The Wainwright Letters

by Hunter Davies

  But, if you are in any doubt, let me assure you that the transplanting has been a complete, overwhelming success. I am a thousand-a-year man in everything but cash. I am an outrageous success at work, and am happier than ever I was. I can step out of the office on to a passing bus and in a few minutes be on Orrest Head, or in an hour on Loughrigg Terrace – and how fearfully shabby Revidge and Ramsgreave and Shadsworth are by comparison! I can stroll through the fields behind the house after tea, and in five minutes reach a little stile whereon I habitually recline, for before me in splendid array I see the Crinkles and Bowfell, the gap of Mickledore, Gable in magnificent isolation, the Pikes, Fairfield – and not yet has the scene failed to send a quiver through me. No, if you mistake reminiscence for regret you are hopelessly wrong. My only regret is that you and a few others are not here to share the good things with me.

  Plans for the future, which you assume to be non-existent, are going on apace. The new bungalow is planned down to the last detail: ’twill be built of the familiar grey-green stone and slate familiar to these parts, and will be dry-walled so that the wisteria and clemati can grip; it will stand high on a hillside, by a wood, with the open fell behind. It will merge harmoniously into the landscape. The view from the big windows at the front will comprise many miles of the loveliest country God ever made, a park where I may wander at will, and from my seat by the ingle I shall see this view as a picture, ever-changing, set in the frame of the window. I might, even then, think occasionally of Audley Range and Shad, but do you imagine that I shall be ‘hugging the past’ and wanting to return? Not on your bloody life, you silly old buggar. Only the name of this desirable residence remains to be chosen, and at present I am licking my lips over LINGMOOR, GARTH and WANSFELL. Names like these would be inane in Lammack Road, but up here, where they belong, they sound grand and sane and in tune with the surroundings.

  I saw you on Easter Sunday, in the evening. You passed the Snapes’ at a great pace, heading westwards, following by a fleeting shadow which, knowing you, I fancied would be Marjorie. You would have been pleased to listen to some of the new records the Snapes have recently acquired, just the stuff you like: Offenbach, Lizst, Tchaikovsky, Elgar. It thrilled a poor infidel like me to hear them. ‘Concerto for Two’, is grand, is it not?

  The Wainwrights made their first major ascent last Sunday week, having a great time on Red Screes, in snow still waist-deep. This, by the way, is the first recorded ascent of this peak in 1942.

  Will you kindly let Jim have the enclosed card: it contains a business query which I am anxious to have settled. At five o’clock you might ask him if he has replied.

  Kindest regards to Marjorie and yourself. I hope to be able to answer definitely your other cheeky query in my next letter. From the few potent signs around me I should hazard a guess at mid-September!

  Alf

  The final reference to a ‘few potent signs’ and a ‘guess at mid September’ – could possibly suggest that his wife Ruth is pregnant, but it never gets mentioned again. Ruth and AW do not have another child. A reference to the ‘Wainwrights’ making their first major ascent suggest that Ruth and Peter had gone with AW on at least one walk, so the marriage was perhaps going through a slightly better spell.

  He also appears to have new fantasies, which presumably his old office friends had known about for some time, about what he really intended to do in life …

  LETTER 20: TO LAWRENCE WOLSTENHOLME, 2 JUNE 1942

  Tuesday evening,

  19 Castle Grove

  June 2 1942.

  Kendal.

  Dear Lawrence,

  I am indebted to you for another very interesting letter. Gossip and intimate gleanings of the staff are very welcome, although, perhaps, I do not ‘lap it up’ quite as thirstily these days. Six months’ absence has rather clouded the general picture of Blackburn; my thoughts nowadays are much more of Kendal than of Blackburn, of the next 35 years rather than the past 35 years. Nevertheless, it is surprising how retentive the mind can be.

  I wager that I could come back to you tomorrow and carry on where I left off and never need to ask a question; my duties there are as fresh in mind as if I had left them only at 5.30 this evening.

