1953 January - March

January. Eel Pie Island, Ham House. Dr Heath on Casualty. Mrs Pakenham-Walsh. Truman - a brave, honourable man. Eisenhower takes over.
 

Thursday, Jan  1st

    A very cold, dull, nasty day. However set out with Hilary by bus to Reading and electric train to Twickenham. We had a cheap lunch in a teashop at 12 and then crossed the river in a chain ferry. It was bitterly cold. We imagined we were near Ham House, but actually we found ourselves wandering round a collection of shacks.
Enquiring our whereabouts we were told we had taken the wrong ferry and were now on Eel Pie Island! The ferry was slow and there was no shelter while waiting. Finally we found the right ferry about half a mile away. It was not a chain ferry, though equally cold. It landed us near Ham House. We walked up to it.There was not a soul to be seen, but a policeman emerged from the wooden sentry box and said genially, "Here we live in splendid isolation. You'll be glad you made the visit. Go up to the front door and they'll open it for you". I think we must have been the first visitors that day For an hour we were the only ones! Built in 1610 and added to and finished by the Duke of Lauderdale and his second wife, to whom it belonged, in 1679, it was a complete Restoration show piece. The Duke, of whom there were several portraits, was a Restoration show piece himself, an overfed, boozy, double chinned, bewigged bandit of a ruthless disposition. The ladies mostly hung in the Long Gallery, Lelys, their low cut bodices showing the upper half of their breasts and barely concealing their nipples.

    In train read G. M. Young's life of Stanley Baldwin. Uncle Stan was a nice man, but it is a pity he did not stick to the iron business and Worcestershire County Council.

Saturday, Jan 3rd

    Up to London. Met Mary at Waterloo and straight to Festival Hall to ballet - Casse Noisette in full. In evening to Charles Morgan's River Line. Excellent, though always with him feel his ideas heavy on actors who tend to be puppets in his hands. An Englishman suspected of being a spy has been killed by the naval commander and the American on the orders of the French resistance woman leader. The woman has now married the commander and at their house in England the American falls in love with the half sister of the man the three were responsible for killing. It has many of the qualities of Greek tragedy, but needs reading.

Sunday, Jan 4th

    Breakfast in basement after a rather sleepless night in a double bed we christened Little Ease, but otherwise a very happy night. We went to Westminster Cathedral for High Mass. A bitterly cold day. After lunch in Marble Halls, to Dutch Exhibition at Burlington House. Walked over river to Festival Hall by Hungerford Bridge to collect tickets for Pouishnikoff, a rather heavy programme but started with Haydn and finished with Chopin Ballades.

    A lovely weekend, the great river and its lights seen at night from the Festival Hall and Hungerford Bridge, the ballet, the play, the concert, the stately movements of the Mass at Westminster, the privacy of our own room and its quietness after the roar of the traffic and the racket of the Corner Houses, and Mary's laughing face.

Tuesday, Jan 6th

    Snow, so no hockey for Hilary. A light fall and much slosh as it soon began to melt.

    Donald came up to supper as he was home for ten days before taking up an appointment as house physician in the Professor of Pharmacology's team. This will keep him going for six months. He seemed calmer but was in a very sceptical mood, especially on drugs and chemists. 

    He had been on casualty on Christmas Eve and worked till four in the morning after being up all day. The place was full of drunks. The police much in evidence and very concerned about a young woman who had been indecently assaulted, but Donald more concerned over the man who had been hit over the head with a whisky bottle, fracturing his skull. He gave a very interesting account of an operation on the valves of the heart, but it was very difficult to get him off medical subjects.

    A previous visitor Brigadier Godley, Commandant of Army Cadets. People said he would sit like a bull frog on committees but do no work. He was going round Oxfordshire "like a parson without a collar".

Saturday, Jan 10th

    Went over to see Mrs Pakenham-Walsh with her broken back at Nettlebed. She had got very fat and white and the lower part of her body was under a kind of tunnel of clothes, but she was counting out money on a bed table and paid me for my honey. Her face seemed slightly paralyzed. We chatted for a while, but it was difficult to feel at ease.

