Poor Uncle Tom; he thought last week that his trials and troubles as a Trustee were finally over. I have had to write to him and point out that they are far from finished, that they are, in fact recrudescing in a more violent form after lying dormant all these years. I have explained the position very fully to him, and suggested that he avails himself of Eric’s legal mind before Wake Smith and Company descend on him.
I have met many of Kendal’s citizens by this time, but not, as yet, a Mr Buckley. If I do, I’ll remember Woodhouse to him.
With kindest regards,
Yours sincerely,
LETTER 34: TO TOM BEARDSALL, 24 NOVEMBER 1942
19 Castle Grove
Kendal
24th November 1942
Dear Uncle Tom,
I’m bothering you already, you see.
As a matter of fact, your trials and troubles as a Trustee, which you fondly thought were ended last Tuesday, are far from finished. They are, on the other hand, recrudescing in a more violent form after lying dormant all these years.
You will remember that when you showed me my grandfather’s Will, I pointed out to you that its terms provided for the distribution of my mother’s share equally amongst her surviving children at the time of her death. It seemed to me, both then and afterwards on further reflection, that my mother had in fact no power to dispose of the money bequeathed to her. Fortunately her Will provided as grandfather’s Will provided, i.e. that her estate should be divided in equal shares amongst her children: nevertheless the money was not hers to dispose of.
The means nothing prejudicial against anybody – except the poor Trustees. It is still your job to administer grandfather’s Will, and you have not done your job until mother’s Trust is apportioned for the benefit of her children. In doing this, you will not be carrying out my mother’s Will, but my grandfather’s as you were appointed to do.
Now let me explain what has happened since I saw you. In the first place I wrote both to Mr Mellor (giving notice for repayment) and to Smith Smith and Fielding (asking if the mortgage was in their keeping). S S and F, now known as Wake Smith and Co. replied to tell me that the mortgage was in their possession, but that payment could not be enforced and in any case there were no funds in the hands of Mr Mellor’s Trustees. The only way to get cash would be to transfer the mortgage to another lender, if possible. This I instructed them to do, reluctantly (since it involved legal expenses). Then they come along and report that they have been looking through their books and discover the fact above stated, that is, that it is the duty of the Trustees of R.D. Woodcock to administer my mother’s estate (or so much of it as was bequeathed to her). With this I have been compelled to agree, and you may therefore expect a call from a representative of Wake Smith and Co. in the near future. They will request you and Uncle Armitage to sign for the release of the mortgage and you should then, in due course, receive a cheque for 400 hundred pounds less legal charges and disbursements. It is then up to you to comply with the terms of the Will by distributing the proceeds equally between the four children. This could most easily be done, if you are agreeable, by endorsing the cheque in my favour and sending it along to me, for as you know I have other moneys here to distribute and would like to pay out each beneficiary in one amount.
I have a suspicion (born out of other dealings with solicitors) that Wake Smith and Company are out to make something for themselves out of this transaction. They will, I am sure, want you to leave everything in their hands, including payment of death duties and apportionment of the estate to the children. They have asked me for the names and addresses of the children and I have supplied them. Their job, until instructed otherwise, is merely to transfer the mortgage and pay you the net proceeds, not to arrange for payment of death duties and an apportionment between the children.
But this is not all. There is the War Stock to be realized. I have hopefully sent away for a form of repayment. This Stock is also registered in the names of yourself and Uncle Armitage, and your signatures will again be needed before payment can be expected. I have been wondering whether Wake Smith and Co also had a hand in making this investment? This money of course is to be treated precisely as the mortgage for 400 pounds, that is, it is your duty, not mine, to see that it is distributed. I expect complications will arise here too before this is finally settled. When I have a reply from the Bank of England I will write to you again.
I should rather like Eric, blessed as he is with a legal mind, to see this letter before you are swept up in the fell clutch of Wake Smith and Co. I think he’ll agree with me.
I return herewith the Will you left with me. Your need of it is greater than mine.
