Dear Lumpy Read online

  Budds Farm

  5 February

  Dearest L,

  I trust that you and Rebecca have recovered from influenza and that Henry is successfully flogging immense quantities of drink to his numerous clients. Life has been fairly dreary here. The fact is that I don’t really like this house: it is too big for us and has a thoroughly depressing and unfriendly atmosphere though of course that may be due to the present residents. Also the garden is more than I can now cope with. I would like to move into a hideous but modern bungalow. Your mother seems unable to get over Pongo’s death and is liable to get hysterical if his name is mentioned. Mr Randall is in good form: he went up to London last night to watch a TV programme featuring some woman called Ranzen [Esther Rantzen]. At all events, he enjoyed himself. We went to a cocktail party with the Gaselees last Friday: a large number of people in a confined space and I never heard a word anyone said which in fact was not an intolerable deprivation. We had supper at The Swan at Shefford afterwards which is only slightly more expensive than Claridges but they do mushrooms in garlic rather well. Relations between your mother and Aunt Pam remain rather colder than those between Russia and America. I expect they will make it up eventually and then both turn on me and rend me limb from limb. I may come up to London this month as I have been asked to an oyster party at Bentleys and a lunch at the Savoy which will make a change from tinned spaghetti hoops. I really rather envy Lupin in Kenya. I gather he has taken over the hotel motor-boats with the result that none of them are working. I had lunch with Mrs Hislop last Saturday. As a non-stop chatter she is superior even to your mother and talks almost as much balls.

  Best love,

  D XX

  Lupin is blissfully happy on the island of Lamu in Kenya tinkering with boat engines and in the evening reading out my dad’s letters to a small audience on the veranda of the Hotel Peponi.

  Budds Farm

  26 February

  Dearest L,

  Thank you so much for asking me to the christening and the party afterwards. I enjoyed both of them very much indeed and I think they went off very well. Rebecca behaved with singular decorum. I hope I struck up rather a beautiful friendship with Henry’s grandmother but I am not absolutely confident on that point. I trust the photographs came out well! I had a baddish drive home as your mother was very cross and gave me a fearful bashing which continued till she went to bed.

  At all events, thank you both very much indeed.

  Best love,

  RM

  Rebecca’s christening is the first jamboree that both sides of the family have attended since the marriage blessing. Our best friend and Rebecca’s godfather, Andy Loch, kindly allowed us to use his flat in Lennox Gardens for the christening party.

  Tuesday

  Dearest L,

  Very many thanks for your charming porcine card which I greatly appreciated. We motored up to London yesterday to go to the Press Derby dinner where I received a presentation. Those present were for the most part boring and ill-dressed. The Chairman, Lord Rothermere, made a ghastly speech but there were rather more entertaining ones by Wilfred Hyde-White and Robert Morley. I had a drink beforehand with Emma E’s father and step-mother: they are worried about E who is swanning about Brazil and no one knows quite where she is. At dinner Nidnod sat next to a son of the late Prime Minister, Lord Attlee, who was accompanied by a lady with lemon coloured hair and a slight impediment in her speech. Mr A himself was, I think, pissed and achieved the notable feat of outtalking your mother. I was next to David Langdon, the cartoonist who does a lot of work for Punch. I spent a night last week with Cousin John at Brighton. He has a superb flat overlooking the Marina and the nudist bathing beach. By a fortunate chance he owns a huge telescope which he says is for studying the stars. Douglas Byng came to dinner. He is 87 and used to sing in drag at the Café de Paris in the nineteen thirties – very funny and vulgar. He is still very much on the ball and obliged with ‘I’m Milly, a messy old Mermaid’ and ‘Twenty years a chambermaid in a house of ill repute’. Peregrine has been poorly and Nidnod has been in quite a flap. The garden is very dried up and ugly. We went to a fearful local party and got nothing to drink bar weak and tepid Pimms. I had a very coarse post-card from Freddy B-Atkins about Charlotte’s engagement.

  Love to all from all of us,

  D xx

  My parents and their friends could be described as many things, boring not being one of them.

