Friday, July 1st
Had been driving Mary to Albury Park near Guildford but did not feel up to it, so we had our tea in the flat and after tea went for a drive round Douai. Went into the church. There was a white faced and wretched looking monk sitting in the choir. He looked really dreadful, like something seen on Dartmoor.
Saturday, July 3rd
The Rev: Pachyderm said in his sermon on Sunday he had done everything in his power to get the authorities to appoint a rowing man to the living. Ripe, I felt, for This England!
Thursday, July 7th
Mary Clayden's birthday. Gave her a comic Osbert Lancaster and some honeysuckle.
Friday, July 15th
Yesterday Hilary went up to lunch with Con at the N.B.L. Otherwise he might have gone to Ascot that day instead of Wednesday [when] a storm struck the free enclosure at the course and killed several people. Others had severe shocks. The lightning seems to have run along a chain fence on which they were leaning.
This week we have had an execution orgy - a Mrs Ruth Ellis with two children shot her lover who had run off with some other man. She was condemned to be hanged, but most people assumed she would be reprieved. She was tight and half demented. Instead this clot of a Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George, who was apparently under the thumb of his permanent officials, let the execution go forward. The results in the popular press and Sunday newspapers can be imagined. The only possible good is that this execution of a young woman of 28 may hasten abolition. There had been a debate shortly before and the Home Secretary said an alternative had not been "clearly established", either it has or has not been "clearly established" in the abolitionist countries. If it hasn't and we are not allowed to try abolition here, it will never be done away with for lack of evidence! Hanging, The Spectator pointed out, is now a national sport and drives even the test match off the front page.
Saturday, July 16th
The big shots are assembling in Geneva for the top level talks, the first of this kind since Potsdam in 1945 - Eden, Eisenhower, Bulganin. Everyone is more hopeful than they have been for at least 10 years.
Spent part of yesterday - still extremely hot - moving a pile of slack out of the coal cellar. Coal going up again, another shock to the nation, so must use up the precious material. Have ordered a ton at about £8.
Sunday, July 17th
Another boiling day; bedroom so hot at 7 o'clock, 80°, so moved down to a camp bed in drawing room. Micheline came up to say goodbye. Phyllis spent most of afternoon in garden. She was wearing a backless dress which showed off her lovely skin. Can quite understand why so many men have fallen for her. James was down; his bankruptcy over, now living in a flat where, says Phyllis, the phone answered by a woman.
Monday, July 18th
Day of Sixth Form conference at Jesus, Oxford, on science and religion. Mary Clayden and I did no want to go so asked Attrills, but asked him not her in first instance, representing it as rather a treat. Found when dealing with the bumf this morning that there were questions for each set. When I sent round one of these she came into my room and blew up. "I had deceived her". How? "I was careless and inconsiderate!" Norman had worked all week on this and had gone up to London to buy books on it - why? I offered to go instead if she didn't feel like it, but that wouldn't do; she wanted her grievance. She's obviously heading for a nervous breakdown.
Hilary started for Paris by the 7.5 train with Micheline and Lise. Much wonder how he will get on, for French negligible quantity and he is going to stay three weeks. [Lise, from Copenhagen, and Micheline, from near Dijon, were au pair girls, Lise with Phyllis Auty, Micheline previously with Phyllis but at this time with an American couple in Henley.]
Monday, July 25th
At last we had a card from Hilary from Paris. It had rained but they had seen as much as they could "during a whistle stop". He had found a hotel at 6/- a night.
No car still. The bums at Oxford won't get on moving the striker and, until the supplier in Reading gets it, they can't match it up.
Friday, July 29th
Broke up. No sabotage of any kind this term. Had to give Eric a citation in Senior Assembly, but this saved me from saying much at the staff-meeting presentation of a book token.
Did succeed in getting a temporary master for next term. A cripple chap who had been in the control commission at Vienna, but was now out of a job with Austrian independence, at last restored. At any rate shall not have to have Eric back part time, as she was obviously hoping.
