Dear Lumpy Read online

  I see Blue Circle Cement is closing down several branches. I hope Loopy will not be made redundant. I hear betting shops are making a fortune in S. Wales and the North East where workers have been given fat redundancy payments. As the old song goes, ‘Cocktails and Laughter, what comes after? Nobody knows.’ I have sold Padro as a stallion which is a bit of luck. Christmas draws hideously close. As I have often said before, my ideal Christmas would be spent in a Jewish hotel in Eastbourne. Mabel, my old Nanny, rang up yesterday. She is 88 and completely on the ball. Her daughter, who held a good job in the Bank of England, has bought a small estate in Dorsetshire.

  Love to all, x

  My father enlightens me on his idea of an ideal Christmas.

  Budds Farm

  Dearest L,

  I trust you are all thriving. Your Mother is up in Northumberland and I hope the change will do her good. She was a bit overwrought in Ascot week and was very tired by the end of it. One night at dinner we had the well known door slamming act followed by a brief speech in which she expressed the fervent wish that my final departure from this vale of tears would not be long delayed. The guests looked slightly surprised but gallantly went on pecking away at the tinned prawns in rice. Lupin’s god-father Fitz Fletcher stayed here. Not long ago he went with his daughter to a party in Somerset. There were 53 guests and fifty developed acute food poisoning from the curried turkey. They were very ill indeed and six were in ‘intensive care’ for a week. Ascot was quite fun but it is getting shoddy. The Royal Enclosure lawn might be the Mayor’s annual garden party at Basingstoke. The clothes were dowdy and the number of pretty, well turned out girls could have been counted on the horns of a goat. We had lunch one day with Jamie Crichton Stuart and his wife. Luckily I found an ex-girlfriend there and had a cosy time on a sofa. Your mother cornered an elderly woman and favoured her with a lecture on hepatitis. On Saturday I lunched with the Beaumonts at Ascot, got slightly sloshed and made what I now realize were some highly unsuitable remarks. I saw James Staples looking unbelievably clean and smart in the Royal Enclosure. Stephen Willett is doing Hotel Management and Catering at Surrey University. He heard there was a waiter shortage at Ascot and offered his services. He was detailed to serve in the private chalet hired by Mr. K. Abdullah who has several oil wells at the bottom of his garden. Mr Abdullah took a fancy to him and at the end of the afternoon gave him a little tip of £50. In addition Stephen got £18 in wages for the day. Nice work if you can get it. Tiny Man has just rolled in a singularly repulsive mess and I must give him a bath. There was a 15 mile queue into Newbury on Saturday for the air display. Dean Swift wrote: ‘I am grown so hard to please that I am offended with every unexpected face I meet where I visit, and the least Tediousness or Impertinence gives me shortness of breath and a pain in the stomach.’

  Kind Regards to H.

  Best Love,

  R

  P.S. Your Mother and I had tea with Mr Abdullah. I enjoyed seeing your mother in full flood of verbosity with him as he understands English about as well as I understand Arabic. There was a rather sinister man there, a combination of valet, chauffeur and armed bodyguard.

  Language was a meaningless barrier to my mother once she got the bit between her teeth.

  1977

  Chez Nidnod

  Much Grumblings

  Berks

  16 February

  Hullo Fatchops!

  Thank you for your saucy Valentine which was much appreciated. How is the cooking going? Can you make clear gravy soup without great eyes of grease winking up at you from the plate: fishcakes that do not crumble at the first fork-prod yet actually contain fish: and rice pudding with a brown top that does not taste like very old brown paper? I expect Henry is already putting on weight. How is his stomach, by the way? Nidnod is no barmier than usual but just carries on doing and saying the most extraordinary things. She had a drink with the Gaselees on Sunday and dropped a cigarette on their best sofa, burning a hole in the cover. Some French people were there who talked faultless English. Nidnod insisted on addressing them in a series of weird sounds that she imagined had some connection with the French language. Needless to say no one could understand what she was getting at and I was covered with mortification and confusion. Pongo’s inside is in poorish order and his output of really appalling smells has been increased to an almost unbearable level. Poor Lupin. Most of his friends now seem to be in prison; others doubtless ought to be. They are a very seedy collection of social misfits. Not much news from here. Mrs Black appears to be shacking up with an eighteen year old moron whose father keeps the chemists shop at Kingsclere. I criticise her conduct not from the point of view of morals but of taste. People are so apt to confuse the two. Sarah Bomer’s mother is very ill and Sarah has had to go down to Wales to help her father. I saw a huge rat near the stables yesterday. It leered at me in a manner I found distinctly objectionable. I resent that attitude from members of the animal kingdom. No news from your sister, the ever-popular Hexham housewife and culture queen. I suppose she is still busy laying carpets at Scroggs’s Bottom or whatever her new semi-detached chateau on the Tyne is called. I hear the ghastly Shearer has been married in America. I dare say the lady of his choice will soon be regretting her rashness. I would not trust him as far as I could throw a full size piano.

