1936 July
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
July 2nd 1936
My darling Annette
Its amusing to hear that “The Staff” liked the idea of a troup of performing leeches. it really was a very amusing incident at the time – Dad was being so dramatic about his idea and Mr. Craig’s very quiet voice coming in at the end “There’s the first one coming round your collar now (or words to that effect) was just perfect.
I am glad you had a talk to Rosemary about her French – I think I told you I had written her a long letter on the subject, trying to make clear to her that emotion is what chiefly affects memory – I did not tell her that you had mentioned that she was bad at French, but only that I noticed she had a poor report for it. It will be funny for Rosemary in the first part of the holidays having neither you nor Richard at home. It will be awfully interesting to hear what Herbert Richter’s people are like and what sort of a life they lead. In their photos, which he always had on his dressing-table, they look elderley , old fashioned but rather dears. I have the impression that they are a very good family – now rather hard up, but preserving the greatest dignity. I imagine that the life of the people in Dresden of their sort is all probably like that.
Directly I come back to Calcutta I find myself pulled in all directions by all sorts of different interests requiring attention. I have not summoned up courage yet to tell the guide authorities that I intend to give up Guiding in the Autumn – I know there will be a great outcry, but I can help it – I am tired and stale and out of sympathy with lots of things in the Guide world, and I have a lot of other things I want to do.
Have you come across rather an amusing but absurd book called “Poet’s Pub” by Linklater. Bry Jones sent it to me the other day and I am in the middle of it now. Its satire so well disguised that some-times one is not quite sure whether it is really satire at all.
John Auden who was here last night, has promised to lend me some of his brother’s poems – I realized that I was boldly asserting the other day that I neither understood nor liked modern poetry when really I have never attempted to read any. I am now going to try, so that any statements I make in the future will have some foundations under them.
I must not spread onto another page as I have lots more letters to write. Best love – Mum
Family letter from LJT
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
July 2nd 1936
My dears,
Forgive me for using this close set type, but the punkah blows the thin paper and carbons about so when I am trying to put them in, that I thought I would have the trouble in this way.
We have had a very exciting piece of news this week. G.B. Gourlay is engaged to a girl who was out here the cold weather before last staying with the wife of one of his great friends, Sandy Marr. Hilda Marr is an old St Monican, and so is Helen Morrison, G.B.’s Fiancé. G.B became very much attached to her when she was out here, but she would not have him then. He went home armed with some very nice presents for her and determined to press his suit, and he has been successful for this cable came out to the Marrs last week. We are all most awfully glad, for he is such a dear, it seemed a pity for him not to be married, and he is past forty now. Helen is an awfully nice girl and I should think would suit him very well.
I have got through a lot of work of one sort and another this week. I have got my Guide Company going again, and have delt with a lot of Himalayan Club things that were waiting my attention down here. The photos of my last trip have taken up a good bit of time. I have now got my leica films enlarged up to quarter, half or full plate size, and am fairly well pleased with the result. I have since been going through Helen Martin’s photos, and choosing from hers what supplement mine. Richard Gardiner, and one of the Geological Survey men, John Auden (Brother of the poet and playwright who has been so much in the news during the past few months), came in to dinner last night, and we spent a lot of time with my photos, John Auden’s of a trip he did with G.B. two years ago, trying to sort out the map of the North East corner of Sikkim. We each contributed our own bit of knowledge, backed by photos, and the only conclusion we could come to is that that corner of the map is so hopelessly out, that there is no doing anything with till it is resurveyed. Herbert slipped away to bed soon after dinner, and the three of us sat up talking till 12.30. I must say we were all a bit surprised when we saw the time.
To-morrow night and on Saturday I have dinner parties of people who want to see my photos. I am going to show them on the epidiascope, as it is such an easy way for a lot of people to see them, and also more effective than looking at prints.
Idris Mathews came in to tea last Friday, and we talked for hours about his garden, and about whether he should have his old areoplane extensively repaired, and a great many of the parts renewed, or whether he should buy a new and faster one with a view to flying home next year. Of course my opinion on such a subject is worth nothing, but I suppose it helped him to clarify his own ideas, putting them into words for someone else. I went out to see his garden on Monday. He has been doing a tremendous lot of work in it. In spite of pouring rain we spent about an hour wandering about under huge umbrellas and looking at everything, and a long time more hanging over the top verandah rail, planning further planting. He brought me back into Calcutta in his car and stayed to a pot-luck dinner, and we went to a film afterwards. We knew nothing about it but it turned out to be very good. It had the rather unpromising title of “If only you could cook”. It was preceeded by a gem of a Micky Mouse film, “Micky’s Grand Opera” which made us laugh till we cried. I have been to quite a lot of films this week. Rex Fawcus was in from Dacca for one night, and we took him to the six o’clock show of “Rhodes of Africa” on Thursday. I enjoyed it, though it was a little worrying that Rhodes looked so like Ramsey Macdonald. The great blot on the film seemed to me to be that the man who took the part of Rhodes did not manage to convey the strength of will and purpose, and the magnetic personality which Rhodes must have possessed. On Friday night I went with Walter and Kitty Jenkins to see H.G. Wells “things to Come”. I was interested to see it but did’nt like it.
After an interval of some six or seven years, I was made to play MahJong at a dinner party at the Jenkins on Saturday night. I had beginners’s luck, and started off by getting a whacking mah-jong of 1,600 points. I then got a moderate one, amidst the cries of “shame” from the other players, and after that my luck just faded out.
Going round to see Harry and Winsome on Sunday morning, we discovered that it was Charlotte’s birthday, so we made a great performance of telling her to see if she could find anything in our hands, and after a lot of pulling open of fingers she got a rupee from each of us, and put them in her moneybox. She a dear little pet, though Winsome and Nannie say she is very self willed. She had most of her presents given her in the early morning. She then went out for her usual walk, and when she got back she rushed up to Winsome’s room and said “Please, now may I have my birthday?” Winsome says she thinks there was some vague idea connected with food in her mind. Harry is now a member of the Bihar Legislative Council. He holds one of the reserved European seats, representing commercial interests, because Shaw Wallace’s tin-plate factory is in Bihar. This means he has had to be away quite a lot lately.
Its been raining a lot all the week, but I have managed to ride every morning in spite of it. The country is wet and muddy, but its looking rather pretty with the new green rice coming up. We bathe as usual every evening at the Saturday Club. Herbert is well and cheerful, and full of nonsense!
I like Calcutta at this time of year, when people dont feel it necessary to be constantly paying calls and asking one another to parties, and you dont need to arrange anything you want to do about two or three weeks ahead. The heat is’nt really bothersome, with electric fans everywhere. What a difference they have made to life in India!
There has been a long pause here while I have answered innumerable telephone calls, and now I dont feel there is anything else to say.
My best love to you all
LJT
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
June(?) 8th 1936
My dear Annette:
This is the season for lizards. Some are large; these are the parents: some are small and these are not. Also it is extremely stuffy and at a distance, any distance, from a fan one sweats. For that matter one sweats even under a fan if one has clothes on.
