Adam Thorpe - Ulverton

Cold, overcast. Lamb chop.

Typing & ’phoning. Nice postcard of Florence from Shirley Leatherbarrow. She does get about. Miss Walwyn round after school. Loads of giggling up there. Stamping shook plaster off. Don’t remember room being this chill and damp. Basements are the devil to get warm. Bit off-colour. At least office is warm, being above living room. What a queer, higgledy-piggledy house this is! All these bits of stairs. My bathroom that bit warmer cos that bit higher. Pity window is tinted in bathroom cos nice view of garden otherwise. Mind you, who knows who or what might peer in if it wasn’t. Never feel quite private on lavatory as it is. That plum branch gives me the frits sometimes. Have to have big lop & burn session. Hillman Minx brought round by Mr Moon’s son Ted of the gummy forelock, Lanchester part-exchanged. Quite sad to see it go. Been a part of life here all along. Had nice comfortable smell, like the vestry at St Catherine’s. I do worry about Herbert’s driving. It’s not the same, I tell him, you do have to keep on the right side of the road these days, even in the country. Road through village busier and busier since they let the petrol go. Always tell the articulated lorries by my tooth-glass.

Wed. 25th March 1953

Cold, grey. Kidneys.

Cross-referencing and labelling. Off-colour. Coronation Committee Meeting at 6.30 p.m.: they spent twenty minutes trying to get that stove to light. Lucky I’d got the long johns on, given my circulation problems. Wanted to have map of Burial Site. Herbert said it’s part of tennis-court at end of garden. Mr Bint said you haven’t got a tennis-court. H. said it was turned to vegetables at opening of war, but I still call it the tennis-court Sidney. Cd have sworn H. said ‘wart’ instead of ‘war’. It’s so easy. Like ‘Mr Short’ for little Mr Long at Salford Motor Engineers. Those were times. Mrs Whiteacre said that’s what our late Sovereign did with the flower beds. H. said his bit about donating Burial Site to parish: legally common land in perpetuity etc. with cypress hedge about & access from Pightle Lane cos it’s after wall ends. That means we’ll have to maintain it said Mr Donald Jefferies. H. said you only have to keep Location Stone clean of weeds that’s not much to ask when you consider what’s at stake. What on earth is at stake? (Mrs Whiteacre). Civilisation. Oh I didn’t know civilisation was at stake (Mrs Whiteacre). We had all this last time (Mr Norman Stroude). That’s a turn-up for the books having common land give back instead of having it took away (nice Mr Stewart Daye). Let’s not go all political now (Mrs Philis Punter-Wall). Who’s going to pay for it then? (Mr Donald Jefferies). Quite a big bill after three thousand years eh? (Mr Norman Stroude). General laughter. Volunteers I’m sure (Mrs Philis Punter-Wall) but this is a Parish Council matter next item please. H. said it’s all been cleared with the P.C. Committee and did his flared nostrils thing. Dr Scott-Parkes said could I get a word in now please there’s a serious bunting problem cos of paper supplies. I can’t look at Dr Scott-Parkes in quite the same way after what Mrs Dart told me. Will try and order book from library. Although I’d better not carry it about in case he sees me with it. Never know what he might do. Sins of the fathers and so forth. Might have been handed down to him, in the blood, etc. He has got funny eyes. Jealousy! Best keep out of it. I felt like strangling Rita Smelt that time. She and poor Kenneth. Well she did go on so. Triumphant. In the back row, Violet! Those were times. Can’t see a picture of Shirley Temple without feeling nasty. Mr Stroude said use toilet paper, winked at Miss Walwyn. Rev. Appleton present this time said he’s got so much junk in vestry must be some bunting somewhere. Junk? He does like to appear broad-minded. Philis Punter-Wall twitched, but she doesn’t give a lot away. Mrs Whiteacre said W.I. had lots from ’35 Silver Jubilee, but had ‘25’ on every flag goodness me wasn’t that a lot of stitching. Mr Jefferies said at least we’ll have biggest bonfire ever. Mr Daye said seems like yesterday. I said there’s rolls and rolls of canvas left by Ministry of Works up at the big house. Can see it from the woods behind. Volunteered to investigate. Thank you, Miss Nightingale. N.B.: how does Mr Bint know we haven’t got tennis-court? That’s what I mean about sitting on the lavatory.