  I have, in fact, been most absorbed during my sojourn here in studying the effects of absence upon memory, for I always used to wonder when other members of the staff went away how long it would before routine details slipped out of mind, what effect new faces and new scenes would have in effacing the old. Possibly you have speculated similarly. So, at random moments, I have tested myself.

  I have, for example, recalled the headings in the Bank Transfer Book (the ‘tick’ columns still raise a crooked smirk) or in the Out-relief Lists and other familiar journals, followed through the Friday wages routine from 9 a.m. to 5.30, recalled the names and addresses of the worst housing arrears cases, and so on.

  I find that I can bring these back to mind without the slightest effort; I have forgotten nothing. Surprisingly, though, it is the little unimportant things, the details, which remain evergreen, which flash most often across that inward eye when oft in pensive mood I lie: for example, I remember Doris R’s passion for wimberry pie, Alf Shaw’s cuckoo photos, Miss Stairmand’s Aston Villa jersey, Coggins’ sonorous laugh, Gregson Heyes and his bull stories, the erratic but energetic ascent of steps by Miss Graham. These things don’t matter, but they’re the things I can’t forget!

  And I certainly haven’t forgotten the wild despairing rush of events at Blackburn at year end! You may be sure you have been often in my thoughts these past few weeks. We always suspected that there was something radically wrong in the office somewhere.

  Looking back on the maelstrom now, it is perfectly clear that it’s the much-vaunted organization (a word I haven’t heard since I left) that itself wants organizing. You will never prepare your accounts in good conditions until the accountancy staff and the general staff are separated.

  As far as my own work is concerned, I have finished the Rating, Superannuation and Education Accounts, am now stuck into Gas and Water, and will complete Housing and Electricity by the end of the month. Conditions here are ideal, too good to be true. I work unhurriedly, for there is no timetable and nobody wants to know how I’m getting along; I have morning coffee, and am free to smoke and sing ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’ if I want to. It matters not if I absent myself from the office for a few hours; I don’t have to chalk up my destination.

  Tomorrow I am going over to Beetham Church (you remember Beetham, with its river and deer-park, where the journey north first becomes exciting?) to investigate a query arising out of tithe rentcharge. In a day or two the Electrical Engineer (a lad like myself) and I are having a day at Carlisle, whence he came, to have a look round their Electricity Department. In short, work is a damn pleasure. So, like Fred Smith but with a different motive I seriously counsel you to sling your hook from Blackburn; I never dreamed that I would have so few regrets and be so much happier away from it. Now let’s have a look at your letter.

  My terse communiqué to the effect that I was joining H.M. Forces, you say, left everyone impatient for more detail. Nobody turned a hair, I’ll bet. That’s five weeks ago; any of you could have settled his impatience’ at the cost of a 2 and a half d stamp. I used to think when I worked there that the staff of the B.T., myself excluded, were the most bovine unemotional selfish crew I ever struck, and I see no reason to change my opinion. Only yesterday Tennant wrote to me, and mentioned that, my letters apart, he has not had even a word from any member of the office since he joined the Forces. It’s bloody rotten, you know!

  Anyway, what happened in my case is this. The day before I wrote Jim from Patterdale (where, by the way, I had a perfect cameo of a holiday all in a weekend) the Kendal Council were informed that my deferment expired on the 30th inst. And thereafter I would be liable for military service. I lost no sleep as a result of this harsh decision, but it proved so repugnant to the Treasurer that he called a me
eting of the Finance Committee forthwith and two members were deputed to go to London to make a spirited protest.

  They went a fortnight ago, innocents abroad, had a most cordial interview and returned with news that it had been agreed that I should be deferred indefinitely (the terms, I suppose, being similar to yours). No written confirmation has yet arrived.

  I was surprised to learn that you did not know of Crook’s pending marriage. I had some wedding cake from him, and he spared a moment from the frothy expulsions of his honeymoon to send me a card from Abinger, the place chosen for purity to go pop.

