A Cycle of Love Poems by the Headmaster

In 1931, Hubert Barnes married Nora Tydeman, but it was apparent from the moment of the honeymoon that, sexually, the marriage was not going to be a success. Nevertheless, they stayed married until 1958. In 1932, Hubert began an affair with Constance Dart, which lasted until it was starved by petrol rationing in the war - by which time he had started a new affair with Mary, whom he married in 1958.

Hubert's Poems for Constance Dart, 1932

In a Motor Boat, Scilly, Whitsun, 1932

I watched the changing pattern of the sea ;

Saw the white sand

Green through its clarity,

Patterned across, where the tide's hand

Passed restless fingers through

The wavy leafage of the rocks,

By deeper blue.

Mind patterning mind, choice crossing taste,

Dear converse's leisure shot through by passion's haste,

And joy in laughter marked by sleep that calms

The body's fever in a lover's arms -

So gazing in the crystal of the sea

I saw in blue and green your love for me

Ford to Stow in the Blue Train, Sunday night

The dying leaves golden upon the roadside

Beneath the shafting of our hurrying light ;

The stars, the Plough, old Andromeda,

Hang in the eternity between the trees to-night.

Houses where men have loved and prayed and died,

Once golden, grey with age, cast back our light ;

The owl that Shakespeare heard in Arden

Hoots in the woods to-night.

Could we stop time and check it as I check

The car that carries us towards our bed – and night,

Then we would mock the stars that mock at lovers,

Put out their light as I put out the light.
Still round the darkness of our tiny covering

I hear the rush of the leaves' pattering feet,

I know that times goes on, goes on, dear lover,

That death and love must meet.

Yet I believe that we shall love forever

Within the dash board's failing light

Because within the circle of your arms, my Constance,

Time does standstill to-night.

Listening in, Wednesday Night

As 'thwart the thrusting wind and eddying rain,

November urgent on the trembling pane,

In clear and ruffled pattern is the calm

Design of music, heedless of the storm ;

So Con it seemed to-night our love should be

Athwart the storm of life, unfettered free

Fragment

Daphne to laurel grew,

And Constance too

Above the roofs of London Town

Put off her black

And dons her green silk gown,

But not for me

As for Apollo

Changes to a tree.

Retrospect, November

Dear memories of the growing dusk,

The failing light, and tea

At half past four with crispy toast

In distant Banbury.

And how we climbed Stow's twinkling hill,

Through the October gloom,

The friendly chiming of the clock,

The firelight of our room.

The books we tried so hard to read,

The clothes behind the door,

Your new pyjamas in the bed,

The pillows on the floor.

The sound the brush made in your hair ;

Your powder puff. The line

Of your dear breasts beneath my mouth,

Your body kindling mine.

The scent your hair had with my lips

In the hollow of your eyes ;

The softness of your body

When I lay between your thighs.

The pounding of my heart on yours

Our bodies mingled deep.

Passion that ends in laughter,

Laughter that ends in sleep.

About 40 Years Later, by Constance Dart,  

 The Lonely Lady, at Uskadur

« Are you alone here, English lady ?

Where is your man ? »

I am not wed.

« You have a mouth for kissing, lady. »

When I was young one warmed my bed,

But he has fled.

« Lonely lady, no more lover,

Lady with bosom to rest a head. »

Later came one whose heart was weary ;

Came and rested his troubled head :

But he is dead.

« Lonely lady..... ? »

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Letter, 1947, from Nora to Hubert.

My dear Hu – This is my third attempt to find an adequate answer to your letter. Of course I have been most wretchedly unhappy. The simple happiness that most commonplace people seem to achieve so easily is quite beyond my reach. In being maimed myself I feel that I have hurt you. I really am not capable of being very objective about the matter at present. I do not think marriage without physical intimacy can possibly be considered as a permanent arrangement, and my own inadequacy in this respect has been made worse by the habitual insecurity of our relationship – the knowledge that I was always second best. I think I could have achieved a good and happy relationship of this kind with someone physically more suited to me, but we have clearly not so suited – that seems to be that. Bodily chemistry can upset all one's hopes and plans and good intentions. Also I feel now really tired with the conflict. It is true that I feel that I simply cannot make any more effort about it. And again, I am older than you – another bad mistake. We should have had the courage to separate years ago. It would have saved a great deal of suffering. What I have done for you – and I am glad I have done something – is what a good friend could have done. That is what we should have been. You on your part have opened my eyes to many things that would have passed me by – your love of beauty, your pleasure in simple natural things, your kindliness, all these things have become so much a part of my life my life and of me that I cannot imagine life without them – and how I shall miss your jokes. And in spite of the difficulties I shall terribly miss the only person who has ever come close to me. How much mere touch means – it comes before speech and is infinitely more reassuring. How cold life is without it. The incredibly insensitive harshness of my early life made me shrink from it – I could not trust it – that I suppose is at the core of my failure, so simple and yet so fundamental.

I shall not always feel so unhappy. Ordinary life breaks in and one cannot live at such a level, and there is no one here to talk about it – if I could bring myself to do so.

I already feel a little better for having said so much and the load of lead which has been on my chest for days is somewhat lighter. The trouble with me is that I cannot take things lightly, and I haven't the sort of sense of humour to cope with difficult problems like this.

You asked me : Did I want to sleep with you ? The answer is Yes a thousand times if only I could feel sure of your confidence in myself, but these two conditions are not satisfied and every time the sense of impending fiasco gets me down.

I don't think however long I go on writing I can get any further at the moment. What I want just now is your shoulder to cry on - and this is hardly a suitable letter to send to an invalid.

Yours lovingly, Nora.

Nora to Hubert, August, 1947

My dear, was glad to get our letter though I have not had time to answer it till now. Yes, of course, Hilary has been worthwhile. I have delighted in him, and in your companionship with him. He has satisfied maternity, but that is not the same thing as an adult relationship. You do not find fatherhood sufficient and no normal woman should find maternity sufficient – tho' she may have to, and perhaps then only in 'sublimated' form. I was too immature to form an adult relationship. I understood at 50 what I should have experienced at 20. However I do perhaps understand my own failure and I hope I shall not be crabbed about it.

All my love, Nora

Nora to Hubert, August, 1942

My dear Hu, Very many thanks for your letter – both parts. Women as you know get a peculiar satisfaction from having someone to look after even when they curse the bother ! I often realise when you are away par exemple how deadfully I should miss you and having to « do » for you, and also I feel dreadfully inadequate that I can't satisfy all of you. At the same time I don't seem to know any marriages where both partners are competely satisfied all round! There are supposed to be such. I know that you are fond of me and I of you and that we both love Hilary – and there is a whole lot of satisfaction in these three facts. I consider myself rich in many things – we all have to be poor in some I suppose.

We are all set for Tuesday [we were going for a holiday in Cornwall]. Hilary is nearly beside himself, as you can imagine. Sambo got acute distemper and I took him to Machin to be destroyed. Hilary is already planning to have a little girl kitten who will grow up into a muvver, and has added the festival of 'Nasty Friday' and 'Cash Wednesday'. Hilary Daniels controlled herself with difficulty when this came out at supper.....

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Two Poems by Nora Tydeman, address at the time 1 Lansdowne Road, Bedford, which probably dates them to her period as a school teacher between her London University English degree course and her later psychology degree course (to which students were not admitted until the first degree was followed by three years work experience). This suggests the poems were written in the early 1920s.

Disinherited

Once, the brown earth upturned between my feet,

There sprang within me, swift and passing sweet,

A pregnant thrust of life. The wild flower knows

That urgent quickening, and awakes, and grows.

And in that moment, I and the Earth were one :

I shared the secret of wind and sun,

And river; sang in my heart their song.

Knew Beauty to be Truth, and was made strong.

Sometimes I see no star within the night.

Behind the shadow no transfiguring light.

Thy wonder, Earth, is there, but dark to me :

Only the meek of heart inherit thee.

N. M. Tydeman

As you pass by, perhaps I shall be there,

And in my heart will spring a joy like pain,

To feel the sudden quickening in the air,

And know the swift, awakening touch again.

I have set sail upon Life's unknown sea :

I think where 'er I go that I shall find

The miracle that is a part of me.

Shall know all darkness has the sun behind.

N.M. Tydeman

[From a later collection of Nora's verse, this one probably from the 1970s]

Not Hungry, Only Starving

“No, I'm not hungry,”

Cries the old woman.

“No! I couldn't touch it.

Not without a touch of love.”

They bring me food to keep my body going.

It's only inside I am dying.

Silence fills the room through the telly's chatter.

That's what's the matter.

“If only you would share my cheese and soup

It would be bread and wine.”

* * * * * * * * *

Hubert's Poems for Mary Pierce, who became his lover in January, 1940, when they went for a walk on the Berkshire Downs near Streatley, and whom he finally married in 1958.

