1954 July - September

    

July. Meat rationing ends. Dumb Roman entry. "By Man Came Death." Shakespeare to perfection by Mrs Attrill. Boys prefer fish to Aristotelian virtues. Mendès France rejuvenates France.
Thursday, July 1st

    Mrs Clayden and I went up to see Syon House. She drove in her car, which is much better than ours, and we got there successfully about 2.30, but in going down to look at the river we completely lost the way and ended by driving in a circle over Richmond and Kew bridge and back past the house we had just started from! This wasted time, prestige (mine) and and petrol. However, Mary C. quite cheerful and unperturbed.

 

Friday, July 2nd

    Went down to Fawley Meadows with Mary. Saw the Yugolsav sculler who carries all before him. Also two floosies on the towpath side, one brunette and one blonde, with poodle, out hunting - the floosies not the poodle!

 

Saturday, July 3rd

    An ill-considered day! Social! Molly Trengrouse lunch, Miss Boselli, Mr and Mrs Brown and baby for Regatta. To Fawley Meadows. Started to rain, then to pour. Then had to come back and change. While taking off trousers caught with rheumatism in back.

 

Sunday, July 4th

    Feeling sorry for myself. Pills for gall bladder with soreness there, soreness in penis, query due to acidity, and now screws in back to finish off with. Perhaps some of this due to frustration and uncertainty about the future. Dr Irvine always asks if I am suffering from mental stress! Positively no desire to drive Mary over to Oxford next Wednesday or even trek out to Switzerland in August.

    Meat rationing ended this week, and so rationing finally ended after 15 years. Certainly in 1939 never imagined it would last so long, but then one never does.

 

Monday, July 8th

    Back better, but subject to twinges. A very busy morning getting sixth form off to conference on Why Be Good, then starting the G.C.E. O level, coping with a boy who had pushed a girl down the tennis court bank, clearing up letters and ringing the Education Office about a clerical error by which they had admitted a boy we had rejected, "the dumbest Roman of them all", too! A difficult problem, finally settled by admitting all the dumb Romans. So nice to sit on a selection committee all day for this result. Still "they will fill a desk as well as better" I suppose.

    Reading Schoolmaster's Harvest, J. H. Simpson, contains a story about Homer Lane. When he asked old roué what he wanted, he replied "Starch!" He had previously kept two women to the satisfaction of all parties, now he found he could only keep one!

    No summer so far this year. Cloudy and at times heavy rain.

 

Wednesday, July 7th

    The local archers have been up shooting on the field because their own is taken (by Regatta?). From the house you can hear the twang of strings and the whack of the arrow on the target, though you cannot see its flight. Over head the jet bombers fly! What we need is a return to the weapons of the C14th and the resources of modern medicine, and then not much damage would be done to anyone!

    E. L. Woodward, my old tutor, is giving two talks on the implications of the hydrogen bomb. He gave the first last night - By man came death he calls them, and I thought it masterly. Man might survive, but civilization would not survive the obliteration of the great cities. He saw no hope in international agreement where there was no trust; it would be better to postpone the use of atomic fission. Pacifism would mean the lowering of the standards of the better off. The barbarians of the C5th came in because they wanted to share the good life of the empire: they destroyed it. He spoke of himself as standing on the threshold of old age and seeing ahead the most dangerous ten years in the history of mankind.

    Tonight he went on: We were drifting, hoping no one would use it, accustoming ourselves to a situation, dulling public consciousness,

we were in danger of reaching in a sudden crisis a situation of no return. There is always the time factor in relation to striking power, as in 1914, and the danger of losing control of events; disarmament was too slow, the grandiose simplicity of world government was hardly worth discussing, no prospects of this now. The first step should be a pact of immediate retaliation against whoever used the bomb or handed it to others to use - this was an overriding act of treason against the human race. There was, of course, no guarantee that it would be observed, but it was based on a fear common to all. 

 

 Tuesday, July 13th

    A letter from Con. She and Allan had enjoyed Strasbourg though they had had bad weather. They had made an expedition to the Vosges and into the Black Forest. In my letter to her I had said I hoped time had healed and the wounds and scars of experience no longer hurt. She wrote: "Dear Hu, I do think the wounds have healed at long last. I was strangely moved by the Gare de l'Est and by the journey along the Marne of ever loving memory." 

    

Saturday, July 17th

    Snowshill Manor in afternoon. A gloomy, dark Tudor manor house, gave an impression of discomfort, cold and damp.

 

Sunday, July 18th

    Went over to Chastleton House in the afternoon. Taken round very slowly and thoroughly by an old dame. A fine long gallery at top of house.

 

Monday, July 19th

    From the discomforts of the C16th and the crudities of the C17th to the magnificence of the C18th at Osterly. It was a lovely house and enjoyed it all the more for having seen Snowshill and Chastleton just before it. I made the children sit under a tree and gave them a talk on the splendiferous men of the period and the Aristotelian virtues of magnificence and high-mindedness. Some of the boys however more interested in the fish in the lake, of which there were great quantities.

 

Tuesday, July 20th

    Out with Mary to the Downs for tea and supper. She was at her worst and would make no gesture of affection towards me. Just as I was leaving the flat she began to complain.

 

Thursday, July 22nd

    Felt a holiday of 10 days shut up with Mary in an Alpine village, and possibly confined to hotel by cloud on the mountains, just more than I could stand, so wrote and said so. Suggested she should go to Holland alone.

 

Friday, July 23rd

    Had to go over to flat for an hour. Finally agree to go to Holland with her. At any rate hope there will be something to do if it rains.

    The play [A Midsummer Night's Dream] performed on the lawn on Thursday went off well. Dresses from new firm very good, grouping and entrances excellent, very clear diction, and an even cast without "a poor tail", an outstanding Puck [Brian Hewlett] and lovers who tackled their impossible parts with professional zest. Another success for Eric Attrill. Trying though I find her, she can produce Shakespeare and her perfectionism can be put to good use there.

 

 

 

Saturday, July 24th

    Saw part of the matinée performance (we had to abandon yesterday's performance, then over to L.P. to hear Hilary in the speech competition. He spoke to about 400 people in the new gymn and had been drawn first. There were four speakers, on comprehensive schools (Hilary), anti Latin, science in Education and Industry in the Country. The anti Latin was by far the best, he quickly established a rapport with the audience and had a limited objective. I put the earnest scientist second, Hilary third and the town planner last. This was also the view of the judges.

    [Editor: My memory of this event is that my speech was terrible, an objective far too broad, no rapport with the audience (I learned from this experience, however), while the well-deserved winner defended the genius of Charlie Chaplin - following the 1952 release of Limelight, starring Claire Bloom. I suppose I must remember the 1953 competition, in which I did not compete, and evidently failed to learn from the example of the 1953 winner!].

 

Sunday, July 25th

    We are all thankful that for the first time for almost a generation there is no war going on somewhere in the world. An Indo China agreement was reached last week. People are inclined to regard it as a victory, but for France and the West it is the recognition of defeat. We have been beaten in a local war where the bulk of the population was not on our side.

    The new P.M. of France, M. Mendès-France, has brought off his wager to end the war within a month. He has said he wiill follow the aim of financial stability of Poincaré, the economic and social reforms of Blum, the aim of strong government and resistance to the pressure groups of de Gaulle. He seems to be infusing new life into France and is shaking the country out of the cynical doubt which has rotted it for so long. He has got to tackle the N. African question and clear up the mess at home against the unholy alliance of the upper classes and the communists, who between them have sabotaged every basic reform after the war.

 

 Monday, July 26th

    Another awful day. Even the swimming sports had to be postponed and of course the play was cancelled.

    Hilary came back, his school days over! He said Leighton Park was very pleasant and he had enjoyed his two years there. Ounsted had said he couldn't think why we had sent him to Long Dene!

    Reading Arnold Bennett's Journals. Wish mine were as amusing!

 

Tuesday, July 27th

    A semi-gale and cold in the morning with showers. However we got through the swimming sports. I did not attend. I did not want my back, which is rather better, to get worse again.

    The play was finally performed in a strong s.w. gale, which carried the voices and smothered them with the rustling of leaves. Hilary and I wore duffel coats and then felt cold in our seaman's jerseys. A smallish audience huddled together in their chairs. The wind did keep the rain away, but anyone who plans to perform anything out of doors in the English climate is mad! However the English will do it!

    The other morning the curate told me he was out taking communion to a parishioner when he met two young men in cassocks and girdles, whom he took to be theological students. They wished him good morning politely. Later in the day they visited Goodall's, the tobacconist, to book two coach seats to London. When they visited the gentleman's lavatory, which is under the Town Hall opposite the police station, the sergeant looking idly out of the window noticed they wore Borstal trousers under beneath their skirts!

 

Thursday, July 29th

    No luck! Felt as if I had a rupture, so rang up Dr Hartley and went down to see him. He said I had a kidney infection and now right testicle very swollen. I must rest. HELL! Wrote booking two tickets to Hook, an act of faith!

    9 p.m. Temperature 100.

 

Friday, July 30th

    Went down to lunch, but testicles hurt so much that had to go back to bed.

 

August. The brigadier. Wasted holiday. Cricket suffers from rain. "We can't contract out of Europe." The closed door problem. Beekeeping in decline. Hilary turns lobster red.
Sunday, Aug 1st

    Doctor Hartley arrives. Examines testicles. Says rest is the only thing. Smoky Pasha comes in on settles on my bed. I try to move him, but he gets nasty and tries to bite me.

    Read about Coventry City Council's refusal to sanction  beginning of new cathedral. "What's the use of a cathedral anyway," is view of many local electors. No lead from democracy, or rather for democracy, from city fathers. Sir David Eccles, Minister of Works, has given licence to the cathedral builders over the city fathers' heads. They have decided to co-operate. An odd story.

 

Monday, Aug 2nd

    Started taking M & B every four hours. Head buzzy. M & B used to have a bad effect when it was first used, but this kind only makes your eyes feel funny like a heavy dose of aspirin. 

 

Wednesday, Aug 4th

    This was the third day of the M & B and the worst. Miss Hunter infiltrated about 3 and I felt I couldn't bear it, thought I should scream. Said to Hilary at lunch, "I feel like cutting my throat, but it's too much trouble." "You haven't lost your innate characteristics anyway," he replied!

 

Thursday, Aug 5th

    When Hilary brought up the letters a bolt from the blue. The Brigadier sent home from Army Cadet Corps camp in Cornwall for interfering with soldiers and cadets, including three of ours. Two leaving anyway, but one coming back. Wally says the police may want to question other cadets not at the camp. You never know where you are. The Brigadier an unpleasant character whom I should have suspected of drink or drugs rather than immoral practices with boys.

