C/O Mrs Clive
Brympton D’Evercy
Somersetshire
Monday, July 31st 1939.
Dear Daddy,
We left home at 8 o’clock and were in good time for out train at Waterloo. It was a good thing that we had reserved seats, as the train was packed to overflowing with holiday people and crowds of workmen. Carpenters and plumbers are being sent by the hundred from London to the Militia camps which you probably know are knee-deep with mud, and most unhealthy places to live in.
Malcolm Grey is in camp quite near here. They are still under canvas, and although it is drying up a little now, the mud has really been knee-deep, and the boys have had to sleep on straw surrounded by mud and water. They have no facilities for drying their clothes or their bedding, and a few have had to be sent away with rheumatism and pneumonia. Wooden huts and concrete roads are being constructed as quickly as possible and adequate drainage is being arranged. It should all have been done of course before the boys were called up, but the Government could not foresee the weather which has been worse in Somerset apparently then elsewhere. Last Friday they had four cloud-bursts!
We hope to be able to see Malcolm and to give him a decent meal while we are here. Well to go back a bit. Trask, the chauffeur, met us with the same old car – it looks even more like a drawing of Heath-Robinson than ever.
Mrs Clive was hovering in the garden to greet us. She has not altered. Her black dress was hiked up nearly to the knees, because of the weather I suppose, and about four inches of black bloomers appeared beneath, which, strapped below the knees, seemed to keep up (most inadequately) her concertina stockings. She escorted us to our temporary home, “Blacktops”, (named after the bailiff who lived there in her grandfather’s time); then she left us to our own devices.
Our home is reached by a flight of outside stone steps; the front door opening off a little stone platform leads into a passage. Three bedrooms lead off this passage, only two of which we require. These are both panelled and painted duck egg green, with plain dark wooden floors and rush mats. There is a connecting door as well as a door from each room on to the passage. The windows with iron bars and leaded panes are set in stone frames and have deep window seats. Continuing down the passage we come to a sort of drawing room, which is not yet fully furnished. It is panelled and painted in two shades of pink with a few mirrors let into the walls. The floor is plain dark stained wood and the furniture consists simply of a couch in the window, covered with calendared pink flowered chintz, a writing table and a chair. You cross this room to another door, go down one step and enter the kitchen-living-room. This is a bright room with windows on sides, linoleum covered floor very pale pink, white-washed walls and light green paint. There is an enormous (green) chintz-covered couch in one window, two large easy chairs and a small “Michael-sized” one. A large oval dining table and chairs, a green painted dresser and cupboards – sink and kitchen table &c in one corner and fire place in another. Green rush mats on the floor. All the furniture is old fashioned, slightly shabby, and very comfortable.
Right opposite the door from the “drawing room” into the kitchen is yet another door, leading into a passage whence one reaches the bathroom and usual offices combined, also airing cupboards and meat safe. The passage ends in a door bolted on both sides which divides us from our next door neighbours who are occupying the “farm” which we had last time we came. The beds are marvellously comfortable and warm.
Our neighbours are a large party consisting of Mr Collingwood (Sadlers Wells Conductor), Mrs Collingwood (a Russian) a tall good looking daughter about 20 whose name I have not heard, and a tall good looking foreign sort of son whose name I have not heard. His age might be 16 or 23 or anything between. I imagine he is under 20 but his face conveys nothing as to his age. His hair is rather long and he wears shorts and sandals and has been on a holiday already for a fortnight. Then there is another child, a little fair haired daughter of eight years old named “Francesca” and a Belgian governess about the same age as the tall daughter. That completes the Collingwood family, but they have a car of their own and have kept themselves to themselves so far.
