The British Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcasting House
London. W1
5 December 1940
My dear Ham,
I was sorry and regretful not to be able to call in at the Cumberland the other day – by the way I consider you were what I should call rather cagey about these marble halls all the weekend long, and I was very disappointed not to be allowed to have tea or to book a theatre ticket or a piece of scented soap in the vestibule. However. What is even sadder as far as I am concerned is that I don’t believe that this dubious organisation will let me go off to Oxford, or rather they may let me off late on Saturday but too late to make it worth while. I have had to sign their grasping contract which says that I have to devote all my time attention and skill, within reasonable limits, to the service of the Corporation. I don’t consider Saturday afternoon reasonable, but I suppose it is thought, or rather deemed, as they put it, reasonable by the B.B.C.
So far as I can see I shall miss you, and Jeanie, and Janet all at one swoop and you will have a gay and perhaps even hectic party, according to my notions of Oxford, without me. I am very depressed too and need cheering up, as Rawle’s embarkation leave finishes on Thursday and I have horrid moments when I wake up in the middle of the night and calculate just how many minutes he has left just like the end of the holidays used to be. Well I mustn’t complain as it is tiresome,
love,
Mops.
16 Avenue Close, NW8
[On Broadcasting House headed paper]
11 February 1941
My dear Ham,
Of course I should like to hear from you very much, as I have often wondered lately how you are and what you have been doing, and however surprised I may be at being called a harpy, I am always flattered at being wanted as a correspondent.
In London we are all preparing to snipe at the Germans out of the dining-room windows, and poor Mrs Breakwell is a fountain of tears. I have become very common, and drink cups of tea in the morning,
love,
Mops.
16 Avenue Close
Avenue Road, NW8
19 March 1941
My dear Ham,
Thankyou for your letter. I am glad you are so well and enjoying the spring in Devon
The pleasant cow, both red and white,
I love with all my heart;
She gives me cream with all her might
To eat with apple tart –
And I am glad too that you are pleased with your move to Taunton, but as I thought you were there already I cannot feel the surprise I should.
Poor Janet is recovering from her measles and will soon move to London, to her special post in the bosom, so to speak, of the Minister.
The BBC is not exactly tedious, in fact it is rent with scandals and there are dreadful quarrels in the canteen about liberty, the peoples’ convention, &c, and the air is dark with flying spoons and dishes. Miss Stevens poured some tea down Mr Fletcher’s neck the other day. He knew Freud who told him the term inferiority complex was a mistranslation and there was really no such thing. I have to eat all the time to keep my spirits up, so I am getting quite fat. We are doing a programme called ‘These Things are English’, with the funeral of George V, beer, cricket, people singing in the underground &c. I think the people singing only express their own fierce triumph in getting the better of the London Passenger Transport Board. Besides, they all sing ‘I wouldn’t change my little wooden bunk for anywhere else in the world’. We had a mock invasion the other day. We were overpowered in 5 minutes as the officers in charge of the defence forgot their passes and couldn’t get into B.H.* We have heard from Rawle to say he is safe in India. How horrid you were to me Ham! But all the same you have my best wishes – love – Mops.
P.S. The windows of Marshall and Snelgroves are entirely filled with scarves printed ‘Grim but Gay’ and ‘This is a war of unknown warriors’, papier maché bulldogs, and photographs of Winston Churchill with an old-fashioned sporting-gun.
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
14 May [1978]
Dear Ham,
Thankyou so much for your card and kind message – I don’t know why I put an entry into the Somerville mag, indeed don’t remember doing so, but I’m glad now that I did. I’m not quite sure why I’ve taken to writing either, but it’s better than weaving, hand-printing &c in that it represents a slight profit rather than a large loss for the amateur; also it struck me that I was getting to the end of my life and would like to write one or 2 biographies of people I loved, and novels about people I didn’t like, put it that way.
My husband died the summer before last, but I’m lucky in that my elder daughter and her husband moved me into the ground floor of their house (the mortgage company’s house) in Battersea, so I don’t have to feel alone.
I don’t know where anyone is except of course Janet and Jean, and have only heard distantly about Jimmy Fisher when my nephew was articled as a solicitor to Theodore G. – I remember him playing Bach however, through I don’t know how many years.
I’d love to come and see you and your wife, and I’ll ring up next week if I may.
love,
Penelope
2 October [1978]
Thankyou so much for a happy day at the Vineyard, for lunch, and for the opportunity to meet some of your family, your tortoises and your pictures, also for making me feel that enormous numbers of years haven’t passed, after all – you were so kind and hospitable, and, whatever I feel about Bloomsbury, believe me I’m heart and soul in the success of the Newsletter – love and best wishes – Mops
[25 Almeric Road]
[6 November 1978]
Thankyou so much for the kind congratulations.* Prize unfortunately is going not to me but to someone who doesn’t need the £££ – my publisher asked if the runners-up couldn’t all have £100 and a package trip to Bulgaria, like the Miss World contestants, but they were adamant – hope you had a good grape-harvest – I made chutney out of my 6 bunches.
love Mops
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
2 May [1979]
Dear Ham and Penny.