  Budds Farm

  4 August

  Dearest L,

  Thank you for your interesting letter. All is fairly quiet here though your mother’s conduct is liable to be unpredictable after 7 p.m. Audrey does very little work as she and your mother hobnob all morning. Neither of course listens much to the other. No news of Lupin: he is either physically incapable of writing a letter or else he cannot afford a stamp. We went to quite a good lunch party with the Roper-Caldbecks and your mother made sheep’s eyes at a very short man called Lloyd Webber. I have just cleaned out The Cringer’s run as it was beginning to pong in really alarming fashion. There is not a single apple on any of our fruit trees: all the blossom was destroyed by a late frost. It is going to be a good blackberry year but not a sign yet of any mushrooms. A horse has been stolen from a field in Burghclere: I haven’t told your mother or she will start hiring Securicor to protect Jester! There is a big concert in Sydmonton tomorrow but thank God I am not going. The awful thing is that I simply cannot think of anything more to say.

  xx D

  When my mother finally found out about the stolen horse she did not hire Securicor. Instead she could be found in her nightie and gumboots with the dogs and an enormous torch doing the rounds several times a night, armed with Lupin’s favourite shotgun nicknamed Crippen.

  Budds Farm

  16 August

  Dearest Lumpy,

  I hope you are plump and well and are not finding your work too arduous. Your mother departed on Saturday to stay in Northumberland with Miss Bossy Pants: I have heard nothing since, so assume there haven’t been any major dramas. I have been having quite a merry time since as I was out to lunch and dinner on Sunday & also on Monday. It does occur to me that I am invited less for my social charm than because I am regarded as a semi-helpless geriatric who has lost their marbles. I must be getting (have got?) fairly gaga as I crawl out of bed at 7 a.m. and work in the garden before breakfast, cutting down dead rhododendrons and removing brambles and nettles. My arms look as if I had been flogged with barbed wire. I have been doing a little experimental cooking. I drummed up some beef rissoles which looked fairly normal but it needed a hammer and quite a large chisel to dent their surface. At least I have invented a new type of bread. It does not look like bread and it does not really taste much like bread either. An unkind critic might suggest it looks and tastes like a sodden lump of decomposing dough. Mr P. had quite a good holiday down on the Kent coast bar the fact that his daughter got chicken-pox and his au pair girl turned bolo. I think he is restless and would like to move when he retires next year. I suppose he will become Sir Desmond P. when he leaves the Foreign Office. Major & Mrs Surtees are off to Salzburg for the Mozart Festival. They were keen for Nidnod and me to go too, but your mother declined, being as musical as a pair of policeman’s bicycle clips. Tiny Man is in very good form but his breath would drive a No 19 bus. Moppet is old and frail, like me. Your cousin Caroline Blackwell is to marry a very rich banker of 41, Tim Holland-Martin. He bred the Derby winner Grundy and has ridden a good many winners at Cheltenham etc. Old Farmer Luckes has been a bit truculent lately and sooner or later he and your mother will have a ghastly row which will be a bore for me as I shall be compelled to listen (several times over) to a blow by blow account.

  Best love to you and kind regards to H,

  XXX D

  P.S. No news of Lupin who is supposedly due back this week.

  Despite senility being one of my father’s favourite subjects, he held on to his marbles and continued successfully writing into
the last year of his life.

  Budds Farm

  27 August

  Dearest L,

  I hope you are all big and well and thriving. I had three days at Rose Cottage where Jane was staying. There were occasional signs of exasperation between Jane and Aunt Pips. Jane never stopped talking, very fast and very indistinctly, and Aunt Pips got browned off as she could not hear half of what Jane said and could not understand the rest. Jane got fed up when she told a long banging story and found that Aunt Pips either had given up listening or had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. We went out for drinks with some people and were rather put out to find a dead dog on the lawn when we left. I think your mother quite enjoyed Jersey. She brought back two crabs which we had for lunch on Sunday. I felt a teeny bit sick afterwards. Two geese came into the kitchen and made a ghastly mess. I have had a v. rude post-card from France with a very cheeky message in French. I have no idea who sent it. Your mother thinks I have a French lover which unfortunately is not the case. Lupin drops in here every now and then. I gave him dinner at the Riviera which is now extremely expensive. The geese have eaten all my flowers and I can’t wait to have them killed and shoved into the deep freeze.

