A Very Private Eye: The Diaries, Letters and Notebooks of Barbara Pym

by Barbara Pym

  I had a hot journey but managed to catch all the connections – I slept a little and read The Lover by Naomi Royde Smith which G. says (in this week’s Introducing) he thinks would make a good Radio Play. It’s rather sad, the cold places in the heart, the ashes and Devouring Time or Time the Great Healer – anyway Nor in thy marble vault shall sound my echoing song.…

  Sunday 4 July. Independence Day, and we were not allowed to forget it! Quite right of course, but I wonder why I can’t listen to modem American music. Strawberries for lunch – afternoon in the garden reading an excellent novel Two Days in Aragon by M. J. Farrell. Very penetrating – about sorrow going to the stomach too!

  ‘I leaned my back unto an oak – I thought it was a trusty tree’ – the other day Honor and I were discussing the versions of ‘Waly, Waly’, especially the verse about gathering flowers and pricking my finger right to the bone. She quoted the oak verse and I wondered if the same thought was in both our minds – Gordon. But we neither of us said anything.

  Monday 5 July. Bristol. Crowded journey. I stood as far as Hereford – trying to read Browning but the train was going too fast. So I meditated and planned a grand future for myself including a new love to smooth out everything! At Hereford I got a corner, ate my sandwiches and slept. Managed to get back to the Coppice in a taxi by way of Blackboy Hill. Climbed in through the kitchen window. The house was locked. Lovely to see Honor again, and Prue. We had tea then I cycled to the BBC and had a drink with Hilary – then to Uncle Vanya – a wonderful play and well acted. So very like the Coppice – except that we don’t sit down under our sorrows – no we are drearily splendid and even join the Wrens. And we have a more positive hope than ‘we shall rest’. But comic too. And we know we are comic – don’t we, my relique?

  Tuesday 6 July. A very busy typically Coppice last day. How can I bear to write about it. It’s raining, trees – the beach tree swaying in the wind – Julian shouting and Scarlatti on the wireless. Well, I will write – and I just can’t take it in. It just doesn’t seem real.… I went out in the pouring rain and shopped – then came back to a hasty lunch with Honor and preparations for Prue’s birthday party – she looking intolerably sweet in a white smock with my wreath of Austrian flowers in her hair. I wore my Christmas frock – we had a lovely tea. I did a lot of packing and tidying and we had supper – then I began writing this. After supper we listened to a John Betjeman programme in the How series – How to Look at a Town – simply delightful of course – ending up with a Non-conformist chapel! Then talking to Honor and telling her all the last minute things – news of HIM etc. In the morning I gave the first volume of this diary and his letters to her to keep.

  Wednesday 7 July. The worst time is definitely when you wake up on the morning you’re going. I woke at six, having set the alarm for seven. I took Honor the last cup of tea for some time. The taxi came very early, soon after eight. Then goodbyes and I felt very wretched and couldn’t keep back my tears. They stood in the doorway, the dear Coppice porch with the antlers. Honor held my hand tight in the taxi and she was crying too. She and Prue and Julian came with me some of the way. As she said she and I were the worst possible people to be left together at the end. I was early at the station and got the best sort of corner – i.e. in control of the window – carriage empty except for two W.O.4’s – we talked all the way, so I hadn’t much time to brood. At Paddington I queued for a taxi and eventually got one – calling down the queue to find if anyone wanted Charing Cross I was joined by a stout jolly businessman from Birmingham and might have been seen driving through the park with him. He insisted on paying for the taxi. I left my luggage, looked out my train then went to Oxford Circus and into D.H. Evans, where I soon found myself in a queue explaining the intricacies of the Quick Lunch Bar to two Miss Moberlies [BP’s generic name for elderly gentlewomen]. I looked at a few shop windows but had little heart for it and less coupons so I took a taxi to Charing Cross where I had a cup of tea in the Buffet – now feeling calm and drained of all feeling. I got the 2.27 to Rochester – a bright green train that stopped at every station – including Greenwich. (How lovely if I were there one day.) Got to Rochester just before four and staggered along with my suitcase (helped by two kind Wrens) to the Training Depot.

