P009 19361211
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11 and a bit sides (6 sheets)
PORTMANTEAU 009. Sesheke,
N.R.
11th December 1936.
Darling Everybody,
Well, this will arrive about three days after Xmas, so I do hope you had a Very Merry One, with lots of presents and Food and Christmas Pudding. Did you have a Turkey? You lucky things - we had to make do with a Chicken, or rather we WILL have to make do with a Chicken, as we haven't had it yet.
It's been lovely and rainy lately, with nice sunny days in between the storms and showers to pull the seeds up nicely. I think I'll have to draw you a Map of the garden, because it is really getting quite exciting now, with seeds being planted out and all the Phibbs's little efforts beginning to come up and show some signs of life. We've planted out the zinnias, in the new bed along the side of the house under the sitting room windows, and they are doing surprisingly well, as they usually wither up terribly for the first few days; they were very lucky, as they had a night's rain, then a morning's sun (under their little grass roof) then another night's rain, and another day's sun, so they are quite happy there.
The Golden Shower - or rather what we think must be G. S. but we don't know (we took the seeds off a very corpse-like thing growing up a gum tree, and just planted them hopefully) have come up like anything, and are about three inches high, with handsome little green leaves. They are in a neat row at the back of the zinnia's bed, with the idea that someday (if they ARE golden Shower) they will grow up the wall of the sitting room and make it all Golden.
We've planted a little wooden window box of Pansies and they are just beginning to show, and ought to do quite well I think. The cannahs, that the Phibbses had, have just started to sit up and take notice, but of course will not flower for another month or so. There are a tremendous number of them, where before there were none at all, and they all seem to have sprouted up suddenly in the night when we weren't looking, the cheeky beggers. I thought we might dig them a nice big bed all of their own, and put them there all in a huge Mass, as cannas are much best in a bundle, aren't they, instead of dotted stupidly about among the Snapdragons as they are at the moment.
SATURDAY. 12th.
Last night I planted out the Cosmea, in a big green corrugated-iron Tub, and the Sunflowers and Marigolds will have to be put in very soon as they are getting too big and
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bumptious to stay in the Nursery much longer. But greatest excitement of all is that The Orange Blossom IS OUT!! We've got about twelve trees within about fifty yards of the front Door, and they have all suddenly Burst into little tight white buds, and now several of them have got the flowers out, and the scent of them is something that has to be smelt to be believed. I picked one bit and put it in the dining room, and it has lasted three days and still has just as lovely a smell as it had when it came in.
The Oleander on the corner of the house is perfectly lovely now, but it hasn't get a very nine smell. The flame trees and jackarandas are still going strong, and there is One ponsettia, who is going to be cut up in mall pieces and put into any little bits of the garden that we can find room for them - what's the Use of ONE ponsettia? We wart Dozens.
The little Impala is still with us, and getting quite friendly and tame, but he just longs to get out, and looks up at the gate whenever anybody comes in or goes out, and we have to be awfully careful about going in and out as he would not hesitate to slip past us if he gets half the chance. He is SO sweet, and when we go in with grass he comes walking out of his little bedroom and sniffs at our shoulders and faces and nibbles the grass, just to please us, and skips about his little playground with his tiny black feet. He looks just as if he is walking on high heeled shoes, and his pasterns (if an Impala has pasterns) curve out frontwards in the most amazing way which gives the impression of a very high instep! He has two little black patches on the sides of his ankles, where he has rubbed them together and made the hair turn black, and his fur is a soft pale chestnut with white underneath and a white tail and white trousers like Twin's . I DO hope he doesn't have to go down to Livingstone for a long time, as he IS so adorable.
They brought in a Snake the other day. It was a Mamba, and was about eight feet long, and much narrower than I had imagined, as I always thought they were great thick things. He had been hiding in the edge of the grass roof of the stable, and the man put his hand up there to pick something out and saw the Mamba's head within six inches of his hands They got it out and killed it with a spear through its head, and brought it along for us to see, and I took a film of Chishimba holding it up and Musonda and Peter hitting it. They rather like being filmed, but they don't like moving because they don't realise it's a moving camera. I took a close up of Musonda's face the other day and he was awfully thrilled, and was so disappointed when he was told that he wouldn't be able to see it unless he went to England!