I have been reading the “Something Something by Somebody Somebody.” It is a book full of genial old English family humour – in other words it is so vulgar that I ask myself why it has not been suppressed by the police. American. Its name is something else. But weeks ago when I told of it by the above title, Mrs ?Gaven? asked the library Babu for it “Have you the Something Something by Somebody Somebody?” and he replied “Madam it is out and there is no chance of getting it for weeks.” A good book to read aloud in the family: you would see who had the coarsest or the quickest mind. As always happens on mail night, a guest. It is a nuisance time: for work is so heavy that I like to get the letters finished in the evening. And still I haven’t written about Richard’s scholarship: it is weeks overdue. If I had realised at the outset that scholarships now are what exhibitions were in my time – ie not paid unless the College was satisfied about the poverty of the parents I should have told Richard that Oxford with its four years was off and that he could go to Cambridge. Rupee pay turned into pounds sounds so enormous that I doubt if they’ll refrain from making a heavy reduction in the amount. Though why they should expect anyone to go to Merton unless he’s paid for it I cannot think – unless it’s changed since I was at Oxford.
I have learnt now some six pages of French journalese. “The Stuff”. Probably it improves one’s English. Journalists in all languages think not one bit about the sense. Did I tell you that in order to see if the Debtors Rules made sense we had them translated into Bengali? Thus forcing people to think of their real meaning – But the snag was that they were quite ?maestinished? no matter how absurd the rule sounded – and my knowledge of Bengali is not sufficient to spot absurdities in it.
Today for the first time for two years or three I have dived off the high spring board: but not well. Deadbeat describes me. Because I lost my temper to excess yesterday over your mother’s flying designs. Exhausting
Much love Dad
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
July 8th 1936
My darling Annette
The presence of “Smell” and the fact that she almost gets on your nerves is rather distressing – I suppose it is not worth while your leaving school on that account, but having to deal constantly with some one whom you don’t like and whom, worse still, you don’t understand and know she does’nt understand you, can make life very burdensome – What a pity “The Nut” is not your form mistress. I am definitely sorry for school teachers, untill they become “Heads” and have a lot of organizing to do. They must get sick to death of the children they have to teach just as I am feeling sick to death of my Guides at the moment and I only see them once a week and have a thousand other interests in my life. This will only reach you a few days before the end of the term, I suppose, and I expect you will be going to Germany as soon as the holidays begin.
Last week I think I mentioned John Auden to you and told you that he was a brother of the poet and playwright W.H Auden. He – John Auden has sent me some volumes of his brother’s plays and poems, and I am snatching a half hour with them now and again. There is much in them that I like – Most of them have definite rhythm and some are rhymed and satisfyingly rhymed too – but most of them are obscure and difficult to follow, though here and there lines flash out which let the truth in on things to an almost alarming extent – I wonder why W. H Auden feels the need to write in such an obscure way. When I have read a little more I want to talk with his brother about them. Have you attempted to read any modern poetry? John Auden has also sent me a book of T.S. Eliot’s poems. He says that Eliot really started the modern movement in England. I’ve glanced at one or two of the short poems and they seem to me vivid but a bit difficult to follow.
To-day I don’t seem to be a bit in a letter writing mood. The first group of Everest men said they might be arriving to-day – but they only got to Darjeeling yesterday – I am expecting a telegram any moment to say when they arrive here – and people keep on ringing me up about them – and I have to let other people, who have promised to put them up, know that so far I have no news, and it gives a sort of feeling of restlessness –
I’m going to stop now –
My best love to you, darling
from
Mum
Family letter from LJT
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
July 8th 1936.
My Dears,
I am writing a day earlier than usual this week, as the first few of the men back from Everest may be through here to-morrow, in which case I shall probably be busy most of the day seeing after them. I had a very nice letter from Mr Ruttledge a couple of days ago, in which he said that he, and Mr Humphreys, Wynn-Harris and Smythe, were double marching down in the hope of catching the Rawalpindi from Bombay next Saturday. This being the case they will in all probability only be in Calcutta for the day on Thursday, and will not be able to fulfil their promise to dine with and give a lecture to the Himalayan Club. He says that in any event they feel they would like to make as quiet an exit as possible. “We did our best” he says, “but the mountain beat us”. I am very sorry, and I know all the Club members will be disappointed, but I quite understand Mr Ruttledge’s feelings.
There has been a sad happening. My poor old Tip-it-Up came down and has cut one of his knees very badly. We were on our way home on Friday morning and coming to a parting of the ways, the horse wished to go home the shortest way, while I wished to go round. It had been raining hard. Everything was soaking wet. We were on a “Kucha” brick road, and brick often grows a sort of slime in this weather which makes it as slippery as ice. Tip-it-Up began to play up, and his feet simply scidded in all directions. I simply could not hold him up. I wish now I had flung myself off into the muddy but soft ditch along side, for without my weight on his back I think he might have recovered himself without getting so badly cut. Luckily he is my own horse, and luckily he is old, and already has some scars on his legs, and is of no commercial value. The gash is a straight deep one right across his near fore knee. I am afraid it will take a long time to heal, but I don’t suppose it will damage him in the way of making him unridable or anything like that. The queer thing is that it does not appear to hurt him very much. He does not even seem to mind when the dressings are changed.
The last few days have been rather taken up with mountain folk. A young man called Chapman, who has been climbing with a party out from England, in Sikkim, wrote to me from Darjeeling and said he was told that I was an “expert” on the Sikkim flowers, and he had made a collection up in the Zemu and in Lhonak, and would be grateful if he might come to see me and go through them with me. He came along on Thursday afternoon armed with his two presses, and after a cup of tea, we settled down to go through his flowers. Alas! It was such a tragedy! He had not realized that in the humid climate of Sikkim especially in the Rainy season, you much change the papers in which you are pressing and drying your flowers every day or two, and dry them before useing them again. He had not touched his collection since he put them in. We opened the first press, and found the plants in the top sheets growing a lively crop of mould, so we carefully liften them out on to dry blotting paper, but there was worse to follow. As we got a little deeper down into the packet, it was so wet that the papers and the plants had become almost a solid block, and some of the more enterprising plants had started to sprout! All that we could do was to seperate the papers as best we could, and have them dried with the plants sticking on them. I took them over to the Botanical Gardens on Monday when I took my own collection to Mr Biswas, and asked him if he could do anything with them, and he is very kindly going to do his best. Mine are luckily in good contition, and Mr Chapman came to lunch on Friday (I have just realized it was on Thursday that he came to tea) and we spent a good time going through mine, which contained a lot of duplicates of his, and he made copious notes about them. He had collected plants before, in the Arctic, where he has been every year from 1929 to 1934 inclusive either in Iceland Lapland or Greenland, but there he was not worried by the damp. He has done a few years school-mastering, and was just on the point of buying a Preparatory School, when he got the chance to come out here and took it. Now he is going to act, or rather is acting as Private Secretary to Mr Gould, the Political Officer in Sikkim, for a short while with the idea that he might start a school in Tibet. This is a pet scheme of Mr Gould’s, but I think it is completely in the air at present.
