1943 April
Family letter from LJT No 13 (not in AMT’s set of letters – this typed by Joan Webb)
Graham Lodge, Sea Point S.A.
April 2, 1943
My Dears,
There was great pleasure the day before yesterday, because we had a bunch of letters. Today was another gala day. We got Romey’s Nos 92 and 93, as well as her photo, and the December copy of “The Beaver” from Helen. For all these, much thanks. It’s good to have news from you all. I’m pleased with Romey’s photo, though it makes her look much darker than the previous ones. “Beaver”, into which I have just dipped, seems to be full of good stuff. I hope to answer the letters individually.
With so much satisfying excitement going on in North Africa: with news of raids on Berlin and so many other places, and more satisfactory news from Russia again, we have been so glad that there is a wireless available for guests. We usually listen at six o’clock. The old Rhodesian family are always in after dinner, and though the old brothers talk a lot about making sure of getting the news, they have a most tiresome habit of talking through it when it does arrive. I don’t think the old lady likes to listen to it at all, so we avoid the 8 o’clock session.
Herbert has been left in peace by the dentist for the moment, but has had to make several bookings for a fortnight hence. However that is chiefly for fittings for the additions to his plate, so it should not upset him. Meantime he is showing real signs of improved health. He has the last of his treatments from the chiropractor on Monday, but I shall advise him to have one or two more before we leave Cape Town in the middle of May. He has now got a series of exercises, and a whole collection of rules about positions in which he may sit, stand or lie, and those in which he must by no means indulge. One of the first amongst these is never to sit or lie with the legs or ankles crossed, but to sit with both feet flat on the floor. We are trying to remind each other to obey this rule. It is not easy to get into the way of it. Although he felt tired from the reaction after having the five teeth out, the feeling of lightness of the body, indicating that the blood pressure has improved, continues. Added to this Herbert reports that he felt an appetite for lunch the other day; a thing which has not happened to him for years.
I have been leaving him rather in the lurch. We had Eileen Forsyth to dinner on Tuesday, and she and I went to see “This Above All” at the local cinema in Sea Point. I wonder if some of you have seen it. I thought it good, and it stuck closely to the potted version of the book which is all I have read, but the most highly dramatic moment was dulled down, by the fact that when the girl has poured out her lyrical outburst of all the lovely things in England which are worth fighting for, his counter, giving the picture of his miserable childhood in the slums of a big town, were left out. It was wise perhaps from a propaganda point of view, but damaging to the drama. Herbert felt he could not bear it. He likes to be made to laugh, not cry, when he goes to the Flicks.
This has been the great S.A.W.A.S. “week”, for which our office has been largely responsible, so there have been great doings. On several days I have held the fort in the office, while the regular staff have been out superintending the various Doings. It has been rather fun. I have been asked hundreds of questions I could not answer, and some that I could. I even made a poster for the Fortune Teller’s both at short notice, because someone had blundered, and no poster arrived there. One of the money-making efforts was an Exhibition of Antiques, in the Ball Room and reception rooms of Government House. Most days I have been up there at lunchtime to see that the change over of the morning staff of ladies selling the tickets at the different entrances went off to schedule.
The Government House in Cape Town is a mean looking building, but the rooms inside are good, though not on the same scale as Government House in Calcutta. The Governor does not reside in this house, but in another one in one of the distant suburbs. This place is only used for parties and the offices, which perhaps explains why they have not taken more trouble with the exterior. Yesterday there was a big fete (Bazaar and Amusement Park). Lady Graaff came back to Office after lunch to see if there was anything urgent, and at 3 o’clock she said we would shut the office and that I was to go along to the fete with her We had, of course, avoided calling any candidates for interviews on these few days, so there was not much ordinary work going on. We strolled up the Avenue, a wide pedestrians walk, bordered with oak trees, in which the stalls were situated, and had a wonderful afternoon.
Best love,
LJT
From LJT to Annette
Graham Lodge
Sea Point
April 3rd 1943
My darling Annette
One thing about our present mode of life, with the rather tiresomely early dinner at 6.30: is that it gives a long quiet evening. I dont very often use the time for writing. Generally I knit and read – or I sew, while Dad reads snippets aloud. Lately he was reading some French books lent him by the Belgians, and he read much of these aloud in free and semi-verbatim translation, with rather entertaining results – This (Saturday) evening, as I have not been writing or typing in office all day, I feel more inclined for writing – I have spent about an hour going back through Aunt’s and your letters since Christmas time – They have come so erratically that my mental picture of your doings was in the impressionist style, with incidents all over the place and bearing no relation to time. They are now somewhat straightened out, though I have no January letters from you and Aunts of Jan 14th has only just come. I have to thank you for your No 3 of 12th Feb recd on 31st March, 20 days after your Airgraph dated 22nd Feb. I have made a lot of notes on things you mention that are worth comment, but now the list looks so long that if I go through it, it will make but dull reading by the time this letter reaches you. It starts off with the forgotten carrotts and artichokes in your allotment. I am glad you got a good crop from your bit of ground – but tell me why does Mrs Evans think artichokes are just like potatoes? I adore artichoke soup and artichokes au gratin. I hope we will be able to have a nice veg garden when we come home, and a good corner for herbs. I must get Louise Ranken to send me one of those nice American books on the growing of herbs and their use in cooking which we have so largely allowed to lapse.
I was sorry to hear that Anne T. had been ill – I did not know she had asthma – A friend here tells me that her elder sister went to a chiropractor to see if he could cure her deafness. He did not succeed in doing so, but cured her asthma. Please give my affectionate remembrances to her and to Christina when next you see them. I’m glad you are still able to see one another now and again.
Dad and I were amused by your account of how you went for a bicycle ride with a girl you had found so irritating and how she heaped coals of fire upon your head by saying that you were the only person she would work with! Your remarks about the absurd prejudice exhibited by some people against anyone connected with the aristocracy, came at just the moment when I went to see “This Above All” – and the same theme crops up in that. Its strange that this inability to accept people at their intrinsic value crops up at both ends of the social tree. Of course its much less common for the top layers to think poorly of anyone, however excellent if they happen to be of lowly birth, than it used to be – Thank goodness for it! The opposite view smacks of countries which enjoy revolutions.
Its good to hear that you and “Irene” (I cant remember her surname) now share a sitting room. It makes life a little more gracious and human not to have to sit always in your bedroom – Do you do any actual night shifts now? I don’t alto-gether sympathize with your notion that the life of an 18th Century noblemen must have been pretty good. The necessity of eating too much: getting drunk most nights after dinner and carrying on several clandestine and very fleshy love affairs, does not appeal to me in the least – I’d rather jump back to the 16th Century, if I had to jump back at all.
The purchase of “War and Peace” seems to me exactly the sort of thing your father would do. Its a couragous act for even in English the book takes some reading. I read it under unfavourable circumstances – that is when I was ill for a couple of weeks with malaria or some odd fever that would not yield to quinine, when Romey was a few months old. I am left with a kind of feverish impression of the book. All the Russian books I have read have a faintly mad quality about them – and yet every now and again they say things that are intensly true, as if they had been revealed by a flash of lightening – I hope the new office is really providing you with better light and better air – Thank goodness you write good letters otherwise how strange we should become to one another. Best love Mother
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
April 3rd. 1943. Saturday.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
My week has again been given up largely to dentist and cheiropractor, to which may now be added the Public Library. The worst of subscribing to a Library if you have a nature like mine is that the task of getting one’s money’s worth and of reading all the detective stories in it is a heavy one; and the library is a sufficient distance to make the walk to it a walk that counts.
After all the dentist took up one morning only. He took an X-ray and told me to fix up half a dozen appointments a fortnight later; but all that is threatened now of a deadly type is the digging into the jaw to try to find the bit of tooth left in it when I had one out in September – or maybe August. The tip of a root left firmly in the socket; and we left it on the off-chance that it would work out: it has merely discharged instead ever since. The taking of it out threatens to be nasty. My pock-marked mouth is healing comparatively fast, for me; as regards filths and such in it, I qualify to fill the unpleasant post of hero in the Your Friends Wont Tell You advertisements. As I suspect.
With what relish the younger of the two old gentlemen ( a mere boy: probably not more than seventy) hears of the tooth extractions! He himself does all the tooth-pulling in his parts; quite illegally. He bought the forceps, or whatever they may be called, years ago because they were cheap. He used them first on his own teeth, out in the wilds when prospecting; and then learnt the real art on niggers. The chief point is to “go at it Hearty-Like” and with merry laughs apparently. People come thirty miles to him. He charges a chicken, because niggers and Boers alike (his clientele) despise anyone who does anything for nothing and what is more tend to do him a bad turn in case he gets uppish on the strength of benefits conferred.
The absurdity of the week. On the door marked Gentlemen in the Public Library, and the first thing to meet the eye when one comes in from the street, is a notice “Don’t ask Who or Where, Don’t ask Why or When!” Which reminds me that Afrikaans for “Gentlemen” is “Here”: surely the man who put up the notice “Here it is” on the door alongside the bar of the hotel at the end of Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand had been in South Africa or heard about it from one who had been.
I reverted to Malayan. Out-side the Library on a bench there was a Guide to Java lying among a heap of old volumes. I picked it up to see what it said about the place where we stayed (it didn’t mention it) and found a few Malayan sentences and a vocabulary at the end. The sentences contained some grammatical constructions which I didn’t know and the vocabulary had a guide to the pronunciation of Malayan as spelt in Dutch – oe = u, j = y, au = short o and so on. This was likely to throw a light on the pronunciation of the words in the little vocabulary presented to passengers by the K.P.M. line of which I got a copy on the way to Australia; and so after some difficulty because the cast-outs on the bench were to be sent to the troops, who would not have welcomed them, in my opinion, I borrowed the book and spent some hours copying out the sentences which look like the worst kind of bastard Malayan.
