Tuesday, Jan 1st - Another couple of inches of snow. The milkman, who comes to Bourton from Northleach, got stuck in a drift and it took him three and a half hours to dig himself out. It is said to be the worst year for widespread drifting since 1881 - worse than 1947. In 1881 there were 15ft drifts in Oxford Circus!
[For index of names go to end of this post]
Thursday, Jan 3rd - Another 6” of snow. Yesterday and today asked John Holland, the postman, in for a cup of coffee which he was glad to have. Heard from architect that Winfield’s figure £3,375 with garage. Told him did not want permanent garage to go on plan for authority. Of course he had got all the plans done but agreed to make new ones. Pleased about this. May get it nearer £3,000 than £3,500, which leaves more for fencing, garden, and household amenities.
Friday, Jan 4. - Freezing rain in the night and an icy crust over the surface of the snow. John Holland came in again for coffee. He was in the R.A.F. at Habbaniyah where he had been waited on hand and foot by Iraqis. A Stow man, he had been apprenticed to the building industry before he went into the Post Office. His wife was Welsh and his parents were matron and porter at the old people’s home. His father-in-law is busy at this time of year with the bodies. He could not do it, but when he said so father remarked ‘It isn’t the dead you want to watch out for but those who are still alive.”
Saturday, Jan 5th - A letter from Jeanette Martin (H.G.S. 1955). Could not stand her in-laws so after 10 months of marriage to dentist left him, took her maiden name and went to the BOAC. Has now gone to most places in the Middle and Far East.
Mrs Wood said we must hear her and her husband swearing at each other. They agreed to marry while sitting on the steps of Oxford Town Hall on condition that he always did the washing up. They use all the crockery until there is none left and then there is a row.
An extraordinary story today from Miss Birch about Palmer, the decorator, and Jenkins [see Diary 1961]. Palmer has a prosperous café in Stow as well as the decorating and window cleaning and ‘is in the money’. After Jenkins was sacked from here he worked for Palmer. He suggested to Palmer that he should put up the money for a school for maladjusted in Wales. He had found a house, got the backing of a psychiatrist, and had 14 prospective children! Palmer was to do maintenance, Mrs Palmer the cooking, Mrs Jenkins the matron’s work. In the end when Palmer saw what a slut Mrs Jenkins was and how they were living in squalor he backed down. It seems extraordinary that a couple like that with little or no qualifications could have got so far. ‘The educational underworld’ all right!
Monday, Jan 7th - Severe frost all day. We tried to clear a way into the Baxter’s cottage. She returned today with 14 dogs and one cat in the car. The forecasters say this cold will go on for three more days at least.
The other day before Miss Birch came back we went to look round the superb flat [Pymonie’s]. It is true all the rooms are large, but it gave you an extraordinary impression of physical and spiritual emptiness. Modern tables and chairs had been bought for the dining room and a large settee and an arm chair for the sitting room but there were hardly any possessions which look as if they have been there longer than a twelve-month. It was all completely impersonal without any clues as to the taste or character of the owner. You would think she would have something, some furniture knicknacks or pictures from her family even if her husband went off with her possessions. Though again how he could have done this, seeing he is supposed to have left her and camped to Ireland, is a great mystery. A very odd woman indeed.
Thursday, Jan 10th - Air so cold it made your head ache as soon as you stirred outside.
Friday, Jan 11th - 16° of frost! No thaw prophesied at present. Posted to Nicholas a 2 lb tin of honey. That ought to make him lick his chops if he’s allowed any.
Saturday, Jan 12th - The birds have become our pensioners. Feel like Giotto’s St Francis.
The electrical power workers are going slow in some areas and the shop stewards at Battersea are trying to spread the movement. London has had a power cut today but whether this was connected with the go-slow was not clear on the news. You are asked to use as little as possible to-morrow when the nation is cooking its Sunday dinner.
Sunday, Jan 13th - Len Hayes retired at the end of the Christmas term and the school gave him a cheque. Any other H.M. but Lipscombe would have let me know. I only heard later from the Wilk and Tom so to-day sent him 2 guineas to add to the £55 he received.
The Common Market negotiations about to begin again. De Gaulle wants to keep us out. We have agreed that in the future our farmers must be supported by the purchasers, not the taxpayer; the argument is how long the transition period should be. Anyway however difficult the problem is the effect of staying out would be much worse.
Tuesday, Jan 16th - Yesterday de Gaulle gave a press conference at the Elyseé and let off a broadside. Britain was ‘not European’ in the sense that the Six were. She was insular, maritime and linked by trade to a great variety of countries. Her admission would turn the Common Market into something France did not want. If Britain is let in the emergence ‘of a colossal Atlantic community dependent on and controlled by the U.S. The Anglo-Saxon dominance which during the war rode roughshod over the European (and French) interests was still a danger.
Everyone wants us in except France and the old man. How far will the other countries stand up to de Gaulle? Is he prepared to use the veto?
Wednesday, Jan 16th - This morning had a very nice letter from Len Hayes saying he would always be pleased to see me. He was a very good and loyal friend of mine for 23 years.
Thursday, Jan 17th - Bitter cold east wind and severe frost. Had some odd dreams lately. (1) Sitting with Mary in Keble hall when men entered carrying hares. As they went in past the serving hatch the hares, which I thought were dead, began kicking and screaming.
