Philip Larkin
Page 40
3 July 1960
My dear old creature,
A dull grey morning, with me lying on my sofa, a favourite position with me, but I can indulge it only in summer: in winter it takes me too far from the fire. I expect the weather will cheer up later in the day. Yesterday it was flat and dull and quite cold: the day was our Degree Day, wch means a ceremony in the City Hall, an “official lunch” at the University, and a “garden party” afterwards. I went to all three, & wish I hadn’t, they were extremely dull. At lunch I sat next to the Mayor & Mayoress of Retford. I thought of you and the many times you must have found yourself in similar circumstances. They were just ordinary people, but quite pleasant. The mayor kept glancing over to his wife and saying “Are you all right, Mother?” which she usually was. The garden party was miserable, I thought: as soon as I got home I plunged into a bath & fell into a daze, feeling all my fatigue and boredom being slowly soaked out of my bones till I almost expected to see it floating on the water like scum.
My telephone has just rung, & proved to be a wrong number. Great relief. I thought it might be someone wanting to go out for the day! Sociable creature! […]
Very much love
Philip
24 July 1960
Stocks Hotel, Sark, C.I.
Sunday
My dear old creature,
[…] Your letter was full of interest,1 but I was sorry to hear you hadn’t heard from me for so long – I wrote as soon as we got to Guernsey. I should have said that my poem was broadcast last night – 25th – but I forgot. Did you hear it? I didn’t.
You sound as if you had a lot of fun at the fair, especially aiming curtain rings:2
Here I have my new pair of binoculars & can sit watching gulls, oystercatchers, & cormorants when we are on the headlands. I am also taking some photographs wch I hope will preserve some of the beautiful scenery for me. As usual my stomach thinks that holiday food is a bit too much for it, & looks forward to the simple routine of Pearson Park. I was rather dashed to find that the kitchen staff here seemed to know I write poems! There are 4 lovely kittens here that are a continual joy to us: one scratched a child today wch gave us great pleasure.
Love,
Philip
1 18 July: ‘Well, what a week I had last week! The plumbers soon installed the new copper cistern and pipes, although they did a bit of damage too – chipped the bath, scraped some of the lino paint off the linoleum (which I expected) and knocked a bit out of the ceiling in the scullery. / The immersion heater is now fitted in the tank, and this morning a man from the Electricity department came and inspected it, and pronounced it all right.’
2 Eva had written on 18 July: ‘Last Saturday I went with Mrs Dexter and Lily to Coleaston to their Church Fête […] tryed [sic] to win a bottle of Ribena by aiming a curtain ring at it.’ Eva has mistaken the name of the village. Philip Pullen suggests that she meant Coleorton near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, nine miles from Loughborough (personal communication). Mrs Dexter was a friend of Eva’s in the 1950s and 1960s.
29 August 1960
Picture postcard1
[32 Pearson Park, Hull]
1 Boating Lake, East Park, Kingston upon Hull. Eva had been on holiday with Nellie in Llandudno from 13 to 28 August, staying in Hyde before and afterwards.
9 October 1960
My dear old creature,
[…] There doesn’t seem to be much news. The proper U.S. edition of my book has come out, wch is interesting I suppose. I am going out to Hessle tonight to collect my free copies. I wish I could write a few more! But just at present I feel that writing about my life is not what is needed, and it’s not interesting writing about anything else. Incidentally, the end of this month marks the end of my option with filthy Hartley, so that I can take my next book where I like. Goodbye for now, my dear old Exmoor-roaming creature.
Love,
P.
6 November 1960
My dear old creature,
Running rather late this morning! After waking about eight-fifteen I slept till eleven. I don’t get up earlier because the papers don’t come till after nine. Anyway, here I am just starting your letter at twenty to one. In no very gay mood, really (you’ll think “as usual”), but, to echo Kingsley in his new book, who says I have to feel all right, anyway?