    A party, mostly of sixth formers with two Claydens and one Clifford, 6.30 - 9.30, games and acting (of a sort). Nora very keen on social gesture before Hilary went back to school, I rather reluctant, Hilary rather cynical.

   

Sunday, Jan 11th

    Last week Mr Truman delivered his parting message to Congress. It was a reasoned explanation of the dilemma in which we find ourselves in what Morgan would call "the age of violence". A world split into two and the universalist ambitions of the Soviet make peace unattainable, while at the same time the shape and dimension of war have been changed so that is not a rational man's possible policy. What can we do? The President replied that we can outlast and frustrate the threat. "As we continue to confound Soviet expectations, as our world grows stronger, more united, more attractive for men on both sides of the Iron Curtain, then inevitably there will come a time of change within the communist world."

    Can we stay the course? Can sprinters by temperament, as we westerners, and especially the Americans, are, win against the Marathon runners. The President thinks we can. "Remember, their power has no base in consent. Remember they are so afraid the free world's ideas and way of life they do not dare to let their people know about them..... Surely a social order so insecure and so fearful must ultimately lose its competition with our own society."

    Perhaps Mr Truman is himself an example of this. An "ordinary" man becoming like our own Baldwin president by accident in the first place, burdened with extraordinary powers and faced with a terrible responsibility and decisions, he has for eight years acted firmly and promptly, bravely and honourably. We in Britain owe him a very great deal.

Monday, Jan 12th
    The start of term. No domestic science mistress since Dinwoodie left, so had to fill in with oddments. Fortunately two students who can help, otherwise Sixth teaching Fifth!

    Have two ploys for Mary's birthday, putting a round plywood top on oak table and getting Geoff to make me a little book in which I have copied out 12 poems written to her since 1940.

Wednesday, Jan 14th
    Sensation in Russia! A group of Jewish doctors accused of murder by medicine. Many guesses, but the best is that the gangsters are quarrelling for succession to Stalin and purging one another.   

Saturday, Jan 17th

    A fearful Old Boys meeting on terms of amalgamation with Old Girls. Stood it for an  hour and a half and then came away.

Monday, Jan 19th

    Leonore Cooke here for three days. Was going over to Mary, but, as Nora had a nervous breakdown on Saturday and said she was "without value", didn't. 

    Listened to Eisenhower being inaugurated. He is no orator but spoke in a rather rapid voice like a man reading a report. Homburgs, not top hats, were requested, so the hatters, who had stocked up on the latter, were disappointed!

Friday, Jan 30th
     Mary up tp Festivall Hall for concert.... It was a lovely programme, Mozart piano concerto, Brahms' Variations on a theme of Haydn and the 4th Symphony. The conductor was a Hungarian with a remarkably high voltage. He went through an amazing range of gestures, sometimes conducting with his head till his brain must have rattled in his skull! We noted a military-looking man in a box with a bald head and walrus moustache - it was Sir Adrian Boult, the least spectacular of conductors. He seemed bored and afterwards we saw him in the chewing impassionately through sandwiches in the bar.

February. Spring floods. "A sweet man." Canned stew from Dar es Salaam.

Sunday, Feb 1st

    A bad weekend. The Stranraer - Larne ferry sank in a gale with the loss of 130 passengers and spring floods, helped by the northerly gale, flooded the east coast from Sheerness to Yorkshire and over 100 people were drowned.

Wednesday, Feb 4th

    An American teacher turned up from London. She was an exchange from Wisconsin. An Irish R.C., she had landed up in a secondary modern school at Chelsea, which was a shock to her. I showed her round. She said we had "a nice little plant" and to Mrs C that I was "a sweet man".

Saturday, Feb 7th

    Worked in library in afternoon on history of grammar school.

Sunday, Feb 12th

    Learnt that pound was now worth 44% of 1938 pound.  Wish I'd bought some gold, but never was any good at making money.

Thursday, Feb 12th

    My 53rd birthday. Snow on ground and bitter north winds, villages cut off in north and main roads blocked. Had letters from Molly and Aunt. Hilary did not write!  

