Dear Lumpy

by Mortimer, Louise

  Love to all,

  D

  My father’s latest horse, Gay Tent, was not a big success and was nicknamed Homosexual Marquee by Lupin.

  Budds Farm

  10 May

  My Dearest L,

  V. cold and grey here and the garden is brown and dry. As no doubt Nidnod told you, our holiday was a disaster of the first magnitude. The Canaries are a hideous, treeless dump. We had a bleak sunless room looking out on to concrete. Not a glimpse of the sea. A troop of randy peacocks screeched without ceasing all day. Hordes of fat women from Stuttgart and Düsseldorf sprawled topless round the pool, flaunting bosoms like half-filled hot-water bottles. I never want to see a pair of Teutonic tits again. The food was moderate and the shopping centre slummy. Luckily the Lemprière-Robins were there to have a laugh with. Nidnod had given me hell for not booking for a fortnight; when we were there she could hardly bring herself to stay a week! The flight, both ways, was long and uncomfortable and I really was thankful to get home back to income tax demands and a monumental pile of bills. I have bought a new car (Volkswagen Golf) to economise on petrol. I discovered quite a nice house at Kintbury. When I showed it to Nidnod in ‘Country Life’ she said nothing would induce her to live in a dump like that and she refused to look at it. I went on my own, liked it, and persuaded her to look at it that afternoon. She fell for it in a big way and is now keener than I am! Lupin liked it too. Whether our bid will be sufficient remains to be seen. We saw a house at Hurstbourne Tarrant with a nice garden but really only suitable for a bachelor who does not mind discomfort and does not wash much. Nidnod has a bad cold and is in a very difficult mood. I seem to have a lot of really boring work on my hands. The Randalls’ Golden Wedding went off well. Poor Mr Parkinson seems to be lumbered with his mother-in-law for life. She knocks back a bottle of scotch per day.

  Best love to you all,

  D

  Before moving from Budds Farm to The Miller’s House my parents decided they needed to make some cutbacks. One of these cutbacks was to cancel the Daily Mail, which would have been successful if they had not both driven into Newbury every day to buy one.

  Budds Farm

  Monday

  Dearest L,

  I suppose after your recent triumph you are driving all over the country in a large motor-car supplied by Henry’s company. I expect, though, that before long Henry will buy you a nice little motor of your own. I recommend a Volkswagen Golf. Life here is very unsettled and your poor mother is in a very highly-strung condition. Sometimes she seems quite keen on moving, at others she loathes the new house and everything to do with it. She is particularly controversial after 7 p.m. when she is tired! To make things worse Golly is slightly lame and this misfortune is regarded as of world-shattering importance. I have not seen Lupin since he left that peculiar place at Weston-super-Mare in Somerset: I think it is a sort of loony bin. He has to sleep in a dormitory with other nut-cases. I hope he likes it. I hope the ‘cure’ did in fact cure him. Of course he is rather restricted being without a car. I met Miss Vallence at a drink party the other day; she has not changed much. I see Tiny Clapham is one of our hopes for the Olympic Games. It has been very hot and dry here but I’m glad to say we had a few drops of rain this morning. Poor old Lord Carnarvon had a hideous operation in Basingstoke last Wednesday but managed to survive. I think he is 86. Did you see that your mother’s friend Sylvia Bowditch had been left £7,000,000 by the old trout she had lived with for the last 20 years? What will a single woman of 71 do with seven million? I go over to The Miller’s House most days and try and tidy up the garden. The fig tree there has quite a lot of figs on it but I expect the birds will get most of them. Mrs Cameron has been staying here: she is a calming influence on Nidnod and is also very helpful over the house. Both dogs are well (Henry will be disappointed to hear that) and are yapping a lot and biting the legs of visitors to whom they take a dislike. I hope we have sold Budds Farm but no house is sold till the lolly is safely in the Bank. Jane enjoyed her stay in France; luckily the state of their finances permitted them to go to the most expensive hotel in France (or one of the most expensive). There is a veritable forest of rhubarb at the new house. Perhaps they all suffered from constipation. Mr Parkinson’s unsatisfactory step-son has suddenly turned up from Hong Kong and wants to live with him. He is dead unlucky over his relations.

  Love to all, D xx

  Having failed my driving test for the seventh time my brother Lupin gives me a Valium and I pass on the eighth go. Luckily my driving test took place before my brother booked himself into Broadway Lodge, a drug rehabilitation centre. It was not a sort of loony bin, as my father liked to describe it.

