P013 19370111
< Previous 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s Next >
Please be aware that these are transcribed by software,
so there WILL be mistakes.
Please tell us which page 0f which Portmanteua.
[8 pages] Sesheke,
N. Rhodesia.
11th January, 1937.
Darling everybody,
A very mizzy week this week, but he's practically well now so I won't be a widow after all. When I wrote last week I think he had got over the actual fever, hadn't he - the thousands-of-blankets stage`? Well, since then he has been a Permanent Ache, either in his head, his neck, his back and shoulders or his Tummy; he didn't often have he: ell at once, but if one was all right, another would start, and then that would o and another would come back, so altogether he was driven nearly mad and we didn't know WHAT to do to stop it.
Miss Lanz was splendid. She sent us all sorts of potions, aspirins, quinines, plasinoquins, atebrin., phenacetin, cascaras, etc etc, the only one of which did any good at all was the aspirins - which made him hot! She came up every day, and slept two nights here which was rather corforting when he was rather bad. It was very nice of her, as she hes just ha four babies and her head orderly was killed by light-ning the other night, so she has a terrific lot of work on hand.
Mummy, I congratulate you on the way you have brought your Son up as a Patient. He really is a model one, and lay like a hot wet log under all the rugs in the house, two eiderdowns, two hot water bottles and Woolly Pyjamas, and never once did he try to throw them off or get out of bed or say he
was too hot. But I think the awful aching was worse than that, because it went on all the time without stopping, for no reason at all, doing no good to anybody, for five whole days and nights. He was marvellous.
I am now a most Efficient Nurse, bustling about shaking thermometers and breaking them all over the place, doling: out soothing potions, mixing Egg; Knoggs, Veg. soups, and cold Bovril, rubbing backs and tummies with Gin, smoothing hot foreheads, walking about darkened rooms in slippers, and so on also have great sympathy for all Night nurses!
Well, all Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday he was lying on his Couch. of Sickness racked with pain; on Sunday night I went for a long walk down to the hospital and waffled with the Lanz and she walked almost all the way back with me, because he seemed ever so much better and I needed a little fresh air. And when I got back I found he'd had the worst headache he'd ever had, and had to walk about to keep his mind off it, but couldn't walk about much because he hadn't the strength! So he had
- 1a -
taken two aspirins and was trying to go to sleep. He finally did go to sleep, and only woke up twice in the night, feeling a little better each time, and in the morning he woke up to find that ALL THE ACHES AND PAINS HAD GONE!! They had just vanished, like that, and all today he's been so gay and bouncy, and almost wanted to get up just to show how well he was. It's so lovely to have him well again, and now it only remains for him to get strong again, and we'll feed him up on veg. soup and Bovril and things, and he ought to be up in a few days now, if all goes well. I wish I had foreseen him being ill and got some Horlicks or Ovaltine or something, but it's too late now as by the time it comes he will be as strong as a Hippo again.
Your vegetable soup is marvellous, Mummy. We had onions and potatoes and lettuce and carrots, but that was all we could rake up. Our silly carrots have all died on us, because the soil is bad or something, but the Breach came Once More into the Breach Dear Friends and sent us up a fine bin of them, so we had four vegetables, which was the best we could do under the circumstances. Our beans ought to be out soon, because all their flowers have come and been and gone. Well, anyway, Musonda made the soup with the four ingredients, and it was very good, and bucked him up a lot and he had it twice yesterday and twice the day before and twice today. Before that he was living on chicken jelly and Bovril and bicarbonate of soda.
Tonight for supper he's having Herring Roes on toast, and do you know what we have for tea today, hot buttered toast! It was scrummy. It's the first time we've been entitled to have it, as it has been lovely and cold all day.
Doesn't that sound funny – "lovely and cold" – when there are you poor dears freezing in all your winter woollies and pink bed socks and longing for a bit of warmth. We've had a ghastly hot week, and the night before last we had a fine thunderstorm which broke things up splendidly, and it rained a lot today – great big splashy rain that jumped in at the windows through the mosquito netting and ran down it in streams and made ground smell lovely.
Now I'll answer your letters, if there is anything to answer, before I go on to this week's livestock.
DAD.