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We saw a flock of six Sacred Ibis on the aerodrome the other day, and they WERE so nice. We couldn't get very near of course, so we couldn't see the marvellous colouring of their tails, but we could see their funny long beaks through the glasses as they walked about eating grasshoppers, and we looked them up in our Priest's book afterwards.
They are not very common, although there are lots of them in Nigeria apparently, and they don't nest in this country, but have been found with nests on some of the islands off the Cape. They have a black head and neck, with no fur on, white bodies, and a fringe of feathers over their behinds and tails of the most marvellous royal blue, purple and green colour, and dark red legs. I wish I'd been able to take a film of them, as they are such nice friendly, harmless birds, and eat locusts and frogs and.(occasionally) snakes, but we couldn't get close enough.
Now having done those animals, would you like to hear about our visitors! On Thursday afternoon, just after tea when we were getting the fly-swishes ready to go for our walk, we heard a CAR. It pulled up outside the guest house at the bottom of the gum-tree avenue, so we wandered down there, thinking we would find the Martins, the Forestry Officer, who wanders about from place to place Doing forests. Lo and behold it was, so they unpacked all their gear and came up to the house for a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit and a bath.
There was Mr. Martin, who has Very fair hair, though a sort of gingery reddish Plat. Blonde, and is fairly short and Very thick and tough-looking, and Very hairy, with white eyebrows and a reddish face and a Moustache, and an Irish accent which is rather difficult to hear, and a violent Temper.
There was Mrs. Martin, who is smallish and slimmish and 23 and dark and VERY nice, and they've only been married six months, so we compared notes a great deal:
And there was Mr. Martin [ Oops ! Weong name !], who is Mr. Martin's assistant sort of person, who more or less lives with them and travels round with them, and is exactly the opposite to Martin. Very thin, dark, with blue eyes and a slight squint between them (where DO you squint?. In your eyes, with your eyes, between your eyes, from your eyes, by your eyes?) and Boots and very brown arms and knees and a Permanent Pipe and he never utters a single Word.
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They had motored from Mulabese, which is where the Saw Mills are (the next important Industry of Northern Rhodesia to the Copper Mines, in case you don't know!) that day, which is about seventy miles I think, though I.wouldn't swear to it, and the road was awful because of all the rain, and they skidded in the sand, and the wheels buzzed round and chains were no use at all, and the bumps were awful, and they had to go along in second gear for the last few miles. They were on their way to Katima Mulilo, which is about forty-fifty miles up-river from here, and the first bit of the road to there isn't made at all!
Well, they had their tea, and she had a bath, and went and ordered some more Dinner and made some little salmon mayonnaises in salad plates with our pathetic little lettices chopped up and it seemed such a shame to pull them up when they were so small and un-letticey. However they were Quite nice and the salmon wasn't too tinned and the mayonnaise was Heinz.
Then we (G and I) went out to do the Impala, and shot a green pigeon, and went out to see if there were any duck on the pools but there weren't, and by the time we'd got back she had had her bath and they had finished unpacking and getting settled in down there, and they all came up for drinks (with Ice and sardines-on-toast and "Cocktail biscuits assorted").
For dinner we had Tomato Soup, the Salmon, omelettes filled with the remains of lunch (mutton and macaroni) and Mashed Potato, and Loganberries. We got both the Gilwell candlesticks out, instead of using only one as we usually do for supper, and we had Coffee afterwards in those little lustre cups that Mrs. Hayter gave us.
On Friday, yesterday, they all came up fairly early for breakfast, and G was very late at the office, and the men went off with him to do Maps. So Mrs and I went round the garden and I did the complete Ruth Draper, and she was SUCH fun. They have just built a new house at Bombwe (another of their H.Q.$) and she is having rather fun starting a garden, like we are only more so, as there was nothing there but Bush to start it in.
