The Townend Family Letters

1941 June

Family Letter from LJT No 20

“Montpelier”.  Wickham Terrace

Brisbane.  Australia.

June 5th 1941.

My Dears,

We have covered a long stretch of country, and seen much varied scenery since I sent off my last letter.  The journey from Sydney to Brisbane by road is 720 miles via the Pacific Highway.  Its a little longer via the Inland Route, know as the New England Highway.  The coastal belts of New South Wales and Queensland do not conform at all to the general impressions I had from Geography books and a few tales I must have read in my youth.  There is what is known as the Dividing Range running roughly north and south right down the East of Australia at a distance varying from 30 to 80 miles from the coast (This distance, I may say is a bit of a guess.)  It is not high, averaging three to four thousand feet for its peaks.  There are subsidiary ranges and spurs running out to the coast in places, so that much of the Pacific Highway runs through and over hills.  Between the Ranges and the coast lies a rich and pleasant land, green and kindly looking, bordered by impressive headlands, facing the Pacific, and surf-washed bays of silver sands.  Many good rivers, some of impressive size, flow down from the mountains, and we had to cross about half a dozen of them by ferry.  Many have been bridged within recent years.  The journey by Service Car took four days and we stayed three nights en route.  The car was comfortable.  It was a small bus, seating twelve, three to each seat, giving us all comfortable room.  There were two young women and the rest, with the exception of ourselves, were all elderly ladies.  The driver was an extremely cheerful, good humoured young man, who took great care of us all, particularly conducting the ladies upstairs and showing them where the lavatory accomodation was, at each place where we stopped for lunch or to stay the night.  Now and again he made jokes of a simple nature, which delighted the old ladies.  For instance, at Port Macquarie, when he drove us on to the top of a headland from which we got a fine view of the great Pacific, he said suddenly “Can you see the sea plane” (the joke of course does’nt work when written) and had us all peering about looking into the skies, till he added “I can see it plain enough”.  Another morning, when after two wettish days, the weather had cleared to brilliant sunshine, he remarked as we drove away form the hotel, “Fine day for the Race”.  The passengers rose “Are there races here to-day?” “What Race?” Came the reply, somewhat sadly anticipated by Herbert “The human race”.  For the first couple of hours after we had left the northern suburbs of Sydney, which on the northern edges of the city, correspond with the Hampstead or Wimbledon type, of well-to-do houses standing in charming gardens, we drove over rocky hills covered with gum forest and mixed bush, and split by rocky ravines, picturesque, but quite uncultivatible I should think.  We dropped down to the Hawkesbury River, where little eating houses advertise “Fish Meals” and “Oysters”.  Small boys brought glass jars full of oysters taken off the shell, and tried to sell them to us as we waited for the ferry.  They look singularly unappetising so.  Later we came into country where whole hillsides were covered with banana plantations, and later still into the orange orchard country, interspersed with dairy farms.  The orange crops are hanging on the trees, just ready for picking, and looked most attractive.  The flowering trees and shrubs that we are accustomed to in India, appeared in most gardens.  There were poinsettias everywhere, with hibiscus and bourgainvillia.  We lunched that day at the big coal-mining and iron smelting town of Newcastle.  By the route that we went through the town, I did not see any pit-heads, and the general appearance of the place was not dirty as are the English and Scotch mining towns.  It looked much like a similar big English provincial town, except that many of the houses were built of wood, especially in the out-lying parts.  The day unfortunately was showery, and there had been heavy rain, so that in places where the road was not tarmac or concrete, there was a good deal of mud.  For the greater part of its length, the Pacific Highway is tarmac, or has some equivalent surface, and the stretches which are still gravel will all be made “pukka” during the next few years.  We passed through fine dairying country during the afternoon, and for the last ten miles climbed over a range of fine hills, partly forest and here and there roughly cleared for dairy farms.  It grew dark about half an hour before we reached Taree, where we were to spend the night, and it was fine to see the lights of the town sparkling below us, while the line of the more distant mountains was black against a still faintly light sky.  We did not like the hotel at Taree.  It was not in itself so bad as country hotels go, but unfortunately we were allotted a room immediately above the bar, and it was Saturday night.  Now bars are supposed to shut at 6 p.m. in Australia except for serving drinks to people staying in the hotel.  This rule seems often to be honored in the breach rather than in the observance.  It certainly was in Taree that night, for the bar was in full swing and very noisy till 3.30 a.m.  Every now and then someone would go out.  A door would bang: footsteps cross the pavement, and then would come the sound of a car starting up and driving away, which made it pretty obvious that the drinkers were not all staying in the hotel.  I became more and more irate and more and more disgusted as I heard hour after hour and quarter after quarter strike, and could not sleep, meditating meanwhile on the unpleasantness of excessive drinking, and the unfairness to the beasts done by comparing drunken people to them.  I thought of the splendid alertness and fitness for his job displayed for instance by a tiger, and what a libel it is on him to compare him to a drunken sot.  The Australians seem to have an odd attitude to drink.  When I advertised my woes and my disgust at breakfast, they did not seem in any way surprised that what was supposed to be a respectable hotel, should break the law, and encourage noisy and excessive drinking.  It seemed to them perfectly natural that people from round about should come in to have a night’s drinking on Saturdays.  These young countries seem to be going through a sort of adolescent stage of thinking it manly and clever to drink to excess.  Let’s hope they grow out of it!

Unfortunately Sunday was another wet day, and early in it we had to negotiate a stretch of bad road, which heavy rains had turned into a sea of slippery yellow clay.  The driver seemed to rely on speed to get us through, and went at it hard, with the car constantly skidding a little this way and that.  We passed one car bogged beside the road, with another standing by to help.  I would have preferred to go dead slow, but we got through onto a dry gravel surface on rising ground, without any mishap.  Looking back now, the different scenes we passed through have telescoped themselves to some extent, and I cant sort out one day from the next with precision, for there was no clear cut difference in the general character of the country.  On each day we passed big areas of forest, mostly the typical gum trees.  Many of these forests are grazing areas, and sometimes by intent and sometimes by mistake, the undergrowth is burnt off, to make it possible for grass to grow.  Then one gets the charming effect of the graceful trees, their silver grey smooth trunks, touched here and there with white or pinkish hues, standing up from grassy swards, like trees in a beautiful park.  In places where the “bush” ( a word which so ill expresses these fine forests of tall trees ) has been cleared to make paddocks, the result from a scenic point of view is not so happy, for the trees have been chopped down, and the blackened stumps, standing four or five feet high, are just left, giving a forlorn aspect to the fields.  Near the bigger towns, where presumably the settlements are oldest, most of the stumps have been got rid of, with a consequent improvement in the appearance in the appearance of the fields.  Sugarcane fields became a feature of the landscape from Taree onwards, and there were fodder crops in fair abundance.  The maize stalks are just left standing in the fields and now in mid-winter, they are brown and dead, and look untidy and unkempt.  Sometimes the road ran near the coast, and sometimes well inland.  At times we got views of the sea, and at times our road ran beside big rivers, or we crossed them by ferrys or modern bridges.  For lunch on Sunday we stopped at the little port, Port Macquarie, which was an early convict settlement.  The hotel was right on the edge of the sea, and after ordering lunch there, we were driven round the little town and taken to see the old church built by the convicts.  It is a respectable foursquare brick building, with a tower, and, oddly enough, the oldfashioned box pews.  The Australians were all giving out murmurs of amazement at the antiquity of the building.  One of the girls said to me, “Just think!  Its 150 years old!  And it looks as if it might stand for another 150”.  Its when one hears remarks like this, that one realizes how young these antipodean countries are.  Our next night was spent in a charming hotel run by a Greek family, at a little place called Coff’s Harbour.  It did a great deal to wipe out the unpleasant impression created by the hotel at Taree.  Monday morning was clear and beautiful, and we had time for half an hours walk after breakfast.  Chance took us up a hill past the school.  The school buildings are raised on piles, as are most of the buildings in this part of the country, were surrounded by a big compound, mostly rough grass, with hoary old trees here and there to give shade.  Children were hurrying gaily up the street, and in the grounds of the school, many groups were playing, looking so happy and gay.  It was evidently the fashion to get to school early, in order to have time for a game before the classes started.  Lunch that day was at the big town of Grafton, on the navigable Clarence River.  Though there are many big rivers, few are of any use, for they empty themselves into the sea in the middle of unprotected beaches for the most part, and the great surf rolling in from the Pacific, tosses the sand bars about in a casual fashion, so that if you dredge a channel one week, you have to start again and dredge a fresh one the following week.  Grafton is a city of wide streets lined by fine avenues of semi-tropical trees.  Its pride is a long avenue of Jacaranda trees, which must be a wonderful sight when they are in bloom.  For those of you who do not know the Jacaranda, it is a big forest tree, which in its blooming season is completely covered with flowers of a blue something like the colour of harebell, only with a shade more mauve in it.  It has the charming feature of dropping its blossom before they fade, and they lie like blue carpet beneath the trees.  The night was spent at another big town, Lismore, in a not very pleasant hotel, of the rather second-rate commercial traveller type.  It was not noisy, but one had the feeling that nothing was quite as clean as it might be!  The poor Herbert was suffering from a chill on his tummy, which made him feel far from gay, and worried me considerably.  Luckily the next day, the last of our drive, was gloriously fine and warm, which helped him a bit.  The road kept nearer to the coast, and we had an hour or so to stroll or sit about at the charming little sea-side resort of Coolangatta, lying in a nook between two headlands, where the ranges came down to the sea.  It has the distinction of being the first town in Queensland.  After lunch at Coolangatta, the road keeps parallel to the coast and quite close to it for many miles, where a long flat beach provides surfing for people from Brisbane, and where consequently there are several little sea-side bungalow villages.  At the end of this long stretch of beach is a new and much advertised hotel, called Surfers’ Paradise.  Here we stopped to drop passengers, and have a look at the place.  I found it unattractive.  Its a huge place, all show and no comfort to my mind.  A vast lounge is furnished with tube metal chairs and small tables arranged for cocktail parties.  The verandah is the same.  What should be the garden is taken up by a small zoo, entrance 6d and open to the public.  The beach is a long stretch of silver sand, with heavy surf breaking on it, backed by sand-hills - - - no rocks - - no headlands - - no smooth deep-water bathing.  I was glad we had not arranged to go there.  Just beyond it we crossed a river and came to Southport, a town of some years standing, where we are going to spend next week.  Off-shore from Southport, is Stradbroke Island protecting the coast, and giving opportunities for deep-water bathing and for boating.  I think it should prove a pleasant place to stay.  Another hour and a half driving mostly through forest, brought us into Brisbane, where Teresa gave us a warm welcome.  She looks better than when we saw her on the boat, but is unhappy, and longing to get back to Bali.  She has for years been able to have things so completely her own way, and in her village in the middle of Bali, she has reigned as a sort of Queen, with a troop of devoted servants to wait on her, and the village and neighbourhood delighted to be patronized.  Naturally she finds it difficult to settle down in a busy bustling city, with an extremely democratic attitude to life.  The situation is probably exaggerated by the fact that when she lived here years ago, she held a position as wife of the Dean, which gave her some importance, especially as I fancy the Arch-bishop was not married.  That was a long time ago, and people dont remember.  To them she is just a rheumatic and very didactic old lady.  Its really rather sad to see.  Herbert was still not feeling good, but he got up on Wednesday morning and we set out to do our various errands in the city, chiefly to arrange about drawing his pay through the Government Dept concerned, and to fix up various arrangements with the bank.  The Sub-Treasurer, with whom we had to deal, was such a nice friendly fellow, and the Government Offices (Federal) are a fine block of buildings.  The Bank took a long time, and by the time we got back, Herbert was feeling quite wobberly in the legs, so he went to bed, and stayed there till after breakfast yesterday.  The internal economy has regained its normal tone to-day, and the chill has passed, but the aftermath, plus the general anxieties of the War news, and expectation of a big clash in Syria, dont help one to feel exactly gay.  Teresa took us for a nice drive to “One Tree Hill” on the outskirts of the town, from which one gets a fine view, over the city, out to sea, and inland to the Ranges.  I had spent the morning mostly in the Queensland Government Tourist Office, investigating possible places to visit, and means and costs of reaching them, and, later in the Girl Guide Hdqts Office, where I found two delightful girls, one of whom gave me a lot of information about some of the hill resorts I had been hearing about.  They were sad that I had not come ten minutes earlier, for the State Commissioner and the State Secretary had only just gone out.  Cordial invitations were issued to go to morning tea at the office today, but since I wanted to put in a morning’s writing, and Teresa has a lunch party at her Club for us to-day, I am going to the Guide place to-morrow.  In the evening, Miss Hutchinson, the State Secretary rang me up, and this morning the State Commissioner, Lady McCartney, rang up to see if we could arrange to meet.  This seems typical of the kindness and hospitality I have met with from the Girl Guide Officers where-ever I have been.  That reminds me that I did not tell you of the delightful outing I had with Miss Smith, the N.S.W. Camp Secretary on our last day in Sydney.  She called for me at twelve o’clock, and drove me over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and out through North Sydney for about three quarters of an hour.  We turned off the main road and eventually went  along a roughtrack for a few hundred yards to a gate in a wire fence, which was the entrance to the Girl Guides permanent campsite.  It was presented to the Guides anonymously after Lord and Lady Baden Powell’s visit a few years ago.  Its a lovely spot, and might be a hundred miles from a big city.  A wild rocky hill-top, dropping away steeply into a deep gorge, with rock cliffs here and there, and the natural bush covering the most part of it.  Near the top, a couple of open grassy spaces afford room for two fair sized camps.  There’s a big hut for sing-songs or meals and meetings in bad weather, and another hut with four small rooms and a shower bath, flanked by wide verandahs, so that girls who can get away for a night or a couple of nights, are able to go up there without the difficulty of taking up tents.  The whole place made me deeply envious, for camping is one of our major difficulties in Bengal.  Miss Smith had taken out a picnic lunch, and after we had wandered round and looked at things, and I had got the names of some of the bush flowers from her, we sat on the verandah of the living-hut, looking across the gorge, and enjoyed our meal.  I was sorry Herbert had not come.  Miss Smith had not said anything about it the previous afternoon, and I had not liked to suggest it.  When she called for me, he had gone down to the Bank, and we could not get at him.  I was sorry I had not got in touch with the Guides directly I arrived for several of them wanted us to go to see them, and Miss Smith said she would have liked to have taken us to spend a week-end on her sister’s sheep farm, which is the very thing I want to do.