(2) Pymonie embraced me and wanted intercourse. I put my hand down her pants and felt her bare buttocks, but refused. She said I should not mind my wife, she only needed half an hour. I then drove up to an empty cottage in a row, but it was not empty; a tramp of villainous appearance emerged and I thought he would attack me, but he scowled and went away.
When I told Mary this she observed she always thought Pymonie was attracted by me and was a very highly-sexed woman!!
Saturday, Jan 19th - To-night snow began again and by 10 o’clock A40 was blocked this side of Cheltenham. The police have opened rest centre for stranded motorists at Northleach.
Monday, Jan 21st - Started teaching the niggers and as always was struck by how unbalanced and barmy they were.
Wednesday, Jan 23rd - We had been warned last night it would be very cold. It was! 25 degrees of frost.
A letter from Hilary yesterday. Another surprize. They are thinking of spending a year in Denmark where Lise would teach and they would have a house rent free. I don’t think much of the idea, which I suppose springs from Lise’s disillusion with Bolton.
Saturday, Jan 26th - It was warmer to-day and by afternoon the icicles had began to drip!
Tuesday, Jan 29th - The thaw continues but slowly. Our water main still frozen. Still bucket from kitchen to bath, then from bath to water tank.
De Gaulle will not want us in Europe. The Brussels Conference has broken up to-night. Some very angry men who have worked for a more united Europe since the war, are in Brussels to-night.
It is easier to see what de Gaulle does not stand for than what his positive ideas are. He dislikes U.N.O., disarmament, a nuclear test ban, negotiations with the Russians over Berlin, any agreement between the Russia and the U.S.A., and European political unification. He believes because of their quarrel with China the Russians have ceased to be a menace to Europe. The Americans can withdraw, then it will be possible for the French and the Germans to come to terms with the Russia and Europe will unite from the Atlantic to the Urals. ‘Nothing’, he once wrote, ‘enhances authority more than silence.’ He was silent all right with Macmillan at Rambouillet!
Tuesday, Feb 5th - Mr Wood said today I had taught my group something. He heard one boy say to another, ‘He’s so ignorant he has not heard of the Greeks and Trojans!’ David B has started giving out high-pitched squeaks again. All day to-day he was emitting at 12 per minute. Most disturbing!
Wednesday, Feb 6th - Pymonie had the squeaking David for a bit. Later said she was so worried her nerves would not stand the noise. Wondered what had upset her. Tonight I learnt from Miss Birch that Nicholas, the wet friend of Jeremy, had become a father and was bringing the girl just out of hospital with baby down to Adlestrop to-night while he goes to a wedding in Ireland. He says he is married, but has not told his parents in Dorset.
Last week rather suspiciously Jeremy and Nicholas arrived on a Thursday. On Friday Pymonie said they had gone out on a project. From the paper we learnt later that that this took them to the magistrates court where they were fined £15 for poaching pheasants!
Thursday, Feb 7th - Nicholas arrived last night with girl and baby. She had come out of hospital and they had been married at Chelsea Registry Office that morning!
Friday, Feb 8th - According to Nicholas they had arranged to to have the baby adopted in France. No bed had been booked in hospital or nursing home and it began to arrive in the flat the girl shared with two others. They got frightened and made off leaving Nicholas to cope. He delivered the baby and cut the cord with a razor blade. After this the girl was taken to hospital. Nicholas then changed his mind about adoption and when the girl was discharged married her.
Sunday, Feb 10th - Reported Mrs M horrified at the revelations she has dug out of the girl about the way this group of young lived in London. It is said that Nicholas did not know the girl was pregnant until told by Jeremy after Christmas
This place is an agricultural slum. The buckets at the edge of the garden can’t be buried. The ground is too hard. The contents are frozen into the buckets, so the buckets have to be thawed out. In one house the inhabitants have their bed under a tarpaulin. They are living literally under canvas, the roof leaks so. Occasionally the Leighs improve one of the tied cottages, but what have they done in the last 40 years for the remainder. It is monstrous that they should be allowed to get away with it.
Wednesday, Feb 13th - An interesting article by Arthur Koestler in the Observer on the two nations; the working classes with what he calls the a stale, resentful fatalism, their sentences punctuated by dehydrated obscenity, a kind of negative status symbol, their backs turned resolutely on ‘Their’ style of life, standards of behaviour and values. Competition is disapproved of, success must be devalued, an immensely powerful non- competitive enclave in our competitive society. Go slow, it’s a mug’s game anyway, if you play it you are letting your mates down.
Thursday, Feb 21st - A rumpus to-day. At instigation of Christopher P, Anne and Heather went down to the boys dormitory at 2 a.m. Mrs M said she would send the girls home, but has not done so. Christopher ought to have been moved out at 11. He is now 13.
Saturday, Feb 23rd - Cheltenham for the first time since Dec 22nd. Snow piled very high on the tops and roads full of potholes because of frost damage. Postwar credit for £175 arrived. Never thought I would see that. Inflation has lowered its value.
Sunday, Feb 24th - Replied to architect asking him to go ahead with building contract. Yesterday Miss Birch sent off to take two girls home and face irate mothers and fathers.
Tuesday, Feb 26th - Mrs S (in fur coat though on public assistance) arrived back with Heather. Heather, Ma and boys involved closeted with Pymonie. When W arrives in my evening class he looks like Guy Fawkes after torture. I am sure from the sozzled condition of the children some mornings for a very long time that they have been out and about in the house when they should have been asleep.
