Philip Larkin
Page 63
1 ‘Ginger Pussy’ is Eva herself.
2 Philip had complained that his landlady did not put bread on the table at meals.
3 Sydney is responding to Philip’s comment in his letter of 6 February: ‘I think carrying a walking stick (which I still do, vaguely as a Beau Brummelish or even defensive gesture) wears holes in the fingers quickly [? this last word illegible].’
FROM Sydney Larkin
28 February 1944
[73 Coten End, Warwick]
Dear Philip,
It is suggested by “Mop” that I write a line.1 There is little to say. I am getting to the end of Vol. 5. Of Gibbon. Seeing in the press that Carlyle’s “Hero[es] & hero worship” ought to be suppressed as a Nazi publication, I read it and found, inter alia, the lecture on Mahomet most inspiring, particularly as I had just recently read the section of Gibbon dealing with Mahomet and the Arabs. I have also looked at the Koran and conclude that it is a puritanical book and would appear to the Arabs much as Law’s “Serious Call”2 would appear to us.
Wavell’s3 contribution to the Sunday Times is a masterpiece. If he would stick to Generalship, I am sure it would be better for his reputation.
I am glad to hear your work (i.e. Library work) is progressing steadily. Stick to it and make a great success of it. I am at present about to engage in a battle with the Labour party and the Council on a question of “dishonesty” in expenses on the part of a Councillor. The trouble in this matter is that Councillors stick together on matters of this sort but I have “right” on my side. Local Government is made up (or should be) of this sort of thing. Love
S. L.
1 On half sheets with the edge roughly torn; enclosed in the same envelope as a letter from Eva.
2 William Law (1686–1761): A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728) was a key influence on the eighteenth-century evangelical revival.
3 Field Marshal Archibald Wavell (1883–1950), British soldier. At the outset of World War II he was Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, then became Commander-in-Chief, India (1941–3). At the time of this letter he was Viceroy of India, holding this post until his retirement in 1947.
4 Sydney alludes to Wavell’s enthusiasm for poetry. His annotated anthology Other Men’s Flowers (1944) was very popular.
FROM Eva Larkin1
17 April 1944
Beauchamp Lodge, 73 Coten End, Warwick
My Dear Philip,
How nice it was to get a letter from you again – it has seemed such a long time since I heard from you.
First of all, I must say how sorry I am over your personal (or sweets) ration pages. I find that I have them, safely tucked away in my identity card case. I hope Miss Tomlinson was not annoyed over the matter.
By the way, oranges are here again. There are stacks in all the shops. This afternoon Kitty has got our ration, 8 lovely ones. I wonder if you have any in Wellington. If there are any, you can get them from any shop and the shopkeeper marks one of the squares on the back cover of the ration book. It is in panel 2, line 10.
I am surprised to hear of the state of the bath. Not very refreshing to see cigarette ash in it – but I wonder who put it there?
I have, this day, forwarded a communication from Gunner.2 I do wish he would leave room for me to re-address his letters. I was absolutely baffled over this one. I feared to write your address on the back lest the post office should neglect to turn over, even though I inscribed P.T.O. to remind them. Finally, by obliterating ‘England’ I did the trick. How is he?
Mrs Colbourne called on us last night. She has had several letters and cards from Bob. He is quite all right, and said that they had formed a dance band in his camp.
I was terribly interested in your visit to Oxford. I am glad you saw Mr Costin. I agree that teaching is a good idea – specially if you could be at the university. This would give you time to write. I don’t believe that your writing is “not any good”, as you put it.
After you left I overhauled your winter coat. First I turned out the pockets. Holy smoke! what relics of forgotten hours! A little heap of tobacco shreds – a dry crumb of bread (rather large this)3 a piece of chalk, a letter from Mr Buttrey, an envelope addressed to the Librarian, Shrewsbury, a library ticket (a new one) and this note-book – the only article I think I need return, oh, and lastly a dirty blue handkerchief, which I have washed.
There were also several sewing jobs to do at the coat, and I also took the vacuum cleaner over it – but of course that would not alter it’s [sic] faded appearance.
Kitty and I hope to go to the Cinema, Leamington tomorrow afternoon to see Bette Davis in “Now, Voyager”!4
Very much love, Mop.
1 Sent in the same envelope as the next two letters; written on full-sized letter paper.
2 Larkin’s school friend Colin Gunner, who was on active service.
3 On 23 April Philip wrote: ‘I thought “a dry crumb of bread (rather large this)” exquisitely funny.’
4 A 1942 film based on the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, directed by Irving Rapper and starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains.
FROM Sydney Larkin1
17 April 1944
[73 Coten End, Warwick]
Dear Philip,
I was glad to hear you had seen Costin. It is well to keep in touch with people like him and with your fellow English students. I don’t believe the Clarendon Press man. I should not advise anyone to go in for my job, but publishers are always necessary as well as finance officers.
As regards the School of Librarianship, I suppose that is the thing to do, if you contemplate making a permanent thing of that profession. It is more expensive than passing the Library Ass-n Exams but probably no more useful for municipal purposes.
