1955 July - September

July.
 
Friday, July 1st
   Had been driving Mary to Albury Park near Guildford but did not feel up to it, so we had our tea in the flat and after tea went for a drive round Douai. Went into the church. There was a white faced and wretched looking monk sitting in the choir. He looked really dreadful, like something seen on Dartmoor.

Saturday, July 3rd
   The Rev: Pachyderm said in his sermon on Sunday he had done everything in his power to get the authorities to appoint a rowing man to the living. Ripe, I felt, for This England!

Thursday, July 7th
   Mary Clayden's birthday. Gave her a comic Osbert Lancaster and some honeysuckle.

Friday, July 15th
   Yesterday Hilary went up to lunch with Con at the N.B.L. Otherwise he might have gone to Ascot that day instead of Wednesday [when] a storm struck the free enclosure at the course and killed several people. Others had severe shocks. The lightning seems to have run along a chain fence on which they were leaning.
   This week we have had an execution orgy - a Mrs Ruth Ellis with two children shot her lover who had run off with some other man. She was condemned to be hanged, but most people assumed she would be reprieved. She was tight and half demented. Instead this clot of a Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George, who was apparently under the thumb of his permanent officials, let the execution go forward. The results in the popular press and Sunday newspapers can be imagined. The only possible good is that this execution of a young woman of 28 may hasten abolition. There had been a debate shortly before and the Home Secretary said an alternative had not been "clearly established", either it has or has not been "clearly established" in the abolitionist countries. If it hasn't and we are not allowed to try abolition here, it will never be done away with for lack of evidence! Hanging, The Spectator pointed out, is now a national sport and drives even the test match off the front page.

Saturday, July 16th
   The big shots are assembling in Geneva for the top level talks, the first of this kind since Potsdam in 1945 - Eden, Eisenhower, Bulganin. Everyone is more hopeful than they have been for at least 10 years.
   Spent part of yesterday - still extremely hot - moving a pile of slack out of the coal cellar. Coal going up again, another shock to the nation, so must use up the precious material. Have ordered a ton at about £8.
   
Sunday, July 17th
       Another boiling day; bedroom so hot at 7 o'clock, 80°, so moved down to a camp bed in drawing room. Micheline came up to say goodbye. Phyllis spent most of afternoon in garden. She was wearing a backless dress which showed off her lovely skin. Can quite understand why so many men have fallen for her. James was down; his bankruptcy over, now living in a flat where, says Phyllis, the phone answered by a woman.

Monday, July 18th
   Day of Sixth Form conference at Jesus, Oxford, on science and religion. Mary Clayden and I did no want to go so asked Attrills, but asked him not her in first instance, representing it as rather a treat. Found when dealing with the bumf this morning that there were questions for each set. When I sent round one of these she came into my room and blew up. "I had deceived her". How? "I was careless and inconsiderate!" Norman had worked all week on this and had gone up to London to buy books on it - why? I offered to go instead if she didn't feel like it, but that wouldn't do; she wanted her grievance. She's obviously heading for a nervous breakdown.
   Hilary started for Paris by the 7.5 train with Micheline and Lise. Much wonder how he will get on, for French negligible quantity and he is going to stay three weeks. [Lise, from Copenhagen, and Micheline, from near Dijon, were au pair girls, Lise with Phyllis Auty, Micheline previously with Phyllis but at this time with an American couple in Henley.]

Monday, July 25th
       At last we had a card from Hilary from Paris. It had rained but they had seen as much as they could "during a whistle stop". He had found a hotel at 6/- a night.
   No car still. The bums at Oxford won't get on moving the striker and, until the supplier in Reading gets it, they can't match it up.

Friday, July 29th
   Broke up. No sabotage of any kind this term. Had to give Eric a citation in Senior Assembly, but this saved me from saying much at the staff-meeting presentation of a book token.
   Did succeed in getting a temporary master for next term. A cripple chap who had been in the control commission at Vienna, but was now out of a job with Austrian independence, at last restored. At any rate shall not have to have Eric back part time, as she was obviously hoping.
   "The trouble with fiction," said John Rivers, "is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense..... Fiction has unity, fiction has style. Facts have neither. In the raw, existence is just one damned thing after another." [Editor: Failed to find out who this John Rivers was]

 The Headmaster and Senior Mistress with the 1954 - 55 Prefects


Tuesday, Aug 2nd
   A letter from Hilary, full of human interest, written from St Jean de Losne: "Micheline's mother is a new experience", for while at home Micheline has no life of her own and if she stays in that part of France she is doomed. "The atmosphere of the village is oppressive. It is a hive of malicious gossip, and it is not flattering myself to say that I am of considerable interest. One has the impression always of a hundred pairs of eyes peering from behind a hundred pairs of shutters. Micheline hates the town but has to be careful in her behaviour because of her father's position [Monsieur le Maire]." A very good letter but then I don't think of Hilary as 19.

Wednesday, Aug 3rd
   Went for tea with Mary to the Aldworth Downs. We were full of quiet affection and enjoyment and felt very happy.

Thursday, Aug 4th
   Had elevenses with Mary C. Had an early lunch and drove to Watford. Aunt shakier and more decrepit. She had had a bad night but wanted to go to the old people's home, where Rusby (whom I had previously written off) has picked up again. While the old ladies were sitting in the back of car, noticed to my horror one of front tyres was slowly going down. Had to change wheel with much bad language, dirt and oil. This gave a new interest to the inmates and when I had finished one old man took me to the gents' lavatory. After the considerable interest we aroused we were waved off on departure. Hope I don't end up in an institution. Nora says Aunt has got more fun out of last five years of her life than in previous 80 - I wonder.