Later.  It is now evening.  The lunch party was a pleasant function, at a nice lady’s club.  The guests were the Archbishop and Mrs. Wand; a couple who used to be in Calcutta, oddly enough in Shaw Wallace’s; the editor or leader-writer of the best local paper; the widow of the late Speaker of the Queensland House of Representatives (or whatever it is called) and a dear woman, a very old friend of Teresa’s, who worked with an ambulance in Serbia after the last war.  The Shaw Wallace people, Mr and Mrs Noon, (spelling may be incorrect) although they left India in 1919, know a number of people that we know, and were pleased to hear news of the old firm.  The Archbishop, who was Dean of Oriel for some years, also knew a lot of people whom Herbert knew at Oxford, and his daughter was at Headington School, but left in 1934, so was not a contemporary of Rosemary’s.  The news-paper man had travelled over a great part of the world, and the old Miss Bedford had also seen quite a fair bit of the earth’s surface at one time or another, so there was plenty of mixed conversation going, and as you might expect if Teresa had the ordering of the meal, excellent food.  Herbert was a bit tired when the party broke up at three o’clock, for he had been out all morning, and is a bit pulled down by his chill so he went off in the taxi with Teresa back to the hotel, while I went to the shops to get him a light-weight suit-case for use on the Flying Boat when we return to India.  His heavy leather ones would consume half the weight allowance without anything in them.

This week I shant have time to write personal letters.  Teresa is so pleased to have someone about, that she keeps on popping in on one excuse or another, saying “I’m really not going to disturb you” and therewith embarking on some long story, spending eons of time searching her memory for the names of minor characters in the incident she is retailing, the which could be of no conceivable interest to anyone!  This has put the brake on my letter production, and I’d rather post to-morrow, and send other letters next week from Southport.  Its pleasant to be in touch with a good collection of books again.  Teresa has many that I would like to read, and Herbert has found some to his liking.  I grow sleepy and shall say good-night to you all and go to bed.  Bless you all, my dears, and my love to you.

LJT

Family letter from HPV

Brisbane.
June 7th. 1941.

My dears,

Three weeks would have been too much to pass without a chill: otherwise there is no reason for my lapse from well-being. I had begun to boast myself that it was time to write and report progress to Dr. Hardwick Smith when all occasion for boasting was removed. Unfortunately this was while we were travelling on the bus from Sydney to this place and there was no possibility of lying up or of avoiding draughts: and so by the time that we arrived here I had reached the stage when retirement to bed for a day was unavoidable. The climate of Queensland is not so warm at this season as we had expected and the evenings in particular are chilly. But now that the chill has left me, I hope to progress.

As a precaution I have been already making enquiries about official permission to leave Australia and to take out with me the money which we have brought in. There has been the usual infuriating process of being told that there is no certainty that we shall be allowed to take the whole with us, and although I know that this is empty talk I have become irritated and angry. There is obviously nothing to be done about it so far as we are concerned, but we can help others to avoid such annoyance by warning them against coming into the country at all. It causes me to wonder why the authorities who are always bleating about the necessity for getting sterling should do their best to discourage the visitors who bring sterling in, as such threats of robbery must do. They distribute pamphlets saying that tourists will be allowed to take out money that they bring in and then say blandly that conditions are not now what they were when the pamphlets were written: but so far as one can see they have taken no steps, by sending notice to tourist offices elsewhere, to withdraw the assurance. It may be a matter of subordinates making nuisances of themselves in order to feel important, but this does not make the thing less annoying, particularly when one is out of sorts. All this might have made matter for a book on reasons for not visiting this country and that, but it is not worth while to embark on it when against almost every country the reason would have to be “Closed to all except barbarians.”

Among the simple sayings of the bus driver should be noted one that at the time gave Joan much pleasure; a laughter occasion. He was hauling at the steering wheel to get the bus round a series of extreme curves on a bit of mountain road and murmured to himself “A regular May West”, or words to that effect. The zoo at Surfers’ Paradise to which Joan took exception was not bad in itself. It had a guinea-pig section which contained a hutch built like a two-storied bungalow for the pigs, with easy steps up to it and embellished with a model and entirely useless earth-closet outside; the pigs had not been trained to use it. There were wallabies rather huddled up which I should have preferred not to see. Joan insists on my repeating a tale which appeared in the Sydney Sun, the evening paper: it is that an English lady asked “Which has the pouch, the male or the female kangaroo?” and got the answer “The male of course. The female only smokes cigarettes.” I had not thought highly of this, I may say. The real blemish of Surfers’ Paradise was a notice that no dogs were allowed on the beach; but to judge by the speed with which certain dogs were making for it, the contents of the notice had not been conveyed to them.

The mention of May West reminds me that what Shebbeare really said about the dancing girl at the Saturday Club was “Faults on both sides; no bust, no bustle.” Far better than the account given to Rosemary. Another thing about our trip that deserves record is the habit of wayside cafés (pronounced to rhyme with Cathay) - - - - let me say, rather, the fact that the cafés that cater for the morning-tea-at-eleven enthusiasts think a gramophone accompaniment essential; rather trying: but still more trying was the pathetic attempt of one that had no gramophone to make up for it by putting a daughter of the house on to play upon a piano. She exhausted her repertory of well-known tunes like Daisy, then her less extensive repertory of hymns, and fell back on jazzing “When shepherds watched etc.” Of interesting items in Brisbane itself, only one at this moment: a shop has up a poster ‘Thoughts for the day’ on which is written “When God brings you into deep waters it is not to drown you but to wash you”. This should be copied onto the notices about the proper way to adjust lifebelts.

It has been brought to my notice that I have never committed to paper, and therefore run the risk of losing, that verse of the Prune Song that I composed while walking through the bush at the Franz Joseph and unable to recall the real verses. It is only right to mention that it is better than the originals.
“Logic would associate the Prune with prudes and prisms,
And so Prunes ought to shrink
From the very thought of drink:
But these desperate fruits don’t care two hoots for logic’s syllogisms,
They seem to think of gin as stuff for bathing in.
The youngest prune looks old in sin -- he’s always full of wrinkles:
We get them on the face; prunes have them every place.
When one of us goes on the jag, he gets all red and mottled,
But no matter how bad a prune may be, he looks his best when bottled.”

You will have seen for yourselves that my studies of typing have not advanced me far; the disasters in the above line were due to worry about the ribbon, which stuck in spite of the Sydney overhaul. Also I have fallen from grace in the matter of the study of the stars, while I have utterly failed to pursue the Mathematics for the Million ever since we left New Zealand. There is always the difficulty that to read anything solid requires a certain degree of solitude and this is not easy to obtain in hotels, where the only quiet is in one’s bedroom and at this time of year the bedrooms are distinctly cold. Maybe one reason I feel the cold is that I did not bring much in the way of really warm clothes with me from India, because at the time when we came away I did not expect to be away so long. Yet my clothes are thick when compared with Joan’s. It looked as if the hardy New Zealander wore thick underclothes even in mid-summer: at least I noted that the West Coasters working on the roads and in the fields had the thickest of long pants on at that time. Mooning around is a bad thing. Perhaps if I had had some sort of distraction like golf, things would have gone better: but the thought of deliberately setting out to spend a golfing holiday is far from me. It is a grief that all my ailments bring worries to Joan.

Sunday: June 8th. Early this morning we were asked if we should like to be taken out in a car to the Oasis. And not knowing what it was, we accepted and chose to go before lunch rather than in the afternoon. It was a huge success as outings go. The Oasis is a garden with a couple of bathing pools, a dance floor, aviaries and arbours where drinks and such are to be had. Very good. The gardens were well laid out, and well kept; the birds were gay to see and well housed; and everything in spite of grey weather was admirable. I saw practically none of it although I should have been pleased enough to do so, for the Professor was talking vigorously and altogether excellently about agriculture and soil erosion and the difficulties of getting things done satisfactorily when policy is controlled by ministers, with side remarks as to education, and was stopping just in front of me so that to see the sights I should have had to turn away from him rather obviously. He was most interesting and I learnt a lot about things in which I have dabbled. For instance about agriculture in Java and about statistics. In some ways the white settler in a country like this where at one time it was easy to get rich quick, is just as short-sighted as the ignorant cultivator in Bengal and makes the same mistakes. The outturn of rice in Queensland is such that in the field it is the cheapest in the world: in the shops it is the most expensive. They use machinery for harvesting it in the irrigated areas, after drying off the fields. Near Brisbane irrigation from tube-wells is through overhead sprayers; far more effective than by flow, says the Professor . I wonder if this has ever been tried in the U.P. where they are so proud of their tube wells. This was the first time that I have talked to anyone in Australia who appeared to have used his eyes and done any original thinking about economics. H.V.V. Noone, formerly of Shaw Wallace, whom we met on Friday at Teresa’s lunch, was interesting too, but I had no talk with him except a few words about Calcutta; and anyhow his subject is archaeology, in which he appears to be an authority.

My continual mistakes in typing this letter are the more annoying to me because Brother Harry’s letter which arrived three days ago was typed with a master hand. Joan says that she believes him to look just a little, but I cannot believe anything of the sort. He embarked on his education some time before I did, but I none the less dislike to be inferior to him in the art. When doing the exercises (for I do them now and then, especially those invented by myself ) I manage as much as six lines at a time without error - and then cram six errors into one line, but the strain of composition is too much for me when a letter has to be written. I am rather sad to find that the effect of the overhaul is working off; the ribbon does not always reverse when it should, the spacing sometimes requires a considerable thump to make it work and, now that I think of it, everything else is all right. Only man is vile.

