P032 19370708
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PORTMANTEAU 32. 62 Valley Road,
Parktown,
Johannesburg.
8th July, 1937.
recd 19th
Dear Grandparents, aunts and uncles, (various),
I hope this will be the last letter you'll get from this place, and the next one you get will be from HOME, from a re-united Family, but then I expect I'll be so excited and we'll have so much to say to each other that I won't have time to write any Portmanteaus for at least a month: Now I've got such a lot to tell you that I really don't know where to start, so I spose I'd better begin where I left off last time, which was on Friday 2nd.
Well Nell went down to the town that morning, as you know, and sent off a cable to Mummy and a wire to G saying that we were leaving here on Friday, which is tomorrow, well now we're not going tomorrow after all (we've chopped and changed so many times that I'm not quite sure if I'm upside down or inside out) but we are going on Satureday instead because it's a better train. If we went on Fri, we would stay two nights at Mafeking and leave there on Sun at sparrow-squawk, and get to Bulawayo the next morn, and we'd have to stay there a day and a half and a night before the next train, and I flatly refuse to stay in Byo, where we don't know anybody really, for all that time, just wasting our sweetness on the desert air, when we could do better. So now we go to Mafeking. on Sat. and stay Sun and Mon there with Mrs. Springall (she wrote and said that the Convent would never forgive her or me if they didn't see Dad's first grand-daughter!) and give Gill a bath and have a good rest and see my horse-man about sending my Horse up, and then go on to L'stone on Tues, which gets there on Wed night, which is exactly the same train as the one we should have gone by if we stayed in Byo instead of Mafeking. Do you comprehend, or is it too muddling? Anyway it doesn't matter if you don't cos we'll have done it by the time you get this.
So while Nell was busy doing that, I wrote P. 31, a most Momentous P. because (a) it was the first about Gill, and (b) it was the first one to go by the new sea-air-mail, at 10d per half-ounce instead of 6d. and only taking eight days on these lovely new Seaplanes It is a vast improvement, isn't it, and of course we shall expect to get at least double the amount of letters now:
Myra came to tea, plus her nice 13 year-old daughter, Margaret, just back from school, and she adored Gill (naturally) and Myra practiced holding her for the christening, and she was Very good, and stayed awake with her eyes open and her hands waving about but didn't cry. It was fun seeing Myra again, she got back from her rest cure the day before, and is looking ever so much better and gayer, but she does much too much.
Gill was quite good that night and slept till 3.30 am. And then only cried for a very little time. She makes such funny noises sometimes, and Nell gets awfully cross with me cos I keep
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on leaping up and saying "Nell, what's she making that noise for? "Nell, she's suffocating." "Nell, why's she crying?" "Nell, she's too hot." "Nell, she's too cold." "Nell, she's being sick." "Nell, why's she got hiccups?" "Nell, she's awake." "Nell, she's asleep." and each time poor Nell has to wake up and tell me she isn't.
Saturday, 3rd.
We got some Letters: two from Mum, one labelled June 24th having just got our letters written the day after Gill's birthday, which was quick work, only nine days. The other was labelled June 23rd, saying you ARE coming out next winter!!!
000H hooray: And can't you make Mummy and Daddy come too, please? cos really, we ARE much nicer than Abbots Wood and beagling, REELY we are.
But Mum, one objection and rather a big one. Jan and Feb are the Rains with us, which is rather a malariary time, do you think it would be wise to come here then? The mosquitoes seemed to approve of Dad and you rather last year, didn't they, and if you are going down the West Coast Ports where there is a risk of being Bitten, do you think it would be all right to come up to N.R. where there is also a risk, especially if you come actually to Mankoya where there is not awfully good Medical Attention (namely, Nell and Me:) if you or Dad DID get malaria. I think it would be very good for G to get away for a bit, not to mention Gill, after the Hot Weather, so I suggest that we get a month's local leave (or as much as G can get) and come down and join you somewhere - the Cape, or Durban (much as I LOATHE trains!) rather than that you should risk getting fever. On the other hand I DO want you to see our home so much, and it would seem such a waste to come all the way out to Africa, and see us, and yet not see how we live. However, it's for YOU to decide, and I just tell you about this in case you hadn't thought of it.
