27 June 1918

 S. Hilda’s Hall,

Oxford.

27.6.18

                My dear Mother,

I am so sorry that p.c. was late, but I found it in my case long after I thought I had posted it.  Please put my confusion of mind down to H.P.  We had very nice papers on the first day, but on the second morning I had a touch of plague in the middle of the morning paper, and was altogether abominably slow over that paper and the afternoon one.  Accordingly I feel very depressed and am certain I am going to plough!  Please prepare yourselves for it, and put it down to the plague!  This morning’s unseen translation wasn’t bad.  I was able to make sense of all the French, most of the Latin and one of the German pieces¹.  The viva is tomorrow morning.  I am really awfully lucky, for Jerry has to wait until Tuesday.  Tomorrow all the men are viva-ed, and about six of the Women.  Marjorie and I come among the six because we come at the top of the alphabet!  So I shall come home by the 5.45 train tomorrow, arriving at Paddington at 7.15 p.m.  I am going to send my box by goods rail, but shall bring everything else by hand, so please may someone meet me?

I am most frightfully tired and drowsy, so will not write any more, but will tell you all the news when we meet, including how the 1^st year fell in at the regatta, and how I won the single punting race.

Your loving daughter,  Margot.

 

¹Her knowledge of languages is impressive.  She had studied Greek for the entrance requirements to Oxford and is keeping up with her Latin, French and German.

Now comes the long vacation and the next letter will be posted  on 13 October 2015.

16 June 1918

St. Hilda’s Hall

Oxford

16.6.18

                My dear Mother,

I am most awfully sorry not to have written last week – I do hope you did not worry.  You see it was like this – my letter home got, as it were, squeezed out between Doris and a time paper.  On the Saturday morning I had a three hours history time paper to do, and your parcel arrived in the middle.  It was an awful strain, that paper.  When it was finished I felt too limp for words – I crawled down to lunch, crawled up again to change, and then wandered down to the station to meet Doris colliding on the way with a fancy dress “life-boat” procession.  Grace Darling, Neptune, mermaids, etc.  Doris occupied my attention all the week end, and when she had gone I plunged into a very strenuous week of revising for a paper on XVIIth century, and didn’t remember until Friday that I hadn’t written home.  Then I thought I would wait until I had got your week-end letter, in case you wanted any particular information.

 

Thank you so much for your two letters and the accompanying parcels.  The butter has been a real treat and the ham travelled beautifully.  You will laugh if I tell you what I did with this week’s supply of ham.  When May brought in my water at 8.0 a.m. this morning (Sunday) I just turned over, and went to sleep again, and woke at 9.45 a.m.  Breakfast being cleared away at 9.30, I had to supply my own, so the ham came in very useful.  The Daddie’s cake¹ is lovely this time. – it will be extremely useful this week, as I have a friend coming to tea, and also Isabel and I am going to take Miss Coate on the river for a supper picnic.  If you wouldn’t mind, may I have a parcel next week, because Miss Coleman and I are going to have a day on the river next Sunday, so I shall want some food.  Also I expect we shall sup on the river while H.P. is on.  The B. has given me leave to go on the river on the last Sunday in term, as it is the day before H.P.  I don’t know whether I told you about Miss Coleman – I met her at Bach Choir.  She was at Reading College, took London B.A. last October, and is now teaching at Milham Ford², the high school you can see from any window.  She is great fun, and we have made friends this term.  I have been to tea with her, and she has come to tea with me, so you see we are on quite intimate terms.  I think it will be a very good thing to get right away from Hall and Hall people for a whole day just before my exam.

Thanks so much for the money you sent me by Doris – it was very welcome, as I had had to borrow about 10/- to cover my current expenses.  I spent £1 on birthday presents.  I got a really nice Oxford edition of Keats for Doris’ bookcase, 15/-.  She has such heaps of ordinary illustrated gift books that I finally decided against them, though I had a lovely time looking round all the booksellers in Oxford one wet afternoon.  It’s time Doris had some really good literature given her, and she doesn’t possess a Keats.  It’s as nicely bound as our prizes, so is quite suitable even for a millionairess’ twentyfirst!  I also got Ethel a perfectly charming little volume of Rabinadrath [sic] Tagore³, illustrated by an Indian artist, she having  expressed a desire to read Tagore.  It really is sweet.  The poetry is nearly all nursery and cradle songs.  That practically cleared me out of £1.  The other 10/- went last week, mainly on a “schools tea” (we have to entertain the schools people to tea after their papers, poor dears!) new stationery, and washing.  The result is I am again reduced to sixpence, so if you could conveniently advance me this 10/- you promised me towards Doris’ present I would be greatly obliged.  Doris was making inquiries about the Oxford sketch book for a friend, but finally decided she could get it in London, so shall I find you another for her?  There are several – some sketches and some coloured.  Or shall I get a single large view?  You can get awfully nice ones, like those wee ones I have, only bigger, for about 1/-.  There is no great hurry, as her birthday isn’t until Friday, June 28^th, on which day I come home, so shall bring them with me.  Please tell me in your next letter which you would like me to do.

