In Tearing Haste
Page 13
Between the sad times she has had a few moments of laughing, jokes about her will, & the others say I go round looking for any small valuable objects I can see & drop them in a bottomless black bag.
We take it in turns to be in her room 24 hours of the day. What do people do who have less than four daughters – it unnerves me when I think of Emma & Sophy. What a lot of deathbeds they will have to see to.
My sister Woman is excelling herself, cooking gammon in champagne & droning & intoning about the very wonderful sauce that she’s going to make next. The wonderful thing about her is she doesn’t mind how much we laugh at her. It’s v luxurious being with all the others, such a thing hasn’t happened for years.
One simply doesn’t know how long it may go on & none of us can leave as she asks for us by name sometimes. [2] The last two days another horror has come which is it’s almost impossible to hear or understand what she says. We live for the post which arrives in the evening with the papers (but on rough days they can’t go for it & that is bitter).
There are two nurses, both saints & both young & jolly.
Being on this island is odd enough in itself, but under these circumstances it is gruelling. (Except for being with the sisters which is HEAVEN.)
I must go & find driftwood for the fire.
Much love
Debo
[1] A nickname given to PLF by Nancy Mitford, from the refrain ‘Knick-Knack, Paddy Whack’, in the song ‘This Old Man Came Rolling Home’.
[2] ‘My mother died a few days later, on 25 May, and was buried at Swinbrook in Oxfordshire on one of the first days of glorious weather that year.’ (DD)
Teusday [June 1963]
Dumbleton
Darling Debo,
I say the Loved One’s doing alright, isn’t he? What a pity no Lismore. [1] But I suppose it would seem a bit odd, as the visit is more or less to commemorate his great grandsire’s flight from the wicked English yoke.
Tons of love,
Paddy
[1] President Kennedy, who was on an official visit to Ireland, told DD that his helicopter had circled low over Lismore several times but had not landed. On his way back from Ireland he did, however, stop off at Edensor to visit his sister Kathleen’s grave, en route for talks with Harold Macmillan.
Teusday [November 1963]
Katounia
Limni, Euboea
Greece
Darling Debo,
Absolutely shattered, like everyone by the awful news of Kennedy’s death. Greece has gone into three days mourning; so I can well understand – or probably can’t – how infinitely more ghastly and tragic it must be for a great friend. You talked about him and described him so well and vividly – making him seem so vital and astonishing and so much fun, that it was like knowing someone by proxy. And what’s everyone going to do now, I’d like to know?
What a beastly age to live in.
Tons of fond love as ever,
Paddy
6 December 1963
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Pad,
We went to Washington for his funeral. Oh it was strange, Americans aren’t suited to tragedy. They like everything to be great. I was more or less alright in church till his friends came in & their crumpled miserable faces were too much & it was floods all the way after that.
I never wanted to leave anywhere so quickly as that town. It was so sad David & Sissy [Harlech] having to remain. I suppose they’ll have to stick out another year but the whole point of the thing has gone.
If it hadn’t been for such a sad sad reason the journeys there & back would have been rather fascinating. We got a lift off the Prime Minister [1] who had a chartered Boeing 707. The passengers were him & Lady Douglas-Home, the Duke of Edinburgh, Mr Wilson, [2] Sir Philip de Zulueta, [3] Sir Timothy Bligh, [4] Sir Harold Evans, [5] 2 girl typists, 2 detectives, the D of E’s ADC & Andrew & me & 150 empty seats behind.
I had one of the strangest dinners of my life, with the D of E & Mr Wilson, Andrew at another table with the Homes.
Coming back we were without the D of E, Andrew & Wilson (they came straight back, I stayed for two days) but plus Mr Grimond. [6] So dinner that night was the Homes & me & Mr Grimond. When we got west of Ireland they said it was too foggy to land in London & we fetched up at Manchester.
NO SLEEPERS for the PM & Co so they all (11 of them) came here for the night. When I showed Mr Grimond into the Red Velvet room unkind Sir P de Zulueta said all the Liberal Party could get into bed with him.
It was all very odd indeed & Alice in Wonderlandish.
On Monday we go to Kenya for five days. Andrew starts at Zanzibar but there isn’t room for women there, so I go straight to Kenya.
I hope they’ll hold their pangas & won’t do us all in at the State Garden Party.
The first engagement is a Civic Ball. I’ll save the last dance for Jomo. [7]
Oh dear I do feel so sad about J Kennedy, but really the fantastic luck was knowing him at all, such an extraordinary person, so funny, so touching, clever, brave & sort of good, & such marvellous company.
Are you coming back before Xmas?
Much love
Debo
[1] Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Conservative Prime Minister from October 1963 to October 1964.
[2] Harold Wilson (1916–95). The Labour MP had been elected leader of his party earlier in the year. Prime Minister 1964–70 and 1974–6.