She came out here in February to stay with her brother, who is in the Police, at Mazabuka, and she met Martin there once or twice and was engaged to him within a week! She was meant to go home in May, sailing on the 16th, and she decided that she had better go home as planned and soothe the parents, but on her way south in March (when her fiance had gone back to Bombwe and she hadn't seen him for a fortnight or so) she stepped out of the train at Livingstone and there he Was! So, seeing him again like that, she couldn't bear to go home and leave him for such a long time, so she scraped together a few things and they were married in Livingstone on May 16th!
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And if That isn't a Romance, I don't know what is - Love on a Liner?
They went straight out into the bush, and she hasn't been in one place for more than a month since she was married. They dash about in their Chevrolet Box-body, mapping, and exploring, and seeing what bits of forest are valuable and what aren't, and so on. They have their H.Q. at Bombwe, and they have houses at Katimo Mulilo, Katambora, Mulabese, and I believe in one or two other places as well. Luckily she is quite happy dashing about, though she says she is beginning to get a bit bored with it and would love to settle down for a bit in one place, and I don't blame her.
We got on awfully well, and she helped me make the orange salad to go with the Duck at lunch, and we had a chocolate mould, and we talked the Whole afternoon without stopping! I showed her all our wedding photos, which she loved seeing I think; she was rather sorry that she had had to have rather a small hurried wedding, and there were only about a dozen people in the Church. She had to borrow her brides maid's dress, as the one she was having made in Johannesburg failed to turn up! She hasn't heard or seen a sign of it, and luckily she hadn't paid for it! She said she would have loved to have been married at home (she lives in Buckinghamshire, about 15 mils from Beaconsfield I think) as they had always lived there and she would have liked to have been married in her own village Church - like Yours Truly was.
After tea the Husbands and Martyn went off up the river in a Barge to shoot duck on an island, and she wanted to write a letter, so I went and planted Cosmea, and soon along came Miss Lanz with her dog Peggy and some roses and a basket of strawberries and a book about Babies for me. She sat in a chair and watched me garden, and then we went in and Boozed and chatted till the others arrived - plus three duck.
Mr. Martin took her home in his car, and then we had dinner - Duck soup, baked eggs, minced chicken in little mounds with white sauce, and fruit salad.
This morning they left soon after breakfast, but they will be coming back in about a week's time, on their way back again. We thought they might stay over Xmas, but they don't think they will be able to - but that's nothing to go by as they never know when they will be anywhere, and it depends on the roads. It was great fun having her, and she was SUCH fun, and we talked domesticity and cooking and gardening and Married Life and Spinsterhood, and all sorts of things that I hadn't been able to talk to anybody about before because there had been nobody to talk to! I think she enjoyed it too,
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as she doesn't often see other females. G said that was what I'd miss - not having other women to waffle with, but I've not missed it in the least, and though I loved having her here I don't mind that she has gone.
They are going on leave next summer, and will meet the in-laws for the first time! Hers were a bit fussed when she
cabled to them and told them she was engaged, as she had done it so suddenly and quickly, but as she is 23 and quite capable of choosing wisely, and as he is nearly 28 and quite capable of looking after her, and as she HAD tried so hard to go home and soothe them first, they cooled down and said Oh well. So she writes to his parents every week, and they send copious photos of each other, and are getting to know each other as well as they can by post till they meet next year, which will be most exciting. Of course, the fact that she was with her brother helped a lot too, as her parents could trust: him to see she didn't make a mess of things, and he liked Martin very much and assured them it was all right.
It was great fun having visitors, and it seemed rather funny not having to supply them with sheets and towels and things, as they had brought everything of their own of course, including boys, so all we had to do was to give them Early Morning tea in our Early Morning Tea-sets, and give them meals and a bath.
