Diary 1961

Sunday, Jan 1st, 1961 - Drove to Oxford to pay my annual visit to Mary’s parents. Turkey and Christmas pudding. For Mr Pierce a bottle of port, for Mrs 8lbs of cox’s pippins. Mr Pierce chair bound these days, but while Mary is in the room they keep up a kind of consultative dialogue.

(See end of this post for index, mainly names)


Monday, Jan 2nd - To Cheltenham to see out vague and wooly dentist, Mr Reginald Merritt. My steel plate has arrived,  but Mary did not get far. He wants to take out two of her front teeth which she does not view with much favour. Got a modern translation of Lysistrata from library - good, bawdy, phallic fun.

Thursday, Jan 5th - London from Moreton 11.30. Sir John Soame’s Museum open,  but no heat! A real collector, what a mass of bits and pieces - enjoyed the Hogarths and the furniture. Too late for lunch at N.B.C. so had to resort to a sordid Lyons cafeteria. Managed to get upper circle seats to see Michael and Vanessa Redgrave in The Tiger and the Horse by Robert Bolt. The good, kind, but remote and intellectual head of college about to become vice chancellor is faced with a younger daughter about to sleep with a  non-u research fellow, by whom she later becomes pregnant, and a wife who wishes to put her name to an anti-bomb demonstration petition and finally defaces the college Holbein. They represent the Tigers of wrath which, as Blake said, are wiser than horses of instruction.
Reached N.B.L. about 5 to find Nora. We sat chatting for a while, then went out for a breather before dinner. Got home about 12.15.

Friday, Jan 6th - Mary still low, silent and uncommunicative, gloomy - no comeback.

Saturday, Jan 7th - The meet at Adlestrop Park - very pleasant and good view, but cold. Realized why the second hand book man in Cheltenham always has a duster in his hand when I took down my case in the sitting room to-day.
Analysis of Christmas cards: religious 19; birds, flowers, animals 19; landscape 13; buildings 10; non-classified 7 - 65 altogether.

Sunday, Jan 8th - Took the car up to the Roman road as it was sunny in the morning and had a walk. The wind was very cold even in leather jerkin and duffle coat but it was very enjoyable.
Really a ghastly week at home. Not a single laugh out of Mary. Her depression seems to get worse and worse, everything I suggest or do is viewed from the most prejudiced angle. I find it difficult not to get cross and irritated, but I suppose it’s hormones and can’t help it.

Monday, Jan 9th - The trouble came to a head this morning. I said I might go to see Molly to-morrow as Mary was going home. Why? Molly did not treat her as an equal. Next Hilary had not sent her a present. She distrusted Nora and I was secretive. Secretive about what? I had not told her what we talked about on Thursday. Well, Pymonie, the niggers, Kempton and Michael, Hilary, Lise her work etc. What a bore! On looking up Hilary’s book token I see that it was to us both.

Friday, Jan 13th - To Reading by train, lunch with Cyril and Kay. To Mr Bohm to have piles injected while Mary shown round garden. Cyril seemed very gloomy. Impression that he was very shaky and had lost a lot of his old energy, even in denouncing the government and the town council! Felt this bad!

Saturday, Jan 14th - Lunch with Hilary in Nottingham from Marylebone and Leicester. He had come from Sheffield but was at the barrier at Victoria Station. We pushed through the crowds to the Flying Horse where we had lunch. Spent the afternoon in the art gallery and museum and at castle and parted after tea. Heard about his flat and the paper. Thinks he and Lise may get married in the summer. She has her divorce from Bent but her parents have not been told she intends to marry him.

Monday, Jan 16th. Quite forgot that last Thursday called on Hill Place Prep School just below Stow. A huge Edwardian manor with classrooms and hall added. No expense seemed to have been spared. Headmaster out, but shown round by his son.
A milestone: got my new cage of teeth in Cheltenham. Mary went off home rather cross, perhaps because Nora writes to say she owes £300 in income tax and wants to know how much I gave Hilary at Oxford; rather difficult to say as bank now does not differentiate between H.D., H.J. and M.M Barnes, but think about £250 over three years.

Tuesday, Jan 17th - Started reviving my Greek and found I could get on fairly well with an easy reader.

Wednesday, Jan 18th - Pymonie has sacked Mrs Pulham, the only possible cook substitute, and Miss Birch says the term has been postponed for a week in consequence.

Thursday, Jan 19th - Asked Mary some time ago if, as she wouldn’t have Phyllis in here, she mind if I met her in Oxford and I understood her to say no. When I referred to it at lunch to-day a storm blew up. How would I like it if she had male friends and so on. This soon became a complaint that I had letters from and met Nora. Why did I want to be friends with her? It was an ‘intense friendship’. Was I bored? Did I find it so dull and so on.

Sunday, Jan 22nd - An hour and a half with Pymonie but very little came out of it. She waffled along. She thinks i would be nice to be recognized as ‘efficient’. Didn’t I think the school ‘efficient.’ An awkward question! Replied that no school that employed Dr Barrington could really be called ‘efficient’.
Heard some of Mr Kennedy’s inaugural speech. He had a harsh unattractive voice, I thought, and was inclined to shout. High hopes are set on the new president. During Eisenhower’s time the Russians developed the inter-continental rocket. This made Dulles’ ‘massive deterrent’ out of date. Neither side could be ‘stronger’ than the other, they could either live together or die together. No third way was open. Both Krushchev and Eisenhower recognised this, but the American public, or some of them, did not. Eisenhower was not a strong enough man to control his own military or his own foreign secretaries, who expected ‘normal’ countries to be at least 80% pro-western. America can play a large part in world leadership, but she cannot govern the world in a frame of co-existence and neutralism.

Thursday, Jan 26th - Think Mary may have ‘flu. A lot about. Stayed in bed all day. Bitterly cold but sun in morning.

Friday Jan 27th - Sweated in the night and woke with cough. Went up to Stow and did the shopping in the morning. Mary stayed in bed; nose still running - poor way to spend a birthday. After I had cooked the lunch legs ached and began to suspect I might have it too, so took temperature. 99.4°! By tomorrow I shall know for certain.
The cold has gone. Wind is south west this morning and pouring with rain. The blasted niggers are back to-day - a week late as no cook.

Saturday, Jan 28th - I did know for certain. Fortunately owing to time lag between us it was possible for me to nurse Mary and for Mary to nurse me.

Monday, Jan 30th - Eyes streaming, nose running, coughing up phlegm in the same state as Mary on Friday. Fortunately had got a joint in on Friday and coal arrived today. Enough oil too.

Tuesday, Jan 31st - Last day of January thank goodness. Eyes and nose still streaming, but signs of improvement.

Friday, Feb 3rd. The wind was very cold but the sun shone. We went out for a walk through the coppice at its southern edge, the first time we had been out together since Jan 24th. We passed a clump of snowdrops on the way and through the damp leaves some arums were showing green. In the afternoon slipped up to Stow, hoping I could avoid Pymonie, which I did.
Easter is on April 2nd so term will be very short - nine weeks, of which I have already missed one. I can safely say I have never started the spring term on Feb 6th before. Staff this term Mr and Mrs Moat (house parents), Malcolm (still without a job) had turned up, Mrs Nevins and self.

