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Authors: Louise Mortimer
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unpredictable after 7 p.m. Audrey does very little work as she and your mother hobnob all morning. Neither of course listens much to the other. No news of Lupin: he is either physically incapable of writing a letter or else he cannot afford a stamp. We went to quite a good lunch party with the Roper-Caldbecks and your mother made sheep’s eyes at a very short man called Lloyd Webber. I have just cleaned out The Cringer’s run as it was beginning to pong in really alarming fashion. There is not a single apple on any of our fruit trees: all the blossom was destroyed by a late frost. It is going to be a good blackberry year but not a sign yet of any mushrooms. A horse has been stolen from a field in Burghclere: I haven’t told your mother or she will start hiring Securicor to protect Jester! There is a big concert in Sydmonton tomorrow but thank God I am not going. The awful thing is that I simply cannot think of anything more to say.
xx D
When my mother finally found out about the stolen horse she did not hire Securicor. Instead she could be found in her nightie and gumboots with the dogs and an enormous torch doing the rounds several times a night, armed with Lupin’s favourite shotgun nicknamed Crippen.
Budds Farm
16 August
Dearest Lumpy,
I hope you are plump and well and are not finding your work too arduous. Your mother departed on Saturday to stay in Northumberland with Miss Bossy Pants: I have heard nothing since, so assume there haven’t been any major dramas. I have been having quite a merry time since as I was out to lunch and dinner on Sunday & also on Monday. It does occur to me that I am invited less for my social charm than because I am regarded as a semi-helpless geriatric who has lost their marbles. I must be getting (have got?) fairly gaga as I crawl out of bed at 7 a.m. and work in the garden before breakfast, cutting down dead rhododendrons and removing brambles and nettles. My arms look as if I had been flogged with barbed wire. I have been doing a little experimental cooking. I drummed up some beef rissoles which looked fairly normal but it needed a hammer and quite a large chisel to dent their surface. At least I have invented a new type of bread. It does not look like bread and it does not really taste much like bread either. An unkind critic might suggest it looks and tastes like a sodden lump of decomposing dough. Mr P. had quite a good holiday down on the Kent coast bar the fact that his daughter got chicken-pox and his au pair girl turned bolo. I think he is restless and would like to move when he retires next year. I suppose he will become Sir Desmond P. when he leaves the Foreign Office. Major & Mrs Surtees are off to Salzburg for the Mozart Festival. They were keen for Nidnod and me to go too, but your mother declined, being as musical as a pair of policeman’s bicycle clips. Tiny Man is in very good form but his breath would drive a No 19 bus. Moppet is old and frail, like me. Your cousin Caroline Blackwell is to marry a very rich banker of 41, Tim Holland-Martin. He bred the Derby winner Grundy and has ridden a good many winners at Cheltenham etc. Old Farmer Luckes has been a bit truculent lately and sooner or later he and your mother will have a ghastly row which will be a bore for me as I shall be compelled to listen (several times over) to a blow by blow account.
Best love to you and kind regards to H,
XXX D
P.S. No news of Lupin who is supposedly due back this week.
Despite senility being one of my father’s favourite subjects, he held on to his marbles and continued successfully writing into the last year of his life.
Budds Farm
27 August
Dearest L,
I hope you are all big and well and thriving. I had three days at Rose Cottage where Jane was staying. There were occasional signs of exasperation between Jane and Aunt Pips. Jane never stopped talking, very fast and very indistinctly, and Aunt Pips got browned off as she could not hear half of what Jane said and could not
xx D
When my mother finally found out about the stolen horse she did not hire Securicor. Instead she could be found in her nightie and gumboots with the dogs and an enormous torch doing the rounds several times a night, armed with Lupin’s favourite shotgun nicknamed Crippen.
Budds Farm
16 August
Dearest Lumpy,
I hope you are plump and well and are not finding your work too arduous. Your mother departed on Saturday to stay in Northumberland with Miss Bossy Pants: I have heard nothing since, so assume there haven’t been any major dramas. I have been having quite a merry time since as I was out to lunch and dinner on Sunday & also on Monday. It does occur to me that I am invited less for my social charm than because I am regarded as a semi-helpless geriatric who has lost their marbles. I must be getting (have got?) fairly gaga as I crawl out of bed at 7 a.m. and work in the garden before breakfast, cutting down dead rhododendrons and removing brambles and nettles. My arms look as if I had been flogged with barbed wire. I have been doing a little experimental cooking. I drummed up some beef rissoles which looked fairly normal but it needed a hammer and quite a large chisel to dent their surface. At least I have invented a new type of bread. It does not look like bread and it does not really taste much like bread either. An unkind critic might suggest it looks and tastes like a sodden lump of decomposing dough. Mr P. had quite a good holiday down on the Kent coast bar the fact that his daughter got chicken-pox and his au pair girl turned bolo. I think he is restless and would like to move when he retires next year. I suppose he will become Sir Desmond P. when he leaves the Foreign Office. Major & Mrs Surtees are off to Salzburg for the Mozart Festival. They were keen for Nidnod and me to go too, but your mother declined, being as musical as a pair of policeman’s bicycle clips. Tiny Man is in very good form but his breath would drive a No 19 bus. Moppet is old and frail, like me. Your cousin Caroline Blackwell is to marry a very rich banker of 41, Tim Holland-Martin. He bred the Derby winner Grundy and has ridden a good many winners at Cheltenham etc. Old Farmer Luckes has been a bit truculent lately and sooner or later he and your mother will have a ghastly row which will be a bore for me as I shall be compelled to listen (several times over) to a blow by blow account.
Best love to you and kind regards to H,
XXX D
P.S. No news of Lupin who is supposedly due back this week.
Despite senility being one of my father’s favourite subjects, he held on to his marbles and continued successfully writing into the last year of his life.
Budds Farm
27 August
Dearest L,
I hope you are all big and well and thriving. I had three days at Rose Cottage where Jane was staying. There were occasional signs of exasperation between Jane and Aunt Pips. Jane never stopped talking, very fast and very indistinctly, and Aunt Pips got browned off as she could not hear half of what Jane said and could not
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