Sur Le Champ de Bataille
[Mid 1970s]
Relations with your uncle and aunt continue to deteriorate and the sending of a solicitor’s letter will not easily be forgiven or forgotten. I saw them both racing at Newbury today but my friendly greeting met with an arctic response. Words like ‘monstrous’ and ‘disgraceful’ were flung at my weary old head and your uncle requested me to tell your dear mother to go and jump in the lake. All very painful and perhaps the more so as your aunt was wearing a bright pink coat of almost unbelievable unattractiveness.
Family trusts are common ground for family feuds. The sale of land was at issue here. Friendly relations with Pam and Ken were later resumed.
Little Shiverings
Burghclere
[1970s]
Aunt Pam came racing with us in an unusually good mood and a totally impermissible hat.
Windsor Castle
21 January [1970s]
A long day yesterday as we motored to Peterborough for the cremation of the mortal remains of Cynthia’s Uncle Derek. We picked up your Aunt Pam who was very Aunt Pammish. When she saw me her first remark, as we had forecast, was ‘I don’t think there’ll be enough lunch.’ To her horror we stopped at a pub en route where three jolly commercial travellers made sheep’s eyes at Aunt Pam and your mother. Even your mother did not dare to have a second drink so disapproving was her sister. The service was ruined by a chirpy vicar who, instead of reading out the moving and dignified words of the service, had the cheek to give us a scripture lesson first. Back to Chesterton where almost at gunpoint your aunt was compelled to give us a cup of tea. The General is worried as a trendy hash house, run by a Greek, is being opened at the end of their garden.
Uncle Derek was a naughty charmer. His parents had dispatched him to Kenya in his early twenties, where he fell in with the ‘Happy Valley Set’. When he ran out of money and wives, both called Pat, he retired to England. He had one delightful son, Peter Fisher.
Maison des Geriatriques
27 February [1970s]
Aunt Pam is now in S. Africa. I wonder if her clothes will result in new fashions in Durban and Port Elizabeth?
Home Sweet Home
[1975, typed in red]
Aunt Pam was at Newbury races wearing a hat like an inverted wastepaper basket of magenta felt. Very fetching. Your Uncle Ken was 65 last week. Aunt Pam says she can now buy meat for him on specially reduced terms.
Chez Nidnod
27 September [early 1980s]
Why not write an article about Aunt Pam? The fact is that despite her limitations she is one of the happiest and most fulfilled women I know, very typical of her class and type.
14b Via Dolorosa
Burghclere
8 December 1983
On Sunday we lunch with Aunt Pam: whenever I enter Maison Darling I always feel a slight atmosphere of disapproval. As I am notoriously insensitive, the word ‘slight’ is probably inappropriate. I invariably feel goaded there to express left-wing views which I don’t in fact possess (e.g. ‘I think that chap Ken Livingstone is probably right, you know. By the way his father fagged for me at Eton’).
Budds Farm
14 August [late 1970s]
I saw General and Lady Darling racing yesterday: if they were overjoyed to see me, they kept their feelings splendidly under control.
The Olde Lazar House
Burghclere
12 January [mid 1980s]
They say there is no such thing as a betting certainty. I believe otherwise, e.g. that if you receive a letter from Lady Pam Darling, the stamp will be second class.
Hypothermia House
16 February [1970s]
Did I tell you about the Queen and Queen Mother lunching with Cousin Tom to see his pictures? Thinks: are the Blackwells emerging from the middle class at last?
The Maudlings
Heathcote Amory
Berks
[Late 1960s]
Set off to Ireland by car – drive across Wales most enjoyable and rewarding. Dinner at Fishguard Hotel, a Victorian edifice overlooking an enchanting harbour. Midsummer Ball at hotel; wonderfully untrendy – fairy lights and a five-piece band thumping out ‘Tea for Two’ and ‘Among my Souvenirs’. A placid night on the boat and a wonderful drive through the Wicklow Mountains the next day. Uncle Chris (78) very groggy but dead game. Aunt Star (78) in marvellous form and her sense of the ludicrous totally unimpaired. Aunt Phyl (76) lame and crusty but apt to mellow after a generous intake of Gordon’s Gin. She fell yesterday and had the hell of a time getting her up again as she is so heavy. Block and tackle really needed.
