Dear Lumpy (3 page)

Best love,

D

A classic Mortimer holiday. My mother made ‘bosom friends’ with the most random people who would run for the hills when they saw her coming. My father enjoyed recounting strange anecdotes loosely based on his observations.

Budds Farm

Dearest L,

I hope you are in robust health and that you are satisfying Miss Birchnettle (or whatever your Head Mistress is called). Your sister Jane is back from Greece and moves up to Yorkshire at the end of this week. I believe your fond mother is going to drive her up. Jane is shortly due to take her driving test which ought to give at least one hearty laugh to all concerned. Your erratic brother Lupin is down here for one night. Alas, your ever-loving mother is in one of her little moods and has never stopped nagging him and giving him totally unwanted and very ridiculous advice. The ponies seem to be well; Pongo has a nasty little itch and Cringer’s breath would drive a car. Moppet has killed many sleepy mice. I was very lame one day and had to take some disgusting pills which made me feel sick. Caroline Blackwell stayed here for a night and the Bomers and Parkinsons came to Dinner. Your mother talked without ceasing and no one else got a word in. Your mother starts her bridge lessons on Monday. I shall be mildly sur prised if she keeps them up. We had dinner last night at that pub in Overton where I once took you. Do you still like your new dormitory? I trust you are kind to the unfortunate new girl!

Best love,

D

The unfortunate new girl, Kate Evans, becomes my best friend and with no family in England she is welcomed with open arms by both my parents as a surrogate daughter.

The Sunday Times

30 September

Dearest Lumpy,

Thank you for your letter. You seem to be having some curious adventures. I hope you are doing some work and that you are approaching your examinations in a spirit of well-justified confidence. I have been at Newmarket for most of the week. Mrs Hambro arrived at Cousin Tom’s house in a new sports Mercedes that would have turned your barmy brother Lupin green with envy. My friend Mr Barling was kicked in the back by a yearling at the Sales and is in hospital with severe injuries. Cringer was very pleased to see me when I got home; Pongo and your dear mother rather less so. Your mother has been in Yorkshire assisting your sister Jane to move house. The new woman at the cottage, whose name eludes me, seems pretty scatty. As regards your holiday skiing; yes, you can go provided I approve of the expense involved (you have so far afforded me no information on that fairly important point). Also I wish to know with whom you are going and who is in charge of the party. I do not want a lot of giggling girls on their own making sheep’s eyes at the handsome instructors. You and Charlotte together would constitute a threat to decorum and commonsense. An elderly lady I know has just had all her jewellery swiped by a burglar, including a string of pearls about twice the length of a bicycle chain. There is to be a ‘Sunday Times’ exhibition at the National Gallery from Oct 22 for 6 months. Some of my books will be on view which ought to attract visitors in their thousands. I hope you will attend the exhibition in a suitably respectful frame of mind.

Best love,

D

I have started at Tudor Hall but my old school friends from Daneshill are planning a skiing trip.

As my father predicted we did not behave with due decorum. On the train home I became seriously ill and the second we arrived in England I was rushed into hospital with acute appendicitis.

Budds Farm

12 February

Dearest L,

Are you really coming home next week? I’m glad you have warned me in time. I will put everything of value in the bank, nail down the carpets, and go off to Brighton for three days. I will leave a couple of tins of Kitticat for you to share with Moppet. Mind you divide them up fairly and don’t pinch the bigger helping. Your mother is hunting today and I trust that for once she will avoid a painful accident. I nearly ran over a fox on the M4 last night. Cringer is in great form and is becoming more cunning than ever. Farmer Lucks is going to retire, so he says, at the end of the year and build himself a bungalow. Mr Hicks’s old father died suddenly when drinking a cup of tea last Wednesday. He was over 80. A man shot a policeman in Newbury last Friday but luckily did not kill him. I went to a dinner party in London given by Schweppes and consumed about a ton of caviar. I have got three parties in London next week. I have no news of your sister Jane but I believe Paul is off to Liverpool for a fortnight. I saw Aunt Pam yesterday wearing a really hideous magenta hat. She really does get hold of some very peculiar clothes. I think she must go round all the local jumble sales.

Best love,

D

The appalling dress sense of Aunt Pam (aka The Hamburger) was only slightly better than that of my father.

