Very sincerely,
Frances Woodsford
(reproduced by kind permission of Guinness & Co)
BOURNEMOUTH
June 6th 1953
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . Tuesday, Monday, and Wednesday this week have between them broken all records ever kept in England for coldness in the month of June. Trust Dame Nature to put her spoke in at such a time. Anyway, I suppose it was a good thing in one way – people didn't pass out with the heat. Instead, they went to hospital suffering from exposure! I read in the papers that about three hundred went, mostly people who had been sitting and lying on cold, wet stone pavements for upwards of forty or fifty hours. Apart from that, there were 'a few' punctures or scratches from bayonets, caused when the marching columns turned sharp corners. I couldn't help wondering whether the punctures or scratched Guard of Honour let out a squeal, or whether they remained stoically 'At Attention' while being punctured. And, on top of that, one man had his foot crushed by a horse and one other man had a leg broken in the crush of the people. Not bad, for so busy and crowded a day. I was alright; I sat in a room about twenty-five feet long by fifteen feet wide, with eleven other people, watching a four inch television screen and nobody got crushed though we all got headaches.
On Monday Mother and I are going to a cinema to see the coloured film of the event, for I believe colour will make all the difference in the world to the scenes. It was difficult, watching the ceremony on a T.V. screen, to realise that it was actually taking place; it seemed more like a film going on slightly shaky but unreal, as a film usually is to me. The Queen's gown did, indeed, look unreal – like soft light shimmering on water, and it made one realise how much is missed in a static photograph of the flashing and scintillation of the embroidery Royalty have on their gowns. I was sure the Queen, poor dear, was over-come when her husband paid homage, for I caught a glimpse, as he backed down the steps, of something white which she was holding to the corner of her eye, and hurriedly put down and tucked in her waistband.
Towards the climax of the Communion, I began to feel most embarrassed, as though I were eavesdropping, or looking through a key-hole. This was due to the fact that all the people at my friends' house were getting hungry, and had started eating their lunches, so the solemn ceremony was accompanied around me by a sort of running commentary of 'Pass the Mustard', or 'Like some more coffee, Connie?' So I was quite glad that the B.B.C. did not televise the height of the service, but showed us, instead, a hanging tapestry in silence for a few minutes, until the service had reached a less intimate point once more.
Of course, Sir Winston Churchill took a plum for himself; he was suitably solemn and emotionally overwhelmed, I thought, in the Abbey, and like a schoolboy on half-holiday in the procession afterwards. As we watched the procession going through Hyde Park, along came nine black coaches, each containing Prime Ministers of parts of the Empire and Commonwealth, and then we heard extra loud cheers and laughter and knew that the tenth contained Sir Winnie. It didn't contain him altogether, for he was hanging half out of the window, his plumed hat tossed aside, making the V-sign for all he was worth and having the time of his young life. London also took the Queen of Tonga, all six foot three of her, to their hearts, and she took us to hers. She refused to have the carriage roof up, in spite of the rain, and went the five miles beaming and waving an arm big enough for Samson of Carnero, and wiping her wet face with an outsize in handkerchiefs.
All in all, it was a memorable day. I did find television non-stop from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., when I had to leave to come to work, far too long, and I never did find the marching of batches of troops, batch after batch, all that enthralling. But on the whole, it was a magnificent spectacle and we all had a whale of a time.
This is being written on Friday afternoon: I am incarcerated in the Cashier's office. No. 1 Cashier didn't turn up at nine this morning, and No. 2 didn't come in at ten either. In one instance we had a message that her husband was ill (interesting, but not much help to me) in the other we have had grim silence all day. I could spit! To crown it all, my boss couldn't get his figures right in working out the amount of the cheque for the water show producer, and came to me in the cash desk to sort it out. When I gave it back to him I said mildly, 'You and seaside landladies! Try it without adding in the date.' 'What date?' 'You've taken the "y" of Coronation Day as a seven and included it.' He was so mad, and I don't blame him. And now I must stop and get some more work done.
