Africa in My Blood

Mariner Books

Excerpt

1
CHILDHOOD
1942-1952
I had been fascinated by live animals from the time
when I first learned to crawl.
- In the Shadow of Man
Jane goodall's childhood letters take us from early 1942, when she
was seven years old, to the end of her school years in the summer of
1952, when she was eighteen. Her family usually called her Valerie
Jane during this time, while her friends often referred to her
as "V.J." The stretch from 1942 to 1952 is long enough, and critical
enough, that we can easily watch a transformation in writing style -
including the development of that ironic, mock-literary voice first
appearing in letters to her friend Sally in 1951. But in spite of the
metamorphosis taking place during those years, as the writer moves
from young child to young adult, it is striking how persistently her
love of and fascination with animals remains a central theme -
replaced to some degree only in the last two letters by the love of
and fascination with a man, Trevor.
The earliest letter, written in a pencil-in-fist cursive
to "Darling Mummy," addressed from "The Manor House" and dated
February 16 with no year, was probably, but not certainly, done on
February 16 of 1942. Valerie Jane did not start formal schooling
until later in 1940, and it is likely she did not learn to write in
cursive until 1941 or 1942. The location and some of the details of
this letter might seem to suggest an earlier year. During the fall
and winter of 1939-40, when Mortimer first enlisted in the army,
Valerie Jane and her mother and sister were regularly staying with
Mortimer's mother ("Danny Nutt") and stepfather, who lived at the
Manor House, a grand sixteenth-century brick and stone edifice rising
out of the shambles of the fourteenth-century Westenhanger Castle in
Kent. Other regular visitors to the Manor House at that time included
Mortimer's sister Joan and her fiancé, Michael Spens; but they would
not have been "Mr and Misis Spens" until their marriage in 1941.
Still, the mention of that "big dog called Jacky who is going to live
here untill Uncle Micel come back" reminds us both of the young
writer's eager excitement about the animals all around her as well as
the background drama: the men were going to war.
Beyond the visible carnage of the war during those years
(including the 1942 death of Mortimer's younger brother, Rex, in an
RAF plane crash) lay the vast if invisible damage of broken lives and
families. By the time Valerie Jane's father reentered civilian life,
in 1951, the marriage was over. So "Daddy" was nearly always a remote
presence, the source of occasional letters and long-distance phone
calls and the rare visit on leave. The note in the middle of this
chapter, written to "Mummy," possibly in late 1946, describes with
only good cheer ("it was jolly good fun") the experience of "seeing
Daddy off" on the Eastern Prince, bound apparently for Bombay.
Mortimer was shipping out to his first posting in the Far East.
Valerie Jane entered the Uplands Girls School in 1945 and
began her riding lessons around the same time. On Saturdays she would
take a local bus out of Bournemouth to the small village of Longham,
where Miss Selina Bush (often called "Bushel") lived in a rambling
Queen Anne brick house with field and stables out back. Miss Bush's
place was called Longham House, and her assistant, Sheila
MacNaughton, was known as "Poosh." Some of the letters beginning with
the one of September 1945 refer to the delightful Saturdays at
Longham House with Bushel and Poosh.
The bulk of letters from Jane Goodall's childhood have been
preserved by her friend Sally Cary Pugh, the daughter of the
Honorable Byron and Daphne Cary, a couple who had long been good
friends of the Morris-Goodalls. Mortimer had gone to school with
Byron, and they had been roommates in a London boarding house when,
