| Description | Charlotte rarely goes out. She is visited regularly by Cecil, and more occasionally by Ethel and the children, when they are at home. Friends also visit and bring gifts of fruit or flowers. She does not attend church, but sometimes receives communion at home. Miss Parker is a constant companion, and often plays the piano for Charlotte which, she noted on 7 February, is 'very soothing'. She also reads aloud to her and Charlotte continues to read a great deal herself.
Charlotte's health is fairly good, although she reports having a 'troublesome cough' which is treated by Dr Bland on 21 March. She also suffers from rheumatic gout in her fingers, which affects her ability to write in September.
On 10 April, Charlotte writes to Sidney for his birthday, and asks that he 'may be restored mentally & enabled to take his duty again'. This is the first time since Sidney went to Barnsley Hall that Charlotte has alluded to the nature of his illness. Cecil shows her an account of Sidney that he received from the superintendent of Barnsley Hall on 21 June.
News of the grandchildren is included: Charlie sings at the Kings private chapel on 27 April and Charlotte writes on 17 June that Helen is to attend her first ball on her nineteenth birthday at Lynewood, held at the Cullens. For Christmas, Charlotte receives from Milicent a 'pretty pot of clay made by herself & decorated'.
Items of topical interest in the diary include comments about strikes by miners on 17 January and dockers on 17 February. Charlotte also mentions 'earthquakes in Italy and at the Cape of Good Hope' on 27 June. The impact of the First World War is still great, six years later. For Armistice day on 11 November, Charlotte writes: 'A Requiem at the Albert Hall tonight..Miss Parker...kindly bought me a Haig poppy'.
Reading matter includes 'Treve's Voyage to the West Indies', The Naturalist's Book', 'A Fortnight in France', 'On the Roof of the World', 'Ancestral Tales', 'Treve's Cornish Road', 'Treve on the Riviera', 'Book on Winchester College', 'book on Hungary and it's people', 'Baring Gould on North Wales', 'book on the English Riviera', 'book on the Sussex Coast', 'book on Wiltshire', 'Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds', 'Travels in Asia', 'book on Old Florence by Janet Ross', 'book on Holland', 'France of the French', 'The English Countryside', 'Baring Gould on the Pyrenees', 'Life of Sir R. Temple', 'book on Portuguese India by Temple', 'The Great Palaces of London', 'Rambles in East Anglia', 'book on Spanish cities', 'Life of Rembrandt', 'Exploration in the Canadian Rockies', 'English Woodland', 'On the Glasgow Road' and 'A Leisurely Tour in Rural England'.
The diary contains a loose item, inserted at 27 October: a newspaper cutting from 'The Morning Post', 26 June 1924, about the sale of Dingley Hall, near Market Harborough. Charlotte refers to this notice in her entry for 26 June. |