W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)

49 Lowndes Square, London S.W.1.

13th January 1943

Dear Viola,

I cannot tell you how much we have appreciated your
wonderful parcel that reached us just before Christmas or how
much we have talked about you whilst eating it. You do
choose the nicest things and of course, always things whose
taste we have forgotten for ages. It is so kind of you, and
particularly to include me in your parcels. Thank you ever
so much for it. And now to-day I have your letter of
December 14th.

I'm sorry that lately I have not been a good
correspondent but it has not been entirely my fault. First
of all, we had to move our office, to another room in the same
building, but it was moving all the same, checking over files
and ledgers, trying to get things like the telephone shifted.
Then both Hilda and I got bad colds, we were out with them for
about a week and when we recovered, Perdita got a really bad
attack of flu with high temperature etc so things really have
been upset. Perdita is living with the girls who work at
her same office but it meant we had to go round each day, some-
times twice, to look after her or shop for her, whilst the others
were at work. Fortunately she is now over it, getting sick
leave and going off for a few days to the country.

We can still get aspirin but such a thing as a lemon
hasn't been seen here for nearly three years. A few oranges
arrive occasionally but are kept for children under five or
sent to hospitals. A doctor friend gave us a very small
quantity of medical lemon juice, such as they used to use on
ships, nearly three years ago and we keep this for emergencies.
Actually we were both lucky last summer as we were with friends
in the country who grew some soft fruit but lots of townspeople
have scarcely seen fruit since 1940 except for a few apples or
plums. Sometimes canned fruit is released on " points " but
as person each person only gets twenty points a month, and they
are usually priced at twelve or sixteen points, it is not a very
good buy as you spend all your month's ration on one tin. We
have to give points for rice, tapioca, crackers, tinned meat, tinned
fish, breakfast cereals, syrup, our equivalent of your molasses,
and lots of other things. You have to be awfully careful
as once you have given your points up, there's no more till the
next month.

How we laughed over the story of your cat. Were

you able to make him, or her, realise that America was at war
and persuade it to eat something else than its favorite delicacy?

Yes, I agree with you nothing is worse than the adulteration
of food. When I lived in Switzerland I grew practically all the
fruit and vegetables we wanted in our own garden, we got milk,
butter and cheese from an adjoining farm and we took sunbaths
at least eight months out of the twelve. I think one misses
the sunbaths most of all.

So glad that you liked my Christmas card. The bulldog was
drawn by George Plank, he came from Pennsylvania and has done
ever so many illustrations for books. He settled in England
years ago and fought his way into the Home Guard when it started,
and now though well over military age has given up far too much
drawing for soldiering. I had lunch with him to-day, for he
comes up very occasionally for the day to collect work and so
on. I like his line so much. He does most beautiful book
plates and drawings.

Of course you must be worried about your son. Still, I
always felt safer in the air than on a road and I'm sure from
the photographs you sent me he must be a very good pilot. He
looks as if you could depend upon him in any crisis. How is
your daughter getting on, the one that wants to sing? I believe
it is very difficult to get started in that profession.

Can't think of anything particularly amusing to tell you
about. Mostly people seem to have been having colds. People
were more cheerful this Christmas time but it was a very "austere"
one. No extra rations and the shelves of the shops were quite
empty.

I hope that you don't get too bothered with rationing your
side, it is depressing to think that you have it at all. I believe
it does something to the mind - certainly all the red tape
regulations are infuriating.

All thanks again and love from us both, and
we hope so much that 1943 will be happy
and prosperous for you all,

FLAT 10.
49 LOWNDES SQUARE.
LONDON, S.W. 1.

27th January 1943

Dear Viola,

Your letter of December 24th reached us yesterday and were we glad to get it! As Hilda says, you do give such a picture in your letters of life as it goes on, and not, as some people do, a lot of moralising about the war.

If one were back on the diet of the Simple Life it would be all right, when I lived in Switzerland we almost lived on the vegetables we grew, and fresh milk, butter and cheese from the farm next door. Alas, it is just these things we are cut off from and we get mostly dried foods or tinned stuff (I ought I believe to say canned, you say canned and we here say tinned). All right in bulk but it does not make for energy. We have been lucky as friends not far away have a garden and give us vegetables occasionally but mostly what one buys is old stuff and not a bit exciting.