Mr Chapman is a delightful person. Like Mr Kempson of the Everest Expedition he is keen and interested in so many things. Besides collecting flowers he had been making notes abut birds, so early on Sunday morning I took him out to see Dr Law’s avairies near Barrackpore, which I think he enjoyed very much. One of the expeditions with which he went to the Actic was either run by, or a member of the party, was one of the Cautaulds, and he has stayed with them at Halsted (I think he said). We were so busy looking at his Sikkim photos, and dealing with the flowers and birds, that I did not have any time to get him toalk about the Arctic which I much wanted to do.
About Herbert’s one divirsion these days is bathing, and we go regularly to the club every evening when he comes out of office. We spent most of Sunday morning in the bath at Tollygunge, and went out to tea with Idris Mathews at Cossipore in the afternoon. We are toying with the idea of chumming with him this next cold weather. The Hance’s lease of this house is up in October, and whether they take it on again or not, we do not want to be responsible for this flat through the hot weather while we are home. Idris has a huge house with several unfurnished rooms, so we can take all our furniture out there, and probably leave it there while we are home which would be an immense convenience. Another great attraction is cheapness. It would be far cheaper than living here and we should be able to save quite a nice little bit of money for our passages and home leave. I think we have practically decided to go there. I shall enjoy the big garden and the views over the river.
The weather has been very nasty the last few days. it has been hot and sticky so that whenever one moves away from a fan one streams with heat. Perhaps it is on account of this that my brain feels singularly uninspired, and I know I am writing a very dull letter.
Oh! I was almost forgetting to tell you that we have some news of Ron at last. His cook Nima Dorji, has left him, being, as Nima himself says “cut to the heart” because Ron and Mr Tracy fell in with some Mohammaden traders, from the West of Tibet, who had a very good Mohammaden cook. They asked this man to give Nima some lessons, and the silly little man took offence, and gave notice. He has come back via Lhassa, bringing letters, saying that Ron and Mr Tracey are well, but that the Lhassa Government have ordered them to return to India by the way they came. They are now on their homeward journey, roughly in the same direction in which they came up, and they hope to emerge at Sadiya in Northern Assam sometime in November. In my cable to Alice I mistakenly put Burmah, and only realized it after the cable had gone, but I did not think it worth correcting by wire, as letters were following by Air mail. Dont publish this news in the papers, as the young men don’t want their wanderings too much talked about.
Best love to you all
LJT
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
July 13th 1936
My dear Annette.
The last sheet of a writing block: reaching it causes me to think that something good ought to be written on it. Like new year resolutions. It would be easier to have old year renunciations: like Mr Gandhi abstaining from goats: as he has not, so far. If I had the faith of a grain of mustard seed I should say to all the beggars of Calcutta to be removed and cast into the sea: also all the filths and the ordures. Practical use might in this way be made of fagins, sadhus and other holy men. I prelasse myself (not knowing exactly what it means though I believe it to be the practice of buck niggers in chains) in my pyjamas on a bench thing, in the hope that a cool breeze may caress my stomach: but it does not. The thought seized me that if you threw buns to the fellows at the zoo we are shamed. Remember how Mr Gibbons threw sardines to the walruslike Mr Tassie at the Tollygunge baths: and abstain at all costs from any sort of imitation. Your mother casually remarked, a day or so ago, that Mr Such-and-such-a-one might well be shut up on the zoo to serve as a keeper for the beasts. Your penguin standing patient and anonymous reminds me much of our most trying lizards: which delight in staring at spiders until these, poor fools, fall of the ceiling and are lost both to us and to the lizards. I have been rather penguin like myself. On Sunday I mounted the medium diving board and went in again and again till exhaustion seized me, hoping to enter the water with no more splash than could make a pair of frilly drawers. It didn’t come to pass: and afterwards when I showed the picture which in my memory had seemed thus your mother declared first that there was a lot of splash in it and second that it looked like nothing less. Today returning to the good work I perceived myself to be fagged and abstained from strivings: instead I gave hints on the jack-knife to a young and unknown American and got him to do it quite well after a bit. There is quite a troop of youths whom I have taught, and it is interesting to see what a difference a few hints and lots of practice make.
Not much pretence of news so far. On Thursday I went to see “Follow the Fleet”. A little of that sort of thing goes very far. I do not number tapdancing among my failures, having no inclination towards it. On Saturday afternoon as your mother was entertaining Everest climbers I sat and worked. A note on statistics re jute: rather interesting but leading always to disillusionment, for there are no figures worth anything about jute: all ae more or less guess work. On Sunday (yesterday) after breakfast at Tollygunge, fixed for 9.30 which is late and starting actually at 10.15 which was intolerable, I reverted to the task: typing: and again after lunch. You may guess the sequel – I scrapped it all, all six pages of type, this morning and started again. Like Jat seeking a cure for his child.
Benevolence is my standby. To abstain from action is always good. If to fail to get results is equally meritorious, I am on the high road towards virtue.
Much love
Dad.
Family letter from LJT
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
July 14th 1936
My dears,
I am writing earlier than ever this week because Mr Ruttledge, with Major Morris, Mr Kempson, and Mr Wigram are coming down from Darjeeling to-morrow, and staying till Thursday, and they are dining with the Himalayan Club to-morrow. They are all staying in the house of a friend of mine, the senior partner of Gillanders Arbuthnot, one of the very big firms out here. Mr Hunter has an enormous house, and has very kindly put it at their disposal, on the condition that I look after them, for his wife is in England. I probably shall not have much spare time the next two days, what with running the dinner and looking after them. A lot of my time since last mail day has been taken up with looking after two batches of “Everesters”. Wyn Harris, Smythe and Dr Humphreys came through last Thursday. I had a lunch for them here, to which I also had the Himalayan Club Committee, which made a party of nine. In the afternoon I took them out to Dum Dum and Idris Mathews took each of them for a flight over Calcutta. Dr Humphreys was a pilot before the war, and his license is in the first hundred issued. He was shot down no less than three times during the war, and finally taken prisoner. Smythe was also in the air force during the war, which I did not know. We dashed in from Dum Dum to have a bathe at the Saturday Club before going across to Howrah where they had to catch a train at 7.30. Dr Humphreys and Mr Smythe have brought down a lot of living plants in boxes, which they are taking home, and there was great excitement about seeing that the coolies did not turn them upside down, and about getting them favourably placed in the luggage van. They were all looking well, and seemed in good spirits. Dr Humphreys says that Ruttledge has been wonderful. He has never allowed himself to get down-hearted or grumble, and his example kept them all up to the mark. Luckily between them they have an immense number of hobbies and side lines, with which they were able to keep themselves busy. Smythe says that he is convinced that the other route, which Mallory thought would be no use, is the best. He says it is more difficult but far safer than the old route up to the North Col. Wyn Harris says that he thought that he and Shipton were dead men when they were caught in that avalanche. He was on a small bit of rock that remined firm, but he says that if Shipton had gone over the edge, he must have gone too. He could not possibly have held him. Miraculously the snow stopped sliding when Shipton was not more than 12 feet from the brink of the precipice, and barring the fact that Shipton was badly winded from the pressure of the rope, neither of them were any the worse. Is’nt it sickening for them all their mail being lost? It has now been traced to the Postmaster at Gangtok, and he has been put in jail. They left a deposit with him for stamping all their letters, and he has just helped himself to the money, and either destroyed or hidden the letters. Two of Mr Ruttledge’s letters which should have been posted in June, were found in a private box belonging to this man. Apart from anything else, it was so cruel. All the poor wives were wondering why on earth they did not hear. All Mr Ruttledge’s reports have gone, and mr Smythe says for the first time in his life he kept a detailed journal and sent it off in bits to his wife, and he has not got a copy of it. There is still a faint hope that the letters may be found somewhere, as they think the postmaster may have thought that they had a value as souveniers.
