the summer, what will they be like in some years’ time? Maybe a husband, maybe a husband at sea, maybe a husband who is difficult, divorce, perhaps death. I should like 2 children, a boy and a girl with 2 years’ difference in their ages. Most of the time they are at boarding school.
Monday, 17 March
As far as I can gather, I come into an annual income of about £300 in October. I could devote one-sixth of the amount to the improvements in the office I so much desire. It has also occurred to me whether I couldn’t invest that amount in something solid and remunerative, such as flats or gilt-edged securities. The flats appeal to me, buying up old property, altering and redecorating and then renting them.
The alterations in the office will cost money. There will be one very, very unalterable condition if I do this though, and that is that G.P.P.15 must get rid of W.S.B. and engage some more reliable draughtsmen. If I had my way I would turn out W.S.B., E.H.S. and I am afraid J.G.P. I do not think I shall really speak of this until I am 21. I am then within my legal rights and should be capable of voicing an opinion. I am very serious about all this. In the meantime, a little patience and much thought.
Wednesday, 9 April
A success such as I have never known! How I have worked and prayed and dreamed, and now it is all over, their congratulations still ringing in my ears. And Mr Worrall, Mr Worrall himself came to me – asked for me – and told me he considered I was the best in the whole show. I’m just overwhelmed.16
And what a weapon I have in my short-sightedness. Without it I feel convinced I should not have done nearly so well. I could see nothing beyond the footlights, a faint blur that conveyed nothing to me, only sounds that came from that darkness. I didn’t feel nervous because I couldn’t see their faces or note their expressions.
Monday, 2 June
I have the inferiority complex, the hump and indigestion and a few other things. Yesterday Joan Hughes beat me 6–0 6–0 in the Open Singles. I know she’s good, but damn it all – not a single game! And after my prayers and that gay, calm confidence I instilled into myself. If I think of it too much I find myself asking absurd and desperate questions. Is there a God? Does he care or hear us?
I quite see that the best players don’t wish to play with weaker ones. Naturally it spoils their game. They will see that score, and all the committee, and they are the people that matter most, and they will say, ‘Good Lord, Jean’s even worse than we thought she was.’
Yet why should I let a tennis tournament so dampen my spirits? Only that I had hoped that by this year I might have proved to other people that there was some strength in me. The whole world is a dark and murky place and I am afraid I shall never rise to the heights I dream of, afraid that I shall settle down to an irritating existence of domesticity and the narrow little life of the average woman. But I shall always have the chance to write.
I have two more tournaments to play yet. And I must beat Elsie Warden.
Thursday, 5 June
Tonight Leslie Northam and I played Kit Rayner and Ken Matthews. They won the first set 6–0, and I thought, ‘Hell! This is going to be a repetition of Sunday’s fiasco.’ Then something in me stirred and I cannot quite explain it, but I started a sort of auto-suggestion in my mind. I brought my willpower into full force. We won the first two games – they only just beat us 7–5.
I have been thinking a lot today. The idea took a final shape in my mind as I walked to Sudbury Town. I am getting soft. My position at the office as daughter of the boss is too comfortable, and I am able to do too much what I like. It will never do: I cannot be a subordinate to Pop in that way, but as his partner I can do immense things.
They need doing badly too. He has worked the business to a certain point and here we have stopped. To be any use at all I must get my Associate RIBA certificate, and I shall never do that on my own at the office. I haven’t the ability and there is no one to coach me for the exams. I have decided – I want to go into another office, a large, modern and well-organised affair where they will help me achieve my work for the Intermediates. I shall see how a well-run office ought to be managed. Daddy is getting old and I feel it is essential that I get on with things.
Sunday, 21 June
Have just been glancing through my last entry and since then I have been brought to realise that it must be a school, a day school. I have written for prospectuses to the London University, Central School of Arts and Crafts, the Northern Polytechnic, the Regent Street Poly – it is the latter which I think I shall really prefer.
Tuesday, 17 July
And so another period of my life ends. Two years at the Ealing Art School. Today for the last time I bent over a drawing board in Room 15, and for the last time walked those bare stone corridors and clattered down the stairs. I said goodbye to Mr Patrick, waved farewell to Mary Moyes and Elise Folkes. I am not sorry it is over, the time I spent was but a stepping stone to something better.
Wednesday, 30 July
We eventually decided on the London University and I went up for an interview. It was most satisfactory, and I start on 6 October.
Now if I can only convince Daddy of my seriousness. I can encourage him to hang on for another five years. Then I will return to him and do all the things that need doing so badly. With all his long years of experience to help back me up I should be able to make a splendid thing of this. What a fool I have been! If I can only make him realise that he has someone here on whom to rely he will feel encouraged to carry on for a little longer. And Oh God I must not fail at the University.
And all my friends – they have not the first idea of the direction or depth of my ambition.
Monday, 4 August
The early passion of the garden is blown, and heavy rains have beaten the colour from the roses. Delphinium, larkspur and foxglove have died, Aaron’s rod is beginning to throw golden spikes up the border by the fence, phlox, gladioli, geranium and dark red antirrhinum bloom among a profusion of foliage washed deep green. Peaches are being gathered and lavender is nearly ripe for picking, and there is a whisper of autumn in the wind.
Thursday, 7 August
Supposing Daddy had been a singer or a cook, or anything but an architect, and I still had my income when I was 21, I dream of how I would plan my life:
Freelance journalism.
Music.
Cooking.
Dressmaking.
Gardening.
Golf.
I would get up at 7.30 for 8.30 breakfast every morning except Sundays. From 9 to 10.30 I would practise – singing, piano lessons, elocution too perhaps. Then the rest of the morning to English study and writing, and in the afternoon dressmaking, gardening or cooking. I would drive a car and play golf for recreation, and there would be social obligations to fit in in the afternoon and evenings. Yet I don’t know. I think I would rather go the way I have chosen. Something more reliable and strengthening about it.
Sunday, 5 October