(A pause at that stage in order to restore order to the carbons; the bottom two had curled up on the roller in some strange way) and marking pronunciations in the K.P.M. booklet. It is sad that I am unlikely ever to go near a place where Malayan is spoken again; however it was unlikely that I should go there at all and what has happened once may again. I liken myself to the old man who read Chinese off teapots in Borrow; it would give me no pleasure to find a book on Malayan which gave the whole thing but worrying it out from ridiculous little handbooks amuses.
The cheiropractor says that nothing more likely to give one a hell of a twist than reading in bed when lying on one side and propping up the head on one hand. Joan has mentioned that he disapproves strongly of sitting with the legs crossed unless one is very strong. It is obviously going to be hard physical exercise dodging the things which are spine-twisting; also it is an obvious impediment to sleep to have to remember not to turn over without first lifting the head off the pillow, or to change the position of the body without first doing so. But (Aha!) the cheiropractor remarked that my skin was less yellow! and this is the more comforting that it is the first intimation that it was ever yellow at all. It makes one wonder if he is really blind after all.
To clean the carpets the hotel servants simply spread them out in the road and brush them. A barrier to all traffic. No one seems to mind.
I have not room to tell of my moons or of the Kenneth Graham new counties which pleased me much in his Life.
Much love
Dad
Air Graph No 7 from LJT to Aunt (GCT)
Standard Bank of S.Africa.Cape Town. April 3rd 1943
Dearest Grace. Lots of letters this week, Romey’s photo & a book from May. Your No 7 of 14/1 brought much interesting news. So glad you managed an Xmas “treat”. I’m specially glad of news of Doris H. as I had heard nothing for ages. Anne’s letter by the same post, was posted a month later than yours. You have probably discovered that there is no air-mail, only air-graphs to Africa. Herbert is getting over the shock of having the five teeth out, & shows improvement under the chiropractor’s treatment. He goes for the final séance on Monday. He has to go on with exercises & to remember not to sit with his legs crossed & several other rules. We have six weeks here before going up-country, & I shall advise him to have another treatment in May, to see that everything is going on satisfactorily. The Guest House, at White River, can have us early in June, & dates suggested to Edward Magill & Edward Groth are suitable to them. Its nice to have arrangements for the next few months fixed up. I only wish I could take some war work with me. This has been the S.A.W.A.S. special “Week”, with different things going on every day. I have been useful in being able to stay in the office, keeping the ordinary work up to date, taking messages & answering questions, with occasional dashes to give temporary help here or there. It has been rather fun, & a change from routine. I did another long morning at the Soldiers Club Canteen on Sunday, assisting to fill two baby’s bath tubs with fruit salad, and later fishing cabbage from huge boilers, to prepare it for table. It was not half so trying as the previous occasion as it was not nearly so hot. Weather is perfect now. Soon it will be getting too chilly for cotton frocks. Romey’s account of possible plans is interesting. I wonder what she will decide. By the time she has to, perhaps we shall have more idea how long the war is going to last. Eileen Forsyth & I went to see “This Above All” one evening. Herbert hearing it was tragic, refused to come. It was good, but parts of it a little much toned down from the book, which make it lose dramatic intensity. WE are so glad there is now a wireless in the lounge, so that we can get the B.B.C. news of the thrilling events in N. Africa. I wonder whether bill K. is still there. H. has been so busy with the dentist & the chiropractor that he has not had much time on his hands. He is being most kind & writing a lot of the letters which I have had no time to attend to. Can you send me Anne’s size in shoes as I may be able to send her a pair of Sheepskin slippers, as made by the Navy League from the cuttings left from the sheepskin jackets. They would get home in time for next winter! Have you read “The Sun Shall Greet Them” about Dunkirk? I enjoyed it much. Am told that “Retreat Via Dunkirk” by Gunbuster is v. good. I shall write to Dot Bromley that we are going to Jo’burg. I hope I shall see her. I wonder whether I should recognize her. The thought of how hard you & B. have been working since the beginning of the war, compared with my many holidays, makes me feel most worried & that life is very unfair. I wish I could get a chance to learn to cook while I am here, so that I could take over & give you a holiday directly I get home. Best love to you all (Mrs H.P.V.Townend)
From LJT to Romey
April 4th, 1943
My darling Romey,
Sunday afternoon----and I have spent nearly an hour going through all your letters written since the middle of December. They are numbers 87 to 93 inclusive and a complete series. You well know from an airgraph that they all arrived out of order, but many thanks.
Your letters read consecutively, give an impression of a busy life with plenty of fun thrown in. Often I get confused about your many friends. How many Marks brothers are there? Bill and Pat often turn up. You mention Carson Marks, and once or twice you say “Bill brought Barney along.--Is he another Marks? Are the Con Rileys with whom Sine is staying the same as Sally Riley’s people? Also is the name Sine short for anything and how do you pronounce it? Have you ever heard anything from Irene King? I don’t think you need take it that she is offended because she has not written to you. You must remember that she is Russian, with a rather erratic Continental upbringing and an entirely unreliable mother. You never know what Olga Hawes is going to do or say next, or how late she will arrive at a party, and stay after it is supposed to be finished!
I am beginning to hope that the presents from you which went to India may arrive here before long. Your previous presents have all been so wonderfully chosen. You know that I am carrying the little porcupine quill basket round with me. The scarf you sent the previous Christmas, which has been handy all through the hot days in Calcutta, will be very useful as the cold weather comes on here. It makes a very nice head turban. I tried it the other day. It will look nice for that purpose, or round my neck with my dark brown overcoat. The tie you sent Dad from Oxford and the Red Indian one you sent from Canada have been remarkably useful ones and are wearing astonishingly well.
I am glad our cable reached you alright. You know by now that Kenilworth is a suburb of Cape Town and that your guess was correct. No mention has come of our cable getting to England, but a letter written presumably about Dec 20th by Aunt, is missing and it may have been acknowledged in that.
I felt a bit worried about your earache and have been glad there has been no further mention of it. Getting your ear frozen during the very cold weather at the end of January must have been an unpleasant experience. It’s hard to realize what cold of that degree is like.
Ad Stairs sound a nice person and how very kind f him to give you a Parker Pen. I wish we had more opportunity of meeting some of the Stairs family. It was a pity we could not come to Canada instead of Africa, but Dad is terrified of cold these days. I would like to read a history of the Stairs family written in a more condensed form than is the case in the big family history, which loses the thread in a mass of detail. I am glad you have become a fresh close link with the Canadian cousins.
We are just off for a walk and I am out of paper, so goodbye dear daughter---my love and thoughts are always with you.