in the early 1930s, Mortimer met Vanne. Sally was born a year after
Valerie Jane; Sally's younger sister, Sue, was only two months older
than V.J.'s sister, Judy. The girls made a natural foursome, in other
words, particularly after the mid-1940s, when Sally and Sue regularly
stayed at the Birches in Bournemouth during school holidays. Starting
probably during their summer holidays of 1946, Valerie Jane invented
for everyone's entertainment a nature club, the Alligator Society,
which involved projects, games, rituals, and even - when the girls
were apart during school sessions - nature quizzes by mail and an
Alligator Society Magazine, to which everyone was expected to
contribute articles. The girls had an Alligator Camp, in the garden.
They walked into town in the Alligator style: single file with V.J.
at the head and the other three girls bringing up the tail, strictly
according to the order of their ages. They all took on Alligator code
names: Valerie Jane, the oldest and therefore leader, was "Red
Admiral," in reference to a dramatic-looking butterfly. Sally
was "Puffin." Sue became "Ladybird." And Judy, the youngest,
was "Trout." Unhappily, there seem to be no surviving copies of the
Alligator Society Magazine, and we are left with only the few
tantalizing references to it in some of these letters.
Holiday sessions of the Alligator Society were enlivened
during the later 1940s and early 1950s by all-day visits from Rusty,
the black spaniel cross owned by the managers of a hotel around the
corner (first mentioned in the letter of March 7, 1951). Rusty was an
unusually intelligent dog who found an unusually attentive human
partner. He loved to do tricks, including the ordinary (shake hands,
play dead, jump the hoop) and the less so (climb a tall stepladder,
close the door). Unlike most dogs, Rusty adored being dressed up in
clothes and so would sometimes find himself wearing pajamas and being
pushed down the street in a pram. But as the girls learned, he had a
real personality. If anyone laughed at him while he was dressed up,
for example, Rusty "hated that and would walk off at once, trailing
clothes behind him." He acted apologetic whenever he did something he
had been taught was wrong, but he would sulk bitterly when unfairly
accused. "Rusty was the only dog I have ever known who seemed to have
a sense of justice," Jane was later to comment.
The family, deeply religious if cheerfully unorthodox,
attended the First Congregational Church in Bournemouth, known,
because of its location, as the Richmond Hill church. (Vanne's
father, William Joseph, had been a Congregational minister, though
never at Richmond Hill.) And Valerie Jane, a passionate and
idealistic girl, was increasingly attracted to the grandeur of the
church, its gargoyle-lined bell tower, the grand arched bank of
stained glass windows, and (as we can gather from the letters of June
and August 1952) the new minister, a charismatic Welshman named
Trevor Davies. This was an utterly idealized and platonic infatuation
of late adolescence. The Reverend Trevor Davies, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.,
cast his light on the Richmond Hill congregation between 1951 and
1971 and across the end of Valerie Jane's "childhood": the summer of
1952, when she finished school, passed her Higher Examinations, and
prepared to enter the world of work and practicality.
* * * *
The Manor House
Westen hanger
Hythe. Feb 16 [probably 1942]
Darling Mummy
the day befor yestoday Mr and Misis Spens broght a big dog
called Jacky who is going to live here untill Uncle Micel come back.
I dont know how to spell that word. Yestoday Danny Nutt gave me two
china dogs and I call them Trouble and Terry. Jublee has got a new
dress. I have got a birds nest and a catepiler in a box of calaig
leaves. Now I will drow a pictuer of him.

