by Linda Lear
Over the next several months Beatrix and William continued their unaccustomed role of fund-raisers, calling on potential donors to the Trust. Beatrix’s political and social skills were in evidence as she reported some progress to Hamer, ‘I will have a try at Miss Holt again. My Mamma says the Holts are “rolling in money!” ’ She urged the Trust to make a more concerted appeal through a variety of local newspapers, including those in Manchester and Liverpool — even writing some of the text herself.16
Although Beatrix spent some days in bed with bronchitis in February, her almost daily letters to the Trust reveal how accurately she had inventoried the various physical components of the estate. She assessed potential income from rents and expenses for necessary repairs to the infrastructure: roads, quarries, fences, footpaths, postings, parking areas, drains and flood plains. She had inspected all the farms and their outbuildings, untold cottages and huts, and had thoroughly reviewed the timber supply. She knew which plantations needed to be left alone, which could be added to, and what timber could be taken as thinnings for new fences. The working quarries needed special access and consideration, but they also required protection from trespass.
In the evenings Beatrix and William made endless calculations of costs, worried over dozens of boundary lines, and negotiated the troublesome issues of fire and hazard insurance. Their efforts at a sensible management plan were handicapped by a lack of local and regional guidelines and the necessity of finding the answers to such vexing legal questions as pedestrian access. In general, husband and wife divided responsibilities according to their expertise: William keeping the accounts, negotiating boundaries and researching the legal problems affecting their management; while Beatrix interviewed tenants, negotiated wages, refurbished cottages, contracted for endless fence repairs, had new walls built and quarrelled with a particularly strict sanitation inspector over the admittedly unhealthy amenities of the Tilberthwaite cottages and the overcrowding at Stang End Farm.
Beatrix clambered over rock and woods inspecting drains and locating breached walls, but most of her letters to the Trust officials concern the problem of fences, the wrongful cutting of trees by the wagoners, and the ‘miles & miles of straggling woods which fence themselves’. No detail seemed too small for her attention. She decided where noticeboards should be placed and where parking should be posted. She had to determine whether the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides could build campfires and where, and how fell gates could be secured so that animals would not wander out.
The level of detail with which the Heelises dealt, some of which may be calculated from the extant tax records, is staggering. It underscores not only Beatrix’s skills in property management and her knowledge of fell farming, but the degree to which husband and wife were partners in the management of this far-flung estate. Such evidence reinforces the conclusion that, without William Heelis’s almost infinite knowledge of Lakeland families, his history of property ownership and his steady, careful accounting of thousands of head of livestock, acres of timber, as well as diverse physical property, tenancies, taxes and wages, the whole effort to preserve Monk Coniston could easily have failed. ‘I hate accts!’ Beatrix wrote to Hamer in exasperation a year into her ownership. ‘Wm. gave me such a lecture about wages that I was awake nearly all night.’17
By the late spring of 1930 the Trust’s public fund had grown to the point that only the last little bit was wanting. Poised to begin repaying Beatrix for their portion of Monk Coniston, chairman John Bailey, Samuel Hamer and some of his staff met the Heelises in Coniston and concluded the transaction. The Tarns and Holme Fell had been subscribed for and, after some soul-searching, Beatrix decided to make an anonymous gift of Holme Ground, rather than hold it for her lifetime. Beatrix’s half of the estate was roughly 3,000 acres which, according to their agreement, would come to the Trust on her death.18
