The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Monday, 13 February. Ulverston always seems as familiar as Barrow, which was really my home town. I’d gladly go and live in Greenodd or Davy Bridge, about three miles away, if we could find a cottage – it would have to be for sale. We were coming home and my husband said ‘You’re miles away again. What are you thinking?’ I said ‘The bungalow of Lakeland stone, with the room in the roof, the long living room with wide windows each end, central heating, the walls and paths of well laid stone, and so on and so on, that I’d plan and have built if I won the Irish Sweep.’ He said ‘What about your plan for Australia – going there?’ I fell into another train of thought. I’ve always such an aversion to meddle with the boys, or make them feel I would cling, or interfere, perhaps because I’ve always had someone wanting to change me, from the days I realised my dark brown hair and eyes and excessive vitality when small were contrasted always with the child of mother’s first marriage – to my total disadvantage. She had been blue eyed and lily fair, quiet and gentle always. I always felt too as I grew older I shared the place with my father in mother’s mind and heart – somehow we were interlopers. Her life really ended before the honeymoon days were over, before she realised they would end. In the 10½ years since Cliff left home, he has grown and developed. I’ve grown so much older and so desperately tired. He, I know, pictures me as I used to be – ready for anything, grave or gay. I’d be a great disappointment to him now. I don’t feel there would be a place in his gay vivid life for anyone who felt so depleted of all vitality. I shrugged off my thoughts impatiently. They impinged on the new philosophy in which I rigidly schooled myself – to take every day as it comes, and when things do get on top of me, count my many blessings again and again, like a rosary.

  Thursday, 16 February. My husband was in a queer mood. He said ‘When you ever had your fortune told, did anyone tell you I’d have to retire early?’ I said ‘No, I don’t think so’. He said ‘Well, try and think. You have such a marvellous memory for conversations that took place years ago.’ I said ‘Well, I cannot recall anything remotely like “retirement”.’ I added ‘Remember I was told I’d not end my days in the home I’d just moved into?’ – looks as if that country cottage about which we talk may be a fact! He went on ‘As soon as the weather is better we will go to Morecambe – you must go and have your hand read’. I shook my head firmly as I said ‘NO. I put away all and any little “gift” of my own for fortune telling when it began to worry and upset me, and as for having my hand read, I say what I said last summer – “I don’t want to look ahead – much better to take each day and each problem as it comes”.’ Then he wanted my ‘honest opinion’ of his health, his prospects of recovery, etc., as if I was a doctor and a specialist. I told him he was absurd if he thought I knew more than Dr Miller. Poor dear, he looked so sadly at me as he said ‘But you do. If I’d listened to half your advice and what I called “nagging”, I’d never have gone on and on till I collapsed. I’d never have grown in on myself as I have done.’ There seemed so little to say. I felt so limp and tired myself. I could only say quietly ‘We will feel brighter when the spring comes. I wish often we could pack up and go to Australia and end our days in sunshine.’

  Saturday, 18 February. It was sunny. We went out in the car, first to contact the secretary of the master builder who is going to try to get Gilbert, the apprentice, somewhere to finish off his apprenticeship. Then we got as far as Bowness, for we had set off early. The election apathy seems general. I thought of pre-war years as we went past little villages and groups of cottages and saw little or no signs of posters – except biggest ones on hoardings or walls, with notices of meetings in school rooms or village halls. I smiled to recall the real feuds elections used to cause, when every window showed a rosette of Party colours on the curtains, if not a photo of the favoured candidate, when Liberal yellow and Conservative blue ribbons were worn by every woman and small ribbon rosettes were flaunted on every coat lapel by the men. I fell into a long train of thought, a montage of Boer war cum elections cum First War recollections. I thought wryly ‘We all seem to have just so much vitality and enthusiasm. Once it’s spent it’s gone.’ But I realised I spoke for only my own generation. It didn’t explain the apathy of youth. We all march to the sound of different drummers and music alters from one generation to another, even heard on the wireless. Twenty years ago I knew a thinking old man who bemoaned ‘We are evoluting too fast and “soon ripen, soon rot” you know’. I wondered what he would have thought of the ever increasing tempo of life and discovery today.