 

Friday, August 6th

    Heard that the wretched man had shot himself on Tuesday afternoon after sending his wife to Oxford. I should think she must have known what he intended to do, but the law was merciful and all that was said was that he was worried about an interview. No boys will have to give evidence. Poor man. I am very sorry.

 

Saturday, Aug 7th

    Hartley arrives. Pumps streptomycin into my behind and will do so for five days. Works Sundays! I must be a gentleman of leisure. No walking, but sitting about. 

  

Monday, Aug 9th

   Pouring with rain and looks as though it will never stop. Letter from Maud. Old Capt. Openshaw takes flower to Barbara Westmoreland; as Maud is helping him back to his house next door, he suddenly catches hold of her on drive; she brings out a chair for him, and he collapses and dies. Well, he died taking flowers to a lady; worse fates than that!

    Dr Bohn [surgeon] sends a card to say he will be pleased to see me on Sept 3rd. So that will be nearly the whole of the summer holiday gone.

 

Tuesday, Aug 10th

    The results of A level arrive. Very much better than expected. Giles passes in history, Boss-eyed Smith gets a distinction. All the rest do well. I must be a better history teacher than I thought!

 

Wednesday, Aug 11th

    Hilary's results arrived. He passed in both English and history. Much relief all round.  

 

Friday, Aug 13th

    Mary arrived at 3.35 for tea and stayed to 6.15. She looked well and was pleased to see me. Had tea with N and H in sitting room and were able to sit out afterwards on terrace till a thunderstorm started. Mary said I must think of her in Holland and "keep her in my heart." I said I would do so.

 

Saturday, Aug 14th

    Today has been the first really fine day for weeks and have been able to sit about on the terrace where previously it has been too windy.

    The terrace looks over a dry valley in chalk, which forms the school playing field. Below the terrace the ground slopes down to the smooth green turf. The slope is covered now with rough brown grass, ragwort, scabious and thyme and dotted with small hawthorns. Beyond the playing field the opposite slope is cultivated in four large fields, three leys and one arable, except where five coppices stand, matching the one on our slope. On the top of the hill runs a continuous line of trees and to the right broken masses of woodland rise to Peppard Common and beyond. On the left, cut off by the curve of the valley on its way to the Thames, but at the same height, is the new Gainsborough Housing Estate, largely masked by the trees in the school garden. The view, though a limited one, is pleasant and green and open. The situation of the house itself is lacking in privacy if you are ill and wish to avoid callers, for it can be approached both from the front and back.

  

Sunday, Aug 15th

    A lovely morning. Wake up at 6 o'clock when I hear Nora's alarm clock. Think of Mary just going down to the get the train to London. Go to sleep again. Dream I have to go up to start in eights week. Have to get motor launch to go; it is late! Then am coxing eight in which only Nora and boy are rowing, 2 + 4, to pick up crew further on. N asked me to put two pairs of shoes in cox's seat. We are just about to start when wake up.

    

Monday, Aug 16th

    Pleasant day with no wind and sat about on terrace in the afternoon and after tea walked down to lawn and back. Marvellous after you have been ill how ill-adjusted your muscles are to walking over even moderately rough ground.

 

Tuesday, Aug 17th

    Donald heath arrived about 10 and stayed for an hour. He has a job as assistant to Professor of Medicine, who is an authority on congenital heart disease. He says it is rather like collecting stamps. You have to make contacts by which you may acquire good specimens for your collection. Perhaps a surgeon when doing some operation will cut you off a bit of lung to add to it.

 

Wednesday, Aug 18th

    A dull day, blustery and cold, impossible to sit out. Had a long letter from Mary telling me of her adventures in the Hague up to Monday night.

 

Thursday, Aug 19th

    Dull, cold and drizzly. Had electric fire on in the drawing room all day and did not feel too hot.

 

Friday, Aug 20th

    Another bad day. Rained all the afternoon; The cricket clubs are said to have lost thousands of pounds this dreadful summer.

    Finished re-reading the adventures of that immortal rogue Monsieur l'Abbé Jérôme Coignard; always particularly enjoy the binge in Catherine's house in the Rue du Grenelle and all the conversation at that famous supper and the remark by Catherine, "A women with no bosom is like a bed with no pillow"!

 

Saturday, Aug 21st

    The morning was fine, so Nora persuaded us to take our tea to Ewelme Down. By the time we got there high cloud came over and it began to get fearfully cold and to blow. I felt perished and terribly depressed. By half past six it was pouring with rain. Heard a curlew on the Downs several times.

    We seem to have reached a crisis in European affairs. Holland, Belgium and Italy will not accept Mendès France' watered down version of the E.D.C. because they say it would be in effect a new treaty to ratify all over again. 

    People argues as if the Germany of today is the Germany of 20 years ago. It is not. Germany is sandwiched between the U.S.S.R. and NATO and would be the first to be fought over. She should become a partner in the West with our consent and safeguards. 

 

Sunday, Aug 22nd

    Went over to the school, tidied up and fixed classrooms for next term. Being able to do a bit more makes one less depressed. But miserable that the holiday is half over and completely wasted.

 

Monday, Aug 3rd

    Fixed an appointment with the hairdresser hoping if I get a haircut I shall feel less old, decayed and ill.

 

Tuesday, Aug 24th

    Another foul and filthy day of perpetual drizzle. Last night the meteorological chief explained on the wireless that these bad summers were a regular occurrence and part of the general set up of our maritime climate. We could not expect a run of good summers! This one has not surpassed 1903 - but don't remember 1903.

 

Wednesday, Aug 25th

    Mary had come up on the night boat - a very rough crossing - and rang up from Reading about 11.30, so asked her over to lunch - as she was only feeling capable of eating an egg this was easy! After lunch looked at the postcards she had brought me - Matisse, Braque, Picasso, etc, and compared them with mine. Walked around the garden and sat on the edge of the fish pond. Went back to Reading on the 4 o'clock bus to catch the train to Oxford. She had not spoken to anyone except waiters and hotel keepers for 10 days and then only a few words. She was unable to go out at nights alone without being accosted, so could not go to concerts or cinema.

    Went to have my haircut, which made me feel better. Testicle all right in morning, but not by evening. Very disappointing after 3 1/2  weeks.

 

 Thursday, Aug 26th

    A nice day for a change, so after lunch we took our tea, N., H. and I, over to Cliveden. Went to see the Water Garden, then to Peel's Oak by the Long Garden. On a buddleia in the Long Garden there was a cloud of butterflies, commas and peacocks, most beautiful. After being immured for nearly a month, it was a lovely treat.

    Had a fatless supper in preparation for x-ray tomorrow.

 

 Friday, Aug 27th

    Had no breakfast and N drove me down to hospital. A rather saturnine and negroid gentleman took a series of photos in the middle of which I was given a coffee-tasting drink. In the intervals of this I sat in the waiting room with a variety of children for some clinic or other and one of the fattest women I have ever seen of hippopotamus like girth. It took about one and a half hours.

 

Saturday, Aug 28th

    Take off some honey in the morning and Boss-eyed Smith brings over three postcards from Dublin. He stays rather too long, but says Ireland has convinced him of the benefits of the Reformation!

 

Sunday, Aug 29th

    Took off remainder of honey and spent most of the rest of the day extracting and straining it with Hilary's help. Dark and treacly in appearance, but rather more than I expected. 

    Debate in the French chamber continuing. The soldiers say our frontier is now on the Elbe; wish it had been still further east! Politicians have not kept pace with this fact. We like to think we are not a part of Western Europe and can partly contract out. We can't. We must keep our troops there so that the Americans will also remain. But we can't do this without the help of the Germans, yet our presence there will ensure, E.D.C. or not, that the German army is not used for new nationalist ventures. As long as the Russians think there is a chance of disrupting the western alliance and "neutralizing" Germany they will not settle down. A neutral Germany is a perpetual temptation to further try-ons by the Russians, bullying and bribing. I am sure Churchill of all men understands this and if E.D.C. fails will try to build up a looser form of community of which Britain will or ought to be a part.

    There is nothing in which Nora and I differ more than in the matter of doors. To my mind minds doors are there to be shut in order to give you a sense of privacy. N appears to regard them as unnecessary hindrances to movement, which should therefore always be open - wide open. You enter the hall by the front door. The hall is a pleasant place, lit by a tall staircase window through which you see the beech trees, and painted a pleasant shade of greenish grey. That is if the door to the kitchen in shut. A gentleman's residence! Leave to door open and fail to close the back door it becomes a slum. Through a dark and untidy kitchen and scullery you look straight at a corrugated coke bunker and an assortment of dustbins backed by a creosoted wooden fence. This never appears to worry her at all.

 

Monday, Aug 30th

    Hilary went up to London on the 8.34 as a city gent for the first day at Davies, Laing & Dick. He arrived back about 6.40 looking rather pale and tired and promptly took his collar off.

 

Tuesday, Aug 31st

    Finished bottling honey - 105lb in all, "all" meaning a 14 lb tin of uncertain date scraped off the floor! Just after the war there were 120,000 beekeepers, now there are about 60,000, and their number is still dwindling.

    Was uniting two colonies when almost dark when Hilary got stung on jaw. In a few minutes he had turned as red as a lobster and was covered with white blisters and rolling in agony with the irritation. I had to ring up Irvine who fortunately was in and take him round in the car. Irvine gave him a small blue pill, which in half a hour worked wonders.

 

September. "Pure gallows" intake. Hazel Reynolds. Jimmy Edwards' flying machine. "The chap" who played Antony.
Thursday, Sept 2nd

    Irvine rang up after supper and said x-rays showed no gall stones and only thing if it got bad again was to take pills.

 

Saturday, Sept 4th

    Got to Exmouth in time for tea at Clapps. Had an excellent room on the third floor looking across the bay.

 

Monday, Sept 6th

    A very wet morning. it improved later, so went over to Clyst St George to see the new church, which I did not think much of. To Exton for tea with Maud. 

 

Wednesday, Sept 8th

    Hilary's birthday, 18. Sent him a cheap copy of South Riding and a greetings telegram.

 

Saturday, Sep 11th

    Lunch with Maud, then to Exeter and back to reading by 3.30, home by 6.40 bus, met by Nora at Town Hall. Maud revealed her age, 74, pretty good. 19 when bridesmaid at Mother's wedding, 1899. Bird record when away: gannets and terns, curlew, whimbrel, oystercatchers, sanderlings.

