1913

More of my ramblings about Lansdowne Crescent which seem to be more about our family than any other, but of course that is what I know best.

When Frank is the office working up a case he Is always very quiet, and becomes greatly absorbed in what he is doing. He often sits with his pocket-handkerchief in his hand, with one corner between his teeth, quite lost to all that is going on around. On other occasions he comes into the office, where I work too, so deep in thought that he will stand and gaze out of the window apparently looking at all that is passing, but in reality quite absorbed in thought, as his mind (as he would say) Is dwelling on some case he has in hand.

His manner with the clients is all that could be wished for, and he treats everyone with the greatest courtesy and consideration. On many occasions he gives his advice and attention to the case of a poor client quite free, yet at the same time he gives as much consideration to it as if he were going to be paid a bill of costs for his services.

When father wants a case prepared he leaves it to Frank, knowing quite well that when the time comes for him to go into court Frank will place it completely in his hands, every point considered and every reference ready to hand. He sits for hours with his books in front of him making most minute notes, and thus preparing himself, as Potter one of the clerks says, to become a dangerous opponent. He is a man of few words, but when he speaks he speaks to the point. As has been said of him: "He always seems so splendidly strong and such a straight - ahead sort of person who never says too much.”

This last year he has become connected with the Worcester Social Reform League, a Society for the study of social questions founded by Bishop Gore. This Society was at the beginning not very popular in Worcester, as in those days any mention of Social Reform was regarded with suspicion as savouring of Radicalism, which it behoved all who desired to be thought "respectable" to avoid.

Frank cares little for such prejudices, and being interested in all questions connected with social well-being joined the league and being a bright, capable young member, he was soon elected Secretary. When the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children needed a new Secretary last spring the President of the organisation asked Frank to accept the post. As this was practical social work which he could do he consented, and so far has discharged the duties, carefully examining himself all cases reported, and taking a keen interest in promoting the efficiency of the local branch.

All three boys are fond of- games. Frank and Charlie are enthusiastic hockey players; the former plays regularly for the City Club, and Charlie only just missed his blue at Cambridge. In connection with Frank and games one cannot fail to think of the Battenhall Tennis Club, of which for seven years he has been a very popular member and the life and soul thereof. He spends most of his summer evenings there.

Pete is now in his last year at King’s. He is the only one of the brothers to not go away to be educated, but remains in Worcester and living at home. He is just average at school but his real interest is, as is natural at his age, in games. This interest is rather extraordinary, for he plays almost pathetically badly, yet he is as keen as though he were the captain of the team. In the cricket season there was hardly a county match that was not watched by him, and if he were a bit shaky on the order of the Kings of Israel and Judah, what mattered it, for he could tell you that which was of far more vital interest, the averages of all the chief county players. He sauntered home about six o'clock one summer evening, too tall and lanky for his age, drifting along with his shoe laces undone, and a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes. His first remark when he saw me would probably be something of this nature: “You vexing thing, why weren't you with me to watch H.K.(whoever he is) make a century?”

There is, by the way, rather an amusing incident connected with his dreaminess. There lives in the house opposite to us a very aristocratic aristocrat. Peter one day walking home from school with his books tucked under his arm, deep in calculation as to Worcester's chances of being top of the championship list that year, dropped his books one by one at intervals along the road. On reaching home he discovered his loss, and immediately turned round to trace his missing property. He had not gone many yards when he met our honourable friend carrying a bundle of books, which he handed to Peter, saying: “These, I believe, are yours!”

Peter was singularly fortunate in his head master, Rev. William Haighton Chappel, for whom he has the greatest admiration. The same desire to serve humanity that has made Frank so .enthusiastic in the cause of Social Reform makes Peter look forward to the time when, forsaking all, he can bury himself in a London slum as a poor parish priest. It was, however, this desire to take Orders that makes him so urgently desire to go to Oxford, and he began to realise that if his hopes were to be fulfilled he must work, for it was made clear to him that he could not go to college without a scholarship. So with this incentive before him for last year and this year he has worked really hard. It is an effort for him, for he lives rather in the clouds, and his intellectual powers are not fully developed. However, he managed by dint of hard work to gain a school scholarship Easter Term, and in October he proceeded to Keble College, Oxford.

Peter left school, as we nearly all do, with regret. He has never been a popular boy. He is not good enough .at games for that. And he is not a born leader, he has not enough ‘push.’ He is one of the humblest men I know. He has a tremendous admiration for both his brothers, and feels that in comparison with them he is as nothing.

This last summer, being the vacation preceding his going to Oxford Peter was one of a party that formed the famous walking tour in North Devon. ‘The walking tour’ as Janet and Pete call it, as though it were the only one that had ever been, and so from our point of view it was. That fortnight was a red-letter time for all of us-for some of our family it meant an entrance into new and hitherto undreamt-of fields.

