November [1940]
My dear Ham,
Thankyou for your note – our telephone is going to be restored soon under the character of Primrose 1256 but I do not quite know when this will happen – it is a graceful official promise – meanwhile the porter’s lodge is Primrose 6741, but I shall be in the London Library on Saturday anyway. I do hope you will have time to tell me about the telephone battle – it is the only military activity which has aroused my deepest interest so far. I had a terrible leaving party at the Ministry of Food – the messenger cried, and we had Dundee cake –
love
Mops.
The British Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcasting House
London. W1
5 December 1940
My dear Ham,
I was sorry and regretful not to be able to call in at the Cumberland the other day – by the way I consider you were what I should call rather cagey about these marble halls all the weekend long, and I was very disappointed not to be allowed to have tea or to book a theatre ticket or a piece of scented soap in the vestibule. However. What is even sadder as far as I am concerned is that I don’t believe that this dubious organisation will let me go off to Oxford, or rather they may let me off late on Saturday but too late to make it worth while. I have had to sign their grasping contract which says that I have to devote all my time attention and skill, within reasonable limits, to the service of the Corporation. I don’t consider Saturday afternoon reasonable, but I suppose it is thought, or rather deemed, as they put it, reasonable by the B.B.C.
So far as I can see I shall miss you, and Jeanie, and Janet all at one swoop and you will have a gay and perhaps even hectic party, according to my notions of Oxford, without me. I am very depressed too and need cheering up, as Rawle’s embarkation leave finishes on Thursday and I have horrid moments when I wake up in the middle of the night and calculate just how many minutes he has left just like the end of the holidays used to be. Well I mustn’t complain as it is tiresome,
love,
Mops.
16 Avenue Close, NW8
[On Broadcasting House headed paper]
11 February 1941
My dear Ham,
Of course I should like to hear from you very much, as I have often wondered lately how you are and what you have been doing, and however surprised I may be at being called a harpy, I am always flattered at being wanted as a correspondent.
In London we are all preparing to snipe at the Germans out of the dining-room windows, and poor Mrs Breakwell is a fountain of tears. I have become very common, and drink cups of tea in the morning,
love,
Mops.
16 Avenue Close
Avenue Road, NW8
19 March 1941
My dear Ham,
Thankyou for your letter. I am glad you are so well and enjoying the spring in Devon
The pleasant cow, both red and white,
I love with all my heart;
She gives me cream with all her might
To eat with apple tart –
And I am glad too that you are pleased with your move to Taunton, but as I thought you were there already I cannot feel the surprise I should.
Poor Janet is recovering from her measles and will soon move to London, to her special post in the bosom, so to speak, of the Minister.
The BBC is not exactly tedious, in fact it is rent with scandals and there are dreadful quarrels in the canteen about liberty, the peoples’ convention, &c, and the air is dark with flying spoons and dishes. Miss Stevens poured some tea down Mr Fletcher’s neck the other day. He knew Freud who told him the term inferiority complex was a mistranslation and there was really no such thing. I have to eat all the time to keep my spirits up, so I am getting quite fat. We are doing a programme called ‘These Things are English’, with the funeral of George V, beer, cricket, people singing in the underground &c. I think the people singing only express their own fierce triumph in getting the better of the London Passenger Transport Board. Besides, they all sing ‘I wouldn’t change my little wooden bunk for anywhere else in the world’. We had a mock invasion the other day. We were overpowered in 5 minutes as the officers in charge of the defence forgot their passes and couldn’t get into B.H.* We have heard from Rawle to say he is safe in India. How horrid you were to me Ham! But all the same you have my best wishes – love – Mops.
P.S. The windows of Marshall and Snelgroves are entirely filled with scarves printed ‘Grim but Gay’ and ‘This is a war of unknown warriors’, papier maché bulldogs, and photographs of Winston Churchill with an old-fashioned sporting-gun.
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
14 May [1978]
Dear Ham,
Thankyou so much for your card and kind message – I don’t know why I put an entry into the Somerville mag, indeed don’t remember doing so, but I’m glad now that I did. I’m not quite sure why I’ve taken to writing either, but it’s better than weaving, hand-printing &c in that it represents a slight profit rather than a large loss for the amateur; also it struck me that I was getting to the end of my life and would like to write one or 2 biographies of people I loved, and novels about people I didn’t like, put it that way.
My husband died the summer before last, but I’m lucky in that my elder daughter and her husband moved me into the ground floor of their house (the mortgage company’s house) in Battersea, so I don’t have to feel alone.
I don’t know where anyone is except of course Janet and Jean, and have only heard distantly about Jimmy Fisher when my nephew was articled as a solicitor to Theodore G. – I remember him playing Bach however, through I don’t know how many years.
I’d love to come and see you and your wife, and I’ll ring up next week if I may.
love,
Penelope
2 October [1978]
Thankyou so much for a happy day at the Vineyard, for lunch, and for the opportunity to meet some of your family, your tortoises and your pictures, also for making me feel that enormous numbers of years haven’t passed, after all – you were so kind and hospitable, and, whatever I feel about Bloomsbury, believe me I’m heart and soul in the success of the Newsletter – love and best wishes – Mops
[25 Almeric Road]
[6 November 1978]
Thankyou so much for the kind congratulations.* Prize unfortunately is going not to me but to someone who doesn’t need the £££ – my publisher asked if the runners-up couldn’t all have £100 and a package trip to Bulgaria, like the Miss World contestants, but they were adamant – hope you had a good grape-harvest – I made chutney out of my 6 bunches.
love Mops
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
2 May [1979]
Dear Ham