December. Prize Day - Mayor's performance: no school could have a worse chairman. Price of geese. Painful leg. A funny sort of year. Steadily shabbier.
Sunday, Dec 1st
Damp playing hell with my leg. Today was back to 1942 standard and saw Droitwich looming ahead of me – that miserable little town where I was so unhappy in that August. Copied out speech for prize day.
Monday, Dec 2nd
Bought Hilary a tent on Saturday, an ex-American army bivouac. Wonder if I shall be in fit shape to camp with him next summer.
Tuesday, Dec 3rd
Prize Day at Town Hall. Went off quite well as far as I was concerned but chairman, aged 82, distinguished himself. Got him piloted into the waiting room, as I thought, but he bolted through, climbed onto the platform all by himself, took off his bowler hat and overcoat, which he deposited under the table, and sat in solitary state wiping his face with a red cotton handkerchief. Miss Richards had to be sent to persuade him to come down again, which she had great difficulty in doing as he was very deaf and continued to sit and smile. His speech, in which he mentioned his escape from France at the time of the Franco-Prussian war (1870), more audible than expected, but in speaking about the Regatta he got mixed up with the Grammar School, and so did the audience. Then the vice-chairman, old Ashford, 79, said a lot of quite unnecessary and untrue things about the chairman’s qualities. Everyone knew them to be untrue and that no school could have a worse chairman – except possibly old Ashford himself. I spoke for 15 minutes and the whole thing was over in an hour, which pleased everyone. Wanted to say that during the war “never in the history of education had so little been taught to so many by so few” but forbore.
Never certainly had so much hair cutting been done in Henley as last weekend. I had warned the boys they must have a clip and Clifford, who went to set an example, had to sit in a queue for an hour or more.
Wednesday, Dec 4th
This week they are playing all the Beethoven quartets on the Third Programme and tonight played B flat 130 with the second finale. Most lovely.
Saturday, Dec 7th
This week a Bill passed in second reading to end the payments to Nelson brother’s relative. We have paid out about £800,000, which seems enough. The present beneficiary is an elderly clergyman and his aged brother
Sunday, Dec 8th
Leg very bad today and agony getting out of bed this morning. Weather appalling, rain and east wind. Rosalind Hind arrived for tea. Told a story about W.E.A. in Lincolnshire. Some discussion in committee as to whether a course on Plato should be given at village called Kettleby. After it had gone on for sometime the Mayor, who had been asleep, woke up and heard the word “Plato” – “Well,” he said, “Gipsy Smith has just made a platonic marriage with a girl of 18. What’s good enough for Gipsy Smith is good enough for Kettleby.”
Thursday, Dec 19th
Ten days of bad rheumatism in hip joint….. Killed off geese last Sunday, four successfully, then the remaining two took fright, so when I got them in the yard they took to their wings. Later inveigled them into garage and did them in there. Sold them for £2 - £2.10; they weighed 9 –12lbs. I bought them for a guinea each so I did not make much by it all.
Saturday, Dec 21st
Broke up yesterday. If only it would get warmer. Weary with the pain in my leg. This looks like being a most miserable Christmas. On Thursday night Nora came home with some sort of stomach upset. Can’t keep warm as can’t exercise and we are in a big room which is difficult to heat, but if we move into the small room there is no wireless.
Christmas Eve, Wednesday
Yesterday mercifully the weather got warmer and today sunny and pleasant. Spent the morning arranging a new site for the bees as the powers that be in Oxford have apparently decided to dig a big drain through them. Also much annoyed because they have decided to decorate the school piecemeal while the children are there.
Leg still very painful…. Ate a chicken today, three years old but quite good. Mary sent me over a life of Montgomery, excellent – a case all right. Have moved into smaller dining room and find it warmer and more comfortable than the big one – wonder have not thought of it before. The invaluable Tom Wheeler moved in the wireless in an hour with new aerial, earth and switch.
