“Brenda went, with her father. Nora was as I expected much nicer & more interesting without Charlie, & got quite friendly with me. She complained of Sheila’s rompish & too familiar behahavior to Charlie, saying that was why she didn’t want to have her as a bridesmaid.”
WEEK 134: (7th – 13th June 1920)
“Maya & I went up to London & spent the remainder of the morning at Selfridges, after a fruitless attempt to visit Helen Webb. It’s a wonderful place, but the assistants have the haughty manner that terrifies me in shops & I do hate being always called madam. I bought a cotton gown & a nightgown & a pair of knickers. We dined there & were badly robbed. “
WEEK 133: (31st May – 6th June 1920)
“Maya & I went on to a labour meeting at Chalfont St. Peter about taxation, & I read a pamphlet on the proposed levy on capital while they were “committing.” Nora & Charlie missed their train to London & came back for the night. C. is delicate & still rundown from working too hard in France, & Maya thinks he is badly in want of looking after, but there’s no one to do it. Mr M. talks to him at length about motors – it seems a most absorbing subject.“
WEEK 132: (24th – 30th May 1920)
“Very fine hot day. We cycled to meeting at Jordons, a pretty old house in a lovely garden, half wild, with a graveyard in front & a dell full of flowers behind, with trees above. Meeting just like any other. In the evening Maya & I cycled to Gerrard’s X to a meeting of Friends to discuss the duty of Quaker employers in the labour question.“
WEEK 131: (17th – 22nd May 1920)
“I went to the Coliseum to see Her Barrier was objectionable enough to complain to the theatre committee about – Miss Doyle had been telling D. – it was awful. It was rather beastly, & such rot! But there was a comic one before it where three men were killed & went to hell & were shut into a pit of fire by devils with huge red hot pitchforks, which was lovely.”
WEEK 130: (11th – 16th May 1920)
“Miss E. & I used to discuss religion in the evening, á propos of the Protestant prayer book & the Catholic school catechism. She was surprised to incredulity at finding lying described as a sin there, a suggested maybe they got that book out for non-Catholics to see, but really taught them some others.”
WEEK 129: (2nd – 9th May 1920)
“Pouring wet day. I got an answer from Ruth Fry to my inquiry if they could give me employment in relief work on the continent. Evidently I’d be no use in Germany or Austria, & I don’t believe I am strong enough for their requirements in Poland. Louis more cheerful.”
WEEK 128: (26th April – 2nd May)
“After tea I had to go & visit Joe & Doreen over the shop in Prince’s St & they took me to the pictures. There was a good comic film about an elixir of youth that made you old if you took too much, but the girls in it had beastly stage dresses, both ugly & indecent, & there was a war story about a French girl who was captured by a handsome German prince & was his adored mistress for a long time…”
WEEK 127: (21st – 25th April 1920)
“I went to the Tech & worked at the Brooch of mine that Aunt H. gave Brenda, which needs a good deal of repair. In the evening B. and I went to the Coliseum, and saw a very funny sheriff’s-daughter story about fool & robbers, & a piece of a serial about a circus man whom a gang of scoundrels were trying to kill – he was good-looking – and a tiresome thing about Charlie Chaplin as a pawnbroker’s assistant – & a whole story called “Words & Music by” which was far the best of the evening. “
WEEK 126: (12th – 18th April 1920)
“A very bad account in the papers of the hungerstrikers in Mountjoy, who were at it a week this day. Mrs Kinsella, who is back in the Mall Lane lodgings again with apparently no intention of going to America, came to tea with Ellie.”