Menu Home Index Page 1929-32 1933-35 1936-38 1939-41 1942-44

The Townend Family Letters

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

October 1944

From HPV to Romey

Highways

Great Leighs,

Near Chelmsford

October 3rd. 1944.

My dear Rosemary,

Since my return home I have done little typing: and there is danger that I forget all the laboriously acquired skill. There seems but small opportunity for doing it, since I spend most of the morning first in making beds and cleaning the rooms (and boots or rather shoes) and in doing the odd jobs round the house. The latter are so many that I forget them: but examples are the mending of the two flat hat boxes (Annette’s?), shifting the photo of Richard sailing his boat into a new frame, making substitutes for the brass fixtures which enabled one to fasten up pictures on small nails without risk to the plaster, fixing loose handles on widows, topping small dandelions of the front lawn (no longer properly to be called such, for it is long grass round small fruit trees) to prevent them seeding themselves, putting handles on brooms and garden tools, - the list is endless almost. In the afternoon I have been lying down for lengthy periods except on a few days when I rose and worked in the garden; or as once cleaned out the toolshed which smelt sadly of cat or rather kittens and was in a deplorable state of dirt. After tea invariably work in the garden, notably in humus pit. After supper a slouch on the sofa till 9 when the news comes on: then I go across to the drawing room and sit there till bedtime which follows the giving of cocoa by Grace, Gavin or Peggie. A fair number of letters get themselves written while I lie about and, particularly, during these latter days I have written each day to Joan: but typing which involves sitting up and tires rather I do only on such rare occasions as this.

This is three o’clock in the afternoon: when for once I have a fire going. It occurs to me that perhaps one reason why I do not sit and write during the day is that the weather is chilly; not so long as one is working actively but very much so if one sits about. I do not like lighting a fire when I shall be out most of the morning; and Government has published an appearl not to use electric stoves unnecessarily and so I do not turn the stove on. I have the fire going today because the small washtub has sprung a leak: the man in the ironmonger’s told me that it is possible to solder a galvanised iron tub if one scrapes all the zinc off it first, and I have been essaying to solder up the leak. No success though I spent a long time yesterday scraping the thing; naturally the leak is along an awkward seam and by no means a straight-forward job. On the other hand I had unexpected success in mending the tall coke scuttle or shoot or scoop which has been so worn into holes by the evil habits of Mrs. Jiggins who pushes it into the coke pile and so scoops it full that Grace had decided to throw it away. I bought a pennyworth of rivets in Chelmsford, cut out a patch a foot square from a piece of old tin thrown away in one of Barnie’s dumps out in the field, and with some false starts managed to do the job. I had never used rivets before but it would have been easy enough if only I had had a heavy hammer or flat bit of iron to hold behind the work when I was hammering it: lacking these I had to put the thing flat against the head of the sledge hammer and do the rivetting from inside the scuttle by feel. The hat boxes were a triumph: for with scraps of Richard’s toy holster retrieved from the rubbish heap I mended straps and fastened the turn-buckles so that the boxes could be closed satisfactorily: they were of cheap American cloth looking smart but lacking strength.

Mrs Jiggins remarked the other day about her late husband with simple pride, “Well, I don’t know; but they do say as how his father was a gentleman from Braintree.” To listen to Peggie rehearsing the village gossip, no one is his father’s child in this village. There was a calamity the other day; complete disappearance of the big tray. We searched everywhere, and in the most unlikely places; there was protest when I went upstairs and searched in your room empty at the time, but I reminded them of Richard’s depositing the bread on the dressing table and refused to be put down. Next day the mystery was cleared up; for Mrs. Jiggins, asked if she could suggest anywhere as its hiding-place, said “Why! the waterbutt!” and there it was, in two foot of water. She had propped it up on the edge to dry after scrubbing it and someone must have given it a knock.

Talking of absentmindedness, I must relate how today, going to be front door of this annexe which is never locked at night, I turned the key and spent some time trying to get out of the locked door. It is true that the key turns the wrong way (the lock is on upside down) but there is no excuse. Whether spilling a cup of tea over the sofa and myself on two consecutive days as I sat down with the cup in my hand is absentmindedness or the infirmity of age I leave it to you to judge.