  XXX D

  Having given Henry food poisoning twice, not intentionally, my parents generously pay for me to do a cordon bleu cookery course.

  My father is mortified by Nidnod’s erratic behaviour, not for the first time. When she insists she speaks French fluently, which she clearly does not, he would make a quick exit leaving other people bemused and amused.

  The Old Nuthouse

  Burghclere

  26 February

  My Dearest L,

  Now that you and Henry are formally engaged, I send you both my sincere good wishes for your future happiness. Marriage can be a bit tricky. So many people expect to be blissfully happy: they do very well indeed if they end up reasonably contented, a situation most likefully to be achieved if the wife cooks well and does not talk too much, and if the husband is out of the house for most of the day and has not got enough money to cut a dash with other women. I hope there will be no family arguments prior to the wedding though at present the omens seem not altogether favourable. If disagreements arise, I suggest they are settled by Loopy and myself who are both fairly tolerant and easygoing. If things are left to Nidnod and Lady Kennard, I fear that sparks, possibly more solid objects, may start flying. The further apart they remain, the better. Telephone conversations, too, must be discouraged.

  I hope you will get married down here but that of course is up to you. If you have a church wedding and a formal reception, Henry must wear a tail coat! He can easily hire one from Moss Bros or from his brother’s Eton tailor. He will not need a hat. A grey top hat at a wedding is very non-U. I certainly do not wish him to follow the example of Paul who wore cornflower-blue velvet and looked like Little Boy Blue going off to blow his horn.

  Once you have decided where the nuptial rites are to be celebrated, I will look out for suitable caterers. The number of people to be asked will depend on the price charged per head.

  I only hope all closely concerned with this ritual tribal function will still be on speaking terms by the time the day arrives. Much tolerance and goodwill may be required.

  Best love,

  RM

  I don’t care for weddings but I may look in for a drink.

  Excellent marriage advice from Dad, I don’t think.

  Budds Farm

  22 April

  Dearest L,

  Thank you for your letter. I did not greatly relish my 24hr sojourn in the Winchester Clinic, a singularly dreary edifice conducted on Spartan lines. Not long before my operation a nurse came in and handed me a sort of nightdress with strings on that she told me to wear. Anything to oblige, so I put it on and tied it up securely. When the nurse came back she had hysterics as I had put the ru
ddy thing on back to front and she could not get the strings untied, eventually half the staff of the clinic including a cook was engaged in trying to undress me. The operation took 45 minutes and needed 18 stitches and I was quite sleepy afterwards but happily your Mother turned up at teatime, bundled me into her car in my pyjamas and drove me home. Was very sore for a day or two but that is wearing off. The Lemprière-Robins are staying here with Emma. We had other people for the week-end and a dinner party at which the food was below standard. Lupin is in good form so perhaps his latest pills have done some good. I have just ordered some wine from my bookmaker – cheap and fairly nasty. We hope to go to France for a week in May – somewhere in Brittany, I think. We must now go and buy some haddock.

  Best love to all, D

  My father had been in hospital for the day having a malignant melanoma removed. We are at a loss to explain how a man who ran the radio service in the POW camps is incapable of putting on a hospital robe the correct way round. Thank goodness for all concerned he had on his boxer shorts.

  Budds Farm

  6 May

  Dearest L,

  V cold and wet here. As regards your wedding, my advice is to make the service as simple as possible. There will not be many people in the church and half of them will not sing, so don’t have a lot of hymns. In particular no LONG hymns. Not more than 3 or 4 verses otherwise people get bored and it will just be an organ solo! Don’t be too ambitious over music. The organist probably plays with one finger.

  Everything is fixed up with the caterers who seem efficient.

