Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU10/102/1/30
  • Title
    Handwritten letter addressed from: Barrow House, Keswick, Cumberland
  • Date free text
    22 June 1948
  • Production date
    From: 1948 To: 1948
  • Scope and Content
    "Your letter has been sent on from Ampthill, and it has arrived on a morning when the rain is descending in a steady stream, so I am able to reply at once. I have been up here for the past few weeks staying with my half-cousin Lord Rochdale in this lovely house with its gardens sloping down to Derwentwater. I used to come here as a schoolboy, when Lord R's parents were in possession, and I have been many times since: so it is a place of happy memories. I don't know if you will recognise the enclosed snap of me wearing the kilt! A pity my jerkin has bulged at the front: it makes me look as if I had developed a TUM, which I can assure you I have not, as the amount of climbing and walking I have done up here has made me sweat pints of superfluous tissue! I have climbed Scar [sic] Fell, Helvellyn, Great Gable, Skiddaw and many lesser heights. I feel in wonderful form as a result of it all. I am returning to Richmond on Thursday for a week, then I fly to France for I don't know how long. I am hoping to get the Eagles out there for a long visit, but I should have to return to England to help them get away and travel with them. Meantime, the Bishop of Bloemfontein is staying at 113 until after the Lambeth Conference, which means the beginning of September. He was there when I came North, but was coming and going a great deal with all his many engagements. What a pity it is that the petrol allowance is so useless! I had to come here by train. Otherwise I should have got my car out again and got about a good deal while up here. There is a fine Bluthner Grand here and I give recitals most nights after dinner, with the sound of many waterfalls coming in through the open windows. I am highly amused by your natural desire to be first to inform me of your new address! Believe me, I have known about it for a long time!! Miss Florence mentioned it in a letter to me that you were buying the Haysuch[?] house in Station Road. Where she got it from, goodness knows! But it is typical of Ampthill. They always know what you are going to do long before you have even made up your mind. We also heard that S.Joseph's has now reverted to its old style as "The Red House", but that did not surprise us. Time is passing quickly. It will soon be a year since I left Ampthill. I am always glad I decided to go. I was very happy there up to 1940 - or 1939 when the war came: and I should have made the move then: but things worked out differently. They always do. I have not the slightest idea when I shall start work again, or where. The Bp. of Bloemfontein had some idea that the English church in Menton would be starting up again soon and they would want a resident chaplain. But I think there is a big doubt about it. The Riviera has changed considerably since 1939. Very few English residents have returned, or in my case, I should want the Eagles to come and live there, and it is a big thing to plunge them into another country (they would have to sell up in Richmond) at the end of their days. However, it is better to take one thing at a time, and after their visit to Mentone, they will get a better idea, if I do decide to thake on the job, if the church is re-opened. (So many IFs!) They are much in love with the house at Richmond, and it certainly is a charming one, and Richmond itself is beautiful. I think they ought to be allowed to settle down and end their days there. The clouds are lifting, and blue sky has appeared, so I must prepare for outdoors. I am glad people at Ampthill still talk about me. You must give my kind remembrances to all those who knew me best. I sometimes wonder about this person and that, and what they are doing. I do hope you will like your new home. It always struck me as being a pleasant house standing high up above the surroundings (always tending to make one cheerful than on the dead level), and you will be glad I know to get away from cars, shops, offices and phone calls! I will write to you sometime from Mentone. Yours sincerely,"
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