The Heath Robertson rake, botched up out of eighteen inch bits of the wire used by Parpie for cleaning out the drain under the goat stable, has proved a great success; I made it for my own purposes, for collecting leaves for the compost, but Parpie has adopted it for the goad-shed – though now that I think of it the goatshed products will go into the compost too. I continue to labour at the excavation of the pit which is for one weak so colossal a task that the interruptions due to the demands that I should do odd jobs have been a setback of the worst. Perhaps two-thirds are finished. If it were not for the leaky tub, I should have set myself to making the aeration channels along the bottom of the pit and to filling half of the eventual length with compost. Though I do not know how I shall manage to convey all the water needed down to the place: the cowl if full of holes and my failure to solder the small tub bodes failure with the more numerous leaks in the cowl. Of late the earth has been in sweet condition for digging; and if I had more strength the work would be pleasant indeed.

Mention of the rake reminds me that the other evening I heard Parp cursing aloud as he worked in the goatshed, milking probably, calling down destruction on “all these Heath Robertson devices”. Nemesis. For they were his own; the goatshed has been crooked ever since it was blown over in a storm and lifted up again by the troops who then were billeted near. He cursed also the defective spring in his spray-pump; but seeing how he refuses to keep any tool clean or in its proper place it is no wonder that they get out of order. Gavin spent his last day before going to resume work in building up a lean-to against the goat-shed for the proper housing of hay and the milking stool, out of scraps; and why promptly my brother should have placed an old chamber-pot in full view in the middle of it he alone knows.

Gavin had been away for a week on what we would call a barge; but, as it runs on canals and not on tidal rivers, its proper name is a canal-boat. The one on which Sonia is working with two other girls. They went down from the outskirts of London through Regent Park to the Docks and back. Delayed by breakdown of the reversing gear of their engine; which was a barrier to their stopping tying up for the only method of getting way off the boat is to put in the reverse. This led to their shooting past a place where they had meant to tie up and getting into a long tunnel wide enough for one boat only, where heavier barges from the other direction had been given the right of way: luckily they got through in time for otherwise there would have been disaster. Another time confused by the possibility of a recurrence of this sort of thing the girl steering managed to get the boat into one lock and the tow (called a Bully or a buddy or something like it) into one parallel to it; how they extricated themselves they do not even now know. The last adventure was to get the propeller fouled in the Docks on a hawser and to have their rudder taken off its pins. Gavin had to go down and feel what had happened in water thick with dead dogs and cats and smelling fiercely. Expert opinion when the workers arrived (it was a government boat and a workshop was near) was that he was wrong and the pinions were corked; and much annoyance was felt when after two attempts the rudder was lifted back onto the pins and, as prophesied by the lad, worked perfectly. It is a great pity that Gavin should ever be right; it would be better for him to realise that he is like other mortals prone to error.

One “Mac” who was in to lunch on Sunday when Gavin was back from the school ticked him off firmly for being quite wrong; and it was the sadder to feel that it was Mac himself who had slipped up, as indeed became obvious yesterday when there was a government announcement about the point under discussion – the precise manner in which the flying bombs or Doodle-bugs (to you maybe?) were controlled. Did I tell you that her sister had her house destroyed by one of these bombs on Friday? along with 200 others or perhaps 199 others. I do not like those bombs. They make a horrid noise as they pass and look ominous; though I confess that I have seen one only by day close enough to distinguish details. More of them apparently since the general risk of them became less have come over within hearing of this place: though there has been a lull this last day or two.

