Dear Lumpy (2 page)

Charlie Hurt; Robin Grant-Sturgis; Molly Salisbury aka the Marchioness of Salisbury; George Rodney; Charlie Shearer; Patrick Fisher; James Staples; Pete Breitmeyer aka Peter Carew; Jeremy Soames; Joe Gibbs; the Hobbs brothers.

Barclay House, Yateley (1950–67); Budds Farm, Burghclere (1967–84); The Miller’s House, Kintbury (1984–2006).

On 12 January 1957 I arrived in the world. My father had been at the Newbury race meeting, commentating on the radio. My mother wrote in my pink ‘baby book’: ‘Louise Star Mortimer, like Charles, was born at Barclay House. The day was spent getting any last minute things ready. I took to my bed at 4 p.m. and Louise arrived at 8.27 p.m. She was wonderfully round and pink faced with a shock of dark hair. Roger came upstairs immediately to have a look at her. After announcing that he thought she looked as though she had character, he took Dr Hadfield (our family doctor and friend) downstairs for a drink.’

Moving on twelve years I have just started at a weekly boarding school . . .

The Flappings

Much Nattering

Berkshire

My Dearest Lumpy,

I hope you are settling down well and have not been moistening your pillow with hot tears. Settle down to some steady work and kindly refrain from doing anything really foolish. I miss you very much here and so does Cringer. Have you had a letter from the man with the Rolls Royce yet?

You have now got to the age when most girls have clashes of policy and opinion with their mothers. I shall be surprised if you prove an exception. My advice to you is to play it dead cool and decline to be drawn into long and acrimonious arguments. Your mother is devoted to your interests but like other mothers she is not always reasonable; nor, of course, are you.

I greatly enjoy having you at home but think there are grounds for improvement in your manners with people (not your parents) older than yourself. Your attitude sometimes borders on the oafish and if visitors make the effort to be agreeable to you, you must reciprocate. At times you seem to make no effort at all; possibly from shyness, more probably from sheer laziness and a disinclination to exert your mind at all. I shall anticipate marked improvement next holidays!

How is Snouter? I trust you will look after him during the winter. One of our big trees has got elm disease and has got to be cut down. Your sister Jane has been attacked by fleas and mosquitoes in Greece. The new people came into the cottage on Saturday. Pongo has sore feet and is very smelly.

Best love,

D

Snouter was a gingham toy pig bought from a local fete. My father gives some practical advice regarding my mother; being a typical teenager, it goes straight in one ear and out the other.

The Sunday Times

Dearest Lumpy,

If you ever leave bits of stick and bamboo all over the lawn again, thereby mucking up the mowing machine, I will string you up to the laundry line and flog you for 2½ hours with long boughs of freshly cut holly. So watch it and don’t push your luck too far! I enclose some sweepstake tickets. You may win a pink plastic po or a bottle of home-made wine derived from parsnips and old cabbage stalks. Jane is in a great dither and talks at interminable length on the telephone. It is so tiring for those who have to listen. Pongo has caught a small rat and Cringer, I fear, has worms. I hope to see you again soon. Don’t eat too many sweets or you will burst out of all your new clothes.

Best love,

D

I have annoyed my father again. He deals with it this time by using idle threats. I am persona non grata.

Budds Farm

23 November

Dear Miss Plumpling,

Thank you so much for remembering my birthday and sending me both a most acceptable present and an exceptionally pert card. It is v. cold here and I simply cannot afford to turn the heating on yet. I go to bed in long woollen socks and a balaclava helmet which lets the cold air in owning [
sic
] to the depredations by hostile moths. Your mother is in bed with a sore throat caused, in my view, by talking too much without appropriate pauses for thought. She has announced her intention to go to Kenya after Christmas. Will you come here as cook? Or perhaps I will just get on a boat and go off somewhere. Possibly China. More likely the Isle of Wight. Cringer is in good form and has just eaten four petit beurre biscuits. No wonder he is getting thick round the neck. Your mother kindly gave me a shirt for my birthday. Alas, it would have fitted William Bomer.

Best love,

D

My father always pleaded poverty, especially when it came to heating the house or the paying the phone bill. In very cold weather he would wear his balaclava and a very fetching jersey he had knitted out of old blanket wool when he was a prisoner-of-war.

The Sunday Times

16 May

Dear Miss Mingy,

I am relieved to hear you have passed (by a very narrow margin) into Tudor Hall School for pert young ladies but doubt if I shall be able to pay the bills so you may not be there long. I hope you behaved well during your visit to the Blackers and did not pinch the spoons and were not sick on the drawing-room carpet. I always think Miss C. Blacker is very pretty and attractive. We had a nice visit to Colonel and Mrs Nickalls apart from getting lost on the way. Moppet has killed a large mole and Cringer has made a series of large pools – almost lakes – in the kitchen. I have heard nothing of Lupin but your sister jabbers away incessantly and does not seem to know whether it is Christmas or Easter. The Head Mistress at Tudor Hall is exceptionally strict and has the reputation of being the most relentless flogger in the business today. So just watch it and mind your manners! I enclose a small present. Don’t just buy milk chocolate or you will soon have the same waistline as the oldest and greediest elephant at Billy Smart’s Circus.