I have left myself little room for social greetings, but I hope you had a pleasant journey home from Blackburn and are keeping in good health.
Yours sincerely,
LETTER 35: TO ALICE FISH, 25 NOVEMBER 1942
19 Castle Grove
Kendal
November 25 1942
Dear Alice,
Thank you for your letter received today.
You seem to have been quite busy running errands which really the Executors should do! However, you appear to have made good progress with your enquiries, much better, in fact, than I have, for I am already caught up in a mass of complications.
When Uncle Tom showed me my grandfather’s Will last Tuesday, it seemed to me then, on reading it, that my mother had in fact no power to say how the money bequeathed to her should be disposed of, since my grandfather himself provided that on her death it should be divided in equal shares amongst her surviving children. I mentioned this to Uncle Tom at the time, but he merely looked blank. Fortunately, my mother’s Will provided in similar terms, but there is this difference, that the money will have to be administered not under the terms of mother’s Will, but under grandfather’s: that is to say, it is the duty of Grandfather’s Trustees, Uncle Tom and Uncle Armitage, to attend to the settlement. Their solicitors have now pointed this out to me, and I have been compelled to agree. Furthermore, I find that repayment of the mortgage cannot be enforced, and that in any case. Mr Mellor’s Trustees have no funds available for repaying the money owing. I have therefore had to instruct the solicitors to transfer the mortgage to another lender, if possible; and I have to tell Uncle Tom that his troubles as a Trustee are by no means ended.
Auntie Nellie wrote yesterday to say that perhaps my mother had misunderstood her about the price of the bedroom suite. The price she mentioned was 16 pounds new, 10 pounds now. My own view is that the furniture is worth the price you agreed to pay, but if you feel at all dissatisfied I will substitute the lower figure. Have you arranged to dispose of the other articles yet?
I enclose a form of authority for you to take to the Co-op. Frank should sign it also.
Please keep a note of all that is happening and don’t send any money by post. I will be over soon, probably on the morning of December 5th
I’ll leave Ruth to tell you the news.
On 1 August 1948, AW became Borough Treasurer of Kendal, on the death of the previous Treasurer. He was aged forty-one, relatively young for such a position – his friend Lawrence did not make the position for another five years, but then Kendal was not as big as Blackburn. His pay rose to £900 a year and he at last decided it was time to give up his council house. He bought a plot of land at Kendal Green, on the edge of the town, and worked with the architect on the design for the house he wanted built and also on a five-year plan to create a garden, with paths, trees and cairns, which he was going to do himself.
He was still walking on the fells at every opportunity, mainly alone, sometimes sleeping out overnight, and doing drawings of local buildings and churches in Kendal and of well known Lake District scenes, while still nursing an ambition to create a greater Lakeland project.
– – –
LETTER 36: TO LAWRENCE WOLSTENHOME, 13 JULY 1949
13 July 1949
Kendal
Dear Lawrence,
Delay in replying to your letter has been caused by a severe bout of overtime: I’ve been earning emoluments for myself as the offices designated to prepare the next electors list. That task is now completed, and the next is to select and send two pictures to decorate the walls of your sanctum at the Town Hall. (Presumably this is the room I remember best as the Rate Enquiry Office, subsequently tenanted by Mr Bennett?)
You ask for ‘soft beauty’, whereas my preference would be for ‘rugged grandeur’ in the shape of rocks, scree and snow. As this exhibition is, in a way, my memorial, I feel tempted to offer you PILLAR ROCK and SCAFELL CRAG. On the other hand, you have to live with the pictures, and your wishes must be observed. Here, then, with my compliments, are ASHNESS BRIDGE, WRAY BAY and CALF CLOSE BAY – three of them. You are entitled to two, the third being added to give you a choice. I feel sure you will pounce on ASHNESS BRIDGE, which is always a safe bet, and that your second choice will be CALF CLOSE BAY. Both are ‘pretty’ pictures, but not good drawings – they represent a style I abandoned some years ago, before I had confidence enough to draw firm lines and splash the ink on. Nowadays I would do these scenes in half the time, use only one-tenth of the lines, and feel much more satisfied with the results. Of the three submitted, my choice would be WRAY BAY first and ASHNESS BRIDGE second. Please return the one you reject. When having the pictures framed, note that a white mount 3” wide and a narrow black frame would give the best effect. I’ll not be there for the unveiling.
