Reference
AU10/102/1/51
Title
Typewritten letter
Date free text
28 September 1952
Production date
From: 1952 To: 1952
Scope and Content
"Your opinion of me must be lower then ever as a correspondent, and indeed as a visitor: for you will have heard that I came to Ampthill last Wednesday to Sir Anthony's funeral (I assume you would be in school while it was going on): and you must be thinking I might have dropped in on you after the funeral to say the least of it. Actually I had every intention of doing so: but it is the old story. I did not get away from the church till nearly 4: then I had to go and see old Newby Stanbridge and old Valder: by that time it was getting on, and I still had to see Miss Ira Smith and then two hours back to London. I just felt I had not the time. So I must ask you to forgive me again, and hope that next time I shall be able to stay over night (perhaps the new Rector will be more friendly to me than Mr.Waddy has been and invite me to preach on some special occasion and put me up).
I was quite shocked by both Newby and Valder. Newby has become an invalid (what a good thing he has his brother with him!) and as for old Valder, I felt very sorry for him: he broke down and wept when he saw me. He looked unkempt and very dirty: I think life must be a struggle in that household with Mrs.Valder going out to work every day, and none too well herself. She was still out at work. I landed on Laura Robinson's doorstep in mistake for Newby's: and of course I had to be dipolomatic, and pretend I had dropped in to see her. She appears to have had a good time with the Waddy's.
I parked my car up at the Rectory, so I had the experience of seeing the place pretty much as it was exactly 20 years ago next May when I first came to look it over! I thought the church looked very nice this time. Quite different from my experience a year or two ago. I noted several faces in the crowd I remembered. Some of them had changed a great deal, I thought, in five years. But perhaps mine has too! I wonder if you heard that Perton had been down here for a day. He wrote to me and said he was having a week's holiday and could he come? He said he was startled by the change in Miss Florence. She is now quite senile, and one cannot make any sense of most of what she says. Poor dear: it is terribly sad, and all the more because physically she is in wonderful health.
I am busy until Christmas running S.Matthias's church on Richmond Hill, a large Victorian edifice built for enourmous congregations, and now very poorly attended. It is the daughter church of Richmond parish church, and the Vicar has just lost his senior curate: the other one is a deacon who will not be priested till Advent: so, with two churches to run, you can imagine he is up against it. He simply cannot get another curate. I am not surprised, as the only accomodation they can offer him is a very inconvenient flat in a large house on Richmond Green (formerly the Vicarage). They would like me to take the job on, but for many reasons I can't, and wouldn't. The only solution of the problem is to make S.Matthias a separate parish, with its own Vicar and Vicarage. So meanwhile I am coping until the deacon is priested. There are great possibilities at S.Matthias. They have vestments and albs and things. Other things being equal, I should have probably thought about taking it on, but only if I had a completely free hand in a parish of my own.
What will happen to Ampthill house? Are there any rumours? I wrote an appreciation of Sir Anthony to the "Times": but so far it has not appeared. I did not send it to them till Thursday, so perhaps it will be in tomorrow morning. I should have liked them to print it, if only for the sake of the Wingfield family.
All reports about the new Rector, Mr.Cooper, are favourable. Even Mrs.Perton has taken to him on first sight!
Yours sincerely,"
Level of description
item