She had done Interior Decorating when she was at home, and used to design the insides of schools and hospitals and hotels and things for Heal's, so as she knows something about it she has great fun planning her house at Bombwe. I always thought that when a person wanted their house decorated, you went to the house and decided there and then the things it would need and the colour scheme it should have etc.; but apparently they do it all on paper, with plans, and it's ever so much easier to decorate a room on paper than it is by looking at the room. Doesn't that sound odd.
We are expecting somebody else to arrive soon - Mr. McKenzie, a stock inspector, who has been up on the border of Angola preventing cattle from stepping across the border into N.R. because they are having a campaign against foot-and-mouth and Pleuro-Pneumoniea, which is what every cattle in the country seems to suffer from. When he comes, which ought to be any day now, I suppose he will take the little Impala down with him.
We've got a Tortoise. He's about as big as the palm of a hand, and we put him on the front verandah and blocked up all the holes, and forgot about him, and now we can't find him! I expect he is buried in one of the cushions somewhere, or hiding
somewhere. Anyway, he won't get any food if he doesn't come out soon.
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Tuesday, 15th December, 1936,
I always like starting my portmanteau before Sunday, because then I can get some of the little tiddly bits of news done before the letters from all of you come, and can then concentrate more on answering your letters during Monday and Tuesday before the mail goes.
Mum's letter seems to be on top, so I'll answer her first.
Yes, you will be able to see Robin quite a lot, when we bring him home and get bored with him and want to gad off and be gay and pretend we're only nineteen (instead of 21!).
Now the NAME, which is a most important point, and which seems to have produced rather varied opinions. The B-P family seems rather keen on David Baden Clay. We thought of David actually, and we both like it, but we thought Three "a"s in a row were a bit too much of a good thing, don't you, so we thought perhaps Robin Baden Clay for the first one, and perhaps call the second one David Arden Clay! But of course if we ask David to be Godfather it might be rather appropriate. But we DID want to have a bit of Dad, and all the other relations we mentioned in the first letter, included in him, and we are both so awfully fond of Robin, and we are getting so used to calling him Robin now, that it would be rather difficult to suddenly change him to David!!
However, if you would rather he wasn't called Robin I suppose we shall have to see what we can do about it, as we don't mind so frightfully much as all that. But we quite agree with you, not Hugh; we neither of us like the name very much, and I don't think a single-syllable name sounds very nice with a single-syllable surname, do you? But of course there again it would be appropriate to have the God-father's name, as they seem to do that usually.
I see in Mummy's letter she suggets Robert. it's too prim, and there are too many of them about already, but otherwise it is all right! Now Mummy, DO you think we look as if we would call our Beautiful, Gorgeous Son Marmaduke? No, far be it from me to give my opinion, but I would rather call him Horace.
Daddy suggests Charles and Robert. I'm afraid I dislike Charles intensely, because it always has to be pronounced Chahles, and has to be said slowly, with the eyebrows elevated and the eyelids lowered slightly over the eyes. You get my meaning?
There seems to be some wonderment as to why no names beginning with C. It isn't because I object in the very least
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to that eminently charming letter, but merely because I WILL not be responsible for saddling my child for life with a name like Cecil, Christopher, Clarence, Claude, Clement, Conrad, Crispin, Cuthbert, Cyril or Cyprian. Would you now like us to call our son with a name beginning with C? If it is absolutely and indubitably necessary, we still think that our first choice - Cadwallader - would be most suitable.
We have got some names in the back of our Chamber's Dictionary, but they hadn't got a very bright selection and we couldn't think of any others, so if your name-book has some good ones, I think we'd love to have it; even though we have really more or less made up our minds, we are still open to suggestions.
Of course I had always wanted to call my son Martin, Julian, Nigel or Anthony, all of which are My Husband's pet aversions! He always meant his to be called Gerard, Adam, Joseph, or Arthur, all of which ought to be abolished at birth. So you see we had quite a difficult time!