Best love
xx D
When Aunt Phyl stayed with us, it was my little task to serve a fizzing glass of Epsom Salts to her before she arose from her bed in the morning. She had a generous mane of grey hair which was swept up into an unwieldy bun.
Budds Farm
[1970s]
Aunt Shirley observed the other day, ‘And how is Roger? I suppose he’ll soon be getting old enough to marry.’ Aunt Shirley is in great form physically, eats like a horse and has a couple of keepers who hide the drink and slip her a couple of pills when the strain gets too much for them. Cousin Tom’s pictures – Monets and Sisleys – are up for sale at Christie’s next week. I expect they will make £250,000.
On one occasion my father had taken young Lupin to see Aunt Shirley. She gazed at my father, saying, ‘Isn’t it about time you left Harrow, Roger?’ – a school he never attended.
Little Crumblings
Roper Caldbeck
Bucks
3 July [1970s]
The Blackwell pictures, 2 Monets and 2 Sisleys, went for about £150,000 which will keep Cousins Tom and John off the breadline for a bit. Old Camilla Denison-Pender came here the other day; v. agreeable but I am never quite at ease with her and suspect she can be just a bit of an old B. Poor Uncle Chris had a heavy fall after dinner when we were staying at Ballynure; he is dead game and resolutely keeps on trying to get off with your mother but the flame of life flickers erratically.
Budds Farm
10 March [early 1970s]
Aunt Shirley’s little quirk is to imagine every house is a hotel and when she leaves always asks, ‘How much shall I tip the Hall Porter?’
Staying at a hotel in Dorset once, Aunt Shirley went into the wrong room and climbed into a bed already occupied by a honeymoon couple. My aunt was perceived as suffering from absent-mindedness, not dementia.
The Lazar House
Burghclere
4 December 1976
Aunt Shirley, 86, is now in a home. The other day she lunched with her 94-year-old elder sister and that sister’s daughter. Aunt Shirley thought her sister was her mother, who in fact died in 1917, and that the daughter was an insubordinate parlour maid who refused to wear a cap and apron. The home charges £100 per week and that does not include all the extras. What a ghastly thing old age is!
The Old Damp Barn
Burghclere
[1970s]
Cousin Tom went to see Aunt Shirley, a robust 90, the other day. He was getting on quite nicely when she suddenly rang the bell. When a nurse appeared Aunt Shirley said in severe tones: ‘There’s a strange man in here. Get him out of here at once.’ Her elder sister is playing good bridge at 96.
Budds Farm
25 September 1973
Thank you for your letter. I’m sorry you have taken umbrage over something I wrote about Croydon. I am the last person to run down the outer London suburbs. The Blackwells, dripping with money made as wholesale grocers, swarmed over Harrow Weald and Chipperfield. Uncle Percy Mortimer and Cousin Flossie held court at Wimbledon. Uncle Tudor Davies went to ground somewhere near Southend. The Fishers, cousins of my father, were comfortably dug in at Streatham. My antecedents are reasonably respectable but totally devoid of social eminence. I have just had a letter from your godfather R. C. Lemprière-Robin giving me curious details about a Russian nymphomaniac who
is double jointed and has come to live quite near him.
Budds Farm
20 January [mid 1970s]
Yesterday your mother and I went to Ireland for the day for your Great Aunt Star’s funeral. It was no less grisly and depressing than most similar functions. Aunt Star was a remarkable woman, a very strong personality who was a kindly despot at Ballynure. Tall and handsome with a very soft and attractive voice, she had an immense zest for life. She was hard to beat on the tennis court, the golf course or the hunting field. At the same time she loved beautiful things, read a lot and was a superb gardener. Unlike most Blackwells, she was not under-sexed and had some rollicking affairs after her first, short disastrous marriage which she contracted to get away from home; easier to do now than in 1913. I have never met anyone with a better sense of fun and she was wonderfully easy to talk to and loved private jokes. When I was a rather oppressed schoolboy she gave me confidence and encouraged me in every way. I owe her an unpayable debt for many kindnesses and for many wonderful holidays at Ballynure which was once a second home to me. Courage was the virtue she admired and was luckily not short of that commodity herself. Her son was killed in the war. Her daughter, whom she adored, was carried home dead on Christmas Eve after a hunting accident. Her two sons-in-law died slowly and painfully before they were fifty. Nevertheless she never gave in, and two days before she died, riddled with cancer, she was following hounds in a car.