Quite the biggest thing that’s happened to me lately is my conversion to colour photography. I switched to colour a couple of months ago – after spending an afternoon, feeling that my poor talents were quite inarticulate, on a hillside carpeted with bluebells, and bracken that was bronze and gold, with Grasmere’s blue lake and green woods in the distance, and white galleons of cloud above. Something had to be done about it, and a day or two later I returned to the scene with a colour film in my camera. The pictures I obtained, after a week’s anxious waiting, were just too beautiful for words. I developed an insatiable appetite for more. It has been a great and thrilling experience this summer to walk along familiar valleys and over well-loved hills as if seeing them for the first time – looking now not for contrasts of light and shade, as before, but for colour. Already I have an album of a hundred lovely pictures: not only of bluebells at Grasmere, but of wild roses in Langdale and foxgloves by Ullswater, of water-lilies on Easedale Tarn, of hawthorn-blossom at Elterwater. And not only of flowers: the hills come first in my favour, as always, and now I have captured for the winter evenings the lichen and moss of Scafell Crag, the red screes of Gable, the grey rocks and brown tarns of Bowfell and Crinkle Crags. I have pictures of views from mountain-tops, many taken just after sunrise, that I could (and will!) gaze at for hours.
The crazy season is in full swing – that of spending nights alone on the mountains. The weather has aided and abetted wonderfully this summer, and the exciting memories I have hoarded up for old age (which seems as far off as ever!) are pearls beyond price. Best of all, perhaps, was a glorious red sunrise seen from Harrison Stickle in a purple sky, while Langdale below was choked with cotton-wool clouds and seemed like a huge curving glacier, from the sheepfold below Rossett to Loughrigg, where it was joined by another glacier coming down from Grasmere. Out of this sea of white cloud rose all the familiar peaks of Lakeland, curiously detached, but warm and rosy and friendly in the early sunlight. Another lovely dawn was witnessed from Scafell Pike: at 3 a.m. I could see quite clearly the outline of the Isle of Man, and its winking lighthouses, and the Scottish hills were so distinct that they seemed on the fringe of the Lake District. The sun came up like a ball of fire, immediately touching the stones of the summit with a warm, ruddy glow where before they had been ashen-grey: and it was unearthly to watch Gable and Bowfell and Pillar and the rest of them all light up, one after another. Below, the valleys were filled with white mist … another time, last month, I was most luxuriantly sunbathing on Bowfell at 5 a.m. and watching shadowy Langdale slowly coming to life. Experiences like this have a heavenly beauty about them that sort of gets me in a soft spot. I hunger for more. I really must get my Lakeland book written. I shall have to do it finally in self-defence! There’s an article in tonight’s Lancashire Daily Post (north edition) about austere borough treasurers, and a recital of the weird habits of Kendal’s b.t., who spends his Saturday nights sleeping (sic) on hill-tops. This will take some living-down: as ever, I have many critics of my conduct, but a perfectly serene and untroubled mind sends me about my daily affairs with a happy smile for everyone. Water off a duck’s back, that’s me!
I may have missed the announcement of the advent of your daughter, for a morbid curiosity attracts me only to the ‘Deaths’ column in the Times. Or it may not have happened yet. Either way. I hope everything is O.K. you’ll see, it’ll be like starting your life all over again. You’re going to enjoy these next few years as never before.
