‘No, Violet my lovely,’ he said (that’s that particular term of endearment not being unu not being usual to him), ‘I think we are all doomed.’
It was then, at that late hour of the evening, that Mr Bradman outlined his ‘Project’, which needs no further comment here. Used as I was to eccentric employees in the past, I had never encountered anything mad and madcap or odd about Mr Bradman. — save for his hab except for our daily ‘combing’ session, merely a hangover from our evacuees period, though I haven’t found an infestation for several years, (remove?)
At first I was dismayed to find someone I regarded as an eminently sane person suffering from the ‘blues’, and that this had produced in him some curious ideas — rather as if the genius the bit of his genius that had created those painstaking illustrations of chaos and disa catastrophe had begun to take over him over. I likened it at first to a tumour, and would attempt to ‘operate’ at tea-time, trying to jolly him up in front of the gas fire in the main living room (Orchard House is one of those dwellings rarely without a chill). But after several sleepless nights in the ‘shelter’ during the worst days of the Blitz on London (Cine Reels 13A & B), I for one became quite enthusiastic about the whole thing. Little more was said, however, after the tide began to turn against Hitler and his henchm minions, and Herbert was preoccupied with what he called his ‘propaganda’ work for several local councils, and a series of delightful ‘pepping-up’ strips for troop magazines. I had all but forgotten our rather heated discussions in the fug of the Anderson on those warm September nights, until that fateful summer’s day almost eight years ago, when over my wireless came the news that the atomic bomb had been dropped onto Hir from a great height onto a Japanese city, with frightful results (Cine Reel 15A).
With the subsequent bursting of atomic bombs on land and underwater off Bikini Atoll (Cine Reel 15B), Herbert’s rather dusty Project once again became the our main topic of conversation. This was all at about the same time as British rationing (see ‘How We Live’, under ‘Diet’) spread, quite literally, to one’s daily bread — a real nuis a rather parlous state of affairs it seemed! Herbert had also just been given ‘the push’ by the editor of ‘Punch’: there is little room for a Herbert Bradman amongst the ‘jazzy’, scribbled, American-style humorous drawings that now appeal to the masses — interested only in ‘getting a kick’ out of things. Following this setback, Herbert would sit for hours on the bench in our in his garden at Ulv in sleepy little Ulverton, just gazing at the begonias, as if he had been switched off by some careless hand. It was on one of these occasions that I brought to him an envelope I had found while sorting through his drawers: it appeared, from its rattling sound, to have nothing more inside it than a lot of seeds, but was marked in an old-fashioned script, ‘First Chamber, December 9th, 1858’ — so I had not thrown it away directly. A light almost immediately spread across his face, his eyebrows shot up, and within moments he was standing upon the bench shouting unintelligibly at the top of his voice. Somewhat perturbed at this reaction, I got up and went for a glass of his favourite summer ‘quench’.
When I returned from the kitchen with a tall glass of chilled lemon barley water, I had no sooner stepped into the garden than I realised Mr Bradman had gone. It was a beautiful August day in 1946, and the smell of the harvest from the fields beyond the church was quite heady, particularly with the rather high odour of the tractor fumes (see ‘Men On the Land’, Chap. 19) wafting over the wall every now and then. I had taken to wearing sun glasses (see ‘Facial Wear’ section of ‘Vogues and Luxuries’) for health reasons, and had taken them off to go indoors, as the house is rather somb on the dark side. Putting them back on, the glare of the garden was reduced, and I was able to see Mr Bradman’s form entangled in the shrubbery behind the bench. He had, it seemed, tumbled in his excitement into my newly-planted dwarf conifers, breaking not a few of the prize azaleas etc. on the way. On crossing the lawn as quickly as a full glass of lemon barley water allows one to, I was relieved to find him un not quite to discover him undeterred, muttering to himself with what I thought was a serious gash on his cheek, but turned out to be a crimson petal off my lobelia! He wouldn’t be budged, and my attempts at pulling him out ended in ignominious failure, with lemon barley water sticking down my front and my straw sun-hat rather the worse for wear beside him. and myself on my bottom, on my behind
Seeing that he had not actually harmed himself, and that my struggles were useless, I set about repairing some of the damage with secateurs (see ‘Men on the Land’, Appendix) and pea-sticks as best I could. During this operation, I could quite clearly hear Herbert discussing with himself his grandiose plans, for the envelope contained seeds extracted from a Pharaoh’s tomb, and ‘the symbolic parallel was not lost on me’ (as he later put it). Even now, when I water that shrubbery (we no longer emply a full-time gardener, of course), I think of its verdant nest as being the real birth-place of the ‘Project’ and all our subsequent effrt over the last six years.