"The trouble with fiction," said John Rivers, "is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense..... Fiction has unity, fiction has style. Facts have neither. In the raw, existence is just one damned thing after another." [Editor: Failed to find out who this John Rivers was]
Tuesday, Aug 2nd
A letter from Hilary, full of human interest, written from St Jean de Losne: "Micheline's mother is a new experience", for while at home Micheline has no life of her own and if she stays in that part of France she is doomed. "The atmosphere of the village is oppressive. It is a hive of malicious gossip, and it is not flattering myself to say that I am of considerable interest. One has the impression always of a hundred pairs of eyes peering from behind a hundred pairs of shutters. Micheline hates the town but has to be careful in her behaviour because of her father's position [Monsieur le Maire]." A very good letter but then I don't think of Hilary as 19.
Wednesday, Aug 3rd
Went for tea with Mary to the Aldworth Downs. We were full of quiet affection and enjoyment and felt very happy.
Thursday, Aug 4th
Had elevenses with Mary C. Had an early lunch and drove to Watford. Aunt shakier and more decrepit. She had had a bad night but wanted to go to the old people's home, where Rusby (whom I had previously written off) has picked up again. While the old ladies were sitting in the back of car, noticed to my horror one of front tyres was slowly going down. Had to change wheel with much bad language, dirt and oil. This gave a new interest to the inmates and when I had finished one old man took me to the gents' lavatory. After the considerable interest we aroused we were waved off on departure. Hope I don't end up in an institution. Nora says Aunt has got more fun out of last five years of her life than in previous 80 - I wonder.
Saturday, Aug 6th
A beastly journey by car to Payn's Hil, Duddleswell, in Sussex. Traffic very heavy and uninteresting route. We had some difficulty in finding the cottage, which was down a sandy track across a heath [which] had wide views across the Ashdown Forest to the South Downs and was surrounded by bracken and heather. It was previously a forester's cottage with a a floor added. It still contained an old wide chimney with a bread oven..... Nothing was level and everything was slippery, so for the first 48 hours one bumped and banged and skidded. The kitchen was dirty, untidy and overcrowded, but had a Rayburn and a Calor gas stove. The Rayburn went out and there was not adequate light in the dining space. We went to bed early, tired and cross!
Monday, Aug 8th
Sudden apparition of bobbed white-haired figure with glasses, of broad and only partly intelligible speech - Mrs Hazelden, the help, who walks across the forest to oblige. Lunch at 12 and start for Bodiam - a little disappointing and smaller than imagined and quite dull compared with Welsh castles.
Tuesday, Aug 9th
Go down to the sea at Cuckmere.
Wednesday, Aug 10th
Lunch, a very poor one, at Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells. Then to Knole - a knock out! Had an excellent guide, fresh and interesting, who promotes me to close doors at end of visit. The hall and state apartments. Confronted at foot of stairs with naked marble statue of Italian mistress of 18th century owner, lying on side to show a very shapely back and bottom! Marvellous exhibition of furniture including three state beds and a fine collection of portraits. At the end of two hours "ecstasy" collapse in car and drink tea with aching feet and legs.
Tuesday, Aug 11th
On a church crawl, i) Bixted, interesting plaster ceiling put in in 1600 to commemorate good hop harvest! ii) Isfield, a good Caroline tomb, iii) Fletching, a good C13th church with tilting helmets of Warwick.
Friday, Aug 12th
Drove to Wilmington and had lunch on way up to Long Man and Windover Hill. Down to Cuckmere, but rain in night had made track an excellent example of pre-turnpike road. We slithered, waltzed and rocked for quarter of a mile. Holy women came down and rolled up their skirts and paddled, showing quite shapely calves.
