pity, for Mrs P had such an interesting collection of people, and talk rattled on on many subjects. It was a charming party in every way, firstly because the company was so well chosen, and secondly because the setting was so attractive. We had dinner at a long table in the garden beyond the old courtyard, which I have described in a previous letter. Thirdly the food was so good. Martin Melk House is well known for a certain fish dish, introduced by a Norwegian house-keeper who used to be there. The fish is put five or six times through a fine mincer and then whipped till it is white as snow and light as air, when it is steamed & served with crayfish sauce. The talk was just running on reincarnation & different ideas of future life, & Dr Du Plessis, who was sitting next me, said he should very much like his Heaven to include this sort of fish! He is such an interesting man, a Dr of Music, & Professor at the University here. He is the expert on the Malays of Cape Town, and later in the evening, when he brought me home, and came in to meet Herbert, he told us that he first became interested in them through searching for old Dutch Folk Songs, many of which have only been preserved by the Malays. He is a most interesting and attractive person, and, as Herbert said, gives one the idea of having so much background. Really we had great fun at the dinner table, for Mr Eloff, the Sculptor, was just opposite me, and Madame Wedlake, an Italian professional pianist, married some twenty-five years to a S. African, opposite Dr Du Plessis, with Mrs P at the end of the table. Mdme Wedlake is extremely vivacious & amusing, and Mrs P is always entertaining. Men like Eloff and du Plessis give one a very different idea of Afrikans culture, from that one gets by observing the Government servants, or listening to talk about the Afrikans farmer.
Jan 17 Dr. du Plessis rang me up the following day to ask if we would like to go to see some of the traditional Malay dancing, which was to take place on the 16th (Sunday) in the old Malay quarter at 6 p.m. I fixed up to go with Mrs P & Mickie, and I found it most interesting. It is Muslim religious dancing, combined with the pricking and piercing the skin with knives and stilettos, while lines of drummers drum and chant prayers. It was arranged that the Europeans there should only stay half an hour, and leave before the performers worked themselves up to much blood-letting. The show took place on the upper floor of an old warehouse, decorated with coloured paper rather cleverly, to give it some appearance of being what it is not. Amongst the fifty or so white people present, were Gwen Frangcon Davies and Marda Vann, who are old friends of the Pierneefs, and who themselves joined us. Since Lucinda’s baby was ill on Saturday & yesterday, and she could not come to work, I am short of time and cannot describe the sword play in any detail, but must hurry on to finish this letter. From the Malay show, we went down to the station to meet Edward Groth who was arriving on the special train binging the Government Staff from Pretoria. Herbert met us there, and we spotted the U.S.A. Naval Attaches who were meeting Edward, very smart in white uniforms with much gold braid and aiguillettes. There was a most frightful scrum on the platform, and a U.S.A. doctor from Texas, wearing a lovely wide brimmed hat somehow got hold of a barrow for the luggage, which the combined strength of the party loaded up and wheeled off in triumph! We are dining with Edward at the King’s Hotel at Sea Point this evening. Its nice to have him back here, but he was looking most dreadfully tired last night.
During Lucinda’s absence Herbert has been most noble about doing housework, and yesterday he insisted that I should not put everything ready for cold supper before I went out, but that he would do so, before he came down to the station. Mrs Pierneef and Mickie came back to have a meal with us, after the meeting at the station. With two guests our slender resources in the way of pots and pans, plates and cutlery, were strained to the utmost, but eked out by fittings from our lunch basket, we each got enough implements to eat with.
“That’s enough about us”, as Richard used to say of any subject on which he was sending messages by letter to Herbert, when he was a tiny boy. Its a good way of getting rid of a letter or a subject, when you dont know what more to say or want to hurry on to something else. I have to phone Vidie Carleton Jones before lunch, and immediately after that comes office.
Best love to you all
LJT
Handwritten addition at end of letter
Jan 18th 1944
My darling Annette –
There’s no more time than just to send my love and say I’m sorry there is no personal letter for you this week –
The days and evenings have been very full.