Through the window at that moment an agreeable view of Wilberforce being held down forcibly by Perkins and washed, resisting bitterly. Since the other kitten left and since Gavin went off I have failed to do my duty by Wilberforce who is not being handled enough. Marigold has been bought by a cafe. She had the more enterprise and vigour. It was amusing to see her sit straight up on her tail in the grass to look around her, with her two front paws hanging limp (not folded as I keep thinking) just like one of the squirrels in the compound at Chinsura. How boldly Wilberforce arched his back against first Brough, then Pim and eventually any member of the household, when once he had learnt how to do it as all! That Pimpossible Cat, but Gavin declared that it ought to be Pimportunate or Pimperturble, has distinguished himself by being caught descending from the kitchen table with two cabbage leaves in his mouth; and by curling up to sleep in a small basket on a table, much too small for him. Peggie remarked that it ran in the family, for his sister Yoyo got into the same basket at the Macs’ together with her kitten (which has the longest tail a cat ever had) as soon as the meat had been taken out of it – that would be cat’s meat brought from Braintree and shared with them. Perkins and her two kittens then proved the truth of this by curling up in another outside the shed, but usually they prefer the wheelbarrow until seduced by the superior charm of the soot-tin where they are at this moment. Pim has been having a sitdown strike against the ending of double summertime; he starts whining outside the kitchen door at the hour at which he has been accustomed to be admitted in the morning – i.e. 7 o’clock by the double summer-time but now 6, and my sleep has been much disturbed by him.

Oct 7th. Saturday.

Why I did not finish this I cannot say. Perhaps the arrival of Janie Wrey (?) and next day of H.D. gave me less time. I have been working against time to finish off all the odd jobs begun and to do the compost; and have failed: I shall have to go off on Monday leaving the compost heap undone, and Parpie has been talking of mixing it up himself if I do this. (He has now promised to refrain) It is disheartening to deal with him: he persists in throwing the sweepings of the goat shed onto the heaps where the materials for the compost are lying, so that I have no idea what proportions of nitrogenous and other matters there are; and as all depends on getting the proper ratio so that the microbes will flourish, the chances of making humus recede. He has been stringing lengths of cord steeped in a foul-smelling compound all round the vegetable beds; fox-smell to repel the advances of rabbits. The whole garden stinks of it. Worse although he proclaims that he has taken care to avoid it, he must have got it on the handles of the tools, for after working in the garden I find my hands reek. Of late he has been annoyed by failure to get Lord Haw-Haw on the wireless: listening to this bird used to give him much innocent amusement and he resents the loss of it. Mac told us that the other evening Haw-Haw had scarcely begun when he broke off, saying in English “What the hell is it?” and then added in German “ . . .all right, I am coming.” So that there is speculation whether he was picked up by the Gestapo at that moment. Me, I do not believe the tale, for everything else told us by him seemed to be highly coloured.

H.D. speaks badly of my habit of leaving letters unwritten for weeks and then writing reams. He is right too. But I shall finish this page. I was delighted to see him. His talk is most congenial. But I should really prefer not to be going down to Wiltshire to stay with them; the prospect of standing in queues and perhaps in the trains too does not appeal nor does that of relying on a small selection of clothes that can be carried easily in a suitcase, when there are chances of really cold weather and their house is very exposed.

Did I tell you of the mushrooms? Parpie came in with an armful from the field and sent round presents to neighbours; and gave about half a pound to some woman who came in to buy War-Saving stamps, with the distribution of which he has been landed. She said that they had been selling at 3/6 the quarter pound in Braintree just then – but they were cheap enough in town on Tuesday according to the papers. Peggie, Gav and Grace will not touch them for fear etc. After this I found in the field a great ring of small buff fungus which reminded me of a picture in Annette’s book; Marasmius Oreades, the Fairy-ring Champignon. Comparison assured Parp and myself that they were the identical thing and so alleged good eating; but Grace refused flatly to have them cooked. So we sent up specimens to the British Museum for identification by the Keeper of Botany (Ramsbottom, the writer of the book) who had offered to do this sort of thing in a letter in the times; and two days ago I got a reply, saying that they were the Champignon in question, much esteemed in France both fresh and dried (as flavouring) and enclosing Czecho-Slovakian recipes for cooking them. There is now a form of passive resistance: and as I am not a devotee of the things there the matter rests. Absent-mindedness; I packed up the fungus and found that I had forgotten to enclose the letter; then I unpacked and did them up again in a superior manner only to find that I had again forgotten to enclose it. Yes, you are right; but I could have screamed with irritation.

