Dearest Jane... (11 page)

This didn’t prevent my parents from spending Christmas with us in Hexham and, two years later, at our next home, a rented farmhouse near Corbridge – Brocksbushes
.

Budds Farm

27 December [late 1970s]

It really was kind of you to shelter the Budds Farm Oldsters under your wings and to take such unremitting trouble to give them a very happy Christmas. I don’t often get champagne for elevenses! (Unfortunately.) I like Brocksbushes very much indeed. I very much enjoyed occupying the ‘Senex suite’ which greatly reduces the danger of grave injury when falling out of bed.

The ‘Senex suite’ involved a double mattress on the floor of a bright yellow bedroom
.

The Olde House with No Loo Paper

29 December [early 1980s]

Thank you both so much for giving us such a happy Christmas which I assure you was greatly appreciated by Cynthia and myself. Your charming house was beautifully warm and the browsing and sluicing were of a high order. The ‘groaning board’ reminded me of two lines by F.J.B. Snelgrove (The Byron of Upper Norwood):

‘Where grapes and grouse commingle gaily,

And capers mix with capercailye.’

I think your particular brand of hospitality, based on a judicious mixture of solicitude and laissez faire has everything to recommend it. Thanks for all your presents. I am wearing the red socks and drank tepid Nescafé out of the pig-mug. Give my love to the scholar and the athlete.

With Love and gratitude

xx D

The scholar and the athlete were my sons. Yes – we had moved again. Our landlords needed Brocksbushes for themselves, so we bought enchanting Matfen High House when property prices were peaking
.

The Old Damp Ruin

Burghclere-under-Water

3 January [early 1980s]

Paul still stands impeccably high in Cynthia’s estimation (a bit annoying for me) and she leads acquaintances to believe that he is a cross between Sir Winston Churchill and St Francis of Assisi.

My mother Cynthia is now irretrievably known by her nickname – Nidnod
.

Loud Screechings

Burghclere

2 March 1981

It was a great pleasure having you to stay and your brief visit made me regret all the more that you live away up north with the Eskimos. It was most agreeable, too, having the highly esteemed Paul Torday to stay, and both of you were not only extremely helpful but very tactful with Nidnod who has the lowest combustion point of any adult resident in this country: or in Europe for that matter. Paul was probably the success of your mother’s birthday party. More seriously, watch your husband carefully and try to ensure that he does not work too hard. It is quite an easy thing to do, to work too hard, and then the penalty is very severe. I once had a commanding officer who was dead keen on what he termed ‘rest discipline’. In his own case, his particular form of self-denial included two large glasses of gin and French before lunch, two large glasses of vintage port after a snack of steak and kidney pudding, marmalade roll and stilton cheese, this frugal diet being followed by deep sleep on a sofa till 4.30 p.m. when the waiter aroused him with Indian tea and muffins, sometimes a generous slice of plum cake as well.

Mind you look after your health and as far as possible lay off that dried up camel crap which is commonly referred to as tobacco. You have a lot of nervous energy. Do not be too prodigal in its expenditure.

Love to you all,

xx D

The Old Ice Box

Monday, January 1979

Of course being 30 years of age is a rather depressing landmark though nothing like as bad as 40 when many members of your sex enter the dreaded realm of Old Bagdom, never to return. I was 30 the year the Second World War started! I have had a fairish ration of life since then, some of it rather awful, some not unamusing. I long ago realised that happiness was an unattainable target and settled for contentment: which sounds stodgy and probably is. I cannot compare the lives of your generation with those of my contemporaries since circumstances are so entirely different. In my day members of the middle and upper classes (both sexes) did not marry as young as they do now. Men in particular had years of comparative freedom from domestic responsibility and if they possessed any enterprise at all they had a very good time one way or another. A young man married at 21 was reckoned odd or boring: of course, girls who marry young nowadays are sentenced more or less for life to an existence of nanny, cook, housekeeper, dog-doser, part-time chauffeur, hospital nurse and entertainer of her husband’s friends. My mother never changed a nappy, sat up with a sick child and felt quite exhausted after ordering meals (one sort for the family, another for the servants). Probably most of your existence will be lived after 30 and at times you will feel frustrated and depressed, but as long as you can keep on speaking terms with your family and have a few loved and loving friends, life will produce many compensations. Of course as you grow older you do not make friends in quite the same way as you did when you were younger: you are not so close and you do not exchange confidences in the old uninhibited way. Friends too are apt to move on to a different level when they marry or you yourself do.