Oh, and while we're on that, you say you are thinking of coming into N.R. straight from Lobito Bay, well it ain't quite so easy as it looks: I'm not QUITE certain, but from what Lassie told me it is a terrible business cos you have to go through the Belgian Congo, and the trains very stupidly don't coincide with the ships, and as they only run once a week (rough ly!) you may have to wait a week or so at Lobito Bay in a ahem - Hotel, and then have a very unpleasant train journey right through the Belgian Congo, through Elizabethville, down through the mine Stations, to Lusaka, then two days by car along a doubtful road with a pontoon across the Kafue, which I don't think would be much fun in the Rains: Doesn't that sound nice and reassuring: I think you'd find it much comfier and more convenient to go right to the Cape and come up to Lusaka on the mail train (Monday morning to Thursday morning) and fly up to us from there, only 2 hours or so.
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How lucky that you decided so long beforehand to come out, so that we have lots of time to plan everything. Do tell me the plans as they are made, won't you, and DO make Mummy and Daddy come too !
Then by the same post was a letter from Dad too, and you'll be glad to hear that the Agnesian Nose is not so marked as it was, but Dad, she's got Your Ears, great big pobbly ones !!
There was also one from Mummy, with a lovely painting of the view from Abbots Wood, done by Herself, it was such a sweet one, and the view looks glorious, and quite different from what I imagined! What a nice photo of Dad that was you sent too, in his handsome uniform going to a Levee, there was one rather like it only much bigger on the middle page of the Rand Daily Mail here, which Mr. Dietrich gave me, so you are very Honoured, Dad, at appearing on the same page as a huge picture of Malan! Yes, Mummy Do start writing Portmanteaux like Mum and I do: I assure you it saves a terrific lot of time, once you get used to the typing, which I find is ever so much easier and quicker than writing now. Then you do know that everybody has had all the news, and you can always write little extra bits as well, like I do sometimes, if there's anything special to say.
Abbots Wood sounds SO lovely, and Mum and Dad say they were thrilled with it, lucky you to have Peaches!
Yes it was tragic about Rusty, wasn't it, Mum wrote and told me by the mail before, and I was awfully sorry, cos he WAS such an adorable little person, and he's the first of any of our dogs to die of distemper, I believe, wasn't he Mum?
Well I spose I'd better get on with the News as Nell will be back from shopping soon and the time absolutely Flies, it's 11. 30 already and I haven't done three pages yet! That's all there was to say about the letters I think.
On Sat. morning Pat Richards came and fetched me in her little car and we took Gill down to be weighed. She wore Green-mama's two shawls, and we took her to the Frangwen so that she should be weighed on the same scales as she was last week so that they couldn't Cheat. But I think they must have been Fisherman's scales, cos she weighed six pounds fifteen ounces, which means a rise of nine ounces in a week! Nell says it is possible, but not probable and we think that they must have forgotten to deduct the weight of her clothes, and that she really only weighs about 6. 9 or 10 - a rise of three of four oz. However, she's SO well, and eating and sleeping so well and being so good and perfect, that she might have gone up all that much. I think she's grown a bit longer too, and her face has filled out a bit, and she's now able to hold her head up by herself, and to move it about and she looks rather like a Tortoise when she moves it about! She is getting very good at exercising, and kicks with her little legs and yells with her little lungs and gesticulates with her little hands. Her feet are a little
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bigger too, as now they are the same length as my second-to-last finger, instead of my first!