The Downs

I can recall our Downs in many colours,

Gay with bugloss, crowned with clouds in May,

In winter the trees dark above the furrows

Marked by powdered snow, and failing day

Touching the distant hills with gold as we retraced

Our footsteps through the dusk with fingers laced;

But more than colours that the days have lent

Does tour dark beauty give me my heart content.

The Garden

February

You came bearing flowers of spring, yet snow

Covered the garden in the light of morn.

We heard the clock chime, but there was no flow

Of song at dawn.

May

I felt you stir within my arms as light

Revealed to us the wallflower's golden flame,

And touch, the eye of darkness, changed to sight,

And spring was Queen again.

July

We saw the moon rise huge through summer's haze,

Paced linked on turf wet with summer's dew;

We kissed beneath the walnut's leafy maze

And pledged our love anew.

November

And now the rustling leaves tell of your presence,

You come to me beneath the autumn sky,

Chestnuts are bare, and yet the fir still whispers

'My love and I'.

1941

'When Peace Returns'

When peace returns we will rebuild the pattern

Of life we used to know, for still I dream

Of country where we moved across the hills

To reach the sea and stood upon the rocks

As the sun sank, and went and came at will,

Passing the uncrowded days, the world forgot,

Without fear of expectation

Disappointed.

The shallows greener seem, the deeps more blue,

The sand more warm to feet than sand we knew,

And only curlews call upon the marsh

When evening comes, where now the bomber's drone

Disturbs the silence.

Then I will carry in a haversack

Fruits from the isles of Italy and Greece,

Sweet Spanish grapes to press upon your lips,

Spreading our meal upon a granite slab

Among the heather, where the summits rise in blue

Beatitude.

Across the sea mountains will call you, Mary,

For sloping meadows wait in flowery dress.

There my imagination walks beside you

To share the silence lovers make heir own.

Crossing war's barriers, even as a pilot,

Girdling like Ariel the narrow sea,

Is carried by a power infinite upward

Till, human distance vanquished, like an eagle

He sees the Alpine snows!

1942

A Sonnet to Commemorate June 1st and June 2nd, 1941

A year ago on that June day we went

Over the windswept Downs and saw below

Across the patterned fields Avebury, pent

Within its earthwork ring. I loved you so

My heart sang, Mary. All things gave assent

To our linked arms and interlacing hands,

The cowslips danced, the fir trees sighed content.

I picked a sprig of fir to send you after

We had returned and left the Downs again,

This to recall our private world of laughter
Beside the twilight stream and blue-belled lane

In Sunday's warmth, in Monday's wind and rain.

To-day a year of water's passed the leat,

But like your spray our love is no less sweet.

Return

The light has faded. Come, Oh come, dear lover,

And fill my heart which beats for your return.

The day is done that parts us from each other

For I have watched time pass and distance turn

To nearness.

The train has stopped. Persephone anew

You rise to greet me from the wintry earth,

And bring him riches who would always strew

Your ways with happiness. Affection, warmth,

Companionship and pleasures shared you bring,

Flowers and deep music, hills and trees in spring -

These in a narrow bed when you are there

Within the compass of your arms you bear.

Your steps are quick, and now upon the stair floor

Clear sounds the rhythm of your hurrying feet.

Our lives rejoin.

Oh Mary, this wide door

Through which you pass my welcoming lips to greet,

Stands as a symbol of the central core

Your body holds, through which I pass to meet

Your spirit joined to mine till both are one, complete.

5th December, 1942

The Emperor Concerto

Through the misty winter's gloom

Of a December afternoon

A thousand people sit in rows,

The violins sing, the woodwind blows,

And high above the trumpets blare,

Pianoforte fills the air,

Tracing among the lamps' high beam

The thread of an imperial theme,

Striding across the roof's great space

In lovely arabesques of grace.
Yet I confess I cannot see

The sound filled hall's immensity.

My kingdom here's a little space

Within your fingers' warm embrace.

Upon the stage the fiddles bow

In ordered movement to and fro;

At beck of the conductor's arm

The troubled rhythms sink to calm

Or in tempestuous courage state

The challenge of mankind to fate.

Oh lovely sound that can embrace

Such immaterial mystic grace!

Oh courage of a lofty mind

To triumph when the ear is blind!

Oh paradox that makes us free

Of crowded contiguity,

And in the midst of many men

Gives us our solitude again!

For here are only you and I

In face of Art's immensity.
For us alone the violins sing

Their treble accents echoing,

For us alone the airy maze

Is patterned to the trumpet's phrase,

For us alone the movements go

Andante to Adagio.

Linked thus together hand in hand

And listening so we understand

Through the concerto's soaring art

The secrets of the inmost heart.

Albert Hall, December 6th, 1942

'The Cowslips tall her pensioners be'

Only the vaulted fern in sight

To roof thee with viridian light;

The walls the stems, an endless forest;

Thy bed of ferns of last year's harvest.

Gay willow herb to deck thy house,

The squirrel and the rustling mouse

To watch with an incurious eye

The secrets of our ecstasy.
Here shall they heart enraptured be

And lover's arms encompass thee.

21st July, 1943

Albert Hall Promenade

High in the vault we live as in a dream;

Colour is quenched, people are silent shadows

With insubstantial footsteps, faces seem

As marks of bone or wood.

The eye looks through dim arches, yet I see

No object for the sight;

The hooded lamps throw down their beams,

I cannot trace their flight.

But love is not a dream; my arm shall hold you

Feeling your weight under its circling ring,

And as the music reaches upward to us

My heart shall awake and both our hearts shall sing!

February 20th, 1944

Lines on the Downs

Come climb the track between the flowering lime

To reach the bare high beacon on the hill,

To lie upon the turf whose scented thyme

Collects the bees to drink their hungry fill

Of wind blown nectar.

Here is distance, peace,

Lark song and peewit call, the sighing wind

Blown across the graves of ancient men

Long dead. The turbid city and the crowds,

The inhabitants of another world,

Are far away. But not as strangers here

We stand; the wind blown distances are yet

Familiar to us, and all that we behold

Gladdens us with memories of other years

We walked these hills together; in snow, in frost,

Across the plough in spring and through the harsh

Short spikes of autumn stubble; trudging home

Through growing mist, or seeing the round moon

Hung low upon the hills; nor strangers here

To one another do we wander still

In handfast love and quietness, knowing well

That all the beauty that we here perceive,

And all the pleasure of the downland scene,

Hereafter will inform our mutual joy.

June 30th, 1948

Six-Jeur to Fenestrale by the High Path

Symbol of life, the path climbs very high

Between the mountain and the lucent sky.

Then kiss! From busy village far below

The distance veil us. Here we truly know

Freedom from earthly care, a rising joy,

A lightening of the load of chore and ploy.

Though here's a tiny path, a hair to part

And cross the mountain side, yet in your heart

Secure I stand. Pause and reach down and feel

Our fingers grasp. Linked by their tender seal,

Still climbing, life will draw us on

From earthly places to the sky's high throne.

December 25th, 1952

Morning at Paddington

Though to-day we part our way,

You to work and I to play,

Images of warmth and joy

All live on. Still I employ

The tongue to touch, the hands to feel,

The lips the hidden eyes to seal,

The finger tips o'er skin to move

To trace the anteroom of love,

And muscles then to turn and lie

Where sword is sheathed

In ecstasy.

January 3rd, 1953

The Flowery Pilgrimage

Sweet chimonanthus greets the year

And soon the snowdrop spikes appear,

Pushing through the damp their way,

Jewel like upon the ear of day.

Within their moss-lined box they bring

Dear memories of wartime spring

And of the darkened city where

We made our journey to Cythère.

Red polyanthus thus fringed with green

Provide a posy for my queen.
The daffodils, narcissus too,

Recall the scents and joys of Kew,

Scattered like stars below the trees

In gardens of Hesperides.

Maytime the cowslips wave among

Long grasses by the lonely barn,

And tiny milkwort's azure eye

Repeats the blue of summer sky.
Picnics are here, then let us go

To saunter where azaleas grow,

Touch rhododendrons spotted lips

Where Cliveden's lawn to river slips.

Scented July will watch us climb

The lane all sweet with tasseled lime.

And when the autumn sun shines low,

About the copse's edge we go

To break the brittle spindle, red

With flame like glow above your bed.

Now winter's dark has come again,

Unfold the white coiffed cyclamen,

A group of nuns upon your shelves

They nod in talk among themselves,

But play that leads to Venus prone

They disapprove, nor look upon.

(With city violets and carnation

She's courted in another fashion!)

So let the flowers, my love, for you

Fresh pleasures bring and past renew.

February 6th, 1953

The Thimble

Tiny the gift, and yet the heart in choosing

Quickens its pace,

Imagines fingers moving

With dextrous grace.

Slender the finger yet its shell of steel

Defends, protects from harm;

Tender the heat yet not afraid to feel

In understanding's arms.

Outward the silver shines

In glittering form;

Inward the spirit lies

Secure and warm.

Empty the cup awaits

Fulfilment's finger;

Naked the body seeks

Complete surrender.

