Adam Thorpe - Ulverton

Whoops — left electric fire on. Have to go up. Drat.

Fri. 20th March 1953

Mild, damp. Kippers.

Typing all day. H. in London. Sneaked into living room and watched dance programme — Jack Parnell etc. Put the Ivor Novello and one of Herbert’s (Tommy Kinsman & his Dance Orchestra — rather good) on Autochanger & got it to work. Danced around room till giddy. Knocked over vase & chipped off lip. One of the Chinese pair H. says looted from Peking palace in Mr Mao’s revolution. Priceless. Tried to stick it back on, but wdn’t hold. Blame Mrs Dart? Don’t want H. to think I go in living room as matter of course. He’s funny about that.

Sat. 21st March 1953

Mild, damp. Pork pie.

Indexing a.m. & p.m. ‘Medical Advances’ rather unpleasant. Makes me feel morbid. Keep seeing Joan Lowe’s husband sunk in chair. Sick-room. Disinfectant worse than what it was getting out. Broke her, really. Lucky Father went when he did, perhaps. In prime. Bang. Walked to clear head. Up to White Horse. They ought to scour it, or whatever. Daffs in beech clump near barrow. Friendly robin. Shoes held up well in mulch. Thought how difficult to tree-spot without leafage. Herbert’s drawings always v. accurate: said once he kept file of tree sketches so all his pictures have same trees in background. Shd I start on about Tampax? Got them back, at least. He might not notice. H. getting more & more short as day draws nearer. Ticked me off tonight for not stirring powder in cocoa. Floating about on top. Makes me giddy, he said. Well I never. And how’s YOUR contribution going, my dear? Very well, thank you, Mr B. (MUST start it TOMORROW.) Just found half-sucked acid drop stuck on dressing-room table. Feel like Miss Marple, sometimes.

LIFE UNDER HERBERT E. BRADMAN.

by Violet Nightingale

(File …?)

Introduction

I first started with

I came to the country the countryside to the village of Ulv

On the eve of war, when

I walked up the gravel drive of Orchard House that summer’s day with

I scrunched

Being Mr Bradman’s personal secretary (he prefers the term ‘assistant’, but the post was advertised using the former title), I was always seen by him as being an integral part of the ‘Project’, if only to collate the relevant data, type

With his half-moon spectacles and ill-cut jacket, Mr Bradman struck me at first sight as one of those employers who would forever need ‘tidying up’ — even to the extent of supplying my wages now and

Knowing Herbert E. Bradman to have been one of the leading artists on ‘Punch’ for many years (see ‘Collected Works’ and magazine samples) I expected that diffidence to worldly matters that goes hand-in-hand with the artistic life. I was thoroughly prepared to find umbrellas in the refrigerator (see ‘Domestic Comforts’) and the chicken hanging in the hall, as you might say! So I was surprised, on that July day of 1939, scrunching up the drive, to find a man to open the door on the door opening wholly in command of himself, punctilious in the extreme, and courteous. He was dressed in a Harris Tweed jacket, which although rather well-used, was cert and slightly burnt on the sleeve, was certainly of top quality. He received me in the main sitting room of his house: this being a generous pile construction of a somewhat mediaeval look, though built (according to the inlaid stone) as recently as 1929, on the former site of the Manor orchard — several ancient pear-trees, three apple-trees, and one dwindling plum scraping my bathroom window to attest attesting to that fact, and the old brick wall, of course. He shook my hand warmly, and showed me his ‘studio’, a perfectly charming converted garage with a huge skylight facing North. Our problems with our battles to keep this clear of a Virginia creeper which he refuses to uproot have given rise to many of his famous ‘Gardener In A Sweat’ cartoo humorous drawings, and furnished our professional relationship with the kind of laughter discovered one finds on only at on the tops of precarious ladders. Although

Although I had, like many others, confused Mr Herbert E. Bradman with Mr H. E. Bateman (they happen they unfortunately share the same initials — see ‘Minor Rivals’ section of ‘Commentary on the Collected Works’), Herbert (or Mr B., as I like to call him) jocularly) has no singular trade-mark like Mr Bateman’s characters, whose horrified popping eyes leave me disg more repelled than amused. Neither, indeed, is he equipped with a regular sinecure like Mr Arth Alb like Mr Bestall’s ‘Rupert the Bear’ strip in the ‘Daily Express’, or Mr A. B. Payne’s famous trio in the ‘Daily Mirror’ (I myself attended the 1928 rally of ‘Gugnuncs’ at the Royal Albert Hall!) Instead, Herbert strives to capture the modern way of life and its peculiar idiosyncrasies in a careful, almost painstaking line. Enthusiasts of his work (and there are still a fair number) have taken pleasure in identifying the makes of car in his ‘Modern Motoring Mania’ series, or the species of flower in his ‘Irene Rambler’ strip for the ‘Schoolgirl’s Own Annual’, in which her highly amusing muddy adventures ran from 1924 to 1927. The manner in which he can sum up whole personalities with a few deft strokes of his pen has earned him many admirers: as he has famously said — ‘get the nose right, and the rest follows!’ I have come to love to cherish his grand scenes of modern bustle and confusion, from which there always seems to be a policeman’s frantic arm emerging; or those well-known farmyard scenes of pretty milkmaids and ruddy yokels scattering cocks an cockerels hens a their poultry and or and those society galas with their slim ladies and monocled young men, all about to meet with disa catastrophe.

Sun. 22nd March 1953

Mild, damp. Chicken, prunes & custard.

Matins. Sermon rather dull on Contrition or something. Always reminds me of a car part, Contrition. Young Rev. Appleton has nice voice, a waste. Church cd do with electric heaters, stinks of paraffin. H. chatty over lunch. Hasn’t noticed chipped lip? Will plead ignorance if does, for sake of Project. Walked up to Plum Farm to check on wood dog violet behind. Mr Desmond Dimmick in yard, cutting down that nice big tree. Hailed me to come over unfortunately & had to enter. Dung everywhere. Stink still on shoes. Wanted to show me his implements: went into big old barn. Funny-looking plough, harrow, manure knife (!), something beginning with D (dribble?) and sheep-bells etc. all in heap under cobwebs. Had read our letter and so forth. I said my bit about present, not past. Said he’d give us fertiliser bag. What we needed was lots of fertiliser spread about & grass dug up like in war. That or starvation. Then the usual if my old grandad Harry etc. Always blamed you Northerners and all yr smoke, Miss Nightingale. And that Squire! Barn full of dust, got right into my tubes. Sudden shaft of sun showed it all up, like searchlight. I don’t think agricultural matters will ever be my cup of gladness, as Father wd say. You Northerners my foot. Showed me swallows’ nest, though. Come back every year and as old as the barn (1713 on the lintel!) but they always say that. Started ‘contribution’ after tea — bad start but picked up after a bit. Queer putting down yr own life. Though it’s more Herbert’s really of course. Wood dog violet out, anyway.

Mon. 23rd March 1953

Cold, sunny. Spam.

Typing all day. H.’s new transcripts completely different version of his teenage years. Same person? Woman’s Hour had nice thing on widows. Made me cry, thinking of Kenneth. Daft. H. took my hand after combing session and said I was his staff. Hip back again. Asked Mrs Dart about the Scott-Parkes story. Well, I never. Long time ago, though.

Tues. 24th March 1953