1949 August

August. Honey crop. Fra Rheumatico. Droitwich. Nora copes. Crisis time again. Priestley's Home To-morrow.

Tuesday, August 2nd
Got the honey carried off by Tom (Wheeler) and Vernon and started extracting. Heavy crop.


Sunday, August 7th
Finished extraction in morning. Think about 600lbs, but only 80 bottled so far. Hopeful can sell it at 4s  bottle, in shops 4/6. Cleaned up honey room but leg hurt a lot at bedtime and very depressed.

Tuesday, August 9th
Lay in bed most of morning to try and rest leg but don’t know if did did any good. Leg and back spoil everything. Suppose standing and lifting extracting has only made it worse. Finished bottling this afternoon. 610lbs.

Wednesday, Aug 10th
Went on downs with Mary after returning Vernon, rather stung by bees, to Caversham. Four new queens arrived from Deal but Hilary had to fetch them from P.O. Vernon was stung while looking for old queens.
Leg very painful so decided to go to Droitwich next week and have given up idea of camping with Hilary. Mary very tired and exhausted by coping with Cooks and tickets etc to France. If a foreign holiday makes you feel like a nervous breakdown, is a foreign holiday worth it !

Thursday, Aug 11th
Nora took boys to Oxford which I had planned to do if it had not been for this bloody rheumatism. Poor Nora when I pack up and everything falls on her and how well she copes with it.

Friday, Aug 12th
Managed to find a portable wireless for Droitwich. Have decided I must regard it as a lovely holiday!!!

Saturday, Azug 13th
Rolf went back to Denmark. He took back tea, honey, coffee, mustard and Worcester Sauce!

Sunday, Aug 14th
Remembering how tough Sunday in Droitwich was two years ago, I came down by the evening train on Sunday. Very slow and hot. As I was sitting in the garden the sun shining on the lime trees cast a kind of halo in which the thistledown in the air reflected the light.

Monday, Aug 15th
This trip changing my mode of life and decided to have my baths at 3 p.m. instead of in the morning. I think the morning passes easier than the afternoon. You are hardly out of the bath by 4.0, then you can have tea brought up to the bedroom while you rest to 6.0 or dinner time. The day passes fairly quickly and pleasantly, though the bath made my leg much worse and more spasms. The wireless a great help. As the proprietress has hers bellowing below doesn’t mind my playing music.

Tuesday, Aug 16th
Lay reading Fair Stood the Wind for France. At lunch read Harold Nicholson. This had two advantages: it makes you eat more slowly and it takes your eyes off the other inmates, both highly desirable in my opinion.

Wednesday, Aug 17th
Rang up Nora in the evening, six minutes cost 3s 4d. The Cowley Fathers are supposed never to sit in an easy chair or cross their legs. Shall perforce have to become a Lay Cowley Father – Fra Rheumatico.

Sunday, Aug 21st
Over to Worcester by bus to meet Nora for lunch and tea. Started early as buses overcrowded and reached Worcester about eleven. The same impression of dirt, litter and decay, a lack of care for the city; the river banks filthy, badly laid footpaths, broken iron seats with no paint on them, smells from drains, little evidence of a town council that cares tuppence for the amenities, beauty or seemliness of Worcester.
Lunched with Nora in The Crown, then strolled round the Cathedral. Sat for some time in the cloisters and chatted about ourselves. Tried to cheer her up, but without much success.

Monday, Aug 22nd
This evening the Pathetic Symphony (Promenade Concert) always associated in my mind with a war Sunday and the Albert Hall with Mary, a streaming cold, an icy wind, a raid that night. Does one live too much in the past in the recalling of past delights, past experiences, past memories, the vice of reminiscing. “There is no home for us now, perhaps not for anybody. Home is to-morrow. But we are beginning to build it to-day… ” Been reading Priestley’s last play, Home to-morrow. Wish I had seen it at Oxford as it hardly ran any time in London. The critics killed it before it could be nursed into popularity.
There is no home for us, no nice C19th established secure Victorian world, only the progress from one crisis to the next. Last time I was here there was an economic crisis and to-day there is another. Feel sorry for the government…..
The Russians starting a fierce propaganda war on Tito. Shouldn’t think he is a good life ! Wonder how long he will last. Question Europe once asked about Henry VIII !

Tuesday, Aug 23rd
Bath at 3 p.m. Exhausting in this weather and makes you feel very low and melancholy and no one to turn to when the outlook looks bad! Came across this passage in [Charles Morgan’s] The Fountain: “Solitary men are like cut flowers in a pot; yet if a man consent to be nourished of woman, he, like a flower, is rooted and held.”

Saturday, Aug 27th
Nora wrote in a letter I received to-day : “One has to live through one’s fears and failings and difficulties to find the gold that is in the experience.” Of Hilary : ”There have been periods of blood and bad language (over bicycle) but they passed quickly. He certainly is a very different boy from the one we took on Dartmoor. I think he too has lived through something.”

Sunday, Aug 28th
Mary arrived by the 2 o’clock train from London. After she had unpacked and washed, I took her to see the sights.

Wednesday, Aug 31st
Mary and I to mixed bathing in the Brine Bath. We introduced and air of fun, smiles and enjoyment among the many elderly ladies and gentlemen….. Mary left for Oxford by the 6.25.