July. Meat rationing ends. Dumb Roman entry. "By Man Came Death." Shakespeare to perfection by Mrs Attrill. Boys prefer fish to Aristotelian virtues. Mendès France rejuvenates France.
Thursday, July 1st
Thursday, July 1st
Mrs Clayden and I went up to see Syon House. She drove in her car, which is much better than ours, and we got there successfully about 2.30, but in going down to look at the river we completely lost the way and ended by driving in a circle over Richmond and Kew bridge and back past the house we had just started from! This wasted time, prestige (mine) and and petrol. However, Mary C. quite cheerful and unperturbed.
Friday, July 2nd
Went down to Fawley Meadows with Mary. Saw the Yugolsav sculler who carries all before him. Also two floosies on the towpath side, one brunette and one blonde, with poodle, out hunting - the floosies not the poodle!
Saturday, July 3rd
An ill-considered day! Social! Molly Trengrouse lunch, Miss Boselli, Mr and Mrs Brown and baby for Regatta. To Fawley Meadows. Started to rain, then to pour. Then had to come back and change. While taking off trousers caught with rheumatism in back.
Sunday, July 4th
Feeling sorry for myself. Pills for gall bladder with soreness there, soreness in penis, query due to acidity, and now screws in back to finish off with. Perhaps some of this due to frustration and uncertainty about the future. Dr Irvine always asks if I am suffering from mental stress! Positively no desire to drive Mary over to Oxford next Wednesday or even trek out to Switzerland in August.
Meat rationing ended this week, and so rationing finally ended after 15 years. Certainly in 1939 never imagined it would last so long, but then one never does.
Monday, July 8th
Back better, but subject to twinges. A very busy morning getting sixth form off to conference on Why Be Good, then starting the G.C.E. O level, coping with a boy who had pushed a girl down the tennis court bank, clearing up letters and ringing the Education Office about a clerical error by which they had admitted a boy we had rejected, "the dumbest Roman of them all", too! A difficult problem, finally settled by admitting all the dumb Romans. So nice to sit on a selection committee all day for this result. Still "they will fill a desk as well as better" I suppose.
Reading Schoolmaster's Harvest, J. H. Simpson, contains a story about Homer Lane. When he asked old roué what he wanted, he replied "Starch!" He had previously kept two women to the satisfaction of all parties, now he found he could only keep one!
No summer so far this year. Cloudy and at times heavy rain.
Wednesday, July 7th
The local archers have been up shooting on the field because their own is taken (by Regatta?). From the house you can hear the twang of strings and the whack of the arrow on the target, though you cannot see its flight. Over head the jet bombers fly! What we need is a return to the weapons of the C14th and the resources of modern medicine, and then not much damage would be done to anyone!
E. L. Woodward, my old tutor, is giving two talks on the implications of the hydrogen bomb. He gave the first last night - By man came death he calls them, and I thought it masterly. Man might survive, but civilization would not survive the obliteration of the great cities. He saw no hope in international agreement where there was no trust; it would be better to postpone the use of atomic fission. Pacifism would mean the lowering of the standards of the better off. The barbarians of the C5th came in because they wanted to share the good life of the empire: they destroyed it. He spoke of himself as standing on the threshold of old age and seeing ahead the most dangerous ten years in the history of mankind.
Tonight he went on: We were drifting, hoping no one would use it, accustoming ourselves to a situation, dulling public consciousness,
we were in danger of reaching in a sudden crisis a situation of no return. There is always the time factor in relation to striking power, as in 1914, and the danger of losing control of events; disarmament was too slow, the grandiose simplicity of world government was hardly worth discussing, no prospects of this now. The first step should be a pact of immediate retaliation against whoever used the bomb or handed it to others to use - this was an overriding act of treason against the human race. There was, of course, no guarantee that it would be observed, but it was based on a fear common to all.
Tuesday, July 13th
A letter from Con. She and Allan had enjoyed Strasbourg though they had had bad weather. They had made an expedition to the Vosges and into the Black Forest. In my letter to her I had said I hoped time had healed and the wounds and scars of experience no longer hurt. She wrote: "Dear Hu, I do think the wounds have healed at long last. I was strangely moved by the Gare de l'Est and by the journey along the Marne of ever loving memory."
Saturday, July 17th
Snowshill Manor in afternoon. A gloomy, dark Tudor manor house, gave an impression of discomfort, cold and damp.
Sunday, July 18th
Went over to Chastleton House in the afternoon. Taken round very slowly and thoroughly by an old dame. A fine long gallery at top of house.