[3] Philip de Zulueta (1925–89). Private Secretary to the Prime Minister 1955–64. ‘JFK described him to me as “that Spaniard who looks after Uncle Harold”.’ (DD)
[4] Timothy Bligh (1918–69). Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister 1959–64.
[5] Harold Evans (1911–83). Chief Information Officer at the Colonial Office 1953–7, Public Relations Adviser to the Prime Minister 1957–64.
[6] Joseph ( Jo) Grimond (1913–93). Leader of the Liberal Party 1956–67.
[7] Jomo Kenyatta (1894–1978). First Prime Minister of Kenya after independence was declared on 12 December 1963. President of Kenya 1964–78.
1 January 1964
Katounia
Limni, Euboea
Happy New Year, Darling Debo,
Something awful has happened. Aymer Maxwell’s [1] dog, a frightfully nice bitch called Turka that he and Joan and I adore (a sandy coloured basic dog) came in last night looking fat as a barrel (she has a wonderful figure normally) with dark marks on her muzzle, which we wiped; it turned out to be blood. We hoped it was a hare, as she’s a great one for chasing them. Just now a furious shepherd came down from the mountain saying five of his goats and two kids had been killed last evening. (It’s lambing – kidding time? – here.) She’s been suspected before, but had a sort of alibi. I suppose I’ll have to shoot her. This is agony (a) because she’s A. Maxwell’s, (b) because she’s such a heavenly dog. What is one to do? It is like that awful story in Wild Animals I have Known. [2] Do pity me.
Here’s a riddle to change the subject: what English catch-phrase, indicating someone is better than he seems, would also apply to a yacht owner whose vessel is even more dangerous than the inlet in which she is anchored? *
No more now, Debo darling, except wishes for a marvellous year. And lots of love from
Paddy
[1] Sir Aymer Maxwell (1911–87). A ‘serious but congenial’ friend of PLF and Joan who settled in Euboea, off the coast of Attica, and sailed the Aegean in his caïque, the Dirk Hatterick.
[2] Ernest Thompson Seton, Wild Animals I have Known (1898). In ‘Wully, The Story of a Yaller Dog’, a trusty mongrel sheepdog, turned ferocious sheep-killer, attacks its owners and has to be destroyed.
* His barque is worse than his bight.
22 January 1964
4 Chesterfield Street, W1
Darling Pad,
Thanks v much for (a) your Christmas telegram & (b) your New Year letter. V kind to send same & deeply appreciated by all.
Now something rea
lly important. We’ve had to put a new door with false book-backs in the Library at Chatsworth and we’ve got to think of 28 titles. The one the other end has got things like Boyle on Steam, The Scottish Boccaccio by D Cameron & such like. Stoker says we must use The Light Reader by Ivan Artov Stone. Mrs Ham suggests Bondage by Ann Fleming. [1] I can only think of The Liverpool Sound by Viscountess Mersey. So come on now. Something topical, politics, friends, anything?
Much love
Debo
I really sympathise over the dog you’re fond of. It is the worst thing in the world because you’ll always have to be watching her and if she does disappear you’ll worry till she gets back. Don’t let anyone else shoot her, you know what I mean, they might do it ghoulishly.
[1] An allusion to the sado-masochistic nature of Ann and Ian Fleming’s relationship.
[February 1964]
Katounia
Limni, Euboea
My darling Debo,
Here are a few, most of them hopelessly feeble, but perhaps one might sift a grain or two out of so much chaff. I put them down helter skelter as they cropped up during the last few days.
Dipsomania
by Mustafa Swig
Canine Diet
Norah Bone
I Scream
Walls
In the Soup
A. Crouton
A Tommy in the Harem
Private Parts
Second Helpings
O. Twist
First Causes
F. Heckt
Weathering Heights
Nelson & Brontë
First Steps in Rubber
Wellington
Military Dilemmas
Major Crisis
Cease Fire!
General Strike
Flags of the Nations
Bunting (!)
Buy Me and Stop One
Home Dentist
William Locke
Robert Key
A Good Chap
Bacon
The Midnight Flit
A. Moss-Quito
Round the Bend
Harpic
Also Ran
Antrim
Dunking
by Ruskin
Will Yam Make Peace?
Thackeray
Plain or Ringlets
by Broccoli
Consenting Adults
Abel N. Willing
Trumpet Voluntary
Hornblower
Minor Rodents
Aygood-Mausser
Where the Hormones . . .