Then Pat took us to tea with Ann Usher, (whose brother you went to the Opera with Leather, and his name is Hume Boggis Rolfe) she's expecting a baby quite soon, so we showed her Gill to encourage her, and she was vastly encouraged! She got out her little cradle and we put Gill in it as she said she'd been longing to see what a baby looked like in it, and the result was very pleasing to the eye. She admired her greatly and said she hoped hers would be so nice and pale, as she herself was SO red and ugly that her mother was quite worried and wondered if anything was wrong with her She's such an attractive girl, tall and very fair and rather delicate-looking - I think she's very like Bruce Thompson, if you can imagine him as a girl:
Gill behaved like a Nangel the whole time, and never woke up in the car, or being heaved out of it and into it, and carried around and picked up and put down and turned round – never made a sound the whole time. She just woke up for a few minute when we first put her in the cradle, and lay there with her blue eyes wide open and waving her arms about, and did the most huge and delicious Yawn! and went straight to sleep again. Ann was thrilled with her - and so she ought to be! In the afternoon old Gam's sister-in-law, Mrs. Gammon, came to tea, she lives at Pretoria and had come in for the day, and Gam had written and told her she MUST see Gill and give her first-hand news of us, so 1 wrote and asked her to let me know when she was next in town. She brought us some lovely carnations, and a box of Dubarry Powder, which I thought was very nice of her, and she was very nice and worshipped Gill.
That evening the peace of our annexe was shattered by the arrival of a vast family of Americans! We warned them that Gill would yell in the night, but they said they slept like logs and it wouldn't worry them a bit, and they have been very good and haven't complained at all, so I hope she hasn't kept them awake. he still hang our Knappies out to dry on the chairs all over the verandah, and they haven't complained about that yet either!! They're really rather amusing, and it's rather fun gathering what they're all about from their extremely audible conversation at meals!
There's Mr., who works in the town every day. There's Mrs. who seems to be in charge of the whole family and ought to be very harrassed but isn't. There's Rahberrrrt (why does every American family choose the name Robert?) who is about 15 or 16, his voice is just breaking. There's Merrrjorie, about 10, who slept on the verandah the first night but got such a cold that she had to go in. There's the neice Mary, who is twenty-two and is going to be married on Saturday,(that's what they're all here for,) to a rather wet looking youth with a grin from ear to ear, Mary is very fair and very attractive looking, and is
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much too good for Him we think. Then there's Mary's brother who has come all the way from San Francisco for the wedding! So there's quite a parrrrty of them and I find it so difficult not to talk like that all the time!
On Saturday night Elwen Evans and her fat white-haired mother and her married sister Nesta (who I bumped into booking a room at the Frangwen when I was!) came and took me off to the Cinema. We saw Toomai of the Elephants at the Metro, and it was quite good, but I'd very much like to hear the opinion of somebody who knows India: Sabu, the jolly little Indian boy who takes the part of Toomai, was really splendid, and his elephant was the biggest elephant in captivity, a fine great beast, and acted so well. The Englishman (there was only one) was NOT good, rather a poop, and all the important Indians' parts were taken by Englishmen, or else by Oxford (no, Oxonian, isn't it?) Indians, cos they all had perfect B.B.C. accents, which rather spoilt the effect, though of course they couldn't exactly speak in their own language I suppose: It wouldn't be much good to the audience if they did. There were some very fine scenes of elephants and jungle, and also a very good one of a TIGER, and he did a cavalry-charge right into the camera's face, which was very effective, and he growled beautifully. .Do tiger's growl?
But it had that fault that so many American films have, especially: the ones that have a chase in then - they got three or four very good scenes of massed elephants, and they must have thought that they were SUCH good scenes that it was a pity to waste them, so they brought them in every other minute and whenever they wanted a picture of Elephants Milling Around they put on these three or four scenes in rotation, over and over again. It does annoy me so.
The Evanses took me back to their house for dinner (we'd gone to the six-forty performance, so that we shouldn't be too late for Gill's supper) and then I got home and found that Gill had been yelling since 9.30. She would, just the night I was out! Then, just to teach me not to go out when she wanted her supper, she refused to go to sleep after it, and yelled for quite a time, then woke up at TWO a.m. and gave us a continuous performance till 5.30.! Little Minx.
