Dear Miss Plumpling, don't bathe in the sea - you might cause a tidal wave: The latest cache of letters from the waspish pen of exasperated dad Roger Mortimer By Louise Mortimer
PUBLISHED: 18:52 EST, 31 March 2013 | UPDATED: 18:52 EST, 31 March 2013
His exasperated letters to my wayward brother, Charlie, became a surprise bestseller last year after being serialised in the Mail. And all through my life, I, too, was the recipient of wise, kind and funny dispatches from my father â€" the racing journalist Roger Mortimer.
In this second exclusive extract from my book Dear Lumpy, I’m married and heavily pregnant with my first child.
My father is living at Budds Farm, in Burghclere, Berkshire, with my mother Cynthia (known as Nidnod), while I remain lumbered with my childhood nickname, Lumpy â€" and other unflattering variants teasing me about my weight.
Father's love: Louise with her father Roger Mortimer in 1987 on her marriage blessing
August 20, 1978
Dearest Miss Plumpling,
So I suppose you are on holiday somewhere and having a really good time. Don’t bathe in the sea: you might easily cause a tidal wave. Your mother finally left for Jersey after telling me 27 times what to do with the cat, the greenhouse etc etc.
I then went off to recuperate with a quiet weekend chez Surtees [his old friend, Major John Surtees]: good food and drink, a soft bed and conversation that was sparkling judged by Berkshire standards, which could scarcely be lower, comments on the price of bacon at Sainsbury’s being the intellectual limit for these parts.
Mr Cameron [the great uncle of the Prime Minister] is having a ghastly time, as apart from having both legs off, his mouth is in a fearful state following radium treatment for cancer.
Only a man of exceptional courage could continue to fight for life.
Best love, XXX D
Dearest L,
I hope you are well and looking forward to making your contribution to the population explosion. All fairly quiet here, though Nidnod gets over-excited at times. Luckily, I am getting increasingly deaf.
On Sunday evening, the Surtees gave a party for 30 in their barn and a good time was had by all; at any rate by me as I made play with a number of recently unmarried women who seemed game for a lark.
Perhaps fortunately, your mother had preferred to make her presence felt at the Old Berks Pony Club Camp, so for once I felt no need for circumspection, even for decorum.
Your brother seems to be thriving in his business [driving articulated lorries] and with luck he may make enough money soon to afford a haircut.
Best love, XX D
Chez Nidnod
September, 1978
Dearest L,
Well done! Your mother is spinni ng around like an ancient top and talking a fair amount of nonsense, but seems very pleased at having a granddaughter.
I expect both you and Henry will find nursery life pretty exhausting and the period of night feeds, nappy changing etc etc seems to go on and on. Even at three, a child is fairly helpless while a horse that age may have won the Derby!
My very best love and good wishes. X
Growing up: Roger Mortimer address her letters 'Dear Lumpy' a nickname which became suitable when she was heavily pregnant
Dearest L,
I hope all goes well and that you are not over-feeding the baby so that it looks like a balloon. Does it yell much?
I made a poor start this morning: when I switched on the radio the Croydon Salvation Army Band was playing Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam, and when I went to have a bath, I had to evict a platoon of exceptionally large and hairy spiders of most menacing aspect.
Nidnod is still in very good form and making low whirring noises like a very old top and denoting pleasure.
Best love, D
January 22, 1979
Dearest L,
Your mother is in a very crusty mood so I am trying to keep well out of her way. She has taken a dislike to [his Dalmatian dog] Pongo, which is not important but tiresome.
Sarah Bomer and Sylvia Mayhew-Saunders came to lunch: one of them mentioned Pongo and your mother at once di sappeared, slamming several doors on the way! Rather silly really at her age.
[Your sister] Jane is 30 tomorrow. She will before long be entering the dreaded realm of Old Bagdom, never to return.
The Surtees are having a dinner party for 18 in their barn on Saturday: I wonder how many guests will die of hypothermia.
Best love, D
February 5, 1979
Dearest L,
Life has been fairly dreary here. The fact is that I don’t really like this house: it is too big for us and has a thoroughly depressing atmosphere, though, of course, that may be due to the present residents. I would like to move into a hideous but modern bungalow.
We went to a cocktail party with the Gaselees last Friday: a large number of people in a confined space and I never heard a word anyone said which, in fact, was not an intolerable deprivation.
We had supp er at The Swan at Shefford afterwards which is only slightly more expensive than Claridge’s, but they do mushrooms in garlic rather well.