I wonder if you have been reading John Betjeman’s poem in the S. Times?1 It seems an enjoyable piece of work in its way. I can’t understand why in retrospect he doesn’t see the family business as romantic and exciting: he certainly makes it sound so. I haven’t read it very closely, but I thought the last few lines good. It may be that the Spectator will send it to me for review, in wch case I shall have to think about it more deeply. I couldn’t write a poem like that myself: I don’t seem to have much in the way of childhood memories. There seems to have been a kind of barrier in me between whatever registers such things within one and the events I witnessed or experienced. For that matter there still is!
I wonder how Beauty is: better, I hope. Cat ’flu is very dangerous. A funny thing happened yesterday: as you know, I have a tape recorder, and sometimes amuse myself by reading poems into it. Yesterday I was reading G. M. Hopkins’s The Leaden Echo, which is a representation of an echoing voice saying that there’s no way of keeping beauty from decay, and with a good deal of repetition (like an echo), so that when I came to the words “keep back beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty, from vanishing away” I sounded so like Kitty calling the cat I wasn’t able to keep a straight voice. The recording is highly odd at that point in consequence.
I look forward to seeing your purple “high hat”.
I don’t know what to say about coming. As you may imagine Monica is very keen on my visiting whenever I can, since she is so low and unhappy and lonely, but I don’t want to come at an inconvenient time for you. I could I suppose just go & stay at Leicester and not see you, but this means coming again to see you! and then I shouldn’t feel happy about returning without seeing Monica, as she really does seem so near giving up, or perhaps paralysis wd be a better word. I wd go to Leicester this Saturday, but I have a meeting on Friday & couldn’t arrive till 10.28 p.m. wch is getting late for private hotels. Yet I really feel I ought to go. Would it be too much to ask if you would very kindly at once / send me a card saying whether my room wd be habitable on the 11th–12th, and if it wd be convenient for you if I inhabited it? Otherwise I think I shall go to Leicester, & not visit you till the 25th (I must have an intervening Saturday for the sake of my laundry). I apologise for troubling you like this: it is all very difficult.
Thank you for the cuttings. Do continue to look out for them.
Work is worrying me at present because that incompetent fat fool Farrell2 has let his work get quite out [of] hand again. I wish I could sack him. I suppose it doesn’t matter compared with illness & death. On wch gay note I must leave you.
Philip
1 ‘Summoned by Bells’ (1960).
2 John G. Farrell, Chief Cataloguer in the library.
13 November 1960
My dear old creature,
[…] Putting on the wireless at a quarter to eleven (breakfast time) I ran slap into the Cenotaph service again.1 This moves me more & more as years go by. The thought of all the men who died in the first world war exerts a powerful hold on my feelings. I wonder if it is because you used to tell me about it. Thomas Hardy used to ponder on the Napoleonic war, & collect stories from veterans in Chelsea Hospital: I can quite understand that. I paid a pound for a poppy yesterday. […]
I am surprised you didn’t think much of Betjeman’s poem.2 I thought the first instalment quite good. The second instalment today doesn’
t seem as good. I suppose there must have been some verse autobiographies before this one: the most famous is Wordsworth’s Prelude, though this mainly describes the growth of his mind & views. Betjeman’s is more concerned with little things wch he hits off very well I think. […]
Much love, Philip
1 Remembrance Sunday was 13 November in 1960.
2 On 8 November Eva had written: ‘Yes, I did read the John Betjeman poem in the S. Times, in fact I was awaiting its arrival. I liked it, up to a point, beyond that it seemed long and rather tiresome. Is he the first to write his life story in the form of a poem? Truly he cannot touch you, Creature, for real poetry. Some of yours are very beautiful.’
11 December 1960
32 Pearson Park, Hull
My dear creature,
I got back safely, more or less on time – but the journey is definitely taking ½ hour longer. We stopped at Nottingham, Mansfield & Doncaster. I sat next to a very irascible man between the last two, who thought I took up too much room.