Mother
Airgraph from LJT to Annette (addressed to Miss Annette Townend. PO Box 222. S.W.70 Howick Place London SW1 England)
AG8 April 9th 1943
My darling Annette. Thank you for your letter No 3 of 12/2 rcd on 31/3. Congratulations on your rise in pay, though the actual cash that comes to you is not much more. “It’s the spirit that counts”. I’m glad too, that you are moving into a better office, especially with regard to the lighting. I have been going through a period of feeling the time is going to be interminable till I see you & Romey again, but I must comfort myself with the thought that you are both well & comparatively safe; that you are steadily doing a useful job & Romey training to do one. I like Prof. Wardle’s idea that Romey should go to an American Univ. for a year, & specialize in parasitology. There is bound to be a good field for work in that line, & it is definitely one that will be of service to humanity. She is evidently turning into a good worker. Walter Jenkins told me ages ago that some of the men at Manitoba Univ. have done useful original work in parasitology, & that it has a good reputation for science. Perhaps you saw last week’s A-G to Aunt in which I reported that Dad was getting on well. He had his last treatment from the chiropractor last Monday. He has certainly benefitted. He has also got useful advice & regained some hope and confidence. Dr Stobie has been trying to get him to relax, a thing which he seems incapable of doing. He discovered by questioning that Dad has always slept with his legs stretched straight down to the end of the bed, as he was taught to do as a little boy. He has been instructed to flex his knees & lie like a baby does with them drawn up. This seems to be helping him to sleep more restfully. He is stronger; he is eating a wider range of foods: and he is more cheerful. We have been going for more strenuous walks on the slopes of the mountains, sometimes taking a bus to help us further afield. The weather is divine, & the slackening of the holiday crowds has made it easier to get about in public vehicles. Quite a number of pretty little flowers are springing up on the hillsides, though this is early autumn & spring is the great flower season. I’m glad you have the use of a sitting-room for living always in ones bedroom gets tiresome, apart from the difficulty of asking people in. We were busy in the office at the beginning of the week, sending out letters of thanks for help given to the S.A.W.A..S. “Week”, but work slackened off, & the last two days I have been clearing out a lot of old papers, & having a general tidy-up. I finished that by lunch-time yesterday, & Lady Graaf said she did not think there would be work for me to-day, so I am enjoying a holiday. Its funny that an unexpected holiday is a special pleasure. It’s a good thing we are going away soon, because I don’t believe there is work for me at the office, now a woman who was away on holiday is back, & the special rush of work connected with the “Week” is over. Had I been staying on I should have tried to find something else. Sorry to hear that Anne has been ill. Please give her my greetings when you next see her. I don’t think you have ever told me what Christina is doing. I’d like to know. Best love. Mother (Mrs H.P.V. Townend)
Air Graph No 8 from LJT to Romey
Standard Bank of S. Africa. Cape Town. April 9th 1943
My darling Romey. Thank you for lots of letters. Nos 87 rcd 31/3: 89 rcd 23/3 92 & 93: your photo & Beaver all rcd 2.4.43. I am delighted to have the photo but not so much as the Driemen ones. In this you might have dark eyes, & shadows are hard. Its grand to have it all the same, & thank you for it. Thanks to Helen for Dec. copy of “Beaver” which v. interesting. Prof. Wardle’s suggestions for your future are intrigueing. I like the idea of more study and specializing in parasitology. It’s a line in which many workers will be needed in the future, & one in which you would definitely be serving humanity. If you do settle to go to America, or would like another opinion before making up your mind, do write to Louise:- Mrs Everett Rankin. c/o Standard Oil Co. 26 Broadway. N.Y. Louise was brought up in university circles, & have friends all over America. She is always full of interest in what is going on in the world, & I know will help you if she can. Edward Groth has friends all over the U.S.A./ & when you know what your plans are, I will ask him if he can give you any introductions. Another v. nice couple who might be able to help you are Mr & Mrs Paul A. Dodd. Los Angeles Campus. Univ of California. We met them at the Franz Joseph Glacier in New Zealand. He is a professor of Economics as far as I remember. By the time this reaches you, you will be sitting or about to sit for your finals, I suppose. Good luck to you! I shall long for news of the result. Dad got over the trouble with his teeth well, all things considered. He had his last treatment from the chiropractor last Mon. His health has improved & he has got some useful advice. For instance, one of his great difficulties has always been to relax. The Ch.P. asked him in what position he habitually sleeps. Dad proudly showed that he always sleeps with his legs stretched down straight, as he was taught to do as a little boy. Dr Stobie told him that he will find it much easier to relax if he sleeps like a baby: i.e. with his knees flexed. This really seems to be helping him to sleep restfully. Fancy such a simple thing, & no one thought of it before! He has been feeling much stronger, is eating a more varied diet without getting indigestion, & seems altogether brighter & more hopeful. We have been going more strenuous walks on the sides of the mountains, sometimes making use of the buses to help us on our way to fresh pastures. The weather is divine, & the lessening of the summer holiday crowds makes getting about in public vehicles much pleasanter. We are fixed up at White River from June 4th & are leaving here on May 13th. We spend two nights in the train, & have asked Edward Magill to book us rooms in Jo’burg for a week. Then we stay with Edward Groth in his new house for twelve days, & have another night in the train en route for White River. I have been given half a dozen invitations to people in the White River district, & Mrs Pike who runs the guest house, wrote such a nice letter. If only I could take some really useful work for the war along with me, I should be most content. I am awfully glad this is all settled. The office seems rather slack now, & I have a day off to-day. Dad has just written a letter to Helen & I have written a long personal one to you. Best love to you all (Mrs H.P.V.Townend)
Family letter from LJT No 14
Graham Lodge.
Sea Point.
April 10th 1943
My Dears,
We have had no mail from England this week, but belated letters sent on via India, including one dated Sept 25th from Joey, so I am hoping that Anne’s missing Sept ones may turn up too. Some interesting letters came from Calcutta, but brought the sad news that our dear old friend Mr Van Manen, the Dutchman who had been Secretary of the Asiatic Society for so many years, has died. He must often have figured in my letters, for he was a character of outstanding interest & charm. I dont know his age, but I think he was somewhere near the seventies. His health had been failing of late years, and he had many troubles, for the small regular income he had from Holland ceased with the occupation. We have also had an extremely nice mail from Australia and New Zealand. That dear family, the Watsons, who were so nice to us when we were staying at Mount Tamborine & later in Brisbane, both wrote long letters, dated Feb. 9th: Mrs Watson’s about personal matters, & His about all sorts of agricultural subjects. Some years ago, when he was returning from England to Australia, he made a quick tour through the Union at the Government’s invitation, to give them the benefit of the information he had collected in Europe. Many of the observations in his letter were most interesting. By a strange coincidence they gave the news that they had posted a water colour picture of Mt.Tamborine to us for a Christmas present, & wondered whether it would ever reach us. The next morning we had a notice from the post office to say a parcel had arrived for us, and there was the picture! It had come via India.
By the same post Herbert had a long letter from the eighty-year old astronomer, Mr. Gifford, whom we met & liked so much at Wellington. He wrote to know whether Herbert had seen the new star which flared up & died down again in Argo Puppis, or in other words in the stern of the great southern constellation of the Ship. You may remember that Herbert had spotted it from our window in the Taj Mahal in Bombay, when he could not sleep & got up to look at the stars. He was puzzled because he had not then seen anything in the papers about it, but felt sure it had not been there before. As luck would have it, he saw it almost at its brightest, and wrote to Mr. Gifford about it; a letter which has crossed this one. Mr. Gifford must now be about 83, but he says he got up three times each night while the star was bright, to make observations, which were hampered by cloudy weather on most occasions. His writing is a model of beauty and clarity. Astonishing at that age, is’nt it? Its nice to know that our friends at the end of the world have not forgotten us. The nice Mrs Fox, who was also at Tamborine, wrote too, giving some interesting observations about how the war has affected Australia.
Apart from the most cheering war news, this has been a good week for us. Herbert has got over his trouble with his teeth wonderfully well, though he still has to eat with great care, & will have to do so till the additions are made to his plate. He had his last treatment from the chiropractor on Monday, and is now beginning to show the benefit of the treatment. Dr Stobie has been trying to get at some method of helping him to relax. By questioning he discovered that Herbert sleeps with his legs stretched to the fullest down to the end of the bed, as he was trained to do as a little boy. Dr Stobie says he will relax much better if he flexes his knees & draws them up like a baby does. This seems to be helping Herbert to sleep more restfully. He certainly seems brighter as well as stronger, and is venturing rather more varied diet, so far with no ill effects.
We have also ventured on far more ambitious walks. I got home from office a little early on Thursday, so we caught a bus about twenty to four, which took us a few miles along the coast, past Clifton. Here the mountain’s west face stands well back from the coast, and from the base of its cliffs, rough land sweeps down in a series of rounded ridges to the coast road. We set off up a track, crossed a stream and passed an untidy little “Coloured Folk” house, which is evidently the local laundry, with the stream as its wash house. Beyond that the track soon petered out, but it was easy to make our way over the open “veldt”. This was much like English mooreland. It was covered with different sorts of heaths, some of them with a few flowers still out; with low shrub-like plants of different sorts, approximating to bilberries in size; small scattered pine trees a few feet high and very prickly, and lots of rough rock.
We made our way upwards and inland for a mile or more, and then crossed to the next ridge which was higher than the one we were on, and scrambled down it, finally arriving in Clifton, just opposite a nice tea-place looking over the beach and the bathing pool. Yesterday I had an all day off from office, and we carried out quite an ambitious plan. Bus into town at 3.15. A cup of tea at the empire club, & then another bus to Kloof Nek, the col between Table Mt and Lion’s Head.
We got up there soon after 4 o’clock, and following the road on the West side of Lion’s H, we soon found what we hoped we might do, and that was a path up through the pine woods, only it was much more of a path than we expected. The L’s H is a conical hill. 2,175 ft high. The last few hundred feet are a granite cap, with cliff-like sides. Our path well graded, brought us gradually near the foot of the rock as it curled round the south side of the hill. It emerged from the woods on to open hill-side sparsely scattered over with the Silver Trees, which grow only in the Cape Peninsular, and are fast being ousted by the more strongly growing exotic pines. We had splendid views back to Table Mt., down over Clifton and later, over Sea Point. It was a grand evening for walking, for the sun was hidden behind light cloud, and there was a fresh breeze. We met two English blue-jackets, and stopped to chat with them. They were both well-spoken, nice looking men, and told us that they spend most of their spare time walking and climbing the mountains. I asked them if they came from mountain country at Home. With grins they replied, not exactly, for they both came from Lincolnshire. I was able to give them a sketch map of Table Mt., Devil’s Peak and L’s H. which pleased them very much. I am hoping I can get another. Anyway I think they will make better use of it than we should do. Just before we decided to take a downward track, we looked over the edge of a great rock and saw on the rocky hillside just below, half a dozen furry animals which looked like marmots. I must find out what they are. By the time we had scrambled down to their level, they had all disappeared. Our path having circled the peak almost completely, brought us down to the saddle between it and Signal Hill, the top parts of which are a protected military area, and the lower slopes of which rise just behind Sea Point. From it there is a splendid view over Sea Point on the West and Cape Town on the East. From there we were soon on paths that we know, and quickly and steeply dropped down to a road five minutes walk behind this house after walking for just under two hours This was the biggest walk that Herbert has done, and he was only slightly tired after it, so I feel we can chalk up definite progress.
There was a lot to do in the office during the first two days of the week, but then the work tailed off, as the affairs to do with the “Week” were cleared up, and I spent the greater part of two days clearing out and destroying old papers. A girl who was away on a holiday when I went there is back, and I cant see that there is going to be work for me to do now the special jobs are over. However as I should have to stop work early in May anyhow, it does not much matter.