Love as always
Mother
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
January 17th 1944 Monday
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
The bottle tree has dried up: in vain I visit it. I am out of favour with the authorities who regulate such things. Witness yesterday’s disaster. Mrs. Pierneef and Mickie came to dinner; I endeavoured to help by getting out of the cupboard in the bathroom a certain tablecloth, and as I turned on the switch ( for it was dusk) the electric light went off with a bang, and complete with glass shade it fell and broke on my head; the flex looked as if it had been cut through. Comic, like the end of a film. No harm done, since my hair is thick. Cause as we decided today simple; the strong winds must cause the shade to vibrate at the end of the flex and so to bend it sharply, so that in time the wire began to break; when I opened the door and simultaneously turned on the light (or tried to), a violent blast came in and gave a last bend to the flex which went. Such the theory, but it is probably true. The landlord pays for the new shade; no need to sue him for damage to my nerves. . . . . I caused Mrs Pierneef to put on my old and tattered slipper; she had been on her feet all day and could bear with her shoes no longer.
Not much to tell of this week for I have steadfastly refused to be entertained lest weariness should follow. Tea with Mrs Forsyth who has become to tell the truth rather wearisome with her talk about surrealism which sounds like perversity and anyhow is surely somewhat old-fashioned. She had been out to a corroboree with an Irish reunion; from the point of view of some a howling success, and some like howls; drink in bathtubs (could that be true? – no.) and behaviour to suit; but she saved herself by clinging to a carving knife. This account, amusing, was followed by another of an attempt to sleep out of doors in a hammock, armed with a police whistle and a bar of iron and joined (against her will) by the kitten and an army of fleas; nothing happened except that the hammock became most uncomfortable as soon as she decided to go to sleep and that she woke up drenched with dew. We returned somewhat tired; and Joan was tired too, so do not put this down to my imagination.
There was a visit to the theatre; of which I say less than might be. I found it a poorish show, padded to make two acts into three, and undecided between pure melodrama and problem play. The audience smoked, it was hot and stuffy, and I cried off going to a second effort.
Undoubtedly the mosquitoes have the upper hand in our air-war. Mrs. Forsyth presented us with a tin of stuff guaranteed to keep them off anything when burnt; but no effort of ours availed to make the stuff burn. I killed one yesterday during the day and one soon after I attempted to get off to sleep; but they have succeeded in waking both Joan and myself up most nights. For some reason, too it is exhausting to sleep with one’s head under the sheet, Bengali-fashion; as I always end up by doing. For some reason too but a different one, we go to bed latish, waiting up till the 10.45 news. Joan thinks this is because I like it; I because she does. **** But why do mosquitoes buzz? there must be some useful end served by the habit. Not merely chivalry, as Italians were said never to stab unless they first showed the knife. I incline to the idea that the buzz engenders fear which promotes a flow of blood to the surface of the body; and that thus the mosquito does not have to suck so hard when the time comes. I also wonder why citronella oil is a safeguard, if indeed it is. These mosquitoes here do not seem to dread it. I ask myself if the point of it is not merely to prevent the mosquito from one smelling one. Are the smelly peoples like Maoris and African natives more or less biteable by mosquitoes than we are who smell of milk according to the Chinese and are Red Indians bitten much? The sense of humus book refers to their having a name for a particular kind of mosquito.
Joan has told of the arrival of Edward Groth at the station yesterday. There was chaos on the platform. Edward insisted on handling his luggage himself; he has a nervous fear that no one else can manage it properly. So there was the amusing sight of the representative of the great American people working like a nigger in the heat while his staff stood by; and we stood by too, rebuffed when we offered to move a typewriter or a cradle. I asked him if he always carried a cradle on the off chance of its coming in useful or whether it was symbolic of his expecting to be left holding the baby in his present job; neither remark gratefully received. It was the cradle of the Richards’ baby, a serene child of a few weeks; Mrs. Richards who treated us with hospitality at Pretoria was there; nice-looking and pleasant. As I anticipated when our going to meet the train was suggested, it was a sort of guessing competition. Many arrived whom we had met in Pretoria; and of course I had no idea who was who.
(handwritten addition at end of letter) Alas! Grace’s copy of this is on the back owing to a mishap with the carbon. You might perhaps send this on to her – “I don’t know why.”