I think we might start considering GIRLS' names soon, if you don't mind, because honestly I don't think I can really be as clever as we all think. I mean it's clever enough to produce anything at all, but whether I am clever enough to produce what we all want me to produce is QUITE another matter. So I think just for safety's sake we'd better have one or two girls' names up our sleeves. So would you all please start wracking your poor old brains again? I gave you our choice at the same time as Robin, and you all cheated and Dodged the Issue by not giving us ANY suggestions for girls at all! So you know our choice before you have given an Unbiased opinion, which is quite wrong.
Now about Godparents. I think I said that we had thought of having Hugh and David as fathers, and Evie as ma. Mum, Evie isn't an aunt ! She's G's first cousin, not his sister! Then I thought I would just LOVE to have Duckie as godmother, because she has always been my greatest friend I think, and she IS such a dear, and as she knew G before we were engaged I think SHE would take rather a special interest in it! So we thought WHY not have four? Is it allowed? Because we want all these people, and we don't want to save any of them up for the second in case we don't have a second! Also there are lots of other people we could have if we did succeed in repeating the performance. So could you please tell us if FOUR godparents is allowed? Also it would save having to ask only one of each and then asking another on the spur of the moment when we know whether it's a boy or a girl. Anyway, I've written to Duckie and asked her, but we haven't yet asked any of the others, though I don't know if you've told Evie or not.
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I think we said in one letter, didn't we, the reason why we thougt Ralph and Heather and Peter could be let out of being godparents? That they would be Uncles and Aunts anyhow, so would naturally have a very close interest, and it would be better to have great friends, so that they have the special interest in the Brat that they wouldn't have otherwise, and which the Uncles and Aunts have anyhow. It makes a larger number of people closely connected with it - that's our real reason I suppose, but I've always thought it much best NOT to have uncles and aunts, and I think we both agree about that. Anyhow, we both agree very definitely over the choices
we have made, so I hope you will think they are all right. Does Ralph mind very much? I know Heather doesn't, because I think she thinks just the same as I do, don't you?
Now about Films. I AM so glad Victoria Falls arrived safely and is a good one. I never expected it to be, as it was my very first effort, and I had to load it by the instructions in the little book! How marvellous of you to join them together as they come, and I think that's much the best plan as then you can cut out all the bad bits and make nice big films of them all. I WAS a fool, I forgot to number them as to their right order, but I expect you can gather from the sense, so to speak, where they come, and I think I've mentioned them all in my letters at odd times. I remember there was one which I forgot to keep a list of, and I simply couldn't think what I'd taken on it, so I just had to leave the space for Subject blank!
I am sending off two this week, so I have labelled them 1 and 2, so that starting from now you will get them all in their right order and won't have to work it all out for yourself. I'm so sorry that I didn't do it before - I ought to have thought of it, but just didn't. I suppose it's the bad effect that having a Husband has had on my memory and wits!
Number 1
consists of the aeroplane containing the Insurance Bloke; the baby Impala arriving in his tiny little carrying-basket; the Refrigerator arriving, being carried on the shoulders of four natives; the Green Mamba being held up by Chishimba on the end of the spear; a baby monkey in a tree which probably won't come out; a view of the Boy's Compound and our little flock of sheep, which probably won't come out either, but I just took it to use up a film as I wanted to start a new one for Number 2, which consists of:
Number 2.
Mr. McKenzie, the stock inspector, and his menagerie, which was three baby eland and a delicious sable, who were standing about on the bank, eating grass and being very tame, and I'll tell you about them now.
On the back of Page 3 I mentioned that we were expecting
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him to come down the river any day on his way on leave, and funnily enough he arrived that very evening, just in time for sundowners. He had pitched his little tent on the bank of the river, and all his animals were out eating, so he cane up for a bite of supper, and stayed for HOURS afterwards and I thought I'd fall asleep. I think he liked having someone to talk to at last, and they talked game and shooting, and he had been up on that border, by himself, for two-and-a-half years, patrolling it up and down, up and down, month after month, and hardly ever seeing another white man.