December 29th, 1953

The Veil of Ariadne

Accept, dear love, this silken rail

As soft as Ariadne's veil,

Which swirls, her beauty opening wide,

The curves one privacy to hide,

Like wind-filled sail.

When you put off your daytime dress,

Let this silk gown your skin caress,

As light as lips that gently pass

Across your brows, or breath on glass,

Nor less, nor less.

So by the veil's transparency

Your body's form revealed shall be,

And gossamer your grace express,

Adding to that fresh loveliness,

A lucency.

Your leaf-crowned Bacchus cannot fail

To draw back Ariadne's veil!

Translucent, yes, and light as lawn,

But to desire it sets a bourne,

A pale.

So think not through this gown he brings

He has no other offerings,

And keep your veil. This silken shift

His hand above your waist would lift

A furléd sail.

January 27th, 1954

The Wish

I want each day to be wcrowned by affection,

That heavenly gleam,

The wren going into the nest; and connection,

Walking hand in hand along paths with yew hedges

And under beech leaves in the spring. The green sedges

At the Chinese temple for tea,

And the scent of azaleas, and privacy, you and me

By the fire. Expectation and likeliness

Of your coming, and seeing you walk from the press

Of people, and leisure and time, and the feeling of continuousness.

February 7th, 1954

The Gifts of Ariadne – the Ring and Crown,

Life is a bond two-stranded – yours and mine -

Twisted about with seasons, days and years,

The pattern of our several weeks which twine

Like bedded lovers. Larks above, half heard,

On Down, and the flowered turf of summer; hares

Moving across the crescent corn in spring,

Wide spaces! Then your room, quiet and enclosed,

Serene with growing things; autumnal warmth

To cold; lamps haloed in the murk and winter's

Driving rain.

But always is the bond imperishable,

The proffered ring; the symbol, sign and key

Bacchus to Ariadne gave; and stars,

Th' experience by which our love is crowned,

The gift of Venus to the naked self,

As in the grave and sensuous art

Of Tintoretto.

Lechlade, May 12th, 1956

For Mary

Come, love, leave the throng and press

To share with me your separateness;

Walk through the dusty crowded street

To find our private, quiet retreat,

And in our room make the catch fast

Until the hours of night are passed.

What can I say, what can I do

Which can express my love for you?

What image can I use, what art

To tell the stirring of my heart?

My finger tip to trace your eye,

My lips that on your forehead lie,

My forearm for a pillow's stead

To bear the weight of your dear head!

The fears that gather as I press

My love, my lamb, my happiness!

Mary, dear heart, I have come home

And Plato's apple is at one.

The curtains show the light of day,

But our world's from the world away.

Newbury, April 15th, 1957

May Hill

Then I went up the path alone

And thought of all that we have done.

The meadows, moorland, Down and hill,

The purple mountains calm and still;

The buzzards mewing overhead,

The peewits on their earthy bed;

The hares swift-moving on their path,

The kettle boiling on nits hearth.
Our England's beauty, which we found

In stone, in colour, sky and sound;

Her houses, churches, houses – all

Her legacy historical.

The Alpine peaks with icy crown,

The saffron in the meadow strown:

The mountain valleys far from men,

That we have sought and found again.

The heights achieved for which we strove

To add new facets to our love.

“Then, tell me, what is wealth?” I asked,

As through my mind the memories passed.

'To hear upon this autumn hill

The sound of your voice calling still:

And faith which knows that you will come

However far I am from home.'

October 9th, 1957

Mary

You are the memory of a hundred joys,

Joys because you were there,

Illumined, sunset golden

Free from care.

You are the rainbow in the sky,

The cowslip in the grass,

The secret combe; across the hills,

The hidden pass.

As noon walks on the Downs,

The ascending lark;

At dusk the incised trail,

Out-staring dark.

You are the enclosed place,

The answer found,

The heart of stillness

And the trumpet's sound.

You are Demeter's earth,

Myth deep, alive,

To nourish, warm enfold,

And man revive.

Your are my journey's end;

As pilgrim shrine,

My spirit urgent, faithful,

Seeking thine.

Droitwich, December, 1957

To Mary, with gratitude and love

Bed-bound and weary here I lie,

But watch the trees against the sky.

Tied by the legs, I can yet see

The sunset's dying pageantry.

The water, brought from far away,

Speaks to me always of that day

In Elan's valley, where we stood

Clasped arm in arm to watch its flood.

Westward wind, which agitates the trees,

Tells me of other scenes than these!

The sheep-cropped turf, the mountains black,

The torrents and the climbing track.

Oh Mary by your love give me

The faith to hope one day to see

The buzzards circling o'er the moor,

The curlews calling from the shore.

Woodlands Hospital, Birmingham, February 21st, 1958

[The author, following a particularly severe attack of sciatica, was lying in bed with weights on the end of his legs, being stretched in order to release a pinched sciatic nerve. It was a long and extremely unpleasant treatment, but it worked. He never had trouble with sciatica again)

A New Land

Over the close turf of the curving down

Where the hares chased and played in windy March

We wandered hand in hand for the brief hours

We had together.

Below us in the gap the winding Thames,

Broad and majestic from the Cliveden heights,

Was terrace-crowned; or beech-topped Wittenham climbed

We saw the Ridgeway's line.

But now our land is changed. The little streams

Crossing the wolds, Windrush and Evenlode,

The orange ploughlands gleaming wet in spring,

Houses and churches alchemized to gold,

The lights below us in the return at night,

Tells us of home.

Yet still we bring to our new land two hearts

That have not changed and still possess their past.

Adlestrop, Christmas, 1960

The Swallows

The wolds are sleeping wrapped in grey

Under the wintry sky,

The Sun moves low at noon to where

The day will early die.

I cannot bring the swallos back

Before the cowslips blow;

I cannot warm your hand with mine

If both are chilled with snow.

So I will hang a token where

It will foretell the spring

And warm you heart with thoughts of May

And swallow on the wing.

Adlestrop, Christmas, 1963

For Mary on January 24th twenty three years later

Hold to the past! We cannot go

Beyond its ebb and flow.

We only certainly possess

Experience's gold, impress

Of courage long ago.

He: Oh let me lie against our breasts

And see the mountains' sunset crests

Above the fields of snow.
My hand along your curving though

Traces the Down against the sky

And gently rests below.

He: Upon her quilt of green and red

Is stretched Demeter on her bed.

High high above her from the air

I see the secret places clear,

And as I move across the sky

Rise up her mountains swellingly.
Thus as you stir below beneath
I feel your every inward breath.

She: Then fly the Gulf. On either hand,

A goddess' limbs, the mountains stand.

And in between the cobalt space

The pointed ships incise their trace,

Steering to find the narrow water

Which leads to Acrocorinth's daughter,

A deep-cut, martin-haunted strait,

Symbol of Aphrodite's gate .

Outside we lie divided, twain;

Then enter, lover, and be one again!

Adlestrop, 1963

An Empty House

The house is empty. On the bed Badger sleeps

Keeping the light out with one black paw.

The garden is quiet too apart from the noise

Of the leaves in the wind.

Ring the bell. Is anyone there?

Yes, we are there for this is our house.

Our spirit nourished, loved and cherished it.

Long View, Nether Westcote, Radcliffe Infirmary, 1967

Diary 1974: "Not Doddery, but eccentric"

1974 Diary

Tuesday, Jan 1st, 1974 - Busy re-adjusting shelves in my bedroom and re-arranging books, of which I have 700!

Friday, Jan 4th -Cheltenham. Poured with rain, cold wind. No phone came on till 2 p.m. and banks and W. H. Smith lit only by candles and torches, quite dark.

Monday, Jan 7th - Tonight Hall Committee. Managed at last to get rid of chairmanship which very reluctantly was pushed on to Mr Boulter.

Friday, Jan 11th - Cheltenham for lunch and to fetch Mary after hairdresser. First time left alone for a year. A great treat to be able to talk to Cherry on my own phone instead of from a call box as generally. A tremendous storm last night about 1.30 a.m. Thunder, lightning and hurricane wind. Much damage in the west country.

Saturday, Jan 12th - Stow. Damage to elmtree in the square. Rang C, found husband with her flat had left unmarried girl and she had kept C up till 2 a.m. telling her her life story - “the permissive society with a vengeance,” said C. 

Tuesday, Jan 15th - Mr Dockar at Clanfield told me Catherine was stopping next week. Would I take Philip four days a week for two hours at a time. Said I would think about it and let him know on Friday and go round to Vi Worgan to ask how to teach reading. An Oxford degree fits a man for anything!

Thursday, Jan 17th - Met C in Burford. She had had flu and was not very well. We had rum and coffee at the Mermaid. The motel was warm and plenty of hot water. 

Friday, Jan 18th - Last lesson with Catherine. She was polite! Said she enjoyed my lessons and thanked me. Took on Philip. It will be hard work. 

Thursday, Jan 24th - Anniversary of our walk on the Downs in 1940. Gave Mary some flowers and chocolates.

