Dear Lumpy (14 page)

24 November

Dearest L,

I enjoyed seeing you yesterday and I hope it was not too gruesome for you being surrounded by old fogeys. Thank you for the generous gifts which were greatly appreciated. Lupin gave me a huge picture of the Coldstream Guards charging with fixed bayonets. I’m glad I wasn’t there, it looks very rough! Nidnod is the better for her trip to Scotland but is not right yet. I think she sees Dr Yates on Friday. The first sentence in a book I was given is ‘old age is not really so bad when you consider the alternative’. Unless you are fed up with it I’ll send you and Henry smoked salmon as usual for Christmas.

Best love, D

P.S. We had a nasty fire down the road this morning. It started in an airing cupboard. The smell of burning flesh is rather awful.

My father’s seventy-sixth birthday. As yet another year passes he is full of the joys of life. It was one of the last occasions on which the whole family congregated at the Miller’s House.

Gloom House

Kintbury

Friday

Dearest L,

Many thanks to all members of the Gowan Avenue mob for their generous and tasteful Christmas presents. The pretty egg-coloured bow tie will detract attention from a pustular spot on my Adam’s apple, while the desk diary will doubtless soon be crammed with reminders for scintillating social engagements (I don’t think). In fact the most common entry will be ‘Threatened with gaol if tax still unpaid on this date.’

I have sent Rebecca some money and I hope you and Henry will receive some fish by Dec 15th. I have not forgotten Benjamin. I will discuss the subject of a suitable gift for him when next we meet.

Nidnod is poorly today with another cold. My sister is in poor shape, having had to consult her GP for the first time for 15 years. She is very gloomy, being unused to feeling unwell. As a matter of fact being 78, on your own and seedy is pretty depressing.

Peregrine tried to eat me last night. Otto is in very good form, greedy and incontinent.

XX D

My father looks very dapper in his new bow tie, as yet unstained with egg or marmalade.

The Miller’s House

7 January

Dearest L,

I hope the Nidnod expedition went off well. I have sent you off a birthday present; don’t panic if it does not arrive in time. How old are you? Getting near the dangerous thirties I suppose? It is snowing hard here. Desmond P took one of his mothers-in-law out to lunch just before Christmas. She is 85 and totally gaga. There was no conversation as the old girl never stopped singing Three Blind Mice! When she gets bored in her Home, she upsets Ovaltine over the matron’s head. Poor Desmond has another mother-in-law living with him. She is incontinent, an alcoholic, and cannot do anything for herself except open bottles. No hospital or home will take her and either Desmond or his wife has to be in the house with her. They are worn out. Aunt Joan is not too well and at 78 is starting to feel her age.

XX D

Poor Mr P. seems to endure a bottomless pit of impossible mother-in-laws.

The Miller’s House

28 February

Dearest L,

No bricks through your windows yet, I hope. What a shaming programme! It beats me how four allegedly educated young men could voluntarily depict themselves before millions as pig-ignorant fascists with just a hint of cruelty thrown in. That individual called Cheney struck everyone here as a genuine chateau-bottled shit. He and the others must have won thousands of votes for the Labour Party and the League against Cruel Sports. There is an old saying that whom the Gods wish to destroy they first render insane.

Your mother’s birthday today. Naturally after reading the papers – abuse from the Mail, contempt from The Times – she is a bit shattered. What does Lupin think of it all?

Best love,

D

My father considered himself to be a thoroughly respectable, middle-class gentleman and he would avoid any sort of publicity. To say he was horrified when Henry got involved in a documentary called The Fishing Party was an understatement. My parents had invited several friends around to watch the airing of said documentary. It made it all the worse as they honestly thought they would be watching a programme about four prosperous city men taking a fishing holiday in Scotland, their aim being to catch the world record for skate. What emerged was the outspoken, even outrageous, point of view of four very right-wing and not very intelligent young men.

