Scope and Content
"I was just sitting down at my typewriter to start a marathon of letter writing when the Porter dropped your letter in. I seem to have written nothing but postcards for the past three months. I left here at the end of July and went up to Selby to the wedding of my young second cousin Anne Waddington. Her husband is the Medical Officer for the North Riding of Yorkshire - a very charming man - a widower aged 42. His wife died 12 years ago (she was only 26) leaving him with a boy of 6 and a girl of 2. He has brought them up himself, and now the boys is 18 and the girl 14. He met Anne on a ship going from Newcastle to Norway for winter sports. Both he and Anne are keen and expert skiers. His two children were with him. The next winter they all went to Norway together, and since then they seem to have settled down together very happily. I think it will turn out well. Anne is a kind and sensible girl, and she has taken to housekeeping and cooking very well. They live in a gem of a Georgian house, three stories high. It is the Old Rectory of a village called Scruton near Northallerton. The living was amalgamated with the neighbouring one, and the Rector lives in the other one. Two days after the wedding I went up to Hoscote, and there I remained until early September, when Mrs.Grant (late Mrs.Fantle) who had been at Hoscote for a week, drove me down to Scruton, where I stayed with Anne and her husband (back from the honeymoon) a few days. I was driven all over the county, visiting old friends, and reviving memories of my childhood. Yorkshire really is a beautiful county - apart from the horrid industrial West Riding.
Since returning here, I have had a succession of visitors, and they seem likely to be coming for weekends indefinitely.
Mrs.Stavert arrives for her annual fortnight at the end of October. There is always an outburst of parties when she comes - she is a very popular visitor. Her son, Adam, announced his engagement while I was up there, and he brought his fiancee on a visit. She is a nice girl - a Scot - her father is Major-General of the Royal Scots Regt. Adam's regiment is the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and his is at present in barracks at Edinburgh. The wedding will be just before Christmas, after I have left for my winter voyage.
I don't know if I have told you my winter plans. This time I am going on an Italian cargo ship, the VOLTA, sailing from Genoa early in December. It carries 16 passengers, and looks a beautiful ship. We call at Barcelona and Cadiz, and then over the Atlantic to Trinidad, Curacao, two or three ports in Venezuela, through the Panama; Acapulco in Mexico; then to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver. I have friends in L.A., S.F. and Vancouver, so I shall be well looked after when I go ashore. We stay a week in Vancouver, then come all the way back again on the same route to Genoa. On arrival at Genoa in April, I shall be met by MacGregor-Hastie, the writer I shared a cabin with on the voyage to Japan two years ago. He lives at Odalengo Piccolo, near Turin, with his Italian wife and son. From there I shall go to Menton, to see my French cousins. And so back to Kingsgate early in May.
I visited Edinburgh two or three times during my stay at Hoscote, and I saw the Shakespeare exhibition (taken up from Stratford). I was not very impressed, but I understand it was a much reduced version of the original. The same applied to the Delacroix exhibition.
If you do go with Kathleen Houfe to Scotland next year, I am quite sure the Staverts would be pleased if you called in on your way, and had lunch. Make a note of their telephone number: BORTHICKBRAE 217, on the GALALSHIELS exchange. Hoscote is an open house in August and Sept. The estate is 8 miles from Hawick, down a valley following the River Teviot. When you get to the entrance drive to the house, you are almost at the end of the valley, a cul-de-sac. But I would give you further directions if I knew you were going. It is a very convenient stopping place en route from England to Edinburgh. I have an idea I shall not be going there next year until the end of August, as I have promised to take Nicky and young Anne - Anne's stepchildren - here for the first part of the month, when their parents go abroad.
I don't remember any grape vine at S.Joseph's. There were some greenhouses on the front of the house when I first went, and there may have been a vine in one of them. But I persuaded the Miss Eagles to take the greenhouses down (much to the Professor's approval) as they spoilt the look of the house. I remember a peach tree on a wall there which produced a wonderful crop each year.
Yes, Valder still sends the magazine, and in the last one there was a cutting (with a very unflattering photo!) from the Ampthill News about you and your life-history headed MISS CHIPS!! It certainly is a wonderful record, and what changes you have seen in those years ... and what a variety of Rectors!!
I get an occasional letter from Miss Ira-Smith, and also from Perton. I hope you are enjoying this wonderful Indian summer, which seems to go on and on. Since I came home there has only been one day of thunderstorms ... the rest is a golden haze!
There have been several changes in the Castle this year. Did you ever read a book by Vera Brittain called A Testament of Youth? She and her husband (Catlin) bought a flat recently. He is a Professor at London University. Their son (a New College man) and his wife have another. Sydney Crouch now has a part-time job, mornings only, at a school at Westgate. He seems much better, but his heart has a leaking valve, and the doctors say he must take things very easily.
I am going to Winchester on Wednesday for three nights to stay with Anne's sister Christine, now the wife of Sir Robin Norbury. They have an old house just outside the Cathedral Close, and a baby daughter. Then back on Saturday for some hasty shopping to welcome my weekend guest arriving Saturday evening.
My old friend Ida Huckings (Oxford) went to stay with her sister at Kempston in August, and looked in at Ampthill one afternoon when they were driving round. I think I told you here brother-in-law, the Rev.K.Menon (Indian) is priest-in-charge of the Transfiguration (or Annunciation) at Kempston.
Yours sincerely,"