Yours
Dad
Airgraph from LJT to Grace Townend (addressed to Mrs A.B.S. Townend. Highways. Great Leighs. Nr. Chelmsford. Essex. England)
No 2 Jan. 21st 1944
Dearest Grace: This week has been so full interruptions of one sort or another that we have almost reached the end of it, before I sit down to do your air-graph. The weather is still very hot. I am busy in office, & would like to be going both morning & afternoon but have had so many other things to do. Lucinda’s baby has been ill and last Sunday & again yesterday she did not come. We have been doing things with the Pierneefs, I seem to have not seen as much of them as I should have liked, when I reflect that we may never see them again. There have been tryings on at the dressmaker’s, who has fashioned a short black evening skirt & a couple of little jackets to go with it, out of an old evening frock & other oddments. There have also been visits to the Polish lady at the laundry depot who is also a working millener, & has furbished up a couple of hats that had become shabby & out of shape. There have been visits to furniture shops to see about reselling the few things we bought when we came into this flat. Twice I have had to go into the main part of the town for shopping, a performance which always seems to cut a big slice out of the morning. Added to this we have had several morning visitors, so time for letters has been short. Sunday was notable for the arrival of Edward Groth from Pretoria. Mrs Pierneef, Mickie & I had been to see some Malay dancing at six o’clock, & left early to meet Edward who came on the special train bringing the Union Government officials, which arrived at 7.30. p.m. Herbert forgathered with us at the station, & we really had a most amusing time which I have described in my letter. Mickie & May Pierneef came back to supper with us; the first occasion on which we have ventured to feed more than one person & it stretched the capacity of our table furnishings to the utmost. It was good to see Edward again, & he rang up the next morning to ask us all to go & dine with him in his hotel at SeaPoint. We had such a pleasant evening with him, a nice dinner & a stroll on the edge of the sea afterwards, just at sunset time. Dr & Miss Gill came to look at Photos of the Himalayas on Tues. After tea, & they must have been really interested, for they stayed such a long time. The next evening after dinner I went to a Malay Concert, really a choral singing competition, in the Town Hall, & came home about 10 o’clock, to find Herbert entertaining two of our young W.R.N.S. friends, who stayed till the latest possible minute which enabled them to be in by 11.15. The strain of entertaining two young ladies for so long quite exhausted Herbert! The head of the Art School & curator of the Art Gallery, who is old friend of the Pierneefs, asked us to a cocktail party he was giving for them in his studio last evening, & to-day we have had Vidie Carleton Jones to lunch, so we have also had a gay week socially. We are just sending you & Annette each 12 oz of quite nice 4 ply knitting-wool. It comes from Brazil, & is a little thick, but nice & soft. Yours is green & Anne’s almost blue-bell colour. I have bought myself some “dirty pink”, which I intend to knit up before I come home. In your parcel I have put a yard of 50 inch wide soft brown bunny wool material, which I thought Mrs Collins might perhaps make into a coat for Josephine, if you can spare the time to arrange it on my behalf. The colour of the material is not v. Pretty, but it was the only shade available. I hope the things arrive safely. I am sad to think that we have only just over another week in this flat. It has suited us so well. Its amusing to hear the different opinions of our friends about the probability of our getting home. Some are so sanguine about it, & think we shall get off quite soon. Others are of opinion it will take months & months!
Best love to all. Thanks to May if you see her, for “Fleet Air Arm” Joan
Family letter from LJT No 4
Victoria Court.
Cape Town.
Jan 22nd 1943 (should have been 1944)
My Dears,
If only I had waited a few minutes longer to post my air-graph to Grace this morning, I could have thanked her for hers of Jan 2nd, which has arrived in 20 days. That’s good is’nt it? So nice to hear that Xmas festivities went well. We do so treasure all the home news.
This letter is to be a short one, for I have been out most of this (Saturday) morning with May Pierneef, & I want to be free to spend to-morrow morning with her too. She & Mickie go back to Pretoria to-morrow evening, & I want to see as much of her as I can in the brief time that is left. Next week-end I shall not write, for, alas! we shall be busy packing to leave this flat. We leave for Elgin early on Tuesday & I shall write my next letter from there. Pleasure at seeing a place & people we like so much, in part make up for our regret in having to leave our little temporary home here, but really it all fits in well. We must be quite free after March 1st.
Lady Symes came in to see us one morning this week, partly to tell us about her daughter’s recent voyage home, for there were certain hardships which could be greatly mitigated by being prepared for them. The voyage took two months, which seems about the average time the letters take, so even if we get a boat fairly soon, it would be a long time before we arrive.