Saturday, Feb 4th - A note from Hilary. One of his editors had said one of his reviews ‘had the exciting promise of the first rate.’
‘Are you Appius Claudius?’ the pageant master said. ‘No! Miserable as hell’ replied the man sheltering in the rain.

Sunday, Feb 5th - Had the first bath since flu and got some of the sweat off.

Monday, Feb 6th - Meeting the niggers again after seven weeks what impresses me is their basic native stupidity. Roger: My teeth have got orange peel in the them. Me: Then go and wash them. Roger: I won’t go out; I don’t like this class. Me: Very well. If you don’t like it, go out (Goes).

Tuesday, Feb 7th - Looking back to 1958 it seems to me that the present inhabitants are quite mild compared with the lot I met on arrival. They may be bad tempered, lazy or stupid, but they are not as hostile as that gang was.

Sunday, Feb 12th - After opening my presents at breakfast I took 16 niggers to church and then did letter writing. This over we drove to Burford for lunch at the Bay Tree. We came home via Taynton and the Windrush to Sherborne (where) under the beeches there was not only a golden carpet of aconites but also snowdrops and small purple crocuses. A lovely afternoon; the streams brimming clear, the grass carpeted with gold; and a jay in his spring plumage seen close to a coppice. What more could you want?
Yesterday Wings sent the detailed itinary for Rhodes and Crete.
Molly is in a bad way. She has had flu, a cow kicked out one of her front teeth, and Biron left with a week’s notice. Typical of the working class attitude to their employers. They have told her she has a shadow on her lung and is to go in for a special x-ray to-morrow.
My cold was perhaps slightly better. Mary was desperately anxious not to catch it in case she took it home on her father’s birthday on Wednesday and I did not want her to get it so we could not fuck as we should like to have done.

Monday, Feb 13th - Letter, but no present, from Hilary arrived late. He said Lise wanted to be married in Denmark at the end of June. He would like to be married here so that Nora and I could be present, but it would be a face saver among other relatives to be married in Denmark!
Monday always a bad teaching day. The niggers two days without teaching and the ‘performing fleas’ impossible. Tuesday no ‘performing fleas’, four periods with the ‘clots’ who are stupid but easy. Wednesday half day. Thursday ‘clots’ again. Friday buoyed up by the prospect of the weekend, have the ‘performing fleas’ and end with the ‘clots’.

Monday, Feb 27th - Pymonie had a great day on Saturday. Roger the Raper had tried to have intercourse with a small, fat new girl, and there was a grand inquest with Miss Birch, Mr and Mrs Moat and Malcolm. Pymonie said her piece about neither punishing nor condoning (so likely that would mean anything to the niggers!) but if it happened the adults must be told at once.

Tuesday, Feb 28th - Went up to Stow and bought E. K. Walls’ Dictionary of Place Names with Hilary’s book token - the first present he has given me with his own earnings so very special.

Wednesday March 1 - Yesterday I found 21 snowdrops in the “marriage” vase on the bookcase in my room to celebrate our anniversary. After morning school we drove to Moreton and had lunch at The Manor House Hotel. We drove to Hidcote quite forgetting that it was not open until April 1st. However Mary got hold of the head gardener (rather to my embarrassment) and as the house was empty he let us in.

Saturday, March 4th - A fine sunny day. Drove to Stratford, had lunch in the Rose Garden and went to see Ibsen’s The Lady of the Sea with an all star cast before London production, Margaret Leighton, Vanessa Redgrave. I thought the play dragged rather and the theatre was so hot I nearly went to sleep.

Monday, March 6th - Tried Kiely’s gang on wild flowers. They appeared to go on ‘the principle ‘if it’s yellow call it a dandelion’.

Wednesday, March 8th - Mary went into Cheltenham to have a tooth out and get her plate. Funny we should both have them at the same time. At present I take mine out for meals and sometimes forget to put it back again for lessons.

Monday, March 13th - At lunch today we were looking over the village. We started here with 28 maladjusted and Mrs M.; opposite in the gardener’s cottage is an adult natural who sits peeing on the floor. Further down is Mrs G’s sister who has been bedridden for 70 years and a fat man with paralyzed legs. On the other side is young Mrs Nash with two daughters, one by an American. Lower again is Mary Clothier with three illegitimate children, one black, and her brother who goes batty at the full moon. Opposite is Allen’s 10- year-old mongol, below him the wicked man in Adlestrop and next to him Price’s natural.

Wednesday, March 15th - Dr Verwoerd has told the Commonwealth Conference that he wishes to withdraw his application for readmission to membership as his country would ‘not be welcome’. This at any rate is dignified. The South Africans seem surprized to find they stood alone. To divide men by the colour of their skins cannot be squared with any concept of the Commonwealth. It is good news that South Africa has gone. I think we all feel cleaner that we have emerged loyal to our beliefs.
England remains England! First reaction, this will mean the end of test matches!

Thursday, March 16th - I feel sorry for the chaps in Kenya and Rhodesia. They or their fathers built on native ignorance and disunity or in South Africa on the fact that ‘we have got the Maxim guns and they have not’. But 1961 is not 1911 when Aunt Beattie appeared in  our home from Kimberley. Small immigrant minorities can no longer dominate large African majorities except by methods that all but the Boers and the Russians reject. The Boers and the settlers are living in a world of illusion.

Saturday, March 25th - Wilk arrived very tired from Henley and full as usual of the iniquities of the headmaster. She told us that that when she and her sisters were young their parents got very cross if they came down to fetch anything after they had gone to bed. Mrs Wilkinson was in the habit of smoking a pipe and they did not want them to know.

Saturday, April 1 - Came into Mary’s bed this morning and rather reluctantly she let me in with her - a very rare occurrence since our marriage!  

Easter Day, April 2nd - Not what you would call a successful day. We planned to go to Tewkesbury leaving at 10 o’clock. I got the car outside as the clock was striking but it was 10.10 by the time Mary was ready. Consequently we were three minutes late and the service had already started. Mary got cross and said it was my fault, which (I thought rather naturally) made me cross too. The nave was packed and we had to sit on chairs at the back. When we got out I apologized for my irritation. I was told the service meant more to her than to me. The Swan was full and we had to wait till half past one for our lunch. So what with one thing and another I neither enjoyed the drive, the service or the meal.
Miss Birch says late rector, Mr Chomondley, the last founder’s kin fellow of All Souls, was frequently taken up short when in church and had to retire to bucket in vestry. If this happened in sermon, his brother was accustomed to go into the pulpit and take up his manuscript where he had stopped.

Easter Monday, April 3rd - In afternoon went over to Laverton to Mary Osbourne for help on spinning and carding. An admirer of Eric Gill, home made bread and handicrafts. An interesting woman with a lower voltage than the puppet woman, Olive Blackham.

Thursday, April 6th - Met Hilary, just back from Denmark, and Nora at NBL for lunch. Lise’s parents will not receive him. He said disgustedly he might as well be a visitor from another planet. So the idea of being married in Denmark has been given up and he now wishes to have a quiet wedding with only his parents present. We discussed Adelstrop as a hide out. He seemed to think this would be quite a good idea.
Coming up I ran into Goring Thomas, now chairman of the governors of H.G.S. He asked if I had seen the new drive. I replied that I had not had an invitation to anything since I left. Said he’d soon put that right. Lipscombe was a damned nuisance, but he’d given him a good write up!