One thing we have been spared to date, and that is the snow you describe as having over Christmas. Snow is lovely in the country but it would be awful here this winter with fuel being more or less short.

We loved hearing about your tree. We had a tiny one too, but if we hadn't had things saved from the time when Perdita was an infant, to string on it, it would have been bare for there were no ornaments to be bought.

Yes, I love autobiography and travel books too - I have just read an interesting book called A Year

and a Day by a Belgian doctor who escaped to England
after the fall of Brussels, it took him the time of
the title for he had to go to Sweden and thence
through Russia and India to England ! I wonder
if it will come out your side? Another quite
interesting book was Escape to Danger by a French
officer who got here via Africa in 1940. I always
say that I'd rather read the worst autobiography than
the best novel !

Yes, we do understand that you must feel anxious
about your son, but I'm sure from his photograph that
he must be a very good pilot. And perhaps this
terrible war won't last so much longer? We were
all so excited this morning to read of the meeting
between Roosevelt and Churchill in North Africa.

Do write us when you have a moment, and
let us know how you are. Perdita has been pretty
ill with flu but they gave her three weeks sick leave
so she has gone to friends in the country. We had
it awfully noisy again last week - so boring. We
have now gone back to sleeping with suitcases and
coats beside us again. I can only feel how stupid
it all is.

Our love and greetings,

14th February 1943

Dear Viola,

How clever of you, we got our belts for a Valentine ! I
love mine, the color and the wonderful buckle, we do not get buckles
here any more and it fits me beautifully. How do you make them !
They are so firm and beautifully finished that I should never have
thought you could crochet them. Everyone is most impressed.

They have advertisments now asking us to write to States
sparingly but if one cannot keep in touch with one 's friends by
letter, then indeed all hope goes. Already I am cut off from
my friends of the last twenty years, in Switzerland, some are Swiss
but many are elderly English, and I have heard nothing since November
except for some Christmas cables of all well best wishes variety.

I am amazed at Hilda - how she works, in spite of raids,
austerity and general gloom. I cannot do creative work myself in
these days, only routine.

A friend of mine who lives an hour from London had her
two children machine gunned the other day. They are six and nine
and were just leaving school. Fortunately they were not hurt.
But it is alarming for the mothers, even if the children, as in this
case, regarded it as an adventure.

I haven't much news, I fear...I felt very angry yesterday
as I got up particularly early to try to get a cake, occasionally there
are a few available at the weekend, it is more a kind of bread than
a cake. I waited and waited in the queue, and when it came to my
turn, the last one was whisked from under my nose and I was told it
was already sold. This made me so angry, for I'll take my turn with
anyone but see no reason why if one waits in the queue, one's share
should go to somebody else.

These things happen though and I expect now you are having
the same experiences on your side as well.

Ever so many thanks once more for your many kindnesses
and I hope that you are not having too difficult a time,

Much love,

W. Macpherson ( English )

10th April 1943

Dear Viola,

The most wonderful and entrancing and exciting parcel
came yesterday afternoon together with your letter of March 2nd.
Neither Hilda nor I know words to thank you for it does make such
a difference to have something to eat occasionally with a quite
different flavor to things here. We are keeping the parcel till
Easter and shall think of you then. Thank you ever so much.

I had a very amusing time this afternoon. I went to
see some friends in another part of London and it is Sunday and
the subway was very crowded with Americans on leave. One poor
boy was being very miserable and saying he never thought he would
want to see California so much and the other soldiers were asking
him why he was so homesick, wasn't he with a good unit and so on.
Did he miss his parents etc. No, he said, he'd been around a bit,
and it wasn't home he minded and he wasn't married and he hadn't a
family, no, none of them this mattered but what he missed was his
truck. Truck, the others asked, incredulously? Yes, he said,
nobody had had a truck like his truck. So then they told him even
if he were back home he wouldn't have been able to get gasoline for
it. But he got out of the train very mournfully all the same, amid
shouts of laughter. I must say I can imagine being homesick for
a lot of things but it had never occurred to me one would be homesick
for a truck !

I think your cat must be most amusing. A friend has
just offered Hilda a kitten but we are really afraid to take it here,
in a small apartment, and with all the difficulties of feeding it in
war time.

