P010 19361222
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Sesheke,
N. Rhodesia.
22nd December, 1936.
Well darlings,
Merry Christmas to you all, although you'll have all had it by the time this gets to you, but we are still at the getting-excited stage, planning the Christmas party and all. And our best wishes for the New Year, and mind you make a nice lot of Good Resolutions (which will be kept for two days and then forgotten.)
I've been very naughty this week, not starting the letter till the last day before mail-day, but goodness know, what I've been doing all the time. Running the house and bossing-up the boys and looking at the refrigerator and planting seeds I suppose.
We have quite a lot of news, and of course the first thing that I can think of, and which has been in our minds ever since we heard it, is the news of the King. It was a terrific surprise to us, as we had had no news of anything impending, except about a month ago when Hugh wrote, and in his letter he mentioned the fact that the King was "playing about" with Mrs. Simpson, so wasn't quite so popular as he had been, and that if he wasn't careful it might get even more serious.
The next news of anything happening in England was when those aeroplane people dropped in for lunch, who told us that the Crystal Palace had been burnt down! No word of the King though. Then the next thing we heard was on Saturday morning - this last Saturday, the 19th Dec. - when Mr. Finkelstein, the old Jewish storekeeper by the river, sent up a delicious note (which I would like to send you, but 1) you two parents, or rather lots of parents, are now divided and I don't know which to send it to! and 2) we want to keep it oursselves for our scrapbook!) which said: "Mr. Bennet arrived last night from Mulabezi and brought the latest that the King abdacted (!!) and has left England, the Duk (!) of York has been proclaimed King."
A most historical note, showing how the Great News came to the out-station in the wilds of Central Africa.
On Sunday we got your letters saying how awful it was, and the Bulawayo Chronicle with headlines and articles, and extracts from leading articles in the Times, and "Moore's Rag" (i.e. the Livingstone Mail, run by a rather socialistic M.R.) with more headlines and some quite strong editorial notes on the subject of Kings choosing between their duty and their own personal desires, etc, etc.
Poor Husband is seeing the Indunas to-day, and they will want to know all about it, and of course they will not be able to understand why he should abdicate just because he wants to get married. It was rather amazing to them that he wasn't married already, as they are always married so young, and the Chief can of course marry anyone and any number of people he chooses, and can divorce them at will, so it is going to be a difficult job to explain just why he can't marry a divorcee and go on being King.
It must have been a terrible time for him, having to make up his mind, and I think he chose the only way out. It would be a bit awkward having TWO yanks going about the world saying that their wife was the Queen of England, wouldn't it.
Is the new one popular? I should imagine everybody's frightfully pleased with "Queen Elizabeth", aren't they? It's so difficult to tell just what the Great British Public really thinks when the only advice we have is in
the Byo Chronicle and Moore's Rag!
Last Thursday we had Champagne for supper in honour of the Martins being here, and we drank The King. We thought we were drinking the health of King Edward VIII, but I suppose we were really drinking the health of King George VI. Isn't that funny.
The Champagne was very good and we had Ice in it, but I was sick next day. That isn't funny.
Well, I think that's all I can think of to say about the King, though I could think of lots more if I had lots of time to think in. Would you like to hear a bit about our own news for a change:
We've got another Tortoise, a King of Tortoises, a Great Grandfather of all Tortoises. The Martins ran over him on the way here, and nearly had a puncture from it, and would have if he'd been a Porcupine instead of a Tortoise. So they picked him up and brought him along to be a companion to our Little Tortoise. They brought him in a sack, and put him down on the floor in his sack, and the sack started walking along at a terrific rate! We let him out, and he rushed about most busily, grunting fiercely when we went near and clawing with his hands and feet if he was picked up.
He was too big to live in the verandah, so we put him in a big box with grass at the back, and put the little one with him, but I think he must have eaten him because he was not there in the morning: Unless the
boys had. He made such a noise and fuss (the big one I mean) all the next day that we took him out of his box and pushed him into the little house next the kitchen, and there he lives, walking daintily all over my Best Potatoes!
- 2 -
We had a little steinbuck for two days. He was brought in by a native, and he looked awfully miserable, standing there with his head down and his legs a bit bent, and not a bit frightened or excited or anything, and
we thought he looked a bit ill. Anyway, we bought him for five shillings - the boy asked for four, but it is our custom to give more when they bring in live animals, to encourage then to bring more - and we put him in
the Impala House.