I am now nudging 70, and like it or not, the end of the road cannot be far off and one has to accept it. One merely hopes that the last furlong will not be unutterably sordid. Of course, I have many regrets, but none over my major sins (except that I did not commit more of them). I do, however, deeply regret glaring cases of unkindness, ingratitude, insensitivity, ill-manners, moral cowardice and snobbishness; particularly ingratitude to those who have loved me, or at least learnt to tolerate me. I expect I shall be asked some awkward questions on Judgement Day but I must say that I have got one or two little points I intend to put to God. Did you hear of the trendy schoolmaster who died suddenly and went to Heaven? On arrival the first person he saw was the Devil. He expressed mild surprise to St Peter who replied, ‘Didn’t they tell you we had gone Comprehensive?’ I expect that with your lively mind you must at times feel stifled by Northumberland. Even in Berkshire life is pretty turgid. If we go out to dinner the conversation seldom rises above the price of restaurants in London, the shortage of domestic help and the eccentricities of Mr Wedgwood Benn. The fact is that unless you go to London a fair amount you become a turnip. I am a complete bumpkin: as James Forsyte used to complain, ‘no one ever tells me anything’. Marriage often results in having to live in areas one would hardly have chosen oneself. Look at all those gallant women who, in the days when we had an Empire and were not ashamed of it, ‘followed the drum’ into some really ghastly holes. Osbert Sitwell as a young man was stationed at Aldershot. A ballet fan, he had to cut short parties after the ballet, explaining he had to get back to Aldershot. ‘Qu’est que c’est cet Aldershot?’ asked Diaghilev, ‘C’est une femme?’

Best love,

xx D

My dear father was pretty dismissive about ‘The North’ – but then that was his take on the provinces in general. Feudal though it felt then, conservative though it may still be, there are plenty of livewires in the beautiful county of Northumberland!

The Drippings

Dampwalls

15 January [early 1980s]

I expect you are too busy to work seriously on a book. The trouble with writing a book is that it absorbs too much time and energy: it becomes the centre of your existence and is likely to make you a very great bore indeed to one and all, particularly to one’s ever-loving family. I think you are fully capable of writing a readable book, but it will be terribly hard work while you are looking after children. However, persevere, and like the late Miss Barbara Pym you will very likely win through in the end. Only women can really write about women and very often their books appeal particularly to other women (and I’m not just thinking of that awful old ratbag Barbara Cartland).

My father unfailingly encouraged me in any writing project. Ideas sometimes crystallized into published features, articles or small books for niche markets. On my study shelf sits a card from my father in 1981:

Congratulations! I’m glad we appeared in the
Sunday Times
together, a fairly rare journalistic combination I imagine.

xx D

Budds Farm

19 February [early 1980s]

Thank you for your letter which I enjoyed although it appeared to have been written with the sharp end of a shooting stick dipped into soot. The photographs were interesting rather than flattering: don’t let any sociologist get hold of them or else we’ll all be on TV as a typical problem family. It is cold enough here to make an Eskimo turn up the central heating; unfortunately I am unable to do so due to the prohibitive cost of oil. Moreover, damp logs do little but disprove the theory that there can be no smoke without fire. I have been bullied into buying something called a ‘duvet’ and I must admit I like it: so does my dog whose breath at present would drive a tractor.