Sunday, the 4th of July,
Nell got up bright and early, and rushed off gleaming with enthusiasm to meet her friend "Fox' Mackenzie, who she knew at Guy's and who married a Guy's man and he had got a big practice at Petersburg, about 100 miles away, and they happened to be passing through Johannesburg and were stopping a couple of hours here and asked well to have breakfast with them. so I got myself up later and Changed and fed Gill, but I didn't dare bath her.
At about ten Nell returned, not having met them, and having had NO Breakfast! Evidently their train was very late, and –
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they only just had time to catch their connection. It was so bitter as she'd been looking forward terribly to seeing them, and it's always fun to meet old friends again far away from home. And then NO Breakfast too!
Well we went and spent the morning over at Lady Blanken-bergs' on her lovely warm sunny verandah. She said I could come over any time I liked, whether she was there or not, cos it's such a nice sheltered place, and now we've been invaded on our peaceful verandah it was rather nice. We took Gill of course, with the rug strap round her basket, and she didn't mind a bit and slept all the time! She was quite a lump to carry like that, but it is a very convenient way of carrying her about, bed and all.
Lady Blank was there, but Sir Reg. had just gone out, and we had a lovely peaceful morning. she has the most adorable couple of Cairn puppies, eight weeks old, the sons of Jill, who was wearing a Coat because she has rheumatism very badly. Jill (with a jay, note) is the usual grey colour, but the pups are pure brindle, which I believe is rather rare in a Cairn, isn't it? They were too delicious, little round sausages, and so friendly, jumping up to be taken on our laps, and digging their tiny sharp little claws into our pore stockings, and squeaking with joie de vivre. They are called Bosco and Boozer, and she has got to give one of them to Mr. Dietrich as his little dog (who died recently) is the father; she is very sorry to have to part with one, and I think it's an awful shame as Mr. D. is out all day at the Office, and it's not a good plan to leave a tiny pup at the mercy of the boys, they won't look after it at all, and Mr. D. has a dog already that he's quite fond of (Tommy, a smooth fox) and another, Tallulah, a wire-haired, that he never takes the slightest notice of. They're such a jolly little couple too, just the sort that want a doting master or mistress, and lots of attention and love.
Alen we carried Gill home again and gave her her lunch, and just after we'd finished the telephone told us that there was A Gentleman in the lounge for Mrs. Clay. So I suddenly thought "Gosh, it's G.!! He's flown down to see us!" And I rushed along all heart beatey, and when I got to the door I hardly dared open it cos I was so terriefied it wouldn't be him! But of course it wasn't. It was only Kenneth Birch, that young friend of Whitmore's that I went to see Lady precious Stream with in London last summer, an awfully nice boy, and he's living in Whitmore's flat while he's away, keeping an eye on Pat, and he'd come to ask me out to lunch.
I felt all deflated because he wasn't g, though why on earth I'd ever imagined it was him I couldn't think, cos obviously he can't get away from Mankoya when there's nobody to look after it for him while he's away. So I went out to lunch with Pat and Kenneth at their nice flat and it was quite fun.
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Monday the 5th.
A Letter!! and my Passport, thank goodness. I was much afraid that it wouldn't arrive in time and that we'd have to get another, which would have been an awful nuisance, with a new photograph and everything, all just for one journey. I was actually going to get one that morning in town, but fortunately was able to cross it off the list.
Well I went down to do a spot of shopping, and had the most unsuccessful shoping l've ever had and nearly lost my temper in the Bank! I went down to do several things: To the Immigration Office, to get Gill put on my Passport.
To John Orr's, to get them to make a slit in the side of my new frock with poppers, as it is rather difficult to get off sometimes,.To John Orr's, to ask them if they would pack up some of my Big Clothes and send them home to Mummy.