Friday, March 1st - I bought Mary some daffodils and anemones for our London 1940 anniversary. A heavy frost at night. The snow is beginning to disappear in some of the field hollows but lies on the ridges. We were long in bed.
Sunday, March 3rd - Sent some literature by the World Wild Life Fund. They truly say that however brilliant future generations may be in science and technology nor what space barriers they may conquer they will never be able to recreate a species once it has become extinct. Our children’s grandchildren (Nicholas Hubert) may have cause to curse us because in the 1960s we seemed to be too preoccupied reaching the moon to bother about saving the most precious inheritances of our earth.
Wednesday, March 6th - The builder has taken on other work and cannot start till May or finnish til November. Looks as if autumn term with these bastards here in order to keep the cottage roof over our heads.
Friday, March 8th - Looking casually at the obituaries on the front page of the Times when my eye caught by the word Lane. It was Arthur; ‘Suddenly’ it said yesterday at Selwood Terrace. There was three quarters of a column inside with a photograph and an account of his publications, a reference to his personal characteristics.... militating against easy relations with his colleagues’. He was due to go to Persia in April, had been sent home on ‘sick leave’ after a row with the director who reported him to the Ministry. When he wrote in January he was back at the museum after all this ‘bloodshed’. I am afraid he must have had another of his depressive attacks coming on and shortened his life (The Times was too gentlemanly, but the Telegraph contained a notice of the inquest. He had taken an overdose of barbiturates).
Saturday, March 16th - Trip to London. Kingham 10.06. Hilary met me at Paddington and we got a taxi to the Book League for lunch. Nora joined us for coffee. Had tea at the Kadomah (where I often went in the 20’s). Caught a taxi to Paddington and Nora saw me off. Hilary who was going to the opera with Klaus left us at the barrier. He looked a good deal fatter than a year ago and was well turned out. It was nice to meet him again.
Sunday, March 24th - I had sent Nora £20 for her birthday. She had gone to Hatchards and bought me Arthur’s Greek Pottery which reached me Friday morning. I was ‘surprised by joy’. I have often wished I had it. Now I possess it. ‘The last honour of the dead’ - the line he chose from the Iliad in his dedication to Arthur Payne.
Denys Thompson* and wife to coffee. I had never met her. I found her one of those women who inspire in me a physical distaste. Suspect nervy and leads Denys a dance. Cold eyes query hostile.
*In sixth form at St John’s Leatherhead where taught by diarist
Thursday, March 28 - Entered for competition in Humanist Society and although I did not win a book token - the entry was too long - I was mentioned, ‘a moving piece from an aesthetic point of view’.
What Humanism Means to Me: I was brought up in a strictly Anglican family but I can date my humanism from two quotations discovered as a schoolboy, the first at the end of a battered, dog-eared Latin Grammar illustrating some point of syntax long forgotten, ‘I am a man and nothing human will I think alien to me’, the second quoted by Richard Livingstone in ‘The Greek Genius’, ‘Man is the measure of all things.’
More contact with Greece followed at school, and then, at university, where I was reading History, the Greeks flowered for me a second time in the Italian Renaissance. A growing delight in man’s creative vision and moments of ecstasy came, and come, to me chiefly through painting and architecture - the great Florentines and Venetians, the Parthenon, the theatre at Delphi, Tewkesbury and Chartres, Montacute and Petworth, the landscapes of Stourhead and Cliveden, a list too long to name in these two arts alone, crowned by symphonic music from Mozart to Brahms.
As I sat watching ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ last autumn at Stratford I thought of how my infant grandson will one day enjoy this too and all these other riches will be his for the asking.
‘What a piece of work is man,
How infinite in faculty’
Tuesday, April 2nd - ‘Let him always put mercy before judgement, that he may find mercy himself - let him not be jealous and suspicions for so he will have peace - let him strive rather to be loved than feared - let him be prudent in his correction lest while he strive to scour off the rust he break the vessel - let him realize what a difficult task he has undertaken, that of directing souls and adapting himself to many varied characters.
Might well be advice to a young headmaster but is in fact a passage from the Rule of St Benedict.
Friday, April 5 - Met the architect and builder at the site and set out in pegs. Mr Winfield no picture postcard. A tall gangling man who looks like a gipsy, aquiline nose and black eyes. Handed the contract, which I had had witnessed at the bank, to the architect.
Saturday, April 6th - To The Tempest. A disappointing production. Not my kind of magic I am afraid.
John Masefield’s Note: ‘He filled the play with delight, with new invention, with all the gladness that mean most to men, the forgiveness of sin, the restoration of powers, the giving back of the dead, the finding of the lost thing, the attainment of liberty, and the returning home.... In this play treachery drives the victim to a loneliness where he can obtain wisdom and power by which he can master elemental and brutish spirits, compel his enemies to a peace and give his heiress a prospective kingdom.... Such a part of the change is due to the charity of mind that age often brings.’
Tuesday, April 9th - Lise arrived with Nicholas at Chipping Norton on the Worcester bus from London at 6.50. Both very tired. Nicholas has now grown a crop of hair, some lower teeth, and a collection of noises. He can crawl in a purposeful fashion and has a Cambridge blue teddy bear.
Good Friday, April 12th - In the afternoon we took advantage of the good weather to go up to the Westcote and show Lise the site.