Saturday, Aug 13th
Drive to Newhaven and meet Hilary off boat, dirty while unshaven after sleeping on St Lazare. Have tea together at Newhaven station then they drive home and I have dinner at Trust House where I sit till 8.30 reading Fanny Burney. On boat at 9. First train is full of third class with impossible packs over which you have to scramble to first class as no separate gangway. Mary arrives on second train and we meet on boat deck.
Sunday, Aug 14th
Slept pretty badly and little. Not helped by black man who snored in next bunk. Didn't like to move in case he thought it was his colour not his noise, but did eventually. Got up about 7 and emerged to see grey and grisly-looking Dieppe. We got off at 8 and asked for a bus to Varengeville. There were no buses. I did not catch why. It turned out later there was a strike. At 11 we set off in a taxi. Through Varengeville village and finally down a side turning towards the sea till we saw Hotel de Terrasse. Taxi cost 1100 frs. When we got inside, Mme Louy, a nervous little woman, rushed out with a spate of rapid French to the effect that someone had not left and we would be put for one night in a downstairs room. It was a poor room on the same level and very close to the pantry. It was noisy and very hot. We saw later a red furnace below in the gaps in the floor boards. Fire down below, as it says in the sea shanty!
Monday, Aug 15th
A ghastly night. Very little sleep at all although we were dog tired. It was the vigil of the Assumption and a party of Belgians screamed and bawled and drank to 2 o'clock. After a couple of hours sleep and noise and discomfort I thought, "Why on earth did I leave the place in Sussex for this pandemonium."
We went down and tramped along a hard road to the lighthouse, then came back and sat on the cliffs. After lunch we we walked along the sand and rock at low tide to the next estuary eastwards. We found the whole expanse dotted with scrapers and rock lifters search for small crabs and winkles.
On our return we found we had been moved up to a better room on the first floor with a wide comfortable double bed. After dinner we walked in the dark up the road to the lighthouse. We slept together twice in our comfortable bed and the night was quite quiet after the row of the vigil. I begin to be glad we have come.
Tuesday, Aug 16th
The hotel is on the top of the cliffs where the road runs down to cross a small valley on its way to the lighthouse. It is about 150 yards from the cliff edge and as we lie in bed or sit at our meals we can see the sea. It has an outside balcony where drinks are served, a gravel terrace below with a pleasant orchard to sit in. You walk across a meadow full of downland flowers to a cutting which brings you down to a shingle beach. The guests are provided with a tide table, and you can see why. Swimming in deep water is only possible at high tide.
There was plenty of interest among the other guests - the Arab with his floozy, the Brown Woman with her Roumanian cavalryman (we assumed), the old Belgian and his etiolated offspring, Jean-Louis, who even when bathing in two feet of water at low tide wore a large cork life jacket, the young married couple with a two months old baby, the white haired old lady and her fat little girl, the solitary old gentleman with his ancient fox terrier, the fat bruiser and his blonde tart who came in for one night's intercourse, the English M.P. and his large family, and so on.
This afternoon we walked to the village. The village was scattered but had a post office, a baker's, a store, where we bought milk and biscottes, and a stationers. It contained a number of rich country houses displaying the sign "chien méchant" and carefully guarded from the public gaze by hedges and gates.
The church stood on the cliff edge pointing up channel and surrounded by a very full cemetery, gravelled, and full of hideous tombs. On the very edge of the cliff at the N.E. corner there were some black wooden crosses with aluminium labels, the tombs of the German dead, all young, and a few unknown - the high cost of Hitler.
The interior was pleasant, a good C13th crossing and curiously carved C17th pillars with bearded heads, scallop shells and a mermaid..... A path led down to a combe where we made a fire for tea, then a zig zag path to the beach and back along the sand to dinner.
Wednesday, Aug 17th
At dinner the aged Belge had caught a great bowl of shrimps, which had been cooked and placed on the table. They were being displayed by the wife when the dog ran through her legs. Down she went, bang went the bowl and a cascade of shrimps skidded along the floor. The waitresses shrugged and made no effort to help. The family gathered them up, apparently glass and all, and ate the lot!