My little maid’s baby is better I am glad to say. I persuaded her to take it to the hospital on Thursday, & gave her the day off to enable her to do so. It always seems dreadful to me that poor people have to wait so long to get attention at hospitals. She sat from 2 p.m till 5 p.m. Then she was greatly downcast because the doctor just said that it was not the baby’s teeth that were the trouble (as her local doctor had said) but the ears, & he gave her drops to put in them. “Just a little drop, Madam, thats all he give, after I wait three hours.” In her untutored mind, bulk of medicine, should apparently match the time of waiting. But the doctor evidently knew his job, for this morning she arrived looking much more cheerful, with news that the babe seems quite well again.
Time taken up with housework, time at the dressmakers, two visits to the shops in the main part of the city (as distinct from my local “village” of Long Street) a visit to the milliner who has reblocked & revarnished two shabby hats for me, morning visits from Lady Symes and Mr & Mrs Cramer Roberts on different days, seem to have left me little time for my own odd jobs this week, especially as I have been staying rather over time in office some evenings & sometimes gone early too.
I have done the difficult part of the filing, now, and though much is still to do, it will be more or less straight forward destroying of useless material, not regrouping of single unmanageable files into six or eight different parts, which is what I have been engaged on up to the present. I shant finish the whole job before I go away, but can go back to it when we return to the Settlers’ Club.
There have been social engagements every evening this week, most of them connected in some way with the Pierneefs. Edward Groth had us all to dinner at his hotel at Sea Point on Monday, his friend Marischal Murray making the sixth. Edward said he wanted to see us before he got swamped by his official duties. It was a delightful little dinner and afterwards we strolled by the sea and sat talking and watching the sunset.
Dr & Miss Gill paid us a long discussed visit on Tuesday, to see some of my Himalayan photos, of mountains, flowers and people. They are genuinely interested in that sort of thing, as one can quickly tell from manner and the questions and comments.
The next evening we had to have supper early, as I was to meet the Pierneefs at the City Hall at 7.45, to attend a Malay concert, or more exactly a competition between a number of choirs, to which Dr du Plessis had invited us. We were the only Europeans there besides the judges. The great hall was filled with Malays, with their wives and children, the men all wearing red fezes and most of the women a small veil over the head. They were all so clean & well turned out, as well as being excellently behaved. We were in a box upstairs, and while each choir, which Dr Du P had introduced, was singing its three songs, he came & sat with us to explain things. We found it most interesting. I am sure you will be most amused to hear that one choir, for its comic song, produced something partly in Malay and partly in Afrikans, to the tune of “The Honeysuckle and the Bee”. Each choir had to sing at least one old folk song, and these were in the old High Dutch, parent of Afrikans.
Dr Du P said that had that big audience been of Cape Coloureds, it would have been almost unmanageable, for half of them would have been drunk or partially so, & all would have been ready for a brawl of some sort.
At half time the whole twelve choirs sang a couple of their well-known old songs for us. They had never practiced them together, but know them so well that the massed effect was excellent. After that we slipped away. I was home just after 10 p.m, and found Herbert entertaining two young W.R.N.S. They had arrived, without warning, for they had lost our telephone number. H. very sensibly set them to make coffee and make themselves at home, and they all looked very happy when I arrived. H. was beginning to feel a little weary then, I think, but the girls meant to make the most of their off time, and as they had leave out till 11.15 and their “barracks” are ten minutes walk away, they stayed till 11.5 p.m.
The head of the Art School and curator of the Art Gallery here is an old friend of the Pierneefs, and when I met him early during their stay here, he asked me to come to his studio when they came. On Thursday he had a cocktail party for them, to which we were invited, and which was a nice party, though it did not give one much chance to look at his pictures.
It was really quite nice to have an evening free of engagements yesterday, though we would have welcomed May & Mickie Pierneef, who were to have come to us for a short while on their way to dinner. They had been driven up to Elgin for the day, and I was pretty sure they would be late getting back, so was not surprised when they rang to say they had no time to come.
Vidie Carleton Jones, had been to lunch with us. She is staying at Muizenburg, and had to come into Cape Town for two meetings. It was nice to see her again, and she seemed quite pleased to see us, and gave us a warm invitation to stay with them again, if anything happens to prevent us going home. There is a certain ruthlessness and calling a spade a spade in her conversation, which is rather amusing, so long as you dont happen to be the spade.
