P014 19370119
< 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.
[6 pages] Sesheke,
N.Rhodesia.
19th January, 1937.
Darling Everybody,
I'm afraid it will have to be a rather short and scrappy portmanteau this week, as I have been Completely Occupied today, which is always my portmanteau-writing day, with an Aeroplane and writing to Mummy about clothes. So I haven't very much time, but I think you will all forgive me if I go down on bended knees before you all. There I'm on my bended knees now, but they are rather old so I think I'll get off them quickly if you don't mind.
This very much to answer in the letters this week:
DAD.
We just love the Thank Card, and I nearly wept when I counted the peas, because you'd left room for the fourth and it Wasn't There! But it's very happy, and it's very busily hatching another B-P though not quite a B-P, so you don't really mind.
MUM.
A lovely long one dated 30th December, so it's been very quick. How infuriating of Hubert Martin to go and tell Port Said and Marseille you were coming, and I hope you refused to see any of them. After all you have seen them two years running, and it's a bit unfair to expect you to want to see them again, and no reason why you should. Interfering old thing, just when you ought to have been having a lovely long rest on board, not to be bothered by anything. Did you see Munira Camel?
Heather.
We got yours to G. thanking HIM for HIS Christmas Present to Dad – it was really from both of us though, so please will you thank me too? What fun going over to Weston with the films, and we loved the idea of everybody getting up to PEER at the screen so as to see better!
Thanks awfully for sending the photos of Gilwell. Not at all bad on the whole.
MUMMY.
We were so glad to get the map of the new house, and it looks lovely. Yes, that passage by the smoking room does look rather useless, and I should imagine would be much more use as part of the smoking room.
MUM again.
Thanks awfully for sending that lovely fierce letter to Electrolux – it was fine, and he ought to feel jolly penitent, as it was really very careless of them – though he isn't really to blame, poor little man, as they had got their full instructions. Their idea was good, to have the refrigerator as near us as possible, rather than
- 1a -
having to send it all the way up from the coast when we asked for it – but the trouble was they had hopefully sent it to Salisbury, of all places! It would have been quite sensible if they had sent it to Bulawayo, as that is on the way, but Salisbury . . . .! However, it's here, and well worth the delay as it is working so splendidly.
"Eggs and Baker" has arrived, Mummy, to add to our voluminous library, and thanks muchly for it. Also the little soup pots, the fool-glasses, the candle-shade holders, and the sunshade, all arrived while G.was ill so I'm afraid I forgot to tell you directly they came.
AND - The Mattress has arrived! Lovely squashie, mushy Dunlopillow, and it arrived last night, on the heads of four natives, so I took a film of it. It was very sketchily packed, though – just its thin wooden box and a lining of brown mackintosh paper, and that was absolutely all, so with the terrible bumping it would get on board ship loading and unloading, and coming up in the barge for three days during the rains, it was a miracle it wasn't ruined. Could you just drop the hint to Harrods, or whoever it was packed it, if we are likely to have anything else from them, that they MUST pack the things for a long rough journey? If it was the Dunlopillow firm, it doesn't really matter as we won't be having anything else from them, but if it was Harrods, they certainly ought to know better.
It's a tiny bit on the small side, as we have been used to using two beds side-by-side as a double bed, but it's good for us to get used to an ordinary-sized double bed, even if we do kick and scratch each other a lot at first, like we did last night. But it was just too lovely for words, and we went and bounced on it as it lay on the floor waiting to be put on the bed, and the marvellous change from those awful old lumpy horse-hair things made us feel as if we hadn't got any hips or elbows at all – they just sank into the mush.
All the baby bush pigs are now corpses. The first died after we'd had them about three days, the second about two days after that, and the third lasted out three more days after that. They died of smallness. Musonda said they were much too young to be taken away from their mother, and of course had not been properly fed since, so we gave them milk in a bowl, but they didn't seem to get much of it into them, as they just dug their faces right in as though trying to find something to suck, and then sneezed it all over the place. So then we gave it to them on our fingers, but they didn't like that much, and nor did we as their teeth were rather sharp! So then we gave it to them with a spoon – a boy held it upside down and another boy opened his mouth and poured it down – and that was much better. But they died, nevertheless.