Monday, April 10th - Michael Collard came with us to Moreton to drive the car back and see us off by the 1.36. We had cup of tea at Fenchurch St and left by the 4.55 packed with commuters and reached Westcliffe in a little over an bour. The guest house was quiet. Mr Tew, aged 76, had married a barmaid half his age. He was a terrible talker who brought in the meals and could not be got rid of.

Tuesday, April 11 - The taxi arrived at 8.45 and we reached the airport well ahead of the rest of the party. Off at 10. I was no gentleman and bagged the rear seat. Over the Appenines through dark clouds we became electrically charged and suddenly with no noise but a hissing sound we gave out a lightning flash. To me it ran alongside, to others it travelled down the interior of the plane. Brindisi Airport was dusty, pink and seemed little used. We reached Athens at 10.40. It was midnight by the time we got to bed.

Wednesday, April 12th - The morning was devoted to the Acropolis and museums. We became conscious that the young man with a big briefcase was our courier. He was vague and wooly and you could not hear what he said. The old ladies liked him. He came from a public school and they learnt he was to be ordained!
The Archeological Museum was, as Miss Grier said, ‘too much ecstasy’. In the afternoon we went with the party to the Acropolis. Mr George Bottaro was again our guide. We left the party and went up to the museum. It contained some lovely things. The Kore! I was surprised to find that though well covered in front, their bottoms were almost exposed through the drapery.

Thursday, April 13th - Out along the straight avenue of Kavalla on our way to Mycenae. We had a short stop at Daphni. The courtyard of the monastery resembled Kaisariani  but it was not planted in such a delightful way. The mosaics of the 11th century, though not comparable to Ravenna, were very fine indeed.

Friday, April 14th - A delightful morning drive with Mr B to the plain of Mesogeia, rich with vines, olives, arum lilies and almonds, to the bay of Marathon. The mound built by the Greeks had not been spoilt by tourist gimmicks.

Saturday, April 15th - The airport was fearfully crowded but we got off about 1.30. Reached Rhodes about 3. We stayed at the Thermia Palace Hotel on a hill outside the old city, a huge barracks of a place, quite impersonal with long corridors and miles to the W.C. The dining room was huge too. 200 people were not so much dining as being fed. We felt submerged in a mass of humanity. Give me the small hotel every time.

Sunday, April 16th - Rhodes in the early morning is a city of bells, clocks and the crowing of cocks. We set off for a tour on foot. The old town was delightful with its plane trees, paved streets, its squares and its walls through which you caught glimpses of the sea and the harbour.  We lost the party and after a lemonade went into one of the mosques. An old man in dumb show instructed us to remove our shoes and go in in stockinged feet. The floor was covered in carpets, there was a tall pulpit for the imam, a  niche facing Mecca, galleries for the women and an enclosure for the children. Outside there was a spacious loggia and a courtyard with a fountain. As it was just after midday the muezzin in a grey suit - coat-pant - appeared on the minaret and called the faithful to prayer - a new experience.
That night we went to a son et lumière in the garden below the citadel. It was our first son et lumière and we enjoyed it immensely.

Monday, April 17th - We climbed through the terraced hillsides over the pass of Archangelos to Lindos. The small white town was huddled at the foot of a great rock which fell sheer into the sea. On the summit was a Frankish castle enclosing the Greek acropolis. It was a place of many steps. I decided to go upon a donkey to the point at which the last climb, of 60 steps, began. It was not a particularly comfortable experience.
The castle seemed quite impregnable. The top of the rock had been terraced to make the acropolis with a portico and a great flight of 30 steps leading to the Temple of Athena. At the far edge you looked out over the sea and down to a tiny harbour where St Paul is said to have landed.

Tuesday, April 18th - Alas this afternoon we saw the last of Rhodes from 6000 feet, then over the sea to Crete.
In the small port of Heraklion we passed to the native Greek rather than the Italianate way of life of Rhodes - narrow streets, few open spaces, seething crowds, relative poverty, and life lived on the pavements and in the road. We were in the smaller ‘Knossos’ in a street running down to the port. It was clean and pleasant if noisy. We went out to the Caprice Restaurant for our meals.The proprietor, a rather fierce, pushing little man, commanded a force of young and smiling but unkempt and uncouth waiters, who might well have been just summoned from the plough. He worked spasmodically. At intervals he would talk to friends or shake hands with passers by, then he would suddenly shout, which set the boys scurrying in all directions. He came round with a paper pad, which at least gave him an idea of the number of different dishes. The rest was left to the boys to sort out. ‘We have soup, riz and spaghetti.’ ‘What sort of soup’ asked Mary; ‘Soup, one soup. It is very good.’ ‘Then we have balls, meat balls, very good, or moussaka’
Our first night after dinner we went and sat in a small garden near the hotel. We noticed a column topped by white marble bust of a bearded gentleman. Could it be? It was. El Greco!

Wednesday, April 19th - Coach called to take us to Knossos. The maid came in when I was naked. Mary said I should get into bed, but I used a towel as a tidy in front, leaving my bottom exposed!
You start off at Knossos up a covered way which leads to a bronze bust of Sir Arthur with a large nose and a loose collar and tie. We were taken carefully through the palace by our guide, a rather elegant Latin type. When we got to the throne room, the vulgar sister in law of the lecherous church warden must needs sit herself upon it. When she offered to let Mary’s former library subscriber take her place, the latter replied ‘No, I should not dare to sit on it. I should just like to touch the stone,’ which she did and immediately went out. A well deserved rebuke.

Thursday, April 20th - Today we crossed the mountains to the south coast to see Aghia Triada and Phaestos. The Palace of Phaistos is much more magnificently placed than Knossos, with a huge courtyard overlooking the plain and the mountains, reached by a great broad stairway, perhaps the most impressive thing in Minoan buildings. I preferred Phaistos to Knossos though with the restorations in Knossos in mind made it easier to imagine Phaistos; then we had Phaistos to ourselves, there were no crowds, noise or loudspeakers, nor was there any need to hurry on to see something else. All was peaceful, calm and empty. Like Delphi it was a landscape not easy to forget.

Friday, April 21st - At the airport the silent man  asked me for a present for Lewis; He suggested 5/- each. I refused. I said he was an indifferent courier who had done damn all for us. I heard no more.
A short stop at Brindisi and then over Florence to Pisa, raining furiously.

Saturday, April 22nd - It was dull but the rain had stopped. Out to see the churches. Struck at once by the colour, spaciousness and evidence of past and present wealth, and the power and ubiquity of the Roman Church in the Italian city after the congested life of its Greek counterpart. Last here with Crab Owen in 1922. Had forgotten how spacious and restful it was.
Hold up at airport, 20 minutes ticking over on the tarmac, then no clearances, so back to control. Finally airborne half an hour late bound for Nice. We had forgotten Algiers, note from Captain M. C. Russel: I have been advised that owing to the ‘Algerian troubles’ all charter aircraft landing in France will be delayed for an unspecified period. We were advised of this after leaving Pisa!! In order to avoid such delays we are taking the aircraft to Geneva to fuel before going on to Southend. We shall be rather late in Southend for which I apologize.
The shortest customs examination I ever knew and by 9 o’clock we were being offered Ovaltine and biscuits by in Mr Tew’s guest house. We felt we had had a lovely holiday with, as Edward VII said of Paris, ‘imperishable memories of pleasure’.

