We had a queer cheap hotel with a worn staircarpet and shutters and a courtyard and 6 floors of tall rooms, but lovely bread and coffee for breakfast and a proper table and chairs so we could eat the supplies I brought from homely Sainsbury’s – just one dinner out in a student restaurant but we felt it didn’t matter going in as there were many families with children there, and it was delicious.
Mrs Cassavetti received us very kindly in a lovely flat in the Rue St Jacques near the Sorbonne and all the bookshops – she doesn’t seem to have tea, only vodka, and wears sleeveless dresses all the time – trendy long-haired children come in from various lycées – terrible painting done by the eldest boy of himself as he would look in a film he would like to make of Edgar Allan Poe – well, you can imagine it. Unfortunately Daddy mistook a shaggy-looking teen-ager, brought in by the 14-year old daughter, for Mrs Cassavetti’s son, and kept addressing him as such, although he didn’t know a word of English, but I hope this didn’t notice too much. It was impossible to make him understand by signs.
John rang up last night and said he’d be seeing you – I don’t know whether to ask him round, but of course he knows I’m pretty well always there! He said he’d thought up another half of a theorem which seemed good news.
I’m reading for my bedtime book Eliz: Wordsworth’s account of how she founded LMH – worried about the view over the men’s tennis courts which was quite undesirable. I’m sure she was a great woman, however.
Hope so much that you, your work and your bike are going well and that you got the £££ safely –
much love always
Ma
185 Poynders Gardens, sw4
25 November [1972]
Dearest Ria,
Nothing to say really, just to wish you well and hope you have your heating on! Tina as I expect she told you got half frozen to death on the Teachers’ Protest March and when I met her at the Polytechnic she was quite blue – I think only the cold had kept her awake! She says she’ll get a warmer jacket for the winter.
I’ve laid out all the surplus Xmas presents and feel quite helpless as I can remember nothing – in particular who had sauna soap last year. I’ve got two nice shopping lists, but there again I believe I sent away quite a few of these last year, who wants one anyway? But that of course isn’t the point at all. I notice that Heals and Liberty’s although they’re nicely got up have in fact brought out a lot of last year’s stock again, and I sympathise with them.
Daddy has had another tooth out and is in bed feeling poorly. Mr Robinson threatens still more extractions just before Christmas! But as I tell him it’s just like my specs: once he’s got his snappers in he will get used to them and I’m sure he’ll find it much easier to manage, he’ll be able to eat with slight graceful movements! I’ve actually laid out the money to get a radio, so he’s got that in his room with him and can listen to many newses. The music sounds quite nice, but of course after stereo all music reproduction sounds funny. I’d so much like one, a record player I mean, but Valpy and A. (who are definitely coming to Mary for Christmas by the way) spend £5 a fortnight (I think) on records and I could never do that. They haven’t got the Messiaen Et Expecto, the one I like, but they played me some Elgar. I haven’t heard myself from Valpy so hope baby Gregory is going along all right. But Tina thinks it will be a girl. It’ll be awful when physiologists are able to tell you which it is – it will take all the anticipation out of life.
Nearly all the shops in Balham High St are shut and ruined – large holes in the side streets. Woollies has been done over with terrible fluorescent lights like an interrogation chamber and crude colours, and all the nice pins and needles and screws and things have been taken away so you can’t get anything you want – racks of orange nylon nighties. The supervisor tells me it’s given her a headache and ‘she’s in the hands of the doctor’.
much love darling
Mum.
185 Poynders Gardens
London, sw4
30 November [1972]
Dearest Ria –
A lovely day off, while they take their entrance exams, and though I seem to have spent all of it running round in circles (with a nice spell of sunshine in the Agnes Riley), I thought I’d at least make sure to write my letters! And thankyou so much for yours.
The car is said by the scoundrelly mechanic at Chiswick to be getting on all right – I hope it is: then of course it’s got to be retested, but they said that would be all right if the minor repairs were done – though they thought this year wd. be its last and I fear it will.