- 2 -
Last Thursday the Doctor flew up from Livingstone to have a squint at Robin, and it was very convenient that he came just then because G. had not properly got over his fever so he made a proper inspection of him and so it counted as an official visit and the government pays for it! He also did an official tour of the station while he was here, to see if it was fit for human habitation. He came to the conclusion that it wasn't, anyway certainly not for long, and certainly not after doing one tour at Mankoya, so he is going to make an official report on the subject, which will be diligently read by the powers that be and then diligently put into the waste paper basket and diligently forgotten.
Well, he said that G.'s fever wasn't nearly gone yet, and probably wouldn't go for a week or more, so he is taking a course of Atebrin (which sends you mad after a bit, so don't be surprised if you next get a letter from G. from a loony bin), which gets every drop of fever out of your bones. It makes him very sick, but it is worth it for a week to get the fever out, or else it would go on hanging round and recurring on the slightest provocation.
The pore old boy is still very weak and flabby, and for the first three days he had to be carried to the office in a machila, and came back dead tired after a few hours at the office. He is getting ever so much better now though, and walks to the office again, and this evening he pottered round the garden taking pot-shots at green pigeons – and missed them all too! – While his wife planted chrysanthemums, and jumped every time he fired a shot.
The Doctor was Awfully pleased with Robin and me, and said that he wished everybody would have children at 19 as it is much the best age to have them. He hopes to be able to come out again at about the beginning of May, and he wants me to come down to Livingstone about the beginning of June. So it's all very satisfactory, and we are glad he came as it is nice to know that it's all all right, even though the dear little Lanz has told us so already.
Then today we had the plane here again. A man from Mongu wanted to inspect the stores – Finkelstein's or Read's or somebody's – so they came down at about eleven and left at four. They nearly didn't leave at all, as when we went out to see them off we found that one of the tyres was flat, and it would be next to impossible to take off with one wheel down – the wing would be practically bumping on the ground, and the thing would turn round in a circle as the other wheel was all right. So the pilot (McAdam, who brought us up here, and who took you over the Falls at Easter, Mum) went down to Monteverdi and got him to lend his motor tyre pump, and they pumped it up and it was quite all right, no puncture or anything, so off they flew.
- 2a -
Talking of Monty, I enclose a cutting, Mum, that little Mrs Monte sent up to me today from a French newspaper, about your sojourn in Paris, which might interest you. I told you last week I think that we'd seen about it in the Weekly Times.
Oh by the way, this seems to have been rather a muddle about the Christmas Presents to the Mothers. Mum seems to have got bunches of carnations and no Chincherinchees, and Mummy seems to have got hot houses full of Chincherinchees and no Carnations. We ordered a box of Chins to be sent to each mother from Bulawayo, and a box of Carnations to be sent to each mother from Walters, and it seems very odd that two different firms should have got it wrong. However you each got something, anyway, and it came with our love, even if it wasn't the right thing.
Mum, I also enclose a little photo I cut out of the Field for you, because it is just so adorable that I could not resist it. Isn't it rather like Shawgm? Its eyes are just too pathetic for words, aren't they.
Now, the all-important question of NAMES. There seems to have been a lot of discussion of this at home, so I'll put down the result of everybody's deliberations.
1. Robin.
MUM says that Robin is too much of a pet name, and would not do when he's a grown-up man, and is [not?] the sort of name you are christened as it is a shortened form of Robert. But I'm christened Betty which is a pet name for Elizabeth, aren't I!
MUMMY says the same, and advises christening him Robert even if we call him Robin. I'm afraid we neither of us care for Robert frightfully, and we think is a bit too prim. We agree it does seem more of a man's name than Robin, but I know a very nice man called Robin – but he's only called it by one person! I agree with Mummy, and I wouldn't mind calling him Robert because we would always call him Robin, but G. dislikes the name, and never has liked it. Well, we needn't really decide definitely yet awhile, because I think it is agreed that it is Robert or Robin, isn't it?