Friday, May 5 - The first two weeks of term have gone. They began as usual with no cook. The American teacher was away which left Malcolm and Mrs M, when she was not cooking, as our staff. Her temper became more and more exacerbated until last Sunday when there was some sort of row in tea. In consequence of this the niggers got cheese for breakfast on Monday. That night four of them made off. They were trying to get to Southampton but the police picked them up on a lorry and took them to a remand home.
From the trivial to the historic: The Americans successfully sent an astronaut on a flight into space from Florida. The electricians putting in an immersion heater have brought a portable wireless and told us the news.

Sunday, May 7 - Tried the immersion heater last night. Gives one very hot bath full to overflow. Needs about an hour to heat but very quick compared with coal. Hope to wash more in summer!

Tuesday, May 16th - A cook turned up in the cottage next door, Miss Baxter, with six dogs and budgerigars. She seemed a sensible and straightforward girL

Wednesday, May 17th - The dogs yapped like mad whenever anyone went near the cottage. They are to be moved to a zareba at the back. This woman obviously does not realize how barmy it all is here and assumes she is dealing with normal people.

Saturday, May 20th - Yesterday was the annual chimney sweep’s upheaval. All the chairs in the sitting room have to be moved outside so the weather is a key factor. When he finishes about 7 o’clock they have to be brought in for the night and out out again next morning. By lunch today we return to normal.

Whit Monday, May 22 - Very much as usual. A fight at break and a screaming fit before tea. No visitors. Thought there might be. No post. Just dull. No rain but no sun either.

Wednesday, May 24th - Pymonie in a tearing rage. Legs not tomato, deep beetroot.
Mary I find rather difficult at the moment. I like to lie with her in the night or in the morning, but now she will never do this as these times, only on going to bed between 10.30 and 11.  Thursday night she’s away, Friday night she’s too tired, Monday is the washing, and so on, about half the month is out, so what to me is still very important tends to be pushed aside for lack of time and energy. She says her head is always bad in the mornings and now she never wakes up in the night. Another hurdle is her attachment to trousers and her refusal to wear a nightdress because the cold blows up her legs when she comes down in the morning! Query how does the rest of the female population manage?
It is a problem to keep oneself fresh and not to get too bound by routine and habit, and to act on impulse, on the spur of the moment, even if it means getting into bed before one has cleaned one’s teeth or missing evensong!

Wednesday, May 31st - Mary called me upstairs after lunch and I found her in my bed. Later we drove to Chedworth.

Friday, June 2nd - Yesterday almost record cold for June, but a bit warmer today. Hilary offered a job as sub-editor and leaderwriter at Bolton Evening News at £911 p.a. His only misgiving is that about the editor who is a queer chap with a high minded passion for young men, whom he calls his “exotics” or “birds or paradise”.

Tuesday, June 6th - To-day Pymonie put my cheque in an unsealed envelope marked Mr Barnes and posted it in Cheltenham. Miss  Birch had to ring them up and get them to send it back.

Thursday, June 8th - Mary went home. Bejteman has written a poem ‘Summoned by Bells’. Shall write one ‘Summoned by dogs’. Now cottage is never free of their yappings and we are woken at night by outbreaks of barking when some night noise sets them off. How I hate dogs!
Mr Kennedy has just gone to Vienna to meet Mr Krushchev. He clearly is a man who intends to take his own line and not to leave it to us or anyone else to act as his intermediaries. ‘It is my duty to make decisions that no advisers or ally can take for me. I therefore thought it of immense importance that I know Krushchev....the facts of the matter are that the Soviets and ourselves give wholly different meanings to to the same words - war, peace, democracy and popular will. We have a wholly different view of right and wrong.... and above all we have wholly different concepts of where the world is and where it is going.’
The grand old man Dr J. C. Jung died yesterday near Zurich, aged 85. He was a pioneer of the stature of the great Renaissance. I remember well taking a book of his to read on holiday at Port Gavern in 1931 and Stephen [Atkins, cousin] saying to me, ‘Hubert, I should never read a book by a man called Jung.’

Saturday, June 10th - Met Hilary at Banbury yesterday. Took him to see the registrar at Stow. He came out very disgruntled. Nothing can be done till Lise arrives. Three days residence will be required and a special licence.

Sunday, June 11th - Visited guest houses. He liked Taynton best. The alternative he revealed would be Phyllis’s new house in Henley. In the end no decision and if he had made up his mind he did not let us know. I really think unless I had pressed him he would have sat down all day reading the papers. Planning ahead in not his strong point! Information had to be wrung from him by cross examination to which he rarely answered more than yes or no.

Tuesday, June 13th - Alderman X, Wakefield’s M.P, was asked his views on defence and is reported to have replied that it had never been the same since Tommy Banks was injured!

Tuesday, June 20th - Signor Papalardo, the Italian gardner, has given notice. M and I calculate that since October, 1958, Pymonie has got through 15 staff in rather less than three years! What a woman, as Michael Collard would say. Erratic, irascible, and unbalanced.
Am reading A. L. Rowse’s footnote on the years 1930-39, ‘All Souls and Appeasement’. The college is rather unfairly associated with the policy because it had Simon, Lothian, Halifax and Geoffrey Dawson, editor of the Times, among its senior fellows. Neither the majority of the academic fellows nor of the junior fellows were appeasers. As he says:
There  were plenty of people to tell them but they would not listen. They all share a  nonconformist origin and its characteristic self righteousness....They were middle class men with a pacifist background and no knowledge of Europe, its history, or its languages or its diplomacy....They did  not have the hereditary sense of the security of the state, unlike Churchill, Eden, and the Cecils. Nor did they have the toughness of the 18th century aristocracy. They came at the end of the ascendancy of the Victorian middle class, deeply affected as it was by high-mindedness and humbug. They talked, in one form or another, the language of disingenuousness and cant.
On Chamberlain’s policy: ‘Looking at world affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe’ W.S. Churchill. ‘A good Lord Mayor of Birmingham in a bad year.’ Lloyd George.

Friday, June 23rd - Keble dinner in Moss Bros suit far too portly for me. Thought l might pass in among the odd collection of evening dress the dinner produces. Was at High Table next to Mr Mitchell, Hilary’s old tutor. The Bursar drew attention the gift of  plate displayed on a table in hall. My spoons, all six, looking very nice indeed.

Sunday, June 25th - Another blazing day. Took Miss Birch over with us to Friends of Tewkesbury evensong at which Abbot of Nashdorn preached. He took as his subject the rule of St Benedict. Wonder if he was the first Benedictine to preach there since 1540 and what Henry’s second daughter would have thought of his presence in the pulpit.

