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Sunday 27 February 2011

1957 August - December. Living in limbo

The Diarist, now of no fixed address but with a National Trust job in prospect. Year-end finds the Diarist with a serious attack of sciatica. Meanwhile HGS staff badly demoralised by new headmaster's arrival.
 
Monday, Aug 19th, Hollybush Farm
    Washed down the caravan in the morning and walked up to the May Hill post office in the p.m. Got a short space with Molly this morning top ask her what my food cost. Offered her £1-10s but she said she didn't think she could do it for under £2.
 
Tuesday, Aug 20th
    Spent the day in Gloucester mugging up on the Verneys and Claydon in the reference library. Had 3/6 lunch at Boots, ghastly it was! Gloucester has some good shops, but is an ugly sordid place with no trees.

Wednesday, Aug 21st
    Spent the morning painting the van roof and blocking holes with Sealastic and after tea did about half the holes. It will be much more exposed to the weather here than at Henley. It is beginning to show signs of age. Since it at present my only home I must look after it! At lunch today Molly talked of selling the farm this autumn. Milk prices are not going up, wages are. Even if she installed a milking machine and had no man it would, she said, be slavery. Tom called Ruth a "playboy". It is apt description. She always chooses the easier job. Molly digs, Ruth cuts the raspberry canes; Molly washes the dirty clothes, Ruth does the flowers. Molly and I wash up, Ruth lays the table.
It has been a funny summer holiday. No timetable to make, but constant business from the moment term ended. As soon as one thing cleaned out of the way something else has happened. I don't think I shall miss teaching and school very much. I always said it would be a good job if there were no children!
 
Thursday, Aug 22nd
    Finished painting the walls this morning. Mr Bowket, the local builder, came to make the rainwater tank tight. A rather Shakespearean type of country man in the stamp of Custard or Len Hayes, combined a good deal of natural stupidity with an immense amount of patience.
    Mary wrote: "I am always thinking of you, of your face and hands and all the things we like to do. I like having your possessions here and cherish everything of you as you are everything there is to me."
 

Saturday, Aug 24th
    Met Mary at Hereford. Arrived at Maewllwych Arms who should walk in to dinner but Sir Felix* and Lady Brunner! Did not enjoy mine as I expected that at any minute the voluble Mrs Derrick to rush in and greet me, but as it turned out my fears were not justified. They wanted as little to with us as me with them. In any case, Mary said, I had now left.
* Henley Grammar School governor
 
Monday, Aug 26th
    A poor day, cold and windy. Drove to the Elan reservoir, a marvellous sight with the water pouring over the great barrage.   
 
Saturday, Aug 29th
     We drove to the foot of the Brecon beacons but followed the directions in an old ed Guide. This was a mistake We were on the wrong side of a difficult valley. We reached the edge of the cliff below the beacons and had lunch. This initial mistake had made us too tired to go on. After this we referred to them as Beastly Beacons.
 
Friday, Aug 30th
    We went up to the Dedwyns, a lovely piece of moor above Paincastle. We visited Newchurch again.
 
Saturday, Aug 31st
    My last day as H.M. of Henley Grammar School. It was muggy, low cloud and rain.

Monday, Sept 2nd
Alas cloudy and dull so we had to go church hunting
 
Tuesday, Sep 3rd
    Overcast. Hay Bluff covered, but as forecast better made an act of faith and went up to the pass. We had to have lunch in the car, but then the cloud just lifted to clear the mountain top. Last year Mary wore her green spotted frock; this year an anorak!
 
Saturday, Sept 5th
    Had lunch with Molly solo. We had macaroni cheese and were offered water! After this took Mary into Oxford bus at Gloucester. Very low after lovely time together and hated to see her go.
 
Friday, Sept 6th
    Drove to Claydon and arrived about 5.30 after tea and shopping in Bicester. Lucky I did for nothing from the Bouchers and was famished next morning. They were waiting for me and old B immediately started on the electric polisher, the opening and shutting of windows, the cleaning. 
Then we went up to the flat and the finance was gone into and the keys handed over.
 
Saturday, Sep 7th
    Mr and Mrs B left at 9.30 after showing me the dustbins and the ladies & gents. I was also introduced to Mrs Middlemiss, a little Scot in curling pins, who was "to do" my lunch and help with the money and the visitors on Saturdays and Sundays. I went down the grand staircase and into the saloon, which was in sunshine and a dream of beauty. 
    We went into battle. At 2.39 electric polisher, the opening and shutting of windows. Sir Harry Verney and Lady Rachel drove up in their Daimler from the village. He was a large portly man of 76 with a loud laugh, she a frail wisp and much under the dominion of her Lord. He repaired to the Library where he held court with Florence Nightingale's letters. I trotted round the N. Hall and Saloon chatting to the visitors. By 6.01 I was quite tired out and my legs ached. I then crawled up to the flat and counted the money.
 
Sunday, Sept 8th
    Today much the same. When I had counted the money, I went round to the church and hearing a sermon in progress went in. It was an awful sermon and I was glad to have caught only the end of the service.  The Verneys were there in strength and one or two, but precious few, retainers. Like Sir Roger, Sir Harry noted my presence.
 
Tuesday, Sept 10th
    More insight into the public, the complaining, the dumb, the snobs. Told Mary I should in future have more understanding of her job and her difficulties!
 
Thursday, Sept 12th
    High tea with Sir Harry. After tea he took me into his library and told me Ralph Verney liked me and he hoped I would take the job. Clearly there is much feeling on the Verneys' part  about the use of the Grand Staircase for taking the public up to the Nightingale rooms. They don't like this but would not allow the use of another staircase. The more one learns, the more the wheels within wheels are disclosed between the Verneys, the Trust and Boucher. 
    Sir Harry loves spending from 2.30 - 4 in the Library talking to visitors. He has now learnt that Boucher has said his presence is bad for tips!
    Wrote to Mary to tell her I could have the job if I wanted it.
 
Sunday, Sept 15th
   Had to go to Matins because asked to a drink after church by young Verneys. Their flat is beautifully furnished  and drawing room contains two best pictures of Sir Edmund and Lady Mary Verney which they evidently intend to hang on to too. Found Mrs V very big with child, sang in Bach choir under Tom Armstrong. Very pleasant but more and more convinced Ralph is the iron first in the velvet glove.
 
Wednesday, Sept 18th
    Sir Harry took me up to the top of the house to show me his "muniments". He had made a collection of prime minister's signatures, but on writing to Macmillan he had drawn a blank. The secretary replied! We then went into the Library and some of the famous C17th "memoire" letters were produced. The old man said how nice it would be if I would sort his Victorian letters for him!
    A telegram from Hilary this afternoon. he had arrived unexpectedly early in a fast boat.  
 
Friday, Sept 20th
    The Bouchers came back at 6.0 so I handed over the money and went off to Reading. 
 
Tuesday, Sept 24th
    Back at Longhope. Molly very gloomy. Bank overdraft up £300 since last April, but if I were her I would have kept more track of it than she appears to have done and cut down on entertaining and building alterations.
 
Friday, Sept 27th
    Drove to Reading. Back, which seemed slightly better, much worse, query driving position, damp, worry or what.
 
Saturday, Sept 28th
        10.30 Mr Bohn, the surgeon. Right hernia needs repair. News very bad.
 
Sunday, Sept 29th
    Back leg very painful. It looks as if a really bad attack may develop. Oh curse it! Cyril said if I had to have an operation at Dunedin I might get some massage there and Kay said I must come and convalesce with them. I have good friends, such kind friends too, Cyril, Kay, Wilk, Cherry, Nora and then Mary.
    Hilary rang up from Wilk's before lunch and we arranged to meet tomorrow at the N.B.L.
    Told Kay and Cyril last night about Mary. They were very pleased and said if it had to be, they were glad it was she - such a charming and intelligent person. Suggested I should bring her round to coffee tomorrow evening so she could meet the cats.
 
Monday, Sept 30th
    Went to see the elusive Mr Wallace in Queen Anne's Gate. Told him I would start on Feb 8th and hope by then I shall be safely married to Mary.
    Lunch at N.B.L. where Hilary arrived about 4 and we had a leisurely tea. In the course of this he said that Con, with whom he had been staying, was "my evil genius". Mary had always maintained (by intuition?) that she was responsible for Molly's change of attitude. He confirmed it. Con apparently taking line that if I wanted to get a divorce ought to have had it long ago and not now when Nora older. This, as I pointed out to Hilary, all very well, but overlooks the fact that we did not take this course in order to give him a home and bring him up.
    Hilary brought some news of Henley. The new H.M. and his wife are "subtopians". "Hillcrest" and three piece suites and all that. Corporal punishment reintroduced! All out for three or four years in Sixth and scholarships etc. In fact a thoroughly conventional "payment by results" H.M. who will not perplex the inhabitants of Henley.
    Nora sent Hilary's army "character". It was jolly good. 
    "He has been in the Intelligence Section where has has used his high educational qualifications to some purpose. He is intelligent with a strong personality; he readily accepts responsibility out of all proportion to his rank and has not yet failed to carry out a task, whether it has required personal initiative or the organisation of other people. He also gets on well with the others and is easy to work with;"
 
Thursday, Oct 3rd
    Very pleased to hear from Mary that she had been to tea with Kay and Cyril yesterday to see the gardens and the school and had enjoyed it. 
    Sent Hilary £160 to get on with but his college dues will take £118. Wrote to Mr Bohn  to say I would go into Dunedin the weekend of Oct 18th
 
Friday, Oct 4th
    A pathetic letter from Marjorie Wilkinson. Tired and ill. The new H.M., who has been taken in by Hirons, has given her the duds to do examination biology while the bright people go to Hirons. He must be a nut if he can't see through Uncle Edgar. She says Cherry is in little better state. It sounds ominous. She says accidents to the girls have to reported to the H.M., not the senior mistress. Horrified to hear that one Wilson, certified by Child Guidance as about Modern School level, put in for 5 Matric subjects, including biology.
    This morning announced Brown [Ruth's brother] was coming. Don't want him in [caravan] with me.
  
