Scope and Content
"The time has simply flown since I arrived back last Monday week, as there have been so many things to attend to. I had to go up to London last week on business for two or three days, and now I am coping with the correspondence which has accumulated over the past three months. I found my flat nicely aired and warmed on my return, and Mrs. MacLeod had put plenty of food in the refrigerator and larder (she was hoping to have a grand meal awaiting me but did know the hour I was arriving, and actually it was about 9.30p.m.). My sofa was covered with letters and parcels and papers ... many Christmas and Birthday cards, mainly of course from people who did know I was away ... I was up half the night going through them! I thought my little home looked very snug and comfortable, and it was pleasant to be back (for a time!).
Thank you for your cards and the Beds. mag. I have really quite forgotten what cards I sent from abroad and to whom, but you mention one from Palermo (I am sorry about these typewriter acrobatics!), so presumably that was the last you received. I stayed in Palermo over Christmas, in weather like an English spring. I made the acquaintance in my hotel of a young French-Canadian spending a year at Rome University from Montreal, and we went about together exploring the wonderful churches and galleries and countryside. We were joined by an Italian, resident in Palermo, who had a Fiat and he took us further afield to many places we should otherwise have missed. He was a devout R.C., and on Christmas Day we went to Monreale Cathedral for High Mass, which was a truly great experience. The singing was quite beautiful, and in that superb building, with the sun shining on the 12th century mosaics, glittering like jewels, it was something to remember. Monreale, perched on the hills high above Palermo, with wonderful vistas, was one of the few places in the world I have fallen in love with. I could stay there a long time. It has the real Sicilian atmosphere, whereas Palermo, with its traffic and its modern shops, is cosmopolitan. I met Michel again some weeks later in Rome, and I am hoping he will be coming here before his return to Canada (he has not been to England). I left Palermo on Jan. 4th. on a CIT 'bus, for a leisurely tour of the island. The 'bus was only half full, all Americans, which made it very comfortable. We inspected the Greek temples of Segesta, Selinunte, and Agrigento, stopping the night at the latter. Then on to Syracusa, passing through amazing towns built apparently on precipices with surprising names like NOTO and ENNA! One would like to linger in all these places, as they all have their cathedrals and Greek and Roman ruins, but there just is not time. I did, however, leave the 'bus at Toarmina, and settled in an hotel for some days. T. is considered one of the most beautiful places in the world, another place perched on precipices, with snow-capped Etna rising above at the back, and a wide stretch of blue sea below. It is certainly spectacular; but, such is life, I found it uninteresting. I soon tire of scenery, and T. is a small Sicilian town entirely swamped by huge luxury hotels and masses of smaller ones and pensions. The much-advertised Mazzaro beach was a tatty little stretch of grey shingle, not a patch on our yellow-sanded bay at Kingsgate! So I was not sorry to pack up and leave. I took a train over the Messina ferry and travelled up through Calabria to Naples, where I had been some days before going to Palermo. I may have told you that I have a friend in Naples, Harold Acton, who wrote a history of the Bourbons in Naples which was very highly praised two or three years ago. He had introduced me to several people in Naples, so I had plenty of company. Apart from the fearful racket of traffic, I like Naples, and there is so much to see, and it is a city of surprises. You go through appalling crowded slums, and in the middle of the them rises a vast cathedral and this happens just everywhere. I paid three visits to the San Carlo Opera with Harold Acton. All operas I had never heard before. I crossed over to Capri for a few days, where I met my artist friend Giovanni Tessitore. Unfortunately I ran into rather wet, cold weather, and Capri is nothing without sunshine. There were, indeed, odd days when the sun shone, and then it was beautiful, but mostly it was dull and depressing. On returning to the mainland, I visited Pompeii with a young American professor of history from Chicago, in pouring rain. We had to hire umbrellas to save ourselves from getting drenched, and we eventually took refuge in a restaurant where we ate and enormous lunch washed down with the local wine called Vesuvio. We had a very enjoyable day at the palace of Caserta - 20 miles out of Naples - one of the largest palaces in Europe, built by the Bourbons. A film unit was on location, and the palace grounds had 18th century carriages drawn by white horses, and actors and actresses in pretty costumes. It gave one a very good idea of what Caserta looked like in its heyday. The fountains and cascades (three miles of them) were most impressive. From here I went to Rome, where I was last in 1930, when Mussolini was all the rage. Here the weather was perfect, and I spent a most enjoyable time renewing acquaintance with all the places I visited 30 years ago, and seeing many new ones. I had plenty of company, as apart from Michel, I have other friends whom I had not seen for a long time, since before the war in fact. Rome is a most delightful place - a really civilised city. All the women are neatly and smartly dressed, and the young men are certainly the best tailored and best looking of any I have seen anywhere. One sees such dreadful signts in London nowadays. These young women in trousers, and young men in sloppy Joes and dirty jeans. Trousers for women are just not worn in Rome - they leave them to the tourists in the summer! After Rome I went on to Mentone to stay with my cousin and his wife, and so back to Kingsgate. I am now in residence until April 26th. when I have promised to accompany my friend Richard Hughes to Vienna for a month. Meanwhile, Sydney Crouch is coming to spend Easter with me, and I am expecting my young second cousin Anne to bring my car down from Yorkshire (I lent it to her during my foreign tour) with a girl friend on April 5th. I shall be back here from Austria at the end of May, and then in residence until the end of July when I go up to the Staverts at Hoscote for the whole of August. I note you are possibly coming to Deal on June 7th., so that coincides with my comings and goings nicely. I shall look forward to seeing you. Deal is only 1/2 hour's train journey from Broadstairs, and you must come over for the day.
I told Perton not to send the Ampthill News while I was away, so I don't know what has happened, who has died, or come or gone. So you must post me up with the news. I have sent Mr. Cooper a donation towards the choir stalls. I am glad the arch leading to the chancel is going to be opened up. It ought to be a great improvement all round.
Yours sincerely,"