We haven't had your friend's book of poems yet but a
charming letter arrived from her and Hilda is answering it as soon
as she can. Poor Hilda is feeling very alarmed at the moment as
she had to read next week at a big Reading arranged for the French
in Great Britain, a number of poets reading from their own work. I
should think that it would be very frightening. But all the tickets
have been sold out for days and I imagine the hall will be packed.
Most of the poets have never been willing to read previously and would
not now, but it is supposed to be helpful over the war effort.

It is lovely having the extra hour of daylight and having
supper before black out time. I hope your daughter likes her job.
And how brave of you to make a pantry yourself. It sounds formidable
and do let me know how you get on. I'd never be brave enough to try
a job as big as that.

I'm afraid you haven't received some of our letters. Hilda
and I adored our belts, Hilda wears hers all the time but I'm keeping

W. Macpherson (English)

27th April 1943

Dear Viola,

Your letter of March 13th reached me a few days ago. I was delighted to hear all your news but I do hope that your neuralgia is over, it is such a terrible thing, Hilda has been having it, just over the Easter weekend when her dentist was away. She is now just back from seeing him, so feels better.

We are, of course, only just coming back to normal. There was a tremendous occasion, the chief poets in England were asked to read from their own work for the benefit of the French in Great Britain fund. They chose only those who had begun their work during or before the last war, as it would not have been fair to have the younger people as so many would have been away with the forces. There was the Poet Laureate, Masefield, and to represent the Anglo-American side, Hilda and Eliot. I loved the poem Hilda read and the way she read it, so simply and beautifully and she looked so lovely. The poets read alphabetically so she was third, after Blunden and an enchanting old gentleman called Gordon Bottomley. What, however, made it extremely exciting was that the Queen and the two Princesses were present and during the interval she spoke to the poets. We knew of course a few days beforehand (enough time for Hilda to practise her curtsey) but for security reasons we were not allowed to speak of it. Hilda liked the younger Princess so much, says she was such a shy but attractive little girl. And as for the audience, it would be much easier to say who was not there than who was, they could have sold the hall out three times and people literally besieged me with the hope (quite vain) that I might have a spare ticket. Our other friends, Edith and Osbert Sitwell both read beautifully. Osbert Sitwell had done most of the organisation. The editor of the Times Literary Supplement was chairman and took Hilda's poem for his paper.

Fortunately Hilda had been a miser about coupons so she was able to have a new black dress for the occasion. She sat near Eliot who read part of his Waste Land.

I was very interested in what you wrote of boneset in your letter, I had heard of it but never used it. But the Swiss use herbs a great deal and had some wonderful teas that I miss a lot. But I am no use in a kitchen. I can clean and scrub and that is my share of the family work but I am hopeless when it comes to the stove !

Miss Barnard's book has just arrived and we see so glad to have it and are now reading it. I think her poems are most interesting but will comment in detail when I have had time really to study them.

Again many thanks for your letter,

W. Macpherson (English).

29th May 1943

Dear Viola,

I was delighted to get your gay Easter card about three days ago. Very appropriate as our hens have just had some small chicks. They are living in our maid's back yard and I think she is most clever to have kept them alive.

Nothing much has happened recently. We were obliged to move the office again but now hope to have found a permanent place, two minutes away from where we were. All repaired and in order, at least we hope. There is a very good production on of Congreve's Love for Love, done very correctly with regard to the period. Mr Herring took Hilda and myself to it and we enjoyed it very much, particularly as we hadn't been out in the evening since last September.

The stores grow emptier and emptier. And lack of the right foods anyhow make people so bad tempered. Cakes have now disappeared. Not that we ever got cakes as you know them, but we used to get some bread with a few raisins or a form of scone but no, now everything has gone unless one is extraordinarily lucky. We are to have no summer fruit at all as the government is taking it all over for jam.

Most people have given up stockings, I never wore them in Switzerland in the summer but it is so dirty somehow in London. I had a great time getting the new ration books as I feared, I had to wait thirty five minutes but went the first day in pouring rain which kept people off a bit. A friend who went the next day had to wait nearly two hours. And one cant count this as part of one's working time, one has to do it extra. I am not surprised that everyone is getting terribly bad tempered.