We leave here tomorrow and go down to the coast. People bathe in the sea even now, but I doubt whether I shall. The sun is pleasant when there is any, which is frequently, but not really hot. But I have gone on long enough.

(handwritten addition at end of letter)
I was delighted to hear, since this was written that Richard has his yachtings article accepted. I wish that I had the energy to resume physical jerks such as he mentions. The fact is that whenever I start them and attain wellbing a chill intervenes and I have a setback. My omission to mention Annette’s letter does not imply lack of delight in her news too.

Much love
Dad

Romey, have I said Hurrah about your examination!? Well done, my poppet!

Much love
Dad

From LJT to Annette No 21

Pacific Hotel
Southport
Qs’ land
June 11th 1941

My darling Annette

A mail from home reached us on Saturday last, containing, amongst other things, a letter from Peg, written on March 12th telling about her engagement – but sad to say there was nothing else from the family, so I fear the Air Mail, which Aunt uses, must have got up to Egypt and somehow got stuck up – However there was evidently nothing of outstanding importance in the family affairs demanding mention, or she would surely have mentioned it. Her account of Michael sounds nice, and I’m glad he’s fond of mountains!!

I’m sorry I had no time to write to you personally last week – Living in a room next door to Teresa is almost a whole time job. She seems hungry for attention the whole time – I find it trying and its an effort not to be impatient. Its quite terrifying to observe how old age lifts the curtain on character, in something the same way that drunkenness does. Younger people can camoflage their weaknesses to some extent, but greed, selfishness, self-centerdness and gossiping defy all concealment in the old, and the more they criticise these qualities in others the more pitiful the spectacle! Its seems ungrateful to write this of my old cousin, for she was kind to us, but I think its stupid to let gratitude for kindness, blind one to faults, and impede a study of human nature. The saying “As a tree grows, so shall it be”. As a man lives so shall he die” – comes to my mind. Set habits a mind and character cant be easily altered, if indeed they can be altered at all – Teresa’s tragedy is that she has in the past, been able to buy popularity to some extent. She was well off – Her income has now shrunk considerably. In the village she adopted in Bali, she was able to preside as a sort of queen. The people must have found her a regular gold mine – She re-instated an orchestra and dancing troop, buying all the instruments and building the “Theatre” or dancing place – People visiting Bali were glad to have introductions to her, for its a nice thing to be put up free of charge and right away from the tourist routes, in a place like Bali – but now this has all disappeared in smoke, and the poor old lady finds herself in a busy town, where people are not specially interested in a curious looking old dame, with extremely didactic manners, who criticises Australia and things Australian at every possible opportunity. She has a few faithful old friends and there are some nice people at “Montpelier” who are kind to her, but she cant deceive herself into believing that she is a centre round whom a large section of society revolves – What a contrast is her old friend, Miss Bedford – her senior by some years. Miss Bedford nursed in Serbia during the last war and now works for all manner of things – children’s play ground and crèches – the girl Guides and other things and backs all these things with a keen and intelligent interest in world affairs – a truly delightful old lady! Sorry! I have filled so much paper with meditations on Teresa – but as I have no letters from you to answer, I’ve nothing to give me “direction”. I’m just reading “Hitler’s War” by Hugh Dalton. M.P. Its a distressing book, for except for himself and Arthur Henderson, not a single French or English politician judged rightly on anything from after the last war. There were many distressing mistakes, I suppose, but surely everyone cant have been wrong all the time? How truly you say that its in the watches of the night that the horror and futility of the war comes home to one – though I’m not sure that, under the circumstances I subscribe to the word “futility” – for it seems to mean that the war was not worth fighting – Once the world was in the position it was in Aug and Sept 1939 it certainly was worth fighting! Best love, darling – Mother

P.S Did I tell you I had sent off a parcel of cheese and honey for you from Sydney? I hope it will reach you and be acceptable.

(On back of letter written in AMT’s handwriting:

Logic would associate prunes with prudes and prisms
And so Prunes ought to shrink
From the very thought of drink:
But these desperate fruits don’t care
two hoots for logic’s syllogisms
They seem to think of gin
As stuff for bathing in
The youngest prune looks old in
sin – he’s always full of wrinkles:
We get them on our face; prunes
have em every place.
When one of us goes on the jag he gets
all red and mottled
But no matter how bad a prune may
be, he looks his best when bottled)

Family letter from LJT no 21

Pacific Hotel.  Southport.

Queensland.  Australia.

June 12th 1941.

My Dears,

What a lot of different addresses I have written at the tops of what a lot of bits of note paper since I left India!  Some day I must count them up.  We have had the joy of a home mail to-day, but it was one that missed us in New Zealand, containing Grace’s letter No  of March 9th, and various letters from Annette and Richard.  A fortnight ago Grace’s letter No 3 came, and last Saturday I got one from Peggy dated 12th April, so the mails have been more erratic than usual.  I suspect that some air mail got up to Egypt, could not get on from there by air, and is coming in some round-about way by sea.  Its an enormous pleasure getting letters from home, even if they have been a long time on the way.  Its refreshing and reassuring to hear you all writing about such everyday things.  When one has not had any personal news for some time, one begins to feel that things in England are even more abnormal than they must be in reality.  Its maddening to hear all this criticism of Churchill.  Do people think he can wave a magic wand and create air-field and areoplanes from nothing?  We listened in to Mr Menzies making a speech to the people of Australia last Sunday night, and thought it excellent, both in the manner and in the matter of his address.  It is a good thing for the people here to be reminded that the Anzac troops were not the only ones fighting in Africa, Greece and Crete.  There is a sort of feeling to that effect amongst the less educated sections of the public here.  Sydney has one excellent paper, “The Sydney Herald”.  It’s a good sound paper, setting out the news clearly, commenting sensibly on it on the whole, and not over-emphasizing news from Axis sources, or mixing it up too badly with that from British and American ones.  The Brisbane papers, on the other hand are horrors!  They are far worse than the Daily Mail.  Huge headlines splash across a page, and the news beneath them is so confused that its difficult to sort out what is what.  Reports and rumours from all sorts of sources are printed along with official news, so that great care has to be taken to distinguish one from the other.  Its astonishing that a place with such a large well educated population should tolerate such a press.  It contrasts most unfavorably with New Zealand’s papers, which are remarkably good in all the big cities.  A tiresome feature of this rather nice hotel is that the only radio is in the Bar, so we cannot listen to the news, and I miss it very much, especially when we are dependent on such a bad paper.  There has been a good deal to hear the last few days with the advance into Syria going on, and so many anxiety-making things that may happen in so many places.

My weekly journal had better go on from where it broke off.  We had been lavishly fed by Teresa at her luncheon party.  It sounds abominable put like that, when you all have to eat with such care, but I assure you I seldom eat a meal that I dont think of you, and feel the longing to send you what I have got.  Arising out of the lunch party, came an invitation from dear old Miss Bedford (Teresa’s old friend who nursed in Serbia during the last war) to morning tea at her charming old house in the pretty suburb across the river, Kangaroo Point.  She came to fetch us in her car, picking up Herbert and Teresa at the hotel, and calling for me at the Girl Guide Office.  It was an interesting drive, past several of Brisbane’s notable buildings, and across the great new bridge, said by Brisbane’s inhabitants to be a white elephant which was not in the least necessary, and which it will take several generations to pay for.  Miss Bedford’s house stands on a cliff above the river, where it takes a horse-shoe bend round the Botanical Gardens, which lie just opposite.  There’s a fine view from her garden, and one can see most of the points of interest in the city.  We were regaled with tea and sandwiches, which included fresh oysters wrapped in thin brown bread and butter.  I don’t like eating in the middle of the morning, but these I could not resist.  Miss Bedford is such a lively, interesting, delightful old lady.  Teresa says she must be close on seventy, but one would never guess it from her activity or from her talk.  It was a delightful visit, and we spent so long with her that we did not get back till almost lunch time.  Having done little or no sight-seeing, Herbert and I spent the afternoon in a walk round the Botanical Gardens, which are both pretty and interesting, but which, lying in the middle of such a big city, are a regular playground, and consequently are a bit “worn” in places.  The people whom Teresa says she likes best at Montpelier, returned to the hotel that afternoon, after a fortnight’s holiday.  They are Professor and Mrs. Goddard.  He is a Biology man, with a range of keen interests that seem to stretch out in all directions.  He says that is both the best and the worst of biology, that it links up with so many other branches of science.  In spite of that, he stoutly asserts that for the foundations of a really sound education, either mathematics or the classics are needed.  Amongst many other things, he taught as a professor at the South African University where General Smits studied, for twelve years.  He has done, and I think is still doing, work for the Department of Agriculture of Queensland, researching into control of pests, methods of making and using fertilisers, methods of irrigation, and so on.  He spent some months in Java studying the Dutch agricultural methods.  Much of Queensland is tropical, and conditions are not altogether unlike the Dutch East Indies, except that I think they have better rain-fall and water supply.  The Goddards came along to Teresa’s sitting room after dinner, as well as Dr Mitchell, the Port Health Doctor, and we all sat talking till fairly late.  I was the lucky one, and had the professor to talk to or listen to all evening.  When he said good-night, he said he wanted to have a talk with Herbert, and professed sorrow to hear we were leaving on Monday.  However the next morning they asked if we would go out to a place called “The Oasis” about three-quarters of an hour’s drive outside Brisbane, for “Morning tea”.  Teresa sat in front with Mrs Goddard, so I was lucky and sat behind with the two men, and heard all the interesting talk.  “The Oasis” is an astonishing place.  I should have guessed it to be a particularly lovely Garden Club, but it is just a resort, open to the public.  There are lovely lawns and gardens, full of all the beautiful sub-tropical flowers and flowering shrubs that we grow in India.  There are two open-air swimming pools; trelissed roofs in the pergola style, covered with all sorts of creepers, under which tables are set for meals.  There is also an open air dance floor.  Here and there in the gardens, are big aviaries full of the Australian birds, and even a pair of Koala Bears.  Herbert and the Professor talked so intensely to-gether, that, though they walked all about, I don’t think they saw anything.  We three women wandered here and there and looked at the flowers and the birds, till we all gathered for tea and scones.  Its great meeting anyone with a mind as stimulating as Professor Goddard’s.  He sets all sorts of fresh ideas in train, and can give so much information, in such a delightful way.  He knows both of the professors, Crew and Ruggles Gates, who stayed with us for the Science Conference in Calcutta in January 1938, and admires them.  This outing filled the entire morning, for we left at 10 am and did not get back till 1 o’clock.  I had intended to visit the museum in the afternoon, but it turned wet, and very dark, so it did not seem worth while and I stayed at home and did some packing, and sat with Teresa.  It has been good of her to put us in touch with such interesting people.  We did not have to leave Brisbane till 3 p.m. on Monday, so I finished off my packing, ran down to the Tourist Office with a few questions I wanted answered, and devoted the rest of the morning to Teresa.  She is in some difficulty about her money affairs, for letters take so long to come that she cant get information about how much her various investments are paying, and she has suddenly got a fright that perhaps many of them will pay nothing at all, and that she will find herself almost penniless.  I should think she need not fear anything quite so drastic, but it is likely that her income may be considerably reduced.  My advice was to live as simply as she can, and meantime cable by the week-end letter system to her cousin who looks after her affairs, to write her by Air Mail via America, giving her all the information he can, including his private opinion about what certain things are likely to do.  She keeps on saying she does not think it is any use doing this, but I think it might help her.

The drive from Brisbane to Southport only takes about an hour and a half.  Once out of the city and its suburbs, the road runs mostly through forest, or forest that has been partially cleared for grazing, and it looked pretty in the clear afternoon light, for by mid-day the showers had gone and the sun was shining beautifully.  A special interest was added to the drive by the army manoeuvres which were taking place all along the road.  The soldiers looked a tough sunburnt lot of men, and waved cheerily to us when they were not actually busy over some military ploy.