    Daisy, Klaus and Uschi Boehm staying for weekend so a houseful. Hilary very pleased;

 

Monday, Sept 16th

    Term opened. 64 new children, and some juniors, as I said to Mary C, "Pure gallows".

 

Saturday, Sept 18th

    Took Nora and Hilary (his birthday present) up to London to see Christopher Fry's play The Dark Is Light Enough. Fry not my cup of tea. Rather bored by play. Edith Evans good to watch, but feel author a poet, not a dramatist, and so wishful to avoid stating the obvious that he lapses into the obscure.

 

Monday, Sept 20th

    Have one girl for history at A level, Hazel Reynolds. Her parents came up on Friday and found they were Norfolk people. The accent I could not place. A promising girl, but dull talking to one solitary wench. However on the whole glad to be back at school instead of hanging about in the house 

 

Wednesday, Sept 22nd

    Cliveden for the last time this year. Picked Mary up at Hambleden and ate our tea in the Water Garden. Got back to flat at 7.30. Mary was very lively and full of fun and affection and we were both happy in spite of enforced celibacy.

 

Thursday, Sept 23rd

    Ioan came down in Jimmy Edward's high powered auto. He had been flying for J.E. In order to get out of Blackpool, where he has been performing, he had bought an aeroplane and they had been going here and there in that so that Jimmy could play polo. Apparently it goes at 150 m.p.h. and they have to fly at below 2000 ft. He says it is desperately uncomfortable and fear and anxiety communicate themselves very easily when in the air. They had got stranded in low visibility over the Potteries and in a gale at Blackpool. He had driven from Oxford in 20 minutes, 21 miles!     

 

Saturday, Sept 25th

    In the evening H., N. and I went to see a film of Julius Caesar. It had John Gielgud as Cassius and he was superb - and alone. Brutus was James Mason, could not speak blank verse, and Antony was done by a chap whose previous success, Hilary told me, was in A Street Car Named Desire. The crowd scenes, as one would expect on film, were effective and they spread themselves on the Battle of Philippi, which was staged in a defile, cowboys and Indians style. Well, it all went to show that actors are one thing and film actors another, and the latter, who have not been trained on him, can't make much of a shot at Shakespeare. 

 

Introduction

Hubert Dunford Barnes (1900-1984), Headmaster of the Grammar School, Henley-on-Thames from 1934 to 1957, started a diary on May 28, 1940, when the conquest of Britain by Hitler's Germany appeared imminent, and kept it regularly until 1980. This blog will publish the diaries for 1940-1958, the Henley years, in instalments over the next few months.

1954 April - June

April. London gummed by Americans. Entente Cordiale at 50.  Mr Marcham and Len plants potatoes. Leslie Tydeman's farm. Black Mountains. Wildfowl Trust.

Friday, April 2nd

    Got a £24 repayment from income tax and also apparently a rise in salary, so shall be able to afford a new dark suit for state occasions as well as giving Mary one. She has chosen a medium brown one, with which she is very pleased for cut and style, and is having it altered.

    Mr Hirons back from his four-day course on atomic warfare. Wonder if he intends to go into A.R.P. full time. Shouldn't mind of he did.

 

Saturday, April 3rd

    Shopped and chored in morning after Nora left for Psychological Congress in Nottingham, then drove over to Reading and met Mary on platform, up by 2.30 to Clifton Court Hotel. After supper we went to A Question of Fact at the Piccadilly - Pamela Brown and Gladys Cooper - a good straight play about an adopted child who discovers his father was hanged for murder and the effect this had on his marriage and his job as a classics master at a public school.

    Oxford had won the 100th boat race so wondered whether there would be liveliness in the West End, but all was jammed by gum chewing American air force in civvies.

 

Monday, April 5th

     The field was white with frost. Looking from my window at school into the walled garden, the strips of daffodils are in flower, the pear trees covered with tiny yellow buds, which catch the light, contrast with the apples' whitish grey. The eye is tired of the evergreens which have accompanied our winter journey, and looks eagerly to the chestnuts, which are bursting into tiny leaf. The grass fields opposite have been ploughed, harrowed, reseeded and rolled. They lie waiting to conceive, the shadow of trees pencilled delicately on the smooth curve of their breasts. Mr Marcham [the head gardener], Len and a party of boys are at work planting early potatoes.

 

Thursday, April 8th

    Anniversary of the entente with France in 1904. Only wish they were more satisfactory allies.

 

 Friday, April 9th

    We broke up. For the first time I forgot to bring the form orders down to senior assembly. Slipping obviously. Also slipped in sixth form as went in with flies totally undone, however gown over my chair so hastily turned, put on that and clasped it over me like a dressing gown! Went round the forms as usual at 2.30. Had just heard Hilary a mumps contact, so said to one, "I hope you don't contact any infectious diseases!". "Same to you", they replied. Fifth form presented me with a bunch of primroses and violets.

 

Saturday, April 10th

    Ordered a suit from Mr Wilcock, which will cost me £30, chosen blue with a diagonal stripe, which hope will look dressy for evening wear! But is a lot! He was gloomy and said wool was rising again and hoped the pound would not go the way of the franc. 

 

Sunday, April 11th

    Reading Nine Rivers from Jordan. Contains some good telegraphese. Opening verse of the Rubaiyat ("A book of verses underneath the bough...") in seven words

    Verserprint subbough

    Eucharistwise

    Come songstress desertwards

    OKays wilderness

 

And also the classic exchange:

    Why unnews

    - No news good news

    Unnews unjob

    - Upshove job arsewards 

 

Tuesday, April 13th

    The third of our Comet airliners has crashed, this last one in deep water where it cannot be recovered. A great blow for the British aircraft industry. The Comets have all been taken out of service again.

 

 Good Friday, April 16th

    Set off at 10.30 for Beacon Hill. A strong wind from the north, sunny but very cold. The camp was far too exposed, so we walked down among the junipers on the south slope and found a sheltered, sunny place. Made a fire and cooked our lunch. During the afternoon we heard a cuckoo, but did not see it.

    

Easter Saturday, April 17th

    Hilary and I started off with the caravan about 10.30. We lunched at Burford after looking at the church, arrived at Holly Bush Farm about 3.30 to find Commodore Brown, Mrs Brown and the two batty sisters all there. The commodore more of a bore than ever, but in a very smartly cut Canadian suit. He had flown from Ottawa for the weekend. Nora arrived by bus at 7.0.

 

Easter Day

    After dinner we set on in two cars to see Leslie Tydeman's (Nora's nephew) farm the other side of Ross. It was delightfully situated on a slope down to a trout stream with a good approach, but the house was Tudor with additions and had been occupied by a sporting farmer. It was enormous, unwieldy, with three floors, numerous large rooms, a well staircase and central heating - which it obviously needed. Backbreaking work for whoever marries Leslie. I liked him better than the last time I saw him, but with Ted and Mary [Leslie's parents] I had no rapport whatever. However, that did not matter as we sat down eight to tea and the women did plenty of shouting.

 

Easter Monday

    Set off for the Black Mountains. The car's brakes had practically packed up, so we had to rely on the two bottom gears. Hilary, who was navigating, took us down a narrow and precipitous lane to the Monnow valley at Pandy but by the mercy of God we met nothing, for there was no room to pass. From there we went up the Houddu to Llantthony. We had just had time to see the abbey when hordes appeared in cars and charabancs, so we went back to the bridge and had our lunch somewhat sheltered from the wind with the sound of water in our ears. We looked at the church, roofless and covered in earth and fallen stones like a London bombsite. It was still early so we took the car a mile up the Nanty Birch valley and walked up to Blaen Birch. Then we drove back, but even that was nerve racking for the driver!

    I was most impressed with the Black Mountains and thought Mary and I could have a good holiday there walking if her parents' health did not allow us to leave England.

 

Tuesday, April 20th

    After yesterday's experience I felt the brakes must be improved if at all possible and took car with Hilary down the road to Mr Morris's garage. Rather doubtfully he agreed to see what he could do. He was very red in the face and looked as if he might have a stroke at any minute. However after about an hour the car was ready and much improved in safety and comfort for the driver.

    After lunch drove to Goodrich Castle, which had a lovely site up a lane. To Tintern, amazed, as before, at the size of the great church. To Chepstow. Saw over the castle on a marvellous position on a sloping cliff above the tidal estuary of the Wye.

    Nora to the Manor House Hotel as Molly had taken in two paying guests from Oxford for a couple of nights - being very hard up. However the farm made a small profit last year and the milk brings in £1200 p. a.

 

Wednesday, April 21st

    To the Severn Wild Fowl Trust at Slimbridge. Last there with Molly, Ruth and Hilary in 1950. Much enlarged, laid out in pens and made a show place.

    After tea Nora walked up May Hill while Hilary and I washed racks of eggs. Afterwards we went up through the wood at the highest point of the farm from which you look out over the Severn valley, the river meandering among the glistening sandbanks at low tide, the distant escarpment of the Cotswolds and the cathedral tower just visible in the smoke haze of Gloucester.

 

 Thursday, April 22nd

    Nora went home by bus to Henley and Hilary and I started out on a big tour. We drove through Ross to Skenforth. You see the castle standing by the river from a hill. The castle was small and the restoration of the outer curtain wall, still incomplete, had occupied five masons for two years. The church was unrestored and rewarding, [including] altar tomb of John Morgan, last governor of the castle. His wife died in 1564. Four sons and four daughters in mid-Elizabethan dress were carved in relief on each side and carvings also in relief of Morgan and his wife in ruffs and he with a long forked beard and Tudor flat cap.

    Grosmont Castle was fully restored, shaved and brushed, but it was a sixpenny instead of a threepenny castle. There was no shelter so we did not stay long in the north-east wind but looked into the church.

    At Abbey Dore we ate our dinner on the path leading to the churchyard from the road. It was the only sheltered spot we could find. The abbey was cold, but less dirty than last time. After this we pushed up a mass of very narrow and steep lanes to St Margareth's to see a screen and loft. We finished off with Kilpeck.

 

Friday, April 23rd

    Today we went to Hereford. It was bitterly cold but warmer in the cathedral. I liked the Norman nave, but the east end is disappointing and the brass and marble screen unbelievable. "A pity Hitler did not remove it free of charge," I said to the amusement of a spectator. In the afternoon to Eaton Bishop and then Madley, which Cyril Peach had highly recommended. This lovely church accounts for the Victorian Gothic revival. It seemed to me to represent all they tried, and failed, to reproduce. It is like Thaxted, an open and spacious church.

 

Saturday, April 24th

    Lunch at Burford, home soon after four. 