To the Bank, to tell them to transfer my account back to Livingstone.
To the Bank, to just cash a cheque.
To the Post Office, to send the cable saying when we are going. And the only thing of all those that I succeeded in doing was the last!
The Immigration Office told me that I'd got to send my Passport to Pretoria to have her put on it, John Orr's refused to pack my Big Clothes, and they said they couldn't do my frock till Thursday cos they were so busy; the Bank told me to write to them about transferring the account; and I waited ten mins. to cash the cheque and then the woman in front of me produced a whole attache case full of money which he had to count and I asked him how long head be and he said Oh about twenty minutes! So I walked out quickly cos I felt my head buzzing and that means I'm about to lose my temper, so 1 managed not to by catching it in time.
In the afternoon was Gill's christening. We dressed her in the little white frock that 'tummy sent, with the scolloped edge, and a white coat with a blue edge, and white boots with blue on them to match, and the two Greenmama shawls; she had her tea at quarter to three, and of course went Hickie directly after it cos I was so excited, but luckily it didn't go through on to the frock. Then Pat Richards arrived in her little car, and by the time we had walked down to it &ill was fast asleep, and looking absolutely seraphib; she drove us to the Cathedral, and dumped us while she went to park the car, and we left a little bundle of clean Knappies in the car in case of accidents!
when we got inside we were met by a Verger, who told us to go along there and turn to the right, so we went along there, which was down the side of the Cathedral, which is rather fine I think, with lovely warm brown stone walls, but rows of chairs instead of pews. At the end we turned to the left and found ourselves in the little round Font-house, and there was everybody - twelve in all - and presently the Dean arrived. He
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took me off into the private Chapel for a special little Service all to myself, and then we went back and we were all lined up on one side of the Font and Myra, holding Gill, and Mr. Nelson (acting godfather as he was the only man there) were on the other side, and it all went off splendidly and she did not even wake up at all, just lay there sleeping peacefully, in spite of being handed to and fro and having water poured all over her face.
I'm sorry, Ralph, I forgot to tell you all the names, didn't i. It was called Gillian Ella St. Clair Clay, and I don't expect it will bless us when it grows up, for giving it so many initials.
Well, then we all went out into the little courtyard place where the sun was, and everybody took photographs of everybody else holding Gill, and Mrs. Lewin gave Gill a sweet bouquet of violets and mauve sweet peas, tied up with a pink ribbon and fastened with a Guide Badge, which she is to keep and wear when she's old enough to be enrolled. Wasn't it a sweet idea, and just like Mrs. Lewin to think of that, it was on behalf of all the Guides of Johannesburg, and the Rand. thought it was very touching.
Mrs. Nelson very kindly gave a party for her afterwards, at her house in Auckland Park, quite near the Country Club, so we all adjourned there and took more photos in the garden of the whole party, and I got out the Blue Box and Boxed them, and Mr. Nelson's son Boxed us all, and I Boxed Myra holding Gill by herself, and then we all went in to tea, and Gill went upstairs and was put to bed (still asleep of course, not having woken up at all since we left home!) After tea Nell went up to bring her down, and found that half the party had slipped away from the tea party, and were upstairs, and Gill was awake in Mrs. Nelson's arms! She didn't start crying till she was brought down, and then she just showed everybody what she could do, and she was handed round from person to person and complained 8 like anything, cos it was nearly her supper-time. So she said Goodbye to her hostess in a VERY loud voice, and then when we got into the car she promptly fell asleep again and stayed like it till she had to be woken up to have her supper.
Then I went to dine with Pat and Kenneth, and there was another man there by the name of - by gum, I've forgotten what his name was, I had it a minute ago but I simply can't member: Well anyhow he was on the Majestic with us coming back from New York in '35, and I met him at one of Whitmore's parties last year, he's a great friend of W.'s and an awfully ice creature. Just before we got there the electricity in their flat failed, so we had a cold dinner - with a lovely salad with RAW CARROTS, delicious.
