Dear Mr Bigelow

by Frances Woodsford

  Well, we reached Bulbarrow and found the best spot for parking the car, where you get both views at once (if equipped with eyes both sides of your head, of course) was occupied by about a dozen cars. We were cross, but not too put out, and turned along one arm of the crescent, to park by the side of the road. Unfortunately, as we progressed, we found the place was stiff with cars and motorcycles, perambulators, caravans, religious placards, and thousands and thousands of people, drat 'em. We had arrived right bang in the middle of the last big motorcycle 'scramble' races which take place up and down the side of the hill. When we eventually found room enough to put the car off the road, and had our picnic on the high bank on the opposite side, we were some two miles from the very top of the hill, but still within easy listening of the loudspeakers and eternal buzz-buzz of the cycle engines, as they fell down the hill or pushed themselves up. We had sandwiches and tea, very crumbly cream cake (Mother said it was a nice cake for an alfresco meal, because you could just drop the crumbs anywhere and it didn't matter) and more tea to the accompaniment of appeals for doctors, people who'd lost children, and children who'd lost their parents.

  . . . Yes, you may well have read about some Russian woman lifting some small hats in a London shop. It is still simmering; a regular storm in a samovar. Apparently this woman – she was one of the Russian athletes visiting England officially a few weeks ago – went shopping in a big, cheap London store and collected half a dozen out-of-date, and cheap hats. Nobody knows whether she just didn't know how you went about paying for hats in England. Nobody, apparently, knew what language she was speaking for a long time, which cannot have helped anybody. The store has a strict rule about charging pilferers, and they took the same line with her. Once they had discovered who she was, I think they might have given her the benefit of the doubt, but they didn't, and that was that. The charge was made; the Russians exploded. The rest of the team went off home in a huff, and everybody said rude things about the British Government for not stepping in and quashing the whole thing. Now the whole point of the Brit. Gov.'s answer is this: in England, the Government has no say whatsoever about the judiciary. By this time the big store had got a bit scared of all the hullabaloo, and it was suggested (by whom I do not know) that the Public Prosecutor should take the case over, which has been done.

  And now, the silly woman – who, we all realise, has only to appear in Court and, through an interpreter, tell the Court what she was up to, to have them say 'Well, we're sorry there has been a misunderstanding, and goodbye' – she is still being held incommunicado in the Russian Embassy; she won't come out for fear of being arrested, and until she does come out, she can't get home to Russia . . . It's all too silly for words and the amount of hot air that has been circulated should keep us warm for the rest of the winter.

  Last week I entered in the Football Pools competitions, and one of my three lines got 20 points, only one point less than was necessary to win a prize. I told Mac this, and he was extremely interested and suggested I should use some system or other, by which you calculate the mathematical chances of the teams drawing their matches. I said coolly, 'How else do you think I did them?' Mac was terribly impressed, so you won't tell him, will you, that my mathematical calculations netted 14 and 17 points respectively, and the 20-point solution was based on my initials, plus my age, plus my lucky number? This week I am almost certain to win astronomical sums, as I have done the solutions with a pin. If I win, oh say £70,000 I might even send you a cable to tell you. If not, you'll just have to wait until next Saturday to hear my excuse . . .

  Only two weeks to go, now, before my holiday . . .

  Yours very sincerely,

  Frances W.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  October 13th 1956

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  It is a fine, chilly, sunny week, this week, and people are still swimming hardily in the sea. Others are sitting about on deckchairs on the beach and Promenade, and every wooden bench in the Gardens is filled with people. My boss is on holiday, no doubt revelling in the fine weather and putting off his return as long as possible. As it remains fine the longer, so the odds lengthen against its continuing that way for my holiday, so my heart is going down and down into my boots. But it may be kind yet; we shall see.

  The joke of this week is the appearance of Miss Marilyn Monroe with her husband Henry Miller at the first night of his play View from The Bridge in London. Miss Monroe gave it out that she intended wearing something simple, in order not to steal the limelight from her new husband . . . So last evening she dressed in something simple for this opening performance, and today the newspapers are full of photographs of Miss Monroe's dress, which in turn is full to over-flowing of Miss Monroe . . .