Budds Farm

[Mid 1980s]

Probably in many ways you would be happier in NW1 but . . . Have you thought of writing a serious book? Some episode in history, something requiring not just slapdash pen-and-ink diarrhoea, but patient research. How about the Bywaters-Thompson murder case. Mrs Thompson was a remarkable woman who was really hanged for adultery rather than murder, her case being ‘worse’ as she was so much older than Bywaters. How much did the attitude of the judge help to condemn her? Were the appalling rumours about her execution really true? I don’t want to give you advice which is always unwelcome unless it accords with the notions of the recipient. I do though suggest that you do not dabble in too many things but decide on a target and stick to it. You have imagination and ability but somehow you have not directed them to a truly suitable target. I personally think you have a good book lurking in you somewhere provided you can add patience to your other talents and virtues.

P.S. I was not a total failure in the seedy world of journalism but did not write a word till I was 37. My first book came out at 46.

In my bottom drawer I have that book – two years research, not into a murder case but the history of boys’ prep schools. I needed to understand why British parents, including ourselves, sent our sons to boarding school at such a tender age. My father loved the book, an endorsement insufficiently echoed by publishers
.

Budds Farm

[Mid 1980s]

I am delighted to hear you are making your mark with the RHS. Perhaps you will eventually go down to history as the Gertrude Jekyll of Appletree Bank. Have you got the right type of boots? A sunken garden sounds a good idea as long as it does not sink with all hands during a long spell of hostile weather. Above all, don’t try and do too much. No one of your age thinks they are mortal but there is a limit to strength and energy. If you go flat out at both writing and horticulture you may spring a leak. Try and develop the habit of intermittent indolence. Any BF can overwork: I did it myself once and paid dearly for it. When a book is going well, it is all too easy to put in too many hours a day. If you start losing your zest for steak and kidney puddings, are assailed by demon insomnia and wake up with throbbing headaches, take a week off and revise your routine. It is healthier to work before breakfast than after 6 p.m.

Very hot today. Whenever I look at
The Times
to see what the temperature in Newcastle is, it is always 57!

Best love,

xx D

We were now in our sixth home, Lanehead, near Allendale. Downsizing, we bought a ruined shell plus four acres of land in a beautiful, remote setting. As overseer of building works, I was not of the calibre seen on TV’s
Grand Designs,
sporting a safety helmet whilst anchoring roof slates in howling gale. I preferred to wield my spade to make a garden, simultaneously writing a book
, An Idiot’s Introduction to Gardening,
which sold at the Royal Horticultural Society bookshop. Gardening – its pleasures and pains – were another bond between my father and I
.

The Miller’s House

7 June [1980s]

We are very fortunate in Kintbury in that among the inhabitants is Professor J. H. Forklifter who has done some impressive work on ancient inscriptions in little known Indian dialects found in a temple in one of the remoter parts of Bengal. I gave him your letter and he kindly got to work on it. He made sense of about 75 per cent of it but is puzzled by your reference to the cricket match on Christmas Day in Nova Scotia. Anyway, thank you very much for writing; your industry was greatly appreciated.

Woodlings Burghclere

Tuesday [early 1980s]

I don’t often complain about my offspring but I have a complaint to make against you. Namely, that I see you so seldom. If I live to be 75 (not a good bet the way things are going at present) the meetings left to us barely reach double figures. The solution is not easy: perhaps we could split the distance and have a piss up at the Majestic at Harrogate?

Best love,

xx D

Budds Farm

22 January 1980

I hope you’ll have a very happy birthday, remembering to temper your hilarity with a modicum of reserve. I expect you feel fairly ancient at 31, but the thirties are a pretty good epoch on one’s life. One is some way from being a dodderer but old enough to realise what a BF one often was in one’s twenties. You ought to have a good time with the children during the next nine years or so, after which the birds will start spreading their wings. Your brother was wonderful value up to the age of 13. Too many birthdays just at present. Mabel is 88 tomorrow and still very on the ball. John Surtees is 61 on Saturday and I am sending him a tasteful card. You are fortunate at having your 31st birthday at home in the bosom of your near and dears.

I had quite a run of birthdays away from the old homestead, as follows:

Alexandria

Jerusalem

La Guirche

Spannenberg (a small but repellent prison camp)

Warburg (a large and even more repellent ditto)