Much love to old Creature,
Young Creature
28 July 1951
Postcard
Am sitting frying in the sun on the coast of the Isle of Purbeck, by Durlston Lighthouse. A lovely day, & I wish you were here to see the waves exploding, but you’d need a sunshade. Those lobster salads were so small (6/- each) we had to have a big feed of fish & chips afterwards. It is so beautiful to sit in a strong unhindered sun. I love it: life ought to include lots of this.
Much love,
1 Philip was on holiday with Monica in Dorset and Devon, ending with a brief visit to the Amises in Swansea.
16 August 1951
Postcard
[Queen’s Chambers, Queen’s University, Belfast]
Many thanks for the letter! A more gruntled creature now.
Are you trying 1500m. for Mrs D – Long1 wave?
Will write at weekend as usual. I am surprised about Dr F.2
Philip
1 Triply underlined. On 14 August Eva wrote: ‘I wish you were here, so that we could listen to the little wireless in the evenings. I have one complaint about it. I cannot get Mrs Dale’s Diary at 4-15 p.m. on the Light Programme […] ’tis much too faint.’ After following Philip’s advice she wrote ‘I have got Mrs Dale better now’ (21 August). Mrs Dale’s Diary was a popular BBC radio serial drama, broadcast daily between 1948 and 1967.
2 On 14 August Eva had written that the secretary of ‘our Psychology Group’ had visited and told her that next month it was the golden wedding of Eva’s mentor, Dr Folwell; ‘in a burst of gratitude I gave him 5/- although the subscription asked was 2/6. […] I have been thinking Dr Folwell must be about 70, which surprised me very much. I always thought she was my age. She really is the most marvellous woman I have ever met.’ Eva was 65 at this time.
26 August 1951
7 College Park East, Belfast1
My dear old Mop,
[…] Your money seems very comfortable – MORE THAN I GET – and I can hardly believe it,2 perhaps Gaitskell’s3 dividend cuts will affect you – mind you. I hope they won’t, for creatures need all the money they can get. About the house – I find it impossible to decide for you: it depends on how you feel. On the balance I think it would be as well to try – as I am trying this flatlet – if it turns out badly then it will have to be abandoned. The annuity idea sounds good.4 But for this reason I don’t think a house that needs much spending on it is a good idea – although you might sell it at a profit – & also I don’t want you to be alone at nights. It would be too trying for you – you wd never sleep!
Oh dear, this doesn’t sound much help. I’ll thank Miss Bennett when I see her.5 Do give yourself up to having a happy week at Newark!6
With very best
love & constant
thoughts,
Philip
1 The university required Larkin’s Queen’s Chamber’s flat and he stayed a short time at College Park.
2 In her letter of 21 August Eva wrote that she had taken her income tax statement to Mr Otley at Lloyds Bank. She gave complicated details of her calculations and concluded that her income after tax was £433.11.7 per. annum. ‘This is about £8.5.4 per week, isn’t it?’
3 Hugh Gaitskell (1906–63), Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1950–1.
4 In the letter of 21 August Eva told Philip that Mr Otley had suggested that she might sell the remaining 45 year lease on ‘Penvorn’ and ‘buy an annuity with either part, or the whole of the money from the sale. […] He thought £4,000 for the lease, but then he has not seen it!’
5 Eva’s friend Miss Bennett had told her of ‘an elderly lady, a doctor’s widow’ who wanted someone to share her flat ‘as she does not want to be alone during the winter’. But Eva turned down this flat-share: ‘it would not solve the question of my furniture, and then there would be nowhere for my dear Creature to come – when it was hard up!!’ (21 August 1951).
6 In her letter of 21 August Eva told Philip that she had been invited to stay in Newark with the Cann family. In a letter from Newark of 27 August she explains that Mr Cann ‘has retired from the Brewery’. She has visited his farm at Newark, where the piglets ‘all set up a shrill squealing, expecting to be fed’. On 30 August Eva sent a postcard from Newark: ‘I am having a delightful time here.’