Monday, July 3rd - A lot has happened since my last entry. Last Wednesday Lise arrived at Kingham. She had to wait till I could collect her after school. I found her sitting on the platform and greeted her with a kiss.  First after lunch we went up to Stow registry to give notice (3 days) of marriage by licence. The old boy was pleasant, but it was all rather Victorian and Dickensian, chairs with broken legs and so on.
Thursday and Friday afternoon we took her shopping in Stow. On Friday evening we drove to Banbury pick up Hilary and Nora and drove them to the café in Stow where I had booked rooms. Nora seemed nervous and talked incessantly. Hilary was tired, hot and inclined to be critical. The day was one of the hottest of the summer. In the afternoon we had been to Moreton to collect the cake, a very large single tier, £3 10s. Lise very impressed for they don’t have cakes in Denmark. She had also bought herself a ring in London. Again in Denmark you have to buy them in pairs (Curious no one has not tried this on here).
The day itself, Saturday, July 1st, was extremely hot and I got in a rare sweat cleaning the car. After breakfast got into my chemise de marriage and blue suit about 10.30 -  Lise in a grey dress with sash, no hat and a bunch of roses - and we drove up with military punctuality to meet Nora on the grass under the elm tree by the stocks in Stow two minutes before noon. Compared with Reading the office was very fusty and there were not enough chairs. It was also up a narrow and winding staircase on the first floor. The red faced and white haired registrar, unlike the one in Reading, read aloud the legal definition of marriage as a permanent union, which the latter may have omitted out of tact. Lise spoke up well but said later her knees felt weak. Nora wore a heliotrope hat (the only one in the party) and a biscuit coloured linen suit. We walked across again to the stocks and I took photographs. It was about twenty to one when we got to the cottage again. Mary came out to meet the bride and bridegroom and Nora, whom she had not seen since 1956.
The small sitting room looked very nice. A large jug of flowers stood on one side of the stove and on the other the wedding cake. The meal was served from the sideboard. We had made out a souvenir menu - Savoury rice, cold chicken, peas and potatoes, strawberry supreme - Asti Spumante.
Although I did not know it till afterwards, Nora had embraced and thanked Mary in the kitchen. At the meal she never stopped talking and Mary was rather stunned I think by the noise! After the sweet I made a short speech and proposed the bride and bridegroom’s health. I said how glad we were to have the marriage here and how much we enjoyed Lise’s visit. For my part I had long loved the Cotswolds and hoped they would too remember them with affection.
Hilary I had known a quarter of a century since he came home in a basket - as camper, youth hosteller, prefect, soldier and undergraduate. He was a “stout” man - staunch and resolute. He had his setbacks but by determination and patience and hard work he had achieved success in the end and I believed he always would;
Lise I first met in 1955. I thought her then a beautiful, able and competent young woman. The succeeding years had given her poise, dignity and courage, for it required courage to leave one’s country for another as she had done. It was the hope of us all that marriage would add serenity, happiness and “sweet content”. Hilary replied that we had been tolerant parents and he hoped if he had children that he would be as tolerant to them as we were to him.
The cake was moved onto the table and cut. The icing was soft and the interior moist. Hilary then began addressing cake boxes and it was nearing four before Nora and I and the pair started for Taynton.
It was a sweltering night with the temperature near the eighties in my room; I was glad I was not on my honeymoon.
On Sunday we gave her breakfast in bed while I took the niggers to church and did letter writing. When I got back I found her in the kitchen talking to Mary and could not get her out while Mary cooked the lunch. A drive to Banbury to catch the 4.45 train for Paddington.
Mary and I were alone for the first time since Wednesday. We had lots to talk about, discuss and laugh over. Anyway I told her I did not make an ill-timed jest (like Richard III) about sitting down to lunch with three Mrs Barnes’s.

Wednesday, July 5th - A letter from Nora “as to your suitability each to the other there is no possible manner of doubt”, so perhaps the marriage has been after all, in spite of Mary’s fears and misgivings about inviting Nora to stay, a mode of reconciliation.

Saturday, July 8th - Picked Hilary and Lise up from Taynton at 11 and drove to Oxford. Hilary had sherry with the warden at 12.30 , but no white shirt for the afternoon, so had to go down to Marks and Spencer to buy one. By the time we reached the recently restored Sheldonian a queue of friends and parents had formed. We got at the extreme end of the top left gallery and saw Hilary enter with about a dozen other Keble undergraduates. First came the doctors, then the masters, and it was about an hour before Hilary was reached. 1921 - 1961. Almost 40 years to within a month I took the degree. When his group stood before the chancellor I squeezed Nora’s arm, that Hilary should have come to have an Oxford degree meant a lot to both of us and at last after all the difficulties he has obtained it!
Saw them off at six o’clock to London - Lise and Hilary to spend the night with Con - reached Adlestrop for supper. Felt a bit low after all this, but Mary came into my bed, bless her.

Tuesday, July 11th - To Cheltenham to see Mr Harvey. He said my left hernia had got through the ‘ring’ and advised an operation - the fourth.

Monday, July 17th - Had a very nice letter from Hilary thanking me for all we had done for them in the past fortnight. He said the tea fight at Lenham Rd was pretty ghastly. Arranging such ‘dos’ is not really Nora’s strong point. At any rate he pointed out that if they had no christening for any offspring that might arrive he needn’t meet ‘that lot’ again.

Wednesday, July 19th - Letter from Con. I had told Hilary June 10th that Con and I might have married. He said he knew this. Wondered what Con had said to him so enquired. Apparently Hilary had said he found me amusing to which Con replied that quality of taking things lightly in the past had caused her almost unbearable hurt. She thought, though possibly wiser not to have said anything, it had possibly had some effect. ‘He had married his girl.’

Thursday, July 27th - Read an account of A.D. Lindsay and Keele University College. Interesting contrast between Oxford and others. Oxford non-vocational, toning up the intellectual muscles, exclusive interest in ‘quality’, the college tutor, a teaching university as opposed to research or scholarship.
Manchester  - the true measure of academic progress is the share the university takes in the advancement of knowledge and the part it plays in training in original investigation - students taught to be researchers and do research - training by severe concentration on a single subject.
Lindsay on what the world needs is not specialists, but men and women with an informed sense of moral and political responsibility and capable of exercising the essential function of intellectual leadership in a modern democratic society - a self-understanding society - to evoke a sense of society’s aims and tasks and prospects should be in the forefront of all university reform.

Friday, July 28th - Chose about 50 postcards to take with me into the nursing home with me, a kind of Desert Island Discs. pleased with my collection, but a lot of nudes!

Sunday, July 30th - Entered Imperial Nursing Home about 5.50. Confirmed my opinion that National Health tatty, cheapest chest with draws that would not run, linoleum worn, chair with paint coming off, for supper a chipped and pockmarked, heavily repainted tray.

Monday, July 31st - Day nurse told me to my disgust that operation at 2.30 so have all morning to pass. The anaesthetist, Dr Howell, came in about 12. Said he was going to “put me to sleep”. Could not help thinking of euthanasia!

Saturday, Aug 5th - Reported that Adlestrop says they can’t think why that nice Mr and Mrs Barnes have stayed so long with Mrs M.

Monday, Aug 7th - While one is bogged down with the details of life in a nursing home the great world recedes. Since I came in the government has decided to open negotiations for joining the Common Market and the Russians have put a second man into orbit for 24 hours. The decision to negotiate entry to the Common Market is the only thing to do. We can’t go on talking the old outdated stuff about the Commonwealth. We are in for some exciting times, wider markets, more competition, shocks and disturbances but also great opportunities.

Tuesday, Aug 8th - Had stitches out by nurse. Told I would be out on Thursday.

Thursday, Aug 10th - Michael was in about 10.30. Trundled slowly into Adlestrop Park about an hour later. After my first and very nice lunch at home I lay down from 2 to 4 though once I was woken by a cat fight.

Saturday, Aug 12th - Had a bath last night encouraged and helped by Mary for nearly felt too much bother to get dried.