Monday, Feb 16th

    Jack and Hilary Wray down for weekend. Hilary calmer and quieter since she had a thyroid operation. Worked hard heating and warming house as bitterly cold, 15° frost last night

  

 Friday, Feb 20th

    Half term. Went to Oxford with Nora and had lunch with Mary [?May] Lobel at King's Head and asked her about history of the school. Worked in Union Library most of morning and looked into Duke Humphrey in the afternoon. Quite back in the atmosphere of research in 1921 - 22. Found it rather entertaining.
    [Diarist did a year of graduate research on medieval history at Oxford in 1921 -1922]

Sunday, Feb 22nd

    Picked up Mary at 6.0 on Saturday. Drove to Queen's Head where we stayed for the night. This morning we drove slowly to Beacon Hill. On the way we saw a monstrous gypsy woman in a white shift just coming in from a morning easing of nature. We cooked lunch on the primus. The tinned stew, I noticed with apprehension, came from Dar es Salaam, but it was edible. 

    The country full of catkins, pussy willow, bird song, including the lark, and the grass is beginning to show green. The spring is coming near. Prosperpine is stormy in her sleep.

Tuesday, Feb 24th

    Appointing new D.S. mistress in afternoon and staff meeting in evening for entries to G.C.E. This always very annoying as staff never agree, or if they do, change their minds later.

Wednesday, Feb 25th

    A busy day. Teaching till 9.50, then letters, down to town to buy Mary a little flower bowl, Town Hall 11.0 for lecture on Medieval England till 1.0. Home, pick polyanthus for Mary, down to Town Hall for second lecture on civil war. Back to school for bird lecture by two boys from Leighton Park, same to tea. To Marys at 6.0. Supper, to cinema to see Trent's Last Case, not a very good film but enjoyed it nevertheless.

Saturday, Feb 28th

    Hilary had a long leave. Over to Oxford Playhouse to see Patience done by amateur dramatic society. Some of chorus of lovesick maidens were grandmothers and the Greek costumes hardly fitted their outsize figures and they had difficulty getting up from a prone or even kneeling position. Before the theatre had time to go into St John's garden. Several sorts of small iris were in flower, tiny alpine daffodils, and a variety of crocus, including a complete circle of lavender blue under a willow tree, a lovely surprize.

March. Dinner at 8s 6d! Death of Stalin. Combined Old Boys' and Old Girls' dinner. Tito in London. 'Flu affected "All's Well" with Anette Griggs as Rosalind and Jack Griffith as the Fool. Capt. Pullein-Thompson. Eric Attrill.

Tuesday, March 3rd

    An outing! But things don't usually turn out as you expect, and this didn't. Had imagined a moonlight walk on the Downs or by the river at Streatley. In point of fact the moon, brilliant on Saturday, did not rise til 9.0. It was bitterly cold with a ground fog. Rather dubiously we drove to The Swan at Streatley to find it had been turned into a riverside luxury hotel. Dinner cost 8/6 and was not particularly good, certainly not worth more  than 5/-.

Wednesday, March 4th

    Guide-lecturing to parents, but quite an agreeable lot and they appreciated their tea! The worst fog in London yesterday for 20 years.

Given out this morning that Stalin has had a stroke and does not look as if he will last long. We must hope it will be a change for the better, but doubt it.

Sunday, March 8

    Much speculation, pages of it, about the new governors of Russia. It seems Stalin, like Henry VIII, intended to leave a council of 36 full of checks and balances, but directly he was dead this was abolished, cut to 10, and out of the 10 men five as an inner cabinet. As there is no one successor, the heads of the police, army, foreign affairs have agreed to serve under Malenkov. How long they can hold their unity is anyone's guess..... A struggle not only for power but for life looks imminent....

Tuesday, March 10th

    Mr Truman is reported to have said he was sorry to hear of the death of any of his acquaintances!

    A very pessimistic article by Liddel Hart on western defence, says we could not hold the Russians east of the Rhine for more than a week or two without German divisions, and no sign of them whatever.