The other day at Hatchards2 I picked up Conversations with George Moore by Geraint Goodwin postscript by G. Bernard Shaw.3 You will be interested, if you have not already seen it. It is a slight book 240 pp of good sized print. Among other things he says “What has chilled Landor in the mind of the public is his unfailing wisdom. Nothing chills so much as his wisdom; the ordinary man will never like it.”
Love. S. L.
1 This and the previous and following letters were sent in the same envelope. It is written on sheets roughly torn in half.
2 Bookshop on Piccadilly, London.
3 Published in 1929.
FROM Catherine Larkin1
17 April 1944
[73 Coten End, Warwick]
Dear Philip,
Just a short letter to keep up the old contact we used to have. I was much amused by your account of your trouble re baths. You did sound so disgusted.
I went to Mr Barnacle2 on Thursday. Do you remember the shivering and horror that name used to conjure up? He didn’t find much to do[,] only one small filling on a tooth that is already ¾ filling but he DROPPED THE DRILL on my hand and made it bleed! I am afraid he is losing his grip.
When I visited Stratford again with Evelyn it (the Merchant) was not so good as the first night; the double curtain arrangement was not used!
I went to Loughborough for the day on Friday to take some work for an exhibition – I hope it is exhibited and not left lying about. I wish they wouldn’t always have these exhibitions in the holidays.
I haven’t quite finished “The Fly” but will send it as soon as I have.3 A girl in a shop this morning was wearing a silver ring with an Egyptian insect on – very unusual.
No more room – excuse hurriedly written note but hope you will reply.
Love,
Kitty
She mentions “Thursday’s Child”.5 That’s about as far as I shall ever get to seeing it!
1 Sent in the same envelope as the last two letters; written, like the last, on a roughly torn half sheet. The only two surviving letters from Kitty to Philip (both from 1944) are inserted into envelopes containing letters from his parents. All other letters from Kitty to Philip are lost.
2 Wavy underlining.
3 The Case of the Gilded Fly (1944): detective novel by Edmund Crispin (Larkin’s friend Bruce Montgomery).
4 A 1944 film directed by Basil Dearden starring Tom Walls, Françoise Rosay, and Mervyn and Dilys Johns.
5 A 1943 film directed by Rodney Ackland and starring Ronald Shiner, Stewart Granger and Wilfrid Lawson.
FROM Sydney Larkin
8 September 1944
Beauchamp Lodge, 73 Coten End, Warwick
Dear Philip,
I have taken about half an hour to clean my fountain pen (fine nib) in order to write to you, a thing I have been intending to do for some days.
Thanks for this morning’s letter. I had observed Cashmore’s press notice. His style of referring to himself is going out of fashion, I think, but am not sure that Edward VII and possibly George V in his early years of kingship used to say “I and the queen” – which can be justified – but that has now been abandoned for “the queen and I”, a much less impressive diction. I cannot understand J. C. Powys in his list. I should like to know the titles in stock.1
Thanks for Connolly’s review of “The Razor’s Edge”.2 It is nice to know that someone else shares one’s opinion. I regarded it as a masterpiece. In view of Trilling’s book on E. M. Forster (which I have ordered) I took “Howard’s End” (Penguin off your shelves)/ with me to Loughborough and read it with great pleasure. That, too, is a masterpiece. I propose to read “A Passage to India” some time.
I shall (D.V.) go to Oxford on Saturday 23rd Sept, staying at Balliol for Tea, Dinner, Bed, Breakfast, lunch & Tea, returning 24th Sept afternoon. Yesterday I ought to have paid a visit to London – the last chance I shall have at the public expense3 – but we had booked for “Junior Miss” at Coventry.4 It was very well done (competent, as all those travelling companies with one play are) and amusing. The weather was vile.
In your letter this morning, you mention that death is lonely and that to death we should all orientate.5 That caused me to look up orientate, because, like the verb “implement” it is a word I have never used. It makes one wonder how one does without them! But the proper word is “orient” which in its literal meaning was used in 1727 “most religions … have their temples oriented”. How, by 1850, it got to mean to bring into defined relations to known facts or principles is a mystery. But O. W. Holmes in 1867 tells us that “Mistress Kitty accepted Mrs Hopkins’s hospitable offer, and presently began orienting herself, and getting ready to make herself agreeable.” Orientate must have come from orientation, the best example is 1893 from Barrow’s “World Parliament of Religions”: “That is the best education which gives a man, so to speak, the best orientation which most clearly defines his relation with society and with his Creator.”
At Leicester, I acquired The Collected Letters of Oliver Goldsmith, edited (very minutely) by K. C. Balderston. The price was the published price of 7/6, but, as books go nowadays, that is cheap.
I don’t think there is any news here in Warwick. The abolition of fire watching will cause a good deal of trouble and many husbands will have to reorient themselves in their domestic life. When the home guard are disbanded the trouble will spread. In the meantime, I shall welcome any light that may be put on in the streets for the few occasions on which I am out after dark.