So here we are round to Saturday again, and I abandoned all other duties and met May P for coffee at 10.45, sat talking with her till 12 o’clock and then went with her to a couple of shops, getting home at ten to one, to find Herbert, who had been out to call on the High Commissioner for India, sprucing himself up to go out to lunch with the aforesaid gentleman, who had hotly persuaded him to accept the invitation. Herbert’s first instinct is always to refuse.
At six o’clock we are due at May Pierneef’s farewell cocktail party, where there will be some very nice people.
Thinking back over what I have written, it seems to me that all these parties must sound pretty bad to you in England, but actually the expense of such an entertainment is not great in this country, where good sherry (by their standards) is 3/6 a bottle. Also they have all been small parties with the express intention of bringing a few congenial people in touch with one another.
We have got to know some interesting people in Cape Town now. Its interesting how just one or two contacts with the types of people one likes quickly spread and one meets others. We have been lucky in that way in all the countries we have been in.
We still listen to the news two or three times a day, and thank God that it continues to be so good.
Herbert is back from his lunch party now, and resting which gives me an added reason for stopping this.
Best love to you all
LJT
(handwritten addition)
No time for even a short note this week –
Best love –
Mother
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
January 23rd 1944 Sunday.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
Not much doing this week except among the mosquitoes who have had a lively time. My activities have been restricted, owing to the absence of the maid on certain mornings. Or extended in other directions. On those mornings I arose early and shaved while my tea was cooling; and I swept out the living room and the kitchen before my bath. After breakfast I did the bathroom and the bedroom. Not swift to perform these tasks, partly through lack of skill but partly because when I find cobwebs etc left untouched by the maid I feel bound to deal with them. Cleaning the rooms is a sad business; for the south easterly wind brings in layers of dust almost immediately to make up for what one has achieved.
One thing accomplished besides the cleaning of the house (which has the defect of being very tiring) was the changing of the ribbon on the typewriter, to enable Joan to use it for an airgraph as she likes doing nowadays because she can get more into the graph with it. When I was taking off the old ribbon I found why the machine had been giving so much trouble and sticking so often. The ribbon had frayed badly and part of the frayed out thread had become coiled round the bobbin in such a way as to act as a powerful brake. I had therefore been using only a part of the ribbon and quite a lot of it was still good though there was no way of using it to advantage; sad to have wasted so much in these days of scarcity. My bad typing now is due to my own efforts and cannot be blamed upon the machine any longer. The other evening I got out my old sentences of which I sent the family copies from Australia or Calcutta perhaps; and I found that they baffled me. - Now I demand myself whether they are particularly crafty or I particularly futile.
Last week’s talk about reincarnation was not so high-souled as you might have imagined. There was a tale of a widow who through a medium got in touch with her departed husband and asked after his welfare. “Everything is lovely” was the answer, “lovely grass and lots of lovely cows!” “But” protested the widow “why all those cows in heaven? and what do they matter to you anyhow?” “Heaven!” said the departed one, “This is not heaven. It’s the Argentine. And I’m a bull here.” Silly, isn’t it?
There is a dead rat in front of the door of the flat. The janitor says that the cat killed it and left it there. Not the first thing that she has done in front of our door; we have had to move the coir mat to a distance. Not a pretty cat. I met a squirrel in the gardens the other day which was in extremis in the lily pond; swimming round and round despairingly and unable to tackle the wall round it. While I was looking round me for an agreeable stick to serve as a ladder, a small bare-legged boy climbed over the railing and scooped the squirrel out with his hand. “Well done, my lad” I cried, in honour of the way Roy might have spoken; the boy thought me to be mad and departed hastily. Meanwhile the squirrel had fled, chased by others; no risk of its getting a chill. There are comparatively few of them to be seen these days.
My visit to the High Commissioner was inspired by Joan who urged that it might be useful to have his influence to help us get passages. I said nix to him about it; but craft was rewarded for he said suddenly that if I had difficulty I should let his office know and he might be able to fix things. Protestations that this would be unfair as likely to bring a lot of work upon him were brushed aside; and strange to say, Joan feels no shame. Conversation with him at lunch was mostly a matter of saying what toughs and toads the Bengal ministers were or are; I had to protest and defend them or some of them -- for some of them no one could defend or pretend to.
