Dear Mr Bigelow

by Frances Woodsford

  Now come to think of it, fashions don't seem to change as often as we think. For outside the museum is a small bronze statue of Pan, in the act of throwing something (if it was a football, the ball is missing) out to sea. Pan is dressed in a smart-alec sort of smile, for the most part, but during the war he was frequently dressed in undergarments looking very like those issued to the little English Air Force girls. He lives next door to the main Canadian Air Force Officers' mess on one side, and opposite two large hotels used as leave-centres for the U.S. other ranks, and I think it was once more a case of the American Forces, both sides of the 49th Parallel, sending clothing parcels to Britain. What I often wanted to know was, were his warm wearings given voluntarily or not?

  . . . Enough of all this: I do hope you are better now, and continuing to disappoint your doctor by refusing to have pneumonia. I understand the medicine for pneumonia is horrible. It's much better to stick to colds, which carry with them much less drastic doses of physic. Anyway, by now you will be better, I'm sure, and are probably overseeing the tying of your rose bushes against the winter. Two of mine are still blooming, yah, yah! I think they are crazy, but that may be the company they keep.

  I've not heard from Rosalind since she wrote on her visit to Vancouver Island, and do hope this doesn't mean she's been ill. Probably just busy; and in any case, there's no real reason why she should write.

  Last Saturday I went to Salisbury, a cathedral town with a market place about 30 miles from Bournemouth, in the hope of finding some antique bargains for Christmas gifts. As it rained very heavily in the morning I decided not to go. And then just as I was about to leave the office, it stopped raining, so I dashed off to the bus station and caught the bus, only stopping to think when halfway there that I'd had no lunch and made no arrangements about taking sandwiches. So I thought I'd have something when we reached Salisbury at 2.30. At 2.30 we did reach Salisbury, and I was frozen to the marrow, sitting in a cold bus with wet feet. So I tore round to the market square looking for a cup of some-thing hot. Only to turn my nose up at the cheap, nasty, snack-bars which surround the market place along with the public houses. All the good restaurants were filled with lunches, and not started with teas. So I went at the double round the stalls looking for bargains. Only bargain I saw was on the part of the stall holder I discovered selling Bristol Blue glass at fabulous prices to two American ladies shopping there! So I came away, unable to bear the sight, and merely stopped to purchase a small silver brooch for a young girl who'll probably hate it anyway, and dashed back to the bus station to find a bus waiting. Popped on, and decided I'd wait to eat until we got back to Bournemouth when I could have a tea-snack before going to friends where I was due for dinner. Of course, on arriving back in Bournemouth I was once more frozen to the marrow, and finding a bus to the friends' district ready and waiting (and not another for an hour) I popped in and arrived at their house cold and hungry, about 5.30 p.m., having eaten breakfast at 7 a.m. and nothing since. AND WE HAD DINNER AT EIGHT O'CLOCK! Before dinner I was given two sherries, and oh Mr Bigelow I've never felt so giddy in my life! It wasn't much fun (I've never yet got drunk or near-drunk and can't imagine it being a happy condition, judging by my misery after a couple of cocktails) and it was very, very hard work being polite and applauding the firework display in the garden, when all I wanted was a good beefsteak. Not that I was likely to get a good beefsteak, or even a steak, but these friends are well in with the blackmarket and their tables always groan (their guests too, but afterwards, with overeating) and to have to wait all that time nearly killed me.

  And that is why I say it's the company my rose bushes keep that turns them crazy.

  I do hope you are well again.

  Yours sincerely,

  Frances Woodsford

  1950

  April 29th (p. 26), 'I am going to distemper and paint the bathroom, spring clean the kitchen and repaint it, and do Mother's bedroom as well if I get time.'

  BOURNEMOUTH

  January 17th 1950

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  It's a glorious day today; a rich apricot-coloured sunshine is wrapped round everything, and I have just come in from a walk in a short- sleeved wool frock and bolero only. Privately, I was a fool to let the sun tempt me, because it wasn't until I got outside that I discovered it was tempered by a nice little breeze from your part of the world.