I don't know if I am to go and help on the farm this year or not, my friends want me to go but it is such a difficult journey. I saw a cousin this week for the first time for three years because she was evacuated with the people for whom she works and this is the first time she has had long enough leave to come to London, for ages.

I expect everything is very difficult with you now, from what we read in the papers. I hope you have plenty of news from your son and that all is well with him. We saw an American friend the other day who has arrived here and it was such a wonderful feeling to get direct news at last of friends on your side.

With all love and good wishes,

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)

5th July 1943

Dear Viola,

No, I haven't been good about writing lately but we changed our office and then there was the question of holidays and then waiting around sometimes hours, out of office time, for the bell or the phone or the lights to be fixed. One daren't leave if the people come as if one did and they went away it might be weeks before one's turn were reached again.

Two American friends of mine have turned up quite recently, one I have seen, the other hasn't arrived yet to see us but has phoned with us. We'll certainly look for your friend if he comes. Yes, I can imagine it must have been a strange experience for your son and I would say, pretty alarming, to go through that cyclone in the air. I was being flown once before the war near mountains and we went " past " a rainbow. It was one of the oddest experiences I ever had. Seemed impossible. We were trying to get away from a storm and had to circle round the landing ground quite a while before we could land.

I'm glad you still like the magazine. Apparently quite a lot of the toughest soldiers like and read it, I hear from a friend who lectures in lots of the camps. But it is very hard to keep going with all the rules and difficulties.

That new paint you have been using sounds fun. Of course here you cant get any paint at all, unless your place has been blitzed and you fill up innumerable forms or unless you can prove the outside is falling to pieces. Then you get only a standard utility paint in a range of about three colors. I can't think they had to choose such ugly ones. We were allowed to have the office distempered as it had just been repaired from the blitz but all the paint we could get was a most horrible chocolate color. More than austere.

Willow herb is springing up everywhere in the open spaces and it seems odd, right in the middle of London but it is very picturesque. I am rather hoping to be able to get to the farm in August and to see the donkey again but it is all very uncertain. Any train trip is a nightmare. Did I tell you I saw a cross mama slap her small howling boy the other day saying, " stop that noise, you've got people thinking it's the siren. " I thought that really was a lovely comment on the war.

Do hope that you all are having a pleasant summer,

It is always so gay to hear from you,

With love and greetings,

W. Macpherson, English.

26th July 1943

Dear Viola,

So very many thanks for your letter of June 16th and for
that wonderful parcel you sent to Hilda in which I have shared, we had
some friends in last night and as a great and special treat, one of the
puddings. We all thought of you and with much gratitude. Such a
different flavor from anything we get here.

And thank you so much too for the chive seed. I was
nervous of trying it in our box as somehow, not being able to change
the soil, the plants die now, but I divided it between three friends
who live on the outskirts of London and have gardens on the strict
understanding that I had half of whatever was their harvest. So we
ought to be well and plentifully supplied.

Your little friend Mr Henry arrived but we were so sorry
for he came one evening at seven, quite unexpectedly and we had agreed
to go out with Perdita to meet a friend of hers from her office, where
they are not allowed to phone. We brought him x_i_ in of course and
offered him a drink and cigarettes but just that evening we could not
get out of going out as it had been arranged so long before but we thought
he was so nice and friendly and we have begged him to let us know ahead next
time he has leave, so that we can take him out to dinner and a theatre.
I think he felt a bit lonely here and was saying there seemed to be no
home life, but of course so many homes here are absolutely broken up by
the war, you see, with us, as I was explaining to him, all the girls are
called up and if they are unmarried they are regarded as " mobile " which
means they can be sent anywhere the Government directs. So in most
cases both sons and daughters are away.

I am rather hoping to go to my friend on the farm, as
she needs help badly now with the harvest coming along. But the journey
will be frightful and sometimes I think I can't face. You can only take
what you can carry, not so bad about clothes, but one has to take towels
now, one's soap and cleaning things, and one's food, as far as dry groceries
are concerned, for the whole time.

I had to stand over an hour in the queue yesterday just
to re-register with my new ration book and it seems an awful waste of time.

Of course if your son arrives we shall do everything
possible for him. But for your sake I hope he doesn't have to come.
Nothing much seems to have happened recently at all amusing but we are
all cheerful over the Sicilian news.