 Thursday, March 12th

    Over to Leighton Park to see Merry Wives of Windsor. It was not a very good choice, I thought, but they ploughed their way through it

with  good deal of hard shouting. Hilary, very nervous, had the small part as Bardolf. The cast had decided to give the collection to entertain four Russians who were coming to work on a housing project in Reading. Thought till the government changes policy this 4/- down the drain.

Saturday, March 14th
    Tonight a great occasion! The first dinner of the combined old boys and old girls association. 72 guests turned up, including my first appointment as English mistress, Miss Marjorie Barnes, now H.M. at Tottenham. Fortunately this year they started off to time at 7.30 and finished about 9.30. The Mayor proposed the Association, reminiscing about the number of times Mr Valpy had beaten him. Miss Hunter proposed the school, in which she said a number of nice things about me. I replied with anecdotes about past headmasters, a change in the name of the school, and congratulated the association in "at length coming abreast of the current movement of events".  We hope now that more interesting and nicer boys and girls will join and we shall have less of the pompous committee men and bores.

    Marshall Tito, alias Josip Broz, now approaching Thames Estuary to visit the British government. The first communist head of state to come here. Reading his autobiography, a brave but ruthless man.

Monday, March 16th

    Tito arrived this afternoon at Westminster Pier by launch from Greenwich. Mr Churchill, Mr Eden and the Duke of Edinburgh met him. He made a speech in English (he is a bold man), light and tripping and occasionally recognizable (just).

    The play is in difficulty. Jacques has flue and Corin a temperature. The Obliging Man is taking Jacques but if any more go down we shall be sunk.

Wednesday, March 18th

    More did go down and we had to get a stooge to read the usurping duke as well as the O.M. as Jacques. However the play was charmingly produced and although As You Like It is no favourite of mine, it just suited the children, for it was well within their compass and you felt they thoroughly enjoyed it and entered into the spirit of it. Rosalind [Anette Griggs], though she looked rather equine, was excellent, the Fool [Jack Griffith] was good and there was a delightful little page who sang.

Saturday, March 21st

    The last night of the play - a full house, as last night, but shall hardly clear cost of dresses. Altogether about 315 people came on three nights.      

Monday, March 23rd

        This afternoon Capt. Pullein-Thompson turned up with a rattle! This intended to be used as an outside fire alarm to save putting in an electric one, as the firemen want. Think I shall try to get a shell case of ship's bell; can't run round like Tweedledum and Tweedledee! Site for biology lab being fixed, probably old rose garden, which is near main building though rather cramped.

    Reading a life of Winston Churchill by Virginia Cowles. Not much new in it except light on his father's quarrel with the Prince of Wales, because he threatened to peach to the lady's husband when Randolph's brother supplanted the Prince in her bed. Royal manners!

Thursday, March 26th

        Eric Attrill had a nervous crisis yesterday and went home. However she turned up again this morning. Mrs C said it might be because  she was starting a baby. I said I thought it more probable because she was not!

Friday, March 27th

    Last day of term. A fine sunny day but extremely cold south-east wind.

    Queen Mary lying in state in Westminster Hall from Sunday to Tuesday. Funeral in St George's private.

Saturday, March 28th

    Nora up to London. Drove to the Three Swans at Hungerford. We were the only guests.

Sunday, March 30th

    Early morning tea, for which no charge made. High wind in night and day cloudy.We went out to get the papers and read about the five bodies discovered in a Notting Hill flat. Two women hung up by their heels and one by her brassier in a closed-in recess. The new tenant, a coloured gentleman, made a hole through, applied his eye and saw a woman's face. After digesting this we drove to Waltham Camp and to the Hurstbourne-Tarrant valley for lunch and tea.

    Wrote to Con for her 53rd birthday and had a reply. "Physically I have gone to seed, and feel the wear and tear, but inside I feel very ageless, neither young, nor middle aged nor old. Then she quoted the last chorus of Alcestis, for she is still learning Greek one day a week at the Deanery.