3 A 1957 film directed and produced by Laurence Olivier, with a screenplay by Terence Rattigan based on his 1953 stage play The Sleeping Prince.
4 Eva wrote on 3 September: ‘Tell Monica I like my new skirt very much. I think it wonderful that it does not crease, and is washable. / I was interested to hear that she had ordered a new dress in London. Is it for evening wear? Cream brocade sounds elegant.’
29 September 1957
My dear old Creature,
[…] I hope you liked the photographs I sent you. I thought they showed a very agreeable old creature, very well dressed and affable, and I’m glad to have a souvenir of the week we had among the fleshpots of Portmeirion. It’s rather ironic that it should be taken with my old camera, or rather Pop’s old camera, now that I’ve just spent so much on a new one.1 It seems to prove that all I need to do was to learn how to use the old one! I can hear Pop judging my new one to be “too good for you”, in a gruff fashion. […]
With all my best love
Dear old creature
Philip
1 In fact Philip had bought his old camera on his own initiative (see letter of 26 October 1947), though spurred on by his father’s enthusiasm.
20 October 1957
Telephone 41719
My dear old creature,
You had better make a note of my telephone number! Now it is in, of course I don’t use it, and if it rings I know it’s the Library, Coveney1 or the Penwills,2 since they are the only people/places where my number is known: I’m not putting it in the directory. […]
As regards Monica & America, she has had another offer of a year’s exchange in a small college on Long Island. Whether she will go or not I don’t know. She may have decided by now. I don’t feel over-cheerful about it from any aspect.
Do watch the way you write abbreviated negatives – “haven’t” not “have’nt”! The latter is just awfully uneducated, not like you at all. Actually I find I have been writing “sophistocated” all my life wch is of course hopelessly wrong. […]
I’ve decided what I want for Xmas – a book about Rollei cameras. Details later.3
With all best love, Philip
1 Larkin had become friends with Peter Coveney, warden of Needler Hall, a student hall of residence.
2 Hilary Penwill had been Larkin’s secretary until the appointment of Betty Mackereth.
3 On 26 October Philip wrote: ‘After mentioning my “present” I felt I had perhaps been rather presumptuous – it costs about 35/-, wch may be more than an old creature wants to pay. If so, I also want a particular kind of filter, but I might have to order that myself. It shd be cheaper. What wd old creature like?’
26 October 1957
My dear old Creature,
[…] Of course, you mustn’t worry about shortened negatives – but it’s an increasing solecism these days.1 I am trying to convert my secretary to saying envelope and not onvelope, wch I also think low. My meeting with the Finance Committee went off quite all right – they are a rather simple-minded bunch. I can’t believe that the building will actually start before the year is out. Perhaps it won’t! Don’t I see that the builders are asking for more money? This will probably cause a general strike, or a rise in prices so that the £300,000 we have won’t be enough, or something. […]
Expect this letter reads rather dully, but it has all my love,
Philip
1 Eva had written on 21 October: ‘O, Creature, I suddenly became a most abject being when I read your admonition regarding my slip up with the abbreviated negative. I’m quite puzzled at it, because, of course I do know how they should be written. When you mentioned your own mistake with “sophisticated” it reminded me of how for a very long time I wrote “tremendrous” in letters to Daddy before we were married. He never alluded to it, and I found it out only by accident.’
3 November 1957
My dear old creature,
My life is now temporarily back on an even keel, I’m glad to say: the prospect of uninterrupted leisure in Hull is quite comforting after the trip to Belfast, which really struck me as very long and tiring. It’s quite 4 hrs from Hull to L’pool, then of course 10 hours on the sea …1 […]
I’ve suddenly had a burst of meat-eating! Steak on Friday, steak on Saturday & a pork chop, pork & lamb chops today. Perhaps I am unconsciously restoring the losses of Thursday night!