  I was delighted with your letter, Mr B., and even more delighted with all the trouble Mr Dahl obviously took to make the package seem so much more important than it was. I have written him a short note of thanks, which he well deserves. He won't be overwhelmed this time! My earlier letter to him was, I will admit, very, very carefully written with two rough drafts first, as I had no intention of giving him any loophole at all through which he could get out of doing my behest. Incidentally thank you for a new word for my vocabulary – I'd never heard of 'whelmed' as a separate word before, but it's there in the Concise Oxford and scores you a point . . .

  I'm afraid 'you've had it', so far as your new kitten is concerned. That was a phrase much in use in the Forces during the war, and indicated that, whatever it was you wanted, it was just as though you'd already had it, so far as any likelihood of future having was concerned. Dogs and cats who 'find' people do it on purpose, and are not to be got rid of by wily advertisements or other means. Your cat has obviously taken over the house, as I can see from his behaviour towards your dogs already. What are you going to call her? Cara? Autocat!! Orphan Annie? I had a Mr Perkins once who turned out to be a Dorothy Perkins instead. Perky made quite a good name for a cat; it was easy for her to hear. Of course, no cat hears itself called unless it wants to, but just the same it's a good thing to find a name they can easily understand. Mine are called Sammie, Fatty Freckleface (Frecks, or Fatty, or Culls when we call him) and the office one is Willie Jackson, as you know.

  Rereading your letter: I cannot help thinking Mr Dahl's guests were the ultra-polite type. The suit and shoes in the snapshot are both about seven years old! The ring is an heirloom and I don't wear an engagement ring, never having got that far! I had intended sending my prize-snapshot to you, but as several friends to whom I showed it remarked 'Oh, what a pretty girl! Who is it?' I decided it couldn't be a good likeness, so plumped for this one instead. I am usually smiling except when I am not. Many, many years ago I was born with gastritis, a hernia, and so weak my eyes had to be bathed open every morning for six months. I am told that between turning blue with the pain of my various sicknesses, I blew the happiest bubbles in London. Thus proving at an early age that there's one born every minute, and reflecting no credit on me for my happy disposition. There's so much horror and sorrow in the world about which we can do absolutely nothing at all, it seems stupid to go around with a long face just because it is there. As reasonable to go around laughing for joy because there are buttercups and sunshine and light on water.

  The Radio Times was not marked with all the best programmes. I remember being rather annoyed with myself for not having listened to the type of programme I would feel proud to acknowledge having heard! It (the B.B.C.) is not exactly a government enterprise, although it is run by a Board of Governors appointed by Parliament, and it is thought at the moment to err rather in showing left-wing bias, but that might be explained by the fact that so many scientists are that way inclined. They never were in touch with the facts of life, were they?

  So now I have a warped mentality, have I? Because I enjoy an occasional crossword puzzle! Let me tell you Mr B., that the one I do – in the Daily Telegraph – is a very good exercise in clear thinking. An exercise I am always in need of. The clues (usually there are two or three hints rather hidden in the one clue) say exactly what the compiler means. Only, they say it in such a way that the solver automatically thinks it means something else. Careless reading – just as we have so much careless listening – we hear what we expect to hear, and not always what is being actually spoken. As for those crosswords which are full of unknown words, ther
e is no fun or interest in them at all, I'll grant you that. One day I will solve one of the Telegraph items, and send it to you to see for yourself . . .

  Thank you for your letter from Mr Meserole. Is he like our own

  J. B. Priestley? Woolly minded? I love the idea of world-planning so that nobody wants for anything, nobody suffers, nobody is unhappy. How many murders were there in the world last year? How many divorces? How many arguments between the U.S. Navy Department and the U.S. Army big-shots? How many between Foreign Ministers? How many between Dictators? Perhaps if we start with the family rows and work up from there we may yet have a world-plan, but personally I don't expect to see it. If, say, we had a sudden, overwhelming revival of the Christian spirit that wouldn't be big enough to solve world problems, because it wouldn't take in the Jews, the Mohammedans, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the sun-worshippers or the Hottentots. It wouldn't even affect the Mormons or the Seventh-Day Adventists. I think it's too big a problem for Mr Meserole to tackle, even with your help.