I was almost forgetting to tell you about our delightful visit to Groot Contantia last Sunday morning. This had been planned long ago but Mrs Iron with whom we made such friends at Elgin. We went by tram to Kenilworth, where we stayed on our first arrival, and met Mrs Iron with her car. We drove on another three or four miles to the famous old wine-growing estate, which was founded by one of the early Dutch Governors in 1685. It was purchased by the Government early in this century from its then owner, who had run through all his money travelling in Europe. The old house, with furniture and fittings is kept as a museum. The vineyards still produce grapes and wine is still made on the estate. It is a beautiful old house in the Dutch style, graciously proportioned, and with ample windows which give such delightful lighting in all the rooms. It is raised on a half basement, all the rooms of which open to the back. These were the old save quarters. We had a picnic morning-tea by the old swimming pool, about a quarter of a mile beyond the house towards the slopes of the mountain. It was a perfect day, and Mrs Iron was a charming companion, partly because she is a dear woman and partly because she knew and knows the family to whom the estate belonged, and could tell us much about it. She drove us back by a splendid road, cut round the slopes of Table Mt, below the point where the granite cliffs become ordinary steep hill-side, and brought us right back to Sea Point.
She knows White River to which we are going, and has many friends there to whom she is giving us introductions. Two women in the office are also giving us introductions to friends in that neighbourhood, so it does not seem that we shall be lonely there.
Best love.
LJT
(handwritten addition at end of letter) My darling Annette – An airgraph went off to you yesterday, so I’m not writing a personal letter to-day – Sorry to see that mails from England posted between Feb 18th and March 1st were lost. How lucky that on Feb 22nd you sent an air graph. Love and thoughts as always - Mother
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town
April 11th 1943. Sunday.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
I started the week very tired. Teeth giving trouble on the Friday; or rather the absence of teeth. Insufficient chewing led to violent indigestion during the night. Next day quite vigorous till lunch time when suddenly went dead beat and gloomy. Sunday started well enough with the car-trip with Mrs. Irons of which Joan’s letter tells. There couldn’t have been a better morning as far as weather goes and the place which we visited was delightful. We had a picnic morning tea beside a small bathing pool with a statue at one end, surrounded by papyrus reeds and flowering shrubs and overhung with oak-trees. Mrs. Irons has a little suitcase-thing fitted most ingeniously with thermos flasks and sandwich boxes, cups and flat saucers oblong so as to fit besides the boxes without loss of space, spoons, knives and forks attached to the sides of the boxes, and a stand which folds up so that the suit case can be carried easily in spite of it. Nothing neater ever seen . . . . and nothing more badly described. The house, a showplace of great repute, was interesting enough; but we spent rather too long going over it for one not too full of vigour. The return journey to Sea Point was by car - the journey out had been by tram as far as Kenilworth and a bit further - along a road far up the side of Table Mountain; very beautiful and giving the impression that there was no town near, but tiring before it finished.
Lunch seemed as if it would never end; but sleep during the afternoon did something to restore cheerfulness. I must have been pretty glum however, for Joan was much depressed that evening. On the Monday I had my last whack out of the cheiropractor: he did a brisk massage which was refreshing. Also he gave advice about curling up in bed instead of lying straight (which means holding oneself straight) and about deep breathing while walking. I slept mighty well that night and Joan thinks that the curling-up idea will be a sovereign remedy; but it has not worked so marvellously since then. I have so far been much fitter since this last treatment, and it may be that not having to do the two hours’ tram-journey every other day has been a good thing in itself.
We did three vigorous walks on three consecutive afternoons. The first was a combination of two walks which we had previously done on the face of the hills behind here, and with lovely weather to help it was a vast success. This encouraged us to do the scramble round the back of Camps’ Bay described by Joan in her letter and after that the walk round the Lion’s Head. The great pleasure of the last of these lay in its surprises. At first it looked as if there was no possibility of a path giving access to the western face where we wanted to go; but we decided that if there was a path at all it must take off at a certain place and run along a certain slope on the hillside; and so it did. No better day could have been had for walking. It was a fairly strenuous effort and it left me tired though not unnaturally so. Next day we merely walked along the front and looked up the Hoogeweens, the Belgians who used to be here.
The editor of the Congo newspaper which Mr. Hoogeween has been lending me has been sent to prison for six months, for blackmail. This is apparently an incident which in no way lowered him in the eyes of his public, for he has been in gaol before for the same thing and has continued his journalistic activities on his release without loss of credit. There has been one issue of the paper since his imprisonment in which an editorial laments his sad and undeserved fate in words absurdly like the panegyric in Dekobra Confucius en Pullover on the South American consul who had to skip from Shanghai for running a faked roulette-table.
Did I tell how on the front we followed a French party including a woman who, knitting as she walked, had dropped her ball of wool? Far behind I picked it up and rolled it up again as I pursued them, finally handing it back when the length left unrolled was only a couple of feet. There must have been something ridiculous in this Sir Walter Raleigh episode for Joan laughs whenever she thinks of it and the French people hooted with amusement. It reminds me that from a bilingual advertisement I learn that the Afrikans for fish-paste is “fish-smear” though it is not spelt like that. In this town as in New Zealand and Australia firms describe themselves as So and Such “Pty. Ltd.” I cannot get used to it; and Joan hearing me murmur “Oh! the pty of it!” which is vaguely out of Shakespeare told me to put it in a letter for the particular benefit of Annette.
On the Camps Bay walk or on the tram ride back from it we saw three great rocks not far out in the sea, twenty or thirty feet high perhaps and quite inaccessible even from a boat, which were covered with ducks; hundreds of ducks, the very birds which are to be seen flying southwards each night along the coast. An impressive sight this settling together for the night and nothing less comfortable by way of a resting-place was ever seen. The nights are cold nowadays.
My moons mentioned in last week’s letter are a ridiculous obsession. A remarkable form of artistic self-expression. The ingredients for making images of the moon are first a wash-bowl in dark blue or black china, and secondly very soapy water. One morning I had washed out my shaving brush in a little water in the bowl and then shook it out over it. The result was a striking image of a full moon complete with seas and craters; and ever since it has been my effort each morning to get the same desirable effect deliberately, though success has not attended me.
The younger of the two old gentlemen says that a certain cure for pneumonia is paraffin swallowed a spoonful at a time. He lines up his negro labour, he says, takes a spoonful himself to show that he is not diddling them and then gives everyone a dose; they lap it down and like it, so he says. “I wouldn’t have believed it!” said the head of the Rhodesia health department, and then issued a pamphlet recommending it to all mine-owners. Another cure worth knowing, he tells me, is for a cold. You keep a bit of alum in your pocket and every now and then take a suck or two at it: that is to prevent a sore throat rather than the cold. As a general cure for everything you fast for a day, then in the evening take four liver pills and next morning take a packet of Epsom Salts. There are lots of cures like this known to the Old Timers, he assures me. Did I repeat his story that the locusts are regarded by the natives as a boon sent by god? they travel miles to be on the spot when the beasts settle for the night and collect them by the sack full. The locusts are worth to them far more than the crops destroyed by them. And it is a part of the general policy of neglect for the interests of the natives that the Government tries to exterminate this valuable food.
The head of S.A.W.A.S. when told by Joan of the success of the side-show in a Calcutta fete during the last war, consisting of a museum of fairytale treasures, asked her to jot down notes about it in case they can use the idea at some fete here. She passed it on to me; and I have found it by no means easy to remember details of magic swords, caps of darkness, shoes of swiftness and the like which could be exposed for inspection of the young without too much difficulty. The one exhibit which does strike me as attractive and at the same time easy is the Emperor’s clothes; a whole show-case could be devoted to these with a solemn descriptive catalogue or labels. It is quite likely that there was no fake about them, as declared by Hans Andersen who got his information from official sources obviously biased; presumable it was an Emperor of Austria who was concerned and naturally he would not have qualified to see the clothes anyhow.
As I feared the result of my joining the library is that I have been reading at least one murder story per day. It is not for my good.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
Sea Point
April 16th 1943
My darling Annette
With the arrival of your letter No 1 of 18th Jan and No 4 of 15 March the series seems complete, except for a possible break in Dec. I send a little list of how they have come which may interest you – The last one taking only a month by sea is marvellous. I really do feel properly in touch again now – Our flit from India seemed to be followed by a difficult period for mails, just when there was so much I wanted to hear about your eye and one thing and another. Aunt gives me an opinion – favourable – about your eye in her letter of mid-January, just received. I do hope you now find it really more comfortable and that it wont be so difficult to make a satisfactory shell – Its interesting that the lashes that were cut have grown so thick.
I was so amused to hear that the Australian butter had been treasured till Christmas 1942! And glad that the green woolies from that country have been a success. I had hope the mauve ones and the heather-mixture skirt would have been with you ‘ere now, but the Blandy’s departure keeps on being put off.
You tell of a lunch time concert of modern music at Bedford. Judging by what little I have heard of modern music, I fully agree with you. Like most modern poetry, it seems to me to lack form and, as you say, is self conscious. There is such a lot of writing that is too – Cyril Gurner is an example of that. Occasionally he writes me a letter, but he tries so ahrd to be out-of-the-ordinary, that he inverts all his grammar and one has to read the thing two or three times to find out what he means. I contrast a letter we got a few days ago from the mother of that poor American sailor who died in hospital and of whom we must often have spoken in her letters. Her words are so simple, but so expressive and so touching.