There has been a making of jam; blackberry; and I was put to shame by Grace who picked far more than I in a given time. She has strained some of the jam; so that there are the two kinds, Pippy and Pappy. Which description comes from your birthday greeting. It was Parpie’s birthday the day before yesterday; I went into Chelmsford to get him presents. Last week when I visited the place I went into 23 shops and such in a little over an hour, seeking things not stocked. It is a rush. Yesterday after trying in vain at four shops for a battery for Joan’s torch I found one in an ironmonger’s where I had not dreamt of asking for it.

Much love

Dad

From LJT to Annette

“Cleve”. East Knoyle

Nr Salisbury

Oct 11th 1944

Dearest Annette

I hope the rest of your day went well and that you met Christina as planned. Our journey was comfortable and not overcrowded. We talked to a nice young American officer from Boston – now back wounded from N. France – H.D. had had to come in to Salisbury on some business and met us – as also did Alice. This house is charming – just what I should like if it were not quite so out of the way. The village might well be occupied by The Three Bears, Red Riding-Hoods Grandmother and all their cronies. In spite of pouring rain, we walked out to shop this morning. Its pouring still, but with comfort and congenial company inside, who minds? Truly my brain must be a bit addled! First of all I left my bed socks in the bed at The Laundry. I have asked Cecil to have them handed to you sometime – and will you keep them and bring them to London when you come on leave? Secondly that calendar I was looking at in my diary was for 1945 – and Nov 5th is a Sunday not a Monday – I presume therefore that you will start your leave on the 6th (Monday). I shall now wait till I hear from Kitty Jenkins about the hotel – and then write to ask them to shift the booking to a day later. Sorry I am being so incompetant. Dad seems rested to-day after a good night’s sleep. He did seem tired yesterday.

Winsome is comforting about house-hunting – Everyone told them they would never get anything, but they watched the adverts in the Times – Came down to Salisbury and looked at 2 houses before they took this one. She advises me to follow the same plan. H.D. will write to Calcutta to get our boxes despatched as soon as possible. He now knows why some of their baggage took so long and says there is little likelyhood that the same thing would occur to ours, and we might reasonably hope that it would get home inside 2 months – Comforting! He does not yet know when he is to go, but will keep us informed in case he can arrange a meeting with you in London – You know, I think, how much I enjoyed both my visit to Bletchley and the one to Uncle Bous’ – and what a tremendous pleasure it has been to see more of you and meet some of your friends. I am now looking forward to our 9 days in London to-gether. We seem to have quite a number of things planned already –

Your letter to Dad arrived here this morning, so cant have been very far behind us – He sends thanks – and his love – and so do I.

Mother

P.S. I have written a note to Nadine thanking her for the evening we spent with her – but as I am not at all sure of the correct way to address her, I have told her I am sending it via you.

From LJT to Annette

“Cleve”

East Knoyle

Oct. 13th 1944.

Dearest Annette

Kitty Jenkins has promptly searched for accomodation for us – and sent particulars of the Prince of Wales Hotel. De Vere Gds – Kensington – W8 I have written off to book rooms for us there from Monday Nov. 6th till 16th. Dad will decide later whether he will come up for a little while.

Here is a map to show where the hotel is:- (hand drawn map follows with note that Bus 73, 9, and 52 stop)

Its phone is Western 1155.

Would you and Anne like to lunch with Dad and myself at the R.E.S. on Friday before you go to the theatre? Just send a p.c. if it suits you. I suggest meeting in the room where we had coffee (I forget its name) at 12-20, so that we can lunch by 12-30. We move to The Red Lion at Salisbury on Saturday – that is to-morrow.

This visit has been such fun – H.D. and Winsome both in great form – H.D. would like to see you but knows no more than the man-in-the-moon when he is to go, or whether it will be by air or by sea. It would be luck if it happened to be while we are in town. I have to confess that I have not yet written to the theatres about the November programmes, but I will do so as soon as I have finished this letter. My cold came to nothing – just a very slight sniffle on the day I came here and then it disappeared. I recommend you to keep some of those Cold Cure tablets always by you and begin swallowing them if you have the smallest sign of a cold coming.

