Ulverton (31 page)

Thurs. 19th March 1953

Clear, windy. V. cold. Hard frost. Luncheon meat.

Typing & collating a.m., ’phoning p.m. Mrs Iris Webb popped round tea-time. Gave us all her support. Had read the newspaper letter. Could her little daughter Susan show us her needlepoint? H. said needlepoint wasn’t on the list. But you asked in your letter for local contributions. Representative is the word, said Herbert. (Why does greatness have to be so gruff sometimes?) Mrs Webb leaves in bit of a huff. H. turns to me: what is bloody needlepoint? Bell rings. Mrs Maud Oadam. She has brought along her grandfather Ralph’s animal traps. Horrid. H. says that’s for the bonfire. Mrs Oadam leaves in a bigger huff than Mrs Webb. I meant THE bonfire, H. shouts. Bell rings. Mr Horace Rose holding a footman’s jacket. His father’s. Rather fine. Nice gold buttons. Used to serve up at the big house. Serve up what? Serve, says Mr Rose, with a sniff. H. says, politely, I am concerned with the present, not the past. Modern times! 1953! Mirro Modern Cleanser. Deaf Aids. Auto-changer gramophones. Projection television. Oxo cubes. Coloured magazines. Plastic switches. Phensic tablets. Tampax internal sanitary protection (aha). Magnetic tape recorders. Silvifix Hair Cream. And so on. Do you see? A single example of anything modern that will fit. Not a
footman’s
jacket, Mr Rose. Go and see Mr Jefferies. That is his department. Mr Rose told H. that he was an ungrateful bugger and why doesn’t he bury himself too while he’s about it? Left in a bigger huff than Mrs Oadam. Not a good start. Left notice on gate: ‘All Contributions For Posterity, Please Bring Sat. May 2nd or Sun. May 3rd.’ H. retired early, so took opportunity to search Deposit Room for missing personal item. Not in ‘Health & Hygiene’ boxes. Nearly gave up. Clock ticking made me nervous. Chill. Switched on new electric fire though rather loud click might wake H. in room above, I feared. Did not consider ‘Domestic Comforts’ as already indexed it, but only to F with ‘Medical Advances’. Searched without success in unpleasant material (rupture girdles, stethoscope, hypodermic syringes etc.). Then noticed them (Tampax) clear as day tucked into ‘Vogues & Luxuries’ box along with sunglasses, powder compact, lipstick, electric mop etc. Vogues & Luxuries! Greatness does have its oversights. Am quite irritated. Have to have a word. Fuzzy edges. Where does one Section end and the next begin, I ask myself. Scald still tender.

Whoops – left electric fire on. Have to go up. Drat.

Fri. 20th March 1953

Mild, damp. Kippers.

Typing all day. H. in London. Sneaked into living room and watched dance programme – Jack Parnell etc. Put the Ivor Novello and one of Herbert’s (Tommy Kinsman & his Dance Orchestra – rather good) on Autochanger & got it to work. Danced around room till giddy. Knocked over vase & chipped off lip. One of the Chinese pair H. says looted from Peking palace in Mr Mao’s revolution. Priceless. Tried to stick it back on, but wdn’t hold. Blame Mrs Dart? Don’t want H. to think I go in living room as matter of course. He’s funny about that.

Sat. 21st March 1953

Mild, damp. Pork pie.

Indexing a.m. & p.m. ‘Medical Advances’ rather unpleasant. Makes me feel morbid. Keep seeing Joan Lowe’s husband sunk in chair. Sick-room. Disinfectant worse than what it was getting out. Broke her, really. Lucky Father went when he did, perhaps. In prime. Bang. Walked to clear head. Up to White Horse. They ought to scour it, or whatever. Daffs in beech clump near barrow. Friendly robin. Shoes held up well in mulch. Thought how difficult to tree-spot without leafage. Herbert’s drawings always v. accurate: said once he kept file of tree sketches so all his pictures have same trees in background. Shd I start on about Tampax? Got them back, at least. He might not notice. H. getting more & more short as day draws nearer. Ticked me off tonight for not stirring powder in cocoa. Floating about on top. Makes me giddy, he said. Well I never. And how’s YOUR contribution going, my dear? Very well, thank you, Mr B. (MUST start it TOMORROW.) Just found half-sucked acid drop stuck on dressing-room table. Feel like Miss Marple, sometimes.

by Violet Nightingale

(File …?)