Sunday, Oct 6th
    The two Browns and Molly went to church at 8.30 so I got breakfast.
    Golly! What a bore Brown is. No wonder no woman has been found to take him on! We had earth satellites at supper and shortage of clergy at breakfast! As we don't listen to the news much we had not heard that the Russians have launched an earth satellite. the Captain very taken up with it. On this the Russians ahead of the Americans.
 
Monday, Oct 7th
    Boucher sent the £12 for Claydon. Felt quite rich! The first money earned by something other than teaching.
 
 Tuesday, Oct 8th
    A dull day in every sense. Only bright spot two letters from Mary written on Saturday and Monday. "Isn't it strange and lovely", she wrote, "to think that in 4 months time we light be at Claydon together (that is if we are well up in the queue) instead of "sometime perhaps"."
    Molly and I had lunch together. Molly said wages and foodstuffs were continuously rising. Brown, the man, when she came £5, now £7=15=0. It is impossible to make any money and the only thing is to sell up next spring or preferably next autumn. Don't know what they will do then.
 
Friday, Oct 11th
    Yesterday Hilary went to Keble, just as I did 40 years ago in October 1917. Had a letter from him. To my great relief the county have given him a substantial grant of £237, of which £109 is maintenance. He says he is very much looking forward to going up and thanks me for making it possible. "I hope I shall make the best of the experience, though I do not think I will be emulating you in your degree."
 
Saturday, Oct 12th
     Read Gwen Raverat"s account of he childhood in Cambridge - Period Piece - full of amusing sidelight on manners, morals and dresses. Young ladies' wear: Woolen combinations; White cotton same; Stays; Black stockings; White woolen drawers; Petticoat bodice, cotton; Flannel petticoat; Alpaca petticoat; Flannel blouse; Starched collars; Tie; Blue skirt; Leather belt; High button boots. No wonder decent women did not take much trouble about their underclothes, which were apt to be rather "Jaeger" and patched!
 
Thursday, Oct 17th
    A letter arrived from Aunt's housekeeper to say Aunt's leg was swelling and doctor said it would be serious in a much younger person. Wondered whether to go in [to Dunedin nursing home] tomorrow. Of course wanted to go in and get it over, but felt I might be very selfish to do so. In the end started packing.
 
Friday Oct 18th
    Well here I am where I was nine years ago, though not in the same room. Hadn't been in very long before Mrs Target came in and claimed me as a long lost friend, the Mr Bohn came in, which was nice of him, finally Mary who stayed till 9.30.
    Read letter from Cherry. Poor dear, she sounds very miserable. Lipscombe is a twerp. Rude and tactless I knew from my own experience him to be, but he seems an intriguer. To say he'll have her removed is rot, but he has threatened to report her to the governors and has complained to Tom Luker and the nice Mr Dorrell. She says he is so stupid and hopeless with people. Now he has changed his tune and she is to be consulted. I guess he's been told he's bloody well got to get on with her and that's the reason. This what comes of appointing a man with no experience of a mixed staff to a co-educational school.
 
Sunday, Oct 20th
    Cherry arrived about dinner time and I heard more of that tic Lipscombe. he appears to have said that the school was in a bad state and he had been appointed to clean it up. How lucky we had a general inspection to nail that one to the counter!  He is not going to use my room because it is near what he calls "the girl's toilets" and is moving down to the prefects room. 
 
Tuesday, Oct 22nd
    Given a blockbuster last night. Nurses don't realize the effect on some one who never normally takes such a pill from one year to the next.
    A good batch of letters this morning. Miss Hunter says she has not fallen for my successor's  face or voice; however he seems quite pleased with both. Nor can she imagine what qualities made them choose him. In the morning I think it cannot do any harm if I write to Tom Luker about Lipscombe and Cherry, so do. Cherry in after tea. Told her I had written to Tom Luker. governors' meeting tomorrow so well timed. Cherry had asked Tom if the issue was coming up at the tomorrow and he said no intention of bringing them up, so Lipscombe is a liar - as I thought.
    Later Wilk arrived. She was full of school scandal,which was a bit tedious. About 8 Cyril and Kay arrived. Kay's chatter too much for me. Like a race horse, I started sweating and thought I should scream.
 
Friday, Oct 25th
    The British Isles fully represented at Dunedin. My nurse very calm, cold, dignified and efficient, English; Mrs Target, alias Auntie Bullseye, explosive, bustling, loud and rather vulgar, Welsh; my other nurse, dark, pretty, soft, feminine, Irish; the night nurse, tall, gaunt, sharp featured with large long hands, Scots.
    Cherry came in for an hour. More news of my incredible successor. He wanted the boys marched down to the  playing field in the lunch hour because "people in the town"  did not think they ought to scramble up and down the bank. The principles on which he the school is to be run are those of subtopia - keeping up with the Joneses, what do the people next door think?
    However, worse was to follow. Len has been told he must not sublet, so Raymond and family are to go. Meanwhile, his grandchild may not be wheeled down the front drive or in the school grounds, but must use the back entrance. Oh God! Oh Henley-on-Thames!
 
Sunday, Oct 27th
    Mr Bohn came in this morning to take the stitches out in person, a very great honour. Last time i was done by Mrs T, who tore my hair out in lumps.
    Cherry came in, but was in one of her dopey states. I asked her when Alfonso was leaving. She said she hoped he would never leave! But what the significance of that was I did not like to ask!
 
Tuesday, Oct 29th
    Today I got out. I am getting in need of total immersion. The American advertisement experts day some people cling to their B.O. as devotedly as skunks. It is  defence mechanism. "So nice not to have any friends." Left for St Edwards School in Cyril and Kay's car. Had supper in their study and then retired to bed in the garden bedroom  which was provided with roses and crysanthemums. "Jolly good," as the night nurse would have said.
 
Tuesday, Nov 5th
    Cyril and Kay are simple people and their lives, especially Cyril's, are punctuated by small happenings, an accident to the cook, the disappearance of a kitten, a single decker bus going by instead of a double decker, of which much is made and which are labelled "crazy, fantastic, would you believe it and well I never." A great deal of the day is spent with Cyril stretched out with his long legs on a cushion on a stool reading, like a good many elderly men, I suppose, he follows an exact timetable of glasses of sherry, pills, weather forecasts, news, whisky at five every evening. Kay drives him down to the town. He cannot be kept waiting a minute for his food, his drive or his bedtime.
        Cyril told me he likes to go out on Saturday to avoid housework! I observed last night that he wears a clean pair of socks every day. Besides being his wife, Kay is also secretary, chauffeuse, accountant, cook and housemaid. A more than full time job.
     
Thursday, November 7th
    Went down to the flat and bought some fruit, 4 bananas, a box of dates and a pound of grapes cost 6/7. Awful. Bill from Dunedin £73, Mr Bohn £43. I hope for recompense of £50 from B.U.P.A.
 
Saturday, Nov 9th
    Went down to meet Cherry for coffee. Lipscombe has now suggested she leave as they are incompatible! It is a pity Tom Luker is both a limited and a weak chairman. His main object in a situation like this is to avoid trouble. Anyway she has decided to stay and fight it out and good luck to her. It is tough on her that after 15 years service to the school they should have made this ghastly appointment of this dreadful type.
 
Sunday, Nov 10th
    It would be well if men and women could remember, in sexual relations, in marriage and in divorce, to practise the ordinary virtues of tolerance, kindness, truthfulness and justice. Those who, by conventional standards, are sexually virtuous, too often consider themselves thereby absolved from behaving like decent beings. Bertrand Russell 
 
Saturday, Nov 16th
    Leg bad and cold wind but went to Paddington, where met Nora, and to Watford. As Nora remarked, you would not keep a dog alive under the conditions of Aunt's existence - so blind she can't distinguish faces, deaf, swollen with an intestinal stoppage and permanently parched mouth.  She was too weak to talk much, but when  she could talk her mind was clear.
 
Sunday, Nov 17th
    Reading the first of the lectures on Russia by  an American expert, G. F. Kennan. Full of good sense. "If the Soviet likes to portray itself as embarked on a desperate economic competition with us, I don't see that we are under any obligation to accept this interpretation." "The Russians are the Babbits of this mid-century, but so far, being good materialists, they have shown no awareness
 
Tuesday, Nov 26th
    Went to see Dr Williams (a Baptist, funny how you can always tell) and he gave his consent, necessary for B.U.P.A., for Droitwich. Phoned Ayrshire Hotel and booked room
 
Thursday, Nov 28th
    Took the 2.30 to Droitwich 
 
Thursday Nov 28th to Dec 21st
    Ayrshire Hotel full of old ladies in various stages of senile decay. Old age in a hotel my idea of hell!
    Reading Maurois: A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.
    Somerset Maugham: Beauty is a rare word. It is used lightly now, of the weather, of a smile, of a frock.... But beauty is none of these... It is a force. It is an enravishment.... The impact of beauty is to make you feel greater than you are so that for the moment you feel you are walking on air and the exhilaration and release are such that nothing in the world matters any more. You are wrenched out of yourself into a world of pure spirit." 
 
Sunday, Dec 22nd
    Spent morning at the flat. Hilary arrived for lunch at Cyril's and then I took him round to the flat for tea. It was a success! Though a letter had arrived from Nora to say the case would come off in Late January or early February, felt very depressed. Leg very stiff;
 
Dec 23rd
    Mary came to see me off at Reading. Reached Exeter about lunch time. Maud's for tea
 
Christmas Day
    Maud and I had a chicken and Christmas pudding and we drank to absent friends. In the afternoon I went down to the estuary after the Queen's television appearance. This I thought a mistake. It was over rehearsed and acted, delivered with a smile - also rehearsed? It was better when you only heard her.
    In her letter Mary wrote: I thought Hilary very nice indeed yesterday and, though he is like Nora in looks, he seemed to me a warm person and has expressive friendly eyes. I was glad he came.
 
Monday, Dec 30th
    Into Exeter to see Wilfrid, flat in his back recovering from a coronary thrombosis. "Hubert," he said, " we communicate only through rumour." Curiously a) he had sat next to a man at a Rotarian function at Crediton who came from Henley b) the rector of Henley's daughter had married the cathedral organist c) my old master Woodard had been inducted to Cheriton Fitzpayne.
    Hilary, his daughter there, after whom Hilary Barnes is called, with her baby. I carried her on the Downs at Brighton 30 years ago, as witnessed by an old snapshot.
 