Ever so many thanks again and much love and greetings,

W. Macpherson, English

3rd August 1943

Dear Viola,

You spoil us completely, and I was more than surprised
to come back two days ago from the office to find another wonderful
parcel with just those things we see no longer here and that taste
so good to us. I was firm. I am one of what are known here
popularly as " squirrels " and I put the puddings away for the winter.
I am quite enchanted with the little apron and Miss Butler will be
so delighted with her cards, it was so kind of you, thank you so much.

Hilda and I are separating, for the first time for almost
a year ! No, we haven't quarrelled but I am going off tomorrow to
help my friend on the farm, it is harvest time and they are so short
of help. Hilda feels she can't face the journey and so she is going
off to friends in Kent, just an hour out of London. I have to travel
fifteen hours. I am going at night, it should be cooler and with luck
as it is market day when I arrive, I'll get a lift in to the farm.

I shall write you from there and tell you how our darling
Matilda is, she is the donkey. Without her, it means carrying all
parcels three miles, but she draws a trap. I daren't drive her as
she takes no notice of me at all but my friend can do anything with her.

It seems such an undertaking after so long here, to go off
anywhere. Mr Henry hasn't turned up again, but our friend from your
side, sees a lot of us.

We hope both to be back here by September so write here
please, letters will be carefully forwarded as we have such a pleasant
superintendant and warden for these apartments and he is most careful
with letters.

Excuse a rather brief letter but I am packing as I have
to take my case to the station ahead of time,

With so many thanks and much love,

W. Macpherson, English.

as from 49 Lowndes Square, London N.W.1.

20th August 1943

Dear Viola,

Many thanks for yours of the 17th July. I am
actually at St Keverne, Cornwall, but will be back in London
now in a short while. Hilda is staying with friends in
Kent. We are both trying to be helpful, Hilda is picking
fruit part of each day, I am collecting rabbit food and
running errands while my friends cope with harvest. I
had a perfect awful journey here. I had to change and
thought I'd never get on the train but two soldiers lugged
me aboard, shouting " half time, pass along the oranges."
( Football slang ). However I got here. Our
donkey, Matilda, is as adorable as ever and very fat now.
Though we work her a lot bringing in vegetables from the
fields. Yesterday a duck hatched under the dining
room window and we have six ducklings now on what used to
the lawn. They are most attractive, black and canary
yellow. But weather has not been too good.

I am so awfully sorry for you that your son has
gone off on foreign service. I do know so well how
anxious you must feel about him. So many of my friends
or relations have sons away. And daughters too. They
dont go into the front line, it is true, but raids respect
nobody and they are often in dangerous districts.

I was very interested in your account of the
old English lady and the fossils. Here the mantlepiece
is carved from a block of fossil fish and we have quite
fun sometimes trying to identify them. It is three miles
to the village but a bit shorter on foot, through the fields.
I was very interested in your " celtuce " and it must be
fun tasting the new vegetables. I never used to eat cake
before the war but war meals alter things so. Here we
are awfully lucky, as we have some lovely raspberries and
other berries, enough for us to have a few most days but
not enough to sell. In London and the big towns many
people only see fruit now about once in a whole season.
Except sometimes apples and then mainly cooking ones.

I am trying to get the border by the house free
of weeds - nobody has time to do anything in the garden and
it will be a great triumph if I am able to manage this before
I go back to London.

I sent on your letter to Hilda, I always feel
I can see just what you are all doing, when I hear from you.
We saw the eclipse of the moon the other night, very strange
in this spot, so far from everywhere and so still. And
we have a woodpecker we see as a rule about once a day, they
fly so pompously, like an official, I always think.

on top of all this, have to register with the grandmothers to-morrow.
I am in what is known as a reserved job so do not expect to be moved,
but I think anyhow it is idiotic to take woman of fifty into factories.
They just get sick. It is not the work so much as the queues for the
busses and the awful job of getting food and trying to keep one's room
reasonably clean. Now they are asking us to cut out baths except
once a week and have no fires. I cant help feeling that if they had
some women in executive positions, our transport and our rationing would
be better.

We have been wakened up by alerts and bombs six nights in
succession - it is not like the 1940 blitz but most unpleasant all the
same. I hate the smell so much of blitzed houses, it is quite unmistak-
able and hangs about for days.

All greetings and good wishes,