  I have read Under Milk Wood, and one or two other books by Dylan Thomas, and I must say I agree with the critics that he is a wonder of the century. Do you think, when he began to get well known and, in a tiny way, lionised, he found his emotions got a bit dragged out – or worn out, perhaps – and getting a good strong drink in him made him feel more sensitively – or made him think he was feeling more sensitively. And that was the beginning. Next day there was the horrid hangover, and a drink put that right. And more people trying to dig a little memento out of his personality, so that he had to drink a bit more in order to avoid feeing he was being torn, little by little, to bits. It seems an expensive, and terribly unpleasant way to commit suicide. Towards the end of his life, Dylan Thomas used to complain of the awful feeling of dread he had always, and of a tight band of iron around his head. I often get that, too . . . . . . do you think I'm going to break out into matchless poetry any moment now? I am sure it doesn't come of drink, in my case, unless you count six bottles (each containing three wine-glassfuls) of ghastly wine Mr Markson gave me a month ago, and which Mac and I have shared with the sink . . .

  All for now, I hope you are well, too,

  Yours very sincerely,

  Frances W.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  December 22nd 1956

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  Your letter of December 13th was waiting for me at home yesterday when I reached there, together with a small pile of Christmas cards. On my brother's dinner-mat was one single, solitary envelope! He was so mad!! Gets furious because I have so many more cards and gifts at Christmas, and gets even more furious when we try to get him to acknowledge those he does get. He seems to imagine friendships, at a distance anyway, grow naturally, like little apples, without any help on his part. Perhaps his memory is to be so strongly in his friends' minds that no letter-writing is needed to remind them he is still about the world . . .

  No, no! You mustn't look or feel like Sir Anthony Eden, with your new walking stick. You look and feel like Sir Winston Churchill, instead. Much more satisfactory. I believe the right thing to do with a stick these days (for of course fashions change) is to put one hand over the other on the handle, and holding the stick centrally in front of one, to lean some-what on it and look down over it at whatever small boy one wishes to impress, with lowering look and beetling brows . . .

  As a sort of holiday-task I have started on another of those patchwork pictures, of which you have a sample at Casa Bigelow. This one is for Rosalind (if I get it finished). Not realising how ambitious I was, I drew a sketch of the street at Clovelly, the little Devonshire village we all stayed in one night in 1955. Then there is Rosalind, Mrs Olsen, and me (pushing Mrs O.) climbing up the street in the morning, watched by an amused donkey looking over a wall. Well, that sounds alright, but there are thousands of tiny bits of material to be cut out and fitted together, and until I started, I never realised quite how many! Would you tell me, when you write, if you are expecting Rosalind to come and visit you say around her birthday date. If she is, when it is finished I will send the picture to you and ask you to give it to her when she comes. That way you'll both get to see it. Otherwise, if I send it straight to Alton you might never have the opportunity to say how clever I am, and I should hate that. D
on't forget, then, to let me know when you next expect her . . .

  Tonight when I get home there will be the lovely vision of nothing to do. No chores, that is. All my parcels are packed and ready for delivery by hand, or have been posted. All my household jobs have been finished (for the decorating of the living room I shall leave until January) and my hair is washed, as well. So I can sit by the fire and get on with my embroidery, which, now that I am started, is fascinating me. I sewed it so often to my skirt last night I finished by kneeling on the floor, with the embroidery spread out on the carpet, tacking the tiny bits of mosaic materials on. I have even gone so far as to have two shades of grey for the cobblestones; one in the sunshine, and the darker shade in the shadow from the houses!

  . . . Even if you don't go to your son's home for Christmas, I hope you have a very comfortable, warm, cosy one in Bellport, with half the town popping in from time to time to wish you joy and smother you with mufflers, cigars, bottles of hooch (or whatever you drink: might even be methelated spirits, for all I know) and their neighbourly affection. Anyway, have a wonderful Christmas, and a very happy, healthy, New Year full of interesting happenings and good books and pleasant sights and deep sleep.

