Dearest Jane... (38 page)

He enjoyed each grandchild on their own terms – he was not inclined to see their future as a series of moulds into which they must fit. Highly individual himself, he responded to that quality in others, particularly enjoying it in his youngest descendants. My father’s interest in sport was a well-rounded one – but by no means obsessive. He saw team games as an obvious route of pleasure for his younger grandson and a more literary future for his elder brother. His perceptions were spot on.

When they went away to school, they too became the recipients of a gentle stream of amusing and encouraging letters. I continued to receive letters of thoughtful information on their education and well-being. He lived far away, but was alive long enough for my sons to have formed a warm connection with their extraordinary grandfather. If he had lived only a further six weeks, he would have enjoyed the pride of knowing his elder grandson had been offered an unconditional place at Oxford, a thrilling moment in a family not noted for academic achievement. He would have been proud again now at the publication of Piers’s first bestselling novel for young people,
The Last Wild
. Above all, he would have been delighted that both grandsons had found great personal happiness, Piers with his partner, Will, and Nick with his wife, Clare.

I’ve heard some say that they don’t want to be called ‘Grandfather’ – it is too ageing. I have heard yet others say the real worry is sleeping with a grandmother. But the mellowness and sagacity of old age is so often underestimated in an era where youth must be clung to at all costs. My father did not enjoy being old. He did, however, derive real pleasure from what he could offer as Grandpa. And as some wiseacre had it: being a grandparent is the reward you get for not murdering your children.

My Dearest Jane . . .

Budds Farm

24 April 1974

Could you please send me a nice photograph of P. F. Torday that I can show to friends in the Carnarvon Arms without them actually wincing? I remember during the war an enormous gorilla-type man who was very keen on showing photographs to all and sundry of his son and heir who looked rather like Mussolini with mumps. While searching one’s mind for suitable comment, the gorilla used to observe in a manner that conveyed more than a hint of a threat: ‘There is nothink wrong with the kiddy.’

‘Of course not,’ one would reply with warm insincerity. ‘He’s a beautiful little fellow with a great look of you about him.’

I suppose when P. F. Torday has grown up, he will be finding himself living in an egalitarian republic with a snotty old President and a one-party government of the extreme left.

Best love to you all and not least to saucy little P. F. T.

P. F. T was eighteen days old and my father was already speculating on the future world in which he would find himself
.

The Old Crumblings

Burghclere

Election night, 5 March 1974

Does Sir Denis anticipate any immediate rally in share prices?

Without an eyebrow in sight, my father had dubbed my beautiful baby son Sir Denis – after bushy-browed Denis Healey, recently appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer
.

Budds Farm

15 August 1974

It was very pleasant having a surprise visit from you and Sir Denis. Does the latter wish for a year’s subscription to the ‘Investor’s Chronicle’ for Christmas?

The Crumblings

[1974]

I hope Sir Denis thrives in the heat; children, unable to grab a large gin and tonic for revival, are liable to find it trying.

Budds Farm

28 August 1974

My respects to Sir Denis. If he cries, try whispering ‘Directors’ Fees’ to him.

La Morgue

Burghclere

7 September 1974

Best love to Sir Denis. If he’s fractious, he’s probably worrying about the wealth tax.

The Old Sludge Heap

Great Ullage

Berks

3 January 1975

I’m glad to hear you and Sir Denis are to look in shortly. How is he reacting to the present economic crisis? I shall be pleased to hear his views.

Budds Farm

Whit Monday 1975

How are you all? I trust my grandson is enjoying a life divided somewhat unequally into periods for eating and repose. How lovely it would be if only life could continue along those lines with certain minor adjustments. Perhaps one day it will. After all, thrift has become a vice. It may follow that work will come to be regarded as mere selfish indulgence.

The Old Ice House

Shiverings

16 November [mid-1970s]

I enclose a photograph of myself at that I age I did not look totally unlike Piers. What a dear little innocent boy I was! And when I think what happened to me since.

