Wed. April 22nd 1953
Mild, sunny. Boiled egg.
Typed. Middle of ’43. Nothing. ‘Only the tapping keys of the distant typewriter came between me and a sort of glowing Nirvana as my pen flowed across the white page.’ House-martin poisoned. Too much noise, said Herbert. So looking forward to those tiny mouths yearning.
Thurs. April 23rd 1953
Fresh, sunny. Marie biscuits.
December ’43. ‘My secretary went down to her room, leaving me to enjoy that delicious solitude of the self-seeker before the roaring fire. What a Xmas, truly, for the ripe soul!’ Up to Barrow. Greater celandine out. Common blue. Corn bunting on telegraph wire. Peewits.
Fri. April 24th 1953
Cool, sunny intervals. Thin Arrowroot biscuits.
Mr Bradman in London. Up to September ’44. ‘The bombs rained down upon Europe, but I was elsewhere in my soul. I drew deliriously, obsessively, ended only by cocoa brought on a tray, the powder still circling slowly upon the top, like the Milky Way, like the spiral of the ancients, like the Vital Desire itself!’ Letter from Gordon. Mother’s a turn for the worse. I’ll have to go up I spose.
Sat. April 25th 1953
Chill, snow in Buxton. Vegetable soup.
Miss W. upstairs. Spring ’45. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Wrote to Gordon. Will be coming up. Took in cocoa and music blasting away on gramophone. Miss W. and H. in easy chairs with eyes shut. Thought they were asleep. Turned it right down. Your cocoa, Mr B., and I think I’ll be turning in now. You’d think I’d kicked them. That supreme moment, Violet, and you shattered it! Supreme moment, Mr B.? Gerontius meeting the angel! Face to face at last! Oh the dross and trivia of this world, obscene, obscene!
Sometimes I feel like having a good weep
Sun. April 26th 1953
Cold. Soup.
H. Communion. Walk to White Horse. Mr Stephen Bunce found me. Brought horse & cart, took me down. Gave me brandy in his council house in Vanners Crescent. Smelt of dogs. Kind folk. Never been in one before. You looks very creamy, Miss Nightingale. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Oh Violet
Mon. April 27th to Fri. May 1st 1953: incapacitated. Panic overhead. Furniture moved about like thunder. Mrs Dart said saw robin tap my window which means a death. Sorry to disappoint, I said.
Sat. May 2nd 1953
Warm, sunny. Dumplings.
Contributions weekend. Certainly ‘quotidian’. H. kept out of way. No more HP Sauce bottles tomorrow, and that’s flat. Headache from smiling. Some of the clothes smell. Well
Sun. Apr
Tues. May
Mon. May 18th 1953
Warm, overcast. Yorkshire pudding.
‘The Life As Lived’ finished. Nothing. Last paragraph. Spring 1953. ‘Enid and I walked up that day to the ruined mansion, her eyes flashing hope, mine only adoration. “April is the cruellest month”, she whispered, as we climbed to the terrace hand in hand. Within, where England’s old order had crumbled to dripping ceilings and scrawled walls, where perhaps you, the reader, are now cropping your sheep, or landing your space rockets, we found a bed. Here the seed was planted anew, as I had planted those ancient seeds. Just as I now plant this great steel seed filled with the dross of our so-called “civilisation”, and the struggle of one to free himself, as an angel must from the material shards of a lesser world, through the agency of the female essence, from that trivial and clogging stuff we call “daily life”, that you see before you in all its reality. And even there, the world invaded, poked us, did not let us be (see illustration). Only in death may that joy be everlasting, may that seed flower, just as this seed before you now has flowered in your eyes, like the golden flower of Homer. Pick it, and rejoice! May it give you hope! May it give you life! May it give you, too, O posterity, that vital fire of love!’
Handed it all over. Apple-pie order. Illustrations coming on, Mr B.? All done, Violet. Goodness gracious, you are a marvel, my dear. Look at this! So neat and tidy! Well I was thoroughly trained, Mr B. May I have a glance at the illustrations? Oh no my dear. There are some things that even you cannot view. Only posterity has that privilege, my dear!