Southport lies on the harbour formed by the estuary of the Nerang River.  Between it and the Pacific Ocean is a long tongue of Sand Dunes.  Opposite the northern extremity of the little town, is Stradbrook Island.  To get to the main surfing beach, we cross the bridge over the river, and a few minutes walking takes us to the beach proper.  The river like many others on this section of the coast, runs parallel to the beach for a mile or so, before making up its mind to break through to the sea, so the main road runs for a while with the sea-beach on the east and the river on the right hand.  Its a pretty place, for not only is the sea beautiful, with its curling lines of surf, but looking inland, there are fine ranges of hills some twenty or thirty miles away.  We have come, unfortunately, at the wrong time of year.  Down South everyone told us that it would be warm in Queensland; that people would be wearing summer clothes; that bathing would still be in full swing; that it was a crowded season for the Queensland resorts, which would be full of people up from the South or down from the cold hills and table lands of the near interior.  None of this appears to be fact. It’s true that we have struck the coldest spell there has been in this district for years, but reports given in the South seem to have been much exaggerated.  Like parts of India and like the Riviera, it is cold here in winter, immediately the sun gets low in the sky.  Everyone is wearing warm clothes and coats.  Only a few hardy folk go into the sea.  The pleasure boats are laid up for the winter.  The hotels are empty, and many of the little houses are shut up.  It is rather disappointing really, for I had pictured being able to sit and bask on the beach, even if we did not find it warm enough to bathe.  Also this hotel is designed to keep people cool through the long hot summer, and is not well arranged for chilly evenings and cold nights.  They light a log fire in the big lounge about five o’clock, but the place is so badly lighted that one cant see to read or write or sew with any comfort.  There are few people staying here. They comprise an old couple, who retired from Calcutta in 1914, and seem to have spent much of their time travelling about the world since then.  Somehow their travels dont seem to have made them in any way interesting.  There are another elderly couple, who were on a visit here when war broke out, and have not been able to get home, but they have their own suite of rooms, and we scarcely see them.  There remain two very elderly Australian gentlemen.  One is a retired school master from Melbourne, who, oddly enough, taught in the same school as our friend Mr Tonge, and the other’s one time profession I have not discovered.  We sit and talk over our coffee round the fire for a little while after dinner, and then go off to our rooms to read in bed.  There have been a few other people in and out, but very few.  The first morning we were here was glorious, in spite of a cold “westerly” blowing.  We crossed the bridge and went to the main beach, walking along it for about 2 ½ miles to “Surfer’s Paradise”, the big new hotel we had looked at on our way up.  There Herbert got his cup of morning tea.  (You remember he is not allowed to drink with his meals, so has to absorb some liquid in between).  It was splendid along the beach, walking on the hard sand, and watching the lovely colours on the sea, and in the waves as they gathered and broke.  We noticed a man apparently watching for something out at sea.  Next we saw a lot of fine spray flying up, with gulls circling and diving above the place.  Then we saw two lorries dashing towards us along the beach, towing trailers with boats on them.  They halted about opposite the place where the gulls were so active, and unshipping the boats, shoved them into the water, and went off on their fishing.  The whole thing had fallen into place. The man was watching for the whiting shoal to show.  The spray was caused by the fish, and the fishing boats were summoned to catch them.  After lunch I took my letter-writing to a sunny spot on the sea wall, almost opposite the hotel, while Herbert took his rest.  When I got back I found him entertaining the elderly captain of the local Girl Guide Company who had come round to see me, so we kept her to tea with us, and I have promised to attend the Guide Rally on Saturday afternoon.  We decided to stay in and write letters on the sunny verandah yesterday morning, for the sun goes off the verandah in the afternoon, and to take our walk after lunch instead.  We thought we would explore inland, and set out by a road which started roughly parallel with the river, and then showed two branches both going to a certain ferry.  The sign post about a quarter of a mile from here, said 3 miles to the ferry. The two branches joined about a mile this side of the ferry, so we thought that we would go by one, and return by the other, making a nice little round.  The sign post must have been greatly out, for we were walking steadily from 2.30 till 5.20, by which time my feet were getting sore, and I had developed a blister under the ball of my big toe.  Its interesting that one can walk over rough country without hurting ones feet, but that miles on hard roads will do them in.  To-day we walked to Surfers Paradise once more, to have morning tea with the uncle and aunt of the Girl Guide State Secretary, who was so friendly to me in Brisbane.  Mr and Mrs Warren White are quite old, but such nice folk.  They had a big sheep station, but retired some years ago, and have been living at Tamborine Mountain, and have now settled in a cottage here for awhile, because she has a weak heart, and found Tamborine’s hills too much for her.  They had invited another extremely nice couple who live in this place, to meet us, so we had a charming morning, and are to go to tea on Sunday, and to drinks with the other couple on Tuesday.  These people gave us a lift home in their car.  Both they, and the Warren Whites have memories of early days out on sheep stations.  Mr W-W told Herbert that he did not think one man could really manage more than a thousand sq miles, and that on these huge holdings of thirty and forty thousand sq miles, there had to be a good deal of sub-management.  He worked at one time on an estate where one could ride for sixty miles and not get out of the estate.  Mrs W-W can remember as a little girl how her aboriginee attendant swam across a wide river with her on her shoulders.  They had two “gins” (as the Blackfellow women are called in Q’sland) called Faith and Hope.  I want to hear some more about life out on the cattle and sheep stations years ago, for that is what this country has grown upon.

June 13th This letter was written partly before dinner and partly afterwards, last evening, and I stopped because I was getting sleepy, and partly because I thought I ought not to go on with the tap-tap after 9.30 in case it disturbed my neighbours.  Sad to say its a dull morning , and consequently very cold.  I interviewed “the Management” on my way down to breakfast, and suggested that, if they wished to encourage people to stay, they would do well to light a fire in the lounge of a morning.  They said that mostly people went out after breakfast, and so a fire was wasted.  I made a few more comments, but did not think they would have any effect.  The nice little girl who waits on us at breakfast, excitedly informed us that a fire was being lighted, and would be burning brightly by the time we had finished our meal.  This has been a public benefit, and the few guests have certainly appreciated it.  Now, at 11 o’clock, they have all gone out, so I have ventured to fetch my typewriter to finish off this letter.

The unexpectedly cold weather has upset my plans.  We thought of going up to Toowoomba on the Darling Downs, but everyone says it will be extremely cold up there and advise against it.  Then I had thought of trying one or other of the small sea-side resorts to the north of Brisbane  (Here we are about 50 miles South) but the two old gentlemen say that though very charming in Summer, they do not think we shall find much Cold Weather comfort there, and that they will be empty and deserted.  Perhaps we shall find Tamborine Mountain, where we go next week, sufficiently attractive to make us want to stay a good time there.  Its always possible to go back to Brisbane, of course, but I dont think we could endure living in the same hotel as Teresa for very long, kind as she is.  However, no doubt something will turn up to guide us.

This letter is already too long, so I’ll bid you all farewell till next week. Best love to you all

LJT

From LJT to Romey

Pacific Hotel, Southport
Queensland, Australia
June 13th, 1941

Darling Romey,

Your letters (family no 1) and personal of May 21st , reached us last Saturday June 7th, and it was a joy to get them. Having missed the Clipper last week, the bulk of letters has now grown so large that I can’t send them all by Air. I have decided to send No 19 with this, as it has part of your personal letter on the back of it.
It’s far colder here than we expected. People and the papers say we are having the coldest weather that the Island has known for years, which is rather unfortunate, but let’s hope it is doing us good. There is a good deal of changeability in the temperatures here, though not as great as you speak of in Winnipeg. As in India, so here we get very hot sun which warms the air while it shines, but the temperature goes down with a flop directly the sun disappears.
It’s a pity the Averills can only have you for a short visit. I hope Aunt has been able to send you Uncle Tim’s address. I have not had it for years. I gave up writing to him because he never answered letters. Anything I say will be too late to be of any use to you now. It occurs to me that the City Licensing Dept. for whom he worked for so many years, might know it. If you don’t get over to the Coast this year, don’t be too disappointed. Perhaps you might be able to go next year. All the same, I hope you will have managed to visit this year.
You seem to have been putting in a noble amount of work weeding the lawn. The things you call “docks” must be plantains. I can’t remember their botanical name. If left, they send up tough stalks, four or five inches high, bearing a hard brown knob of tightly packed buds, which put out five filaments of stamens. We used to call these “soldiers” and play the game of each choosing one and then taking it in turns to hit the one at the other, till one “soldier” lost his head. Taking in the drive to the garage must have improved the garden very much.
Last week I got a letter from Peggy telling me all about Michael and the engagement. He sounds a nice person and Peg says he’s cracked about mountains so she thinks we ought to get on together. Good luck to them both.
We laughed a lot over your attempts at “blind” typing! It looks as if you would have to practice a lot before you can manage it. I am sure I would never have the patience. Dad has been slaving away at the wretched exercises month after month, and really I think he does extremely well now, though he pretends to be disheartened.
I wish you could have met Professor Goddard, the professor of biology, of whom I speak in my family letter, which will reach you later. When we were wandering about in the gardens where he and his wife took us for morning tea, he suddenly pointed to a small plant growing in a pond and looking like a wood sorrel in the wrong place, and said “There’s an interesting thing! Do you know that is a fern? It carries its spore cases on its creeping roots, under the water”. With that he dived his hand into the water and brought up a handful of roots, to which were attached lots of little hard brown spore cases about the size of small peas. He cut one open and inside we could se the spores very well, through his pocket lens. The plant is called MARSILCA. The Natives call it sort of flour.
The cold weather is making it rather difficult to know where to take Dad for the rest of our time in Australia. The trouble here is that all the houses are built for keeping people cool and are not suited for chilly weather. Tell Helen an Cousin Susie that I have not forgotten that they want to hear some impressions of NZ Government, but we’ve been on the move so much, I’ve not had time to tackle it.
Best love, Mother

Family letter from LJT No 22

Pacific Hotel. Southport.

Queensland. Australia.

June 17th, 1941.

My Dears,

My interests this week have been more of people and the weather than of places.  It has been the coldest week-end that Brisbane has known for five years, and the thermometer only stopped dropping a little above low record.  It was a cold dull morning on Friday, and the weather, combined with my blistered foot, gave me a good excuse to stay in and write letters, which I did steadily all the morning.  Herbert went off for a walk, northward up the coast, and came back with the news that some two and a half miles away, at a little settlement called Labrador, an elderly gentleman had stepped in front of him, and then apologized, explaining that he was almost blind.  Herbert got into conversation with him, and learned that he was a retired doctor, who had travelled a great deal, and was specially interested in tropical diseases, which he had studied in the Phillippines.  He seemed lonely, so Herbert walked with him for some way, and brought back an invitation for us to go and have morning tea with the old gentleman the next morning, which we gladly did.  It was wet, so we took a bus, the most friendly vehicle I have ever been in.  With the exception of ourselves, the passengers were from the little villages of Labrador and Lands End, and all old friends, exchanging the news.  Directly we mentioned where we wanted to go, the bus took us in to the conversation, and told us all about “the Doctor”.  The conductor, who was also the proprietor, gave us the price of the return fares, which we said we would take, but did not hand out any tickets.  When we asked how we should prove that we had taken returns, he said “That’s alright!  I’ll stop for you outside the Doctor’s at half past twelve, and give a hoot”.  I like bus services of this description.  Dr Page seemed delighted to see us, and we spent a pleasant hour and a half in his sitting room, talking, and in my case, knitting.  Oddly enough we talked more about architecture than about medical matters.  Dr Page trained at St Thomas’ and was interested to hear that the hospital was built by my grandfather.  That started him off on the subject of buildings.  He told us that he had wanted to be an architect, but his people wanted him to be a doctor.  We wandered on talking of English and French Cathedrals, and enjoying mutual memories of lovely places.  That evening we went to see Deanna Durbin in “Nice Girl”.  It was preceded by a newsreel, a film called “We who are Young”, as well as Walt Disney’s “Brave Little Tailor”, so that we were already tired when the Deanna film started, and did not think much of it.  She has improved from her last few efforts.  She is now definitely a grown-up woman, and does not try to imitate herself as a child, as she has been doing lately.  Its a pity they can’t find a reasonable story, and produce it decently for her to act in.