Saturday, Aug 6th
   A beastly journey by car to Payn's Hil, Duddleswell, in Sussex. Traffic very heavy and uninteresting route. We had some difficulty in finding the cottage, which was down a sandy track across a heath [which] had wide views across the Ashdown Forest to the South Downs and was surrounded by bracken and heather. It was previously a forester's cottage with a a floor added. It still contained an old wide chimney with a bread oven..... Nothing was level and everything was slippery, so for the first 48 hours one bumped and banged and skidded. The kitchen was dirty, untidy and overcrowded, but had a Rayburn and a Calor gas stove. The Rayburn went out and there was not adequate light in the dining space. We went to bed early, tired and cross!

Monday, Aug 8th
   Sudden apparition of bobbed white-haired figure with glasses, of broad and only partly intelligible speech - Mrs Hazelden, the help, who walks across the forest to oblige. Lunch at 12 and start for Bodiam - a little disappointing and smaller than imagined and quite dull compared with Welsh castles.

Tuesday, Aug 9th
     Go down to the sea at Cuckmere.

Wednesday, Aug 10th
   Lunch, a very poor one, at Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells. Then to Knole - a knock out! Had an excellent guide, fresh and interesting, who promotes me to close doors at end of visit. The hall and state apartments. Confronted at foot of stairs with naked marble statue of Italian mistress of 18th century owner, lying on side to show a very shapely back and bottom! Marvellous exhibition of furniture including three state beds and a fine collection of portraits. At the end of two hours "ecstasy" collapse in car and drink tea with aching feet and legs.

Tuesday, Aug 11th
   On a church crawl, i) Bixted, interesting plaster ceiling put in in 1600 to commemorate good hop harvest! ii) Isfield, a good Caroline tomb, iii) Fletching, a good C13th church with tilting helmets of Warwick.

Friday, Aug 12th
   Drove to Wilmington and had lunch on way up to Long Man and Windover Hill. Down to Cuckmere,  but rain in night had made track an excellent example of pre-turnpike road. We slithered, waltzed and rocked for quarter of a mile. Holy women came down and rolled up their skirts and paddled, showing quite shapely calves.

Saturday, Aug 13th
   Drive to Newhaven and meet Hilary off boat, dirty while unshaven after sleeping on St Lazare. Have tea together at Newhaven station  then they drive home and I have dinner at Trust House where I sit till 8.30 reading Fanny Burney. On boat at 9. First train is full of third class with impossible packs over which you have to scramble to first class as no separate gangway. Mary arrives on second train and we meet on boat deck.

Sunday, Aug 14th
   Slept pretty badly and little. Not helped by black man who snored in next bunk. Didn't like to move in case he thought it was his colour not his noise, but did eventually. Got up about 7 and emerged to see grey and grisly-looking Dieppe. We got off at 8 and asked for a bus to Varengeville. There were no buses. I did not catch why. It turned out later there was a strike. At 11 we set off in a taxi. Through Varengeville village and finally down a side turning towards the sea till we saw Hotel de Terrasse. Taxi cost 1100 frs. When we got inside, Mme Louy, a nervous little woman, rushed out with a spate of rapid French to the effect that someone had not left and we would be put for one night in a downstairs room. It was a poor room on the same level and very close to the pantry. It was noisy and very hot. We saw later a red furnace below in the gaps in the floor boards. Fire down below, as it says in the sea shanty!

Monday, Aug 15th
   A ghastly night. Very little sleep at all although we were dog tired. It was the vigil of the Assumption and a party of Belgians screamed and bawled and drank to 2 o'clock. After a couple of hours sleep and noise and discomfort I thought, "Why on earth did I leave the place in Sussex for this pandemonium."
   We went down and tramped along a hard road to the lighthouse, then came back and sat on the cliffs. After lunch we we walked along the sand and rock at low tide to the next estuary eastwards. We found the whole expanse dotted with scrapers and rock lifters search for small crabs and winkles.
   On our return we found we had been moved up to a better room on the first floor with a wide comfortable double bed. After dinner we walked in the dark up the road to the lighthouse. We slept together twice in our comfortable bed and the night was quite quiet after the row of the vigil. I begin to be glad we have come.

Tuesday, Aug 16th
   The hotel is on the top of the cliffs where the road runs down to cross a small valley on its way to the lighthouse. It is about 150 yards from the cliff edge and as we lie in bed or sit at our meals we can see the sea. It has an outside balcony where drinks are served, a gravel terrace below with a pleasant orchard to sit in. You walk across a meadow full of downland flowers to a cutting which brings you down to a shingle beach. The guests are provided with a tide table, and you can see why. Swimming in deep water is only possible at high tide.
   There was plenty of interest among the other guests - the Arab with his floozy, the Brown Woman with her Roumanian cavalryman (we assumed), the old Belgian and his etiolated offspring, Jean-Louis, who even when bathing in two feet of water at low tide wore a large cork life jacket, the young married couple with a two months old baby, the white haired old lady and her fat little girl, the solitary old gentleman with his ancient fox terrier, the fat bruiser and his blonde tart who came in for one night's intercourse, the English M.P. and his large family, and so on.
   This afternoon we walked to the village. The village was scattered but had a post office, a baker's, a store, where we bought milk and biscottes, and a stationers. It contained a number of rich country houses displaying the sign "chien méchant" and carefully guarded from the public gaze by hedges and gates.
   The church stood on the cliff edge pointing up channel and surrounded by a very full cemetery, gravelled, and full of hideous tombs. On the very edge of the cliff at the N.E. corner there were some black wooden crosses with aluminium labels, the tombs of the German dead, all young, and a few unknown - the high cost of Hitler.
   The interior was pleasant, a good C13th crossing and curiously carved C17th pillars with bearded heads, scallop shells and a mermaid..... A path led down to a combe where we made a fire for tea, then a zig zag path to the beach and back along the sand to dinner.