 

I am working like fury at present for H.P⁴.  Not that I have really so much to do – the papers give you a ripping choice – but I have a passion for getting my notes into a really beautiful state – and set books are rather bothering me.  Meanwhile have been settling next term’s work – I am to coach with Miss Levett for early English history- I particularly asked for this, and I rather think the Levett was flattered!  I am also to go to Grant Bob’s class on European History (1789 – 1885), and finish off the 19^th century in the vac.  By the way, 18^th century means 1660 -1901!

I shall probably come home on Friday 28^th, and am due to start at the Pensions on the following Thursday or Friday.  I have promised Doris to keep Saturday 29^th free, and if she has the afternoon off, she may have just a quiet celebration.  We are to go to Chelsea Hospital – hours 9-5 – screw 35/-.  So any gadding about you feel like doing must be between those two dates.  Wouldn’t you like to see the new Renaissance fantasy at the New Theatre?  Or is there anything else exciting on?

I don’t quite know how I shall get home, but suppose I shall manage somehow.  Here follow sending entirely disconnected scraps of information – Muriel has been elected S.S. for next year.  I have got my boat half, and am to be tested for my canoe captaincy tomorrow.  Gibbie is going to the London School of Economics when she goes down, so must ask her to meet Ethel.  The Pensions people are probably going to be planted in Furzedown training college, Mitcham Common.

I am sorry to hear that Teddie and Captain Faulkner are ill.  Is Teddie now at Dulwich?  I hope Mrs Faulkner has had better news of the Captain by now.  Please give my best love to Daddie and Maxted.  I am simply longing to be home.  We had a concert this afternoon.  I enclose programme.  The second song had only been presented once before and the other was the first time of singing!  We only had one practice, too.  The orchestra, reinforced from the London Symphony, was a dream in Egmont and the Cesar Franck.  Stanford⁵ is a most amusing benevolent shambling elderly man, rather unsteady on his feet, thought still very tall and broad.  He looks much more like an ancient university don than a musician.

Your loving daughter,

Margot.

P.S. Bill of Extras just up.  Mine 16/6.  Not bad including your meals, Ethel’s visit, and a few of Doris’ meals.

 

¹It would be wonderful to have the recipe for a ‘Daddie’s cake’.

²Milham Ford was a girl’s school in Margot’s day and became a further St Hilda’s building later.

³Rabinadrath Tagore = Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet and philosopher

⁴H.P – History Previous, the first University exam for Modern History.

⁵Stanford, Professor of Music at Cambridge.  Margot gives lovely evocation of the man who is now known mainly for his church music which is very familiar to anyone who sings in church choirs.

Next letter to be posted on 27 June 2015

4 June 1918

S. Hilda’s Hall,

Oxford,

4.6.18.

                My dear Mother,

Many thanks for your letter and parcel.  The cake is perfectly delicious!  You mention something about money in the letter, but there was nothing in it, and it was not registered, so I conclude you forgot to put it in.  It will be very welcome if it comes soon, as I am absolutely stoney!  owing to visitors, summer washing, etc!  Various expenses are looming on the horizon, including Hall photograph (in which I have come out quite well) 3/6¹, not to mention the extras at the end of the term – for my various visitors, and birthdays!  Please don’t forget that Doris is 21 on the 27^th of this month!  You promised to help me out with that!  Ethel’s I think I can manage.

Tommy² has now departed hence, after a very nice visit.  She was a standing amusement to the Hall while she lasted.  She used to sit either at Miss Levett’s or Miss Coate’s table and engage in a war of words with them.  Miss Coate and she used to give one another away frightfully, and tell lurid tales of each other as students.  I must tell you some of them sometime, if I can remember them.  Last Tuesday “Dorothea” took me out for a walk and to tea at “the George”.  It was awfully jolly!  She told me a lot about Streatham Hill³, and what she thought of it, and I told her some things also, both of us now being free to say what we liked.  We also discussed how History should be taught, and I gave Tommy to think by saying that I had found our old method of learning History at S.H.H.S., which she condemned unreservedly, provided a useful groundwork.  She told one thing which surprised me immensely.  Miss Francis was an Oxford woman, and came from Somerville!!!  No wonder she always beams benevolently upon me whenever I go up to school now!

I have got my punt whole!  I feel rather bucked!  I am to be tested for my boat half on Friday!  So now I am a person of some importance and authority in the year.  Isabel got her punt half quite soon, and last week we had great fun!  On Tuesday morning we went bathing before breakfast, and had a gorgeous swim, with the sun on the water.  On Friday evening we had a supper picnic.  Paddy took her primus stove, and we boiled eggs in the boat.  We had a gorgeous time, and dongola-ed home – two poling, and two paddling.  The mad things one can do when only first years are with you!  We went up a private backwater the other day, and only turned in our own length.

I have finished up all my work, and have now three weeks in which to revise, a week for each century of the period, and a time paper for each week!  Dr Carlyle thinks I am well-grounded in Finance and advises me to take the Finance Special in Schools, particularly when he had elicited the fact that I intended to do administrative or social work.  I shall have to talk it over with the Levett.

My dearest love to Daddie and Maxted.  Doris writes that Laurie Bishop is home wounded.  Could you send me some more jam by her?

Your loving daughter,

Margot.

¹The photo may be the one rolled up in the box with the letters which has now been restored.

²Tommy – alias Miss Thompson, or Dorothea, Margot’s once time History teacher at school.

³ Streatham Hill is Margot’s old school, Streatham Hill High School, thus S.H.H.S.

Next letter to be posted on 16 June 2015