Thurs. 26th March 1953

Heavy rain. Cheese potato.

Labelling. Missed Mrs D.’s Diary. Not that it seems to matter. Miss Walwyn round again. Soaked through, dribbled on hall parquet. It’ll come up, I said. She didn’t offer to wipe it, of course. Down on my hands and knees. I let her see and why not? Pride’s not in it. As Father wd say: the only skivvies I’ve ever donned are my vest and underpants! Tea-time I went in to living room as usual with tray, no one there, gas-fire full up, nasty fug, steam rising like nobody’s business off clothes flung (that’s the word) onto settee, identified Miss W.’s briefs and bra, pink, probably hand-knitted. Cream blouse a bit scorched. Located her by giggle: in studio with Herbert. Rapped on door. Opened. Ah, said Herbert, she’s brought the tea. Violet is my staff. So I can see, said Miss W., with a small giggle. Wrapped up in Herbert’s dressing-gown, my present to him Xmas of ’42, the purple one, not seen it for years I must say, and not even bothering to use the cord not that I mind a nipple or two, we’ve had plenty of those in the drawing classes in the old days, but it was the attitude. H.’s hair standing on end, quite comic. Enid is the perfect model, said Herbert, doesn’t move a muscle. Do you like Marie? said I. Who’s Marie? said Miss Walwyn. Biscuit, said I. Your blouse is scorched.

Fri. 27th March 1953

Clearing, nice light (Constable). Large plaice.

Collating & indexing all day. Brisk walk after tea, getting dark, big clouds shooting over me on scarp, felt giddy looking up, like about to go with them, bright & dark at same time, nice fresh breeze straight off sea all those miles away, felt Barrow could open up and contents walk out any minute. Pity he’s been taken out already. Or perhaps not. Came back with torch. Last of light showing in big puddles all silvery. Wish I could paint. Don’t think the Kodak would catch it. Lying in bed all aglow. Miss W. chattering above. MUST get on with ‘essay’ over weekend. Camomile lotion works a treat on scald.

MY LIFE UNDER HERBERT E. BRADMAN (cont.) Part 1

The War Years

Being deep in the

Only one bomb fe one stick of bom

The first time

Mr Bradman first mooted his ‘Project’ to me in the middle of a ‘blackout’ in the late September of 1940 — Britain’s darkest and yet finest hour (see Cine Reel 14B). We would sit together (I had then a ba, I had then, and still have, a ‘basement’ flat in Orchard House — really the converted scullery and pantry) in his ‘Anderson’-type shelter at the bottom of the garden, waiting for the ‘All Clear’ to sound in a rather beastly stink comprised of Mr Bradman’s pipe and my Gold Flake. He finally broke the monotonous silence with a sneeze a cough, proceeded by a great snort which vibrated the thick moustache which then (as now) sprouted generously from his upper lip. The single electric light-bulb that illuminated us (he had ‘rigged up’ the system himself) lent a lugubrious look to his face, as it was positioned directly above his head. Once, when the stick of bombs that cracked the plaster in the church (fortuitously revealing some crude medi but charming mediaeval wall-paintings of angels, ships and suchlike, as well as blowing part of a Saxon drinking-horn through Mrs Hilda Blumlein’s front window!) dropped dow thudd shattered the quiet of the village (see red asterisks on Topography Sheet 27C) this bulb swung alarmingly and made those shadows shift in quite horr terrifying ways across his over his eyes and mouth. In fact, this reminded me of his ‘Chemical Experiments That Went Wrong’ series, which appeared briefly in ‘The Sketch’ in 193, and were perhaps the most morbid of Herbert Bradman’s creations (for these and all other works see ‘Collected Works’).