When we went in to see him in the evening, he hadn't any grass, so we threw a bunch over, and it frightened him and he bumped into a piece of tin there was in there, and looked a bit dazed for a minute, and then
seemed to recover all right. Next time .e went to see him he was lying down inside his shed and refused to get up, and we wanted to put him out in the grass, so we tied a long roped round his neck and eventually with much carrying and urging and pushing and pulling we got him out, and tied him up to a nice gum tree in the middle of a lovely patch of thick green grass in the shade.
The boys put him back to bed when it got dark, because of the Hyenas, and the next morning he was Dead. We think he must have had some internal mix-up, as he looked so ill when we bought him, and I hope it wasn't that bang he gave himself on the tin, or the pulling him about getting him out.
That's all the animals we've had this week, but I think we've been awfully lucky with them, as they have brought so many in, and though we've only kept them for such short spaces of time we've usually managed to get films of them, and it is great fun having them, specially such a variety. I wish they could find us another Pangolin though, as I should so love to have a film of him for you, as he SO beautiful.
I don't know if you've noticed, but this letter and the last, and maybe the one before, have not mentioned cooking or food very much? Well, the phase has gone off - before the Xmas party too, which is very trying -
and a new craze has come stalking into the midst of the Clay Household - CHESS.
I have beaten him TWICE, and he always has to remove his Queen or Quagger first of course. I forget when I last played Chess, bat it must have been 'way back in the dim dark ages when pigs had wings, because I could only just remember where the people stood and how they could move. Daddy, you seem to have done your stuff all right in teaching your son the wiles of the game, as he has beaten his intelligent wifelet every time except those two.
He Fool's-mated me once, but I had a most Triumphant Triumph last night, when I check-mated him after a fierce battle ending up with: Me, two Quaggers, a Castle and a Knight and a King; Him, One King, One Prawn, One Castle! wasn't that fine. There was one very Nasty moment, when his two castles came down together on my King and it looked like Check-mate, but - without any warning whatsoever to anybody, my noble Quagger sailed majestically down the black squares from corner to corner and swept a Castle off the board. She took us all completely by surprise, as we had neither of us noticed her sitting there quietly in the corner.
It's great fun, but the trouble began when I went to sleep yesterday afternoon, and Husband came and woke me up and my first words were "But you had Three Knights, so it wasn't a bit fair!" So we now limit our games to one game, or perhaps two, per day! I think I'll have to take to Halma.
On Sunday Miss Breach and Mrs. Bennett came up to tea. Mrs. B. is the wife of Mr. Bennett (strange to relate) and the sister of miss Breach, and I never saw two sisters less alike; even little Heather and me-are
twins compared with them. The Breach is, as I have told you, little and thin and birdlike, with flat orange hair and parchment face - a mixture of Miss Exley and Aunt Agnes and a dead apricot - and is terribly shy and rather difficult to talk to because she giggles and hasn't got a sense of humour. But she's terribly kind and sends me up carrots and flowers and pawpaws and beans and lemons by the million, and is so proud of her garden.
Mrs. Bennett is Huge and Fat and her feet bulge over the straps of her Black shoes and she waddles; she has black flat hair and a Huge face and Glistening Spectacles and has a Very loud and raucous voice which is kept very busy; she hasn't got a sense of humour either, and said she really didn't see anything funny at all in "1066 And All That"!!! She has three children, one of which came up the next day on its bike with some more carrots and flowers and is very pale and looks rather sickly and very silent. They are ALL coming up to our dinner party on Xmas Day - ooo-er. However, I expect she Means well. They say there is 5% of good in everybody; she only came up for tea, so I didn't really have time to find it, but No Doubt it is there, and I will find it when we get to know each other better! The South African accent in a loud voice takes away at least 4½% though.
But I expect she's awfully nice really - she must be or Mr. B. wouldn't have married her, unless she vamped him, or was a little Less So when she was younger.
I must tell you a joke we saw in one of the Snobs's gazettes that you very kindly sent us:
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Father (to friend): "I want to introduce my son to you."
Friend : "What for?"
It made us laugh, but now it's written down it doesn't look quite so funny!