Introduction

I first started with

I came to the country the countryside to the village of Ulv

On the eve of war, when

I walked up the gravel drive of Orchard House that summer’s day with

I scrunched

Being Mr Bradman’s personal secretary (he prefers the term ‘assistant’, but the post was advertised using the former title), I was always seen by him as being an integral part of the ‘Project’, if only to collate the relevant data, type

With his half-moon spectacles and ill-cut jacket, Mr Bradman struck me at first sight as one of those employers who would forever need ‘tidying up’ – even to the extent of supplying my wages now and

Knowing Herbert E. Bradman to have been one of the leading artists on ‘Punch’ for many years (see ‘Collected Works’ and magazine samples) I expected that diffidence to worldly matters that goes hand-in-hand with the artistic life. I was thoroughly prepared to find umbrellas in the refrigerator (see ‘Domestic Comforts’) and the chicken hanging in the hall, as you might say! So I was surprised, on that July day of 1939, scrunching up the drive, to find a man to open the door on the door opening wholly in command of himself, punctilious in the extreme, and courteous. He was dressed in a Harris Tweed jacket, which although rather well-used, was cert and slightly burnt on the sleeve, was certainly of top quality. He received me in the main sitting room of his house: this being a generous pile construction of a somewhat mediaeval look, though built (according to the inlaid stone) as recently as 1929, on the former site of the Manor orchard – several ancient pear-trees, three apple-trees, and one dwindling plum scraping my bathroom window to attest attesting to that fact, and the old brick wall, of course. He shook my hand warmly, and showed me his ‘studio’, a perfectly charming converted
garage
with a huge skylight facing North. Our problems with our battles to keep this clear of a Virginia creeper which he refuses to uproot have given rise to many of his famous ‘Gardener In A Sweat’ cartoo humorous drawings, and furnished our professional relationship with the kind of laughter discovered one finds on only at on the tops of precarious ladders. Although

Although I had, like many others, confused Mr Herbert E. Bradman with Mr H. E. Bateman (they happen they unfortunately share the same initials – see ‘Minor Rivals’ section of ‘Commentary on the Collected Works’), Herbert (or Mr B., as I like to call him) jocularly) has no singular trade-mark like Mr Bateman’s characters, whose horrified popping eyes leave me disg more repelled than amused. Neither, indeed, is he equipped with a regular sinecure like Mr Arth Alb like Mr Bestall’s ‘Rupert the Bear’ strip in the ‘Daily Express’, or Mr A. B. Payne’s famous trio in the ‘Daily Mirror’ (I myself attended the 1928 rally of ‘Gugnuncs’ at the Royal Albert Hall!) Instead, Herbert strives to capture the modern way of life and its peculiar idiosyncrasies in a careful, almost painstaking line. Enthusiasts of his work (and there are still a fair number) have taken pleasure in identifying the makes of car in his ‘Modern Motoring Mania’ series, or the species of flower in his ‘Irene Rambler’ strip for the ‘Schoolgirl’s Own Annual’, in which her highly amusing muddy adventures ran from 1924 to 1927. The manner in which he can sum up whole personalities with a few deft strokes of his pen has earned him many admirers: as he has famously said – ‘get the nose right, and the rest follows!’ I have come to love to cherish his grand scenes of modern bustle and confusion, from which there always seems to be a policeman’s frantic arm emerging; or those well-known farmyard scenes of pretty milkmaids and ruddy yokels scattering cocks an cockerels hens a their poultry and or and those society galas with their slim ladies and monocled young men, all about to meet with disa catastrophe.

Sun. 22nd March 1953

Mild, damp. Chicken, prunes & custard.