On Friday evening I had a wire from Mr Ruttledge saying that the three young climbers, Oliver, Smijth Wyndham and Gavin would be arriving the next morning, so Mr Cooke, Mr Auden (another member of our committee) and I went to meet them at Sealdah. Having delt with their luggage, we went to the Saturday Club for a bathe, and then I brought Gavin and Oliver back here to breakfast, and Mr Cooke took Smijth Windham(I spelt it wrongly before) back with him. We all met at Kodak’s later in the morning, and spent some time looking at their photos and choosing one to have on the dinner menu. The absurd creatures made a beautiful sign-post at base camp. It looks just like an English one, and has beautifully painted on it “A.1 Scotland and the North”. They said it gave them a nice home-like feeling. It appears to have been one of the most photographed objects.
16.7.36
So sorry. I simply have not had a moment to get on with this. I have been busy all day and every day with the Everest people. We had a most successful dinner last night, after which Mr Ruttledge gave us a charming “talk”, well illustrated by lantern slides. We took the younger members of the party on to dance and a cabaret at the Saturday Club afterwards, and I got to bed about 1.45, and was up again at 6 this morning, to take Mr Ruttledge and Mr Kempson out to fly at DumDum. I have now despatched them to various places in various cars, and rushed home to finish off my mail and attend to a few household affaires.
Actually I feel in such a rush that I dont seem able to write properly, so I think I shall finish for this week, and try to make up for it next week
Best love to you all
LJT
From HPV to Annette
Darjeeling
July 16th 1936
Mr dear Annette
Determining to avoid for once my stereo typed letter which I write in triplicate so far as substance goes every week, I set myself to record bright thoughts during the week. Only two managed to get themselves down on paper and not so bright either. (A) a suggestion in a letter in a Bengali newspaper that young Bengali gentlemen might make a living by “producing sanitary milk”. And (B) the fact that hill people voluntarily eat raw potatoes – with relish in fact. Do you know the fine French word, a “poncif”? Perhaps it is not so fine to one who knows it: all the words on which I light in ignorance seem to me to be good. Like Stout Cortez . (Another thing which wouldn’t have happened if Knaschen had been invented. Who could be poetical about “thin Cortez”? it would not do). However that exhausts my material. Yet I have been merry and had bright ideas at two gatherings of five or six this week. Sad that they fade away, these bright ideas: but it would be tedious, and revolting to the finer feelings, to make a note of them on the spot. Like Oxford undergraduates of my time: and probably they are worse now. Defective gramophone records. What is the use of learning scraps of knowledge?
I should have told you that I had lost hope and interest, so far as my schemes for altering the face of Bengal go. But today a business man asked me what I had to do with irrigation and I began expounding what I had originally wished to do: with the strange result that enthusiasm flashed and eloquence deepened: so that I talked myself into a belief in possibilities again. Strange that the Chief Engineer Irrigation Dept, essentially slow not to say stupid (but I have said it) has gradually come round to a belief in my devices. If he had done so early, it might have helped. But why prate of this? I started writing to your Aunt Winsome but have failed to finish it, having embarked on the grand project of embellishing it with a map of my dear wife’s journeying: this seems somehow to justify my stopping this letter too before saying anything in it.
My news:- all day I have corrected Bengali proofs. Ugh!
Much love
Dad
Family letter from LJT
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
July 18th 1936
My Dears,
This is only Saturday, and this letter is in a manner only the continuation of the one I had to finish off so hurriedly on Thursday. I shall go back to where I broke off at the bottom of the first page last Tuesday. I wal talking about the day spent here by Oliver, Gavin and Smijth Windham. I left them at Kodak’s and went on to make arrangements about the dinner to Mr ruttledge. We all met again at the Cookes for lunch, and a great discussion took place about what the three young men should do with their one afternoon in Calcutta. We had a choice of the Tollygunge Races, Flying at Dum Dum, or going to a “Flick”. Had the weather been good, I think one of the out-of-door amusements would have had it, but it looked very rainy, and would probably not have been fit for flying, and we did not think it would be very nice at the Races, so we all went to see “Follow the fleet” with Fred ASTAIRE AND Ginger Rogers in it, and throughly enjoyed it. We had just nice time afterwards for tea at the Saturday Club, followed by a bathe, before they had to go up to Howrah to catch their train. They were going to stay at Naini Tal with Sir Harry Haig, from where two of them went to Bombay to catch last week’s mail, and Mr Oliver went on to join his regiment at Tonk. These three were all young soldiers of the nicest possible type. Herbert was greatly charmed by them. Gavin, the youngest of the party, is the only one (barring Dr Humphreys) who had not climbed in the Himalayas before. In spite of the bad luck with the weather, he enjoyed himself enormously, and says it was a wonderful experience. Smijth Windham was also very content with the way his wireless worked, and Oliver says that in spite of everything they had some splendid climbing. They all agree that it was a wonderfully united party, and I like the way they all speak of each other with such warm affection.