Friday, Jan 25th - Graham had been up mending Roberts’ furniture. Mary remarked he must not often have seen such a peculiar house, with plumbing allegedly done by the Cowley Fathers! He replied he had once been sent by Mr Hessell to a house in Bledington where they found a very old lady digging a hole in the garden to bury her sister. They reported this to Mr Hessell who managed to arrange a cut-price funeral.

Monday, Jan 28th - Mick McGahey, a fool of a Scots communist leader of the miners  in Scotland has said that the army in case of a miners strike would refuse to move coal because they are working class, thereby giving the government and the middle class just the  propaganda line they want. Colonel Grivas, whom Hilary chased in Cyprus, has died in a hide out there. 

Saturday, Feb 2nd - Salperton via Cheltenham road. Snowdrops excellent, aconites finally out.

Wednesday, Feb 6th - Snow!  but only a slight fall. Breakfast in bed. Phoned Italia Mundo and Venice in Peril. Mary stonewalled. She did not want to go to Venice in April, last visit a failure because cold. Did not want to go except with a party where everything was arranged and she was taken care of. She had been given a bad room, it was noisy. The hoteliers only cared for parties. Parties were transported from the airport to the hotel. We both got angry. She because she said I would not listen. I because only the snags were mentioned and never by any chance did she express pleasure that I was proposing to take her and pay!

We have had a miners overtime ban and weeks of negotiations between the government and the N.U.M. Mr Wilson and the T.U.C. have fallen over backwards to try to find an escape hatch for Heath, all to no effect. Now we are to get a full scale strike on Saturday and seems likely an election later. I have been here before as a young schoolmaster among the true blue housemasters [at St John’s, Leatherhead] in 1925 with that old rogue Baldwin and the miners. I shall not be caught again in 1974. Graham Kitchin supports the miners, said if they paid them enough ‘the Blackies’ would go down the mines and thus help to recruit miners to the wasting labour force. We shall see.

The dirt about the comprehensives is coming out. Locally at Bicester and still more at Tulse Hill lefty teachers are said to tell pupils that no good working as there is no future for them in society as now organized. 

Thursday, Feb 7th - Election to be at the end of the month. Mr Healey said the government reminded him of the more brutish of the Hanoverians. Called the government “bacteria”.

Saturday, Feb 9th - Tried to discuss foreign holiday with Mary but only got every possible and impossible objection. In the end managed to sell her 4 days in Tours with chateaux on the Loire with Clarksons.

Tuesday, Feb 12th - My 74th birthday. Margaret Roberts sent me a card wishing me happy returns “till my heavenly birthday”. What faith! Hilary wrote a long and interesting letter giving his views on marriage. ‘Keep them well-fucked and poorly shod’, a garden worker at Long Dene told him! 

Monday, Feb 18th - To Oxford by train from Kingham to get into shape for chateaux. .....Walked to station for 4.15, very foot weary. Arrived at Kingham, found I had left side lights on and battery flat. Mary had to go to Mrs O’Hara’s to get her sons to put charge through battery, when got home rather disturbed. “What the old man needs is not a wife but a nanny!”

Thursday, Feb 28th - Voted for Liberal candidate, who was at any rate a local man.

Friday, March 1st - Snow and cold so decided to stay at home and have dinner out and see what the weather’s like tomorrow - to fuck in our own bedroom which is probably warmer and more comfortable. A half bottle of Sauterne for lunch and some flowers for Mary.

By 5.30 the commentators still going though rather jaded and sore eyed. Labour had a majority over Tories of 5! but said they are ready to form a government. Now waiting to see what Mr Heath and the Palace will do.

Celebrated our 1940 anniversary by going over to dinner at the Manor House Hotel, Moreton-in-the-March. 

Saturday, March 2nd - At breakfast learnt that Heath to try to form an anti-socialist coalition with Liberals. I voted Liberal to get Heath, whom I detest, out. Tory 296, Labour 300, Liberal 12, Unionists 10. 

Monday, March 4th - Write Vicar of Tewkesbury to say would like to have a chair in memory of Molly, who died 10 years ago. Do not know whether £10 or £15! Two letters from C at Stow P.O. Heard at six o’clock that Heath leaving shortly to resign office and Mr Wilson to be sent for. Hurray! Miners strike will be settled, country get back to work, and loan negotiated. The wild men will be kept in check and I hope Roy Hattersley and his ‘Close public schools’ plans will be put in cold storage. Pension I hope raised.

Tuesday, March 5th - Heath booed and jeered when he left No 10 last night. Healey exchequer, Callaghan Foreign O, Jenkins Home Sec, Foot employment. He’s a wild man!

“Misunderstanding and misunderstood - those words will do on his premiership....People never grasped that he was a sensitive and shy man, brusque more out of gaucheness than arrogance - his failure to communicate as a man and as a leader.” The Guardian.

All / We shall recall / Of Heath / Is his teeth.

Tuesday, March 12th - Dockars. Trousers down by roadside when lorry stopped and asked ‘Do you need any help, sir?’

Friday, March 29th - At last got rid of the Parish Meeting chairmanship, which I have had for nine years, landed on me by Scaramanga. Now he is chairman again and an eager beaver as secretary. It went on for 45 minutes, the usual hopeless projects, levelling Tattles, bus shelters etc, and the usual Durhams and Casses!

Rang up C. Found poor girl couldn’t read, eyes closed, stitches in forehead at Middlesex Hospital, a broken wrist so can’t drive.

Thursday, April 4th - To Oxford to meet C, wrist in plaster, cut forehead, discoloured eyes, but driving car. Went to Blenheim and had lunch by lake. Tea from automatic machinery in new tea room. Then to Yarnton church, most interesting and fine monuments glass and reredos.  To Trout for drinks and sandwiches. 

Tuesday, April 9th - To Cheltenham station and a day ticket to Bristol. Taxi man’s joke: ‘To Great Britain, please.’ ‘You are in Great Britain.’ In dry dock, huge expanse of riveted plates in interior, angle irons of immense strength and fine lines. Walk round to one, then sausages and mash and ice cream in dock café. Ring for taxi. To Cathedral, a good Norman chapter house and restored and coloured east end. Home by 3.30 and back 5.30. Mary gardening, ring C to ask what hospital said. Caught out. The usual row, the whole thing blown up to enormous proportions. A little reason and a little less emotion would be helpful. 

Thursday, April 11th - Visit Roberts. Margaret in retreat, Cil cooking. Mrs Roberts remembered Lord Salisbury and Gladstone and her mother reading Trollope aloud. The two girls would creep up with their sewing to listen.

Easter Sunday, April 14th - To Tewkesbury. Hedges in some places in full leaf. Lots of daffodils. Abbey very full and large men’s choir. New bishop of Tewkesbury there but he preached a poor sermon and I thought  him probably a career bishop. Asked Mr Leach about cost of chair. Said it would be about £14 and would be in the Lady Chapel.

Sunday, April 21st - Cuckoo early after tea. Reading Diary to Mary. Said I always read criticisms of her and never anything nice!

Friday, April 26th - Alarm at 6.30. Feel at last minute less keen to go. Ring Cil. She is up and will take us to Kingham.Station at 8 o’clock for 8.33. Train draws in as cross bridge. Watch 10 minutes slow. Paddington 10.30. Buffet for sandwiches and coffee. Taxi to Finchley Road air terminal. Coach on M1 at 70 m.p.h. to Luton airport. Airport packed with milling crowds. Our plane a huge 146 seater with 4 turbo jet Rolls Royce engines. Soon touched down in Tours airport. Mainly military. Luggage immediately put on coach and off round Tours. Driver ‘Robert’ and courier ‘Helen’. Crossed the Loire by one of the new  bridges and stopped a minute at St Gatien Cathedral - tall French Gothic with a good deal of glass. Then to Hotel Terminus at side of station, which has a most imposing facade and concourse. Room 20 on second floor. Our room quiet, looking into small interior courtyard. Glassed door to basics, bidet and shower. PIllow for Mary but cover damp. Service slack! At 7.0 party assembles and we go round to Café St Hubert in main shopping street 200 yards away. St Hubert was jungly - tropical plants painted on walls, potted palms, stuffed heads including most ferocious boar’s head in the entrance. It was however very efficient and good wine, Montlouis, very dry white.
Home looking at shops, hopelessly expensive, and to bed.

Saturday, April 27th - Down for breakfast at 8. Plum jam but not much butter. Off opposite station on coach down the dyke built by Henri II, Count of Anjou, to Amboise. Built high on a bluff above the Loire up which we climbed by a ramp and staircase. It was half medieval castle, half residence. We stood in a perishing wind by the chapel in which Leonardo’s body is buried under a plain wooden slab. We then went through the Renaissance wing which gave out on a round tower with fine views over the bridge town and river. The chapel was dedicated to St Hubert and the turret bore stone stag horns.

