Since arriving I have not done much that sounds much: Yesterday I walked to Elbury Cove after lunch, found it (with great difficulty) and bathed in warm calm sea. Then I went over to Brixham, where Bruce was just finishing his novel, and we spent the time at the Yacht Club and back at his home, where his mother, deafer & more genial than ever, provided a supper of cold fowl, salad, fruit salad, gorgonzola & coffee. I borrowed five books (plus his own in typescript) & made my nervous way back home.
I very much wonder how you are faring at Loughborough – expect you will have a tale or two when I return. (A dog is now whining under the window & a small assembly of guests engaged in some hostile demonstration.)
I am enclosing, if the maids leave it on my mantelpiece where it is at present, a small sprig of lavender, which you can picture if you like growing in clumps on the high wall of Churston Churchyard. This is in one of the lanes, turning & tangling you deeper into the countryside, that I walked along when going to Elbury: it all reminded me of earlier holidays with squashed snakes on the road, grasshoppers, crickets & a dozen sorts of small butterflies & moths such as we don’t see in Leicester, or I don’t anyway. All the lanes are extremely nice & a treat to stroll in.
Mind you see a bit of life in Loughborough, always supposing there is any which seems highly improbable to me, as Bruce wd say.
With all love,
Philip
P.S. – Your letter has just arrived by second post – pretty momentous things afoot, eh? Anyway, about the Insurance, I am not a very legal creature, you know, and feel that I really don’t know enough to advise you against old Blenky’s monitions. I think I shd write back saying that if in his opinion you wouldn’t be the loser in any circumstances (if any other calamity than fire occurred, for instance) you think you had better do as he suggests & suspend the Alliance policy in favour of the M of Works one. Only I shd send him the Penvorn policy (if you can!) & ask him to do the letter to the Alliance people. Say you are uncertain how to phrase it & feel he’d do it better!
Congratulations to Walter – whatever happens, it’s nice to think someone values you at £1,000 p.a.
Love to all, incl. Rosemary,
Philip
1 Addressed to Mrs E. Larkin, 53 York Rd, Loughborough, Kitty’s home. The archive preserves just this letter and six picture postcards from 1949, sent from Cambridge, Dedham, Churston Ferrers, Lyndhurst and Oxford (2).
1950
28 March 1950
Lettercard1
11 Haslemere Rd, Sketty, Swansea, Glamorgan2
My dear Mop,
I do hope you are finding a rest at Loughborough, & managing to get about for walks, if the weather is warmer than it is here. Rather wish I’d not changed those pants, atween you and me.3 Swansea is definitely colder than the midlands were when I left them.
About the weekend: I think I shall return on Friday night, but shall devote Saturday to visiting Lincoln at last. To avoid giving you a lonely day in the house, would you like not to return till Saturday night, Saturday afternoon, even Sunday morning? I can probably manage the few bites I shall need – meals here aren’t so enormous. With best love to you & all.
Philip
1 Addressed to Mrs Larkin, 53 York Road, Loughborough.
2 Larkin was staying with Kingsley and Hilary Amis.
3 Eva replied on 29 March: ‘Of course you ought not to have changed those pants – remember that I thought it very unwise at the time. I am glad that I brought sufficient warm clothing here for it has been bitterly cold ever since I came.’
4 June 1950
Postcard1
Belfast2
Sunday
Arrived safely after comfortable & good journey – but am feeling like a mouse set down in a bus station. Wish you were here to be frightened too! The boat was extremely comfortable: had to share cabin with an RAF officer. Mrs Patterson has received me, shown me the outside of the University, & tried to enhearten me: this latter is no easy job, however. Would I were back at Dixon Drive, & all well! Belfast is an unattractive city & I am sitting at present in front of what I suppose is the City Hall, watching the pigeons & wondering where the devil my lunch is coming from. Everywhere looks shut! The clock has said 11.40 for about 35 mins so it cannot I suppose be relied on. Now I hope you are treating yourself to a good restful weekend: be careful Mr Cann doesn’t get you on a horse. My regards to Mr & Mrs, & the family. Much love to you. Oh dear Oh dear,
Philip
1 This card and the next are addressed to Mrs Larkin, 95 London Road, Newark on Trent, Notts., ENGLAND. Eva was staying with Sydney’s friend John Cann and his family.