Hope you are well and happy,
Very sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
June 13th 1953
(The Day Before The Great Arrival Day)
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Rosalind's travelling companion wrote me last month, asking me to look for some things she wants to buy (to save time, she says). Their 28 hours in Bournemouth now include; a bathe in the sea; buy an antique sideboard; visit some famous gardens; have luncheon in an old English inn; buy a china animal; buy a 'Scotch golf cap' (whatever that is) and buy a navy cashmere jumper. If we can get a look at Salisbury Cathedral, Corfe Castle, Buckler's Hard and Winchester, all well and good.
Please don't expect anything lucid in today's letter; my mind is chock-a-block with the sizes and shapes of Sheraton sideboards or alternative pieces of furniture; with the whereabouts of that rarity in England, a real cashmere sweater (as opposed to the things we send abroad to people who don't know real cashmere when they see it) or china dogs and horses; and a veritable turmoil of restaurant addresses and possibilities in cases of rain, fog, snow or other seasonable weather changes.
. . . A letter arrived yesterday for Rosalind from, I assume, Mr Akin. There is a pencilled note on the back 'mailed such and such a time'. Does Mr Akin not trust the postal authorities and want Rosalind to com-pare the postmark with his own information to make sure the letter didn't go sculling around the post office for days before they got down to franking it? It will make a pleasant welcome for Rosalind, though (unless maybe she took the front door key with her and the letter is a plaintive plea to return it in a hurry!!!) and I am looking forward to waving it at her from the docks.
I am glad you saw and enjoyed the television of the Coronation. Do try to see the coloured film as well, if it comes anywhere near Bellport, for it is wonderful. It is not very long – about an hour or just over – and it is a joy from one end to the other. My one complaint is that I don't like Sir Laurence Olivier, and therefore felt irritated at his stagey shouting of the commentary, particularly right at the beginning where the royal coach is coming out of the Palace, and he says, in a rising crescendo, '. . . . . . comes to a rising noise of cheers,' whereas the only cheers you can hear then are very feeble and by no means rising. But the colours are so lovely; the people in Hyde Park look like massed pink hydrangeas against soft and misty trees . . . And that unbelievable cloth-of-gold coat which the Queen wears, and the square robe over it for the homage, make the richness of the Bishops and Archbishops look really dowdy, if you can imagine anything doing that.
Seeing the film, I found I was wrong in thinking the Queen wiped her eye as her husband made his homage. The camera in television was behind the Duke, and it did look like a furtive wipe. The cinema camera, however, was on the Queen's right-hand and you distinctly saw the hand push the crown back into position after the clumsy clot of a husband had knocked it skew-whiff!
. . . All for now; I must get my office work finished quickly as I want to get out to lunch early and book my seat on the coach* and collect some shoes from the menders and buy a bright lipstick to rival my yellow jacket.
* Editor's note: Frances was travelling to meet Rosalind at Southampton.
Expect a jubilant letter next week.
Very sincerely,
Frances Woodsford
BOURNEMOUTH
June 20th 1953
Dear Mr Bigelow,
No rose without a thorn, sang the Victorians. The thorn these last two days has been in the fo
rm of a 1934 Ford 8 saloon otherwise known as Hesperus. The rose has been your daughter Rosalind, the loveliest and most delightful heroine Shakespeare wrote of, and so graceful in spirit. And now she has gone on to France and Italy and Mac and I are feeling low and drab. We had so little time to get acquainted and the weather was AWFUL. GHASTLY. DESPERATELY DISMAL. DREARY. WET. VERY WET. COLD. VERY COLD. A colleague, knowing of my plans to pass through as pretty a stretch of country basking in the sun as I could manage (to impress the visitors, of course) said this morning: 'Bit difficult to explain away, wasn't it?' And indeed it was.