TWO letters from you, one from Paris dated 13th December and telling us about godmother W.G. what fun seeing her, and she IS a dear, isn't she. I saw her when Mum and I were in London when we first got home in May, and she was in very good form, going about England making lectures on something to do with The Mind. She is rather good at that sort of thing, isn't she? Anyway she was very sweet and chatty and I loved meeting her as she hadn't seen me since I'd grown up – and
- 2 -
It's highly amusing to think that four months after she had seen me grown-up for the first time, I was an old, old married woman!
But we were so disappointed that in your letter you never said whether Monsieur Lebrun had kissed you or not! In your last letter that was what you were terrified of, that you didn't mention it in this one, so we imagine you were let off lightly and that the danger was averted in time.
We saw a paragraph to the effect that you had got the Legion of Honour in the Weekly Times, underneath that very sweet and touching message to the Empire from Queen Mary.
Your other letter was Christmas Day, telling us how you had been to tea with the parentage and had had such fun there. I'm awfully glad you went, as you haven't been there before have you?
It also contained a Gorgeous Picture of a stork bringing Robin-or-Judy in a basket, and it is just lovely, Daddie, and will be marvellous to send out when the time comes, as I tremble to think what the post will be like when people hear of it, judging by correspondence over a certain engagement and wedding. You have to keep a lot of copies yourselves so that you needn't bother to write to them all. You had better keep the printing-block thing though!
There, that's all for you I think. We just LOVE hearing from you.
MUM.
A lovely letter from you, 23rd December, on very nice new Airmail Paper. What a good plan – H.Q. getting quite modern-minded! And very sensible – and it will save you a lot of that nice paper on your India trip for your reports, etc., won't it.
POOR you, I can just imagine your last-gasp things – people writing and saying "would you just write to so-and-so, or a message or an article for this-and-that, before you go." But you have had a lovely rest on board I hope, and are nice and fresh ready for the tour. It was a nasty little ship, wasn't it? I believe I heard tell that it was just held together by the paint.
Give my love to Mrs Conran-Smith, and tell her the sauce-boats are lovely.
And don't bother to write often, Mum, if it's a bore, as I KNOW how busy you are kept, and although we just adore hearing how you are getting on and all about it, we would hate
- 2a -
to feel that it was depriving you of a rest-hour. So don't make a bother of it, will you, and only write when you've really got time and energy and nothing else to do.
And then having the bother of those Silly Maids. They DO sound Poops; they were getting dreadfully lazy even when we left, weren't they, and I'm glad you've taken a Firm Line with Elsie the K.M.(Kitchen Maid or Komplete Mutt). Thank goodness we don't have any problems like maids to deal with; our faithful "savages" [do not for one moment think that she thought of her "boys" as "savages"] are better by far than any maid could ever hope to be – would you like to know how much we pay them? Musonda, head boy, who has been with G. for six years and does absolutely everything and is SO sweet, gets £2. 10s. a month, £2 of which he gives back to me to keep for him, as he is a wonderful saver.
Chishimba, parlour maid, gets 27/6 a month; Peter, housemate, gets 25/- a month; Shimeo, dogsbody, gets £1; horse boy gets £1; two garden boys, 10s each; chicken boy, 7/6; two milk boys,4/- each; and a little Toto who feeds the dog and does odd messages and cleans pots etc. gets 2/6 a month.
So for the wages of 11 marvellous people, who always come when you call and do everything you asked them to and do it jolly well, never get cheeky or lazy, and always think of your comfort and pleasure before they think of themselves, we pay a monthly total of exactly 7 pounds! How much do you disgorge, Mum?! [Betty's total household expenditure for the year was just over £200, i.e. under £17 a month]
We gave them money for Christmas presents, and also we gave them each a jersey and Musonda a shaving mirror. The wives got money to, and Bupe got 2/6.
I am glad Rusty is going to school – it ought to do him a lot of good, and I do hope it will cure him of pig-bucket-isis. His age will probably help to cure that too, as he will be an older little man by the time you get him back.
We DO dislike our dog so. Isn't that unusual for us, as we are both keen on any old dog as a rule; but we don't allow the stupid old Chief into the house any more now, as he has sore places on his ears which are impossible to heal (we were warned about them by Phibbs) and which bleed profusely, and every time he shakes his head he splashes all over everything, and it's SO revolting we can't bear it any more. He's such a stupid, useless old fool too, no good as a sporting dog and a rotten companion because he's so dirty. He's got a dear, kindly nature, and means very well, but he's too big and lumping to have about the house, knocking things over and bringing ticks and mud in, and so on.
