Philip Larkin
Page 39
6 December 1959
My very dear old creature,
[…] Last night I went out to the Hartley’s for dinner: Hartley lives on National Assistance and me, & could therefore offer roast chicken and a bottle of Graves. He also offered me £60 in notes (to cheat the taxman), representing 50% of the profits on the sale of the Less D. for 1958/59. I accepted both with alacrity. It was quite a pleasant evening, & I borrowed a letter he had received from John Betjeman expressing his appreciation of a long article I wrote about his poetry in Hartley’s magazine Listen.
[…] The latest news from Monica is that her father has been returned home from hospital, in what circumstances I don’t know & I’m not clear if she does.1 Therefore I suppose she is more likely to be at home at Christmas, but as you say there is a month, or three weeks, to go so one can’t be clear. […]
1 Eva wrote on 8 December: ‘I do hope Monica is feeling better, but it is all very sad and worrying for her.’
13 December 1959
My dear old creature,
I’m afraid I took you at your word and sent no letter or even card from London, awful creature. It was beastly chilly there – drizzly, too – and I am, as ever, glad to be back. But I was sorry to find a card from M. waiting for me, saying she had been called home by the doctor as her father was worse. I expect his time is short now.1 I haven’t yet mentioned Christmas; it wouldn’t be right, but I shall ask in due course what she is planning to do, if anything. So perhaps you had better postpone that turkey if it needs me to eat it up! Of course, M’s relations will probably invite her to spend the holiday with them. But I shall feel bound to ask, shan’t I?
I had a good journey up from London, for a wonder. There was an Indian opposite me going to Nottingham whom I had to eject from the train at Grantham. Otherwise he wd have found himself in Yorkshire! I wanted him out of the way so that I could stretch my legs. From Selby the Diesel was full of tiny sea cadets who chattered & smoked but put newspaper on the seats before resting their shoes on them! Funny sharp little boys, in white peaked caps; I wondered what they will look like in 40 years.
Another sheet soon.2 Goodnight, my dearest old creature!
Best of love! Philip
1 On 15 December Eva wrote: ‘Your news of Monica’s Father made me feel so sad, in fact I had a little weep over him. And Monica, too. I do feel so very sorry for her. I hope she does not break down under the strain and worry. If the worst happens to her Father, what ought I to do? Should I write to her, as I did before? I cannot very well send a Christmas card, can I? / Yes, you will have to ask what her plans are about Christmas. I shall go on preparing in case you do come.’ Monica’s father died within days and Monica spent Christmas with Eva and Philip in Loughborough, the only time she ever did so (email to the editor from Rosemary Parry, 7 December 2017). On 31 December Eva wrote ‘What a strange Christmas we have had! I must thank you very much for all the things you did for us and do hope you did manage to get some enjoyment out of an unfortunate situation.’
2 This is an unusually short, single-page letter (two sides).
15 December 1959
My dear old creature,
Here is the second part of the letter I promised you. […]
Miss Wrench now says she is going to get married on Dec 29th! and has asked me to go, cadging a present I suppose. More trouble. The reception is being held at the Drinkwaters’ house. She seems in a good temper now, having been rather temperamental this term: not sometimes without reason.
I’ve bought a reprint of some beautiful nineteenth century studies of roses by Redouté, but derive more pleasure from thinking of your three sleeping in themselves outside yr back door.1
All love Philip
1 Philip sent eight of these postcards to Eva between November 1959 and March 1960.
1960
3 January 1960
My dear old Creature,
Well, this is the first letter I have written in the new decade, and very fitting it should be to you. I’ve already wished you a happy new year: now let me wish you a happy new decade. But hasn’t it started badly, if you are losing Mrs Mitchell! I know you depend on her for cleaning and company, & it was so nice to think you had someone you could rely on.1 Perhaps she will reconsider her decision when her domestic situation has quietened down. I thought the son’s dramatic act of goodwill seemed too good to last. Anyway, I hope she changes her mind; or, if she doesn’t, that you soon find a substitute.
I’ve not really had much time since returning to think about my own affairs, as Monica turned up on Thursday and has been sitting around recuperating most of the time (she is on the floor reading the papers as I write). Yesterday we went to York after lunch, and enjoyed ourselves very much up to the point of going for dinner to the Station Hotel wch was uneatable and cost the earth. We did some shopping in a second-hand bookshop, & then found a fine old public house with pictures of horses and jockeys on the walls & coal fires in all the rooms. Monica is rather thin, & has a cough, but seems content enough at the moment. Of course she was never one for wearing her heart on her sleeve.