Easter Monday, April 15th - Nicholas seemed to be cutting some teeth and was a bit peevish. He rode on my knee after tea and rocked himself backwards and forwards until he was in a muck sweat and so was I. He is very heavy, about 23 lbs, and very strong. His left eye, as I noticed in December, droops a bit but he is a healthy and contented baby and has such lovely blue eyes. His hair is darker than Hilary’s at that age.
Tuesday, April 16th - I drove Lise and Nicholas to Banbury to catch the 12.13 bus to Manchester. Lise has been very good at organizing Nicholas’s meals, sleeping and washing so that our activities have been little disturbed and we have immensely enjoyed having him for this week.
Friday, April 19th - Started for Exmouth via Bath with a break for tea at Denys Thompson’s for tea. My first visit to his house. Rosemary so obviously difficult as to be quite embarrassing to us, to Denys and his boy. A whiner and grouser, very houseproud, everything polished. We managed to get Denys into the garden for a bit. She would not penetrate there because of mud! He has given up, just sits back schooled to resignation while she shouts rot! Poor Denys. He deserves something better for he is such a nice person.
Friday, April 20th - A gale in the night and the inevitable hotel rattling door! Morning in Exmouth, coffee at Clapps, as in the 30’s. Set off for Shillingford and Dunchideock. The graves had been cut before Easter, put a posy on our grave.
The tide was high after supper and we sat on the front at Orcombe and watched the waves breaking over the sea wall.
Monday, April 22nd, Took our lunch, half a chicken, which you can buy for 6/6 newly cooked, a great amenity, to Ladram Bay. Caravan site even larger than in 1957, but cove much the same. Lay and listened to that lovely sound, the waves stirring the shingle, in high content.
Tuesday, April 23rd - Into Exeter to tea with Wilfrid and Ruth. Ruth greyer and more round shouldered; Wilfrid to my mind fatter, but I had not seen him for five years. Wilfrid seemed very well and could go up and down stairs considerably faster than I can now. He had given up gaiters but wore a fine purple stock. He seemed to me more authoritative in an episcopal way. Said the country parishes needed to be grouped into four or five churches served by a group of clergy. To which I replied that in our part some parishes regarded their neighbours as foreign powers, though on paper this is a modern solution to a medieval set up.
Thursday, April 25th - To Branscombe. I wanted to see the church and valley again. THe weather was dull with a mist from the sea which grew thicker in the afternoon. The holiday was a lovely change from Gloucestershire and Adlestrop and did us a lot of good physically and mentally.
Sunday, April 28th - Went over to service at our beloved Tewkesbury. When the litany procession reached the north aisle I saw a figure in mitre emerge at the end and whispered to Mary, ‘the Bishop of Gloucester’. The congregation were invited to meet him in the rectory garden, so round we went and were introduced. Did not like him at all. A sharp little man, inclined, I suspect, to sarcasm, with no warmth or kindliness. Also he appeared to have at least a day’s growth of beard. Did not impress you as a man of spiritual power in any way.
Thursday, May 2nd - To-night with great effort tracked Pymonie down and told her did not want to stay beyond Christmas and would prefer to teach only in the morning. She agreed to this and said we could stay in the cottage until the house was ready.
Sunday, May 11th - Called in at Westcote. Mr Winfield had been up with bulldozer and dug out the footings. Mr Fred Hunt had cut down the hedge, so as I said to Mary things are moving at last.
Saturday, May 25th - To National Gallery where there was an exhibition of recent acquisitions including the Leonardo Cartoon I had (in a modest way!) helped to buy. After lunch at the National Book League by bus to Kensington to have tea with Angela Lane. She lived in a tiny brick regency house with a small walled garden. She was the same plump buttoned up little woman that I remembered without any charm or warmth. She said she always knew when Arthur was thinking of suicide because he returned his books to the London Library. I said we had seen him in his depressed stage, what was he like on the ‘up’. Then he was extremely jealous and suspicious and wished to fight with his colleagues at the museum and sat up late at night working. When he was down he sat and stared and said nothing and said he was ‘unworthy’ and so on.
Sunday, May 26th - One of those days when things go wrong. Very disappointed to find Winfield had done nothing more at Westcote. We then went to Taynton and started tea. While collecting more wood the kettle fell off fire and most of water ran out. Had to go down into village to get more. Meanwhile fire went out!
Tuesday, May 28th - Announce to-day Pope, John XXIII, is dying of cancer of the stomach. A good old man he has done more to better relations between Catholics and non-Catholics since he was elected in 1958 than six of his predecessors.
Saturday, June 1st - A glorious first of June. Want to Stratford to see A Comedy of Errors and enjoyed it. A good deal of knockabout and miming and much made of the carnival and witchcraft at Ephesus. All very amusing.
Tuesday, June 4th - Pope John died last night. Have never known a Pope who in a few years made such a deep impression on people with varying religions or none at all.
Sunday, June 9th - The British public has not had such a political scandal in my time. The minister or war, married to an ex actress, was having an affair with a girl of 22. For this purpose he used the flat of an osteopath through whom he met her at Cliveden. The minister denied there had been any impropriety, but the osteopath gave him away to the P.M.’s secretary. He was forced to admit he had lied to Parliament. The cheap Sunday papers had a real wallow. Besides the news of the arrest of the osteopath yesterday for living off immoral earnings, they carried facsimiles of a love letter from the minister to the girl and the girl’s own ‘confession’, starting by being caught bathing naked by the minister at Cliveden up to the time they first went to bed together at the osteopath’s flat, embellished by photographs of the lady pretty well as naked as as she was at Cliveden swimming pool. The girl was also mixed up with a Russian naval attaché who was apparently doing a box and cox at the flat with the minister.
