Sunday
Chiswick
Dearest,
This will probably arrive at the same time as the letter I posted yesterday and you should certainly get it on Monday. I’m writing this in the Union Jack Club because the visit to the zoo is off for the moment. We got tickets yesterday for the All-American Star Show at the Palladium so we are going there instead today and will save the zoo for another day.
One very important thing I forgot yesterday was to thank you from Jack and Dot as well as myself, for the pudding and the cake. They were both lovely, although the National Flour puts a completely different taste in the pudding, doesn’t it?
Now I’ll try to get your letters written between the 19th and the 23rd answered, although I think most of the ground has been covered. Before I do so, I’ll be interested to hear if you had any experience of being a few days without a letter. Did you have vapours for Xmas? I hope so in some ways because it will show some regularity, which is generally regarded as a sign of better health, isn’t it?
I was interested in all the news of the children’s anticipation of Xmas and of the visit to Father Xmas. When I hear all those little things, I don’t feel quite so cut off from there. What a funny thing that you should have made the skirt and have mentioned a warm blouse just when I was buying that jumper for you. Does it fit you, and do you like it? Perhaps you, too, will think of me when you put it on.
I don’t think there is anything I can usefully say on the religious question just now except this – that if you have taken Wendy to see a crib, I hope you took her locally and not to one at Mossley Hill. See the drift of my thoughts? If Wendy told Mother that she went to a church there, you know what the immediate reaction would be! And, what’s more, there would be an everlasting suggestion that the children should go to Linacre School on some occasion. I do hope you have thought of that. Yes, I have thought of the possibility that Michael may want to join the Cubs. I thought of it a long time ago, but I have also realised that, taking a leaf from the Nazi and Fascist beliefs, this Tory government is now “directing” children into organisations. That is the most dangerous and reactionary movement that has yet been made and so few people seem to realise it. What price the Young Communist movement now? This question of youth organisations is going to need some careful thought. I do hope I’m home soon for good to help you guide the children’s minds – or rather to help them keep a fairly open mind on so many different subjects.
All of which started with the crib and I would like you to tell me what the children thought of it. I’m sorry for you in this religious cross-fire and I think you’re the one woman in the world to tussle with it so hard and to make such great efforts to be honest with yourself, with me and with the children on this subject. The galling thing is that “professional” Christians if they could hear you – no matter what their particular claim to have the ear of the Master – would probably damn you for blasphemy when few, if any of them, would spend so much time and thought on the relationship of practical Christianity to a child’s mind. The great thing is, I believe, that you have the only possible view. That is the angle from which the children will approach these matters in later life and then I think, as you say, they will bless you for your open mindedness – in which you certainly score over me because as you know I can be so bitter on both religion and politics. Well, well, and this is a Xmas letter! Still, I have written this to show how much I do appreciate the stand you have taken and the honest way you have faced up to a very difficult problem. It’s one of the things which makes me love you so – and makes me proud of you too. I get quite conceited about my wife, you know. A kind of reflected glory I suppose! I don’t think I will ever be unfair enough to blame you if either or both of them did “go religious”, although God knows it would just about break my heart. It is just the sort of thing that would happen to us because we are both tarred with the brush of idealism – and in this world an idealist has a hell of a time. Witness Kinley.
Reading through your letters brings up another point – my card. It’s a wow! And it made a great hit with the lads, as you may imagine.
Sorry Michael was so crude with Vic. Muriel would go home with a full account of that incident! Still, I’m glad Vic did remember the Xmas tree. Was it a nice one? I’m intrigued to know what Wendy has made me, and also to know that we came off well in the exchange of decorations!
The boys had a whale of a time on Xmas Day. Free turkey dinner at the Beaver; free seats for the ballet in the afternoon; and another free turkey dinner and cigarettes at the Queensberry Club in the evening where there was also a tip-top variety show. And they turned down tickets for a morning show and also an invitation to a private home for dinner in the evening! What I missed!
We were at work on Boxing Night but went and had a few beers in one near the Crypt.
And that, I think, is about all I have time for just now, angel. I’m looking forward to tomorrow to see if there’s a letter for me. I do hope so.
Xmas is over now, love, and we are progressing towards January and leave. I won’t settle down now until I have been home and slept(?) with you – the mere thought of which makes me go goosey. Pet, I love you but this is neither the time nor the place to indulge comas. My love to the children. I do hope they enjoyed the holiday.
All my love, angel.
Ever your
Arthur X
Dec 271942