Best love to you all,
D
Star’s elder grandson, David, became master of Ballynure.
The Old Tudor Doss House
[Mid 1970s]
I have just been up to Newmarket for several days, one of six old gents staying with Cousin Tom. There was no shortage of port and old Colonel Brownlow twice lit cigarettes in the middle, thereby burning them in half, while Colonel Poole took 25 minutes to deal a single hand at bridge. I suggested he took off his shoes and socks and tried dealing with his feet. My second cousin Pearl Lawson-Johnston won a race (or rather her horse did) worth £26,000. Pearl is the school solution of what a typical English spinster is likely to be. She dresses as if her clothes were procured at the WI autumn jumble and her honest, homely features are innocent of powder, etc. She is a JP, head of the County Nursing Association, the County St John Ambulance Association and the County Girl Guides. She is an ex MFH and was recently awarded the OBE. She is very rich as her family drum up Bovril.
Love,
x RM
Rabbit’s Larder
Burghclere
[1980s]
Cousin Tom drove his new car into a tree and was lucky to evade death. He had had a bad session with his dentist and unfortunately the painkiller sent him straight into the arms of Demon Doss. Cousin Tom is a survivor, having come unscathed out of two air crashes and one other bad car crash. He wants me to go to Bali in March but I am too old for larking about with dusky beauties. Anyway I’m not absolutely sure where Bali is. Do they still have human sacrifices there? I would really prefer a fortnight in South Africa: I hate Boers but at least there would be no risk (presumably) of meeting Guardian-type feminists there.
‘Eventide’ Home for Distressed or Mentally Afflicted
Members of the Middle Classes
[Late 1970s]
We had the Kennards to tea one day. Loopy told me that his temperament was such that it simply did not pay him to work and in any case he was perfectly content with a rich wife to support his essential needs (i.e. a regular supply of Gordon’s Gin). I think that Hot Hand Henry and his bride are favouring us with their presence at Easter. It is difficult to have five minutes conversation with Louise away from HHH.
The Kennards were my sister’s mother-in-law and her husband. Loopy was nothing if not a romantic. He had several marriages prior to the one to HHH’s mother. His next and final wife had been the great flame of his youth, but the war had separated them and she had married someone else. When the elderly Loopy published his autobiography, he received a congratulatory letter from his old love, now a widow, inviting him to pop in when he was in London. He did pop in – but did not pop out again.
Chateau Geriatrica
Saturday [mid 1980s]
I saw Loopy Kennard at Sandown: at first I thought some elderly tramp had strayed into the members’ enclosure looking for a bottle of meths. I think he is going to seed almost as fast as I am but his brain is in fact in better repair than mine. I can’t remember a bloody thing nowadays except the pedigrees of long-dead horses which isn’t really all that much use.
Love,
D xx
Perhaps that’s enough of relations, or relations of relations. The next chapter reveals the creatures with whom my parents enjoyed unconditional love.
11
From Turpin to the Tiddlers
Chez Nidnod
Kintbury
[1970s]
Dearest Jane,
This afternoon our dogs are competing at a local Dog Show. Three years ago dear old Cringer would have won the Veterans Cup at Burghclere but tactlessly peed on the judge’s handbag and was demoted to second place.
Love to all,
xx D
My parents were completely English about dogs. They loved their rumbustious presence, their humour, their unquestioning devotion and that you could say silly things to them in a silly voice. They didn’t mind the smells, dog hair, messes or bad breath of a good dog. Their love of dogs was something they loved in each other, even if they did not always love each other’s dogs. When in his eighties my father was asked if he believed in heaven, he said, ‘Yes, if I could be resurrected as one of my wife’s dogs.’