Wednesday, Aug 17th
    At dinner the aged Belge had caught a great bowl of shrimps, which had been cooked and placed on the table. They were being displayed by the wife when the dog ran through her legs. Down she went, bang went the bowl and a cascade of shrimps skidded along the floor. The waitresses shrugged and made no effort to help. The family gathered them up, apparently glass and all, and ate the lot!

Thursday, Aug 18th
   The sea was rather rougher but Mary bathed. She looked very nice, though ample, in her black and white bather. When she came out of the water she was a bit inclined to slip out of her top. In the afternoon we walked to Varenge Ville along a side road to the Manoir d'Ango.

Saturday, Aug 20th
   Bus to Veules les Roses. On our way we had a fine view of the harvest fields, oats, wheat, sugar beet and red clover, with lines of tethered cows. Only an occasional tractor, no mechanical hoists, all carting by horses.  

Sunday, Aug 21st
   The tide was low so we walked to church along the shore, a new experience! A blazing day with no breeze and very hot, nor was the church particularly cool as we expected. The great west door with its circular descending step was open. We sat in the back in what we hoped was an unappropriated pew, though it was not. The church was pretty empty when the mass began 10 minutes late, but filled up as the service went on. The quality, in black and very correct, sat in the front and with them a tall white monk made his entry. The church was full of small children bawling and crying so there was an almost continuous noise. The priest came round with a small plate, which he shovelled from time to time into a sack held by an acolyte.We had the gospel read in French and two very crooner-like hymns The monk preached a rather long sermon. He was amusing, dramatic, emotional ad confidential by turns,but his audience sat and stared at vacancy, a lot of dead pans.
   The Brown Woman kept a Siamese cat in her bedroom. When being being carried down in a holdall with his head sticking out we asked his name. Inspector Bull - inspector because he wished to examine everything and Bull because he was meant for production, but alas it was impossible in her Paris flat so he was Bull no longer!

Tuesday, Aug 23rd
  We decide to go by bus to Fecamp. A huge party of English youth hostelers gets in at St Valery with enormous packs. This makes the bus half an hour late. We have lunch at a quiet hotel and then tramp round the distillerie. Not only is the production mechanized, but also the guiding! As we enter each room an official presses a button and the loudspeaker bawls out a recording. Fortunately the bus home is faster, cooler and less crowded, but four hours or more embussed is a lot. A sea mist comes up and the foghorn from the lighthouse blares away. We call it rather rudely Farting Matilda. It goes on all night.

Wednesday, Aug 24th
   We spend the morning on the beach. The Brown Woman is catching shrimps in a little net. She says they are so difficult to "undress". I asked if she ever brings Inspector Bull on he beach. She says no. He has to have a tray in his room and he is disgusted by the sight of so much sand. After dinner we walk to the Phare to hear the horn at close quarters. It is most belch-like.
   Our bill for 11 days comes to 40,744 fcs, 1,500 fcs a day, extras 3,330; service at 12% 4,359 - about £4-10-0, so the holiday works out at getting on for £2 a day. There is no doubt that France is more expensive than when we went to Pralognan. Tea and cakes we found may cost 6/-, about double what it would in England. Nevertheless it has been worth it. I have loved the sea and it so nice not having separate bedrooms as we did in Switzerland last time. It is, I tell Mary, the best holiday in my opinion we have had so far together.

Thursday, Aug 25th
   Taxi to Dieppe - 1,000 fcs. Have a coffee and rolls and then embark before the Paris trains gets in, but even then we have to queue! We get a good seat in the first class and have our rolls and cheese and fruit. I go on the bows below the bridge and find that both the captain and the quartermaster on duty are "philosophers" who are having a good look at the girls' pants when the wind blows their skirts up.
   I call Mary up "to see England" - the usual fine view of the Seven Sisters. With our usual luck I miss Nora, who arrives too late. Train to Lewes, hump my baggage to the bus station, wait an hour, then tramp down the track.

Tuesday, Sept 6th
   On our way home, Hilary and I call in and see Guildford Cathedral. It is now completed as far as the crossing. When Mary and I climbed up to it one weekend during the war it was a shell only. We buy a brick for 2/6 and write our names on it and so become "cathedral builders". It will be a lovely and dignified building on a fine site.
   Last Sunday we had two coloured nurses from Peppard to supper, Miss Smith and Miss Harris. Miss Harris is petite and soft spoken from Trinidad; Miss Smith, large, forty and hideously ugly with yellow eyeballs, is from British Guiana. They both wear very high-heeled shoes and have hair does.