 

Monday, April 26th

    Took my lunch to Osterly Park to see the newly opened Osterly House. I wanted to find a great house for a sixth form visit nearer than Wilton and Hatfield. This seemed ideal, Adam ceilings, furniture, carpets, etc, all within 30 miles.

 

Friday, April 30th

    Went over to Reading in the afternoon and met Mary off the 6.22 from Liskeard and had a quarter of an hour with her in the waiting room on no. 4!

    The school charter rediscovered in the safe of Cooper, Caldecott & Cooper after Mr Cooper's death. A bit dirty and creased but a fine great seal. It ought to be framed and hung in the school.

 

May. Korea, Indo China. Butter rationing stopped. Quakerwise at Leighton Park. Mr Cook's logghorea. Kinsey Report.

Saturday, May 1st

    Joined Reading Public Library for which paid 10/- borough fee and 10/- deposit in lieu of rate payer's guarantee. However it is a good library.

    We have had a long spring drought and a north-east wind that has lasted a month. The field is like concrete. The grass at Holly Bush won't grow and Molly had to buy a ton of hay at £12. However rain began tonight.

Sunday, May 2nd

    The Geneva conference has been going on for a week. They have gone into secret session on Korea. Too early to know whether Russia and China prepared to compromise. The Americans have come out badly. After a lot of talk about being tough, Mr Dulles has failed to carry us with him and he cannot be tough alone because the sending of American troops to Indo China is unpopular. The partition of Indo China is compared to the partition of Czechoslovakia at Munich. but since neither side in Korea or Indo China will agree to unification with the other, the only solution is to recognize the facts of partition.

      The communists believe we are their enemies, their philosophy says it must be so. Their actions can be explained on the theory that they want to be seen as against us as well as that they intend to attack us. They are probably on the defensive and we need not assume that they want to make war. They are blind and obstinate pedants, wearisome, rude, abominably cruel, but not mad. They cannot with their philosophy understand either their own society or ours. We must make our world the sort of place where it would be dangerous to make trouble. We must look formidable, but not seem to threaten their security. These arguments, which seem pretty sound, are put forward in an article in the Manchester Guardian today.

 

Tuesday, May 4th

    Hilary went back for his last term at Leighton Park. Very large and rather untidy. Ties have to be worn on Sundays only, so few people wear them. Hair long, jacket for ordinary occasions too short and rather dirty. I said I hoped he would enjoy his last term, to which he replied, "What, with exams!" He certainly has been working hard these last few weeks, hope effective work.

 

Wednesday, May 5th

    As it was the first week of term Mary came over by bus to Stoke Row.

We went to see Ewelme because I was taking the children there, then had tea in a high and cold wind at the bottom of Swyncombe Hill. Then up the lane to Long Grasses. We were followed by a car which drew up in a gap just below where we had pulled in. I wondered if we were being followed. However when we went back we found Monsieur was kneeling on top of Mademoiselle, who was lying flat on her back in the rear seat - so we need not have bothered.  

 

Saturday, May 8th

    Gave blood at the Town Hall for the ninth time. Rather held up by finger pricking and dropping blood into bottle to see if it floats or dissolves. Mine sank and disappeared all right. Don't know what the reverse shows, but one woman was turned away because of it.

 

Sunday, May 9th

     Drove over to see Phyllis at Empshott, 41 miles. Can't make much of James. However when we were left alone after lunch he promptly went to sleep. Johnnie is talking well and is very forthcoming; Jimmie is shyer and more dependent and less secure, but he seems a great success and they are both very fond of him.

    

Monday, May 10th

    Turned very hot and sultry suddenly. Wally and new girl, who is a plain Jane, to lunch. After put in tomato plants. Wrote to Mary about future plans. She says we must not be hustled, but must remain calm. Nevertheless we ought not to drift or to let our plans be made for us.

 

Tuesday, May 11th

    A talk with Nora. Told her about Con and Allan and we went over the past.  She is anxious to get financial independence, separate, and then consider divorce.   

 

Wednesday, May 12th

    Went over to Mary. Drove to Aldworth for tea and supper. We made tea and sat under a hawthorn hedge. Mary to my great relief said she must spare her father any publicity, but apart from that if she liked to marry someone who had been divorced that was her own affair and she was prepared to do so whether he approved or not.

    About six we started off for a walk but a vast deep purple cloud appeared with distant rumblings. We returned hastily to the car and waited for the first raindrops to fall. By the time we had got to Aldworth the storm was in full blast. We pulled the car up against the pub and waited for the rain to penetrate the roof. The thunder grew louder and nearer. Finally there was a hiss, a noise like steel being cut, then a loud explosion. Something quite close had been struck. When the rain became less tropical we started back to Reading. Near Basildon part of the field had been washed across the road and we met firemen and fire engines. At Tilehurst  we came to floods through which we crawled cautiously in bottom gear. A collection of bums were paddling in the flood, apparently hoping for big money when a car stalled, as a number had done. We got home without further difficulty, but as I said to Mary these things do always happen to us.

 

Thursday, May 13th

    Butter and margarine to come off the ration this week for the first time since the spring of 1940. I have occasion to remember the date because the elderly maid who brought up Mary's and my breakfast on our "honeymoon" apologized for the fact that the hotel could only supply us with pats of margarine.

     Today the headmaster of the Modern School rang up to say our sports days coincided. Did I want the Mayor. I said that as far as I was concerned he could have the Mayor!

 

Monday, May 17th

    Hilary Daniels, or Wray rather, came down  yesterday. She told us about tablets called "Oblivion",  which she got at a chemist's to take before acting as chairman at an important meeting. They are guaranteed to make you free of all nervousness!

    Last night went to evening service at Leighton Park. The H.M. and speaker sitting alone on the platform looked very exposed and lonely. We had hearty gruff hymn singing, two prefect-read lessons, but after everything there were long pauses Quakerwise, which I found a bit awkward! 

 

Tuesday, May 18th

    Today Mr Jowett arrived late. He said to my surprize that there was a railway strike in the western region. It appears some drivers at Newton Abbot struck against having to go to "lodging turns" and the Bristol and London drivers came out in sympathy. The M/G revealed the fact that engine drivers will not deal with engines which used to belong to other companies! Such are the obstinacy and stupidity of the men under nationalization. 

 

Wednesday, May 19th

    A long governors' meeting. Mr Cook, though a nice man, was seized with logorrhea and as chairman of the house committee started by going through all the leavers with suitable and unsuitable comments. He followed this up with price list of the local boys' outfitter and got on to the girls' when old Denham managed to stop him by saying the governors could not ask him further to tax his physical strength. Quelle delicatesse!

    Went over to Mary. Tried to discuss future, but as usual got nowhere.  She won't consider a holiday in England and I don't want to spend money going to Switzerland.

 

Friday, May 21st

    The railway strike goes on. Nora travelling daily by Southern to Waterloo to course at Hampstead. Much fatigue and frustration. Met on 10.40 and brought home at 11.00. However was late as I was having a wrangle with Mary about the future. She wants to preserve present position until her parents die, and when will that be?

 

Saturday, May 22nd

    Picked up Mary at 5.30 and drove to Queen's Hotel, Newbury. Our old room 14. After dinner, which was good, to cinema to see English film about three men castaways and one girl on desert island. A poor film, but as Mary said, even a poor English film better than a brassy American film.   

     Reading Reading the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female. Most enlightening on the importance to men of psychological factors compared with women.

 

 Tuesday, May 25th

    Rather impressed with the difficulty of relations with Mary. When you think you've got somewhere you find you are back where you started!

 

 Wednesday, May 26th

    Sports Day - a lovely sunny afternoon but windy. The bees took advantage of this to swarm, so when the racing started I was stuck under a hawthorn bush, cursing! They absconded later.

    Nora had a fine social afternoon talking to all and sundry. Among sundry, Mrs Waller, sister-in-law of Mary's Tanganyika Waller, whom she invited to tea, to my annoyance. A connection with any Wallers is the last thing I want. Funny she should pick on this particular parent, but it would happen.

    

 Thursday, May 27th

    Kinsey says that in the following ways men and women differ.

1.     Females much less aroused by seeing opposite sex whether clothed or naked
2.     Less interested in photographs, drawings, paintings of nude. Males cannot understand why females not aroused by this material.
3.     Erotica also
4.     Females not aroused by observing male genitalia to extent males aroused by seeing female genitalia.
5.     Males start by genital manipulation. Most females prefer to start elsewhere
6.     Cinema appears to be more erotically stimulating for females 
7.     Observing sexual action stimulating for males rather than both
8.     Males again for observation of undressing
9.     Promiscuity male rather than female
10.     Sexual side of marriage as opposed to home, children, security, more important to male.

    

    Anyway about 40 per cent of American females appear to have premarital coitus.

 

Friday, May 28th

    Bought some salmon to take on supper to see azaleas at Hambleden, but by five o'clock it was pouring with rain, so had it in the flat and had to be content with visit to the new Reading housing estate, which is very well laid out with continuous terraces - instead of semi-detached - and blocks of flats in different brick, roof and wall and door colours. Most impressed. The only snag: no communal buildings with exception of one school and a pub.

 

Saturday, May 29th

    Watched a girls' tennis match. No end of attractions (see Kinsey, point 1)  

 

 Monday, May 31st

    Handbrake gone completely. Garage says new linings and brake drums required, £10, and £5 for new king pins on steering!

    More Kinsey! Response in the female may depend more on uninterrupted pressures and continuous rhythmic stimulation than prolonged petting.

        Bid him march boldly, and not grant one leisure

        Of parley, for 'tis speed augments the pleasure.

June. Phyllis Auty. Stonor. Frogmore Mausoleum. Hilary reads the lesson. U.S. cancer survey on smoking. Church crawl with hysterics.

Thursday, June 3rd

    Phyllis had been to St Hilda's to attend the opening of a new building by Princess Margaret and came for the night on her way back to Empshott. Full of good stories about her contemporaries, including a Capt Petty. He used to stay with two floosies at June.he Mitre when visiting his daughter at St Hilda's. On one occasion he turned up with a couple of prostitutes to take Phyllis and Rosalind [Hill] out to drinks and relieved himself at St Hilda's entrance! In the end, a floosie he was taking on a sea trip pushed him into a swimming pool and he broke his neck.

    Said marriage ought to be for a five year contract, renewable if desired!