Christine Keeler
Venus Observed
I. Sawyer
Bridge Building
A. Belvoir
Last of his Line
Tom Cobley
Studies in Sentiment
E. Motion
Reduced to the Ranks
D. Motion
Intuition
Ivor Hunch
Weather in the Streets
Omega Losches
Stalks and Giants
by ‘Jacobean’
Nancy Mitford & her Circle
Juno ffrench
Alien Corn
Dr Scholl
Rags & Tatters
by Ripon
March Days
A. Hare
Sideways through Derbyshire
Crabbe
A Bagman’s Journal
Gladstone
Prominent Capes
Raglan
Crème de la Crème
Devonshire
K-K-Katie
by Kay Stammers
On the Spot
Leo Pard
Fireside Talks
P. Flinders
Modern Sheep Farming
B. Peep
Humble Pie
J. Horner
Theories on Investment
L. Locket etc etc
Bays and Bites
by An Old Sea Dog
Jellies & Blancmanges
Somerset
Famous Monuments
Patience
Room for One Inside
Pinecoffin
Shadow Cabinets
by A. Ghost Writer
Haute Cuisine
the Aga Khan
The Day After Gomorrah
Bishop of Sodor & Man
St Symeon Stylites
by A. Columnist
Lost Horizon
C. Connolly
Call Me X
Anon
Pardon
Me Belcher
Melancholic
Will O’Waley
Knicknacks
Paddy Whack
The Battle of the Bulge
by Lord Slim
They’re most of them pretty rotten, but one or two might do. None of them come up to the old-fashioned improper ones, which I have rather a soft spot for, though they’re not your style, and of course, wouldn’t do; to wit, The Babies Revenge (Norah Titsoff), The Cat’s Revenge (Claude Balls), The Shaking Hand (Master Bates), The Ruined Honeymoon (Mary Fitzgerald & Gerald Fitzgeorge). Least said.
29 February 1964
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Pad,
Oh how I have been meaning to write & thank you a MILLION times for the truly marvellous book titles.
E Motion & D Motion are two authors whose works I shall keenly follow from now on, ditto Major Crisis, General Strike & the rest. Thank you awfully. It must have taken hours & is deeply appreciated.
Much love & many thanks again from
Debo
23 March 1964
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Pad,
It’s agony, choosing 28 book titles from your list. I want them ALL.
I thought I might tell you the names of the key people here as, strangely enough, nearly all their names are meaningful words. Viz.
Link
gardener
Read
agent
Wragg
well we all know what he is [1]
Cherry
builder
Lord
gamekeeper
Fisher
controller (sorry, comptroller) Child his assistant
Bond
ex-comptroller
Stone
electrician
Hey
Bolton agent (a body to worship)
I had a nice few days in Paris with the Ancient Dame but one awful thing occurred. We (her, Stoker & me) were asked to a grand dinner & I sat next to one Pompidou [2] who turned out to be the local Lord Home and . . . quelle horrible surprise he can’t speak English & we all know I can’t do Frog if my life depends on it, so we wildly crumbled bread & stared straight ahead. It was murder. I also had the Brit Ambassador [3] whom I loathed so it was a dud dinner.
Do come to Liosmor.
Much love
Debo
[1] Tom Wragg, the librarian at Chatsworth, was the only one on the list whom PLF knew.
[2] Georges Pompidou (1911–74). Prime Minister of France under General de Gaulle 1962–8, and President from 1969 until his death in 1974.
[3] Pierson Dixon (1904–65). Ambassador in Paris 1960–5.
9 May 1964
c/o Mrs Denning
Church Farm
Branscombe
South Devon
Darling Debo,
I’m scribbling like mad in this farmhouse. Green hills all round, now crowned in tea cosies of mist, rain falling, gulls everywhere, also rooky woods; well-owled at night.
This letter is a bit disjointed because the farmer’s three-year-old daughter, Dinah, v. pretty and comic, is booming up and down the flagged passage outside. A new apron has gone clean to her head and I don’t wonder. It’s pink with a pattern of small blue bears carrying parasols and I would have pined for it were I the right age and gender.
It’s true about Greece. [1] Don’t tell anyone much (not that I can help it) but jus
t you wait and see! The thing is to pitch a huge tent among the olives and help build a rambling peasant house and live happily in it ever after.
No more now, darling Debo, except tons of love from
Paddy
[1] PLF and Joan had decided to make their permanent home in Greece on the land described in PLF’s letter of August 1962.
23 July 1964
Mani
Greece
Darling Debo,
My word, how difficult everything seems – it might be Chatsworth one was about to perpetrate, instead of a lowly cot. But the place is even more marvellous than I remembered.
Lovely lunch with Nancy in Paris, then left poor Joan there, in search of a nice pal to help drive that giant Peugeot, laden with tents, at least as far as Ancona, so that I could whizz here by air, to catch the eccentric man on whom all our future depends – i.e. the plot of land where the water is. Of course he isn’t here. I prowl and mooch, trudging the rocky mile between the village and the site, to gloat all alone, stroke the rocks and the thistles, caress the olive trunks and dive off rocks into those warm depths. I slunk off there in the middle of last night, because of the full moon. Lots of phosphorus in the water, which was glittering on the surface with moonlight the further out I swam. It looked marvellous from the sea – all rocks and olives and cypresses, with great glimmering lunar mountains like ghosts in the background, a mythical scene. I slept under an olive tree and walked back after another bathe, just after dawn.