23 September 1951
Cockburn Hotel (pro. “Co-burn”), Edinburgh1
My dear Monst Haugh,
So Creature Castle is ours!2 Well, good luck to it, & to all the creatures and persons who inhabit it. I think the world can be divided into “Creatures” and “Persons”, don’t you? […]
Yes, I am enjoying the tour, but yesterday I felt I had a chill – pains in the bones & shivering. However I did my duty by the University Library, then had a plate of soup, a hot bath, aspirins, & went to bed till about 6.30. Rising, I had dinner (melon, sole, pineapple) and walked up to the castle in the dark, but returning went to bed again about 8 p.m. Today I feel vastly improved. The weather is certainly beautiful – if it were cold & wet I shd be much worse off, for I’ve had a lot of walking to do.
Well, there’s only Glasgow now, and then back to old Megaw, 49 Malone Road (my 94/6 a week home until the flats open) & Belfast. The trip has been extremely interesting. For one thing it’s shown me what all these places are like & what conditions in them are like. I almost think that Durham is as nice a place as any. The town is small, quite like Warwick, except for the huge Cathedral looming over all, & there is a lovely river-walk: the library is v. old & almost entirely non-scientific, & the University small – about 1,000 students (Queen’s is above 2,500). Altogether very decent. I can see myself sorting out the Cosin’s Library, which the Bishop has a right to use for meetings, among the old chairs & crumbling leather backs. […]
Best love – pray for a smooth crossing!
Philip
1 Larkin had been sent by Graneek on a tour of northern universities to study issuing policies, facilities etc.
2 On 8 September Eva, asking for a ‘reply by return’, described a four-bedroomed house, ‘in York Road on the same side as no. 53’ which she had looked over with Kitty and Rosemary. This was no. 21 and the price was £2,500. After considering two other possibilities she paid the deposit on 20 September and moved in on 10 December. She lived there for two decades, until 1972.
12 October 1951
Lettercard
[30 Elmwood Avenue, Belfast]
My dear Mop-creature,
I am sitting in “my flat” at present, which is furnished (just about) but not lived in! I move in tomorrow: Colin Strang is going to help me with the moving & Patsy with the first provisioning.1 I have a bed a wardrobe a carpet a gas fire 2 armchairs 2 straight chairs & a table in this room & a sink an oven a kitchen cabinet & kitchen table in the other – & another gas fire.
Until I’m sure post arrives here safely, please write to the Library. This address is 30 Elmwood Avenue. No telephone. My flat is at the top & is No. 13! If there is a fire I shall regret my choice.
Many thanks for your letter wch I’ll reply to on Sunday. How queer it is having one’s “own burrow”!
Much love! P.
1 Colin Strang was a member of the Philosophy Department at QUB. His wife, Patsy, wealthy daughter of a South African diamond magnate, had trained as a doctor in France. She read Larkin’s diaries without his permission, seduced him into an affair in 1952–3, and became pregnant by him, but suffered a miscarriage.
2 December 1951
30 Elmwood Avenue, Belfast
My dear Mop,
I feel somewhat drowsy this morning, perhaps because of the gas fire: I had quite enough sleep last night. Or perhaps the progress of term is slowing me down generally. Certainly I’m not as sprightly nowadays as I was at the start of October. Last Monday I bought another clock – an electric one – and this goes silently in its corner, giving tongue only at 7.45 a.m. each morning when it starts buzzing in a s
teady insistent way and keeps going till I crawl out of bed & shut it up. The first clock I keep in the kitchen, to warn me during breakfast how time is going.
So Dec 10 is the day when we go “over the top”, or rather when you go:1 I was expecting the move to take place a week later – say Dec 17 – so that I could help in it, but it seems I shall come in on the “mopping up operations” only – I only hope Mop won’t have to be mopped up as well as other things!
