Dear Lumpy Read online

  Give my kind regards to Henry,

  XXX D

  Having survived the marriage blessing life returns to some form of normality. I put my new cooking skills to use working for a firm of Jewish solicitors in the City.

  The Olde Dosse House

  Burghclere

  My Dearest Miss Plumpling,

  I hope you are well and above all happy. I went up to London today and spent a laborious morning with my publisher who was born in Fleet but otherwise seems fairly harmless. I met your bossy sister for Lunch at Ladbroke’s Club where most of the members wear dark glasses indoors and look like minor characters from The Sweeney. Jane ordered smoked salmon mousse (the most expensive item on the card) and something that looked like curried goat. Paul joined us for coffee and brandy. We then all went to Heywood Hill’s bookshop where Jane talked much but purchased little. As Major Surtees’s office was nearby we next trooped off there and found him in conference with some pissy Dutchmen. We all joined in and Paul found the senior Dutchman lived next door to his own firm’s factory in Holland so everything got v. matey and a biggish hole was made in the Major’s port supply. When we bade farewell, the Major gave Jane a lovebite in the neck: rather saucy of him I thought! We then had tea at Paul’s club, after which I got on the wrong train at Waterloo. Nidnod can be very peculiar but she is better than the bride’s mother at the wedding we have just been to who was totally slosherino and had to lie down during the reception. She got up to see the lucky couple off by helicopter but unfortunately by then had lost her boots!

  XXX RFM

  P.S. The Cringer sends a damp and odoriferous kiss.

  On the whole my father has a fairly disparaging view of publishers.

  Budds Farm

  Sunday

  Dearest L,

  Thank you so much for your letter. I’m pleased to hear you are coming for Christmas and I shall rely on you to keep your mother more or less under control. She has been in one of her most tiresome moods lately and has given Lupin a bad time this weekend. Thank God I am getting increasingly deaf! We are just off to Newbury for a curry lunch party given by Willy Carson and Dick Hern. Your mother is going on to the Lloyd Webbers afterwards to hear some music. I shall have a good sleep after reading about half a page of the Sunday Times. It has been very cold here and I’d like to turn the heating on but it is impermissible to use oil so early in the autumn. I only hope I do not expire from hypothermia. I think I shall go down to Brighton for a few days and stay with Cousin John. It will be less amusing than in the summer as the flat commands a wonderful view of the nudist beach and he has a telescope in his front room. Mr & Mrs Randall had an enjoyable holiday in Austria; last week they were at the Horse of the Year Show. They have a far larkier time than we do.

  Best love to you all,

  D

  Andrew Lloyd Webber being my mother’s latest ‘best friend’ was invited for drinks with his delightful first wife. Unfortunately Chappie, my dog, took a liking to Andrew and attached himself to his leg and had to be physically removed. I am not sure who was the most embarrassed.

  1978

  The Crumblings

  Much Flapping

  Wilts

  Dearest Lumpy,

  Thank you so much for your letter. I hope you have recovered from your fainting fit. I expect it was the result of your condition unless of course you had had your nut in the martini bucket! Who revived you and how? We have a number of people coming to dinner tomorrow and Nidnod is busily engaged doing hideous things to a chicken in the kitchen. Her new machine makes everything taste like old gymshoes cooked in yesterday’s washing-up water but I don’t dare say so. I went to Salisbury today and had lunch on the river – toasted cheese and onion sandwiches, rather bad for the wind as I soon discovered. Cousin Tom’s filly won a £12,000 race at Chester yesterday: she might win the Oaks. Lord Carnarvon’s butler-valet-chauffeur-nurse has had a heart attack and the old boy (Lord C, not the butler) is very put out though doubtless the latter is not all that pleased too. Tiny Man is v. restless, there being three bitches on heat within easy walking distance. I had a very vulgar anonymous communication today: I suspect the sender was Major Surtees. Anyway he is going to get a real rasper in reply. Tell Charlotte I will not forget her birthday (I hope) and she can anticipate a small present from her geriatric admirer. I see someone called Carew is involved in a murder at Tavistock. Not, I trust, one of Henry’s near-and-dears? A distant cousin of mine was suspected of murdering his ever-loving wife some years back and put his noggin under the wheels of the 3.47 from Maidstone when things were looking rather ugly for him. Later it was discovered that the murderer was in fact a man from near Corbridge who had done in two other people, a cashier from a mine and a Newcastle moneylender.

  Kind regards to H.

  xxx R

  Whilst pregnant with my daughter I could not have oranges in any form or I fainted. Unfortunately I found this out at a drinks party. There was a certain amount of panic as I fell to the floor. My naughty brother suggested to the other guests that there had been a minor earthquake.