  Pro-Wren at Rochester

  Well, the Nore Training Depot is a big North Oxford Victorian Gothic house, that looks like a Theological College – actually it was a school. I was in time for Tea Boat – afterwards changed my ration books etc. and got sheets. There was a lot of queueing and I felt a little low and strange – but not very. I have a cabin – Beehive XI – which I share with a girl of 19, my own class and quite nice. She has a long rather melancholy face and I can see her when she is older as an English gentlewoman – one of her names is Mildred. There are about fifty new pro-Wrens – most of them in teens and early twenties. I don’t think there are really any of our kind of people, though there are one or two pleasant ones.

  Making up a bunk is difficult, especially when you have the lower one and it is fixed against the wall. You must do hospital corners and the anchor on the blue and white quilt must be the right way up.

  For supper we had toad-in-the-hole and bread and jam. After that a talk from First Officer Dixon who was very kind and Third Officer Bolland – Quarters Officer, who was also very nice. A rather restless night, as there was thunder and the mattress and especially pillow are very hard.

  Thursday 8 July. Woke very early, still not feeling too bad. Rose at about 6.10 but couldn’t get into 7 o’clock breakfast as I have a No. 3 meal ticket – so had some rather melancholy hanging about – I was glad not to be a steward when I saw them sweeping and scrubbing the coloured tiled passage by the mess. (Yes, we have varnished pitch pine too.) Made my bed and had breakfast 7.30 – scrambled egg and bacon, tea, bread, also cornflakes. Good! At 7.50 we had to muster on the parade ground and were taken in two lorries to R.N. Barracks, Chatham. Chatham is a cold windy place, as far as I could see, absolutely full of the Navy, of course. We stood in queues in various places for what seemed a long time. We are, on the whole, a silly giggly lot and look rather dreary in our motley civilian clothes – most of us wearing turbans. We are not allowed to go out without a hat or turban, but must not wear one in the mess. One soon gets used to it.

  First of all we had X-Ray of our chests – a rather impatient Surgeon-Commander who seemed rather irascible and one could hardly blame him. Then a visit to the dentist who said my teeth were all right. After that into the lorries again and back to Rochester in time for Tea Boat. After that we waited in the fo’c’sle for our separate interviews with First Officer. She said a few words to each of us – I heard her saying something about me – I must be made a note of or something – I suppose my white paper entry or something. I can see now that one must be in the ranks first!

  After lunch we went into the Captain’s office and had our qualifications taken down – that is all the writers, who have a ‘school’. We were given a list of ships in the Nore command and various naval abbreviations to learn.

  After Tea Boat we had a lecture on pay and allowances, during which I found it terribly difficult to keep awake – my head kept jerking and sometimes I was even dreaming! After that supper and letter writing and cigarettes in the fo’c’sle. Then I went out and met two others and went to the majestic Cinema – we had tea there. It is architecturally what one would expect – very pretentious and modern with steel chairs and palms – but all right for a cinema really.

  Friday 9 July. Woke quite early and got up just before seven to wash up for 7.30 breakfast. One washing up a day is all the fatigues we have to do. At 8.45 we attended our first Divisions – which is really prayers. We muster on the parade ground with the five Petty Officers and three officers. After various salutings First Officer reads prayers – we first have a roll call.

  After that we had our first squad drill with C.P.O. Penny. We learnt how to stand at attention and ease etc and also saluting which is more
difficult than it looks. Then Tea Boat – then again in the writers’ school – there isn’t very much to do apart from learning the commands, ranks and abbreviations. So sometimes, as now, I can write this diary. The shorthand typists practise but there’s nothing for the rest of us to do but chew over the abbreviations etc. Oh M. A./ S.B., D.E.M.S. and R.H.M. – Praise Ye the Lord etc.

  We had a lecture on Naval Customs and Traditions from a very amusing Lieutenant-Commander, quite good looking and not more than about forty five!

  After that I went to the YWCA with a girl called Vera Potts and we had supper there – baked beans, gooseberries and custard and tea. I never thought in the days when I used to serve in the old YM that I should be one of the Troops myself one day. Anyway one certainly appreciates it. There is a reading room with a wireless where one might be able to hear a little decent music. The wireless is always on in the fo’c’sle but always at the Forces Programme.