Tomorrow I have a big day. A lorry & 2 men, & myself & 3 others in a hired car, are going up to Busby Hall in N. Riding to pack about 2000 books & bring them back to Hull. They are mouldy & filthy & will constitute a frightful headache: we’ve paid only £100 for them, so I suppose it doesn’t matter. My secretary, Betty, is driving, & Miss Wrench & Miss Mann are coming with us: we shall have to take our lunches, and I only hope we can get the books onto the lorry & all of us back by about 5 or 6 – then they have to be unloaded & stowed away.2 I only hope we don’t get a puncture or any holdup like that. It will be a fearfully long journey. […]
With all my best love, Philip.
1 Larkin had acted as best man at Alec Dalgarno’s wedding.
2 Mary Wrench (later Judd) recalled this jaunt in a letter she wrote to Maeve Brennan and Betty Mackereth in 1986 after Larkin’s death. See Booth, Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love, 231.
17 November 1957
My dear old creature,
[…] This has not been a very eventful week, really: I haven’t seen any results of the photographs & don’t suppose I shall – U.S. papers seem awfully far away. No doubt the results will show the usual balding chinless creature familiar to all. I had Miss Wrench in on Thursday wch was all right, though she departed with 3 of my books. She didn’t say very much, less than she does at work: perhaps she was nervous. Anyway, she didn’t display the madness for which she is renowned, as you’ll remember!1 She asked after you & wondered if you were better now. She regretted not having seen you when you came. Her trouble is not being able to get home from Hull: she lives near Northampton, wch strangely enough is awfully hard to reach from here. […]
Coveney was much cheered by having a good review of his book2 in the New Statesman on Friday. It looks as if it may be quite successful.
Every morning when I eat shredded wheat, as I do just now, I remember your first encounter with it and smile. It is rather like eating a bird’s nest! And one needs to open one’s mouth awfully wide to get a piece of it in. I took some photographs of myself at breakfast this morning. Perhaps they will capture the squalid spirit of Sunday breakfast!3
I look forward to seeing you.
All v. best love, Philip
1 On 30 November 1957 he related how he and Miss Wrench had rescued ‘a cat that had been driven up a lamp standard by dogs! … about 100 students were idly watching the entertainment.’ Larkin was attracted by Mary Wrench’s quirky, independent spirit. On one occasion he surprised her by donning a cat mask while her back was turned. Booth, Philip Larkin, 231.
2 Coveney’s book was Poor Monkey: The Child in Literature (Rockliff: London, 1957).
3 Richard Bradford reproduces two of these photograph in The Importance of Elsewhere, 194.
1958
5 January 1958
Cranston’s Ivanhoe Hotel, Bloomsbury Street, London W.C.1
My dear old Creature,
Here I am in yr old shredded-wheat place: outside the rain is pouring down. The hotel is fearfully hot! in fact we have gone from lounge to lounge seeking coolness, which may sound strange in January. On Friday we went to see Blue Murder at St Trinian’s,1 wch we thought very funny, & last night went to The Boy Friend for the 3rd time – it is in its 4th year now, but still seems full of energy & sparkle.2 At the end they let balloons down from the ceiling & we each got
one! we bore these triumphantly back & are now faced with the task of letting them down, no easy job je vous assure.3 I got the impression that the house was mainly filled with provincial ’bus-loads, who were not very quick at the jokes.
Just before I left I had a letter from A. Nellie enclosing copies of the photographs of the Queen & Duke. She wrote saying she’d enjoyed her stay, & asking for prints of “the fat lady on the bridge” – I am having an enlargement made. The goose came out quite well, but much to my disappointment the lunch ones are slightly out of focus as far as the people are concerned – the foreground of plates and glasses is first class!