  Incidentally, I'd love to know where he got his $400,000,000,000 from. Did he go round all the firms in the U.S.A. asking how much they lost in the depression, then add it all up. Personally, I stop counting, or being affected by any figure above the ten thousand mark. I earn £350 a year and I know, to the penny, just how far that stretches. What I don't know, and can't visualise, is how far forty-million-times-£350 would stretch. I can't take in our National Debt; the amount of Marshall Aid now rising up in a mountain round our necks (makes a change from the National Debt, which was only called a millstone) or how many light hours it would take to reach the moon. So now you know my Achilles tendon!

  . . . Having been rather busy lately, I haven't proceeded very far with your life history, but here are a couple of chapters for you to be getting on with. I think, in the next chapter, I will bring in one or two of the relatives I found for you under the 'Bigelow' group in the American Who's Who I studied at the library the other week. You'd be surprised to know who you picked up as brothers. I was always told my father's family were related to the Woodsford-Strangeways (the 17th, or some-thing, Earl of Ilminster), but when I came back from the States some-body wrote to me and said she was an Elizabeth Woodsford before her marriage, and were we related – her mother had been maid to Mrs So-and-so and her only brother was a farm labourer. I was livid. Served us right for being snobs, yes? Of course we indignantly denied any such relationship, which is actually, about as likely as the earldom one . . .

  I hope the dentist didn't wreak too much of his will on you. Sadists all, and only one step better than wife beaters. If I were Dictator of Mr Meserole's nicely planned world I'd forbid toothache, that I would. With about as much possibility of global co-operation as any other edict, rule or law would have, were it sent around the entire globe to apply to everybody. Still I expect Mr M. is quite happy pottering around in his life-work, and who are we cynics to make him cry?

  Very sincerely yours,

  Frances Woodsford

  BOURNEMOUTH

  January 27th 1950

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  Imagine me, if you can, with a cheese sandwich in one hand and a swatch of letters in the other, trying to get the one digested and the other answered, before tearing off to London for a week's holiday. Excuse, beforehand, expected low standard of epistle, that is.

  Thank you for your latest letter, with the enclosure regarding different governments and their effects on cows. I must confess I had seen it many years ago, and in retaliation all I can think of is to send you another hoary chestnut – the one about who's doing the work. Here it is, therefore.

  Also enclosed is a cutting from a magazine, in case you've never met the dear girls of that super super school, St Trinian's. Mostly, they appear in sketches only (like the one of the small girl kept back in class to write out a hundred times, 'I must not smoke cigars in chapel') but in this instance the artist and Arthur Marshall have co-operated. Arthur Marshall, himself an ex-schoolmaster, is well known for his extremely funny impersonations of a schoolmistress in just such a school as St Trinian's. You may chuckle; you may not.

  I have just finished reading my Christmas book of the comedies of William Congreve. I can imagine a whole lot of hearty friends in whose company I would not like to see one of these plays enacted! Apart from the juicy bits, though, they are beautifully written and confirm my old love of Millamant. What a gorgeous role to play!

  Also finished, for the third time since Christmas, Pride and Prejudice. Did I tell you, or was it before our time? How I went especially to the National Portrait Gallery in London one day, just to see their newly acquired portrait of Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra? And how amazed I was to find she had, apart from such things as large brown eyes, frizzy hair, a long straight nose, and pink cheeks, a mouth shut tight like a small button cemented over. I was astounded that such a mouth could go with such a wide sense of humour – wide enough to embrace humanity as a whole, and not merely the falling-on-banana-skin type.

  Rereading P. & P. I was struck by the exceedingly bad manners of the majority of the characters. Although we always say that today our manners are appalling, I think their roughness hurts less than the sheer brutality of so many of J.A.'s characters. And today we in ourselves are more independent, less influenced by others' opinions and behaviour, so that we do not so readily blush for our friends. If manners are there to make one at ease, and to make others at ease as well, then I think we are an improvement over the Regency grade. True, Elizabeth and Jane Bennet later are exquisitely mannered in the best way, but they do stand out as a pair of little candles in a very uncouth world. Quite a change to hear anybody say, 'Ah, the younger generation isn't what it was. Thank goodness,' isn't it?

