Page 35 - My Story

“We’ve also bought Helen and me raincoats in Nijmegen. Clothes in Holland are about the same price
as in England and much cheaper than here. I was beginning to think that only pickled cucumbers were
cheaper here until we discovered that I can have an electric mixer with blender and a vegetable slicing
attachment for £15 – this wholesale, of course. If I can only get Peter’s thoughts away from a television
which are horribly expensive here, I may get a mixer – indeed I could have about eight of them for the price
of a television set.

I thoroughly enjoyed our trip last week. We saw some very lovely and interesting places and spent our
last night at Heidelberg. Our host was bent on our carousing with the students – in fact we caroused with
American tourists in places only a student prince could afford! We saw Heidelberg at night with lights on
the old bridge and the castle very softly floodlit and it looked wonderful – and then in the morning, as we
left, the sun was shining through the hills and on the water, so we were not disappointed by the daytime
view……..I was very impressed with the South. The countryside is nice, we went through some charming
old towns, and the people, too, are charming and open and friendly. Perhaps they are more used to
foreigners because of the tourists but certainly here in Kleve a foreigner is a strange animal. This is such
a respectable place, and everything is so orderly. The women are rarely smart (elegant) but always fully
dressed – none of this lounging around with bare legs or in trousers. And on Sunday EVERYONE wears a
tailored grey suit and trilby hat – except perhaps some of the men who prefer to go bareheaded. It is also
proper to have only two children with a decent interval between so that the older one can have its own
bike and the younger one can ride on Mum’s. So, you can imagine that we are strange animals – and
those people who have seen me write with my left-hand regard me as nothing less than a cripple.”

Apropos of this, the first time I needed to sign for something in the post office the clerk took the paper
from me and said, “Would you do that again, please”. I asked why but already he was shouting at all the
other customers, “Gather around, Frau Lanzer will show you how she writes with her left hand!”

And regarding foreigners, there was once an African in full tribal regalia in town and everyone, but
everyone turned out to see him walk along the Hagsche Strasse.

“My Dear Ludie,
I heard from Mummy that you were at last asked to go into Hospital (why the capital H? I must be thinking
of Krankenhaus. I love the idea of a House for Cranks, don’t you).
Helen was absolutely thrilled with the news and has hardly dropped the subject all day. She thinks you
are awfully lucky and wants to know when she can go, too. This evening she produced the enclosed of her
own volition (a drawing) with the words, “I expect Auntie Ludie is lying very still in her bed and I thought
she’d better have something to look at”.

By October Helen had started correcting my German and she hasn’t stopped yet!

And in October my mother - always popular with her grandchildren – came to stay for a visit. The
Bachs had moved to Dreieichenhain, near Frankfurt and they made a huge fuss of her when we visited.

A November letter tells all about the feast of St. Martin – “and a prettier festival I have never seen.
……..Peter has just called to say that St. Martin was a catholic priest who did wonders for the poor and in
particular was riding through the woods one day on a white horse when he saw a beggar whom he clothed
th
and fed, etc. Anyway, his day is celebrated each year on November 11 with a lamplit parade of all the
children in the town (all the towns in this part of Germany – don’t know about other areas). The tension
mounted here throughout the day. The bakers all displayed large bun St. Martins and thin spicy biscuit
St. Martins and all the stationers were busy selling paper lanterns which were later candle lit. There were
lanterns like lanterns and lanterns like churches and lanterns like chicken and ducks and lanterns like big
smiling suns. The kindergarten children did not take part, but school finished early so that they could get
ready to watch with their parents. Our two were bursting with excitement. On the way home from school
I bought them each a lantern. They could hardly eat their tea and then they rushed to the windows at the
back here, overlooking a school, to watch the bigger children assembling. At about 5.15 they called out
that the children were leaving and then we took up positions at the front windows overlooking the main
street. Here all the parents and toddlers were gathering to watch, and the atmosphere was just tense with
excitement. Even Hilary caught it. At about six o’clock a policeman stepped out to stop the traffic coming

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