On Friday we went to Liberty’s to see what was being sold, & I’m afraid I laid out £6.10.0 on a dressing gown – camel-hair & wool, marked down from £10/10/- which will release Daddy’s old one from Hull & enable me to throw away the green horror wch you see me [in], sulky & silent, facing life at the breakfast table on so many Saturday & Sunday mornings. I also bought a tie & a pair of socks. This goes rather contrary to my principle of never buying at sales! There were some very pretty silk ones, but I don’t really need a silk one.
London looks rather deflated after Christmas, but we are enjoying ourselves well enough. I hope you are keeping on top of everything & that Rosemary’s pantomime was a success, or is, or whichever tense is appropriate.
It’s still raining, & I think we had better go out for beer, as Uncle Alf wd say.
All best love,
Philip
1 A 1957 film set in the fictional girls’ school, written by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat and directed by Frank Launder. It starred Terry-Thomas, George Cole, Joyce Grenfell, Lionel Jeffries and Richard Wattis.
2 The musical by Sandy Wilson, first performed in London in 1954, ran for 2,078 performances. It transferred to Broadway and was made into a film in 1971.
3 Eva (7 January 1958) was puzzled by her son’s evasiveness: ‘You say we went here and we did this and that without saying who was your companion. I expect it was Monica.’ She was right.
21 January 1958
My dear old creature,
Isn’t it cold? There were 29° of frost on Monday night at a place near here – that is, the temperature stood at 3° [F]! I expect you too have snow showers, ground frost, and nasty draughts coming through cracks in the windows. Do take care to keep warm, & don’t slip on the pavements. Take extra care, & don’t stand at street-corners with Mrs Dexter. She has more fat on her ribs than you.1
I ate 8 oz. of steak tonight, & a lot of rice, & feel blown out in consequence. Hope it will “do me good”. There’s no news here, except that the wife of one of my colleagues is having a baby & the other is ill, so both are off. I realise again what a sheltered life I lead. I sent off the photographs to Auntie Nellie, & hope they don’t conflict with her idea of herself.2 One day I must take another of you.
I feel I was a little snappish during my stay – it was perhaps envy of Kingsley, & nothing personal. You know it’s no formality that I always end my letters
With all love from,
Philip
1 Eva’s long-term friend lived nearby in Frederick Street, Loughborough.
2 Three photographs were included with the letter, one of which is reproduced as Plate 13B.
2 February 1958
Cranston’s Ivanhoe Hotel, Bloomsbury Street, London W.C.1
My dear old creature,
I’m here, as you see: a rather battered creature sitting in the lounge, wch is full, or half-full, of anonymous dreary creatures from the wilds of the provinces. It appears rather a dull day but it may improve.
I got to the BBC all right on Friday – rather late, actually: my own fault as well as the fog’s – & we ploughed through the little programme.1 The readers sit at one table & you sit at another. After the rehearsal we found that the programme was too long – most unfortunately, it can’t be allowed to over-run, as it is geared to an outside broadcast – Peter Grimes. So we had to cut a poem out – Coming. Even now I fear it will be too long: perhaps the producer will fade it out or something! I had very little to do, & wasn’t too nervous, but I was all the same too nervous to use the elegant vowel sounds I had been practising all the week! So I shall sound very much as always.
Kingsley is here: really rather dreadful, but it’s quite nice to see him again, also Hilly, who is exactly the same, & gloomily contemplating her 30th year.2 I joined Kingsley yesterday in the Ritz & drank champagne (at Lord Beaverbrook’s expense), while K was interviewed by a frightful woman reporter from the Express.
I hope you are in good form: I return on Monday night. All my very best love
Philip
1 Anthony Thwaite had invited Philip to contribute to the BBC European Service series ‘Younger British Poets of Today’.
2 On 4 February Eva reminisced: ‘I’m not surprised that Hilly does not welcome the coming of her 30th year. I remember I felt quite depressed when I attained that age, and thought it the end of all youth and gaiety. I’ve since found out I was quite mistaken.’