We went to ‘Patience’ on Tues. at the Coliseum – it was really nice and they had wonderful ‘aesthetic’ costumes and art nouveau settings, and the singing was good. On Fri: we have to go to the John Arden King Arthur at the Aldwych – it starts at 6.45 so we have to take sandwiches – it seems that John Arden is picketing the theatre as his play is being misinterpreted – I wonder if we’ll be the only people in the theatre? Anyway Patience was very full, which was nice. I shan’t forget your heroism in accompanying me to the ‘Kabuki.’
It was rather terrible because Mrs Slack, the Chemistry teacher at Q. Gate, whom I like very much, had left her husband at home with a bit of a cold and when she got back he’d got up and was sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea and when she went up to him he was dead – a horrible shock and she insists on coming back next week, you know the way people are.
I quite understand about the work and if the upstairs neighbours are very noisy which I fear they are as they’ve now grown larger and fiercer, I’ll gladly pay your fares to the Science Museum library every day if you’d like to work there – or anywhere quiet you’d like to go.
The lino-cutting things are all ready for your Xmas card! I’m meeting Tina on Saturday a.m. to contribute my Xmas present towards a winter coat – 10 o’clock to join the battle at Peter Robinson’s – hope to emerge unscathed –
much love always Ma. X
[postcard]
3 December [1972]
Just to thank you for letter – they do cheer me up – and to say that the Chiswick man has not yet got all spare parts tho’ he says by end of next week but I cannot rely on this. So if you could manage up by train – let us know and Daddy will meet anyway and carry bags: sorry about record player but you can have my new radio in your room as fixture during vac: looking forward to seeing my favourite postwoman –
Love Ma
185 Poynders Gardens
London, sw4
20 January [1973]
Dearest Ria,
The place certainly seems empty without you, but I should be grateful I know, because if you have 3 children and they leave home gradually you at least have a chance to get used to it. I am just tidying up and hoovering, and have put all loose papers, letters &c into a folder for you to check over when you come back. I have thrown away the apple cores, and also the berries in the milk bottle as the water was fermenting. The cactus is struggling along.
We have just been to the annual meeting of the Clapham Antiquarian society – Daddy said I got just as excited as a child at a birthday party, but I reminded him I hardly get any outings, but usually have to go out by myself as I did to Lord Hardinge’s. There was an enormous tea provided by the ladies, with sandwiches and angel cakes, and Mrs Billington gave a talk with holiday snaps which actually ended ‘and so farewell to exotic Istanbul’ with a sunset postcard. My nice friend from the old Russian classes was there. It was all v. exhausting for Daddy but he has been home 3 days now and says pottering about has given him a distended stomach – and in fact it’s just like a baby’s, quite full of air – I do hope he’s all right. I think he has had a really nasty time with these teeth but by Sunday he should be better as he’s kept quiet and warm.
I also had a nice tea-party with old Mary Chamot, who has now been entrusted with buying drawings by the New Zealand National Art Gallery, and she has been getting some Renaissance drawings for them on appro: which she showed us. Un
fortunately all the little patisseries and things she gets are rather stale, as she never eats them herself. She’s now got a lodger, a young scientist from London University. She charges him £6 for his room and all heating and breakfast and supper when he wants, which is not bad, but I wonder how he likes it. I heard him creeping about in the kitchen and longed to see him but he understandably didn’t come in to tea.
Tina rang up to know what colour the earthing wire was on a plug as she has decided to use her spare fire, I’m so glad as it looks like snow. She says she has bought a new pair of trousers (green) to go to a party, I can’t keep up with all the trousers you’ve got between you.
I feel very achy and elderly this evening and am beginning to see how useless it is to worry, as everyone does what they want anyway and it is best not to care so much. So much pain is caused by the illusions and dreams you can’t help making for yourself – no-one can – when your children are tiny and just sit on your lap and can’t speak and tell you that they’ll soon be individuals with quite other ideas.