Kenneth wanted to see Midsummer Night's Dream again, and I hadn't seen it, but Pat didn't want to nor did the other man,
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so we divided and they went to see After the Thin Man, and Kenneth and I went to the M. N. Dream. I was very disappointed in it, though it was very interesting from the point of view of a Production, but it was so fantastic and rather muddly, and Puck has been absolutely ruined for me, as the part was taken by a foul little American boy, with the most ghastly accent, and a raucous voice that he used the top of the whole time, and instead of the lovely smile and "sunny disposition' that I always think ruck has, he had a permanent frown and a most evil and sinister expression. A revolting little boy. Lysander was taken by Dick Powell, who is always in those Gold-Digger Revue things which I loathe, but actually he wasn't too poisonous, quite nice in fact. Hyppolita (how does she spell it?) was definitely good, with a permanent sneer, rather defiant and trying not to feel the indignity of being a captive. Bottom the Weaver and all his crowd were splendid and terribly funny. Oberon was always dressed in black tights with spingles on them and was surrounded by bats with bald heads, rather sinister. Hernia and Helena weren't bad, but it did seem rather absurd, these beautiful Hollywood ladies with eyelashes a mile long and nice American accents, speaking in terms of Thee and Thou, ruining Shakespeare.
We went home directly afterwards to find Gill crying of course, but she was really quite good and didn't cry very much in the night.
Tuesday the 6th.
I tried to write to you, but didn't get time for much as betty later came and spent the morning with us, she had just got back from attending her sister's wedding at Ndola, Northern Rhodesia. her sister has married young Kirkman, who flew us down from Mongu in March, and he flew the Youngs out in the new plane from England.
After rest, Myra arrived and we went down to see my Films together. There were four of them, and they are sending them home so you ought to get them soon after this; one is of the Falls and the Zambezi Sawmills and Mrs. Jager, and I'm sorry to say a rather nice bit, going upwards from the bottom of Palm Grove to Knife Edge, with the Falls peering over the top, is very under-exposed and you will probably have to chop it out. The next is of Livingstone dressed for the Coronation, and I had done that trick you told me about, Heather, of running off the last few feet while walking along: it is a pity, as there was quite a long bit at the end of dancing trees and the cinema looking very drunk and Nell doing acrobatics by the car:
The next is of the Zoo here, with little jackals running up and down in their cage, and the silly old tapir with his squigggley nose, and some horrible monkeys, and the Canadian Boscal, and quite a good one of the lions and also of the Secretary Bird kneeling, which I took by poking the Box's nose through the wire so that it didn't look as if he was in a cage at all. Oh while
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we're on the subject of the Zoo, I forgot to tell you, there was one cage labelled "Elegant Tortoise"! I wonder what they have done to him to make him look Elegant.
But the prize of the four is the last, which is labelled GILLIAN and I think it must be about the best film I've ever taken! I do wish it was a talkie though, cos she is asleep at the beginning and then she wakes up and waves her arms about and then starts crying! It is a very good one I think, and Nell took some of it with me holding Gill. Are you keeping a special film for Gill or what?
Then we walked along to the Dentist and I felt all thick and swallowy all the way up in the lift and it was agonising sitting in the Waiting Room and then into that awful terrifying place and the horrible backwards-chair, then the ogre approaching with a little mirror in one hand and the Tongs in the other, and he poked about and TRIED so hard to make holes, and he tried in every single tooth and he COULDN'T FIND A SINGLE HOLE!! By gum I did sigh a big sigh when he'd finished and gave the All Clear. Then he said Could he please take an X-ray of my teeth for his own benefit, cos he often wanted to s how people what their teeth ought to look like and he said that if everybody had such good teeth as mine he wouldn't make a trade at all! he said I'd got four stockings, very good ones which ought to last almost for ever they are so well put it, and that my dentist had been wise enough to take those four teeth out when I was young so that they had all grown straight of their own accord. So you can give Mr. Urquahart a big pat on the back next time you see him, Mum. his name was Mr. Foote, and he is apparently a very good dentist indeed, and Dr. Black recommended us to go to him, such a nice man with pure white hair.