Ruttledge, Morris, Kempson and Wigram arrived here from Darjeeling, and once more Mr Cooke, Mr Auden and myself went up to Sealdah to meet them at 7.30 a.m. Mr Kempson, who does not like bathing, accompanied me direct to mr Hunter’s house, while the others when and had a swim at the Saturday club en route, and jointed us at Mr Hunter’s house for breakfast. Their first port of call after breakfast was Kodak’s where I stayed for some time looking at their photos with them, and then I had to tear myself away to go to the United Service Club and set up the lantern for the evening’s show, and make out the dinner table plan, and generally check all the arrangements for the evening. I had borrowed two cars for them, which saved me a lot of trouble, as they were able to to and attend to their own shopping and other jobs, and left me free – I had a party of eight for lunch, and again there was a discussion of what to do in the afternoon. Idris Mathews was there, ready to take any one who wished for flights, provided the weather was kind, but as it did not look very good, they decided to postpone that till the next morning, and three of them went with Helen Martin and a lad, James Waller, who almost climbed a 26,000 ft peak in the Karakorams last year, and who had come all the way from Allahabad for this dinner, to see “Follow the Fleet”. Ruttledge had business to attend to and letters to write, and went off on his own, and I stayed at home and got a short rest, and dealt with my domestic staff, and a few urgent letters, before going off to meet the others for tea at the Saturday Club, where Herbert joined us. It was amusing to see people looking at these highly sunburnt men, and obviously speculating as to whether they were some of the Everest party. We bathed when the tea had had time to settle, and I went straight on to the U.S. club to have a final look at things. Herbert came to the dinner, and the General, General Lindsay, was one of my guests. He is an old friend of Brigadier Norton’s, and has been taking the keenest interest in the Everest show. Every time he met me in Darjeeling he asked me for news of them. I put him next to Ruttledge at dinner, and he told me that they talked boxing most of the time! The dinner went extremely well. There were 32 of us at the dinner and about another fifty came for the lecture afterwards. Mr Ruttledge spoke most interestingly and showed us some splendid slides, the last of which only arrived from Kodak’s just before the lecture was to begin. They are obviously determined to go back to the mountain again as soon as money and permits can be obtained. About midnight, when most people had cleared off, and Mr Ruttledge and Major Morris had gone home with Mr Hunter, their host, a party of us took the other two, and James Waller to the Saturday Club to the dance and caberet which was in progress there. We drank a lot of beer, and talked a great deal and about 1.20 I took the two Everest men home, and left James Waller with Mr Auden and another enthusiastic member of the Club, discussing the possibilities of skiing in Sikkim. I dont know what time they went home! I did not have a very long night, for I was talking to Idris on the telephone at 6.15. We were in luck, for it was a beautiful morning for flying. I called for Mr Ruttledge and Mr Kempson at twenty to seven, and took them out to Dum Dum, where Idris took each of them for about twenty minutes flight over Calcutta.
The others had only just started their breakfast when we got back, and had been joined by Dr warren, who had arrived that morning. They went off in various directions in various cars for the morning, and I went to the Club to clear up what I had left the previous night, and then to see Col Wheeler, the Assistant Surveyor General, about putting Mr Shipton in touch with a certain Major Osmaston, who is being sent to Survey Nanda Devi. Mr Shipton would be will to go with Major Osmaston, but has no money. Col Wheeler is trying to persuade the Surveyor General, who is in Simla, to offer to pay Mr shipton’s expenses, as he does not think that Major Osmaston has a dog’s chance of getting into the Nanda Devi basin, unless he has a skilled mountaineer with him. I had to get an explanatory letter off to Mr Shipton, and to finish my English mail before lunch, to which some of the Everest men and col and Mrs Wheeler were coming. Col Wheeler was a member of the Everest Reconnaisance in 1921. We all went to see “The Tudor Rose” in the afternoon, and Mr Ruttledge and Mr Wigram who were sitting each side of me, were tremendously thrilled at the pictures of the fight between Louis and Schmelling, which we had in the first half of the picture. I enjoyed it too. I like boxing, and I think the mens interest conveyed itself to me. Once more tea and a bathe were fitted in before dinner, which we had in Mr Hunter’s house, and which was made very merry by Herbert’s suggestion that they should write a Micky Film, “Micky on Everest”. The idea met with great approval, and suggestions poured in, with gusts of laughter. It was a frightfully hot sticky night, and the fans on the platform at Howrah seemed inadequate. The party went off by the P&O special at ten o’clock, and by the time I got home, I was glad to tumble into bed. It has been most interesting and great fun seeing so much of them all, and they are a nice lot of men. Everyone who meets them says the same thing. Major Morris whom I had not met before, is the most delightful, ugly person, with rather a serious expression and a strong propensity to pull legs. Mr Kempson says he did more than anyone to keep the spirits of the party up on the march home. He was in the Gurkhas, but retired last year, and I am glad to say we shall see him again in November, for his is coming out to study the Anthropology of the inhabitants of Sikkim.
There is now only one more “Everester” to come through, and that is Eric Shipton, who is in Kalimpong, and will be here next week on his way to Simla, where he is to give a lecture.
There are several other interesting bits of news to tell you, but I thought I would finish with the Everest people first.
The lease of this house is up on October, and as we do not want to be responsible for it when we go home next year, we are not staying on, but going to live with Idris Mathews at Cossipore. He has a huge house, with a lovely garden, standing on the river bank. He has been lonely since the people who were with him last cold weather left, and he seemed very pleased at the idea of having us out there. We can have almost as many rooms as we want. We have chosen two big bedrooms, leading out of one another, with their own verandah, looking over the river, and an enormous room over the porch, which is at present unused and unfurnished, and into which we shall simply transfer all our drawing-room furniture. We shall also furnish our own bedrooms, and move his things into three more spare bedrooms, which at present are scarcely furnished. Herbert will be able to have an office room downstairs as well if he likes. I think he will let us leave all our things there when we go home, which will be more convenient. I dont think there will be any friction over house-keeping as for a long while he has been so much in the habit of consulting me about all his domestic problems.
It will be far cheaper than living here, for Idris only pays Rs299 including rates and taxes, and we pay Rs 322/8. In his house we shall only have to pay half, and also we halve the expenses of most of the servants. I am sure I shall be very happy out there, for I love the garden and the river, and its very peaceful. I think Herbert will like it too. The drawback is that it is rather a nasty slummy drive into Calcutta, but it only takes ten minutes to Herbert’s office, and about 15 minutes to the United Service Club, which about the centre of all the shopping area. Idris understands Herbert very well, and they have lots of interests in common, the latest of which is the making of Humus or Vegetable manure on a very large scale, which they discuss with the greatest zest. I shall be sorry to leave this flat which I like very much, and where we have been happy for the last four years. I have lived here longer than in any other house in India, but I am sure this is a wise thing to do, especially financially. Our address from November the 1st onwards will be “The Towers”. Cossipore. Bengal.
Our friends the Ow-Wachendorfs, the German Consul General and his wife, have been transferred from Calcutta, and came to say good-bye to us last Monday. We are sorry they are going for they are charming people. They are terribly sorry, for they adore India, and hoped to have another year here at least. Baroness Ow said she would like to spend thirty years in India. She would not complain if she were allowed to spend three, but two is really too short.
Tip-It-Up’s knee is healing nicely, but it will still be some time before I can ride him, for the cut was such a deep one, it is bound to take some time to fill up. He seems cheerful and well, and is always excited about his carrots.
I have just written to the girl Guide authorities saying that I am definitely going to give up my Guide work from September, when the schools have their holidays, and we probably go to the Hills. It will be a little more difficult getting in from Cossipore, and, shall have more house-keeping to do out there, and am bound to spend some time on the garden. I greatly want more time for writing and for my own affairs. I think I have got stale in my Guide work, and it has been getting steadily shoved into a corner by the ever increasing work of the Himalayan Club. There are a lot of things over which I think the guide movement is mistaked out here. I think they are strangling themselves with red tape. The passion for having everything organised is killing initiative, and making the whole thing much too much like another bit of school work. If I had nothing else to do, I might throw myself into a campaign for reform, but I have no spare time, and so I would rather get out.
