Dear Lupin... (15 page)

My lovely clothes cupboard was flogged to a dealer in Camberley and I'm living out of suitcases. During the dismantling of the cupboard, my pearl tiepin vanished!

I feel sure we can come to an amicable arrangement about your belongings. I don't want to make difficulties for you but I don't want to fill the new house with motoring magazines of the 1950s.

Yours ever,

RM

I am not exactly obsessed by cleanliness and tidiness. To quote from a letter from my dad to my younger sister, ‘Your dear little brother is coming home today so I expect my bathroom to become a mass of grime, dirty clothes and filthy bits of sticking plaster.'

Budds Farm

13 August

Dear Lupin,

Does Mr Varey sort out your tax problems? He is very ill in hospital after two heart attacks.

I am enduring a lot of agro from a female tax inspector at Andover who is doing her best to see that I become insolvent.

My eye is troublesome still; also various other organs and limbs. I am falling to bits like a 1929 Morris-Cowley.

Your affec. father,

RM

I didn't have any tax problems because I had (at that time) never knowingly paid any tax
.

The Miller's House

Much Grinding in the Marsh

5 November

Dear Lupin,

As you can doubtless observe I have bought a new type-writer. It is Japanese, cheap and extremely nasty. I already dislike it very much indeed. Yesterday we drove to Odiham for Nancy Campbell's seventieth birthday. Excellent food but not overexciting as I was one of the younger guests: all the women looked like Bank Managers' widows from Haslemere. Uncle Ken complained about his eyesight but eventually fluffed to the fact that he was wearing two pairs of glasses! He and Aunt Pam are wintering in Australia. I was inoculated against 'flu today by the district nurse who might have been Crippen's sister. Tomorrow we go for drinks with a plump lady whom I much dislike, and on Thursday I attend my first meeting as a Committee member of the Animal Health Trust. On Friday we go to the Mayhew-Sanders box at Cheltenham where I hope the browsing and sluicing will be of a high order. On Saturday old Weavers Loom is scheduled to run at Windsor. I'm glad I'm not in India; the locals can get very spiteful, particularly the Bengalis. What odds will you give me about the Queen and Mrs Thatcher both being alive on 25 December 1985? Cousin John is off on a golfing holiday in Barbados. Charles B. wants to marry again but so far no divorce. I see ‘Private Eye' is threatening to reveal something murky about Chapman Pincher when he was serving in the RASC, commonly known as ‘Ally Sloper's Cavalry'. Mrs Hislop's mother cooled last week; she was a compulsive gambler. Nancy McLaren has sold her house to Susan Hampshire, now married to a rich Greek.

Look after yourself,

RM

The new home, with both village newsagent and surgery within easy walking distance, perks Dad up a bit, whereas the new typewriter is not a big hit
.

The Miller's House

26 November

Dear Lupin,

We went to Bath on Thursday. Non-stop rain. After lunch Nidnod could not find where she had parked the car. En route we had drinks at the Pack Horse at Chippenham kept by a Coldstreamer who joined in 1932 as a boy of fourteen. He had been burgled two days after his guard-dog had been run over.

V. good lunch with Denise on Sunday: excellent roast beef; a rather ‘difficult' daughter. Saw myself on TV, an experience that removed for good any lingering shreds of self-esteem. Denise played Bach on the clarinet. She is not as good as Mr Parkinson. I went to ‘Pacemaker' to draw some money. Found the Bengali accountant had been sacked and the accounts department in utter turmoil. No record of my having ever done any work! I said I thought I was owed £540 and they paid up without any argument: I wish I had asked for more. I sent £5,000 to the Inland Revenue; I suppose that is mere canary seed to the Boltons set! Pinched the Post Office pen by mistake this morning. Mrs Surtees gave me a weird book for my birthday called ‘Empire in the Sun'. I suppose a pretty good book, very original, but I felt a bit sick at times. All about a boy of eleven (English) captured by the Nips at Shanghai in 1941. Nidnod is in London. I have been looking after the dogs who have driven me more or less bonkers. There are times when I wish the sandy Tom who comes into our garden would eat the pair of them. Chaos at Newbury races on Saturday when the car-parking got out of control. Some savage fights took place. I found a pitch in a corner reserved for limbless racegoers. I'm reading an excellent book on the Civil War by a man with the unusual name of Windham Ketton-Cremer. I came across a man called Trampleasure the other day.

