Dear Mr Bigelow

by Frances Woodsford

  And, of course, we have the chocolates and the creamy mints, and so on, from your Easter Egg. And I have bought Mother a pale green cardigan and Mac green nylon socks, so all together our outing should be perfectly Easter-ish.

  I am afraid this will have to be a short letter: I can hear Mac honking away out the front – his polite way of informing me he is here, and although he has no real objection to keeping me waiting, of course it is lese-majesty to do the same thing to him. So I must away in a hurry.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Frances W.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  May 26th 1956

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  This, being the first full week of our summer water show, is always one of the busiest and most headachy in the year for me. This year, opening night came and all my staff arrived – except TWO. These did not have the common decency to telephone and say they'd changed their minds about coming to work for us, and thereby left us in a complete flap five minutes before the audience came in, as we hadn't enough usherettes to show them in, nor doormen enough to take their tickets.

  Since then I have written to five more, not one of whom has bothered to answer – even to say 'No', and have arranged for two girls who were friends of those already working for us – and they, bless 'em, did have the manners to telephone and say 1) that the parents wouldn't let them work in such a place as the Baths, and 2) they didn't want to work Saturdays. Ah well . . .

  But to more cheerful matters. Let us start with Mother. She went down the garden on Thursday, a very warm and humid day, and got bitten by a midget. According to her. It's another one of the book of Mrs Woodsford Malapropisms, and, I think, a very good one.

  It was raining a little on Thursday, so instead of giving my genius to outdoor painting class that evening, I gave my services to the good of my country, and turned up at the Civil Defence class. We were on a small exercise at the 'bombed' house, where I was given a label reading 'Fractured femur' and told to drape myself over some rubble and be a casualty. Fortunately I was also given a blanket as well as a label, as the grass was both long and wet, and the rubble was dirty and uncomfortable, being composed of bits of old iron, bricks, loose odds and ends of wood – in fact, just the sort of thing you would get around a bombed building. I lay there on my little blanket for ten or fifteen minutes, until the rescue party discovered me, and listened to a cuckoo in the next field echoing my thoughts exactly.

  . . . I must, of a surety, be my mother's daughter. Last evening, I was working late and, on reaching home, had my supper in bed. I was a bit worried about something that had gone wrong, and was thinking of possible causes when I noticed I had taken the stopper out of the vacuum flask and poured my coffee – over my salad. As I told you of Mother's meeting with the midget in the garden (it drew blood, she said) it is only fair that I should tell you about this episode as well.

  And now it is Saturday morning, and there is so much to be done I can't spend any more time writing to you – I got to work at 8.30 so, in any case, only having from 10 p.m. to 8.30 a.m. to go home, feed, and sleep, I am in no real condition to write bright letters anyway. So au revoir until next Saturday.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Frances W.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  June 22nd 1956

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  You are letting your side down, Sir! Do you realise that the Bellport Grapevine (your nom-de-plume) did not let me know that Rosalind was flying to France to take a coach trip next month? I found out from Mrs Beall in London, who said Rosalind was dreading having to write and tell me she was coming to Europe without visiting England. Poor Rosalind! Does she see me as a sort of ogre-spinster, all frowns and recriminations, I wonder. I seem to remember friends being chary of giving me bad news before; it gives me deeply to think. Either they believe me to be so tender-hearted I shall be quite broken up; or they are scared stiff of my reactions. Of course I would naturally prefer the former explanation, but there is sufficient element of doubt about it, for, as I said, serious heart-searching on my part. I wrote to Rosalind within a couple of hours of hearing, giving her my complete permission to visit Europe any time she chose, and graciously forgiving her for this lapse on her part. My only reaction is a somewhat plaintive wish that I could take the tour as well; but as that is impossible from all angles, I just hope the four ladies will have a wonderful holiday. Coming from an ogre, that's pretty generous wishing, don't you agree?