Thursday, Sept 8th
   Hilary's 19th birthday. We extract honey and saw logs in the morning and go up to London by 4.45 in the afternoon. Bus to Piccadilly and to have dinner at N.B.L. with bottle of Beaune to celebrate, costs 15/-; Then to see The Reluctant Debutante, Hilary' choice!. Theatre is packed for this social comedy - nothing to it but slickly acted. We get out about 10.30 and look like missing the 11 o'clock, but find a taxi and he drives like mad for Paddington and we find we have plenty of time. At Maidenhead you get out and wait for a curious Victorian relic with the engine at the back, gas lighting and fancy ironwork, which runs through to Henley.

Sunday, Sept 11th
   Finished extracting honey, about 195 lb, almost 40 lbs a hive which is not bad. Len tells me of a great plague of caterpillars in Cornwall which have eaten all the winter greens. There are so many of them, he says, that at night you can hear them chewing.

Monday Sept 12th
   First day of term. Clem very talkative. He is becoming a bore. A large sixth form and much conferring all day about fifth and sixth, ending up with a long staff meeting.

Saturday, Sept 17th
   The beginning of term seems to get worse. This time we have been besieged with G.C.E. difficulties. I said to the Wilk that it anyone asks me another question I shall burst into tears.

Sunday, Sept 18th
   Last night took part in a discussion at the Chantry House on secondary education. A Mr Loukes, from Oxford, came over, a terribly gloomy man, who never smiled even when he made a joke, but clever. Had been a master at Leighton Park. He kicked off for about 20 minutes and then a panel of local H.M.s were to discuss. The Bank Manager Chairman would insist on our rising to speak, which made if very difficult to be informal. However, Nora thought I made the grade!!
   N and I took our lunch to Aldworth. She told me she was thinking of opening a hostel for patients discharged from mental hospitals, but must get on as next birthday 58. It would have to be in London.  

Wednesday, Sept 21st
   Had a letter from Aunt's housekeeper. Looks as if the old lady is packing up, but persuaded Nora to wait till tomorrow before visiting Watford. M and I had tea at Goring and then walked up the lane. Mary said her parents were talking of coming to live in Reading, so presumably she could live with them and look after them! Golly! Buy a bottle of Bordeaux to fortify us!  

Thursday, Sept 22nd
   Nora at Watford all day. Just when we are going straight and clear of all visitors, Lady Helen Asquith rings up and wants to come over tomorrow morning. I am lecturing to a group of W.I. on the National Trust in Reading in the afternoon. What a damned nuisance.

Friday, Sept 23rd
   Lady H announced we are to have an inspection in February or March, bad months anyway. Also a parent has complained to the Ministry about rejection of his child: here we appear to be batting on a good wicket as she was bottom in English.
 
Monday, Sept 26th
   Photographed with a "whizz whizz". Just sat down when found my zipper undone! Beat a hasty retreat wrapped in gown and did them up; a narrow squeak, very awkward, very awkward!

Wednesday, Sept 28th
   Hilary's last day as a civilian. He spent it in jeans, sweater and sandals! We had a bottle of Graves. He drank three glasses but showed no effect! "What you want," Klaus says, " is two pay books." "Klaus must be a crook," say I. "Oh, no!" he replies, "he is an  honest man. I am much more of a crook than he is!"

Thursday, Sept 29th
   Found he had changed razors with me. "Mine's easier to polish". "You won't have to polish your razor". "Yes, Klaus says he had to polish his toothbrush." Nora takes him to Reading and he goes off with some young men on the 10.25 to Oxford and the Cowley Barracks.

1955: April - June

April. Churchill resigns. Hotels from Hell. 6d off income tax. Election announced.  The Headmaster fells like Charles II. Roller painter revolution. School Charter framed.

Friday, April 1st
   A fine day to end term! It all went off all right with harmless jokes until just after we stopped when some louts from the fifth and fourth forms broke into the prefects' room and smashed the door off its hinges. Staff on duty were not there, utterly useless, and by the time I arrived the culprits had departed. I was boiling with rage.
   
Sunday, April 3rd
   Caught the Oxford train. Hilary had gone up with Lise to assist in getting Jimmie and Johnnie to Paddington. They were then going to a concert at the Albert Hall. At Oxford got in a diesel car to Worcester. I was in Droitwich in time to have tea before going to Ayrshire House.

Monday, April 4th
   I asked the hotel if they had a room for Mary on Thursday, but when I found they only had one vacant by the front door, and I on the second floor, decided to book a room for Thursday night at The Crown in Worcester.