Perhaps I did. But I think he was a bit dotty.
When I got to Hull I went to a Chinese restaurant & had something to eat – and I had eaten two apples on the way – so much for my not-eating-much line.
I do hope you are better by the time you get this. It was very kind of you to have everything so neat & comfortable when you haven’t been feeling well. I found the service extremely interesting,1 & only hope it doesn’t diminish our numbers at all!!2
Very best love,
Philip
1 Larkin had attended the confirmation ceremony of his niece Rosemary on Sunday 11 December. The following day he performed his duty as her godfather, sending a book concerning Christian beliefs. He wrote: ‘There is no doubt that anyone who wants to understand England – its history and literature and lots of other things – must understand Christianity because England is a Christian country. […] In the course of a year one hears the Bible read aloud in Church, and the fact that this has been going on for centuries has meant that what it says has soaked into our ways of thinking and speaking. I expect you have realised this already. […] But one can go farther & say that Christianity is our way of being good: when we say a person or an action is “good” we mean good in a way Christ taught. This is what being a Christian country means, as opposed to a Mohammedan or whatever the Chinese believe. […] I liked your dress: it was quite one of the few best.’
2 He fears that Rosemary will diminish the number of sceptics by becoming a believer.
18 December 1960
32 Pearson Park, Hull
My dear old creature,
[…] Monica is very undecided about what she should do for Christmas, but she thinks that if you are really sure she wouldn’t be causing extra trouble, & also that she wouldn’t be intruding on a family Christmas (!), she would be really very thankful to come & eat Christmas dinner. I said you had said she would be welcome if prepared to accept things as they are – and of course she is, & is ready to help with the washing up. I’ve explained that we prefer A. Nellie to have a rest after meals.1 […]
Love as ever Philip
1 In the event Monica did not go to 21 York Road for Christmas dinner.
1961
1 January 1961
32 Pearson Park, Hull
My dear old creature,
It is a solemn moment when one writes a new year for the first time, isn’t it? I hope we shall see the last of it as well as the first. I “sat up” for it, rather pointlessly, drinking up the remains of two bottles of whiskey on the double excuse that I was celebrating and also curing a cold. I haven’t exactly got a cold, but something is lurking about outside my physique, & I fancy I have a slight temperature. However! do not worry as I am quite confident I shall live.
[…] I really think someone should form a Christmas Abatement Society – there’d be plenty of members. You might even join it yourself.
When I went down for the papers this morning I found two little “toy” letters from the Duffin daughters, Amanda & Deborah, thanking me for the chocolates I’d left them. A kind thought on their part! I only spent a few shillings on each. Duffin made most of their presents – he had made a beautiful farmyard, & an equally beautiful shop. He says that toys are so dear & rickety they are really not worth buying.
Well, I must bring this letter to a close, & perhaps write a note to Monica. She is utterly depressed, more so than I have ever known her, & with reason.1
I washed those gloves last night, also my black jumper wch exuded blackness like a giant squid. The gloves get longer & longer – soon they will come up to my elbows.
Love & Happy New Year, P.
1 Andrew Motion cites a letter to Eva of this date as including the sentence: ‘I have built her in my own image and made her dependent on me, and now I can’t abandon her’ (Motion, Philip Larkin, 310, n. 12). These words do not occur in the full text of the above letter and their tone is more intimate than that which Larkin uses to Eva when writing of Monica.
5 January 1961
32 Pearson Park, Hull
My dear old creature,
Your letter-paper is so like pink-edged woollen underwear it made me laugh, but very welcome all the same. It arrived a day earlier. I’m glad you have enjoyed the remainder of Auntie Nellie’s stay: she is a cheerful bird in her way. As for the whiskey, I think I finished it last Christmas – pretty strong stuff it was, too, by that time. I’m sorry if I did you & her out of a drink of it.