 

Saturday, June 5th

    At 2.30 went to see over Stonor House, a privilege visit arranged by the National Trust. Luckily we arrived early as already about 70 people waiting and three chara loads expected from London. Divided into two parties, Lady Stonor one, and Fr. Julian Stonor, a charming but rather precious priest, the other. In latter. Reminded me a bit of Brideshead Revisited. A warren of very dilapidated passages and an C18th library full of disused volumes with no light. Some fine C18th rooms with plaster ceilings and four-poster beds, all very much lived in. A sizeable dining room and off it a little intimate dining room with John Piper pictures. Numerous unnamed Stonor portraits from Elizabethan days and a superb Stubbs lent by Mr John Evelyn from Wooton.

    The present occupant a rather florid and over-fed looking individual in early forties, the heir to Lord Camoys, who married an American and lives, aged 70, on Long Island. Apparently Lady Camoys moved most of the furniture to Long Island, so the Hon. Sherman Stonor has had to pick up stuff as he went along! In this he was helped by Queen Mary, who discovered some that had been at Stonor in dealers' hands.

    The best thing is the marvellous setting of the redbrick Tudor house among the beech woods of the deer park, completely remote in this sheltered valley of the Chilterns - and next the mixture of shabbiness and smartness, of repair and decay, of comfort and discomfort, of day-to-day living and long disuse - two grey top hats hanging in the hall,which had just been to Epsom, and shelves of C18th sermons that had not been opened for generations.

 

Whit Monday

    I met Hilary coming up the hill on a merit half and we set off for Windsor to see the Frogmore Mausoleum, which is only open this one day of the year. While slowly moving up the granite steps towards the huge gunmetal doors one had time to read the Latin inscription over the door; Here rests what is mortal of Prince Albert.....  Dearest, at length I shall sleep with thee and rise with thee in Christ. In the middle is the enormous tomb of marble and granite flanked with huge bronze angels. The figures of the Prince and Queen can hardly be seen from floor level. Various figures, also in Carrara marble, in the ambulatory, mostly of single figures, but one also of the Queen leaning over Prince's breast and gazing on his face. He is clad in an extraordinary, archaic get up, cross gartered and bare kneed, as though about to play Macbeth. 

    I wanted to see the Mausoleum, but as Cicero said when Caesar came to dinner, "Once is quite enough."

 

Wednesday, June 9th

    Nora and Miss Boselli had been in for tea but left for a night at Miss Markham's in Oxford. Mary came over by bus and we had tea in a café by the river for which we were charged 4/-! This June has been awful, storms and gales, rain, thunder and lightning. We walked down Remenham Lane and up White Hill by a path I had never explored in 20 years. Arrived at the White Hart for dinner rather damp. A nice dinner, but cost 15/-. Then we went back to the house. We went up to my bedroom. Mary took all her clothes off and lay on my bed for a light bath on her shoulders and back and a massage.

    "The sheer voluptuousness and triumph of shutting a door, which closed for an hour or a night excludes the world."  The door was shut, the candlelight showed the roses on the chest of draws and the clothes heaped on the chairs. Joy needs the feeling that time does not matter and that its flight has stopped;

    The lamp's last tremulous light can never fail us,

    This fire shall burn forever still untended;

    We shall remain - no moment can assail us,

    Our wealth of silence cannot be expended:

    Eternity must pass

    Ere you may cry "Farewell!" or I "Alas".

 

Thursday, June 10th

    Went to supper with Mr and Mrs Wilcock (see May 26th). Apparently a businessman who after the war went up to Wadham and took up teaching. Odd! He came from Chingford and had been to the Moneaux Grammar School at Walthamstow. A nice man and interested in books and history - a rare thing in Henley - so we got on well, though I was very tired after lack of sleep.

 

Friday, June 11th

    The car done and the brakes done, but doubt whether they are really a great deal more efficient.

 

Saturday, June 12th

    Started off at 10.30 for Stow-on-the-Wold to lunch with Lettie. Hadn't seen her for four years, but she was just the same, though a good deal thinner. Her hands seemed more affected by arthritis. Had lunch at the Talbot and then went in my car and sat in the Snowshill lane under the thickest beeches we could find, as it poured and poured. I had imagined a lovely June day, but things never turn out as one thinks.

 

Sunday, June 13th

     A green world, the wettest June for 50 years. Went over to Leighton Park evening service. Hilary read the first lesson and jolly well too. He has a fine deep pleasant speaking voice and you could follow every word. Wished him luck in his Advanced G.C.E. which begins tomorrow.

 

Tuesday, June 15th

    A letter was waiting from Donald Heath to say he has been awarded a Leverhulme research scholarship by the Royal College of Physicians worth £1000 a year and tenable for three years..... So he was a man of destiny after all! There were seven on the short list, 2 from Cambridge and London, one from Oxford, Liverpool and Sheffield.

 

Friday, June 18th

    Day started badly with the car starter engine seizing. However, Nora got off rather late for selection at Witney. I was doing mine here. Bad luck pursued me, for the rather dumb Latin staff had misread the regulations for the June O Level and the candidates, who were expecting Virgil, got a Latin  prose. This tough on boss-eyed Smith, who depends on it for exemption from Responsions.

    The interviews over borderline candidates [for entry to Grammar School] had their moments. One boy said he wished to be an evangelist! Professor Count Roberto Weiss brought up his daughter Victoria. When asked by fat old Miss Markham, the psychologist, what she did at Whitsun, she replied, "Visited my brother at Eton." Another parent turned out to be "Mr Charles", the head waiter at a luxury hotel, under whom Mrs Clayden had worked as a plongeur. 

    Mary and I decided to go to Brunnwald again, by Holland and the Rhine, 3rd class.

 

Saturday, June 19th

    Visited Aunt. Nora took her for a drive, but we were seized with laughter when she said she couldn't listen to the wireless before going to bed as the music made her toes twitch! 

 

Sunday, June 20th

    A better day with clouds and some sun too and a pleasant breeze. The wild roses cover the briars in pink and white and the grasses are in flower and very tall because of the rain. The whole landscape is green.

    Heard that a Swissair plane from Geneva on the night flight to London ran out of fuel and came down in the sea two miles off Folkestone. There were only four passengers, two were drowned, the crew and two others were picked up. A good thing I have agreed to go by rail and sea this summer, as this is the plane we have used twice to come back on.

 

Tuesday, June 22nd

    Have been reading Southern's The Making of the Middle Ages. Of the changes in this period he writes:

    These changes are hard to define and the connections can more readily be felt than explained. Indeed, in a strict sense, these changes defy definition and the connection between them cannot be explained - it can only be exemplified in the lives of individuals. At the deepest level of experience, in intimations of the nature of God and the economy of the universe, in new insights into the powers and powerlessness of man, the changing scene of history has its focus and its justification.

 

Thursday, June 24th

    Yesterdays M.G. contained a dispatch from Alistaire Cooke with the findings of the American cancer survey of 200,000 men between 50 and 70. It was begun in 1952 and was intended to end in 1956, but the results were so striking that the findings were published this year "to save life." Smoking is tied not only to lung cancer but also to heart disease. Men smoking over 20 cigarettes a day have a death rate between 54 and 60 twice as high as non-smokers. Curiously, pipes and cigars are found to be harmless.

     Wally has stuck his neck out again. A cadet officer came to a demonstration on Tuesday and told the boys "to shoot the buggers down", while a demonstrating NCO had only one adjective, bloody. Wally then wrote a letter of complaint and I had the Brigadier on the phone for half an hour last night telling me he was sanctimonious! I should have thought though by now Wally should have learnt that it is better not to put too much into writing.   

 

Friday, June 25th

    Keble dinner. Found Canon Covey and changed in his room, having great difficulty with my tie and having to call clerical assistance in the end. Not good at that! Sat between V.L. Griffiths and George Day. The Bursar was drinking hard at the head of the table and ended up with champagne. We had hock and port.

    The speeches were rather inaudible but the President, the Bishop of Lewes, was much better than the Q.C. last year. Told the story of an Irishman who knocked down a man for saying the Pope was at the bottom of all the trouble. "Why had you not more tact? Didn't you know Paddy was a Catholic?" "Yes, I did, but I didn't know the Pope was," replied the man.

    Went into the J.C.R. and from a conversation with J.H.P. found he had been lunching with Phyllis and knew her name was McBurnie. Therefore has clearly discovered identity of Jimmie. What's the next move, if any?

    On the Downs on Wednesday. Mary and I were indulging in the pleasure of comparing today with the war years. No car, the bicycling (from Moreton to Stratford), the busing and the dark and crowded trains. The continual struggle to get food to take out, or find meals if one didn't The points for tinned foods and ration books, which made it so difficult for the unmarried who had to be continually moving round at four day intervals. We particularly recalled the horror of feeding at Stratford-on-Avon. In one way the fourteen years since 1940 seem to have passed very quickly - till one thinks of all we have survived, endured, lived through in terms of difficulties and frustrations.

 

Sunday, June 27th

    Decided best thing to ring up Phyllis and tell her what I had learned at the Keble dinner. She was very surprized. though she had been rather astonished by J.H.P.'s friendliness. He apparently made a point of sitting next to her at lunch and had taken her to the theatre. I hope I did right, but feel as I begun the adoption by introducing J to Phyllis I don't want it to go wrong now. It would not be fair to Phyllis to leave her in the dark. She said she had considered asking him down next term - soon he would be taking Jimmy to the zoo! However, if he turned up he'd get a very dusty answer - Knowing Phyllis, I bet he would. I don't see why, after having done so little when J became pregnant, he should then butt in again after he discovered what happened. He has other children.

    Hilary over to tea. Thinks in the speech competition he will speak on education "as people in the public schools know so little about state education."

 

Monday, June 28th

    A busy day. Decided that as Latin paper only 45 minutes would go on church tour after all. We started soon after 11 o'clock and visited Swyncome - C11th. By the time we got out of the church after my little talk it was 12.30. We had our lunch and the driver went off to Nettlebed with the bus to get his. Ewelme - C15th - we finished about 2.30 and went to Thame, C13th and C15th. To Rycote chapel and house. The extraordinary pews, C16th and C17th, were still there for them to see. Of course they insisted on going up the tower and then a girl - the head girl [Vera  Emmerson] - found the staircase was dark and got hysterical and I had to go up about three times to winkle them out. We finished up at Chislehampton, where Mr Peers was waiting outside the church. He came in with us, which was slightly embarrassing, while I said my piece and then took us to the house to show us the hall and the silver gilt communion plate and service books, all provided by his family at the time the church was built - 1763. I asked him if his family made their money in India and sure enough they did. I thought he was a very nice man - rather different from old Lord Saye & Sele, who came to the school this month and said he would not give us a reduction if we visited Broughton Castle!

    A bad show about the night flight from Geneva. The pilots have been sacked, for they did not see that the plane was properly fuelled before leaving. There was no technical fault - it just ran out.  