Sunday, Aug 13th - East Germans have put blocks up between the zones and stopped all movement across.

Wednesday, Aug 16th - Mr Jenkins, the new teacher, wed his Josephine and came back here to supper provided by Michael and Miss Birch. They then retired to the matrimonial bed in the cottage next to the Post Office without any sanitation. It is all so strange, as Michael says.

Thursday, Aug 17th - Mary back for lunch. She had had a row with her mother as brother Douglas had invited her to Nottingham for the weekend of Aug 26th, then cancelled the arrangement because it did not suit him. He proposed to have her in September just when, as Mary said, our term had begun.
It is extraordinary (and a comment on suburban living) that after 40 years in one road there is literally no one in the whole of Oxford they could or would ask to come and help in a crisis.

Sunday, Aug 20th - Michael tells me the bride is in bed ill and the bridegroom says he does not mind roughing it but she does really require running water and mod. con. Pymonie of course has retired to her flat and remains incommunicado.
The question of whether the closing of the Berlin border (they are building 24 miles of wall) was forced on the communists by the flood of refugees, or whether it is part of a Russian plan to take over Berlin step by step. If things go on getting worse the great powers may be draqged into a German civil war against their will. The Russians have tried to partition Germany against the people’s wishes by setting up a communist government that is now so bankrupt that its weakness is the greatest possible danger to peace. The west have been successful in creating a strong and prosperous West Germany, but have done nothing to quieten Russian fears of a powerful independent Germany.

Tuesday, Aug 29th - Michael drove us to Stow station and we took the 11.30 train to Cheltenham. Great fun as I had wanted to go on that line so often and never been since 1942.

Thursday, Aug 31st - Drove to Crickhowell, where Mary went into Dragon to see if they would give us tea. Mrs Taylor said Mrs Muller with a nice bungalow could put us up. She was a little white haired bustling Welsh woman, very proud of her bungalow, which looked across the Usk valley and the bridge to the southern mountains so that you had a magnificent landscape lying before you when you woke up in the morning. The house was furnished in the worst taste and was full of silver nick-nacks, the dressing table was set out with cake stands, silver butter knives and so on. It was, in spite of all the loving care that Mrs Muller had lavished on it, the acme of inconvenience. There were no bedside lamps, no empty drawers, no hooks or cupboards, nothing to put anything down on and some of the largest, heaviest and hardest pillows I have ever seen. I hung my socks on the handle of the silver cake stand.

Friday, Sept 1st - We decided to climb the Col Truman before tea in spite of the heat. From the top the mountains to the west veiled in haze. We walked easily back to the bridge for tea. On the track to the road there was a large Hereford bull and his wives and offspring so we took evasive action and found a way over the fence elsewhere. It had been a lovely day.

Saturday, Sept 2nd - Mr Muller is much older than Mrs. He had recently had a stroke so could not do much except amble round the  garden and sit in the kitchen. He was a retired Latvian sea captain who had traded with the Siberian river mouths and brought back various objects made of mammoth ivory which was exposed in the river banks there. He got great satisfaction from showing his tusks to his wife’s casuals.

Sunday Sept 3rd - Mary had a bath in Mrs Muller’s elegant green bath with nowhere except the floor to put your clothes of course.

Monday, Sept 4th - A poor day, mist and drizzle. Drove to the Talybout reservoir.

Wednesday, Sept 6th - Very cold wind and inclining to drizzle. Up through the forest by Grwynne Faur to Upper House and to reservoir. It seemed deserted. Mary, who had got rather careless in the mountains, let her pants down on the path. When we got nearer we saw a camouflaged figure with field glasses scanning the horizon for a section out on exercise. It was a case of “what the corporal saw’. Still, as I said to Mary, it may have relived the tedium of his watch!

Thursday, Sept 7th - We came home by Clyro where Mary picked up a sugar bowl hot from the kiln. We arrived home at 6.0; 387 miles. Bed and breakfast £13 13; dinners £4. 10 petrol and lunches for a week £18 3s.

Saturday, Sept 9th - Off to Stratford to see Much Ado. Had to beat it back as John Holland, the postman, and Reg Bell, the fireman, were coming to put clearers in the on the hives and lift the very heavy crop. They did the job with great efficiency and ease and then came in with the two Holland children to drink beer and sandwiches. Two very nice men.

Sunday, Sept 10th - Donald arrived at 12. He brought page proofs of his book for my approval of the layout and illustrations. Michael Collard had also been invited. They made a good contrast, Michael sensitive and a bit wooly and Donald with his 100 h.p. mind.

Friday, Sept 15th. To meet Nora at Moreton.  Took her up to the Weather Oak Cottage at Stow about 9.30.

Sunday, Sept 17th - Fetched Nora from Stow about 9.30. Cooked chicken got lunch about 12 and she went off on the bus to Cheltenham at 1.30. Much enjoyed visit though found being in top gear what with talk and perpetual activity rather tiring. After tea began extraction and did 12 shallow frames in 1 hour 15 minutes.

Monday, Sept 18th - Mary arrived at six o’clock, but had one of her attacks when she learnt that Nora had been in the house on Friday and Sunday as well as Saturday. What would Miss Birch and Miss Baxter think. I said I was not going to regulate my my life and friendships by the Baxters etc. The usual grievances were brought out.

Wednesday, Sept 20th - Bottled 51 lbs of honey and refilled extractor.

Thursday, Sept 21st - Finished extraction. Worked all the afternoon and felt very tired. A modified gloom still prevails.

Saturday, Sept 23rd - Went to a track past the barrow near Notgrove Station. Picked 9 lbs of blackberries. Hilary sent me a supplement to the Bolton Evening News on the completion of a new building. Very impressed by wide coverage of international news.

Sunday, Sept 24th - Harvest festival. Miss Birch got niggers kitted up with beetroot, carrots, cabbage, lettuces etc, and I followed up the rear with a pot of last year’s  honey. Norman Smith to lunch. He works for Vickers Armstrong. They are trying to market a new type of frozen food which does not need the expensive deep freeze container which retailers have to be provided with. Had plenty to say. Had been in Ireland, Caribbean and New York.

Monday, Sept; 25th - Honey finally totted up to 167 lbs. It was a bumper year such as we rarely get, like 1939 - almost 40 lb per super - and I left one on!
The Secretary General of U.N.O. killed in Congo in an air crash.



Tuesday, Sept 26th – Kennedy addressed U.N. in New York. He told the assembly: 'We shall be remembered either as part of generation that turned the planet into a flaming funeral pyre, or the generation that met its vows to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war..... Today every inhabitant of the planet must contemplate the day when it will no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles.'
Mary heard to-night from Miss Birch that Mr Jenkins, the Deputy Director or Superintendent, is doubtful if he will stay. He is asked to do much more supervision than he bargained for.

Wednesday, Sept 27th – Read in Times that one of my extremely ecclesiastic contemporaries, now a Canon, is moving a resolution in Convocation condemning the sending of the ashes of deceased persons through the post!
A leading, but aged, non-conformist minister wrote a letter to the Times deploring the moral condition of the country by making a lot of quite unsubstantiated generalizations about the young and the decay of the Roman Empire! Today the rector of a small Herefordshire parish wrote giving the illegitimacy rate from the registers decade by decade from 1791 – 1801-1810 is was 20%: in 1951-60 it was nil!