Tuesday, April 5th
   Had my first bath. Mr Harris (Bert) was away, so had Mr B, my man in 1942, who is much pleasanter. Went over to Bromsgrove, a lousy place, no centre, one long traffic-jammed street. Eventually found St John's Church, a large grim sandstone building with a spire, but a beastly colour. It contained some good alabaster effigies, rather knocked about, of 1450, knight and wife, he with an "orle", an embroidered circlet, round his helmet [OED: Orle - chaplet or wreath round helmet of a knight, bearing the crest]; of 1490 single lady; of 1550 knight with two wives. Had tea at the less dirty of the cafés and returned quickly to Droitwich.
   Mary's friend Timber, a B.E.A. pilot, was given a new uniform because he was flying Churchill to Sicily after Parliament rose. This indicated his resignation, I thought. Last night he gave a party at No 10 to the Queen and Duke, his secretaries, his military commanders, Alexander and Montgomery, his war time colleagues and friends. This afternoon his resignation was announced and he drove to Buckingham Palace for his last audience with the Queen. He wore his frock coat, top hat, carried a cigar and gave the V sign to the crowds as he used to do in the darkest days of the war.
   The war! Always will he be the Prime Minister of 1940, the man who spoke for England, who faced and defied Hitler when we seemed to have so little left with which to fight him, the man of destiny touring the invasion defences, walking through the bombed areas, Bristol, Coventry, Portsmouth; fighting the Battle of the Atlantic; inspiring, encouraging, planning, never losing heart in spite of every disappointment, the pilot who weathered the storm, the architect of victory.
   One thinks of his humour, his generosity, his magnanimity; the rough, husky, rather thick voice coming from the loud speaker, pausing to bring out some point rather slowly and then building up to a climax - "this was their finest hour", "owed by so many to so few", "we shall never surrender", "blood, tears, toil and sweat".
   15 years on; 15 years since I began to keep a diary in the hope of one day seeing peace and victory; then he was 65 and at the height of his powers, now he is 80, rather slow and deaf, but the centre of all our affection and gratitude - a faithful servant of the English people and of mankind.

Thursday, April 7th
   Bath at 10. To Worcester after tea. At the Crown had a double room over the courtyard next to the one we slept in in 1942. Pretty sordid look out and no net curtain. The only satisfactory furniture in the room was the double bed, which was wide, long and comfortable. Walked to station to meet Mary from train at 9.30. It was an hour late! Fortunately I had ordered a taxi. By 11 we were in bed. By midnight we were nice and sleepy and just going off when the "noises" started!

Good Friday, April 8th
   A loud electric bell rings; heavy footsteps in the yard, bolts and bars withdrawn, conversation with late arrivals; slamming of door, more bolting and locking; heavy footsteps on stairs and in corridor. Between 12 and 4 this happens five times, variegated by the starting up of a car, the horn of which is twice blown. By now we are both very wide awake. As we are gradually sinking back into a coma, lavatory flushes next door. Each individual in late parties follows a chain pulling regime. Somewhere about two o'clock we snatch a little sleep, only to be woken again  by howling of hotel cat, who appears to be confined to hotel courtyard and to desire to mate. He seems to come on heat at intervals of about 20 minutes. At about four o'clock something arouses the night porter. He sneezes, belches, farts, coughs, hawks and finally retches. May he be seized with a double hernia! A little before dawn, as a variation on the feline and subhuman  outcry, we have an avian contribution from Poe's Raven or the Jackdaw of Rheims, which settles on some part of the roof and caws loudly and repeatedly.
   Long before this time I have remarked aloud, "How I hate hotels," and have determined that come what may I will not pass another night at The Crown. Sleeping with Mary is lovely, but what one had to go through to achieve it.

Saturday, April 9th
   Bert at the Baths says thing are very quiet - they obviously are - and the private patients don't come as they used to. "This place has had it", he adds gloomily. It certainly seems to be supported mainly on National Health patients in the last stages of crippledom, poor things.

Easter Monday
   Nora arrived just as I was starting off to meet her from the bus. We strolled round the town after tea, and after dinner were asked into the Dawsons (Dr Dawson and Mrs Dawson and Dr Dawson's father, "the old" Dr Dawson). There were two other guests, a Midlands businessman with a Belgian wife, beautifully turned out but for 20 years a victim of arthritis, yet still full of vitality and courage. Nora got on well with Mrs D. The Midland man did not like school masters and much disapproved of their holidays.

Wednesday, April 13
   In the afternoon Nora embarled on a discussion of "the future". She suggested we had a house with Mary in one part and and N in a flat - a ménage à trois! I can se Mary welcoming that. At any rate I rather gathered that my role was to be financially responsible for Nora, Hilary, Mary and myself on my pension. She did say she wanted me to have a happy old age, which was nice of her, but she obviously has doubts about my happiness with Mary. "You have done all the right things," the psychologiust told her, "but you haven't found anyone for yourself."
   "So many people get mouldy in old age. We mustn't go mouldy!" Mouldy already, I reply. Certainly not full of fresh ideas.
           .....and this place is sacred, to all seeming -
       thick set with laurel, olive, vine; and in its heart
       a feathered choir of nightingales makes music.
       So sit thee here on this unhewn stone.....
                                               Oedipus at Colonus  

Thursday, April 14th
   Had lunch with Molly at the Hop Pole in Tewkesbury. We had shoulder of lamb, two vegetables, a fruit salad with a little ceram, worth at most 4/- or 5/- at the N.B.L., they charged 10/- each. Never again.

Friday, April 15th
   Went out to see Great Witley Hall and Church. A fine Palladian house but gutted by fire.The church was a most surprizing place, a great baroque venetian building of 1725, all cream and gold with a painted ceiling and window of the same date. The April sun was shining in a clear sky and the strong light showed it at its best. I had seen nothing like it before in England or London.

Saturday, April 16th
   A general election  was announced for the end of May on the news last night.
   A letter from Nora in which she said, "I did love having a day or two's peace and quiet with you and hope I did not leave you all churned up with problems - I have quite recovered from the pain and depression and can appreciate all the other more creative elements that lie between us - whether of birth or death - which equally bind us together and enrich us."
   I replied that at the moment my problems appeared to be mainly financial, how to keep myself,  educate Hilary, support Nora and maintain Mary - problems I appear to share with his late Majesty Charles II!