Relations between your mother and Aunt Pam remain rather colder than those between Russia and America. I expect they will make it up eventually and then both turn on me and rend me limb from limb.
Best love, D XX
Tuesday
Dearest L,
I spent a night last week with Cousin John at Brighton. He has a superb flat overlooking the Marina and the nudist bathing beach. By a fortunate chance he owns a huge telescope which he says is for studying the stars.
Love to all from all of us, D xx
Betrayal: Louise's father was upset when she married in secret aged 19
4 August 1979
Dearest L,
All is fairly quiet here though your mother’s conduct is liable to be unpredictable after 7?pm.
No news of [your brother] Lupin: he is either physically incapable of writing a letter or else he cannot afford a stamp.
We went to quite a good lunch party with the Roper-Caldbecks and your mother made sheep’s eyes at a very short man called Lloyd Webber.
A horse has been stolen from a field in Burghclere: I haven’t told your mother or she will start hiring to protect [her horse] Jester!
xx D
August 16, 1979
Dearest Lumpy,
Your mother departed on Saturday to stay in Northumberland with [your sister] Miss Bossypants: I have heard nothing since, so assume there haven’t been any major dramas.
I have been having quite a merry time since as I was out to lunch and dinner on Sunday and also on Monday. It does occur to me that I am invited less for my social charm than because I am regarded as a semi-helpless geriatric who has lost his marbles.
I crawl out of bed at 7am and work in the garden before breakfast, cutting down dead rhododendrons and removing brambles and nettles.
My arms look as if I have been flogged with barbed wire. I have been doing a little experimental cooking. I drummed up some beef rissoles which looked fairly normal, but needed a hammer and quite a large chisel to dent their surface.
Major & Mrs Surtees are off to Salzburg for the Mozart Festival. They were keen for Nidnod and me to go, too, but your mother declined, being as musical as a pair of policeman’s bicycle clips.
Old Farmer Luckes has been a bit truculent lately and sooner or later he and your mother will have a ghastly row which will be a bore for me as I s hall be compelled to listen (several times over) to a blow-by-blow account.
Best love to you, XXX D
August 27, 1979
Dearest L,
I think your mother quite enjoyed [her trip to] Jersey. She brought back two crabs which we had for lunch on Sunday. I felt a teeny bit sick afterwards.
I have had a v. rude postcard from France with a very cheeky message in French. I have no idea who sent it. Your mother thinks I have a French lover which, unfortunately, is not the case.
Best love to you all, XX RM
October 12, 1979
Dearest L,
Your mother’s big luncheon party went off reasonably well. The food was excellent and the drink made up for poor quality by being in ample supply.
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, but one or two husbands got ticked off by their wives for drinking too much or pi nching the wrong bottom.
I dread Christmas. I would like to opt out of the so-called ‘festive season’ and retire to a Jewish hotel in Margate.
Love to all, D x
October 27, 1979
Dearest Lumpy,
Life is fairly quiet here with large bills arriving with disheartening regularity.
On Saturday, we went out to Inkpen and arrived punctually despite Nidnod losing the way.
We’d been asked for 7.45, but dinner was not until 9.15?pm, by which time I had drunk a large number of cocktails.
I cannot for the life of me recollect what we ate for dinner or what part, if any, I played in the conversation. I do not think my host and hostess were desperately sorry when I eventually took my leave, implanting a kiss on a young girl I claimed to be a newly found relation.
We survived having Aunt Boo [Nidnod’s sister] to stay, though after 48 hours, I was on the verge of crowning her with what the police call a blunt instrument. She lives in a fantasy world and even out-talks your mother; no mean achievement.
Best love to all, D
Daddy's girl: Roger Mortimer wrote nearly 200 letters to her, now published in her book Dear Lumpy
26 April 1981
Dearest Miss Plumpling,
I have just bought my summer outfit at Marks & Spencer: i.e. a blue wool and canvas jacket slightly too small, and a pair of shoes (£5) that will disintegrate for sure if they ever get damp.
We had a dullish lunch party last Sunday: a middle-aged lady who had bicycled across America, a man with a beard and another with a speech impediment.
The wine I had bought was just short of nasty, but they lapped it up and politely suppressed wry grimaces.
Your mother is seeing an oculist; perhaps the one with slight halitosis who puts his hand on ladies’ thighs. Moppet has just brought a decapitated mouse into the kitchen.
Best love, D
July 12, 1981
Dearest L,
I hope you had a good time in Scotland. Take as many holidays as you can when you are young: they are apt to be sad affairs when you are old and are really happier pottering about at home and going to bed after the Nine O’clock News. Cousin Tom is trying to persuade me to go to Bali in March, but I think I am too ancient to disport myself amid all those dusky beauties.
