“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.“
NLI Call Number: MS, 3582/37
NLI Catalogue Link can be found here
Date Range of Diary: January 27th 1920 – October 26th 1920
Monday 31st May. – Fine warm day. Nora & Charlie had to take the 2 motors to High Wycombe, about 9 miles off, to leave one there to be repaired, & they very kindly took me with them. It was an interesting drive, some of the way thro’ lovely woody country, & at one spot there was gorgeous yellow broom which we picked on the way back. Nora drove coming back, she seems to me to drive very well. The big motor was the one to be repaired, & we were rather a tight squash in the small one. They are both desperately interested in motors, & Mr M. holds very tiresome conversations with Charlie on the subject. Then with the addition of Brenda
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we went to another wood in the neighbourhood, hotter & with smaller younger trees than at Newlands, and lunched there. Nora & Charlie were very entertaining till after lunch they went off with themselves. B. & I stayed where we were till suppertime & then went home, they appearing some hours after. They occupied Miss Graham’s parlour till a late hour.
Tuesday 1st June. – Very hot day. We went to Jordons for a picnic, Maya & I cycling & the rest packed in the motor. We had lunch in the wood, which is largely tall beeches, with a carpet of dead leaves & some holly in
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the undergrowth, a most beautiful place. It made a lovely background for Charlie, though it would have suited him better if his beauty were a little less of the civilised type. 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.
Wednesday 2nd. – Nora & Charlie left in the morning & Maya said how peaceful it was.
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We went in the motor to a public gathering at Jordons in the evening, & endured a long lecture about the air force in the war, & then Mr M. unfolded his Penn pageant scheme & it seems much approved of, but he had to give up the idea soon after because it seemed that all the work was to be left on him. I read some of a life of Penn he had, & it was wonderful the sense he had. He wrote a book maintaining that the heathen & everyone could all be saved by the inner light.
Thursday 3rd. – I think it was this evening Maya & Brenda took me up the lovely path beside the cornfields up the hill opposite – poppies coming out & wild roses. It was late & nearly dark.
Friday 4th. – Mr M. & I cycled to G. Cross & went to London in the morning. I got to
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Trafalgar Square with the help of Tom’s books, & went around the Portrait Gallery, but half of it was shut up, all the modern rooms & the beautiful smiling portrait of Monmouth is clean gone. What I principally went there for. I noticed a very pathetic miserable portrait of Wm III as a child in a long yellow gown, & very attractive ones of Sir Thomas More & Lady Jane Grey, & a horrid one of Cranmer. Nell Gwynn was very nice too. I went down Whitehall then, observing the horseguard sentries, to Westminister Abbey, & then walked out the Strand to Chancery Lane to see Janie Bell. She went with me to a little vegetarian restaurant in Furnival St where we dined, and I made out that they have a glut of relief workers, & if they give you work its
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a favour. The one place vacant was at the maternity hospital at Chalons were [sic] Nora was. I went on then to the geological museum in Jermyn St & saw lovely precious stones there. The best of all was a bright (not dark) purplish blue sapphire. The chalcedonies & aquamarines & beryls were fine too. I got to Marylebone at last, dead tired, & met Mr M. there.
Sunday 6th June. – Nora came back from London to stay – she was in a massage college there & didn’t like it – & told me details, not all pleasant of course, about Charlons. Maya & I took a walk out past the Pheasant & back through the fields. She wasn’t anxious for me to go to Chalons – seemed to think me not strong enough for the work, which very likely is true.
Featured Image: Image of Trafalgar Square from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division, Washington D.C. 20540. USA. under the digital ID pan.6a22725. Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ds-06690 (digital file from original item) LC-USZ62-52806 (b&w film copy neg. of left section) LC-USZ62-52807 (b&w film copy neg. of center section) LC-USZ62-52808 (b&w film copy neg. of right section). http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print