  Budds Farm

  Tuesday

  My Dearest L,

  I’m so sorry to hear Rebecca is poorly. It must be a worry for you and I hope the Hospital sorts out the trouble without delay. She looks a very healthy child so I do not for a moment imagine anything serious is the matter. In the meantime, all my sympathy and please give my love to the patient. I hear Jane has run over a motor-cyclist. How very careless of her! I fear she may be rather heavily fined. People are rolling up to look at Budds Farm, most of them very nice. It is fatiguing showing them round but more so for them as Nidnod never stops talking, giving the impression that the property belongs entirely to her and that I am only a lodger. Yesterday some rather nice people called Du Pree arrived at 7.45 p.m. by which time Nidnod was a bit muddled and I heard her say that the cellar was usually under water. Later she was threatening to shoot Jester who had annoyed her in some way. She gave me a very nice picnic basket as a present yesterday morning but by the evening decided I was unworthy of it and she now intends to give it to someone else. Such is life! This morning a very good-looking merchant banker is making a second inspection. He is half Peruvian, half Swedish, is a member of the Turf Club and has had relations at Daneshill & Tudor Hall. The first time he came Nidnod showed him round wearing that old blue bathing dress which is very tight and liable to split at inconvenient places. Lady Mayhew-Saunders came to lunch yesterday with Anna who is very attractive and obviously pregnant. Serena Alexander has had to go to Australia as her mother is v. poorly. We enjoyed the Derby in our posh stand and had a marvellous view. Nidnod thought Willy Whitelaw was the caterer! There were some semi-pissed youths outside the Derby Arms who exposed themselves to young birds in passing cars. As it happens there was a chilly wind and their display aroused contempt rather than excitement.

  XXX

  D

  An absolute classic by my mother. Fortunately Willie Whitelaw (the recent Home Secretary) was too polite to comment.

  Budds Farm

  18 August

  Dearest L,

  I hope you are behaving yourself with reasonable decorum in Devonshire. I expect that in fact you are asleep most of the time, the local climate hardly being conducive to vivacity. I suppose you do very little walking or bicycling now that you drive a powerful motor-car. I went on a holiday to Devonshire – possibly Newquay – nearly seventy years ago. I remember nothing about it bar my disgust on finding a dead hen behind our bathing hut. Talking of hens, Emily is coming to Kintbury with us. The move is making progress: your mother is in her element – Order, Counter-Order, Dis-Order! I have done quite a lot of work in the garden. I was having a quiet pee on the rubbish heap when I found our daily standing one yard behind me. Too late to stop! I am showing Major Surtees the house today. He has just bought a house in Wylye (Wiltshire). Mr Parkinson is having a worrying time with all his relations and has chronic indigestion. Aunt Pam is coming to see the house on Tuesday. I can anticipate some sarcastic comments. The General has declined to come. Aunt Pam has a new dog, a King Charles Spaniel. V hot here which is an economy as I need not wear socks. Otto is well; he possesses common human failings, being greedy, randy, cowardly and sly. Perry is getting heavy and pompous. Aunt Boo was on TV yesterday; I assume on some programme dealing with mental instability. I was sorry to hear about your roof leaki
ng. Will the insurance cough up? Insurance companies delight in evading responsibilities. I have just had a bill for nearly £9,000 from Lane-Fox and Co and that is only the start!

  Love to you all from both of us,

  D

  Aunt Boo had been interviewed about one of her many latest obsessions, which included ‘Keep us out of the Common Market’ and ‘Keep Dorking white’. My brother was very kind to her and was her carer for many years. He said that she was one of life’s genuine nutcases. There wasn’t a political party that she hadn’t stood for at one time or another.