Thursday, Aug 18th
The sea was rather rougher but Mary bathed. She looked very nice, though ample, in her black and white bather. When she came out of the water she was a bit inclined to slip out of her top. In the afternoon we walked to Varenge Ville along a side road to the Manoir d'Ango.
Saturday, Aug 20th
Bus to Veules les Roses. On our way we had a fine view of the harvest fields, oats, wheat, sugar beet and red clover, with lines of tethered cows. Only an occasional tractor, no mechanical hoists, all carting by horses.
Sunday, Aug 21st
The tide was low so we walked to church along the shore, a new experience! A blazing day with no breeze and very hot, nor was the church particularly cool as we expected. The great west door with its circular descending step was open. We sat in the back in what we hoped was an unappropriated pew, though it was not. The church was pretty empty when the mass began 10 minutes late, but filled up as the service went on. The quality, in black and very correct, sat in the front and with them a tall white monk made his entry. The church was full of small children bawling and crying so there was an almost continuous noise. The priest came round with a small plate, which he shovelled from time to time into a sack held by an acolyte.We had the gospel read in French and two very crooner-like hymns The monk preached a rather long sermon. He was amusing, dramatic, emotional ad confidential by turns,but his audience sat and stared at vacancy, a lot of dead pans.
The Brown Woman kept a Siamese cat in her bedroom. When being being carried down in a holdall with his head sticking out we asked his name. Inspector Bull - inspector because he wished to examine everything and Bull because he was meant for production, but alas it was impossible in her Paris flat so he was Bull no longer!
Tuesday, Aug 23rd
We decide to go by bus to Fecamp. A huge party of English youth hostelers gets in at St Valery with enormous packs. This makes the bus half an hour late. We have lunch at a quiet hotel and then tramp round the distillerie. Not only is the production mechanized, but also the guiding! As we enter each room an official presses a button and the loudspeaker bawls out a recording. Fortunately the bus home is faster, cooler and less crowded, but four hours or more embussed is a lot. A sea mist comes up and the foghorn from the lighthouse blares away. We call it rather rudely Farting Matilda. It goes on all night.
Wednesday, Aug 24th
We spend the morning on the beach. The Brown Woman is catching shrimps in a little net. She says they are so difficult to "undress". I asked if she ever brings Inspector Bull on he beach. She says no. He has to have a tray in his room and he is disgusted by the sight of so much sand. After dinner we walk to the Phare to hear the horn at close quarters. It is most belch-like.
Our bill for 11 days comes to 40,744 fcs, 1,500 fcs a day, extras 3,330; service at 12% 4,359 - about £4-10-0, so the holiday works out at getting on for £2 a day. There is no doubt that France is more expensive than when we went to Pralognan. Tea and cakes we found may cost 6/-, about double what it would in England. Nevertheless it has been worth it. I have loved the sea and it so nice not having separate bedrooms as we did in Switzerland last time. It is, I tell Mary, the best holiday in my opinion we have had so far together.
Thursday, Aug 25th
Taxi to Dieppe - 1,000 fcs. Have a coffee and rolls and then embark before the Paris trains gets in, but even then we have to queue! We get a good seat in the first class and have our rolls and cheese and fruit. I go on the bows below the bridge and find that both the captain and the quartermaster on duty are "philosophers" who are having a good look at the girls' pants when the wind blows their skirts up.
I call Mary up "to see England" - the usual fine view of the Seven Sisters. With our usual luck I miss Nora, who arrives too late. Train to Lewes, hump my baggage to the bus station, wait an hour, then tramp down the track.
Tuesday, Sept 6th
On our way home, Hilary and I call in and see Guildford Cathedral. It is now completed as far as the crossing. When Mary and I climbed up to it one weekend during the war it was a shell only. We buy a brick for 2/6 and write our names on it and so become "cathedral builders". It will be a lovely and dignified building on a fine site.