2 Philip had travelled to Belfast for his interview for the post of Sub-Librarian at Queen’s University. He was appointed with a start date of the beginning of October.
5 June 1950
Dublin
Here for some sightseeing in brilliant sun: hope you are getting some of it! Sorry to say my hayfever has started up in full force. There’s not much news except that I am advised that if there is a favourite for this beastly job, I’m it. This really disconcerts me more than certain failure. Make sure you are getting plenty of sun & rest.
Much love,
P
24 September 19501
Digby House, Stoughton Drive South, Leicester
My dear Mop,
What rain! What gloom! It has been pouring all morning & I’ve had a to & fro walk in the rain to breakfast & back. I also tried a bath but there was hardly any hot water.
I hope your cold has gone & that you are feeling well again. […] A rather souring depression has begun to invade me at the thought that this is the last Sunday, &c.
Regarding your person, I shd say myself that it wd be advisable to set up house with someone considerably poorer than yourself only if you liked them very much and found them extremely heartening & sympathetic – the sympathy would be necessary to overcome the financial adjustments that would continually be cropping up. I don’t think money should be put before sympathy or liking, but I think it would be wise, other things being equal, to team up with someone of relatively equal means. Not having seen your present candidate. I can’t say how she might do, but I expect you can decide that yourself.
There’s no news here – I go on living quite comfortably & extravagantly, like one under sentence of death. This next week will be devoted to final packing & despatching. When I was crossing Victoria Park in my Duffle coat a little girl pointed at me & cried “A man going on a ship!” I thought: You’ve said it. Rosemary’s query about the beetle has gone down very well.
I am extremely angry about this rain, as I had planned to go & say goodbye to King’s Norton Church this afternoon. Then there is tea at Mollie’s (!) for I hope the last time. Barker is going too. We had a furious party on Friday till early morning: no one shall say that I did not go out in a blaze of glory. On Wednesday I’m standing all my colleagues dinner somewhere or other. On Thursday I’ll come to see you, isn’t that right?
I’m writing to Clemersons2 about the bookcase now. […]
Very much to you & to all with you,
Philip
1 This and subsequent letters are addressed to Eva at Kitty’s home, 53 York Road, Loughborough.
2 A removal and furniture storage company in Loughborough.
1 October 1950
Queen’s Chambers, Queen’s University, Belfast
My dear Mop,
I’m sure I can’t imagine when this letter will reach you: probably Wednesday morning! Anyway, here & now it is Sunday afternoon & I am alive & well.
Let me say again that I was disappointed not to see you on Saturday though the weather was so beastly that it was hardly a day to come out, was it? I got off in good order at 4.17: the train did go through Loughborough but didn’t stop. Manchester looked the depths of dreariness: grey, drizzling, empty, ruined, with just a few lights here & there. Liverpool was much better. We sailed – that’s the “royal plural”; I hadn’t anyone with
me – on the “Ulster Duke” in good time. I ate some hyoscin[e] tablets & some fish & chips, & sat on deck in my duffle coat writing up my diary as we edged out of the complicated docks. It takes a full hour to leave Liverpool, I timed it: I felt rather mournful as I saw we had cast off, but a spell at my diary cheered me up,1 & I went to bed about 10.45 in a nice single cabin. There was a little velvet convexity in the wall, circular, with a hook above it. I couldn’t think what it was for a moment, then I realised it was for a watch to hang on! So I hung mine up!