Herbert is fed up because he has just had a letter from the Governor’s private Secretary saying will he “explore the possibilities” of certain grants for Rural needs, which have been given by the Government of India. Herbert is working all out at getting these various acts he has been concerned with working, assisted by a miserably inefficient staff, and he says he has no time to do this “exploring”, and that anyhow the whole thing is just an electioneering stunt, and of no permanent value to the people. He has written back to say he has no time to do it, but at the same time, since he was already feeling tired and a bit down-hearted, it has been enough to make him feel still more tired and depressed. Unfortunately we have to lunch with an Indian High Court Judge and his wife to-day, and that is not helping to revive his spirits. I some times boil with anger at the ridiculous system of Government by which once a clerk, typest, or stenographer has been taken on you cant get of them, however inefficient, except by drawing up elaborate proceedings against them for dishonesty or insubordination. The result is that the bulk of the staff of the Secretariat are grossly inefficient. Herbert has been doing any amount of work this week which ought to have been done by a clerk, but he said that firstly he had no clerk who could do it without making a hash of it, and secondly any clerk would take so oong that the work would be too late to be of any use. Its a pity that we are not allowed to import Bengali clerks into Bengal. They apparantly beat the Bengali hollow, at the game he is supposed to be so good at. How the legend that the Bengali made a good clerk came in to being is a mystery, I think it can only by explained by some such fact as that the other races scorned to take up clerks’ work
23.7.36.
On Saturday evening trying to get a high jump off the diving-board, and going very deep in consequence, I got my nose full of water which forced its way into my Antrem. This had happened to me three times before at intervals during the past five years. On the first occasion was when I had a violent cold, and the subsequent ones were in the swimming bath. The fluid had always come out of itself within a day before, but it did not this time, so I went to the nose specialist on Monday morning, and he tells me the partition up the middle of my nose is right to one side so that one nostril is almost blocked, and that this causes a sort of lock in my nose, and if fluid is there with pressure behind it it is almost bound to force its way into the antrem. Moreover he says that it invariably leaves a slight infection behind, and that I have evidently had this for some years. He douched it out not a comfortable performance, and I have to go to have it done again in the morning. When it is cleared up, he wants me to go into a nursing home for a couple of days and have my nose put right. Dr Norrie has a rich Scotch accent, and he said “I want just to alterr the interrnal Arrchitecture a bit. I’ll not change the shape outside”. I have promised that after the next mountaineering expedition has come through early in August, I will have it done. It seems incredible to me to contemplate going to bed for three or four days when I feel perfectly well.
Our lunch on Sunday was not bad fun. It was a huge show at the Calcutta Club, with about 30 guests or more, about half of them Indians. Luckily it was a fairly cool day, which made a great deal of difference. We went out to tea at the Regent’s Park chummery in the afternoon, partly because I wanted to see the garden. I have been spending a lot of time in the Cossipore garden this week. I took the car full of plants out on Monday, and Idris and I had a grand evening’s planting. I have a friend at court at the Agri-Horticultural Gardens, in the person of the Secretary and superintendent. He tips me the wink when he is clearing out any of his beds, and is then able to let me take a lot of stuff, which would otherwise be thrown away. Luckily he has been clearing out and replanting the shady fernery beds, just as we are planting ours at Cossipore. I went out again yesterday to superintend the planting of a whole lot of stuff we had got up from the Government Botanical Gardens. We have transformed the whole of one end of the garden, and made it from a dirty-looking patch of worn out jungle, into what I hope will shortly be a fair imitation of rough natural woodland fernery, round a small pond.
Mr Chapman, the Arctic Explorer man turned up again yesterday, and he and Richard Gardiner lunched here, and we covered the drawing-room with maps and photos. Mr Chapman has just put a three months surveying course into ten days at Dehra Dun, and is feeling a bit exhausted. He wants to be able to do some surveying on his way up to Lhasa with the political Officer, which is his next venture. The two young men went off to-gether, and I met Mr Chapman later in the evening, when Mr Auden took us to dinner in China Town. We had lovely food, and sat talking till nearly 11 o’clock. We got Mr Chapman to talk quite a lot about the Arctic, about which he had hardly had time to speak before, for we had been so busy talking about Sikkim. (Sorry. The ribbon seems to be sticking.
Eric Shipton arrives to-morrow, and will be spending the day here on his way to Simla.
I’M afraid this is rather a heavy letter this week!
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
July 21st 1936
My Darling Annette,
Apologies for not sending you even the smallest personal letter last week. I did write a few lines of greeting, explaining that I had no time for more, and discovered it the next day in my blotter. Apart from having all the Everest men here, I had some urgent affaires to attend to on Mr Shipton’s behalf, which entailed two lengthy telephone calls, and a long letter to him which I had to get off for the post that day. I am sorry I neglected you, my poor child!
I suppose this will reach you in Germany. Anyhow, if for any reason your plans have changed, I expect they will send it on to you. It will be exciting getting letters from you telling us what life is like in Germany. Richard’s letters have been amusing, and I am looking forward very much to hearing what life at a French University is like. Have you any idea what you would like to do before going up to the ‘Varsity, and after leaving school? You might let your mind dwell on the subject, and possibly talk it over with Mdmelle Pinault. I rather favour the idea of spending a few months abroad, and don’t know how it would be best to accomplish that, and have the opportunity of keeping up some of your regular work at the same time.
I am sorry I was not in England for what I suppose was your last speech day, but as we are leaving this flat, it is just as well I did not arrange to come home, for I dread to think what Dad’s feeling would have been, had he been faced with the problem of moving and getting things packed up.
While writing this I am keeping an eye on the clock, for I am to pay one of my rare visits to the dentist to-day. I cant really remember when I last went to one. Dad is always saying one ought to go every six months to have one’s teeth looked over, and I suppose it is sensible, but its so hard to remember to do it. I took myself in hand yesterday and arranged this interview and also made an appointment to have the sides of my hair re-permed, which I have been meaning to do ever since I came back from the Hills, so I am feeling virtuous!
I find it difficult to do these sort of things. Always ther seem to be other things on hand which matter much more. I am sorry about that queer slip down of the line. I went to answer the phone, and must automatically have given the machine a turn. It was Richard Gardiner ringing up to let me know that he is out of hospital, where he has been for two weeks with dysentery, poor lad. I was with him on Sunday, and he then hoped he would be out yesterday, as he was. He has become quite one of the familiars of the house during the last year, and I shall miss him when he goes away. I look upon him as a sort of nephew, and listen to his problems and troubles and give him advice when required. I am always advising people. I think I must be a sort of Universal Aunt by nature. The Mr Chapman about whom I wrote a week or two ago, and who had spent so many years wandering about the Arctic regions, spent a long time discussing his past and present and future life with me. He cherishes the curious ambition to collect or earn £20,000 and go and make a proper scientific survey of the North Pole. As a prelude to this I strongly advised him against taking the job of starting a school in Tibet.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Pause here while I went to the dentist, who luckily found nothing to do beyond a general polishing up.
Uncle Harry, Auntie Winsome and I, with Dad as a rather unwilling chorus, were discussing what to do next Summer holidays. A suggestion was put forward that we might all go to St Jacut. There is an idea that we should take at any rate one car with us, so as to be able to go easily down to the Grande Plage for bathing etc. If one could only guarentee good weather, I think it would be rather fun. English Eas-side places are so expensive and so crowded during the holidays.