So we have written to an advertisement we have at last seen in the Bulawayo Chronicle (we advertised in the Livingstone Mail, I think I told you, and the only result was a woman who thought she was going to have puppies in February, but was not sure!) sending a cheque for two guineas for two fox terrier
- 3 -
puppies. It will be lovely having actual dogs of our own, as somebody else's dog is never quite the same, especially when you know you are only keeping him till they come back. We are going to write to Phibbs and asking if we can lend him to somebody else, as two people have asked for him. If Phibbs doesn't come back I shouldn't think he'll want Chief any more, so I don't suppose it matters what happens to the poor silly thing.
Oh, I was in the middle of answering Mum, wasn't I. Yes, Mummy told us about the lunch party, and I'm glad she's met Dear David, even if it WAS only for a brief moment. Do you mind if we call him Robin, not David? While both of us like David, and that was our sort of second string in case it was twins, but the trouble is we've got so used to calling him Robin now that it would be awfully difficult to suddenly change and called him something else. It would seem as if he had suddenly become quite a different person. So can we keep David for the second one?! How funny, you're not having got the letter telling you the names with thought of; I must've called him Robin the letter before by mistake, forgetting that you didn't know yet! I expect you've got it by now though – so Ya to you Daddy, we had thought of a girl's name as well.
I'm glad you approve of grand-daughters, Daddy, and I'll try very hard to make her four years old when she is born. I quite agree with you, bibs and bubbles are not pleasant, and whenever we think of him-or-her, which is VERY often, we always think of himorher as at the sweet, running-about stage, in a bathing dress.
I'm so glad Mrs Cartmel-Robinson came to Pax. Isn't she nice? And did you talk about us a lot! And I'm glad you saw the Youngs too – they ought to be coming back soon I suppose.
I've sent off one more film lately – number five – with the vast Tortoise that the Martins gave us; the river and the gumtree on the bank in the evening, which will probably not come out, as it was an experiment, and I used the super-super dark stop, which they call the slow motion button, and I don't know if it worked all right or not, so the river may just be a bit of blank film, and it will be interesting to hear if it has come out at all. It also contains the entertainment at the Mission on Christmas morning, with all the local elite sitting in chairs under the fig tree. From left to right they are: – Lilly Hippo, Mr Finkelstein, the Bennett children, Mrs Bennett, Mr Monteverdi, Me (the empty chair), some queer male or other that was present, the Imiko in his frock coat, Mrs Monty, and the chair put for the Mokwai. Oh, and on the extreme left I believe were the Imwiko's two wives, but I forget if they had arrived by then. At the back are Miss Lanz and the Breach. Also on that film is the Mokwai arriving with her retinue; she looked so lovely.
- 3a -
I think that's all there was to answer in Mum's.
DADDY.
I'm sorry you had to pay a young fortune on one of the portmanteaux. It's this thick paper, which isn't half so satisfactory as the nice thin ordinary airmail paper and I don't like going on the back at all, but I haven't gathered yet how much this stuff weighs per page.
Your Beagling sounds good fun, you wait till you hear about the Lion-hunts and hyena-hunts we are going to have – some day or other!
MUMMY.
We loved your description of "dragging" the portmanteaux into the drawing room to read them. I always have to send for the ox-wagon when I want to send them up to the office to post them, and goodness knows why they don't sink the barge going down to Livingstone.
It was sweet of you to send me that marvellous list of things to eat, and you needn't think it was all in vain, because I'm so well now, because we've already used the soup for G., and the other things will be very helpful to know of, as the only "Invalid food" my cookery book gives is Beef Tea and Barley Water and a few other things that we can't make because we haven't got any Beef, etc.
Yes, that's a grand idea to wait for the sales before getting the things, and I'm sure you will know which not to wait for, such as the socks and the pillow, etc.
What a funny letter that was from "Tony Clark", and G. is going to send it to Hugh as Hugh knows our T.C. quite well and would know where to find him. I love the bit about the wife still flitting about in the Highlands! G. sent the invitation to New College, Oxford, as they usually know their addresses, but I suppose there was another T.C. who came from Australia and they didn't know which it was meant for.
No portmanteaux missing I hope? Or is the one with the baby's names in it still missing as neither you nor Pax have had that letter yet apparently.
There, that's all the letters answered, so now I'll get down to telling you the news.