Your affec. father,

RM

P.S. Have received v. satisfactory special offer jersey from the Isle of Skye. On Wed John Oaksey comes here as he needs help over a book. I can tell him about the subject of the squaddie getting clap in 1933. Perhaps not very suitable for inclusion.

Nobody could accuse my father of possessing an over-inflated ego
.

The Miller's House

17 January

Dear Lupin,

I hope you are in reasonable health and are profitably engaged in flogging property in the area of Notting Hill Gate to natives of one shade or another. V. cold here but this house is much warmer than Budds where the pipes are frozen and they have no water, hot or cold. Nidnod is well bar insomnia but recuperates with Egyptian PT from 2 p.m. till 5. The man with whom our cousin Mary was living was found dead in a copse: ticker trouble. An old Army friend, General Coxwell-Rogers, died last week. Widely known as ‘the chap who was never ragged about his name at school'. Also dead was my former commanding officer General Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones, whom we called Winchester-Smith. I remember an officer called Wyllie-Rodger whose nickname was ‘Cunning Fucker', while a rather boring man in a Scottish regiment called Grant-Peterkin was referred to as ‘Giant Foreskin'. Louise seems to have moved into her new house unimpeded by the fact that the previous occupants had omitted to move out. Hot Hand Henry has recovered from influenza. Major Surtees is having trouble with his new house and has not moved in yet. Lord Clanwilliam, a friend for fifty years, comes to lunch this week. He longed to have a son but Lady C. presented him with seven daughters! Their lovely house in N. Ireland was recently burnt by the IRA. When a penniless young officer, Gilly (as he was known) bought the biggest Bentley I have ever seen from a garage in Brookwood. He drove me up to London. We filled the tank at Brookwood and had to refill it at Staines, rather an expensive vehicle. I lent Gilly my Vauxhall in Egypt and he lost it. Luckily he came into a lot of money and married a rich and very amusing wife. I have bought a new mower, a Hayter, and a new sofa from that shop by the Post Office in Eton. Otto hates the cold and is fairly nonchalant about where he deposits his manure in the house. Peregrine is worse in that his messes are larger. I apologise for this writing paper: I have 5,000 sheets and must get rid of it. I am giving Nidnod and two friends lunch at the Dundas Arms on her birthday. That might set me back £100! I have just bought two paperbacks by P. D. James. I think she is the best modern writer of murder stories. I have to go up to London on the 5th for a lunch at the Hyde Park Hotel. Last year I sat next to the trade union leader Frank Chapple who is a gypsy, an ex-communist and now Scargill's bitterest enemy. A brave and entertaining man who exposed the communist conspiracy within the ETU. I see Lord Birkenhead died playing real tennis at Oxford. I knew his father at Eton who died quite young. The 1st Lord Birkenhead, the great Lord Chancellor, was an unscrupulous scoundrel from Liverpool who had a superb legal brain and a gift for invective. He had fearful rows with judges when he was plain Mr Smith. Once a judge observed to him, ‘Mr Smith, you are being extremely offensive,' to which Smith saucily replied: ‘As a matter of fact we both are. The difference is that I'm trying to be and you can't help it.' He made a brilliant maiden speech in the House of Commons that rallied the stricken Conservatives after their ghastly defeat by the Liberals in 1906. He was Winston Churchill's greatest friend; au fond, they were both political adventurers with a touch of the cad. Birkenhead died of drink in his fifties.

D

P.S. Had lunch with Dick Ker last week. His son, whom you knew at Eton, runs a gallery in Bourne St. SW. I want you to take a picture there for valuation.

Now thirty-three, I manage, at last, to acquire my first home in the form of a one-bedroom flat overlooking Parsons Green. A month or so later, my mother visits me and is appalled to discover that I have no hoover, no fridge and, most significantly (at that precise moment), no lavatory paper
.