With them however is another little party of friends. They live together, but do not necessarily go about together all day long. These consist of Mr Warwick Braithwaite (another conductor) who wears a fine black beard like Henry Wood’s, his daughter Barbara aged about twelve and his son Roderick aged seven. Mr Braithwaite seems far more human than Mr Collingwood, though they all seem nice people. Mr Collingwood walks about with a little black beret on his head smoking a pipe. He and Mr Braithwaite sometimes stroll together with bent heads, slowly pacing round the lake, and we imagine they discuss counterpoint and things like that. The older Collingwood’s and the Belgian girl we scarcely see and Mrs Collingwood seems to be occupied indoors most of the time.
The children all play together in the farm yard next door with the farmer’s two boys and a girl. The farm yard is filthy. One side of the cow sheds is so muddy that it reaches the top of Michael’s gum boots. However, the children all wearing gum boots and old clothes play in and out of the mud and sheds and hay lofts and barns and orchard. Michael adores it. He has already tried to milk a cow with some degree of success but no idea of direction. He got the milk all over himself! The farm boys have a grand time pulling his leg. I went out to fetch him for dinner and found him marooned in a hay loft with no ladder to get down, under the impression that the bull was loose. The farm boys were round the corner shouting and crying to give a realistic effect to their story.
He had been picking and eating green apples and doing everything that children always do on a farm. Unfortunately he is making every effort to acquire a Somerset accent and he lies in bed practising it. “Have a shut lud” is what the boy said when he asked Michael to have a shot at milking the “coo”.
On Sunday we went to Matins, the only morning service. The little Braithwaite’s and Francesca Collingwood went on their own with the farmer’s small daughter. Cyril and Mrs Clive formed the choir as the maids were all busy preparing for “young Mr Nicholas’s” cricket party which started at 11:30. Nicholas was not in Church as his guests were arriving. That was the second of his parties and he has another next Sunday.
A pitch has been prepared where his father and great-grandfather used to hold their cricket weeks. A marquee is erected and a large coke stove for boiling kettles &c and two barrels of beer.
He has a team of his friends and neighbours, brings his own team and as many of their relations and friends as care to come. An amusing crowd to watch (as we were invited to do) containing many a “Bertie Wooster” and “Bingo Little” (Characters in the novels of P.G. Wodehouse). We watched most of the afternoon but Michael and the Collingwood’s retired early to play in the farm, and the Collingwood’s only showed up for a few minutes just before tea. The Braithwaite children were in the farm playing cricket with Michael and the farm boys. We all met in the tent for tea, however, and a very nice tea it was.
Nicholas Ponsonby-Fane is fatter than ever and enjoys his cricket to be full. He hit an enormous swipe first ball and was out second ball through a catch. As he lumbered to the pavilion afterwards his wife (Petronella) called to him “Darling, we are not impressed”, but he was shaking with laughter. He walks just like his dog Solomon (a bulldog of sweet disposition) only not so elegant. Solomon insisted on a deck chair from which to watch his master’s game. He is a lovely dag, so gentle and affectionate and so ferocious looking.
The little daughter, Georgina, (now about 2½) has not yet appeared. She stays at Salisbury where the young Ponsonby-Fanes made their home when they were first married. They will not come to live at Brympton in Mrs Clive’s lifetime but are frequent visitors.
Mrs Clive was (I believe) born here. Any way she spent all her childhood here except for visits of long duration to her aunt at Montacute House about three miles away. All her girlhood was spent here with her grandfather and she always refused to go to their London house. When she married Captain Clive she still lived here (her own father only enjoyed ownership for about six months). When she was widowed she still lived here. Her brother lived mostly in London and Japan, and they were apparently joint-heirs. Anyway Brympton is her whole world and although not so big an estate as it was, still stretches for miles in all directions. I do not know how many farms and cottages are on the estate but most of our walks seem to be on Brympton land. The militia Camp is a great grief to her. It stands on land that years ago was sold to a farmer. He made a lot of money out of a deal with the Government who have proceeded to make a very ugly blot on the landscape which is visible for miles because it is on a hill. To add to Mrs Clive’s trials Westland Aeroplane factories have opened up about three or four miles away, and planes have the audacity to fly over her land. How she does loathe it!
Your loving daughter,
Veronica