Monday, July 19th
From the discomforts of the C16th and the crudities of the C17th to the magnificence of the C18th at Osterly. It was a lovely house and enjoyed it all the more for having seen Snowshill and Chastleton just before it. I made the children sit under a tree and gave them a talk on the splendiferous men of the period and the Aristotelian virtues of magnificence and high-mindedness. Some of the boys however more interested in the fish in the lake, of which there were great quantities.
Tuesday, July 20th
Out with Mary to the Downs for tea and supper. She was at her worst and would make no gesture of affection towards me. Just as I was leaving the flat she began to complain.
Thursday, July 22nd
Felt a holiday of 10 days shut up with Mary in an Alpine village, and possibly confined to hotel by cloud on the mountains, just more than I could stand, so wrote and said so. Suggested she should go to Holland alone.
Friday, July 23rd
Had to go over to flat for an hour. Finally agree to go to Holland with her. At any rate hope there will be something to do if it rains.
The play [A Midsummer Night's Dream] performed on the lawn on Thursday went off well. Dresses from new firm very good, grouping and entrances excellent, very clear diction, and an even cast without "a poor tail", an outstanding Puck [Brian Hewlett] and lovers who tackled their impossible parts with professional zest. Another success for Eric Attrill. Trying though I find her, she can produce Shakespeare and her perfectionism can be put to good use there.
Saturday, July 24th
Saw part of the matinée performance (we had to abandon yesterday's performance, then over to L.P. to hear Hilary in the speech competition. He spoke to about 400 people in the new gymn and had been drawn first. There were four speakers, on comprehensive schools (Hilary), anti Latin, science in Education and Industry in the Country. The anti Latin was by far the best, he quickly established a rapport with the audience and had a limited objective. I put the earnest scientist second, Hilary third and the town planner last. This was also the view of the judges.
[Editor: My memory of this event is that my speech was terrible, an objective far too broad, no rapport with the audience (I learned from this experience, however), while the well-deserved winner defended the genius of Charlie Chaplin - following the 1952 release of Limelight, starring Claire Bloom. I suppose I must remember the 1953 competition, in which I did not compete, and evidently failed to learn from the example of the 1953 winner!].
Sunday, July 25th
We are all thankful that for the first time for almost a generation there is no war going on somewhere in the world. An Indo China agreement was reached last week. People are inclined to regard it as a victory, but for France and the West it is the recognition of defeat. We have been beaten in a local war where the bulk of the population was not on our side.
The new P.M. of France, M. Mendès-France, has brought off his wager to end the war within a month. He has said he wiill follow the aim of financial stability of Poincaré, the economic and social reforms of Blum, the aim of strong government and resistance to the pressure groups of de Gaulle. He seems to be infusing new life into France and is shaking the country out of the cynical doubt which has rotted it for so long. He has got to tackle the N. African question and clear up the mess at home against the unholy alliance of the upper classes and the communists, who between them have sabotaged every basic reform after the war.
Monday, July 26th
Another awful day. Even the swimming sports had to be postponed and of course the play was cancelled.
Hilary came back, his school days over! He said Leighton Park was very pleasant and he had enjoyed his two years there. Ounsted had said he couldn't think why we had sent him to Long Dene!
Reading Arnold Bennett's Journals. Wish mine were as amusing!
Tuesday, July 27th
A semi-gale and cold in the morning with showers. However we got through the swimming sports. I did not attend. I did not want my back, which is rather better, to get worse again.
The play was finally performed in a strong s.w. gale, which carried the voices and smothered them with the rustling of leaves. Hilary and I wore duffel coats and then felt cold in our seaman's jerseys. A smallish audience huddled together in their chairs. The wind did keep the rain away, but anyone who plans to perform anything out of doors in the English climate is mad! However the English will do it!
The other morning the curate told me he was out taking communion to a parishioner when he met two young men in cassocks and girdles, whom he took to be theological students. They wished him good morning politely. Later in the day they visited Goodall's, the tobacconist, to book two coach seats to London. When they visited the gentleman's lavatory, which is under the Town Hall opposite the police station, the sergeant looking idly out of the window noticed they wore Borstal trousers under beneath their skirts!
Thursday, July 29th
No luck! Felt as if I had a rupture, so rang up Dr Hartley and went down to see him. He said I had a kidney infection and now right testicle very swollen. I must rest. HELL! Wrote booking two tickets to Hook, an act of faith!
9 p.m. Temperature 100.
Friday, July 30th
Went down to lunch, but testicles hurt so much that had to go back to bed.
August. The brigadier. Wasted holiday. Cricket suffers from rain. "We can't contract out of Europe." The closed door problem. Beekeeping in decline. Hilary turns lobster red.