Marjorie Wilkinson has been living with Mary Clayden while her house is being reconstructed. It has been an eye opened to her. Meals are got when they like it. Some people are finishing breakfast when others are beginning lunch! The main meal is at night but they sit over it for an hour and a half until it is time for Marjorie to go to bed.
Monday, June 10th - Rang up architect. Builder has now promised to start on Wednesday. The thing is becoming a farce. The original starting date was early in May!
Thursday, June 13th - Cabinet ministers threatening to resign. The Times editorial “There is a moral issue.... Ministers have resigned for far lesser reasons.”
Friday, June 11th - A solicitor now says the girl Keeler told him she asked her Russian client to ask Profumo when nuclear warheads were being sent to Germany and he sent this information to MI5 who told him it had gone to the P.M.
Sunday, June 16th - The Sunday press continues to publish semi-nude pictures of Keeler, while at the same time the Times lumps Keeler, the decline of religion, the faults of a society with too much money and the decline of the economy together! In fact we have been thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Gunmen, foreign espionage, coloured crooks, commercial vice, high society exposed, arrest of pimp, actress wronged, minister ruined i an hour, and chance for all to feel both horrified, fascinated and virtuous.Gladstone said he knew 13 pime ministers and 11 of them were adulterers.
Tuesday, June 18th - Readings report of the speeches last night in the Profumo debate in the H of C. A lot has come out but not all. Anyway although the P.M. got a majority of 69 with 25 abstentions he is finished.
Thursday, June 20th - When we were in bed together the other night Mary said I ought to record in the Diary how very happy we were. I said I would, and I do! We are!
Saturday, June, 22nd - To Cheltenham to buy a nice Harris tweed jacket for £11 10s.
June 24th - Our tame robin now acts as carpet sweeper. He comes into the kitchen and dining room and removes the crumbs.
Wednesday, June 26th - To see the Bridge over the River Kwai. Much better than the book. Alec Guinness and the fanatical colonel playing opposite a very good Japanese actor who reminded me of my boyhood headmaster.
June 29th - Hilary arrived at Banbury. After tea took him up to see the site. He seemed tired and I thought depressed.
Thursday, July 4th - Had Hilary to myself all day. I could get no idea of what he thought about giving up his job for a year and living in Denmark as a non-earner with no Danish.
Saturday, July 6th - Saw Hilary off at Kingham. Sad to lose him for a year. When you are 63 a year means more to you than at 27!
Wednesday, July 10th - This summer almost as bad as last winter. No picnics, no fires, no sitting out in the garden.
Hilary had a smooth crossing and finds Nicholas standing and putting things in cupboards. The whole family came to met him.
Thursday, July 11th - Michael in to sherry. Coming back to Adlestrop he is very impressed by the unpleasant atmosphere among the staff, Birch, Baxter, the Woods and Malcolm. Says no one is in charge at meals but everyone bawls at children as they feel like it. The Woods retire and mutter in corners or talk about individual children when the rest can hear. Says it is a madhouse.
Saturday, July 20th - Chetlenham to buy Nicholas his first birthday present. Chose a red snow suit zipping up the front for £3 17s 6d.
Sunday, July 21st - My last Sunday service I am glad to say with Roger the Raper and perhaps others. A lovely summer day. Took our tea up to the Roman Road and made fire. Collected following 31 species: Moon daisy, Hawkweed, Campion, Rest Harrow, Birdsfoot trefoil, Hardknot, Sanfoin, Hoptrefoil, Purple vetch, Plantain, Bladderwort, Ladies bedstraw, Red clover, Spurge, Meadowsweet, White clover, Agrimony, Wood nightshade, Selfheal, Buttercup, Melilot, Harebell, Wild rose, Kidney vetch, Bellflower, Rockrose, Sanicle, Scabious, Speedwell, Hawkbit, Poppy.
Monday, July 22nd - Felt tired and out of sorts. Found my top group particularly nauseating. having done no work since Friday they were very difficult and in the heat their rudeness was more than I felt I could bear. Mary realized I was very low and much frustrated by the children and the heat and so she came into my bed naked and we were lost in one another.
Thursday, Aug 1st - Yesterday the osteopath, Ward, was found guilty of living on the earning of Keeler and another call girl. The night before he had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Since yesterday morning they have been trying to bring him round in hospital. Can only hope they don’t succeed.
Sunday, Aug 4th - Met Nora at Kingham. Went up to the site in the afternoon and found to my satisfaction they had finished concreting the floors and the windows had arrived.
Monday, Aug 5th - When Nicholas and Lise were here Nora very anxious they should meet Leslie Tydeman’s wife Jenny, but I stalled. Now she was determined to bring Jenny over here to fetch her to their farm and had arranged it over the telephone. They were to arrive about 6.30. As the time got near Nora got more and more restive. When they got here I saw why! Ted, her elder brother was in the car. He was staying with his son and daughter in law and could not be left behind, I suppose. He had got very fat. Nora said he had mellowed. It was not detectable. He looked at Mary out of the corner of his eye like a rather malevolent toad and could hardly achieve the bare minimum of politeness. I asked them in for a glass of sherry. It was all very awkward, but Nora will never learn that we may not all be as keen on social and family contacts as she is and much better to leave well alone. All you can say is Ted’s impossible wife was not there. That would have been the end, though Ted is pretty near the bottom of the barrel himself. Jennie seemed a nice girl and Leslie was pleasant.