With love from both,
Your affectionate Father
1 See Philip’s letter of 7 September 1944, and note on Cashmore’s column in the Birmingham Post.
2 Novel by Somerset Maugham (1944). The reviewer was Cyril Connolly.
3 Sydney retired from his post as City Treasurer of Coventry in April 1944 at the age of sixty.
4 This play, adapted by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields from the semi-autobiographical stories by Sally Benson, had a run on Broadway between 1941 and 1943.
5 See Philip’s letter of 7 September 1944.
6 Ashton-under-Lyne, where Eva’s sister-in-law Auntie Nellie and her family lived at this time. They moved later to Hyde.
FROM Catherine Hewett (née Larkin)1
23 October 1944
73 Coten End, Warwick
Dear Philip,
As I am detained at Warwick with a peculiar illness – intense pain and sickness all day yesterday – I am answering your letter in order/ to put it in the weekly parental one.
Your letter was as amusing as ever. Glad you liked the photograph – the others we will show you when we meet. Yours was easily the best and we have had an enlargement of it by an expert photographer who is employed by the research department.
Your novel goes well I hope. How is Bruce? I read what I considered to be a good play on school life called “The Rats of Norway”.2 I thought of Bruce’s play.
Work is progressing very well[.] We have enough students to make it interesting this year. Mr. D. is still telling wicked stories about Mr. P.3
I went to see “The Lodger”4 and also “Laburnum Grove”5 for the second time. How good it is, also with it was “Pack up your Troubles” with Laurel and Hardy.6 It did bring back the old days. I haven’t seen one of their films since the days I used to go with you.
About your cigarette case, here is the story7 – intended to do it in gold as the lettering is on my books – managed to open the bookbinding drawer, (which is kept locked and does not come into my realm of work) found box of type – but all the letters were there but A! Also there is no gold leaf to be obtained anywhere. Decided to draw the letters and “blind” them in with a straight tool. P∙A∙L very simply like that. But it didn’t look very nice so I tried to buy some gold paint but couldn’t. Mr. P. raked up a dust covered tin of gold enamel – which I used when Walter8 had reconstituted it. The result is that it looks rather crude and amateurish. Would you like me to send it to you?
How are you getting on with the brewery man?
With love from Kitty
1 On a roughly torn half sheet, in the same envelope as letters from Eva and Sydney.
2 By Keith Winter; first produced in London in 1933.
3 Kitty was teaching at the College School, Loughborough.
4 A 1944 horror film about Jack the Ripper, based on the novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, directed by John Brahm and starring Merle Oberon, George Sanders and Laird Cregar.
5 The 1936 film version of J. B. Priestley’s 1933 play, directed by Carol Reed and starring Edmund Gwenn, Cedric Hardwicke and Victoria Hopper.
6 A 1932 film directed by George Marshall and Raymond McCarey.
7 In his letter of 1 October 1944 Philip asked ‘Do you think it is possible to put my initials on that cigarette case I passed on to you?’
8 Kitty’s husband, Walter Hewett. They were married in August 1944.
FROM Sydney Larkin1
4 November 1946
[73 Coten End, Warwick]
Dear Philip,
When I read letters in the press which interest me I almost always, either after reading a line or two or perhaps half way down, look to the end to see who has written it – it is nearly always G. B. Shaw, E. W. Birmingham (Barnes)2 or W. R. Inge.3 This time it was Bruce Montgomery. He goes wrong in attributing things to Socialism – he should have said democracy. The Conservative party do precisely the same thing as the socialists and any part
y wanting votes must do it.
I have read Jill with much interest. The story reads true, I think, and that is the test which generally satisfies me. It seems incredible on reflection, however, that so many catastrophes could happen to one person. Life, even in Gissing’s novels, usually has some pleasant interludes.4 The number of misprints, typist’s errors and mistakes in spelling is rather large and they should make this first edition very valuable. “Huddersfield”5 is an unfortunate one.
Ll. Powys’s Life has not yet appeared.6
I meant to say a week or two ago that I enquired about your Nalgo approved Society. The position is that you remain a member of the Approved Society altho’ not of Nalgo. The whole business of Approved Societies ends next year under new Act. You have, of course, sent your last completed cards to the Society?
Love,
S. L.
1 Enclosed in same envelope as a letter from Eva.
2 Ernest William Barnes, FRS (1874–1953), mathematician and liberal theologian, Bishop of Birmingham (1924–53).
3 Sir William R. Inge (‘Dean Inge’) (1860–1954): Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and proponent of nudism. From 1921 until 1946 he was a columnist for the Evening Standard.
4 On 21 April 1947 Sydney wrote: ‘I found no difficulty in “identifying myself” with Joan Ogden’ (in Radclyffe Hall’s The Unlit Lamp), adding ‘Jill presented a slight difficulty in that respect.’
5 Sydney has spotted that on p. 59 of the first edition of Jill the copyeditor or typesetter has mistakenly ‘corrected’ Larkin’s fictional ‘Huddlesford’ to the name of the real town, Huddersfield.