I do hope that you forgive the vagaries of the rather ancient typewriter (see ‘Mechanical Inventions’) with which I am proceeding: the ribbon has a tendency to slip down which explains the red bits now and again! while the ‘o’ key has now decided to stick every so often — most trying! One is, I reflect, so dependent on mechanical devices or ‘gadgets’ these days: when one considers how complicated a typewriter is, let alone a modern passenger aircraft of some thousands of horse-power and enormous tonnage, the miracle is that we are not all deluged in wires and steel frm one day to the next. If my ‘o’ key were to stick completely — as the dusty ‘z’ appears to have done — I would have to resort to a fountain pen. This would break Mr Bradman’s cardinal rule of absolute clarity and the need for an ‘objectivity’ or ‘purity’ in presentation. This is not at all the same thing as his belief in ‘the vital’, or as he puts it or what he terms ‘the fiery essence of concentrated personal being’, which is why samples of handwriting and voices recorded on a magnetic tape recording machine have been included — as well, of course, as the ‘Collected Works’ of Mr Bradman himself. These (as you will see) include several pen-and-ink riginals from the Twenties, and a chalk drawing which was the basis for his ‘Bournville’ illustration of 1940. This rather splendid work was to be displayed on giant hoardings outside Birmingham and Coventry Central Stations, but the wood-pulp crisis (stemming from the German invasion of Norway in that year, see Cine Reel 11F) forced the Bournville Company to ‘hold back’ for the common good. The original painting was (alas!) destroyed in the bombing of Coventry on the night of the 14th November, 1940 — a blow which caused Herbert to lose his taste for large-scale, highly prestigious commissins.
Sat. 28th March 1953
Mild, fitful sun. Dumplings.
Typing a.m., then essay until 8.30! Got up to H.’s shrubbery tumble. Missed out the bicycle-saddle incident. Thought it best all round.
Sun. 29th March 1953
Mild, sunny. Chicken, semolina.
Matins. Sermon on world hunger. Rather depressing. Walked briskly after lunch. Medium-length new one: northerly direction up main road, left thru gate just after big thick pollarded oak you can see faces in, that Mrs Dart calls ‘Samson’ (rather appropriate I suppose), straight across fields above Five Elms Farm, thru beech wood behind Ulverton Hall (a few primroses, but park still an awful mess thru trees), down to river, over wobbly plank, up Ewe Drop (nice name), along scarp all way to Barrow, down Louzy Hill (not nice name) and home to great big steaming mug of Brooke Bond’s. Best walk for years. Marked it orange on Ordnance Survey. Felt cd almost take off on top. Dampened by Miss W. nattering on about Mr T. S. Eliot & I said oh yes I mean to read the Four Quintets. They both howled (that’s the word). Then H. said they had planted the Cupressocyparis leylandii (I’ve looked it up) around the Burial Site, thinking to fox me I suppose, but I said very straight I thought Cupressus lawsoniana wd have been better for the density. Get as good as you give, as Father wd say. Miss Walwyn’s big dark eyes flashed at that, all right. She’s got some Jewish in her I’m sure. Poor things.