I shall get my draft next week and will send you some £££ in a leaflet for safety so don’t throw away any leaflets! Thinking of you and glad your collection is over by now and your room is nice and warm. I expect you’re already swept up into everything.
much love X Mum
I can’t get on with Mrs Smith the new English teacher. She is Warm and Generous and Splendid and has blonde hair, sometimes in a pigtail though she isn’t much younger than I am, and calls Kuala Lumpur ‘old K.L.’ and says she misses the cocktail parties. I wonder why she left?
185 Poynders Gardens
London, sw4
2 February [1973]
Dearest Ria,
Here are the pix – the negatives are here as I did want one or 2 for my never stuck-in album! When I look through my Memories I despair of ever getting albums large enough to put them in, I shall just have to bequeath them to you, but they’re all safe. – I think some of the pix are really rather good, and get the feeling of coldness, and that sort of golden light of the very short afternoon.
When Tina comes back she will tell me about Easter, but if you are coming back for Easter I shall CERTAINLY be here, though T and T will be in the caravan.
I went down to Bristol yesterday for Mrs Fisher’s* funeral – of course took the wrong train and arrived at a station 10 miles out of Bristol, but got there somehow in time, with my woolly hat askew, and my flowers dreadfully crushed. Afterward we had a family lunch at Christopher’s house in Bath which I rather enjoyed though I got a pain from eating some pâté. Saw many relatives I haven’t seen for years – we were all immensely old – but they’d all got so stout, I felt quite thin! Except Edmund’s** new wife who is 27, over 6 foot, and as thin as a bean-pole. Promise me to spare yourself and knock off work sometimes and have a cup of tea and a nice think. Would Feb 22 be any good to come and see you?
much love X Ma
Queens Gate
13 February [1973]
Dearest Ria,
I enclose one of the driving test forms, but Daddy is going ahead independently and is trying to get them to send you another card, which I could keep for you in the well-known black bag. I also enclose £40, I hope you can manage through somehow until this arrives, and apologise for the delay.
I was very lucky to get a cold sunny day at Oxford, my favourite weather, and very glad indeed to see you, it seemed rather a long time, but then it always begins to be the moment you go out of the door! But I’m not getting depressed, don’t think that. I’m happy with my pebble-polisher and picture books in the evening of life, and much cheered by seeing you.
I still have hacking cough, although I felt better after our seaside expedition to Deal on Sunday. The wind on the beach was amazing, but not too strong to prevent me staggering about and picking up pebbles. Your grey one came out very nicely by the way. I like Deal – it’s full of mouldering houses and pubs with gilt lettering and has a general decayed air that suits me.
Venice is all right so far – Tina says they’d like to come too but the trouble is that we can only get 2 double rooms, and I’m sure she wouldn’t like to leave Terry for the wk: end, otherwise you and she could go in together of course but I don’t know that she means it seriously.
Ria, I know you’ll consider it open-mindedly if I ask you – would it be possible to have your party in John’s room if he’s still in it? – it’s not the money – I wd: contribute to it gladly, indeed I’d like to, because it ought to be a nice party – but I’ve been at such pains to quiet the neighbours and have at last managed to get them to be quiet some of the time, and I feel very much that even one party would give them an excuse to start again, and I feel the flat isn’t suitable a bit for a party where everyone comes in and brings drink, whereas as John is leaving the room anyway he mightn’t mind: I would write to him myself but I thought it would certainly not be the right thing to do without consulting you first.
Please be indulgent about this and believe that I love you very much,
Love X always X Ma.
185 Poynders Gardens
London, sw4
17 February [1973]
Dearest Ria,
How lovely to have so many valentines – I had only one! A large blue one with very red roses – you can guess who from, but I was very lucky to get even that at my age. I also received 2 bottles of sno-pak to eliminate typing errors.