It came as something of a surprise, albeit a pleasant one, that after the Trust had paid Beatrix for its portion, Hamer asked her to continue managing it for them. It was an enormous responsibility. ‘I want to thank you again for the mark of confidence implied in looking after the estate at present, it gratified me very much,’ she wrote to him. Beatrix was flattered that her skills had been recognized. She was also pleased that as an ‘amateur land agent’, she could manage her great-grandfather’s Holme Ground, even if she no longer owned it. She explained to a young American editor, ‘The Coniston estate is being taken over by the National Trust this month [September]… — they have asked me to manage it for a time, till it is in better order; the farm rents will enable repairs and replanting to be undertaken this winter — interesting work, at other people’s expense!’19
Even before Monk Coniston came on the market, Trust officials had hinted that they needed a local representative in the Lake District. Beatrix adamantly opposed such decentralization in principle, but particularly feared the Trust might appoint someone with whom she could not work compatibly. For the best part of a month, she sent Hamer almost daily letters elaborating her views on the sort of refined and educated man who might fill the position, detailing her opposition to the selection of a rough local man, or some estate agent who knew nothing and cared less about fell farming. Beatrix’s arguments may well have been a factor, as no official agent for the northern counties was appointed until 1932. So Beatrix, now managing the whole of Monk Coniston, continued to deal directly with Hamer and his staff in London for the next six years.20
Early in 1931 the assistant secretary of the National Trust, Bruce Thompson, a local man whose family had been in the hostelry business in Bowness and Windermere, wrote to Beatrix asking if he could call on her when he was in next in the area. Thompson was preparing the first analysis of the problems facing preservation in the Lake District from such threats as building expansion, afforestation, quarrying and electricity cables. Beatrix was delighted to share her views. Anticipating that Thompson would have heard criticism of her management style, particularly her difficulties with the sanitation inspector, she wrote, ‘It would not surprise me to hear that in some quarters there is a feeling that I have not got on with the “amenities” (overworked word). I have deliberately put practical requirements first; and will give what I think good reasons… I don’t care what people think. I could not have believed an estate could be so mismanaged & neglected.’21
But overseeing such distant areas and tramping about in bad weather inevitably took a toll on her health. Beatrix confessed to Marian Perry at the end of 1930, ‘I have been in bed twice this winter already with bad colds — not serious, but just sufficiently bronchial to make me afraid of bronchitis if I live to be as old as my mother, which is unlikely.’ To her cousin Caroline she was more candid: ‘My mother is 91 and very well… She is very lucky in having good lungs, no rheumatism and good eyesight. She amuses herself with needlework and knitting. It is annoying that she is so difficult about money — a regular miser in reluctance to spend money, which will simply be wasted in death duties when she has hoarded it up.’ Mrs Potter had stubbornly refused to contribute a penny to the National Trust’s appeal. Despite Beatrix’s feigned indifference to this slight, it must have saddened her and contributed to her crusty cynicism. Urging the Trust to publish the list of subscribers for Monk Coniston in the Westmorland Gazette, she noted, ‘my mamma might feel stirred to send a trifle! — only she has just had the car varnished.’22
What made Beatrix Heelis so good at farming and property management seems less a matter of genes than of character. Certainly her shrewdness and flexibility in business dealings and her determination to resolve problems were qualities inherited from her Potter grandparents, but her character had been toughened by battle and honed by first-hand experience in nature. She had the necessary qualifications for doing exactly what she found herself doing at the age of 64. She had a pragmatic understanding of the seasonal variability of climate and a deep appreciation of the fragile fell farm environment, but she also retained a romantic’s love of both inclement wea
ther and the rugged landscape. She had a quiet acceptance that things will quite often go wrong, yet she had remarkable patience and optimism. Loving the natural world as she did, Beatrix had long ago accepted that nature was wild, cruel and endlessly beautiful.