When as a reward for being such a good girl and having nothing to be done, Myra took me out to tea at the Vanguard Club, and then came home in time for Gill's supper. Meanwhile Pat Richards had been up, and had brought a big box and brown paper and string, cos I'd happened to mention that I was going to get the Serviceable Sisters to pack up a lot of my Big Clothes and send them back, as I shan't be needing them for some time - I hope!! So Pat had forestalled the Serviceable Sisters (it's a firm, run by two sisters, and they do anything buying an elephant or finding a husband or darning your stockings for you) and Nell was able to pack up a fine big bundle of things and we sent them off to you, Mummy, in the hopes that you'll very kindly keep them for me till I need them again, is that all right?
Wednesday the 7th.
Gill was definitely in favour, cos she slept all night, from her 10.30. supper right till 5.30. a.m., wasn't it marvellous. Just a few minutes cry at one and again at 4. But
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otherwise there wasn't a sign of life from the sofa all night. So pleased, I do hope it's The Beginning of The End, as it was very trying when she used to keep it up for hours at a time and one just couldn't get to sleep. it's always so much more trying at night than in the day, too, as one has nothing to think about except how annoying it is:
Well Myra came along at about ten, and brought her writing with her, as she was going to stay and keep an eye on Gill while we went down for Dr. Black's final inspection of me. He was very pleased and satisfied, and said I was very very lucky indeed to have had such a good recovery, and Didn't I regret having come all the way down here? Definitely NO, I'm very glad indeed that we did stay here, cos we would never have forgiven ourselves if we'd gone back and anything HADgone wrong, and it was extremely lucky that nothing did, as he was quite expecting it to. So we said a fond farewell, and paid the bill (t) which was bigger than we expected but well worth every penny of it and I don't grudge it to him in the least cos he made it all worth while by his splendid attention. He was looking terribly tired and overworked, and he has a terrific lot of work and doesn't even stop for lunchtime quite often.
Pat brought us back again, and we found Myra still writing and not a sound from Gill, still fast asleep: Did I tell you about the time when we left her in charge of Mrs. Gowers, the person who was running this place for a time? Well when we got back (we had told her not to worry or bother about her if she cried as she'd only be getting hungry) at about half past twelve, we found poor Mrs. Gowers pacing up and down the room, with Gill in her arms, rocking her to and fro, and she said "Oh I'm SO worried, she's been crying for half an hour, and I couldn't find a dummy anywhere:" Wasn't it sweet.
Pat came to dinner chat night, and was most interesting, telling us all about her work 'in the Isle of Dogs. Nell had worked for six months in Southwark all among the slum people, so they got on like a house of fire, and we just talked and talked until Gill started asking for her supper:
Thursday the 8th.
Again she slept all night, but this time really all night, without even a break at one. she's SUCH a ducky little person, I do wish you could see her. It sometimes seems rather funny that we're here, having all this expense and bother and planning even our very existence, all for the express benefit of this tiny little scrappet. indeed she is "Her Majesty, Queen Baby."
Nell went out shopping all the morning while I started on this terrific Masterpiece. The chemist sent up some scales to weigh Gill on, and she is now exactly seven pounds, isn't it splendid, and she will go on to four-hourly meals when we get on to the train.
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Betty Slater and her daughter Elizabeth came to tea in the afternoon. Elizabeth is rather a sweet little person, with very blue eyes and fair hair, but her hair is made into lots of little curls all the way round, which I think is a pity cos it isn't naturally curly and looks very unnatural and forced, and the curls are inclined to fuzz like a badly-kept "perm' And I don't think it is good for her hair to be pulled into curlers, it must pull the roots horribly. if Gill's insists on being straight it will just have to BE straight - mine was dead straight, wasn't it Mum? and it's perfectly all right now, and I think it pays in the end not to try and make it do what it won't do of its own accord.