I was surprised to hear that we got both War Damage and dilapidations – quite a pleasant surprise! The garage business sounds a great advantage when it comes to selling. […]
Now I must “try conclusions” with a cauliflower. Nice weather here! Take care of your dear self, & pass my kind wishes to the h’s.
Much love,
Philip
1 On 10 December Eva replied: ‘Well, here I am, safely on the other side of the moving. Clemerson’s men were very efficient and had delivered everything by 4.30 p.m.’ In the same letter she wrote that she had received a telegram from the solicitor Odell’s telling her that they had received an offer of £3,000 for the Penvorn lease. ‘Walter rang them up straight away accepting for me.’ But this fell through and Penvorn was not sold until September 1971, when it was demolished.
1952
25 January 1952
Postcard
[30 Elmwood Avenue, Belfast]
Yes, it has arrived!1 And it is really lovely, nicer than the last, even. I asked a Yorkshireman in last night, with some mustard & Guinness, but he made so much noise eating it that I wished I hadn’t. Still, there’s plenty left for me to eat alone. I have just had your nice letter & think that is a bit ‘cool’ of the Corporation.2 Will write at more length on Sunday.
“These are the weeks when even the poorest of us should be allowed a little something on the hob – a drop, perhaps, of hot West Indian rum, well sweetened with sugar …” (Llewellyn Powys).3
Tonight I have “eaten out” & mean to busy myself with my spare time literary activity. Dear creature, what are you doing, I wonder?
1 On 22 January Eva wrote: ‘Your pork pie is on the way to you, so watch out for it […] By the way, while I remember it, Kitty wonders if you got her letter thanking you for the cheese.’
2 In her letter of 22 January Eva referred to the situation regarding her continuing lease on Penvorn: ‘Daddy used to say that the Corporation would grant compensation when the house was taken over for the re-building scheme. I wonder if it would be better to let it, and wait for the compensation money?’
3 The Twelve Months (London: The Bodley Head, 1936), ‘November’, 78.
1 February 1952
Postcard
[30 Elmwood Ave, Belfast]
Friday
I dare say your letter is awaiting me below, but I’ll write this before I go out. This hasn’t been a busy week, just rather a slack & sluggish one. There is a fresh robe of snow on the earth for February – sign of good weather to come, they say. I hope you have not been ‘in the grip of ice and snow’ as the papers say.
Life goes on very quietly, with the usual quota of work.1
Later. Found your letter! & many thanks for the cutting.2 I am indeed sorry to hear that you’ve had a cold – but what a brave creature to stay alone! Cheers! Am very sorry you didn’t get my note in the 1st place.
Love P.
1 Doubly underlined.
2 With her letter of 29 January Eva enclosed a press cutting concerning the Loughborough Poole Academy pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Loughborough, in which Rosemary had played a part among ‘over 160 juveniles’. ‘The audience enjoyed a well-dressed tuneful show that went with a swing from the start.’
24 February 1952
30 Elmwood Avenue, Belfast
My dear Mop-Creature,
I sit down to write to you before doing anything else, except have breakfast: my bed is a tangled heap; cigarette ash covers the boards; 14 empty bottles stand in a corner; and the kitchen I dare not think about – it is a sea of crumbs & coffee stains. The bells have been ringing for church & it is about 11.30 on what looks like a perfect spring day. I vow I shall get out today! My bicycle puncture is mended, & I have hardly been out all winter.
The reason for the generally debauched appearance of my room is that last night a gathering was held in my room until about 2 a.m. It was the evening of the “housewarming” of the new Common Room: Colin & Patsy brought – at long last – the steak & kidney pudding, & I had prepared potatoes, sprouts, & carrots: also purchased a doz. stout. We did not really want to go to the Common Room, but we did, & really it was very enjoyable, with plenty of drink & company, & really I quite enjoyed it. Then the Strangs & the Morrisons – Clare & Archie – came back to here: it was a “mixture”, for the Strangs are v. English & the Morrisons v. Irish, but to my delight it was quite successful & as I say lasted till 2 without boring anyone as far as I could see. I feel a very social & adept creature!