Dec 31st
    Nine months ago I gave notice that I was leaving Henley, five months ago I supplied evidence for a divorce, but legally I am still where I was, though without a home or more possessions than can go in a couple of suitcases. A limbo-like existence! I have had no regrets.

Friday 18 February 2011

1957 July - August

The prefects, summer 1957. The editor can 
only reliably identify John Clifford, top row, 
furthest right, and next to him Hazel Reynolds,
and Leslie Roberts, bottom row, right


July. The Diarist's final days as headmaster of Henley Grammar School.

Monday, July 1st
    Nora had two Fifth form girls up to help with the crews' dinner, but listening to the thousands of words she used directing them what to do I wondered whether there was in fact much saving of energy.
Wednesday, July 3rd
    Picked up Mary at the Caversham bus stop. We decided to go to the Bucks side. We saw Bryanston beat Tiffin's School
Thursday, July 4th
    Bryanston fell to Shrewsbury.
Friday, July 5th
     Went up to London... to Queen Anne's Gate.... where I was conducted into a room and saw two men. It was some time before I discovered that the second was Major Vernet, the ex-owner of Claydon! The National Trust agent very passive. I asked most of the questions, Major Verney a few. They offered a 3 room flat and £300 a year. They have no idea how many may turn up when it opens on July 29th. There did not seem to be any urgency when i said I could not come until September. The great catch is living by myself until Mary and I can get married.
    There has been rather a scandal about Gilbert Murray. The Roman Catholics got in when he was not compos mentis and gave him extreme unction.
Saturday, July 6th
    Temperatures of 90° and high humidity. The men had dinner in the middle of the day and high tea before departing at six. Our gross takings in notes were £81=5=6. Nevertheless I was thankful to see them go. The heatwave has made us very tired.
Sunday, July 7th
    Spent the morning tidying up the house. Nora, planning as ever, suggested that if I went to Claydon I should send my washing to a launderette in Cheam. Pointed out a) had not been offered Claydon b) if offered had not decided to accept it! 
Monday, July 8th
    Charmian Cook, her French husband, 2 boys, month old baby girl, to tea. We shall be social to the bitter end as the Makins are coming down here on July 30th
    Rang up the rector tonight about the Periam service. The clergy are the bottom. He wanted the Psalm said, a different lesson, and his own hymns. Finally he enquired if Brind could play the organ.     
Tuesday, July 9th
    The end of term gets more and more distracting with invigilation continually interrupting the other chores. It seems to be having a bad effect on the wind in my guts which appear very inflated.
    Cherry told me the staff were giving me £11, the children £20 and the Old Boys and Girls about £70. The children would like to see their present, the rest would prefer cheques. Shall have to consult Mary tomorrow.
Friday, July 12th
    Lady Helen in to say goodbye. Charming as ever. Promised to come and see my house, if I got one.
Saturday, July 13th
    My successor came down. I liked him much less than the first time, but Lady Helen said one never does like one's successor. He won't answer letters promptly, that's one thing. He said his wife was coming, but did not say that she was coming later from Worthing and staying at the Red Lion, while he came on from London. He apparently does not mind if he meets the staff or not before term. I'd thought he'd want to, but if he feels like that he might have said so and saved me the trouble.
    We had another go at the timetable, the school accounts, etc. He had been told religion was important in Henley, so had apparently decided to go to church. I found this a bit hard to stomach. However if he joins the golf club, the Salisbury Club, the squash club and and attends service on Sunday no doubt they'll think he is what they call "a live wire".
    He said Soar, my predecessor, under whom he taught, was "more like a business executive". I could not resist saying, "Most headmasters are."
    Took him down to see Cherry for a drink. She was desperately nervous. After I dropped him at the Red Lion. I went back to see Cherry. She said that at any rate he was polite, if without charm, which was more than some headmasters were!
Sunday, July 14th
    Rang up Cherry to hear how she had got on at morning coffee with Mr and Mrs L [Lipscombe, the coming head] and the senior master. She was very gloomy. He was only interested in organisation and completely disinterested in people. The school would become academic institution and he and Clem would run it as they thought. Poor dear! Secretly I agree with her. The more I see of him the less I like him. 
Monday, July 15th
    This was a funny day. Mary and I all dressed up in our best - me in my new suit, Mary in an unwonted county hat and French gloves - started off for Claydon, arrived at the house about three o'clock. The door bore a painted plate "Ring for custodian". We rang. Nothing happened so we found the door was unlocked and went in. The hall was full of litter and people writing at tables who displayed no interest in us, or, when asked, in Mr Wallace, the agent, either. We explored and entered a huge half-darkened library where a group seemed to be trying out the lighting. From the group Mr Wallace and Major Verney appeared and we were introduced. We need not have bothered. Mr W and the Major were in tattered sports coats and Mrs V in slacks. There was builders' and electricians' clutter all over the place, mixed up with a jumble of junk from the rooms they were working on. Some of the windows were out, and men were even tearing off the roof off the church! The custodian appeared, a big wheezy popeyed man called Bowsher. He seemed to think we might be a relief from Tring! but when we were introduced we were told we might be coming to help him, but everything was vague to a degree and nothing was explained, except the people in the hall: they were professor and students looking for something. 
Saturday, July 20th
    Heavy rain made it necessary to cancel the Old Boys' Match, but over 100 came up to the tea and presentation. Phyllis, Miss Hunter and Marjorie Barnes all in the front rows. I was rather nervous, but soon got into my stride and made them laugh. They gave me £70 and a book with the subscribers' names and to Nora one of the Wilk's water colours. I used the quotation from Bacon: I count every man a debtor to his profession.   
    After this we circulated with cups and saucers; I tried to have a word with most people. It was a very pleasant party and most enjoyable.
Monday, July 22nd
    My last staff meeting. Amiable and short - determined that "leave it to my successor" a good policy, especially as Cherry inclined to be emotional when I suggested sorting the quick and the slow.
Tuesday, July 23rd
    The last of my "justly dreaded" talks on "How babies are born" to 1y and 1d. They were very nice and sensible.
Wednesday, July 24th
    Phyllis and boys up for tea. P curious to know what I intended to do, replied  "Put my feet up". Nora said she felt the strain of concealment. I said I've had 17 years of it.
Thursday, July 25th
    Yesterday my last lesson, to 1y on the discovery of the ocean routes in the C15th and C16th centuries - rather a good lesson I thought. Intend to tell them it was last tomorrow.

Staff, summer 1957. Bottom row, left Norman Attrill
and Mr Clifford, headmaster and Mrs Clayden. 
Top row, far right, Mr Roberts and next to him 
Mr Brind and, I think, Mr Hirons and
Wally Rees. The editor cannot with any assurance
put names to the others.
Friday, July 26th
    This was indeed a day to remember! I had to prepare the speeches for the seniors, the juniors and the staff. While I was shaving I had a brain wave. Why stand to make my farewell speeches, why not have the desk removed from the dais and sit at ease in my library arm chair, the school literally at my feet. This I did, and it worked well.
    I did not have the usual O God our help followed by the school hymn, but chose two of my favourite tunes, He that is down need fear no fall and Gird on thy sword, O man. I thought I might falter with the Collects, but my voice remained quite steady and unemotional after the last lines:
From whom all is, from whom all begun, 
In whom all Beauty, Truth and Love are one 
     After the lists had been read, the swimming certificates announced, the term's competition prizes distributed and the cups given away, Hazel Reynolds came forward and made a speech. It was a nice speech mainly about what I had done with the Sixth - how good it was to have a scholar as headmaster (Cherry's inspiration here I felt). At the end she offered me a token plate from the Doulton "Cascade" dinner service. To loud and long applause I held up the plate for all to see at arms length above my head. The desk was removed and I made by allocution. 
    I thanked them for the present and said the pattern on it would remind me of the field in June, the grasses on the bank, high and covered with blue, brown and yellow flower. I said a school should have a character, a flavour, a tang, even eccentricity, and secondly a standard of excellence.
    There were two sides to our civilization; the new, science, and the old, literature and the arts. Whether one had most to do with one or the other, not to neglect the new or despise the old. Their education could never be complete. We tried to open doors for them. They must go through. I quoted Bunyan and gave them a rule of conduct: Do nothing that increases the difficulty of the individual. 
    Then they stood and I described Sir Jacob Astley on Oct 23rd, 1642, leading his men into battle. After he had halted them and said his prayer, which I repeated, he added, "Lead on boys" - and I say to you "Lead on boys". At this the organ, piano and strings sounded the first chord of a march and the school filed out, leaving me in my chair. 
    Only the staff remained. Len and Tom were sitting among them, pleased as anything. In order to short circuit the Cherry-Clem row, Wilk had been asked to to make the presentation. Poor dear, she had spent hours writing an essay which she proceeded to read from manuscript. It went on and on in very stilted language. I thought it would never stop. Anyway it made it easy for me for; this, like Tom Luker's effort on Saturday, good to follow by contrast. 
    Back to the Sixth form. I gave my reading from Don Juan in America of Mr Pumpenstempel's Orchestra.
    After lunch it suddenly occurred to me that Cherry light go over to see Mary. She said she was thinking of going into the library, so I rang Mary and told her to expect her. I thought it would be easier for both.
    Shook hand with all the Sixth and dismissed them, then after the bell had gone, sat in my room and waited for the individual members of the staff had been in to say goodbye. By now I was very tired.
    Picked up Mary in Castle Street. Cherry had been in and was in such an emotional state she could hardly speak and was very weepy. Mary said she almost wept herself but tried to keep the conversation on a calm level.
    After we had had supper and washed up it was nearly nine,  but I knew we must complete this "day to remember" in one way; our way. We got into bed and I told Mary as I held her that now it was only us. The school had gone. She was my only love, and so we lay together and I could feel, though I could not see, the tears that filled her eyes.
Saturday, July 27th
     A letter, a very nice one, arrived from Cherry. Said she liked Mary. She was beautiful and charming. Cherry so relieved she would not "never see me again".
    Had a cup of coffee with Wilk in the morning and told her Nora and I were parting. Said she guessed as much as we wanted two photographs of Ioan! Asked a bit tartly what would my R.C. friends think. Had been questioned by some on staff as to where I spent my Wednesday afternoons. Replied if they wanted to now they had better ask me! Good for her.
Monday, July 29th
    A heavy crop of honey. One lot Tom could just about lift and that was all. 
Friday, Aug 9th
    Ten days later am writing this in Mary's flat. We had the last social occasion at School House, the Makins family to lunch on July 31st. Nora left the same afternoon. On Wednesday the removers [for Nora's things] should have arrived at 8.30, at 10 I rang up and discovered Mr Wilkins had forgotten the date. Moral: never employ Wilkins. That evening while Mary was cooking supper, the enquiry agent, a tough, bronzed colonial type, appeared to take a statement from us. This had its comic moments. When he asked whether I stayed in the flat over the weekends, or was "intimate" in the afternoons or evenings, Mary put her head round the door and said "All three".  Signed my statement, about a page and a half and Mary a sentence to say she agreed with the truth of it, the whole thing about took about half an hour.
    On Thursday I cleaned up the house, washed up the honey apparatus (170lbs from four hives) and Mary came over to supper. I went to Miss Hunter and told her of the divorce. She cross questioned me like a Q.C. - worse, though not as intime as the agent! Said she was sorry for Nora. The agent said he did not think there was much hope of a marriage before Christmas. 
Saturday, Aust 10th
    Mr Wallace came in at teatime and asked me if I would take over from the Bouchers for a fortnight in September.
Wednesday, Aug 14th
    Mr Boucher rang up at 10 and had everything arranged. Suggested I should go to Claydon on Sept 6th to learn the knowhow and he would leave on the Saturday.
Friday, Aug 16th
    Removers arrived punctually at 9 and off by 11. To Miss Hunter's to sleep.
Saturday, Aug 17th
    Got my own breakfast and said goodbye to Miss H. Took me to 12.30 to pack car full to roof almost, lumbering along with flattened springs. Had just time to take a last walk round the garden. It was a lovely green. On the Italian terrace the snapdragon and dahlias were in bloom
I looked at the limes with their tasseled bobs, the lily pond , on the edge of which we so often sat in summer, the view of the school Geoffrrey Makins painted, walked up to the walnut tree and touched its grey channeled trunk, a private ritual of Mary and me, then more slowly across the lawn to the place under the cedar where I ate my picnic in 1934 while I was waiting for the governors' decision. I thought of the lines
   