  Best love to you all,

  XX RM

  It was always a pleasure staying with my Great Aunt Pips. She had certain similarities to Dr Evadne Hinge of Hinge and Bracket. She had an amazing musical ear, hearing a piece of music once she could play it straight back on the piano.

  Budds Farm

  31 August

  Dearest L,

  We enjoyed having you to stay and hope you will come here again before long. I foolishly went to sleep in the sun last week and got a touch of sunstroke which was singularly unpleasant. The Surtees were meant to come to dinner last night but Mrs S has developed some fearful allergy and has a hideous rash from head to foot. By the way, I think Nidnod is the worst bridge player I have encountered in all my life – and the most talkative, too. Your mother’s dog shows no sign at all of becoming house trained but luckily his messes are not very large compared with Chappie’s. He pursued a small girl riding a bicycle but luckily attempts to make a meal of her right leg proved unavailing. The Cringer’s leg has healed up where he was shot. Mr Jackson of the Post Office had a fatal heart attack last week. Your mother is not all that well and is going to see a nose and throat specialist when she comes back from Wales. She gets terribly tired these days but of course she is very highly strung. No news of Lupin getting a job yet. He claims to have caught a shark in Devonshire: in the sea, presumably! I hope Nick Gaselee will come to Henry’s dinner. Henry will have to help him with his speech if required to do so. In introducing Nick, it might be worth mentioning that he is a successful trainer of jumpers and has had good winners on the flat as well. He was one of the best amateur riders of his day and has ridden in the Grand National. At one time he was on the racing staff of the Evening Standard and he has also had experience as assistant clerk of the course at Ascot. Mrs Mayhew-Saunders came to lunch yesterday. She is just back from Corfu. Her 14 year old son went snorkelling (is that how you spell it?) and strayed into the area where the nudists bathe. He was rather surprised to see through his mask a nude couple having a stand up go in the water!

  Best love from all of us to all of you,

  D

  P.S. Thank you for your letter.

  My father was not keen on Chappie, my dog. I had inherited him from a work colleague and he had never been properly house-trained, He would leave smelly turds in very unfortunate places (Chappie, that is, not my dad). However, my parents’ dogs made Chappie look like a saint.

  Budds Farm

  18 September

  Dearest L,

  I hope you’re all thriving and that Chappie and Henry are both behaving with reasonable decorum. I enclose £5: please get Rebecca something for her birthday. Your mother is in very good form. On Sunday we went to a champagne party with the Cottrills in the morning and to drinks and supper with Aunt Pam and Uncle Ken in the evening. We have killed the geese and the Bomers are coming to help eat one this evening. Mrs Alexander is back home after a nasty operation. The Bomers’ old dog Dor died suddenly and I think they all miss her. Your mother’s dog is settling down but still makes a fair number of messes. I have not seen Lupin lately and have no idea what he is doing or whether he has any sort of employment. Your mother is off to the funeral of Mrs Tweed who did portraits of you, your brother and your sister in your nursery days. We went to lunch with the Tollers and saw Celia and her baby, a large robust boy like a wrestler. I have sent you 20 polyanthus for your garden from Lowland Nurseries Ltd. They like moist peaty ground and a bit of shade.

  Best love,

  D

  My mother’s geese were not a huge success and my father told Lupin that they tasted like a moist flannel shirt.

  Budds Farm

  12 October

  Dearest L,

  Your Mother’s big luncheon party went off reasonably well. One of the acceptors injured her leg badly in a fall and could not come, and Nidnod’s old boy-friend Gervase O’Donohue died the day before, of old age I presume. The food was excellent and the drink made up for poor quality by being in ample supply. The Burnaby-Atkins had returned from Brazil the day before where they had had a very good time. Hotels, food etc were excellent but the loos less so. You are not permitted to flush paper down the pan but have to put it in a special receptacle where it remains till a slave removes it. The mind boggles! Everyone seemed to enjoy the party but one or two husbands got ticked off by their wives for drinking too much or pinching the wrong bottom. We went to Ascot the day before and had a good lunch with the Abergavennys. I had to judge the horses in one race and the sponsors, Bovis Ltd, gave me a huge bottle of port that I could hardly carry to the car. I think Bovis are builders: I had thought it might be a form of food comprised of Hovis bread and Bovril. Lupin was down here with his friend Elizabeth who I like a lot. Unlike so many of her generation you can carry on a conversation with her without having to spell everything out. In addition she has a well developed sense of the absurd. Not particularly good-looking, but nice hair and excellent legs.