Dear Charlie,

Very chilly here and not a sign of rain. The garden is like the Gobi Desert. Lunched yesterday with Gilly Clanwilliam who is handing over the big house to one of his six married daughters and is moving into a cottage on the estate. Lunched the day before with the Gaselees. Two of Mrs Pitman's lads pinched their posh Audi and vandalised it. The Edgedales are lunching here today. I'm still alive but not offensively so. At least I sleep well but all food tastes like iron filings.

xD

The Miller's House

15 January

Dear Lupin,

I hope you had a good time in North Africa. Did you have to doss down in some Arab dive full of black men with footrot? However, you seem to have survived. I have just finished writing an article titled ‘First Impressions of Kintbuty' for the parish magazine. In the improbable event of anyone reading it, I anticipate a few bricks through the double glazing at The Miller's House, the first thrower being the vicar, the Revd J. H. D. Forklift MA. I have been quite busy with committee meetings for the Animal Health Trust, arranging a visitors' day at the Highclere Stud with refreshments (plonk and petit beurre biscuits). I am too impatient to be a good committeeman and am not very adept at concealing boredom, possibly, from lack of practice. Things are a bit dodgy at Highclere as owing to all the shooting there, they are being persecuted by the PLF (Pheasants Liberation Front). I had a bad day last Wednesday. Otto wanted to be let out at 6.55 a.m. I let him out of the front door and he at once bolted for the road through the garden gate which had been left open. Game to the last, and it nearly was ‘the last' too, I pursued him in my pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. Unfortunately I slipped on ice and fell heavily. The ground was so slippery that I could not get up and it looked as if Demon Hypothermia was going to get me, Nidnod being in London. However, I took my shoes off as I slipped less in bare feet, and eventually got back to base despite two more falls. I then got a stick, different shoes and went out again, eventually rounding up the culprit. After coffee and whisky, followed by a hot bath, I began to thaw but felt very old and shaken for three days afterwards. The Van Straubenzees came to lunch on Sunday and I mixed a powerful cocktail using plenty of coarse Spanish brandy. Nidnod's red wig tilted to an increasingly jaunty angle and she never stopped talking complete balls for a single second. Miss Gaselee evaded her ever-loving parents the other day and had her hair dyed purple for a party. Her parents were not noticeably pleased. I have managed to get a very good, rather rare book on the Phoenix Park Murders (the Irish carved up Lord Frederick Cavendish and the Chief Secretary with surgical knives outside Viceregal Lodge). Luckily the assassins ran true to Irish form and there was no lack of informers. I have just bought a load of logs which I now find are green and damp. Peregrine spends his whole time doing Otto and both dogs are in a condition of exhaustion by teatime. The accident of sex makes little difference to the love affairs of members of the brute creation.

Two definitions of a Gentleman:

1. He has all the qualities of a saint bar saintliness (Hugh Kingsmill).

2. He always gets out of the bath to do a pee (Anon).

The Government seem to be in a mess. This country is full of intelligent Jews. Why, therefore, must Mrs Thatcher employ three really stupid ones in Lawson, Britton and Joseph? To be fair, Joseph isn't stupid; he's barmy.

A man died the other day who figured in a typical Eton legend of the 1920s. Apparently his tutor, an old booby called Crace, caught him red-handed (hardly the appropriate expression)* after lights out with a colleague, and started to kick up a fuss. The criminal kept his head and observed to his tutor, ‘Don't take it too much to heart, sir. You must realise I'm going through a very difficult phase.'

Your affec. father,

RM

*Crace was later heard to say to another beak, ‘I found two boys in a very strange physical position which they were at a loss to explain so I'm afraid they will have to go.'

I have just returned from several weeks travelling round Morocco. Dad's contribution to the parish magazine is along the lines of ‘Six easy ways to die whilst gardening'. He is not asked to write any further contributions, which was perhaps his plan in the first place
.

The Miller's House

Dear Lupin,

I so sorry to hear you are poorly and I wish you a speedy recovery. I see the Duke of Norfolk has had a stroke on a hot day while in Morocco: it does not sound a very healthy place! I hope your hospital is competent; let me know if there is anything you want or if I can help in any way. I think I remember the hospital: I used to pass it seventy years ago on my way to a walk with Mabel in Battersea Park. Last night Sir Frederick Corfield QC stayed here. He is a Crown Court judge at Reading. During the war he was my partner with the radio in prison. He is very chatty and quite out-talked Nidnod, even at breakfast! I wrote to the Hotel Metropole in the south of France for rooms (demi-pension) for Nidnod, myself and Jane for a week in May. They demanded £350 a day which was a bit steep and I told them to stuff it. I then tried a hotel at Les Baux but that was full up. I am now trying a small hotel at Joucas which the Bomers liked.