Sunday, April 127th
   Drove to Harrington Hall, recommended by Mary Clayden. A most interesting house. The Elizabethan builder was a recusant and had provided the house with eleven hideouts from ground floor to roof. In one room they had a photostat of the records at Rome in which both the real names and the assumed names of the missionary guests were given. Too modern!


Monday, April 18th
   A letter from Mary today. "If you and I did live together, I would do my best to lake it a success if she wanted to visit us, or if she required nursing and had no one to do it,  but it would not work living in one house."


Tuesday, April 19th
   Budget Day. In  preparation  for the election Mr Butler takes 6d off Income Tax and increases personal and children's allowances.


Thursday, April 21st
   Left by 1.34 train. Nora met me at Reading. Nora and Hilary had done much redecoration to dining room, hall and staircase They had got the dining room too greeny and primrose so it looked as though it was illuminated by strip lighting, but their intentions were good.   


Friday, April 22nd
   Yesterday the papers started up again after a month. Most people seem to have found they could get on very well without them and may now buy even fewer than they did before. 700 electricians put 22,000 people out of work and in the end agreed to go back if "negotiations" could be begun, which they could have been without any strike at all!


Saturday, April 23rd
   Digestion not good, perhaps the result of trying to adjust to life at School House after a life of choreless ease at Ayrshire Hotel.
   In the morning visited Phyllis' flat in the Market Place for the first time. An extraordinary building. When the Three Tuns is open you can go through a narrow passage way to get to it from the front; out of licensing hours you can only get to it from the back up a long and narrow passage from Greys Road, for the front has been sold off to a grocery store. It has a large sitting room just over a bus stop. This morning it was full of chatter from Saturday shoppers. A large kitchen at the back and a range of attic bedrooms approached by a break neck staircase and connected by a kind of ship's bridge.

Sunday, April 24th
   With amazing speed by means of a roller Hilary painted the caravan. I followed with a rag over the panel divisions wiping up. Rollers have certainly revolutionized painting.

Monday, April 25th
   The gents who smashed the door owned up, I was glad to say, and we decided to put the girls who cut on the day before the Paris visit on to scavenging and no tennis. Clem was very enthusiastic about visit. They seem to have seen a lot and went to the Comedie Francaise and the Opera as well as all the usual things.
   The Rev: Pachyderm, who departs for Sussex in June, appeared at Modern School today and said that as it was Anzac Day and his wife was from New Zealand, he proposed to hoist the New Zealand flag. "Funny ideas he has", remarked the H.M., who is an amiable soul.

Tuesday, April 26th
   I took Nora up to the Festival Hall to hear a Brahms concert, Violin Concerto and Symphony No 1. The usual rush to get off accompanied our departure for Reading to catch the 5.28 to Waterloo, for which we paid 7/6 by Southern when we could have got 4/- return to Paddington, but it paid at the other end as we strolled straight onto the South Bank. The conductor was Pierre Monteaux, an aged Frenchman of 79 whom I must have heard conducting the Diaghaleff Ballet as a young man in the my twenties.

Wednesday, April 27th
   Eric Attrill said she was giving up at the end of term. I had Mary C in to tea and to my great surprize she said she wanted the charge of the English, which I had never even considered. The Attrills together earn £1500, so I said when she complained of the work, "Why don't you get a house keeper?"

Friday, April 29th
   Drove over to Oxford and fetched School Charter which had been framed at Rymans in the High, £15.15.0. Also visited the archives at County Hall to enquire about the minutes of 1927 - 28 where to my surprize I was treated with great deference. Got the charter home and lugged it across to the school where Tom is to hang it in the top corridor.
   
May. "Gone to pieces". Tenth anniversary of peace. Coldest May day. Sports Day (with snow?). Enid Griggs proposes a PTA. Tory majority of 60. Rail strike.

Sunday, May 1st
   A blowy rainy day. Had a rather disturbed night and woke up with discomfort in tummy. Cleared out crates of shallow frames in back room, but of course as usual I have got far more apparatus than I need for six colonies of bees - and sad to say don't feel a bit like bees any longer - suppose I have gone to pieces this last year and men pass through a kind of "change of life" in mid fifties. Wonder, if my digestion cleared up, I should get a second wind and be ready for things again.


Monday, May 2nd
   Cold, rainy and high wind. Tom had let out the boilers promptly on April 30th without even a reference to me, come frost or snow, so we shivered all day, me in  my seaman's jersey and dufflecoat.
   This afternoon Brind was away at a wedding and I was billed to take a broadcast lesson with the fifth form boys. I forgot till near the end, but when I went over to my delight they were singing sea shanties happily while one of their number played the piano. Felt there can't be an awful lot wrong where that happens.
   Conservative and Labour election programmes are out. Vague, but Labour the vaguer! Except on renationalisation of transport by road (Silly) and the comprehensive school, no examination but "secondary education for all" - the old political swindle.


Friday, May 6th
   Hilary has announced he wishes to go camping in France with Lise and Micheline. Nora announced previously that we must get a furnished house so that we could all have a holiday together before Hilary went into the the army. It all seems a muddle. We have let our house but have not found one to replace it.


Saturday, May 7th
   Nora asked me to go to a Graham Greene film, The Heart of the Matter. I declined. I have no wish to see any affair remotely resembling mine and Mary's in her company. 