Thursday, Sept 28th – A lovely night with Mary in my bed. Gloom forgotten.
The foreign secretary, Lord Home, said at U.N. yesterday that the Russian people do not want to incinerated any more than the British, but they stand in equal danger if we don't stop squabbling. Is one rule to be applied to the communists and another to the democracies? If we had conducted a series of 16 nuclear tests and covered the world in fall out would the voices of criticism have been so hushed? While one side was negotiating in good faith the other was engaged in deliberate deception.

Friday, Oct 21st – Wilk down from Friday till this afternoon. She could hardly talk about anything except the enormities of Lipscombe and the school timetable. I said very pointedly that she needed something else to think about, but she replied by saying that Wally Rees, who loathes the H.M. too, could go home and get sympathy from his wife while she had no one. I did really do a lot of 'therapeutic' listening, and, as Nora says, just by listening you can do a lot! But it really is an auditory marathon.

Friday, Oct 6th – Reading Fergusson's memoir of Wavell. The H.M. of Winchester wrote to his father, a Major General, 'There is no need for your son to go into the army. He really is quite intelligent.' Perhaps he might have been a don. He would have been a very silent and a very formidable one. He was a great man and a man of great integrity.
He said that still through chaos
Work on the ancient plan,
And two things have altered not
Since first the world began -
The beauty of the wild green earth
And the bravery of man.
(Magpies in Arcady, (? Wilson)

Wednesday, Oct 11th - A poor day so did not go out as usual but sawed more logs.
Was totting up my assets. My shares with the M & G Securities appeared at 12s to be worth about £1,500. I have £1,000 with Campbell’s Discount Company and £3,700 with Gloucester & Cheltenham. Therefore capital assets £6,200.

Saturday, Oct 14th - Jane Moeran’s wedding. Yesterday had to clear everything out of classroom including blackboard and library books - all part of the Moeran grand idea. Miss Birch had to decorate church in Stow according to their wishes. Maximum inconvenience for everyone. We went to Cheltenham. Miss Birch said about 50 came to the wedding. Pymonie swore like a trooper in the morning and was more than usually enraged. The two-tier cake made by her collapsed on the floor, but was picked up and put best side foremost. Jeremy and Nick got drunk and were sent to the flat whence when the bride departed they loosed off guns! In fact as a ceremony it seems to have been pretty true to the Moeran formula, “muddle and leave it to Miss Birch.”

Monday, Oct 16th - Miss Birch told me Jenkins had walked out and was going. It seemed a pity to lose a trained teacher if she wanted recognition. She said Jenkins was “neurotic”. I replied that to me he looked more like a silly ass, but he could teach and control the children. She should tell him to come back and finish the term.

Wednesday, Oct 18th - Called in at Jenkins’ cottage. He was in his pyjamas and there was, he said, nothing to get up for as he had been sacked. On returning to school a note from Pymonie, would I see her in the classroom. I told her I had seen him and he considered he had been dismissed. At this she got very angry and said not at all: he had walked out. A strike or a lock out? I said.

Thursday, Oct 19th - Reached the conclusion that Pymonie Moeran is really a nasty piece of work. She appointed Jenkins, found she did not like him, and set out to provoke him into giving notice so that she could get rid of him. The man himself is obviously bewildered because he thought he was doing quite well and she had praised him for his work with the children. Behind it all is this twerp Malcolm, who is pleased as punch that he can be Pymonie’s white-headed boy. What a nasty pair.

Friday, Oct 20th - Some economists suggest that social benefits for those who don’t need them and can afford to pay for them should be cut and some of the money saved should be devoted to the assistance of those who are in need. Health services, education, school meals, libraries should be paid for. Mental and child care should have more. Methods of contracting out should be devised for those who wish to provide for themselves.

Saturday, Oct 21st - Proposals to control immigration. 2,000 arrived in 1953, 50,000 in 1960 from the West Indies which have a population of 3 million. In the first half of 1961 16,500 from India and Pakistan.
Eric and Norman Attrill looked in for coffee. Eric as usual dominated the conversation and would hardly allow Norman any say at all. If Mary attempted to talk to him she quickly realized what was happening and intervened. Rather a bore.
Pymonie about to-day like flowers in spring, overflowing with bonhomie. Has done nothing about Jenkins and Josephine.

Saturday, Oct 28th - Went on a little spree to-day. Arrived Droitwich 10.30, 10.45 in Big Swim with my darling Mary. Last mixed bathing in 1955. It was beautifully warm. Thought Saturday morning might be full but there were only half a dozen philosophers and a couple of women. We only stayed in for 20 minutes, but thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Sunday, Oct 29th - Told Pymonie I did not agree with her policy over Jenkins. She did not like this much. Like other dictators she prefers agreement to argument. Have bought a Scrabble set. Mary quite keen to play.

Wednesday, Nov 1st - The Russians have dropped a very big bomb in the Arctic. Whether it is of any more military value than a small one seems doubtful and no one seems to be very sure what the radioactive fallout will be. All the U.N. except the communists asked Mr K not to, but he paid no attention.
Pymonie had paid Jenkins to Oct 16th and told him to leave the cottage “forthwith”. In return she has had a lawyer’s letter alleging wrongful dismissal.

Sunday, Nov 5th - Cherry to lunch today. Very twitchy about the eyes and smoking vigorously. Less  relaxed than last time.
Paid £200 to building society account to-day but reflected that if an atomic bomb dropped in Cheltenham and Gloucester there won’t be any houses, though in that case there won’t be any money either - or any us.

Thursday, Nov 9th - Stratford. Gielgud in Othello. Production by Italian Zefirelli; Titian and Veronese come to life, played in shadows with all the rich reds and blues of the Venetian palette and magnificent dresses, cloaks and curtaining. Gielgud as always spoke beautifully; you could hear every syllable. I shall long remember Gielgud with is tawny face, deeply lined, his black curly hair greyed and his neat pointed beard, above all the dignity of his bearing at the beginning and his frenzy at the end.

Sunday, Nov 12th - Negotiations for European Common Market go forward. New chairman of I.C.I. welcomes it. He thinks it will give the more efficient sections of industry the chance of increasing exports and weed out the inefficient. This is a revolutionary change of government policy since the war, comparable to the Corn Laws, I reckon; we have gone on so long with a combination of too many overseas commitments based on sentiment or political expediency and domestic insularity.

Saturday, Nov 18th - Arthur Lane arrived at lunch time. He seemed happier and proved less silent and difficult to talk to than last time.

Thursday, Nov 23rd - Stratford to see Romeo and Juliet. Had its moments with Edith Evans, 72, as nurse, Ian Bannen an excellent Mercutio, and Dorothy Tutin (lately Cressida) as Juliet, excellent at portraying sexual desire.
Afterwards tea with Alisoun Brown and she took us behind. Interesting but depressing; dim naked lights, cables everywhere, bare concrete, steel girders and huge brick piers mounting into the darkness to hold up the roof over the flies. We went into the caverns below and saw the hand-worked crank which moved the revolving stage and, largest of all, a great pit  containing every kind of property like a huge furniture repository, airless and dusty, a dim limbo, resembling a scene in a nightmare. The prompt copy lay open in a tiny box and above it was a long line of  switches like a black piano which gave the cue lights to all the various departments. The stage in contrast to the vast space behind, seemed small and extremely slippery, and the stalls, circle and balcony appeared to rise in an almost perpendicular wall of red. I thought of Charles Morgan’s words about the theatre’s ‘glittering, sordid and enchanted craft’ - though perhaps shabby would be a better word - and back into my head came a story of mother’s about how disappointed she was on being taken behind the scenes at the Dresden Opera House to see what Lohengren’s Swan looked like off stage.