    Look thy last on all things lovely
    Every hour. Let no night
    Seal they sense in deathly slumber
    Till to delight
    Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
    Since that all things then would'st praise
    Beauty took from those who loved them
    In other days. 
    Smoky the cat was sleeping in his grassy nest by the back door. I woke him by stroking him goodbye, but his reaction was to demand food cat like! Poor Smoky! I hope the Lipscombes will be kind to him in his old age [he did indeed live several more years].
    To lunch with Wilk and off about 2.30, tea at New Inn, Lechlade, but very expensive, 2/9, and reached Hollybush about 6.30. The tie with Henley cut now for good and for the time being no home of my own beyond the caravan, but isn't that a blessing! A room of one's own!


Ten days lter am wrting this in Mary's flat.

Monday, July 1st
    Nora had two Fifth form girls up to help with the crews' dinner, but listening to the thousands of words she used directing them what to do I wondered whether there was in fact much saving of energy.
Wednesday, July 3rd
    Picked up Mary at the Caversham bus stop. We decided to go to the Bucks side. We saw Bryanston beat Tiffin's School
Thursday, July 4th
    Bryanston fell to Shrewsbury.
Friday, July 5th
     Went up to London... to Queen Anne's Gate.... where I was conducted into a room and saw two men. It was some time before I discovered that the second was Major Vernet, the ex-owner of Claydon! The National Trust agent very passive. I asked most of the questions, Major Verney a few. They offered a 3 room flat and £300 a year. They have no idea how many may turn up when it opens on July 29th. There did not seem to be any urgency when i said I could not come until September. The great catch is living by myself until Mary and I can get married.
    There has been rather a scandal about Gilbert Murray. The Roman Catholics got in when he was not compos mentis and gave him extreme unction.
Saturday, July 6th
    Temperatures of 90° and high humidity. The men had dinner in the middle of the day and high tea before departing at six. Our gross takings in notes were £81=5=6. Nevertheless I was thankful to see them go. The heatwave has made us very tired.
Sunday, July 7th
    Spent the morning tidying up the house. Nora, planning as ever, suggested that if I went to Claydon I should send my washing to a launderette in Cheam. Pointed out a) had not been offered Claydon b) if offered had not decided to accept it! 
Monday, July 8th
    Charmian Cook, her French husband, 2 boys, month old baby girl, to tea. We shall be social to the bitter end as the Makins are coming down here on July 30th
    Rang up the rector tonight about the Periam service. The clergy are the bottom. He wanted the Psalm said, a different lesson, and his own hymns. Finally he enquired if Brind could play the organ.     
Tuesday, July 9th
    The end of term gets more and more distracting with invigilation continually interrupting the other chores. It seems to be having a bad effect on the wind in my guts which appear very inflated.
    Cherry told me the staff were giving me £11, the children £20 and the Old Boys and Girls about £70. The children would like to see their present, the rest would prefer cheques. Shall have to consult Mary tomorrow.
Friday, July 12th
    Lady Helen in to say goodbye. Charming as ever. Promised to come and see my house, if I got one.
Saturday, July 13th
    My successor came down. I liked him much less than the first time, but Lady Helen said one never does like one's successor. He won't answer letters promptly, that's one thing. He said his wife was coming, but did not say that she was coming later from Worthing and staying at the Red Lion, while he came on from London. He apparently does not mind if he meets the staff or not before term. I'd thought he'd want to, but if he feels like that he might have said so and saved me the trouble.
    We had another go at the timetable, the school accounts, etc. He had been told religion was important in Henley, so had apparently decided to go to church. I found this a bit hard to stomach. However if he joins the golf club, the Salisbury Club, the squash club and and attends service on Sunday no doubt they'll think he is what they call "a live wire".
    He said Soar, my predecessor, under whom he taught, was "more like a business executive". I could not resist saying, "Most headmasters are."
    Took him down to see Cherry for a drink. She was desperately nervous. After I dropped him at the Red Lion. I went back to see Cherry. She said that at any rate he was polite, if without charm, which was more than some headmasters were!
Sunday, July 14th
    Rang up Cherry to hear how she had got on at morning coffee with Mr and Mrs L [Lipscombe, the coming head] and the senior master. She was very gloomy. He was only interested in organisation and completely disinterested in people. The school would become academic institution and he and Clem would run it as they thought. Poor dear! Secretly I agree with her. The more I see of him the less I like him. 
Monday, July 15th
    This was a funny day. Mary and I all dressed up in our best - me in my new suit, Mary in an unwonted county hat and French gloves - started off for Claydon, arrived at the house about three o'clock. The door bore a painted plate "Ring for custodian". We rang. Nothing happened so we found the door was unlocked and went in. The hall was full of litter and people writing at tables who displayed no interest in us, or, when asked, in Mr Wallace, the agent, either. We explored and entered a huge half-darkened library where a group seemed to be trying out the lighting. From the group Mr Wallace and Major Verney appeared and we were introduced. We need not have bothered. Mr W and the Major were in tattered sports coats and Mrs V in slacks. There was builders' and electricians' clutter all over the place, mixed up with a jumble of junk from the rooms they were working on. Some of the windows were out, and men were even tearing off the roof off the church! The custodian appeared, a big wheezy popeyed man called Bowsher. He seemed to think we might be a relief from Tring! but when we were introduced we were told we might be coming to help him, but everything was vague to a degree and nothing was explained, except the people in the hall: they were professor and students looking for something. 
Saturday, July 20th
    Heavy rain made it necessary to cancel the Old Boys' Match, but over 100 came up to the tea and presentation. Phyllis, Miss Hunter and Marjorie Barnes all in the front rows. I was rather nervous, but soon got into my stride and made them laugh. They gave me £70 and a book with the subscribers' names and to Nora one of the Wilk's water colours. I used the quotation from Bacon: I count every man a debtor to his profession.   
    After this we circulated with cups and saucers; I tried to have a word with most people. It was a very pleasant party and most enjoyable.
Monday, July 22nd
    My last staff meeting. Amiable and short - determined that "leave it to my successor" a good policy, especially as Cherry inclined to be emotional when I suggested sorting the quick and the slow.
Tuesday, July 23rd
    The last of my "justly dreaded" talks on "How babies are born" to 1y and 1d. They were very nice and sensible.
Wednesday, July 24th
    Phyllis and boys up for tea. P curious to know what I intended to do, replied  "Put my feet up". Nora said she felt the strain of concealment. I said I've had 17 years of it.
Thursday, July 25th
    Yesterday my last lesson, to 1y on the discovery of the ocean routes in the C15th and C16th centuries - rather a good lesson I thought. Intend to tell them it was last tomorrow.
Friday, July 26th
    This was indeed a day to remember! I had to prepare the speeches for the seniors, the juniors and the staff. While I was shaving I had a brain wave. Why stand to make my farewell speeches, why not have the desk removed from the dais and sit at ease in my library arm chair, the school literally at my feet. This I did, and it worked well.
    I did not have the usual O God our help followed by the school hymn, but chose two of my favourite tunes, He that is down need fear no fall and Gird on thy sword, O man. I thought I might falter with the Collects, but my voice remained quite steady and unemotional after the last lines:
From whom all is, from whom all begun, 
In whom all Beauty, Truth and Love are one 
     After the lists had been read, the swimming certificates announced, the term's competition prizes distributed and the cups given away, Hazel Reynolds came forward and made a speech. It was a nice speech mainly about what I had done with the Sixth - how good it was to have a scholar as headmaster (Cherry's inspiration here I felt). At the end she offered me a token plate from the Doulton "Cascade" dinner service. To loud and long applause I held up the plate for all to see at arms length above my head. The desk was removed and I made by allocution. 
    I thanked them for the present and said the pattern on it would remind me of the field in June, the grasses on the bank, high and covered with blue, brown and yellow flower. I said a school should have a character, a flavour, a tang, even eccentricity, and secondly a standard of excellence.
    There were two sides to our civilization; the new, science, and the old, literature and the arts. Whether one had most to do with one or the other, not to neglect the new or despise the old. Their education could never be complete. We tried to open doors for them. They must go through. I quoted Bunyan and gave them a rule of conduct: Do nothing that increases the difficulty of the individual. 
    Then they stood and I described Sir Jacob Astley on Oct 23rd, 1642, leading his men into battle. After he had halted them and said his prayer, which I repeated, he added, "Lead on boys" - and I say to you "Lead on boys". At this the organ, piano and strings sounded the first chord of a march and the school filed out, leaving me in my chair. 
    Only the staff remained. Len and Tom were sitting among them, pleased as anything. In order to short circuit the Cherry-Clem row, Wilk had been asked to to make the presentation. Poor dear, she had spent hours writing an essay which she proceeded to read from manuscript. It went on and on in very stilted language. I thought it would never stop. Anyway it made it easy for me for; this, like Tom Luker's effort on Saturday, good to follow by contrast. 
    Back to the Sixth form. I gave my reading from Don Juan in America of Mr Pumpenstempel's Orchestra.
    After lunch it suddenly occurred to me that Cherry light go over to see Mary. She said she was thinking of going into the library, so I rang Mary and told her to expect her. I thought it would be easier for both.
    Shook hand with all the Sixth and dismissed them, then after the bell had gone, sat in my room and waited for the individual members of the staff had been in to say goodbye. By now I was very tired.
    Picked up Mary in Castle Street. Cherry had been in and was in such an emotional state she could hardly speak and was very weepy. Mary said she almost wept herself but tried to keep the conversation on a calm level.
    After we had had supper and washed up it was nearly nine,  but I knew we must complete this "day to remember" in one way; our way. We got into bed and I told Mary as I held her that now it was only us. The school had gone. She was my only love, and so we lay together and I could feel, though I could not see, the tears that filled her eyes.
Saturday, July 27th
     A letter, a very nice one, arrived from Cherry. Said she liked Mary. She was beautiful and charming. Cherry so relieved she would not "never see me again".
    Had a cup of coffee with Wilk in the morning and told her Nora and I were parting. Said she guessed as much as we wanted two photographs of Ioan! Asked a bit tartly what would my R.C. friends think. Had been questioned by some on staff as to where I spent my Wednesday afternoons. Replied if they wanted to now they had better ask me! Good for her.
Monday, July 29th
    A heavy crop of honey. One lot Tom could just about lift and that was all. 
Friday, Aug 9th
    Ten days later am writing this in Mary's flat. We had the last social occasion at School House, the Makins family to lunch on July 31st. Nora left the same afternoon. On Wednesday the removers [for Nora's things] should have arrived at 8.30, at 10 I rang up and discovered Mr Wilkins had forgotten the date. Moral: never employ Wilkins. That evening while Mary was cooking supper, the enquiry agent, a tough, bronzed colonial type, appeared to take a statement from us. This had its comic moments. When he asked whether I stayed in the flat over the weekends, or was "intimate" in the afternoons or evenings, Mary put her head round the door and said "All three".  Signed my statement, about a page and a half and Mary a sentence to say she agreed with the truth of it, the whole thing about took about half an hour.
    On Thursday I cleaned up the house, washed up the honey apparatus (170lbs from four hives) and Mary came over to supper. I went to Miss Hunter and told her of the divorce. She cross questioned me like a Q.C. - worse, though not to intime as the agent! Said she was sorry for Nora. The agent said he did not think there was much hope of a marriage before Christmas. 
Saturday, Aust 10th
    Mr Wallace came in at teatime and asked me if I would take over from the Bouchers for a fortnight in September.
Wednesday, Aug 14th
    Mr Boucher rang up at 10 and had everything arranged. Suggested I should go to Claydon on Sept 6th to learn the knowhow and he would leave on the Saturday.
Friday, Aug 16th
    Removers arrived punctually at 9 and off by 11. To Miss Hunter's to sleep.
Saturday, Aug 17th
    Got my own breakfast and said goodbye to Miss H. Took me to 12.30 to pack car full to roof almost, lumbering along with flattened springs. Had just time to take a last walk round the garden. It was a lovely green. On the Italian terrace the snapdragon and dahlias were in bloom
I looked at the limes with their tasseled bobs, the lily pond , on the edge of which we so often sat in summer, the view of the school Geoffrrey Makins painted, walked up to the walnut tree and touched its grey channeled trunk, a private ritual of Mary and me, then more slowly across the lawn to the place under the cedar where I ate my picnic in 1934 while I was waiting for the governors' decision. I thought of the lines
   