Had a carol service, but as soon as school in hall at 9 o’clock the electricity cut off – no light, no organ!
Christmas Day, Wednesday
Christmas Day followed its usual routine. Found a nest with 10 eggs in the morning. Did chores. Dinner about 1.40. Goose, sprouts and potatoes, apple sauce, stuffing, bacon, Christmas pudding, brandy butter and a bottle of unnamed Bordeaux sold at 10/- a bottle controlled price.
Hilary rather bored and misses other children (only children a great mistake). I gave him an American army tent which we erected as best we could in the dining room after dinner. He had a good many presents so evidently things a bit easier to get. Nora gave me a dung fork and good wishes for my being able to use it later.
King broadcast in afternoon at 3 and just finished washing up in time to hear miners from pit bottom who immediately preceded him. This indicates present position and interest in coal which we all feel. Anyway now miners have a five-day week and a nationalized industry must hope things will settle down and we shall have some more coal next winter.
Clear from reading Montgomery’s life that had he and not Eisenhower been in command many things would have been different, both in Italy, where he did not campaign, and in the West. Here he believed the war could have been won after the Normandy victory in the autumn of 1944 by a concentrated thrust on a narrower front against the Ruhr, whereas Eisenhower decided on a forward movement on a broad front up to the whole length of the Rhine. This meant an extra years campaign. Interesting to meet a man without any interests outside his profession, no thought of money, place, politics, influence, society. Incorruptible by all means generally used to influence men in high rank.
Defined democracy the other day as the equal sharing of discomfort – and about right.
Boxing Day, Thursday
Got up for breakfast. Washed up and did room. Cleared out fowl house - about a month overdue – then helped Hilary put up his bivouac tent. In afternoon split firewood. The hens have started to lay in earnest and now have 14 eggs in rack. Because of rheumatism Nora has to feed them and at one time wanted to get rid of the lot just as they were coming in to lay. Hope I can persuade her to carry on till I get better.
Friday, Dec 27th
Hilary’s school report arrived today. Much debate lately with Nora as to which school to send him to next –Dauntsey’s, Leighton Park or Dartington. If he goes to the latter he will have to go in May and John G will have to be given notice. Should prefer him to continue in a co-educational school but they are difficult to find….. Nora sometimes feels that public school education such an advantage afterwards, sometimes that these modern schools too individualistic and not enough emphasis placed on spit and polish, so people educated in them are untidy and slovenly. Hilary certainly untidy, everything flung and dropped anywhere, but then Nora not a model of this herself to say the least of it….. All small boys untidy unless you have ample time to check up on them all the time, which in our harassed and busy domestic life, treading water hard all the time to keep our head above the surface, we certainly have not got.
Monday, Dec 30th
A funny sort of a year, very unlike we pictured it. Instead of going back to a civilized existence with a rush, things have crawled slowly forward and in some respects seem hardly to have crawled at all. Rationing of food, clothes, petrol goes on just the same, except that bread is now included and chicken food is more tightly rationed than before. We get steadily shabbier and more down at heel.
This year we stood on the Sussex shore and watched the cross-channel steamers to Newhaven and Dieppe. Travel has greatly improved. There are more trains, they are less crowded and they run to time. This is also true to a less extent of bus services. Fuel however has been worse. Fortunately we only use gas for cooking, not heating, but the supply of electricity and gas has been more uncertain this year than during the war.
The new government has worked hard and plenty of legislation has been carried through, but it is mostly long term planning and will not affect us immediately…. It seems to me we want more pepping up by the government. The danger is not bad staff work but poor morale - apathy – the old country is up the creek, or let’s get a safe job and then put our money on the dogs. The miners can be away from the pits, but not the publicans, footballers and greyhound track staff. On the other hand women are having children, the birth rate is rising, though when it will reach replacement level we don’t know. The dream of a more spacious life less cramping than the old is still a dream, but perhaps in 1947 we shall see a more perceptible progress towards it realization.
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