My cleaner seemed to take to the Hoover, & did the place up very nicely.1 I used it myself on Monday night, when it was delivered, & got quite a lot of dirt in a short time. It’s rather like going hunting, isn’t it?
Monica & I are spending two nights at Lincoln on Friday & Saturday, so I may write for your birthday & not [come] Monday. Thanks for the Bunny news – I always love it.2 And thank you for the lovely Christmas!
Dear old creature!
Love Philip
1 In the letter of 1 January Larkin mentioned that he had bought a Hoover vacuum cleaner the previous day, and it was to be delivered on 2 January.
2 On 10 October 1960 Eva included with a letter a brief newspaper cutting. ‘BUNNY BUS SHELTER’, concerning a protest by residents of the village of Bunny at the proposal to move a bus stop. On 6 December she sent a cutting, ‘BUNNY’ recording the competition winner at a Brownies’ bring and buy sale in the village. Other cuttings followed, and through 1961–4 Philip would also send ‘Bunny news’ cuttings to Eva, with jokes about Bunny’s presumed rabbit inhabitants. The latest surviving cutting (an advertisement by Bunny Garage) was included by Eva in a letter of 12 October 1964.
8 January 1961
My very dear old creature,
A very, very happy day for you, dear old creature: a happy contented comfortable birthday, surrounded by the good wishes of your nearest & (I hope) dearest: no storms, or worries, or fires going out, & despite the time of year I hope it won’t be too cold. You say that the snow usually comes for your birthday, but this looks like one year when it won’t be there.1 […]
Our visit to Lincoln was successful & quite interesting in parts. We stayed at a hotel up by the cathedral (wch as I expect you know is on a steep hill), wch wasn’t as luxurious as it thought it was, but was all right: we wandered round the cathedral on Saturday morning, & in the town after lunch: then at 4 p.m. we went back to the hotel for a lovely tea in front of a big fire, and at 4.30 went across to the Cathedral for evensong. It was dark by then, but we were beckoned up into the choir & sat in the lovely old carved pews while the Dean and Archdeacon & choir went through the service: there were only about half a dozen people there. They had special prayers for members of the cathedral who had died on that day – one of the 18th century, one ages ago in the 15th century! Today we went to the Art Gallery after lunch, & found a whole room devoted to Tennyson, wch was just up our street. I didn’t know you actually had a kind of certificate when you we
re Poet Laureate. You become a technical member of the Royal Household, & so aren’t eligible for jury service. It didn’t seem so cold today – Saturday was awful, freezing – and we were able to stroll round in comfort. I sent Betjeman a postcard of a monument to Tennyson that stands outside the Cathedral.
Well, now I must see how best to pack up your present, I do hope you have a good day – why not dip into a bottle of something? Spoil yourself.
Monica says she enjoyed everything to eat you gave her & wd join me if she knew I were writing.
Very best love from Philip
1 Eva’s seventy-fifth birthday fell on 10 January 1961.
29 January 1961
32 Pearson Park, Hull
My very dear old creature,
I have just scrubbed half my stairs – they are covered by a sort of red lino – I ought to have done them all, but the water got very dirty and a little work goes a long way with yours truly. So now I’m sitting down at 11.30 a.m., the gramophone churning out a succession of records made in 1927 wch I am supposed to be reviewing.1 The weather outside looks windy but not unfriendly: I expect if I searched about for green spikes in the garden I should find them. “Looking forward to the Spring, One puts up with anything!” (Hardy). I think I sent a card reporting that I had returned safely from London. A piece of good news on my return was that Maeve had passed her library exam. She had to get half marks in 3 papers to pass: out of 120 in each, her marks were 65, 60 & 69! So it wasn’t exactly with flying colours, but as she says a pass is as good as a mile. To my alarm she now wants to stand me a dinner for tutoring her, or trying to. This will be on Thursday. I’m glad I’m coming home on Friday, at least I hope I am, coming home I mean. […]