Sunday, May 8th
   Ten years ago today the surrender of Germany was announced (officially). We have got rid of the shortages and most of the deprivations, but we are not at ease - the Russians are onthe Elbe, the threat of the annihilation of civilization is at the back of our minds all the time. We have hoped for something better so often and always been disappointed.


Monday, May 9th
   Gave a short talk on what we did at school in May 1945. They seemed interested. We flew the flag and I had as far as I could remember the same hymns and collect as ten years ago.


Thursday, May 12th
   Voted in municipal election for three councillors i) the biggest rogue, ii) the youngest candidate, iii) old Buddington, who stood me half a glass of Graves at the Old Boys' dinner,  but can neither read nor write. But only the youngest candidate got in.


Sunday, May 15th
   Heard that at last the Austrian Treaty has been signed. Tito now to be visited by Russian high up. Perhaps they may after all have come to the conclusion that the cold war is not rewarding and our policy of rearmament may be about to pay a dividend..... Is this the great defreeze?


Monday, May 16th
   Closed with Mrs Bland and her cottage on Ashdown Forest near Uckfield. This is not what Nora wanted  but will suit me if we (Mary and I) sail from Newhaven very well.


Tuesday, May 17th
   An extraordinary May day, the coldest since records have been kept. Drove back from Mary's in a blizzard. Picked the hotel we intend to stay at in Normandy.


Wednesday, May 18th
   Very cold and strong wind, showers of sleet at intervals. Fortunately we got through most of Sports Day without a downpour, but it got a bit behind because the jumps were slow and the prize giving not till after five. The cold kept the governors away, which was a blessing!  

Judging by a photograph taken at 3 p.m. on May 18th 

of the school sports, they appear to have taken place

with a very light covering of snow on the ground.

Saturday, May 21st
   Things never turn out as your expect. We had planned an expedition to Stratford for a long time but we had not reckoned with the Arctic weather. I had not thought that this very week I should begin a cracking cold caught on sports day..... The play, All's Well... very poor, can't think why they put it on. But nice to be in the theatre again with Mary after 11 years and we enjoyed just that. Again unexpectedly we had a stinking women sitting in front of us - my cold an advantage.


Sunday, May 22nd
   Cold no worse. We drove out to see Charlecote House. It has a lovely avenue and a beautiful Elizabethan gatehouse. Saw a red squirrel in the park - most unusual.


Wednesday, May 25th
   In the afternoon the governors met. The canon turned up for positively the last time. He made as much mischief as possible and raised the question of why we did not do history in G.C.E. Although he pointed out this was his last meeting, no one made any comment. That damned silly woman, Enid Griggs, who represents the parents, asked why we did not have a parent-teachers association! [Editor: The headmaster believed that the school was best run by himself and his teachers and would have no truck with PTAs] 


Thursday, May 26th
   To Exeter by 5 o'clock train, got to Maud's about ten but was put in a decidedly second class bed. [Election day,  but Diarist does not mention it]


Friday, May 27th
   By supper time it was clear the Conservatives in by a majority of 60 - this adequate but not too big, so very satisfactory.


Saturday, May 28th
   In the afternoon we had a taxi to Shillingford and took over three big bunches of lily of the valley for the graves of Grandmother, Uncle Sam, Father and Mother. Barked my head on the granite cross, a poor reward for filial piety! A lovely setting, this green valley in the hills, but a dull little church inside. As we drove away it looked an inky purple, far bluer than I remembered it. 


Sunday, May 29th
   The train drivers and firemen go on strike tomorrow.


Monday, May 30th
   Wonder whether to bus or hitch hike tomorrow. Ring up Nora and find she is all set to drive down tomorrow if I will drive back, so agree.


Tuesday, May 31st
   Nora arrives at 12 having started at 6.0. We start home about 1.0. Arrive home after 156 miles at 7.45. We met very few coaches, little road transport, no hitch hikers (to my great surprize).

June. Police battle Teddy boys. Hilary in hospital. Perils of beekeeping. Effective work at interviewing. "Even Cllr Hamilton could understand it." Complications with Mary Clayden.


Saturday, June 4th
    Visit Aunt and take her up to the old people's home to see Rusby. This not a success. Rusby very ill and obviously failing. How pathetic is old age in an  institution in spite of kindness in the "home". "Medicine", says Jaquetta, "has given us an insoluble problem in making it possible.... to
prolong the lives of the very aged and sick to their own misery and the heavy burden of the young."
   Hilary says the 18 Henley policemen were engaged the other night in trying to turn a gang of Teddy boys out of a dance at the Town Hall. According to him the Windsor police very effete and although warned the hooligans intended to damage river craft did nothing about it. Teddy boys much in the news and when some one cut the bell rope last week, Rees said we had them in the school. Nora thinks them pre [military] service age 16 -18, I had supposed them post-service.

Sunday, June 5th
   A lovely day. Worked in my room at the school in the morning on the English appointment, partly to avoid an appearance while the Mayor's service was on. The old Canon had tried to get me to read one lesson while the H.M. of the modern school read the other, but I was not having any truck after the way he has behaved. Thank God he's only got another month. Capt. Pullein- Thompson, another blight, has been chucked off the C.C. by the electors and his self-importance much damaged.
    Tonight the P.M. broadcast from Chequers but he said nothing about the train strike. Firms will begin to lay off men this week. About one sixth of the normal trains are running.
   Yesterday Hilary's gland in neck swelled up and tomorrow N is sending him to see Irvine. This evening he remarked that it might mean the end of national service!