My chief impression of the party at the Art Gallery was amazement at the vast stock of drinks that the Professor had in a cupboard; the chief occupation of those among the guests who were artists or related to artists was to covet or to try to pinch paints. He has great stores of oilpaints: and it is impossible these days to buy in South Africa such things as Flake White. I was glad that there was no great opportunity to look at the pictures; for I was not attracted to them.
Was it in the Sense of Humus book, that tale? A variant of an old one. “They were married on Saturday and the baby came on Sunday morning.” “Quick work!” “Quicker than you might think. – They’d only met two months before.” Well, such things are. It has occurred to me that if Pepys were living now, which he is not, he might have addressed his “Gaze not on Swans” to the youths of South Africa, where the S.A.W.N.S. are spoken of as swans for convenience; Vidie has been dealing with maternity cases among Wrens, a few.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa
Cape Town.
January 29th 1944 Saturday
My Dear Annette (name handwritten)
Two days only left before we depart from this flat and Joan is up to the ears in packing. Hence my determination to act as her substitute this week in letter-writing. And first of all acknowledgements of airgraphs from Rosemary (31/12/43), Annette (11/1/44), Margaret (no date; but posted 8/1/44) and Phyllis Carey Morgan. Two pages this last and handwritten; interesting to see how much less it holds than the one typed page sent by the others.
As this is on behalf of Joan I shall essay to give news; and the diary method would be best. On Sunday – but I see that Joan did not last week describe the Pierneef cocktail party. It was in the garden at the back of the old Dutch house where they were staying; not too many people, plenty of chairs which to my mind is the chief thing in any such party though the profane say that once people sit the cocktail party is finished, and for things accompanying drinks a vast assortment that looked good but were of course not for me. Quite an amusing show largely spent in ragging Mickie who is undoubtedly a minx as Joan says but a charming one; she had been volunteering to stop a car and get a lift for us by “showing a leg” when we waited for a tram on Monday evening and when I mentioned this there was leg-pulling. My most promising conversation when I was leading Gwen Francon Davies on to talk about the Immortal Hour and whether one has to feel emotion when acting or can make do with pretence was blasted by a lady who came up and said “Oh! I must tell you how much South Africa appreciates your plays.” and then we merely smeared the butter round and round for some minutes. Me you may accuse of hypocrisy. Joan succeeded marvellously in being more highsouled in her conversations.
Talking of being highsouled let me say that the leaset h.s.ed book every met with is Reynolds’ “Cleanliness and Godliness” which I was reading over the weekend at the earnest request of one from Cyprus. It deals with W.C. humour and with sewage disposal, but also with the making of compost. If one could refrain from remembering that the author would be honoured by being classed as a goujat, one would be amused by much of it; in fact bits of it are screechingly funny and the end bits about the compost and the activated sludge gave the names of some books which I have been trying to trace and supplied the information that Freddy Temple has written a new work or a work new to me. All this led me to think that minds and such may be classed as humus heaps, septic tanks and cess-pools. Our author’s is the last of these; mine the second for whatever goes into it comes out purified; but the first is the best type, wherein everything is broken down into a uniform richness from which great things may be produced. The gift-book from Susie and Helen dealt with the first of the three only.
Joan says that it is untrue to say that I have done a lot of household work this week owing to the failure of Lucinda to turn up; I had the idea that I had laboured several mornings. I have very often done a lot of shopping or the equivalent; it is a mistake to start out on this soon after breakfast for I lie about useless for the latter part of the morning when I do. Few letters written and no work done at all. Joan of course as busy as can be; and she has worked most afternoons.
Sunday. Lunch with the Adamsons whom we met at the Gills’; he is Professor of Botany and she has been in India where her brother is now Governor of Bihar. Pleasant folk and it was nice to see on the wall of the drawing room a large photo of the snows from Darjeeeling. There were there also an ex-Commissioner of a U.P. division and his wife; rather dull; she discontented at being an exile and he is a chronic sprue case and thin as a rake. Also a Mr. and Mrs. Corbett, extremely nice and very interesting; his brother was the Sir Geoffrey Corbett who was second president of the Himalayan Club and Secretary to the Indian Government at the time when the row re the sinking of the Okara was on and when I wrote snappy comebacks to the letters received from his department about it, only to learn from him later that they had been drafted by the Viceroy himself -- Reading. I came back to lie down for a bit before tea; Joan went on to see Lady Wilson and to tea with Mrs. Harvey. After dinner we walked down to the station to see the Pierneefs off; they had told us the train left at 9 and of course had got it wrong; it left twenty minutes later. At ten past the train gave a jerk and at once Mrs. P. and Mickie kissed every one within reach thinking they were off; it was the engine being attached. Five minutes later the train jerked again; and everyone within reach was kissed again; another false alarm. Five minutes later the train did go; and this time no kissing.