  I listened to Mr Truman last night on the radio, speaking at the Pilgrim Dinner given in his honour. He was an easy speaker. He told a tale of Lord Halifax – a previous speaker – who was showing a party of American ladies over the British Embassy in Washington during his Ambassadorship there. On the walls of the staircase are hung, as no doubt you know, portraits of the English monarchs. One of the ladies stopped before one, and exclaimed, 'Oh, what a handsome man – and what a kind face! Who was he?' Lord Halifax paused before the portrait of George III to collect his thoughts, and then said, 'He was one of the founders of your Country, Madam.'

  . . . Now for London. I came back late Sunday night. Later than I had expected, but that's railways for you these days – they run to please themselves. In fact, the 7.30 p.m., which I was catching, wasn't even shown on the Departure Board. The first thing, the thing of paramount importance in England – the weather, was foul. However, we 'did' Westminster Abbey, which I hadn't seen before. I did go inside one day, many years ago, but whether I picked the wrong door, or what I did, I don't remember but it looked so like an old junk shop I came straight out. This time I was stronger of will, and went around like a good little tourist . . .

  We went also to the Tate Gallery where I wanted Mrs Beall and Miss Henry to see the luminous Turners, and the French Impressionists. Alas, it turned out that they much preferred Watts's Hope sitting on top of the World, which they had seen on umpteen Christmas cards and calendars! Then Mrs Beall and I went to Windsor to go over the Castle, only to find a) it was Sunday and the State Apartments aren't open, and b) St George's Chapel was also closed as there was a service going on, and it was to be shut, anyway, until Tuesday, when the ceremony of installing a new Knight of the Order of the Garter took place. So we were blown from the ramparts by the wind (I noticed in the paper, the Queen was dealt with in the same way at the Tuesday ceremony, nearly being blown overboard in her heavy cloak, and almost losing her plumed hat, to the great amusement of her two children, watching nearby) and had lunch in a very old hotel in the town . . .

  And then, of course, we went three times to the theatre. We saw The Boyfriend which is a delicate take-off of the 1920s and quite enchanting. Mrs Beall wasn't impressed. She is a very unimaginative person, and kept saying, 'I'm sure we weren't as silly in the 1920s, quite sure.' I don't suppose they were – the whole thing was a delicate exaggeration of the manner in which musical comedies were presented on the stage then. The girls wore knickers with elastic just above the knees; their swimming suits had legs almost to the knees, and brightly coloured bands around the hips. They wore bandeaux around their eyebrows, and they were so sweet and so utterly refined it was difficult for them to get the words out of their plum-like mouths. We also saw Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft in The Chalk Garden, which was exquisitely acted and we all loved it. . . Finally – only we saw it first, which was a mistake: it should have been the final item on our programme – we saw Alec Guinness in Hotel Paradiso. This is a French farce, some 80 years ago and still, like some people, going very strong indeed. It was a joy, a wonder, a jaw-acher, from beginning to end – and the timing, Mr Bigelow, must have been done with a stop-watch timing the stop-watch. The scene was a gloriously run-down hotel interior, absolutely perfect of its kind. And every time I think of it, I laugh – especially the bit where Alec Guinness (M. Boniface) has explained his presence in the hotel to a neighbour, who is staying overnight, by saying his wife always said to him 'Any time you are passing the Hotel Paradiso, do run in and give my regards to Madame Cot' (she was
the friend's wife, with whom Boniface was hoping to spend the night). Next time he was confronted by his awkward neighbour, Alec Guinness was hugging an old-fashioned stone hot-water bottle (he was feeling ill from the effects of too much wine) and the best he could do on the spur of the moment was to say his wife told him they did a very good line in hot-water bottles at the Hotel Paradiso, and any time he happened to be passing, to be sure and pop in and get her one. Probably that doesn't sound very funny; it needs the genius of Alec Guinness to brighten it, and I can still see him and you probably never have.

  Now it's half past five and I must get going with the evening work. It's quite nice to be peacefully back at work: I must say trying to keep two very different characters (and different from one's own) happy over four days in bad weather, is quite a strain. And so, au revoir until next Saturday.