  And thank you for all your entertaining letters this year; and your many kindnesses.

  Yours most gratefully,

  Frances W.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  December 29th 1956

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  . . . Christmas is over, and we are (more or less) back to normal, although I am still having belated cards arrive, and those we have had and pinned up are still giving us heart attacks. You see, one year we hung them over strings, and they looked like so much wet washing hanging about we loathed it. And for years we pinned them to an old screen only that has now collapsed with old age so another place had to be found for them this year, and some bright person told me to stick the first card with Scotch tape to the picture-rail, and then stick each succeeding card to the one above it, until you were able to fasten the lowest one to the skirting board. This we have done, and they look very gay, if a bit untidy, all along one wall. About once every seven and a half minutes the weight of one or another is too much for the top bit of Scotch tape, and the whole thing slips off the varnished wood and collapses with extraordinary loud noises, considering that it is only a dozen or so cards falling down. Usually, at least one card depicts the flight into Egypt, and features a donkey. But this year, because I am frantic for details about donkeys for my Clovelly 'picture', there is not one in sight!

  . . . Everybody in America this year sent me something edible! On Christmas morning the last parcel arrived, and Mother, who was looking at the label, said, 'It's for you, dear, from a Jane Henry, and it says "Cake Mixes" but I expect it's more than that.' But it wasn't – it was two packets of cake mixtures, to our huge amusement and delight. Amusement because I just couldn't imagine sending such a thing to any-body, and delight because one of the mixtures was of an Angel cake with the equivalent of 13 egg whites in it, and although I have for long wished to make an Angel cake I've never a) had 13 eggs to spare, or b) known what to do with 13 yolks if I had a). So now I shall know what an Angel cake tastes like, when we finish our Christmas cake, and our ordinary cake, and the rich fruit cake that was part of Rosalind's parcels. About the middle of February I will report more fully.

  And now we come to the New Year once again. I know this year I am making only one resolution, NEVER AGAIN TO EMBROIDER A DONKEY! But always at this time I say thank you to you, I know, for all your kindnesses and all your letters, and for all the fun it is, knowing you. You put a postscript to your latest letter, saying something about it being a mistake to grow old; but so long as your spirit is young, what on earth does it matter? And, believe me, reading your first letter (which was more than a little eccentric, as I remember, and puzzled me a lot) and reading your latest one, one would be justified in reversing the two dates, and putting April 8th 1949, on the one I am answering today. After all, if you do have a bit of difficulty getting out of a bath – it is something I understand is regularly experienced by all young mothers-to-be, and by people like me, with the rheumatics. And it gives your agile brain something concrete to work on, to overcome the inertia in your muscles. And if you feel too tired to go out yachting, or pushing the town around, or shooting poor inoffensive ducks – you have all that much more time to spend reading about the world, or writing to me. And believe me, I regard writing to me as far more important than all the yachting in Cowes, Newport or Bellport Bay, and all the ducks in Bombay.

  So please don't worry about age: I am going greyer every day, and every day I care less to see more white hairs. And the wrinkles in my face – they are of character, and who would wish to spend a lifetime looking exactly the same? No: if your mind is bright, agile, alert, interested, nothing else matters really. So thank you very much indeed for remaining as young as in 1949 – for the outcome of your mind is all that I see of you, you know – and I hope you will, one day, let me into the secret of your mind's eternal youth, for it is a recipe I should just love to add to my collection.

  So on to 1957, and the hell with the calendar, say both of us.

  Yours most affectionately,

  Frances W.

  1957

  February 6th (p. 241), 'When you had written me about all the various sick females of your acquaintance, and gone on to say you didn't feel so good yourself, I thought you were cadging for sympathy.'

  BOURNEMOUTH

  January 9th 1957

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  The other morning, as I was inching my way between the kitchen table and the dresser, opening the door to the backstairs with my foot, holding in one hand a coal hod and a large spoon, in the other a jug of water, and a colander full of bread for the birds topped by a piece of news-paper holding the seed and crumbled-up cheese – oh yes, and with a tin of rat-poison clutched under one arm – as I was, I said, inching my way along, I remarked to Mother, 'I don't see why I shouldn't brush the back steps as I go down in the mornings, Mother.' Mother turned and looked at me and said, in absolute gravity, 'Oh don't you bother about that, dear – I'll do that, later.'