Since many of my staff are taking their summer holidays still,2 the Library is very lonely & not much work is being done. Mary3 got married (apparently beating all records from church door to altar, so that the organist had to abandon his voluntary or piece intended to accompany her slow advance); Vivienne4 who was going to New Zealand has met another man & has cancelled her plans: he is a prospective grocer, building up a business in Hull, so she will in all probability never leave this region ever! Maeve’s5 brother has appendicitis. Betty6 has had her hair done and gone to London. Wood is having a new car! His wife certainly gives him gee-up when it comes to making the money fly. I suppose being married to such a goggling little ass makes her want lots of consolations of this kind. Come to that, I have ordered a two-piece suit myself, in light grey tweed. I suppose that is to console me for having such a goggling little ass for a deputy.
The day looks rather frosty and misty, and we shall now cross the park, post this, buy another paper or two, & enter the Queen’s Hotel for a while. After that we shall return and probably not emerge again till M. has to go back to her hotel. Give my regards to Kitty (!) & Walter: I do hope you are settling down again after the trials of Christmas.
All best love,
Philip
1 On 31 December 1959 Eva had written that she had expected her cleaner as usual, ‘thinking how glad I was that she would be here on the Thursday after A. Nellie had gone – for company chiefly’. Instead Mrs Mitchell had sent a note saying ‘she would not be able to come any more as her Mother-in-law returned on Christmas Eve, which has put them into an awful mess and upset Mrs Mitchell very much.’
2 Because of preparations for the library move in the summer many staff holidays had been postponed.
3 Mary Wrench.
4 Vivienne Wray worked in the library in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and again in the mid-1970s.
5 Maeve Brennan.
6 Betty Mackereth, Larkin’s secretary.
10 January 1960
My very dear old creature,
I feel sorry that I haven’t, or can’t, commemorate your birthday properly this year, as I should always like you to feel I am remembering you especially on the 10th January. I ought to have arranged to ring you up this evening, just to exchange a few words with you. Anyway, I am thinking of you, and recalling your dictum that the snow always comes for your birthday. Has it in Loughborough? There is none here – a few flurries in the wind yesterday, but that was all. It’s very cold, though! […]
Tomorrow I have to
receive an indefinite [number of] – probably about 100 – landladies and let them see the Library. This means ‘a few words’.
They are people who take in university students, and once a year they are all invited up to the University for tea. I’ve never seen them before: I expect they’re a rum lot.
Last Monday my cleaner-supervisor came & asked me to sack one of the women! I spent a queasy day & night worrying about this, but next morning I saw her again & she said perhaps she had been hasty. So I buttered her up as best I could & we parted until the next time. She is very good – as far as I can tell – rather intense, but much superior to the cleaners she directs. I hope she doesn’t leave for any reason.
That reminds me to ask if you have made any further progress towards finding another cleaner.
Monica liked the striped tights, but they don’t fit exactly – the feet are too big, and the ankles too large. She wrote in reply to my first Christmas parcel that she thought I might have bought her some striped tights – by then I had & they were already on their way. They arrived on Christmas Day.1 […]
Once again, dear old creature, I send my love & MANY HAPPY RETURNS!!!!!
Philip
1 In Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love, Plate 13, I mistakenly assumed that the tights had been a gift from Eva.
24 January 1960
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Sunday
My dear old creature,
I’m sorry we didn’t have time to say goodbye more ceremoniously. It was a nice though dark (& for me harassed) weekend. Rain last[ed] all day, right up to here. No of course!
Here is a cheque to pay for the fire. Don’t let him bully you into taking anything you don’t want.1
Take care of your dear self.
Love
Philip
1 On 26 January Eva wrote: ‘Well, Creature, the man from Keigthleys’ [sic] turned up this morning with the Belling electric fire. […] I asked the price of it and found it is more than £10.10.0. It doesn’t matter though. I can pay the difference. He gave me plenty of opportunity to change my mind, but I think it really is the only suitable one in the shop and I like it, and feel sure it will make the kitchen very cosy and warm. Thank you very much.’
12 February 1960
Picture postcard1
[32 Pearson Park, Hull]
Nasty day here – got up late & have no special desire to go to work, but I suppose I must. Have applied for Reading & now feel rather queasy about it. Glad you have a cleaner – hope I can tell you apart!
Your letter sounded very gay and jolly. I wish it were warmer – filthy snow & sleet & wind & I hate it.
Love from P.