Oh!  I have put our film going a day late!  We did that on Friday, and on the afternoon on Saturday I went to the Girl Guide Rally, and enjoyed it very much.  The wet day upset plans, and we could not have a camp tea and boil a billy on a wood fire, but had to meet in the Scouts’ Hall, and make tea on a primus stove.  Luckily we had found quite a good little lending library, so Herbert was able to keep himself supplied with literature.  Sunday was still cold and showery, so it was lucky that we had the invitation from the Warren Whites to go to tea with them at Surfers’ Paradise.  There was there a Mr. Hawkins, just back from a long motor lorry trip through Western and Northern Q’sland and the Northern Territory.  I have been reading three books about those parts: “We of the Never Never”, “Journals of a Jackeroo” and William Halifax’s book “I find Australia”.  I was tremendously pleased to meet Mr Hawkins, not only because I found him a charming person in himself, but also because I wanted to ask him a lot of questions about the things I had been reading, and the country the books described.  He is a perfect type of the man who has spent a good part of his life “out back” lean, muscular and tanned, with eyes that look not only at you, but right into you, and a hand-shake that leaves your fingers tingling.  Being in far off places has not narrowed his interests, or dulled his powers of conversation, and the only trouble was that there was too little time in which to discuss all the things we wanted to.  Other guests were an aunt and neice.  Mrs. Ross was a bright little bantam type, from her appearance one would guess, a real town bird, dressed in the latest fashion, with a very modern hat, scarlet finger nails and a beautiful perm.  Appearances in this case, were deceptive.  Her husband is a big station-owner way out West on the N.S.W.and Q’sland border.  Her father was a station owner  in North Q’sland, and her early days of married life, at the age of nineteen for some years, were spent way out in the blue, somewhere, on a station of 700 square miles, on which the nearest out-station was thirty-five miles away.  I set out to get her to talk of her life in those place, especially asking her about the blackfellows, as the aborigines are most often called out here.  She had some good tales to tell.  Long before she was born, her father came upon the scene of a recent fight between two tribes.  Victors and vanquished had fled, but a small boy of about two years old had got left behind.  He evidently believed that if he could not see, he could not be seen, and so had stuck his head into a big tuft of grass.  The white man picked the little fellow up and took him home on his saddle, and the child was brought up in the house, taught to read and write, made a Christian and baptised.  He worked faithfully and well, and in the last war, begged to be allowed to enlist, which he did, and he was killed at Gallipoli.  Next she told of an experience of her own.  Her eldest son was about five years old, and for some time she had had a young Blackfellow lad to look after him when he was playing about.  The lad was devoted to the child, and used to sleep on the verandah outside the nursery.  One night, when Mr. Ross and all the men were away mustering, Mrs Ross was woken by the sound of a child crying.  The noise seemed to come from the direction of the cow sheds and pens.  She got up and peeped into the room where the little boy slept, and to her horror the child was not there.  There was a brilliant full moon.  She hurried down to the paddock where the cows were, and there found the black boy, giving the baby rides on the calves, to the huge joy of both.  The crying had been a short interlude, when there had been a fall.  She scolded the black boy and told him she would report him to the master when he returned, and that he would be punished.  Next morning the boy was gone!  It was awkward, for he was the only person who could milk the cows.  Mrs Ross got out her horse, and taking the baby in front of her on the saddle, set out in pursuit.  She caught up with the lad and told him that if he would promise never to take the baby out at night again, she would not tell Master this time, so promised to come back.  She told him to climb up behind her on the horse.  This was too much for the animal’s feelings, and the next thing she knew was that she and the baby had flown over the horse’s head, and the black boy had tumbled over the tail.  Luckily no one was hurt and they all got home safely.

From LJT to Annette

Eagle Heights Hotel
Tamborine Mountain
Q’sland – Australia
June 18th 1941

My darling Annette

I’ve just been reading through your March letters again – Its sad that the April letters, sent by Air Mail, seem to have been lost or held up somewhere - The day before yesterday a letter from Richard written on April 24th enclosed with a note from Aunt, dated the 29th April and sent by sea! Did I thank you last week for paying the 2 quarters allowance back into our account? I am glad you feel that you have enough money to be comfortable on. Its a great boon for parents to have sons and daughters who have not got extravagent tastes and habits and who are sensible about money – Uncle Tim was a terror over money – Directly he got any, he spent it. He was always getting extra sums from Mother and from Mokes, who adored him – I dont think he was so successful in borrowing from the rest of the family.

Seeing that clothes are to be rationed in England, it came to me one night, just before I fell asleep (a time when I specially think of you all) that perhaps garments of some sort would be acceptable to you and to Uncle and Aunt for birthday presents – I therefore used some of the time I had in Brisbane to-day to run round and buy some things. For you I got a jumper and cardigan in a pretty shade of pale leaf green and for Aunt, the same in a dull amber yellow. I also got for each of you 2 pairs of silk and wool mixture stockings, which I thought might be useful for hard wear in the winter – They will have to go in seperate parcels, for one is not allowed to send more than £2 of value in one parcel – I wonder how long they will take to reach you – if they make the voyage safely –

Lately I have been suffering from a feeling of “malaise” – a sort of discontent – I think it is the wish to be doing something, coming to a sort of head – so I am glad to think that in seven weeks time we shall be starting back to India. Its not that I specially want to go back to Bengal – Indeed I wish that Dad did not have to go and live in an unhealthy tropical climate again – but I do feel I want to get back to a settled home of some sort, where I can do some sort of War work –

From another aspect I feel we are rather wasting our time in Australia – While we are here, I’d like to see more of the real life of the country – As a stray visitor in the big cities or a tourist passing through or pausing in a few of the holiday resorts, one does not get a very comprehensive idea of the life of the country – If I were on my own, I would have followed up some offers of introductions to people on sheep or cattle stations “out back” – and I would have gone up to the town of Toowoomba on the Darling Downs to see something of the wheat growing country and meet people who now live there, having made their money by farming – but its impossible to tell before hand what conditions would be like – They might be very rough – “Out West” (that expression used here, means the Western part of Q’sland) its said to be very cold in this mid-winter weather – Journeys too, might be long and uncomfortable, and it would be stupid to risk Dad’s health in such enterprises even if his inclinations ran that way, which I dont think they do – Do you know the expression “I’d say!” meaning “Yes” or “Certainly”? I’ve heard it several times to-day The bus on which we came up here was an ancient friendly little affair – Everyone chatted to-gether – waved to friends in farms we passed – discussed local crops and weather and passengers jumped out to help the driver unload empty flower boxes here and there – I like that sort of a conveyance. It has character and flavour about it –

Best love, dear daughter – from
Mother

Family letter from LJT

Eagle Heights Hotel.  Tamborine Mountain.  Queensland.  June 20th 1941.

Once more, here’s a new address, and it is the address of a lovely place, to which we came yesterday from Southport, stopping a few hours in Brisbane to do a little shopping and have lunch with Teresa.  We are getting to know the road from Southport to Brisbane quite well, so there is nothing to report of it.  We reached the city soon after 11 o’clock.  There we parted for the time being, as I wanted to go and buy some presents to send home, and was going into the Ladies’ Depts where Herbert would have been out of place.  It was nearly 12.45 by the time I got to Teresa’s sitting-room, and as she had asked some people to meet us at lunch, we did not have time for much talk.  Guests being there was a little awkward, as we had to be down at the bus place at 2,p.m. to be sure of getting places far forward.  The tail end of the bus would have been upsetting on the mountain road.  It turned out to be an ancient vehicle, with rather straight up seats, and the most extraordinary Vedee Vibrator effect in the floor when the car dropped into second gear.  It was one of these friendly local affairs, in which everyone talks to everyone else, and exchanges the news of the country-side.  It stopped at little post-offices, and in one place we had a ten minutes stop to connect with a train, so we were all advised to get out and have a walk about the village “to stretch our legs“.  For some miles we had come out on the Pacific Highway, over which we had come in the morning.  Then we turned inland, and almost immediately began to climb.  It was pretty ordinary, dairy farms, woodland, streams and fields, changing gradually to forest reserve as we climbed higher.  In three or four places wallabies jumped across the road.  The forest had taken on a different nature.  The tall silver trunked gum trees were still there, but mixed with a variety of lower trees, shrubs, palms, canes and ferns.  We passed a couple of water-falls, judged by size, not much by New Zealand standards, but pretty all the same.  When we reached the top of the plateau, where roads forked, the lad who was driving pulled up and said “We wait here for the Boss”.  He then explained that the boss would take the bus on the Eagle Heights, while he delivered the mails and any passengers who wished to go that way at North Tamborine.  A few minutes later the Boss arrived in a large old car.  Mail bags, a lot of empty flower boxes, and one passenger with his bags, were transferred into it, and driven off by the boy, while the Boss brought us on to this hotel.  It is some 2,000 ft above the sea.  To the east we look across the narrow coastal plain to the Pacific Ocean.  Southport is only seventeen miles from here by a dirt road, and as the crow flies the distance to the sea must be considerably less.  To the South and South-East mountains stretch away, fold after fold of forest covered ridges, rising to Lamington National Park, where there is a little accommodation house on a ridge at an altitude of 4,000 ft, while the peaks above rise higher still.  To the west and the north there are gently sloping fields, dotted with little farms, while a little further to the north there is fine woodland, known as MacDonald’s Park, through which we have been a delightful walk this morning.  Its a perfect morning.  The sky is clear blue, and the air crisp and fresh without being cold.  The forest through which the track wandered, was I think the most beautiful I have seen, not excluding the New Zealand West Coast bush.  In this forest the gum trees grow to great size and height, their graceful silver white trunks rising bare of branches for some fifty or sixty feet, till they have topped the tangle of smaller trees, palms and cane clumps, and can spread their branches with their feathery blue-green foliage to catch the sunlight.  Some of the old trees have become the homes of all sorts of epiphytes, some handsome ferns being the most noticeable.  In many places trees of the fig family have played their horrid game of starting to grow on some other tree, and gradually wrapping it with their root-branches, till they reach the ground and finally strangle their host.  We saw one huge and very striking example of this to-day.  The fig was so old and so big, that the host had rotted quite away, and left the fig as a fantastic series of arches, caves, and trellises, some 18 or 20 feet in diameter.  Through the forest there were groves of slender stemmed, delicate palms, with feathery heads like cocoanuts only slimmer and smaller in every respect except their height.  There were birds everywhere, and the whole forest resounded with the loud calls of the whip bird, whose cry sounds like the loud cracking swish of a stock whip.  We heard the calls all round us, but did not manage to get a clear sight of one of the birds.  We caught a fleeting glimpse of two wallabies, and heard one or two more.  I think we shall like this place very much.  The hotel is not very large, and is run by three sisters, who are all in their thirties, I should guess.  They seem nice women, and most ready to give one anything one wants.  Our room juts out from the main building and has windows on three sides, South, North and West, so we get the sun almost all day, and though we dont get the sea view, we get the lovely view along the mountains.  At my request a good sized table has been added to the furniture of the room, so that I can write up here comfortably and happily.  The place is absolutely full, and they seem a nice friendly lot of people.  Teresa suddenly took it into her head yesterday that she would like to come up here next week to be with us, and asked me to ring her up last night and let her know whether she could get a room, and what the bus was like.  Thank goodness there is no room available and also she could never get in or out of the bus!  It would have been a great trial to have had her up here.  Meal times with her consist of a constant stream of complaints about the food, and queries as to why people cant do things just the way she likes.  She is so desperately interested in her food that she cannot really pay attention to anything else, while she is eating, and I find it so trying.  Herbert and I are rather the other way, and if we are interested in what we are talking about we don’t notice much what we are eating.