To Chenonceau, walked up a fine avenue with a sight of the chateau at the end. A Renaissance chateau built on the foundations of a water mill and extended over the Cher in a gallery 65 yards long. Associated with Francis I and Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici, Mary Stuart, the graffiti of her Scots guard were shown us. It had an attractive chapel, alas bombed in 1944 and hideous modern substituted. After rambling round we walked in the garden to see the gallery from the outside and then back to the coach.

Afternoon free so we took a taxi to the Cathedral and wandered round. A wedding in process which took a very long time and the priest gave a very long address. Glass, especially East windows, good. Art Gallery next door, ex Archbishop’s Palace, a lot of 18th paintings of not much interest. 

Sunday, Sept 28th - A full day. Station square was empty. Off early to Azay le Rideau. This I thought the best of the chateaux. Furnished with contemporary beds, furniture, tapestries - the red room, the green room, etc etc, very tastefully - fine huge stone fireplaces.  Next to Abbey of Fontevraut. Huge. More than one community under an abbess, royal of course! The church was a fine Norman building with a lovely apse.The royal tombs of the Plantagenets were on the South, one wood and all faintly coloured. The whole place had once been a prison but the idea now to turn it into a centre of medieval studies.

We had lunch at a humble restaurant near the abbey. They had laid themselves out to please and produced a very good mean indeed. After lunch to Villandry to see the formal garden. Miles of box hedges, clipped by hand, interesting rather than beautiful. For our last meal we went to the Hotel de Bordeaux near at hand for a 25 franc dinner and very good it was. With coffee had a large Benedictine which was perhaps not wise. 

Monday, April 29th - An early start after packing and vacating room on a long drive to Blois. A large chateau, renaissance detail, much information about the Guises, C de Medici and so on. Back to station restaurant and off to Vouvray for a wine tasting. Tramped through the caves, saw the stocks of wine bottles, thought of Cyril Peach and I in Rheims in 1938.

Alas, when we reached Tours Airport we were told there was a “mechanical hitch” and the plane had not left from London so that it was two hours or more late. The plane did the crossing in an hour flat. Our taxi at Kingham was there all right and we got home about 10 o’clock. Mr Badger was out but when he returned registered pleasure.

Monday, April 30th - Told Mary I was meeting C Thursday.

Wednesday, May 1st - The usual row blew up. C abused as usual and grievances against us both given an hour’s airing

.

Thursday, May 2nd - Reflections on France. 1) Touraine country very beautiful. 2) Chateaux primarily occupied because built on rivers for sewage! 3) French since 1956 pleasanter and sanitation has improved, now compares very favourably with Burford, Oxon! 4) What a great and varied country France is! 5) How terribly expensive, no wonder they do trips to Marks & Spencers in Dover! 6) Wish I could speak French more fluently.

Monday, May 6th - Off to Garsington Manor. Arrival coincided with village junior school with a party of “nickers”. We were welcomed by Lady Wheeler Bennett, rather raddled and made up. The garden interesting. There was a patio with seats in front of the house, very sheltered, where in Lady Ottoline’s time the wits disported themselves. Must have another look at 

Tuesday, May 8th - Refurbishing Grandpa Barnes’ walking stick - ?blackthorne with horn handle.

Wednesday, May 9th - Vi told Mary Henry Carde the dirtiest man in the Cotswolds. You could see the fleas on his chest!

Wednesday, May 15th - To Blenheim Palace; Paymaster General sends me a certificate from which I can see that my pension less tax amounts to £764.

Saturday, May 18th - By 8.20 Cheltenham to queue for coach with National Trust ladies. To Longleat. To Lions’ Entrance. Wait. Told one and half hours to go round, so ate lunch - luckily. Went very slowly, 3 m.p.h. through estate. Giraffes, hippos, elephants, wildebeest, gazelles, monkeys. Then lions and cheetahs. So familiar with films of African wildlife that appearance hardly a surprize, but good to see them free and breeding apparently freely. Tramped around the house just ahead of following party. Some good portraits and dresses. Last at Longleat from Wells in 1960. How time flies!

Rate demand to day. Up from £63 to £96. All over county complaints and some refusing to pay.

Sunday, May 19th - Mr Hood’s garden at Bledington Manor Farm. Excellent very walled and secret garden. 

Tuesday, May 21st - Philip more than usually stupid. When shown horse chestnut spike, said it grew tomatoes. Why do I go on! Answer: holidays abroad. 

Monday, May 27th - Geoff and Margaret Makins, his new wife, came to a vegetarian lunch. She was a blue-eyed, fair eye-lashed Yorkshire girl, very talkative, a librarian at Malton. I liked her. Geoff I had not seen for 17 years. He had got plumper and had scanty black curly hair which he allowed to grow long. Geoff, 59, looking forward to retire from Malton comprehensive. He rather agrees with Michael Collard about the uncivilized tone of the bulk. 

Tuesday, May  28th - A letter from Lise. She finds Grandma’s visit very trying and says Hilary will not play and goes off. Wants to write before Nora returns and starts organizing!

Wednesday, May 29th - Cil drove us to Cheltenham Station. Train an hour late from Yorkshire, but a relief train from Birmingham. When we showed our Golden Card, the collector almost genuflected and the ‘controller’ (alias stationmaster) was fetched to ring Bristol to find out if the train was continuing to Exeter. It was He returned to show us into a first class apartment which we had to ourselves to Exeter. The ‘the Cornishman’ caught us up after about 45 minutes. Our reserved seats were waiting and we continued our journey over Brunel’s viaduct, now flanked by the modern and higher road bridge, through Cornwall with its cuttings, tunnels and viaducts to St Erth, where we changed for St Ives. Even here a courier was waiting for us with a large ‘Golden Card’ label to see us over the bridge. We reached St Ives where we found our names on a taxi list and we arrived at Garth Guest House (evening meal optional!). It had large windows, a blue decor, houseplants and stuffed animals - no gnomes! We had a nice but hookless bedroom looking over St Ives’ Bay. Evening meal 6.45, boy and girl and two frizzled mums, and representative from Nottingham with a wife with a prominent nose repeated in three children. Carbis Bay, where we had landed up, is a bungalow town about 2 miles outside St Ives. After supper walked among the bungalows, which appeared to be uninhabited. Felt depressed.

Thursday, May 30th - To bus park, then down to church, enormous crowds and even bigger lines of cars going down to harbour. Quay consists mostly of gift shops and fish & chips. Sunny but a high wind. Sat in lea of harbour wall till time to go to fish and chippery self-service. Church interesting, a flower festival and a Barbara Hepworth Madonna. Discovered a quiet back street café, the Blue Haven (guest house shut 11-4!. In p.m. by buses reached Pool, where we found two mining engines, in possession of the National Trust, boldly signposted. Back to cream tea at Blue Haven. Tomorrow St Michael’s Mount.

Friday, May 31st -  Salad lunch at Blue Haven - excellent. Coach to Marazion. Launch for Mount, for which we had to wait for party, conducted by bearded naval type with quarterdeck voice. He addressed the party of about 70 as ‘pilgrims’  and we were in for ‘a steep ascent to heaven’. However, with a heart pill I made it all right to the summit with good views, wild flowers and chapel where the guide spread himself on corpses walled up etc. Extricated ourselves from ‘the pilgrims’ and beat it down to the quay and the mainland and a cream tea. 

Saturday, June 1st - Bus to St Erth, train to Truro. Taxi to Cathedral. Min. of Environment exhibition in South Chapel, excellent. Egg salad at ‘Avocado’. Museum shut till 2 o’clock. When open was good and not too many stuffed birds.

Two new couples appeared, 1) a criminal looking type and silly fiancee from B’ham, 2) a dour Yorkshire boy who communicated in grunts with his blonde wife, in a sports car. Both most uncivilized. We had supper to pop played from the lounge!

Sunday, June 2nd - The taxi man (Roy) out. The old toothless crone opposite said we should go with the red minibus driven by his brother (Roy) taking Catholics to Mass. This we did with a collection of old biddies. We got in just after the sermon. The parish church was packed. Two elderly babies were baptized. There was a sea fog, overcast and inclined to drizzle, so we decided to pass the afternoon with a coach trip to Coverak, quiet and peaceful, gaily coloured boats, blue, green, white and grey n tiny harbour. No pop at supper, but silly dark girl tended to sing!

Monday, June 3rd - To St Ives by bus. Photographed Barbara Hepworth ‘Copper Holes’ outside Town Hall and plaque of 1549 western rising  on R.C. church. Low tide. Sit on beach in sun til lunch at Blue Haven. After lunch coach trip to Lands End. Coach fills with Yorkshire and Midland “frizzles”. Avuncular driver with a loud speaker. He made silly jokes which were greeted with shrieks of laughter  by the “frizzles, whom he addressed as “children”. Passed Culrise helicopter training station used by G.B., France and Germany. Here we saw the once dreaded black cross of the LuftWaffe on the German helicopters. E.E.C. in action. Shades of 1940!