  . . . Everybody feels sorry for Sir Anthony Eden, even me. I dislike him as a man quite considerably, and although I think he did the right thing in Egypt, I think he was weak once he had been strong, and instead of going right along the canal between the Egyptians and the Israelites and saying, 'Now we're here, and we are staying here until U.N.O. does something positive to stop this scrapping', he just stopped when asked to do so, and then retreated when asked to do that, too. Leaving, as Mr Eisenhower and Mr Dulles remark, 'a vacuum'. We got out of the Persian oil fields because America insisted, for the sake of peace – and then, after a time, the vacuum there became too rusty and too dangerous. So what happened? The American oil companies went in and filled the vacuum. Now they are going (not the oil companies particularly, but the U.S.A.) to fill the vacuum created because, by their indignation, Eden gave orders for us to get out of the Middle East. Which vacuum, created by the U.S.A. indirectly, do they intend to fill next? We do so wish to know. But this is merely being catty, and getting away from my subject, which was the retirement of Sir A. I feel sorry for him for, having waited and worked so very long for the position of Prime Minister, he has now to retire in the middle of such a sorry mess, and it is obvious that the U.S. Government – not the U.S. people – will not have anything to do with Eden, and it would therefore merely be a waste of his health, and possibly our future, if he stayed any longer in his job to try and straighten things out. It is an exceedingly sad ending to a long and selfless career, and in spite of my personal dislike, I feel he deserves better luck. And, of course, his going will leave quite a little vacuum again! Heaven help us if we have a General Election and Labour gets back, for you – and I do mean you, the U.S.A. will get Bevan as British P.M. then, and then we'd be in a mess, both of us. Aren't politics the absolute nadir!

 
Mac and I have got in an awful mess over changing our car. We went around the town, and as I believe I told you last week, narrowed the field down to two Austin A30s. One was 1955, £445 and £85 allowed for ours, and the other was 1956, £515 and £100 for ours. Well, eventually one day this week we decided on the newest car, for although it strained all our resources to the last penny, the car had done only 2,700 miles and we felt that by the time we had finished paying off our indebtedness, the car would be worth more. So Mac and I went up and signed the agreement to buy the car for £515, and paid a deposit. Then Mac signed an agreement to sell the garage our car for £100. And we went home, where Mac consulted our car's registration book – and to our horror discovered it was a year older than we had thought! I had visions of being held to the contract to buy the £515 car, with the other one just cancelled. And as buying it with £100 allowed for our car meant we had to borrow £300 from friends, we just could not possibly raise another pound. Fortunately, the garage salesman told us they would not hold us to the contract if they could not, eventually, 'do a deal' with us. After several days of waiting with churning insides and bated breaths, the garage managed to find a buyer for our car, and the deal is 'on' again. All that now remains is for Mac and me to find the cash! We are, as I said, borrowing right left and centre but hope to have paid everybody back by two years and four months, providing nobody wants anything in the way of extras, holidays, birthdays, medicine, teeth out, or suchlike extravagances for that period. My brother says he is going to stop smoking. If, and it is in capital letters, IF he does, this will save him £6 a month right off, and as I am once more to pay all the car insurance, tax and garage (Mac's share of which is normally £2 a month) that gives him £8 a month to use to pay off our indebtedness. He is aiming at paying £10, so he should not find it too hard a task. IF he stops smoking. But, of course, Muggins here is so horrified at the extent of our loans that she at once said she would pay £4 a month towards reducing them, plus the insurance, garage and so on; and as I have no smoking or other extravagances that I know of, to cut out, I am going to be £6 a month worse off from the word go. At least, for six months: after that I shall pay £4 a month altogether. It should not really be quite as awful as it feels right now, for there should be no repair bills for me to find. Mother is lucky to have the carpet and the oil radiator and new net curtains for her bedroom! The rest will just have to wait.