Seems to have forgotten about my written contribution. Just as well. No stomach for it.
Tues. May
Wed. May 20th 1953
Mild. Coronation Committee Meeting: no more bunting needed, Miss N. You shd have brought it earlier! Ill, I know. But thank you anyway on behalf of the etc. Maybe the cottage hospital wd be interested? You’re looking better, I’ll say that. Have you checked yr garden for bonfire stuff? It’s rather wild at back, Miss N. Found two waggons already & a threshing machine in old barn on Barr’s Farm — hid under collapsed roof for 25 years, can you imagine? Gardened. Herbert distant. Biggest bonfire ever. Red Admiral. Chiff-chaff behind shed. No waggons.
Thu
Sun. May 24th 1953
Missed church. Hiked (that’s the word) up to Kisser Cross. Blowy. Wind right through me. Buffeting. So open up there, that’s the trouble. Let it push me off, almost. Like flying. Or as if nothing in way of it (i.e. the wind). Skylark on fence-post. Prefer it up high, funny scruffy brown thing down here. THINK I SAW STONE CURLEW!! Need stronger binoculars.
Elgar blasting away again. Her present to him, I believe.
Mon. May 25th 1953
Repository arrived on back of lorry. Only a week late. Like big bomb. Shiny steel. Makes me look wide. Mr Webb put cherrywood compartments inside. Fit to a T, look, Mr Bradman. Packing the Material. I don’t say much.
Tue.
Thurs. May 28th 1953
Packing the Material. Location Stone delivered. ‘Posterity’ spelt with an ‘e’ on the end. At least he got the 4953 date right, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. ‘Of bitter prophecy’ a bit too crowded, I thought, but then I’m always a stickler. H. displeased, but I didn’t tell him about the wrong celandine on Wordsworth’s. Why should I? Don’t have
Fri. May 29th 1953
Packing. Herbert like little boy. Bisto in with the Oxo cubes now, Violet!
Don’t have the stomach, but I do it.
Sat. May 30th
Mummy sweet pea’s first flower. Rather small, but bright yellow. Picked it before a soul was up, just like that. In jam-jar on my window-sill. Waited 3,000 years and only felt early morning sun & a bit of a breeze on its petals. Better than nothing. Like a bird’s-foot trefoil, that golden
Sun. May 31st ’53
Walked up to scarp at dawn. Back along river. Whinchat. Bit of white campion by stile. Viper’s bugloss in usual place (early). Ragged robin out at last in Quabb B. Heron by ruined mill? Repository all ready for Burial (Planting, he calls it now. Well, it’s a bit late for me to change.) Tripped over bunting on way to church. Bunting everywhere. Miss W. got children at school to make them, needless to say. All colours of rainbow. Gold and silver even, like wings. Rather windy. Bit of sun. Bonfire or whatever by Saddle Bridge half-built already. Big. Waggons & carts one on top of another like they’ve dropped from sky. Thump thump. Loads of axes swinging away at lots of things. Big sweaty men grinning, tossing on wooden bits, swinging their axes. Nice old hay-wain straight out of Constable went in two minutes. Splinters flying they’d better watch their eyes. Two men holding either end of plough, looked just like Mr Dimmick’s. One two three & on it goes. Little boy rolling barrel up. Waggons looked bigger all piled up. Like a pile of elephants out of that book on Africa. Gone without a struggle, as Joan Lowe said of her Eric. Little by Little, as Kenneth said, rather cruelly. Scribbled down the names on Gordon’s envelope. Habit. Have to have a name, don’t we? They’ve all got a bit of flaky paint & a name. Like on war memorial. Poppy day. Blast on the trumpet. JOHN STIFF, MAPLEASH FARM ULVERTON 1833. LORD CHARLES H. CHALMERS ULVERTON HOUSE FARM, ULVERTON. ERNEST M.BARR ULVERTON 1887. JACOB SWIF … (rest indecipherable — greasy patch on Gordon’s envelope). Funny poem on wireless full of names. Like lullaby spinning round and round. Gordon’s good on names. Missed ‘What’s My Line’. Thought it best all round. Hardly seen him. It sounds a bit religious, this. Will send me to sleep I hope. Nice voices