‘Inferior port, bad salads and hangovers’: newly discovered 1935 diary offers invaluable view of England’s festive past
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A diary bought at auction reveals the antics of two intrepid gourmands in search of the perfect English Christmas. On 23 December 1935, a woman called “Mouse” set off from her home in Earl’s Court in search of Christmas in England. “In some remote corner of this island there must be a shining blazing hearth, beams laden with holly and mistletoe, and bustling happiness when the turkey and the plum pudding are cooking away in the big, old fashioned oven,” Mouse writes of her festive road trip in a diary that has been bought at auction by the Dorset History Centre with funding from charitable organisation Dorset Archives Trust – and is an invaluable source for social historians.
![[A 1936 Christmas advertisement for Dunlop tyres in the Illustrated London News magazine]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dacc33c2253e64a8a7fcaaca298536d82f854be2/41_124_2675_3892/master/2675.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The writer – genealogical sleuths speculate that she is Cheshire-born Doris Perry [née Bateman], aged 45 at the time of writing – undertakes the journey with her husband, who appears in the chronicle as “Jumbo” and “the Elephant” (and is presumed to be solicitor and shipping investor Arthur Vivian Perry, then aged 44).
![[A family sit down to Christmas tea in 1919]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/37075f21598eeeaf58d4b85e1db44c9739d02113/0_202_2926_1756/master/2926.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The pair travel through Dorset and Hampshire as Mouse, with her derring-do and between-the-wars style, documents run-ins with “dully lit dining rooms innocent of Christmas decoration”, “inferior port” and “the usual devastating English salads” that feature damp lettuce, beetroot, tomato and “a bottle of mayonnaise”.
![[A couple take a leisurely stroll towards Corfe Castle in Dorset in 1947]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/086dd8b2b4ce02cb7b0a82575617881e637a08e2/0_449_7124_4275/master/7124.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Their journey peaks in the happy discovery, on 27 December, of festive cheer at old coaching inn The Antelope in Dorchester. Here, our intrepid gourmands fall upon “fresh hot toast and jam” and wine that “warmed Jumbo’s marrow” in “a simply furnished, beautifully kept lounge” with a “bright fire”. The marbled manuscript is illustrated with picture postcards bought on the journey and a hand-drawn route map.