Today I found a ded rook he died of cold. I hop you can read
this letter. I had a bold egg for my tea, new bread and real butter.
When I went to tea Gremlin came with me and he stad all night till
Gras came with the tea. Mouse sends you her love and a lik. Kincin is
giving you his best bone. Jacky and Trouble send you a lik and the
Hen's send you a cluck. Eevry body sends you there love.
with lots and lots of love from
valerie jane
[Possibly November 1945]
Dear Sally
I'm sorry I've not written before but what with school and
things I've been rather busy. You must, must, must, must, must, must,
must, must, must, must, MUST, come and stay with us this hols. My Ma
has written to your Ma to ask if you can, so do write and tell me
that you can. I have got quite a lot of caterpillars one is a Lime
Hawk Moth looking like this,

and if you come you will be able to see his skin. Another is a green
looper (or stick catepillar) who feeds on mountain ash and he has
made a cocoon, another is an ordinary cabbige white, who has made a
cocoon, and another is a black hairy tortishell who feeds on nettle.
If you come you will be able to see them all. Oh! I have another
little yellowy, orang looper who feeds on lime, and a green
caterpillar who feeds on cabbage, and has turned brown.
Chase, my Blue Roan Spaniel is sweet. Also he is very
mischives and bites anything that comes in his way. He comes when he
is called and also I play a cirtain game with him. I run my fastest
away from him and soon he gets tired and sits down. Then I lie down
flat, and the minute he see's me lying down he runs straight for me
at full speed, with which I hurridly rise to my feet, for if I did
not, all the hair of my head would be stuffed down Chase's throaght.
He is very greedy, and gobbles down his food at a great rate. I have
learned quite a few good poems this term: The Spanish Armardar by Sir
Walter Scott. How They brought the good news by Robert Browning. John
Gilpin by William Cowper. The Leap of Roushan Beg by Longfellow. It
would be nice if you could learn some of them and then we might be
able to have a play with people reciting together.
I must end now!
Lots of Love from
Valerie Jane
not to be read aloud
P.S. In this one code sighns A5R S5E I5K O5V U5W
[Possibly spring 1946]
Dear Sally
I am very sorry I have not written before but with this new school of
mine I am kept rather busy. We have lovely gym there, bars, horses,
ropes and every thing else. Some of the girls are quite nice, others
very nice, and others simply stinking (excuse my word please). This
week I was really top of my form, although, I REALLY think that - ,
well anyhow I was. Pauline was top of her form too. She is in one
higher form than me. We are supposed to have a lot of games, but one
day when it was too wet for games and we went for a walk, some of us
were naughty, so for a punishment we have been going regualy for
walks, instead of games. How are you getting on in your school? By
the way, the Prefects and seniors of my school are jolly decent. What
form are you in? The work in my form is soppy and so far I have only
had three things under 8. 6 1/2. 7.
7 1/2. Yesterday we had a horrible thing to do for english prep: -
explain how to do up and adress a letter. What do you think of it.
Last Saturday I had a great thrill, for when we went riding, we had
our first jumping lesson. Not Judy and Liza, (Liza was in bed) but
Pauline, Jill and me. As there is not a Guide company at this school
I am becoming a Lone Guide. I don't really know how to explain that
to you, but maybe you can find someone who can tell you what it
means. Anyhow it means a lot of writting and filling up forms. Do you
have a lot of prep. I have three preps a day except Wednesday, and on
that day I have two. I expect you are getting bored with this lengthy
letter, so now I will end.
Lot of love
V.J.
P.S. I shall have to write again soon, as I have not told you HALF
the things I have to say.
P.P.S. give my love to every one in the house.
P.P.P.S. Chase got ill but he is better now.
[Around July 28, 1946]
Dear Sally,
I'm counting the days till you come. Don't forget to bring
you bathing-dress with you. We are all very sad, because Chase has
been killed. He was in the middle of the road, and a lorry was
backing out of a gate (and so could not see him) and he was run over.
A man saw him and took him to the vet, but he was dead. It's an awful
shame, poor Chase. How have you done in your exams. Ours were
terribly easy, but we wern't helped. Excuse writing, but I'm in
rather a hurry. Another of my fishes: -

He's got a nice little dinner. Ha! Ha! We break up this week, me on
Monday, 29th and Judy on Wednesday, 31st. On Thursday we're going to
the baths, Friday is a pony-club. Thursday you're coming. Friday
another pony club. What full days. Don't forget to learn First Class,
because you must all pass when you come to stay. If Susie is not sure
of no. 2, I will tell here some things. You have to be able to
recognize 10 birds, 10 dogs, 10 trees and 5 butterflys or moths:
(10 birds) (1) robbin, (2) blackbird (3) thrush (4) blue tit
(5) wren (6) house sparrow (7) gull (8) hawk (9) starling (10) wood-
pigeon.
(10 dogs) (1) cocker spaniel, (2) terrier (smooth and wire)
(3) collie (4) alsation (5) bull-dog (6) bull-terrier, (7) pekenese
(8) old english sheep-dog, (9) dalmatian, (10) airdale.
(10 trees) (1) oak (2) birch (3) fir (4) pine (5) sycamore
(6) mountain-ash (7) plain (8) lime (9) Ash, (10) Horse-chestnut.
(5 butterflies or moths) (1) Red Admiral (2) Six Spot Burnet
Moth (3) Purlple Emperor (4) Painted Lady (5) Privit Hawk Moth. These
are only some of the many things. I did not bother to put in ten wild
flowers, because here are such a lot that almost everybody knows 7 3
10. I can think of masses to tell you, it would take a book to write
it down, and as its Mummy's writing paper, I can't afford to use
much. Must stop now.
Lots of love from
V.J. V.J.M.G.
[Postmarked October 18, 1946]
Dear Sally,
This is a very short messy pencil letter. I'm terribly sorry,
but I shant have time to get the Aligator Society Magazine together.
I come home at 6.0 and do prep till about 7, and on Saterday mornings
I do prep and then ride, on Sunday I do prep on and off all day. You
see I have 8 preps in the weekends, and about 6 of them are usualy
writing ones. I usualy have three preps every night, and I do one of
them at school, and bring the others home. So you see, I don't have
much time. Don't lets talk about school any more. I've started making
Christmas Cards, and I've drawn two. One is a perky horse, pulling an
old fasioned handsome cab and a street lamp shining brightly.



Continues...

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Excerpted from Africa in My Blood by Jane Goodall Copyright © 2001 by Jane Goodall. Excerpted by permission.
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