Talking of simplicity – I have just embarked on General Smuts book, expounding his theory of “Holism” – I cant tell you much about it for I have only read the first chapter, but I gather he thinks we need to rearrange our ideas, and give up thinking of matter, life, and mind as totally different and almost unrelated things – In the first chapter he states that it is necessary to understand something of Einstein’s theory of space to begin with. He says that he does not know why it is considered so difficult to grasp, because really it is, like all really big ideas, essentially simple – Simple or no, I still found it hard to grasp, though I think after reading his exposition, I am a little less hazy on the subject than I was. He gets on to physics and chemistry in the second chapter, and I am able to follow quite easity for I have done enough desultory reading on those subjects in the last few years, to gain a certain familiarity with the terms and the ideas.
I am awfully glad your garden was a success last year and hope it will do as well again this summer. It must be a very real help to-wards furnishing the table with agreable food. Aunt seemed delighted at getting stuff into the garden so early in the year.
Its strange that one comes across so many elderly men who wont go out or alter their routine in anyway – this is apropos of the Roscoe family. I have had the same difficulty with Mr and Mrs Harvey here. They have been so kind to us and I wanted to take them out to lunch or tea and a film – but dear Mrs Harvey says “Kenneth just wont go out!” However you get the George Pilchers of this world, who love outings of all descriptions – from days walking across country, with lunch at some little inn and tea at a cottage – to dinner at the Café Royal and a concert or theatre – and he obviously loves every minute of it. I hope it will be possible to do some of these nice things when we got home after the war.
I hope the parcels sent off this week to you and aunt, Mrs Roscoe and Christina Drake, will arrive safely – The Drakes and the Roscoes have been so good to you, I thought I would like to send a little token of appreciation. Unfortunately I forgot to ask Dad to have cards inclosed, so will you give messages on my behalf?
Best love, my dear - Mother
Family letter from LJT No 15
Sea Point.
April 17th 1943
My Dears,
Its rather exciting to think that four weeks to-day we shall be in Jo’burg, and that by that time Romey will, in all probably be a B.Sc. We have had such nice letters from Edward and Judy Magill, and they have been lucky enough to get us a room in a good Private Hotel close to their flat. Just as we had heard from Canada that Herbert has two second cousins in Jo’burg, Carleton Jones, who is a big man in the Mining World, and his younger brother, Hervey Jones, who is a newspaper man, Edward Magill wrote that he has asked Mr. Carleton Jones to arrange for us to see a gold mine. I have also got in touch with Dot Bromley; (for those of you who do not know; - her father was our doctor in Hedingham and ushered me into the world) She writes a most amusing letter, just like the old Dot I remember in my childhood’s days, and kindly suggested that I should stay with her, and lodge Herbert close by, where he could sleep, and have all his meals with us. Its very nice of her, but we are fixed up at the other place, and it will suit Herbert better.
Last Wednesday was the first day on which it was possible to book tickets and accommodation for our Journey to Jo’burg. I got to the booking office before it opened, and was the first to book. In spite of that, the railway people won’t guarantee a coupé. Public opinion has it that it would be just as well to pull a few strings, as there is a frightful lot of hanky-panky going on on the railways, and people willing to tip heavily get what they want at the expense of those who have booked early. I have some ideas of what can be done. I had to leave the hotel too early for breakfast, and got some at the railway refreshment room. A man asked permission to sit at my table, and turned out to be a most amusing companion. He is in Cape Town as a diesel engine expert for the Ministry of Shipping. For fifteen years before the war, he was running luxury yachts for wealthy people. He said he wished he had been born a gentleman, and he figured out that the nearest thing to living like one, would be working on their yachts. He was in the south of France at the time of the fall of France, and the yacht he was on was one of the last away. He knows Ste Maxime and all the little places along that coast that we love so much. It was interesting to hear his ordinary broad north-country accent, contrasted with excellent French. His company made what would have been a hurried duty meal, into a lingering and very entertaining one.
The weather is too lovely for words these days, far, far, nicer than high summer. Last Sunday we went for a delicious walk along the sea-front, before there were many people about. When we got back, a phone call came from Dr and Miss Gill, friends of Edward Groth’s with whom we had lunch one day. They suggested a motor drive and tea out somewhere. We went by tram into town to meet them, and they drove us up to the Rhodes Memorial. It is high up on the North-East shoulder of Devil’s Peak (Which is the North-east outlier of Table Mt). It is a superb position, with a sweeping view right over Cape Town and Table Bay, across the Cape Flats to the Hottentots Hollands Mts, as well as South to False Bay. The Memorial itself is a fine thing. Its slightly Egyptian in conception. The highest portion is a pillared hall, the back wall, against the mountain-side only is built in, and has a bas-relief of Rhodes and some fine lines about his spirit living on, which unfortunately I did not note and cannot remember. Below this a series of granite steps fall in a short series of groups separated by platforms. Each platform is flanked by a pair of fine lions, six pairs in all, I think. Its impressive and satisfying. Its a lucky thing for Cape Town that Rhodes bought most of the northern and eastern slopes of Devil’s Peak, which became known as the Groot Schuur (Pronounced very like the kitchen skewer, with the syllables slurred into one) Estate. He left it all to the Nation. His house is the official residence of the Prime Minister. On the estate are the University, the Hospital, the Zoo, and lovely open stretches of mountain-side on which the public can roam. Its a pity some far-sighted millionaire did not buy up the hill-side on this Western side of the mountain massif, for in a few years it looks as if the narrow space between the mountain-side and the sea, will be cumbered up with the little villas.
From the Memorial we drove on along the fine road on the flank of the mountain to the pass which divides the Table Mountain and its outliers, from the mountains which run down the rest of the peninsular. It is above the old estate we visited the previous week and is called Constantia Nek. Its a lovely spot, and there is a pleasant open-air tea-room there, where we had tea and sat talking for a long while. Both Dr Gill and his sister are interesting people. I expect I told you that till recently he was in charge of the museum here. He seems to have an encyclopedian knowledge of almost any subject that crops up. He and his sister are both keen bird lovers and botanists. Assisted by her, he has written the best book on S. African birds. They drove us back across the pass, and by the western coast rd, which is a regular corniche, to Sea Point. It was a delightful afternoon, but coming on top of two or three rather specially energetic days, and a good walk in the morning, it left Herbert a bit exhausted, so we have been going easy on walks this week, till yesterday when we took a bus along the coast road to Camps Bay, where we got a cup of tea, and then walked for about an hour.
After a lapse of almost a year, by which time all the curl had grown out of it, I had my hair re-permed on Thursday. I had the whole head done this time, instead of just the ends. I think it is easier to keep tidy without a net, and hair nets are so hard to find now. I still wear it in the same way, brushed straight back, into a roll at the back of the neck, and a curl or two at the sides, but the fact that the top part is in waves makes me feel unlike myself.
At the top of this page, there was a pause caused by the arrival of M. and Mdme Hoogeveen. Mdme had promised to look in some time and advise me about altering an old velvet evening coat, to make it suitable for wearing in the house in the evenings. She is a dress-maker by profession. She really is an amusing old card, bubbling over with a keen sense of the ridiculous. Herbert plays up to her and entertains her tremendously, and she amuses him too. We took them out to have morning tea at the S.A.W.A.S’s tea-garden just round the corner, and spent nearly an hour there with them. They are still lending Herbert the bi-weekly Belgian Congo paper, and we still find our selves with an almost intimate knowledge of the topics of local interest in Elizabethville. The paper is really most entertainingly written.
Herbert had to rush off to the dentist early this morning, for something he rather dreaded. When he had a tooth out in Calcutta, a small bit of the root had to be left in, for the tooth had been so terribly hard to extract, that the jaw was all messed up and H. rather knocked out by it. The dentist there said he hoped this bit of bone would work out, but it never did so. The X ray here showed quite a sizable bit, which this man said must be got out. He feared it might be very tricky, but he managed it well and got it out in a few minutes. I expect it means several days discomfort, for he had to make a long incision. H. has to go to him several times next week, but that is only for fitting the new teeth required to his plate. I do so hope that getting rid of the bad teeth and this old bit of root, will help him back to health.
A lot of people have left this hotel or are leaving this week-end. There have been a big contingent from Rhodesia, and they are all going back. It will be interesting to see whether other guests come. At present the weather is still warm, but it may turn cold at any time now, and there will be no comfort in this place when it does. I have never stayed anywhere where the management is done in such a haphazard fashion. It has served us well enough, but I should hate to think I had more than another month to stay here. Without our own little sitting-room, I think we should have been driven crazy. After we had been here a very short time, I realized that what the proprietor said or promised, bore no relation whatsoever to the truth. I always wonder whether people like that think that others go on believing them. Of course every guest who has been here a few days realizes the same thing, and we all make jokes about it, but most of us leave it at that, for it is not worth having a row, when it is so difficult to get accomodation. Possibly the old boy is congratulation himself on his astuteness in keeping everybody satisfied! His Fool’s Paradise will be rudely shattered when Cape Town is no longer badly overcrowded.
The mail this week brought one lot of letters from England in less than five weeks. The next day letters from Grace and Annette written in the middle of Jan. turned up, but the series are now almost complete, and I feel properly in touch with you all again. Air-mail from Canada came in under a month.
