Dear Lupin... Read Free Page B

and in all but the most trivial matters we are strangers. Because of this I cannot help you as I should like. Something seems to have gone very wrong somewhere, but I am almost entirely in the dark. I think, and those who know you best at Eton agree, that you have been unfortunate in the past year in your choice of friends. Naturally I am worried about you, desperately worried, possibly because I know so little of the true situation. Perhaps we can sort something out when you come home but you will need to be franker and more communicative than in the past. Possibly I am less unsympathetic than I appear on the surface; my own adolescence was beset with problems and I made many mistakes. I cannot direct your life; at the most I can guide, advise and perhaps help in a few small ways but to carry out those functions I must have a little help from you.
    I suppose the process of growing up is difficult, confusing and sometimes painful for you; it brings sometimes grief and worry to parents, too. I feel very sad when I think of the fun we used to have in the old days. Perhaps something can be salvaged from the wreck before the gulf between us gets impossibly wide.
    I wonder if you realise how lucky you have been in the last year in having a House Tutor and a Modern Tutor who both like you, have always been at pains to emphasise to me your best points and always speak up for you. When you are older, you may realise you owe them a considerable debt.
    Best love,
    D
    Largely oblivious to the distress and disappointment of my folks I simply cannot wait to leave. The term after I depart, a boy in my house is caught smoking. When the house master punishes him he objects: ‘That’s not fair, sir. You allowed Mortimer to smoke.’ ‘Now,’ says my old House Tutor with suitable gravitas, ‘there was a boy who really needed to smoke.’
    I enclose for your attention my telephone bill (Jumbo size). Please note calls to Hurt at 8/0, 11/4 and 18/. I think no further comment is needed but please be temperate in this matter. I don’t think I overcharged you!!
    D
    29 May
    Thank you for your card, you cheeky monkey! I hope you are settling in and that the crammer is not too hopeless!
    The Gaselees are staying here tonight and a man of eighty-four with a beard comes to lunch tomorrow. I am off to the Derby Dinner tonight + visit General Fisher en route. Nidnod is in a flap and keeps losing £5 notes; I think she is under the impression that I pinch them. I have paid for your shares – Woodfall Trust – keep an eye on them. I’ll get you the receipt, don’t lose it, it is very important as regards tax. Some men are putting down carpet in the W.C.
    We had a disgusting dinner in Newbury last night.
    Be reasonably good,
    D
    I am now lodging in Brighton with Joyce Walker, a friend of my parents. She has a wonderful voice crafted over the years from generous quantities of untipped Virginia cigarettes and Gordon’s gin. I attend a crammer daily in the vain hope of finally reaching the heady heights of knowledge required to bag a humble Maths O level
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    The Sunday Times
    4 June
    My Dear Lupin,
    I am glad to hear you are happy at Brighton and that all goes reasonably well. I don’t suppose you will want to come home at the end of the month! There were two communications for you today from the Ministry of Defence and I opened them just in case they were urgent and knowing they would not be personal. One says you have been accepted for the Regiment (as a candidate); the other is about your five days at Tidworth starting on 13 July. I want you to be at the Old Coldstreamers party here on 13 July and you can drive to Tidworth (only thirty miles) in my car or Nidnod’s afterwards. Incidentally it was Fred who drew the ticket (Belbury) in the Sweep.
    Yesterday I had to go to a memorial service for Brigadier Cazenove, who commanded the 1st Bn in Belgium in 1940. Quite a nice service and I am always