Lands End is too vast to get crowded in spite of coaches and cars. We sat and watched the seas break over the Long Ships and the Armed Knight as Molly and I had done 40 years ago. The Wolf Rock lighthouse was clearly visible, the Scillies less so. Mary was fascinated and impressed by the extensive view. Back by coast road to Zennor where much play was made with story of mermaid on bench end. 

Tuesday, June 4th - With the same driver who alas told as the same jokes as we had heard yesterday to Kynance Cove. Magnificent. Giant granite steps put up by N.T. which did not make it any easier. Went nearly down but couldn’t get to café near beach. Lovely flowers and the sand and green and blue Cornish sea. Molly in 1928 when we stayed at Mullion. To Lizard. Rather poor café for lunch. To lighthouse, then sat against a bank for the light was blinding. To Mullion, walked down to cove and met junior school coming up. Walked on pier and then had cream tea.

Wednesday, June 5th - Taxi to station. At Truro an American enquired if this was stopping at Derby. Found out it was and had a very interesting conversation and tea with him. He was a computer engineer and this was his fourth visit to Britain. Irish American, lived in Los Angeles. He was changing at Derby to see Lincoln Cathedral. The best type of American. We agreed it would be best for Britain to be one state of the United States of Europe! Home at six o’clock.

Cornwall 40 years on 1931 - 1974. 1) The multiplication of cars and auxiliary services, garages, parking places, petrol stations, but roads except motorways hardly touched, high banks, narrow and winding. 2) Holidaymakers in 1931 middle class, 1974 working class, from Midlands by car, from Yorkshire by through train Leeds to Penzance. Dress: trousers for women however middle-aged and fat. Food - chips, dried peas, beans. Amusements: vulgar postcards, cheap souvenirs and pop music, esp teenagers. 3) Multiplication of cheap guesthouses, bed and breakfast, all meals optional, H & C in all bedrooms. Though I am a man of the left, I do not fancy teenage couples at close quarters! Their speech, eating habits, ‘musak’, and noise most uncivilized! Must I suppose be a middle class old codger.   

Cost of Cornwall: Golden Rail (Week) £48; Pocket Money £20; Mary £15: Total £83.

Sunday, June 10th - Old Bishop Montgomery, the general’s father, believed that everything went in 10 year cycles. Applied this to myself.

1901 to Walthamstow from Southgate. 1911 Forest School, German and Greek. 1921 Schools, Oxford. 1931 Constance at Stow on the Wold. 1941 Sciatica at Henley-on-Thames. 1951 Revisit Forest School. 1961 Hilary marries Lise. 1971 Moon landing, In Europe. Visit Cherry at Henley.

Saturday, June 15 - Anticyclone - heat and sunshine after earlier arctic winds of up to force 7.0. Watering spinach, lettuces, peas, beans. Then at 10 to Rare Breeds Park at Guiting. A 14-man television crew from BBC, with cameras and movable platforms and much cable, taking shots of young reindeer and stag with proprietor.

Saturday, June 22nd - To Sherborne Park village fete in Sherborne House in aid of village and Wild Life Fund. House open so was able to show Mary where I taught in the palmy days of Mosey. About 500 in the grounds, mostly dirty bearded men and women in long skirts, and how they smelled! Wondered what Mother and Father would have made of the scene.

At any rate I found Sherborne was occupied by the ‘International Academy for Continuous Education’ so thought I would write for prospectus.

Sunday, June 23rd - Latest student story. St Pauls College, Cheltenham, have some handsome polished oak tables in the refectory. Students complained. They wanted Bakelite. Principal gave them Bakelite tops, but retained old table for staff. Students objected on grounds that this “socially divisive”.  These are the teachers of the future. What a hope!

Saturday, June 29th - Cheltenham 9.30. N.T. trip to Castlecombe and Corsham. A coach load of chattering women; had a bawling one next to me on rear seat of coach. Castlecombe a pleasant village of weavers’ houses round a church in valley bottom flanked by hanging woods, but not I thought a patch on our Cotswold villages. Home about 9, quite exhausted by heat and female chatter.

Sunday, June 30th - Off at 9.15 to Christ Church, Oxford, for ordination service [David Meara]. Went well. Prayer Book of 1662 which Bishop read very well indeed. After service a family reunion. Did not much care for wives, David’s a dwarf, Richard’s a rather superior dame who made no effort to be pleasant. 

Wednesday, July 3rd - To Oxford. Broad Street café. Here Nora, looking very wild with white hair. Lunch. Nora as usual does not really listen to what you say as she is on to the next things. Thinks Jacob will have aesthetic interests, beauty, music, dancing, and is very clever.

Friday, July 5th - Booked on lane to Copenhagen on July 26th.

Sunday, July 7th - Friends of Tewkesbury. A good day. High mass with an inaudible preacher. A.G.M. of Friends. Did not take long. Assistant architect told me 1) Norman pillars not filled with rubble, 2) Abbey building local stone, not Coln, 3) C15 glazing supports mullion windows, not vice versa.

Monday, July 8th - An hour’s futile committee of the hall, of which thank God I am no longer chairman. It took an hour to decide whether to do the floor.

Tuesday, July 16th - Wedding anniversary. Lunch at Manor House, Moreton, Chose duck, which proved too rich for me, strawberries and cream. Beaujolais and coffee. Bed at night. Paid bill for Copenhagen - £114.42!!!

Friday, July 19th - Lying down after tea, fine looking man in walking boots, no collar on, turned up. Had been advised to call but couldn’t remember by whom. Finally Mary suggested Father Littledale, which was correct. He was Fr. Fitzgibbon S.J. from Chipping Norton. Very interested in historic Catholic centres. Very civilized and intelligent. Athletic - squash, tennis, running and walking. Gave him a glass of sherry and he set off to walk back to Chippy. 

Wednesday, July 21th - To concert in Guiting Power village hall. Sold out. The nobility and gentry in full force. Some sonatas, then Schubert’s unfinished and the Emperor. This was a mistake. The orchestra was too close and loud and the soloist gave an insensitive rendering. One of my pupils from Cokethorpe was there, Christopher Davis, and was going to R.A.D.A. Luckily Mary remembered seeing him in the school play.

Sunday, July 21st - Busy with weeding, picking black currants,digging potatoes, painting bedroom window, and so on.

The Geek fascist generals have seized power in Nicosia and tried to capture Archbishop Makarios, but he got away by RAF plane to London and then to UNO in New York. The Turks had their airborne troops on the ready and have invaded Eastern Cyprus where the Turkish Cypriots mostly live. The Greeks have proclaimed as president a gangster Hilary used to hunt without success, Nikos Sampson

Tuesday, July 23rd - Oxford. Cherry very tired with exams and guests. Slip of tongue after a bottle of Sauterne, addressed her by the wrong Christian name, cf Con and Nora. She got out of bed, dressed, flung key on shelf and went off. Rang Kathy who asked me to lunch tomorrow. (July 24th) Kathy delightful, helpful and sympathetic listened to my woes. Apologized, after all not adolescent but old gent of over 70!

The fascist government dismissed in Greece. Same in Cyprus and Nicos Samson out. Cease fire in force.

Friday, July 26th - 9.51 for Reading, then airport bus to Heathrow. Copenhagen 4.40. When emerge Hilary and Nicholas waiting. His old car so old had hired green Volkswagen. Off at a fast drive to Hove Mark where we arrive about 6.30. Occupy matrimonial double bed, but no light other than bedhead with most awkward switch. Bathroom dark and badly lit, switch on outside, and extraordinary tap. To get water you depressed tap like a joystick, to control temperature of water, hot to left, cold to right; To stop move tap up! Found ‘duvets’ far too hot, pillow far too small. Not a comfortable night.

Saturday, July 27th - Went round the estate. The house of one story, partly thatched, partly roofed with corrugated asbestos, was built round three sides of a square forming a large cobbled courtyard. The family occupied one side; dining room, kitchen, sitting room all opening on to one another without any corridors. If Mary left the bedroom door open you could see it from the entrance! The unconverted cowshed and piggery were used for storing hay and junk for reconstruction. The boys occupied two small bedrooms off the sitting room. Hilary had a small office filled with piles of newspapers off the occupied wing.

Outside they were making a lawn and flower bed, 12 geese wired into a small orchard and there were 15 ducks on a round pond. There were the remains of old carts and farm wagons in various states of decay. A mother sheep and two lambs were tethered to ropes to keep them out of the farmers’ wheat and barley which surrounded the estate. They had brought with them their nice collie, Tasha,  and a black and white cat from Copenhagen.  Two wild farm cats in semi starving condition lurked in the courtyard; There was also a white rat-like guinea pig in a box in the entrance. He was let out and hid under the furniture, emerging if you made the right cheeping noise, which I was unable to do. Hilary and Nicholas had cleared and dug a patch for vegetables and were growing beans, lettuce, onions etc. The soil was light and sandy in character but contained large stones of volcanic origin deposited I suppose by the ice sheet.