  I dread Christmas. I would like to opt out of the so called ‘Festive season’ and retire to a Jewish hotel in Margate.

  Love to all, D x

  My father continues to enjoy the company of intelligent young women, especially if they have a good sense of humour and can give as good as they get.

  Budds Farm

  27 October

  Dearest Lumpy,

  I hope you are all reasonably well and behaving with suitable decorum. Life is fairly quiet here with large bills arriving with disheartening regularity. On Saturday we went out to Inkpen and arrived punctually despite Nidnod losing the way. We had been asked for 7.45 but dinner was not until 9.15 p.m. by which time I had drunk a large number of cocktails. I cannot for the life of me recollect what we ate for dinner or what part, if any, I played in the conversation. I do not think my host and hostess were desperately sorry when I eventually took my leave, implanting a kiss on a young girl I claimed to be a newly-found relation. Nidnod lost the way on the journey home. The following day we went to a stand-up lunch at the Parkinsons to celebrate his 60th birthday. Mr P. was in v good form as an aunt aged 94 had kicked the bucket, leaving him a house and some treacle. We arrived at 12:45 but the warm groceries did not materialize till 2.30 p.m. as Mrs P and her mother, a lady whose diet is almost entirely liquid, had had a tiff in the kitchen. Needless to say the guests were all slosherino and not making all that much sense. All this had a bad affect on your mother who was very tiresome when we got home and had a slanging match with a man who had come to stay. I have been buying a book for Mrs Surtees birthday. I chose Porky Pig’s Adventures in a Balloon (illustrated). We survived having Aunt Boo to stay though after 48hrs I was on the verge of crowning her with what the police call a blunt instrument. She lives in a fantasy world and never stops talking complete and utter balls. She ev
en out talks your mother, no mean achievement.

  Best love to all,

  D

  The Cringer has just been v sick. I have ordered a new carpet of revolting colour for my bedroom, your mother is installing a bidet in her bathroom. No more news.

  Aunt Boo was my mother’s highly eccentric sister. My father once said her first husband, who was an actor and often played the part of drunken men, had spent his whole life rehearsing the part.

  1980

  Chateau Geriatrica

  Burghclere

  Dearest L,

  I hope you are all thriving and that you yourself are conducting your life with appropriate decorum. I saw Loopy at Sandown looking rather damp, cold and dispirited. I went up to London twice last week. The first occasion was a huge lunch at Grosvenor House full of politicians of all parties, trade union leaders, bookmakers, foreign ambassadors and all sorts of riffraff out for a free tuck-in. Just my luck that I found myself seated next to a Newbury neighbour (v rich) with whom I have nothing in common. Two days later I had lunch at the Greenjackets Club with Noel Thistlethwayte and John Surtees. This was good fun though I drank too much and could not keep awake on the journey home. Your mother is in fair form: she has been in Leicestershire with her aunt who is, alas, showing ominous signs of wear and tear. Your mother’s dog was slightly seedy after an injection the other day and was fussed over as if it was a delicate baby ten days old. I think the vet must have got a bit browned off! We had a very good dinner with the Surtees on Saturday: a bearded man staying with them for a day knocked off a bottle of whisky and a bottle of gin during the time he was there. I did not take to him all that much. A man was murdered in Newbury on Friday: I did not actually know him but I think he was a tramp who operated a lot in this area. There is a theory he had a quarrel with another tramp when both were sloshed. Lupin is staying with Robin Grant-Sturgis, one of his few friends that so far has managed to keep out of gaol. I had a letter from your godfather Mr Langton-May: he seems to be getting over his heart attack. The weather has been cold and wet and there is no sign of a daffodil yet. The wood stove has been a success and I find if I stoke it up well at bed time it is still going strong at 9 a.m. the next day. Aunt Pam was at Sandown wearing a peculiar hat. The house next to the Alexanders is up for sale, I only hope the purchasers are not as boring as the present occupiers. I had my best jersey cleaned at great expense and within five minutes of putting it on had spilt doughnut jam all down the front. Maddening!