Best love to you all
LJT
Family letter from HPV
C/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
April 16th 1943. Friday.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
Sunday last saw the end of my period of new energy, though it may prove to have been merely an interruption. We were taken a most pleasant drive along the high level road on the slopes of Table Mountain above Kenilworth and the other suburbs on that side by Dr. Gill and his sister. To the Rhodes memorial (very fine) past the Botanical Gardens (which we did not enter) and to a tea-place on a neck between hills (very beautiful): back by a road which went round the back of Table Mountain into this place without touching Cape Town again. He, as late head of the Museum, was able to tell us about the little animals which we had seen on the slopes of the Lion’s Head on our walk two days before; they are Dassies, and their nearest relation living is the rhinoceros. But they are not far off the elephant too. A staggering assertion which one has to accept because if it were not true no one would have the impertinence to invent anything so outrageous. Also, he says, it is right to speak of them as conies, (and the Psalmist is right as to their habits) and wrong to call them badgers as the Dutch did when they named them Dassies. The only respect in which these little guinea-pig-like beasts resemble the rhinoceros at first sight is that they have a very surly look.
Next day, Monday, I did odd jobs in the town, visiting the bank, fixing up repairs to a trunk and so on; and in the afternoon we went to see Mrs. Forsyth where we dallied till we were late for supper. Not a difficult thing to do since it is at 6.30. By that time I had suddenly become dead beat, as in the pre-cheiropractor days. Now Joan says that it is due to going into Cape Town: but I think that it is having a long afternoon on Sunday and talking to Mrs. Forsyth after I began to feel done up. Incidentally I seem to have done rather too much at the back exercises, for my neck and the small of my back are quite still. However I have slacked completely two days and tomorrow I go to the dentist. With luck next week will see a revival of energy. I have propounded the theory that in part my feeling more energetic lat week (or was it the week before?) was due to my taking so much glucose: I finished half a tin which I had with me from Calcutta. How I find that it is unobtainable in South Africa. To this theory Joan answers the equivalent of bilge.
She shows little sympathy to me in the matter of my bib. That is a bit of newspaper which I spread on the table in front of me, at her special request originally, in order that the drippings from the grapes which I eat may not defile more than is necessary. Why people talk of the juiciness of mangoes and the desirability of eating them in a bath, I cannot conceive when there are grapes to speak of instead. I hold all world records for ability to make a muck of the art of grape-eating; having the sanitary but floppy habit of peeling each before I eat it. Naturally economy forbids me to throw away the newspaper merely because it is juice-stained; antagonism to this is the cause of Joan’s caustic comments. As if it were something really nasty like Parp’s little tin.
Talking of records I hold the all-high, all-time record for absent-mindedness, having made to put my false teeth on my nose instead of my spectacles when dressing the other morning. With this Joan classes, but wrongly, an error almost made by me yesterday when pouring out tea; the cups and saucers were piled together on the tray in the lounge, and after setting out a saucer for my cup I started to pour milk into where the cup ought to have been but was not yet. Just a splash; anyone might have done that when talking - but it is true that I was not.
The management of this hotel chooses tea-time invariably to begin major operations in the way of shifting furniture and such in or through the lounge. And when there is nothing to be shifted they make up for it by shouting for and against the native servants, unless they can induce one or more of the horrid little grandchildren attached to them to make itself a direct nuisance. The general attitude is that the lounge is a place for the family to sport in where guests are allowed to come; and that the whole hotel is too for that matter. It did make us merry to see that having been warned to dim the lights which show on the land side of the hotel, the manager-owner did remove the curtains which are supposed to screen the windows facing towards the sea and hang them on the other side of the room. The windows facing the sea look out into a yard and are not directly visible from the sea of course: but such things are and invite comment. The colour scheme of the screening led some to protest aloud; lavender mauve and magenta, along with red and beige striped curtains.
The proprietor has a simple mind, occupied by great schemes. All of which turn out otherwise. Instance the re-painting of this building; or the bathroom alterations; or the blackout. Add the design of making a lovely lawn in front of the lounge and dining-room. It is a strip ten feet wide between the garden wall and the house. This has been dug up and tufts of grass thrust into it here and there. With the sole result that the numerous, indeed innumerable cats of the locality think that someone has prepared a nice soft place for them out of kindness and act accordingly; with stinking results. This gives a wrong impression; the result is not such as to turn the sensitive soul but it is certainly not such as was hoped for at the start. Me, I favour kindness to dumb animals. These cats are not dumb, though; they are addicted to concerts on the roof, and either they make noises like dogs there, or a strange and almost incredible thing, they have induced dogs to join in with them there.
The old gentlemen have gone. The younger of them roaring genially to the last. Or almost the last for we did not actually see them go . . . . or even say goodbye to them. They left in the middle of the afternoon. And we thought it rather charming of the older brother that he should have sent us a telegram of farewell and good wishes. It turns out that the younger, the Lion-tamer as we have come to think him (though he never claimed to have dealt much with lions) was down here to recover from the disappointment caused by the action of his wife, a Dutch woman, who had set fire to his house when he had left it for a while owing to some disagreement, and who had thus destroyed all his effects including his silver cups. This had been told by the elder’s wife to a lady here. Bob, the younger, told me that he had given some good advice to a young farmer near here. The youngster had learnt his farming at an agricultural college. Going onto the farm bought by him, Bob said in a genial way of course, as he explained to me, “Cattle not much good, I see” and when asked why he said it replied “That cow has tape-worm anyhow” – and what is more she had. Then he asked what had been the price of the farm per acre and when told £12 said (by way of a joke so as not to hurt any feelings) “But you don’t mean to pay for it, do you?” because as he went on to say the soil was poor to begin with and it had been worked to death so that it could not repay cultivation costs even let alone enable anyone to repay the purchase cost. I ask what he would say to any farmer whose feelings he did want to hurt. But he is serenely unconscious that he said anything which would not be quite acceptable.
Lately it may have been observed that I have not mentioned my hobbies; the typing and the stars. The former has fallen into decay though I have at times typed lists of words out of the spelling book which I bought in Calcutta in order to prove myself that I did not need it. As to stars, it is too cold at nights to stand out of doors and gaze upwards: and there are no stars in sight at times suitable for observation which I am particularly interested in. That is, which I do not know already fairly well. It may be said though that the stars make show of extreme beauty and I should like much to sit up and see others which sail into view later in the night.
Did I mention my pleasure in a conceit of Kenneth Graham’s about the counties? He had remarked in a letter that his correspondence could not be imagined as living in any county save Gloucerster and went on “except of course in Double Gloucester” and from that was led to talk of other similar counties such as Ham-and-eggs-shire, Bed-and-breakfast-fordshire and such like. I fail to think of any new ones on the same pattern unless one can count Yes-I-kenned-John-Peelshire, which sadly falls short of excellence.
Next day - - - - - Saturday, in fact.
My visit to the dentist was not so good. He said gloomily that he thought he would postpone digging for the stump left last September but I plumped for immediate action. At intervals he stopped to remark that the difficulty in such cases was to find the damned thing, though by the way he sliced with his lancet I had imagined that he had exposed the whole jawbone; and after about half an hour he called in his partner to help. After demonstrating he said to him, “Now you understand what will have to be done if I have to call you in again” and I resigned myself to a good hour’s digging and boring. But within quite a few minutes he gave a cry of relief and the thing was out. Afterwards he commented that he had expected a couple of hours’ trouble. As it is, I expect that all will be well.
(handwritten note at end of letter) It occurs to me to wonder why the Jews wanted to blow up their trumpets at the full moon instead of down them as usual. Suggestions?
Much love
Dad
Air Graph No 8 from LJT to Aunt (GCT)
Standard Bank of S.Africa. Cape Town. April 18th 1943
Dearest Grace. Your letter No 12 d.4/3 was here on 14/4. The quickest we had A’s of the same date & yours & hers of 22nd Jan. also arrived. I am so glad that most of my letters have now reached you. It is good to be in proper touch once more. So glad you have been able to get well ahead with work in the garden. We have our tickets & places on the train for 13th May, so in four weeks we shall be J’burg. H. has two 2nd cousins there, Carleton & Harvey Jones, grandsons of The Hon. Alfred Jones, who was Lt.Gov. of Nova Scotia. B. may perhaps trace this on the family tree. Carleton Jones is a big pot in the Mining world. Edward M. has asked him to arrange for us to see a gold-mine. Dot Bromley writes an amusing letter, & seems pleased at the thought of seeing us. I begin to look forward to this trip v.much. Life here has gone along in the usual pattern. Some days I have been busy in office: other days there has been nothing much doing. We had one or two glorious walks last week, & a most lovely afternoon out motoring & having tea with Edward Groth’s friends, Dr & Miss Gill on Sunday. Yesterday H. went to the dentist with great forboding, to have a broken bit of root which was left when a tooth was removed in Calcutta, taken out. The reality turned out not as bad as the expectation. That is the last of the nasty things he has to have done. There remain only the fitting of some new teeth to his plate. Getting rid of these bad teeth should help him on the way to health & strength again. I am feeling slightly unlike myself, for I had a “perm” of my whole head last Thurs. It was a year since I had the ends done. I have stuck to the same style, but I am not used to waves on my head. I did it partly because it is easier to do without hairnets. I am still wearing cotton frocks. The weather is just perfect, & I enjoy walking far more than I did when it was not. I have had no occasion to wear my new warm suit yet, but no doubt shall in Jo’burg. It is getting rapidly more & more difficult to buy things, other than food produced in the country here. S. Africa apparantly had no manufactures, but lived on her gold & diamonds, plus a moderate amount of primary products. Consequently she is now “feeling the draught”. Australia was better off, for she had already started manufacturing many things before the war, and many English & American Proprietary articles, had already got Australian factories. We are hoping to bet a cable to Romey on or near her Graduation Day. Helen has reminded us that it is made a great occasion in Canada, which we had both forgotten. I am afraid there was not much in the way of celebrations at the moment when her Degree was conferred on Annette. What a grim moment in our history that was, & how good it is to think that it is we who are giving the punishment to Germany from the air now. Sorry to hear that Len is no longer Sec. to the Red Cross. I hope by this time he will have found something else to do. The grape season here is just passing & cheap oranges are coming on to the market. How I wish I could send a great case full to you! At White River we shall be in the orange growing country, like we were at Tamborine in Australia. Parcels of choc.rasins & dried fruit went off to you & A. this week. Best love to all (Mrs H.P.V.Townend)
Family letter from LJT No 16
Sea Point.