Needless to say I feel a bit flat today, & a bit doleful about my future, & life, & all the rest of it.
[…]
What an original way your letter card was written! Like a little book. I was indeed sorry to hear that you have been depressed of late & that your old friends have found out your new address. Do not worry about the past: it is, after all, past, and fades daily in our memory & in the memories of everyone else. Further, it can’t touch the future unless we let it. Every day comes to us like a newly cellophaned present, a chance for an entirely fresh start. Finally, do remember that we are not very important. Hundreds of living people have never heard of us: those who died in previous years & those who will be born in the next century have no chance to, and in consequence we are silly if we do not amble easily in the sun while we can, before time elbows us into everlasting night & frost. This is perhaps not very helpful, but I am so sorry for you, and feel you have no reason to worry yourself!1
My holiday will probably be: arrive about 2 p.m. on Sunday April 6, depart about 2 p.m. Saturday April 12. If you want to plan a visit to Lichfield during the time I am quite agreeable, My very sweetest love, old creature.
P.
My groceries have not come. O death & torments!
1 Eva replied on 26 February: ‘It was kind of you to write a page full of advice to lessen my depression. Of course I know it all, but the strange thing is it is so difficult to act upon, and one can never forgive oneself. I don’t quite agree with you though that we are not very important. I know that whatever I say or do, and whatever happens to me will affect Kitty and you – either make you happy or unhappy, and because of this I do wish I was a better and braver creature.’
16 March 1952
30 Elmwood Ave, Belfast (Wicklow Hotel, Dublin)
Well, old Creature,
We are here, in Dublin – but not quite as we imagined it: the hotel is shut, because there’s a strike on of hotel staff & so on. Everywhere is very cold (no heating) & there’s no regular cuisine, only breakfast. […]
We stay here tomorrow (St Patrick’s Day) & I return to Belfast in the evening. On Tuesday another visiting creature arrives – John Wain, whom I knew in Oxford,1 & who is convalescing after an operation. By that time the Strangs will have gone home, leaving their dogs in store.
What! A whole letter & no creatures. Well, let me see.2
I shall be interested to hear what the advertising lady is like – What a gamble it all is, with the odds heavily stacked against ourselves! Anyway, let me know.
Colin has now appeared & we shall shortly be moving off – the weather is damp but fine. Outside the hotel pickets move up & down carrying notices – “Lock-out in progress”. Lockout & freeze up as far as I’m concerned – & an awful crowd singing in the room above me at 3.30 a.m. Dublin!
My best love to a dear old creature,
Philip
1 John Wain (1925–94), prolific novelist and poet, had been a freshman in St John’s when Larkin was in h
is third year. In 1973 Larkin supported his successful candidacy for the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford.
2 Eva commented (18 March): ‘The Irishman reminds me of a photo of U. Alf. in the garden at Lichfield when he was growing a beard.’
18 May 1952
30 Elmwood Ave, Belfast
My dear Mop-Creature,
Once again I have crawled into Queen’s & spent the best part of an hour snoozing in the sun. For once again the day is fine, expansively fine, deliciously fine, splendidly fine. It is queer how a fine day always makes me think of the past – of wide brimmed garden party hats in the ’90s & clusters of afternoons falling like drops of river water from an oar way back in the ’70s & ’60s – boating parties of curates and daughters and young men down for the Long Vacation, with straw hats and picnic baskets and fringed parasols. And in the early morning my thoughts go back much further – to mornings in the middle ages, when monks might be shuffling past a ray of sunshine on the stone floor in the mist of the early hours, with the “dawn chorus” of birds starting outside. I am wasting much space to no very good purpose, but fine weather does always send me beyond the confines of this particular day & place.
Philip Larkin Page 27
