Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931. Walter Hooper

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СКАЧАТЬ Thursday I had a ‘General paper’ including History and Geography, Scripture and English, in which I got on alright but had not time to finish, a rather difficult French paper, and as a finale, Arithmetic and Algebra, which I think I did rather better than I anticipated.

Thus you have a brief schedule of my three days in bed. Not what one would choose for pleasure, but still what might have been worse. And I hear you have written something to our common respected friend on the subject of a scholarship elsewhere, to the effect that I have some objection to going to any other school than Malvern but that you keep an open mind.⁴ Very true. As a natural result I am honoured by the very well meant but rather importunate advice of the said respected friend that I should try for a scholarship elsewhere if I fail here. He is a great man for sticking to his guns; a man of purpose. I foresee that I shall find it very difficult to help taking his advice, which I by no means want to take. The good pedagogue has Uppingham at present in his eye for me. Now of this school I know absolutely nothing, good or bad. For this reason I do not like the idea of it–it is a leap in the dark. Of course for that matter Cherbourg, which has proved a success, was also a leap in the dark to a certain extent. But don’t write anything of this to the good pedagogue. I have so far looked with ostensible favour on Uppingham when talking with him of the matter, as, having been ill and working hard on scant food for some days, I do not really feel disposed yet to enter into a controversy which I know will prove sharp. I suppose by going in for an Uppingham scholarship I do not bind myself to go to that school.

      I cannot help wanting to go to the Coll. For one thing for two years now–and two years recollect are quite a long time at the age of fourteen–I have been expecting to go to Malvern, not indeed with any great fervour, for I am happy here, but with as much pleasure as I look on any public school, and it has become rather a rooted idea. Then again, I know a good deal more of Malvern than I do of any where else, and it is in a sense familiar already. As well, I shall still be at the town of Malvern, and since I must needs spend the greater part of the year in England I had sooner do it here than anywhere else.

I am very glad indeed that Warnie has at last decided definitely on some career, as I know this will lift a great weight from your mind. I confess that I don’t know why you speak–as you have always spoken–so disparagingly of the Army Service Corps. It cannot be, can it, that you really liked the idea of putting W.⁵ into the L.N.W.R.? I admit that there are great and lucrative posts to be gained in this company; greater than in the Army Service Corps. But the depths of drudgery for the less successful are also greater. In the A.S.C., W., it is true, may not follow a great career, but, what is far more important, he will be always doing congenial work and mixing with other gentlemen; not with every railway clerk who may wear loud spats and button the last button of his waistcoat.⁶

      I have got up today for a short time (Saturday), and am feeling almost all right. Hoping that your boils are better, and you are otherwise in good health, I am

      your loving son,

      Jack

       TO HIS BROTHER (LP IV: 49-50):

      Cherbourg.

      Gt. Malvern.

      [1? July 1913]

      Dear old W.,

I have just heard from home the following statement, ‘I suppose you know that I am in further and worse trouble about Warnie’.⁷ What has happened? You haven’t been sacked have you? Whatever it is, I should be the last person to tell you that the plate is hot after you had burned your fingers, so we will look on the bright side as much as possible. After all we have always been justly famed for extracting the maximum of pleasure from the most depressing circumstances: let us live up to it.

I am afraid P. will be in a very cheerless mood for the hols. If we cannot have mental enjoyment from the atmosphere of Leeborough⁸ we can always fall back on our own resources and make the most of the physical comfort which, at their worst, the holidays always afford. Rows after tea and penitentiary strolls in the garden are not pleasant: but a soft bed, a nice Abdullah, a lazy walk with Tim, an occasional Hippodrome or Opera House, have their consolation and a sound gramophone can always refresh the jaded ear. But even now, in a rather dark hour, I do not dispair of P’s cheering up a bit for the hols; for, as good luck would have it, my scholarship has brightened things.

      Please write soon (how often have I made that request and received no answer to it), and tell me exactly what has happened, and also tell me your arrangements for the journey home. We break up on Tuesday 29th July, and you as I understand, the following Wednesday. So I suppose we shall go on the Tuesday. Do write immediately and tell me about this matter. Don’t spend all your journey money. Cheer up.

      your affect.

      brother Jack.

      

      P.S. Send a cab up for me first, and then down to S.H., and let it be in plenty of time. J.

      In a letter to his father of 12 December 1912, Warnie told his father that, while he knew smoking was against the rules at Malvern College, he would like his permission to smoke ‘in moderation elsewhere (LP III: 317). Mr Lewis replied on 14 December, ‘School smoking I condemn unreservedly…But outside that–at dinners etc., where it would make you odd or uncomfortable not to smoke a cigarette– smoke it and smoke it with a clear conscience, knowing that you would not be ashamed to tell your father what you had done. But in school it is different’ (LP III: 318). No trouble seems to have come of this and Warnie was made a prefect on 9 March 1913. About this time he decided on a career in the army and, careless of College rules, he was involved in several escapades. In June 1913 he was degraded from the prefect-ship after being caught smoking at school. Warnie had hoped to remain at Malvern until Christmas 1913 so that he could be there for Jack’s first term, but while the headmaster, Canon S.R. James, was willing to reinstate him in his position as a prefect in July 1913 he would not allow him to remain another term. It was Warnie’s wish at this time to enter the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and pass from there into the Army Service Corps (ASC). For this Warnie would need to pass the entrance examination to Sandhurst and his father began considering how he might prepare for this.

       TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 44-5):

      Cherbourg.

      6/6/13 [6 July 1913]

      My dear Papy,

      I have been extremely worried since I got your last letter. No: I do not know what has happened to W. I have had no news either of him or from him since the day when I heard that he had been degraded. What has happened? Surely he has not been expelled? I often had fears as to what he might do at Malvern, but I never thought it would come to this. It is of no use my writing to him for information, as he seems to consider the answering of letters a superfluous occupation. Of course I know that all this is worse for you than for me, but it is very unpleasant for both of us: what has he himself got to say upon the matter? However, please let me know as soon as you can what the exact position of affairs is: in the meantime I can only hope that my fears have no foundation; for after all, the great majority of the troubles which I have at one time or another anticipated, have never come to pass. But after all, the process of self consolation, if it were not such a terrible business, would be almost funny. We are ready to turn and twist the facts until they bear no resemblance to the original thing. Perhaps one could СКАЧАТЬ