9 February 1958
My dear old creature,
[…] I’m glad you managed to hear the little poetry programme, & that my voice sounded strong & clear. I think one gets easier as one goes on: some people felt I should have said more, & I agree in a way, but there isn’t much to say about the poems, & I wd sooner they were read than that I droned platitudes about them. After this, I really shall have to write some new poems: I really can’t go on running these same old ones any longer. Unfortunately I don’t feel much in the mood!1
Glad to hear the cushion had grown softer. I am sending my bed cover to be cleaned today. When I was in bed it looked so filthy! Also my bedroom curtains need doing, but I shall postpone them somewhat. The dirt in this town is terrible. […]
Your ever-loving * Creature
1 On 18 February Eva wrote: ‘I wonder if your ears burned on Sunday morning about 12.15 p.m.? As I was coming out of church Mrs Stapleton came to me and said that she and Mr Stapleton listened to your poems the other week. She thought they were wonderful, but said they made her feel so sad. Then Mrs Dalton, another lady whom I know and like, said, “I’ve never seen your son” and Mrs Dexter said “O! he’s got a lovely smile and I do like his voice, in fact he has a lovely manner altogether and I’ve always liked Philip.” Can you imagine how I swelled with pride!’
16 February 1958
Newcastle
My dear old creature,
As I probably intimated, this is one weekend I could very well have done without: it is proving all right, just dull. Colin’s 2nd wife Barbara is about as unlike his 1st (Patsy) as could be, but that doesn’t improve her much.1 The house is an older terraced variety, crammed with 2nd hand furniture of various kinds. Newcastle I’ve not seen much of, but they say it is quite as dirty as Hull, & it certainly has a drab appearance. I travelled up by York on Friday, a very dull journey. There are still traces of snow about. Yesterday afternoon Colin drove us out in his rattle-trap Daimler to see the countryside (we went along the Roman wall for a long way), but the weather was so frightful I was glad to get back to the fireside, where I fell asleep. Tonight I get the 7.10, arriving Hull 10.57 – bloody late: another weekend wasted. […]
Do take good care of yourself & keep a little flower of cheerfulness among your leaves!
All love, Philip
1 Barbara was a lecturer in English Language at Newcastle University. Richard Bradford reproduces a photograph taken by Larkin on this visit inthe hardback edition of The Importance of Elsewhere, 101, but misidentifies her as Strang’s first wife, Patsy. In the paperback (100) he describes her as ‘an unknown friend’.
22 February 1958
My dear old creature,
This is an unbelievably dreary day. I sensed it would be and stayed in bed ti
ll a quarter to eleven! […]
Very little has happened this week, as I recall: to some extent I have been irritable in a general non-focussed way, but this hasn’t led to anything. Wood has been getting on my nerves again:1 I had occasion to discuss with him whether or not a girl who works under him should have a merit-increase or not, & this has temporarily taken the lid off his cupidity, & he has been pestering me with proposals for getting him more money, all of which I refuse. He’s scotch, of course. […]
You’re certainly well forward with your birthday cards! I forget if I told you of Miss Wrench’s latest piece of lunacy – she had planned to send me a Valentine, & having addressed it put it in another envelope with a covering letter to a friend of hers in London. Unfortunately she put her friend’s address on the Valentine & mine on the covering envelope! So it turned up a few days in advance. She had the grace to avoid me for a whole day afterwards. (If I’ve told you this before, please excuse me. Old brain going!)
I wonder if anyone showed you the article published in the Daily Mail supposedly by Hilary Amis about why she married Kingsley? Memories are very short. They seem to be becoming a sort of “popular couple” – They’ll probably be on TV soon. Hum!
I do hope your arm is better. I should certainly seek medical advice about it if I were you, & refrain from putting any strain on it. Don’t go to any especial trouble for my arrival! (Porridge for breakfast?)
All my very best love,
Philip
1 Arthur Wood, Larkin’s deputy, inherited from his predecessor, Agnes Cuming.
Philip Larkin Page 36