1954 January - March

January.  M. Hulot. Terence Rattigan. Schwarzkopf. Comet crashes. R. Burton in Hamlet. Joyce Burgess, John Griggs. Hi-fi and howling dogs.
 

Saturday, Jan 2nd

    Up to London by 10.20. Down Bond Street and bought tickets for Sunday evening at Festival Hall at Chappells. Sales beginning and streets very crowded. To Paddington to meet Mary at 2.30. Took bags to Clifton Court Hotel, same as last year. Not cold, large and explosive gas fire. Bed improved but pillows still very hard. To see Monsieur Hulots Holiday at the Curzon. Had to queue for 6/6 tickets but eventually got seats. Film took off inmates of French seaside hotel, hardly any dialogue, the misadventures of M. Hulot in Chaplinesque style. We found it very funny, but our mirth considerably increased by a very fat man who sat next to Mary and made extraordinary noises at regular intervals which might have been belching, farting or coughing, but was in fact the latter.

    Dinner at Marble Halls then to see Terence Rattigan's new play The Sleeping Prince at the Phoenix. Had good seats on gangway in dress circle but an Indian next me had had a good meal of raw onions. After interval Mary sat next to him without knowing this - more mirth!! Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Martita Hunt in play dealing with royal visitor's relations with American chorus girl at coronation of George V in 1911; witty, amusing and splendid uniforms. Vivien Leigh moved with superb grace, but thin as a rake and hips like boy's. Theatre did not start to 8.30 so did not get to bed to after midnight. Lay together three times, especially marvellous in early morning. 

 

Sunday, Jan 3rd

    After a cold breakfast in hotel basement to Westminster Cathedral for high mass. Lovely singing, afterwards watched canons saying office. None of canons looks happy. Against Mary's advice spent to 2/- whizzing up Campanile in lift, cold wind ghastly and no shelter, came down as quickly as possible. Old Vienna for lunch, hot soup essential after Campanile. Flemish Exhibition at Burlington House. Saw Beewick - black cloak, black hat with feather that bobbed. Spoke to her in tea room. Said I was a voice from the past (1933), told her she was as elegant as ever.

    At back of highest tier in Festival Hall. Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, a lovely voice, clear and effortless - black velvet dress and black lace shawl, a fine figure! Her whole corsage rose about a foot when she took a deep breath.

    Mary wore her brown costume with a brown jersey and white necklace, her fur hat and an orange and white scarf round her throat; with her large dark sparkling eyes, full breasts, black hair and warm colours she looked a most lovely woman.

 

Monday, Jan 4th

    Mary left by 8.55. To National Gallery for sixth form reconnaissance and back to catch Torbay Express 12.0, Exeter 3.3 (2 minutes late). Tea at Dellers. Bow House Hotel, to bed at 9.30, very tired. Mary, also in  bed, wrote, "I wish we were in our room again and I could feel your furry legs against mine and your tummy pressed against mine." "With all those millions of people round us I felt we were quite alone in our own world."

 

Tuesday, Jan 6th

    Bitter north wind, too cold to walk far along front. Lunched with Maud and stayed till 6.0. She seems to have made a wonderful recovery.

 

Wednesday, Jan 6th

    Molly bad luck as one cow in calf had to be killed because of disease and other had a bull calf. Maud came to Exmouth and we saw Roman Holiday, enjoyed it. 

 

Thursday, Jan 7th

    Walked to Sandy Bay over cliff and back along beach. Watched curlews and oyster catchers through glasses, a lovely day, but bitter wind again. Con wrote to say how glad she was at Christmas to have Allan [?]Artingstoll to share her life with; so am I, dear Con. Home by 3.30. Impressed as usual by disorder of School House.

 

Saturday, Jan 9th

    While I was away Nora had been so see coach Davies, Laing, & Dick and had got everything worked out (at least to her own satisfaction). Thought if Hilary made English and history A level in June, could in a year do responsions Latin and maths by coaching while exempt military service for one year. It would mean he wouldn't finish Oxford before 1959 and I should not be able to save anything much.

 

Sunday, jan 10th

    Reading The Emperor's Clothes by Kathleen Nott on C19. "Women no bodies below neck; men none, except for athletic use of legs, below the waist; and therefore a natural consequence was that bodily enjoyment between man and women out of the question....  Physical sexual relations normally cause intense enjoyment and no person, otherwise ignorant, would learn this fact from the works of our most influential novelists from the early C19th to the present day.  I do not suggest that writers ought to dwell on this mere fact. I only say it is strange that none of them know how to imply its immense significance."

 

Monday, Jan  11th    

    Term started with its usual rush to teach and clear up details, ending with staff meeting. A Comet airliner jet dived into the sea off Elba on the last leg of its flight from Singapore to London and all passengers and crew killed, including the author Chester Wilmot. This is the fourth Comet crash. Although they have flown 30 000 hours, it will make people more doubtful about jet air travel.

 

 Tuesday, Jan 12th

    Hamlet at Old Vic. Ran for 3 1/2 hours. A permanent set which did not like, but duel scene magnificent, have never seen it done better. Was holding breath so much that when Queen cried out "The drink, the drink" I let it out with a great Oh! Richard Burton a  young good looking and most attractive Prince. An excellent, amusing and sympathetic Polonius and Queen (Fay Compton, ?70) who dominated the stage when on it.

 

Saturday, Jan 16th

    A party for prefects + John Griggs, Joyce Burgess and one extra sixth form girl. Had looking for small things, guessing noises (too easy), guessing smells from liquids in evaporating dishes (they enjoyed this), "Threes", then supper and ping pong and dancing at school, followed by hide and seek with torches all over darkened building. Back at house we had 20 questions and  the drawing game. The party was 6 - 10 but they stayed to nearly eleven. We were 14 altogether with ourselves; Nora thought we should have been more.

 

Monday, Jan 18th

    Hilary went back to school. N and he went over to Reading to open an account for him at Westminster Bank. 

 

Tuesday, Jan 19th

    Rang up Hilary to find out if he had passed English language and German [O level]. He had passed English but failed again in German.

 

Wednesday, Jan 20th

    Heard Bosseyed Smith accepted by Oriel to read geography, rather to my surprize.

    Decided to take out policy for free cremation with cremation society. City cemeteries like that at Reading fill me with horror. Some village churchyards are delightful, others fallen into neglect full of sagging and displaced stones, cracking table tombs, miserable wastes defaced by "sluttish time".

   

Saturday, Jan 23^rd 

               Hilary came home to play hockey. Propounded N’s ideas to him. Told him he would have to have to A levels to qualify for L.E.A. grant. Hope he does, but not certain by any means. Then there is the mathematics and Latin hurdle. After that the college entrance. I don’t know if he will make it. He was very silent and made no comment on my suggestion. 

                 

Tuesday, Jan 26^th 

                Snow fell in the morning and everything was white. The children snowballed and broke a window of course. 

  

Wednesday, Jan 27^th 

                Hard frost continues. Ice nicely caked on drive and side roads but main road to Reading clear. 

                Mary’s birthday. Took her a small chicken, a pot of hyacinths, a pink nylon nightdress and a poem – also a bunch of chimonanthus as usual. We drove out to Pangbourne, where the road was rather bumpy from lumps of frozen mud, and walked along the river. The snow was dry and powdery and the sun from time to time cast deep blue shadows on its surface. We wandered along arm in arm very happy. Mary told me how as soon as she was born at Bainton Road the doctor had her wrapped up and put out in a pram in the snow. 

  

Thursday, Jan 28^th 

                My speech training man is a Bible basher. Said he read the Bible every day. So do I, sez I, feeling naughty (at assembly). On Tuesday we switched on early before sixth form religious broadcast and found ourselves listening to an account of the sex life of the star fish, all eggs and sperms. Showed my form some Rubens and christened one, “How to lift 10 ton Annie without use of crane”. 

                Read of experimental unit trying to teach Indian peasant women birth control by means of beads by which they can calculate safe period. They have a catch by which the push one each day and it can’t go back. 

  

Friday, Jan 29^th 

                Have a history student who follows me round all day – very disturbing as have to do some work! Quite a nice little soul, common, but with a sense of humour. Copied my last poem in and took the book back to Mary. It has now 14 poems; as I said, few girls have a book with all that in!  

  

Saturday, Jan 30^th 

                Chores! Beds, chickens, breakfast things, stove, coal! Really the English are peculiar. Every time they have a cold spell a great howl goes up from the press, “Snow in 22 counties”, “Roads ice bound”, and so on, while the continent sits frozen up anyway!  

                For two years now have had my hair cut by appointment in a lady’s hairdresser in Bell Street. Now they have closed down and thought I should have to go back to the Austrian, Mr Ernie Dressler, in Heelas in Reading. But to my relief I find Mr Lawson is setting up on his own and in the meantime “will call on his clients”.  

                Reading 3 vol life of Mr Secretary Walsingham, but what a lot of double crossing sods they were! You always end up in a mass of documents which have been tampered with by the forgers. 

  

Sunday, Jan 31^st 

                A breakfast Nora started up. “What would you do if I took up a whole time job and lived in a flat in London?”  “Get a daily woman, I suppose,” I replied. “You won’t do anything.” “What do you expect me to do? Why should I go any further away from Reading than I am now?” “Now there are three frustrated people!” “Well, I have had 14 years of it.” “I am frustrated in my social life. I can’t ask people in freely at weekends. You want to go off with Mary.” “I don’t want to stand in the way of your getting a job if one turns up.” “You are sitting pretty.”  

                Am I? I didn’t feel I was when early this morning when I woke up and thought why can’t I stay in the flat. 

                There is a horrible new gramophone like a concrete coffin called Hi Fi which makes all the dogs in the neighbourhood howl as it had an auditory range beyond the human ear. Music the enemy! 

February. VIth form rationalists (John Freeman, Tony Harman) and religious (A. Griggs R.Smith and  Giles). Feeling ageless at 54. Mr Hirons scares Mr Jowett with atomic war. Personality tested. Hilary plays George Fox.

 

Monday, Feb 1^st 

                Hairdresser came up and cut hair in the back room. Last time I had it done in 1942 after two months of sciatica. Charged 3/6 and gave me a shampoo with own towels and water. 

                 Story of man when filling in form, Name, Age, Sex. When he came to the latter, paused and then filled in “Occasionally”. 

  

Wednesday, Feb 3^rd 

                 [At foreign ministers’ conference] Molotoff stalling steadily. Just ignores all arguments and questions and goes on with his set speeches. Will accept no statements that E.D.C. is not directed against Russia, or that a new German government will be free to accept or reject it. 