Now with Monk Coniston added to the column of land she had rescued from development and preserved from desecration, Beatrix had some prescient sense as she went about her tasks that she had a hand in shaping one small part of the English countryside. She acknowledged as much in a letter to the Trust chairman, John Bailey, writing: ‘It seems that we have done a big thing; without premeditation; suddenly; inevitably — what else could one do? It will be happy consummation if the Trust is able to turn this quixotic venture into a splendid reality.’23
Beatrix’s daily work on her farms, her management of Monk Coniston, her ability to travel and certainly her creative work had been increasingly complicated by the necessity of supervising the care of her frail nonagenarian mother. Although Beatrix had become accustomed to using the telephone, the situation at Lindeth Howe required frequent trips in person to the inconveniently located Bowness estate.24
Helen Potter had lived a life of aimless ease in comfort and style at Lindeth Howe after Rupert’s death in 1914. She was amused by her little dog and her many canaries, occupied by her needlework, and much fawned over by an obsequious staff. Beatrix always seemed a thorn in her side. She disapproved of her daughter’s passion for sheep, her activities on behalf of the National Trust, and her unstylish countrywoman appearance. When she was no longer able to pay calls at Castle Cottage, William and Beatrix redoubled their visits across the lake. In 1931 Beatrix found it necessary to come across several times a week, in all kinds of weather, and in most cases, she had to walk as her mother refused to send her car or inconvenience the maid. Weary from all the effort, Beatrix came down with a serious bronchial cold. ‘Mrs Heelis ha[s] not been well,’ Lucy Walker reported to Joseph Moscrop from Troutbeck Park in January 1932. ‘She has only once been here since Christmas.’25
After a difficult winter, Beatrix made the extravagant decision of hiring her mother’s former coachman, Walter Stevens, who was without work, to drive her about. She was now cautious for her own health and ‘rather afraid of driving in an open car in the wind. I got up to Troutbeck on Tuesday in the lorry, which is warmer than the open car,’ she told Joseph Moscrop, ‘and I was delighted to see the first calves, 2 bulls… G. Walker thinks all the cows are in calf this year. Too good to be true; but a good crop I expect.’26
When her own health returned, Beatrix was confronted once again with the perpetual staffing crisis at Lindeth Howe. No soon had she hired nurses than her mother dismissed them. ‘I hope you and your family are having a Merry Christmas,’ Beatrix wrote to Alexander McKay on 18 December, obviously agitated. ‘I am not. My old mother is refusing to die. She was unconscious for 4 hours yesterday, and then suddenly asked for tea. She cannot possibly recover… so we hope it will soon be over; but she has wonderful vitality for any age — let alone 93.’ Helen Potter died two days later.27
Beatrix’s words seem harsh, but in the context of her weariness and of the dutiful daughter who had given so much of her time and energy to an ungracious, if not ungrateful, old woman, they betray only her customary realism and the desire to move on. The relationship of mother and daughter had always been awkward, often adversarial. There was duty and respect, but the degree of charity and understanding one had for the other is less calculable.28
Helen Potter was buried beside her husband at Gee Cross, Hyde, in Cheshire, on 24 December. In response to a letter of condolence from Hardwicke Rawnsley’s widow, Eleanor, Beatrix wrote with more reflection than annoyance, ‘My mother’s long life was a link with times that are passed away, though still vivid in our memory… she was wonderfully clear in mind, but… I am glad she is at rest.’ She rarely spoke of her mother in her letters to friends or family.29
Beatrix was the sole executor of her mother’s estate, which was valued at £74,553. Helen left everything to Beatrix, with bequests to her past and present servants. Beatrix also inherited her deceased brother Bertram’s share of dividends and securities, which had been in trust under Rupert’s estate during Helen’s lifetime. This amounted to £139,500, composed primarily of dividends and securities including municipal bonds, railway bonds and the notes of British Empire countries. An additional £19,359 came to her from the estimated value of 11 Bolton Garden Mews, where the household staff had lived, and later proceeds of the sale of furniture and household effects in Rupert’s estate, the sale of Lindeth Howe, and auction proceeds. Small wonder that Beatrix and William had tried in vain to persuade Helen to give her daughter some further allowance while she was alive in an effort to avoid the high death duties, and to make some charitable contributions. Helen left a bequest of £5,000 to her son-in-law William Heelis, whose thankless job it was to close the estate and calculate the tax.30
Beatrix approved of the obituary that appeared in the Westmorland Gazette which stated ‘The passing of Mrs Helen Potter… caused profound sorrow to a large circle of friends and neighbours in whom she was held in great affection on account of her courtesy and kindness.’ However, the subsequent notice detailing the value of her mother’s estate and listing the bequests she deemed ‘an impertinence’. ‘The newspapers respect nothing private these days,’ she wrote to Moscrop. ‘They don’t mention that there is over twenty six thousand to pay in duty.’31