    Look thy last on all things lovely
    Every hour. Let no night
    Seal they sense in deathly slumber
    Till to delight
    Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
    Since that all things then would'st praise
    Beauty took from those who loved them
    In other days. 
    Smoky the cat was sleeping in his grassy nest by the back door. I woke him by stroking him goodbye, but his reaction was to demand food cat like! Poor Smoky! I hope the Lipscombes will be kind to him in his old age [he did indeed live several more years].
    To lunch with Wilk and off about 2.30, tea at New Inn, Lechlade, but very expensive, 2/9, and reached Hollybush about 6.30. The tie with Henley cut now for good and for the time being no home of my own beyond the caravan, but isn't that a blessing! A room of one's own!


Ten days lter am wrting this in Mary's flat.

Sunday 6 February 2011

1957 April - June

April. Vanishing £. Case of lockjaw. Training to become a housekeeper. The chatelaine of Uppark.
Monday, April 1st
    A nice cheerful day! On the main page of The Times this morning a graph from 1946 to 1957 showing the decline in the purchasing power of the £. If 1938 is taken as 100, by 1946 it was 60, by 1948 50, by 1953 45, today about 37! Labour or Conservative makes no difference. 
    We have come to the end of our assets and our loans. We are living beyond our means, i.e., our productivity. This may have been stationary in 1956, but anyway not more than 2%. Wages rose 5%! 3% decline in £, rise in cost of living, further wage claims, more strikes! More strikes loss of confidence in £. Even without strikes a rise in wages without a corresponding rise in output eats away at the currency. It has been declining steadily for the past 20 years. It can collapse! 
    Will this government tell the truth and stand out against the unions' claim that wages are a kind of sacred cow that must never be linked with production, in spite of the fact that wages in total depend production in total? Nor can you pay twice, once with an increase for higher production and than again when production does go up.
    Because the mass of the people are better off and can have their television, cars, Saturdays off, pools, and so on, they think they have some kind of right to them and that they will always be there. 
    If nothing is done the prospect is bad. What is to happen to one's savings, one's pension, one's old age (if any)? Was I foolish to give up a well paid job just at this point? I wish I knew. All this makes one low. I realize more and more that I am no longer young - grey-haired, baggy-eyed and tired - and I have given up a comfortable job at £1500 a year! Still no use worrying. At any rate I am not in debt, or only 17/-!
    After supper started looking through my diary 1944 - 50. Felt very low as a result - years go by never to return, Hilary grows up, nothing happens. Camping, caravaning, now too old.
    However, I did have a nice letter from Leslie Bennett. "We particularly want to keep in touch with you. Over the years ours has been such an admirable friendship." Good old Leslie - 4 years older than I am, but wearing better I think.
 
Tuesday, April 2nd
    Yesterday went off at school with only some chalk missing and the disappearance of the soap in the boys' lavatory! I was told Richard Dimbleby on television gave viewers a film of the Italian peasants getting in the spaghetti harvest! Some people are supposed to have rung up and asked whether they could buy spaghetti trees!
    One of the boys had a kick on the jaw. The doctors x-rayed his skull. He complained of pains in his spine. Finally he was taken over to the Churchill Hospital at Oxford and his complaint was diagnosed as lockjaw! It is so rare no one recognized it. Most medics have never seen any.
    Wilk had Ioan's portrait of me in the lab and varnished it. Remembering portraits are often so difficult to identify, I wrote my name on the back. 
    Think heart may not be too good, pains in chest and it bumps a bit, especially in right ear when in bed. Still, always nervous about myself anyway - pulse 78 - might be strain of cutting nettles with a bill hook. 
    Wish I had some of Nora's amazing energy. She has now started a course to learn how to teach English to foreigners in London for two days a week.
 
Thursday, April 4th
    A letter from Hilary arrived, enclosing a snap taken in Nicosia last autumn. The last of the rains was falling. He cursed the strikers; said they felt very self righteous serving the Queen. People leaving Britain might not be leaving a sinking ship so much as one infested with rats! Last week they went round the brothels, this week they are going through the prophylactic stations.
    After the hockey match Cherry came to tea. In the course of this she let out that she was going on with Italian lessons privately unknown to Miss Hunter! That the teacher, a man of 50, was a relapsed catholic. I said she was becoming clandestine, and really wonder what she is up to. However she did give me a lovely new thermos for the course. It was nice of her, but I do wish she wouldn't spend money on me.Then Nora came home and told me she has picked up a business follower on the train to Guildford!
 
Saturday, April 6th
    Bushell came up and photographed me in my room at the table and then standing in front of my fireplace. Hope it won't be too expensive.
    After lunch started for Dunford House. I got to the house before the London contingent and unpacked, then emerged at 7 for dinner to see what had turned up, not without trepidation. Dinner was like the first chapter of an Agatha Christie: one speculated on the identity of the victim and the criminal!
    After dinner we went into the sitting room and presented ourselves. Men: 1 builder, a pig farmer (cheerful bucolic), 1 antique dealer with Jewish wife, 1 highbrow book expert (rather superior I thought). Women: elderly white haired matrons, one with a facial twitch and one extraordinarily sinister looking woman with a long nose and white strait hair, a nurse, but I would not like her near me with a hypodermic!
 