                 Reading history of Kingston Lacey. Wm Bankes, C19 collector, was homosexual. When run in for a second time he broke his bail and went abroad, but had the right to visit his house between sunset and sunrise on Sundays, a medieval provision for hearing mass, so he was accustomed to come to the Dorset coast in his yacht on the sabbath and pay a visit to King’s Lacey, which he had handed over to his brother. 

  

Thursday, Feb 4^th 

                 A rather dull day and still freezing hard although warmer than had been promised. 

                 Today Molotoff rejected the western plan for Germany. He won’t have elections first and provisional government later. He wants the West to withdraw beyond the Rhine and the Germans to manage elections when the new government has been formed between east and west Germans. This looks like the end of discussions on reuniting Germany. What are the chances for Austria? Nil too?  

  

Friday, Feb 5^th 

                 Still very cold. Interviewed three women for junior French. One a hard faced tough from Huddersfield, one recovering from a broken engagement, one a blonde Welsh woman. Offered post to latter but thought she was not going to accept it. 

  

Saturday, Feb 6^th 

                 Looked up some books in calf bindings for the National Trust. Have also offered to lecture for them and they seem disposed to accept and have invited me to go and see them! 

                 Very cold indeed. Wind on bicycle unbearable if go at all fast. Thermometer in walled garden 12°. Snow promised for tomorrow, so got out Alpine boots and greased them. 

  

Sunday, Feb 7^th 

                 Very cold. At first it rained heavily, then froze, but the sun shone. Put on Alpine boots in view of forecast of snow, and went over to Reading by bus. Reached Mary for lunch. Had an early tea. The caretaker short of fuel so radiator off. Tea over we went to bed and stayed there until it was time to get supper. Lay together twice with great success each time, the first time for half an hour, the second not quite so long. 

                 Read the Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway, a good short story of old man’s struggle with a great fish and its capture, only to have it eaten by sharks on  the way back and arrives with useless skeleton. Not frustration but the struggle – the attitude of man facing it is all, as Drinkwater says in the prologue to Abraham Lincoln.   

  

 Tuesday, Feb 9^th 

                 Mary Clayden was away, so had the sixth for B.B.C. lesson to myself. They are now in three groups. (i) the materialists and rationalists (ii) the religious and (iii) the dumb! John Freeman the scientist in (i), the best brain, supported by Tony Harman with perhaps one of the poorest. Bosseyed Smith and Annette Griggs, C of E, in (ii) in alliance with Giles, the Baptist! 

                 An ordered week of five days punctuated by Wednesdays and divided by two school free days from the next week very pleasant, but the routine and regularity does eat away at the months and years like Jack Robinson. When I ring up Mary at Heelas am always Mr Robinson. Wonder what reason made me choose Robinson!  

                 Found in one of Nora’s psychological books by Jung a woodcut of king and queen lying together entitled Conjunctuo rel Coitio, intended apparently to symbolize union of opposites, so copied it in pencil and sent it to Mary as surprize. 

                 Milder today but early morning roads so treacherous that one school bus never appeared at all and another very late. So few at prayers that chose the collect “Where two or three are gathered together”, but don’t suppose anyone noticed it. 

  

Wednesday, Feb 10^th 

                Gave a talk to the sixth form on Impressionists. At 2.30 governors’ meeting. Old Crosse still spiteful about Mr Brind and the boys’ singing. Old Hamilton, speculative builder, said he was not a Puritan, but wondered why was a prize not given for scripture. Hard to find any explanation that he would understand. Difficult to say that religious instruction and religious education two different things. 

                Dorrell, assistant director, had had a two page typescript from the Assistant Mistresses’ Association on the question of Miss Sim’s leaving – the harshness and lack of consideration of the H.M.! It even quoted the testimonial I had given her last week to help her find a new job  A silly girl. I wonder who had put her up to it. Still lucky for us I did get her (without pressure) to resign, as possibly she’d have gone limping on and we should have had to carry her as a passenger indefinitely. 

  

Thursday, Feb 11^th 

                Heard from Phyllis that young Jimmy’s great remark now “Lord Jesus done a wee wee!” 

  

Friday, Feb 12^th 

                Fifty fourth birthday! Very upset when reached forty, seemed ghastly. Now don’t bother (as Con said, you become ageless – speriamo).  

  

Saturday, Feb 13^th 

                Fetched Hilary for lunch – chicken and Christmas pudding. Wilkon also present. In the afternoon he went off to play hockey at Wallingford and I drove him back to L. Park by eight. He seems very busy. Robert Morley coming to speak to them. Wonder what Hilary will make of him at close quarters.

    [Editor: Remember it well. He talked to the sixth form. In real life, Robert Morley, with his extraordinary face, great charm and fluency, and very funny, was just as you experience him in his films - but what he talked about I do not recall] 

  

Sunday, Feb 14^th 

                Realized that I have ordered a film on margarine for Ash Wednesday! This will never do for Mrs C! Can’t offer the faithful ashes when the heathen have margarine. 

  

Monday, Feb !5th 

                Called in on Marjorie Hunter, says Miss Sim odd girl, never does anything, been neither to Oxford nor London, every Saturday sits in a cinema in Reading. Is she very unhappy or just flabby ? Think perhaps the latter. 

                Annoyed that O. H. Association intend to charge 2/- for drink because men like to pour beer down their necks and raise price of dinner to 7/6. Girls and non-drinkers will be subsidizing the boozers. Whole affair a bore anyway. 

                Russians not willing pay anything for Europe settlement. All Molotoff offered was the withdrawal of Russian troops to Oder, in exchange wanted Germany neutralized,  E. Defence Community given up, NATO dismantled, a provisional German government from the present regimes and unfree elections. Russians to withdraw to Poland, we to France and Low Countries. It seems likely that the failure of the Berlin conference will make the Americans hope for the rapid rearming of Germany, but this too will not be easily accepted by the French and the Italians. So what ? 

  

Tuesday, Feb 16th 

                Went to Town. To Tate where got my itinerary fixed. Did the Moderns pretty thoroughly, bought some catalogues for the natives and a few postcards. National Gallery in afternoon. Noticed  a pavement artist with a nice shaggy dog to whom he was talking. Gave him sixpence and thought I might take dog a bone. Not much fun for man or dog. To National Trust where saw assistant secretary, rather a lounge lizard and looked overfed I thought. N.T. may use me in next lecture programme. 

  

Saturday, Feb 20th 

                Woke up with diarrhoea and stomach ache. Query gastric flu going round. 

Haven't done not badly this week, out of school Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons ; What a peach of a job !  

                Read a very funny book about life of a history lecturer in provincial university called Lucky Jim.

                Gossipped with Wilkon over tea. The art master, Mr Jowett, has been living in Henley during week and going down to Brighton for the weekends. Now has shifted his flat from Brighton to London. Wonder what he has in the flat besides canvasses! Hirons has apparently got himself an atomic A.R.P. job in the county and has frightened Jowett, an ex- R.A.F. bomber, by his belief that war is coming. What will the school be like if Clem, Hirons, Roberts and Rees all stay to 70! Awful thought. 

                These lines of Day Lewis just discovered, seem appropriate to our visit to the galleries: 

  

Each man must seek his own. What do I seek? 

Not the sole rights required by snob and freak, 

The scholar’s or the moralist’s reward, 

Not even a connoisseur's eye for technique ; 

  

But that on me some long-dead master may 

Dart the live, intimate, unblinding ray 

Which means one more spring of the selfhood tapped, 

One tribute more to love wrung from my clay. 

  

And if I miss that radiance where it flies, 

Something is gained in the mere exercise 

Of a strenuous submission, the attempt 

To lose and find oneself through other’s eyes. 

                                                An Italian visit. 

  

Monday, Feb 22nd 

                Struggled with school. The student had brought some ”Roman remains” so had to demonstrate these. Had some fish and felt better, but felt very tired. 

  

Tuesday, Feb 23rd 

                At last had time to do a rehearsal of St Joan for Friday evening – needs really more polishing than we can afford. Still! Heard that Mary had also caught the plague, poor dear. Nearly passed out myself when giving lesson before student this morning. 

  

Thursday, Feb 25th 

                Last rehearsal of St Joan. Had to have it in gym as film in hall, though characteristically at the last moment the projector packed up. 

                Raymond Cattell’s 16 Personality factor test, which I did some timle ago, gives me, I see from Nora’s notes: 

                High IQ, Sociability less than average, but positive surgency. Not dominant. Individual. Stands alone. Nervous tension + Some general neuroticism. High sensitivity and aesthetic imagination. 

  

Friday, Feb 26th

                The play went off well and was great fun [Oxfordshire Rural Community Council - One-Act Play Festival 1954]. Collected table and took it to Peppard Village Hall, though at first table wouldn't go through door, but it did with some coaxing. Meanwhile people were staggering in with three-piece suites, pianos, mantelpieces, telephones and hyacinths in pots for the domestic comedies. Went back at six with Clem. Made them up with some help and at 6.40 had to leave dressing room for next lot to go on  stage, where Hilary, dressed as George Fox, joined us for a bit. His play came next. Giles and Co were very nervous at opening the batting, but did very well indeed and acted with vigour and good timing. I worked curtain and prompted, though did not have to.

    Then we went round the to back of hall and saw he rest. The Quaker play written by a local Friend. Hilary acted well and had a fine voice, but the movement was a bit messy. Next a W.I. with an all woman one act, very poor as a play, but well acted. Then Ladies in Retirement with Mrs Gwilliam as the lady with a past, fat, wheezing as broad as a battleship and most fearsomely made up. We got a good adjudication and everyone was very pleased.

 

Saturday, Feb 27th

    Nora to Exeter. Met Mary at 2.30 and to Paddington for night. To Hamlet, enjoyed it as much second time.

 

Sunday Feb 28th

    Breakfast, then to All Saints' Margaret Street, rather long sermon. Had not slept well and no where to sit down so repaired to Nat. Gallery. Full of bums, either asleep or reading News of the World. Very bum-like myself and nearly went to sleep in front of Madonna of Girdle!

 

March. Mr Jowett's background. Ed Murrow turns on McCarthy. With VIth form to National Gallery. H-bomb and UK's survival. Stolarow. Colin Clark on welfare state.

   

Saturday, March 6th. Watched Old Boys' match in afternoon. Old Boys' dinner in evening, preceded by annual general meeting, which ran half an hour late. Replied "for School", but dinner not over till 10.30. Unfortunately secretary made chairman, a dumb, slow witted illiterate chap, and we shall have him for years. Have got the impression that after amalgamating with girls a year ago the old gang are once more in possession. A pity!

