January. Fuel crisis again. Phyllis Auty adopts. An half century. Ioan, Wilk and Miss H. Counting out wage packets. 'Flu. Popski.
Monday, Jan 1st
Mary got of bed and saw there was thick snow and still falling fast. After lunch went to station where Hilary was waiting. The 2.18 was punctual and we set off for Exmouth. We got to Bow House Hotel about 6.45 and found it occupied by seven old ladies and one honeymoon couple. It was very cold at night, as I had not realized that the meter in the electric fire worked with shillings and sixpences.
Wednesday, Jan 3rd
First picnic of the year. Took sandwiches, bus to Otterton and over roads coated with ice to Ladram Bay. Collected enough wood to make a fire. After lunch walked up to Peak Hill, thought of August 1940. To Otterton by almost impassable back lane.
Friday, Jan 5th
Yesterday the cold weather broke by S.W. airstream and pouring rain; it had lasted since last week in November without a break. The thermometer rose to 55F. Home tomorrow.
Sunday, Jan 7th
Another fuel crisis like that of 1947, though hope not as bad. Output fell in autumn and stocks dwindled. P.M. has asked miners for an extra 3m tons by end of April. Difficult to find enough men under modern social conditions willing to dig coal.
Tuesday, Jan 9th
Reading a most amusing and entertaining book, Monica Baldwin’s I Leaped over the Wall. When about 50 she left a contemplative order, where she had been immured for 28 years, in 1941 and returned to a world at war where she was a complete stranger to the dress, social habits, speech and ways of secular life. The account of her religious life is as interesting as the story of her efforts to adjust herself.
A psychologist trying to sell intelligence tests to a colonel in war was told, ”All rubbish! I can tell when a man is intelligent by looking at him.” ”Ah, ha,” said the psychologist, ”but we can tell his intelligence without looking at him;”
Paper shortage beginning again and shortage acute.
Wednesday, Jan 10th
Phyllis rang up to say had decided to adopt Joan’s baby, whether boy or girl. Very pleased at this and hope it is a girl.
Thursday, 11th
Rang up Phyllis this evening. She had as I expected got things weighed up and arranged. I am to act as an introducer, or intermediary, my name given to L.C.C. ( London County Council) so they can assure themselves that I am not a baby farmer. Has asked me to be Godfather.
1900 – 1950. What a half century! The 1914 war followed by Fascisim and Bolshevism, which showed how easily an organized minority could master a whole unorganized nation by violence, craft, and lies; the greater the violence the bigger the lies and more certain the success. It taught too the fascination of the poor and suffering people of the appeal of hate. By 1939 men had been accustomed to cruelty, murder, persecution and extermination of political opponents. We had moved far from 1914. The peace after 1945 was worse than 1919. It has left in dominance over Europe a power which accepted in its extreme forms the doctrines if violence and conquest. But there are some advantages today. We are in danger but we know we are in danger. The danger has made us draw closer together than we were before. We have, too, more understanding of our own minds; there are more people ready to try to overcome evil with good.
Still we say with Pericles, ”the secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage”; with the old Hebrew prophet that what is required of us is to do justly and to love mercy, to walk in humility with God; with Cicero that good faith is the foundation of all human society. ”Let me entreat you to let the dead past bury its dead, to cast behind you every recollection of bygone evils, to love and sustain one another through the vicious vicissitudes that are to come.”
Friday, Jan 12th
Appointed new games mistress with a very heavy and unnecessarily large committee.
Monday, Jan 125th
Attended first lecture of the W.E.A. course on architecture in capacity as president ! It was rather wooly and left no clear ideas in my mind.
Tuesday Jan 16th
Visited Marjorie Hunter and Marjorie Wilkinson. Asked latter if M.H still thought her relations with Ioan purely platonic. Replied she did not know as M.H. had never said anything and anyway the notion that a woman might want sexual intercourse and take pleasure in it quite foreign to M.H., who regarded it as something rather nasty men demanded of women. But they had to be very quiet.
Thursday, Jan 18th
Woke up with splitting headache. Came home after lunch and went to bed. Before I retired, organizer from office came in. Ministry now on evacuation schemes. Has asked if another grammar school of 300 could be accommodated in Henley by earmarking buildings. Replied, short of occupation of Town Hall, no. Temperature 101 at night.
Friday, Jan 19th
Bother with wages as secretary ill. However, Mrs Clayden got money from bank and counted it out into envelopes.
Sunday, Jan 21st
Temperature only 2 points over normal. Stayed in bed, but depression which follows ’flu began to show itself.
Was always having influenza as a boy and remember going to bed with teeth chattering and couldn’t keep still. In those days doctor gave you medicine which made you sweat profusely. In 1925 or 26 had it at school in sanatorium where hundreds of exam papers were dumped on me; in 1933 or 4 Nora and I both had it at the same time in Leicester; as soon as I came to Henley had another attack during which time I rumbled the games master, who was embezzling funds, and had to go back to the school, feeling like the dog’s dinner, to get the governors to dismiss him! Uncle Reggie and his wife Fluff!
Reading Elephant Bill, who had a nice sense of humour. Sent a signal that he was supplying an A.A. unit with ”eight good weight carrying females, for experiment.” He heard a young sapper in the Rangoon zoo in 1945 describing to a very attractive nurse how the female elephant prepares for her honeymoon in the spring time by digging a deep pit round which she stacks a month’s supply of of food and fruit, then lies down and calls for her mate. When he arrives they live in one unending embrace for a whole month until they have eaten the last banana. He was obviously hoping the nurse would take the hint and do the same.
Tuesday, Jan 23rd
Stayed in bed till after lunch then dressed and made fire for tea. Had supper downstairs. Four staff away today and about 50 children; down from 90 on Friday. Theano, wife of Pythagoras said, The woman who goes to bed with her husband should put off her modesty with her dress and put it on again in the morning.
Wednesday, Jan 24th
A Latin catalogue ;
Three things white : the skin, the teeth, the hands
Three things black : the eyes, the eyebrows, the eyelashes
Three red : the lips, the cheeks, the nails
Three short : the teeth, the ears, the feet
Three wide : the chest, the forehead, the space between the eyebrows
Three narrow : the mouth, the waist, the ankles
Three thick : the arms, the thighs, the calves
Three delicate : the fingers, the hair, the lips
Three small : the breasts, the nose, the head
Thursday, Jan 25th
Went back to school. Staff complete except one, but secretary still away, so spent afternoon counting money. Len arrived to tell me a bull had got into the field and broken hockey goal.
Monday, Jan 29th
Finished reading Private Army by Peniakow, or Popski. He was a Russian born in Belgium, educated in England, served in the French army in the first war, took up engineering and in 1940 found himself working in a sugar factory in Cairo. His hobby had been exploring the desert in an old Ford car. He became commander of a tiny unit, P.P.A. (Popski’s Private Army), which specialised in reconnaissance and demolition behind the German lines, first in Cyrenaica and Tunis, then in Italy. He started in Cairo; he ended up near Graz, where he met the Russian tanks. He lost one hand, his left, and some fingers. What a man. Absolutely fascinated by his story and just could no put it down till I had read the whole.
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