Dad has a very painful toe – He dropped the rammer on it just before he left Highways and it was slightly tender – Yesterday, after we had been two walks, it was red, swelled and throbbing – We have little idea of how to treat it, so have bathed it with hot water and rubbed in Iodex.

Except for a nice patch yesterday afternoon and a lovely morning to-day, the weather has been vile. Winsome and I went into Shaftsbury this afternoon to do some shopping and it blew great guns and poured with rain all the time.

I’ve started writing answers of advertisements for houses to let – It will be interesting to see what replies come. I am waiting to tell Grace about this till I get home. By the way I did not make a note of the name of the couple who lunched with us at the Rly. Hotel on the day I left Bletchley – nor of the Australian girl – I asked the names 2 or 3 times and feel ashamed that I dont remember them.

My greetings to Irene – and I hope you both flourish

Love as always

Mother

Postcard from LJT to Annette (Postcards from LJT addressed to ‘Miss Annette Townend, P.O. Box 111, Bletchley, Bucks’)

Red Lion Hotel. Salisbury. 17/10/44

Your letter has just come – No! You made no mistake but spoke of meeting on Friday – Helen Hamilton and Audrey will meet us for lunch at the R.E.S. Is’nt that nice? Let us fix to go to “Comus” tec. On Wed. 8th matinée – Will you ask Rush if he can come? Better ask him to meet us at the R.E.S. at 12 or 12.15 and we can settle later whether to lunch there or elsewhere. If the he cant come on that day and the same Ballets are on in the evening, then let us go in the evening. I feel the same about “Peer Gynt” if Rush should choose that – Matinée if it suits – him; otherwise evening. That leaves us free in the days for other things. Do get the tickets on Friday if you have time – Better get dress-circle in both cases. If you hav’nt time, I might have, as I dont go down to Maidenhead till 4-p.m. – or I might get them on Monday – Romey’s letter has not come yet – I expect it will to-morrow. Love. Mother

From HPV to Annette

Salisbury

Oct 19th 1944

My dear daughter:

A many happy returns letter this: and may other birthdays be more peaceful and happier than this one! The cheque enclosed is, as already known to you, for gramophone records and from the two of us: and I hope that they prove a pleasure.

Now for news. Rain is the chief feature of our visit to H.D.’s and to Salisbury. The country round their house is lovely: I saw too little of it owing alike to the weather and to my having a sore toe. Soreness due, I think, to dropping a slege hammer on it a week before: after a day what was doubtless a little abcess burst above the nail and all became well. It was an error perhaps to have come away without a mackintosh or an umbrella: but it would have been a worse to come without a greatcoat, for even with it I have felt chilly now and then. Needless to say we had not meant originally to spent nearly a week in this hotel, though we have seen a good deal of my sister Alice during that time; it has been a waste of time to have to sit about so much in a bedroom.

Two visits to the Cathedral: except in regard to the spire it lacks the inspired courage of Gothic. The exterior is fine though simple, but the interior has a certain confusion of design. The triforium gives the impression of having been built as an afterthought on top of the main arches, and not of springing from them: and the same sort of check to the eye is a blemish to almost every vista. Each end huddled: choir dark – the aisle does not lead up to any glory in it. Also there is a taint over the whole thing of ornament by small minded men, in the chapels which incumber the transepts for instance. None the less the whole is fine: and I get satisfaction from viewing it. An exterior view that is without blemish is of the spire across the cloister. Lavatory glazed brick in the roof of chapter house and Lady Chapel I voluntarily omit – and would that restorers had done the same!

Winsome told us a pleasing thing. At her table in the hotel in Simla there was a fair girl: they conversed: and afterwards Winsome said to nurse that it was very hard to understand the girl who must be a Czech or a Pole: “Pole!” said nurse, scandalized, “why! she’s from Aberdeen.” Nurse is Scotch. – Of pleasing things seen one remains in my mind. There is a teashop “Moonrakers” (avoid it) in an old old skewwiff (skew whiff? – skewiff? no) house near the Cathedral gate, and it has a door frame upstairs so low that they have fitted a cushion in the middle of it as a crackpiece for the saving of scalps.