Aug
7th - Mary’s brother Douglas over to fetch her to take her home to
Tuesday next Wednesday, while her Mother goes to Nottingham for a rest
from this extremely trying old gentleman.
Thursday, Aug 8th - Michael arrived at Kingham at 11 to keep me company. Cyril and Kay to tea. The former seems to age every time you see him but Kay says he is better.
Friday, Aug 9th - Michael and I drove to Woodchester to see the Roman pavement last opened in 1935 and 1951. A bug field for a car park, a marquee with refreshments, a booklet, photographs and the vicar showing you the copy of Mr Samuel Lyson’s account of the excavations in 1797. The villa, never excavated since, was an enormous building of palatial proportions. The villa must have been an official residence about the time of Hadrian and perhaps the civil governor of the province.
Monday, Aug 12th - A letter arrived from Hilary. There had been deep emotional stresses. The in-laws had descended on them at the flat in Koege two day after they got in and stayed five days. One night Hilary had to sleep on the floor. He had to issue an ultimatum - I don’t wonder.
Saturday, Aug 17th - Drove to Hatford. I remembered seeing a few white cyclamen by Grandfather’s grave and wanted to see if they were flowering. We discovered four struggling up through the turf which had spread over the edges of the stone. Told Mary how the rectory girls had giggled at John Barnes when he first came down there and she [Mother] took him to a meet where he got nicely wet and muddied.
Horrified to find how time has passed and keeps passing at an increasing speed. It was 13 years ago that last visited Hatford in October 1950.
Wednesday, Aug 21st - In afternoon to the site. Most of the walls up to top of window level. Mary as usual seemed plunged i doubts and misgivings. All most frustrating and provoking. It ought to be such fun, but it is all worry!
Thursday, Aug 22nd - To Oxford. Spent morning in New Bodleian reading room and got hold of old Crockfords and investigated Grandpa Atkins’ clerical career. He was ordained a curate in England, only went back to Ireland for ten years after his marriage. My Law cousin said he could not find him in Trinity College Dublin but I got the alumni and he was there all right, entered at 16 in the year of the Reform Bill.
The met Jeanette Martin, ex H.G.S., for lunch. Very smart, a stewardess at BOAC. After lunch we sat in St John’s Garden and chatted till it was time for tea at Fullers. At tea, Jeanette, who never draws breath, began on her divorce. It was very noisy and I only heard some, but it was all about ‘refusal to consummate’, ‘ inability to have intercourse’ and so on and could not ask her to shout louder! She has now taken up with a geological engineer. The other chap, a dentist, had a cannibal mother who wanted to swallow Jeanette whole. Told her she was a wicked girl and should go down in her knees and ask God’s forgiveness etc. She had been married by the Bishop of Reading and he told her she had no reason to feel guilty, which lifted, she said, a great weight from her shoulders. A nice child, but, one felt, a vulnerable child.
Sunday, Sept 8th - Hilary’s birthday. Started last term with niggers by letter writing. Michael S, Ossy and James H seemed quite pleased to see me.
Tuesday, Sept 10th - To site to meet Hardman and Winfield. As we drove along to my great njoy saw the roof and ridge rafters rising above the walls. The whole building changed its character. It was becoming a home. The architect and the builder made an odd pair. Winfield tall though paunchy in his working clothes through the tears and gaps in which you saw a hairy chest and stomach, which he scratched from time to time, a man of few words. Hardman carefully dressed as befits a professional man, clean and neat, a fair square face with light grey eyes, a sandy moustache and glasses, a man of many words and much repetition.
Thursday, Sept 12th - No one has any honey this year, neither Mr Holland nor Mr Bell. I guess I might have 20lbs at most! I think almost the worst year since I started in 1933.
Friday, Sept 13th - A long letter from Hilary. Lise has not been well. They wish they were not so near Copenhagen and the in-laws. They are very short of money and fins the cost of living higher than in Bolton.
Monday, Sept 23rd - A landmark for Mary. We made the first plantings at Westcote - ferns, cowslips, primroses, foxgloves - all under the hedge. Old Margaret Webb to stay.
Thursday, Sept 26th - While I was teaching the lowe group this morning Saker suddenly shouted ‘Look! There’s a wolf!’ They all rushed to the window while a large fox trotted round the house.
Friday, Sept 27th - Up to Westcote. Margareth very enthusiastic about the view, thank goodness. Thought yesterday why not call the house Long View. Mary approved of it.
Sunday, Oct 13th - Brought back a fossilized sea urchin to use as paperweight - some 145 million years old geologists say. Puts chairmanship of the Conservative Party in perspective.
Monday, Oct 14th - A letter from Hilary. Lise’s mother had had a breast removed, but Lise was better. Hilary has no work but though fully occupied with Nicholas is bored and to some extent frustrated.
Friday, Oct 18th - Macmillan interviewing ministers and conservative organizers in his hospital room all yesterday afternoon. Lord Home (pronounced not to rhyme with foam by fume) is supposed to be wanted by Mac - and Home, we heard on the 6 o’clock news, it is. He has been called to the Palace and is now trying to form a government. He is an intellectual and a gentleman and has been a successful and intelligent foreign secretary.