  Sunday, 19 February. If I had been in reach of Cliff today, I’d have raised blisters on him with my tongue. [He was pursuing a career as a sculptor in Australia.] What a day I’ve had. Yesterday some papers came, including an Australian Digest. In it was quite a good interview but it was very journalese. Cliff had warned us about the ‘smoky Lancashire town’ mentioned as the place where he was brought up. I felt annoyed myself at the way Cliff was referred to as having ‘hard working parents’ who presumably had no patience with Cliff wanting to be a sculptor, and when it referred to my husband as a ‘working man’. Nor did it mention he had been in the Navy in the First World War – and that was why we happened to be in the New Forest near Southampton – or the fact he was a businessman doing his own works and that Cliff had gone into it against every scrap of advice. I felt thoroughly annoyed with the slipshod, quite inaccurate write-up – whereby my father had been a wood carver on sailing ships! I thought of the quiet shy uncle, my accountant father’s brother, whose murals and panels had decorated ships of the Aquitania’s age! My husband had evidently worked up a real upset to his nerves when he had gone to bed, and had one of his bad turns in the night and was shaky and ill till noon, and nothing I could say in excuse or explanation of ‘anything to fill up’ would calm him. He was quite bitter towards Cliff and his ‘lies’, as if Cliff would have been so misleading, and as I was daft and rash enough to say ‘unless he has been a bit tight’. Then the band did play. I’d not felt too good myself when I rose, and his mood so upset me I was really ill, which pulled him together as nothing else would have done, when I felt faint and had to lie down, after having brandy. I pulled myself together and began to make lunch, knowing that however he felt my husband could eat, and needed, a good meal …

  Little remarks [later that day] showed how hurt and resentful he still felt. I said ‘You are taking it too seriously. Cliff was careless and the journalist wanted to make it a poor-English-boy-with-no-chance-at-home doing so remarkably well in Australia’. I thought of the discords there had been between him and Cliff, the years their opposite warring natures had nearly killed me, as I was first torn one way, then the other. I’ll see before any newsprint from Australia is read aloud. I felt very little would have made me cry till I just couldn’t cry. Little worries piled up like a snowball and bowled me over. Not even the real anger and annoyance I felt for Cliff’s silly heedless way, and not seeing an interviewer had sensible facts on which to build, could spur me out of my weepy fit, by Gad, though if I could have had that lad alone for ten minutes I’d have felt better. It was one of the times that called for a top note, and I’d have flayed him with my tongue. My husband kept bursting out into remarks that showed how bitter he felt. He said after staring in the fire ‘Put the idea out of your head I’d ever go to Australia, even for a holiday. I’ve no notion to appear as “hard working, non-understanding of a lad who wanted to be an artist”, out of an industrial Lancashire town “where black smoke hid the blue skies” anyway. Where is such a town? Remember when Arthur was at Wigan and we used to go and see him. Remember the nice shops and the Standish Park.’ Then there was a pause, and Palm Court music filled the room – the aerial has been partly repaired and reception’s good at the moment.

  Then another outburst. ‘When I think of the way Cliff overruled and fought you when you were so ill after your last operation, when the doctors stressed you had to have no worry and your heart was so bad, and how he insisted on le
aving the Grammar School and coming into my business. When I think of how quickly he saw his mistake and was so wildly discontented, when I think of how patient you always were – “no encouragement from the working man, his father, who had no patience with boyish efforts to carve and model”’, and so on and so on, till I began to dread he would have another bad attack of nerves. He said ‘The trouble with you is that you always gave way to people, always tried to see their point of view. You should have taken a stick to that lad more.’ As I pointed out, any slappings and correcting always did come from me. A very little more and I felt I’d be telling him of all his omissions as a father, as the boys grew up.

  I shook with nerves, and butterflies fluttered so busily in my tummy I began to feel deathly sick, and I went upstairs to undress, thinking I’d get washed and come down in my dressing gown to make supper. Instead I was so sick I had to crawl into bed. I slept for nearly an hour and was wakened by my husband with a beaker of milk food, and he said ‘I’ve fed the cats and laid the breakfast table and there’s nothing for you to go downstairs for again’. He looked so scared as he sat on the side of the bed, and he didn’t say any more about that darned interview of Cliff’s. Earlier in the day I’d written a 6d airmail, read it and tore it up. Then I wrote another, rather coldly mentioning that ‘No doubt your Digest article makes good reading – and publicity – for Australia, but people in Barrow reading it, knowing our families so well, would no doubt wonder if all the article was a distortion, and your efforts and success doubted. I prefer something a little less journalese that I can proudly show round, and I understand Daddy’s feeling of resentment at being described as a “Lancashire working man”.’ And I finished my letter in my usual gossipy way, with none of the sharpness of the first letter, but knowing Cliff, I know he would read between the lines!