Budds Farm

26 February

Dearest L,

I hope you got back safely and have settled down to hard work and good behaviour! Your plump sister Jane and your skinny brother Lupin are due down here today. Your ever-loving mother is hunting and I, as usual, am working. I have given your mother a record player for her birthday. I hope you see my photograph in Horse and Hound this week as I’m sure you will agree I am far better-looking than the picture, taken just after the completion of a heavy lunch, suggests. Pongo is very smelly today so I am banishing him out of doors for a breath of fresh air. On Thursday I am off to a champagne and oysters party in the morning and then to a big lunch party at the Savoy afterwards. I wish you were coming with me. Or do I? I am hoping to get a new car in June, a BMW. What colour do you think would be agreeable? I fancy the fashionable dog-sick yellow or a bright, vivid red like Cross and Blackwell’s tomato soup. If you leave sweet papers lying about in my new car, I shall be reluctantly compelled to request you to ride in the boot.

If you can’t be good be careful.

‘Safety first, safety first, look before you leap.

One false step, if you don’t think twice,

Bang goes your motto and mother’s advice!’

etc etc.

xx D

Dad decided on a vivid tomato red BMW.

Budds Farm

Dearest L,

I hope you are in rude health and are not eating too much. Do you weigh 11 stone yet? Your dear mother is totally immersed in this ghastly local election in which she is a candidate. Talk about flaps! I don’t know what she will do if she is beaten as she may well be as her opponent is very popular and has lived here a long time. Cringer is very well and sends you a big wet kiss backed by slightly smelly breath. We had the Parkinsons and Roper-Caldbecks to dinner – not very original or exciting. The Bomers are still in Minorca. Val Haslam is leaving to go and work in Newmarket. No news of your unpredictable brother Lupin but your lively sister Jane seems quite happy in Harrogate. I am off to Newmarket for 3 days next week, leaving on Thursday, the day after the election. Brigadier Gerard is running his last race on Saturday. He is now worth about two and a half million pounds. Nice work if you can get it!!

Best love,

D

My father tries to educate me about outstanding racehorses, which is slightly more interesting than my mother’s council elections.

Brigadier Gerard’s owners and breeders John and Jean Hislop, great friends of my parents, were two of the more entertaining characters in the racing world. Jean Hislop’s outrageous behaviour, both on and off the racecourse, always amused my father.

On Brigadier Gerard’s final appearance he defeated Riverman by one-and-a-half lengths to win his second Champion Stakes. He retired at the end of his four-year-old season, a winner of seventeen races from eighteen starts.

The Sunday Times

29 October

Dearest Lumpy

I hate Sundays. They really do depress me. Yesterday we went to a wedding at Wantage, a very pretty girl called Selina Meade, whose mother is an old girl friend of mine and who has presented her husband with no sons but six pretty and charming daughters. The reception was in a large marquee and luckily it was a warm, sunny afternoon. The flowers had to be seen to be believed. Your mother wore a purple hat and talked incessantly, few people hearing a single word she said. The evening before, Gypsy Lola and her husband, who is slightly cross-eyed, came to dinner. There was a lot of boring talk about the Garth Hunt. I just switched my mind off and thought of other things. There are a lot of rats here but the dogs and the cat are too overfed, lazy and stupid to catch any. I have no news of your sister Jane or your brother Lupin but very often no news is good news. You will be highly amused to hear that your slightly gaga father has been awarded a prize for being the outstanding racing journalist of the year (Loud cheers and some muffled laughter). I get presented with the ghastly thing at a large lunch (300 people) in London and look forward to the whole thing about as much as a visit to a Pakistani dentist. Anyway, to celebrate what would otherwise be a dreary incident, I am enclosing a small present. Don’t spend it all on gin and improper magazines if you please. I trust Snouter is well and that you are looking after him as he is subject to colds from November onwards. Can it be true that you are coming home soon? If so, I think I will take a long weekend in Brighton.

Best love,

D

My father – always self-deprecating, even about the most serious of issues – is presented with the Clive Graham Memorial Trophy for racing journalist of the year.