Good Friday. April 23rd ‘43
Family letter #16
My Dears,
This has been a week of trivial doings for us, while such great things are going on in North Africa, and over Germany. There have been several small tea-parties. Herbert has had more visits to the dentist. Work in office has been moderate. No mails have come in from Canada or England. The weather which had been perfect, turned into a violent specimen of Cape Town’s South Easters on Tuesday afternoon, which has not blown itself out yet. “Most Unusual” say the inhabitants “to get a south-easter in the autumn. They are summer storms.” This tremendous wind, with a clear bright sky, does odd things. To begin with, it always means that it is raining a bit further up-country. Next it lays a thic
k layer of white cloud on Table Mt, which cascades down its cliffs in rather a fascinating manner. It is called the “Table-cloth”, but when it’s a big storm it looks more like a fat white eiderdown. It blows in a peculiar way in Sea Point, for we face west-north west, with Signal Hill & Lion’s Head, behind us. The gales of wind have to sweep over or round these mountains, with the result that one gets blasts coming in all sorts of different directions. The wind blowing off shore, has great fun with the breakers rolling in on to the rocks. As they begin to break, the wind catches the foam and blows it back in skeins of fine spray, like the hair of the valkyries as they ride the storm. Herbert said it reminded him of the stampede of a great herd of buffalo, and I could see what he meant. Trees have been blown down; seats on the Front turned over; dust bins bowled along the road like paper bags, and the wind still blows hard to-day, though it has shifted a bit and weather prophets say it will soon drop. With the approach of winter, the exquisite sunsets which gave us so much pleasure earlier in the year, have ceased, and all that comes is a quickly fading evening glow.
It is interesting how Table Mountain conditions life in Cape Town, so to speak. The life of the city bustles along (or strolls) in the busy streets, but if you happen to raise your eyes and look up one of the long straight streets that run southwest from the Harbour up to the mountain, you see the splendid granite cliffs so close, and know that with the help of the tram and the Cable-way, you could be on top of the mountain and in a wild world at 3,500ft in less than an hour. If you look east you see the steep sides of the grand Devil’s Peak’, and west the equally impressive Lion’s Head. The city proper lies in an almost square bay, backed by Table Mt, and flanked on either hand by the other two peaks. The suburbs have had to stretch themselves round the flanking peaks, in long narrow ribbons, so that the distances from the city are out of all proportion to the population. This did not matter much when most people had cars, but it is inconvenient at the present time.
Did I mention that we met some people, Mr & Mrs Biss, who used to be in India years ago? Mr. Biss was in the Education Dept, and left when the new constitution came it. He has been working in Kenya since, and only recently retired. They are staying close to us and we had tea with them on Sunday. We both enjoyed ourselves. The ex-headmistress of the one big girls’ school in Kenya is living in the same hotel and was there. She and Mrs. Biss told me lots of things about life in Kenya, and gave a real impression of it, backed by photos, which I asked to see. I like that sort of talk, but so many people seem incapable of giving any pictures of the countries in which they have lived.
I made the long journey to Kenilworth on Monday after office to have tea with my friend from Egypt, Mrs. Cramer Roberts, who has been ill. We had a great time discussing a strange book by one Uspenski, called “The New Model of the Universe”, which deals with subjects like the Fourth Dimension, extra-physical worlds and esoteric religions. She lent me this book, which in many ways is quite cracked, but has some interesting ideas in it. We also discussed Gen. Smuts book setting forth his philosophy, which he calls “Holism” and which I am deep in at the moment. As I was going to Kenilworth, I arranged to go to supper with the Harveys, whom I so seldom get a chance to see, now that we have come so far away from them. The talk there was not verging on the “highbrow”, but both husband and wife are pleasant companions.
One of the very nice women who works in our office, came to tea with us at the Empire Club on Tuesday, to be instructed in the art of making Humus by Herbert. Her husband is Maj-General Theron, who is G.O.C. of the S. Africans in Cairo, and they have recently bought or built a house a little way out of Cape Town, where they will be creating a garden out of wild veldt. She is a dear woman and full of fun. The last of our tea-parties was at the Pavilion overlooking the swimming pool yesterday. We were the guests of our Belgian friends, who say that we must write down their address, in case we eventually fly home, and spend a night at Elizabethville; “Then” said Mdme in her somewhat halting English, “you will not ‘ave to go about asking for one veery t’in chentleman and one lady who iz zo“ and she rapidly sketched the shape of an old-fashioned cottage loaf in the air with her finger. They will be setting off on the five or six days journey to their home a few days before we leave for Jo’burg. The Civil servant from Tanganyika and his wife, who also return before long, will have even more of a doing in the train. Their journey will take them fifteen days. Three of those will be on a river steamer, which could be shortened to one day if they did those three hundred miles by road. In spite of weariness of trains and travelling, I would rather like to do that journey, almost up the length of Africa.
The dentist has been doing several more repairing jobs to Herbert’s teeth, so his mouth still does not feel very comfortable, nor have the additions to his plate been begun yet. Its lucky he did not have to have all this done while he was working. He has been keeping pretty fit, considering all this both with his teeth.
I’m sorry the typing of this letter is so bad, I have no excuse. I think I am just in a bad mood for the typewriter.
Best love to you all
LJT
(handwritten addition at bottom of letter)
My darling Annette
Its your week for an Airgraph, so I shant write a letter. This copy of the letter is a bit faint – I must take new carbons next week –
We are thinking much of the great battles going on in N Africa – Enfidaville and beyond – I wish I did not think so much of the killed and the wounded – and ??oh! I hope we manage to push on fairly fast and finish the African business – I hope it’s a nice spring and that you have had chances to enjoy it.
Best love and many thoughts, - Mother
Dearest Romey, we are thinking about you so much and wondering how the exams are going, 2) have gone or 3) will go, for we do not know the dates. I hope you have a really lovely vacation after them.
Best love and constant thoughts,
From Mother
Airgraph from LJT to Annette (addressed to Miss Annette Townend. P.O. Box 222. S.W.70. Howick Place. London S.W.1. England)
AG9 April 24th 1943
My darling Annette, Thank you for your Nos 1 & 4 D. 18/1 & 7/3/43, rcd on 14/4/43. Its good to have some sequence in letters now, so that I have some notion of all the home doings. So glad to think the winter is over, & has been so mild. Lady Blandy has left Cape Town, so I hope it wont be long before you get my parcel. I do hope the things will fit. The skirt is probably on the large side, but I was so afraid of getting one too tight. Parcels of rasins, choc, & dried fruit went off to you, Christina & Mrs Roscoe last week. The last 2, addressed c/o of you are a small effort to convey to the Roscoes & the Drakes, how grateful I feel to them for all the hospitality they have given to you. Dad forgot to get cards put inside, so will you let them know that they are sent with my most grateful thanks? Dad progresses with getting his teeth all put in order, but there have been & still repairing jobs to be done, so that the fitting of the new teeth to the plate has not yet begun. Thank goodness the dentist seems excellent, & Dad has stood up to all this work in his mouth better than he has to anything of the same sort for years past. The perfect weather of the past few weeks has been interrupted by a ferocious south-easter which started to blow on Tuesday afternoon & continued with violence for its scheduled three days. They are strange winds, which only lay a “table-cloth” of white cloud on Table Mt, & are otherwise combined with clear skies. I had to move into wool while it was blowing, but am back in cotton to-day. There has been a moderate amount of work in office, & we have entertained friends, or been entertained two or three times. I forsook Dad on Mon. After office I took the tram to Kenilworth to visit Mrs Cramer Roberts, my friend from Egypt, who has been ill. We are both interested in those fascinating areas where science & philosophy dovetail into one another, & we had a grand time discussing Uspenski’s “New Model of the Universe” which she had lent me, & Gen. Smuts “Holism” which I am deep in at the moment. After spending about an hour & a half with her, I walked on to have supper with the Harveys. Mrs Harvey is one of those simple people, who by sheer honesty, sympathy, goodness & common sense, has created in herself a most lovable character. Mr Harvey is typical of the retired Govt. Official. He is consciencious & exact. Cautious about accepting new ideas, & very correct. I enjoy teasing him a bit & getting behind his rather prim exterior. As rather lighter reading than Smut’s book, I have been reading the Govt. account of the Abyssinian Campaigns, & find it enthralling. Dad still works away at his touch typing. I feel a little jealous that he now does it so well, but I know I would never have stuck to doing so many excercises. He has not felt like tackling any serious writing. I don’t know whether he will be able to take any of the material up to white River. Really so much of his time here has been taken up with the chiropractor’s treatment & with the dentist, that he has not had a great many free mornings. He has typed out sets of instructions about the making of humus for several people. He is still v. interested in it.
