1939
Early 19392
[110 Frognal,
Hampstead,
London NW3]3
Thursday
Dear Father,
Thank-you for the lovely toy theatre, we have played with it from early morn till sunset.
[…]
Miss Fuller a very kind and good-mannered misstress is leaving at the end of term. I gave 2s of my own money, towards her present (Ander said every single “persman” in the school likes her, quite true too,) Ander did too.4
I go to a garden party to help “poor Spain” on Saturday.
Ander wants a pistol you shoot little films out of, you get them from Selfridges if this is not too spoily. love
Tom
1. Herbert Gunn (1903–62), TG’s father. See Glossary of Names.
2. Approximate date based on the separation of TG’s parents in November 1938, and the reference to the Spanish Civil War: Franco declared victory on 1 April 1939 as the last significant Republican forces surrendered.
3. The letter is written on headed paper with the family’s former address (4 Daylesford Road, Cheadle, Cheshire) crossed out in black ink. The Gunns moved to Hampstead in 1938.
4. Ander Gunn (1932– ), TG’s brother. See Glossary of Names.
1945
Saturday 10 February 1945
110 Frognal,
N.W.3
10 / 2 / 45
My dearest aunty Mary,
I’m so sorry I’ve not written for so long; thankyou for your sweet letter and the pound, which you ought not to have given us, as the clothes were free.
So glad you liked The Mummer’s Wife,2 have you read the [Tobias] Smollett books? Besides Vanity Fair, I’ve been reading dear Hazlitt and a lovely book, very scholarly but easy to read, that Hilde gave to mother,3 about the French Revolution.
Father just came today. He said he might not be able to send me to a university because he wouldn’t be able to afford it. I think this is nonsense, but he seems weak on the subject, and liable to have his mind changed quite easily. If he needs any argument, I could tell him that Hilde once promised to pay for me, but I don’t think it will come to that.
The baby was born through a Cesarian operation – it is tiny and ordinary. It has been called (of all things) DAVID JAMIE ANDREW!!4 […] Father was terribly pressing and resentful and wounded when we couldn’t come, so last week John said he thought we ought to go, so we did! and spent a dull 2 hours there. We saw a dreadful nurse, who told us “that the English always have been honest and always will be honest till the end of time” in a very firm voice. I thought it best not to answer this, but afterwards wished I had mentioned the Congress at Vienna and various other proofs of our hypocrisy!
We have managed to get 15/- each from father so far which is quite good, and I think he’s going to be quite regular about pocket-money in future. He now has an account at John Barnes; and I bought a lovely sports-coat of Harris Tweed and various other necessary articles of clothing. The sports-coat cost £5 or something, which Margot said didn’t seem bad. Father said it was shocking, but I think it’s just his meanness. I’m going to the theater on the 24th with Holgate; so then I’ll try and get tickets for Uncle Vanya.5 I’m sorry I’ve not tried before, which was very selfish and lazy, but I think it would have been very full up whatever. Would just any Saturday matinée do?
Margot cooks very well, and John is quite nice (of course Margot is) but I have a slight suspicion he doesn’t approve of pacifism.6 We are very happy, though once I woke up in the morning feeling quite prepared to follow Mother to the grave!7 Margot has been reading “Emma”; she has awful pains in her jaw, and catarrh, and so have I (the latter). Ander has a dreadful craving for a dog!! but I and Margot are very firm about refusing to let him have one, which father (sweet man) has counteracted, by saying to him that he has his complete permission to buy one. He says: Thankyou for the comic; and he has been clearing out the shed; and thankyou for the money. He’s being quite sweet, and is not very bad-tempered.
I went to see Michael Wishart’s show of paintings, which were rather disappointing, not being at all like his usual good style, and all being copies of Picasso and other people. Still, he’s still nice.8
I would very much like to come down during the week’s holiday, but am afraid neither of us will. Because I’ve got exams. (not School Certificate but “Mock Matric.” which is a practice) during the week, and I don’t think Ander wants to. I’m very sorry; but the term is very short, and we’ll be able to come during the holidays. Give Jenny and Catherine my kisses and show Jenny the portrait of herself on the other side of this page.9
Your loving nephew
Tom
x x x x o o o
1. Mary Thomson (1907–2001), the fifth of TG’s six aunts. See Glossary of Names.
2. George Moore, A Mummer’s Wife (1885).
3. Hilde Marchant (1916–70), journalist, most notably for the Daily Express, and the author of Women and Children Last: A Woman Reporter’s Account of the Battle of Britain (1941). Marchant and HG were lovers during 1938–41 while HG was an assistant editor of the Express; Marchant and CT remained friends.
4. David Jamie Andrew Gunn (1945– ), HG’s eldest son from his second marriage, to the Daily Mail reporter Olive Melville Brown (1912–90).
5. Michael Holgate, friend of TG’s from University College School; Laurence Olivier starred in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at the New Theatre, London (1944–5).
6. Margot Corbett, née Adams (1922– ), TG’s cousin, daughter of TG’s Aunt Margaret (known as Peg); John is Margot’s husband.
7. Ann Charlotte Gunn (1903–44), TG’s mother. See Glossary of Names. She died by suicide in the early hours of 29 December 1944. See TG’s diary entry on the day of his mother’s death (SP 270–2).
8. Michael Wishart (1928–96), British painter and TG’s friend from Bedales. Wishart reflected on their friendship in his memoir High Diver (1977), ‘Mindless fellows … mistook Thom’s delicacy of form and thought for weakness, which developed his toughness.’
9. Jenny Fremlin, née Thomson (1941– ), TG’s cousin, daughter of Catherine Thomson. On the reverse TG has drawn a Picasso-style portrait of Jenny.