  Very sincerely,

  Frances W.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  July 31st – in readiness for Saturday August 4th 1956

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  . . . We went to Horsham last weekend and passed a side-lane with the post saying STEEP, and, under that, SLEET. I asked Mother whether she would prefer to live in Steep or Sleet, and (being Mother and therefore practical before all else) she said it would depend on what they looked like. I gave up. Next we came to a turning leading to WOOLBEDING. Take the slightest pinch of poetic licence over that, and what a delightful place to have for your home address. And then on Sunday, when the Observer came, there was an article all ready for me to cut out and send to you, based, as this letter had intended to be, on place-names. Every single one of these names is the name of town or village: the author has merely put them in a list, removed their capital letters, and played with the idea that there are so many words in a dictionary. We loved his idea of the meaning of Bovey Tracey (Bovey is pronounced Buvvy) – but most of them are good and some are excellent, so I will leave you to enjoy them for yourself. What can you do with Long Island name-places? Or place-names? Quiogue – a form of rheumatism accompanied by shaking; the palsy. Mastic Beach – putty used in sticking wooden houses together. Rampasture – an aggressive attitude, a posture. Speonk – a rude noise. I am sure you can find many if you delve into the old original names, and avoid the made-up ones like Holtsville and Port Jefferson. I see Hauppauge, and Nesconset, Ronkonkoma and Sweyze (Hay Fever) and there is Aquebogue (the normal number of strokes taken at the water hole on the golf links?) and Peconic Bay. You could get up a sort of parlour game with this for the long winter evenings . . .

  Yours most sincerely,

  Frances W.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  September 29th 1956

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  Before I go any farther, let me breathe a deep sigh of relief that the last show of the 1956 Aquashow has been on the calendar. If this place were a proper theatre, there would be arrangements made for adequate working conditions and hours; but as it is, a swimming pool by day and a theatre by night and the staff working the lot, I find 19 weeks non-stop is too long. In a few weeks, when the galas are over as well, I shall be able to relax and perhaps dye a few million white hairs and regain my lost youth, ha ha.

  This has been a week, to be sure. The town has been full of Baths Superintendents, Managers, Deputies, and their Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen. My boss has been flitting from office to Conference Hall and back again; and then, quite suddenly, and without any warning what-soever, the whole lot descended upon us on Thursday afternoon, in the middle of a downpour of rain and a right hearty gale. They had decided, apparently, to come and spend the afternoon going around the Baths.

  By half-past the last visitor had gone, and by 5.45 p.m. we had washed up everything we could find, cleaned ourselves, counted programmes and money, and organised everything ready for the evening performances of the water show. We were, I may add, noticeably shorter, being worn down to the knees . . .

  One of my less brilliant cashiers came to my office while I was at lunch the other day and said, 'Oh, Miss Woodsford, where are they to put the goat?' I said 'Goat, Mrs Allen? What goat?' 'Oh – the goat the Pavilion have sent over for the Baths to stable for them.' I swallowed hard, and then after counting ten remarked fairly mildly that if the goat was too much for the Pavilion to stable I hardly thought the Baths Department was likely to accommodate it for them, and why didn't she tell the goat (and attendant) to try the little hut on the other side of the road where, in previous years, they stabled the donkeys the children rode on the beach. My cashier thought this was a wonderful idea, and was overcome at my brilliance in thinking of it. Adding to my own great knowledge her own wish to be helpful, she told the goat (and goatherd) to go to the shipping office and ask there, where no doubt they would tell them where to go. I am quite sure the shipping office manager, confronted by a goat, would do so. The goat is appearing in Teahouse of the August Moon at the Pavilion, and it is not (I repeat, NOT) being stabled in the Baths, which remain reasonably hygienic.