Beatrix had been critical of her mother’s sedentary life, obviously frustrated that despite her great wealth she seemed not to care about anything or anyone other than that which benefited her own comfort. For all the emotional damage her mother inflicted during Beatrix’s brief courtship and engagement to Norman Warne, and later in opposing her marriage to William Heelis, Beatrix seemed to have successfully put it behind her, at least in terms of not letting it interfere with her sense of obligation. Most of the time she put a good face on her mother’s selfish behaviour. Only occasionally did she voice frustration, notably when Mrs Potter refused to contribute to the National Trust because she had spent a bit of money on something frivolous, or when Beatrix arrived cold and wet at Lindeth Howe only to be chastised for her baggy clothes and muddy wellingtons. But with her every breath Beatrix expressed her independence, even her rebellion against the life her mother had chosen for herself and would have imposed on her daughter. She intended to be as different from her mother as it was possible to be, and she intended to end her days being active, useful, and, if she were especially fortunate, out and about in countryside she loved. As dutiful and respectful as Beatrix was, implicit in her own life choices was a deep disdain for her mother’s life and values. When Lindeth Howe was sold later that spring, Beatrix was at last physically free of a life she had left in spirit long before.32
The demands on Beatrix’s time as land agent respected none of these life changes. In addition to routine management problems, which included stopped drains, rotting timbers, broken fences and unhappy or unsatisfactory tenants, Beatrix was confronted with such extraordinary challenges as suspicious fire on the fells and sheep theft. In February 1933 night-time fires broke out on Holme Fell in Tilberthwaite. A handful of sheep were burnt as well as about a half a mile of heather and bracken. ‘This fire is a wicked thing — incendiarism,’ Beatrix reported to Trust officials.
Beatrix was a natural detective, observant of details and eager to investigate. She found one fire spot that could not have been caused accidentally by a child or a visitor. ‘I came on this thawed circle and a nasty little stacked up heap of green savin [juniper] branches. I found the bush [drawing of bush] they had been hacked off with a knife.’ There were three or four other similar spots where branches had been separately lighted; ‘I think there was more than one lad in the mischief.’ She also discovered a ‘neat new calico bandage for a sore finger. Not a cut finger’, caught in one of the piles of sticks. Several weeks later, she had no satisfactory solution to the crime b
ut ‘suspicion against a young man, resident at the quarry cottages’ and proof that there had been a series of manmade fires. Luckily, injury to the sheep had been minimal, and the thawed ground had kept the fire from spreading.33
Sheep stealing was a serious matter to all Lakeland farmers and stockmen. In the winter of 1933–4 sheep began disappearing out at the remote Tilberthwaite farms. The farms had been tenanted, but in the spring of 1934 the tenant had ‘thrown up and left things in a mess’. Beatrix decided to take the farm in hand herself, renting it back from the National Trust. She moved one of her best farm managers, Thomas (Tommy) Stoddart, and his wife from Troutbeck Park to Tilberthwaite to see if he could bring order to the situation. ‘I do not expect a man to do the impossible…’ she told him. ‘If you can get the hoggs heafed on the sunny side of Wetherlam, without heavy loss, I will be well satisfied.’ Her instincts were correct. Stoddart proved an able manager at Tilberthwaite, and by the autumn the sheep stealing had virtually stopped.34
Quite remarkably, Beatrix somehow found time, between solving mysteries, showing sheep, getting in the harvest and overseeing operations at Monk Coniston, to do a bit of writing. Although Alexander McKay persistently pressed for another book, Beatrix more enthusiastically took up her pen to comment publicly on topics of natural history and science that interested her. In doing this, she was returning to a habit of contributing to discussions reported in The Times that she had enjoyed as a young woman.
She was intrigued by a series of time-lapse photographs published in the newspaper of a toad climbing on top of a large fungus. The photographs elicited several letters, including one on the subject of ‘singing’ reptiles. A woman in Reigate described her success attracting toads with guitar music. Beatrix responded to the Reigate writer directly, explaining that she had little confidence that scientists would take seriously any amateur’s observations or consider the matter of a toad’s singing remarkable. Nonetheless she explained that she had ‘known for 50 years that the British smooth newt does, very rarely, utter an extremely sweet whistling note’. Beatrix had discovered the newt was also the Highlanders’ ‘singing fish’: a phenomenon which children in Scotland regularly reported hearing in a bog. She had heard her own newt utter a whistling sound when out of its aquarium sitting on her writing table at Bolton Gardens. Later she heard newts ‘sing’ again in some stagnant water near a Highland barn in Scotland.35