Sunday, Oct 20th - Appears to be a rather eccentric Etonian Scots aristocrat. Wanders round the house doing the flowers and losing his glasses. Gentlemen v Players, the Times says, and the gents have won.
Tuesday, Oct 24th - A report has come out advising a huge increase in universities - 28 more by 1980 (this includes the Colleges of Advanced Technology raised to university status) and two and a half times as many places in institutions of higher learning. It seems bound to lower the quality of university students by letting in increasing numbers with no real academic bent or likely to find satisfaction in the work itself, putting an increasing strain on the university teachers.
Sunday, Nov 3rd - Lunch with Joan and Arthur Harris. An excellent lunch at which however Joan retains her country habits, holding her knife and fork upright and putting her tongue well out before pushing the food in. Arthur carved a leg of lamb by carving it lengthwise which I have never seen before. These idiosyncrasies are nothing compared with their fundamental good heartedness and kindness. Joan now all churchy, up for early service, cleaning brasses and doing flowers. You’d never think she had led a rackety life in London and produced little Jimmy - now McBurnie.
Monday, Nov 11th - We saw an excellent film of Tom Jones - very amusing; an excellent hunting sequence and Tom’s amorous adventures.
Friday, Nov 15th Estimate for moving from Banbury this morning £17 - £13 less than from Cheltenham. Up to site, plastering finished; doors there but not hung. Foreman digging out drive to garage.. Garage except roof erected and fence finished, which makes whole thing look better.
Saturday, Nov 16 - Gloucester. Lunch with Molly. They had offer for farm of £8,750. Molly seemed sad and looked very poorly I thought. She said she would like me to have father’s salver, which I have never been offered before, but it was not to be sold but kept in the family by Hilary and Nicholas. I was much touched till I got it home and realized what an awkward thing it is to store.
Saturday, Nov 23rd - I was having breakfast in bed when Mary came up with the Times. ‘Something dreadful has happened,’ she said, ‘President Kennedy has been assassinated’. He was shot from a warehouse window as he drove through Dallas in Texas and fell into the lap of his wife who was sitting next to him. Mrs Kennedy recently lost a new-born baby and is left with two small children, 6 and 3.
The vice-president succeeds him. He is a southern senator, Mr Lyndon Johnson, aged 55. One can hope he will do as well as Harry Truman did 18 years ago.
This cowardly and despicable act has murdered a man only 46, young in looks and heart, at the height of his career, to whom over the Cuban crisis all the world owes the greatest debt.
Sunday, Nov 24th - Of the Kennedy appreciations I choose the following: It was his style ….. the sense of excitement which he conveyed, that quickened the tempo of political life everywhere. He communicated his own sense of adventure to others. Here was a man who saw himself a world leader, heir not only to America’s political legacy, but to Europe’s intellectual tradition and through his Irish ancestry, to the hopes and aspirations of the under privileged everywhere.
In him the private man was never lost in the public figure. The friends he made before he became president were the friends he kept in office. We mourn a man who, with his beautiful wife, his respect for ideas and the arts, his humour, his informality and modesty in the face of the tremendous responsibilities, which he fully understood, represented something vital, life enhancing. His death diminishes us all.
Tuesday, Nov 26th - A letter from Marjorie Hunter offering to give us a refrigerator for our new home for up to £40. How very kind of her. Very pleased but at the same time rather embarrassed by the size of the gift.
Thursday, Nov 28th - Should I have a television? Very conservative I suppose. Went on to the war with a crystal set. Every now and then notice a programme I would very much like to see. In the mornings too there are some interesting school telecasts. Up till now I have only been exposed to Cousin Maud’s at Exton and Mr Pierce’s at Christmas - generally circuses and comics. Mary says our eyes, which do not stand up well to prolonged reading, will be further strained. Anyway I have gone as far as having sitting room and my bedroom wired for it.
Wednesday, Dec 4th - Nora forwarded letter from Lise. Everything had been very difficult. Hilary depressed because he could not write because ‘economy bad’. She was depressed because of way school was run and feeling that Hilary was wasting his time and not really enjoying being in Denmark at all. When he felt low he talked very little, whereas she needed to talk to get through the crisis. Now they are all feeling relaxed again and Nicholas eating better.
In my view Lise an impulsive and emotional girl and a rebel. She has these ideas but does not really consider the consequences or work out the details. Hilary might well feel trapped in a foreign country, no one to talk to except Lise, nothing to do, no money of his own and no prospect of any change because he is tied to looking after Nicholas as long as Lise teaches and Lise must teach because there is no money, for the financial position is not what she had imagined it.
Tuesday, Dec 10th - Went up to Westcote but felt it was a mistake. It was cold, miserable, the carpenter was not particularly co-operative, and when Mary said the new crinkly glass in the bathroom was wrong I felt it was almost too much. Jets of all sorts were flying overhead drowning our conversation and Mary said the noise frightened her. I began to feel a fool to build at the end of a run way. Should we ever get used to the noise? If we wanted to sell should we ever be able to do so? A bad day at Black Rock.
Thursday, Dec 12th - I turned Ossy out to-day. Whereon he put a note through the keyhole ‘stick your nose in your BUM’.