  We have been dashing around at weekends with my brother, retrieving runaway or just lost little boys on his list of children. Sunday before last it was Adrian; last Sunday, Malcolm. Adrian is a maladjusted child, age about ten or eleven, and he goes to a school for such children miles and miles into the heart of Dorset. He was in the Children's Home in Bournemouth for the school holidays. On Sunday, then, he got up about six o'clock, packed his pathetic belongings in his one suitcase, and set off, stealing a bicycle as he went and pushing the suitcase along, balanced on the saddle. This he found a bit tiring, so he hid the case under a bush and went on, pushing his bicycle, until apparently he noticed another bike he liked better, when he did a swap. When he was eventually found, he was pushing yet another bicycle – it was about the sixth he'd had – and following along behind the Salvation Army Band.

  We had to hurry with this one because he had, about three hours previously, been given travel pills which were expected to wear off any moment now. So we kept a wary eye on his colour and general disposition on behalf of the upholstery. When we arrived at the school, it was a really ancient place – it was in Domesday, we were told – practically falling to pieces, and smelling of moth balls, must and mildew in equal parts. After sitting in the car for an hour or so, waiting, Mother and I were invited in for a cup of tea or, at least, a warm by the fire. The little boy played host and did it very well indeed, all his apparent shyness and awkwardness in the car disappearing as he discovered he was not, it seemed, in dire disgrace for his behaviour. He had 'laid the table' – he had brought in a large tray with a big brown teapot on it, four glasses (yes) four white plates, two or three enormous knives, a plate with some pieces of bread, pieces of cake, and lumps of 'I-hope-it-is-butter' on the edge.

  The lay sister who was then in charge – the school is normally run by an Anglican Order of St Francis, the monks wearing the usual long brown habit and sandals on their feet – told us a bit about these maladjusted children, the trouble being, in her view, that none of them get enough loving when they are very small. She believed that babies need to be loved for a very long time before they are capable of loving on their own – they can react to affection and love quite early on, but remove that affection and they are lost, as it takes years and years for the habit of out-giving to be formed in them. And these poor little boys all lack that individual love of parents in their lives. She said they had a farm attached to the school, and when they reached the age of 14 all the boys gave good help on the farm. 'You see,' she said, 'it's so much easier to have a relationship with an animal than it is with a human being, so they tend to take the easy way out of their difficulties in getting adjusted to living with other people.'

  One thing I disagreed with her over: I did think the child was losing something if he was not told off or punished, or at least lectured, on the naughtiness of stealing bicycles and wandering off without telling people, and giving so much trouble to everybody. If the children are not treated as normal children, how can they get a normal outlook on what is righ
t and what is wrong? . . .

  Now to get this off to the post, if I can reach the pillar-box through the gale now blowing. One walks in a horizontal position in order to keep even remotely upright, the wind is so howling-strong.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Frances W.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  October 6th 1956

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  . . . Yes, thank you, I not only did read the Dorothy Parker poem about various reasons for not committing suicide – I still have it, in the book of her work you sent me for Christmas some years ago. It seems a very poor collection of reasons, in a negative way, but I daresay if it works, it's sufficient. I did myself have a distant cousin who walked into a river with the intent of killing herself, and when the water reached her armpits she was suddenly struck by the awful thought that she'd probably catch pneumonia, doing things like that. So she walked out again . . .

  On Sunday last it was a lovely day, clear, sunny, and with small white puffs of cumulous clouds dotted high in the sky. I suggested a picnic, which the family thought an excellent notion, so we had lunch early and set off about two o'clock. Our objective, Bulbarrow. Barrow is the name for an Ancient Burial Ground, and I don't know where the Bull comes in because, as you know, that is something I never indulge in. Anyway, Bulbarrow is a sort of horseshoe shaped hill, and on the outer side – as it were – you look down a long narrow valley, with forests on each slope, to one of the Stately Homes of England (ex, now a boys' school). A dozen paces or so brings you across the spur to the inner side of the horseshoe, and there you look outwards over the Blackmore Vale, a wide and fertile valley in Dorset and Somerset which is a famous dairy area . . .