Thursday, now, was a very fine day with a brisk breeze and warm sun. We (Hesperus and I that is) picked Rosalind and Mrs Beall up at their hotel and took them home to meet Mother and have a cup of tea. There Mac joined us and we motored through Lyndhurst (where the original Alice in Wonderland lived) and the New Forest to Beaulieu and, we hoped, Buckler's Hard for dinner at the Master Shipbuilder's Hotel. The road from Lyndhurst to Beaulieu reminded Rosalind of the easternmost point of Long Island; rolling land covered in gorse and heather and grass. In Beaulieu we had a puncture and had to prevail upon a farmer (who had been working with only a five-minute break for tea since seven that morning, bless him) who helped him change the wheel. A passing motorist kindly stopped and lent us his brace and bit which fitted. Then they found that the spare wheel valve was leaking, and the Good Samaritan motorist took that one off his own spare and gave it to Mac.
Arriving at Buckler's Hard we found that, being over an hour late, Mine Host had given us up and sold our dinners to four hungry yachts-men who had sailed up Beaulieu river with sea-size appetites. On our saying we didn't in the least mind a cold dinner, he stepped back and allowed us to pass into a very old and charming dining room. The waiter brought, in turn, deep bowls of soup with cream crackers and fresh bread; cold veal and tongue, new potatoes, tiny little carrots steeped in butter, fresh broad beans, crisp lettuce and home-made mayonnaise. To follow we had bottled apricots, ice cream and whipped cream, which he named Manhattan Melba in honour of our guests' accents. After that we retreated to a sort of ante-room to the lounge, where we had coffee and watched the evening descend on the river and reeds at the foot of the garden. It was quite enchanting, and I must say I thought it wasn't bad for a scratch meal!
Yesterday I awoke to find the whole world whipped in flying rain. I called for the ladies at their hotel (and a fine waste of a room looking over the sea it was, too, with weather like that) and when they had finished writing mountains of postcards we went shopping. Rosalind we let loose in an antique shop where she had no end of fun until it was time to rush home for luncheon.
Rosalind herself will no doubt describe the pleasures of Wilton House where the tour was so intimate we felt we had met the Earl and Countess of Pembroke themselves . . . . . . ('Don't fall over the dogs' bowl!' said our guide.) All rooms were filled with family photographs and sweet with the scent of climbing roses. Then we tore back to Salisbury where, alas, we couldn't go in the Cathedral because a service was in progress and there wasn't, anyway, time. Dinner followed in a 1500 inn in Romsey and so, still, in rain, to Southampton where we drove in and out of various docks until we found the right one, and Rosalind and Mrs Beall were hustled hurriedly through Customs, Passport Inspection and all too quickly onto the boat for France.
Mac and I returned, dismally, to home and bed, and today to dreary normality again.
And on that depressing note I will leave you.
Very sincerely,
Frances Woodsford
BOURNEMOUTH
September 5th 1953
Dear Mr Bigelow,
At last, at last, my brother has passed his driving test. When told the good news, he asked the Examiner if it was 'all right' to drive the car away, and of course, the man said 'No', because the little chit they give you is not a driving certificate, but merely a note authorising the Licensing Department at the Town Hall to issue a driving licence (on payment of the appropriate fee). Mac said he waited until the Examiner had tootled off, and then, to the great interest of a passing policeman, he removed his 'L' plates and drove off to the Town Hall. He there obtained his licence and drove back to his office in the most legal and law-abiding manner, as though he has been keeping within the law all these months!
On Monday morning Mac said to me, 'If you'll go and get the car out, I'll take you down to the office.' . . . As I got into Hesperus's driving seat I touched the steering wheel, and the horn started blowing again non-stop. Mac, frowning like thunder, strolled over and said coldly (it was his bad day, obviously), 'I don't see how you can do it; the car never does that with me!' I pointed out that there was a first time for everything.
But, in truth, it wasn't the first time. It was the third, and all three times had been when I was, alas, driving the thing.