  The Miller’s House

  Wednesday

  My Dearest L,

  How are you doing? Have you nudged anyone in your car yet? Yesterday I had to go to a funeral at Newmarket. Luckily Sir John Mayhew-Sanders drove me up in his Daimler. I began to chew my knuckles when we did 135 mph on the Cambridge by-pass! The car had a telephone on which my driver rang up the Russian ambassador. In the cemetery I noticed a tombstone with the rather odd name on it of J. Barrington Waterfall. Young Master Mayhew-S asked me if I was opting for burial or cremation. I replied ‘Sanitary Disposal’. The previous day I drove Nidnod to Sandown for lunch with the Directors. She wore a new ginger wig, drank a lot of gin and sat next to a journalist with no hair but a beard like an acre of moss. I sat next to a v rich lady in the insurance business. I thought I got on well with her. She made, I found out, a lot of inquiries about me afterwards. She may have fancied me or she may have been collecting information to pass on to the police. The two dogs are v tiresome, peeing on every stick of furniture and biting visitors to the house. Some visitors look as if they wished there was a lethal chamber operating in Kintbury. Mrs Surtees came to lunch today and your dear mother talked a great deal of balls. Aunt Pam comes to lunch on Sunday, Aunt Joan had a good holiday in sunny Malta. Emma L-R has a steady boy-friend which annoys her mother. Did I tell you Cousin Caroline sold 6 yearlings at Newmarket and got 962,000 guineas? My bath overflowed and has damaged a ceiling, thereby rendering me unpopular. I gave Nidnod a present for her work in moving, i.e. a side of smoked salmon, a stilton cheese, and several jars of honey. I think I saw a picture of Charlotte B in the Tatler.

  Best love to you all,

  D XXX

  The infamous wig. We persuaded our mother to get a real hair wig at great expense. After several outings she announced that it did not do her justice and returned to her nylon wig (cost approx £30), which could go in the washing machine on a 40 degree cycle.

  The Miller’s House

  16 November

  Dearest L,

  I am delighted to hear you are going to increase the population of this troubled world. I sometimes wonder what sort of world it will be in 50 years time; or whether there will be a world at all! When I was born there were far more horse-drawn vehicles in London than cars. No one had flown the Channel and middle-class families had six indoor servants, some of whom were paid less than £20 a year. Golden sovereigns were in use rather than £ notes. Happily no one could foresee two ghastly wars with the cream of the nation destroyed in the first one. Cinemas were just starting and the posh one was at Marble Arch. Life was more peaceful with out wireless or TV. People died in large numbers from tuber culosis, bronchitis, appendicitis, pneumonia, diphtheria, typhoid and scarlet fever. In 1919 more people died of a virulent ’flu germ than were killed in the whole of World War I. The country began in the Edgware Road and I well remember the blacksmith’s shop there. My grandmother had a large estate with a farm at Harrow which was as rural then as Kintbury is now.

  We have got 24 people for lunch on Sunday and I foresee hideous chaos.

  Best love to you all,

  D

  Doom and gloom with the world as I announce that I am pregnant again.

  The Miller’s House

  Sunday

  Dearest L,

  How are things going with you? Have you flogged your house yet and found a new one? Life is fairly quiet here. I got a £10 fine for a parking offence in Newbury. I am refusing to pay so may end up in gaol. My bed is very uncomfortable so I am going to jump on it for quite a long time today to try and alter the contours. I keep losing my spectacles, car keys, house keys, cheque book, pension book and library cards; part of the gagadom inseparable from old age. I am now on the Committee of the Animal Health Trust; whether any animals will benefit from my appointment seems doubtful. Unlike most other members of the Committee, however, I do not kill animals for pleasure, though of course I eat a good few. I think tearing corpses apart with your teeth is rather disgusting and I rather wish I was a vegetarian tucking into nut cutlets and fricassée of parsnips. I wonder how many dead animals one devours in a lifetime? Quite a lot if one includes shrimps and whitebait. How awful if the animals got organised under a sheep like Scargill and started devouring humans. I must say any animal getting my liver would be dead unlucky. Only 23 shopping days till Christmas! How I look forward to the traditional Yuletide songs like the one that starts

  ‘As she toasted him a crumpet

  He tickled her under the umpet.’

  Thank God we are not going away for Christmas and no one shows the faintest inclination to spend Christmas here. I expect your mother and I will share a Sainsbury’s meat pie in front of the electric one-bar fire.

  XXX D

  ‘This will be my last Christmas, you will all miss me when I am gone,’ my dad was frequently heard to say around this time of year.