Sunday, Aug 1st
Sunday, Aug 1st
Doctor Hartley arrives. Examines testicles. Says rest is the only thing. Smoky Pasha comes in on settles on my bed. I try to move him, but he gets nasty and tries to bite me.
Read about Coventry City Council's refusal to sanction beginning of new cathedral. "What's the use of a cathedral anyway," is view of many local electors. No lead from democracy, or rather for democracy, from city fathers. Sir David Eccles, Minister of Works, has given licence to the cathedral builders over the city fathers' heads. They have decided to co-operate. An odd story.
Monday, Aug 2nd
Started taking M & B every four hours. Head buzzy. M & B used to have a bad effect when it was first used, but this kind only makes your eyes feel funny like a heavy dose of aspirin.
Wednesday, Aug 4th
This was the third day of the M & B and the worst. Miss Hunter infiltrated about 3 and I felt I couldn't bear it, thought I should scream. Said to Hilary at lunch, "I feel like cutting my throat, but it's too much trouble." "You haven't lost your innate characteristics anyway," he replied!
Thursday, Aug 5th
When Hilary brought up the letters a bolt from the blue. The Brigadier sent home from Army Cadet Corps camp in Cornwall for interfering with soldiers and cadets, including three of ours. Two leaving anyway, but one coming back. Wally says the police may want to question other cadets not at the camp. You never know where you are. The Brigadier an unpleasant character whom I should have suspected of drink or drugs rather than immoral practices with boys.
Friday, August 6th
Heard that the wretched man had shot himself on Tuesday afternoon after sending his wife to Oxford. I should think she must have known what he intended to do, but the law was merciful and all that was said was that he was worried about an interview. No boys will have to give evidence. Poor man. I am very sorry.
Saturday, Aug 7th
Hartley arrives. Pumps streptomycin into my behind and will do so for five days. Works Sundays! I must be a gentleman of leisure. No walking, but sitting about.
Monday, Aug 9th
Pouring with rain and looks as though it will never stop. Letter from Maud. Old Capt. Openshaw takes flower to Barbara Westmoreland; as Maud is helping him back to his house next door, he suddenly catches hold of her on drive; she brings out a chair for him, and he collapses and dies. Well, he died taking flowers to a lady; worse fates than that!
Dr Bohn [surgeon] sends a card to say he will be pleased to see me on Sept 3rd. So that will be nearly the whole of the summer holiday gone.
Tuesday, Aug 10th
The results of A level arrive. Very much better than expected. Giles passes in history, Boss-eyed Smith gets a distinction. All the rest do well. I must be a better history teacher than I thought!
Wednesday, Aug 11th
Hilary's results arrived. He passed in both English and history. Much relief all round.
Friday, Aug 13th
Mary arrived at 3.35 for tea and stayed to 6.15. She looked well and was pleased to see me. Had tea with N and H in sitting room and were able to sit out afterwards on terrace till a thunderstorm started. Mary said I must think of her in Holland and "keep her in my heart." I said I would do so.
Saturday, Aug 14th
Today has been the first really fine day for weeks and have been able to sit about on the terrace where previously it has been too windy.
The terrace looks over a dry valley in chalk, which forms the school playing field. Below the terrace the ground slopes down to the smooth green turf. The slope is covered now with rough brown grass, ragwort, scabious and thyme and dotted with small hawthorns. Beyond the playing field the opposite slope is cultivated in four large fields, three leys and one arable, except where five coppices stand, matching the one on our slope. On the top of the hill runs a continuous line of trees and to the right broken masses of woodland rise to Peppard Common and beyond. On the left, cut off by the curve of the valley on its way to the Thames, but at the same height, is the new Gainsborough Housing Estate, largely masked by the trees in the school garden. The view, though a limited one, is pleasant and green and open. The situation of the house itself is lacking in privacy if you are ill and wish to avoid callers, for it can be approached both from the front and back.
Sunday, Aug 15th
A lovely morning. Wake up at 6 o'clock when I hear Nora's alarm clock. Think of Mary just going down to the get the train to London. Go to sleep again. Dream I have to go up to start in eights week. Have to get motor launch to go; it is late! Then am coxing eight in which only Nora and boy are rowing, 2 + 4, to pick up crew further on. N asked me to put two pairs of shoes in cox's seat. We are just about to start when wake up.
Monday, Aug 16th
Pleasant day with no wind and sat about on terrace in the afternoon and after tea walked down to lawn and back. Marvellous after you have been ill how ill-adjusted your muscles are to walking over even moderately rough ground.