An engaging tale by an American sergeant lad, picked up in the Cathedral and brought home to tea and dinner. Seeing a baby alone in a pram outside a Newbury shop he stopped to wipe its nose for it (where’s your good Samaritan now?) and then to talk to it: an old lady passing said “Is that your baby? is it a half breed? They’re no good.” And so left him.

Alice says that when two officers tried to get a rise out of Billy aged six who was leading out his goat by asking “How much milk does your billy goat give?” Billy retorted “And how much milk do your men friends give?” She says also that the house was haunted by footsteps of men and women. A recent letter from Rex, in the wilds of north Burma, started “Oh mammie, mammie, Snodgrass is gone!” Snodgrass was a pet civet cat: it had not died, as I had supposed on hearing this cry of anguish, but had walked out on him: into the jungle. Into the jungle also went the pet squirrel, named perhaps Lydia, but not without provocation she: for he had refused to let her bite his ear.

There is a good church here: do not forget it when you visit Salisbury. St Thomas of Canterbury. Of its kind of the best.

I have had much satisfaction from the Malay conversation book. Short on other subjects it is voluble about running estates and midwifery. Three birds with one stone. If I learn the sentences. In phrase books what misfortunes befall the speakers!

This has drifted away for the topic of your birthday but I shall not return to it, beyond saying “Bless you”, and “I am glad that you are among the good.”

Yours

Dad

From LJT to Annette

(on hotel’s headed paper)

Red Lion Hotel

Salisbury

20/10/44

Many happy returns of the day! Next year perhaps it will be possible to have a proper celebration of you birthday. I hope this year it will pass pleasantly, even if you are at work, which I suppose you will be.

The morning news is on and the account of the amphibian landing in the Phillipines is going on, which makes it somewhat difficult to collect my thoughts – so I will cease, with dearest love and all good wishes

From

Mother

From LJT to Annette

1 Ray Drive

Maidenhead

Oct. 21st 1944

Dearest Annette

It was nice seeing you and Anne yesterday – and the Hamiltons. Helen says that Audrey looks robust now compared with what she did before she went to Egypt. One trouble is she just wont eat!

It occurs to me that it would be useful if you would send me a p.c. saying on what days you have fixed the visit to the doctor and to the eye-woman. (Her name has slipped my memory and I have not my address book with me – I can only think of “Merino” which I know is incorrect - ) – as soon as you know –

I have written to George Pilcher and told him we want to go up into the gallery round the top of the dome of St Paul’s and think it would be a good plan if he could lunch with us and accompany us –

He may write soon and suggest dates – I think his times at the B.B.C. are fixed a week ahead.

Its fun here – We sat up talking till mid-night – Frank seems much less violent in his ideas than Joey. He realizes that the New Jerusalem is not so easy to achieve.

What a holiday Romey had! It does not sound much like rest. I’m glad she has made up her mind and that the engagement is public – but I wish she sounded a little more thrilled – Love from Mother

Concerning Romey, there was no personal letter to us –

From HPV to Romey (air letter)

Addressed to

Miss Rosemary Townend

Penicillin Division

Messrs. Ayerst McKenna & Harrison

Ville St. Laurent

Montreal P.Q.

Canada

Highways

Great Leighs

Near Chelmsford

Essex

England

October 22nd 1944. Sunday

My dear Rosemary,

Annette’s birthday and so a reminder that the time has come (or is past) to write to you my good wishes for your’s. Many happy returns my child: and I hope that this anniversary will be the happier because things have worked out all right for you with Og.

It is tantalizing to think that there is at this moment a letter of your’s wandering round England. It is nearly a week since Annette told us that her copy had arrived; and we expected our’s to reach us at the Salisbury hotel where we were staying. But Grace suddenly uncertain whether her memory of the address was correct sent it on to c/o my sister Alice who had not received it before we left on Friday. I came straight back here, while your mother went on to stay with first Joey and then Mrs. Pilkington . . . . and I doubt whether Alice has either address. But unless she promptly sent on the letter to c/o the Pilkingtons it will not reach Joan in time; it is an out-of-the-way little place where they live and she will be leaving on the Wednesday morning.