  Budds Farm

  20 August

  Dearest Miss Plumpling,

  I suppose you are on holiday somewhere and having a really good time. Don’t bathe in the sea: you might easily cause a tidal wave. Your mother finally left for Jersey after telling me 27 times what to do with the cat, the greenhouse etc etc. I then went off to recuperate with a quiet week-end chez Surtees: good food and drink, a soft bed and conversation that was sparkling judged by Berkshire standards which could scarcely be lower, comments on the price of bacon at Sainsbury’s being the intellectual limit for these parts. Major S saw your brother dining out with a blonde at a trendy SW3 restaurant. Pongo is having ear trouble and never stops shaking his head and making the most horrific smells. We had a barbecue here for the Bomer boys and consumed pork chops and Chianti in a searing north-east wind. William B asked me an improper riddle which I am too shy to repeat. I took Nidnod to lunch at the Fox and Hounds at Crawley: good food but the other people there were dingy beyond belief and looked like provincial income tax inspectors. Mr Cameron is having a ghastly time as apart from having both legs off, his mouth is in a fearful state following radium treatment for cancer. Only a man of exceptional courage could continue to fight for life.

  Kind regards to HHH and best love to yourself,

  XXX D

  Heavily pregnant, the advice still comes thick and fast.

  The Old Pork-House

  Burghclere

  Dearest L,

  I hope you are well and looking forward to making your contribution to the population explosion. All fairly quiet here though Nidnod gets over-excited at times. Luckily I am getting increasingly deaf. On Sunday it rained all day. I took Tiny Man to the Dog Show at West Ilsley and he failed to win a prize. In the class for ‘Happy Dog with Happy Owner’ I was wet to the skin, absolutely miserable and I fear let the side down badly. Your brother revived me with rum and a macaroon. In the evening the Surtees gave a party for 30 in their barn and a good time was had by all; at any rate by me as I made play with a number of recently unmarried women who seemed game for a lark. Perhaps fortunately, your mother had preferred to make her presence felt at the Old Berks Pony Club Camp so for once I felt no need for circumspection, even for decorum. I had a picnic at Goodwood on Tuesday, and on the way back ices and bath buns. Your brother seems to be thriving in his business and with luck he may make enough money soon to afford a hair-cut. At present he is rather like Chappie in human form. We went to a party with the High Sheriff last week: music by the combined orchestras of local schools (I rather fancied a female trombonist) and lots of Berkshire Mayors in awful suits and brass chains round their necks.

  Kind Regards to HHH and best love to yourself,

  XX D

  As my brother Lupin has now turned his talents to driving articulated lorries his long hair is almost as greasy and dirty as his fingernails.

  Chez Nidnod
<
br />   September

  Dearest L,

  Well done! I hope all goes well and that Henry and Chappie are surviving the strain. Your mother is spinning around like an ancient top and talking a fair amount of nonsense but seems very pleased at having a granddaughter. What are you going to call it (or perhaps her is more polite)? I expect both you and Henry will find nursery life pretty exhausting and the period of night feeds, nappy changing etc etc seems to go on and on. Even at three a child is fairly helpless while a horse may have won the Derby!

  My very best love and good wishes and I hope the child will bring you and Henry much happiness.

  X

  My dad is rarely at a loss when writing. However, when in doubt he refers back to analogies drawn from the more comfortable world of racing.

  Chez Nidnod

  Dearest L,

  I hope all goes well and that you are not over-feeding the baby so that it looks like a balloon. Does it yell much? I expect poor Chappie is very sad without you at home. I made a poor start this morning: when I switched on the Radio the Croydon Salvation Army Band was playing ‘Jesus Wants You for a Sunbeam’, and when I went to have a bath I had to evict a platoon of exceptionally large and hairy spiders of most menacing aspect. The Surtees went for a holiday in Elba where they own a small villa. They found it had been occupied, vandalised and stripped of all fittings by hippies, mostly Americans. They had to spend a week on hands and knees scrubbing up unspeakable filth. The hippies prowled in the vicinity accompanied by huge and savage dogs. Not much fun for the Surtees! We are just off to drink champagne with the Bomers to celebrate your contribution to the population explosion. How is Henry’s stomach? Less restive, I hope. At any rate his trouble is not caused, as Pongo’s is, by eating manure! Nidnod is still in very good form and making low whirring noises like a very old top and denoting pleasure.

  Best love,

  D

  It always raised my father’s spirits when my mother was on good form. She was delighted to have her first granddaughter. It was also an excellent excuse to celebrate with our wonderful neighbours the Bomers, who had an endless source of the most delicious vintage champagne.

  Chez Nidnod

  2 November

  Dearest L,

  I hope you are all thriving and that Chappie is not making too many messes. I had a fairly hideous day yesterday. I had an appointment in London and accordingly caught the train at Basingstoke, being instructed to go to Platform 4. A train steamed in, I boarded it and immersed myself in The Times. When I looked up, the train was entering Oxford station. I waited 45 minutes for a train to London which was 30 minutes late and then joined a queue for taxis about a mile long. Needless to say I was late for lunch with a man I had never met before and did not much care for when I did. The lunch was fairly nasty. I could not get a taxi to Waterloo afterwards and went by underground in a train in which I was the only white man. There is a large photograph of me in the Newbury News in company with Dick Francis. I am smirking and look an altogether deplorable character. Lupin was here for two nights with stomach ache: he has now departed for Devonshire. We had supper with the Hislops. Mrs H. very sloshed and wore a night dress and no drawers underneath. She talked your mother into stunned silence, no mean achievement. Lord Carnarvon is 80 on Tuesday. We have not been invited to the party for which I am thankful as your mother would have insisted on going. Major Surtees is having a beano for his 60th birthday. I expect we shall go to that. A local lady who lived alone had a stroke and was not discovered for a week. By then she had been mostly eaten by her dog and her cat.