  Now as I write (Saturday 7.10 p.m.) there is ‘Ah Sweet Mystery of Life’ but very often it is ‘As Time goes By’ – ‘A kiss is still a kiss’ – well I wouldn’t know about that. After supper I went for a walk by myself. I walked up the Vines (a park opposite our house) and towards the Cathedral. There are some very decent Georgian houses around it – from one in a row I heard the sound of a Bach Prelude and Fugue on the piano – so I stopped to listen for a moment. I discovered a nice little old teashop (perhaps run by a widow of one of the Canons – or sister of the late Dean) with a lovely old rounded glass window – Also a nice set of tombstones and a well kept churchyard belonging to the Cathedral. And to crown all – as I looked through an archway into the main street I caught a glimpse of a rather pretentious GORDON HOTEL restaurant and grill room.

  And for about half an hour I was my old gothick self – the self that I’ve had to put off while I’ve been here – and it’s been quite easy – in fact I seem to have adapted myself quite happily to this life – and haven’t felt at all miserable yet. And it’s very hard to brood about Gordon or even the darling Coppice. Is this like an anaesthetic and will the effects wear off sometime? I can only wait and see.

  Saturday 10 July. A very long morning in the class room, not doing very much, but learning Plymouth and Portsmouth commands and writing this diary. It’s rather a bore sometimes not having very much to do. After lunch (a good one) we went to the pictures. I think the pictures are slightly nostalgic, also radio – they take you out of yourself, your new self, into your old one – but not too badly. I went with Peggy Wall, a quiet dark girl who seems to be about the best of our lot – she used to be secretary to a literary agent. She said as soon as she saw me she thought – I bet she’s going to write a novel about it. Well – who knows.

  Sunday 11 July. At 9 o’clock we had a short service in the Mess taken by a naval chaplain – it reminded me irresistibly of school – the chairs and the pitchpine-panelled hall and us singing ‘For all the Saints’ rather badly. After that we had an inspection and then were free for the rest of the day. I went to the Cathedral to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury preach. I noticed some nice wall-urns etc. – one to Henry King – young officer – Victorian. I had an excellent view of the Archbishop and also of an Admiral and a Vice-Admiral. My attention wandered rather during the sermon but I enjoyed the service and the singing.

  After Tea Boat I went out to post some letters and called at the Museum – it is quite well arranged, but has a great variety of things – mammoth’s tusks, Victorian shell and wool flowers under glass, arrowheads and of course Dickens. Various nice engravings – Sir Philip Sidney and Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, but not John Wilmot, ‘the dear Earl’.

  When I came back I washed my hair and went into supper with it rather wild and flowing but it is now setting in curls, very decorous – I am sitting in the comparatively deserted fo’c’sle – but the wireless still goes on – Happidrome, Sandy Macpherson and now Memories of Musical Comedy. This evening I should like to be at the Coppice with Honor, talking, having a cup of tea and then listening to Edward II – Marlowe’s – which is at 9.30. But I’m quite happy really – I keep expecting to be miserable but it hasn’t come yet. Just occasionally a phrase somewhere will strike me.

  Monday 12 July. We had Divisions and squad drill out on the grass in a fine drizzle of rain. AFS men and other Wrens drilled near us. It is quite fun except for the hanging about. I had a slight feeling of desolation, coming to myself a little and thinking but what am I doing here and why on earth am I standing out on the grass drilling with this curious crowd of women. Then Tea Boat and work – I laboriously copied out the Rosyth command and the functions of the Admiralty. A lovely letter from Honor, which cheered me up a lot, though I shed a few tears in the lavatory. All the dear Coppice scene was so beautifully painted – Honor in her curlers, Flora finding a nest of insects in her desk and Dick joyously examining them under the microscope – and my letter being passed round the Palmer teatable. After Tea Boat we had a lecture on Hygiene by a Surgeon-Captain – everything, but everything.

  At about 2.45 a.m. the siren went and we all had to troop down to the shelter – sad amid lines of washing. This is a bad time to be woken – we were there only about twenty minutes, then back to bed where I tossed and turned a little, with sad thoughts of Gordon.