Our last two days at Southport were made interesting by a sherry-party with some people, Mr and Mrs Barnes, whom we met on our first visit to the Warren-Whites, where we met a number of nice people, and by a final visit to the Warren-Whites for tea on Wednesday.  They are really dear people, and have written to three or four friends up here, to look us up.  From his talk the first time we met them, I thought Mr. White had been a station owner, but I was mistaken.  He was in the police, joining as a young cadet, and finishing up as Inspector General.  He is now a man of seventy six, so his recollections go back some way, and his wife says its really most interesting if one can get him talking about some of the things he has done and seen.  He often had to go out with black-fellow trackers to track down criminals, both white and black, and had to get accustomed to going off for days at a time with nothing but a blanket, a mosquito net, a little tea, a bag of flour and a lump of dried salt beef.  He says when you have been living like that for a week or two, you can imagine what a joy it is to get back to a bath and a good meal.

Southport suited Herbert well, and if the weather stays fine, I think this place should too, for the air is wonderful.  We have only seven weeks left now before we sail, beg pardon - - fly - - back to India.

Best love to you all.

LJT

Family letter from HPV

Tambourine Mountain, Queensland.

Monday, June 23rd. 1941

My dears,

It is not often that I fail to regret any action (to abstain from which as the Lama said, is always good) but the repairing of the typewriter does appear more and more as an act of unrelieved merit.  It has of course put an end to my belief that my bad typing was in some degree due to my not having a good machine to display my excellence upon: but no happiness is quite unmixed.  There has been a set-back in this typing business; but I do not know to what it can be attributed in reality except fate.  During my last days at Southport, I was overcome by an obsession; the composition of sentences containing each of all the letters of the alphabet.  This had the merit of passing agreeably time spent on long and solitary walks; and the disadvantage that on account of it I could not sleep at night.  Annette and Rosemary will, I think, enter into this game with relish, but not Richard; probably.  When one looks at the sentences, one should decide (a) from what author or at least from what country the sentence would have come if it had been a quotation and (b) what is the psychological significance of each.  To some of the family I shall send specimens, far superior to those in the exercise books.

All these days I have forgotten to tell of the thing which most of all strikes the stranger to Australia. Above the shop-windows and in the advertisements one sees after the tradesman’s name the strange appendage “Pty”; this means “Proprietary” but how it is pronounced I cannot say.  The problem worries me.  I go about the streets murmuring “petit, petit” and causing folk to think me idiot; but the solution is none the nearer.  The people of this country ought to be sympathetic to the Chinese, who have probably such sounds in their dialects.  But they are not.  It should be mentioned that I heard an Australian woman say of someone that he had a loud voice and therefore must be an Englishman.  That is interesting.  I had not noticed that Australians spoke softly: it must have something to do with the pitch of the voice.

Joan has had a pain: cause unknown: situation below the middle of the chest.  It has now left her, but I am not pleased about it.  There would have been more satisfaction if she had been to a doctor and found out what it could be.  Her idea of seeing a doctor in Brisbane about her sciatica which has revived after being banished by the climbing of mountains in New Zealand was baffled by the absence of the one who has the reputation for skill in dealing with such things.

I liked Southport, not so Joan.  To me the fact that there was really bright light in the bedroom that I occupied made up for a lot: and I did not mind the fact that there was really only the practicable walk - that along the beach.  It was a pleasant beach.  The colours in the sea were ever changing and each time for the better.  The sunlight through the breakers was a constant pleasure to me: but I am not sure that I should have liked bathing in them even if the warmth had been sufficient, for there were fish to be seen swimming in the breaking waves.  Somewhat as if through glass.  Once a shoal of a dozen or so of mullet.  Fine but unpleasant as companions in a bathe.  I had never seen anything quite like it.  Another thing to be seen at Southport was the assembly of soldier crabs; small, brisk, of a blue and yellow colour.  They marched down to the edge of the water in the harbour, in clusters of thousands, and once arrived, hastened to shovel sand into their mouths and spit it out again in balls.  This is to be seen also at Puri, but there, the crabs are red, lack military discipline and carry their eyes on the ends of stalks high in the air.  With these Southport crabs I had at first every sympathy, because they were so busy and so brave: and I suppressed the disgust aroused by their loud hissing.  But when we came down onto the beach among them and observed that they were scattered all over the place, not only on the edge of the water where they had their battalions, I perceived that they were no better than the Nazis and felt hostility.  None the less I grieved to find that we could not help stepping on them and was relieved when we were able to take to the sand hills and cross over to the sea.  Afterward, however I was told by Mr Warren White that to step on a soldier crab is totally impossible.  They are too nimble.  Only on the one day did we see such swarms of these animals; and then at first we were in two minds whether they were not some form of sea-lice.  It struck us as rather comical that Teresa who throws money about carelessly should have pressed us to get while we were at Southport sea-sand from the beach for her little bird: it would have cost her only a penny or two in Brisbane and the carrying of a pound of sand for over a mile from the beach to the hotel was not really convenient, even if the carriage of it by bus to Brisbane and by hand from the bus-stop to the hotel is left out of account.  I made a special journey to the beach for the sand on our last day.  The bus ride into Brisbane was almost my undoing for we were waved about and bounced in the back of the bus and Joan sympathetically suggested that I was going to falter or fail in well-doing.

Here on the mountain there are birds in great variety.  Walks are punctuated by halts to watch the little ones, finches or tits maybe, which are of an agreeable gaiety and of pleasing colours.  On a solitary walk one afternoon, I was followed for a long way by a blue and red parrot which went on ahead and waited till I was near, screeching insults until it was time to move on.  On the way back I met two others of a soft green and yellow, which pleased although they neglected my presence.  There are many howling and screaming birds and bush turkeys which merely rustle in the undergrowth; and there are wallabies to be seen by those quick enough to see them.  I have seen no more than a tail except on the way up, when two crossed the road.  There was a small cat near a house which we passed, more appreciative of stroking than any cat has a right to be: starved for love, as I told Joan.  It ended by biting me in sheer excitement.

Pilgrims, they say, used to march with peas (boiled or otherwise) in their boots.  These I have surpassed by going for a walk with a hair-pin in my shoe.  I thought that the pain was due to a nail and did nothing abut it till we got home.  There was indeed a nail as well: I poked about with my umbrella and extracted five nails in all from a bed of perished leather in the toes.  This made my wife to laugh merrily: it pleased her so much.

This hotel is one that provides tea at eleven and at tea-time; and it fills the thermos for me at breakfast and at dinner, as a compensation for my inability to drink at meals.  It comes near in merit to the Lake Taupo Hotel that advertised free tea at any time.  Save that on Sundays it provides tea at no time, except in my thermos and of course at meal times.  Barring the extreme cold at night it is a good place.  I am getting on fine except for a sore throat which I hope even now to avert by gargles.

Rosemary was wrong in supposing that her touch typing would baffle my powers of decipherment.  Except in one place where she seemed to have struck the keys at random, neither hitting near those intended nor near the corresponding places on the other half of the keyboard I found that I was interpreting the intention of her jumblies pretty well.  I have been doing quite a lot of practice lately, without good result.  Not only have I copied out my complete alphabet sentences but I have copied them out backwards.  In this way I make fewer mistakes, perhaps because I go slower.  The sight of the excellent typing done by others, and in particular by Annette and by brother Harry, is a great discouragement.  Success is a symptom of good health, because it is entirely a matter of concentration.  It is easier to type fast than slow for a short time because thus there is less unevenness in the beat.  It is also more discouraging, because the latter end of such attempts is disaster.  I wonder what my stenographer Praphulla Bubu would think if I asked him to type out my sentences and how he would fare: badly of me and badly, that would be the answer to the two questions.

Joan asks me if I have told you of the two notices, one at Surfers’ Paradise (which I always think of as Scurfers’, to its detriment) and one here.  The first was Travellers’ Possie and the second Home-made Cafe.  I had not told you of them.  A flat in this country means a few rooms in a one-storied bungalow, or even a small one-storied bungalow, complete.  They are called exclusive, which appears to mean self-contained.  There are also exclusive bedrooms advertised, and I do not know what that means, or what its converse does.

I was pleased with Richard’s chewing of the onion stalks.  But many things done by my family please me.

(hand written addition)  I enclose a complete set of the sentences.  Parp may profit by them.

Much love,

Herbert

From LJT to Romey

Eagle Heights Hotel, Tamborine Mountain
Queensland, Australia
June 25, 1941

My darling Romey,

We had a great treat last night when your two letters No 18 of 4/6/41 and 19 of 10/6/91, with a long personal letter and a lovely group of photos arrived. There had been a long gap since we last heard. Letter No 17 reached us on June 7th --- still, that is only just over the fortnight, when I come to reckon it out. The post came at a lovely time, just after tea. I was alone beside the fire in the lounge, and was able to enjoy your mail and the photos at leisure. I gather that you wrote a long letter by hand from The Lake of the Woods, which presumably you have sent by sea mail. I hope this guess is correct. I am glad you enjoyed your visit there in spite of the bad weather. It’s sad that the proposed visit to the Averills does not seem likely to come off. We will have to hope that it may be possible next year, when you will have had time to find out where Uncle Tim is. I hope you will be able to get away somewhere for a change from the city.
Your finances seem very satisfactory. If by any chance the Trust Companies stop paying out, we could probably get permission to send more money from India. It will be very hard luck on some people if the Trusts stop paying. We are delighted with the photos, and so glad to have some more of you, nice ones some of the them too, -- to see some of your friends. Your plan of making explanations of the pictures is excellent, and adds enormously to their interest. You hint, for instance, to notice how quickly the leaves have covered the trees in the short interval between the taking of the pictures, helps us to appreciate the speed with which the seasons change. I keep on looking and laughing at the series of you and Polo and the ice cream. The expression on the little animal’s face is wonderful! I am sorry we have sent you so few photos, but I have not got my camera here. I will try to take some when we get back to India, for I realize what a joy it is to get pictures when one is away. I sent off a bundle of tourist literature to you a few days ago. It is not nearly as attractive as the New Zealand pamphlets, and a good deal of it is of country that we shall only fly over, ie the North of Queensland, but I thought it might interest you all to see how it merges into the tropics.
I liked seeing the pictures of Len Weldon and Hamilton Macveigh. They both look nice fellows. Are they both ground staff? I think you said Len was, and I am reminded of it by the fact that he is wearing glasses I imagine he would not be passed for work in the air if his sight is not perfect.
You have really impressed Dad with your letter-writing ability. When he had read through these, he lent back in his chair and said, “What a lot of time and trouble she gives to her letters, bless her!” I heartily endorse this sentiment, and once more thank you very much indeed for all the trouble you take and the time you devote to us. Your letters gave me the excuse to lecture a young man here yesterday. He is “Ground Staff of the big AAIF place near Brisbane, and is up here on a week’s leave. His home is near Perth, Western Australia, and it would take him longer than that to get home and back again. He told me that he is very bad at writing letters and that it was several weeks since he had written home. I told him just to look and see what a tremendous joy your letters are to us, and perhaps that would encourage him to write to his parents even when he thought he had nothing to say. Do you know, late in the evening he was sitting at the writing table, and I asked whether he was being a good boy, he nodded assent, so perhaps your letters to me have been the means of bring pleasure to a family in Western Australia.
Glancing through your letters again, I notice the descriptions of taking Small John to River Park on Empire Day, and huge crowds you encountered there. It makes me hot and tired to think of it. I believe years in India spoil one more and more for doing things if one has to queue up or make ones way about in great crowds. We get so accustomed to having special places reserved, or several chapprassis opening a way through the crowd, that pushing along for ourselves seems more unpleasant than ever.
I am sure your letters to H.D. and Winsome must have been a great joy to them, even though John is home so little these days. Even to hear something about the place where he is living and the people he is with, must give them a little warmth round the heart. I wish I could think of some way of expressing my gratitude to Cousin Susie and to Helen. Is there a very heavy duty on silk things going into Canada? I have been trying to think of something I could send to them for Christmas, and silk is a thing which one can get rather well in India, and is the real thing. Have you any ideas about things I could send? Up to the time I left, we could get beautiful Chinese embroidered things both underwear and also all sorts of table cloths, napkins, tray cloths and so on. They are infinitely superior to the India work in my opinion. Even if there is duty to pay, you could perhaps pay it, since you seem to have a fair balance, and apparently have not touched the extra end of year balance lying with the Eastern Trust Co..
The enclosed clipping about the Bulldog Mascot for the Navy may amuse you. The country people out here seem t have responded magnificently to the call to service, but evidently there is a strong labour-socialist, or even communist block in the industrial districts out here, who are hanging back, and who go on strike at the smallest provocation, holding up war industries, regardless of the fact that by doing so, they may sacrifice many of the lives of their own people. This disgusts good Australians just as much as it does us. One wonders whether the entry of Russia into the War will make a difference, for many people think that much of the trouble is caused by communist agitators. I wish the Labour Leaders here would show something of the same spirit and the same splendid co-operation that Mr. Bevin and Mr. Morrison have done in England.
An evening or two ago, I made a rough pencil draft of some of the ideas and impressions I received of the Government of New Zealand, and I must run through them and type them out for Helen and Cousin Susie. It is difficult to put things like that into a readable form. Information was so scattered and second-hand, and also a bit one-sided, for we did not get a chance to see anything of factory labour conditions. Still we met a good many people who had spent much of their lives in the service of the country in the political world, and we did talk with a well-varied cross section of people of all classes, so perhaps what we saw and heard is not too unjust.
So far in this country I have not come across anyone with much knowledge of the trees, flowers and plants. They have a way of calling things by names that evidently have no relation to the plant’s botanical family. There is a tall shrubby weed all about here, which they call wild tobacco, though it is clearly a member of the potato family. A tall tree with pretty cherry red fruits something like roughly shaped crab-apples, they call wild apples, though it is quite clear that the tree is not of the same family as the apples. Then they call things coral trees, flame trees, tulip trees, and so on, which of course is no guide. If they can’t give the botanical name, I’d rather know the aboriginal name, which would at any rate differentiate the things from trees and plants called by similar names in other countries. The birds in this country are lovely. There are such quantities of them, and they are so varied and so gay.