It is sad to think that we shall never again see the Pierneefs; they are to be numbered among the good and the gay.
There was a great fire on Devil’s Peak on Sunday evening; it was still burning on Monday morning. It burnt red in a huge question mark on the side of the hill with red smoke above it; a nasty sight. Alas for the trees and the wild flowers! The Park keeper remarked to me that such fires were caused by empty bottles or bits of glass that focussed the sun’s rays; and I agreed heartily, remarking how strange a thing it was that the sun did such things only during the week ends.
Monday. The Cramer Roberts to lunch at a Tavern; three of them. We met at the Michaelis gallery where the pictures that were removed for fear of damage from air-raids have been replaced; one a Franz Hals very fine, but they are so heavily varnished and so hung that it is hard to see them. I went home to sleep and slept heavily; Joan to work.
Tuesday. To the doctor. Nothing much to report. I suspect that he is working through a list of medicines on me on the off-chance; he changes them whenever I see him. Late for lunch and afterwards did some chore; so did not sleep before tea.
Wednesday. Mrs. Forsyth and Thalassa to tea. Not late this time but twenty minutes early. I exclaimed that I hadn’t the kettle boiling and she that there was time to dash down to the Michaelis Gallery and be back before Joan came in. Me this did not suit for I had to stand by to let the maid in when she came to se to the tea, as had been arranged; late of course. But Eileen went off, at the pace of the Red Queen and with Thalassa in place of Alice. They must have run there and back and round the gallery; for they returned in about twenty minutes. Home-made scones for tea which dashed Joan’s spirits a bit, being flat. But the tea was a success; Eileen had lots to tell of, and she is amusing when she is not in a crowd, while Thalassa who is a sturdy child and will be a beauty some day ate three coconut cakes, a hunk of rich chocolate cake (her mother vetoed the second), and no fewer than six of the scones. A friend arrived to pick them up in a taxi and said that she could not wait for a cup of tea; and at this Thalassa behind all men’s backs scooped up a last scone and with one sweep of the butter knife plastered it with butter and so devoured it. Neatly; a conjuring trick; in an absent-minded way like Ralph Lynn eating a banana. I was cheered.
Thursday. Eileen dropped in and asked leave to use the telephone at lunch time; and as there was Irish stew it was possible to ask her to have lunch. Prattling merrily. She commented that we had been so lucky in our governess in India; she had tried the experiment of having one so ugly that no one could possibly look at her, but it failed. The one was a nurse now that I come to think of it. She had, said Eileen, such B.O. that the troops simply clustered round her like flies and she married almost at once, for being so ugly she had to jump at her first chance and to work hard to get it. Can such things be?
Friday. Mrs Smuts, dear thing, to lunch. How amusing she is and how genuine! To supper with the Cramer Roberts out at Claremont. He did not come in till nearly seven, having been out riding. The hour fixed for departure had been 10.30 but the start actually had been an hour later; the return had been promised for 3.30 but no one thought of that once they were out. I think that such vagueness must be a Characteristic of South Africa and not merely of the Pierneefs as before I imagined. Back from the supper by the 9.30 bus; but both of us were tired.
Saturday. Edward Groth to lunch and all went wrong. The maid did not turn up and did not telephone to say so; so we were all behindhand and Joan late in getting out to shop. The turkey, which we were to have had cold, was not to be obtained from Stuttafords’ after I had waited a quarter of an hour in a queue for it. The custard failed to cust. There was in the back of Joan’s mind the fear that we should be all behindhand with the packing . . . . . But the lunch was a success and Edward in good form. Less tired.
Sunday. Again the maid has not come. All preparations arranged for leaving the flat neat when we vacate it at 8 a.m. on Tuesday have thus been knocked flat, not to mention the fear that again tomorrow she will be absent. There was to have been a spring-clean.
I have tried to trace what happened to the parcels sent off in April. They were actually not posted till three weeks later, in the middle of May; and the postoffice says that they may well have been lying in the docks till June. Anyhow they went off and must have been lost at sea.
Much love
Dad