Best love,

D

At thirteen my whole class at Daneshill moved on to other schools. My parents chose Tudor Hall for me on the advice of my brother Lupin! Not exactly the world expert on premier girls’ schools.

Budds Farm

Dear Louise,

You really are the limit. I opened my box of saccharine tablets this morning and there was a dead cockroach there. I think that was a joke on your part in quite exceptionally bad taste. This time, in fact, you have pushed your luck just a bit too far. I intend to stop your pocket money till 1975 and to engage a holiday governess, Miss Beatrice Birchenough, who has been working in a reform school for difficult girls and knows just how to deal with really hard cases. I may try a few reprisals myself, so don’t be surprised if you find a very old cod’s head neatly sewn up in your pillow one night. I have in the meantime written a stiff note to Miss Vallance suggesting that you and the members of your dormitory are completely out of hand and a dangerous threat to their ever-loving parents. The workmen have just finished doing the drive. They came in for a cup of tea and have left tar all over the kitchen floor. I fear your dear mother may explode when she discovers. I believe you are coming home for a long weekend. I challenge you to a croquet match for 5/. You are allowed a start of two up but just for once you must forbear from cheating. By the way, thanks awfully for your outstanding generosity in offering me one of those chocolates I bought for you. I found a huge toad in the woodshed today and intend to adopt him as he is very friendly and from a certain angle reminds me slightly of your plump sister Jane. I shall feed him on a diet of bread and milk and dead flies. Tomorrow I have to go to your Great-aunt Margery’s funeral. She was 84 and had been like a hard-boiled egg for years.

Best of love and do try and keep out of trouble if you can otherwise I can see you ending up in Borstal rather than at Tudor Hall.

D xx

I get an enormous amount of pleasure from playing practical jokes on my family. I have been known to put fish heads in my sister’s makeup bag and paint skulls in luminous paint on the walls of the spare room when my brother-in-law is staying.

Budds Farm

Sunday

My Dearest Louise,

I trust you are now well prepared for your confirmation and have adjusted your plump face to a very holy expression. Please keep it like that till after the service, during which you are forbidden to suck sweets or chew gum. Will you be dressed in white, a colour signifying, rather absurdly in certain cases which I will not mention, innocence and purity? Do you have to wear a white hat, and will it be composed of hen feathers or half an old tablecloth? As I shall be the most pure and innocent person there, I propose to come in a white suit. However, enough of that. We must all be very solemn and listen with the closest attention to what the Bishop says; I am sure it will be very good for us. It is a very long time since I was confirmed at Eton. I put on a clean collar and a lot of Anzora Hair Cream (IT MASTERS THE HAIR, so it said on the bottle) which made my hair stiff like cardboard. It was most unfortunate that the Bishop quite forgot to turn up and we were in Chapel for nearly two hours before a substitute could be obtained. Luckily none of my god-parents were there, but my mother was. She was not a great church-goer and got very restive during the long wait. Fortunately I had brought a book in with me as over 100 boys were being confirmed and I knew it would be a very long service indeed even if everything went well.

However, to be more serious for a moment, I am sure it is all ‘a good thing’ and if you think hard about it just occasionally you may see the point of it all and derive some benefit. I’m sure your mother still does, and perhaps most of us do during times of stress and difficulty. However, one’s religion is a very personal matter and it is all really up to you. I rather envy those who have a settled religious faith; it gives them a feeling of security.

I hope you realise it is a strict rule that no sweets are eaten for 17 days after confirmation and it is the custom to hand over all pocket money to the poor of the parish. To save you the trouble, I have already done that on your behalf. At least I would have done had there been any poor in the parish, but there are not. After the expenses of Jane’s wedding, I reckon I am poorer than most so I am retaining the money for myself. I’m sure you will agree that this was the right and proper course.

That revolting Moppet left a rabbit’s head under the dining room table; it was found by Pongo who made short work of it, to the great disgust of your mother. We are going to have quite a lot of strawberries and raspberries; what a pity they upset your stomach so and you are unable to eat them. I really feel sorry for you. However, I will see your mother makes you some nice junket or tapioca pudding instead.

Thank goodness we have a quiet day here today. I feel very exhausted. On Tuesday I leave at 5 a.m. and motor up to Newmarket. I come back early on Wednesday as I may have to go to a funeral at Rotherwick in the afternoon before I move on to you.

Your affectionate father,

RM

From an early age the relationship I have with my father is very affectionate. Although confirmation is a serious occasion I revel in being mobbed up by him and I am more likely to heed serious advice when accompanied by witty stories and leg pulling.