Friday, Dec 13th - My last day’s teaching at Adlestrop Park, perhaps my last day’s teaching altogether. I can just remember my first morning at Llandovery College in 1922 and more vaguely starting at Leatherhead in 1923, so that makes nearly 41 years as a schoolmaster. In the first period we finished King Solomon’s Mines, ‘a smashing story’ was the group verdict. After break I went in with a drawing of a wasp nest for the younger group and read some Alice in Wonderland. Church on Sunday will be my last chore here. Pymonie has been most gracious and friendly lately, as she well knows how to be, and has given me some files to read.
Sunday, Dec 15th - To celebrate my retirement went over to Bay Tree, Burford for a lunch - a a very good one - self chicken, Mary trout, followed by an extremely luscious marron sundae.
Reading files see how psychiatrists emphasize how very ill these children are. Feel I have done those things I ought to have done and left undone those things I might have done. I might have been kinder, more patient, more good tempered, more understanding than I have been! Well, nothing can be done about it now.
Tuesday, Dec 17th - After breakfast Ossy came over with a thin parcel. To my surprize and joy it was Eternal Greece, a book I had looked at in Banks and longed to possess. Ossy had composed a letter saying ‘they were all grateful for my teaching’ and asking me to accept it. Pymonie had consulted Mary and she had made this excellent suggestion. Her only doubt was whether when she went to Oxford she would ever come back with the right book. Shortly before they left at about 10.30 I went over and found them all waiting in the dining room so I was able to thank them collectively. They gave three cheers!
Sunday, Dec 22nd - Pymonie has decided Townsend, the W.OG., is to have my top group because he seems likely to teach history, geography and basic English, whereas Mr Wood appears to do ‘creative’ English without using a blackboard. Mrs Wood told the W.O.G. that if he were given the top job she would stir up the loony Jonathan and make things impossible for him. Golly! What a pair!
Michael Collard looked in to tea. Said with some justice the children were far nicer people than the staff who were shut up here in their own make-believe. Michael, bless the boy, brought us a straw covered flagon of Madeira.
Christmas Day - Luckily warmer weather from the south west. We reached Bainton Road about midday. Mary’s father now very old, frail and tottery; her mother cooking a turkey! Had a glass of sherry, Spanish Graves, turkey, Christmas pudding and brandy butter. This proved my undoing; felt as if I had been kicked in the gizzard. No circus on television this year, thank goodness.
Boxing Day - A poor lot of Christmas cards this year, some badly designed, some drab, some vulgar. Religious 14, Snow, holly etc 13, Places 7, Animals 5, Charitable 6, Flowers 3 - 48 in all.
Saturday, Dec 28th - Tried to see Pymonie to get income tax from her. When I did catch up with her in her study found she had not got it. At words ‘Income tax’ she stiffens and throws her chin up!
Sunday, Dec 29th - This week we are going to try to live on £10 a week, excluding car expenses, insurance stamps and Mary’s life assurance premiums. We shall have to do this for a year till I get my old age pension in 1965. Hope it is possible. It will have to be.
Monday, Dec 30th - Rang up Post Office and ordered a telephone for Long View. Mary would like one in case either of us are ill or for shops in bad weather. I dislike telephones. They intrude on your home, generally when you have your pants down, and make it more difficult to evade the visits of people you don’t want to see - also they cost £20 a year.
Tuesday, Dec 31st - With Mary to Westcote with plants in morning. I thought we might see the new year in in bed, but Mary was tired and I discovered later I had forgotten it was was New Years Eve anyway!
Index 1963
Atkins, Diarist’s Grandpa, Aug 22. Barnes, Molly, Nov 16. Birch, Miss - Jan 5, passim. Clayden, Mary, June 9. Collard, Michael July 11, Aug 8, Dec 22. Common Market Jan 13, 15, 29, Dreams Jan 17. Hilary, Jan 3, Mar 16, Aug 12, Sept 13, Dec 4. Harris, Joan, Nov 3. Hatford, Aug 17. Hayes, Len, Jan 13, 16. Holland, John - Jan 3, 4, Sept 12. Nov 15. Humanist Society, Mar 28, Hunter, Marjorie, Nov 26, Jenkins (1961 passim) - Jan 5, Kennedy, Nov 23-24, Koestler, Feb 13, Lane, Arthur, March 8, 24, Leigh family, Feb 12, Lipscombe, Jan 13, Lise, Apr 9, Dec 4, Long View, Sept 27. Macmillan, Oct 18. Martin, Jeanette - Jan 5, Aug 22. Moeran, Jeremy, Feb 6-10. Moeran, Pymonie Jan 17, Feb 6-10, Dec 22, passim. Nicholas Hubert, Jan 11, Apr 9, July 20. Peach, Cyril, Aug 8. Pierce, Mr & Mrs, Aug 7, Dec 25. Pope, May 28, June 4. Profumo, June 9-18, Aug 1. Retirement, diarist’s, Dec 13, 17, 29. River Kwai, June 26. St Benedict, Apr 2. Shillingford & Dunchideock, Apr 20, Stratford, June 1, Apr 6. Telephone, Dec 30. Television, Nov 28. Tempest, Apr 6, Thompson, Denys, Apr 19. Tydeman, Ted, Aug 5. Westcote Jan 3, Apr 5, June 10, Sept 10, Sept 23, Dec 31. Westall, Wilfrid, Apr 23. Wild flowers, July 21. Wilkinson, Marjorie, June 9. Wood, Mr & Mrs - Jan 5, Dec 22.
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