  Two days later Nella and Will were sunning themselves near the breakwater in Walney, and she made ‘a joking remark’ about winning ‘the Sweep’ and visiting Australia. This ‘brought tight lips and a quiet sneer as he said “We mustn’t forget our clogs”, which made me long intensely for the chance to tell Cliff just how deeply he had hurt and annoyed us by his cheap journalese interview.’

  The Australian article that Nella and Will had read was by Geoff Waye, ‘A Place in the Sun’, Life Digest (Melbourne), January 1950, pp. 25–7. It was probably the following passage (p. 25) about Cliff that was most upsetting: ‘He worked for his father, but should a piece of putty or a strip of wood come his way, his fingers fashioned it into little figures of grace and flowing lines. But the son of a working man was not intended for such time-wasting foolishness and his talents were not encouraged.’ (This Australian also wrote of the Last family living in ‘Lancashire, where the smoke from the mills filled the skies’, so he was unaware that Barrow was not a mill town.) Some of the dismissive views on Cliff’s English background that his parents disliked are reasserted in the introduction to Max Dimmack, Clifford Last (Melbourne: The Hawthorn Press, 1972). Cliff, according to this author, who had known him since his arrival in Australia in 1947, was ‘frustrated by his well-intentioned but ill-informed parents who borrowed from the local public library books containing reproductions of the works of the old masters which they encouraged Last to try to copy in crayons and water-colours’ (p. 6). Cliff was portrayed by both these commentators as unfulfilled in his early years and misunderstood by his family.

  Monday, 20 February. My husband went to the doctor’s and came home very downcast. He said ‘The doctor doesn’t think I’m improving as I should. He asked if I was a Mason or member of any club through which I could go to a Convalescent Home.’ I felt tired and out of joint. I said snootily ‘Didn’t you tell him that you thought paying into any kind of insurance for the future was a waste of money?’* I said ‘You could go to Belfast. Edith asked us to go for a holiday when all is settled. You could even go to Australia if you only would. A sea voyage would perhaps set you up – as Mr Richardson set off on his own.’ Perhaps because I felt tired I felt less patience. I thought of something I once read, ‘In life there’s no rewards, and no revenges, just consequences’ …

  We had our first canvassers tonight, one Labour, one Liberal. My husband went to the door for the first one and told the Labour canvasser ‘As a business man, it’s not policy to discuss elections’. I went the second time and recognised an acquaintance with whom I’d often talked of Liberalism (then almost extinct) versus Conservatism. He said ‘I’m sure you will give us a chance. Your views were more for us, even when you were Chair of Central Ward.’ I said ‘I’m anti-Socialist, putting my country before party politics, and regard Megan Lloyd’s bid for power as traitorous.* Any Liberal who loves his country would vote Conservative – and I am not one you know, so cannot understand why you think I should vote that way.’ My husband wasn’t suited† because I’d ‘spoken so plainly’. I said ‘Hell’s blue light. I’ve walked too many miles and knocked at too many doors, canvassing at General Elections, not to prefer a straight answer to a shilly shally statement, and one that showed plainly enough where your vote wouldn’t be given.’