  See you soon,

  XXX RM

  It was well known in the family that nothing gave my father more pleasure that delivering really bad news with suitable gravitas.

  Chez Nidnod

  Much Shiverings

  Berks

  12 November

  Dearest L,

  Lupin is here with stomach ache and does not look at all well. He is seeing Dr Keeble. He had a bath this morning and must have washed his hair as the bath looked as if a very old moulting retriever had been in it. Your mother is in a very nervy state which makes her a bit tricky after 6 p.m. I have had a filthy cold and wheeze like a tubercular cow. Pongo’s stomach is in a poor way and he poisons the atmosphere relentlessly. I have heard of environmental pollution but this is really going a bit too far. I have done some Christmas shopping: your present is v dull but possibly useful. I have sought in Henry’s case to appeal to his stomach. Special offers arrive by every post – smoked salmon, a red jersey and four towels, all useful in their various ways. We drove 80 miles to Dorset for lunch yesterday. Luckily I drank too much gin and slept the whole way back. Your mother has a new friend called Mrs Bean: I hear rather too much about her. I hope your daughter is thriving and gets on reasonably well with Chappie. I am slightly fed up with Marlene Dietrich or whatever her name is: she has had some clothes of mine to mend since May and has not started on them yet.

  The motor car is at the door.

  Good bye, dear friends, no time for more!

  Your affec. father,

  RM

  My father was always sending off for special offers which had often been advertised in such publications as The Field. It was hit or miss as to how successful these purchases were. The red jumper mentioned in his letter was so tight that although he managed to put it on, he needed to cut himself out of it with a pair of nail scissors. He was not best pleased.

  Nidnod’s Ruin

  Burghclere

  26 November

  Dearest Lumpy,

  I hope you are all thriving during this spell of uncouth weather. It would be less disagreeable here if either of the boilers worked. It would not be untrue to say that your mother is slightly barmy at the moment and was convinced that a sausage she was cooking was whipped away by a poltergeist. Mrs Cameron has been staying. She and your mother talked incessantly, neither listening to the other, which is quite sensible as neither said anything worth listening to.

  Mrs Randall is giving all her relatives potatoes for Christmas: a sensible and most acceptable present. Would you like a sack of Arran Pilot’s or King Edward VII’s? I always knew there were some odd people in Devon, but Mr Thorpe and Mr Scott really do take the biscuit with an ease which is almost impertinent. Lupin looks better. His ghastly friend Shearer is back in the country. I regard him as very bad news, even worse than G. Rodney. A man was killed yesterday on the road to Beacon Hill, squashed flat by a huge lorry.

  Best love to all, RM x

  My mother had already had our house (Budds Farm) exorcised once before when she had insisted there was an alien presence which had apart from other things, walked noisily up the stairs and shaken her bed in the middle of the night.

  1979

  Budds Farm

  22 January

  Dearest L,

  Not a very agreeable day here, cold and foggy. Your mother is in very crusty mood so I am trying to keep well out of her way. She has taken a dislike to my dog which is not important but tiresome. I can’t say there is much news from this quarter. The strike has not affected the shops in the least and you can buy what you want anywhere without difficulty. Mr Randall has had a nasty cold: Mrs R says he is a silly old man and that he tries to live on strong tea and cigarette smoke. As he is 74 the diet does not seem to have done him much harm. Sarah Bomer and Sylvia Mayhew-Saunders came to lunch: one of them mentioned Pongo and your mother at once disappeared, slamming several doors on the way! Rather silly really at her age. Jane is 30 tomorrow. She will before long be entering the dreaded realm of Old Bagdom, never to return. I gather the weather has been hideous in Northumberland. Mr Parkinson came to lunch yesterday. He is terrified his mother-in-law, an aged alcoholic, wants to come and live with him. It is bad enough having his step-son who does no work and lies in bed till 11.30. The Surtees are having a dinner party for 18 in their barn on Saturday: I wonder how many guests will die of hypothermia. We have had a post-card from your
brother who seems reasonably happy. I only wish I was with him. The gravediggers are on strike round here so corpses are being shoved into the deep freeze with the fish fingers and the Stork margarine. I hope your daughter is wintering well and maintaining her robust appetite. No sign of the new people moving into the cottage yet. This is an exceptionally dull time of the year and according to your mother I am an exceptionally dull old man, so it would be surprising if this letter was not almost wholly devoid of interest.

  Best love,

  D

  Very sadly Pongo passed away and Nidnod was devastated. My father however, was secretly not completely distraught as the frequently smelly Pongo had been the bane of his life.