The Miller’s House

15 March

Dearest L,

I hope that black dog of yours has not devoured anyone yet. We went to Sandown on Friday and I have seldom been colder. However we had a good picnic in the car – bacon sandwiches and whisky macs. The worst dressed man on the course without any doubt at all was Loopy! Your mother hunted on Saturday and did not have too bad a day. Jenny Burnaby-Atkins dropped a 12 lb frozen turkey on her foot and is not surprisingly hors de combat. She and Freddy are due to go to Morocco on the 24th. Morocco is full of male members of the English aristocracy who go there in pursuit of Arab boys. The Lemprière-Robins had a smashing time in Thailand; the hotel they were at made Claridges seem like a tramp’s doss-house. I visited Major Surtees’ new house in Wiltshire; it needs a woman to live there and some furniture. Our dogs are yapping more than ever and they do a fair amount of indoor peeing. Mrs Cameron is in Denmark where it is even colder than here but it is, after all, her home country. The Danes are less boring than Norwegians and less morose than the Swedes. They produce very good pornography.

Love to all,

D

My father describing Loopy as the worst dressed man on the racecourse really is the pot calling the kettle black.

The Miller’s House

20 April

Dearest L,

I hope all goes well with you. I expect London is depressingly grey and chilly. It has been a shade warmer here and the garden is crawling reluctantly to life though quite a lot of herbaceous plants are in fact dead. Your sister and her sons came for three days. Piers managed to lock himself into his room and we had to get the local Fire Brigade to release him. Piers has a lot of quiet charm but Nicholas is too much of a mother’s boy at present. For God’s sake don’t tell Jane that or she’ll get Colonel Gaddafi to bomb The Miller’s House! Nidnod has a bad leg which makes her a bit crusty. The east winds play havoc with my temper and I don’t suppose I’m any too easy to live with. I was going to London for a wedding (Fortescue-Ainsworth) on Thursday but now I must drive down to Sussex to go to the funeral of an old friend (Brigadier Henry Green) who mercifully died after a ghastly stroke. I have been lumbered with writing his obituary. Major Surtees is staying near here and there are rumours that his presumed impending marriage (his 3rd) is after all unlikely to take place. Is Henry taking part in the London Marathon? I am thinking of lining up for a ½ mile sponsored walk for certified Kintbury geriatrics.

Best love to you all,

D

Only a lunatic or masochist would dare to criticize my nephews. Luckily they have both turned out to be happy and successful in their own right.

Kintbury

Dearest L,

Thank you so much for your letter and the photographs, both greatly appreciated. Benjamin looks a very cheerful character. Possibly I did at that age. In 1910 there were very few cars, about six aeroplanes that looked like bicycles with wings. The British Navy was easily the strongest in the World. I had two World Wars ahead of me, five years in prison, men walking about on the moon, the threat of the atomic holocaust, the decline of this country into third-rate power! I was brought up with seven or more indoor servants, including a butler and a footman. Now at 76 I do the grate, fill the log-baskets, clean my shoes, make my bed, cook and wash-up my breakfast, wash my car, do endless weeding fatigues in the garden, dig up huge piles of ground elder, join huge queues at the surgery. Quelle Vie de Dog! My father was wounded in World War I, my grandfather in the Indian Mutiny!

Nidnod did not enjoy the wedding and came back in a fractious mood. It was a 2 hour drive to Henry Green’s funeral and it was a 2 mile walk from where we parked the car to a tiny church. Luckily a seat had been kept for me as the church was full and lots of distinguished generals could not get in and had to stand shivering amid the tombstones during the service, rather a long one as we sang all 5 verses of Onward Christian Soldiers! Brig Lemprière-Robins got stuck in the traffic and arrived when the service was over. He had cut himself shaving and there was blood all over his collar! Give my love to Big Emma; I hear Emma’s father is coming to live near Marlborough.

Love to all,

D

Did you read the obituary of Henry Green I wrote for ‘The Times’? I was given 15 minutes to do it.

My father contemplates his present and past life as he attends yet another good friend’s funeral.