Maisons des Demi-Morts

6 April 1976

I hope Piers relished his second birthday. What a ghastly world the poor child is growing up in! By the time he is fifteen this country will probably be occupied by the Chinese.

Budds Farm

21 May 1976

As Vice-President of the Burghclere and Newtown Population Explosion Prevention Association, I deeply deplore your current position. However as your father I must conceal my true sentiments and send you good wishes and the hope that you experience the Best of British luck. I trust the produce will turn out to be a girl; on the whole girls tend to be less tiresome than boys. What are you going to call her? How about Matilda or Martha? In Basingstoke three out of five girls are named Samantha; the boys are usually Kevin, Garth or Wayne.

Best love,

xx D

My second baby was on the way
.

The Lazar House

Burghclere

4 December 1976

I hope you are not feeling too awful waiting for this infant to arrive. I really am sorry for you. If men had to produce children, the birth-rate would rapidly fall to zero. Life here is fairly dull and I am thinking of joining a punk rock group to cheer myself up. I wish you did not live so far away as we can so seldom have a laugh together. Anyway, my sincere good wishes for a happy outcome to your present condition. I am betting on a boy. Why not call him Percy after my great-uncle whose sole claim to distinction, in his nineties, was to be the oldest living Old Etonian?

Best love,

xx D

The Old Damp Barn

Burghclere

1 May [late 1970s]

I wonder what sort of life my grandsons are in for. Things can change a bit in three generations. My grandfather could have watched public executions – possibly did – lived at a time when appendicitis was usually fatal, took part in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny, attended the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park and wore black for a year after a relation died. Though never a rich man, he seldom had fewer than six servants indoors. He went to church at least once every Sunday. I think one of the biggest changes in my own life has been the decline in the power and influence of the middle and upper middle classes since the last war, and the lowering of their standard of living. The previous war destroyed the aristocracy which has now virtually ceased to exist. I expect your children are destined to live in an egalitarian society.

Love to all,

RM

Budds Farm

[Late 1970s]

Please tell Piers that Nigel Spoon Basset invariably spoons his porridge through a straw and that his favourite drink is iced goat’s milk. His mother is compelled to keep a lady goat called Vanessa Redgrave.

Budds Farm

7 December [late 1970s]

I much admired the pluck of your younger son in disagreeable circumstances, while his elder brother clearly does not miss much and comes out with some telling observations.

The Crumblings

4 August [early 1980s]

How is the saucy Piers? What worries me about him is that he already possesses a sense of the ridiculous, a fearful barrier to success in life. He has wit and intelligence and his phraseology is most original for a boy of his age. I can’t see him ever joining the National Front or playing football for Newcastle United.

As for Nicholas, I think he will have a very happy life, being good at games and with a sense of fun. I can see from the way he swings a golf club or kicks a ball that he will enjoy school.

Budds Farm

[Early 1980s]

Piers has a lot of charm and his success with older women is an interesting clue to the form his life will take once he has crossed the murky stream of puberty. Nicholas possesses vivacity and determination: I shall be surprised if he fails to make a success of his life. He might make an excellent soldier.

‘Eventide’ Home for Distressed or Mentally Afflicted Members of the Middle Classes

[1980s]

Thank you for your informative and entirely legible letter. I am glad to hear the Torday family is prospering. You will find the characteristics of your children are continually changing: Piers will probably end up as prop forward for Gosforth and Nicholas running a successful ladies’ hair-dressing establishment in SW1.

14b Via Dolorosa

Burghclere

8 December 1983

Don’t worry too much about my elder grandson. I expect he’s a lot tougher than you think. Of course school isn’t as much pleasure as a week at the Ritz in Paris. However, most boys learn the useful lesson that life is usually uncomfortable, mostly unfair and that what you are taught is 95 per cent useless.