 
 
Sunday, April 7th
    Made my own bed. After breakfast we had a talk on the house from the parson, Mr Bliss, who acted as warden. I spent most of the morning writing letters to Mary, Cherry and Nora, then walked down to the drive to the pillar box. After lunch we had a talk from Mr Bliss, who had changed into sports jacket and grey corduroys, on the running of Dunford and then he showed us round; this was pretty dull. After supper we sat around drinking coffee, always a bore in a hotel or anywhere. Went out after a bit and read Cobden's Diary in manuscript in the library, where the fat, small red-faced Col Wallis [the pig farmer] was doing the same.
 
Monday, April 8th
    A young rather delicate looking woman arrived last night - the cleaner queen - and this morning she started off in cleaning materials and methods. This took the whole morning with a break for coffee. In the afternoon had two toughs from Hoover and a woman with a washing machine. After sitting all afternoon in a centrally heated room with people smoking I had a really splitting headache. After tea to try to clear my head a bit,  I walked up through the woods to the Cobden obelisk. Dinner over I went to the library where the colonel and I established ourselves very comfortably and read in almost complete silence till 10 o'clock.
 
Tuesday, April 9th
    A good day. Quite amusing cleaning demonstration and practice in the morning. I cleaned a carved wooden lion holding up a table. We all got more matey and used to one another. In the afternoon we went in a coach to Goodwood through the most lovely downland country. The outside of the house is dull, but it contains fine Louis Quinze furniture and interesting Stuart portraits. After we got back Mrs Spikes left for London. I have formed a high opinion of Mrs Spikes - she is clearly in the Lady Helen class.
 
Wednesday, April 10th
    We had practical housework this morning. I was paired with a nice farmer's wife and we had silver to clean, a room to do and a corridor to clean. While I was busy with white apron and short sleeves, the school I hoped was breaking up without a row between Cherry and Clem. It wasn't! I was sitting in the library about nine reading Bertrand Russel when the phone rang. It was Cherry. Clem had walked out at prayers on Monday, had a row with her that day, demanding if she had acted at my orders; when she said yes, he failed to appear either Tuesday or Wednesday. Trouble ahead I am afraid.
    In the afternoon  we had a talk from the Earl of Euston. he arrived in a bowler hat, always a bad sign, obviously Eton, Magdalen and the Guards! However he was intelligent and gave a very good talk, though he never smiled or made any effort to be pleasant. Like Lord Curzon he was clearly a very superior person. 
    
Thursday, April 11th
    This morning we completely stripped down the drawing room and went at it 9.30 to 12.50 hammer and tongs
 
Friday, April 12th
    A rather unrewarding day. laundry in the morning, not of much interest to me. After tea I took the colonel on a church crawl to Trotton, which has two magnificent brasses and an excellent wall painting, evidently recently discovered. 
    Two peculiar episodes. At breakfast the young Swedish maid asked "Is the gentleman still in Kate," (the bedrooms are called by names). At lunch the warden was explaining that the vicar of Midhurst was so low that he had put the nonconformists out of business, to which the rugged Mr Beasley replied, "If yo can't break a racket, get inside it."
 
Saturday, April 13th
    We had the morning off so I went to Bognor for the sea air; Bognor was, is, the bottom. After lunch we went in a huge coach to Petworth. This is a marvellous place. Profiting from a lecture of Deinfestation, I discovered a beetle (death watch) on the carpet!
 
Sunday, April 14th
    In the afternoon we started for Uppark with our tea. We were met by Lady Meade-Featherstonhaugh, a little, rather frail looking, but distinguished lady with untidy grey hair. She took the greatest trouble with us, beginning by impressing on us that a historic house had a life and atmosphere of its own, that Uppark had a happy feeling and atmosphere. What impressed me at first was the air of decay compared with, say, Osterly or Goodwood. As we went round the rooms the charm and vitality of the house grew on one. It had only six owners in 250 years.
    The chatelaine was a character. She used only "living" water from a spring and in infusion of soapwort for cleaning. She was an expert restorer of fabrics - the great window curtains were hanging in strips when she arrived. Now they were all reconditioned by stitching 20 threads to the inch. There was a most beautiful cherry red state bed and two chairs, one restored (by soapwort) and one not - an amazing contrast. By the time we had finished with the bedrooms it was 4.40, but we were shown an C18th dolls house with all the original furnishings and fitments, and then our indefatigable guide proceeded by a stone passage at a very low temperature to a detached and disused kitchen. The cold went to your marrow. Out on the lawns, looking at about 600ft towards the sea, the old lady explained in almost mystical terms what the house meant to her, how through it you could live beyond time and the worry of contemporary life. Utterly exhausted we staggered to the bus for tea.
    We had not done our stint, however, not a bit, alas. Mr Clarabut, the highbrow bore, was due to talk "on the care of books". He performed the remarkable feat of talking for two hours without coming to books at all and what he said on these on these could have been put in five minutes. My God I was annoyed.      
 
April 15th
    This was a good day. Coach to Haslemere and stockbrokers' express and on to South Kensington. We were shepherded by Miss Lowenthal, very chic, soignée and good looking, to a distant part of the museum for a talk by one of the curators, followed by the public relations officers, off whom anything would bounce. We started again in the afternoon in the English furniture section with Miss Lowenthal. She was first rate. Got back to Dunford about 7. 
 
Tuesday, April 16th
    Cleaning carpets and upholstery in the morning. Then free afternoon. I went to Petworth. After dinner we had another fearful session with the housekeeper, supposed to be on "stores and accounts", but a chit chat and get together with the women, a waste of time and very irritating.
 
Wednesday, April 17th
    Today we cleaned the whole house with a daily, weekly or special clean, working from 9.30 a.m. to after tea. My feet got very tired and I have seldom been more glad to see tea arrive.  
 
Thursday, April 18th
    We had a final meeting at which Mrs Spikes read letters from various house owners who had been approached about curator-caretakers. Some were encouraging, some negative, some plain ridiculous. They all however seemed unwilling to pay!
    After an early lunch the party left by bus. I made tea at the flat and when Mary got in from the library we started for the Queen's Hotel at Newbury, where we were welcomed by Mrs Groves. As usual we had room 14. After dinner we took a stroll and then sat in the bedroom and I showed Mary my postcards. To be together again after a fortnights absence made us very excited and we were long and successful and very moved to tears.
 
Good Friday
    A tremendous beginning to the day at early light. Ecstasy! Mr and Mrs Groves at breakfast talked about Watford. Mary went tomato colour. "Mrs Barnes hasn't changed at all." We drove straight to Coombe.  It was a perfect day! The new made world was filled with light and birds sang in Eden. We were full of joy and happiness from the hours of night and our hearts sang with them.
 
Saturday, April 20th
    Spent the day sorting out, but failed to get tidy.
 
Easter Sunday
        Went on clearing back room. Took our tea out to the Streatley Lane. 
 
Wednesday, April 24th
    We had not been to Kew since 1950. This year said we must go - it may be our last chance. Brilliant sunshine and a cool north wind. Met Mary at the Southern Reading station with a sandwich lunch, lemonade and a thermos for tea, at 1.15. We had just begun our lunch when five schoolgirls entered the carriage and sat in a row on the seat opposite and never took their eyes off us while we ate our sandwiches! Not what we had planned.
    We walked by the little enclosures where we had lain among the narcissi many years ago now, by the magnolias to the great palm house. The beds in front were ablaze with tulips and in front of the house were ranged the Queen's Beasts from the Coronation Pavilion at Westminster, Lions, Unicorns, Bulls, Griffins, Falcon, Horse, Dragon, fascinating - I was more interested in these than the tulips said Mary.
    Next to the rock garden. After tea we went back to the chalk garden and the tulips to the rhododendron of King William's temple. As we wandered along, hand in hand, we often kissed and felt very happy and so much in love.  
 
 
Friday, April 26th
    I left at the 10.15 and had lunch in Exeter and came on to Maud's in time for tea. I told her Nora and I were parting and that I proposed after a divorce to marry Mary. It was a much easier conversation than with Molly. I felt at once that Maud was sympathetic and understanding. I found to my surprize that she had installed television.
 
Saturday, April 27th
    Went to Exeter in the afternoon. I met the 2.13 from Reading which was taking Mary to Looe. We had six minutes together, but it was well worth it. 
 
Sunday, April 28th
    It is clear that after all this we have decided to give up the canal as a bad job and accept Nasser's terms, paying the dues like the Americans I suppose "under protest" - a pretty lame and impotent conclusion to it all.
Monday, April 29th
    Tennis has raised Hilary in the social scale. He had got as far as playing a doubles tournament with the deputy governor, who could not have been nicer, and ending up with drinks in the officers' club! Took sandwiches, bought fruit and a bottle of lager in Exmouth and took my lunch beyond Orcombe point, for the tide was right out, and found a sun trap among the rocks. It was so sunny I took my shoes and socks off and had a paddle in the shallow rock pool. I am sure Mary would not have approved! I found a bit of drift wood to act as a desk and wrote to Mary, sending her a poem I had written in bed last night and this morning. I felt that our Easter holiday should be commemorated in our book of poems. 
    Last night I saw television for the first time. I must say I did not think much of it. The screen is small and the grain pretty coarse. We looked at a film on costume.  
 
Tuesday, April 30th
     Caught the 3.30 from Exeter. Felt very flat and depressed at my return though don't know why I should.
 
May. Seen with "another woman". Cherry and the Italian lodger. Petrol rationing to end (again). The next headmaster. Donald Heath on the declining standards of the medical profession. Last sports day. Headship brief history: dark ages, war years, middle ages, modern times.

Wednesday, May 1st
    Took Cherry out to tea and went back to supper with her. Cherry let out i) that she knew who Mary was and where she worked and ii) that Miss Hunter had told her I had been seen with another woman, "but of course it meant nothing."  Mary had given me an envelope addressed to her with stamps on it and I had left it on the desk in 1y after I had distributed the stamps; that my absences on Wednesday and the fact that I always got my books from the Times Book Club, had given her the clue.
 
Thursday, May 2nd
    Letter card from Mary. She was so pleased with the poem, bless her. This buoyed me up against possible eruptions from Clem. However he merely cut me dead and refused to acknowledge my existence at all.
    Yesterday, I learnt more about the clandestine, see April 4th! Cherry does not want to hurry him, but if he proposes, she will accept him. He may not be the proposing sort (in that sense!). Would like to meet him and see what I thought. She'd rather marry me, but if she could not marry me, then she would take Alfonso da Ponte!
 