In the afternoon we were taken in the hired car to see the Viking Camp at Trelleborg. A number of Danish visitors. Very interesting, built near a stream leading to the Great Belt. Alas, coming back the car engine failed. It would only run for short periods in low gear and we were lucky to get home in it. Excellent meals cooked by Lise and wine at most meals!

Sunday, July 25th - No car working so had to stay put. Walked round farm in the morning. In Denmark as in the Fens you are very conscious all the time of the sky and the clouds because the horizon of the flat country is so low. looking round the horizon we counted 25 farmstead across the hedges and rather treeless landscape. In the afternoon we visited the nearest farm, inspected the piggery and drank sherry in the parlour with the farmer and his cigar-smoking wife. 

Monday, July 29th - A bit worried about catching the plane. To miss it would cost another £100!! The car hire firm had promised another car, but it never turned up, so a friend of Lise’s drove us to Slagelse Station, where we got a fast train to Copenhagen. Hilary piloted us through the crowded streets and and traffic to the air terminal and with luck we just caught a waiting bus to the airport! By the time we had registered our luggage and walked the lengthy corridors, helped by an escalator, to the right bay, the passengers were embarking!! Mrs O’Hara was waiting with her taxi at Kingham and we finally reached home about 11 p.m. pretty tired with the long journey. Mr Badger was in and gave us a great welcome,  but there was a note from Vi to say he had been ‘a wily old man’ and refused to come in at night, so had spent some nights out as a free pussy, but had come to no harm.

Saturday, Aug 3rd - A hard day. Off at 8.20 to Cheltenham for National Trust coach to Litchfield. Noon Cathedral. We were shown round by the Dean, but divided into two parties and got a dull and poor guide. He was inaudible anyway and it did not help that there were two lecturers. I hoped to see St Chad’s Gospel, AD 720, but the librarian was out. Cathedral restored by Scotts 1856-1908, pretty well a new building, reminded us of Truro. It had previously been used by the Puritans in the civil war but fell to ruin in the C18. Off to Staunton Harold old church, Laudian, built by an unrepentant loyalist, Robert Shirley, in 1653 “when all things sacred...were demollisht or profaned”, meaning the hated Cromwell, who put him in the Tower, where he died aged 27. As Cromwell remarked, what was spent on that church could have paid a regiment!!

We then made for Melbourne Hall about three miles away. Here we were shown round the house by the housekeeper, who was a very bad guide, slow, diffuse and snobbish. By the time we trooped up to Melbourne’s bedroom felt like fainting. However in the end we emerged and tottered to the Stable tea-room.

Sunday, Aug 6th - Spent day recovering from yesterday’s excursion. Woke up to pouring rain, first for six weeks. 

Tuesday, Aug 6th - To Hatford. A board ‘For Sale’ at church gate but no buyers as must agree to maintain churchyard, say Ecclesiastical Commissioners. 

Wednesday, Aug 7th - Nixon confessed to Americans he had lied to them and now faces impeachment.

Thursday, Aug 8th - Motel 11. C arrived later. Both delighted to meet after fortnight. It all passed off easily.

Friday, Aug 9th - Nixon resigned at 5 o’clock our time. Newscasters, poor chaps, up all night. Did not sit up but heard speech on 7 o’clock news. Not a very good speech. All the emphasis on respecting his duty to the U.S, but admitted ‘mistakes have been made’. New president, Ford, sworn in. Dull and pedestrian but safe. Reminded of St Joan. “What scoundrels these English nobles are!” “All secular power makes people scoundrels. They are not trained for the work.” New Yorker’s comment: “Nixon did nothin’ that nobody else didn’t do, but he got caught.”

Sunday, Aug 11th - To musical mass at Tewkesbury. After mass saw Molly’s chair which I had presented in Lady Chapel. 

Tuesday, Aug 13th - To Reading by train. David Meara in lay attire met us. A nice little semi, light and clean, brass rubbings. Rosemary at work. Winnie and Gwynn turned up from Pinner. Lovely lunch, chops, veg, meringues and peaches and cream. After lunch in David’s car to Strathfieldsaye to the see the Wellington house open to the public this summer. I was expecting something like Blenheim, but the deco was Victorian and it was positively squalid with busts of emperors in gunmetal and wall papered with what appeared o be news cuttings.

Thursday, Aug 22nd - Woodstock for coffee in museum, then to Pear Tree. When I was sitting in the bath facing C I suddenly had a kind of vision and realized in a flash how beautiful she was.

Saturday, Aug 24th - Went up to Stow to see the tourists on the way south and west before the bank holiday. Many strange types. On way back called at Icomb to see flower display illustrating hymns in the church. Particularly struck with red flowers and two sabres on 14th century knight, 1361, just before the beginning of the wars with France, labelled ‘Fight the good fight’.

Monday, Sept 2nd. Cheltenham to try to buy gloves for Hilary’s birthday but not yet in so wrote a letter instead. To Library where wrote an erotic letter to C. Felt like it! To Bourton dentist, but did not like girls, waiting room difficult of access and surgery tiny, so all round decided I would be a gentleman and return to one in Cheltenham with space and fewer working class clients.

Wednesday, Sept 4th - By bus Chipping Norton to Birmingham via Stratford, one and half hours. Arrived at 12.30 at ghastly Midland Red coach station below Bull Ring. Saw a staircase with sign ‘Forte’s Café’ and went up fearing worst but it found a good self service and had two chicken curries - not crowded. Then went out to find New Street station where got taxi to Art Gallery, where an exhibition of Lombard Art from Milan. This was excellent. It consisted of Rotunda with six of the finest and largest pictures, a gallery of architectural and art photographs and four or five further rooms. You hired a £5 catalogue, which was useless as none of the pictures were numbered. The chief figure was St Carlo Borromeo. In all you got a terrific impression of the counter reformation in the reigns of James 1 and Charles and the strength and range of the propaganda. We went back by bus - no change, and ticket from automatic machine which foxed me completely - to the Bull Ring and the café for tea. We were obviously foreigners by dress and bearing and especially speech for those in the café and bus queues obviously did not understand what we said. Nevertheless it was all told and interesting and rewarding experience.

Thursday, Sept 12th - Oxford to see Shaw’s St Joan, recommended by Gill. A tiny almost dwarfish Joan,  but very lively and active, preferred her to Sybil Thorndike (1924) and Celia Johnson (1948). The theatre full of sixth form comprehensive, some of whom were bored and very noisy, screeching and shouting and eating in the intervals. No manners. Still a moving even traumatic experience, felt quite exhausted. How time flies. I can hardly believe it is 26 years since I saw it with Eric Cunnington and 50 since Sybil!

Sunday, Sept 15th - Rang up Michael Collard and asked him to lunch. He arrived just after 1 o’clock and stayed till 6 p.m. Would like to buy a labourer’s cottage in the country but has no money for deposit. Doesn’t want to leave the comprehensive because he will drop in salary. Says how terrifying is the violent society, soccer fans etc, in which we live and it will get worse. Trendy papers excuse it. Asked what trendy papers. Replied Observer!!! 

Saturday, Sep 21st - Cyril Peach and Kay to tea. Mentally he seemed as good as in 1972, but physically much worse; could only walk a few shuffling steps from car leaning forward, the doctor thinks he must come to a wheeled chair as he he is suffering from incipient Parkinson’s disease, 79. Kay, 67, is much older and quieter and has obviously been very worried. They have bought a bungalow at Seaford and Kay hopes later to move to a bungalow she has plans for opposite the school, which she does not want to give up yet. How ghastly old age is.

Sunday, Sept 29th - To Tewkesbury where Cannon Pouncey preached on ‘Angels’. I thought he implied that they were a hard sell these days. With great trepidation told M Apple Tree Dinner next Friday and intended to stay in Oxford with C, no pretence of staying in college. Said C would look after me. Seemed to accept it.

Monday, Sept 30th - Alas, not for long. She blew up and till Friday our usual sessions of recrimination and complaints. When I told her I did not intend to return on Saturday at 10 a.m. to take her to Stow worse than ever, she had to get prescriptions etc etc.

Friday, Oct 4th - C at Burford. Reached college in good time. Dinner good, pheasant and delicious Burgundy (Chateau Pomeys 1961). Only one bishop, Charles Edward. The college had got a huge Burne-Jones from Tate and hung it across hall high over the entrance. After dinner went rather wobbling to view it. Left 10.30. C waiting parked outside lodge gate - escorted out by Maggs.

Saturday, Oct 5th - Tea, then coffee and rolls. Bath and off at 12 to Keble and saw picture in hall and new building. Walked down South Parks Road to Wadham and saw hall. A crowded but good little pub, the Turf, off New College Lane. Curry which we ate in the open though cold and damp. Then to Botanical Gardens and sat by char. Told C I would take her in a punt next summer! Back to the High. Passing Univ, C said she had never seen the Shelley memorial. “You are going to see it now”. And we did. At 5.30 home. Mary out and house locked. Rejoined C. Home at 9. Extremely happy with a marvellous day with C. ‘Surprised by joy’ indeed.