Tour.
We had planned with the Martins when they were here that we should go for a tour up to the Machili in the middle of January, and it would have been great fun as G. and Mr M were to go off on a long tour of the forests north of Machili while Elizabeth and I sat at home and did Nothing together and we would have had such a lovely time, and we might have
- 4 -
gone down to Livingstone on the spree and the Sawmills Railway, and had our hair washed and gone to the Cinema. And now all that's dashed to the ground, as G. can't possibly start in three days time as we had planned. As soon as he is well enough to go to the office he will have plenty to do, with the Annual Report which has got so frightfully held up with him being ill, and then he'll have these Native Courts and Authorities to deal with and all sorts of things, so we won't be able to get away for weeks and weeks and weeks.
Tiger Cats.
The other day a native brought in four minute cats, that fitted into a person's hand so neatly, with tawny little coats with black stripes on them, and huge round blue eyes like all kittens have. They were very sweet, but we didn't keep them because G. hates cats of any kind, and Musonda said they were messy animals and didn't make good pets, and anyway would probably be eaten by rats the first night. So we sent them away – very tragic but just as well I suppose.
Bush pigs.
But the next load that was brought in we DID keep. Three adorable little baby Bush pigs, with brown and black striped backs and pink trotters, were brought in, and we paid two shillings for them and put them in the potato-house and they squealed and squealed and seemed very healthy. Musonda says they are about 10 days old, and the were two others in the litter but they died, and now this morning when I went out to see them, one of ours had died too, of thinness. Musonda says they were much too young when they were taken away from their mother, and they haven't been properly fed at all, so we feed them on skimmed milk and they put all their feet in it first to make it into a nice mud-soup before they settle down to it.
But the funniest thing of all is the way they follow people about. They trot along after anybody they see, in single file, squeaking as they go, with their silly little string tails hanging out at the back and their ears flapping. They ARE so funny, and I think the boys love them.
They are not rare animals, in fact they are very common in the bush, but one very very seldom sees one, so we are very lucky, and I do hope the two remaining ones will live and grow up here. It should be such fun to go out for a walk with about a dozen dogs round one and two vast Bush pigs trotting along behind!
Tawny Eagle.
The other day Musonda rushed in to say there was a huge hawk who had come down and taken away one of our chickens, but by the time he had got G.'s gun and had rushed out again there wasn't a sign of it. Then yesterday he said it had come back again, so he took the gun, and there it was sitting high up in the gum tree near the chicken house, preening its great claws and washing its face, prior to jumping into the chicken house and having a bite o' dinner. Musonda shot
- 4a -
it with the first barrel, and it fell head over breakfast onto the ground and they all rushed with screams of delight and stamped all over it.
It was a Tawny Eagle, and it had a wingspan of five feet six inches ! That's as long as Me! He was light chestnut underneath and on his head and neck and the front edges of his wings, with dark brown tail and wings. He had lovely feathery chestnut plus-fours, like Ready and Rusty, and great fierce curved claws, so sharp that the natives use them as fishhooks.
I took a film of him being held up by Peter and a Messenger, before they escorted him to the Pot. They'll eat anything, these people – even that porcupine that was dead for a day and a night first!
We've just had a terrific shower of rain – lovely – and strawberries and cream for lunch – lovely. The strawbugs aren't quite like English ones – they are the size of, and looked just like, wild ones, but they taste genuinely of rather sour young strawbugs. Miss Lanz sends them up to us, as her garden is over-run with them, and she's going to give us some plants.
And the Cream! Oh, Mummy, you would be so jealous! We have a great big bowl of it every day, lovely thick fresh cool cream, kept in the refrigerator, and as we don't nearly use it all we make the remainder into cooking oil, as that is the most expensive and difficult thing to come by. We don't use raw milk very much, as it all has to be boiled, and tastes so nasty boiled. It's a pity really because I love milk, and I don't know what we are going to do about Robin, as it is so good for them, but I suppose he will have to learn to like boiled milk. It's not T.B. that one is afraid of, but I don't think anyone could drink raw milk in this country, when you imagine the cows being milked by black hands, and all the other things the same black hands do beforehand without washing in between!!
We get lots of eggs too, as we have a herd of chickens who lay very well on the whole, and they have had one baby chicken so far.
There, that's all for now. Goodbye everybody, and be good.
With bags and bags of Love,
From
US