Monday, June 6th
   Hilary went to surgery and was told it was recurrence of T.B. in glands and he should go to Battle Hospital to see a specialist. Very unfortunate, the effect of one drink of tubercular milk unboiled when he went to a tea party 15 years ago.
   Decided to interview candidates ["doubtful" cases for grammar school entry] at 6 minute intervals. This considered indecently rapid by Nora and, query, the Office, but fat old Miss Markham [child psychologist] is not coming this year and we are left to our own devices.


Tuesday, June 7th
   Specialist says not TB, tonsils, and refers Hilary to E.N.T. specialist.


Thursday, June 9th
   Hilary stayed in all day, his throat more swollen, waiting as he put it "for the bloody doctors".


Friday, June 10th
   Hilary very poorly but goes in morning to Henley Hospital. Specialist sends him over to Reading Hospital in p.m. to get a swab.


Saturday, June 11th
   Hilary,  who has now had this throat for a week and has simply been passed from hand to hand but given no treatment whatever, is really ill. Nora rings up doctor he saw last Monday at surgery, who sends round Irvine. At last he has what he should have had three or four days ago, a penicillin injection. I go down and buy a further course of penicillin injections.
   Case of doctor at Wolverhampton who put off an appointment with a striker's wife when her husband asked for one, as he was on strike and could come too. Doctors don't strike, he said, so he would see her when her husband was back at work!


Sunday, June 12th
   A miserable day for Hilary. Throat very sore and swollen, temperature at 6 p.m. 103.5.
   Last night Ioan Vaughn-Jones brought a London taxi he had bought for £63 up to school. It was capacious vehicle and he said it would be possible to sleep in the back. The gears were low but it could do 35 m.p.h. in top.
   
Monday, June 13th
   Nora knocked on the library door about 3.0 to say Dr Irvine moving Hilary to the isolation hospital in Reading and I was told he was in an ambulance in the playground if I would like to see him before he went off. The first idea was T.B., then Vincent's angina, now they think it may be glandular fever.
   Cleared off 44 borderline cases and set up a new record for interviewing, allowed six minutes for each instead of the 10 allowed by the office. Saved thereby the visiting examiner from Banbury two journeys or a night in Henley. "Effective work"  in the immortal phrase of Nigel Balchin.


Tuesday, June 14th
   Ioan and Marjorie to tea. His last visit before he sets off for France whence he expects to return in the autumn. Little news of Hilary today, no one prepared to say what he is suffering from if, indeed, they know. They seem to think he may be in for a couple of weeks.
   At 6.30 the programme was interrupted to say the railway strike was over and in 24 hours everything would be normal.


Monday, June 20th
   Very pleased as got the staff VIth form allowances settled in half an hour. Capt Pullein-Thompson was in the chair and wanted to be long-winded and informative, but I had the whole thing tabulated so that even Councillor Hamilton could understand it! I felt this a triumph as Tom Luker said he expected it to take hours.


Wednesday, June 22nd
   Visited Hilary 2.30 - 3.30 and found him sitting up in bed and much better though pale as a muffin.
   Heard on Monday that Cousin Gussie in Cape Town had put a pair of steps on a petrol drum, climbed up the steps and taken a header when the drum capsized and killed himself. This from Aunt. I last saw him after the first war in 1921 when i showed him round Oxford. I think that only leaves three, Cyril, Bobby and one in an asylum. 


Thursday, June 23rd
   At  2 o'clock up comes the Wilk. Cambridge had only sent one Biology frog, and the sex of that uncertain! I couldn't go out with a jam jar and catch some more, so said she must cope. In the end had to go over to zoological lab at Reading and get two, male and female, from there.
   Wilk rather disturbed as Mr Ojikutu, from Nigeria, via Oxford Technical College. After meticulous preparations on her part, when presented with a razor to cut sections hadn't a clue and slashed as if more used to killing goats! A funny day all round!


Saturday, June 25th
   Took Mary Clayden to see Compton Wynates. It was a lovely day, sunny but with a cool breeze. We stopped and ate our lunch at Broom Hill not far from the house. In the afternoon we walked round the garden and then came back to the wood and made a fire for tea. It was about 110 miles altogether.
   Heard yesterday my friend Morley Roberts at Houghton died from a heart attack brought on by extracting honey - an awful warning of the perils of beekeeping! 


Sunday, June 26th
Old Boys Match which I watched for a bit with Hilary, Lise and Micheline.


Monday, June 27th
    A difficult day. Mary C and I met at Fingest Church and had a talk about ourselves and our problems in a beech wood, but reached no conclusion.


Tuesday, June 28th
   M.C. and I met again on the Ewelme road and went up the overgrown track to the Downs and tried to sort things out. We arrived at an understanding and felt better after the unhappiness of yesterday.


Wednesday, June 29th
   Mary and I met at Henley bus stop and to Fawley Meadows - our fifth regatta. We did not know a great dump of gravel had been tipped and the level raised a couple of feet. The bushes had been cleared too! Visibility had been improved, but neither comfort nor privacy!


Thursday, June 30th
   We are housing the M/G sports correspondent who gave us a ticket to the Stewards ' Enclosure, into which Hilary, having put on a tie, penetrated this morning. I have never been there! He said he thought he saw Irvine, but he was so disguised he looked ghastly - white cap, blue blazer and Leander tie.