They were a merry crew, eight all told, four men and four girls, four of the family (Frank and Pete, Janet and Mary) and four not. (Janet has written this description of the trip.) Wiseacres who had toured before shook their heads sadly and prescribed for mental deficiency when they heard of the size of our party and our proposed route. “You'll never get rooms for eight in Bank Holiday week anywhere in the neighbourhood of Ilfracombe.” This in a hundred different ways was a cheery send-off of would-be friends. We thanked them for their encouraging words, but, undaunted, shouldered our knapsacks and took train for the great unknown.
It was a great experience, a taste of absolute freedom, with never a care in the world. I know not which is the most exhilarating feeling, shouldering one's knapsack the first thing in the morning and getting into one's stride to go forth one knows not whither, or taking it off at night and spending a twilight of well-earned rest in the contemplation of the day's achievements and of to-morrow's possibilities. It was, of course, a bold enterprise. The wiseacres were perfectly right, and by all the laws of supply and demand Mother Earth should have been our resting-place for many a night. And yet they were entirely wrong. Providence beamed upon us all the way, and not once in the whole time did we experience any real difficulty in getting lodgings. Our luck was positively uncanny; time and again we were taken in in houses where rooms were vacant for one night only, between the welcoming the coming and the speeding of the parting guest.

Our route was roughly as follows: Minehead through Porlock to Allerford, Lynton Brendon, Woodabay, Coombe Martin, Ilfracombe, Lee Bay, Mortehoe, Horn's Cross and Clovelly, then by train to Barnstaple, and so across to Appledore, Westward Ho! Bideford back through Brendon and Lynton to Minehead. We attracted a fair amount of attention as we swung along the roads with our weather-beaten faces, and our none too Sunday Clothes, and often as not we speeded the day onwards with a song.

Our staple diet was ham and eggs; Think of it, all ye who read, and meditate thereon in wonder! HAM AND EGGS for a whole fortnight, and, more wonderful still, in such profusion that we tired of them. And bowls of cream at any or every meal. We slept in a variety of places, once in a police station, sometimes at rather close quarters. I remember on one occasion the men folk slept in a room where there was room literally for a large double bed, a wash-stand and nothing further. Three of them slept in the bed, and Peter slept under it, with his head sticking out. Had any of the occupants of the bed got out in a forgetful spirit, then farewell to Peter's beauty.

The little village of Lee, close to Ilfracombe, is connected in our minds with a rather humorous incident. We arrived in the village at 5 p.m., and as usual within ten minutes of our arrival all the village knew that we required sleeping accommodation. Our luck for once seemed out, there appeared no room at all. At last it was suggested that a farm up the hill might take us in. Frank volunteered to visit the said farm, and work on the good feelings of the owners. Away he went in his disreputable cotton khaki coat, without a collar or tie, and with three days' growth on his bronzed face, looking like a veritable tramp. And as such he seemed to impress the farmer's wife, and in that, as it turned out, lay our salvation. For the farmer's wife, being a kindly soul, was filled with pity at the thought of eight poverty-stricken beings left stranded on the road. She had given up letting lodgings for some time, still for once, to oblige perhaps, she knew how difficult it was for the likes of us to get rooms at a reasonable price. Frank thought to help her out by suggesting that possibly there was an inn within reach where we might go. But she, good woman, squashed that idea at once.

‘There is a hotel,’ she added, ‘but not for the likes of you!’ Finally she decided to take us in, but she warned Frank of the standard of behaviour she was accustomed to, and which we might try to live up to. Some of her lodgers had been very high-class; why, one of them once was a bank clerk! So to the farm we went, and were kept in very good order and right royally fed. I think that she felt that we needed a good feed just once in a way. And when we left she thrust a packet of bread and butter into our hands, saying. “You'll be hungry by and by, and then you'd have to buy something.”

The best of times comes to an end, and the better the time the more speedy seems the ending. As the tour drew to a close one by one began to drop out and to return to their various duties, and at last the day came when we too had to step into the train that would take us back to civilisation. But it did not really end there. Everyone voted it the best holiday they had ever spent, and it has lived on in conversation and memory ever since.

In October Peter went to Keble College, Oxford, and has entered into the delights of the undergraduate life. As the first two terms are perforce devoted to Pass Mods., an examination which presents little difficulty and requires very little work or anyone of average intelligence, he was able to give himself over to other pursuits with a clear conscience, and the first term saw him chiefly punting, rowing, and playing tennis by day, and smoking, arguing, and setting the world straight in the true undergraduate fashion till the small hours of the morning. Though he does not seem to have made many close friends, he is in his quiet way is rather popular among the men of his year, and we hear that his sense of humour and his power of racy writing soon gained him the reputation of being “a bit of a wit.”

Other Lansdowne Crescent News:

John Day has been made Headmaster at Stamford School. He is very thrilled and excited with this promotion, but May feels that she will be that much farther away from her family. She of course has her son Tom, who is now 6 and I know she is hoping that she will soon have another child.

George Day has a new job. He was teaching at Bedford School but missed his time in Egypt, and now with a possible war on the horizon he has gone back to the Ministry of Education in Egypt, and will be in the Camel Corps reserve.
Harold and Muriel Day have had another boy whom they call George King. So far they have named all their boys after their Day uncles but they all have King as their middle name, to commemorate Muriel’s family and of course George was her father’s name and John is Harold’s father’s name too. Here I have copied her latest letter.

Christmas 1913