  And now I must get on with the other letters. I do hope you had a lovely visit from Rosalind, and the weather was good to you both. I wonder why you called her Rosalind? It's such a lovely name as are most in Shakespeare, but so few people make use of them. Did you hear of the white woman who called her fifth son Ling-Hi because she'd heard that every fifth child born is Chinese?

  I will tell you what the Thames looks like on fire after I have set it. And if.

  Till then, au revoir, and a bonne santé,

  Sincerely,

  Frances Woodsford

  BOURNEMOUTH

  March 28th 1950

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  If you have a blackboard knocking around the place, chalk up one point to you over this business of coffee. I will go halfway to meet you over it – coffee in England, in public restaurants and cafés (where they ought to know better) is awful. The coffee you get in private homes is usually a good deal better. Whereas in my opinion, and judging by my slight experience, coffee in the States is drinkable anywhere, at worst, and very good, at best.

  I was forcibly reminded of this vileness of English coffee on Sunday, when I went to Southampton to meet two American ladies off their ship, and took them to the best hotel in Southampton for lunch. A horrible meal, too, of which I was heartily ashamed. The soup was just warm brown thickness; the Yorkshire pudding (I didn't have any) looked soggy and rubber-like, and the coffee was awful.

  It was great fun, playing hostess to somebody who had reversed the roles in America. It was also great fun putting on one of my No. 1 beaming smiles to get me through forbidden territory! Having no official permit, I should not have gone into the docks at all, but the policeman on duty took pity on my blank look of disappointment and let me through upon signing some paper or other. Nobody lower than a Cabinet minister is allowed on board while ships are in the docks, but I looked helpless and appealing at three very tall men, one of whom looked down and remarked, 'Oh dear, no, you can't go on board. Besides, this man is the doctor and he has to go on board first of all, to give the ship a clean bill of health. Then this man goes on – he is the Immigration Officer – and then I go aboard. I'm the Customs Officer. You just follow us.' So I did.

  Coming out, we had a taxi and went
another way. Then the police stopped our car for the production of passports, and upon saying I hadn't one, but had come in by the other gate, the bobby remarked, 'Oh yes, I know all about you.' See how the Gestapo keep us under their watchful eye! The police apparently passed me from one to the other, for they didn't argue when we came back later and I accompanied my friends on board and stayed to dinner. Nor did the gatekeeper object when I arrived back at his post, completely, utterly and absolutely breathless, too breathless even to speak. Even to object to the fact that the clock in the distance I had been running by, was twenty-five minutes fast and I was in no danger of losing my train, by the clock over the dock gates. But then, I always manage to catch my trains in plenty of time. This day, just as I was walking (yes, walking by then) down the steps leading to the station yard, I saw a train in the platform and heard the loudspeaker voice announcing . . . . . . 'stopping at Boscombe, Bournemouth Central, Bournemouth West, and Weymouth'. So I went back to my normal twelve miles per hour rush and promptly got clutched by the ticket-collector who wanted to know, reasonably enough, where I was going to. 'Don't stop me – I want to catch the Bournemouth train!' I retorted, struggling. 'Well, you'll do it. It's not due in for ten minutes', was the nasty answer. The train I had seen was going the other way, anyway. I know quite well that when I die I shall pop out of my coffin and run all the way to the cemetery so as to be there in plenty of time for the arrival of the cortège.

  . . . Disappointed woman all round, I am today. From a friend I borrowed a pair of silver-fox furs last weekend. I wanted the two American ladies to think I was affluent – as though I wasn't a bit worried whether my money'd be enough to pay the lunch bill! – and so I dressed up in my Sunday best. Unfortunately, my family decided I looked common in the furs. I didn't agree, but I did think they made me look old – look my age, anyway! – and as it was actually too cold to go without a coat, I had the furs returned without showing them off. I suppose I must stick to mutation mink (the pale stuff, like captured moonlight) or nothing. Or perhaps chinchilla would suit my particular beauty. I knew I should have persuaded Mrs Watson, a friend of Rosalind's from Fairmount, to return to the docks in time to see the Caronia come in with its 22 millionaire passengers aboard. Might have found one to suit me, I might.