So we are still without news of your adventures during your visit to the Rankins. Except that Louise’s postcard written in the train on the way back from Washington reached here late enough not to be forwarded; it gave no details as you may know already. There awaited my return as well a letter from Mary Ow and a large parcel of “good things” from her mother; addressed to me, but I am not opening it till Joan comes back. Wishing to be clever I remarked that parcels of foodstuffs from overseas were like Pandora’s box – when they were empty hope remained . . . that there would be another sooner or later: I forgot that the things which flew out of Pandora’s box were all the plagues, and the remark was hardly a compliment to the contents of the parcels.

Our main news you have already; as I suppose, for Joan was busy writing to you in the Salisbury hotel. The trip from my point of view was in a way a mistake; we had only a short time at H.D.’s and it seemed silly to spend the best part of a week sitting or rather slouching on my bed in the bedroom at Salisbury as I did because the lounge was crowded with people, mostly American soldiers, and thick with tobacco smoke which I dislike since I gave up smoking myself. My toe which went back on me painfully, perhaps because I had dropped the rammer on it a week before while using it as a backer for riveting the patch on the coke-scoop, has recovered tone and there are no signs of the nail coming off. It put a damper on my enjoyment of the stay at H.D.’s in that it prevented my going out with the others several times; but I put in some useful work in consequence, mending a lock on a cupboard door and putting hinges on Charlotte’s Peggotty box, made for her of plywood in Calcutta. Strange that H.D. never turns a hand to anything; it is like Bous who sent for a workman urgently the other day only to hammer a tack into a valance.

Winsome told us a ridiculous story about her having at her table in the Simla hotel a girl who spoke fluent English with so strange an accent as to be almost unintelligible; she said to nurse “I don’t like talking to that girl: it is too tiring: she must be a Czech or a Pole.” and was informed indignantly “She is no Pole – she is just a girl from Aberdeen.” Nurse is Scots herself of course.

Alice told us that she had just had a letter from Ron. It started “Oh, Mammie! Mammie! Snodgrass has gone!” He is in the North Burma jungle, and Snodgrass was a civet-cat (of all unlikely things) that he had tamed; it had returned to its jungle. Worse, his squirrel Lydia had done the same, but as he remarked she had had provocation, for he had refused to let her bite his ear. They had just had had stores dropped for them from a plane, They were quite out of food and almost out of ammunition; they had no money left and had exhausted their credit with the local inhabitants. News had come by runner that if the next attempt to drop supplies failed as those before had done there would be no more, because the danger over the mountains in the Rains was disproportionate; and then the plane which came circled round and round unable to find them and went off. Next morning in spite of the message there was the sound of a plane; they rushed out waving Ron’s sheet and through the mist were able to see the plane; it too circled and started off but at the last moment the rear-gunner spotted the sheet, and the parachute came down. Never again, says Ron, never again may I see the East.

She told us also a tale of Bill’s childhood. He was leading or being led by his goat when two officers of Harry’s regiment passed; “How much milk does your billy-goat give?” asked one of the: and Bill replied “How much milk to your gentlemen friends give you?”

We picked up a young American sergeant of Engineers when we visited the Cathedral and took him back to tea and dinner. He told us how in Newbury he saw a baby left outside a shop and topped first to wipe its nose and then to talk to it; at this moment an old lady came up and said “Is that your child? Is it a halfbread? They’re no good!” and stumped off, leaving him confounded. We were the occasion of his meeting a Captain of Engineers in the Hotel who came from the Boy’s home town and knew his father and most of his friends; both of them in Oil, for they were from Oklohoma, and they got down to it with tears almost of thankfulness to find someone to talk to about it. “Maam,” said the Captain to Joan, putting his hand on his heart, “Oil just gets you here!” A pretty speech.