Saturday, Oct 12th - To Sussex to Richard Meara’s wedding. Pulborough 12, where we had lunch in very cold waiting room. Frost in Cotswolds! Taxi to Thakeham Church where there was some sun and could see line of Downs crowned by Chanctonbury Ring. Vicar of Thakeham seemed almost illiterate and quite incapable of reading English prose! David Meara good. Kingham 11.

Sunday, Oct 13th - Tried to talk to Mary on the lines 1) not leaving her 2) did not want time with C cut, but got nowhere, still accused of deceit and lying, finally floods of tears about Apple Tree Dinner. Richard and Georgina supposed to be coming to lunch but do not know when. 

Tuesday, Oct 15th - They want to come on Thursday!

Wednesday, Oct 16th - Rang C from home and hurriedly told her meeting to day instead of tomorrow. To Burford. Waited 11 to 2,  but no sign of C. Finally rang Henley, left message to meet me for dinner at 6. Finally about 5.45 she drove up. She had misunderstood on phone and thought I was cancelling. Had a nice meal. A day of dupes.

Thursday, Oct 17th - M still very cross. M provided a nice lunch and there was a bottle but restricted to one glass! In p.m. took the pair to the A40 ‘Bazaar’ which amazed them. Georgina seems intelligent and capable and has more social than Rosemary, David’s wife. 

Friday, Oct 18th - Rain all day. Wettest October since 1841.

Saturday, Oct 26th - Row blew up after tea. Mary thought I was trying to cheat her out of half term holiday because I had suggested next weekend, but she had not understood this and when she did she raised every possible objection because I was meeting C on Thursday next, Oct 31st. It would be “getting out of bed with one and into another etc etc. FInally compromised on meeting C on Nov 2nd and we go to Castle & Bull Marlborough on Monday to Thursday. Get double room at £8.11 B&B.

Monday, Oct 28th - Reached Marlborough about tea time. The Caste & Bull beautifully warm. Had tea at the Georgian House where we had toast for breakfast in 1940. A bath

before dinner.

Tuesday, Oct 29th - Very comfortable double bed. Bought out lunch, veal & ham pie, and off to Avebury. My God, it was cold! Stopped to look at sanctuary, then museum. Tried to drive up to Windmill Hill but track too rutted for car, so went to look at Silbury from road only. Thought how I and Cherry had our lunch there on Oct 5th, 1955.

Wednesday, Oct 30th - Was planning to go to Stonehenge but dreaded the plain in this cold, so caught the 8.55 bus to Salisbury. Found it difficult to find Close from Market Place and had lost my hat so my head refrigerated and nearly had to stop. We enjoyed the Cathedral. Some of the tombs had been recoloured and a man was removing the scratches and graffiti from an alabaster tomb in the nave. We walked round the East End to the Cloister, which had made such a deep impression on me as a boy of 14. To Chapter House to see carvings and to Library to see some lovely manuscript books and copy of Magna Carta. Back to Marlborough for tea. Delighted to see Salisbury, which I had always considered the crown of the C13, once more. Unlike the stupid dean of York, the chapter had provided adequate loos!

Thursday, Oct 31st - Hotel bill nearly £40. Bought lunch and along A4 to Hungerford, then to Lambourn. The Downs magnificent and the vile wind had dropped and it was sunny. Home for tea.

Saturday, Nov 2nd - Meet C in Burford. Con writes: “Untrained minds just go round in circles....why you had not foreseen this and done some education I don’t know,  but the record ‘Rules for Marriage’ seems to have got stuck in the ‘20s, which is before her time.”

Thursday, Nov 5th - Last night on news - signal men strike, dustmen ditto, cattle riots by farmers in Wales, strike of sugar refiners, and world food shortage partly caused by USSR secretly buying up American harvest for feed for their own livestock to give Russians more meat!!

Thursday, Nov 7th - Lunch at the Inn for all seasons with Kathy Watson. She came from the shop wearing a smock which she removed. Fascinated by her shock of grey hair and large yes. An Edinburgh woman brought up as a Calvinist, now R.C. Family connected with Watson’s Grammar School. Alleged to be very wealthy. Asked me to dinner some time at the Bay Tree, so perhaps she is!

Tuesday, Nov 12th - Letter from Hilary. Kissinger asked about his gloom on the world scene, replied it was like a man who was seasick. When his friends tell him no one dies of seasickness, he replies it is only the hope of dying that keeps him alive. 

Friday, Nov 15th - “I’m doddery,” I said to John at Dockar’s. “No, you are not doddery, but eccentric,” he replied.

Saturday, Nov 16th - Lunch at Inn of all seasons. I have found that in back volumes of Diary price of lunch 10 years or more ago is interesting, so give cost of lunch: Soup 25p, Cheese roll 35, Coffee 15, Glass of wine 20 = 100p = £1.

At home third budget makes things a bit easier for industry but withdraws subsidies from nationalized industries, railways, coal, Post Office etc, so cost of living will rise and fresh claims for wages will follow.

Reading a huge, heavy horror story, W. L Shirer. Dreadful. Dreadful.

Monday Nov 18th - Looked at boxes of letters. Cherry has been burning mine. Reckon I should burn hers. Tonight worked through nine letters, Cherry’s from before 1968 and Con’s - very moving I found them too.

After supper Mary would insist on seeing a ghastly Panorama programme on young delinquents. The courts have no power to punish. I could not look at it. I do not like to watch civilization being destroyed before your eyes by these young things and their impoverished parents and ineffective social workers.

Wednesday, Nov 27th - Hair cut. Rather surprized to learn from barber that Monday Cavendish House had had a bomb alert and had to clear out. Also G.P.O. What are we coming to! Barber rather Len-like. Told me sent for by the mortuary when he had his own business, in Cirencester, to shave corpses, but rather surprized when doing it pathologist arrived and slit it down the middle!

Saturday, Nov 30th - A cloudy day but better weather promised. Set off with hickory nuts to Roel but Olive Blackham was either dead or gone away for the winter. The barn was all padlocked. The weather cleared and we had a lovely view over the Wolds and saw the hunt in the distance on the Swell road. After Roel we went down by the Pusedown Pike on A40 via Northleach to the Inn for all seasons for lunch, soup, Stilton and rolls, red wine, jam tart and cream, £1.28 each. 

Tuesday, Dec 17th - There has been talk about a world conference with oil producers but some are frightened of “offending them”, making situation worse. We are back in the period of appeasement. Opinion that war may start again  but Arabs will once more be defeated. Should the Arabs cut off oil entirely, U.S. prepared to seize gulf oil and have a naval force in the Gulf and commandos training under desert conditions in N. America. Will USSR play ball or sell the Arabs down the river?

Sunday, Dec 22nd - To the Roberts for tea with a bottle, Chianti for Cil, Christmas roses excellent this year) for Bertha. Cil very wild and shaggy, the saintly Margaret less saintly and the old lady in very good form.

Tuesday, Christmas Eve - This wonderful invention enabled us on ITV (without adverts) to attend High Mass in St Peters. The Pope celebrating looked very old and frail with microphone much in evidence, cardinals, diplomats, religious etc etc and large milling crowds in the nave. Epistle read in American English, Gospel in Spanish, Pope’s address in Italian, Mass in Latin. 

Christmas Day - Breakfast. The opening of presents, Badger’s tie, playing Mary’s Mozart and Beethoven records, setting up of postcards, picking flowers, lighting fire kept me very busy indeed till lunch. Chicken, bread sauce, sprouts, creamed potatoes, pudding, brandy butter, Asti Spumante & Port, nuts and dessert. Slept till tea. The Queen wax like, Olivier’s

in black and white, a comic Futtocks End with Ronnie Barker and with Robin Day, Joyce Grenfell and Bernard Levin.

Picked 22 flowers in garden: primrose, daisy, sow thistle, hamamelis, prunus, thrift, campanula, aubretia, deanthus, winter jasmine, polyanthus, rose, crysanthenum, fuchsia, hypericum, Xmas rose, hazel catkins, violet, buttercup, aconite, dandelion [plus 1 illegible].

Boxing Day - Gale and rain. In all day.

Sunday, Dec 29th - To Tewkesbury to High Mass.

Tuesday, Dec 31st - Into Marys bed at 7.30. Stow for coffee and library. Heard from Hilary at last with cheque for £5.

It was violent again in Ireland and the Near East, bombing in England and highjacking and taking of hostages by the Arab terrorists. The truce between Israel and Syria only just holding; the greater part of the British army in Ulster. At last we have an acceptable president in the US and negotiations will go on with the Russians for a slackening of tension.

It seems doubtful if we have really come to terms with the new weapons the Arabs now wield. We have not made up our minds about the E.E.C. but hope the first 6 months of 1975 will decide it. Another thing undecided is the power and position in the state of the great trade unions.

Christmas cards: Flowers, birds, animals 21, religion and art 20, Topography 8, snow scenes, coaches, lanterns 6, children 5, charity 3, misc 3, Total 66