On Sunday I took Mother out for a run, and as I was turning the car on top of a hill the klaxon started blowing. As I hadn't touched it my conscience, pricking slightly, told me that there must be some part of its mechanism at the rear of the car, and I had bumped it in bumping into the grass verge as I reversed. When I went forward again, the horn stopped. We got to within a mile from home quite happily, and were bowling along the main road when the darn thing started again – right bang outside a garage. I swung the car into the garage yard; thought a moment of my financial state (it was the day before payday) and the nine pence which was all I had, and swung her out again. So we sailed along the main road going full blast, with people bellowing at us, staring at us, shouting at us, blowing their horns at us, and laughing at us. Mother was hysterical with laughter, and I was hard put to it to continue driving when we came across a very old man sitting on a bench waiting, I thought, for a bus. As we rounded the corner there he was, leaning forward onto his knees, one hand cupped around his ear. Ah, I said to myself, you'll hear us, alright, Sir, even if you don't hear the bus when it comes. His face was a study as we passed him on our strident way.
On driving into the garage, still klaxing, I discovered – quite accidentally – that when I turned the steering rod to the left, the noise stopped. So I had left it turned that way on the Sunday evening, and on the Monday it was merely the touch of my coat which brought the wrath down on my ears again. Mac very kindly tinkered with it until he got a wire off, so we have run for two days without a horn. Never a dull moment, eh?
. . . Now I must off and away for my lunch. Tomorrow I am taking some friends out in Hesperus for an all-day picnic. If you don't hear from me next week you'll know that something worse than the horn went wrong this time . . .
Very sincerely,
Frances Woodsford
BOURNEMOUTH
September 26th 1953
Dear Mr Bigelow,
On Monday I was bitten by a dog for the first time in my life, and I don't mind if it is also the last time. A nasty, snappy little Peke with which I was only being sympathetic as it obviously was upset at the rain and the wind. And the wretch bit me. Three fingers of my left hand it got, too. Wait until later in this letter to see if I get rabies, as I am beginning the letter on Tuesday evening, and by Saturday it's bound to show. If you can't wait until the end of the letter, you may peep at the postscript . . .
My heart tells me it is I who am obliged to you, since you
appreciate so kindly the letters I am sending you. And don't you
realise that I find some consolation in writing to you? I assure you
I find much, and I have at least as much pleasure in talking to
you as you have in reading what I say.
I quoted that from the book I am currently reading, with the alteration of only one word: it seemed to me to be most apt for our correspondence; you for ever being appreciative, and me for ever trying to say the debt is mutual. Can you guess who wrote the quoted paragraph? None other than Mme de Sévigné, that Princess of letter writers. And aren't they magic – they almost make me wish to speak and read French, that I might enjoy them in the o
riginal.
My mother and her grocer get into mutual difficulties with their respective handwriting; usually, I am called upon by one side or the other, to give a judgement. This week there was some muddle about Mother's order book – she had been given somebody else's by mistake, and couldn't find her own. It was eventually found, and to prove her point that she had never taken it to the grocer, Mother (who couldn't find her spectacles either) asked me to read the last items entered.
Surprisingly, they were fairly clearly written. I read,
'Zulu, Flu, All Set.'
'Yes,' said Mother triumphantly. 'And I haven't had any of them yet!'
As Zulu is the name given to the small black poodle next door, Mac and I are being very careful to investigate all our meat dishes this week. The items, when correctly interpreted (and we went to the grocer to find out, in the end) were: Izal (a disinfectant), Flour, and a box of Liquorice All Sorts. How dismally disappointing is the truth at times!
. . . On Sunday last week I sawed, clawed, tore, broke, or cut about nine inches off the top of our garden hedge, and some six or seven inches off the side of it. This entailed standing on the kitchen stool, which in turn usually means falling face first into the hedge from time to time when the stool hits a soft piece of earth and sinks to one side under my weight. The hedge, now cut down, is still about six feet high and it is very, very hard on the arms and hands to cut the far side of a six foot hedge, standing on a small and inadequate stool. I may say that due to the presence of sundry hen-houses on the far side the top of the hedge has to be cut from our own garden. I didn't count the scratches, but somebody who saw me on Monday thought I had scarlet fever . . . And I thought I was dying, for I hadn't the strength left in my hands to wring out my face flannel on Monday morning! However, I am able to grasp things again by now, which is just as well because Wednesday is payday and wouldn't it be ghastly if I went to the bank and was physically incapable of grasping all that nice new money? . . .
Dear Mr Bigelow Page 15