  XX RFM

  My father’s ideas for the wedding are not always the same as my own. He wants to opt for a short service including a couple of rousing hymns, followed by a reception at Newbury racecourse where meat paste sandwiches and a glass of Co-op sparkling wine would be served. Not forgetting his motto that a good speech is a short one.

  Budds Farm

  11 May

  Dearest L,

  I hope you are fully recovered after what was doubtless a fatiguing week-end. There certainly seems to have been plenty of incident! Your mother arrived back with a strange man who stayed the night. I wonder who he was. I gather your mother had the best of three falls with Mrs Carew and I strongly suspect that both were well and truly sloshed. Mrs Carew does not seem to fancy you very much but I hope you will not be required to see a lot of her in the future. It is very wet and cold here and Pongo has got the shivers. I hope arrangements for the wedding are going well. We must keep your mother and Mrs C. well apart at the reception. Can it be true that the best man is going to wear a kilt? I don’t take weddings all that seriously but I don’t want him to come in fancy dress and mob the whole thing up completely. I trust Henry is behaving himself and has not destroyed many more of his employers’ cars.

  Best love,

  D

  We had agreed to have an engagement party in Devon, even though we had in fact married secretly a year ago. My father very sensibly did not attend and was happy to avoid what turned out to be an interfamilial debacle with fists and fur flying.

  Budds Farm

  22 May

  My Dearest L,

  The news of your marriage naturally comes as a considerable shock to me. I accept the situation that you have both created and will make the best of it but my acceptance does not mean that no wounds have been inflicted. It is hurtful that you chose to go and get married – one of the most important occasions in your life – without wishing your parents, who love you deeply, to be present, and without even having the grace to inform them. It was in particular a cruel thing to do to your mother and you surely realised the pain it would cause her. Having got married, you maintained a deception for nearly eighteen months. It is not agreeable for me to realise that Henry has constantly been a guest in my house while at the same time deceiving me in cold blooded fashion in respect of my daughter. Such conduct inevitably sows the seeds of mistrust for the future. As for the ‘wedding’, most of those who attend the reception will know you have made asses of your parents just as Henry has made asses of his, and inevitably we shall all feel a bit foolish. It is your mother and I who have to do all the explaining to relations and close friends who can hardly be expected to applaud your conduct. I can understand your desire to be married: what I cannot condone is the prolonged deception that followed. I do not know how Henry’s family will take it. They have every reason to be angry and you can hardly expect them to take a more affectionate view of yourself. If there are repercussions from Devonshire, you have only yourselves to blame.

  I hope if possible never to refer to this distasteful matter again. I wish you every possible happiness in your married life which, through your own folly has got off to a thoroughly unsatisfactory start.

  Your loving father,

  RM

  On the whole I like to think I was well behaved when I was young (at least, compared to Lupin). However, at the age of nineteen I secretly married my boyfriend Henry at Fulham Registry Office. HHH was sworn to secrecy and astonishingly, despite his habitual indiscretion when under the influence, my parents never found out.

  A year later, shortly before what was to be our proper wedding we had to tell them the truth. Both my parents were extremely shocked and upset. It would be an understatement to say my father was not HHH’s greatest fan from the beginning of the relationship. When the drama had died down my affinity returned to that of the youngest sibling and throughout my marriage Dad showed me nothing but support and affection.

  Burghclere

  11 June

  Dearest L,

  How are things going down your way? I have ordered (and paid for) 96 bottles of Louis Kremer White Label Champagne and hope that will be enough. I think there has been a present sent to you here – a cushion – from the first Mrs Surtees. Answers to the invitations are flooding in. All the refusals – a high proportion – are from people in Devonshire, presumably relations and friends of Henry and his family. You will be pleased to hear Aunt Boo is coming! Your mother has had a fairly stiff letter from Mrs Pope which she is sending on to you as it is only right and proper that you both know what our old friends feel about the whole business. Lupin has been ill with dysentery while staying with the Guinnesses. Major Surtees crowned the Jubilee Queen of West Ilsley and then fell off the platform, injuring the right cheek of his arse.

  Your affec. father,

  RM

  My poor father is on the receiving end of yet more disapproval from various friends and family.