We haven't been having much luck out shooting lately, and haven't had a duck for about ten days. We don't much like shooting guinea fowl or francolins in pairs as they are just beginning to nest now, and we haven't seen many "Coveys" of them lately. The duck are being most is gracefully lazy, and haven't come here at all yet in any big numbers, but I expect they will later on in the Rains.
Oh, I've just remembered, somebody said in their letter the other day that they didn't like the idea of our house being riddled with scorpions and couldn't we smoke them out or something. Well, you needn't worry about it any more, as they are all gone. We cemented up the roof where they were getting in all the time, and we haven't seen another since I last told you, which was about Portmanteau 3 I should imagine. We haven't had any more snakes either, so we are quite safe. And after all we don't think those CAN have been proper scorpions, though they looked ferocious enough to be, but apparently they weren't QUITE the right shape to be genuine, high-class scorpions, so perhaps they were quite harmless really and would have made rather attractive pets. However, I think if you don't mind I'll leave that to someone else to experiment with!
There was SUCH a nIce hyena on the aerodrome at two o'clock this morning. He sounded so close that we woke up and bounded to the window with a torch (which would NOT stay on!) and shone it all round the horizon trying to pick up his Red Eyes, but there wasn't a sign, and we didn't hear him again so I suppose we'd frightened him away. It was SUCH a lovely, exciting, wild-Africa song he was singing too.
Then just after we woke up this morning, with the sun streaming in at the window and scorching our eyes out, an aeroplane came over. G rushed out in his dressing gown, but it went right over, not on the usual route to Mongu, but heading further to the right. Just after he'd got back into bed, another came over! It was a different one, heading in the same direction, and it didn't stop either. We thought perhaps they were going up to Mankoya, though it's not exactly the directest route, and perhaps they may come down on their way back again. Well, we've got a huge joint of lechwe in the refrigerator if they do come, so we are Prepared.
We got such a nice post on Sunday. Mummy's two lovely calendars and the jig-saw puzzle and my Parcel (not yet unpacked - waiting patiently and diligently for Xmas Day!) arrived the week before, and the mushrooms and asparagus. The two books from Daddy arrived the week before too, and a lovely book from Dad called Zambezi Days. This week we got Xmas Cards from Dear Aunt Agnes, Aunt Hilda M.W., the Bradleys in Lusaka, the Cartmel-Robinsons, and a lovely little Coronation Calendar with pictures of Mr. Windsor at different stages of his career from the Wades. The B-P family Xmas Card came too, with pathetic Heather all by herself at the bottom and No Betty! It arrived badly bent and scrunched up, but just not torn, from Scout H.Q. - naughty of them not to put a piece of cardboard in with it.
We got a book about a Bull Terrier and a lovely tree calendar from Guide H.Q. which I think was terribly sweet of them; two books from Uncle Robby, which is also terribly sweet of him I think; a book called Jill Somerset by Alec Waugh from Person Unknown, but the writing on the brown paper looked a bit like Uncle Wilfrid's, but we aren't sure. Ardie very kindly sent us some hankies, and we got a letter from Berkie, and Ro wrote and told us she was just off to ski in Switzerland with a big party, which sounds fun.
And lots and lots of lovely Snob's Gazettes and Fields and Punches and Blackwoodses and things. Mummy and Ralph you are kind about sending them to us, and we love getting them. We hand them on to the Lanz and the Breach and when everybody has done with them we send them to old Pa Cambell in S. R. as he is very miserable and lonely in his new job on the railway there.
Oh, Heather's Beautifully done book of all our Wedding Presents arrived by this mail too, and it IS a work of art, you wonderful hag, thank you ever so much for taking so much trouble over it, and it will be so nice for looking up what people have given us, etc.
About films. You won't see them till you get back from India, will you. I have just started numbering them and I AM sorry I didn't think of doing it before as it would save you such a lot of bother in the splicing of
them. I've just sent off number 3: Mr. McKenzie's animals in their barge and the baby Impala joining them; the Martins leaving in their car; the Office; prisoners cutting down a tree. And no. 4: the steinbuck that
Died; the ox-waggon bringing our water; ME; Miss Lanz and me in her little cart which brings her up when it's too hot to walk; Miss Lanz being very shy, hiding behind me, but we were quite determined to take her as we know you'd like to know what she's like.
That's all, and I've got to the end of a page.
Lots and lots of love to everybody, and have a good time in India and don't get eaten by an Elephant.
From US.