AW
At the beginning of October 1949, the death occurred of Tom Snape, one of AW’s oldest Blackburn friends. Along with Tom’s wife Doris, they had been founder members of the Blackburn Rovers Supporters Club and had also been on holidays together to the Lake District. AW and Doris were very close friends – it is not clear how close but in her diaries she referred to him as ‘my old playmate’ and mentions secret rendezvous, while AW boasted in letters to his male friends that she was one of his girl friends.
Tom had been ill and in poor health for some years. AW wrote a long letter to Doris two weeks after Tom died. From then on, AW always used to visit her, staying with her at her house, when he visited Blackburn.
LETTER 37: TO DORIS SNAPE, 21 OCTOBER 1949
19 Castle Grove
Kendal
21 Oct 1949
Dear Doris,
I wonder how you are feeling now, a fortnight after? I have often wondered during these past days. More and more I am coming to think that your attitude is right: that we must regard Tom’s passing not as a tragedy but, in many ways as a blessing. When I think back over the years I have known him, I feel that I never fully understood what his sufferings must have been. I never understood (nor did others who knew him) because he took such good care to show always a bright and cheerful face. The last thing he sought was sympathy – it suited him far better to double everyone up with laughter. He was the funniest man I ever met: with all respect to him, he was a wonderful clown. I could never tire of hearing Tom tell a story, or recount some of his experiences – it was always a joy to me to be his listener. But because he was such jolly company, I never quite appreciated the effort it must have cost him sometimes. How often he must have dearly wished (inwardly) that he could have been fit and well like those he entertained, that he could have enjoyed, too, many experiences which were denied him by his poor health. He must have realized keenly that many simple pleasures which others enjoyed as a matter of course, would never be his, not in this life.
He must have had many regrets, and they must have been in his mind continuously, but never once did I hear him mention them. He never complained, never. A stranger would have thought he was the happiest jolliest fellow in the world, without a care or worry of any sort. We who knew him better knew different, but he never allowed us to dwell on his misfortunes. His physical failings he couldn’t hide from us, but he refused to let us reflect that he must have mental sufferings, too. But of course he must often have wondered to himself why he was called upon to bear, such a cross, and for so long. The burden was with him all the time, and it grew heavier, not lighter. He must have realized long ago that his health was worsening and that there was no hope of any permanent improvement, but his smile continued as broad as ever, and no one was allowed to suspect his real feelings. The future for him was as bleak as it could be, and what a consolation it must have been to him to know that he could depend absolutely on the unfailing love of his wife and son! At the same time, how bitterly he must have regretted that his misfortunes
should be such a source of concern and worry to those two he loved best, and how he must have wished he could spare them their anxiety!
Now he is at rest, as you said, and in such peace that he would never have known in his life. But you will be finding that his presence in your home seems no less real, that he lives on without pain. How could it be otherwise? Every corner of the house has its own special memories of him: you must be feeling constantly that he is still there, watching you as you lay the table, as you sit by the fire, as you walk in the garden. And watching not sadly, but with a happy twinkle in his eye, and a ready chuckle. He will be especially watching you in the kitchen, and longing to put on his pinny and take over the cooking from you! Yes the new arrangement of things is rather nice don’t you think? The initial shock was awful, but that is over, now – and you find that Tom hasn’t gone at all. He’s still there, about the house, and as real as ever – and, best of all, not now suffering, but happy with a new happiness. Happy because his suffering is over, happy because he has been able to ease your burden at last. He will be happiest of all when he sees you are happy again, when he can hear you singing again.
He’d like you now to enjoy some of the pleasures you denied yourself to attend to him. He’d like you to take a little holiday now and then, and go to theatres and shows, and have the folk he liked best to come and share your fireside sometimes.
So try to go on pleasing him, as you have done for so long!
I do hope you are feeling better now, and finding that the ‘new arrangement’ (as I call it) has its own quiet joys that you would never have suspected before. If you don’t agree with me now, I’m sure you will before long! Take good care of yourself, and look after Derrick – by which I mean send him out in the evenings to find his own friends. (then you can share your fireside with Tom alone, and play some nice records for him, eh?)
The Wainwright Letters Page 9