Best love & constant thoughts, from Mother (Mrs H.P.V. Townend)
Air Graph No 9 from LJT to Romey
Standard Bank of S.Africa. Cape Town. April 24th 1943
My darling Romey, It is when great events are toward like you Finals & Graduation that one so longs to be in closer touch. Dad has been to the Bank to find out whether it was possible to send you a present of money. We wanted you to have a gift from us to commemorate the occasion & also a new evening frock. Alas! They say it is impossible to get permission unless the consignee is destitute. If you have enough money in your account, do treat yourself to a nice new evening frock & buy your self a really nice present from us. I did not realize that graduation would be so soon, or would have written about this earlier. Old friends of ours from India, Mr & Mrs Biss, with whom we had tea last Sunday, have a daughter in Canada. She took her degree at Oxford (or one of the English Universities) & went for post-graduate study to the U.S.A. Later she was given a fellowship at a Canadian Univ. She married a Canadian, & is now Mrs Graham Spry, living at 83 St John St. Ottawa. She is working again. I think it is rather a big post on the Board of Economics. Her husband went to India with Sir Stafford Cripps. Mrs Biss is telling her about you, in case by any chance your plans change & you go to Ottawa, a possibility which I think you mentioned some months ago. If you think she could give you any helpful advice, don’t hesitate to write to her. Mrs Biss says she knows she will be delighted to do anything she can to help you. I have just lent the Bisses the two Canadian books & “The Beaver” . You will know from Susie that your letter No 100 arrived by air in less than a month. Thank you for it. How sad you will be to say goodbye to your big circle of friends when you leave Winnipeg. What a lot of hospitality you have received, & what a difference to your life these years with Susie & Helen have made to you. It makes me trebly grateful when I think how girls of your age who came out to India have had their education messed about. Its not possible for an English girl to go to the University there, & the standard is miserably low. As for news of ourselves, I am thrilled to think that three weeks to-day we shall be in Jo’burg & shall have met Edward & Judy. All our plans are nicely fitted in now, & would be perfect if only it were not so long since we have seen you & Annette. I hope Dad wont find Jo’burg too tiring. Oddly enough talking to people & anything in the way of a party is what seems to exhaust him most. We have had a quiet week here. Dad has been several times to the dentist, who is doing a lot of general repair work before fitting the new teeth to the plate. It means that Dad is still in some discomfort, but he has stood up to it wonderfully well. He & I long for the time when the work will all be finished & he really begins to feel the benefit of it. The glorious weather was interrupted in the middle of the week by a tremendous south-easter. True to schedule, it blew for three days, & died down by mid-day yesterday. These winds come with bright clear skies, but lay a “table-cloth” of white cloud on the flat top of Table Mt. We have exchanged teas with one or two different friends. I left Day & went to tea & supper in Kenilworth, to see a friend who has been ill.
Best love, my dear one, & constant thoughts from (Mrs H. Townend)
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
April 24th 1943. Saturday.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
Starting with every bad omen, in the shape of a series of blunders, I have little hope of making a satisfactory letter out of this. It has not been a week of any happenings in particular. There have been no amusing incidents.
Of events these are outstanding. Tea with the Bisses on Sunday (he was the man whom I recognized in the street some weeks ago after twenty years), tea given to a Mr. Buchanan and a Mrs Theron on Tuesday at the Empire Club, and tea with the Hoogeweens at the Pavilion on the sea-front on Thursday. Visits to the dentist two; monday and wednesday; he did a thing to reduce the pain of drilling near the gum that I had not known before, to wit, blow a stream of air on the drill the whole time, strangely effective. Walks daily along the front, mostly with the ultimate object of going to the Library (which has copies of no less than eight of Bill’s Books) but only one of any length; on Friday up the hill behind us and along to the wood frequently mentioned in our letters. This was noteworthy only because when I was lamenting that we saw no dassies and that the nearest thing to one was a bit of stone on top of a great rock ahead, the stone moved and was a dassie.
We passed just along the edge of an area burnt out by a big fire the day before. It was an impressive sight. I was getting down off a tram when a strong smell of burning swept down from the hil, which was covered with thick smoke among the flames higher than two men. That was at 12 and in spite of the efforts of troops to restrain it, the fire swept over the top of the hill and got among a wood up there. It seems to have done singularly little damage to trees.
I made the strange chemical discovery that if one has lemon-squash an hour after eating cauliflower the comeback is asparagus. A war substitute maybe, provided that lemon-squash is available.
It was astonishing to see the dog at Mrs. Forsythe’s dragging the kitten round the garden by the scruff of the neck the other afternoon. The local verdict is that the kitten likes it; but to me this treatment seems to explain and to justify the kitten’s habit of running away. I am not at all sure that the kitten “found” on such occasions is the same as that which has run away; it looked suspicious that it had not grown at all during a three weeks’ absence when very young. Probably the inhabitants of that area are unawares playing a game of picking up each others’ kittens in the streets.
The sea-front has become almost deserted during week-days. Though there are always dogs and children. At several places there are what appear to me who am unused to such things a marvellous series of swings and such. Ordinary swings and swings with arms for babies; giant strides; roundabouts which swing as they turn and which look as if they would slay their thousands of children like Herod and David combined; and a battering ram contraption which is like swinging seesaw - and why this does not knock out all the teeth in Cape Town children and crack the skulls of most of them I cannot imagine. Boys who have faced such dangers when young can make light of the terrors of desert warfare.
Mr. Buchanan is interesting. One of the ladies from Elgin said that he wanted to get to know us because we should be able to tell him about India: but I feel sure that I was not wanted really to tell him anything. He told us a lot about Indians in or visiting South Africa. Very fair-minded. The Government have been using him to make things a bit more tolerable for Indian officers and distinguished visitors who drop into Cape Town and become peeved to find that there are no restaurants or movie-theatres which will admit them. He has persuaded some four of the biggest restaurants and all the theatres to admit Indian officers in uniform; while as to the distinguished visitors they are apparently dealt with by being foisted onto the broadminded among the inhabitants. Also one of the chief clubs admits them as honorary members.
None the less I do not mind betting that the result of visits to Cape Town will be to fill Indians with hatred of white men, even those who have personally received decent treatment from individuals. There is obviously a lot of bad feeling. It looks as if the present Indian High Commissioner cut no ice with the South Africans. But one would have thought that the Government would have been able to find someone who could tell them how to obtain results they wanted as regards keeping areas free from Indian residents without wantonly insulting Indians as such by the bill against which so many protests are now being made. Mr. Buchanan quoted a criticism that they merely legislate and do not administer. It sounds as if made with an eye on our Bengal Ministers.
I spent a good part of Thursday in typing out a list of possible exhibits for a Fairytale Museum. It would be fun actually to prepare such a Museum. Joan says that her Mrs. Smuts in the S.A.W.A.S. office said as much while remarking that its success would be rather among adults who would like to recall their childhood than among children who in South Africa do not read or know fairy tales any more than Bible tales. This contradicts what I heard from two women at Mrs. Forsythe’s where I tried to borrow some fairy stories to refresh my memory as to the doings. But I could not borrow any. There is no reason to feel surprise that after nearly fifty years I cannot recreate all the stories in the Blue Red Yellow Pink Mauve Lilac etc. Fairy Books: but it annoys me that I am so vague about them. “Can you spit?” said the witch “can you spit in the sheath of my knife? . . . . “ How vivid! How good! and I can remember practically nothing else about it. The woman was turned into a reindeer and the prince in the picture wore what looked to me like drawers with frills round the legs; a concrete fact that had a bearing on my strike against wearing the same thing myself at the age of four, in Ealing. That must have been in the Blue Fairy Book which I found under my pillow one morning on no particular occasion; an admirable way to receive a gift. Taken as a matter of course.
Sunday.
I did return to this yesterday after dinner but all my time went on making corrections in the four copies. It is sad that there should have been 22 typing mistakes in the first part of the letter. I was going to say before finishing with the Museum that the list was for the benefit of Lady De Graffe in case it is decided to run one as a side-show at a fete.
We thought of going to a movie yesterday after lunch, but as it was too late then to book seats and the idea of standing in a queue was not attractive we took seats for Monday. Later we went a walk; along the front and then, in order to get warm, up the hill and back along a high level road still under construction. It amused us to hear the shrill whistle of the little train from far below us and to see dimly the passage of it on a stretch of the line visible between house tops. The names of the houses give me pleasure. Next to one called Sunkissed is another called Kismet; which caused me to wonder whether Nelson’s words were “Kismet” and not “Kiss me, Hardy.” when he had been shot: the former makes more sense and Hardy would have mistaken it for “Kiss me”, easily enough.
Wind has been succeeded by rain. There is a solid sound of dripping onto the ceiling above my bed and I am wondering how long it will be before the water comes through. It is quite likely that the violent wind of two nights ago loosened the tiles. It is most unlikely on the other hand that anything will be done to stop any leak that there may be. During the wind which was really alarming I heard the noise of metal rattling and looked out from the verandah to see a large round object trundling sedately along the middle of the road; just at that moment there came a violent gust and simultaneously a woman’s voice calling “Oh! our dust-bin has blown away!” – and at once, as if it had been a dog escaping, the dust-bin leapt in the air and went off in great bounds as far as the corner. All seen dimly in the moonlight.
The pits in my jaw from which the teeth came out are almost healed but the cut made during the search for the bit of tooth last week is not doing too well; I am tired of having a mucks-taste in my mouth. It would be a relief to get news as to the decision of the Secretary of State: I do not know how I could get a medical certificate about extension of leave, for one cannot see a doctor without making an appointment weeks in advance unless something serious is wrong and to get two together to form a Board would probably be impossible. There is a great outcry about the number of doctors who have joined up and who are not doing any medical work; and the papers say that some will be reverted to civil duties.
Much love
Dad