The Miller’s House

Saturday

Dearest Lumpy,

How are you keeping? I imagine the delights of spring in Devonshire have been blunted by Siberian winds. East winds are very damaging to the liver and tend to make everyone unhappy and bad-tempered. How is Henry? His little trouble with the BBC was only a seven day (or less) wonder and seems to be completely forgotten. I imagine the drink trade does well this cold weather; people drink to avoid hypothermia or to try and make themselves slightly less miserable. I made myself a big cocktail last Tuesday with lots of cointreau and cognac. Unfortunately a front tooth (almost the last one) contacted a solid block of ice, and as was the case of ‘The Titanic’ with the iceberg the tooth came off second best, being split from bottom to top. The dentist removed the remains the next day. I can no longer say, like the lady at the Hunt Ball in the ‘Irish RM’, ‘I have only two teeth in my head but thank God they meet!’ My appearance and powers of mastication have certainly not been improved. Lupin was down here and seemed in good form. Do you think he will be the first Mortimer millionaire? It was kind of you to have Nidnod to stay. She likes seeing you and the children and she is apt to get bored and crusty here. The garden is in a ghastly state; everything looks dead and probably is. I have got to go to a wedding in London this month: I am told the bride is known in SW3 as ‘Horizontal Harriet’. I am thinking of resigning from the Turf Club as I only use it twice a year. All the members I knew are dead, or just about to be, and I have nothing in common with the younger members.

Best love to you all and keep in touch,

D

Much to my mother’s chagrin my father was given false teeth that never seemed to fit him properly. Under pressure, he would put them in for special occasions (if he could find them). When guests overstayed their welcome he would remove his teeth and place them on a nearby table.

The Miller’s House

Dearest L,

Happy Easter to you all and I hope you have all recovered from influenza. Yesterday Nidnod drove me to lunch with Mrs Cameron in my car. We missed a crash (her fault) by inches at a roundabout and when we reached our destination she removed much of the left-handside of the car when parking it. It will costs hundreds to put right. I can’t understand how she did it as it was before lunch, not afterwards! I have just backed Mr Snugfit for the National; his owner runs the Snugfit Trouser Factory. Julian Seaman rode at Liverpool yesterday and came down at the very first fence. Your brother seems to have become an antiquarian bookseller: he has tried everything except running a brothel and being a jockey. The Tordays are coming for Easter: I am locking up anything of value which is breakable. I am busy helping to organise a beano at the Highclere Stud in aid of the Animal Health Trust. Unfortunately I am apt to fall asleep during committee meetings. Our secretary is blonde and very attractive. A very peculiar woman called at 9.30 the other evening and said she had come to buy a potter’s wheel! I think she had escaped from the local funny farm. We have been invited to a posh lunch at Ascot on Wednesday and Nidnod is polishing up her chestnut wig. On the other hand I am in dire need of a haircut. I have been doing odd jobs lately for ‘The Field’ and ‘Racing Post’. I need the money. Paddy Parkinson’s son Simon brought off a nice double the other day; in the morning he failed his driving test (the man who tested him was a big black man), and in the evening he was mugged, losing valuable possessions. He is retiring to Cyprus for a holiday. Willy Whitelaw was the last head boy of my preparatory school before it went bust; next in seniority was Desmond Parkinson. Willy W would have been blown up at the Conservative Conference only he was sick of politicians and went for a quiet night at John Blackwell’s flat. Our first daffodils are only just coming out, but plenty of snowdrops and violets.

Love to all,

XX D

This is Lupin’s favourite story about my mother’s wig: He and his partner Tim were spending one of many evenings at The Miller’s House after my father had died. My mother, having had a quite few too many, wobbled outside (as only my mother could wobble) with her Chihuahua, Danny. Several minutes later Danny reappeared without my mother and promptly ‘killed’ her wig on the sitting-room floor. On further inspection my mother was found head first in the hedge at the bottom of the garden.

The Miller’s House

23 May

Dearest L,

The holiday was a success and Jane made an admirable travelling companion, good-tempered and unselfish. The journey was a smooth one, 5½ hours from door to door. At Marseilles airport we picked up a hired Peugeot which served us well. The hotel lies in beautiful country with marvellous views. The temperature was always between 75 degrees F and 80. There are only 14 beds in the hotel which was by no means full. Very comfortable and excellent service. Nidnod never stopped talking incomprehensible French and invited all the hotel staff to come to Kintbury! Luckily they realised she had a few marbles missing! We had the pool to ourselves for most of the time and even I took the plunge four times a day. The food was very much ‘Provencal’ which suited Nidnod and Jane but I yearned for Marks & Spencer fishcakes and Nidnod’s kedgeree. The girls put on weight, I lost a bit as dinner did not tempt me. We had delicious picnics every day in wonderful country full of irises and lilacs. The one failure was when I stupidly asked the barman for a Pimms; it tasted like treacly furniture polish. The dogs were pleased to see us back and the weeds had thrived in my absence.