We had a quiet crossing & after breakfast. I taxi’d up here & spent the morning installing myself. At first I didn’t like my room, but now I don’t mind it. Imagine a main road, like Leicester London Road at, say, Dr James’ with trams still going down it. Build on Victoria Park a big building like K.H.S. Coventry, with a big divided lawn & a statue in front of it – that’s Queen’s. Plant trees on the other side of the road, turn Dr James’ house into a tall red-brick Dutch-style house, with an identical one on each side of it, knock them into one, & that’s Queen’s Chambers. Inside it is like a very cheerless very bare hotel: it reminds me very much of some cheap hotels I have stayed at. But I shan’t mind much. My room is at the front. I overlook Queen’s & the trams, second floor (fairly high). It is about the size of the Dixon Drive drawing room, but not so well furnished! It contains:
1 single bed
1 wardrobe (quite good)
1 armchair (not so good, wooden arms)
1 desk (not bad, but no lock)
1 cupboard-cum-bookcase
1 tiny rug beside the bed
1 bedside table
1 bedside lamp
1 radiator (6d meter)
1 wastepaper basket
1 steel-tubing chair at the desk (horrid!)
This may sound a lot, but in fact it leaves a great expanse of green rubber-lino which appears to “floor” the whole house, & there are no pictures on the wall. Obviously I shall have to do some furnishing. But I can’t grumble. I have been put in the wrong room! The Warden says since I am in I had better stay: but if I had arrived after a certain Mr Grahame instead of before!/ I should have had another, less nice room. I’ve seen it.
The Warden seems pleasant enough: a small, old-maidish historian with a passion for Jane Austen & chess.2 I think we shall get on. The only meal I’ve so far had was lunch: if I were marking it like an essay I should give it β or β−. However! … Another thing I can see myself needing is an electric kettle: no evening grub here, after about 6.30. Hungry to bed, hungry to rise. The weather looks beautiful outside & methinks I will go a stroll. It’s extraordinary to think I’m in Ireland. It looks just like Leicester, except for a yellow A.A. sign saying “Bangor. Newtonards. Donaghadee. ←.”
My luggage arrived safely, though I believe I’ve lost a strap – & if so I may lose more, as 2 more suitcases had straps on, sent on Friday. Bloody thieving Irish!
I hope you have not been anxious about me (or anything else). The heather saw me through all right. Tonight I have an invitation to dinner at the Graneeks’,3 so I shall be spared that awful dreary first evening. I must say it would not displease me to see you peering up at this house as I sit looking down at the people! Write & tell me all you are doing.
My love to Kitty, also to Rosemary, a manly clap on the back for Walter, & my very best-quality love for yourself.
Philip
1 He also began drafting the unfinished poem ‘Single to Belfast’ (Motion, Philip Larkin, 197).
2 J. C. Beckett.
3 Jacob (‘Jack’) Graneek was Librarian at Queen’s University.
15 October 1950
Queen’s Chambers, Belfast
My dear old Moth,
Your letter turned up quite late – Friday evening – & I was beginning uneasily to wonder if you had gone down the bath plug, & to meditate enquiring. Still, I needn’t have worried: you will always get my letter, I suppose, on Tuesday – right? & I shall always get yours on Friday. This is another sunny Sunday, really lovely weather: perhaps as I have no social engagements today I may go out this afternoon. Yesterday (Saturday) I cycled along Belfast Lough to Carrickfergus, a little historic port where William of Orange landed in 1690. The weather was cloudy & windy, & I sat on a seat on the esplanade trying not to shiver & watching the little waves slapping the pebbled beaches. The town is drab & mainly stone-coloured: it has a castle & a squarish dull-looking harbour. I found a dirty-looking café & had some fish & chips for tea, then pedalled home. The way back was nicer, though the wind was against me: the sun had come out, & the sky over the Lough was very shifting & full of pretty clouds, while on the landward side the hills were a dark green. I met a peacock too, just as if I were walking about the back lanes of Warwick under the Castle wall!