Thankyou so much – it was a lovely dinner which more than made up for the melancholy of realising how many years had passed. I could hardly believe the photographs (all mine went down to the bottom of the Thames when our houseboat sank on Chelsea Reach) – especially of Mrs Breakwell – As I was going home on the bus I remembered her ringing up my father to tell him to come to a Greek restaurant to meet Cyril Falls (how did he come into it?) – ‘It’s a Greek name – D-E.M.O.S, DEMOS’ – ‘yes’, said my father sadly ‘I’m familiar with the word.’ However, I’m writing not really to open the endless store of anecdotes but to thank you and say how much I enjoyed myself – only I was sorry not to see a little more of William-
love,
Mops.
76 Clifton Hill
London, NW8
[postcard]
15 January 1983
Thankyou so much for Charleston material, on which I most sincerely think you’ve done wonders, I wish you absolutely all success in spite of my reservations about some of the personnel.* Next Sat (22nd) I’m going to Somerset and could I think find a copy of a play written by one of my uncles** about L. Strachey, M. Keynes and when they were all at Cambridge (c. 1910), from which you might take a short extract, if that’s not too remote, I’m not quite sure what kind of thing is wanted really, I’ll send it unless you say no (and if it hasn’t mouldered away in the damp wet country) – love Mops
Theale Post Office Stores
Wedmore, Somerset
22 January [1983]
My dear Ham,
Alas, I can’t find any of my notebooks at Theale at the moment – they were in the garage, which is in the process of being turned into a hen-roost – so Dilly’s play (which is very good really) isn’t to hand, but I’m not sure you were very taken by the idea anyway! – I
enclose a couple of paragraphs in the hope of their being of use, but shan’t of course mind a bit if they’re not wanted – there’s always the WPB,† as my grandfather used to say –
love Mops
P.T.O.
I don’t for a moment say that Q. Bell* &c are rich, but I do say that they’ve turned their family, and connections, into an industry, with the help of Michael Holroyd (who is always so kind and polite to us all) – and I think it allowable to feel that they might support Charleston out of all the £££ and dollars that they have made out of digging out and publishing their family skeletons. That’s all I meant! But I think there are some others who think as I do. –
76 Clifton Hill, NW8
31 January [1986]
My dear Ham,
Do send me Quentin B.’s Bloomsbury and I’ll write something (how long?) in case it’s any use to the Newsletter – only I can’t guarantee to be rude as he’s such a good writer – I think it was awe, rather than hatred, that we shabby long-ago Georgians felt – and I did think, although this of course isn’t something to be mentioned in the Newsletter that Nigel Nicolson in particular has made enough money out of his ma’s old letters discovered by chance in the attic, &c, to pay for Charleston without any public subscription, but I’ve come to see I was wrong.
I do hope PEN** is allowed to come in the summer, though hitherto Francis King† has always shepherded us in a large coach, and I don’t know whether Michael Holroyd would be prepared to do that – perhaps he would. We’ll see!
Unfortunately, since the Arts Council subsidy was withdrawn, PEN has to spend half its time raising £££, like everyone else.
Must now summon up energy to go and see new grandchild, who has arrived in Holland, from Nicaragua, and I do so very much want to, only it’s so cold –
love
Mops
76 Clifton Hill
London, NW8
21 February [1986]
Dear Ham,
I didn’t mean to criticise the Alpine Gallery exhibition – I only thought, & still have to think, that Freshwater* is rubbish, but then it was only intended for home consumption – it was a very good exhibition, very well hung in a difficult gallery not too well suited to it, and I was only sorry to miss you and Penny.
While on the subject of criticism, I’ve sent a notice of Bloomsbury, but if you don’t like it do throw it away, or cut bits out. I’m glad to have the new edition anyway, although I do think it was disimproved as they say in N. Ireland.
If you use it, and want a bit about me, could you say that I’m a biographer and novelist (a word I still prefer to ‘fictioneer’). Burne-Jones is the only biography I’ve done that is of any kind of interest to the Friends of C., I imagine, as after all he did paint Mrs Stephen pregnant with Vanessa in one of his Annunciations. That came out in 1975, and then I was given the Booker award in 1979 for Offshore. What a long time ago all this was. I’ve got a new novel about Florence coming out this autumn, I think – that is if Collins survives all its frightful present disputes.
I must tell you that when we went to Rodmell some of the PEN members were very disappointed, feeling that V. Woolf ‘couldn’t have done very well’. They expected it to be a house like Barbara Cartland’s –
love, Mops
Best wishes for the cellars.
27a Bishop’s Road, N6
29 October [1988]
My dear Ham,
Thankyou so much for taking time to write what, I daresay, is your 101st letter of the day – I quite agree about the judges,** and Michael Foot* drifted alarmingly in his (supposedly) summing-up speech, telling us repeatedly that Walter Scott was ‘another conservative’. Also the stately corridors of the Guildhall were lined with police, as Salman R.** claimed that a threat had been made against his life and he was in imminent danger, still there were plenty of people there and Ria and I enjoyed ourselves very much and were taken about in a car from the Collins fleet, for the last time I fear. All this is quite good for business. But now I have to write another novel.