1 Redouté: Rosa Redutea glauca painting.
13 March 1960
My very dear old creature,
A happier creature this week than last! It’s strange how panicky I got towards the day: I can see now that I didn’t at all want to move from Hull, & that although there were quite good reasons for not taking the job I was pretty well set against it from the start.1
So you must resign yourself to having a Yorkshire creature!2
Probably one of the biggest factors that turned me against it was the Librarian’s room, a hideous little den, dark & bare, not above twice the size of my present desk. I felt it was impossible for me to work therein. Actually the staff seemed pleasant & highly competent: I was pleased to see Leila Bishop, the girl whom I replaced at Leicester in 1946. Yesterday I went to a meeting in Leeds & encountered one of the short list. He said no decision had been reached, or at least not communicated to them, but he expected to hear any time now. My guess is that it will go to a character called Richmell & would have done in any case.3 […]
Actually now the Reading business is over I am beginning to get scared about the opening. I am not sure of my ability to entertain the QM for even a few minutes as I shall have to do!4 […]
My head cleaner at the library is very worried about one “lady” who she says disobeys her. I had this “lady” in to see me yesterday but got nowhere really: she seemed quite mild & astonished that any such notion should have arisen. Possibly my head cleaner is imagining things. Possibly not! Anyway, I hope I haven’t made things worse. I’m not especially fond of the allegedly disobedient one, but it’s easy to distort things.5
There’s no other news, Wood is so stupid I want to chop his head off and dribble it round the Library. Why can’t some of the road accidents remove him from my sphere? Ugh, Grr.
Lots of love to you – quite springy here. Ph.
1 Larkin had been called to interview on 9 March for the post of Librarian at Reading University, but, after looking round the town and the library, he returned to Hull without attending the scheduled interview.
2 Eva commented (15 March): ‘How your sketches amused me, especially the one of the Yorkshire Creature!’
3 Eva wrote on 13 March: ‘I think, on the whole, you have done right to withdraw, especially if the thought that you might be successful gave you no pleasure. After all you are not so badly off at Hull – a nice flat situated in pleasant surroundings, and a new, comfortable library to work in. The disadvantage to my mind is that it is so far away from everywhere.’
4 The Queen Mother was due to open the new library.
5 This dispute lasted some time. On 29 March Eva compared her own earlier experience running a household: ‘I am not surprised that your cleaners worry you. I well remember the worries and misery I suffered over the women and maids. And the number of things they stole! Coal, tea, tea towels and handkerchiefs, embroidered tray cloths and records.’
12 May 1960
32 Pearson Park, Hull
My dear old creature,
[…] Betty suggests I go home next weekend. I think she wants it off herself. So you will probably receive another visit from that sweet tempered, soft-tongued creature you know so well.
I’m sorry about Walter’s car. My best love,
Philip
27 May 1960
Picture postcard1
[32 Pearson Park, Hull]
Thank you for your nice letter. How exciting about the workmen & the birds.2 I hope you can watch the young ones grow. There’s not much news here – I’m frantically busy, & oppressed by the prospect of the QM. Here is a picture of the gull that goes oghoghogh, actually doing it.3 Dear old creature I hope you have a peaceful weekend.
Love Philip
1 Great black-backed gulls and herring gulls.
2 On 24 May Eva wrote that she was anticipating the arrival of workmen next day to refurbish and decorate several rooms in her house. She continued: ‘To-day when I looked at the blackbird’s nest there was a newly-hatched bird in it, and the mother bird was feeding it. They are not at all nice to look at, with no feathers. I looked again just before tea and there were two little birds there – the second egg had hatched. I wonder if they will be spirited away when I look tomorrow morning!’ On 30 May she wrote: ‘You ask if the birds are still here. Only one little one is here now. I cannot think what has happened to the other one. It was smaller and feebler than the one which has survived, which makes me wonder if the mother has thrown it out of the nest. The remaining one is getting quite nice to look at now. It is covered with down, and has wings tipped with dark blue feathers.’
3 Eva replied on 30 May: ‘Oghoghogh! / I liked your Saturday p.c. very much, and was amused to see one of the gulls actually making the famous ejaculation.’ This version of a herring-gull’s call, ‘oghoghogh’ (or separated, ‘ogh ogh ogh’), appears frequently in Larkin’s letters, indicating surprise, amusement or apprehension.
16 June 1960
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dear old creature,
Just a short word to cheer you on your way (!). I had your letter, thanks, & hope it keeps fine for your journey. Remember a ’bus can always
be identified by its number plate, even among 20 similar buses.
We shall wait for you as I said. If you arrive early, wait for us.
We are all rather fed up with the opening now – at least I am – and am longing for it to be over. I still haven’t thought up any small talk for the QM. There was a rumour of typhoid among the students today! I wd almost (not quite) welcome it, to escape Monday.
I’m glad you had a good “poussin” at the King’s Head. I eat almost every Saturday lunchtime at the White House (where you are staying) & I can tell you I have to pay over 10/- to get anything worth eating. Last Saturday I paid only 6/6 for some “curried chicken” & it was like a dog’s dinner, including worm-powder.
My hayfever ebbs & flows, more’s the pity. Let’s hope it ebbs on Monday – but then I don’t want it to rain! Horrible to think it’s so near.1
Love from
Creature
1 The official opening of stage 1 of the library took place on Monday 20 June in the presence of the Queen Mother. Both Monica and Eva travelled to Hull for the occasion. On 23 June Eva wrote: ‘I felt a very proud Creature at the Opening Ceremony, and shall ever remember it. I am so glad that I was there (in spite of all my fears regarding the visit) and am glad that my presence gave you pleasure.’