  Dearest L,

  It was nice seeing you and I hope you will behave yourself and keep well in the interval before the ‘wedding’. I have written to Loopy and told him that a suit, not a tailcoat is the correct order. Henry will no doubt do what he likes and if he turns up in leopard jock strap it is nothing to do with me. I would of course prefer him to conform. Be tactful with your mother as she is in a very nervous state and liable to make scenes. After all, you have put a great strain on her.

  RM

  My father gives implicit instructions that, in lieu of a speech, the following will be sung by the Mortimer family at the reception (tune: ‘How pleasant to know Mr Lear’):

  How pleasant to know Lady K,

  My ideal of a wife and a mother,

  Her last husband called it a day

  But very soon she picked up another.

  Dear Loopy has seen better days

  But to drink a bit isn’t a sin

  By lunchtime he will be in a haze

  As he doesn’t half punish the gin.

  As for Henry I freely admit

  That I find him a little bit wearing.

  It’s not that he is really a shit

  But when pissed he is so overbearing.

  I am leaving the best to the end,

  That fearful old harridan, Granny,

  If I catch her one day on the bend

  I’ll give her my boot up the fanny.

  As this is a fairly respectable collection of
my father’s letters, I have left out the middle lines of the poem as I do not want to be sued.

  Budds Farm

  14 June

  Dearest L,

  Mrs Rumbold rang up this morning and asked if you had ‘a list’ anywhere: I said I thought Peter Jones. I hope I was right. May I respectfully offer some advice? When you receive a wedding present, sit down at once and write a short note thanking the donor. Older people, I fear, mind frightfully if they do not receive an acknowledgement in quickish time; in any case, you don’t want to be left with a whole stack of letters to be written. I have already heard rumblings from old Camilla about a blanket, and also from my sister about something or other. I agree old people are pernickety and difficult, but if you deal with them speedily, they won’t bother me and your mother! God knows, we have plenty to worry about without additional nagging from septuagenarians. Answers to invitations come in at a rapid rate, mostly refusals, thank God, so with luck the drink will last out. I think there has only been 1 (one) acceptance from Lady Kennard’s list. I would not myself much fancy driving from Devonshire on a Saturday in July. Your god-father Cecil cannot come, nor, thank God can Gershom Stewart. Aunt Pam has sent a post-card from Monte Carlo where it is cold and wet.

  Your affec. father,

  RM

  Dad is on a roll now with his wedding advice.

  Dearest L,

  It is incredibly vulgar to address people like Cousins Tom and Cecil Langton-May as ‘Mr’ on the envelope. T. F. Blackwell Esq or Cecil Langton-May Esquire is correct. ‘Mr’ is OK for a tradesman.

  Xx D

  Having taken my father’s advice on thank you letters, I get into more trouble for incorrectly addressing the envelopes. A major faux pas.

  The Grumblings

  Much Chattering

  Berks

  1 August

  Dearest Miss Plumpling,

  The rain is pouring down and I am doing my accounts, a task that always reduces me to tears. Yesterday I took the merry Nidnod on a little expedition down the River Avon which she enjoyed. I also bought Christmas presents for you, Jane and Nicholas so that’s something off what remains of my mind. Monday was for once fine and we had lunch in the garden. Mr P. honoured us with his presence and bought an agreeable blonde divorcée whom I rather fancy stands a fairish chance of becoming Mrs P. IV! The previous day we lunched with the Darlings where Pongo distinguished himself by doing a No 2 on Noel’s head. We had a very good lunch preceded by tepid Pimms almost devoid of alcoholic content. In the evening we were held up in Lambourn by the Carnival which rather annoyed your mother. On the Saturday we dined with Dame Anne Parker-Bowles (the only head of the Girl Guides who had her uniform designed in Paris) and your mother sat next to an elderly actor who recently ‘died’ in a serial called ‘The Survivors’. As a matter of fact he had a thrombosis afterwards and very nearly expired in actuality. Your mother rather fancies him and as he lives in Highclere I shall have to watch it a bit. The Cringer did his utmost to eat the postman yesterday and I shall have to keep an eye on his temper with strangers. I don’t know where Lupin is: he seems to have no plans for the future. Still, as long as he is happy it does not much matter. The Bomers old bitch has had six puppies while they are on holiday in Wales. I enclose a small goose’s neck to help get you to Scotland for your doubtless sorely needed vacation. Don’t give your Jewish solicitors roast pork too often for lunch: or pigs’ trotters.