Friday, May 3rd
    The day started badly. A parent arrived to complain about a stolen watch and threaten with the police. It turned up almost at once. She also produced a live cartridge picked up on the range. After I had lectured Wally on the subject, I suddenly realized it might be Raymond Hayes who had left it - it was of course!
 
Saturday, May 4th
    Called on Wilk in the morning. She was furious at Clem's gross rudeness to Mary Clayden at the end of last term - said he was the most selfish man alive! About right too.  
 
Sunday, May 5th
    Went on cleaning the back room, took out lino, washed paint, descaled kettle, lifted bulbs, wrote letters - the usual Sunday chores in fact.
    Germans very upset because we intend to reduce conventional forces in their country and rely on tactical atomic weapons.
    A pair of bullfinches are nesting in the brambles on the bank below the house, and a blackcap too.
    The  Observer says petrol rationing will only last another fortnight. The price has come down anyway to what it was before Suez. Perhaps The Observer is right after all. Expeditions like Suez are out of date and we should let them get on with it. Certainly, if we did try to seize the canal we should be honest with ourselves about it.
 
Monday, May 6th
    Went to Hartley to report pains in chest. He said blood pressure same as last June, heart OK, pains either indigestion or rheumatism. Pink patches on chest due to nerves! What are you to do? Wish I wasn't so windy; strong hypochondriac tendencies, always I suppose have had from my maternal parent's worries and anxieties.
    Powys on M. Arnold: Those who best love the undying books of the past must necessarily be his staunchest supporters, for it was always from books, from the long, deep channel of the accumulated writing of the centuries that he nourished his imagination and refreshed his spirit. It was by the inspired words of the past that he fed the life if his soul.
 
Wednesday, May 8th
    Mr Moore, the dentist [London Road, Reading], died last Sunday week. An excellent dentist. I had gone to him since 1934 and he had kept me patched up for 23 years, bless him. 
 
Thursday, May 9th
    Donald's mother rang up to say he had been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship in the U.S.A. Sent him a greetings telegram.
    Cherry to tea. Alfonso is working as a photographer. "Decent or indecent?" I asked!
 
Friday, May 10th
    Went over to Reading to seal envelopes at bank and then to Mr Pim, the solicitor. He said that all that was wanted was a simple confession of adultery from me and Mary to an enquiry agent - nothing about hotels etc was necessary.
 
Saturday, May 11th
    Coffee with Marjorie Wilkinson, after lunch Marjorie Barnes blew in. I wanted to say that I had kissed a headmistress, so I did, on her arrival and departure! To my surprize she offered me her mouth, not her cheek!
    Nora returned for supper having bought an Edwardian house in Sutton with help from Ken, two flats, the lower occupied. Hope it doesn't fall through. 
 
Sunday, May 12th
    After lunch told Nora about what Mr Pim said and she promised to see a solicitor, though she seemed to envisage policemen coming up the school drive to serve writs! I wonder. Blockbuster McBurnie came up after lunch. She looked a bit boiled, but had come within 200 votes of the Conservative candidate in the municipal election and hopes to get in next time. What a woman!
    Wrote to Mary and told her the day of our marriage was drawing near and we should have to decide about beds. Could I train myself not to snore? 
 
Monday, May 13th
    My last House Committee. Mr Cook asked me to retire, so he's evidently cooking up something for the governors' meeting. Hartley syringed my ears and got out masses of wax and dirt. I immediately heard much better.
 
Thursday, May 14th
    Petrol rationing to end at midnight. Waste of money having the new books printed I should have thought!
 
Wednesday, May 15th
    Ex-Indian judge Grille has aksed Mary to have a drink in his flat. Are his intentions honourable? M's assistant thinks not! We must wait and see.
 
Thursday, May 16th
    Cherry to tea. Alfonso not coming up to scratch!
 
Saturday, May 18th
  The new H.M. and his wife arrived at 3.30. I met them at the station and identified them easily as they were the only pair that got off the train. I liked him. He seemed a nice person, though without any charm. He had a very irritating habit of saying yes, yes, to any remark you made. His wife though was an exasperating person, who seemed on the verge of a nervous collapse and would eat nothing. She worried all the time about the schools for their very small daughters and seemed on edge with him. I felt sorry for him with a wife as jumpy as that. We had a couple of hours on the timetable and I gave him all the information about it I could.
    That dead beat, old Lord Saye & Seal, asked him if he approved of corporal punishment. He made the very cunning reply that he would follow my practice in the matter and if he found he was giving more than I did he would think something was wrong*. Did I have any? I said no, a) unnecessary b) out of place in mixed school.
*Diarist's subsequent insertion:  That should have warned me!
 
Sunday, May 19th
    Donald Heath came up for morning coffee. He borrowed my rucksack as he is going to Spain and I appointed him my agent for the purchase of postcards* both there and in the USA.
       We had an interesting discussion of what is wrong with the Health Service. He says the most frightful thing about it is the degeneration of the G.P. The young ones are losing any medical ideas they might have had and becoming disillusioned cynics. He takes surgeries to make pocket money and says after working with integrity and honesty all day in the lab, he puts all that away when he gets in the bus. He has perhaps 45 patients to see in two hours. He can give about three minutes to each, provided they walk in quickly! Of those 45 perhaps five really need a doctor. Unless you can persuade the public not to crowd into the surgeries, general practice of this kind is a farce.
    But how? I suggest a charge, Nora an intensive camapign on wireless and television "Don't go to your doctor unless you really need him." It is impossible, says Donald, to discipline your patients and tell them "I don't want to see you again, there is nothing the matter with you?" If you do they simply clutter up someone else's surgery. A good example of dividing a cake and still having a cake left at all.
    [The Headmaster had a large collection of postcards of art and architecture. Anyone travelling abroad was always asked to add to the collection. There were a couple of thousand cards by the time Mary died in 1994, most of them black and white, and by that date the availability of postcards of a much better quality, as well posters and reproductions using new techniques, had made the collection obsolete. I gave it to a grateful neighbour in the Cotswolds, a student who was studying the history of architecture]
    Read Speaight's Life of Hilaire Belloc. A difficult man, unhappy, disappointed because Oxford failed to give him a fellowship and he was forced to rely on lecturing and journalism. Discovered that the book on economics I used at Leatherhead and have, alas, only just thrown away, was written by him for a 16-year-old girl "Helen", none other than my dear Lady Helen.
 
Lady, when your lovely head
Droops to sulk among the Dead,
And the quiet places keep
You that so divinely sleep;
Then the dead shall blessèd be
With a new solemnity,
For such beauty, so descending,
Pledges them that Death is ending.
Sleep your fill - but when you wake
Dawn shall over Lethe break. 
 
"When we are dead, some Hunting boy will pass and find a stone half hidden in the grass and grey with age: but having seen that stone (which was your image), ride more slowly on."
 
Lord Finchley tried to mend the electric light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the duty of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.
 
Wednesday, May 22nd
    There was brilliant weather for my last Sports Day at the Grammar School. A cool wind blew from the north east to temper the brilliant sun and the valley looked its best. I wandered round talking to parents and chatting to the charming Mrs Mathews, who gave away the prizes. Mrs Williams, the new vicaress, turned up and we had quite a big tea party including Miss Hunter, Mr and Mrs Clem and the German teacher, Herr Nussbaumer, a fat, and stocky little man from Cassel.
 
Friday, May 24th
    Empire Day. Hymns, lesson about the sons of Zebendee asking for a position "in the kingdom". My last governors' in the afternoon. Tom Luker made a speech, rather pedestrian and heavy, and asked Mr Denham, as the oldest inhabitant, to add a bit. I replied. in the past under the Mackenzie, Monk, Ashford regime, I was so discouraged that I could not forbear to say I divided my 23 years into the dark ages to '39, the middle ages, the war years, and modern times. In the war years "never in the history of education did so many teach so little to so few". Some of them were amused, but they take themselves very very seriously of course.
    Mary had been to drink Madeira with the ex-chief justice of India, Sir Frederick Grille. His flat was full of books of all kinds - "These are mainly erotica" - He talked to Mary as if she were a fellow clubman, but so far he appears respectable and only erotic in his bibliophily, not in his behaviour. But you never can tell. 
  
Saturday, May 26th
    Aunt wrote asking me if I could bring her over some coal! She doesn't want to buy any more, and yet in these chilly days needs a fire. Obviously she does not expect to be alive next winter. She was sitting up in her bedroom, which faces north, very frail, thin and tottery, eyes bad, hearing bad, and with a septic throat. I got in the coal from the car in a bucket. Her mind seems all right, which makes the process of physical dissolution worse for her because she realizes what is happening. I got the coal from the car in a bucket.  
    Nora came back in the evening after two days away, today at Sutton to look at the new house. I must say after yesterday at Mary's and today with Cherry, I found her voice extremely penetrating.
 
Sunday, May 26th
    The grand old man Gilbert Murray died this week, a rationalist and humanist to the end. He once said that Christianity by reducing the Olympians to one, had only left one to be knocked down.
    "We can never", he said, "get outside man. Beyond man is the unknown, the realm of mystery which cannot be expressed in language or comprehended in human thought."
 
Monday, May 27th
    Went to tea with Mary. On my way ordered a new brown "thorn proof" suit at Mr Wilcox. We had tea in the new café in the market place, expensive, but very nice. It was not a success as I wanted to get over to Mary too many things requiring decisions in too short a time, notably what to ask for in China for a presentation [by staff and children] 
 
Tuesday, May 28th
    Herr Nussbaumer to tea. He had taught till 1942, then joined up and fought in the Crimea, was wounded in the debacle of Germany and got away through Rumania across the Black Sea with a permanently paralysed thumb. 
    He was a talker, so much so that he could hardly eat his tea. Did not think anything could be done about unifying Germany, was against its neutralization because the Russians would respect no agreement. Critical of the American policy to Russia at end of war; the Germans had warned us. As Churchill said, "We killed the wrong pig." Did he? I had not heard this one.
Wednesday, May 29th
    Took over my blue Spanish plate Con gave me after supper and Mary hung it over the kitchen door.

