Reference
AU10/102/1/33
Title
Handwritten letter
Date free text
15 February 1949
Production date
From: 1949 To: 1949
Scope and Content
"Many thanks for your kind birthday greeting and the very charming card. That makes two letters I owe you, as I still had yours of Dec. 21 in my case waiting till I settled down to a letter-writing orgy! (I sometimes devote two whole days to it, and then I am knocked out for weeks!) I was glad to get the bits of Ampthill news. I do occasionally see the "News", which frankly I find very dull. Miss E keeps the parish magazines for me to scan. I am amused at Mr. Waddy's effusions ... a very different style from my dignified editorial WE! It all goes to show what different personalities are embraced within the C of E! I had a nice letter from him a short time ago, in acknowledgement of something I sent on which had come to me via Ampthill Post Office. I was very surprised to see the death of Mrs. Place in the "Times". I wrote to Godfrey, whom I ran into on a Channel steamer some time ago, returning from the Continent. he and his wife took a farm in Devon, and I think Mrs. Place was with them when we left Ampthill. But it is odd how little has happened since Sept. 1947, when we came away.
I am hoping to get a passage to USA on the Queen Mary next month. Failing that, I shall fly, which sounds exciting, but which is definitely the duller journey of the two. I expect to return at the end of June, and shall then go to Menton for a time. I am really looking forward to the American trip. My relatives there have been urging me to go for years, and they have a grand place, and a super-car, so I hope to get around a lot. I am also hoping to visit the two American chaps I entertained at Ampthill in the war (they were stationed in Bedford), and with whom I have kept up correspondence ever since. One lives in Michigan (which is quite close to the Niagara Falls as USA distances go), and the other at Helena in the Rocky Mountains, hard by Yellowstone Park. I have always wanted to see these places.
I don't know when I shall get down to work again. The ideal job for me would be the English Church at Menton. I could transport the Miss E's there easily, and the climate would suit them. Unfortunately, there are not enough English residents now in Menton to keep a full time chaplain going, so it is tacked on to Monte Carlo, and there is already a resident chaplain there (retired Naval man). I could not start up housekeeping again in an English rectory in these days of no domestic service, and the Miss E's are really too old to put into one. Had they been younger it might have been a feasible proposition. So it is a little difficult to know what to do. However, I must review the situation when my globe-trotting is over.
I have not read the Ethel Mannin book you mentioned in your previous letter. I have always thought her rather a freak - and a slightly unpleasant one at that! But I will put the book on my list.
We were amused about the "rumour" of the Miss E's departure from Richmond! Ampthill seems to be as good as ever at inventing them. We heard another, (which was circulated at the M.V. Festival at S. Albans) to the effect that I was playing in a band at Blackpool - a place I have never seen in my life! I wonder what the next one will be!
So Mrs. Lexton's divorce is coming through. I thought it would have been cleared up by now. The whole thing was a mistake from the beginning. And your uncle is back at S. George's! He is tough and no mistake. But I am glad he is happy and comfortable there. If you ever see him, give him a kind remembrance from me.
I was amazed to hear the Levers are coming back to England. It's a good thing you told me, or I might have tried to contact them when I go the Helena, as it is not a long way from Calgary in Canada where they wrote to me from.
I hear from South Africa that the Archdeacon of Bedford is paying a visit out there. He is a great friend of the Rev. C. Wood, who was one of my brother curates at S. John the D. R., and has been working in the Bloemfontein diocese for some years. Actually my information came from another friend in Capetown. It is exactly 10 years ago since I paid my visit. What a lot has happened since then! Life seemed so free, and full of open spaces then. Now we seem to live in an overcrowded world, with not enough of anything to go round! But spring is coming and we shall enjoy the sounds of the birds and the sight of the daffodils and snowdrops. We often run down to Kew Gardens in the car (only 5 minutes from here) on sunny days.
We all send our kind remembrances to your parents, and your sisters.
Yours sincerely,"
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