Friday 11 May 1945
110 Frognal,
Hampstead,
N.W.3
11 / 5 / 45
Dear Aunts M & C,
Holgate had told me his Aunt had met someone at a wedding who had seen me on the milk-round; I was going to ask you about it – isn’t it funny? Eric is Holgate’s father.
I’m afraid your purse was never found – what a pity! – I suppose someone took a fancy to it and kept it. Also, I have been twice (on a Sat. morning, & afternoon) to the little shop in L. Square, but each time it was closed – God knows when they do their business!
Could Mary please send those [ration] coupons she is keeping for us; at last there is need of them.
Last Sunday I went to the Holgates for John’s birthday party: There was a lovely cake, and on the top of it, between each candle, there was a little red flag (like those that are stuck in war-maps). The grandmother & aunt (Peggy) who came, are both very anti-Communist, and so were rather cross. All the same, they are rather nice.
I made two lovely red flags, dying two parts of a shirt all red, with my fingers looking as though they were dipped in blood! then, after they were dry, I ironed them out and painted hammers and sickels on them as you saw in Snodland. They were very nice, but not such a bright red as could be wished. I had to rush the last part rather, as Father had told me the war would be over on Monday, so I got up an hour early. Father made us come to him that evening to have a “celebration supper” at some grand place, but as VE day wasn’t till Tuesday, we had a Florence-cooked supper. Father wanted us to come the next day as well, but we refused to.
The next day I went out with Holgate in the afternoon. We went to Piccadilly and then walked up with immense crowds to Buckingham Palace. It was just 3 o’clock, and we heard Churchill’s speech (which we thought we were going to avoid) through loud speakers. After that, some people, who covered the whole of the Victoria Memorial, which graces (??) the front of the palace, shouted out “We want the King! We want the King! 1—2—3—4—G—E—O—R—GE—George! We want the King!” and so on. In the end, their graceless majesties appeared with their daughters dressed in khaki & blue, gave their regal cross between a wave & salute, & disappeared after a time. However stupid they are, it was fun seeing them; and it’s nice to say I’ve seen the King & Queen on VE day, and the crowds were most impressive, as they were all over the rest of London. Great gangs of people marched up the Mall with flags and so on; people were drunk, and plump old men dressed in morning dress, and women dressed like dowager duchesses, fell drunk onto the road. A lot of people fainted, but as there were Red Cross and St. John men every few yards with flasks and bottles at their belts, they were always brought round quickly. Several girls were kissed by force, but they only laughed. I had a rattle (tiny in comparison with some people’s, which sounded like pneumatic drills), and bought a paper hat (1/6,2 everything was a horrible price; I should think the street-sellers made about 3 times as much on every article as it really was worth, but people didn’t mind paying) – oh yes – a paper hat, and on it was written “SQUEEZE me tight,” and a red, white & PURPLE (like Jenny’s flag) rosette.
After Buckingham Palace, we walked down to Trafalgar Square, where we went up the steps of Nelson & looked down to Whitehall, which was so crowded, even more than where we’d been, that it didn’t look as though you could move a step, if you were in the middle of it, but probably we looked like that, too. Then we heard, above our heads, the bells of St Martin-in-the-Fields, which were very sweet and clear (some bells had started at the end of Churchill’s speech) and we went into the church itself and almost got caught for a service! From there we went to Leicester Square, and so you see we quite made the Victory Tour, and probably a much nicer one than the King & Queen are now making! It was really very exciting, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything –
But the evening was even more exciting: there were one or two little bonfires on the Heath, and Mrs (Lady) Pearce gave Ander some fireworks from before the war, which were very successful. We went twice on the roundabout, whizzing around happily at ten o’clock at night, in the bright lights surrounded by dark. Then we went up and saw all the flood-lighting, and saw quite far off in a place covered with grass, with a few trees, and surrounded by an ugly little fence, an enormous bonfire. People were very destructively & madly pulling down the ugly little fence and putting it onto the bonfire, so all of us (the Holgates, Butterfields) set to work also with 10 other U.C.S. boys, some soldiers & other people, to help destructively & madly pull down the ugly little fence too! There were lovely green phosphorous fireworks and guns & rockets and searchlights and beautiful things that exploded in the air and came down in bright ashes like shining grain; and all the time everybody was pulling up the fence (there was about 200 yards of it, all round) and every time we brought some more along and chucked it onto the huge bonfire, people cheered. There was an enormous ring of people, and we all danced and sang around the fire till past one. I was so tired. But Ander didn’t come home until about 2. But then, he’d not been all round London that afternoon. They went on dancing & singing round it till dawn. I went the next day to see the destruction but there was amazingly little, only all the fencing gone, and a black ring of ashes out of which dejected-looking keepers picked the metal and unburnable stuff. It was very merry.
We have chopped down the holly-tree, we are going to grow grass over the place where it was, and in the autumn plant a laburnum.
[…]
We are getting regular pocket-money at last. Father was very nice about it when I asked him, so we now get 10/- a fortnight each (though the Holgates get more than twice as much. Still, I suppose we don’t really need more). Margot, of course, says she didn’t have any when she was young. She also says it as though it was a great virtue. But of course, all reactionaries do. She is, as usual, despondant, sulky, and generally miserable. She talks, as a rule, to no-one, till John comes home, but the cat. I admit this kind of wimsicality is very amusing in Lewis Carrol, but when the Alice is 22 years old, and it goes on almost every day, it is not really so strikingly opposite to dull.
Your nephew,
Tom.
P.S. Sorry in pencil. Hope you can read it.
1. Catherine Thomson (1909–2012), TG’s youngest aunt. See Glossary of Names.
2. In pre-decimal coinage, one shilling and sixpence, equivalent to 7.5 p.
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