AU10/102/1/34

Handwritten letter on headed paper from: "Stella Bella", Promenade George V., Menton., Tel.304.47."

27 June 1949

From: 1949 To: 1949

"This is a reply to your Easter card! I see your letter is dated April 14th. As you guessed, I was then in USA, where I arrived the first week in March. My American cousins met me in New York, and took me in hand for the first few weeks, and showed me round New York, and up to Niagara Falls and Chicago. Then I went to Michigan to stay with a descendant of the Nichols family (of Ampthill Park). Perhaps you remember this chap turning up in Ampthill during the war - I wrote about him in the magazine. We kept in touch after that and I always promised to go and stay with him if I went to USA. He is a lawyer, with a wife and two children, and they were most hospitable and charming. From there I went to Omaha, and on to Yellowstone Park, which is full of incredible things, and most gorgeous scenery. I did a good deal of horse riding there, and was sorry to leave. Then to Utah (the city of the Mormons) and a long railway journey to San Francisco, where I looked up some friends my parents visited when they were globe-trotting in the early 20's, when I was an undergraduate at Oxford. Like them, I should have loved to take a ship to Hawaii - but I had to turn south to Los Angeles and Santiago: and so back to New York via St. Louis and Washington. I got back to Richmond two weeks ago - a quick run up to Yorkshire to see my father - and then straight out here where I expect to remain until September. My cousin (who normally rents the villa from me) has gone with his wife and two children to her people at Lausanne, so I have the run of the place. I hoped the Miss E's would come out with me, but Miss Florence did not feel quite equal to the journey: she is failing rather, I think: otherwise they are both in excellent health. I am having friends out here from England in relays, but so far the Riviera weather has been far from its usual standard. We have a lot of thunderstoms and cloud, and the sun which normally pours down from morning till night only appears intermittently. But it always seems like home to me - more than any other place! I hear little news of Ampthill beyond what the Miss E's hand on. I learn Miss Wingfield (whom I never met in all my 14 years there?) has died, and Percy Gill was leaving. I also heard something about the church's finances being very down, and that Bishop's fund had now been added to the Rector's stipend, which seems odd! If it is still brining in £250 a year, it will be a distinct advance on what I received!!! I hope you get this before you go for your operation. What a nuisance you must find it. I do hope all goes well, and that you get over it quickly. My kind remembrances to your and your family, and all who remember me. Yours sincerely,"

letter headed paper

item

Hillam, John George,
Grimmer, Honora,
Eagles, Florence,
Eagles, Diana,
Wingfield,
Nichols,
Gill, Percy,
Pelletier, Marcel

letters, manuscript, travel, weather, France, AMPTHILL, Richmond, United States of America, New York, Niagara Falls, Chicago, Michigan, Utah, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Ampthill Park