On Wednesday we ladies went in a flock (me, Mme. de Baissac, Susie Svoboda our German art historian, Mary Chamot and another lady) to Lord David Cecil’s lecture at the R.A. on Rossetti, it was abysmal and even he seemed to feel there was something wrong with it as he shuffled his feet and kept consulting his watch: however I enjoyed the girlish outing, and afterwards we all went to Charing Cross station, so that everyone could catch their trains, and sat looking like bedraggled hens on our smart white stools. Mary Chamot mysteriously produced a wonderful fur hat and coat which she got in Moscow before the First World War and wears in cold weather, and this lent distinction to our queer party.
Tina tells me she has a dreadful cold and a red nose, but quite a lot of gas as they’re on the North Sea. Valpy has I suppose a bit more leisure, as I see the Economics research graduates have refused to teach the undergraduates any more until their complaints are dealt with. Anyway I had a p.c. from Angie saying she liked the pink jacket (my last effort) and that baby was already in position and she thought it would come early, but one always does think that, and you got into position and out again 6 times (Yes! It’s impossible now to stop me telling these morbid anecdotes, but I shan’t mention them to Angie.)
Very exhausted after long session with Mr Bunting our local tenant association organiser. He is a communist as I thought and those ‘students’ he sent around to make that enquiry, and I wouldn’t answer one of their questions, were communists as I thought: I wouldn’t have minded if they’d been honest enough to say so. He’s mad, and wants the council to rail off Poynders Rd. with a steel fence. I advised him to read St Matthew, so lucky that Daddy was snoozing, and couldn’t come.
X love Mum
In Bed!
Sunday 20 [February 1973]
Dearest Ria,
Unfortunately I have a queer go of flu, and a feeling in my lungs (I feel it in my chest but I suppose it’s lungs) like broken glass – I’m very anxious to go into work on Monday as I’m fighting a battle with Mrs Odescalchi, who says she has too much correcting to do and wants to reorganise things in such a way that she does even less – so I must miss Mary’s lunch party and stay in bed – only I think I’ll have to get up a bit while Daddy’s out because he hasn’t cleaned anything.
I felt all right yesterday p.m., it just came on in the evening: the night before I kept getting up and trying to open my stone-polishing tumbler, because it was stuck, and so didn’t sleep, so perhaps that brought it on. Enough of my symptoms, you’ll say.
The Annual General meeting of the Clapham Antiquarians passed o
ff quite well except when I went down to the Church hall kitchen to help Mrs Smith (the treasurer’s wife, in a green hat and cardigan) to get the tea (for 47 famished members) she was having a crise de nerfs, she told me she’d been worrying the whole of the week about the tea for the meeting, and, do what I could, I couldn’t get her to put on more than one kettle, so the tea could only be made in small relays and the Antiquarians, who’d already sat down and eaten all the cakes, were getting quite riotous. I brought some sausage rolls but as soon as Daddy started handing them round they disappeared, everyone said they fancied something savoury. Unfortunately I dropped off to sleep during the talk with lantern slides, so missed many interesting facts about Clapham, I’ve always wanted to know about ‘Rosemead’ but I’ll never know now whether Mr Smith said anything about it or not.
Tina and I got a lovely pair of shoes at Ravels, and a pair of pyjamas with Swiss embroidery at Marks for Valpy. I have your gifts of course to give to Tina next Sunday. Tina much exercised about their holiday. She thinks of swapping flats with Austrian teachers, or cottage, but all these mean shopping, cooking and cleaning and she agreed that she ought to stop doing that for a fortnight. These mortgages certainly do make a lot of financial wear and tear, though well worth it to get a nice place.
John dropped in with the keys looking rather tired, but I was so glad you could go back by car after all and the gears certainly work better now.
I’m very annoyed with myself that I can’t manage to do more in the evening. All this dropping off must cease. After all I hardly ever go out so I should be able to get more done. One must justify one’s existence.
It was lovely having you back for the vac: and needless to say we miss you immensely, but I mustn’t give way to this feeling too much – Let me know how everything is.
So I Have Thought of You Page 17