2. Davod.
MUM and DAD apparently want him to be called David, for several very good reasons:
a) I ought to have been David,
- 3 -
b) David is going to be his godfather, and it is rather the thing to do to call it after its godfather.
c) it is a family name from the olden days.
d) it's a good old Welsh name.
e) Sir David Clay sounds better than Sir Robin.
(Mummy said the same about Robert!)
f) David is more of a man's name than Robin.
g) the Robin-connection with Dad isn't necessary.
h) David is rather appropriate as he is going to be born at Livingstone!
However, we want to call him Robin.
Can we please keep David for the next one?
We want to call him Robin.
Now, if he's a girl. Judy definitely stamped on all sides, and we don't really mind, because it was only one of the few that we both didn't hate! We found it rather difficult to agree on girl's names, as he disliked any that I liked and I disliked any that he liked, and Judy, Penelope, Alison, Janet, Sylvia and Sally were about the only ones we agreed on. Do you like any of those?
MUM sent a fine list to choose from:
Jennifer: we can't have that as cousin Charlie has just had a daughter called Jennifer.
Rosemary: we can't have that because of Rosie, G. 's first cousin, who was a bridesmaid.
Hazel: we can't possibly have that. I'm glad you didn't call Heather that.
Brenda: we can't possibly have that. It's almost worse than Hazel.
Hilary: G h a s t l y. I once knew a little girl called Hillary, so I'd rather not call her that if you don't mind.
Lettice:
not bad, but not too nice. I'd always want to spell it Lettuce.
LINDIS: definitely good, and we'd just love to call her Lindis – clever Mum to think of it. The only trouble is, do you think, Mummy, that Y.G. ["Young Granny" - Louisa Hamilton, Mummy's step-grand-mother] would resent are snooping her invention, when we aren't really any relation? After all, it is rather a Hamilton name, isn't it, but if it wouldn't be cheek on our part we would love to call her Lindis.
- 3a -
Ella. MUMMY [whose names were Ella Violet, the Ella after her mother] didn't approve of Minella, though we thought it was awfully sweet, as she thought it seemed like a sort of crib from Fenella, so we don't see why she shouldn't be called Ella, poor little thing. I hate the name Ella, personally, and I can't write capital E.s, but neither of those reasons matter as it would only be her second name and I need never hear it again. And it would be awfully nice to have that, as G. likes the name because he was so fond of his grandmother, and as it includes a bit of YOU to, Mummy! I only once knew anybody called Ella before, and I didn't like her a bit – isn't it amazing what a difference it makes knowing people of a certain name? – And I think that made me dislike the name. However, when I've got a great fat daughter of my own called Ella I will probably love the name.
St Clair. Nobody seems to object to that, and although I don't like that name a bit either, it IS a sort of family name in our female line, isn't it Mum, and I would rather like it to go on.
Mummy suggests:
a) Enid: I'm afraid we just couldn't have that.
b) Evelyn: we couldn't call her that because of Evie.
c) Mary: rather ordinary, don't you think? There are such dozens of Mary's about that I think it is rather dull. G. was going to be a Mary, wasn't he? I'm awfully glad he wasn't, or we wouldn't be having this discussion!
d) Vivien: I don't mind it at all, but G. doesn't like it.
Well, will everybody please discuss, ponder and consider LINDIS for a girl, will they please very sweetly accept ROBIN for a boy? We are so used to calling him Robin that he would turn into a different person altogether if we changed him now. We think and talk and plan about him so much, and always as Robin! If he's a girl, we are going to give her to Miss Lanz, and she's going to call her Frenalie. Or would you rather we kept her?
That's all for now. Don't work too hard, Mum. Don't bother to write in this you really have time. What fun Lindis Hamilton being engaged, and I do hope it comes off, have they announced it yet? Will you please get Evie and Rosie off, too. Thank you so much for getting the flower seeds for us – did you get the hyacinths too? It will be rather fun trying them as an experiment.
Gallons of love to you all – filial and fraternal love only, as all other kind is completely booked up already.
From
US.