  I was in the company of Fred Percy Haslam during Whitsuntide. On the Saturday I was sorely tempted to ask him if Nellie was being married that day, as I suspected she was from an earlier letter of yours. But no, I could not venture the question; I dare not retire to a lonely bed with the knowledge that she was at that moment being well and truly blocked while my own much-more-deserving organ lay adroop for want of company. I had the news next day. Strangely I saw a girl that day, at Giggleswick, who reminded me very much of her; and another at Grasmere on the Tuesday who was her spit an’ image, even to the kiss-curls on her cheek. But these were mirages. Then, at work on Friday afternoon, I happened to be walking through the General Office and glanced casually through the open door. And there, gesturing wildly to attrace my attention, was Nellie Myerscough, alias Morrison, alias Lynch. No doubt about it, ’twas she, and looking lovelier that any human being has a right to look. My brain did a little somersault; it seemed so odd that she should be there, in the Borough Treasurer’s office at Kendal. I was introduced to her new husband, a pleasant but unimpressive youth almost lost to me in the glow of his wife’s radiant personality. I thought their gesture in calling at Kendal to see me was extremely nice; we camped for half an hour and I did no more work that day.

  Funny how things work out, isn’t it? To my dying day I shall be convinced that N would rather have it from me than Frank or anybody else.

  Your scanty note that you are visiting Lakeland in June pleased me as much as anything in your letter. Why didn’t you give me the date? And am Incorrect in presuming that you will again stay with Mrs Postle? If you are traveling by bus you will have to change at Kendal (remember how the Town Hall bells used to play a tune when we changed buses in the years that are gone?), and I could be there to see you safely on the last stage of your journey. Note that the difficulties of travel by bus are nowadays extremely acute, especially at weekend, and you must be prepared for a wild scramble and possible disappointment at both Preston and Kendal.

  I shall be taking a few days holiday during the week June 13–20, when my cousin is bringing his family over from Penistone to stay with us for the week, and quite probably we shall be awalking in the Lake District and mayhap will drop upon you if this is also your week, but not on a mountain-top, I’ll bet. Do you realize that you haven’t set foot on a summit since Bowfell in August 1935?

  When we have stayed at boarding-houses in the past we have often espied a mild insignificant man pottering about the kitchen while all our contacts have been with the lady of the house. That meek quiet creature is the husband, and gradually I am assuming a similar position. We have already had a great many visitors at Castle Grove, but until Whitsuntide they have come only for a few days, and never more than two at a time. But now the relatives are upon us with a vengeance. We had three all Whitweek, and there is one next week, and then we are continuously booked up for bed and full board until August with never a respite. Sleeping three or four in a bed could be quite jolly if there was a preponderance of young and healthy females but I don’t relish the idea of being sandwiched between uncle and brother-in-law. There is ample room in the house to sleep a dozen; it’s beds we’re short of; we’ve only two, and they both rattle like hell. We mustn’t have any honeymoon couples here!

  Sorry to hear of Jim’s indisposition!

  Can I visualize the time when I walk in the B.T.’s Office Blackburn and the majority of the staff whisper ‘Who’s that?’ I can visualize the time when I enter that same office and everybody falls flat at my feet in reverent awe, for already I am well on the way to being as great a CELEBRITY as Wordsworth was. As yet, I cannot give details, but ere long it’s going to be your greatest claim to notoriety that you knew Alf Wainwright. So when I am a great man I will patronize your office with my presence, and to show that I have lost nothing of my humility I will bring my photographer to take my picture sitting at the old desk. Besides, if I called now I might be offered a cheque for the 35 pounds owing to me for work done on the Generating Extensions, and it would hurt me to have to accept it after all these months.

  Best wishes for a really happy holiday

  Alf

  Part 3

  Letters to Maudsley and Wolstenholme, 1942–3

  LETTER 21: TO ERIC WALTER MAUDSLEY, 13 MAY 1942

  Wednesday evening

  19 Castle Grove

  May 13 1942

  Kendal.