June. A Christian country after all. Hazel's reading list. Sisterly sympathy lacking. "Lowbury belongs to us." Alexander Weiss.
 
Saturday, June 1st
    Went looking at china for presentation in Lawleys and John Lewis, lunch at N.B.L. then to National Gallery to see reproductions.
 
Sunday, June 2nd
    Nora and I took our tea on Downs to Aldworth, but nearly ran out of petrol. We asked a young man by the pub in Aldworth if he knew where we could get any and he produced a gallon in a tin from his "beeje" car. It's a Christian country after all!
 
Monday, June 3rd
    Cherry and I went up to Beethoven concert at Festival Hall - Egmont, Emperor, Fifth. When the victorious divisions marched past the P.M. and Alanbrooke at Tripoli, they wept and neither was ashamed of this emotion. The drumbeats and trumpets of Beethoven are my triumphant legions. At the end of the overture Cherry quite overcome.
 
Tuesday, June 24th
    Nora went to see a London solicitor, who told her that as long as she was performing "wifely duties" she was "condoning" (what wifely duties?), so before she could start proceedings she must leave School House. She thought she would leave after the end of term.
 
Wednesday, June 5th
    When I went down to Exeter in April I noticed from the express window what looked like a very nice strip of Kennet & Avon canal with a lasher and cascade just before Kintbury. We started off along the towpath from Kintibury station towards Newbury. The lasher was further than I thought. We stopped for tea in sight of a lock. After tea we left the things and went on to the lock. This turned out to be the lasher, a charming spot with clear shallow water running over pebbles and water weed. We surprized a red shank. No one came along the towpath. We were alone and far away. It was a delightful afternoon.
[Shorter Oxford: lasher - water that lashes or rushes over an opening in a barrier or weir]
 
Thursday, June 6th
    Hazel Reynolds has been reading novels for me, Aldous Huxley, Maugham, Hemingway, Cather, Compton MacKenzie, Charles Morgan, Linklater. Today she brought me back The Fountain and I gave her The Spanish Farm.
    Cherry took the small bookcase and books in her car and we agreed to lunch at The Fleece in Cirencester.
 
Friday, June 7th
    Passed Cherry's car outside The Bull at Fairford. She was inside having a sherry! Lunch, and reached Longhope about 3. Cherry wanted to go for a walk so took her up to the top of May Hill where we lay on the top till tea time. Molly was haymaking but came down and made us tea.  
 
Saturday, June 8th
    Did the weekend shopping for Molly in Ross in the morning. Hoed beetroot in the afternoon.
 
Whit Sunday, June 9th
    Tom and Hester Armstrong turned up in his powerful car from Rugby for lunch, chicken, which he carved. After that he retired to bed till tea time. 
 
Monday, June 10th
    Took our lunch and went purring through the lanes, where we met no one, first to Kemply and then Kilpeck. Pointed out to Tom rude corbel of woman showing her thing and was amused ten minutes later to see Tom showing it to Hester. Tom and Hester, in spite of age and obesity, a lovely pair - a true marriage.
 
Tuesday, June 11th
    Tom and Hester set off at 7.15 for the Royal Academy. I waited till 12.30 for Cherry to meet me at the Royal Hotel, Ross. Reached home with supper bought in Ross about 7.
    It was an unsatisfactory weekend I felt. Molly is so gruff and (query) disapproving. I got no comeback from her, no warmth or friendliness, or any attempt to make me feel welcomed, let alone any sympathy. Mary's name never crossed her lips the whole three days I was there. When I said what I intended to do, she did not appear to take much interest. Old Maud was ten times more human.
 
Thursday, June 13th
    Letter from Miss Sansum to say Aunt had had had a heart attack on getting up yesterday morning.
    Cherry to tea as usual on Thursday. She seemed rather tired, but I gathered had sat up till midnight with Alfonso and had asked him, unknown to her parents, to stay in the house while he is turned out of the White Hart at Nettlebed during Regatta.
 
 Saturday, June 15th
    Nora want over to see Aunt, who was sitting up in bed and had rallied round again! Cherry and I took our tea up on Wittenham Clumps. It was most enjoyable.
 
Sunday, June 16th
    Another blazing day. It was too hot to go to the Downs or Long Grasses so I repeated the visit to Wittenham with Nora for lunch and came back for tea. Sorry to see how poor the beeches on Wittenden are becoming, broken branches and rotting trunks.
 
Monday, June 17th
    Another blazing day and bedroom at night 78°.
 
Tuesday, June 18th
    Another very hot day,  but distant thunder in the evening. Temperature in the 80's.
    Reading A Time to Keep Silence, Patrick Leigh Fermor, on the monastic life. He described how he stayed at the monastery of St Wandville in  Normandy. No demands were made on my nervous energy; there were no automatic drains, such as conversation at meals, small talk, catching trains, or the hundred anxious trivialities which poison everyday life.... Guilt and anxiety fled away. This new dispensation left 19 hours a day of absolute and Godlike freedom. 
     
Wednesday, June 19th
    I got tea and supper together in the morning. This was our midsummer picnic on the Downs. We drove up the lane. There was no one about, no other cars, no tractors, only three pairs of hares running about on on a newly rolled field. After tea we sat about till about six, than set off to walk to the top. When we reached the site of the haystack we kissed and I was for turning back. "Let's go on to Lowbury", sad Mary, so we walked up beyond the beacon pole and sat on my coat. We started home. Near the beacon pole we came to a shallow hollow in the turf about eighteen inches deep. I was surprized and delighted when Mary said "Let's sleep together here!" and lay down in the hollow. There was no one in sight except the tractor driver below the hill and though we were on the skyline our turfy saucer hid us from view. We lay together looking into one another's eyes. A lark rose singing an epithalamiom on the lovers below. "Now," said Mary, "Lowbury belongs to us." My heart was filled with surprize and joy as we walked back hand in hand to our supper. A memorable midsummer picnic.
 
Thursday, June 20th
    Supper with Phyllis in her new home in Hamilton Avenue. After supper Eve and Alexander came in for coffee. Latter on leave and wearing a dark suit and Old Etonian bow tie, had decided to go into the merchant navy or commercial flying, much, I guess, to the professor's disgust. He was pale, spotty and very blasé. Not a very nice type.
 
Friday, June 21st
    Took Mary two pummets of strawberries and some real cream. These I bought in Henley 3/-, the one I bought in Caversham 1/8, such is the robbery practised by the Henley shopkeepers at Regatta time!
 
June 22nd
    A letter from the National Trust inviting me to go for an interview for two jobs going, one at London, one in North Bucks, on July 5th. Took this over to Mary and then went to tea with Cyril. He was trying to sell his car, but he had trouble with crooks who had tried to get it by means of a fraudulent cheque drawn on a non-existent account by a non-existent firm. When a car is damaged in an accent, they buy it from an insurance company, cheap, and steal a new car which they substitute, and sell.
 
Sunday, June 23rd
    Spent a good deal of time delousing caravan and tidying house for crew. The crew are paying 22/6 a day, but this now includes lunch as well. Nora, who made a profit of £50 last year, says it will be only £40 this year, though she is getting more per day. 
    Reading The Passionate Sceptic, a life of Bertrand Russel. A personality, he thinks, is a collection of "events". When a friend said he found it hard to accept the complete dissolution of the individual, he replied, "A personality is an aggregate, or an organization like a cricket club. I can accept the dissolution of the M.C.C.". Energy which he might have wasted in feeling sorry for himself he directed into feeling angry with other people. It is no good being sorry because the universe has no principle of justice.
  
Monday, June 24th
    A letter from Hilary. He is hoping to go to the Lebanon for 10 days next month on a scheme offering cheap rates for the forces. The most expensive item will be a pair of trousers to go in.
     The Anglo-Italian woman, Nora's pick up, has now been invited to spend the night, all fearfully matey. I only hope she's genuine. She told Nora she was more handsome than Celia Johnson, which was laying it on a bit thick.
    The great advantage of making a move, sorting out your stuff and beginning a home all over again, is a heightened awareness of your possessions, books, pictures, and pieces of furniture. You enjoy them again as though they were new, which is very pleasant when you have had them for so long.
 
Tuesday, June 25th
    The N.T.! The house is Claydon; flat of 2 bedrooms, sit, kitchen and bathroom, electricity. Rang up Mary to tell her. I want to get it if possible. The question is the salary and terms of appointment. Well, I shall have to wait 10 days.
    Clem came in; he had written an "obituary", really very nice indeed. It is a pity he is such a "schitz".
 
Friday, June 28th
    Keble dinner; discovered that Dicker, whom I thought a very clerical cleric, had been at the Slade and painted in Paris! Sat between Dicker and a broken nosed little bachelor from Dunsford in the Teign valley. An excellent dinner; Iced melon, Salmon Steak, Chicken, Strawberry and Ice Cream, Mushrooms on scrambled egg. Claret, Port and coffee. Warden very handsome and soigné, like some aristocratic Victorian cleric, and made a well composed speech though he read most of it. He said speaking in the college hall was like shouting down a railway platform! A very enjoyable evening.
 
Saturday, June 29th
    A fearfully hot day. Mary took a half day and we went up to "the lane". Shortly before four I hastened to make a fire to get the kettle boiling and it was as well I did for a tremendous thunder storm blew up. While we were sitting in the car drinking our tea there was a loud explosion like a whip crack and enormous flash. The storm did not last long and we were able to sit down again on the bank by the side of our hawthorn tree. After supper, Mary, who had walked up to the edge of the barley field, called out that she had found a young partridge that might be hurt. I went up to see and crouched between the rows of barley was a speckled leveret, his ears tucked flat, quite still. Presently, very cautiously, he moved his eyes and head very slightly and then bolted up the furrow and "froze" once more. He did this three times until finally we lost him in the half light. A lovely incident. 
 
Sunday, June 30th
    I had vowed I would not have another crew in the house but poverty, or avarice, had made me, and here they are, Mr Dingle and all. The boys are in bed and Mr Dingle playing Bach on the piano. Another day of tropical heat and now a thunderstorm is rolling round and round the hills.