Best love darling,
Love from Mother

From HPV to Romey

Eagle Heights Hotel, Tamborine Mountain, Queensland Australia
June 25th, 1941

My dear Rosemary,

This represents a spasm of the conscience. Just as I was sitting down to an agreeable half hour’s work on my Guide to Walks hereabouts, your mother said softly that I had written to none of the family this week, and maybe last; and so I write to you as representing the rest. The Guide is slow to get itself done, for there is not only the difficulty of typing, but also the arduous task of verifying the times and the distances -- and these have to be calculated usually from the times or transferred from my paces, different uphill from down, into yards. Yesterday we went a walk over the well-known area behind the Katoomba Heights which turned out to be a huge success. I started reluctantly …… a westerner was blowing fiercely and I was more or less numb. Also I thought that the walk would prove a long one and dull. But far otherwise. We did not feel the wind once we were in the bush. We struck a variant of a previous walk that was both shorter and more interesting, and we went on to explore, with the best results, a path that once before had struck us as promising, but out of the question on account of distance. It turned out to be of the most charming and altogether unknown to all but those who extract timber n or behind tractors. On the way back we went up a steep hill through thick bush that brought us out almost on the top of the Heights among some pleasing pigs ---- not that they pleased me, for I thought them villainous.
In the afternoon I set myself to drawing in the results of this exploration on my map; our way had struck across paths previously taken and so was a check on my former measurements, though this time instead of counting paces I merely noted times. I had the very small compass with me and took one or to bearings, of which one proved the headstone of the whole map. Nothing was fitting in, when of a sudden I saw that a certain place came precisely right according to this bearing, when I used my figures in such and such a manner. Accordingly, the map was finished by a skillful degree of fudging on this basis. Truly it may now be described, if an Americanism will be pardoned, as the Kitten’s whatnots. Hurriedly I inked it in after dinner, lest reflection should destroy my pleasure in it, and typed on it the numbers which take the place of the names which I am unable to write on it neatly. It should be mentioned that among the obstacles to getting the distances to work out properly was the sudden occasional laughter of your mother, who professed that I was grunting under the strain of thought.
Now she is annoyingly saying that it is wrong to leave the map for the use of the Hotel, because it will be destroyed or lost immediately, and while there is some truth in this, I do not by any means like the kindly idea that I should look round for someone who would wish to publish a Guide to Tamborine.
Now, to change the subject, know that we have a ‘poetess’ sitting at our table. To tell the truth, she seems a bit cracked, for she speaks of fearing to go into the bush because of the wild animals, and tells of an occasion when 400 of damage was done to an Orient Liner on which she traveled “because it went into a hole in the sea; only one other ship before had ever ventured into the hole and that was damaged too. Perhaps it was because it was a new ship and had not yet been fitted with paddles; it had to sail without passengers on the homeward voyage because of this.” She is of a sensitive disposition, she says, and had to scream when she was in an earthquake. Also she could eat nothing today because she had had a telegram that her daughter was engaged and (though it was all very suitable) could not help feeling that she was losing her. All in a dither; she was asked if she gave her consent and did not like to give an answer, perhaps because she would prefer to be in a position to say that she had always said so if things did not turn out well. If you think that this indicates a certain lack of charity on my part, I may mention that she asked Mrs. Fox if Joan and I were journalists. Of late intense indignation against the ignorance and futility of journalists has been growing in my bosom. I regard them as no better than the politicians, and so her query unintentionally was a major insult.
My typing has been neglected of late owing to preoccupation with the map and the guide. Typing the guide does not count, because while so engaged I care nothing about ingenious variations of the difficult letters and am too nervously careful about the necessity for accuracy. Also I look at the result of my typing instead of waiting till several lines have been finished. The real difficulty of doing otherwise when writing letters is to know where to look; it is absurd to gaze solemnly in front of one into space the whole time. However, it occurred to me this morning that I had been remiss in never thinking of the merits of the sentence “What noise annoys a noisy oyster most?” as a typing exercise. And now that I have typed it, I see that it has none, since the letter Y for some reason presents few difficulties.
Other news which I had stored up to send you, I cannot now give, because I have forgotten it. Mush ….. And when I say Mush I mean much …… love. Your letters are of great interest to us, but I am certainly sorry that you have inherited my inability to have beautiful handwriting.

Love Dad

Family letter  from LJT No 23

Eagle Heights Hotel.  Tamborine Mt.

Queensland.  Australia.

June 26th 1941.

My dears,

The week has slipped by quietly, without much to record.  We have decided to stay on here for three or four weeks, and in all probability we shall remain till we want to go to Brisbane a fortnight before we leave for India, that will be in six weeks time.  Since we left the Franz Joseph Glacier we have not stayed anywhere for more than a fortnight, and in most cases it has been for a week or less, so its nice to sit back, and feel we need not hurry to see things or visit people, but can devote time to writing and to sewing.  There is good opportunity for such things here for our bedroom is so sunny and the table in the West window is a delightful place to spend the afternoon.  Our usual programme is to start out for a walk soon after breakfast, generally about 9.30.  Sometimes we get back for Morning Tea at 11.15 or a little later, and other days we stay out longer.  I then sew or write till lunch time, and do the same between lunch and tea, while Herbert rests, and then takes a short walk.  After tea, when the fire is lit, I sit downstairs reading, writing or knitting and talking to people, for there are many nice people staying here.  We have dinner at 6 o’clock, and after dinner again we read or talk.  Some people make up a table or two of bridge in one lounge, and the younger people, of whom there are quite a number here, drift off into the big recreation room, when we have had coffee, and listened to the 7 o’clock news, so that just a few are left by the fire in the main lounge.  We have had a few variants of this daily routine.  On Sunday we were taken to see some people who live close by, and who have reclaimed land, and made a nice garden during the two years since they came to live here.  Yesterday morning we went for a bus excursion “round the mountain”.  It was a pleasant and amusing outing, and well worth the 5/ it cost.  The same rather antique bus that brought us here, came round at 9,30 a.m., and most of the passengers were people we know from this hotel.  I must explain that Tamborine Mountain is a plateau in shape something like an hourglass, only the Northern end is bigger than the Southern, and the waist that joins them is longer than in an hour glass.  Spurs run out from the plateau here and there.  We are on one that sticks out to the east.  We started our drive yesterday by going to the little collection of houses, and a shop or two, which are know as North Tamborine, situated on a spur protruding to the north, at a distance of about a couple of miles from here.  There we visited the workshop of an old Welshman of 85, who is an artist in wood inlay work.  He still does it, and has trained a grandson to follow in his foot-steps.  He is a fine craftsman, and he has some lovely woods, but I dont know that I am specially keen on inlay work.  Next we stopped at a private hotel, which has good gardens, and a few birds in an aviary.  There we were all invited to go in, walk round the garden and look at the view and the birds, which seemed to me rather an odd proceeding, but it is evidently taken for granted.  The old proprietor came to talk to us and showed us his birds  The view was different from ours.  It looked up over the ranges to the north.  After this we turned south, and drove along a beautiful road, on the crest of the ‘waist’ of the plateau, with splendid views on either side, the sea to the east, and the Mackenzie Mountains on the West.  We dropped in at another hotel four miles away, and had morning tea in the garden there, after a stroll to see a pretty water-fall.  After this into the bus again, and on to the southern bulge of the plateau, where on its south eastern edge, by an isolated farm, is a spot know as “Wilson’s Outlook”.  Wilson is the name of the people who own the farm, and our young driver told us with pride that of the six sons of the Wilsons, five are serving with the forces overseas, and one is under training, while the son-in-law, who suffers from high blood pressure, and could not be accepted for active service, is making munitions or something of that sort.  “Soon there wont be a young man, or at any rate one who is fit, - - on the Mountain” said our driver.  He, himself is waiting to be called up for training as an airman.  From Wilson’s Outlook, we drove to Lahey’s outlook on the extreme South of the plateau.  Here in a beautiful spot, with the wooded slopes dropping steeply to the valleys below, is a strange structure.  Three wooden platforms have been built one above another, the stairways joining them are at the corner supported by a fine big tree.  Roughly hewn trunks support the other corners, and the whole thing sways slightly as one climbs and walks about on the platforms.  It was worth the building, for it lifts one clear of the trees, and gives the chance of uninterrupted views in three directions.  Below to the West is a wide fertile valley, where the soil is black in contrast to the red soil of the Mountain.  This valley is practically all dairy farms.  Beyond rise the Mackenzie Range, with some fine peaks.  Southwards hills and little valleys lead up to the tangled mountain mass of Lamington National Park, and swinging round to the South East and the East, one sees the beautiful coast and the ocean.  It is a view to rank high in any list of panoramas.  We were lucky in having a most perfect day on which to see all this.  The sides of the plateau are all scenic reserve, of the natural forest.  The flat top of the Mountain is largely occupied by dairy farms, market gardens of vegetables and flowers, and by orange orchards.  Quite a number of retired people build themselves houses up here, for even in winter the climate is nice, and it is cool in summer, when the plains below become too hot to be pleasant. 

There are nice people staying at the hotel.  At our table we have a bride and bride-groom, who arrived the same day that we did.  I gather from the gossip of other people that they both belong to well known Brisbane families.  They are both pleasant and good to talk to.  There is an A.A.I.F man belonging to the ground staff of one of the big training schools near Brisbane, up here on a week’s leave, who is quite interesting to talk to.  He comes from near Perth in Western Australia.  The sixth member of the party was (for she left this morning) a youthful wife of an Anzac Airman, now serving overseas.  We have heard a lot of mixed talk from these people.  One story they told us to illustrate the varying spirit of the great Australian towns, goes as follows.  You arrive at Perth.  You meet someone, and he says “Have a drink”.  You go on to Adelaide, and then to Melbourne, and in both places, the inhabitants will take care to find out a little about you before they offer you a drink.  Arrived in Sydney, the people will make some enquiries about your income before they entertain you, but when you get to Brisbane, the first person you meet will say “Have a drink”, and almost before you have finished it, he will say “Have another”.  That was told by the man from Perth, and confirmed by the bridegroom from Brisbane.  I dont know what Sydney and Melbourne would have to say about it.