Last Sunday we had two coloured nurses from Peppard to supper, Miss Smith and Miss Harris. Miss Harris is petite and soft spoken from Trinidad; Miss Smith, large, forty and hideously ugly with yellow eyeballs, is from British Guiana. They both wear very high-heeled shoes and have hair does.
Thursday, Sept 8th
Hilary's 19th birthday. We extract honey and saw logs in the morning and go up to London by 4.45 in the afternoon. Bus to Piccadilly and to have dinner at N.B.L. with bottle of Beaune to celebrate, costs 15/-; Then to see The Reluctant Debutante, Hilary' choice!. Theatre is packed for this social comedy - nothing to it but slickly acted. We get out about 10.30 and look like missing the 11 o'clock, but find a taxi and he drives like mad for Paddington and we find we have plenty of time. At Maidenhead you get out and wait for a curious Victorian relic with the engine at the back, gas lighting and fancy ironwork, which runs through to Henley.
Sunday, Sept 11th
Finished extracting honey, about 195 lb, almost 40 lbs a hive which is not bad. Len tells me of a great plague of caterpillars in Cornwall which have eaten all the winter greens. There are so many of them, he says, that at night you can hear them chewing.
Monday Sept 12th
First day of term. Clem very talkative. He is becoming a bore. A large sixth form and much conferring all day about fifth and sixth, ending up with a long staff meeting.
Saturday, Sept 17th
The beginning of term seems to get worse. This time we have been besieged with G.C.E. difficulties. I said to the Wilk that it anyone asks me another question I shall burst into tears.
Sunday, Sept 18th
Last night took part in a discussion at the Chantry House on secondary education. A Mr Loukes, from Oxford, came over, a terribly gloomy man, who never smiled even when he made a joke, but clever. Had been a master at Leighton Park. He kicked off for about 20 minutes and then a panel of local H.M.s were to discuss. The Bank Manager Chairman would insist on our rising to speak, which made if very difficult to be informal. However, Nora thought I made the grade!!
N and I took our lunch to Aldworth. She told me she was thinking of opening a hostel for patients discharged from mental hospitals, but must get on as next birthday 58. It would have to be in London.
Wednesday, Sept 21st
Had a letter from Aunt's housekeeper. Looks as if the old lady is packing up, but persuaded Nora to wait till tomorrow before visiting Watford. M and I had tea at Goring and then walked up the lane. Mary said her parents were talking of coming to live in Reading, so presumably she could live with them and look after them! Golly! Buy a bottle of Bordeaux to fortify us!
Thursday, Sept 22nd
Nora at Watford all day. Just when we are going straight and clear of all visitors, Lady Helen Asquith rings up and wants to come over tomorrow morning. I am lecturing to a group of W.I. on the National Trust in Reading in the afternoon. What a damned nuisance.
Friday, Sept 23rd
Lady H announced we are to have an inspection in February or March, bad months anyway. Also a parent has complained to the Ministry about rejection of his child: here we appear to be batting on a good wicket as she was bottom in English.
Monday, Sept 26th
Photographed with a "whizz whizz". Just sat down when found my zipper undone! Beat a hasty retreat wrapped in gown and did them up; a narrow squeak, very awkward, very awkward!
Wednesday, Sept 28th
Hilary's last day as a civilian. He spent it in jeans, sweater and sandals! We had a bottle of Graves. He drank three glasses but showed no effect! "What you want," Klaus says, " is two pay books." "Klaus must be a crook," say I. "Oh, no!" he replies, "he is an honest man. I am much more of a crook than he is!"
Thursday, Sept 29th
Found he had changed razors with me. "Mine's easier to polish". "You won't have to polish your razor". "Yes, Klaus says he had to polish his toothbrush." Nora takes him to Reading and he goes off with some young men on the 10.25 to Oxford and the Cowley Barracks.
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