By an odd coincidence I again stopped your letter to write one to Eric Shipton. Mrs Visser wrote to me from Sila saying she did not know where he was and wanted to get in touch with him to ask him to stay with them in Simla. Since then I have had lunch, and got out the things I want for my Guide Rally this afternoon. I am sorry to confess it, but I am really getting tired of these Anglo Indian Guides. Its such uphill work. Even just in the matter of the Law:- one tries to make some idea of it penetrate, but scarcely one of them makes the slightest attempt to try to keep any of the laws. I really think they are worse liars and cheats than the full blooded Indians.
I must go an have a short rest now before going off. Though I am not riding before breakfast now, as the horse is laid up, I still have the habit of getting up at 6 o’clock
Best love my darling
from
Mum
From HPV to Annette
Calcutta
July 22nd 1936
My dear Annette
It is a signal of distress when I put on my new and stronger spectacle glasses: Col Kirwan said when he gave them to me that there was nothing wrong with my eyes except my general health and when I find my weaker pair useless at the end of the day it indicates fatigue.
I discovered that one writes numerals more legibly if one writes them the wrong way round. Not till one investigates carefully does one know that one makes an 0 in a particular way that to make it otherwise alters the result. One should abstain from forming habits.
By Saturday I was exhausted to the pitch of jumping at a sound. The due reward of folly in a previous week: working on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday proved the error which we knew it to be even without proof. One of the weeks when things went wrong anyhow: as happens so often if I try to push ahead faster than usual. Not than usual for me but than usual for other folks. It is a fact that the more one does the less other folk do: and I have been driving the clerks in my office, by the method of merely expecting results and being pleasant to them till they have reached the pitch of screaming.
The Secretary Revenue Dept has propounded to me a scheme which I propounded to others, and then suppressed because it scared them, two years ago. For electrifying districts and pumping up water for irrigation with electric pumps. However it may be that put forward by another it will convince. My stock is low just now: not that I have been proved wrong but that something new would be more pleasing.
Harry came in on Monday. He says John had him cold that morning. In the Saturday Club baths:
John May I climb up on the top diving board?
Harry No
John When may I climb there?
Harry When you can swim!
John Swim how far?
Harry 12 strokes
John (who can’t swim) May I swim them now?
And at once goes off and swims them.
I pointed out the utter lack of logic in this: that the further he got from water the less need of his being able to swim at all – and that 14 feet up is further from the water than is ground level: but Harry and Winsome can’t see it.
Did you say that diving still baffled you? Oh! and oh! Also, Ape!! Stretch up and backwards as hard as ever you can: look above the hands till the time comes to go downwards in the air and then duck the head: and above all stretch up and backwards – hands out and fee out, - while going into the water.
Much love
Dad
From HPV to Annette (typed letter)
Calcutta,
July 29th. 1936
My dear Annette,
This method of conveying news to you I have adopted in deference to the wishes of my dearer brother Harry, who became greatly agitated by something in your last letter but one and insisted that you should be told a thing. It is this: when you omit a word, indicate it thus ; by inserting the word which you have missed (carat mark and ‘just’ written above) so. But if you have missed out a word when typing with the lines close together, then it is necessary to put the omission in the margin with the dash to indicate the fact, plus the underlining, in the (carat mark and ‘appropriate’ typed in margin) place, and preface the marginal note with the same symbol. As shown.
He is very keen on this sort of thing; toys. As you also say – toys! That on the contrary is an idea of my own which on this occasion did not come off. Toys! That is more the idea. The normal apostrophe plus fullstop for an exclamation mark is mean. “!” As this shows. But by shifting the carriage a bit and superimposing two apostrophes one attains to a certain effect of dignity. I admit that in my example I have overdone it. Has your typewriter got an = ? This has not: it is a sad defect, in my opinion. But I have become not inexpert at making one with a hyphen set a little high and another a little low. So too with the dash. Most essential to a modern style ---- and to be attained to any length by the same hyphen and a hand on the end of the carriage to prevent it travelling to the full extent. The alternative (the H.George Wellsian . . . . . ) is to me a thing abhorrent. For the ruling of lines (vertical line ruled in text) as at the bottom of the page, and it is a pity that I came to the bottom so unexpectedly, put the pencil against the sight thing which indicates where the letter will come on the paper and turn the roller (?) to the distance required. Never before had I done with with a pen; but obviously a pen works. My device; useful when typing figures in columns; statements; schedules. Lines absolutely parallel. Harry on the contrary takes less pleasure in ingenious quiffs of misuses of the machine than in knowledge of all the conventions. Leaving so many spaces between sentences; so many before the first line of a new paragraph; and such like niceties. But I enjoy more discoveries that one can safely use an eraser even when using carbon papers so long as one puts a piece of paper under each carbon to prevent it smudging the page beneath. That is more than enought of the finer things in typing. I acknowledge that in coarser matters such as ability to hit the right keys even when I look at them I have to yield the palm to others; to almost any others in fact.
However all this is a change from my ordinary letter. Which I shall now summarise in case you have forgotten it. (1) Work as usual; I should say even more of it than usual but that could not be – except that taking the liver-mucks I have maybe more strength and can do a bit more. This day I finished my note on the Fees to be paid by debtors and such; stopped it, rather; for it is a patchwork and poor stuff owing to constant interruptions, which I hurried through less important but to Nazimuddin more pleasing things. (2) Pleasure perhaps even less than usual, for my temper has been villainous. To the films on Sunday evening. A very good film but to me depressing. Are Americans really like that? Or like any of their films? It was ‘We three’. Probably you have seen it. All the praise that the critics gave to it was justified. Tut; that is a bad mistake. We visited Harry one evening. Pleasant. I enjoy talking to him. And we visited the Carey Morgans; ditto. The car has been out of action. What is wrong is its have been overhauled; enough to upset any car of course. The driver also; what is wrong with him is skin disease; and I am not risking any in this country where things like that are so easy to pick up and so slow to disappear. By the way another typing pleasure; a diagonal -------- (three diagonal lines drawn in) done more easily up than down. Thus it is easy to cancel whole paragraphs. Useful to me who scrap one day what I have done the day before.
Stop typewriter news. Your mother has a bad cold and goes sneezing round the place like a kitten.
Much love,
Dad.
30th Today at my particular request she stays in bed.
From LJT to Annette
14/1 Rowland Rd
Calcutta
July 30th 1936
My darling Annette
Your letter about the Speech day and exeat Week-end gives an impression of rush and fun – I wish I had been there. I wonder where you will be and what you will be doing at Speech Day time next year – The description of your new clothes sounds rather nice and I hope they are making a good impression in Dresden – I do so wonder whether you have met Herbert Richter – I have been owing him a letter for ages – but now I shall wait till after next week, when the German climbers have been through here and I can give him news of them.