  Dear Walter,

  Talk about the long arm of coincidence!

  For a week the address ‘8 Sandy Close, Hertford’ has been in my thoughts insistently, and I had decided that tonight I would write to the house to see if an old pal of mine was still in residence there. Honest! I should have written long ago. Will you believe me if I say I haven’t had time?

  You see, my first few weeks here were spent exclusively in writing to about a dozen people I knew in Blackburn, people with whom severance was rather painful. In those early days I found a particular pleasure in coming home when the day’s work was done and spending the evening in Blackburn, as it were, chatting to familiar folk, talking about familiar places. By doing this I passed very smoothly through a period which must otherwise have been lonely. But I released a boomerang. Replies poured in, a fistful at a time, demanding further letters. Further letters were sent, further replies received. I don’t suppose any exile ever wrote more letters than I did during the winter. And, as you know, I never scribble hasty letters; if one is to be written I like to spend an evening on it.

  Not until last week were my arrears of correspondence cleared, and then it was I began to think of the lost legion I had neglected – my cousin at Penistone, you, Jack Jones at Ardrossan, Mr Ashton. So it happened that tonight was set apart for a Maudsley Missive. And damn me if I don’t get a letter from you this afternoon.

  Let me hasten to assure you that I have often found myself thinking of you, at odd moments, since coming to Kendal; and not merely during the past week. Always my thoughts have ended on the same note of perplexity: what on earth persuaded you to leave this fairest spot of England for life on a miserable plain? Money, was it? The Royal Mint itself wouldn’t induce me away! Now, more than ever before, flat country gives me the pip. A flat landscape is a picture only half-finished; it contains nothing to arrest the attention; there is no satisfactory horizon; the gaze wanders aimlessly over the scene and trails away to nothing; there is no background, no climax. It’s like a story without a plot.

  Listen to this saga of my life in Kendal. Every day starts with an awakening, and when my eyes pop open I habitually emit a great (silent) whoop of ecstatic joy. I am immediately in a frenzy of frantic delight. Another day in Lakeland! Another day of life at its best! By my side is the recumbent form of a female, but it is not on she that I feast my eyes, it is the square of the window. That frames a picture which lifts my heart. There is the old castle, perched on its hill and surrounded by lofty trees, set against a wide sky of Mediterranean blue or of massed clouds; around the edge of the frame hang golden tresses of the jasmine that climbs up the outer walls of the house; I can see the slender branches and fresh green leaves of the silver birches in the road below. Oceans of fresh air are pouring into the room through the open casement, the same tonic stimulant which has greeted us so often o’ mornings at Rosthwaite and Wasdale and other beloved places. Stuff of this rare vintage won’t permit lying in bed; there’s no turning over for five minutes, no
t any desire to; it says, bluntly ‘Up, devil, get your pants on; you’re in Lakeland, and a new day is here!’ I still look out of the window with the same eagerness as of yore, when Lakeland mornings were few and precious. Not always, of course, do I see bright sunlight; sometimes, not often, the castle is hidden in a flurry of driving rain, and for a month it lay like a ghostly shadow in a snowy covering. But the gloriously clean air never has a day off. It’s there every minute of every hour – and it makes me feel good and fit and glad to be alive.

  I go out into it after breakfast, hatless and coatless, wearing old flannels which weren’t suitable for the Blackburn office (anything which serves to conceal nakedness is appropriate here; it’s a town of odd attires). I cross the road to a stile (fancy climbing stiles going to work!) and go up the springy turf to the castle. I am always first up there in a morning, always first to disturb the sheep from their slumbers in the dry moat. It is from the hilltop, by the crumbling ruins, that the view of the mountains suddenly smites me between the eyes, and you can bet I go on and down the others side without watching where I put my feet. I always try to discern the cairn on Thornthwaite Crag, and usually on these clear mornings can do so without difficulty … I go on my way, a happy man, down by a wood, across the river, and so to the office.