Matins. Sermon rather dull on Contrition or something. Always reminds me of a car part, Contrition. Young Rev. Appleton has nice voice, a waste. Church cd do with electric heaters, stinks of paraffin. H. chatty over lunch. Hasn’t noticed chipped lip? Will plead ignorance if does, for sake of Project. Walked up to Plum Farm to check on wood dog violet behind. Mr Desmond Dimmick in yard, cutting down that nice big tree. Hailed me to come over unfortunately & had to enter. Dung everywhere. Stink still on shoes. Wanted to show me his implements: went into big old barn. Funny-looking plough, harrow, manure knife (!), something beginning with D (dribble?) and sheep-bells etc. all in heap under cobwebs. Had read our letter and so forth. I said my bit about present, not past. Said he’d give us fertiliser bag. What we needed was lots of fertiliser spread about & grass dug up like in war. That or starvation. Then the usual if my old grandad Harry etc. Always blamed you Northerners and all yr smoke, Miss Nightingale. And that Squire! Barn full of dust, got right into my tubes. Sudden shaft of sun showed it all up, like searchlight. I don’t think agricultural matters will ever be my cup of gladness, as Father wd say. You Northerners my foot. Showed me swallows’ nest, though. Come back every year and as old as the barn (1713 on the lintel!) but they always say that. Started ‘contribution’ after tea–bad start but picked up after a bit. Queer putting down yr own life. Though it’s more Herbert’s really of course. Wood dog violet out, anyway.

Mon. 23rd March 1953

Cold, sunny. Spam.

Typing all day. H.’s new transcripts completely different version of his teenage years. Same person? Woman’s Hour had nice thing on widows. Made me cry, thinking of Kenneth. Daft. H. took my hand after combing session and said I was his staff. Hip
back
again. Asked Mrs Dart about the Scott-Parkes story. Well, I never. Long time ago, though.

Tues. 24th March 1953

Cold, overcast. Lamb chop.

Typing & ’phoning. Nice postcard of Florence from Shirley Leatherbarrow. She does get about. Miss Walwyn round after school. Loads of giggling up there. Stamping shook plaster off. Don’t remember room being this chill and damp. Basements are the devil to get warm. Bit off-colour. At least office is warm, being above living room. What a queer, higgledy-piggledy house this is! All these bits of stairs. My bathroom that bit warmer cos that bit higher. Pity window is tinted in bathroom cos nice view of garden otherwise. Mind you, who knows who or what might peer in if it wasn’t. Never feel quite private on lavatory as it is. That plum branch gives me the frits sometimes. Have to have big lop & burn session. Hillman Minx brought round by Mr Moon’s son Ted of the gummy forelock, Lanchester part-exchanged. Quite sad to see it go. Been a part of life here all along. Had nice comfortable smell, like the vestry at St Catherine’s. I do worry about Herbert’s driving. It’s not the same, I tell him, you do have to keep on the right side of the road these days, even in the country. Road through village busier and busier since they let the petrol go. Always tell the articulated lorries by my tooth-glass.

Wed. 25th March 1953

Cold, grey. Kidneys.