 

Monday, March 8th

    Had new art master in to tea before going over to Maidenhead to hear the art master from Eton on italic writing. Mr Jowett born in Hong Kong and speaks Cantonese. Ancestry mixed, a Portuguese grandmother from Macao, [grandfather] a German who left Schleswig Holstein and changed name from Schmidt to Taylor, and set up as sea captain in Hong Kong. Father, also sea captain, and mother interned by Japanese during war and now living in bungalow near Sidmouth. Mr J a great admirer of Zen Buddhism, which anxious to duscuss with Nora, and hopes one day to return to East.

    Has got two rooms in a home with other artists in Kensington, leaves at 6 a.m. and comes down on a workman's train ticket arriving at Henley before eight, bringing his breakfast in a satchel. Trained as a bomber during war in Rhodesia and operated from Norfolk.

    Found this among E. M. Foster's essays, John Nebb, Bishop of Limerick, on diaries: The utility of keeping one has been dwelt on by many persons remarkable for great attainments and piety. Dr Johnson said that a full and unreserved one would be a very good exercise, and would yield great satisfaction, when the particulars were faded from remembrance. He began one twelve or fourteen times, but never could persevere.

 

Tuesday, March 9th

    Timothy Shy writes in News Chronicle:

 

She dwelt along the untrodden ways,

Nor did the thought occur

That hikers on Bank Holidays

Might tread on them, and her.

Thou hapless girl! Five hundred steps

Upon they harmless face!

What formerly was just inept,

Is now a damned disgrace!

Wrecked is the Vale, full long ago:

But dainty Farmhouse Teas

Bring to my Lucy constant dough

And rot those Chimpanzees.

 

Wednesday, March 10th

    Drizzle been prophesied but the afternoon turned out sunny. We had our first picnic of the year.  While we were having supper, the caretaker arrived to announce that the workmen would begin Mary's bathroom plaster tomorrow. This caused some alarm and despondency. I washed up while an attempt was made to to borrow dust sheets and the bathroom was cleared.

 

Thursday, March 11th

    A brilliant spring day full of light and warmth. Rang up Mary to find caretaker had made a mistake and all preparations for nothing. Talked to Mr J. about Buddhism. Perhaps Buddhist attitude desirable when faced with plasterers who do not arrive.

    To my great delight saw the first butterflies, tortoiseshell and sulphur [brimstones?]

    At 6.30 went over to Leighton Park to see The Duenna. Hilary was in the chorus. It was ghastly.They bawled and shouted till your head ached. Came out after first interval and left Nora inside and went to flat for a cup of tea and an aspirin. Listened to end outside and found it quite loud enough.

 

Saturday, March 13th

    Counter attack on McCarthy begun by Ed Murrow, the broadcaster, and a Republican senator. It was time. He had been claiming preferential treatment in the army for one of his stooges, threatening them if this was not done with more exposures. "This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent..... We cannot defend our freedom abroad by deserting it at home." Murrow on television. 

    Nora took me to the cinema but struck a film by dimwits, for dimwits, of dimwits, so after half an hour came out. Bang went 5/4!

    Spent some time finishing another article on school for magazine up to amalgamation of schools in 1778.

 

Sunday, March 14th

    Cyril and Kay Peach to lunch. Child doing homework -  "Where do I come from?" " The stork etc. Get on with your homework." "Where did you come from?" "Found under gooseberry bush etc." "Where did grandfather come from?" "Doctor brought him etc." Father later looks to see what provoked these questions. "My family." "In my family for some considerable time there does not appear to have been a normal confinement."

    Pasty faced candidate at army selection board reported to have said, "My body is perfectly equal to the limited demands I make on it". Conclusion of report to C.O. of cavalry regiment on subaltern neither well built nor well mannered, "I would not, however, breed from this officer."

 

Tuesday, March 16th

    A very successful day. Left by coach at 8.50 and reached National Gallery about 10.40. Started with the air conditioned room containing the Pieros, Bellinis and Mantgagna, then Ucello, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rubens and Vandyck, Rembrandt and the Dutch, the early Flemish and the Spaniards. By then about 12.10, so gave them till one to walk round. Then to coach park below to Victoria Tower, where we had lunch. Off again at 2.30 to Tate, through modern French and English rooms, pretty rapidly, then tea with Annette and Vera [Emmerson] at 3.30, started back at 4.10. Home about 6.20. 

    I found talking to the group quite easy in the National Gallery as it was not full. Some of the girls were very interested in Constable, and Harman was struck all of a heap with the Turners. They did not like the moderns, to my surprize. I felt it was all very worth while and may have opened some doors to them - speriamo. The whole trip only cost 4/- each.

 

Wednesday, March 17th

      I got together a quick tea, marmalade sandwiches and biscuits, and drove over to Mary's. It was a sunny afternoon and the flat was bright. The man had finished patching the walls in the bathroom and gone. We embraced and Mary told me what she wanted without saying a word. Quickly we took off our clothes and turned down the bed. The picnic and the sunshine were forgotten as our limbs interlaced and she pressed her face against my body. She had been so frustrated a week before as she had planned the supper early and then the caretaker had arrived with the message. Now I could give it to her and hold her tight. She wept a little during the act but felt soothed, comforted and relieved. The sun still shone, though it was lower in the sky when we were ready to go. We drove up the lane. When we reached our fire marks of last year it was about four o'clock and I made a fire, while Mary sat happily in the sunshine with the window down on the side away from the wind and watched a couple of dozen hares gambling, grazing and chasing on the new corn through the field glasses.     

    I see the hare record was 25 in 1952. I said yesterday it was 50, but Mary felt sure it had gone up steadily, and she was right! I don't think after all there were more than 15 today!

 

Thursday, March 18th

    Had to put in a reluctant appearance at the Technical Institute prize-giving in the Town Hall tonight. I guessed it would be awful and I was right! The Mayor said his piece, then we had a report from the new principal, who read word for word without raising his head from the paper once, then a presentation to Mr Blows, who made a long and boring speech in reply (retiring after 21 years), then a colonel, then a speech by a visiting technician strongly resembling Hitler. He did make a few feeble jokes, but he was the only one the whole evening who did. Altogether a wasted hour and a half on an uncomfortable chair. What the children must suffer! Perhaps a good thing for us to know! I may not be a very good speaker, but at any rate I can do better than that! 

 

Friday, March 19th

    Mary rather gloomy about home situation [at Bainton Road, Oxford] and how difficult her holidays are. As no domestic help can be got, she is faced at weekends - Sundays - with heavy spring cleaning or working in the garden. Her father does little or no work in the garden except when she is there, and her mother cannot get down at 76 and scrub floors. But then she says she does not like having a woman in because it is so dirty.  It is tough when you only have Sunday off to have to go home and work. And we always have the difficulty in the summer about weekends because of the garden. I am not going to bother to take the van away to Goring this summer for that reason, but let it as much as I can. So we are both frustrated all round!

    A storm in House of Lords in a teacup because one noble lord thought Boy Scouts ought not to have expelled a young communist. No doubt infiltration and disruption is their aim - as always. Scouts not allowed behind Iron Curtain. Two principles (a) the widest freedom to express opinions in democratic state and (b) any nucleus of power which aims at destroying this freedom should itself be restrained. These two must go together. Those who hold only (a) are in effect pacifists. See Hilaire Belloc:

        Pale Willy thought it wrong to fight;

        But Roaring Bill, who killed him, thought it right

    Each principle requires some limit to the other, but the line cannot be exactly drawn and can best be dealt with ad hoc rather than making hard and fast rules. To steer between the Scilla of careless tolerance and the Charybdis of crude suppression is a delicate task indeed.  

    Henley church tower needs repair and an appeal fund for £10,000 has been launched. Have no affection for the church, which is dull, ill proportioned, clumsy and badly lighted building. Wondered what I could get off with in the public subscription list. Finally decided to do nothing and bought two tickets to concert at the Town Hall instead.

 

Monday, March 22nd

    Wilk and Mr Jowett came to lunch. Lately there has been a good deal of talk about instant retaliation if U.S. attacked. This talk has coincided with news that a hydrogen bomb is far, far more powerful than Hiroshima bomb. One has been let off in the Pacific and Japanese fishermen 80 miles from the site have been injured by radiation. The danger area has been extended to a radius of 450 miles from 150. It is 526 miles from Inverness to London so the prospects for this island don't look good! Mr J. drew Nora's attention to this. Nora said how wicked and criminal it was to go on with these tests. On the other hand, the fearful possibilities of their use may make war less likely than it has been. "What is not known cannot act as a deterrent," said the U.S Secretary of State, Mr Dulles.

    Nora came home from Mrs Peach's school and said the headlight was again loose, and so it was, wobbling about on one nut. Decided it was time, and more than time, to give up Rolfe's and Mr Properjohn and try Lewin & Sergeant, to which Miss Hunter seceded some time ago. As the M/G says, "No one begrudges value for money, but there is so little of it. One of the few things that gets done properly is the sending out of bills at the end of the month!"

 

Tuesday, March 23rd

    Wilk came in this morning to say she saw Ioan standing by her bed this morning saying "Mum's dead" and a letter arrived saying she had died.

 

Saturday, March 23rd

    Mrs Hewitt, who inhabits the flat below Mary's, had gone away on holiday so was able (or allowed) to stay the night and slept on the safari bed in a sleeping bag. 

 

Sunday, March 28

    Colin Clark has come up again. thinks we can not survive on our present load of taxation, 40% of national income, and production rising very sluggishly. He assumes that most people have had enough of the welfare state and would prefer to provide for their own social services through trades unions and friendly societies and so on. 

 

Monday, March 29th

    Mr Stolarow, parent of boy now in fifth form, came over me to get me to sign naturalization papers for him. He was born in Moscow in 1908. I was a bit doubtful about the boy, but considering he was no worse than many Britons, signed as a sponsor! 

    Went down to Mr Lawson's. Wondered whether now he is the boos should tip him. Did not.

    Considering how one would live of £400 a year

        Taxes and rates £70

        Fuel and light     '0

        Housekepping 150

        Insurance 20

        2 personal allowances 100

        Total    380

        Contingencies 20

  Well, we shall see, if we ever get there, how it works out and whether this is so wide of the mark.

     Kilvert went for a picnic at Snodhill Castle in 1870. Cold chicken, ham, tongue, pies, salads, jam tarts, bread and cheese, strawberries, claret, hock, champagne, cider and sherry and boiled potatoes and soda water. Perhaps we shall go there in 1954, but not in this style.