  Wednesday, 22 February. We settled down again, talking of past elections. Once a candidate was disqualified, for buying pies for all his helpers – the opponent built up a case against him – and tonight my husband said ‘Remember Mrs Marsh. She was the girl who started it all by a chance remark, and the result hung on her evidence. She had been the girl who carried the pies from the bake house.’ I remember her as an old busy body till the day she died at 76! Odd how things lie quiet in your mind and then pop up like a Jack in the box. I began to tell of the first Election I could remember, when I would be nearly six years old. I’d had the accident that was to make me lame for so long, and my father insisted we move from an outlying fishing village, where we had moved when I was only three months old, so I could have treatment. Nothing ever daunted my gay spirits when I was young, and I was a great novelty in a Bamboo rickshaw affair of a go-cart, and older children would always take me along. Mother, so prim and proper, would inspect them and give them strict instructions and then off we would go, generally towards the docks where the ships were such an interest. I don’t suppose my mother gave the election a thought, beyond voting,* though bands of children marched with placards, yelling slogans and singing words fitted to well known songs. I had a marvellous time, rattled over rough roads, my go-cart smothered in blue streamers and bunting. I’ve an idea children must only have had to ask to get red, white and blue rosettes, cockades, placards to carry at the ends of sticks, etc. I ate bits of food from paper bags and newspaper, sang till I was hoarse, bewildered and delighted by all the goings-on of town life, and really frightened when a policeman took me to the police station where mother and Aunt Eliza frantically welcomed me and my father came in looking relieved. I’d been ‘officially lost, a poor little crippled child, who knows what can have happened?’ – for about eight hours. As my husband laughed at my first election and the little escapade, I thought with surprise ‘Why, that was one of the happiest days I had? What a strange elusive thing “happiness” is, to be sure.’

  My final bet for the election result is pretty much how I thought at first – a return of Labour with a small majority, with Liberals and Conservatives in enough opposition if they combine to curb them. Personally I hope it’s like that. They should face consequences of all their ‘leap before you look’ actions, and though at times a balanced Parliament would no doubt be a stalemate, no fresh schemes of Nationalization could be made, and existing ones would be made to run more economically.

  In the general election on the 23rd, Labour won Barrow and retained an overall parliamentary majority, though just barely.

  Friday, 24 February. I’ve blessed the election turmoil of these two days and when results began to come in and the local Mail was delivered, my husband found even more interest.* We had cheese and watercress, toasted raisin buns and chocolate sandwich and then had the wireless on all evening. We once helpe
d at a local election where a fiercely contested seat had to have four recounts before the winning candidate was announced, so we knew a little of the feverish uncertainty that there would be in some places. When I heard that at one time the Conservatives were even and then more Labour victories came along, I thought of a prophecy by Naylor the astrologist I’d read after the last election – that Mr Churchill wasn’t destined to lead the Conservatives back to power. He is the most wonderful, the most inspiring leader any country has known, but I’ve always a sneaking remembrance of Mrs Waite and her utter dominance at Hospital Supply. She towered above us all by her work in the First World War, and could see little good in any of us. Yet it was a good committee – each of us had ‘something’ – which, till the worms turned, was useless.** I couldn’t help but wonder if there were strong men in the Conservative Party who, given their head, could lead. I wasn’t surprised at Labour losing some seats and the Conservatives gaining, but not as much see-saw, or the Liberals losing so many deposits. What troubles me is that no one will do any good, and just when so much outside interest and endeavour is needed, bold ventures and ideas so essential, it looks as if it will be stalemate, the Socialists proposing and the rest saying NO. I wonder if there will be another election soon. One thing, there could never be any coalition. There’s too wide a gulf now between Socialists and the rest. I listened to Mr Churchill’s brave but broken voice with a pity so deep I began to cry bitterly. I don’t cry easily, or often. My husband said ‘Now fancy you upsetting yourself so over so small a thing’. But somehow that brave gallant old voice got tangled up with my own worries and fears. I couldn’t have separated them as I cried till I felt sick.

  Monday, 27 February. Aunt Sarah does miss her little cat. It was such a clean, faithful little thing, and died as it had lived, at her bedside on its mat, peacefully and cleanly. She says she is too old to have another. I could see today she was upset because a picture had fallen from where it hung over her bedroom fireplace and broken two treasured old china figures. She said ‘Are you superstitious about pictures falling? Your mother and mine were, you know.’ I said I’d never had any experience of falling pictures, but a magpie on the lawn made me feel really ill, though in the country I never bothered. She nodded as she looked in the fire. I felt sorry for her – till her next remark sent my lips twitching. She shook her head sadly and said ‘You know, Joe has never been really strong. That’s why he never married and I promised his mother to always look after him.’ (He is her cousin.) As Joe must be about 80 to her 85, I thought there was little fear of him being cut off in his prime! …