3 January 1961

My dear Len and Margaret

Here we are in the New Year and this is my first letter to you, first of all we all want to wish you a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 1961. We hope you will all keep in good health.

What must I start by saying? I will start to say this, we have an addition to our home at Yaralla. It happened like this. As you know we were all at Kay’s on New Years day for lunch and supper. During the afternoon they gave us each a gift. Arthur brought Roselle’s gift near her in a big cardboard box with the top open. She looked in and thought she saw something moving. Anyway she brought out of this box a very nice cage with a lovely Budgie in it. She didn’t know what to say, naturally she was very pleased with this gift, so now we have this bird in the dining room on the radiogram. We call him “Joey”. He’s only a few weeks old. He’s full of life too. This means a toy for Roselle. It thundered a little during the night, Roselle wondered if Joey was scared.

Now about our dinner at the Ritz on Saturday. All I can say is that it was a very disappointing especially the food. To start with we had prawns. I didn’t touch them, I don’t eat them. Nick ate them. We had soup, it wasn’t bad, but we’ve had better. Then we each had half a small chicken. This was the main course. It was only half cooked and very tough. I told them at the table this chicken was as old as me, of course this caused laughter, but they all knew it was. We could not detach the meat from the bones. I left mine, I could not cope with it, you couldn’t find any meat. No one ate it properly. Then as a sweet, a kind of custard pudding and coffee. The tickets for this dinner were 37/6. This money would have been better in our pockets, we all said we will not go there again.

For the cabaret after dinner they brought in a white pony in the dining room to have him to do different things, but all they had him to do was to lie down. This was all the pony felt inclined to do, after that a man came in to play a violin, and then a little singing. The diners danced on and off during the dinner and that was all. For the going out of the old year and the coming in of the new was an old bearded man with a scythe on his shoulder and a teenager in shorts behind him to chase him away.

We left there at 12:15 and pleased to be back. When we got back we had a hot cup of milk before going to bed and at nearly 10 minutes to 1 o’clock there was a ring at the door bell. Roselle answered, it was Kay, Arthur and the taxi driver with them. They were on their way back from the Grand Hotel. They all came in for a half hour. This taxi driver is one who works at De Gruchy’s. He does some taxi driving in the evening. So you see it was well Sunday AM before we went to bed and in a few hours we would be going to Kay.

I did not have time to have my Sunday ration of toast and had only one cup of tea. This didn’t quite suit me but we were only just ready when the taxi called for us. He fetched Margaret and Charles before calling for us. We had a very nice time at Kay’s. Everyone in good form and lovely meals. The food we had for our meals was goose, beef, ham, brawn, sausages and all kind of vegetables, pudding, apple tart, meringue tart, coffee, ice cake, nuts. You see we made up for what we didn’t have at the Ritz on Saturday eve. Then later on we had afternoon tea and cakes.

Doreen, Nick and the children left at about 6:30. They had people coming to them that evening. Mr and Mrs Davies came there for tea and the evening. Dad and I left there at 10:45 and Roselle of course. Margaret and Charles stayed on after us so as to come back with the Davies’s, they were not long after us. They had it pouring with rain on their way back, so much so when they came at Bel Royal the water in the gutter was in line with the foot path. Mr Davies had trouble to drive. It was raining on our way back too but not quite such a deluge.

Oh, I’ve forgotten to mention a little item that happened at the Ritz on Saturday, there was a man there that Father knew. He came over to our table to have a word with Father. I was introduced to him, he asked Father if he would be having a dance soon. ‘No’ said Father, ‘I’ve never danced and I’m too old to dance. The man said you are never too old to learn. He came to me and said ‘as for you, you are only about 42’. I said not quite 45 and that was left at that.

On New Years day I wore my new coat, new dress and a new brooch Father had given me for Christmas. I kept all these new clothings to wear for the first time on New Years Day.

On Thursday 5th we are all going to Doreen. We 3 will go for tea. Kay and Arthur, Margaret and Charles will come for the evening. We have made up our minds not to stay late. We are all still very
tired from the Yuletide holiday, it’s time we get a little more rest, especially Father and I. We get very tired. We have been going to bed too late lately.

How did you spend New Year’s Day? We hope you all had a nice time. What was your weather like on that day? Here it was a beautiful sunshine morning but got cloudy during the afternoon, and as I have said rain during the evening.

Roselle has a very heavy cold which started a couple of days ago. I hope it doesn’t last very long, she feels very heavy.

We went to Les Augerez this afternoon. Aunty was fairly well and was pleased to see us as she always is. This is all the news I can think of today. I am going to have another look at my Christmas cards before putting them away.

All the family send their love to you all (including Joey)
Lovingly
Mother xxxx