Needless to say our minds are all the time turning to the tremendous developments in the war.  What an enigma the whole Russian business is!  Its cheering to hear of the tremendous bombing we have been doing over France and Germany during the past week.  How one longs to hear of German reverses.  They have had so much of their own way for so long.  I feel I really ought to apologise for describing such a leisurely and peaceful life.  I look forward to having some work to do when I get back to India.  Best love

LJT

From LJT to Annette No 23

(on paper printed with the address of the Eagle Heights Hotel)
c/o The Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Brisbane
June 27th 1941

My darling Annette

How I wish you could be beside me here! – not only because I should so dearly love to see you again, but because you would so enjoy the lovely prospect spread before me. I am sitting in the garden, just where the hill begins to fall away steeply and over the tree tops I see the plain, with two rivers snaking through it to the bright blue sea – Dad and I are always agreeing as to whether the white edge of the sea is sand or surf – I think its a bit of both – If I turn my eyes a little to the right I look over fold upon fold of the blue hills. And yet I am not really contented, because I want to be working – I wonder when I shall see you and Richard and Romey again. Of course one cant forecast the future at all, so its not much use thinking about. Sometimes my mind returns to Mary Ows belief that everything is planned and that nothing we do alters it – Did you read that book – I cant think of its name – which claims that everything is happening all the time, so to speak, though we are only conscious of the little bit that is illuminated by our own consciousness at the moment – Idris was very keen on it and talked about it a lot at one time. Sometimes I feel as if that idea must be true. I have caught myself feeling it quite strongly about the War, many times lately. What a puzzel the whole of the Russian business is, and how little anyone seems to know of Russia’s strength or weakness. How are your Russian studies progressing, by the way? A sudden wonder has come to me as to where Bertram Jerrain is and what he is doing. Do you remember last time we saw him he was on his way to Spain, during the Civil War – but all his previous work and training had been in Russia or the Baltic countries. He is an attractive and interesting personality.

Last week I had an Air Mail letter from Edward Groth – my American friend in Calcutta, saying that at last he was been given home leave and hoped to be away by the end of June – He thought it unlikely that he would come back to Calcutta, for he has been in his job there for five years – I shall miss him, for he had many unusual interests, and was always investigating strange philosophies, and one met odd and interesting people at his flat. Also I knew I could always ring up and invite myself to tea or dinner with him whenever I wanted. I wonder whether our paths will ever cross again – He always insists that we must visit America, and says that if he is not there, his father will entertain us in New York. What a joyful thing community of spirit is! As one grows older one of the delights that remains with one and I even venture to think, increases, is the contact of minds in sympathy with one another. I am so glad to think that my other American friends, the Rankens are still in Calcutta – (some kookaburras – ie Laughing Jackasses in the woods below me, are just indulging in peals of foolish laughter – Its funny how after listening for a moment or two, one feels oneself beginning to grin - )

I am longing for all the mail letters that are missing and feel its about time the regular one arrived too – There’s been a nice double batch from Romey this week – non 18 and 19 – with the photos of herself with Polo and the ice cream – etc. She certainly has grown a big nose and chin but she’s a nice-looking young thing. Its a pity the trip to the West coast did not seem likely to come off – Perhaps she will be able to manage it next year – I wonder what she will be like when we see her again – and I wonder what sort of a career she will eventually fancy –

From India H.D. writes that Francesca Gurner is still very keen on her Kindergarten work, in the new school organized by Walter Jenkins for English children who have come out to their parents in India. Harry says he hears good accounts of Francesca’s work too. Getting the school going has been a difficult job. So many parents had an idea that Government ought to give a big subsidy so that the children would get very cheap schooling. Government, quite rightly, I think, would not do this, and naturally a school with a really competant staff and in places like Calcutta and Darjeeling where house-rent is so high, could not be run cheaply – Consequently there has been much talk. No doubt I shall hear all the details when I get back to India.

I hope its weather like this six weeks hence, when we step into the Flying Boat to do our first stage back to India. Now that I know we have to go back, I feel quite excited about seeing old friends and old haunts again. I feel a bit anxious about Dad. He is well at present, but how long he will be able to keep well when he gets to work again in the exhausting climate of Bengal, I dont know. What a different thing his life and work would have been if he had been blessed with the robust constitution that you and I have – I expect it is standing you in good stead now.

Best love, my dear from Mother

From HPV to Annette

Mt. Tamborina.
Queensland.
June 28th 1941.

My dear Annette,

Two letters from you today, dated April 8th and 24th, inspire me to write at once. This is the outcome of righteous anger. Here am I, convinced for months and weeks past that I was facing open and fair competition in the typing line, whereas you, during all this time, have been committing the worst of sins and looking at the keys. Of what value the typing lessons if such things can be done in spite of them? and why so weak-minded as to resort to key-covering, instead of relying on a fixed determination not to look at the keys? Better by far to adopt the devise discovered by one whom I shall not name and sit in front of a lookingglass on which you may concentrate your gaze. You may have received by now the letter in which I communicated to my family the excitement to be derived from the game of composing all-the-alphabet sentences for the typewriter. Including the specimens composed by me. The mere copying of them for you revived my own interest in the art and later in the evening I invented the following:-

“By Jove!” cried the marquis, “zero has turned up again! that makes five times in about sixteen minutes – the Bank must be hoaxing us! the wheel must be crooked!”

“Pax vobiscum,” quoth the jovial friar at Przemysl. “Ave Maria to you,” replied the well-meaning English tourist rather weakly.

I can picture your dear uncle Roy reply so. At stations in France when we went to Switzerland together he leant out of the train and asked, in spite of my remonstrances, “Quel est le nom de cette place? Paris?” Which is an exact parallel.

Lesson VI on the Linguaphone was La Chambre. It always seemed to me to inculcate a certain rudeness as proper for guests arriving at an hotel. Not only the words but the tone. I hope that the Russian version was less upsetting. As to your theory that the lesson was too hard for one so early in the course, there may be truth in this if one is learning the language for the first time from the book: but if it is a question merely of learning pronunciation, as with the French, then it seems to me that there is no need to differentiate in the various lessons, because it is merely a matter of repeating them more often and if they are slow and distinct they are so much the less useful. Talking about versions, I must repeat for you a composition designed to remedy the evil habit of confounding the c and the v on the typewriter: invented as you may well believe by me.

“Eventually at the very acme of the crisis, Victor, actuated by eccentricity of a curious vindictiveness and without even calling on the canon for leave, calmly vacated his church and vicarage: the chief cause of this action, as he avers in his casual version of the incident given to our interviewer vicariously through a village character, was that various uninvited visitors, actually incited by the ancient verger, proved positively vicious towards his precious cow, videlicet cutting her with canes with a view to making her veer and cavort.”

That is from “Scenes from Clerical Life” which you may not have read; it is the only fragment composed to date. A good way of getting a plot is this one of composing such edifying exercises; I find myself wondering afterwards what was the background and why the people behaved just like that. Buffooning, as your mother considers. Madness, as a certain yellow-haired and vapid young lady now seated at our table probably believes. It is one of the customs in New Zealand and Australia to seat strangers at the same table; a strange bed-fellows so to say, but they do not actually do anything of this kind about the beds. In a way it is not a bad idea: for instance the lady of whom I spoke above is shy and as she herself says finds it difficult to get into conversation with strangers: and for such a one it is an excellent thing to be put into a position where strangers are bound to speak to her. Though I must say that her response is slight. How unlike the home life of our dear family where one person was once known to be silent. But that was because her mouth was full.

July 2nd. 1941

I lost interest in this and left it: but now your mother says that it ought to be finished and sent off. The weather today is so unfavourable, strong cold wind and no sun that I have no heart for anything; and letter-writing of any description is therefore difficult. Difficult no less the map-making. Perhaps we have not said that I began the making of a sketch map here because there is no map to show what walks there are; the only map is a small scale motor map which does give the main roads and which has been the basis of my efforts. A map of a kind, quite useful for walking, I did produce within a couple of days; but every time that we do a walk oreven go out I find some alteration to make in it and it is beginning of late to be a burden. It is rather interesting to try to show the hills as I have recently been doing, on the lines of the Michelin maps: arrow heads pointing upwards indicate slopes. But it is not easy, working with bad paper (this sort of paper, in fact) and with no ruler or compasses, to make a neat job of it. I am debating whether to type some of the names onto the fair copy of the map. The question is whether there would be room. Most of the names will in any case have to go into the margin, with number references. You may be wondering what has happened to my interest in the constellations these latter days. There appears to have been a lapse, as I cannot deny. The stars have been showing though not very well but it is much too cold to stand out of doors gazing into the sky and there is no way of seeing them from any window. It is annoying. A year ago I knew all of the stars now showing (except those invisible from Calcutta) but now they defy indentification, being upside down and generally cock-eyed. It is noticeable that Australians, met in hotels, have no sort of knowledge of their constellations. You may say that neither have the English so met; but the English can usually give a name to a conspicuous star, even if it is not the right one and our Australian friends do not even do this much. Why I have not finished reading the pamphlets which I got in Wellington I do not really know: but I think it is because the last lot of charts are printed so small that I have no pleasure in deciphering them.

There has been an almost complete change of guests in this hotel of late. We lost our nice honeymooners, noticeable because they always took someone with them on their walks, and we have lost our nice airman. The dull little women have also gone. And the people who replaced all these have gone too, thank Goodness. They were indeed dull. There are on the whole a very nice crowd here at the moment, but it would be more comfortable, in view of the smallness of the lounge, if there were fewer of them. Among them are several of the largest boys I have ever seen; six foot at thirteen and by no means lanky at that. The fathers are ordinary size. It looks as if the climate or the diet had an amazing effect on growth in the second generation. This country like New Zealand seems to favour long life. Any number of hale octogenarians. We had tea yesterday with an old lady of over eighty who is an enthusiastic gardener still and who has more energy than I by a long way. Your mother and she went round the garden looking at dead plants and dormant plants, and going into ecstacies over the beauty of their flowers in anticipation of the flowering season. There were indeed an amazing number of flowers out even though it is winter. There is a strange medley of tropical and temperate climate plants here; they say that almost anything will grow on this mountain. Except bananas. And I think that a man did say that he was growing bananas too, although your mother asserts that he did not. It is raining now and yet the enthusiasts are playing bowls: it is a game that has a great following both in Australia and in New Zealand, and the young seem to like it almost as much as the old.

Your choice of new hobbies, recorder, fencing and Russian, strikes me as good. Among my list of things failed in, which will some day form the subject matter of my stained glass window, I never put either a musical instrument or Russian. I did start lessons on the piano once; they ended on the second day because no one had found a method of dealing with my passive resistance which took the form of falling off the music stool; and I do not think that this should count as a failure on my part so much as on the part of my teacher, probably Alice. Also though I am guiltless as to Russian, I did start Anglo-Saxon once, for a week: under the influence of Mr. Cape who said how fine it was: and I hope that your idea in tackling Russian was merely some base utilitarian idea and nothing about the beauty of Russian literature. It is a dangerous literature to investigate, because all the Russian writers of sufficient merit to be translated appear to be cracked. To read the Idiot is to fall into bewilderment as to the meaning of things for the rest of the month; best tackled in the last fortnight therefore. Fencing was to be one of the panels on my window; I read a book on it while I was at school and fancied that I might like to take it up. But I did not buy any of the wherewithals; whereas I did buy boxing gloves and so far used them that a youth in my study made my nose bleed with one of them every day for a period. The blood stains are still on the floor boards; or were when I visited the school in 1936. Your mother hates mention of the design for a window, but I like it. It would have a lot of little squirrels riding on Maxie’s back and waving top-hats, for we never succeeded in training thos at Chinsurah to do this in real life.

Much love
Dad