Their dog history included some pedigrees, but my father appreciated a good mongrel with a hotchpotch of interesting genes. Such a character came into our family life when he lolloped across the road in front of my parents’ car, narrowly missing it, as they drove through Chiswick one cold and foggy night in the early 1950s. Immediately concerned, they stopped and got out to be greeted by a collarless black spaniel-type dog, wagging his tail and greeting them like long-lost friends. A stray that was not in good shape, my parents scooped him up and drove him out of London and brought him back to a welcoming home.
He was named ‘Turpin’ after the road – Dick Turpin’s highway – on which he had nearly been annihilated. In Mortimer tradition, he had a nickname, Sir Thumpetty Bumps, in celebration of his tail, so often thumping on the ground with happiness.
On the school run, sharing a back seat packed with children, Sir Thumpetty would sit, grinning with his long pink tongue out. On hot days, the parent driving us home might stop and buy us ice lollies. On account of Turpin, we children had labelled raspberry ice lollies ‘Dog’s Tongues’. My mother, believing this to be a trade name, went into the confectioner’s one summer’s afternoon and briskly requested, ‘Six dog’s tongues, please.’
When Turpin’s life ended in the manner in which it had so nearly been curtailed ten years previously, hit by a vehicle, our household went into quiet grief. There was no sadder mourner than my brother, who rode down to the village on his bike, returning with some stick on letters, T-U-R-P-I-N, and applied them to a little wooden cross he had fashioned to mark his beloved dog’s grave at the end of the garden.
A surprise is not an experience in which everyone rejoices. When, a few weeks after Turpin’s demise, my mother produced a beautiful Dalmatian puppy as a ‘surprise’ for the family, the response was a memorable anti-climax. Named ‘Pongo’ after a dog in 101 Dalmatians, the new puppy was handsome, happy and completely unencumbered by a brain. He was quickly known as ‘Your mother’s dog’. Pongo grew into a perpetual teenager, undisciplined and brimming with testosterone. ‘But he’s only a puppy’ was my mother’s refrain for sixteen years.
Owners who may address their own sex lives with discretion are perfectly happy to see their dog rogering the arm or leg of a visitor or with their nose nestled happily in the groin or up the skirt of a guest. Solomon Grundy was a bright and busy Ja
ck Russell terrier that my father acquired for himself, and he was happy to express his sexual interests at any given opportunity. Solomon and Pongo allied themselves into a loose brotherhood, bounding off on roving parties together when chance arose. The fields and lanes around my parents’ subsequent Berkshire home, Budds Farm, rang to the anxious calls of my parents summoning their two mischievous dogs and echoed to their indignant tones to each other as they exchanged accusations of negligence.
To their owners, dogs are often believed to be of a higher status than humans and unless actively aggressive – and sometimes even then – their behaviour is deemed unimpeachable. Messes in the house and peeing against the curtains are just a further celebration of their adorable animalness. In his letters, my father managed somehow to celebrate the monumental nature of the deposits of their dogs. Sell-by dates on food labels were an ignorable curiosity to my parents, a partial explanation for the curious state of both human and canine digestive systems in their household.
As he matured, Solomon was increasingly referred to as ‘The Cringer’. My father had trained him to perform a little parlour trick. ‘Lie down!’ instructed my father, quickly followed by roars of ‘Cringe! Cringe, you brute!’ The Cringer happily rolled on his back with all four legs straight up in the air in humble supplication, remaining in that position until my father’s smiling face indicated release.
My parents went about their different daily lives in their separate cars, their dogs on the front seat beside them, affectionate and unargumentative companions.
When Pongo’s final hour came, my mother was utterly devastated, and when my mother suffered, she felt compelled to share it unreservedly. My father sympathized but he found it hard to do so on an hourly basis. He wrote to me wearily: ‘At the name of Pongo, every knee shall bow.’
The Cringer, too, grew old. The sorrow of my parents was mutual when he turned up his toes. By then there was already a new canine presence in the house – Sir Peregrine van Notenpool. My mother had christened him with the name of an ancestor which even on paper nearly exceeded the size of the dog – a very camp Chihuahua, white and fluffy, with an unassailable sense of his own importance. His tail acted as a barometer – I’m uncertain what it meant when it was a fully fluffed out plume, but it meant something.
Dearest Jane... Page 25
