Reference
AU10/102/1/73
Title
Handwritten letter
Date free text
20 October 1956
Production date
From: 1956 To: 1956
Scope and Content
"Many thanks for your letter and various enclosures. Do you want the S.John's Reviews and the Bedford mag. back? I can easily send them if I get a big enough envelope. I think the Beds. mag. is very interesting, and well got up. My relations in Yorkshire send me a similar mag. devoted to Yorkshire. It seems that most counties have them now. I have seen a Kent one on the bookstalls. Your Investiture will be over by now. I looked in the "Ampthill News" which arrived this morning, to see if there was anything about it: but I expect it will be in next week's issue. One day during the summer when I was in London, I was exploring the region around Smithfield, and wandered into the Chapel of Bart's Hospital: also S.Bart's Priory, which is a wonderful church. There is so much to see in the City now, with all these rebuilt Wren churches. I must say that those I have seen look much finer in their reconstruction than they did before they were bombed!The architects have gone back to Wren's original plans. Most of them had been ruined by Victoria excrescences. I think the Professor made a wonderful job of S.James, Piccadilly. I still have to see the rebuilt Austin Friars, which was completely demoslished.
Your various items of news are interesting. I am glad the Tansley family have settled Miss Adams in a cottage. She was a strange woman (like all my six housekeepers!): I found her very difficult when she returned to me and after her brother married. She had been housekeeping for him at Leicester, and it was a blow to her when he married, and she was turned out. She had become very bitter, and certainly did not want to work!
Graham James arrived one day at Richmond, just after Miss E. had gone to Roehampton Priory, and I was getting ready to move out. He came to dinner with me (he was working in an office in London). I wrote to him later and invited him again: and he replied from Norwich, where he said he had got a job (surveying, I think it was). Since then I have heard nothing. K. Akin told me about his mother's illness. I think he visits her frequently. He lives in Arlesey with his wife, mother-in-law (retired schoolmistress of Arlesey), sister-in-law (also a teacher), and his two small girls!! A very female household: but he seems very happy in it, except that they all want to get away from Beds. and keep going down to Devon to hunt for a house4: but shortage of money cramps their style: and so far they have been unlucky. He has a job with some Tabulating Machine Co. in Letchworth.
I'm glad you saw the "Boy Friend". I thoroughly enjoyed it, as it was my youthful era - the 20s. It looks like running for ever. I saw "Look Back in Anger" at the Court Theatre in the summer. There was an excerpt from it on TV the other night: a very striking play. One can't help liking the "hero", although he is such a crude character. His girls are worth ten of him, as Mr.Priestley says.
I think it will be better now to think of coming here either in your Easter or Whitsun break. As you know, I am given to moving off abroad from time to time, and I cannot say when very far ahead. But I am more likely to be here at Whitsun than any other time. At the moment, the only definite date I have is Austria in January for my annual ski trip. Whitsun seems a good way ahead when we are still on this side of Christmas: but time passes quickly. However, we will fix a definite date later. I think you must somehow arrange to spend a night or two in London. You will find it an exhausting, and a very short, visit if you try to cram the trip Ampthill - B'stairs, B'stairs - Ampthill, into one day. The train journey from Victoria to Margate (where you alight) is just over 2 hours. I think you will find Kingsgate a beautiful place, but you can see it better when the winter gales and winds are not so much in evidence. Actually I think October has been the best month this year. We have had some wonderful golden days of sunshine and blue skies. I have taken several cycling trips with visitors (we have two bikes) who felt energetic - to lovely villages inland around Canterbury; Sandwich; Fordwich; Wingham and so on: the country is full of ancient churches, nearly all in this part of the world with timber roofs. Who lives in the Du Sautoy house now? I believe it was divided into two. And that old house next to the pub? A relation of Sir Cunningham lived there in my day. I heard they had gone, after spending a lot of money on the place. Is Cunningham still living at that hideous house (behind Turners) where Miss Crouch once lived? But I must stop.
Yours sincerely"
Level of description
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