Sunday, Nov 26th - Arthur Lane lent me a work of science fiction - first I had read since H . G. Wells - called the Midwich Cuckoo, as all women in remote village became pregnant by extraplanetary visitors and children have extrasensory powers. Finally an aged benefactor blew the whole lot up. Did not like it - cannot suspend disbelief to the required extent for the modern version of the fairy tale.
 
Sunday, Dec 3rd - After thinking it over reflected that Molly had £3,000 from father, £2,360 from Aunt Alice and 3,750 from Grandma Barnes Settlement, £9,110 in all. Resolved to strike a blow for Hilary. Wrote letter setting out what I said about character of wedding, pointing out that Hilary last December with his first salary sent her a book token for £1 and got in return a Boots voucher for 4/6. No wonder he was not very enthusiastic about wedding present on that showing.
Said his grandfather knew him and would presumably have wished his descendant, who bore his name, John Barnes, to have his money. Hilary found it easy to visit Con on his way back to Yorkshire and had always been conscious of the warmth of her affection ever since he was a little boy. I was not asking anything for myself, nor had Mary anything to do with the wedding arrangements.

Tuesday, Dec 19th - Got off my xmas cards and parcels. Bought Mary a max-min thermometer and half bottle of Benedictine. The hoar frost on the trees more lovely than ever. Many birds, chaffinches, bullfinches, sparrows, marsh, cole and blue tits and great tits, nuthatches, robins and spotted woodpecker to be fed.

Friday, Dec 22nd - The zoophilous Baxter added insult to injury by sending us a Christmas card of one of her yapping dogs! The other cause of merriment was the appearance of the satanic Dr King, reported in the newspaper, as Father Christmas at Stow Child Welfare Centre

Christmas Eve - Tha last post as for the first time the postmen have been given a holiday on Christmas Day. Icy wind still blowing, about 8° of frost. In morning rang up Sutton and spoke to Nora, Hilary and Lise. Six minutes 4/9.  Just heard at 10 p.m. that coldest Christmas for 70 years - in my lifetime. Difficult to avoid nostalgia thinking of past Christmases; Midnight Mass in 1915 and wondering if the Zeppelins would come over; in 1940 after Father’s death and with threat of invasion; in the war years with Hilary and Nora at Henley.
                  
Christmas Day – We opened our presents after breakfast. Hilary sent me a very warm silk scarf, Nora a wooden duck, Mary a calendar and Whitaker's Almanack.
Cards of poor quality this year. Many appeared to have no connection with Christmas, except a meteorological or vegetable one. These, snow, holly, Father Christmas, accounted for 24, religous 17, places 7, animals 2 and miscellaneous 11 – 61 altogether.
After leaving a candle under a flowerpot below the crank case for half an hour the car started up, to my great relief, and we reached Bainton Road about midday. I gave Mr Pierce a bottle of Port (he had 6 other bottles) and Mrs Pierce a basket of apples. This year he has been persuaded to have his meals in the kitchen which is much pleasanter than the freezing dining room. The cat who is used to the kitchen was also there and wandered about the table! We had a fine turkey and Christmas pudding with a Spanish Sauterne.
We saw the Queen on television. More assured than earlier but getting plainer and difficult to find anything new to say. Then a circus which I found most trying on the eyes, then tea, supper. Drove carefully home over the frost covered roads which we reached about 10.30.
Mr Pierce has got very frail since last Christmas (I have not seen him since) but no less demanding. He lies in an armchair before the fire wrapped in a rug and does not move about much. Mrs Pierce is a fine, dignified old lady, very patient with her difficult husband, clear headed and active. She had cooked and prepared all the dinner. I like her – but she has always shown herself readier to accept and like me than her husband.
Just before the Queen we had part of the Messiah from Llandaff with shots of the great Epstein Christ. This made me think that I'd like to have the tele but Mary (probably rightly) says there is so little worth seeing.

Boxing Day – A great spotted woodpecker came down with the other birds to see what he could get.

Thursday, Dec 28th – A very hard frost last night. Mary couldn't get warm in bed. -14 degrees. Suggested we might go to Venice at Easter. Mary said she did not like Italy or the Italians nor the dirty marble of which their churches are built!

Friday, Dec 29th – Woke up to find several inches of snow.

Saturday, Dec 30th – Slight thaw followed by more snow. Said I would go up to London. What should I do? Visit B.M. Why didn't I ask her. Thought she didn't like museums. Never taken her to see the Elgin Marbles. Well she'd never mentioned it again since first I asked suggested it a year ago. Gloom! Damn!

Sunday, Dec 31st – Woke up to find quite deep snow and still falling. Barely 1 cwt of coal left and two and a half gallons of oil. Cleared path to coal house and wood pile. Fed birds.
Miss Birch stayed in bed all day and Mary took her up her dinner. Pymonie had been to see her last night and wept on her because she was so unhappy about Jeremy. His latest trick is to get money for petrol from her and then book the petrol to her at Chipping Norton and keep the money.
Looked up my diary for 1947, but was discouraged to find the great freeze lasted from Jan 26th to March 9th. This one has lasted since Dec 16th. Hate being housebound and
carbound in the holiday.

Index 1961
Adlestrop Jan 7, Mar 13, Adlestrop staff, Feb 3, May 16, June 20, Aug 16, Aug 20, Oct 16, 18,19, Dec 22, Attrill, Mr & Mrs, Oct 21, Barnes, Molly, Sept 13, Dec 2, 3, 16, 20,  Berlin Wall Aug 13, Aug 20,  Browne, Alisoun, Nov 23,  Clayden, Mary (Cherry), Nov 5, Collard, Michael, Apr 10, Dart, Con, July 19, Common Maket, Nov 12, Heath, Donald, Sept 10, H.G.S., Apr 6,  Hilary, Jan 14, Feb 4, 13, Apr 6, June 2, 10, 11, July 3, 8, 17, Sept 23, Hernia, July 30-Aug 10, Hill Place School, Jan 16, Holiday, Crete, Rhodes, Apr 11-22, Holiday, Wales, Aug 31-Sept 7, Honey, Sept 20, 25, House hunt, Aug 25, Immigration, Oct 21, Jung, June 8, Keble, June 23, Kennedy, President, Jan 22, June 8, Sept 26, Lane, Arthur, Nov 18, Marriage, July 3, Moeran, Pymonie, Jan 18, 22, Feb 27, May 24, Oct 14, 19, 29, Dec 31, Morals, Sept 27, Nora, Sept 13, Nuclear weapons, Sept 28, Nov 1, Peach, Cyril & Kay, Jan 13, Pierce, Mr & Mrs, Jan 1 Aug 17, Dec 25, Rowse, A.L., June 20, Smith, Norman, Sept 24, South Africa, Mar 15, Space, May 5, Stratford, Mar 4, Sept 9, Nov 9, 23,Tewkesbury, April 2, June 25, Universities, July 27,  Wakefield MP, June 13, Wavell, Oct 6, Wilkinson, Marjorie, Mar 25, Oct 21,