Budds Farm

23 June

My Dear Lumpy,

I think that card from you and Sandra was amazingly cheeky and I intend to take steps when next we meet to extract a grovelling apology. So just watch it, you two. I will have you howling for mercy in a very short time indeed. I don’t think Sandra will be able to run very fast in those very tight jeans she wears; also she eats so much that her speed has been greatly reduced. As for you, I warn you. I found a dead rat on the rubbish heap in the garden; it is now in your room and it is up to you to find it. The smell and the fleas may offer some valuable clues. I hope you are doing extremely well in your examinations. A man in Basingstoke kept his daughter in a damp cellar on bread and water for a month after she had failed in her O levels; that is nothing to what I shall do to you if you fail to get a brilliant report. Jenny has got hay fever and Cringer has worms. The strawberries are rotting because of all the rain. Far too many people are coming to Jane’s wedding and most of them I have never even heard of. I am barring men with beards and women with bare feet and dirty toenails. I hope you will not drink too much champagne as I don’t want to see you rolling about on the carpet in your best suit. I am trying to get Lupin to wash his neck for the occasion.

Best love,

D

I am oblivious to the fraught lead up to my older sister Jane’s wedding. Lupin left the Coldstream Guards just before being commissioned, which went down like a lead balloon across the family, especially with Uncle Whiskers (aka General Sir Kenneth Darling commander-in-chief of Allied Forces Northern Europe).

Budds Farm

Dearest L,

I am sorry not to have heard from you since you went back. Perhaps though you wrote to Nidnod and she forgot to show me the letter. We set off to France on the 29th. The weather forecast was ‘very stormy indeed’ and the car ferries were running hours late. I did not much like the prospect as those old ferry boats roll hideously. We got to Dover and nearly got on the wrong boat by mistake. Eventually we drove on to a dreadful, creaking old boat; there was only one other car on it. We had a cabin, fell fast asleep and did not wake up till we arrived at Dunkirk at 4 a.m. We then had a long drive in appalling rainstorms to Chantilly, stopping for breakfast at a small service station where the food was far less nasty than at similar places in England. We arrived at Chantilly very weary at 8.30 a.m. and found to our horror that our hotel, usually empty at this time of the year, was full on account of May 1st being a Public Holiday. We were eventually given a room in a small inn where they were clearing up after an all-night wedding party. Your mother retired to bed (the sheets bore both hand and foot prints of previous occupants, while my pillow had clearly been used by a large and very hairy dog with dirty paws) with a hot water bottle. An hour later Nidnod woke up to find the bottle had leaked and the bed was soaking. She was certain that the hotel proprietor would think she had wetted her bed so we turned the mattress. What we found on the other side I simply cannot tell you. However we re-made the bed more or less successfully. In the meantime I had shaved but could not make the water disappear. Investigation revealed that the previous occupant had been sick in the basin and had blocked the drain! Thanks very much. We then set off for the races at Longchamp in warm, sunny weather. We got lost in Paris, Nidnod was almost in hysterics and I was terrified by the French drivers who have no manners at all. We got there in the end and met the Hislops, who gave us a wonderful and most expensive lunch in a superb restaurant on top of the grandstand. We saw Mill Reef win and then returned to Chantilly, Nidnod at the wheel. She nearly went broadsideon into a French car and death was very close indeed at that moment. She then got hopelessly lost trying to find the Ring Road and we drove for hours round Paris without making any headway. We were both exhausted by then and it would have been a relief if we had been mown down by a giant lorry. However we at last got back and had a very good dinner to cheer us up. The following morning I had to see some of the best horses in France at Chantilly, which I enjoyed, and we then drove some 170 miles to Deauville where we had a restful night in a comfortable hotel. The next day I had to visit a stud and then we had a marvellous lunch at a small restaurant at Bonneville-sur-Mer. Your mother ordered a king-size dish of lobsters, crabs, mussels, clams, prawns etc and I was not all that surprised when she had a bad attack of diarrhoea (not an easy word to spell) afterwards. We then drove to Clecy and were given a very warm welcome at the little hotel we go to there. The weather was perfect the next day and we went up on the hills which are covered with wild flowers of every sort. We had a superb lunch out of doors by the side of a river with your godmother Diana Gunn and her boozy but affable husband. We did not finish lunch till 4.30 p.m. We went off to visit a local museum and chateau and both your dear mother and Diana got the giggles very badly and I felt very ashamed as the rather spotty French lady showing us round was clearly getting rather annoyed. I don’t suppose your mother’s conduct had anything to do with the large amount of wine consumed at lunch. The Gunns had dinner at our hotel and then departed for Caen, Mr Gunn by then talking a great deal of fairly incoherent nonsense. On the Thursday we drove to Cherbourg, having a picnic observed with interest by children from an orphanage and three porky-fat priests. The boat was almost empty but Nidnod found some friends and was able to have a non-stop talk for a couple of hours. We landed at Southampton at 9.30 p.m. and were home an hour later. Cringer was insane with delight to see us back. Your brother is home looking clean (comparatively) healthy and happy. We had drinks (a good many) with the Bomers last night and today James Staples is here for lunch in a new suit and accompanied by a girl-friend, small and shy, who is Lupin’s housekeeper, a very odd arrangement.