Reference
AU10/102/1/78
Title
Handwritten letter
Date free text
25 April 1957
Production date
From: 1957 To: 1957
Scope and Content
"I hoped to send you a reply to yours of March 24th for Easter, but I had a very busy Lent and Holy Week: for the latter i was booked to give addresses every night at S.Peter's, Broadstairs: then on Saturday I went to Walmer, to help my friend over Easter. This week I have had my old friend Sydney Crouch here - he went this morning. He has been lucky as we have had sunshine all day most of the time. The castle has been lively, as the flat-owners who only appear at holiday times, and in the summer, arrived in full force last week and their cars made a solid phalanx in front of the castle gates. Now we are quietening down again - till Whitsun I suppose. We, the permanent residents, form a very happy family. There is not a single "awkward" member. So we entertain each other, and are friendly, but not too much so! Recently, a new neighbour arrived - a young man of 27, lately a Captain in the Cheshire Regt. and now E. Kent representative for Schweppes: a very nice type. My friend Commander Petrie has a link in common with him, as he is very keen on sailing and has a dinghy in Ramsgate harbour. Petrie, as I think I told you, has a really beautiful yacht. I think he would have given a lot to go on Mayflower II with Capt. Villiers. So now there are three bachelors - each with his own flat and doing for himself - here. We do a good deal of communal entertaining. Whoever has most in the cupboard provides the meal! Cauliflower au gratin is my speciality: curry is Petrie's: the new man's is sausages and mash! His name by the way is Frank Jackson - the same as my friend in Bedford, whom I met at the Institution when he came out every week for something or other in connection with Poor Law. I went to Zermatt with him in 1947, and had to come home two day's before schedule because Miss Florence had been taken off to Rye Close suddenly with a strangulated hernia. How the years pile up! This Bedford Frank is now 47: he married about 3 years ago, and we exchange about one letter annually now.
I was interested to see, by the way, that an Ampthill boy - Jim Lark - was in the wreck that happened here one foggy morning recently. The lifeboat beached in Kingsgate Bay: there were three dead men in it, and three are still missing. I got down to the beach jsut as the ambulance was taking them off to hospital. There is a lot of shipping round this coast, coming from the Thames estuary. I see from Sir Albert's letter in the "Daily Telegraph" this week that the lamp-standards are going up in Ampthill after all. I think he was rather tactless in his attitude to the Council: but they ought to take the advice of a body like the Fine Arts Commission. Many thanks for the Bedford Magazine - an excellent publication. I thought the article on Bedford very depressing - it seems that ugliness is winning there. I never thought it a very attractive town - but better than Luton anyhow! But the process of spoilation and destruction is going on everywhere. Here at Kingsgate we have a charming comparitively unspoilt space of open country - due to a large golf course plus a convent with extensive grounds. But one never knows what will happen, with Broadstairs continually extending on one side, and the Cliftonville bungalows on the other.
I wondered if you would go to the Maunday Service. I went once to it at Westminster Abbey (when I was a curate at SJDK) and sat opposite Queen Mary. I remember vividly the jewel she wore at her throat sending out rays of red fire ... the sure sign of a genuine diamond ... : my mother, who was with me, said it was a large sapphire surrounded with diamonds. I wonder who has it now! I saw the Queen and Prince P. a few weeks ago when they came to the RAC. one evening. I happened to be in London for a few nights. She seems to have plenty of vitality - tours one after the other, shaking multitudes of hands: but she seems to get her race meetings in between these many engagements.
The Jennings - .....? (I've forgotten his name) Churchwarden partnership seems destined to go on for ever. Is Graham James still hanging fire? I think you said he had come home last year and was apparently not working.
Yours sincerely"
skiing
Level of description
item