Tuesday, Aug 17th
Donald heath arrived about 10 and stayed for an hour. He has a job as assistant to Professor of Medicine, who is an authority on congenital heart disease. He says it is rather like collecting stamps. You have to make contacts by which you may acquire good specimens for your collection. Perhaps a surgeon when doing some operation will cut you off a bit of lung to add to it.
Wednesday, Aug 18th
A dull day, blustery and cold, impossible to sit out. Had a long letter from Mary telling me of her adventures in the Hague up to Monday night.
Thursday, Aug 19th
Dull, cold and drizzly. Had electric fire on in the drawing room all day and did not feel too hot.
Friday, Aug 20th
Another bad day. Rained all the afternoon; The cricket clubs are said to have lost thousands of pounds this dreadful summer.
Finished re-reading the adventures of that immortal rogue Monsieur l'Abbé Jérôme Coignard; always particularly enjoy the binge in Catherine's house in the Rue du Grenelle and all the conversation at that famous supper and the remark by Catherine, "A women with no bosom is like a bed with no pillow"!
Saturday, Aug 21st
The morning was fine, so Nora persuaded us to take our tea to Ewelme Down. By the time we got there high cloud came over and it began to get fearfully cold and to blow. I felt perished and terribly depressed. By half past six it was pouring with rain. Heard a curlew on the Downs several times.
We seem to have reached a crisis in European affairs. Holland, Belgium and Italy will not accept Mendès France' watered down version of the E.D.C. because they say it would be in effect a new treaty to ratify all over again.
People argues as if the Germany of today is the Germany of 20 years ago. It is not. Germany is sandwiched between the U.S.S.R. and NATO and would be the first to be fought over. She should become a partner in the West with our consent and safeguards.
Sunday, Aug 22nd
Went over to the school, tidied up and fixed classrooms for next term. Being able to do a bit more makes one less depressed. But miserable that the holiday is half over and completely wasted.
Monday, Aug 3rd
Fixed an appointment with the hairdresser hoping if I get a haircut I shall feel less old, decayed and ill.
Tuesday, Aug 24th
Another foul and filthy day of perpetual drizzle. Last night the meteorological chief explained on the wireless that these bad summers were a regular occurrence and part of the general set up of our maritime climate. We could not expect a run of good summers! This one has not surpassed 1903 - but don't remember 1903.
Wednesday, Aug 25th
Mary had come up on the night boat - a very rough crossing - and rang up from Reading about 11.30, so asked her over to lunch - as she was only feeling capable of eating an egg this was easy! After lunch looked at the postcards she had brought me - Matisse, Braque, Picasso, etc, and compared them with mine. Walked around the garden and sat on the edge of the fish pond. Went back to Reading on the 4 o'clock bus to catch the train to Oxford. She had not spoken to anyone except waiters and hotel keepers for 10 days and then only a few words. She was unable to go out at nights alone without being accosted, so could not go to concerts or cinema.
Went to have my haircut, which made me feel better. Testicle all right in morning, but not by evening. Very disappointing after 3 1/2 weeks.
Thursday, Aug 26th
A nice day for a change, so after lunch we took our tea, N., H. and I, over to Cliveden. Went to see the Water Garden, then to Peel's Oak by the Long Garden. On a buddleia in the Long Garden there was a cloud of butterflies, commas and peacocks, most beautiful. After being immured for nearly a month, it was a lovely treat.
Had a fatless supper in preparation for x-ray tomorrow.
Friday, Aug 27th
Had no breakfast and N drove me down to hospital. A rather saturnine and negroid gentleman took a series of photos in the middle of which I was given a coffee-tasting drink. In the intervals of this I sat in the waiting room with a variety of children for some clinic or other and one of the fattest women I have ever seen of hippopotamus like girth. It took about one and a half hours.
Saturday, Aug 28th
Take off some honey in the morning and Boss-eyed Smith brings over three postcards from Dublin. He stays rather too long, but says Ireland has convinced him of the benefits of the Reformation!
Sunday, Aug 29th
Took off remainder of honey and spent most of the rest of the day extracting and straining it with Hilary's help. Dark and treacly in appearance, but rather more than I expected.
Debate in the French chamber continuing. The soldiers say our frontier is now on the Elbe; wish it had been still further east! Politicians have not kept pace with this fact. We like to think we are not a part of Western Europe and can partly contract out. We can't. We must keep our troops there so that the Americans will also remain. But we can't do this without the help of the Germans, yet our presence there will ensure, E.D.C. or not, that the German army is not used for new nationalist ventures. As long as the Russians think there is a chance of disrupting the western alliance and "neutralizing" Germany they will not settle down. A neutral Germany is a perpetual temptation to further try-ons by the Russians, bullying and bribing. I am sure Churchill of all men understands this and if E.D.C. fails will try to build up a looser form of community of which Britain will or ought to be a part.