Budds Farm

11 January [early 1980s]

I suppose Piers is back at school. I don’t think any boy likes going back to school: I’m sure I didn’t although my home life was anything but a happy one. I always blubbed a bit when I said goodbye to Mabel who I suppose gave me more happiness than any other woman I have ever met. I don’t suppose Piers relished going back but I am sure he is not one of those boys to whom the break with home life is almost unbearable. In his quiet way I think he has plenty of pluck. I read the following in bed this morning at 3 a.m. when in the throes of what my old friend Dermot Daly called ‘that horrible insomnia’:

Going to school, the cab’s at the door,

Mother is waiting to kiss me once more,

Father looks sad and gives me a tip,

Poor little Mary is pouting her lip.

I can recollect Pop giving me a tip, but if my mother ever kissed me even once, the incident has eluded my memory. However ‘old men forget, etc., etc.’

The Miller’s House

4 July [mid 1980s]

I shall accept your invitation to stay. I shall bring boughs of freshly cut holly to flog my grandsons if they fail to grovel sufficiently.

The Miller’s House

18 November [mid 1980s]

How is life up in the frozen north? I had a nice letter from Piers complaining about the cold. All schools are cold; hence chilblains. Boys from day school do much better in exams as they can swot away in the evening in nice warm houses instead of fumbling in Greek dictionaries with frozen fingers in some hideous school room, the temperature of which is about 47 degrees F. I sent Piers quite a nice diary. A fairly useless present as most boys use a diary for 3 days then never open it again.

When my parents ventured up the motorway to ‘the frozen north’, they were the most delightful and appreciative guests. Christmases – often a battleground back in Berkshire – abounded in peace and goodwill. When my mother’s stocking from my father consisted of two bargain bars of Lifebuoy soap and a pair of gardening gloves, she received them with exemplary graciousness. Treasured grandparents, their visits to us are amongst the happiest of my family memories
.

The Ruins

Burghclere

27 October [early 1980s]

Piers is gentle and charming and possesses a lively wit for a boy of his age. I don’t think you need worry too much about Nicholas being happy at school, now or in the future. I think he is a natural games player and will be able to look after himself pretty well.

Sport – football and Newcastle United in particular – remains a top pleasure for Nick
.

The Miller’s House

10 August [mid 1980s]

I enjoyed seeing my grandsons. I will avoid criticising them as even the limpest criticism of someone else’s children can secure you a lifelong enemy. I can remember painful instances in my own family, the cause of the ill-feeling invariably being comments by my mother made with the deliberate intention of causing pain.

Piers has great charm and no lack of humour. It must be a relief to you that he is in no apparent danger of contracting athlete’s heart! Nicholas is a born games-player but he is very far removed from being stupid; quite the reverse in fact. He is at any rate shrewd enough to appreciate that he has got his loving mother pretty well taped! I think he will enjoy 95 per cent of his school life and will never be short of friends.

Love to you all,

xx D

Hypothermia House

22 February [mid 1980s]

I had a letter from Piers which I much appreciated. For the young, writing a letter is a fearful fatigue. There used to be an old saying in my regiment: ‘It is infinitely preferable to incur a slight reprimand than to undergo an irksome fatigue.’

The Olde Igloo

Burghclere

17 January [mid 1980s]

How are the scholar and the athlete? I expect the scholar will end up a champion wrestler, while the athlete will win a Balliol scholarship and attend intellectual parties where he will:

‘recite in a falsetto voice
the earlier works of Mr Joyce’.

Those lines were written by a poet, long dead, whose description of a Landseer painting at Balmoral included the lines:

‘And dachshunds, of the thin and wan sort,
Retrieving grouse for the Prince Consort’.

The Olde House with No Loo Paper

29 December [mid 1980s]

Problem for Jane and Piers: punctuate the following so that it makes sense: That that is that that is not is not is not that so.

Easy quotation to remember to impress educated friends when your sons are raising hell: ‘Sunt pueri pueri: pueri puerilia tractant’ (children are children: (therefore) children do childish things).