Is’nt it exciting about Peggy’s engagement? I heard by Air Mail yesterday – Its a pity the young man has to go away and that they have to wait so long before they can be married. I had an Air Mail letter from GBs fiancé too, yesterday so seemed to hear a lot about people in love. Helen Morison (the fiancé) had climbed to the top of Goat Fell, the highest peak in Arran with GB – so she has begun in the way I hope she will go on. It would be a pity if she divorced him from his beloved mountains –
Congratulations on your prizes – but what makes me more proud of you still is to see your name under the London General School Examination “Hons Certificate with six distinctions”.
I am reading a most fascinating book called “The Living Garden” by E.J.Salisbury – Professor of Botany at University College – London. It is an account written in simple and unscientific language of the “whys and wherefores” with regard to the plants we grow in our gardens. It deals with soils, climate, temperatures, moisture and all sorts of things, and for me lets in light on all sorts of problems. It gives the reasons for doing or not doing many things which I have merely learnt as “gardener’s lore” and which Salisbury says were discovered quite empirically by gardeners after trial and error, many long years ago, but of which the scientific reasons have only just been discovered. I have had several shots at reading Mr Auden’s poems, but cant really make head or tail of them. It seems such a pity that he is not more lucid when he has such a gift of rhythm and every now and again puts some idea into a line or two with such clarity and beauty that they shine out like nuggets of gold in a mass grey rock – Hope you are happy! Best love
Mum
Family letter from LJT
14/1 Rowland Road
Calcutta
July 30th 1936
My Dears,
A streaming cold in the head somewhat bemuses my mind! I have not had such a cold for years. I am almost sure I caught it from Eric Shipton, who was here for the day on Friday, and had a snuffly cold. We spent a long time poring over maps and photos, so I suppose the tiresome little germs transferred themselves to my nose, which possibly is in an extra sensitive condition from being treated with local anesthetics, and generally pulled about. Anyhow the result is unpleasant, and makes me feel very stupid.
A letter from Peggy by yesterday’s air-mail told me the exciting news of her engagement. I am sorry she and her fiancé have to part so soon and wait so long before they can be married. It takes me back to the days of my own engagement, when Herbert and I thought we were parting for three years.
Herbert is, I am glad to say, somewhat recovered from the fatigue and depression from which he was suffering last week. He had a quiet week-end, and I got him some of that expensive, but most efecacious tonic, “Hepatax”, which is highly concentrated liver, and the only thing that really does him any good. He is quite bright and cheerful again now.
Having atained some virtue by visiting the dentist last early week I continued in the right path by having my side hair permanently waved on Thursday afternoon, a thing which it always takes me a long time to make up my mind to. Actually I find it rather restful when it comes to the point. For a couple of hours one can do nothing but read or sit in a sort of coma! Later in the afternoon I took the Townend cousin who is out here as a Minto nurse, to tea at the Saturday Club. I got Percy Brown and an architect friend who was staying with him to come and support me, for I always find Jean Townend rather over-whelming. She is inclined to sweep up the conversation into a monologue about her relations, and the longer it goes on, the more profoundly one hopes one will never have to meet any of them. P.B. and I countered it with some success on Thursday. At his request I had taken along the photos of my spring trip, and I think Jean was quite genuinely interested in them.
Mr Shipton spent the day here on Friday, on his way from Kalimpong to Simla. He is a nice person, but quite the vaguest man about arrangements one could possibly meet! After breakfast I sent him off in the car with a chaprassi in charge, with exact instructions about where he had to go. I had a very pleasant little lunch-party for him. The Cookes, Mr Auden, and Mr Chapman, oh! and Richard Gardiner. We talked so much that the party did not begin to break up till 3 o’clock, and most of us agreed to meet again at the Saturday Club for a bathe and tea at 4.30. Mr Shipton has kindly presented me with a copy of his book “Nanda Devi”. We spent some of the afternoon tracing out his wanderings on a map I happen to have of the Nanda Devi district, and then in looking at maps and photos of Sikkim. He and three others from Everest, turned aside on their way home and spent a fortnight climbing in Sikkim. They went along to the Gordamah lake and climbed a peak immediately to the South of it. I have good photos of that region, taken by Barbara Griffin when we were there last year, and others of the opposite faces of those mountains taken when Helen Martin and I crossed the Sebu La this year. Mr Shipton was so absorbed in fitting in the pictures of the peaks, and making sketch maps, that I had quite a job to get him to move to the Saturday Club. He went off by a train in the middle of the evening, and I went round to show a friend and member of the Club how to work the Epidiascope, which he declared he was afraid would blow up, if he tackled it alone.
Frederick Chapman was still here over the week end, so we took him out to bathe and have tea at Tolly on Saturday. I took an atlas with me for I wanted to get some more exact idea of his wanderings in the Artic. We spread out our map after tea, and for about an hour he talked most interestingly on the subject, chiefly of the northern Air route, and then about the dream of his own life. Since it entails raising £20,000 to accomplish it, he does not see any very immediate prospect of getting it done.
Mr Cooke and I spent the first half of Sunday morning on Himalayan Club work, while Herbert spent almost the whole day lying on his bed reading or dosing, and it did him no end of good. We sallied out about 4 o’clock, and met a few people at the Club for a bathe, and then met Idris Mathews and a man who was staying with him at the cinema at 6 o’clock, and see that rather remarkable, but depressing film “These Three”. Herbert slipped away home after it, and the rest of us went on supper at Firpos Grill room, where one gets wonderful food, and sees rather amusing people.
Since the Cossipore garden is demanding much attention I slipped out there on Monday afternoon afternoon, and superintended some planting, and worked out a few plans. I had rather to hurry back, as I had to meet some people for drinks and the cabaret at the Saturday Club at 7 o’clock. To my surprise Herbert turned up there which I never thought he would do, and which was a sure proof that he was feeling better
A chance remark by the manager of the Oxygen and Acetylene Factory at Ruttledge’s lecture, put me on the track of something which I think is going to turn out very well. He said “W’ve got a new metal sprying machine, which lays the metal on things like the thinnest layer of paint. Do come and see it sometime.” Now our big white screen for the epidiascope which is thick paper mounted on muslin, has been getting shabby and dirty for some time, so the idea came to me of getting it sprayed with aliminium. I rang Mr Hagger up, and he said they could easily do it. Walter Jenkins and I took it over to the works at Howrah yesterday afternoon, which we found with some difficulty. We saw the machine spraying different sorts of metals on to bits of paper, and its most fascinating. Metal wire of the required sort is fed into the burning oxoacetelyene jet, off a big reel, and comes out as the finest spray blown with terriffic force on to the object to be coated with it. I saw brass, copper, aliminium and iron being done. I cant remember the figure Mr Hagger gave, but it is something as astonishing as the coating being only a thousandth of an inch thick. The result is beautiful.
I have been busy with arrangements for Paul Bauer and his party of German climbers who arrive here early next week, and for the Japanese expedition, the fore-runner of who was brought to see me by the Japanese Consul yesterday. He is quite young and such a nice looking boy. I was very struck by the fact that he blushed quite pink!
Lunch time has arrived, and with it the moment to knock off from this.
My best love to you all.
LJT