I’m making one of my rare visits to London this week in order to lunch with Major Surtees. I expect I shall drink too much and get on the wrong train at Waterloo.
The police are expecting riots in Reading. Personally, I think this country is slithering towards bankruptcy and bloody revolution. Nidnod is arming herself for a last-ditch stand.
Love to you all from both of us, RM
Dearest Lumpy ,
Nidnod meant to have her first day’s cubbing on Friday, but it was cancelled as the head groom at the Old Berks stables wounded a girl groom with a humane killer and then shot himself dead.
He had been with the Old Berks for 25 years and was 30 years older than the girl! It is odd how demon sex is always obtruding into fox-hunting.
[Your brother] Lupin seems to be settling down to his work and was last heard driving a crane at St Albans.
Cousin Tom’s last remaining aunt, Lady Laurie, died a couple of weeks short of her 100th birthday. My Great Uncle Percy reached 97 and was pinching the bottoms of you girls up till the last. He claimed to have been flogged at Eton the same day as the Battle of Balaclava.
Best love to you all from myself and from Nidnod, D
PS: Saw Aunt Pam at Newbury races in a hat she must have bought at NAAFI about 35 years ago.
January 21, 1982
Dearest L,
We had a terrific storm here last night, but most of the roof is still on. Jane seems to be settling down well in her new house.
I have not heard of her using her new gun much: at least I have not read about anyone being shot near Corbridge. We have a lot of rats here and they are eating our potatoes with considerable relish.
Best love to all, D xx
March 3, 1982
Dearest L,
I now do my shopping in Hungerford. There is a rather good health shop there kept, inappropriately, by a lady who looks on the point of death. She sells non-fattening marmalade that looks and tastes like yellow photo-paste. A man I saw in church the other day dropped down dead yesterday. Perhaps he did not pray hard enough.
Love to all, D
The Crumblings, Burghclere, April 6
Dearest L,
We are having the conservatory done up. The result is that it looks like a moderately clean lavatory at a provincial railway station.
Best love to you all, D
Family natter matters: Roger Mortimer writes to his daughter Louise as an adult, complaining about everything from middle class problems to her mother's issues with the dog
August 24, 1982
Dearest L,
We are going to Wales for a few days, somewhere near Harlech. I rather like the Welsh; they are amusingly sly and dishonest.
As a matter of fact I tend to get on well with most foreigners bar the Scotch whom I dislike quite a lot. I loathe bagpipes, kilts, the Scottish accent and the barbaric cooking at Scotch hotels.
I rather like Belgium â€" hideous, quarrelsome people, but excellent cooks and gardeners. I also rather like Egyptians who are too idle even to flick away the bluebottles crawling over their eyeballs. I don’t know Poland very well but lived there for a bit. Most Poles are romantic but agreeable.
I think I can still say ‘Good Morning’ and ‘This lavatory smells awful’ in Polish.
My Arabic is limited to ‘Does your father live in the Old City?’
Not very useful, on the whole! It was unfortunate that the Arabic for ‘Allied Military Government’ was the same as for ‘dog turd’.
Love to all, XX D
Chez Nidnod, Monday
Dearest L,
We have 20 people coming to lunch on Sunday and already Nidnod is rather excited. I am getting in lots of Spanish brandy of the kind that would make a week-old corpse leap lightly from the coffin and enter for a six-day race.
Home of Rest for Impoverished Members of the Middle Class, Burghclere, October 11, 1982
Dearest L,
Nowadays [our gardener] Mr Randall turns up in very posh clothes, attired for a luncheon party in SW1 rather than for digging manure into the vegetable plot.
This weekend, he and Mrs R are off on a coach tour in Devonshire. They have a much better time than Nidnod and I do.
We went out to dinner with some very nice people l ast Wednesday, rich, too, but the first course looked and tasted like Sunlight soap.
I sat next to a fearsome old bag, Lady Grimthorpe, who feigned deafness. In my view, she is an absolutely ideal candidate for the lethal chamber.
I hate my new accountant, who looks like Himmler and is liable to behave like him, too.
D
EXTRACTED from Dear Lumpy by Roger Mortimer and Louise Mortimer, to be published by Constable & Robinson on April 18 at £12.99. © 2013 Louise Mortimer. To order a copy for £10.49, call 0844 472 4157. Dear Lupin: Letters To A Wayward Son is out now in paperback at £7.99.