The Sunday Times

25 November

Dearest Lumpy,

Thank you so much for your birthday card which I liked very much. I do hope you are having good fortune in your examinations papers and have not made too many gigantic blots on your answers. By the way, I simply cannot remember if I told you that Lord Belper was very pleased with the card you sent him and wishes you to give 2 lumps of sugar to Leo on his behalf. Your sister Jane came down here for a night, ate a lot and seemed in good form. I had to go to a big dinner in London last Wednesday. Princess Anne made a speech and was really quite amusing. Driving back through Newbury at 1.30 a.m. I was stopped by the police. They were making a check for stolen cars and I was NOT breathalysed. I have given Nidnod ear-rings for her silver wedding present; pearls with diamonds round them. She seems very pleased. Cousin Tom has given us a lovely ice bucket in which the ice keeps for a day or so. Last night we had a very good dinner with the Mayhew Saunders. I had Sarah Bomer on one side which was good but a truly tedious lady on the other. Tomorrow we have a singularly unpromising luncheon for Nidnod’s hunting friends. One of the papers I write for is sending me a dozen bottles of champagne to celebrate winning the Derby award which is nice of them. I will keep a bottle for you and Emma in the holidays.

I bought a new toaster yesterday, only to return home and find Nidnod had bought an identical one in London. Give my love to Kate. Cringer sends you a big, wet, slightly smelly kiss.

Best love,

D

Lord Belper, without doubt my father’s most disreputable friend, was a good laugh. He would encourage me to recite rude poems I had picked up from my dad. ‘If skirts get any shorter, said the walrus with a sob, there will be two more cheeks to powder and a bit more hair to bob.’

‘Chez Nidnod’

Sunday, 3 December

Dearest Lumpy,

I hope you are big and well and looking, as usual, like a plump Dutch cheese. How are the O levels going? Have you been caught cribbing yet? I took your mother to Newmarket last week. In the town she put the key of my car into the lock upside down, tried to force it and broke it in half. I could not get another key and the car was immobilised for 48 hours. Thanks very much! We are all rather sad here as Mrs Henderson, whose daughter was at Daneshill, fell on the road out hunting last Tuesday and died soon afterwards. The new people were supposed to be moving into the cottage today but never turned up. Not a very good sign! How did the Tudor Hall bazaar go? Is it true that a shortsighted lady tried to purchase you under the misapprehension that you were a stuffed meat-ball? Your mother was hunting today and got very wet. I cannot tell you other details as I dozed off while she was recounting her exploits. Cringer came racing with me this afternoon and ate 10p worth of chocolate on the way back. I played bridge with old Lord Carnarvon on Thursday. He plays, if anything, rather worse than your mother does which is saying a great deal. Tomorrow we have lunch with Nika the Squeaker.

Best love,

D

My poor mother was frustrated that my father took very little interest in her hunting exploits. These often involved the horse falling – it was never an option that she had fallen off the horse.

Budds Farm

Dearest L,

I hope you are well and not giving the Head Mistress too much trouble. What a revolting story you told me! I suppose you learnt that from one of your delightful friends at Tudor Hall. You ought to be strung up and flogged with bunches of nettles and thistles! Last night I had to go to Frimley and lecture to members of the Garth and South Berks. Your dear mother told me it was a smart affair and made me put on evening clothes, while she was decked out as if she was off to a Ball at Buckingham Palace. On arrival I found she had got in a muddle (nothing new in that) and everyone else was dressed as for a wet afternoon at Twesledown! Rather embarrassing, don’t you think? However I think my little talk went down all right. We had quite a good supper and your poor mother was sick this morning. Moppet made a gigantic mess during the night in your poor mother’s bath. On Thursday we went to Charlie Jamieson’s wedding reception. He has married a girl like a twittering bird. Jane was there and was very put out because someone thought I was her husband! I gave dinner to Jane, Paul and Gale afterwards. Jane ate and drank as much as ever and is smoking so much her lungs must be like an unswept factory chimney. I am off to Sandown today where I am judging a competition for the best turned-out horse with sweet Mary Gordon-Watson. Your mother does not want to go to Corfu (why?) so I am now thinking of Rhodes or Crete. A helicopter crashed near here yesterday and two people were killed. Lady Darling turned up in the afternoon. She had been to a funeral wearing a dress she bought for 40p at a jumble sale. I don’t think it was cheap at the price. The funeral had been of a cousin of Uncle Ken’s shot in Ulster. You may have seen pictures of it in the paper. Is it true Bernadette Devlin was at Tudor Hall a few years ago and captain of the lacrosse team?