I keep on making such Good Resolutions about Gill, and what I shall do to her and what i shan't, and how she will be brought up and what she will be allowed to do and what she won't and it's such fun Speculating on what she'll be like. She'll probably be a little devil i expect, as she didn't cry at her christening, and that is supposed to mean that the devil hasn't come out of her. but that can't be true cos she's SO sweet that she never had the devil in her to begin with!
Roy and Myra arrived soon after betty left, and carted me off to have a drink (strictly non-alcoholic!) at the Criterion. Roy was looking rotten, and has an awful toothache and hasn't even time to go to the Dentist, and all the aeroplanes seem to be doing things they ought not, and of course they are short-handed at the Airport, naturally just when everything is going wrong.
A big German plane on its first flight here crashed in flames the morning Gill was born, and ever since they've had minor accidents all the time, and when he rang me up yesterday he was just looking out of his window at a plane on its back. Luckily nobody was killed though the pilot was badly hurt, but in the German plane only a small number of them escaped, the others were killed.
After dinner last night I went to the cinema with TWO MEN: Mr. Dietrich, the manager of this place, German and quite nice, though he hardly spoke to us before; and Mr. Ibanschultz, an Austrian Interior decorator and rather fun - they took me to see After the Thin Man at the Bijou. (Bijou caillou chou hibou joujou pou prennent "x" (or is it "s"?) au pluriel).
William Powell was the hero and Myrna Loy was his wife, and they were very good and terribly funny, which I hadn't expected, as I had always disliked W. Powell before cos of that obnoxious little moustache, but he really was most amusing and she has the most duckie little nose. It was a thriller, but not nastily thrilling, not so as you'd dream; I usually hate thrillers and get all het-up, but this was such a nice one, and the light bits in between kept it well-balanced, so I enjoyed it very much, and I couldn't for the life of me guess who was
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the murderer, and he was the very last person I suspected. There was such a sweet dog in it, a jolly little wire-haired fox, and he acted beautifully. There was one lovely bit, when he caught the Scottie from next door talking to his wife though the wire netting of her cage, and he chased him back through the whole in the fence but couldn't get through himself cos he was too big, so he turned round and began to dig furiously, and so filled in the hole. Next time he came out he found that the Scottie had dug out the hole again and got through again, so he chased him out and this time he didn't bother to fill in the hole but instead he pushed the lawn-mower up against it! It was so sweet, seeing him pushing it along, though I suppose really they had tied his mouth on to the handle and pulledthe mower from the other side of the fence. Rather unkind, but it looked very sweet.
Yes it was a very enjoyable film, and there was a delicious DonaId Duck before it, and a good English News Reel, with fine pictures of the Buck Pal Garden Party and the Trooping of the Colours and that huge meeting of ex-Service men in Hyde Park.
And now it's Friday the 9th, and Nell has done ALL the packing except the Dressing Case, and everything is ready to go, and we're STARTING FOR HOME TOMORROW!: It's been such a long time coming that I simply can't believe we're actually going tomorrow, and that This Time Next Week we will be HOME!! 0000000hhh it's so thrilling, and I know there's going to be a minim explosion when we land at Mankoya and he's THERE waiting for us, to see his Dorter for the first time.
I must stop now, it's Gill's lunch time, and Nell is going to read this through to me while she's eating.
By the way, Mum, could you send us lots of nice stamps from Holland when you go over for the Jamboree? I am still vaguely collecting for Robin! though not so energetically as before, but Nell collects wildly.
Gill's wearing the coat I knitted for her to-day, and the sleeves which were short in the pattern are quite long enough for her whole arm!
Lots and lots and lots of love,
From
MOTHER.
P. S. Gill will now write something. FGJEGilL