  Tuesday 13 July. Went on a route march which was rather pleasant – we went by the river and had a nice view. After Tea Boat I had to go to Chatham again with eight others to have X-Rays done again. We went by bus with a rather plump wanton-looking Wren with gold rings in her ears and dark hair – and pink nails. It was all rather alarming and I felt as if I were going to cry! Of course I began imagining all sorts of things – I was in a Naval Hospital – I was invalided out. The Surgeon-Commander didn’t come near us, and we were X-Rayed by a young man, who was very reassuring. Still, he wouldn’t be able to tell us, even if he knew. My companions were so dreary, and there is something very alarming about medical apparatus – but I’ve never had anything wrong with me, so surely it’s all right. But we still didn’t know for certain. After supper we did some washing and romped like jolly schoolgirls in our cabins. But I’m not one really and it doesn’t come very naturally. The others are all so much younger. But if I’m at all desolate (and I’m not really) it isn’t in the same way as it was before. And I suppose there’s always the whimsical and perilous charm somewhere.… Another siren but we didn’t have to go down.

  Wednesday 14 July. I suppose I have become too introspective during the last six months – the luxury of having somebody to talk to, which of course I haven’t here.

  After that we had a practice Air-Raid Warning and went down to the shelter. When First Officer was taking the roll call she asked ‘Which is Pym?’ so out I came from behind the washing. But why did she ask – because of my white paper – or what?

  Thursday 15 July. A hot day. We went on a route march of nearly 4 miles. We passed a remarkably fine cemetery on a hill, white angels, and fine grass, which was being cut by a motor mower. I think it must be a public cemetery. Every day at the start of our march we pass a very nice eighteenth century church with a beautiful churchyard full of waving grass – and a lovely urn tomb. Nearby is always the sound of children’s voices singing – there must be a school here.

  It was a day of endless queueing and altogether TOO MANY WRENS, so that I could almost have packed my bag and gone. After a half hour’s queueing and waiting, we got PAY – £1 and 2 soap coupons – but I can’t work it out at all! After tea a lecture on Ranks and Badges – the Mess was very hot and crowded and I looked forward to a weekend in solitude.

  Friday 16 July. In the morning we had our writers’ test – it wasn’t so bad. I got the rates of pay right purely by luck as I hadn’t learned them properly. At 2.30 we had a lecture about firefighting given by a P. O. from Chatham. It was intolerably hot and crowded in the Mess and a great relief to go outside for the practical demonstration of the hose. After that a few volunteered to be lowered from an upper w
indow in a rope sling – I couldn’t have done it – it made me quite sick to look at it. After Tea Boat we were FREE – it was a glorious afternoon and a lovely sensation to be able to walk out to the shops – I went into Smiths, got a book to read at the weekend and bought a copy of Tristram Shandy, which I feel will be nice to have about. I also bought apples and cherries and a Radio Times. I spent a happy hour lying in my bunk eating and reading a Graham Greene novel.

  Saturday 17 July. Lovely hot day. We wrote our essay after Tea Boat. I wrote, as did most other people, on my impressions of Life in the Nore Command. As I write this I am in a nearly deserted fo’c’sle. I have heard the whole of Liszt’s Piano Concerto in E flat and am halfway through Hary Janos, though a group of stewards have suggested we should have Jack Leon.

  I feel apologetic for Kodaly when he makes a specially peculiar noise! And one eyes anyone who comes near the wireless with suspicion.

  Sunday 18 July. This was a Day of religions, or religious observance of different kinds. I began the day feeling very sad and aching for Honor and my friends and the Coppice. Tears pricking behind my eyes, terrible lump in the throat. Also I’d had no letters for a week, which is a long time in a strange place. The weight (or burden) of unshed tears – there was a phrase to that effect in the novel I’m reading now (Long Division by Hester Chapman). But as the day went on I gradually got better. It’s nearly always in the morning that one feels most homesick – by evening one is generally very happy and exuberant.

  We started off with a service in the Mess. We had a very good-looking Padre but with such an affected voice that it was difficult to concentrate on what he was saying. I got nothing from it. Then Margaret Earp and I went to the Cathedral – it was dark and cool and the service was very sparsely attended – the usual sprinkling of old ladies – a soldier or two, a few Wrens. We sang and prayed and there was a dry theological sermon about original sin from an old withered man. I felt yes, this is the end. What can one get from this but peace and the pleasure of music and the loftiness of the Cathedral? You couldn’t expect anyone to come in and be inspired or even very much comforted – at the best soothed a little. Or even rather damped down and saddened as I was. Age and dry bones.