He was one of the ugliest little men I've ever seen, about 40, small, with ginger hair and ginger eyebrows and a reddish face and a long curved beak and a little tortoise-mouth underneath a little ginger moustache, and a funny little voice. But he was quite interesting and nice, and had shot a buffalo with horns Fifty-four inches across! I think it's the second best there has ever been, the biggest being Fifty-Seven inches. Isn't it terrific.
He has shot twelve lions in the past year, and has six hundred and fifty miles to patrol, and he's going on leave now for the first time for seven years ! He lives in Natal, so he's going there for a bit, and then he's going to England in June for the very first time.
Well, early the next morning (Sunday) we walked down to his camp, and there were all these duckie little beasts walking about and eating, with long ropes on their necks in case they got frightened and dashed away; we walked up to them, and the biggest eland didn't like us too close, but the others were MOST inquisitive and wouldn't keep away, and the baby sable was too funny for words. His fur was a dark bay, with a black stripe down the middle of his back, and he had such a silly, moon-like expression on his face as he wandered about, and mooned after us in a vague kind of way. He was the friendliest of the lot, and just stood there and loved having his ears twiddled like Shawgm.
He had come from Mankoya, where G was before, and Law, the man there now, had had him for quite a long time, and
had succeeded in taming him splendidly. The trouble is that when they get to Livingstone (they are going to the Game Park in Livingstone, by the way) they will be turned loose with all the other animals and probably won't like it a bit as they are so used to just living round a house and being fondled all the time. However, I expect they will get used to it, like Shirley Temple the baby Zebra did.
Mr. McKenzie came up to breakfast with us, after we haa filmed the animals thoroughly, and then we put our own little Impala into a big Crate and he was carried down to the river, and he got awfully fussed sometimes and stuck
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his head out of the cracks between the wood, and scraped his poor little nose. When we got down there, all the other animals were already in their boxes in the barge, ready to go, which was rather a shame as I would have like to have taken them going in, as apparently they all walk in by themselves quite happily., When first he got them into the barge, he always gave them their milk when they were inside, so that now whenever they go into the barge they know they will get milk.
The biggest eland and the sable were together in one crate, and the two little twin eland together in another alongside, and in front of them was somebody we hadn't yet seen, an absolutely miniature steinbuck. He was about the size of a hare, with huge black eyes and huge long ears, and he lived in a small basket in a sack, and would hardly ever come out. He drank milk out of a tin cup, and was simply sweet.
They made rather a fuss about having an extra animal in the barge, and shouted a lot and said there wasn't room for another, but of course they managed to put him in all right; there were rather a lot of people to go in too - all the carriers, some of their wives, one or two children, and all the paddlers, but there was lots of room really.
So they all packed themseIves inside, but we didn't wait to watch them sail away as they weren't going for a bit, and we wanted to get back and read all our letters, which were sitting in a huge Basket on the verandah waiting to be Opened.
We got a lovely lot of papers, Fields and Country Lives and the like, and "Holly Leaves", the Xmas number of the Sporting and Dramatic, which had some lovely pictures in it, and the Xmas Almanac of Punchki, and the two eiderdowns that our solicitor gave us, and the Xmas crackers and Plum Pudding that I had ordered from Haddon and Sly, and a book from the Book Society, which I have been joined to for Three Years by 1/- subscriptions from all the Guide Commissioners in Scotland isn't that nice of them?
And a letter from old Campbell, who has now got a job on the railway near Bulawayo, and sent you his kindest remembrances, Mummy and Daddy, and we are going to send him a lot of our papers when we've read them as he isn't very happy down there and is rather lonely.
The Martins have come back. They arrived yesterday, when I was having my afternoon siesta, and it was great fun having them back. She helped me plant out the sunflowers in the evening when they went off shooting, and we went for a lovely walk down to the river, and the sunset was just too superb. It had been raining just before, so it was a deep orange, and then turned to mauve, and the whole river was a
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marvellous ripply mauve. It was heavenly.
Now I really MUST stop, as the mail is waiting to go, and Husband is having to do it as his Clerk's ill, and I've just heard that he is absolutely champing, and I'll lose my job if I don't take care.
With lots and lots of love
from
Us