There is nothing in which Nora and I differ more than in the matter of doors. To my mind minds doors are there to be shut in order to give you a sense of privacy. N appears to regard them as unnecessary hindrances to movement, which should therefore always be open - wide open. You enter the hall by the front door. The hall is a pleasant place, lit by a tall staircase window through which you see the beech trees, and painted a pleasant shade of greenish grey. That is if the door to the kitchen in shut. A gentleman's residence! Leave to door open and fail to close the back door it becomes a slum. Through a dark and untidy kitchen and scullery you look straight at a corrugated coke bunker and an assortment of dustbins backed by a creosoted wooden fence. This never appears to worry her at all.
Monday, Aug 30th
Hilary went up to London on the 8.34 as a city gent for the first day at Davies, Laing & Dick. He arrived back about 6.40 looking rather pale and tired and promptly took his collar off.
Tuesday, Aug 31st
Finished bottling honey - 105lb in all, "all" meaning a 14 lb tin of uncertain date scraped off the floor! Just after the war there were 120,000 beekeepers, now there are about 60,000, and their number is still dwindling.
Was uniting two colonies when almost dark when Hilary got stung on jaw. In a few minutes he had turned as red as a lobster and was covered with white blisters and rolling in agony with the irritation. I had to ring up Irvine who fortunately was in and take him round in the car. Irvine gave him a small blue pill, which in half a hour worked wonders.
September. "Pure gallows" intake. Hazel Reynolds. Jimmy Edwards' flying machine. "The chap" who played Antony.
Thursday, Sept 2nd
Thursday, Sept 2nd
Irvine rang up after supper and said x-rays showed no gall stones and only thing if it got bad again was to take pills.
Saturday, Sept 4th
Got to Exmouth in time for tea at Clapps. Had an excellent room on the third floor looking across the bay.
Monday, Sept 6th
A very wet morning. it improved later, so went over to Clyst St George to see the new church, which I did not think much of. To Exton for tea with Maud.
Wednesday, Sept 8th
Hilary's birthday, 18. Sent him a cheap copy of South Riding and a greetings telegram.
Saturday, Sep 11th
Lunch with Maud, then to Exeter and back to reading by 3.30, home by 6.40 bus, met by Nora at Town Hall. Maud revealed her age, 74, pretty good. 19 when bridesmaid at Mother's wedding, 1899. Bird record when away: gannets and terns, curlew, whimbrel, oystercatchers, sanderlings.
Daisy, Klaus and Uschi Boehm staying for weekend so a houseful. Hilary very pleased;
Monday, Sept 16th
Term opened. 64 new children, and some juniors, as I said to Mary C, "Pure gallows".
Saturday, Sept 18th
Took Nora and Hilary (his birthday present) up to London to see Christopher Fry's play The Dark Is Light Enough. Fry not my cup of tea. Rather bored by play. Edith Evans good to watch, but feel author a poet, not a dramatist, and so wishful to avoid stating the obvious that he lapses into the obscure.
Monday, Sept 20th
Have one girl for history at A level, Hazel Reynolds. Her parents came up on Friday and found they were Norfolk people. The accent I could not place. A promising girl, but dull talking to one solitary wench. However on the whole glad to be back at school instead of hanging about in the house
Wednesday, Sept 22nd
Cliveden for the last time this year. Picked Mary up at Hambleden and ate our tea in the Water Garden. Got back to flat at 7.30. Mary was very lively and full of fun and affection and we were both happy in spite of enforced celibacy.
Thursday, Sept 23rd
Ioan came down in Jimmy Edward's high powered auto. He had been flying for J.E. In order to get out of Blackpool, where he has been performing, he had bought an aeroplane and they had been going here and there in that so that Jimmy could play polo. Apparently it goes at 150 m.p.h. and they have to fly at below 2000 ft. He says it is desperately uncomfortable and fear and anxiety communicate themselves very easily when in the air. They had got stranded in low visibility over the Potteries and in a gale at Blackpool. He had driven from Oxford in 20 minutes, 21 miles!
Saturday, Sept 25th
In the evening H., N. and I went to see a film of Julius Caesar. It had John Gielgud as Cassius and he was superb - and alone. Brutus was James Mason, could not speak blank verse, and Antony was done by a chap whose previous success, Hilary told me, was in A Street Car Named Desire. The crowd scenes, as one would expect on film, were effective and they spread themselves on the Battle of Philippi, which was staged in a defile, cowboys and Indians style. Well, it all went to show that actors are one thing and film actors another, and the latter, who have not been trained on him, can't make much of a shot at Shakespeare.
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