In a teashop occupying a seven-hundred-year-old house with low doors there was a cushion fastened on the doorframe to serve as a crash-helmet so to speak; very practical. In another where there were low beams across the room, the waitress said that they did not need a crash-piece of this kind because all the waitresses were short; and, I suppose, it did not matter if the guests were laid out.

A wonderful cathedral Salisbury, but the interior is not so satisfying as some; the design is confused and the eye is checked every here and there by a sudden change of style. Also some of the stained glass is hideous.

It rained dismally most of the time; including the day of our return. Mrs Hamilton and Audrey to lunch at the royal Empire Society in London. They have just heard that Jock who had been missing after being dropped by parachute in Greece is a prisoner; someone heard it on the wireless and wrote to tell them.

Is there space to tell how Grace called to me to come and see the setting sun reflected in the seat of Parpie’s trousers? as he bent over a goat. When I came back she had done out the rooms, made my bed up and put two hot water bottles in it. What kindness! when she has so much to do anyhow.

Much love

Dad

From LJT to Annette

Appledown

Frilsham

Nr Newbury

Oct 24th 1944

Dearest Annette

I’m so glad “Richard III” came up to expectations. There is something so satisfying about Shakespeare – One feels one has learnt a little bit more about life even when the acting of the play is not first class – but when there’s a performance like this, its enthralling –

Gielgud’s Hamlet is so well spoken of that I feel it would be good to go to that if we can get seats – I think I shall have time in London to-morrow, as I shall be getting to London an hour earlier than I expected –

Your letter, by the way, arrived at 1 Ray Drive just as I was leaving – I have noted “Arms and the Man” for the 14th.

Yes! I’d like Nadine to lunch with us on Tuesday 7th very much indeed – Make what arrangements you like with her – I’m quite prepared to pay the little extra at a place like ‘La Coquille’ (Spelling?) if you would prefer it to the R.E.S. – which is certainly uninspired, though it is convenient.

Helen H. Has not yet heard where Jock is, nor has she heard from him personally. A little later you might write to Audrey and find out –

Audrey was in a sort of ‘decline’ before she went to Egypt. Helen thinks someone she wanted very much never came back from Dunkirk – the doctors were never able to spot what was wrong –

Alister Pilkington was taken prisoner in Crete and for a while almost starved, but is alright and news of him now is fairly satisfactory.

David has been taken out of the Army and sent back to his firm in Calcutta – So many of the senior men died that the firm did not know how to carry on, and it was vital to the war that their coal department should be efficiently run – so that is what he is doing –

They are not very hopeful about the housing question – but we have not had a great deal of discussion yet. Both of them had to rush out this morning and pushed my breakfast into my room for me. Evelyn will be back at 2 p.m. and we are then going to get out the map and have a through discussion.

This is a sweet place – and just the sort of house I once hoped we should be able to have!

I enjoyed the week-end with Frank and Joey greatly – We talked and talked and talked – Frank is much better balanced than Joey – He wants to find out about conditions in India and Africa – Joey’s method is rather to denounce all that has been and is being done and excitedly announce that the past should be swept away and socialist-communist methods applied at once –

Love – Mother

Postcard from LJT to Annette

Highways. Oct 26th 1944

Thanks for letter – In London yesterday I got ticket for “Hamlet” for you and me and Mrs Dunn for Friday 10th. Evening – middle front row dress circle –

Dad has an appointment with dentist on 8th. I have written to book him a room at our hotel on 8th and 9th. George Pilcher likes the idea of going up St Paul’s with us. If you have not got appointments with doctor or eye-lady on Thurs 9th I will ask if he can lunch with us that day and do the expedition; then Dad could be with us if not too tired. He will possibly spend the evening of the 8th with Walter Jenkins.

Pilkingtons not at all hopeful about houses – Its fun being home again, especially with P. away. She is going to stay up in the north for some time. Aunt and I saw a Doodle blown up in the air last night – a long way off, but a fine sight –

Love Mother

P.S. If you want a hat-box I can easily bring or send one to London, for I need one and could put your brown one inside the large black one, without any inconvenience.