I’m glad that the envelope sale went so well, but now they’ll expect you to produce another brilliant notion, you’ll see.
Tommy feels he would like a tortoise, but I suppose the spring would be the best time
much love to you and Penny
Mops
27a Bishop’s Road
London, N6
26 January [1992]
Dear Ham and Penny,
Thankyou so very much in the first place for a splendid lunch, although I only discovered at the last moment that the rabbit was done with chocolate, in an improvement surely on the Mexican style. – And it was a great treat to meet Katharine – who may well not spell her name like that at all, so forgive me – she was so interesting, and also interested in everything that everyone else was doing, a great gift, not a very common one though.
In respect to Wittgenstein, I do hope you liked Ray Monk’s biography – I had to help judge the Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the year before last, and I thought it far and away the best book, even though some good ones were sent in, perhaps because Ray M. is a philosopher himself, although, as it turned out, a young and cheerful one – anyway he got the prize and I am sure he deserved it.
On the other hand, in respect to Skidelsky, I consider that Ham in fact has been singularly patient with this absurdly irritating man – I daresay he knows a lot about Keynes, but he’d have to be ashamed of himself if he didn’t. Thinking about Skidelsky, and even feeling irritated by him, is a waste of precious time. – What I should like to know is what you’re going to undertake next. If only there was someone with your persuasiveness and ruthless energy to defend the Public Library Service. Here in dreaded Haringey, to which Highgate unwillingly belongs, they’re going to close all 7 branch libraries, the music and the mobile libraries, because reading isn’t a priority leisure resource. It’s all very depressing. Last year we managed to get the closures put off and I had to go to a party with non-alcoholic champagne made with pears, at 10 o’clock in the morning.
I so much enjoyed seeing you, thankyou once again for asking me –
love
Mops
I take it the tortoise isn’t stirring yet
27a Bishop’s Road
Highgate, N6
11 September [c.1995]
Dear Ham and Penny,
What a lovely lunch party – if I wasn’t afraid you might think me sentimental, or perhaps even feeble-witted, I could say how happy it made me to sit and talk to people I’m so fond of and to see you both again, and Janet, (this ought to be easy enough but hasn’t proved to be so at all), and then Alyson,* who I hardly expected to come but of course she did, calm and smiling as ever, though whether she really always feels so calm I can’t tell. I enjoyed myself so much, and still haven’t said anything about the lunch itself, which, after Penny had said, as a kind of afterthought, ‘I must do some cooking’, seemed to produce itself by magic and was so delicious.
Janet’s energy, and genuine interest in everything, is wonderful – I had thought it a merciful dispensation of nature that I like things less and less (though a few things more and more) but Janet makes me feel that’s not so, and I must try to wake up a little.
Thankyou again, it was a Sunday to remember –
love, Mops
Just looking at the photograph of Jonathan Pryce as L. S. (he is a parent at the church school where Thomas and Sophie go) – I’ve never seen Carrington but I have seen Lytton Strachey and I think the Pryce make-up (I last saw him as Fagin) is very successful. But I suppose it’s an easy one to do. –
[summer 1996 – after PMF’s 80th birthday party]
Dear Ham –
I’m so glad you and Penny enjoyed the party and it was lovely to see you – the last day of summer.
By ‘one stroke’ I meant the kind of bike people used to have, with an engine you switched on when you were going uphill.
I don’t agree that the children in my novels are
precious. They’re exactly like my own children, who always noticed everything.
As to ‘may’ for ‘might’, it is frightful, and we must do all we can to eradicate it. I think it’s American and they think it’s the subjunctive. –
Love to you and Penny – Mops
- Hibernating time now I imagine.
27a Bishop’s Road, N6
15 February [late 1990s]
My dear Ham,
Thankyou so much for sending me the evidence, which only confirms what I’ve always thought, that the intensely unpleasant atmosphere of Bloomsbury (which must have come close to choking poor Leonard, for example) has lingered on in what racing people call their ‘connections’. There is a Byzantine feeling, they will all end up poisoning each other. That is the moral.
Your statement of course is surely very restrained, as there are so many things you might have mentioned – the colour photographs in the Newsletter for example – but it was better to leave it as you have, as an absolutely clear account of a deliberate decision to make you resign. They took advantage of your not being there. Their next step, I suppose, will be to elect somebody as Chairman, or President, or whatever, of the Friends, in spite of having said that they weren’t going to.
Judging from the few societies I belong to, something like this always happens – (I think Alyson would confirm that it particularly does at the William Morris). – Another example would be the Arts Council where Lord Gowrie seems to have jockeyed Michael Holroyd off the literature panel for no reason whatever except a love of pushing and shoving. But I’m sure that you were right to resign now and, as I find it difficult to imagine you without something to organise – something worth while, I should add – I suppose and hope that you’re looking round, or at least leaving yourself open for the next field of action.
So I Have Thought of You Page 7