Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU10/102/1/29
  • Title
    Typewritten letter on headed paper from: "Stella Bella", Promenade George V., Menton., Tel.304.47." crossed out and replaced by Richmond address.
  • Date free text
    4 May 1948
  • Production date
    From: 1948 To: 1948
  • Scope and Content
    "You must have thought by now that I have disappeared entirely from human sight, and I do owe you an apology for not writing sooner in reply to your kind birthday wishes and the Bedfordshire magazine. But I went off to Menton shortly after Christmas, spent some time there, returned here at the end of March, and then back to Menton last month, and now last Saturday came back here to welcome the Bishop of Bloemfontein who is expected at Southampton tomorrow, and who is coming to stay with Miss E. for at any rate part of the time he is in England for the Lambeth Conference. We are also expecting to have a young Japanese bishop, called Yashiro (or "Yash" for short), for a week or two. I have to go back to Menton in June or early July for the wedding of one of my French cousins. So you see I am doing a lot of running about. Actually the journey to and from Menton is now as easy as going to Yorkshire by train. I have my breakfast here, take a taxi to London Airport, board a plane, with goes direct to Monte Carlo, have lunch on the plane, and arrive in Menton well in time for dinner at 7p.m. And the same on the return journey! I must say I find the contrast between the Riviera and the English very marked. Last Saturday I left Menton in the morning in glorious hot sunshine (the usual weather) and arrived to find London Airport in cold drizzle! And as I write this, the trees are being dashed by the wind, and the rain is beating against the windows. I was glad to find the Eagles in flourishing health, and still very much in love with their Richmond home. Miss Di drives round Richmond every morning doing the shopping. She tells me that your father is retiring from business. I am wondering if that means a general family removal. I had a very nice letter from your new Rector just after Easter. I am hoping to reply to it today, along with many others! He tells me things are going very well, and that they are very happy in the Rectory, now they have settled in. Otherwise, I have had only such scraps of news about Ampthill as Florence and Di let out from time to time. They get the Ampthill News sent on every week. But apparently nothing much has happened apart from the opening of the cinema on Sunday nights! I owe Sir Anthony a letter, he wrote to me about two months ago, but gave me little news. No one from Ampthill has been here since last October, when Kenneth Akin came down from Stotfold for a few days. I hear from him regularly. Miss Ira Smith sends on the papers to Miss E. every week. How quickly the time flies! It is now seven months since we left Bedfordshire. It seems longer to me, somehow, but I suppose that is because I have had so many changes of scene. I have to return to Menton in July: after that, my plans are in the air. I should like to take Florence and Di over there. The journey is so easy, they could manage it without any difficulty. Perhaps we may even decide to settle there! If I could get the chaplaincy of the English church at Menton, it would be ideal, but they have not opened it up again yet, and do not seem likely to do so yet. Very few of the English residents have returned to the Riviera: what with taxation and the general uncertainty I suppose it is too risky. But the French villas are mostly occupied. There is a general sense of relief everywhere in France that the Italian elections have turned the balance against Communism. It would have been a nerve-racking situation to have Russia on the doorstep, as it were. There has been a great improvement in the general living in France since the franc was devaluated last year. As things are now, it is a much better country to live in than England. There seems more space, somehow, for people to get around in. Here everything is crowded ... trains, buses, theatres, shops, where do all the people come from? I am preaching on Wednesday night (Eve of the Ascension) at the church here. As soon as the Vicar spotted me in church on Sunday he grabbed me. It will be the first sermon I have preached since I left Ampthill! With kind remembrances to your family from us all. Yours sincerely,"
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