I am enclosing three rather poor photographs for your interest: (1) is a general view of the front. You can see it’s not unlike K.H.S. Coventry, can’t you. (2) Is the Library: this is at the extreme left-hand end of the front, not shown on (1). The Library is the sunlit, religious-looking, hideous building. (3) is Queen’s.1 […]
My best love to all of you, & especially to the old moth,
Philip
1 See Plate 9A for Larkin’s later carefully composed photograph of QUB.
22 October 1950
Queen’s Chambers, Belfast
My dear Mop,
[…] So there are more “persons” on the horizon, are there?1 That is encouraging news, and I shall be eager to hear how they strike you. I do think that in one way you would stand a better chance of a happy “new life” with a congenial new person as long as Kitty & I were enough in evidence to talk now and again of the old days – I find, myself, incidentally, that I quite often think of Dixon Drive now, the roses & the long summery evenings when Peter2 might call or I should be clipping the hedge: it seems still very real – and that such a congenial person would give you a great many new interests & would help to run the day to day routine in a way that would leave you more relaxing time, which is very important. I quite understand that after a lifetime spent in the family a venture like this must seem a fearsome risk, and a fearful bother: Well, I agree it is a bother – though I & the rest will certainly help all we can, I’m sure – but if you do meet a similarly-situated lady, whom you like and who is good tempered, quiet & sympathetic, then I don’t think it should be too much of a risk. £2,500 should get a nice house. […]
Love to all, & a special consignment for old Moth.
Philip
1 Eva had advertised for a live-in companion. She sent the cutting to Philip on 20 October:
2 In a letter of 12 January 1947, shortly after his arrival at Leicester University College, Larkin mentions Peter Roe as ‘one of the young men here’.
29 October 1950
Queen’s Chambers, Belfast
My dear old Mop,
Sunny & dry here – for the moment. But in Belfast the most reliable-looking day has a habit of sudden cracking right across and ending in rain and dismalness. I don’t think I ever saw a gloomier day than last Sunday: it rained all day, and the sky was like one enormous bruise. Today looks considerably better.
This week has been an expensive one for I have bought clothes. Total spent £11.10.2 – and really very little to show for it. On Wednesday I went to Austin Reed’s & bought three pairs of Wolsey short pants – 82/6!!!! – a shirt & 2 pairs of 12" socks. Really I don’t know why I bought such expensive ones: there are plenty of utility ones about for about 6/9. The socks were the height of dullness, a plain grey & a plain brown. Then yesterday I went tweed-hunting: having been told of a place near here I went there on the bus, & found in a little country town a real tweed-centre, where it is woven. I was shown a kind of Aladdin’s cave of tweeds, fascinating, two rooms full, in all textures and colours, at 12/6 & 15/- the yard. At least I say all textures & colours, but in fact none of them really caught my fancy: some I liked were too loose for a suit, & one I did like was “suitable” (fearsome pun) but th
ere wasn’t enough of it. In the end I bought 7 yards of a very sober one – the colour of stagnant bogwater, a kind of very very dull silvery brown with a faint aura of heather. This I shall get made up in Belfast for 8 or 9 guineas – so the total cost will be considerably lower than Austin Reed’s offer of £23/15/-. O extravagant creature! Incidentally, yes, I do think it would be wise to buy clothes now. Anything containing wool is going to increase in price next year, I’m afraid.
Q.U.B. not O.U.B.!1 Queen’s University Belfast. Now let me look at your long and interesting letter. […]
I hope you found the visit to Dr Folwell lastingly beneficial: I am sure it is best to tell her anything that preys upon you, for she can only help if she knows your chief enemies. I don’t think the subscription will bust you – all in all with the 1/-’s/ it works out to about 8d a week, doesn’t it? If you had one glass of beer on a Saturday night it would cost more than that.2
3
[…] This week has provided more noise-news: Tuesday night I was kept awake from 12–1.30, SIMPLY FURIOUS, so on Wednesday night I tramped up & bearded the lions, or one West Indian lion at any rate. He was very charming & pleasant, but returning from a game of billiards on Thursday night I found my bed playfully standing on its end! However there has been a considerable improvement since then after midnight.
Hoping you don’t get any more mouse trouble.4 Regarding your advertisees, if one can call them that, I’m very sorry Mrs Pell was a flop: I shouldn’t answer the rogue Gamble.5 I wonder what you thought of the other two. Don’t despair. I’m sure we shall succeed in the end. […]
Philip Larkin Page 24