Cross-referencing and labelling. Off-colour. Coronation Committee Meeting at 6.30 p.m.: they spent twenty minutes trying to get that stove to light. Lucky I’d got the long johns on, given my circulation problems. Wanted to have map of Burial Site. Herbert said it’s part of tennis-court at end of garden. Mr Bint said you haven’t got a tennis-court. H. said it was turned to vegetables at opening of war, but I still call it the tennis-court Sidney. Cd have
sworn
H. said ‘wart’ instead of ‘war’. It’s so easy. Like ‘Mr Short’ for little Mr Long at Salford Motor Engineers. Those were times. Mrs Whiteacre said that’s what our late Sovereign did with the flower beds. H. said his bit about donating Burial Site to parish: legally common land in perpetuity etc. with cypress hedge about & access from Pightle Lane cos it’s after wall ends. That means we’ll have to maintain it said Mr Donald Jefferies. H. said you only have to keep Location Stone clean of weeds that’s not much to ask when you consider what’s at stake. What on earth is at stake? (Mrs Whiteacre). Civilisation. Oh I didn’t know civilisation was at stake (Mrs Whiteacre). We had all this last time (Mr Norman Stroude). That’s a turn-up for the books having common land give back instead of having it took away (nice Mr Stewart Daye). Let’s not go all political now (Mrs Philis Punter-Wall). Who’s going to pay for it then? (Mr Donald Jefferies). Quite a big bill after three thousand years eh? (Mr Norman Stroude). General laughter. Volunteers I’m sure (Mrs Philis Punter-Wall) but this is a Parish Council matter next item please. H. said it’s all been cleared with the P.C. Committee and did his flared nostrils thing. Dr Scott-Parkes said could I get a word in now please there’s a serious bunting problem cos of paper supplies. I can’t look at Dr Scott-Parkes in quite the same way after what Mrs Dart told me. Will try and order book from library. Although I’d better not carry it about in case he sees me with it. Never know what he might do. Sins of the fathers and so forth. Might have been handed down to him, in the blood, etc. He has got funny eyes. Jealousy! Best keep out of it. I felt like strangling Rita Smelt that time. She and poor Kenneth. Well she did go on so. Triumphant. In the back row, Violet! Those were times. Can’t see a picture of Shirley Temple without feeling nasty. Mr Stroude said use toilet paper, winked at Miss Walwyn. Rev. Appleton present this time said he’s got so much junk in vestry must be some bunting somewhere. Junk? He does like to appear broad-minded. Philis Punter-Wall twitched, but she doesn’t give a lot away. Mrs Whiteacre said W.I. had lots from ’35 Silver Jubilee, but had ‘25’ on every flag goodness me wasn’t that a lot of stitching. Mr Jefferies said at least we’ll have biggest bonfire ever. Mr Daye said seems like yesterday. I said there’s rolls and rolls of canvas left by Ministry of Works up at the big house. Can see it from the woods behind. Volunteered to investigate. Thank you, Miss
Nightingale.
N.B.: how does Mr Bint know we haven’t got tennis-court? That’s what I mean about sitting on the lavatory.

Thurs. 26th March 1953

Heavy rain. Cheese potato.

Labelling. Missed Mrs D.’s Diary. Not that it seems to matter. Miss Walwyn round again. Soaked through, dribbled on hall parquet. It’ll come up, I said. She didn’t offer to wipe it, of course. Down on my hands and knees. I let her see and why not? Pride’s not in it. As Father wd say: the only skivvies I’ve ever donned are my vest and underpants! Tea-time I went in to living room as usual with tray, no one there, gas-fire full up, nasty fug, steam rising like nobody’s business off clothes flung (that’s the word) onto settee, identified Miss W.’s briefs and bra, pink, probably hand-knitted. Cream blouse a bit scorched. Located her by giggle: in studio with Herbert. Rapped on door. Opened. Ah, said Herbert, she’s brought the tea. Violet is my staff. So I can see, said Miss W., with a small giggle. Wrapped up in Herbert’s dressing-gown, my present to him Xmas of ’42, the purple one, not seen it for years I must say, and not even bothering to use the cord not that I mind a nipple or two, we’ve had plenty of those in the drawing classes in the old days, but it was the attitude. H.’s hair standing on end, quite comic. Enid is the perfect model, said Herbert, doesn’t move a muscle. Do you like Marie? said I. Who’s Marie? said Miss Walwyn. Biscuit, said I. Your blouse is scorched.

Fri. 27th March 1953

Clearing, nice light (Constable). Large plaice.

Collating & indexing all day. Brisk walk after tea, getting dark, big clouds shooting over me on scarp, felt giddy looking up, like about to go with them, bright & dark at same time, nice fresh breeze straight off sea all those miles away, felt Barrow could open up and contents walk out any minute. Pity he’s been taken out
already.
Or perhaps not. Came back with torch. Last of light showing in big puddles all silvery. Wish I could paint. Don’t think the Kodak would catch it. Lying in bed all aglow. Miss W. chattering above. MUST get on with ‘essay’ over weekend. Camomile lotion works a treat on scald.