  1985

  The Miller’s House

  12 January

  Dearest L,

  I hope you had a happy birthday and lots of presents. It is horribly cold here but this house is much warmer than Budds. Last Wednesday I had to let Otto out at 7 a.m. Unfortunately, dressed only in pyjamas and dressing gown, I fell down on an icy patch in front of the house and could not get up! As Nidnod was in London, I felt I might freeze to death but after taking my slippers off I managed, despite two more falls, to reach the door. I had some coffee with whisky in it followed by a hot bath and gradually recovered but I am still bruised and shaken. How I loathe old age with all the horrible things it inevitably brings with it! I’m very clumsy and forgetful these days and I fear Nidnod finds me boring and irritating. I can’t really blame her. We met Dr Keeble having lunch in the Dundas Arms with a v. plain lady (wife?) whom he did not introduce to us. I had to buy a new loo seat – £40. The electricity bill is double what it was at Budds. The Gaselees’ daughter nipped off just before a party and had her hair dyed purple. Her parents were NOT pleased! No hot water in Aunt Joan’s flat and all the loos on the floor above have frozen up. A nasty three-car crash at our turning up to the house yesterday. You can get rather good whitebait at the Three Swans in Hungerford. I’ll take you one day. I have bought a birthday card of quite hideous vulgarity for your sister.

  Best love,

  D

  Moving to The Miller’s House was supposed to make my parents’ life easier. Unfortunately my dad was not as stable as he used to be. This incident shook him up badly and he was very lucky not to have broken something.

  Budds Farm

  19 January

  Dearest L,

  A good start to the morning: Nidnod fell on the stairs, upset a cup of coffee, injured her knee and shouted Fuck! A lot of snow here but we are still mobile, but only just. Poor Aunt Joan has no hot water and there is not a loo working in her block. No lark when you’re 77. Poor Major Surtees, moving into a new house in Salisbury, has found that four crates containing all his most treasured possessions have been stolen. I hear you’ve bought a mansion in the fashionable SW area. Let me know something about it. I was born in SW3, 11 Cadogan Gardens, a big house but short of loos and bathrooms. From there my parents went to 49 Charles Street, W1, just off Berkeley Square, then to 40 Sloane Court, SW3, and finally, their last house before shifting to a flat, 28 Cadogan Square, SW3. I think Lord Cadogan has a flat there now. Their first flat was a very posh one at 76 Sloane St. The flat underneath was owned by a
retired Ambassador, Sir Percy Loraine (Pompous Percy) who went abroad for the winter during which time his butler used the flat as a brothel. My mother could not understand the weird noises that could be heard from 2 p.m. onwards. I think my father rather enjoyed them. The Van Straubenzees came to lunch with a son of 20 who is already as bald as a billiard ball. Nidnod never takes her wig off nowadays as it keeps her head warm. Reverting to my parents’ houses, they had some weird domestic servants: a butler who forged cheques and went to prison; a parlour maid called Murphy who was usually pissed and fell flat on her face at a dinner party when carrying in the soup; a butler called Ellis who helped himself from the cellar and peed in the bottles he emptied (he went to prison too); a butler who had been wounded in the head and chased the cook with a bread-knife; a very good butler who came from the Camerons but unfortunately was a roaring homo; and an admirable cook whose brother was a big noise in the CID. We also had a chauffeur who drowned himself in quite a shallow puddle.

  Best love

  R

  P.S. My parents’ old daily, called a charwoman in those days, lived in Cadogan Street where I believe houses now cost about £250,000!

  When my father visited me in London we would often make a tour of the houses where he had been brought up. He had learnt to ride a bicycle in Upper Sloane Street – only a lunatic would attempt to do that now.

  The Miller’s House

  Dearest LL,

  Was it you who sent me an alluring Valentine? If so, many thanks. I’ve been feeling so mean and frozen, I simply lacked the heart to send any this year. I got a very saucy one from the ex-Mrs Surtees. The winter is tolerable when you’re young and active but a proper bugger when you’re old. Most of my exercise consists of filling coal scuttles and log baskets and cleaning grates. The Vaughans came to lunch last week; I gave them a ‘Between the Sheets’, 1/3rd Naval Rum, 1/3rd Cointreau, 1/3rd Spanish brandy, a squeeze of lemon. It got them talking which was one of the objectives. In the evening we went to a truly horrible party in aid of the Vine & Craven. Noisy, boring, and I have never seen so many plain individuals under one roof before. Lupin comes down here tomorrow. Has he married a dusky beauty, do you think? The Parkinsons are still pushing the boat out in Australia. The Wallis’s son John runs the posh hotel in Sydney. Major Surtees enjoyed Kenya where he saw several wart-hogs. Joy’s husband has had his hip operation which was a success. I saw frogmen searching for a body in the Canal on Sunday but they did not hook out anything when I was watching. Poor Old Lord Carnarvon is now 87 and sadly a complete cabbage. He lives in Edgecombe Nursing Home. A lot of rich people crawl off there to die. I watched Crufts on TV. When I was a boy the Crufts Champion one year was poisoned by suffragettes.